A Sheaf of Bluebells

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

Now the goodly Abbot of Villemor had no liking for such devilish arts; but he also was troubled by the sin of curiosity. Assembling the most learned monks of his order around him, he declared his intention of going forth into the hamlet, and of seeking out that mysterious artificer, whose fame was spreading beyond the confines of the fief. In state then, his gold-broidered mitre on his head, his staff in his hand, my lord Abbot sallied forth on a fine June morning to betake himself to the hamlet of Villemor. Behind him walked the Prior and other dignitaries of the Abbey, singing canticles and swinging censers, for, of a truth, the devils hate the smell of incense, which is the emblem of prayer when it rises straight up to God.

The legend goes on to say that my lord the Abbot was greatly shocked at sight of the sculptor's handiwork. There were the pigeons of a truth—feathers, feet, beaks, eyes and all—just the same as the Creator Himself would have fashioned them.

"So! Ho! Thou impious malapert!" or words to that effect, we are told, did the holy man hurl at the unfortunate craftsman. "Darest thou to fancy thyself the equal of thy Maker?"

Whereupon poor Jean Front seems vigorously to have protested that such sacrilegious thoughts had never entered his head, and that, on the contrary, his only desire was to dedicate his skill to the service of God.

But this humility wholly failed to satisfy the learned Abbot.

"Such skill as thou hast," he thundered in his holy wrath, "thou couldst not of thyself acquire. 'Tis the devil hath taught thee ... 'tis the devil hath given thee the strength to defy God by arrogating unto thyself the power to multiply the creatures of His hand!"

There appears to have ensued a somewhat lengthy argument between the noble Abbot and the humble artificer as to the provenance of that power which of a certainty passed comprehension. The Abbot maintained that such power could only come from the devil, seeing that it was, as it were, in direct competition with God, whilst the unfortunate sculptor maintained that God Himself had blessed his work and given him the skill to accomplish it. I imagine from the ancient story—which is far too long to set down here in its entirety—that the learned Abbot was distinctly getting the worst of the argument, when a brilliant idea occurred to him, wherewith he hoped, once for all, to confute the vainglory of this skilful braggart and save himself from the humiliation of being worsted in the wordy warfare.

"Prove to me," he said firmly, "that the devil hath had no hand in thy work. If God is on thy side, He will surely stand by thee in thy need, for, of a truth, if thou hast consorted with the devil, it will be my duty to see thy body burned at the stake in order that thy immortal soul may be saved from the fires of Hell!"

This was obviously a quandary for the poor village sculptor. But, according to the old legend, he seems to have been possessed of that faith which moveth mountains—or, rather, pigeons; for he then and there dropped on his knees and prayed fervently to God to give some sign that these stone pigeons had been fashioned for His glory. Whereupon we are told that the air, which up to now had been still, became stirred with a breath which was as the most balmy, most sweet-scented breeze from Heaven, and for miles around, though even the leaves of the aspen did not quiver, there was a sound as of myriads of wings, and all of a sudden the stone-pigeons fashioned by Jean Front the artificer spread out their wings and flew upwards from their stone pedestal. For a moment they circled round and round the head of their maker, then they rose up to the blue ether above, and took flight in the direction of the woods beyond La Frontenay.

The air became still once more. But the holy Abbot and all his monks had been vastly frightened by this manifestation. They declared more emphatically than ever before that this was devil's work, and then and there they seized upon the unfortunate sculptor, and having anathematized him and exorcised the devil out of him, they built up a stake in the market square and burned him to death.