Part 42 (1/2)
”'I saw that person this very day,' replied Guilhem; 'I recognised him in the old man who was seated on the right of your rival.'
”'That was his father, the lord of Artiguelouve,' cried Raymond.
”'Then it was no other than the lord of Artiguelouve who was your mother's persecutor.'”
The Cagot now goes on to relate, that, on bringing the unfortunate lady to this village, she recognised, in the infant he had adopted, her own son. She recounted, that those persons whom he had seen in her dungeon had plotted to remove both her and the infant, as their existence interfered with certain plans of their own. One of her servants had been bribed, who, under pretence of bearing the child to a place of safety, and the better to deceive her, having taken with it jewels of value, had feigned to be set upon by robbers, and had her son forcibly torn from him. Three months afterwards, the man, overcome with remorse and wretchedness for his crime, fell sick, and, on his death-bed, desired secretly to see the mother, who wept for her infant as dead; to whom he related the truth. This information was fatal to herself; for her enemies now threw off the mask, and insisted on her renouncing for her son all claim to the estates and t.i.tles of which he was the heir; which she having refused to do, they treated her in the manner that has been related.
A mystery still hung over the revelations of the lady, who named no persons in her story, and who appeared to dread to make further disclosures; and, above all, she desired that no vengeance should be taken on the authors of her grief.
”'There are crimes,' she said, 'which recoil on those who perpetrate them: he who sows vengeance, reaps not peace: and I would that my son should feel that mercy is the highest attribute of humanity. Keep, therefore, the secret of his birth from him, and let him know only tranquillity and joy.'”
The Cagot promised to comply with her christian desire, and, together with the pious hermit of Eysus, to bring up her son in piety, and ignorance of his station, until he should be one day safe from the danger of his enemies. The unfortunate mother left a letter, addressed to the Sire de Lescun--a friend on whom she could rely--which, on some future occasion, was to be delivered to him; but the long absence of the Knight of Lescun, in the wars, had hitherto prevented its being done.
Whether the mother of Raymond would have continued in the same intentions, cannot be known; for grief and sickness soon brought her to the close of her sad career. When she was dying, the poor man who had succoured her and her child, conceiving that he was not acting according to his conscience, in withholding from her the exact situation in which he was himself placed, threw himself on his knees at her bed-side, and with tears entreated her forgiveness, for that he had the misfortune to be _a Cagot_.
”'Have pity upon me,' said he, 'that I thus add to the weight of sorrow which you carry with you to the tomb.'”
Instead of the start of abhorrent contempt which the persecuted man dreaded, she turned upon him a look of the most ineffable benevolence; and, placing her cold hand upon his head, uttered these words:--
”'It is well;--Cagot since thou art, I bless thee; for thy heart is more n.o.ble than the proudest blazon could make it.'
”No human description can convey an idea of the impression made on the heart of the good man by these few words,--the first of pity and consolation he had ever heard addressed to one of his own fated race. A new life, a new being seemed given him as he heard them; and, from that instant, he vowed to exist only for the salvation of the being left behind by the angel who had shed her benediction upon him. She died, and he kept his word.”
The supreme tribunal of Bearn, the _Cour Majour_, was a.s.sembled at Orthez, in one of the grand saloons of the castle of Moncade, to dispense to the people, by its irrevocable decrees, the national justice of its celebrated _Fors_. Great excitement prevailed; for it was known that the Knight-Cagot, or Cagot-Knight, as Raymond was called, was about to appear, to defend himself from his accusers.
”The Lord and Lady of Artiguelouve were present in the great a.s.sembly, summoned to appear for their deceased son, to support the charge he had made. The fair Marie de Lignac sat pale and agitated, supported by her uncle, the Knight of Lescun. The Bishops of Lescar and Oloron, the eleven judges,[50] and all the n.o.bles of the country attended, and were seated on elevated benches, in due order, near Prince Gaston de Foix.”
[Footnote 50: The number of twelve was reduced to eleven since the period that the village of Bidous was removed from the territorial jurisdiction of Bearn.]
After a consultation of some length, these _equitable_ magistrates had decided that justice should be allowed to the complainant, and punishment awarded to those who had injured him, provided that he could prove that he was _a man_ and not _a Cagot_.
Nothing now remains for Raymond but the presentation of his mother's letter, and all the proofs which establish his birth. On opening the paper, and on examining the embroidery on the mantles which wrapped the rescued infant; on looking at the initials of the chain of gold, the Knight of Lescun recognised the son of his cousin, Marguerite d'Amendaritz, first wife of Messire Loup Bergund, who, when he hears the truth, is seized with sudden remorse and amazement, and, being now without an heir, is not sorry to recover him whom he had before abandoned to destruction. In spite, therefore, of the indignation of his wife--and her endeavours to repress his agitation throughout the scene--he starts up, and proclaims himself the father of Raymond: who, he declares aloud, is his long-lost son,--stolen from him by _routiers_--whose loss had cost him the life of a beloved wife, whom he deplored.
The result is, however, far different to his expectations, or that of all present. The young knight, on finding that he is the son of a man so laden with crime as Loup Bergund, is seized with a frenzy of contempt and disgust.
”His open and expansive forehead became contracted with horror--he stood silent a few seconds, petrified and overwhelmed with his emotions--his body shrinking back in an att.i.tude of repulsion and dislike, as if a venomous reptile were before his sight. His regard then fell full on Loup Bergund, and the terrible severity of its expression made the unworthy tyrant shrink beneath his glance of fire.
”_You_ my father!”--exclaimed he, at length, in a terrible voice--”do _you_ open your arms to me as to your son? Hence!--back! there is nothing in common between us--we can be nothing to each other! I know you not. Go--say to your captive of yonder dungeon that her son is dead; that the _routiers_ have stolen him: you my father! no; you have no son--it is a falsehood--you are a great lord, and I a wretched foundling--a being without a name--one disdained by wolves and robbers.
No; you are not my father. I have no other but he who stands beside me; I am the son of no other than the poor Cagot.”
As he spoke, Raymond dashed the chain of gold on the ground, and trampled it under his feet--he seized his mother's letter from the hands of the Knight of Lescun, and thrusting it into the flame of a torch hard by, burnt it to ashes; then, throwing himself into the arms of Guilhem, he burst into a pa.s.sion of tears. Recovering himself, however, in a few moments--while all looked on silent and aghast--he cried aloud--
”'And now I am, indeed, a Cagot--irrevocably so--and it is my glory and my joy! But hear me all! while I proclaim what you are worth, and those whom you dare to despise, and for whom the Redeemer died, as well as for us all: You are decked in gold and gorgeous raiment, and they are in rags; but they have hearts which beat beneath, and you have souls of ice: you are their executioners, and they are martyrs. You cast your wives and children into the dungeons of your castles, from whence the poor Cagots save them: you are great upon the earth, but they will be great in Heaven!”
These last words fell, like thunder, upon the ears of all, but most on those of Gaston Phoebus--who thought of his murdered son--and writhed with agony. Raymond continued:
”'G.o.d will yet do justice, in his time, to the oppressors of the innocent. Your names, in future ages, will be execrated. Meantime, keep your pomp, your pleasures, your grandeur, and your luxury; while our possessions are opprobrium and contempt, shame, banishment, and suffering--days without sun, and nights without repose or shelter. Yes, drive us from you--you know that we are infectious, that we shall contaminate your purity--Away! Room, room for the Cagots!'”