XXXIX
Borgstorm, the great bell of Damme, had summoned the judges to judgment. It was four o’clock, and now they were collected together at the Vierschare, around the Tree of Justice.
Claes was brought before them. Seated upon the dais was the high bailiff of Damme, and by his side, opposite Claes, the mayor, the alderman, and the clerk of the court.
The populace ran together at the sound of the bell. A great crowd they were, and many of them were saying that the judges were there to do—not justice—but merely the will of His Imperial Majesty....
After certain preliminaries, the high bailiff began to make proclamation of the acts and deeds for which Claes had been summoned before that tribunal.
“The informer,” he said, “had been staying by chance at Damme, not wishing to spend all his money at Bruges in feasting and festivity as is too often the case during these sacred occasions. On a time, then, when he was taking the air soberly on his own doorstep, he saw a man walking towards him along the rue Héron. This man Claes also saw, and went up to him and greeted him. The stranger, who was dressed all in black, entered the house of Claes, leaving the door into the street half open. Curious to find out who the man was, the informer went into the vestibule, and heard Claes talking to the stranger in the kitchen. The talk was all about a certain Josse, the brother of Claes, who it seems had been made prisoner among the army of the Reformers, and had suffered the punishment of being broken alive on the wheel of torture, not far from Aix. The stranger said that he had brought Claes a sum of money which his brother had desired to leave him, which money having been gained from the ignorant and poverty-stricken, it behoved Claes to spend it in bringing up his own son in the Reformed Faith. He also urged Claes to quit the bosom of our Holy Mother Church, and spake also many other impious words to which the only reply vouchsafed by Claes was this: ‘The cruel brutes! Alas, my poor Josse!’ So did the prisoner blaspheme against our Holy Father the Pope and against His Royal Majesty, accusing them of cruelty in that they rightly had punished heresy as a crime of treason against God and man. When the stranger had finished the meal that Claes put before him, our agent heard Claes cry out again: ‘Alas, poor Josse! May God keep thee in his glory! How cruel they were to thee!’ And thus did he accuse God himself of impiety by this suggestion that He could receive a heretic into His heaven. Nor did Claes ever cease to cry aloud: ‘Alas! Alas! My poor Josse!’ The stranger then, launching out into a frenzy, like a preacher beginning his sermon, fell to revile most shamefully our Holy Mother the Church. ‘She will fall,’ he shouted, ‘she will fall, the mighty Babylon, the whore of Rome, and she will become the abode of demons, and the haunt of every bird accursed.’ And Claes meanwhile continued the same old cry: ‘Cruel brutes! Alas, poor Josse!’ And the stranger went on in the same way as he had begun, saying: ‘Verily an angel shall appear that shall take a stone that is great as a millstone, and shall cast it into the sea, crying: “Thus shall it be done to Babylon the mighty, and she shall be no more seen.”’ Whereupon, ‘Sir,’ says Claes, ‘your mouth is full of bitterness; but tell me, when cometh that kingdom in which they that are gentle of heart shall be able to dwell in peace upon the earth?’ ‘Never,’ answered the stranger, ‘while yet my Lord Antichrist rules, that is the Pope, who is to-day the enemy to all truth.’ ‘Ah,’ said Claes, ‘you speak with little respect of the Holy Father. But he, surely, is ignorant of the cruel punishments which are meted out to poor Reformers.’ ‘Not at all,’ answered the stranger, ‘and far from it, for it is he who initiates the decrees and causes them to be put into force by the Emperor, now by the King. The latter enjoys all the benefits of confiscation, inherits the property of the dead, and finds it easy to bring charges of heresy against those who have any wealth.’ Claes said: ‘Indeed I know that such things are freely spoken of in the land of Flanders, and one may well believe them, for the flesh of man is weak, even though the flesh be royal flesh. O my poor Josse!’ And by this did Claes give to understand that heretics are punished because of a vile desire on the part of His Majesty for filthy lucre. The stranger wished to argue the matter further, but Claes said: ‘Please, sir, do not let us continue this conversation, for if it were overheard I might easily find myself involved in some awkward inquiry.’ Then Claes got up to go to the cellar, whence he presently returned with a pot of beer. ‘I am going to shut the door,’ said he, and after that the informer heard nothing more, for he had to make his way out of the house as quickly as he could. Not till it was night was the door again opened, and then the stranger came forth. But he soon returned, knocking at the door and calling to Claes: ‘It is very cold, and I know not where I am to lodge this night. Give me shelter, pray. No one has seen me. The town is deserted.’ Claes welcomed him in, lit a lantern, and last of all he was seen to be leading the heretic up the staircase into a little attic room with a window that looked out on to the country.”
At this Claes cried out: “And who could have reported all this but you, you wicked fishmonger! I saw you on Sunday, standing at your door, as straight as a post, gazing up, like the hypocrite you are, at the swallows in their flight!”
And as he spoke, he pointed with his finger at Josse Grypstuiver, the Dean of the Fishmongers, who showed his ugly phiz in the crowd of people. And the fishmonger gave an evil smile when he saw Claes betraying himself in this way. And the people in the crowd, men, women, and maids, looked one at the other and said: “Poor good man, his words will be the death of him without a doubt.”
But the clerk continued his depositions.
“Claes and the heretic stayed talking together for a long time that night, and so for six other nights, during which time the stranger was seen to make many gestures of menace or of benediction, and to lift up his hands to heaven as do his fellow-heretics. And Claes appeared to approve of what he said. And there is no doubt that throughout these days and nights they were speaking together opprobriously of the Mass, of the confessional, of indulgences, and of the Royal Majesty....”
“No one heard it,” said Claes, “and I cannot be accused in this way without any evidence.”
The clerk answered:
“There is something else that was overheard. The evening that the stranger left your roof, seven days after he had first come to you, you went with him as far as the end of Katheline’s field. There he asked you what you had done with the wicked idols”—here the bailiff crossed himself—“of Madame the Virgin, and of St. Nicholas and St. Martin. You replied that you had broken them all up and thrown them into the well. They were, in fact, found in the well last night, and the pieces are now in the torture-chamber.”
At these words Claes appeared to be quite overcome. The bailiff asked if he had nothing to answer. Claes made a sign with his head in the negative.
The bailiff asked him if he would not recant the accursed thoughts which had led him to break the images, and the impious delusion whereby he had spoken such evil words against Pope and Emperor, who were both divine personages.
Claes replied that his body was the Emperor’s, but that his soul was Christ’s, whose law he desired to obey. The bailiff asked him if this law were the same as that of Holy Mother Church. Claes answered:
“The law of Christ is written in the Holy Gospel.”
When ordered to answer the question as to whether the Pope is the representative of God on earth, he answered, “No.”
When asked if he believed that it was forbidden to adore images of Our Lady and of the saints, he replied that such was idolatry. Questioned as to whether the practice of auricular confession was a good and salutary thing, he answered: “Christ said, confess your sins one to another.”
He spoke out bravely, though at the same time it was evident that he was ill at ease and in his heart afraid.
At length, eight o’clock having sounded and evening coming on, the members of the tribunal retired, deferring their judgment until the morrow.