Part 13 (1/2)
”Jump on the milestone yourself,” said the old man, ”in case we can not see with our own eyes, we shall be able to see with yours. Myself and Guyrion will stay close to Anne.”
As Eidiol spoke the distant sound of clarions was heard mingling with the redoubled clanging of the nearby bells, and a wild clamor of joy went up from the crowd.
”Here is the procession,” cried Rustic from his perch; ”it has turned into the square; clarion blowers on horseback head the march; they are followed by Frankish cavaliers, armed with lances bearing streamers; they carry painted gilt bucklers hanging from their necks. Oh, here come the Northman pirates clad in their armor and carrying the standard of old Rolf. The standard has a seagull with open beak and claws for its device. Well may you screech your cry of triumph, old sea bird! Your prey is magnificent: a province of Gaul and the daughter of a King!”
”Oh, Rustic, how can you joke in that way!” remarked Anne the Sweet in a tone of sad yet affectionate reproach. ”Poor little Ghisele! To wed that old monster! Do you see the poor girl? Poor victim!”
”No; I see nothing of her as yet. Ah, here come the female pirates! How martial they look in their armor of steel scales, with their azure bucklers on their arms! Now come the seigneurs of the suite of the Count of Paris, in their long robes embroidered with gold and ornamented with fur. Hold! They stop! They are looking back uneasily. What can have happened?” and leaning against the wall Rustic raised himself on the tips of his feet in order to see further. A minute later he cried: ”Oh, the poor girl! Anne, you were right! Although she is the daughter of a King the girl is to be pitied. She looks like a victim led to death!”
”Is it of Ghisele that you are talking, Rustic?” inquired the young girl. ”What has happened to her? How I pity the poor child!”
”She was marching, leaning on the arm of Charles the Simple and paler than a corpse under her white bridal robe, when suddenly her strength entirely failed her. She collapsed and fell in a swoon into the arms of the seigneurs who stood near her.”
”Oh, father!” said Anne the Sweet to Eidiol, her eyes moist with tears, ”Is not that wretched girl's fate shocking!”
”And yet less shocking than the fate of millions of the women of our own race who have been violated by the seigneurs and the ecclesiastics.
Those wretched women left their master's couch only to return to the exhausting and even crus.h.i.+ng toils of servitude. Degraded, dejected, bought and sold like cattle, dying of grief or under their master's blows, ignorant of the joys of family life and depraved, they were brutified by slavery. Such, for centuries past, has been the condition of the women of our race, and still continues to be. How many millions of the women of our cla.s.s die macerated, body and soul!”
”Alas! This poor King's daughter is surely guiltless of all these crimes! She is much to be pitied!”
”Master Eidiol,” resumed Rustic, ”Charles the Simple's daughter has regained consciousness; she now walks again, sustained by her father and the Count of Paris. Oh! Here comes Rolf! He wears a long white s.h.i.+rt over his armor. Behind Rolf marches our relative Gaelo, together with the Beautiful s.h.i.+gne. The procession has halted. It now resumes its march to the basilica. The clergy, with Archbishop Francon at the head, halt under the portal. Oh, Master Eidiol! I am dazzled! The precious stones glisten on the gilded copes of the priests, on their gold mitres, on the gold crosses! Gold, rubies, pearls, diamonds and emeralds glitter everywhere! The large cross, carried before the clergy, seems to be of ma.s.sive gold! It is studded with precious stones! The wealth of Golconda!”
”Oh, young man of Nazareth!” exclaimed Eidiol. ”Oh, Jesus, the carpenter! The friend of the poor in rags! You, whom our ancestress Genevieve saw done to death in Jerusalem by the high priests of your day! Would you acknowledge as your disciples these priests, these bishops so gorgeously robed and surrounded by so much splendor? Oh, clergy, ye modern generation of vipers!”
”Do you hear the chaunts of the priests and the sound of the portable organs, Master Eidiol? The clarions break in between. The bells are chiming with increased noise. The King, his daughter and old Rolf enter the portal of the basilica. Gold censers are being swung right and left and the smoke of incense mounts to the sky!”
”They burned incense to Clovis, the firebrand and blood-thirsty monster; they burned incense to Charles the Great who dethroned the stock of Clovis! And to-day they burn incense to Rolf, to Rolf the old pirate, to Rolf the murderer, to Rolf the perpetrator of sacrilege! The G.o.d of the priests is gold!”
The marriage of Rolf and Ghisele was blessed and consecrated by Archbishop Francon in the princely cathedral of Rouen. The prelate also on the same day blessed the union of s.h.i.+gne and Gaelo. The ceremony of Ghisele's marriage was barely over when the wretched girl again swooned away--the third time on that day--and was carried into an adjoining chamber on the arms of her women in waiting. Rolf, Charles the Simple, the Count of Paris, together with the seigneurs of their respective suites proceeded to the vast hall of the chapter of the Archbishopric of Rouen. On his head the gold crown of the Frankish Kings, in his hand his scepter, and the long royal mantle trailing on the floor behind him, Charles the Simple ascended and remained standing on an elevated dais.
The Archbishop of Rouen and the bishops of the neighboring dioceses placed themselves to the right, while to the left of the King were ranked Rothbert, Count of Paris and Duke of France, and the Viscounts of Monthery, of Argenteuil, of Pontoise, together with many other Frankish seigneurs, among and above whom towered the tall figure of Burchart, seigneur of the country of Montmorency. At the foot of the dais, and facing the King and this a.s.semblage of seigneurs and prelates, stood Rolf, accompanied by Gaelo and s.h.i.+gne, together with the leading Northman chiefs. The old pirate still had on the white s.h.i.+rt of the neophyte over his armor. His demeanor was triumphant, insolent and sly.
Charles the Simple, on the contrary, looked sad and dejected, and furtively wiped away the tears that insisted on forcing themselves to his eyes. Despite his imbecility, the man loved his daughter; and the fate of Ghisele overpowered him with grief.
Radiant with joy at having escaped the fresh disasters that Rolf had threatened to overwhelm Gaul with, the Count of Paris, the Archbishop of Rouen and all the other seigneurs and prelates enjoyed the abject state of the King. Nevertheless, however abased and hollow his t.i.tle, still they envied it. Clad in the full magnificence of his episcopal robes, Archbishop Francon descended the steps of the dais with majestic tread, approached Rolf and said to him in a loud and solemn tone:
”It has pleased Charles, King of the Franks, to bestow upon you and your men all the fields, forests, towns, burgs, villages, inhabitants and cattle of Neustria--”
”If the King had refused to give me the province I would have taken it”
put in Rolf, calmly interrupting the prelate. ”You baptized me and my champions; we allowed ourselves to be dipped naked in a large basin of water, like so many fishes; we allowed you to sprinkle us with salt water, the genuine brine of the ocean; and we were then told to put long white s.h.i.+rts over our armor. I simply humored you in your priestly monkey s.h.i.+nes.”
”It is the sacred symbol of the purity of your soul, which has been cleansed of its soilure by the holy immersion of baptism,” replied the archbishop. ”Henceforth you are a Catholic and son of the Church of Rome. It is a very distinguished honor done to you.”
”Aye, but you demanded from me, in exchange, all the lands of the abbeys of my new duchy of Northmandy for your Church. I have since learned that they make up one-fourth of my province.”
”The goods of the Church are the goods of G.o.d,” retorted the archbishop haughtily. ”What is G.o.d's, is G.o.d's; no human power can lay hands on it.”
”Priest!” cried Rolf puckering his brows with mingled anger and slyness, ”take care lest the humor seize me to chase the whole pack of tonsured gentry from their nests in the abbeys, in order to prove to you once more that Rolf and his champions take and keep whatever it may please Rolf and his champions to take or to keep, without asking leave of your Church.”
”To the devil with the man of the gold cap with two points!” chimed in several voices from among the freshly baptized pirates. ”By the white horse of our G.o.d Thomarog! Does the fellow take us for fools? Death to the tonsured knave!”