Part 29 (1/2)
This gloomy, four-square hulk of a mediaeval keep had been built in the thirteenth century by the Duke of Burgundy, to awe the riotous Frankish burghers of Aramon le Vieux, and stands still, machicolated and fossed, much as he left it.
It was difficult now to think of the Aramon with its strong guild of hammer men, its coppersmiths swarming from their clattering toil, its tanners and booth-men pouring out of these same _ruelles_ and squares, now grey with mistral or dreamy in the white suns.h.i.+ne. To-day not a cat would jump for a dozen Dukes of Burgundy, but seven hundred years ago Aramon le Vieux had a fierce _elan_ of its own and knew how to singe the beard of an oppressor, especially if he were at some considerable distance.
After the building of the great feudal keep on the opposite bank, we hear little more of the turbulent traders, and the likelihood is that they paid their dues and gave no trouble ever afterwards, especially after the Duke constructed a bridge of boats which opened at both sides to allow of traffic.
Now, however, the lofty walls of the fortress of Monsieur le Duc became the rallying place of revolt. Every evening in front of the grand entrance, or upon the _fosse_ bridge, Georges Barres preached the doctrine of plunder and petroleum. There were in Aramon a certain number of ”haves”--let those who heard him see to it that there were ten times that number of ”takes”! For what were their brethren shut up there (he pointed to the Loches-like cliff of masonry above him, nearly twice the height of Rochester Castle), and answered, ”For retaking their own--for redressing the wrongs of the poor!”
”For plain theft--they stole hens!” proclaimed a voice in the crowd.
”Down with the spy--kill the royalist--dismember the traitor!” howled the mob. And to show their honesty they fell upon a good citizen of Aramon, a respectable apothecary, come there almost at random. He had been discreetly silent. It was not he who had made the outcry, but wore he not a black frock-coat and looked he not sleek and well fed? If he were not a spy, what was he doing there? So they threw him in the Rhone.
He was fished out half a mile below, where for a long distance the workshop wall skirts the river. Jack Jaikes did the job with grumbling thoroughness and the man of drugs was brought to with a science and celerity unknown in his own pharmacy.
Having thus a.s.serted its power, the crowd turned with self-approval to listen to its favourite orator.
”Here in Aramon we have a Government, and over it presides a Great Shadow which has been sent us from the Internationale. What did ever the Internationale do for us? Did it stop this war? Did it force back the Germans? You tell me that we owe to this shadow the thirty sous a day on which we starve. What of that? It is a bribe to keep us from taking all they possess. Every day in that Chateau yonder the silver gleams on the white table-cloth, the red wine mantles in the gla.s.s, the champagne foams, and--my great G.o.d! you can hear them laughing--from the miserable lairs where your children are clamouring for bread, and your wives are weeping because there is none to give them!”
Now the soul of such crowds is most strange. In all that listening a.s.sembly there was no single man who did not know that every word was false. There was a special grant for families, and if any worker's children had not enough bread, it was because the patriot himself had spent the money on absinthe! Every worker knew this. Yet tears started to their eyes, and a deep-throated roar of anger went out against the Government which had arranged such a monstrous iniquity.
”Yonder lie the workshops--the place where money is spun--money such as you have no idea of--millions a week--all the fruit of your toil. Do not break the machinery. We will set it spinning money on our own account--but first we must be quit of Dennis Deventer and his foreign gang. Keller Bey will tell you that they are workers like yourselves--citizens, of equal rights before the Internationale. Why then did they collect together yonder, these brave citizens, these honest workers, these n.o.ble revolutionaries? Why are they not walking about these streets and taking their turn at mounting guard? I will tell you. Because they are the guardians of the treasures of the masters--they are keeping locked in Dennis Deventer's safes the millions which have been wrung from you in cruelty and blood and tears!”
Such a roar as went up from that black a.s.sembly in which the white caps of women were dotted and the ma.s.sed blue knots of the National Guard could be seen! It reached the council, drearily debating in the town house, and there was a general desire to adjourn. The air was electric with coming trouble. These duly elected members of the Commune felt themselves caught between two great unknown forces--the Government of Versailles, which was represented by the pus.h.i.+ng surveyors of the engineers' corps, the first skirmishers of an army which was certain to come upon them from the north, and this uprising of the idlers and workspoilers of their own kind.
Personally their Socialism was not deep-rooted. They had the national respect for small property-holders, and even if they possessed none themselves, Oncle Jean Marie or Tante Frizade were _proprietaires_ in their own right. When these heritages fell in none of their loving nephews and nieces would fight harder for their share than the red-begirt members of the Commune of Aramon.
Only men like Keller Bey and Gaston Cremieux lived in a world beyond such things--and on the other hand were those who, like Barres and Imbert, had nothing to gain or to lose however fortune's wheel might turn.
Pere Felix pushed his way into the dense ma.s.ses about the entrance of the prison keep. He was sure of himself, but very indignant at those of the Commune who had allowed him to come alone. Of course it was not fitting that Keller Bey should expose his person, but if the twenty of Aramon had marched together in a body, each with his crimson scarf of office girding him, they might have dominated the mob and silenced the hair-brained Barres. Still, all the more honour to himself, when he should go back to twit them with their fears and tell them the story of his triumph!
”We don't want to hear Pere Felix! Down with the traitor! Trample him, spit upon him!”
He could not believe his ears. For then began a din such as he had never heard. The young men on the outskirts had seized the instruments of the band of the National Guard and were now blowing, bellowing, and clanging upon them. He stood beside Barres, who looked at him contemptuously, tossing the light fall of hair off his brow with a regular movement, as a challenged bull tosses his horns.
”Comrades and citizens, in the name of the Commune of Aramon, elected by you, I address you----”
Brazen horns brayed, tin trays and kettles were beaten, the big drum thundered just underneath. Words issued from the mouth of Pere Felix.
They must have done so, for his lips were moving, but not even himself heard a word, and the sardonic smile on the face of the Catalan Barres became a grin.
The old orator, who had swayed all meetings of the plebs in Aramon ever since '48, threw up his hands in hopeless misery.
”They will not hear me,” he cried, so that this time the words reached the ear of Barres. ”Why will they not hear me?”
Now Barres was by this time content with his triumph, and he put his hand to the old man's ear and shouted, ”Because your day is past--you are down, you and all your gang. You silenced me at the Riding School meeting three months ago, but then you had Gaston Cremieux to help you.
You had better go home. I shall see to it that you do go home, and let not Aramon see your face again. Keep on the farther side of the Durance and no man shall meddle with you. But from this day forth take notice that Aramon means to do without you!”
He beckoned a few determined-looking fellows from the crowd, each armed with a rifle and cartridge-belt. A few instructions, a determined push through the crowd which divided to right and left, shouting hateful words all the time he was pa.s.sing, and Pere Felix found himself thrust ignominiously out of the northern gate of Aramon. His captors had treated him with a certain hasty roughness, but had up till now refrained from insult. Now they tore the red scarf of office from about his body and trampled it in the dust. The rule of the Twenty was over in Aramon.
Slowly and mournfully Pere Felix took the way under the beautiful trees of the water road toward the Durance. He did not see where he was going.
His foot caught more than once in twisted roots from which the soil had been washed away by the winter floods. Under the willows and among the glimmering poplars shedding blue and gold, he drew nearer the broken pier and the little height of sandy dune from which he could see the blue reek curl upward from the kitchen chimney of the restaurant of the Sambre-et-Meuse.