CHAPTER XXVI
JEAN PEUQUOY THE WEAVER
A general council of the military leaders and prominent citizens was being held in the St. Quentin town-hall. It was the 15th of August already, and the town had not yet capitulated; but there was much talk about capitulation. The suffering and destitution of the inhabitants were at their height; and since there was no hope of saving the place, and since the enemy, some day, sooner or later, were sure to gain possession, would it not be better to put an end to so much misery?
Gaspard de Coligny, the gallant admiral, whom the Constable de Montmorency, his uncle, had intrusted with the defence of the place, had determined not to admit the Spaniard until the last extremity. He knew that each day's delay, terrible though it was to the suffering people, might be the salvation of the kingdom. But what could he do against the discouragement and mutterings of the whole population? The war outside the walls gave no time for fighting within; and if the people of St. Quentin should refuse some day to perform the labor which was required of them as well as of the troops, further resistance would be useless, and it would remain but to deliver the keys of the town, and with them the key of France, to Philip II. and his general, Philibert Emmanuel of Savoy.
However, he had resolved, before contemplating such a disastrous step, to make one last supreme effort; and with that in view he had convoked this assembly of the principal men of the town, whom we will now allow to complete our information as to the desperate condition of the fortifications, and, above all, as to the condition of the brave hearts of their defenders;—the most important fortifications of all.
The speech with which the admiral opened the sitting appealing eloquently to the patriotism of his hearers, was received with depressing silence. Then Gaspard de Coligny directly questioned Captain Oger, one of the valiant gentlemen who served under him. He hoped by beginning with the officers to urge the citizens on to further resistance. But Captain Oger's advice unluckily was not what the admiral anticipated.
"Since you have done me the honor to ask my opinion, Monsieur l'Amiral," said he, "I will say what I have to say frankly, but with much sorrow: St. Quentin can hold out no longer. If we had any hope of maintaining ourselves for a week even, or for four days, or for two days, I would say, 'These two days may afford time for the army to be reorganized; these two days may save our country,—therefore let us not surrender until the last stone in the walls has crumbled, and the last man has fallen.' But I am convinced that the next assault, which may be made within an hour, will be the last. Is it not, then, better, while there is still time, to save what can be saved of the town by capitulation, and escape pillage at least, if we cannot escape defeat?"
"Yes, yes, that is true! Well said! that is the only reasonable course to take," muttered those who heard him.
"No, gentlemen, no!" cried the admiral; "we are not dealing with reason now, but with sentiment. Besides, I do not believe that one single assault will let the Spaniards into the town, when we have already repelled five. Come, Lauxford, you know the present condition of the works and the countermines: are not the fortifications sufficiently strong to hold out for a long time to come? Speak frankly, and don't represent matters any more or less favorable than they really are. We have come together to learn the truth; and it is the truth I ask of you."
"I will tell it to you," replied the engineer Lauxford, "or rather I will let the facts speak for themselves; they will tell you the truth better than I, and without flattery. For this purpose, all you need to do is to go over with me in your mind the vulnerable points of these fortifications. Monsieur l'Amiral, at the present moment there are four practicable openings for the enemy; and I must confess that I am much surprised that he has not already made use of them. In the first place, there is a breach in the wall at the Boulevard St. Martin wide enough for twenty men to pass through abreast. We have lost there more than two hundred men,—living walls, who cannot, however, supply the lack of walls of stone. At the Porte St. Jean, the great tower alone is still standing, and the best curtain is battered to pieces. There is a countermine at that point, all closed and ready; but I fear that if we fire it, we shall cause the destruction of the great tower; which alone holds the assailants in check, and the ruins of which would serve them as ladders. At the hamlet of Remicourt, the Spanish trenches have cut through the outer wall of the moat, and they have taken up a position there under cover of a mantlet, behind which they are battering away at the walls without intermission. Finally, on the Faubourg d'Isle side, you know, Monsieur l'Amiral, that the enemy is in possession not only of the moats, but of the boulevard and the abbey; and they are so firmly lodged there that it is no longer possible to inflict any damage on them at that point, while, step by step, they are scaling the parapet,—which is only five or six feet thick,—attacking in flank with their batteries the men at work on the Boulevard de la Reine, and worrying them so that it has been impracticable to keep them at work. The remainder of the fortifications will perhaps stand out; but there are the four mortal wounds, and they will soon sap the life of the city, Monseigneur. You have asked me for the truth, and I have given it to you in all its melancholy details, leaving to your wisdom and foresight to say what use shall be made of it."
Thereupon the mutterings of the throng began again, and although no one dared to say it aloud, every one was saying under his breath,—
"The best thing to do is to capitulate, and not risk the disastrous chances of an assault."
But the admiral rejoined, undismayed,—
"Hold, gentlemen, another word! As you say, Monsieur Lauxford, if our walls are wreak, we have, to supplement their weakness, our gallant soldiers,—living ramparts. With them, and with the earnest concurrence of the citizens, is it not possible to postpone the taking of the town for a few days? (And what would be a shameful act to-day will cover us with glory then.) Yes, the fortifications are too weak, I agree; but we have troops in sufficient numbers, have we not, Monsieur de Rambouillet?"
"Monsieur l'Amiral," said the captain who was addressed, "if we were down in the square, in the midst of the crowd, who are awaiting the result of our deliberations, I would say yes; for we should do our utmost to inspire hope and confidence in every breast. But here, in council, before those whose courage needs no proof or stimulus, I do not hesitate to tell you that we have not men enough for the difficult and dangerous work to be done. We have given arms to every one who was able to carry them. The rest are employed in the defensive works, and children and old men are doing their share there. Even the women are assisting in the good work by saving and nursing the wounded. In short, not one arm is idle, and yet arms are sadly needed. There is not a spot on the ramparts where there is one man too many, and there are frequently not enough. Multiply as we will, it is impossible to arrange our forces so that fifty more men are not absolutely necessary at the Porte St. Jean, and at least fifty others at the Boulevard St. Martin. The disaster of St. Laurent has deprived us of reinforcements that we had reason to anticipate; and unless you expect succor from Paris, Monseigneur, it is for you to consider if, in such dire extremity, you ought to risk the lives of the small number of men we have left, and of this remnant of our gallant gendarmerie, who may still do much good service in helping to defend other places, and perhaps to save our country."
The whole assembly murmured approval of these words; and the distant shouting of the people who were crowding around the building on the outside was a still more eloquent commentary upon them.
But at this moment a voice of thunder cried,—
"Silence!"
Every voice was hushed; for he who spoke in such a commanding and steady voice was Jean Peuquoy, the syndic of the guild of weavers,—a citizen who was held in the highest esteem and consideration, and was a little feared by the people.
Jean Peuquoy was a type of the sturdy bourgeoisie, who loved their city as a mother and as a child, worshipped her and grumbled at her, lived always for her, and would die for her if need were. For the honest weaver there was no world but France, and in all France naught but St. Quentin. No one was so well versed as he in the history and traditions of the town, its ancient customs, and old-time legends. There was not a quarter, not a street, not a house, which in its present or its past had any secrets from Jean Peuquoy. He was in himself the municipality personified. His shop was a second Grand'place, and his wooden house in the Rue St. Martin another town-hall. This venerable mansion was made noticeable by a very peculiar coat-of-arms,—a shuttle crowned between the antlers of a full-grown stag. One of Jean Peuquoy's ancestors (for Jean Peuquoy reckoned up his ancestors like any gentleman)—a weaver like himself, it need not be said, and in addition an archer of renown—had put out the two eyes of this fine stag with two shafts at more than a hundred paces. These superb antlers are still to be seen at St. Quentin in the Rue St. Martin. Every one for ten leagues around knew the antlers and the weaver. Jean Peuquoy was thus the city itself; and every dweller in St. Quentin listened to the voice of his country speaking through him.
And so no one stirred when the weaver's voice, rising above the grumbling and the muttering, shouted, "Silence!"
"Yes, be silent!" he continued, "and lend me your ears for one moment, my fellow-citizens and good friends, I beseech you. Let us look over together, with your leave, what we have already done, and we may perhaps learn from that what we have still to do. When the enemy sat down before our walls; when we saw this swarm of Spaniards, English, Germans, and Walloons, under the redoubtable Philibert Emmanuel of Savoy, swooping down like locusts around our town,—we bravely accepted our lot, did we not? We did not murmur, nor did we accuse Providence of having cruelly selected St. Quentin as the expiatory sacrifice of France. Far from it; and Monsieur l'Amiral will do us the justice to say that from the very hour of his arrival, bringing us the mighty succor of his experience and valor, we did our best to forward his plans with our persons and our property. We have furnished supplies and money, and have ourselves shouldered the cross-bow and wielded the pick and shovel. Those of us who have not acted as sentinels on the walls have been digging in the town. We have helped to discipline and restore order among the rebellious peasants in the suburbs, who refused to work in payment for the protection we had afforded them. In short, we have done, I honestly believe, everything that could possibly be asked of men whose trade is not war. So we hoped that our lord the king would speedily remember his loyal subjects in St. Quentin, and would send us without delay the succor that we needed; and so it happened. Monsieur de Montmorency came hurrying hither to drive the forces of Philip II. from our gates, and we thanked God and the king; but the fatal day of St. Laurent dashed our hopes to the ground in a few short hours. The constable was taken, his army cut to pieces, and we were left in a more hopeless state than ever. Five days have passed since then, and the enemy have made good use of them. Three fierce assaults have cost us more than two hundred men and whole sections of the walls. The cannon thunders unceasingly. Listen! it echoes my very words. But we do not wish to hear it, and listen only on the side where Paris lies, to hear if we cannot distinguish some sound to announce the arrival of further reinforcement. But no; and our last resources are, so far as we can see, exhausted. The king abandons us, and has many other things to do than to think of us. He must collect around him at Paris all that remains of his forces, and must save the kingdom rather than one poor town; and if he does turn his eyes and his thoughts toward St. Quentin now and then, it is only to ask if its death-agony will last long enough to give France time to recover. But as to hope or chance of relief, there is no more now for us, dear countrymen and friends. Monsieur de Rambouillet and Monsieur de Lauxford have spoken the truth. We lack fortifications and troops; our city is dying; we are abandoned, despairing, and lost!"
"Yes, yes!" cried the whole assembly, with one accord; "we must surrender! we must surrender!"
"Not so," rejoined Jean Peuquoy; "we must die!"
An amazed silence followed this unexpected conclusion. The weaver profited by it to proceed with increased animation.
"We must die. What we have already done points out to us what remains for us to do. Messieurs Lauxford and de Rambouillet say that we cannot hold out; but Monsieur de Coligny says that we must hold out! And let us do it! You know whether I am devoted to our good town of St. Quentin, my dear brothers. I love her as I loved my old mother, in very truth. Every bullet that strikes her venerable walls seems to pierce my heart; and yet now that the general has spoken, I feel that he must be obeyed. Let not the arm rebel against the head, and St. Quentin perish! Monsieur l'Amiral knows what he is doing and what he means to do. He has weighed, in his wisdom, the fate of one city against the fate of France. He has decided that St. Quentin must die, like a sentinel at his post; so be it. The man who murmurs is a coward; and he who disobeys, a traitor. The walls are crumbling: let us make new walls with our dead bodies; let us gain a week, let us gain two days, or an hour even, at the price of all our blood and all our property. Monsieur l'Amiral knows the worth of all this; and since he asks it of us, we must do it. He will have to answer for it to God and to the king; but that doesn't concern us. As for us, our business is to die when he says, 'Die!' Let Monsieur de Coligny's conscience look out for the rest. He is responsible, and we must submit."
After these solemn, mournful words, every tongue was still, every head lowered, Gaspard de Coligny's like the others, and even to a greater degree than the others. It was in truth a heavy burden which the syndic of weavers put upon him; and he could not forbear a shudder as he thought of all these lives with which he was thus made chargeable.
"I see by your silence, my friends and brothers," continued Jean Peuquoy, "that you understand and approve what I have said; but one cannot expect husbands and fathers to pronounce sentence aloud upon their wives and children. To say nothing is to make a favorable reply. You will allow Monsieur l'Amiral to make orphans of your children and widows of your wives; but you cannot pronounce their sentence yourselves, is it not so? It is quite right too. Say nothing and die. No one would be so brutal as to require you to cry: 'Meure St. Quentin!' But if your patriotic hearts beat, as I believe they do, in unison with mine, you can at least cry, 'Vive la France!'"
"Vive la France!" echoed a few voices, as feeble as the wailing of children, and as mournful as sobs.
Then Gaspard de Coligny, deeply moved, and in a state of intense agitation, rose hastily from his seat.
"Listen to me; listen!" he cried: "I will not accept such a fearful responsibility alone. I was able to resist you when you wished to yield to the enemy, but when you do yield to me, I can no longer discuss the question; and since every soul in this assembly is of a contrary opinion to that which I hold, and since you all deem the sacrifice useless—"
"I believe, may God forgive me," broke in a loud voice from the crowd, "that even you are about to speak of giving up the town, Monsieur l'Amiral.”