"Woe is us if on top of all our ills we are to be ravaged and tortured by the English. That means our end."
"Yes, and we are all to go down through the cowardice of our seigneurs," put in Adam the Devil, "themselves, their families and retainers safely entrenched and provisioned in their fortified castles, they will allow us to be pillaged and massacred by the English! Oh! What a fate is in store for us!"
"And when everything we have will have been devastated," replied another serf in despair, "our seigneur will then tell us, as he told us when the last gang of marauders passed over the region like a hurricane: 'Pay your taxes, Jacques Bonhomme,' 'But, Sire, the marauders have carried away everything; they have left us only our eyes to weep with, and we weep!' 'Oh, you rebel, Jacques Bonhomme! Give him quick a beating and put him to the torture!' Oh, it is too much ... too much!... That must end. Death to the nobles and their helpers, the clergy!"
The murmurs among the rustic plebs, at first low and rumbling, presently broke out into loud hisses and imprecations, and these were so menacing and direct against the nobles, that the seigneurs, for a moment taken aback by the incredible audacity of Jacques Bonhomme, bridled up furiously, drew their swords, and, in the midst of alarmed cries of the elder and younger ladies, precipitately descended the steps of the platform to chastise the varlets at the head of the sergeants of the tourney, their own men-at-arms and also of those of the royal herald, who promptly sided with the noblemen against the plebs.
"Friends," cried Adam the Devil, rushing from one group of the serfs to another to inflame their courage, "if the seigneurs are a hundred, we are a thousand. Have you not a minute ago seen Mazurec unhorse a knight all alone, with his stick and only a handful of sand? Let's prove those nobles that we are not afraid of them. Pick up stones and sticks! Let's deliver Mazurec the Lambkin! Death to the nobles!"
"Yes! Take up stones and sticks! Let's deliver Mazurec!" responded the more daring ones. "The devil take the seigneurs who wish to leave us at the mercy of the English!"
Under the pressure of this furious mob a portion of the barrier around the lists was soon torn up and a large number of vassals, arming themselves with the debris of the fence, redoubled their threats and imprecations against the seigneurs. Attracted by the tumult and catching a glimpse of Adam the Devil, who with glistening eyes was brandishing one of the posts of the barrier, Jocelyn left Mazurec and ran towards the serf to whom he cried out: "Those wretches will be mowed down ... you will lose everything.... The right time has not yet come!"
"It is always in time to kill noblemen," answered Adam the Devil, grinding his teeth, saying which he redoubled his vociferations: "Stones and sticks! Let's deliver Mazurec!"
"But you lose him by that!" cried Jocelyn in despair. "You will lose him! I hoped to save him!" and turning to the surrounding serfs he said: "Do not attack the seigneurs; you are in the open field, they on horseback; you will be trampled under foot. Come, now! Disperse!"
The voice of Jocelyn was lost in the tumult, and his efforts remained fruitless in the midst of the exasperation of the mob. A reflux of the crowd separated him from Adam the Devil, and soon the foresight of the champion was but too well verified. For a moment taken by surprise and even frightened at the aggressive attitude of Jacques Bonhomme, a spectacle they had never before witnessed, the seigneurs presently recovered their composure. Headed by the Sire of Nointel and supported by about fifty men-at-arms, sergeants and knights who speedily mounted their horses, the armed nobility now advanced in good order, and charged upon the revolted serfs with swords and lances. The women and children who happened to be in the crowd, were thrown down and trampled over by the horses, and filled the air with their heart-rending cries. The peasants, without order and without leadership, and already frightened at their own audacity whose consequences they now dreaded, fled in all directions over the meadow. Some few of the more valorous and determined stood their ground and were either cut down by the knights or severely wounded and taken prisoners. In the heat of the fray, Adam the Devil, who had been thrown down by a sabre cut, was seeking to rise when he felt a Herculean hand seize him by the collar, raise him and despite his resistance, drag him far away from the field of carnage. The serf recognized Jocelyn who said to him while dragging him along: "You will be a precious man on the day of uprising ... but to allow yourself to be killed to-day is an act of folly.... Come, let us preserve ourselves for a later day."