The Blacksmith's Hammer; or, The Peasant Code: A Tale of the Grand MonarchSue, Eugène
History
The Blacksmith's Hammer; or, The Peasant Code: A Tale of the Grand Monarch
Sue, Eugène
France -- History -- Louis XIV, 1643-1715 -- Fiction
"None, mademoiselle! When I left Mezlean I learned that the troop of
insurgent peasants took the road to Rennes, was greatly augmented by
contingents from the parishes which it traversed, and must have numbered
about twenty thousand men, more or less well armed. It was a veritable
army. Monsieur Nominoë Lebrenn, his father and Monsieur Serdan had
brought the body under considerable disciplinary order. Nevertheless,
all their efforts to the contrary, not a few disorderly acts were
indulged in at the castles and rectories. The peasant army moved all the
while towards Rennes. I hoped to encounter it at Guemenee. But there I
learned that envoys of Monsieur the Duke of Chaulnes, Governor of
Brittany, had arrived at that town ahead of the insurgents and announced
to the inhabitants that the new royal taxes were repealed, that the
parliament of Brittany was to assemble at Vannes, that it would register
the Peasant Code, that the vassals also were to be exonerated from
paying the royal taxes, and that thenceforth they were all to be
protected against any further extortions and maltreatment by the
seigneurs and the curates. The promises made by the emissaries of
Monsieur the Duke of Chaulnes caused great jubilation among the
peasants. They declared that, having obtained what they wanted, the war
was ended, and they would return home to their respective parishes. So
far from sharing the confidence into which the peasants were lulled,
Lebrenn and Serdan urged upon them the necessity of not disbanding and
not laying down their arms; they assured the peasants that they were
being deceived, and that the plan was to dissolve their army by means of
mendacious promises, and then to fall upon and crush them. Indeed, the
promises were but a snare and a lure. But the lure seduced the peasants,
who were homesick for their huts, their wives and their children. In
vain did their chiefs urge them to march upon Rennes, the usual place
for the parliament to hold its sessions, and support the assembly in its
defiance of the King."
"And the advice was not heeded?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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