The Galley Slave's Ring; or, The Family of Lebrenn

CHAPTER XIV.
SACROVIR'S BIRTHDAY

The family of Marik Lebrenn were assembled in their little parlor on the day after the merchant's arrival. It was the birthday of his son, who on that day completed his twenty-first year.

"My son," Lebrenn said to Sacrovir, "to-day you are twenty-one years of age. The time has come to introduce you to the chamber with the closed window that has so often excited your curiosity. You are about to become acquainted with its contents. I wish first to explain to you the reason for and the cause of this mystery. The moment you are initiated, my son, I know your curiosity will turn to pious respect. Accident has so willed it that the day of your initiation into this family mystery should be providentially chosen. Since my arrival yesterday, we have given ourselves over to tokens of love, and have had little time to consider public matters. Nevertheless, a few words that escaped you – as well as you, my dear George," added the merchant addressing his daughter's husband, "cause me to apprehend that you feel discouraged – that you may even despair."

"It is but too true, father," answered Sacrovir.

"When one witnesses the things that are happening every day," added George, "one may well feel alarmed for the future of the Republic, and of mankind."

"Well, tell me, children," asked Lebrenn with his usual smile, "what is happening that is so very terrible? Tell me all about it."

"Everywhere at this hour the people's liberty is being kicked and cuffed, and even strangled by the henchmen of absolute Kings. Italy, Prussia, Germany, Hungary, are all again forced under the bloody yoke that, electrified by our example in 1848, they that year broke, relying upon our support as their brothers! To the northeast the despot of the Cossacks planted one foot upon Poland, another upon Hungary, smothered both countries in their own blood, and now threatens the independence of Europe with his knout, and is even ready to hurl upon us his savage hordes!"

"Similar hordes, my children, our wooden-shoed fathers rolled in the dust in the days of the Convention – we shall do as much. As to the Kings, they massacre, they threaten, they foam at the mouth with rage – and, above all, with terror! Already they see myriads of avengers arise out of the blood of the martyrs whom they assassinated. These crown-carriers have the vertigo. And there is good reason therefor. If a European war breaks out, immediately the Revolution will raise its head in their own camp and devour them; if peace prevails, the pacific tide of civilization will rise higher and higher, and engulf their thrones. Proceed, children."

"But at home!" cried George. "At home!"

"Well, my friend, what is happening at home?"

"Alas, father! Mistrust, fear, misery sowed everywhere by the hereditary enemies of the people and the bourgeoisie. Credit is destroyed. Turn around, the population, misled, betrayed and deceived, mutinies against the Republic."

"Poor dear blind boys!" replied Lebrenn with his placid and sarcastic smile. "Does not the prodigious industrial movement that is going on among the working class and the bourgeoisie strike your eyes? Only consider the innumerable workingmen's associations that are founded on all sides; consider the admirable attempts made at establishing banks of exchange, commercial bureaus, land credits, co-operative associations, etc. Of these attempts, some are already crowned with success, others are still doubtful, but they are all undertaken with intelligence, boldness, probity, perseverance and faith in the democratic future of society. Do not they prove that the people and the bourgeoisie, no longer leaning upon government for support, seek their strength and resources in themselves, with the end in view of freeing themselves from capitalist and usurious exploitation? Believe me, my children, when the mass of a people like ours goes about seeking the solution of the problem as to the source of their true liberty, of their labor, of their wellbeing and the wellbeing of their families, the problem can not remain unsolved, and, with Socialism giving its help, the problem will be solved."

"But where are our forces, father? Our party is shattered! The republicans are hounded down, calumniated, imprisoned, proscribed!"

"And what is the conclusion you draw from your discouragement, my boys?"

"Alas," answered Sacrovir sadly, "what we fear is the ruin of the Republic and the return of the days of old; retrogression instead of progress; the desolate conviction that, instead of steadily marching forward, mankind is fatedly condemned to turn in a circle, unable ever to step out of that iron grip. If the Republic goes down we run the risk of retrogressing, who knows how far back, perchance back to the point from which our fathers started in 1789!"

"That, indeed, is exactly what the royalists say and hope, my children. That the royalists should be blind enough to incur that error in logic is easily understood. Nothing blinds so completely as passion, interests, or caste prejudices. But that we, my children, that we should shut our eyes to the obvious evidences of progress, evidences more glaring than the sun, and plunge ourselves in the dismal vapors of doubt; – that we, my children, should do the sanctity of our cause the injustice of questioning its power and its ultimate, supreme triumph, when on all sides it manifests – "

"But, father – "

"As I was saying, when it manifests its power on all sides! I repeat it – under such circumstances to allow oneself to be disheartened and discouraged, that would be to endanger our cause. But humanity pursues its steady march onward, despite the incredulity, the blindness, the weakness, and also the treasons and the crimes of man!"

"But, father – does humanity, indeed, march steadily on the path of progress?"

"Steadily, my sons."

"But yet, centuries ago, our forefathers the Gauls lived free and happy! Nevertheless, were they not forced backward on the path of progress? They were despoiled and enslaved by the Roman conquest, and later by the Frankish Kings."

"I did not say, my friends, that our forefathers did not suffer; what I said was that mankind marched onward. The latest descendants of an old world that was crumbling down on all sides to make room for the Christian world – an immense progress! – our fathers were bruised and mutilated under the falling ruins of ancient society. Nevertheless a deep-reaching and far-spreading social transformation was taking place. Mankind marches evermore – slowly, at times – never, however, does it take a step backward."

"Father, I believe you – yet – "

"Despite yourself, still you doubt, Sacrovir? I can understand it. Fortunately, the lessons, the proofs, the data, the facts, the names, that you are about to be made acquainted with in the mysterious chamber, will go further to convince you than any words of mine. When you will see, my friends, that in the gloomiest days of our history – such days as the Kings, the seigneurs and the clergy have almost always afflicted man with; when you will see that we, the conquered, started with slavery and arrived step by step to popular sovereignty; you will then ask yourselves whether, at this hour, when we find ourselves invested with that so painfully earned sovereignty, it would not be criminal on our part to mistrust the future. To mistrust it! Great God! Oh! Our fathers, despite all their martyrdom never did mistrust the future! There was hardly a century when they failed to take a step towards deliverance! Alas, almost always that step was marked with blood! If our masters, the conquerors, showed themselves implacable, there hardly was a century when, as you will see, there were not frightful reprisals levied upon them to satisfy divine justice. Yes, you will see, there hardly was a century when the woolen cap did not rise against the casque of gold, when the peasant's scythe did not strike fire with the lance of the knight, when the horny hand of the vassal did not smite the delicately pampered hand of some episcopal petty tyrant! You will see it, my children – hardly a century when the infamous debauches and acts of rapine and ferocity indulged in by the Kings and most of the seigneurs and upper clergy failed to rouse the people, or when they failed to protest, arms in hand, against the tyranny of the throne, the nobility and the Popes! You will see it – hardly a century, when the famishing masses, rising as inexorable as hunger, failed to throw their lordlings into terror – hardly a century without its Belshazzar's feast, buried along with its golden drinking cups, its flowers, its songs and its displayful magnificence, under the avenging wave of some popular torrent. Undoubtedly, alas! the terrible, though legitimate, reprisals of the oppressed were succeeded by ferocious acts of revenge. Nevertheless, formidable examples had been made. At each recurring epoch the Revolution wrung from the hereditary oppressors of our fathers some lasting concession, registered in the law and necessarily observed."

"I believe you," said Sacrovir. "Judging the past by the present, in 1789 the Revolution conquered our freedom; in 1830 the Revolution returned to us a part of our rights; finally, last year, in 1848, the Revolution proclaimed the sovereignty of the people and universal suffrage, which is calculated to put an end to bloody fratricidal conflicts."

"And so it ever has been, my boy. You will see it —there is not a single social, political, civil or religious reform that our fathers were not forced to conquer from century to century at the price of their blood. Alas! This is a cruel fact – it is deplorable. There was no choice but to resort to arms so long as the only answer made by the stiff-necked and inexorable enjoyers of privilege to the tears, the sorrows, the prayers of the oppressed was – No! No! No! Then frightful outbursts of rage flared up – then torrents of blood flowed on both sides. It was by dint of unterrified valor, persistent efforts, battles and martyrdom that our fathers first broke the old shackles of slavery in which the Franks kept them since the conquest. Thence they arrived at serfdom, a somewhat less horrible condition. Next, from serfs, they became vassals, thereupon subject to mortmain – each of these a step upwards. And evermore thus, from step to step, cutting themselves by dint of abnegation a path across the centuries and all obstacles, they finally came so far as to conquer the sovereignty of the people. And you despair of the future when now, thanks to universal suffrage, the disinherited are able to impose their sovereign will upon the privileged minority! What, you despair, now that power is revokable by the voice of our representatives, whom we select as the supreme judges of the executive power! What, you despair because we have had eighteen months of constant struggle and of occasional suffering! Oh, it was not for so short a period as eighteen months that our forefathers struggled and suffered; it was for the long-drawn period of more than eighteen centuries! If every generation had its martyrs, it also registered its conquests! It is of those martyrs and those conquests that you are about to see the pious relics, the glorious trophies! Come, my children."

With this solemn invocation Marik Lebrenn proceeded, followed by his family, to the room with the closed windows, which the son, the daughter and the son-in-law of the merchant now entered for the first time.

CHAPTER XV.
THE MYSTERIOUS CHAMBER

The mysterious chamber into which Marik Lebrenn now for the first time introduced his son, his daughter and George Duchene, presented, as far as exterior appearance went, nothing extraordinary, except that it was kept always lighted by a pendant lamp of antique workmanship, after the fashion of certain consecrated sanctuaries. And was not that spot the sanctuary of pious reminiscences, of the traditions, often heroic, of that plebeian family? Under the lamp the merchant's children saw a large cloth-covered table, on which stood a casket of bronze. Around the casket and musty with centuries, lay a number of articles, some of which dated back to the very furthest antiquity, and the most recent of which were the galley-slave's ring, which the merchant had brought with him from Rochefort, and the casque of the Count of Plouernel.

"My children," said Lebrenn in an impressive voice, indicating the historic curios gathered upon the table, "behold the relics of our family. Around each of these articles clusters some memory, some name, some deed, some date of interest to us. The same as when our descendants will have the narrative of my experience, written by me, the casque of Monsieur Plouernel and the galley-slave's ring that I brought with me from prison will possess their own historic significance. It is in this manner that almost every generation, of the many of whom we are lineal descendants, has for now nearly two thousand years furnished its contribution and tribute to this collection."

"During so many centuries, father!" said Sacrovir with profound astonishment, and looking at his sister and brother-in-law.

"Yon will later learn, my children, how these relics came down to us. They do not fill much space, as you may notice. With the exception of Monsieur Plouernel's casque and the sword of honor bestowed upon my father at the close of last century, all these articles can be locked up, as they have often been, in that bronze casket – the tabernacle of our family archives, that sometimes lay concealed in some sequestered place, and was often left there for safety during long years, until better days dawned upon its then possessor."

Lebrenn then took up from the table the first of these fragments of the past, which lay ranged in chronological order. It was a piece of gold jewelry, blackened with age, and shaped like a sickle. A movable ring, attached to the handle, indicated that the jewel was meant to be worn from a chain or suspended from a belt.

"This little gold sickle, my children," Lebrenn proceeded to explain, "is a druid emblem. It is the oldest souvenir we possess of our family. It dates back to the year 57 before Jesus Christ, that is to say, nineteen hundred years ago."

"And did any of our forefathers wear that jewel, father?" asked Velleda.

"Yes, my child," answered Lebrenn with deep emotion. "She who wore it was young as you – and gifted with a most angelic heart and proudest courage withal! But why anticipate the history of the relic? You will read that narrative of our family in this manuscript," added Lebrenn, pointing to a booklet which lay beside the gold sickle. The booklet, like all the older ones of those that were exhibited upon the table, consisted of a large number of oblong strips of tanned skin,¹¹ which, once sewed together by the ends so as to present the appearance of a long and narrow band, were later, for the sake of greater convenience, ripped apart and fastened together in the shape of a small tome covered with black shagreen, on the face of which, in letters of silver, was the inscription:

YEAR 57 B. C

"But father," said Sacrovir, "I see upon the table a booklet, very much like this one, lying beside each of the articles that you have referred to."

"Because, my children, each of these relics, coming from some one of the members of our family, is accompanied by a manuscript, written by himself, and relating his own life, often that of his relatives also."

"Why! Father!" exclaimed Sacrovir more and more amazed. "These manuscripts – "

"Have all been written by some ancestor of ours. Does that astonish you, my children? It is hard, I presume, for you to understand how an obscure family can possess its own chronicles, as if it were of some ancient royal lineage! Besides, you are naturally wondering how these chronicles could follow one another without interruption, from century to century, for nearly two thousand years, down to our own days."

"Indeed, father," said the young man, "that does seem most extraordinary to me."

"You think that verges on the improbable, do you not?" asked the merchant.

"No, father," Velleda hastened to explain, "seeing you say it is so. But it certainly justifies us in wondering."

"I should first of all inform you, my children, that the custom of transmitting family traditions from generation to generation, be it orally or in writing, has ever been one of the most characteristic with our forefathers, the Gauls, and was observed with peculiar religiousness by the Gauls of Brittany, by them more than by any others. Every family, however obscure it might be, had its own traditions, while in the other lands of Europe the habit was observed but rarely even among Princes and Kings. In order to convince you of this," added the merchant, taking from the table a small old book that seemed to date from the earliest days of the printing press, "I shall quote to you a passage translated from one of the most antique works of Brittany, the authority of which is unquestioned in the world of learning."

Marik Lebrenn read as follows:

"'Among the Bretons the most obscure people know their forefathers, and preserve the memory of their full ancestral line, back to the remotest ages, and they state it in this way, for instance: Eres, the son of Theodrik– son of Enn– son of Aecle– son of Cadel– son of Roderik the Great or the Chief. And so on to the end. Their ancestors are, to them, the object of a positive cult, and the wrongs which they punish most severely are those done to their kin. Their revenge is cruel and sanguinary, and they punish, not the fresh wrongs only, but also the oldest done to their kin, which they keep steadily in mind so long as not revenged.' So you see, my children," observed Lebrenn, laying the book down upon the table, "that explains our family chronicle. Unfortunately, you will learn that some of our ancestors have been but too faithful to this custom of pursuing vengeance from generation to generation. More than once in the course of the ages, the Plouernels – "

"What! Father!" cried George. "Have the ancestors of the Count of Plouernel been, occasionally, the enemies of our family?"

"Yes, children, you will see it. But let us not anticipate events. You will readily understand that, if our fathers were from time immemorial in the habit of handing down a grudge from generation to generation, they necessarily handed down, along with the grudge, the cause therefor, besides the leading events of each generation. Thus it happens that our archives are found written from age to age, down to our own days."

"You are right, father," agreed Sacrovir; "that custom explains what at first seemed extraordinary to us."

"In a minute I shall give you, my children," the merchant proceeded to explain, "some further information regarding the language used in these manuscripts. I must first bespeak your attention for these pious relics, which will make clear to you many things that you will run across in the manuscripts. This gold sickle," added the merchant, replacing the jewel upon the table, "is, as you see, the symbol of manuscript Number 1, dated the year 57 before Jesus Christ. You will learn that that epoch was to our family, free at the time, an epoch of happy prosperity, of virile virtues, of proud principles. It was, alas! the close of a beautiful day. Frightful disasters came upon its heels – slavery, torture and death." After a moment's silence during which the merchant remained steeped in thought, he resumed: "Each of these manuscripts will inform you, century by century, concerning the life of our ancestors."

For several minutes the eyes of the children of Marik Lebrenn wandered over the mementoes of the past lying on the table. Their eyes rested occasionally with greedy curiosity upon one object or another. They contemplated them in silence, and no less moved than their father.

Attached to the little gold sickle was, as Marik Lebrenn had stated, a manuscript bearing the date of the year 57 before Jesus Christ.

To manuscript Number 2, dated the year 56 before Jesus Christ, was attached a little brass bell, very much like the bells which to this day are attached to the necks of cattle in Brittany. The bell, accordingly, was at least nineteen hundred years old.

To manuscript Number 3, bearing the date of the year 28 before Jesus Christ, was attached a fragment of an iron collar, or carcan, corroded with rust, and on which the outlines of certain Roman letters could be deciphered, cut into the iron:

SERVUS SUM – (I am the slave)

As a matter of course the name of the slave's owner was on the missing fragment. The carcan must have been at least eighteen hundred and seventy-seven years old.

To manuscript Number 4, which was dated the year 32 of our era, was attached a little silver cross from which hung a tiny little chain of the same metal. Both seemed to have been blackened by fire. The little cross was eighteen hundred and seventeen years old.

To manuscript Number 5, dated the year 296 of our era, was attached a massive copper ornament that once formed part of the top of a casque and represented a lark with wings partly distended. This fragment of a casque was fifteen hundred and fifty-three years old.

To manuscript Number 6, dated the year 550 of our era, was attached the hilt of an iron dagger, black with the mould of ages. On one of its sides could be seen the word:

GHILDE

on the other the following two words in the Celtic and Gallic tongues respectively – very much resembling the Breton of our own days:

AMINTIAICH (Friendship)

COMMUNITEZ (Community)

The poniard's hilt was every bit of thirteen hundred years old.

To manuscript Number 7, dated the year 615 of our era, a rusty branding needle was attached. This article was fully twelve hundred and thirty-four years old.

To manuscript Number 8, dated the year 737 of our era, an abbatial crosier was attached. It was of chiseled silver and bore evidence of once having been gilded over. The name Meroflede could be deciphered amid the exquisitely wrought ornamentation of the relic. The crosier was eleven hundred and twelve years old.

To manuscript Number 9, dated the year 811, two pieces of Carlovingian money were attached. Their reverse bore the effigy of Charlemagne, still recognizable. One of the coins was of copper, the other of silver. They were held together by an iron wire. The two coins were ten hundred and thirty-eight years old.

To manuscript Number 10, dated the year 912, was attached a barbed iron arrow head. The arrow-head was nine hundred and thirty-seven years old.

To manuscript Number 11, dated the year 999, was attached a fragment of an infant's skull. The child, judging by the size and structure of the fragment, must have been between eight and ten years of age. The external wall of the fragment bore, graven in the Gallic tongue, the words:

FIN-AL-BRED (The End of the World)

The skull was eight hundred and fifty years old.

To manuscript Number 12, dated the year 1096, was attached a ribbed white shell, of the sort that is seen on the pictures of pilgrims' mantles. The frail shell was seven hundred and fifty-three years old.

To manuscript Number 13, dated the year: 1208, was attached a pair of iron pincers, an instrument of torture, the tongues of which were serrated so that the teeth fitted exactly into one another. This instrument of torture was six hundred and forty-one years old.

To manuscript Number 14, dated the year 1358, was attached a little iron trevet of about twenty centimeters in diameter, that looked as if it, had been almost fretted out of shape by fire. The trevet was four hundred and ninety-nine years old.

To manuscript Number 15, bearing the date of the year 1413, was attached an executioner's knife with a horn handle, the blade of which was eaten up with rust and partly broken. The knife was four hundred and thirty-six years old.

To manuscript Number 16, bearing the date of the year 1535, was attached a little pocket Bible, belonging to the first years of the printing press. The cover of the book was almost wholly burnt up, likewise the corners of the pages, as if the Bible had been exposed to fire. Several pages also bore stains that must have been of blood. The Bible was three hundred and fourteen years old.

To manuscript Number 17, dated the year 1673, was attached the iron head of a heavy blacksmith's hammer, on which, engraved in the Breton tongue, could be read the words:

EZ-LIBR (To be free)

The hammer was one hundred and seventy-six years old.

To manuscript Number 18, dated the year 1794, was attached a sword of honor, with hilt of gilded copper bearing, the following inscription engraved on the blade:

JOHN LEBRENN HAS DESERVED WELL OF THE FATHERLAND

Finally, unaccompanied by any manuscript, and only bearing the dates of 1848 and 1849, came the last two articles that made up the collection:

The dragoon's casque which was presented in February of 1848 to Marik Lebrenn by the Count of Plouernel, and the iron ring that the merchant had worn in the galleys of Rochefort that very year of 1849.

It can easily be imagined with what pious respect and burning curiosity these fragments of the past were examined by the merchant's family. He interrupted the pensive silence that his children preserved during the examination, and resumed:

"Accordingly, as you see, my children, these manuscripts relate the history of our plebeian family for the last two thousand years. Accordingly, also, this history could be called the history of the people, of their faults, their excesses, occasionally even of their crimes Slavery, ignorance and misery often deprave man in degrading him. But thanks be to God, in our family, the bad acts are rare, while, on the other hand, numerous have been the patriotic and heroic deeds of our Gallic forefathers and mothers during their long struggle against the Roman and then the Frankish conquest. Yes, the men and the women – for, often will you see in the pages of these narratives that the women, like worthy daughters of Gaul, vie with the men in abnegation and intrepidity. Many a one of these touching and heroic figures will remain cherished and glorified in your memory as the saints of our domestic legend. Now, one word concerning the language used in these manuscripts. As you know, my children, your mother and I have ever kept at your side, since your earliest years, a female servant from our own country, in order that you might learn to speak the Breton dialect at the same time that you learned to speak French; furthermore, your mother and I ever kept you familiar with that dialect by using it frequently in conversation with you."

"Yes, father."

"Well, my son," said Marik Lebrenn to Sacrovir, "in teaching you the Breton tongue I had above all in mind – obedient, moreover, to a tradition in our family, according to which it never forgot its mother tongue – to enable you to read these manuscripts."

"Are they, then, written in the Breton tongue, father?" asked Velleda.

"Yes, my children. The Breton tongue is none other than the Celtic or Gallic that was once spoken all over Gaul before the Roman and Frankish conquests. With the exception of a few changes that have taken place in the course of the centuries, it has preserved its purity in our Brittany, down to our own days. Of all the provinces of Gaul, Brittany was the last to submit to the Frankish Kings who issued from the conquest. Yes, let us never forget the proud and heroic motto of our fathers, conquered and despoiled though they were by the invader: We still preserve our name, our tongue, our faith. Now, then, my children, after two thousand years of struggles and strifes, our family has preserved its name, its tongue and its faith. We call ourselves Lebrenn, we speak Gallic, and I have raised you in the faith of our fathers, in the faith of the immortality of the soul and of the continuity of existence which enables us to look upon death as a change of habitation, nothing more – a sublime faith the morality of which, taught by the druids, was summed up in precepts like these: Adore God; do no harm; exercise charity; he is pure and holy who performs celestial works and pure. Fortunately, my children, we are not the only ones who preserved the sublime dogma of the continuity of life. Armand Barbès, one of the bravest militants of the democracy, when taken prisoner and subsequently condemned to death under the reign of Louis Philippe, awaited the hour of his execution with religious serenity of soul. The serenity which he preserved he drew from his faith in the perpetuity of life, a fundamental principle in our creed. I can do no better, my friends, than to read to you a page from the writings of Armand Barbès, the page which he dedicated to the memory of Godefroid Cavaignac, the publicist of the democracy, entitled: 'Two days of a death sentence.'"

Lebrenn read:

"It was the 12th of June, 1839. After four days' deliberation the Court of Peers notified me of its sentence. According to the usage in such cases, it was the registrar who brought me the sentence, and the honorable Cauchy thought it his duty to add to his message a little puff for the Roman Catholic and Apostolic religion. I answered him that I had my own religion and believed in God, but that that was no reason why I should be in need of the consolations of a priest, whosoever he might be. I requested him to be kind enough to inform his masters that I was ready to die, and that I only hoped that when their last hour approached their soul might be as tranquil as mine.

"Armand Barbès then proceeds to tell how, instinctively inspired, and led by the approach of his last hour to a plane of lofty thought, he recalled with thrilling gratitude the source from which he drew his supreme tranquility in the face of death. He then says further:

"One day I read in the New Encyclopedia the superb article on Heaven by John Raynaud. Passing by the irrefutable arguments with which he incidentally demolishes the heaven and hell of the Catholics, his leading thought, as taught by the druid faith, of deriving from the law of progress the infinite series of our lives, as they continuously progress in worlds that gravitate ever nearer and nearer to God, seemed to me to satisfy at once all our multiple aspirations. Do not the moral sense, the imagination, do not our desires, does not everything find there its place? Nevertheless, carried away, while I read the article, by the pre-occupations of an active republican, I gave at the time little thought to details; all I did with these was to deposit them, so to speak, undigested in my heart. But later, when picked up wounded on the street I inhabited a prison cell with the scaffold in perspective, I drew them out of the place where I held them in reserve as a last store of wealth the value of which the time had come for me to appreciate in full – and these thoughts rose naturally to my mind during my watches, already a victim bound for the executioner, during these solitary hours when I kept watch in the solemn night of death.