CHAPTER IV.
THE ECCLESIASTICAL SEIGNIORY OF GAUDRY.
The episcopal palace of Laon rose close to the cathedral. Thick walls, fortified with two heavy towers, between which stood the gate, surrounded the dwelling from all sides. From the view-point of the benign morality of Jesus—the friend of the poor and the afflicted—nothing was less episcopal than the interior of this palace. One would imagine himself in the fortified castle of some feudal seigneur, a broiler and hunter. The singular contrast between the place and the character that it should have presented, left a painful impression upon all upright hearts, and such, indeed, was the feeling experienced by archdeacon Anselm, when, shortly after engaging Fergan to urge upon the communiers indifference towards the provocations of the episcopals, that disciple of Christ crossed the yard of the bishop. Here falconers were engaged washing and preparing the raw meat destined for the falcons, or cleaned up their roosts; yonder, the huntsmen, their horns on their guard-chains and whip in hand, led for pastime a pack of large dogs of Picardy, prized so highly by hunters. Further away, serfs of the episcopal domain were being drilled in the handling of arms under the command of one of the bishop's equerries. This last circumstance struck the archdeacon with amazement, and increased his fears for the peace of the city. The venerable man was overcome with sadness and two large tears dropped from his eyes.
Although an associate of clergymen, Anselm was a man of great kindness of heart, pure, disinterested, austere and of rare learning. He was called "doctor of doctors." He declined the episcopacy several times, fearing, it was said, to seem to censure, by the Christian meekness of his nature and the chastity of his habits, the conduct of most of the bishops of Gaul. His face, at once pale and serene, his hair thinned by study, imparted a distinguished aspect to his person, tempered by the kindliness of his eyes. Modestly dressed in his black gown, Anselm was slowly crossing the yard of the abbey, contrasting their noisy tumult with the repose of his own studious retreat, when he saw, approaching him from a distance, a negro of giant stature, dressed in Oriental garb, his head covered with a red turban. This African slave, of mean and savage physiognomy, was named John since his baptism. He was, many years before, given as a present to Bishop Gaudry by a Crusader seigneur, returned from the Holy Land. By little and little Black John grew to be the favorite of his new master, the intermediary of the latter's debaucheries, or the instrument of his cruelties, before the establishment of the Commune. Since that transformation, the persons and property of the communiers had become safe. If an injury was done to either, the Commune obtained or itself enforced justice against the wrong-doer. Accordingly, the bishop and the nobles had been forced to renounce their habits of violence and rapine.
When the archdeacon saw Black John, the latter was descending a staircase that ended in a door, wrought under a vault closed with a grating, that separated the first two walks of a green reserved for the bishop. A woman, wrapped in a mantle that completely concealed her face, accompanied the slave. Anselm could not restrain a gesture of indignation. Knowing the dwellers of the palace, and aware that the staircase under the vault led to the apartments of the bishop, he had no doubt that the veiled woman, leaving the palace at so early an hour and under the guide of Black John, the bishop's regular procurer, had passed the night with the prelate. Blushing with chaste confusion, the archdeacon had turned his head away with disgust at the moment when, having opened the grated gate, the slave and his female companion passed close by him. Stepping into the vault, the archdeacon entered the green,—a spacious enclosure, that, swarded and planted with trees, spread before the windows of the private apartments of Bishop Gaudry.
This man, a Norman by extraction and descended from the pirates of old Rolf, after having fought in the ranks of William the Bastard, when he conquered England, was later, in 1106, promoted to the bishopric of Laon. Cruel and debauched, covetous and prodigal, Gaudry was, besides all, a passionate huntsman. Still agile and vigorous, although beyond the prime of life, he was at that moment trying a young horse and breaking it in to step on the green that Anselm had just entered. In order to feel more at ease, the bishop had taken off his long morning robe, lined with fur, and kept on nothing but his sock-pointed shoes, his hose and a short jacket of flexible material. Bare-headed, his gray hair to the wind, still an able and bold cavalier, and riding bare-back the young stallion, that had for the first time come from the paddock, Gaudry was pressing his nervy knees against the flanks of the mettlesome animal, resisting its boundings and kicking, and forcing it to run in a circle over the sward of the green. The bishop's equerry applauded with voice and gesture the skill of his master, while a serf of robust frame and gallows-bird countenance followed the riding lesson with cunning eyes. This serf, who belonged to the abbey of St. Vincent, a fief of the bishopric, was named Thiegaud. The fellow—originally charged with the collection of toll over a bridge near the city, a dependency of the castellan Enguerrand de Coucy, one of the most ferocious feudal tyrants of Picardy who was dreaded for his audacity and cruelty—had been guilty of a number of extortions and even murders. Gaudry, struck by the resolute character of the scamp, demanded him from the castellan of Coucy in exchange for another serf, and charged him with the collection of the arbitrary taxes that he imposed upon his vassals, a charge that Thiegaud filled with remorseless severity. Thus the bishop treated the serf with great familiarity, habitually called him his "friend Ysengrin"—the wolf's companion—and, at a pinch, used him for a go-between in his debaucheries, not, however, without awakening the vindictive jealousy of Black John, who felt secretly enraged at the sight of another than himself in the secret confidence of his master.
Gaudry, while riding around the green, saw the archdeacon, made the stallion suddenly face about, and after a few more boundings the impetuous animal brought the bishop close to Anselm. Lightly jumping off, the bishop said to his equerry, throwing the bridle over to him: "I'll keep the horse; take him to my stables; he will be matchless in the hunt of stags and boars!"
"If you keep the horse, seigneur bishop," answered Thiegaud, "give me a hundred and twenty silver sous. That's the price they demand."
"That's all right. What's the hurry?" rejoined the bishop, and turning to his equerry: "Gerhard, take the horse to the stable."
"Not so," said Thiegaud, "the tenant-farmer is waiting at the gate of the palace. He has been ordered to take the horse back or receive its price in money. It is the orders of the owner of the stallion."
"The impudent scamp who gave that order deserves to receive as many lashes as his horse has hairs in his tail!" cried out the bishop. "Have I not, as a matter of right, six months' credit in my own seigniory?"