"Then you bring me back my letter?"
"Here it is, mademoiselle," answered the old man. "I could not find the addressee," and taking a letter out of his wallet, he passed it over to Bertha, who laid the folded and sealed paper on a table beside her, saying:
"So then you found it impossible to ascertain the whereabouts of Monsieur Nominoë Lebrenn? Could you gather no information concerning him?"
"None, mademoiselle! When I left Mezlean I learned that the troop of insurgent peasants took the road to Rennes, was greatly augmented by contingents from the parishes which it traversed, and must have numbered about twenty thousand men, more or less well armed. It was a veritable army. Monsieur Nominoë Lebrenn, his father and Monsieur Serdan had brought the body under considerable disciplinary order. Nevertheless, all their efforts to the contrary, not a few disorderly acts were indulged in at the castles and rectories. The peasant army moved all the while towards Rennes. I hoped to encounter it at Guemenee. But there I learned that envoys of Monsieur the Duke of Chaulnes, Governor of Brittany, had arrived at that town ahead of the insurgents and announced to the inhabitants that the new royal taxes were repealed, that the parliament of Brittany was to assemble at Vannes, that it would register the Peasant Code, that the vassals also were to be exonerated from paying the royal taxes, and that thenceforth they were all to be protected against any further extortions and maltreatment by the seigneurs and the curates. The promises made by the emissaries of Monsieur the Duke of Chaulnes caused great jubilation among the peasants. They declared that, having obtained what they wanted, the war was ended, and they would return home to their respective parishes. So far from sharing the confidence into which the peasants were lulled, Lebrenn and Serdan urged upon them the necessity of not disbanding and not laying down their arms; they assured the peasants that they were being deceived, and that the plan was to dissolve their army by means of mendacious promises, and then to fall upon and crush them. Indeed, the promises were but a snare and a lure. But the lure seduced the peasants, who were homesick for their huts, their wives and their children. In vain did their chiefs urge them to march upon Rennes, the usual place for the parliament to hold its sessions, and support the assembly in its defiance of the King."
"And the advice was not heeded?"
"No, mademoiselle. The vassals, delighted at the realization of their aspirations, answered that it was impossible to suppose Monseigneur the Governor would vilely lie to them. They broke ranks and struck the roads home in separate bands, proclaiming everywhere along their passage that the Peasant Code was accepted by the seigneurs and the curates. Great rejoicing reigned in all the parishes of Brittany. Everywhere bonfires were lighted. Upon learning at Guemenee of the dispersion of the insurgents, I inquired after their chiefs. I learned that Monsieur Salaun Lebrenn, his son and Monsieur Serdan had proceeded to Rennes. I went thither. The masses of the people, especially the bourgeoisie, being less credulous than the peasants, remained in arms, the same as at Nantes, awaiting the opening of the parliament promised by Monsieur the Duke of Chaulnes. While at Rennes I looked for the Lebrenns and Monsieur Serdan. Later I learned they had departed for Nantes. Thither I wended my way. Upon arriving at Nantes I learned that a body of ten thousand troops, commanded by Monsieur De Forbin, had just entered Brittany in order to crush the rebellious parliamentarians—were they bourgeois or peasants. On the following day the town of Nantes was occupied by two regiments of infantry, supported by artillery and cavalry. The executions commenced. On the first day forty-seven leading bourgeois were hanged, and eleven men of the common people, who were marked as seditious, broken alive on the wheel."
"My God!" cried Mademoiselle Plouernel horrified. "How much blood! How much blood!"
"The city was mulcted of one hundred thousand ecus, the sum to be delivered to the troops within forty-eight hours. Thereupon a decree of the Governor of Brittany was posted pronouncing sentence of death upon all those who would afford refuge to the chiefs of the insurrection. At the head of the list of the chiefs, whose heads were pronounced forfeit, were the names of Salaun and Nominoë Lebrenn."
"I am not surprised," put in Bertha calmly. "And at Nantes neither were you able to find any traces of Monsieur Lebrenn and his son?"
"No, mademoiselle. From that moment it seemed to me there was nothing left for me to do but to return and inform you of the miscarriage of my errand. But, alas! as I crossed Brittany, what a lamentable spectacle! Pillage, desolation, gallows—everywhere! The soldiers treat Brittany like a conquered country, and demean themselves in the identical manner that they did in Flanders. Their acts of rapine and cruelty transcend description. I saw along the roads almost as many gibbets as trees! The peasants are tortured and then butchered. Those who flee to the woods are tracked, hunted and killed like wild beasts by the soldiers! They spare neither old men nor children—the women are outraged. In short, such is the terror that reigns in the country that yesterday, as I crossed Lesneven, which was just occupied by a company of soldiers, I saw a score of peasants throw themselves upon their knees, clasp their hands, and offering their throats, cry out pitifully to the soldiers: 'Cut our throats, if you wish, but do not make us languish in torture!' Finally this morning, at Karer, a lot of drunken soldiers roasted a child alive!"