"I saw the abbess, distinguished by her high stature, walking between two young nuns with an arm resting upon the shoulder of each."

"You talk as though our abbess were almost a hundred years old, like Father Bonaik--she who rides like a warrior, who hunts with falcons, and whose upper lip is shaded by a slight reddish moustache neither more nor less than that of a youth of eighteen!"

"It surely was not out of feebleness but tenderness that the abbess leaned upon the two nuns. One of them having stepped upon her robe, lost her balance, tripped and turned her head ... and I recognized, or believed I recognized ... guess whom ... Eleuthere!"

"Dressed like a nun?"

"Dressed like a nun."

"Go away!... You must have been dreaming."

"And yet," replied another and less incredulous slave, "that is quite possible. Our comrade is not yet eighteen, and his chin is as innocent of a beard as any young girl's."

"I maintain that if that nun is not Eleuthere, she is his sister ... if he has one."

"I tell you," put in the old goldsmith with marked impatience, "I tell you that you are ninnies, and that if you are anxious for a trip to the whipping-post and to renew your acquaintance with the thongs of the whip, all you have to do is to persevere in talks like that."

"But Father Bonaik--"

"I allow chattering at work; but when the words may translate themselves into the strokes of a whip on your backs, then the subject seems to me badly chosen. You know, as well as I, that the abbess--"

"Is hot-tempered and bedeviled, Father Bonaik."

"Are you anxious to have the flesh flayed off your backs, unhappy lads!

I order you to hold your tongues."

"And what are we to talk about if not of our masters and the abbess?"

"Here," said the old man anxious to have the subject drop, "I have often promised you to tell you the story of the ill.u.s.trious master of our trade, the glory of the artisans of Gaul. Let us talk of that artist."

"About the good Eloi? The great and saintly Eloi, Father Bonaik, the friend of the good King Dagobert?"

"Call him the 'good' Eloi, my boys; never was there a better; but do not say the 'good' King Dagobert. That King had everybody who displeased him throttled; he pillaged, he levied ransom upon the poor, and he kept a harem like an Arabian Caliph. Listen, children. The good Eloi was born in 588 or thereabouts, at Catalacte, a small village in the neighborhood of Limoges. His parents were freemen, but of obscure and poor condition."

"Father Bonaik, if Eloi was born in 588, that must have been about a hundred and fifty years ago. That is a century and a half."

"Yes, my boys, seeing we are now almost at 738."

"And did you know him?" asked one of the lads with an incredulous smile.

"Did you know the good Eloi?"

"Certainly, I did, seeing I shall soon be ninety-six, and that he died last century, in 659, nearly eighty years ago."

"You were then quite young?"

"I was sixteen and a half years old the last time I saw him.... His father was called Eucher and his mother Terragie. Noticing that his son was since early boyhood ever fashioning in wood some figure or small utensil of pretty design, his father apprenticed him to a skilful goldsmith of Limoges, named Master Abbon, who at that epoch also directed the mint in the town of Limoges. After having acquired a good deal of skill in his art, to the point that he surpa.s.sed his master, Eloi left the neighborhood and his family, much regretted by everybody, he being beloved by all on account of his cheerful disposition, the mildness of his nature and his excellent heart. He went to seek his fortune in Paris, one of the residential towns of the Frankish kings.

Eloi was recommended by his old master to a certain Bobbon, a goldsmith and treasurer of Clotaire II. Having accepted Eloi as a workman, Bobbon soon perceived the young man's talent. One day King Clotaire ordered a chair of solid gold, wrought with art and ornamented with precious stones."

"A chair of solid gold! Father Bonaik, what magnificence! Nothing is too costly to these kings."

"Alack, my boys, the gold cost the Frankish kings in Gaul only the trouble of picking it up, and they were not slow at it. Well, then, Clotaire II had the fancy to own a gold chair. But n.o.body in the workshops of the palace was able to accomplish such a task. The treasurer Bobbon knew the skill of Eloi and proposed to him to undertake the work. Eloi accepted; he went to the forge and the crucible, and out of the large quant.i.ty of gold given for one chair he fashioned two. He then took to the palace one of the two chairs and hid the other--"

"Ho! Ho!" said one of the young slaves laughing. "The good Eloi did as millers do who are sharp, artful and not very scrupulous. He drew double pay for one bag--"

"Wait, my boys, wait before you judge our venerable master. Charmed at the elegance and delicacy of the artisan's work, Clotaire II issued orders on the spot to recompense him generously. Eloi thereupon showed the second chair to Bobbon saying: 'This is what I spent the rest of your gold in so as to lose nothing of the stuff. I have acted as you would have wished.'"

"You are right, Father Bonaik, we were too quick in judging the good Eloi."

"That act of probity, so honorable in the poor artisan, was the start of his future fortune. Clotaire II wished to attach him to his court as a goldsmith. It was then that Eloi achieved his finest productions: vases of chiseled gold ornamented with rubies, pearls and diamonds; pieces of furniture of solid silver and admirable design and set off with chiseled stone; reliquaries, curtain pins, Bible cases encrusted with carbuncles.... I saw the chalice of enameled gold more than a foot high that he made for the abbey of Ch.e.l.les. It was a miracle in enamel and gold."

"It is enough to dazzle one to hear you tell of such beautiful works, Father Bonaik."

"Oh, children, this room could not contain the masterpieces of that one artisan, the glory of Gallic artisanship. The coins that he has struck as the minter of Clotaire II, of Dagobert and of Clovis II have admirable reliefs: they are gold thirds of a sou of a superb stamp. Eloi succeeded in all the branches of the goldsmith's art. He excelled, like the goldsmiths of Limoges, in the incrustation of enamel and the setting of precious stones; he also excelled, as did the goldsmiths of Paris, in statuaries of hammered gold and silver. He chiseled jewelry as delicately as the jewelers of Metz. The cloths of woven gold thread manufactured under his eyes and after his designs, were not less magnificent than those of Lyon. My boys, what a hard worker was Eloi.

Ever at his forge from earliest dawn, ever with his leathern ap.r.o.n on his loins, and the file, the hammer or the burin in his hand. He often did not leave his workshop until a late hour in the night, and had ever at his side his favorite apprentice, a Saxon named Thil. I knew that Thil. He was then an old man, and he also was a great artist. They should be models for you."

"Eloi was not a slave, and as he enjoyed the fruit of his labor he must have become very rich, Father Bonaik?"

"Yes, my boys, very rich. Dagobert, upon succeeding to the throne of his father Clotaire II, kept Eloi as his goldsmith. But the good Eloi, mindful of his hard condition as an artisan, and of the cruel fate of the slaves who had often been his fellow-workmen, when he became rich spent all his income in ransoming slaves. He used in that way to emanc.i.p.ate twenty, thirty and even fifty on one day. He often went to Rouen and bought whole cargoes of slaves of both s.e.xes taken from all countries to that town, celebrated for its market of human flesh. Among those unfortunate people were Romans, Gauls, English, and even Moors, but above all Saxons. If it happened that the good Eloi did not have money enough to purchase the slaves, he used to distribute among them all the money he had in order to relieve their misery. 'How often,'

Thil, his favorite apprentice said to me, 'his purse being exhausted, I saw my master sell his cloak, his belt and even his shoes.' But you must know, my boys, that that mantle, that belt, those shoes were embroidered with gold and often enriched with pearls. The good Eloi, who ornamented the robes of others, also took pleasure in ornamenting his own. In his younger years he was magnificently dressed."

"It was the least he could do to deck himself out well--he who decked others so well. It is not as with us who work on gold and silver, and never have but rags."

"My poor boys, we are slaves, while Eloi had the fortune of being free; but he utilized his freedom for the benefit of his fellows. He had around him several servants who adored him. I knew some of them, among others, Bauderic, t.i.tuen, Buchin, Andre, Martin and John. So you see old Bonaik has a good memory. But how can one fail to remember anything connected with Eloi!"

"Do you know, master, that it is an honor to us poor goldsmith slaves, to number such a man in our profession?"

"A great honor, my boys! Certes, we should be proud of it. Imagine that the reputation of the good Eloi for charity was such that his name was known all over Gaul, and even in other countries. Strangers considered it an honor to call upon the goldsmith who was at once so great an artist and so good a man. If anyone asked in Paris where he lived, the first pa.s.ser-by would answer: 'Do you want to know where the good Eloi lives? Go where you will find the largest number of poor people gathered together. He lives there.'"

"Oh, the good Eloi," said one of the lads with eyes moist with tears.

"Oh, the good Eloi, so well named!"

"Yes, my friends, he was as active in charity as at his trade. In the evening, at his meal hour, he would send out his servants in different directions to gather people who suffered hunger, and also travelers in distress. They were taken to him and he fed them. Filling the office of a servant when they came, he helped some to unload their packs, sprinkled warm water on the hands of others, poured out wine into their cups, broke their bread, carved their meat and distributed it--all himself. After having thus served all with sweet pleasure, he would sit down himself, and only then did he himself share in the meal that he offered these poor people. That was his way of practicing charity."

"And how did the good Eloi look, Father Bonaik? Was he tall or short?"

"He was tall and of a florid complexion. In his younger days, his apprentice Thil said to me, his black hair was naturally curly. His hand, though hardened by the hammer, was white and well-shaped; there was something angelic in his expression; yet his straightforward eyes were full of keenness."

"That is just the way I would picture him to myself, dressed in the magnificent robes that he used to sell in order to ransom slaves."

"When he grew in years, the good Eloi renounced splendor altogether. He wore only a robe of coa.r.s.e wool, with a cord for belt.... When about forty he was appointed bishop of Noyon at his own request."

"He? Did so great an artist aspire after a bishopric?"

"Yes, my lads.... Grieved at the sight of so many covetous and wicked prelates, who devoured the substance of his well-beloved poor, the good Eloi applied to the King for the bishopric of Noyon, saying to himself that at least that bishopric would be ruled by the sweet morality of Jesus. And he put that morality into practice up to the last day of his life, without thereby renouncing his art. He founded several monasteries, where he set up large gold and silversmiths' shops under the direction of the apprentices whom he raised in the abbey of Solignac and elsewhere in Limousin. It was thither, my lads, that I was taken as a slave at sixteen after having undergone many trials. But I was born in Brittany ... in that Brittany that is still free to this day, and that I never expect to see again, although this abbey lies not far from the cradle of my family," and the old man, who during the whole of his narrative had kept steadily at work at the abbatial crosier that he was chiseling, dropped on his knee the hand that held the burin. He remained silent and pensive for a few seconds. Then, waking up with a start, he proceeded addressing the young slaves under him, who wondered at his silence: "My lads, I have allowed myself to be carried away despite myself by recollections that are at once sweet and painful to my mind.... Where did I leave off?"

"You were telling us, Father Bonaik, that you were taken as a slave at the age of sixteen to the abbey of Solignac in Limousin."

"Yes; well, it was there that I first saw the great artist. Once every year he left Noyon to visit the abbey. He had inducted his apprentice Thil abbot of the place, and the abbot directed the goldsmith's workshop. The good Eloi was quite old then; but he loved to come to the workshop to oversee and direct the work. He often took the file or the burin from our hands to show us how to use it, and in such a paternal manner did he act that all our hearts went out to him. Oh! those were good days.... The slaves were not allowed to leave the territory of the monastery, but they felt as happy there as one can under bondage. At every visit that he paid the place, Eloi inquired after them to ascertain whether they were kindly treated. After his death, however, everything changed."