"Yes; I depart this instant. I am going to Chalon, to speak with the bishop and the Queen."
"What, Loysik!" cried Ronan with painful anxiety. "You leave us? You propose to face Brunhild? Do you forget that that name spells 'Implacable Vengeance,' Loysik? You would be running to your perdition! No—no! You shall not undertake such a journey!"
The monk laborers as well as the rest of the colonists shared the apprehensions of Ronan, and began to ply Loysik with tender and pressing entreaties, in order to draw him from his foolhardy project. The old monk was not to be moved. While one of the brothers who was to accompany him hastily made the preparations for the journey, he repaired to his own cell in order to take the charter of King Clotaire, which he kept there. Ronan and his family followed Loysik, still seeking to dissuade him from his project. He answered them sadly:
"Our situation is beset with perils. Not the fate of the monastery alone but of the whole colony is at stake. You could easily prevail over a handful of soldiers; but we cannot think of resisting Brunhild by force. To attempt any such thing would be to invite the utter ruin of the Valley, the slaughter of its inhabitants and slavery for the survivors. Clotaire's charter establishes our rights; but what is law or right to Brunhild?"
"But that being so, what do you purpose to do at Chalon, in the very den of the she-wolf?"
"To demand justice of her!"
"But you just said yourself 'What is law or justice to Brunhild!'"
"She sports with justice as she does with the lives of her men; and yet I entertain some slight hope. I wish you to keep the archdeacon and his soldiers prisoners—first, because in their fury they certainly would have me waylaid and killed on the road; I cling to life in order to lead to a successful issue the business that I now have in hand; secondly, because, rather than have the archdeacon and the chamberlain precede me in making the report of to-night's occurrence, I prefer myself to inform the bishop and Brunhild of the resistance that we offered."
"But, brother, suppose justice is refused you; suppose the implacable Queen orders you to be slain—as she has done with so many other victims of her injustice!"
"In that event the iniquity will be accomplished. In that event, if their purpose is not only to subject your goods and persons to the tyranny and exactions of the Church, but also to despoil you forcibly of the soil and the liberty that you have reconquered and which a royal charter guarantees to you, in that event you will be forced to take a supreme resolution. Call together a solemn council, as our fathers of yore were in the habit of doing whenever the safety of the land was in peril. Let the mothers and wives take part in that council, as was the ancient custom of Gaul, because the fate of their husbands and children is to be determined upon. You will then with calmness, wisdom and firmness decide upon one of these three alternatives—the only ones, alas! left to you: Whether to submit to the pretensions of the Bishop of Chalon, and accept a disguised servitude that will soon transform our free Valley into a domain of the Church, to be exploited for his benefit; whether you will bow before the will of the Queen if she tramples your rights under foot, tears up the charter of Clotaire, and declares our Valley a domain of the royal fisc, which will mean to you spoliation, misery, slavery and shame; or, finally, whether, strong in your own right, but certain of being crushed by superior numbers, to make protest against the royal or episcopal iniquity by a heroic defense, and bury yourselves and your families under the ruins of your homes. You will have to decide upon one of these three measures."