CHAPTER XIII.

THE ESPLANADE AT LAVAUR.

After a heroic defense the city and Castle of Lavaur surrender to the Crusaders. The consuls have stipulated for the safety of the inhabitants. But obedient to the dictum of Pope Innocent III--"None need to keep faith with those who have failed in their faith to G.o.d"--despite the terms of the capitulation, almost all the prisoners are ma.s.sacred, the rest are reserved for separate execution.

One night has pa.s.sed since the surrender of Lavaur.

Suddenly the chimes of a neighboring church ring the pa.s.sing-bell. Soon thereupon a little door that connects with a stone balcony, upon which rows of seats are arranged, is thrown open. The Archbishops of Lyons and of Rennes, the Bishops of Poitiers, of Bourges, of Nantes and other prelates, all dressed in their sacerdotal robes, issue through the little door in solemn procession and take their seats. Montfort and Alyx of Montmorency follow, accompanied by the papal legate and Abbot Reynier. The quartet seat themselves in the front row of the balcony.

Below the balcony and in plain view of the audience is a stone esplanade. Soldiers are ranked at the foot of the walls; they are followed by priests and monks of several orders carrying aloft silver crucifixes and black banners, and singing funeral canticles at the top of their voices.

THE EXECUTIONER (on his knees before a little furnace, to a sergeant-at-arms)--"My irons are ready. Bring forward the sons of Satan."

The sergeant goes to the door of the vault and knocks. The door opens and twenty-eight men and fifteen women step out. They are of all ages and all conditions. The prisoners move slowly; they cannot take long steps; their feet are chained. Their arms are pinioned behind their backs. They step upon the stone esplanade.

ABBOT REYNIER (in a menacing voice)--"Heretics of Lavaur! Will you abjure? Will you acknowledge the infallible authority of the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church?"

AN OLD MAN (to Abbot Reynier)--"My son died defending the town. The ruins of my house that was burned down after the pillage are still smoldering. I am near my grave. I now own nothing. But even if I had as many days before as I have behind me, even if I still had more wealth than I ever had, even if there still stood by my side the cherished child of my old age--even then, both he and I would answer you: 'Death, a thousand times death, rather than embrace your infamous religion.'"

THE PRISONERS (among whom is Florette, fall on their knees and cry)--"Mercy for our Lady of Lavaur and her son!"

Only Florette remains standing. Mylio's young wife is pale, livid; she sees nothing of all that is happening around her. Her thoughts are with her husband, whom she believes killed long before. Noticing that the dear child does not kneel with the rest, Abbot Reynier's attention is attracted towards her. He recognizes her, his eyes bulge and he says to himself: "Ha! I shall now be doubly revenged upon that vagabond Mylio!"

THE OLD MAN (to Alyx of Montmorency, who, herself pale and with eyes cast down, is devoutly counting her beads)--"Madam, in the name of your mother, mercy for our Lady of Lavaur!"

ALYX OF MONTMORENCY (unmoved)--"If she does not abjure her heresy, she must perish!"

ABBOT REYNIER (in a thundering voice)--"Hardened heretics, the Church now delivers you to the secular arm! Enemies of G.o.d, may your death strike a salutary terror among your fellows!"

THE PROVOST OF THE ARMY (to the executioner)--"Take your hot irons.--But leave one of his eyes to the old man who has just spoken. With it he shall guide the rest."

The executioner and his a.s.sistants seize at haphazard one of the prisoners. He is a young man. They bind him down upon a seat on the scaffold, while the executioner himself walks over to his furnace.

THE HERETIC (to the executioner's a.s.sistants)--"What are you going to do? Have mercy upon me!"

ONE OF THE a.s.sISTANTS--"We are going to put out both your eyes, heretic dog! Pagan!"

THE HERETIC (terrified)--"Oh, death rather--rather death than such a torture--mercy! (He vainly tries to snap his bonds and writhes convulsively, crying) Brothers! Help! They are going to put out our eyes. Oh, Lord, have mercy upon us!"

THE PRISONERS (to Montfort)--"Such a punishment is frightful. Have us rather burned--strangled! Mercy!"

MONTFORT (with a hollow voice)--"No mercy! Your blind souls are closed to the divine light. So shall your bodily eyes be forever closed to the light of day!"

A HERETIC (whose teeth are chattering with terror)--"Seigneur, myself and several of our companions abjure. Mercy! Mercy!"

ABBOT REYNIER--"Too late! Too late!"

The young heretic, who is firmly tied to the seat on the scaffold, is furthermore held down by the a.s.sistants of the executioner. The latter approaches the victim, who emits heart-rending shrieks and mechanically closes his eyes. With two thrusts of his sharp and incandescent iron the executioner pierces both the eyelids and the globes of the two eyes. The blood and smoke ooze out of the now hollow orbits. The shrieks of the victim are fearful, but they are speedily drowned by the choir of the monks and priests who chant their litanies aloud.

The same punishment, inflicted upon the rest of the prisoners in succession, is accompanied throughout by the funeral psalmody. Florette is the last victim, reserved to close the ghastly performance. At the sight of the horrors thus enacted in her presence, the poor girl almost loses her reason. She imagines herself oppressed by a nightmare.

Sustained by the executioner's a.s.sistants she marches mechanically to the seat on the scaffold. These hardened men themselves feel moved to pity. After she is fastened down to the seat and before proceeding with the operation, the executioner whispers to her; "Take my advice, little one, open your eyes--you will suffer less. If the eyelids are shut the pain is double, because the hot iron must pierce them before it reaches the eye-ball. Do you understand me? Come, little one, do as I tell you; are you ready?"

FLORETTE (in a low voice to herself and only semi-conscious)--"Meseems I have been told to open my eyes in order that I may suffer less. Oh, no!

I shall shut my eyes in order to suffer all the more, and die speedily, and rejoin Mylio. (Her haggard eyes wander; they alight upon Abbot Reynier; the girl shudders.) Oh, monk of Citeaux! Oh, infamous monk!

There he stands, hovering before me in his white robe like a specter announcing death!"

THE EXECUTIONER (holding in his hand the iron, the sharp point of which is at white heat)--"Quick now, my pretty girl! Open your eyes wide!"

Florette on the contrary closes her eyes firmly; her face becomes cadaverous; her bluish lips are convulsively pressed; she awaits death.

THE EXECUTIONER (stamping on the ground)--"Open your eyes quickly--my iron is cooling. (The young woman does not obey) The devil take you!

Fool! (The executioner darts his burning iron into the victim's right eye) The devil take the heretic's obstinacy! The right eye is now out!"

FLORETTE (emits a piercing cry, and swoons murmuring)--"Mylio--help!"

The poor child swoons away so completely that she utters but a feeble moan at the burning out of her left eye.

ABBOT REYNIER (aside)--"What a pity! Such beautiful eyes! Why did the hussy prefer that miserable Mylio to me!"

MONTFORT (addressing the old man, only one of whose eyes was put out)--"You may now serve as the guide for these sinners. They may now be unpinioned. Let them consecrate the rest of their lives to repentance!"

ALYX OF MONTMORENCY (sadly to her husband)--"Alas! The punishments that the stiff-neckedness of these wretches compels us to inflict upon them are horrible--but the Church so orders it."

THE PROVOST (stepping to the foot of the balcony and addressing Montfort)--"Seigneur, shall the pyre be lighted?"

MONTFORT--"Be quick about it! Let the pyre be lighted immediately to burn the other heretics alive."

ABBOT REYNIER (in a resonant voice)--"Bring the other heretics forth!

The terrestrial h.e.l.l shall be to them the vestibule of the eternal h.e.l.l."

Again the gate that communicates with the esplanade is thrown open.

p.r.i.c.ked in the back by the lances of the soldiers behind them, a crowd of men, women and children of all ages issues from the dungeon with pinioned hands. The soldiers rank themselves in a cordon along the edge of the esplanade, and with the points of their lowered lances drive the human ma.s.s of prisoners into a burning fosse.

Among the last victims to issue from the dungeon are Karvel the Perfect, his wife Morise, the Lady of Lavaur and her son. Accident threw the four together at this supreme moment. Giraude is clad in black, her arms are pinioned at her back; so are Aloys's, who has received a severe wound on his left shoulder, seeing that, despite his tender years, he insisted upon fighting at his uncle's side during the siege. Giraude does not take her eyes from her son. The distracted mother's angelic features betray the horror which, little recking her own fate, she feels at the atrocious death that awaits her son. The latter guesses his mother's preoccupation, and endeavors to calm her with a smile. Karvel and his wife march with a firm step and serene front. Nevertheless, at the sight of the shocking spectacle that presents itself to him the instant he steps upon the esplanade, the Perfect stops short and shudders with horror. On the left are twenty-four gibbets awaiting their victims with arms outstretched; on the right, the prostrate bodies of those, who, too weak to withstand the torture of "blinding," are now dead or dying: they lie strewn around the foot of the scaffold; finally, a little further away from the gibbets and corpses, lambent flames rise from the pit, a vast brazier whose fires are kept alive with the fuel furnished by the flesh, the bones and the entrails of the heretics. From the midst of that burning heap of human remains some tokens of life are still visible. Arms, limbs and chests quiver and writhe convulsively; here and there a head is seen with hair aflame and features singed. Oh! son of Joel, no human pen could depict to you the aspect of these beings in the throes of such a death.

Such is the spectacle that presents itself to Karvel and his wife. The Perfect stops, and turns to the balcony where Montfort, his wife, the mitred abbots, the n.o.ble dukes, counts and knights are ranked in state.

He contemplates the a.s.semblage for an instant, and, a prophetic inspiration lighting his face, cries out aloud:

"Oh, ye priests of Rome! Verily, verily I say unto you the evangelical faith has departed from your midst; to-day it dwells among those whom you style heretics, and there it will dwell imperishable as truth! You have the might--the might--ephemeral as that pyre that, this very evening, will be but a heap of ashes!"

ABBOT REYNIER (jumps up furious)--"Tear out that heretic's tongue!"

The executioner and his a.s.sistants seize Karvel. While the latter hold the Perfect the former quickly takes out of his bag a pair of small iron pincers with wooden handles; he heats the iron in the furnace; and armed with the incandescent instrument of torture, beats in the Perfect's teeth, and tears out his tongue together with shreds of his lips. Morise closes her eyes and plunges into the burning furnace, whither her husband is thrown immediately after her.

The only heretics now left of those that were condemned to the pyre are the Lady of Lavaur and her son. At the moment when the executioners drag them towards the fosse, Giraude throws herself upon her knees under the balcony where she just perceived Alyx of Montmorency. With convulsed hands and a voice that palpitates with horror the distracted mother cries:

"Madam! I do not ask you for my life. But I shudder for my son at the thought of the pyre. Oh! madam, for mercy's sake, obtain from your husband the commutation of our punishment. Let us be slain with the sword!"