CHAPTER V.

THE CRUSADERS!

The Queen of Beauty and President of the Court of Love has barely p.r.o.nounced the words that indicate the taking up of the routine work before her, when the petulant Ursine hurriedly elbows her way through the crowd and presents herself at the entrance of the sacred precinct.

Giraud, Seigneur of Lancon, demands in his quality of porter the customary toll due him--a kiss from the fair litigant. Ursine gives him two on the mouth and walks to the foot of the tribunal crying: "Justice!

Justice!"

MARPHISE (with a sigh of relief and triumph)--"Speak, dear friend.

Justice will be rendered to you, if your right is clear."

COUNTESS URSINE (imperiously)--"Whether my right is clear! Just heavens!

Whether our rights are clear, I should say! I am the representative of eleven victims, among whom I am the twelfth!"

MARPHISE--"Justice will be done to each and to all. What is your grievance?"

COUNTESS URSINE--"Each of us, my eleven companions and myself, had a secret gallant. He was charming, witty, daring, bold. Suddenly we learned that we all had the identical lover! The traitor was deceiving all twelve of us at once! Was there ever such audacity?"

ADAM THE HUNCHBACK OF ARRAS (claps his hands and exclaims:)--"What! All the twelve! Oh, the terrible man! What an ample heart must not his be!"

The unheard-of felony throws the members of the Court into mute stupor, except Marphise, Deliane, Huguette and Eglantine, who exchange knowing looks among themselves.

FOULQUES OF BERCY--"I wish to put a question to the plaintiff. Did the prodigious criminal at the time when his shocking infidelity was discovered show himself less daring than usual towards the plaintiff and her companions in misfortune?"

COUNTESS URSINE (with an explosion of violent indignation)--"Never did the criminal act more charming. And we said so in secret to one another, unknowing, alas! that we were all the while speaking of the identical deceiver! We each said to the others: 'I have a magnificent lover, a matchless gallant! He is always the same'--"

FOULQUES OF BERCY--"And you were all the time being nicely deceived, all the twelve?"

COUNTESS URSINE (furious)--"Yes! It is that very circ.u.mstance that renders the traitor all the more guilty!"

Foulques of Bercy shrugs his shoulders and does not seem to share the plaintiff's opinion regarding the aggravation of the offense. Several members of the Court, Marphise, Deliane, Eglantine and Huguette, excepted, the majority of the fair ones in the gathering seem, on the whole, rather to take the view of Foulques of Bercy, and to see an extenuating circ.u.mstance in the very enormity of the misdeed. Marphise notices with deep concern the propensity to indulgence. She rises majestically in her seat and says:

"I wish to believe that all the members of the Court join me in feeling a legitimate indignation at the miscreant, who, trampling under foot all the divine and human laws of Love, has dared to commit so formidable an offense against fidelity. If, however, it should happen that I am mistaken; if there be any member of this tribunal inclined to indulgence in sight of such an enormity, let him admit it openly, and his name and his views will be proclaimed throughout the length and breadth of the empire of Cytherea."

A profound silence ensues among the members of the Court.

MARPHISE (radiant)--"Oh, I felt certain that this august tribunal, which has been established in order to take, with severe solicitude, cognizance of the crimes against Love and to check them, aye, even to punish them, if need be, would show itself worthy of its mission.

(Addresses the countess.) Dear friend, did you summon the criminal to our bar?"

COUNTESS URSINE--"Yes, I summoned him to appear before the Court of Sweet Vows; and whether it be audacity on his part or a stricken conscience, he has obeyed the summons. I demand that it may please the Court to deliver him to the twelve victims of his felony. They will wreak signal vengeance upon him. (Impetuously.) We must see to it before everything else that the monster, the traitor, the felon shall no longer be able to deceive other women--and that he be punished on the spot--"

MARPHISE (hastening to interrupt the countess)--"Sweet friend, before inflicting punishment, the Court must hear the accused."

COUNTESS URSINE--"The culprit has obeyed our summons and has come accompanied by a fat varlet of a man, whom, he says, he may need in his defense. They are both locked up in the Prison of Love back of the garden."

MARPHISE--"We order our Seneschal of Sweet-Marjoram and our Bailiff of the Joy of Joys to bring forth the culprit and to lead him hither in chains as is the usage, with the customary garlands on his head."

The Seneschal and the Bailiff furnish themselves with two long red and blue ribbons to which several bouquets of flowers are fastened and proceed towards the shady tunnel to fetch the prisoner. A great agitation reigns among the crowd. Opinion is divided on the degree of the culprit's guilt. Unanimous, however, is the curiosity to see the l.u.s.ty champion. Mylio the Trouvere presently appears, led by the Seneschal of Sweet-Marjoram and the Bailiff of the Joy of Joys.

Goose-Skin modestly remains outside of the enclosure of the Court. The youth and good looks of the accused, his renown as a poet and singer, immediately turn the female portion of the a.s.sembly in his favor.

MARPHISE (addressing Mylio in an imposing voice)--"You are charged before the Chamber of Sweet Vows with a crime unheard-of in the annals of Love. What have you to say in your own defense?"

MYLIO--"What is the crime that I am charged with?"

MARPHISE--"You have deceived twelve women at once. Each of them believed she alone had you for her gallant. What blacker treason can there be?"

MYLIO--"Who are my accusers? I demand to see them and to be confronted by them."

COUNTESS URSINE (impetuously)--"I accuse you! I am one of your twelve victims. Will you dare to deny your crime?"

MYLIO--"My accuser is such a charming lady, that even if I were innocent I would confess myself guilty. I have come hither to make a solemn expiation of the past. I could choose no better place, no better time, and no better audience. Deign to hear me."

MARPHISE--"Your frankness will not extenuate your crimes, albeit that it does honor to your character. Do I understand you to say that you admit your felony?"

MYLIO--"Yes; I have made love to n.o.ble, beautiful, obliging and easy ladies who were mad for pleasure, and who were governed by no law other than their own caprice."

MARPHISE--"Dare you impugn your victims?"

MYLIO--"Far from me be any such thought! Raised in the lap of plenty, ignorance and idleness, those n.o.ble ladies only yielded to corrupting examples and counsels. Had they been born in obscurity, leading an honorable existence amidst the occupations and joys of family life, they would all have been exemplary mothers and wives. But how could those n.o.ble ladies choose but forget virtue, honor and duty in these shameful days when debauchery has its code and libertinage its decrees, and where unchast.i.ty, sitting in a sovereign Court, regulates vice and decrees adultery? Such is the mission of the Court of Love."

Indescribable amazement is depicted on the faces of the Court, its pursuivants and the audience, at the words of Mylio. The members of the Chamber of Sweet Vows look at one another stupefied by the irreverent language. Master Oen.o.barbus, the theological rhetorician, and Adam the Hunchback of Arras rise to make answer, while the knight Foulques of Bercy, the Seneschal of Sweet-Marjoram and the Bailiff of the Joy of Joys, all of whom are experts at their weapons, mechanically put their hands to their sides in search of their swords. But they all attended Court unarmed, according to the usage of the inst.i.tution. Marphise raps for silence and says to the trouvere:

"Wretch! Dare you insult these august tribunals that are established throughout Gaul in order to propagate the laws of gallantry!"

"And of unbridled lechery!" cries a little flute-like voice, interrupting Marphise. The words proceed from Goose-Skin, who, in order to interject the incongruous words disguised his voice and traitorously hid himself behind a cl.u.s.ter of foliage against which a young page, who was placed near the entrance of the Court, leaned with his back not far from the Seneschal of Sweet-Marjoram. Stung to the quick, the dignitary turns around and seizes the lad by the collar while Goose-Skin, emerging from his hiding place cries in a voice that he purposely renders all the more raucous: "The insolent little joker! From what brothel can he have come that he uses such foul language towards n.o.ble dames? He should be driven out on the spot, Seigneur Seneschal of Sweet-Marjoram!

Oxhorns--Let us throw him out!"

The poor page looks nonplussed; his face turns red; he is dumbfounded; he seeks in vain to stammer a few words in his own defense; he is beaten by the indignant crowd; and finally, in order to escape worse treatment, flees in the direction of the avenue of trees. After a while the turmoil created by this incident subsides.

MARPHISE (with dignity)--"I know not what were the infamous words that the miserable page, who no doubt is intoxicated, hurled at this tribunal. But the vile words have fallen by virtue of the weight of their own grossness back into the mire from which they issued, and have not been able to rise to the pure ether of Love that this Court inhabits! (A murmur of approbation receives the ethereal response of Marphise, who thereupon proceeds, addressing Mylio:) What! A hundred times did you repeat on the harp the decrees of the tribunal of Cytherea; and now you insult it! Do you forget that only your chants succeeded in lowering the otherwise insuperable barrier that rose between yourself and the n.o.ble a.s.semblages where you were tolerated among the knights and the abbots, you, the child of villeins, you, a vile serf, no doubt! The baseness of the language you have held to-day reveals but too clearly the ignominy of your origin."

MYLIO (with bitterness)--"You speak truly. I am of serf stock. For centuries your race has enslaved, degraded and crushed down mine. Yes; while you here brazenly discuss in refined language foolish or obscene subtleties, millions of poor female serfs are not allowed to enter their husbands' bed until they have been soiled by the seigneurs in the name of an infamous law! Oh! What I accuse myself of is having forgotten that fact even for a moment--aye, I accuse myself triply for having done that!"

MARPHISE--"The humble admission is but one more proof of the hugeness of your insolence and of your ingrat.i.tude--dozen-fold traitor and felon!"

MYLIO--"You speak truly again! I was cruelly ungrateful towards my family when, several years back, driven by the ardor of youth I left Languedoc, the country of freedom, the country of honorable customs--a happy land that has known how to crop the crests of the seigneurs and to reconquer both its dignity and independence!"

MASTER OEn.o.bARBUS THE THEOLOGIAN (angrily)--"Dare you glorify Languedoc, that devilish country, that hot-bed of heresy!"

FOULQUES (excitedly)--"Languedoc, where the execrable communes of the people still stand unshaken!"

MYLIO (proudly)--"I accuse myself for having left that n.o.ble and brave province, and for coming to these debased regions to charm with licentious songs the ears of this n.o.bility that is the foe of my race!

That is my real crime."

The proud words of Mylio arouse the indignation of the seigneurs.

Fearing lest, in his capacity of the trouvere's companion, he may also become the victim of the seigneurs' rage, Goose-Skin profits by the tumult to slide unperceived towards the tunnel of verdure that serves as the Prison of Love. The angered voice of the Seigneur of Bercy rises above the din. Threatening Mylio with his fists, he cries:

"Wretch! To dare insult the knighthood and our holy Church, and that at this place! I shall order my men to seize you, and they will use their straps upon your shins! Miserable slave! Abominable scamp!"