Here is where you can see the advantage of having Frenchmen for your enemies. Germans, Swiss, or English, do their thinking through their fists, and are so thickheaded that it takes them till Christmas to understand what was told them on All Saints’ Day. I would not have given a button for poor Pluviaut’s chance with such people as these. They would have thought we were playing a joke on them, but no words are necessary between us. If we come from Lorraine, Touraine, Champagne, or Bretagne, geese from Beauce, asses from Beaune, or rabbits from Vézelay, a good joke hits us all in the right spot, no matter how much we may pound and beat each other. When they caught sight of our old Silenus, their whole camp burst out laughing. They laughed all over their faces, with their throats, with all their hearts, and even their stomachs, and by St. Rigobert! to see the way they laughed set us off too, all along our line. Like Ajax, and Hector the Trojan, we hurled gay defiance at each other across the moat. Our remarks, however, had much more snap than theirs. If I were not so busy, I would write them down, but if you can put up with it, I mean to include them in a collection I have been making for the last dozen years of the best jokes, quips, and witticisms that I have heard, said, or read, in the course of my pilgrimage through this vale of tears. I would not lose it for a kingdom. It makes me crack my old sides only to think of it. There now! I have made a great blot on my paper.
When the noise had subsided, it was time to fight; (nothing is so restful when one has been talked to death), but neither side was keen for it. Their surprise had failed, and we were well protected. They did not care much about scrambling up our walls (you may break your bones at that game) but something had to be done at any cost; it did not matter much what, so a little powder was burned, some petards let off at random, from which the sparrows were the only sufferers. We sat with our backs to the wall inside the parapet, waiting while their plums flew over our heads for the right moment to discharge our own without taking aim, (there is no sense in exposing one’s self too much).
When we heard their prisoners squalling we ventured to look out. They had caught a dozen men and women from Béyant and were beating them as they stood in a row, with their faces turned to the wall. The poor devils were not much hurt, but they screamed like curlews. Being safe enough ourselves, we slipped down along the ramparts and brandished pikes over the walls, on which we had stuck hams, saveloys, and black-puddings. We could hear the besiegers uttering yells of hunger and rage, and how that did put new life into us! To squeeze out the last drop (for there is never too much of a good thing), when it grew late we set out tables in the open air on the slopes, sheltered by the wall, and loaded them with victuals and drink. There we had a noisy feast, singing and drinking to Shrove-Tuesday. The outsiders nearly went out of their skins with fury, and so that day went off gaily, and no harm done. There was only one drawback. When Gueneau de Pousseaux, that big fool! got too mellow, nothing would do but he must walk on top of the wall with his glass in his hand, just to defy them, and they knocked his head and his glass into splinters with a musket ball. This did not much bother us, but to make it even, we wounded one or two of them, for there can be no festivity, you know, without a little broken crockery. Chamaille waited till nightfall before leaving the town to go home. In vain we all said, “Old friend, you risk your neck. Wait here till it’s all over; God will take care of your parishioners.” He answered:
“My place is with my flock. God would be maimed without me, for I am truly His right arm. But I will not fail Him, you may swear.”
“I believe you,” said I. “You gave full proof of it when the Huguenots attacked your church, and you threw a great lump of plaster at their Captain Papiphage and knocked him over.”
“That was a surprise for him, miscreant that he was,” said he. “For me too, really. I mean no harm and hate to see blood flow; it disgusts me, but the devil alone knows what gets into a man when he is among hot-heads. He becomes a wolf.”
“That is true,” said I, “you lose what little sense you have when you are in a crowd. A hundred wise men make a fool, and a hundred sheep a wolf. But tell me, Vicar, how can you reconcile two codes—that of the man who lives alone with his conscience and wants peace for himself and all the world, and that of men in the mass, who make a virtue out of war and wickedness. Which of these is of God?”
“That is a very silly question! Both. Everything comes from God.”
“Well, then He doesn’t know His own mind. Or rather I believe He cannot do as He likes. It is easy enough to manage one man,—there is no difficulty about that, but when He has a crowd to deal with, that is another pair of shoes. What can one do against many? So man falls back on his Mother Earth, who whispers to him of fleshly things. In the old legend, if you remember, there are times when men become wolves, and then get into their old skins again. Ah! my friend, there is more truth in many an old song than in your Mass-book. Every man in the country wears his wolf skin; States, Kings, and Ministers may dress themselves up with shepherd’s crooks as much as they please, and claim descent, like the hypocrites they are, from your Good Shepherd; they are really all lynxes, bulls, jaws, and bellies, always crying for food, and for the best of reasons; they must satisfy the hunger of the earth.”
“You are a raving heathen,” said Chamaille. “God sends the wolves like the rest, and He does all things well. Did you never hear that the Blessed Virgin had a little garden where cabbages grew, and Jesus, they say, made the wolf to keep off the goats and the kids? No doubt He was right, and we can only bow to His will. Why should we complain of the strong? It would be a thousand times worse if the weak were raised to power, so in conclusion all are for the best, sheep and wolves alike. The sheep need the wolves to protect them, and the wolves need the sheep, still more, for we all must eat. So now, Colas, off I go to my cabbages.” He confided Madelon tenderly to my care, tucked up his gown, grasped his cudgel, and made off; though the night was dark and moonless.