"It is rather I who should be jealous," retorted Simonne. "Crossing our street, we saw the basement room of your house full of wounded men, at whom your wife and Martine were busy. The good souls!"
"Dear souls! How uneasy they must feel!" said Fergan. "I must hasten to ease their minds, and I shall return to superintend our defence."
The conversation between Fergan and Ancel was here interrupted by cries and shouts mingled with cheers that went up from one of the yards of the palace, which was given up to pillage and devastation. The insurgents sought vengeance not only for the perjury of Gaudry, but also for the odious exactions and cruelties that they had suffered before the establishment of the Commune. Some, staving in the vats in the storeroom, were getting drunk on the bishop's precious wines, a rich tithe, once collected by him on the vineyards of the villeins; others, making a heap of the tapestry and furniture which they dragged from his rooms into the yard, set fire to the pile; finally, and it was the shouts of these last that reached the quarryman and the baker, yet others, seizing the sacerdotal robes and insignia of the prelate, organized themselves into a grotesque procession, of which little Robin the Crumb-cracker was the hero. The blacksmith's apprentice, carrying on his head the episcopal mitre that almost completely hid his face, and robed in a cape of gold cloth that trailed at his heels, held in his hands a vermillion cross studded with precious stones. He scattered to the right and left grotesque benedictions, while the communiers, now half drunk, as well as the bishop's serfs, who, after the fight had joined the vanquishers, sang at the top of their voices a parody of church hymns, interspersed ever and anon with cheers of "Long live Robin the Crumb-cracker!"
Leaving these rolicking youngsters to amuse themselves at their pleasure on the bishop's premises, Fergan and his neighbors betook themselves to the city. Night was approaching. Bidding good-bye to the baker and his wife and requesting them to hasten ahead of him to his house and set Joan and Martine's minds at ease, Fergan mounted the rampart to meet his son. The latter, considering it prudent to keep watch, even after the victory of the day, was busy with the measures for the night. At sight of his father with his head bandaged, Colombaik uttered a cry of alarm, but soon was set at ease by Fergan. After providing for additional measures of security, both returned home.
Night had set in. Everywhere the fight had long ended. The communiers were collecting their dead and wounded by the light of torches. Women, bathed in tears, ran to the places where the fight had been hottest, and looked for a father, a husband, a son, or a brother, in the midst of the corpses that the streets were strewn with. At other places, exasperated at the chiefs of the episcopal party, the communiers were demolishing their fortified houses. Finally, at a distance, a brilliant gleam crimsoned the sky, and cast its reflection hither and thither on the gables of the taller houses. It was the glare of a conflagration. The fire was devouring the dwelling of the bishop's treasurer, one of the most execrated of the episcopals. Neither did the cathedral of Laon escape the avenging torch of the insurgents.
"Never, my child, blot this terrible spectacle from your memory. Such are the fruits of civil war," said Fergan to his son, stopping in the middle of the Exchange square, one of the most elevated spots of the city, and whence the burning cathedral could be seen at a distance. "Look at the flames of the conflagration that is devouring the cathedral; hark to the sound of the seigniorial towers crashing down under the hammer blows of the communiers; listen to the moaning of yonder children, now become orphans, of their mothers, now become widows; contemplate these wounded men, these bleeding corpses carried away by their relatives and by friends in tears; behold at this hour, everywhere in the city, mourning, consternation, vengeance, disaster, fire and death! Then recall the happy and peaceful aspect that this same city offered only yesterday, when the people, in the fullness of their joy, inaugurated the symbol of their enfranchisement, bought, agreed and sworn to by our oppressors! It was a beautiful day. How our hearts leaped at every peal from our belfry! How all eyes shone with pride at the sight of our communal banner! All of us, bourgeois and artisans, rejoicing in the present and confident of the future, wished to continue to live under a charter sworn to by the nobles, the bishop and the King. But it happened that nobles, bishop and King, having dissipated the money with which we paid for our franchises, said to themselves: 'What does a signature or an oath matter; we are powerful and numerous; we are used to wielding the lance and the sword; those artisans and bourgeois, vile clowns all, will flee before us. To horse, noble episcopals, to horse! High the sword! High the lance! Kill, massacre the communiers!'"
"But the communiers made the King of the French take to his heels, and have exterminated the knights!" cried Colombaik with enthusiasm. "The son of one of the victims of that infamous bishop cleaved his skull in two with a blow of his axe! The cathedral is on fire, and the seigniorial towers are crumbling down! Such is the price of perjury! Such is the terrible and just chastisement of the people who unchained the furies of war against this city, so tranquil but yester night! Oh, let the blood that has been shed fall upon the criminals! Their turn has come to tremble! Old Gaul is waking up after six centuries of torpor! The day of the rule of might and clerical chicanery is over! The hour of deliverance has sounded!——"
"Not yet, my son!"
"What! The King is fleeing; the bishop killed; the episcopals exterminated or in hiding; the city ours!"
"Have you given a thought to the morrow?"