The Casque's Lark; or Victoria the Mother of the Camps Page 2

  INTRODUCTION.

  I, Schanvoch, a descendant of Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak; I,Schanvoch, now a freeman, thanks to the valor of my father Ralf and thebold Gallic insurrections that continued unabated from century tocentury; I, Schanvoch, write the following narrative two hundred andsixty-four years after my ancestress Genevieve, the wife of Fergan,witnessed in Judea the death of the poor carpenter Jesus of Nazareth.

  I write the following account thirty-four years after Gomer, the son ofJudicael and grandson of Fergan, who was a slave like his father andgrandfather, wrote to his son Mederik that he had nothing to add to thefamily annals but the monotonous account of his life as a slave.

  Neither did my ancestor Mederik contribute aught to our family history,and his son Justin contented himself with having a stranger's hand enterthese short lines:

  "My father Mederik died a slave, fighting as a Son of the Mistletoe forthe freedom of Gaul; he told me that he was driven to revolt against theforeign oppression by the narrative of the bravery of our free ancestorsand by the description of the sufferance of our enslaved fathers. I, hisson Justin, a colonist, and no longer a slave of the fisc, have causedthis fact to be entered upon our family parchments, which I shallfaithfully transmit to my son Aurel, together with their accompanyingemblems, the gold sickle, the little brass bell, the fragment of theiron collar and the little silver cross, all of which I have carefullypreserved."

  Aurel, Justin's son and a colonist like his father, was not any moreliterate than the latter, and left no record whatever. After him, againa stranger's hand inserted these lines in our family annals:

  "Ralf, the son of Aurel the colonist, fought for the freedom of hiscountry. Ralf having become absolutely free, thanks to the Gallic armsand the holy war preached by our venerable druids, found himself obligedto resort to a friend's help in order to enter the death of his fatherAurel upon our family parchments. Happier than myself, my son Schanvochwill not be forced to avail himself of a stranger in order to enter inour family's archives the death of myself, the first male descendant ofJoel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak, who again regained completefreedom. As several of my ancestors have done before me, I here declarethat it was the history of our ancestors' valor and martyrdom thatinduced me to take up arms against the Romans, our masters and secularoppressors."

  These family scrolls, together with their accompanying relics, I shallleave to you, my dear little Alguen, the son of my beloved wife Ellen,who gave you birth this day four years ago.

  I choose this day, the anniversary of your birth, as a day of happyaugury, in order to start, for your benefit and the benefit of ourdescendants, the narrative of my life and my battles, my joys and mysorrows, obedient to the last wishes of our ancestor Joel, the brenn ofthe tribe of Karnak.

  You will grieve, my son, when you learn from these archives that, fromthe death of Joel down to that of my great-grandfather Justin, sevengenerations, aye, seven whole generations, were subjected to intolerableslavery. But your heart will be cheered when you learn that mygreat-grandfather had, from a slave, become a colonist or serf attachedto the glebe of Gaul--still a servile condition but greatly above thatof slavery. My own father, having regained his full freedom, thanks tothe formidable insurrections of the Sons of the Mistletoe that fromcentury to century were conjured up at the voice of the druids, thetireless and heroic defenders of the freedom of oppressed Gaul, hasbequeathed to me freedom, that most precious of all wealth. I shall, inturn, transmit it to you.

  By dint of constantly struggling for it, and also of stubbornresistance, we Gauls have succeeded in successively reconquering almostour full former freedom. A last and frail bond still holds us to Rome,now our ally, after having formerly been our pitiless master. When thatlast and frail bond will be snapped, we shall have regained our absoluteindependence, and we shall resume our former place at the head of thegreat nations of the world.

  Before acquainting you with the details of my life and time, my son, Imust fill certain voids that are left in the history of our familythrough the omissions of those of our ancestors, who, either throughilliteracy or the hardness of the times, were prevented from joiningtheir respective accounts to our archives. Their lives must have beenthe life of all the other Gauls, who, the fetters of slaverynotwithstanding, have, step by step and from century to century,conquered through revolt and battle the deliverance of our country.

  You will find in the last lines written by our ancestor Fergan, thehusband of Genevieve, that despite the vows taken by the Sons of theMistletoe and despite innumerable uprisings, one of the most formidableof which was chieftained by Sacrovir, the worthy emulator of the Chiefof the Hundred Valleys, the Roman yoke that Caesar imposed upon Gaulremained unshaken. In vain did Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth,prophesy that the chains of the slave would be broken. The slaves stilldragged their blood-stained chains. Nevertheless, our old race,weakened, mutilated, unnerved or corrupted though it was by slavery,never once was submissive, and allowed only short intervals to passwithout endeavoring to shake off the yoke. The secret associations ofthe Sons of the Mistletoe covered the country, and furnished intrepidsoldiers to each succeeding revolt against Rome.

  After the heroic attempt of Sacrovir, the account of whose sublime deathyou will find in the narrative of our ancestor Fergan, the weak andtimid weaver-slave, other insurrections broke out during the reigns ofthe Emperors Tiberius and Claudius; they increased in force during thecivil wars that rent Italy under the reign of Nero. At about that time,one of our heroes, Vindex, as intrepid a patriot as Sacrovir or theChief of the Hundred Valleys, long held the Roman arms in check.Civilis, another Gallic patriot, taking his stand upon the prophecies ofVelleda--one of our female druids, a virile woman, wise in council andworthy compeer of our brave and wise mothers--roused almost all Gaul torevolt and gave the first serious wound to the power of Rome. Finally,during the reign of the Emperor Vitellius, a poor field slave like ourancestor Guilhern set himself up as the messiah and liberator of Gaul,just as Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed himself the Messiah of Judea, andpursued with patriotic ardor the task of liberation that was started bythe Chief of the Hundred Valleys and continued after him by Sacrovir,Vindex, Civilis and so many other heroes. That field slave's name wasMarik. He was then barely twenty-five years of age; robust, intelligentand gifted with heroic bravery he joined the Sons of the Mistletoe. Ourvenerable druids, always persecuted, had traversed Gaul inciting thelukewarm, restraining the impatient, and preparing all for the hour ofthe insurrection. It broke out. At the head of ten thousand slaves,field laborers like himself and armed with their scythes and forks,Marik engaged the Roman troops of Vitellius under the walls of Lyons.That first attempt miscarried; the insurgents were cut to pieces by theRoman army that greatly exceeded them in numbers. But so far fromfeeling overwhelmed, this defeat intensified the ardor of the revoltedpeople. Whole populations rose in rebellion at the voice of the druidsthat called them to the holy war. The combatants seemed to spring out ofthe entrails of the earth, and Marik saw himself again at the head of anumerous army. Endowed by the gods with a military instinct, hedisciplined his troops, inspired them with courage and a blindconfidence in him, and marched at their head towards the banks of theRhine, where, sheltered behind its trenches, lay the reserve of theRoman army. Marik attacked it, beat it, and compelled whole legions thathe took prisoner to drop their own ensigns and substitute them with ourancient Gallic cock. Those Roman legions had, due to their long sojournin our country, virtually become Gauls; carried away by the militaryascendency of Marik, they readily joined him, combatted under himagainst the fresh Roman columns that were sent from Italy, and eitherannihilated or dispersed them. The hour of Gaul's deliverance was aboutto sound--but at that moment Marik fell through cowardly treason intothe hands of the monster Vespasian, then Emperor of Rome. Riddled withwounds the hero of Gaul was delivered to the wild beasts in the circus,like our own ancestor Sylvest.

  The martyr's death exasperated the population. Fresh insurre
ctions brokeout forthwith all over Gaul. The words of Jesus of Nazareth, declaringthat the slave is the equal of his master, began to penetrate our owncountry, filtering through on the lips of itinerant preachers. Theflames of hatred for the foreign domination shot up with renewed vigor.Attacked from all sides in Gaul, harrassed on the other side of theRhine by innumerable hordes of Franks, barbarous warriors that issuedfrom the depths of the northern forests and seemed but to await thepropitious moment to pour into Gaul, the Romans finally capitulated tous. At last we harvested the fruits of so many heroic sacrifices! Theblood shed by our fathers for the previous three centuries watered ourdeliverance. Indeed, the words of the Chief of the Hundred Valleys wereprophetic:

  "Flow, flow thou blood of the captive! Drop, drop thou dew of gore! Germinate, sprout up, thou avenging harvest!"

  Yes, my son, those words were prophetic. It was with that refrain ontheir lips that our fathers fought and overcame the foreign oppressor.Rome, at last, yielded back to us a part of our ancient freedom. Weformed Gallic legions commanded by our own officers; our provinces wereonce more governed by magistrates of our own choice. Rome reserved onlythe right to appoint a "Principal" over Gaul, the suzerainty over whichshe was to retain. We accepted, while waiting and striving for betterthings--and these better things were not long in coming. Frightened byour continual revolts, our tyrants had been slowly moderating the rigorof our slavery. Terror was to force from them that which theyrelentlessly refused as a matter of right and justice to the voice ofsuppliant humanity. First the master was no longer allowed, as he was inthe days of Sylvest and several of his descendants, to dispose over thelife of his slaves as one disposes over the life of an animal. Later, astheir fear increased, the masters were forbidden from inflictingcorporal punishments upon their slaves, except with the expressauthorization of a magistrate. Finally, my child, that horrible Romanlaw, that, at the time of our ancestor Sylvest and of the fivegenerations that followed him, declared in its ferocious language thatthe slave does not exist, that "he has no head" (_non caput habet_) thatshocking law was, thanks to the dread inspired by our unceasing revolts,modified to the point that the Justinian code declared:

  "Freedom is a natural right; it is the statute law that has createdslavery; it has also created enfranchisement, which is the return tonatural freedom."

  Alack! It is distressing to notice that the sacred rights of humanitycan not triumph except at the cost of torrents of blood and ofunnumbered disasters! But who is to be cursed as the true cause of allsuch evils? Is it not the oppressor, seeing that he bends his fellow-menunder the yoke of a frightful slavery, lives on the sweat of the brow ofhis fellow-men, depraves, debases and martyrizes his fellow-beings,kills them to satisfy a whim or out of sheer cruelty, and thus compelsthem to reconquer by force the freedom that they have been deprived of?Never forget this, my son, if, once subjugated, the whole Gallic racehad shown itself as patient, as timid, as resigned as did our poorancestor Fergan the weaver, our slavery never would have been abolished!After vain appeals to the heart and reason of the oppressor, there isbut one means left to overthrow tyranny--revolt--energetic, stubborn,unceasing revolt. Sooner or later right triumphs, as it triumphed withus! Let the blood that our triumph has cost fall upon the heads of thosewho enslaved us.

  Accordingly, my son, thanks to our innumerable insurrections, slaverywas at first replaced by the state of the colonist, or serfdom, theregime under which my great-grandfather Justin and my grandfather Aurellived. Under that system, instead of being forced to cultivate under thewhip and for the exclusive benefit of the Roman masters the lands thatthey had plundered us of by conquest, the colonist had a small share ofthe harvest that he gathered. He could no longer be sold as a drafthorse, along with his children; he could no longer be submitted to thetorture or killed; but they were, from father to children, compelled toremain attached to the same domain. If the domain was sold, the colonistlikewise changed hands under the identical conditions of toil. Later thecondition of the colonists was further improved; they were granted therights of citizenship. When the Gallic legions were formed, the soldiersthat composed them became completely free. My father Ralf, the son of acolonist, gained his freedom in that manner; I, the son of a soldier,brought up in camp, was born free; and I shall bequeath that freedom toyou, as my father bequeathed it to me together with the duty topreserve it for your descendants.

  When you will read this narrative, my son, after you will have becomeacquainted with the manifold sufferings of our ancestors, who wereslaves for so many generations, you will appreciate the wisdom of thewish expressed by our ancestor Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak.You will admire his sagacity in expecting that, by piously preservingthe memory of its bravery and of the independence that it once enjoyed,the Gallic race would be able to draw from the horror for Romanoppression the strength to overthrow it.

  At this writing I am thirty-eight years of age. My parents are longdead. Ralf, my father, a soldier in one of our Gallic legions, in whichhe enrolled at the age of eighteen in the south of Gaul, came into thisregion, near the western banks of the Rhine, along with the army. He wasin all the battles that were fought with the ferocious hordes of theFranks, who, attracted by the fertility of our Gaul and by the wealthcontained in our borders, encamped on the opposite shore of the river,ever ready to attempt a new invasion.

  About four years ago a descent of the insular population of England wasfeared in Brittany. On that occasion several legions, the one in whichmy father enlisted among them, were ordered into that province. Duringseveral months he was quartered in the city of Vannes, not far fromKarnak, the cradle of our family. Having had one of his friends read tohim the narratives of our ancestors, Ralf visited with pious respect thebattle field of Vannes, the sacred stones of Karnak, and the lands thatwe were plundered of in Caesar's time by the Roman conquerors. The landswere held by a Roman family; colonists, sons of the Breton Gauls of ourtribe and who had formerly been in bondage, now cultivated the landsthat their ancestors one time owned. The daughter of one of thosecolonists loved my father; her love was reciprocated; her name wasMadalene; she was one of those proud and virile Gallic women, that ourancestress Margarid, the wife of Joel, was a type of. She followed myfather when his legion left Brittany to return to the banks of theRhine, where I was born in the fortified camp of Mayence, a militarycity that our troops occupied. The chief of the legion to which myfather belonged was the son of a field laborer. His bravery won him thepost. On the day after my birth that chief's wife died in child-bed of ababy girl--a girl who, some day perhaps, may yet, from the retreat ofher humble home, reign over the world as she reigns to-day over Gaul.To-day, at the time that I write, Victoria, by virtue of herdistinguished wisdom, her eminent qualities, the benign influence thatshe exercises over her son Victorin and over our whole army, is, inpoint of fact, empress of Gaul.

  Victoria is my foster-sister. Prizing the solid qualities of mind andheart that my mother was endowed with, when Victoria's father became awidower, he requested my mother to nurse his little babe. Accordingly,she and I grew up like brother and sister. We never since failed in thefraternal affection of our childhood. From her earliest age Victoria wasserious and gentle, although she greatly delighted in the blare oftrumpets and the sight of arms. She gave promise to be some day of thataugust beauty that mingles calmness, grace and energy, and that ispeculiar to certain women of Gaul. You will see medals that have beenstruck in her honor when she was still a young maid. She is thererepresented as Diana the huntress, with a bow in one hand and a torchin the other. On a later medal, struck about two years ago, Victoria isrepresented with her son Victorin in the guise of Minerva accompanied byMars. At the age of ten she was sent by her father to a college offemale druids. Being now again freed from Roman persecution, thanks tothe new birth of Gallic freedom, the druids, male and female, againattended to the education of children as they did of yore.

  Victoria remained with these venerable women until her fifteenth year.She drew
from that patriotic and strict tuition an ardent love for hercountry, and information on all subjects. She left the college equippedwith the secrets of former times, and, it is said, possessing, likeVelleda and other female druids, the power of seeing into the future. Atthat period of her life the proud and virile beauty of Victoria wassublime. When she met me again she was happy and she did not conceal herjoy. So far from declining through our long separation from each other,her affection for me, her foster-brother, had increased.

  I must at this point make an admission to you, my son; I am free to makeit because you will not read these lines until after you will be a man.You will find a good example of courage and abnegation in my confession.

  When Victoria returned in her dazzling beauty of fifteen years I was ofthe same age and although hardly of the age of puberty myself, I felldistractedly in love with her. I carefully concealed my feelings, out offriendship as well as by reason of the respect that, despite thefraternal attachment of which she every day gave me fresh proof, thatserious young maid, who brought with her from the college of the femaledruids an indescribably imposing, pensive and mysterious appearance,inspired in me. I then underwent a cruel trial. Ignorant of the feelingsof my heart, as she ever will be, at fifteen and a half Victoria gaveher hand to a young military chief. I came near dying of a slowconsuming illness caused by my secret despair. So long as my life seemedin danger, Victoria did not leave the head of my couch. A tender sistercould not have attended me with more devoted and touching care. Shebecame a mother. Although a mother, she ever accompanied her husband, towhom she was passionately devoted, whenever called to war. By force ofreflection I succeeded at last in overcoming, if not my love, at leastits violent manifestations, the pain it gave me, the senselessness ofthe passion. But there remained in me a sense of boundless devotiontowards my foster-sister. She asked me to remain near her and herhusband as a horseman in the body of cavalrymen that ordinarily act asescorts to the Gallic chiefs, and either take down in writing or conveytheir military orders. My foster-sister was barely eighteen years of agewhen, in a severe battle with the Franks, she lost on the same day bothher father and her husband. A widow with her son, for whom she foresaw aglorious future, bravely verified by himself since then, Victoria neverleft the camp. The soldiers, accustomed ever to see her in their midst,with her child in her arms, and walking between her father and herhusband, knew that more than once her profoundly wise advice prevailedin the councils of the chiefs as the advice of our mothers of old oftenprevailed in the councils of our forefathers. They came to look as agood omen upon the presence of this young woman, who was trained in themysterious science of the druids. At the death of her father and husbandthey begged her not to leave the army, declaring to her with naiveaffection that thenceforth her son Victorin should be "Son of the Camps"and she the "Mother of the Camps." Touched by so much affection,Victoria remained with the troops, preserving her influence over thechiefs, directing them in the government of Gaul, sedulous in impartinga manly education to her son, and living as modestly as the wife of anofficer.

  Shortly after her husband's death, my foster-sister told me that shewould never marry again, it being her intention to consecrate her lifeentirely to Victorin. The last and insane hope that I nursed when I sawher a widow and free again, was dashed. With time I recovered my senses.I suppressed my ill-starred love and gave no thought but to the serviceof Victoria and her son. A simple horseman in the army, I served myfoster-sister as her secretary. Often she confided important statesecrets to me. At times she even charged me with confidential embassiesto the military chiefs of Gaul.

  I taught Victorin to ride, to handle the lance and the sword. Soon Icame to love him as an own son. A kinder and more generous dispositionthan that of the lad could not be imagined. Thus he grew up among thesoldiers, who became attached to him by a thousand bonds of habit and ofaffection. At the age of fourteen he made his first campaign against thefranks, who were fast becoming as dangerous enemies to us as the Romansonce were. I accompanied him. Like a true Gallic woman his motherremained on horseback and surrounded by the officers, on a hill fromwhich the battle field could be seen on which her son was engaged. Hecomported himself bravely and was wounded. Being thus from early youthhabituated to the life of war, the youth developed great militarytalents. Intrepid as the bravest of the soldiers, skilful and cautiousas a veteran captain, generous to the full extent that his purse allowedit, of a joyful disposition, open and kind to all, he gained ever morethe attachment of the army that soon divided with him its adoration forhis mother.

  The day finally arrived when Gaul, already almost independent, demandedto share with Rome the government of our country. The power was thendivided between a Gallic and a Roman chief. Rome appointed Posthumus,and our troops unanimously acclaimed Victorin as the Gallic chief andgeneral of the army. Shortly after, he married a young girl by whom hewas dearly loved. Unfortunately she died within the year, leaving him ason. Victoria, now a grandmother, devoted herself to her son's child asshe had done before to himself, and surrounded the babe with all thecares that the tenderest solicitude could inspire.

  My early resolve was never to marry. I was nevertheless graduallyattracted by the modest graces and the virtue of the daughter of one ofthe centurions of our army. She was your mother, Ellen, whom I marriedfive years ago.

  Such has been my life until this day, when I start the narrative that isto follow. Certain remarks of Victoria decided me to write it both foryour benefit and the benefit of our descendants. If the expectations ofmy foster-sister, concerning several incidents in this narrative, areeventually realized, those of our relatives who in the centuries to comemay happen to read this story will discover that Victoria, the Mother ofthe Camps, was gifted, like Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen, andVelleda, the female druid and companion of Civilis, with the holy giftof prevision.

  What I am here about to narrate happened a week ago. In order to fix thedate with greater accuracy I certify that it is written in the city ofMayence, defended by our fortified camp on the borders of the Rhine, onthe fifth day of the month of June, as the Romans reckon, of the seventhyear of the joint principality of Posthumus and Victorin in Gaul, twohundred and sixty-four years after the death of Jesus of Nazareth, thefriend of the poor, who was crucified in Jerusalem under the eyes of ourancestress Genevieve.

  The Gallic camp, composed of tents and light but solid barracks, ismassed around Mayence, which dominates it. Victoria lodges in the city;I occupy a little house not far from the one that she inhabits.

  PART I.

  FOREIGN FOES.