CHAPTER I.

The forests that at the present day cover such a considerable portion of the department of Eure, and which supply the great manufacturing cities on the Seine with fuel, were of much greater extent in the eighteenth century. The fragments of forest which now extend from Montfort to Breteuil were then united, and stretched in one almost unbroken green zone from the Seine to the Arve, following the course of the little river Rille. A spur struck off at Serquigny, and traced the confluent Charentonne upwards as far as Broglie.

The little town of Bernay is no longer hemmed in by woods. The heights and the valley of the Charentonne are still well timbered, and green with copse and grove; the landscape is park-like; here and there a fine old oak with rugged bark and expanded arms proclaims itself a relic of the _ancien régime_; but the upstart poplars whitening in the wind along the river course spire above these venerable trees. The roads lie between wheat and potato fields, and the names of hamlets, such as Bosc, Le Taillis, Le Buisson, Bocage, La Couture, &c., alone proclaim that once they lay embedded in forest foliage.

On the eve of the Great French Revolution, Bernay was a manufacturing town, that had gradually sprung up during the middle ages, around the walls of the great Benedictine Abbey which the Duchess Judith of Brittany had founded in 1013, and endowed with nearly all the surrounding forest. The town was unhealthy. It lay in a hollow, and the monks had dammed up the little stream Cogney, which there met the Charentonne, to turn their mill wheel, and had converted a portion of the valley into a marsh, in which the frogs croaked loudly and incessantly.

When the abbot was resident, the townsfolk were required to beat the rushes and silence the noisy reptiles every summer night; but now that the Superior resided at Dax, this requirement was not pressed.

After a heavy downfall of rain, the rivulet was wanting to swell into a torrent, overflow the dam, and flood the streets of Bernay, carrying with it such an amount of peat that every house into which the water penetrated was left, after its retreat, plastered with black soil, and, in spring, smeared with frog-spawn.

The mill was privileged. No other was permitted in the neighborhood. When M. Chauvin erected a windmill on the hill of Bouffey, the monks brought an action against him, and made him dismantle it. All the corn that grew within five miles was ground at the Abbey mill, and every tenth bag was taken by the Fathers in payment for grinding the corn indifferently and at their leisure. At certain seasons, more wheat was brought to the mill than the mill could grind, because the water had run short, or the stones were out of repair, consequently many thousands of hungry people had to wait in patience till the Cogney filled, or till the mill-stones had been re-picked, whilst the gutted windmill of M. Chauvin stood in compulsory inaction.

The great and little tithes of Bernay went to the Abbey; and out of them the monks defrayed the expense of a curate for the parish church of S. Cross. This church had been built by the town in 1372, by permission of the Abbey, on condition that the parish should bear the charge of its erection, and the abbot should appoint the curate; that the parish should be responsible for the repair of the fabric and the conduct of divine service, and that the Abbey should pay to the incumbent the _portion congrue_ of the tithes. The incumbent of Bernay was, throughout the middle ages and down to the suppression of the monastery, a salaried curate only, without independent position, and receiving from the Abbey a sum which amounts in modern English money to about fifty pounds, and out of this he was required to pay at least two curates or _vicaires_. This sorry pittance would have been miserable enough, had the curé been provided with a parsonage-house rent free; but with this the Abbey did not furnish him, and he was obliged to lodge where he could, and live as best he could on the crumbs that fell from the abbot’s table.

The parishioners of Bernay had made several attempts to free their church from its dependence, but in vain. The monks refused to cede their rights, and every lawsuit in which the town engaged with them terminated disastrously for the citizens. The people of Bernay were severely taxed. Beside the intolerable burdens imposed on them by the State, they paid tithes on all they possessed to the monks, who assessed them as they thought proper, and against whose assessment there was no appeal, as the abbot of Bernay exercised legal jurisdiction in the place, and every question affecting ecclesiastical dues was heard in his own court. The corn was tithed in the field, and tithed again at the mill. The Abbey had rights of _corvée_, that is, of claiming so many days’ work from every man in the place, and on its farms, free of expense. The townsfolk, who were above the rank of day labourers, escaped the humiliation only by paying men out of their own pockets, to take their places and work for the Fathers.

It was hard for the citizens, after having been thus taxed by the Church, to have to expend additional money to provide themselves with religious privileges. Bernay might have been a far more prosperous town but for the Abbey, which, like a huge tumour, ate up the strength and resources of the place, and gave nothing in return.

The Abbey was also _en commende_; in other words, it was a donative of the Crown. Whom he would, the king made superior of the monks of S. Benedict at Bernay,--superior only in name, and for the purpose of drawing its revenues, for he was not a monk, nor indeed was he in other than minor orders. Louis XV, whose eye for beauty was satisfied with a Du Barry, having been fascinated by the plump charms of Madame Poudens, wife of a rich jeweler at Versailles, attempted to seduce her. The lady estimated her virtue at a rich abbey, and finally parted with it for that of Bernay, which was made over _in commendam_ to a son, whether by Poudens or Louis was not clearly known, but who, at the age of seven, in defiance of the concordat of Francis I with the Pope, was made abbé of Bernay, father superior of Benedictine monks, and entitled to draw an income of fifty-seven thousand livres per annum, left by Duchess Judith to God and the poor. The case was by no means uncommon, Charles of Valois, bastard of Charles IX and Marie Fouchet, at the age of thirteen was invested with the revenues of Chaise-Dieu, and Henry IV bartered an abbey for a mistress.

Thomas Lindet was curé of S. Cross.

The introduction of the power loom from England had produced much want and discontent in Normandy, and in Bernay many hands were thrown out of work. The sickness and famine which had periodically afflicted that town of late years became permanent, and the poor priest was condemned to minister in the presence of want and disease, without the power of alleviating either, whilst the revenues of the Church were drained to fill the purse of the non-resident abbé, and by him to be squandered on luxuries and vanities.

Lindet had more than once expressed his opinion upon the abuses regnant in the Church. In 1781, in a discourse addressed by him to the general assembly of his parish, he had said:--‘We desire that justice should be brought to bear upon these abuses, which outrage common sense and common right, at once. But is there any hope in the future of an accomplishment of our desires? At present, all is dark; but never let us despair. We groan under oppression. But be sure of this,--wrong-doing revenges itself in the long run. We wish to abolish the intolerable privileges which burden some, that others may trip lightly through life. Alas! the privileged classes are jealous of our jealousy of them. They scarce permit us to pray the advent of a rectification of abuses, which will prove as glorious to religion as it will prove beneficial to society. Who will put salt upon the leeches, and make them disgorge the blood of the poor?’

For having used this language the curé had been severely reprimanded by his bishop; for bishops were then, as they are frequently now, the champions of abuses.

At the present date, Lindet was again in trouble with his diocesan. For three days in succession the sanctuary lamp in his church had remained unlighted. The reason was, that the curé’s cruse of oil was empty; and not the cruse only, but his purse as well. He had neither oil by him, nor money wherewith to buy any; the lamp therefore remained dark. Lindet hoped that some of his parishioners would come forward, and furnish the sacramental light with a supply of oil, and this eventually took place; but, in the meantime, three days and nights of violation of the rubric had elapsed. The _officiel_ or inquisitor of the bishop heard of this, and called on Thomas Lindet, the day before the opening of this tale, to inform him that it was at his option to pay down twenty-five livres for the misdemeanour, or to be thrown into the ecclesiastical court.

Under the _ancien régime_, a large portion of a bishop’s revenues was derived from ecclesiastical fines imposed by his court, and into this court cases of immorality, heresy and sacrilege among the laity, and of infringement of rubrical exactness, and breach of discipline among the clergy, were brought. As the prosecutor was also virtually the judge, it may be supposed that judgment was usually given against the defendant, who might appeal to the archbishop, or from him to the pope,--all interested judges, but who was debarred from carrying his wrong before a secular tribunal.

The sun was declining behind the pines, and was painting with saffron the boles of the trees, and striping with orange and purple the forest paths, as Thomas Lindet prepared to part from his friend Jean Lebertre, curé of the pilgrimage shrine of Notre Dame de la Couture, at the brow of the hill where the path to the Couture forked off from the main road to Bernay. At this point the trees fell away towards the valley, and the shrine was visible, lit in the last lights of evening which turned the grey stone walls into walls of gold.

La Couture is a singularly picturesque church, with lofty choir rising high above the nave roof, and with numerous chapels clustered about the chancel apse. The spire of lead with pinnacled turrets, in that setting glare, seemed a pyramid of flames.

The priest of Bernay was a tall thin man of forty-five, with colourless face, sunken cheeks, and restless, very brilliant eyes. His face, though far from handsome, was interesting and attractive. It beamed with intelligence and earnestness. His long hair, flowing to his shoulders, was grizzled with care rather than with age,--the care inseparable from poverty, and that arising from the responsibilities attending on the charge of a number of souls. His brow was slightly retreating and wanted breadth, his cheek-bones were high. The nose and mouth were well moulded, the latter was peculiarly delicate and flexible. The thin lips were full of expression, and trembled with every emotion of the heart.

Lindet’s hands were also singularly beautiful--they were narrow and small; a lady would have envied the taper fingers and well-shaped nails. Malicious people declared that the priest was conscious of the perfection of his hands, and that he took pains to exhibit it; but this was most untrue. No man was more free from vanity, and had a greater contempt for it, than Thomas Lindet. He had contracted a habit of using his right hand whilst speaking, in giving force to his words by gesture, and whilst thinking, in plucking at the cassock-buttons on his breast, but this trick was symptomatic of a highly-strung nervous temperament, and was in no degree attributable to personal vanity.

Lebertre was somewhat of a contrast to Lindet. He was a middle-sized, well-built man, with a face of an olive hue, hazel eyes, large, as earnest as those of his friend, but not like them in their restlessness; they were deep, calm wells, which seemed incapable of being ruffled by anger, or clouded with envy. His black hair was flowing and glossy, without a speck in it of grey. ‘I would not do so,’ said he, holding Lindet’s arm; ‘you should bear meekly, and suffer patiently.’

‘Bear and suffer!’ repeated the curé of S. Cross, his eyes lightening and his lips quivering; ‘True. “Suffering is the badge of all our tribe.” What the English poet puts into the mouth of a Jew is a motto meet for a French curé. But, my brother, tell me--are not wrongs and sufferings crushing us, destroying our self-reliance, ruining our independence, and obliterating our self-respect? How can a priest be respected by his flock when he does not respect himself; and how can he respect himself when he is trodden like dirt under the feet of his spiritual superiors?’

‘Bearing wrongs and suffering injustice without a murmur is the badge of a Christian; above all, of a priest. He who suffers and endures uncomplainingly is certain to obtain respect and reverence.’

‘A pretty world this has become,’ exclaimed Lindet; ‘the poor are ground to powder, and at each turn of the wheel we are bidden preach them Christian submission. They look around, and see everywhere labour taxed, and idleness go free. Toil then like a Christian, and pay, pay, pay, that the king may make fountains for his garden, the nobles may stake high at cards, and the bishops and canons may salary expensive cooks. Say the little farmer has a hundred francs. Out of this he is obliged to pay twenty-five for the taille, sixteen for the accessories, fifteen for his capitation, eleven for tithe. What remains to him for the support of his family, after he has paid his rent? Truly of this world may be said what is said of hell: “_Nullus ordo, sempiternus horror inhabitat_”’

Lebertre did not answer. With the steadfastness of purpose that was his characteristic, he returned to his point, and refused to be led into digression by his vehement and volatile companion. ‘You must not go to Évreux, as you propose,’ he said.

‘I shall go to the bishop,’ returned Lindet; ‘and I shall give him the money into his hand. I shall have the joy, the satisfaction, may be, of seeing, for once in my life, a bishop’s cheek burn with shame.’

‘Is this a Christian temper?’

‘Is it the part of a Christian bishop to consume his clergy with exactions and with persecutions, and to torture them with insults? Our bishop neglects his diocese. He receives some four hundred and fifty thousand livres per annum, and can only visit Bernay, with five thousand souls in it, once in three years, to confirm the young and to meet the clergy. When he comes amongst us on these rare occasions he takes up his abode at the Abbey, and receives us, the priests who seek advice and assistance, at a formal interview of ten minutes, into which we must condense our complaints; and then we are dismissed without sympathy and without redress.’

Lindet took a few steps along the path to La Couture. ‘I will accompany you, Jean,’ he said; ‘and I will tell you how I was treated when last I had access to Monseigneur. He sat at a little table; on it was a newspaper and a hand-bell, and his large gold watch. He signed to me to stand before him; I did so, holding my hands behind my back like a boy who is about to be scolded. He asked me some trifling question about my health, which I did not answer. I could not afford to waste one out of my ten minutes thus; so I broke out into an account of our troubles here. I told him there was no school for the children; that I had no parsonage house. God knows! I would teach the poor children myself if they could be crowded into my garret, but the good woman with whom I lodge will not permit it. I told him of the want and misery here, of the exactions under which the poor are bowed. I spoke to him of the hollow-eyed hungry workmen, and of the women hugging their starving babes to their empty breasts.’ The priest stopped, gasping for an instant, his trembling white hand working in the air, and expressing his agitation with mute eloquence. ‘All the while I talked, his eye was on the newspaper; I saw that he was reading, and was not attending to me. What he read was an account of a fête at Versailles, from which, alas! he was absent. Then he touched his bell. “Your time is up,” he said; and I was bowed out.’

‘You forget that the time of a prelate is precious.’

‘I grant you that,’ answered Lindet, with quivering voice; ‘too precious to be spent amidst a crowd of lackeys in dancing attendance on royalty; too precious to be wasted on fêtes and dinners to all the lordlings that Monseigneur can gather about his table in the hopes that they may shed some lustre on his own new-fledged nobility.’

‘I will not hear you, my friend,’ said Lebertre, turning from him; ‘you are too bitter, too vindictive. You would tear our bishops from their seats, and strip them of their purple.’

‘Of their purple and fine linen and sumptuous faring every day, that Lazarus may be clothed and fed!’ interrupted Lindet, passionately.

‘You would abolish the episcopacy and convert the Church to presbyterianism,’ said the curé of La Couture with a slight tone of sarcasm.

‘Never,’ answered the priest of S. Cross; his voice instantly becoming calm, and acquiring a depth and musical tone like that in which he was wont to chant. ‘No, Lebertre, never. I would preserve the ancient constitution of the Church, but I would divest it of all its State-given position and pomp. I would have our bishops to be our pastors and overseers, and not our lords and tyrants. I reverence authority, but I abhor autocracy. David went forth in the might of God to fight the Philistine; Saul lent him his gilded armour, but the shepherd put it off him--he could not go in that cumbrous painted harness. With his shepherd’s staff and sling he slew the giant. Woe be it! the Church has donned the golden armour wherewith royalty has invested her, and crushed beneath the weight, it lies prostrate at the feet of the enemy.’

Lindet walked on fast, weaving his fingers together and then shaking them apart.

‘But let me continue what I had to tell you of the bishop’s visit here,’ he said. ‘I was walking down the Rue des Jardins an hour after my reception, with my head sunk on my bosom, and--I am not ashamed to add--with my tears flowing. I wept, for I was humbled myself, and ashamed for the Church. Then suddenly I felt a sting across my shoulders, as I heard a shout. I started from my reverie to find myself almost under the feet of the horses of a magnificent carriage with postilions and outriders in livery, that dashed past in a cloud of dust. I stood aside and saw my bishop roll by in conversation with M. Berthier, laughing like a fool. My shoulders tingled for an hour with the lash of the post-boy’s whip, but the wound cut that day into my heart is quivering and bleeding still.’ As he spoke, he and his friend came suddenly upon a wayside crucifix which had been erected at the confines of the parish as a station for pilgrims, in a patch of clearing. The pines rose as a purple wall behind it, but the setting sun bathed the figure of the Saviour in light, and turned to scarlet the mat of crimson pinks which had rooted themselves in the pedestal.

Lebertre pressed the hand of his agitated companion, and pointed up at the Christ, whilst an expression of faith and devotion brightened his own countenance. He designed to lead the thoughts of Lindet to the great Exemplar of patient suffering, but the curé of S. Cross mistook his meaning. He stood as one transfixed, before the tall gaunt crucifix, looking up at the illumined figure. Then, extending his arms, he cried, ‘Oh Jesus Christ! truly Thou wast martyred by the bishops and aristocrats of Thy day; smitten, insulted, condemned to death by Annas and Caiaphas, the high priests, and by Pilate, the imperial governor. Verily, Thy body the Church bleeds at the present day, sentenced and tortured by their successors in Church and State.’

Before the words had escaped his lips, a cry, piercing and full of agony, thrilled through the forest.

Lindet and Lebertre held their breath. In another instant, from a footpath over which the bushes closed, burst a peasant girl, parting the branches, and darting to the crucifix, she flung herself before it, clasping her arms around the trunk, and in so doing overturning a flower-basket on her arm, and strewing the pedestal and kneeling-bench with bunches of roses.

She was followed closely by a large man, richly dressed, who sprang towards her, cast his arms round her waist, and attempted to drag her from her hold. ‘Sacré! you sweet little wench. If persuasion and flattery fail, why, force must succeed.’ And he wrenched one of her bare brown arms from the cross. She cast a despairing look upward at the thorn-crowned head which bowed over her and the seducer, and uttered another piteous wail for help.

At the same moment, the sun passed behind some bars of fog on the horizon, and the light it flung changed instantly from yellow to blood-red. The figure of the Christ was a miserable work of art, of the offensive style prevalent at the period, contorted with pain, the face drawn, and studded with huge clots of blood. In the scarlet light it shone down on those below as though it were carved out of flame, and menaced wrathfully.

The girl still clung to the cross with one arm. She was dressed in a short blue woollen skirt that left unimpeded her ankles and feet, a black bodice laced in front, exposing the coarse linen sleeves and shift gathered over the bosom about the throat. Her white frilled Normandy cap, with its broad flaps, was disturbed, and some locks of raven hair fell from beneath it over her slender polished neck. The oval sun-browned face was exquisitely beautiful. The large dark eyes were distended with terror, and the lips were parted.

‘Mon Dieu! do you think that those frail arms can battle with mine?’ asked the pursuer with mocking composure, as he drew the other arm from the stem of the cross, and holding both at the wrists, pressed them back at the girl’s side so as to force her to face him.

‘Look at me,’ he said, in the same bantering tone; ‘can your pestilent little village produce so wealthy and promising a lover as me? Your Jacques and Jeans have but a few liards in their purses, and can only offer you a pinchbeck ring; but I’--he disengaged one hand, whilst he felt in his pocket and produced a purse; ‘whilst I--Ha! listen to the chink, chink, chink! You do not know the language of money, do you? Well, I will interpret; chink, chink--that means silk dresses, satin shoes, dainty meats, and sweet bonbons. Now then!’ he exclaimed, as she made a struggle to escape.

‘Now then,’ repeated Thomas Lindet, who, quick as thought, strode between the man and his prey. He released the child; and placing her beside him, with a lip that curled with scorn, he removed his huge shovel hat, and bowing almost double, with a sweep of the hat, said, ‘M. Berthier! the little one and I bid you good evening!’

Then he drew back, extending his arm and hat as an ægis over the girl.

The gentleman stood as if petrified, and looked at them. He was a tall man, largely made, very big-boned, with his hair powdered and fastened behind by a black silk bow. His face was closely shaven, the nose short, the upper lip very long and arched. But the most conspicuous feature of his face were his eyes, set in red and raw sockets. As he stood and looked at the priest, he mechanically drew a handkerchief from his pocket, and proceeded with a corner of it to wipe the tender lids.

His coat was of maroon velvet edged and frogged with gold braid, his waistcoat was of white satin, and his hat was three-cornered and covered with lace. He wore a rapier at his side; and he was evidently a man of distinction.

‘Come, Lebertre, my friend,’ said Lindet, cheerfully, without taking any more notice of the gentleman; ‘I will accompany you and help to protect this damsel.’ The girl had lost one of her sabots, but in the excess of her fear she walked along unconscious of her loss. The curé of La Couture strode on one side of her, and the priest of Bernay paced on the other, supporting her with their hands, for her limbs shook with agitation, and, if unassisted, she would have fallen.

‘I know her,’ said Lebertre to his friend, ‘she is little Gabrielle André, and lives down by the river with her father, who is a farmer of the Abbey.’

Lindet looked across at his companion, with a glad light dancing in his eyes, and raising one hand heavenwards he exclaimed: ‘Did I not say that the Church in all her members suffers and bleeds? Would, dear friend, that, as we have rescued this poor child out of the hands of a betrayer, we might also rescue the poor Church from her seducers!’

Lebertre did not answer; but after a while he said solemnly, and with an air of deep conviction: ‘Lindet! did you mark how, at the cry of the child, the head of the Christ shook and frowned?’