XI
A PRACTICAL JOKE
Order being re-established, and the ashes cooled, we heard no more talk of the plague and the riots, but for all that the city seemed crushed, and its inhabitants, still hardly recovered from their fright, appeared to feel their way; as if they did not know who was to have the upper hand in future.
For the most part men kept indoors, but if obliged to go out, they crept close along by the house walls, like a dog with his tail between his legs. The truth is, few had reason to be proud of their part in the late troubles, and a man hardly liked to look at his own face in the glass, for there he saw human nature, stripped of all disguises: — not a pretty sight, and one that makes most of us feel shamefaced and suspicious.
I too was uneasy and sad, but for different reasons: first, I was haunted by the thought of the massacre in the burning cellars; and on the other hand, when I looked in the familiar faces of my neighbors, I could not help remembering their cruelty and cowardice: this made bad feeling between us, for they knew, of course, how I felt. I longed to wipe it all out, and behave as if nothing had happened, but as that could not be, we all went about in the altered town, under the heat and languor of late summer.
Racquin had been sent to Nevers for trial; but it was a question whether he fell under the jurisdiction of the Duke or the King, so he stood a fair chance of getting off scot free. Our county authorities were kind enough to overlook my illegal conduct; — for it seems that in saving Clamecy that night, I had committed half a dozen crimes, any one of which would have been enough to bring me to the galleys; — but as none of this could have happened if they themselves had remained at the post of duty, they decided to pass it over in silence; a decision in which I naturally acquiesced. The less I have to do with courts of justice the better, I always think; for you never know how a trial will turn out, and innocence itself is no real protection. If you once get your little finger into the cursed machinery of the law, you are like to lose the whole arm, and you may have to cut that off to save your body: so between their lordships and myself there was a tacit agreement that they had seen nothing out of the way while I was Captain of Clamecy: because everything on that fateful night had been accomplished by themselves alone.
It is much easier, however, to shut one's eyes to the past than to rub it off the slate: there is such a thing as memory, and, when we met face to face, it was awkward for both parties. I could see that they had a lurking dread of me, and to tell the truth I was rather afraid myself of this absurd unknown Breugnon, who had suddenly sprung up and performed such exploits. I had never supposed myself to be an Attila or a Cæsar; my eloquence had hitherto been inspired by wine rather than by war; — and in short on both sides we were shamefaced and out of sorts in mind and body. There is no remedy like hard work, and as the riots had provided plenty to do for every one in the town, we all went at it with the utmost energy. The ruins had to be cleared away first; then by good luck the harvest that year was unusually abundant, both in grain and fruit; and as for the vintage, the oldest inhabitant could remember nothing to equal it.
Our good Mother Earth seemed to have drunk so much of our blood, only that she might restore it to us in generous wine: for nothing in this world is really wasted or lost; everything has to go somewhere. If the rain falls from the clouds and is drawn up to them again, then why should not the blood in our veins go and come between us and the earth? I have always loved to think that in some former existence I was a vigorous vine-root, and shall be one again perhaps, during a delightful immortality. How good it would be to grow and flourish, to feel my dark velvety bunches of grapes swell and fill with sweet juices, under the warm sunshine: and it must be best of all to be eaten! Setting such speculations aside, the earth bled at every pore during this wonderful season, so that we did not know what to do with the juice of our vines. As there were not casks enough to go round, masses of grapes were heaped up in vats, without even pressing them. Father Coullemard, an old man who lived at Andries, could not dispose of his crop, and so offered his grapes at the vineyard, for thirty sous a barrel.
Imagine our feelings! In our part of the world we cannot bear to throw anything away; so, as there was nothing for it but to drink the wine on the spot, we all did our duty like men. The labors of Hercules were nothing to it, but I am afraid that the hero himself, and not Antseus, fell and touched Mother Earth!
Everybody felt cheerful and more like himself when this was over, but still there was something unpleasant, — a sort of constraint among us, and even in the midst of our carouses there was altogether too much solitary drinking, — in my opinion an evil and unhealthy practice. How long this sort of thing would have lasted, I cannot undertake to say, but chance intervened, and once more brought us all together. Love can unite two hearts, but the only thing that can make a large number of men act as one, is the fear of a common enemy; and in our case, this enemy was our master. Duke Charles of Nevers took it into his head this year to forbid our games and dances, and as a natural consequence, every one who was not crippled with gout, and who could put foot to the ground, was seized with a perfect passion for dancing.
No one exactly understood why, but the bone of contention between the Duke and the town had always been the Count's Meadows, which lie outside the gates, at the foot of Picon Hill, watered by the Beuvron, which winds through them like a silver serpent. For more years than any one can remember, there had been a dispute about these meadows: pull devil, pull baker, and it was a question which had got the best of it. Of course the contest was conducted with the utmost politeness on both sides; — "My friends of the good town of Clamecy," and "Your Lordship's most obedient"; — but neither party would yield an inch, for all that. When we had resort to the courts, we always got the worst of it; the judgment rendered being invariably that our meadows did not belong to us; but this did not bother us in the least, as we had reason to know that justice can make black seem white — at a price.
Possession, however, is nine points of the law, so we just held on to our playground, which had special advantages, because it was the only bit of land which was not the private property of some one in the town, and therefore might be said to belong to us all; or perhaps to the Duke, which came to much the same thing. Being common property, we did not mind spoiling it, and anything that was not convenient to do on our own premises, we did on the Count's Meadows. We washed clothes, carded wool, and beat carpets; there was a large rubbish heap there, and many goats led out to pasture. On fine days we played games, or danced to a hurdy-gurdy; we shot at a target, and practised the drum and trumpet, and at night there were any number of loving couples along the banks of the Beuvron, which took it all as a matter of course, though he saw enough to frighten most rivers.
All went well as long as our old Duke Louis lived, for he shut his eyes to our goings on, being a man of sense who knew that you must not keep too tight a hand on the reins; he let us prance about and play the fool a little, knowing all the while that he was the master. His son, on the contrary, has the kind of conceit that prefers the show of power to the reality, and likes to mount his high horse on slight provocation. He ought to have known that a Frenchman will always sing and make fun of his rulers, and if that is not allowed, he rebels; for he cannot bear people who insist on being taken seriously, and loves those he can laugh at, or with, for laughter puts all men on a level.
The Duke, then, issued an order forbidding us to play, dance, dig, walk on the grass, or trespass in any way on the Count's Meadows: and a good time he chose for this piece of foolishness, just after all our misfortunes, when instead of annoying us, he ought at the very least to have remitted some of our taxes. He soon found, however, that the Clamecyans are not made of soft fiber, but are tough as old oaks, so that if you drive in a wedge you have hard work to get it out again. There was no need to call a meeting to protest against the edict; from all sides arose a deafening clamor: — "What, take away our meadows? The ground that he had given us! (or that we had taken, it is all the same!) — land that we stole four hundred years ago, which has been doubly sacred to us ever since? — all the dearer that we have been obliged to struggle for it day by day, and inch by inch; holding on to it by sheer tenacity! It was enough to discourage a man from ever taking what did not belong to him; enough really to make him sick of living! Our dead would turn in their graves if we were weak enough to yield on a point thus involving the honor of the city. The fatal order was proclaimed with beat of drum, by the town crier, who looked as if he were going to execution; and that very evening, there was a meeting held of all the men of importance in the city; the heads of guilds, the chiefs of brotherhoods and corporations, and those who represented the various districts, came together under the arches of the market. I was there, for St. Anne's, and, as you may suppose, there were different opinions among the delegates as to what ought to be done.
Gangnot, in the name of St. Eloi, and Calabre, for St. Nicholas, advocated strong measures; they wanted to set fire to the fences round the fields, break down the gates, knock the sergeants on the head, and rip up the meadows from end to end. On the other side, were Florimond, the baker, for St. Honoré, and Maclou, the gardener, for St. Fiacre; they advised a more diplomatic course, a war of words, and parchments, a petition to the Duchess, accompanied, perhaps, by some cakes and some garden stuff. Fortunately three of us, Jean Bobin for St. Crispin, Émond Poifu for St. Vincent, and I, were not disposed either to grovel before the Duke, or to kick his head off. Keep in the middle of the road, was our motto. In our part of the world we like to get the better of people without too much fuss and expense: it is all very well to revenge yourself, but why not have a little fun out of it at the same time? We hit at last upon a splendid idea — but I am not going to tell you now what it was, for that would spoil the joke. I will only say to the credit of all of us, that for a whole fortnight the great secret was kept perfectly, though it was known to the entire town. The honor of first having thought of it belongs to me, but they all added something, here a touch and there another, till there was nothing lacking. The Mayor and Aldermen kept themselves informed of our progress, in the discreetest manner; and Master Delavau, the notary, would come slinking in every evening with his cloak drawn up around his face, to show us how to creep through the meshes of the law, while appearing to respect it; and would draw up long Latin addresses to the Duke, expressed in the most submissive terms on the part of his contumacious vassals. When the great day arrived, the town guilds and companies with their masters assembled at St. Martin's Place, all dressed in their best, and drawn up around their banners.
As ten strokes sounded from the great tower, the bells began to ring, and on both sides of the square the doors of St. Martin's and of the Town Hall were thrown open. From the church issued the long procession of white-robed clergy, and on the steps of the Town Hall appeared the green and yellow gowns of the Mayor and aldermen. These dignified bodies exchanged profound bows over the heads of us, who stood below them; and then they marched slowly down; first the beadles, with their red cloaks and redder noses, and then the town bailiffs, adorned with their gold chains of oifice, and striking their staves loudly on the pavement as they advanced.
We formed a great ring around the square, with our backs to the houses; and the authorities placed themselves just in the middle.
The whole town was there to the last man; the pettifoggers and barristers were ranged under the banner of St. Ivés, (the man of business of Our Father,) while the apothecaries, leeches and mediciners, men of St. Cosmo, formed a guard of honor around the Mayor and the old Archdeacon. The only absentee was the Procurator: he was indeed the Duke's representative, but he had married an alderman's daughter, and his interests being thus divided, he did not want to be forced to take part with one side or the other, and so found means to keep out of the way.
We all waited there for a little while; the square seething with noise and laughter, like a vat in ferment. Every one talked at once, fiddles squeaked, and dogs barked: what were we waiting for? Something is coming, a surprise! and before we could see anything we heard shouts drawing nearer, and all heads turned at once, like weathercocks when the wind changes. A procession now advanced from the end of Market Street, and at its head, borne on the shoulders of eight stout porters, was a pyramid-shaped structure, looking like three tables placed one above the other. The legs were all wreathed with bright silks and flowers, and from the highest hung long streamers of colored ribbon, cords and tassels; on the top was an ornamented dais supporting a veiled statue.
As we were all in the secret, no one expressed surprise, and though bursting with laughter, we took off our hats and bowed deeply. When the platform reached the center of the square, it made a stop between the Mayor and the vicar, and then all the corporations and districts, each preceded by its players, made one turn about the square, and wheeling round the corner of the church, entered the Httle street which goes down to the Beuvron gate. St. Nicholas came first, as of right, with Calabre leading, strutting along dressed in a church cope, and glittering like a beetle with gold embroidery. He carried the device of the river saint, a boat in which were three little children, and was escorted by four boatmen, bearing enormous yellow candles as big as a man's leg, and as hard as bricks; ready for any emergency. Then came St. Eloi, with his copper-workers, locksmiths and blacksmiths; poor Gangnot, with the fingers that were left to him, holding a cross engraved with the badge of a hammer and anvil. Next, barrel-makers, vintagers, and vinegrowers marched after their St. Vincent, with a jug in one hand, and a bunch of grapes in the other. St. Joseph and St. Anne followed, mother and son-in-law, with the carpenters and wood-carvers, and then St. Honoré, covered with flour. He bore a sort of Roman trophy in his hand, like a lance thrust through a round loaf with a crown above it. After him were the cobblers and leather-dressers, under St. Crispin; — last and best of all, came the gardeners, men and women, carrying carnations and roses, their spades and rakes all twined with flowers; their fine red silk banner streaming in the wind showed St. Fiacre, bare-legged, digging up the ground.
After all these, the veiled platform moved on majestically. Before it went girls in white, chanting and scattering flowers: the Mayor and his staff marched solemnly on either side, holding the ends of the long streamers which hung from the dais, while the guilds of St. Ives and St. Cosmo formed an imposing escort. Then came the verger of St. Martin's, strutting like a game-cock, preceding two priests, one long and thin, the other short and fat; and the vicar himself, his hands folded over his portly stomach, singing litanies in his deep bass voice as he walked; or rather giving out a booming note from time to time, while the others did the work.
The general public brought up the rear in a miscellaneous mass, like a flood held back, as it were, by our procession. In this order we advanced through the city gate, straight towards the Count's Meadows, in the midst of a whirl of golden plane leaves, stripped from the trees by the wind and sent fluttering before us into the sluggish river, on which they drifted like flakes of gold. At the entrance to the Meadows there was a guard of three policemen and a Captain, in command at the chateau. The latter was a new broom, and being eager to magnify his office, he rolled his eyes and frowned severely at us; but his own men and the citizens understood one another, and they only opposed us for form's sake. We, on our side, made believe to be offended, and demanded a passage with much noise and profanity, but we had hard work to keep our faces straight, and besides it would have been risky to go on in this way much longer, for Calabre and his men, getting out of hand, began to brandish their big candles about the ears of the police. So the Mayor stepped forward, raised his cap at arm's length from his head, and cried: "Hats off!" At the word, the veil which hid the statue fell to the ground, and the town bailiffs with loud voices proclaimed: "Place for his Lordship the Duke!" Instantly the tumult ceased, the saints and their followers ranged themselves on both sides of the way, and respectfully presented arms; while the Captain and his satellites, hastily pulling off their hats, stood aside to make way for the platform, on which was perched the Duke in efifigy. He wobbled slightly, as his porters bore him along, but by the plumed hat, sword, and wreath of laurels, it was easy to recognize him; and to put the matter beyond doubt, there was a pompous Latin inscription at the base of the dais, proclaiming his dignity to all the world.
The features were perhaps not a perfect likeness, but as we had not had the time to make a new statue we had just taken an old wooden figure, which we found stuck away in the garret of the Town Hall. We did not know who or what it represented, but on the pedestal was the half-effaced name of Balthazar, which we afterward shortened to Balduke. No one cared whether the statue resembled the Duke or not; statues seldom do look like the people that they are supposed to represent; witness those of the saints, or our Lord Himself; but to the eye of faith they are perfectly satisfactory, and as a devout believer sees his god in a log of wood, just so that day we saw our Duke before us.
All obstacles being removed, his Lordship proudly entered his own meadows, and we naturally followed; banners waving, drums beating, trumpets sounding, and the Holy Sacrament as a fitting climax. No loyal subject would have dared to offer any objection, so even the sulky Captain was obliged to choose between stopping the Duke or following him, and he decided to fall into step with us. And now, with victory in sight, we very nearly came to grief at the eleventh hour; for a dispute arose as to who should pass in first, and all considerations due to age or sex were completely forgotten. St. Eloi and St. Nicholas jostled one another, St. Joseph was rude to his mother-in-law: and as we were all somewhat over-excited, the consequences might have been serious. Fortunately I was able to intervene with success; having a foot in every camp. My name is Nicholas, my trade is under the protection of Sts. Joseph and Anne, and the patron of vineyards, St. Vincent, may be called my foster brother, as he and I have sucked at the same breast; so I belong to all the saints, if only they are on my side.
Just then I happened to spy a country cart passing, and who should be lurching along beside it but my friend Gambi? "Comrades!" I cried, "we must not try to get ahead of each other on this glorious day; the greatest among us is here; — after the Duke, of course! so give three cheers for Bacchus!" Whereupon I caught Gambi by the slack of his breeches and threw him up into the cart, where he alighted in a cask of grapes; then seizing the reins, we drove in triumphantly; first Bacchus sitting in his cask, kicking his legs and laughing fit to kill himself; and then all the procession following arm in arm, dancing with joy.
It was delightful to be once more in. our dear Meadows; and there we stayed all day, and far into the night, cooking, eating, and playing around the statue of the good Duke.
The place looked like a pigsty the next day; there was not a single blade of grass left, and the print of our feet was stamped deep all over the ground, as a proof of the devotion with which his loyal subjects had feasted their suzerain. He must have been hard to please if he was not satisfied, and we on our part were delighted with the events of the day.
An inquiry was indeed started by the Procurator, who professed to be indignant, and threatened us with dire consequences; but on second thoughts he found it wiser to let the whole thing drop; since no one really wanted to close the door so happily re-opened.
This was the method we chose to show that we could be true subjects of the Duke and King, and yet insist on having our own way — for there is no denying that we are a stiff-necked generation — and this being done, the town seemed to pick up its spirits after the trials it had passed through, and we were once more all good friends together. We would wink and slap each other on the back, when we met, and say that people had better let us alone, as the good tricks were not yet all out of the bag: and so in this way the memory of our misfortunes died away and was forgotten.