Buch lesen: «The Pocket Bible; or, Christian the Printer: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century»

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

The epoch covered by this, the 16th story of Eugene Sue's dramatic historic series, entitled The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages, extends over the turbulent yet formative era known in history as the Religious Reformation.

The social system that had been developing since the epoch initiated by the 8th story of the series, The Abbatial Crosier; or, Bonaik and Septimine, that is, the feudal system, and which is depicted in full bloom in the 14th story of the series, The Iron Trevet; or, Jocelyn the Champion, had been since suffering general collapse with the approach of the bourgeois, or capitalist system, which found its first open, or political, expression in the Reformation, and which was urged into life by Luther, Calvin and other leading adversaries of the Roman Catholic regime.

The history of the Reformation, or rather, of the conflict between the clerical polity which symbolized the old and the clerical polity which symbolized the new social order, is compressed within the covers of this one story with the skill at once of the historian, the scientist, the philosopher and the novelist. The various springs from which human action flows, the various types which human crises produce, the virtues and the vices which great historic conflicts heat into activity – all these features of social motion, never jointly reproduced in works of history, are here drawn in vivid colors and present a historic canvas that is prime in the domain of literature.

In view of the exceptional importance of some of the footnotes in which Sue refers the reader to the pages of original authorities in French cited by him, the pages of an accessible American edition are in those cases either substituted or added in this translation.

DANIEL DE LEON.

New York, February, 1910.

PART I
THE SOCIETY OF JESUS

INTRODUCTION

What great changes, sons of Joel, have taken place in Paris since the time when our ancestor Eidiol the Parisian skipper lived in this city, in the Ninth Century, at the time of the Northman invasion! How many changes even since 1350, when our ancestor Jocelyn the Champion fell wounded beside Etienne Marcel, who was assassinated by John Maillart and the royalists!

The population of this great city now, in the year 1534, runs up to about four hundred thousand souls; daily new houses rise in the suburbs and outside the city walls, whose boundaries have become too narrow, although they enclose from twelve to thirteen thousand houses. But now, the same as in the past, Paris remains divided into four towns, so to speak, by two thoroughfares that cross each other at right angles. St. Martin, prolonged by St. James Street, traverses the city from east to west; St. Honoré, prolonged by St. Antoine Street, traverses it from north to south. The Louvre is the quarter of the people of the court; the quarter of the Bastille, of the Arsenal, filled with arms, and of the Temple is that of the people whose profession is war; the quarter of the University is that of the men of letters; finally the quarter of Notre Dame and St. Germain, where lie the convents of the Cordeliers, of the Chartreux, of the Jacobins, of the Augustinians, of the Dominicans and of many other hives of monks and nuns besides the monasteries that are scattered throughout the city, is that of the men of the Church. The merchants, as a general thing, occupy the center of Paris towards St. Denis Street; the manufacturers are found in the eastern, the shabbiest of all the quarters, where, for one liard, workingmen can find lodging for the night. The larger number of the bourgeois houses as well as all the convents are now built of stone, and are no longer frame structures as they formerly were. These modern buildings, topped with slate or lead roofs and ornamented with sculptured facades, become every day more numerous.

Likewise with crimes of all natures; their increase is beyond measure. With nightfall, murderers and bandits take possession of the streets. Their numbers rise to twenty-five or thirty thousand, all organized into bands – the Guilleris, the Plumets, the Rougets, the Tire-Laines,¹ the latter of whom rob bourgeois, who are inhibited from carrying arms. The Tire-Soies,² a more daring band, fall upon the noblemen, who are always armed. The Barbets disguise themselves as artisans of several trades, or as monks of several Orders and introduce themselves into the houses for the purpose of stealing. Besides these there are the bands of Mattes or Fins-Mattois, skilled cut-purses and pick-pockets; and finally the Mauvais-Garçons,³ the most redoubtable of all, who publicly, for a price chaffered over and finally agreed upon, offer their daggers to whomsoever wishes to rid himself of an enemy.

Nor is this the worst aspect presented by the crowded city. Paris runs over with lost women and courtesans of all degrees. Never yet did immorality, to which the royal court, the Church and the seigniory set so shocking a pace, cause such widespread ravages. A repulsive disease imported from America by the Spaniards since the conquests of Christopher Columbus poisons life at its very source.

Finally, Paris presents a nameless mixture of fanaticism, debauchery and ferocity. Above the doors of houses of ill fame, images of male and female saints are seen in their niches, before which thieves, murderers and courtesans uncover and bend the knee as they hurry by, bent on their respective pursuits. The Tire-Laines, the Guilleris and other brigands burn candles at the altars of the Virgin or pay for masses for the success of their crimes in contemplation. Superstition spreads in even step with criminality. Pious physicians are cited who regularly take the weekly communion, and who, bought by impatient heirs, poison with their pharmaceutical concoctions the rich patients, whose decease is too slow in arriving. The most horrid felonies have lost their dreadfulness, especially since the papal indulgences, sold for cash, insure absolution and impunity to the criminals. The virtues of the hearth and all good morals seem to have fled to the bosom of those families only who have discarded the paganism of Rome and, although styled heretics, practice the simplicity of evangelical morality. One of these families is that of Christian the Printer, the great-grandchild of Jocelyn the Champion's son, who, due to the rapid progress made by the printing press, which rendered manuscript books useless and unnecessarily expensive, found it ever more difficult to earn his living at his trade of copyist and illuminator of manuscripts.

Accordingly, after the death of his father, who was the son of Jocelyn the Champion and continued to live at Vaucouleurs after witnessing the martyrdom of Joan of Arc, Allan Lebrenn moved to Paris, induced thereto by John Saurin, a master-printer of this city who, having during a short sojourn at Vaucouleurs been struck by the young man's intelligence at his trade, promised to aid him in finding work in the large city. He accepted the offer and speedily succeeded in his new field. He married in 1465, died in 1474, and left a son, Melar Lebrenn, who was born in 1466 and was the father of Christian the Printer.

Melar Lebrenn followed his father's occupation, and worked long after his father's death in John Saurin's establishment, where his services were highly appreciated. But after John Saurin's death, Melar Lebrenn, who had in the meantime married and had three children, Christian and two daughters, was dismissed by Saurin's successor, a man named Noel Compaign. Compaign was a religious bigot. He was incensed at what he termed Melar Lebrenn's unbelief, hounded him with odious calumnies, and spoke of him to the other members of the guild as dishonest and otherwise unfit. Melar Lebrenn soon felt the effect of these calumnies; his trade went down; his savings were consumed; his family was breadless; he had nothing left to him but the legends and relics of his family, that were handed down from generation to generation.

Under these circumstances Melar Lebrenn made one more and desperate effort to rise to his feet. He knew by reputation Henry Estienne, the most celebrated printer of the last century. Estienne's goodness of heart as well as his knowledge were matters of common repute. Melar Lebrenn decided to turn to him, but he found Estienne strongly prejudiced against him through the calumnies that Compaign had circulated. But Melar Lebrenn was not yet discouraged. He explained to Estienne circumstantially the reason of Compaign's hatred, and offered Estienne to serve him on trial. The offer was accepted, and Melar Lebrenn soon acquitted himself so well both as a typesetter and a reader of proof, that Master Henry Estienne, judging from the falseness of the accusations concerning Melar Lebrenn's skill at his trade, concluded he was equally wronged in his private character. From that time on, Estienne took a deep interest in Melar and was soon singularly attached to him, as much by reason of his skill, as for the probity of his character and the kindness of his heart.

The two daughters of Melar Lebrenn were carried away by the pest that swept over Paris in 1512; his wife survived them only a short time; and Melar himself died in 1519. His only surviving child, Christian, married Bridget Ardouin, an embroiderer in gold and silver thread. Christian entered the printing establishment of Henry Estienne as an apprentice at his twelfth year. After the death of the venerated Henry Estienne, Christian remained under the employ of Robert Estienne, his father's heir in virtue and his superior in scientific acquirements. The editions that Robert Estienne issued of the old Greek, Hebrew or Latin authors are the admiration of the learned by the correctness of the text, the beauty of the type, and the perfection of the printing. Among other things he published a pocket edition of the New Testament, translated into French, a veritable masterpiece of typography. The bonds that united Master Robert Estienne and his workman Christian Lebrenn became of the closest.

Three children were born of the marriage of Christian Lebrenn with Bridget Ardouin – a boy, born in 1516, and at the commencement of this history eighteen years of age; a girl in 1518, and a boy in 1520. The latter is named Odelin; he is an apprentice in the establishment of Master Raimbaud, one of the most celebrated armorers of Paris. The eldest son is named Hervé, in memory of his mother's father, and he follows his father Christian's profession of printer. The girl is named Hena in remembrance of the Virgin of the Isle of Sen.

CHAPTER I.
THE THEFT

It was one evening towards the middle of the month of August of 1534. Christian Lebrenn occupied a modest house situated at about the center of the Exchange Bridge. Almost all the other bridges thrown over the two arms of the Seine are, like this one, lined with houses and constitute a street under which the river flows. The kitchen, where the meals were taken, was on the first floor, even with the street; behind this room, the door and window of which opened upon the public thoroughfare, was a smaller one, used for bed chamber by Hervé, Christian's eldest son, and the younger brother Odelin, the apprentice at Master Raimbaud's. At the time, however, when this narrative opens, Odelin was absent from Paris, traveling in Italy with his master, who had gone to Milan in order to study the process by which the Milanese armors, as celebrated as those of Toledo, were manufactured. The upper floor of Christian's house consisted of two rooms. One of these he occupied himself with his wife Bridget; his daughter Hena occupied the other. Finally, a garret that served as storeroom for winter provisions, topped the house and had a window that opened upon the river.

On this evening Christian was in an animated conversation with his wife. It was late. The children were both asleep. A lamp lighted the room of the husband and wife. Near the window, with its small lozenge-shaped panes fastened between ribs of lead, lay the embroideries at which Bridget and Hena had been at work. In the rear of this rather spacious chamber stood the conjugal bed, surmounted with its canopy and enclosed by its curtains of orange serge. A little further away was a little book-case containing in neat rows the volumes in the printing of which Christian and his father contributed at the printing establishment of Masters Henry and Robert Estienne. In the same case Christian kept under lock his family legends and relics, together with whatever else that he attached special value to. Above the case an old cross-bow and battle axe hung from the wall. It was always well to have some arms in the house in order to repel the attacks of bandits who had of late grown increasingly bold. Two flat leather covered coffers for clothes and a few stools completed the humble furnishings of the room. Christian seemed greatly troubled in mind. Bridget, looking no less concerned than her husband, dropped the work that she expected to finish by lamp-light, and stepped towards her husband. With his eyes fixed upon the ground, his elbows upon his knees and his head in his hands, the latter observed:

"There can be no doubt. The person who stole the money, here, in this room, out of that case, and without breaking the lock, must be familiar with our house."

"I can assure you, Christian, since yesterday when we discovered the theft, I have been in a continuous fever."

"None but we and our children enter this room."

"No, excepting our customers or their employees. But as I am well aware that the Barbets are bold and wily enough to put on the disguise of honest merchants, whenever occasion demands it, in order to gain access to a house and steal, and that they might play that trick upon me under the pretext of bringing an order for some embroidery, neither Hena nor I ever leave the room when a stranger is with us."

"I am ransacking my mind for the intimate acquaintance who could have entered the room," the printer proceeded as if communing with himself with painful anxiety. "Occasionally, Lefevre spends an evening with us; I have come up into this room with him several times when he requested me to read some of our family legends to him."

"But, my friend, it is a long time since we have seen Lefevre; you yourself were wondering the other day what may have become of him; moreover, it is out of all question to suspect your friend, a man of austere morals, always wrapt in science."

"God prevent my suspecting him! I was only going over the extremely small number of persons who visit us familiarly."

"Then there is my brother. The fellow is, true enough, a soldier of adventure; he has his faults, grave faults, but – "

"Ah, Bridget, Josephin has for you and our children so tender a love, so touching – I hold him capable of doing almost anything in a hostile country, as is customary with people of his vocation; but he, who almost every day sits at our hearth – he, commit a theft in our house? Such a thought never crossed my mind – and never will!"

"Oh, I thank you for these words! I thank you!"

"And did you suppose that I suspected your brother? No! A thousand times, no!"

"What shall I say? The vagabond life that he has led since his early youth – the habits of violence and rapine with which the 'Franc-Taupins,' the 'Pendards,' and the other soldiers of adventure who are my brother's habitual companions are so justly reproached, might have caused suspicion to rise in some prejudiced mind, and – but my God – Christian – what ails you, tell me what ails you?" cried Bridget, seeing her husband hide his face between his hands in utter despair, and then suddenly rise and pace the room, as if pursued by a thought from which he sought to flee. "My friend," insisted Bridget, "what sudden thought has struck and afflicts you? There are tears in your eyes. Your face is strangely distorted. Answer me, I pray you!"

"I take heaven to witness," cried the artisan, raising his hands heavenward with a face that betrayed the tortures of his heart, "the loss of the twenty gold crowns, that we gathered so laboriously, is a serious matter to me; it was our daughter's dower; but that loss is as nothing beside – "

"Beside what? Let me know!"

"No. Oh, no! It is too horrible!"

"Christian, what have you in mind?"

"Leave me! Leave me!" but immediately regretting the involuntary rudeness, the artisan took Bridget's hands in his own, and said to her in a deeply moved voice: "Excuse me, poor, dear wife. You see, when I think of this affair I lose my head. When, at the printing shop, to-day, the horrible suspicion flashed through my mind, I feared it would drive me crazy! I struggled against it all I could – but a minute ago, as I was running over with you our intimate acquaintances who might be thought guilty of the theft, the frightful suspicion recurred to me. That is the reason of my distress."

Christian threw himself down again upon his stool; again a shudder ran over his frame and he hid his face between his hands.

"Tell me, my friend, what is the suspicion that assails you and that you so violently resist? Impart it to me, I pray you."

After a painful struggle with himself that lasted several minutes, the artisan murmured in a faint voice as if every word burnt his lips:

"Like myself, you noticed, recently – since about the time of Odelin's departure for Milan – you noticed, like myself, that a marked change has been coming over the nature and the habits of Hervé."

"Our son!" cried Bridget stupefied; and she added: "Mercy! Would you suspect him of so infamous an act?"

Christian remained steeped in a gloomy silence that Bridget, distracted with grief as she was, did not at first venture to disturb. Presently she proceeded:

"Impossible! Hervé, whom we brought up in the same principles as his brother – Hervé, who never was away from us – "

"Bridget, I told you, the suspicion is horrible; I have struggled against it with all my might," and the artisan's voice was smothered with sobs. "And yet, if after all it should be so! If our son is indeed the guilty one!"

"My friend, your suspicion bereaves me of my senses. You love Hervé so dearly, and your judgment is always so sound, your mind so penetrating, that I can not conceive how so unjustifiable a thought could take possession of you. Our son is continuously at the printing shop, at your side, as Hena is at mine; better than anyone else should you know your son's heart." Bridget remained silent for a moment and then proceeded while scalding tears rolled down her cheeks: "Oh, I feel it, even if your suspicion is never justified, it will embitter the rest of my life! Oh, to think our son capable of stealing!"

"And for that very reason there is no one else in the world but you, and you alone, to whom I confide the horrid suspicion. Oh, Bridget, it is more than a suspicion. Let us not exaggerate matters; let us not be unnecessarily cast down; let us calmly look into the affair; let us carefully refresh our memories; we may arrive – may God hear my words – at the conclusion that the suspicion is unfounded. As I was just saying, a great change has lately come over Hervé. You noticed the singular manifestations as well as I."

"Yes, recently, he, who formerly was so cheerful, so open, so affectionate, has of late been cold and somber, dreamy and silent. He has grown pale and thin; he is quickly irritated. Shortly before the departure of our little Odelin, he often and without cause scolded the poor boy, for whom he always before had only kind words. And often since then, have I had occasion to reproach Hervé for his rudeness, I should almost say harshness towards his sister, whom he dearly loved. He now seems to avoid her company. At times I simply cannot understand his conduct towards her. Why, only yesterday, when you and he came home from the printing shop, after embracing you, as is her custom, Hena offered her forehead to her brother – but he rudely pushed her aside."

"I did not notice that; but I did notice the growing indifference of Hervé towards his sister. What mystery can lie below that?"

"And yet, my friend, we love all our children equally. Hervé might feel hurt if we showed any preference for Hena or Odelin. But we do not. We are equally kind to all the three."

"Yes, indeed. We shall have to look elsewhere for the cause of the change that afflicts us. Can it be that, without our knowledge, he keeps bad company? There is one circumstance in this affair that has struck me. Paternal love does not blind me. I see great aptitudes in Hervé. Not to mention the gift of an easy flowing eloquence that is exceptional at his age, he has become an excellent Latinist. Owing to his aptitude in that direction he has more than once been chosen to gather precious manuscripts at the houses of some men of letters, who are the friends of Master Robert Estienne. Usually our son attended to such work with accuracy and despatch. Of late, however, his absence from the shop on such errands is often long, unnecessarily so and also frequent, and he does not attend properly to his errands, sometimes does not attend to them at all. Master Robert Estienne has complained to me in a friendly way, saying that Hervé should be watched, that he was drawing near his eighteenth year and might contract acquaintances that would be cause of trouble for us later."

"On that very subject, my friend, only a few days ago I was reproaching Hervé for his estrangement from the friends of his boyhood, all of whom are good and honest lads. He flees their company and spurns their cordial advances. The only person with whom he seems to be intimate is Fra Girard, the Franciscan friar and son of our neighbor the mercer."

"I would prefer some other company for our son, but not that I accuse Fra Girard of being, like so many other monks, an improper person to associate with. He is said to be of austere morals, but being older than Hervé, he has, I am afraid, gained considerable influence over him, and rendered him savagely intolerant. Several of the artisans at the shop of Master Estienne are, like he himself, partisans of the religious reform; some are openly so, despite the danger that their outspokenness entails, others more privately. More than once did our son raise his voice with excessive violence against the new ideas which he calls heresies. And yet he knows that you and I share them."

"Alas! my friend, what woman, what mother would not share the reform ideas, seeing that they reject auricular confession? Did we not find ourselves compelled to stop our daughter from attending the confessional on account of the shameful questions that a priest dared to put to her and which, in the candor of her soul, she repeated to us? But to return to Hervé, even though, in some respects, I dislike his intimacy with Fra Girard and fear it may tend to render him intolerant, the influence of the monk, the austerity of whose morals is commented upon, must have had the effect of keeping far from our son's mind an act so ugly that we can not mention it without shedding tears of sorrow," added Bridget wiping her moist eyes; "Hervé's piety, my friend, becomes daily more fervent; as you know, the unhappy boy imposes upon himself, at the risk of impairing his health, ever longer fasts. Did I not discover from the traces of blood upon his shirt that on certain days he carries close to his skin a belt that is furnished within with sharp iron pricks? That is not the conduct of a hypocrite! He sought to conceal from all eyes the secret macerations that he inflicts upon himself in penitence. It was only accidentally that I discovered the fact. I deplore such fanaticism; but his fanaticism may also be a safeguard. The very exaggeration to which Hervé carries his religious principles must strengthen him against temptation. Heaven be blessed! You were right, Christian; by closely considering the circumstances, we can come at no other conclusion than that such suspicions are unfounded. Our son is innocent, do you not think so, Christian?"

Gloomy and pensive the artisan listened to his wife without interrupting her. He replied:

"No, dear wife; fanaticism is no safeguard against evil. Alas! differently from you, the more I consider the facts that you adduce – I hardly dare say so to you – my suspicions, so far from being removed, grow in weight. Yes, I believe our son guilty."

"Great God! What a horrible thought!"

"I believe our son is sincere in his devout practices, however exaggerated these may be. But I also know that one of the most frightful consequences of fanaticism is that it clouds and perverts the most elemental principles of right and wrong, of justice and injustice, with those whom it dominates. Religious faith substitutes morality."

"But theft, seeing that I must mention the word – theft – how can fanaticism excuse that? You must be mistaken upon that subject!"

"Listen, Bridget. A few days ago – and it was the recollection of the circumstance that first awoke my suspicions – a few days ago one of our fellow workmen at the shop expressed himself with indignation at the traffic of indulgences that has recently been carried on in Paris, and he said emphatically that besides the immorality of the trade that was being practiced in the Pope's name, the extortion of money by such means from ignorance and from popular credulity was nothing short of a fraud practiced upon the people. And do you know the answer that our son made? 'That is a lie! It is impious! The money that is devoted to a pious deed, even if it be the fruit of a theft, of a murder, is purified and sanctified from the moment that it is employed to the greater glory of the Lord!'"

Bridget grew pale, and murmured in a voice smothered by sobs:

"Oh! now I fear – I also fear! May God have mercy upon us!"

"Do you now understand how, if our son is indeed guilty of the shameful act which we hesitate to impugn to him, in his blind fanaticism the unhappy boy will have believed that he was doing a meritorious act if he employed the money in some such work of devotion as ordering the saying of masses?"