"That noble thereby buried together with Den-Brao the secret of an underground passage that they had been made to construct, leading from the feudal manor into the forest. The grandson of Den-Brao, who remained a serf of the seigniory of Plouernel, was called Fergan the Quarryman. Neroweg VI kidnapped a son of Fergan for the purpose of applying the child to the bloody sorceries of a witch. Fergan succeeded in rescuing his child, but he witnessed the murder of his two relatives Bezenecq the Rich and Bezenecq's daughter Isoline. Unable to pay an enormous ransom imposed upon him by Neroweg VI, Bezenecq perished under the torture, while Isoline, the witness of her father's torment, became insane and died. Then came the days of the Crusades. Fergan and his seigneur met face to face and alone in the middle of the desert of Syria. Fergan could have killed him by surprise, but he fought him and vanquished.... Finally, only a year ago, my brother Mazurec the Lambkin has seen his bride dishonored by the Sire of Nointel, the scion of the Nerowegs of old, he forced my brother to make him the amende honorable at his feet, and thereupon to fight half naked with the knight of Chaumontel in full armor. Vanquished in this unequal combat and sentenced to be drowned in a bag, Mazurec would have perished but for Adam the Devil and myself, who succeeded in drawing him out of the river betimes, but his wife, Aveline-who-never-lied, died an atrocious death only a few days ago. The history of my family's sufferings is the history of the families of us all, the enslaved and oppressed of your class, Sire of Nointel, during so many centuries! Aye, among the thousands upon thousands of revolted vassals, who at this hour are running to arms, there is not one whose family has not undergone what mine has! The narrative of Mazurec's family and mine is theirs also. Do you now understand the treasury of hatred and of vengeance that has been heaping up from century to century in the indignant breast of Jacques Bonhomme? Do you understand that from age to age the fathers bequeathed this hatred to their children as the only heritage left to them by servitude? Do you understand that the vassal has a frightful account to settle with his seigneur? Do you understand how, in his turn, Jacques Bonhomme has no mercy and no pity? Do you, finally, understand that if at this moment, instead of fighting you, I were to kill you like a wolf caught in a trap, the act would be just? You have but one life, but innumerable are the lives of the Gauls taken by you, and much larger yet those taken by your class!" An explosion of fury from the Jacques marked the close of these words. Sufficiently exasperated against the Sire of Nointel, they felt that the narrative of Jocelyn's family was that of the martyrdom on earth endured by Jacques Bonhomme. "Death to the seigneur!... Death without combat!" repeated the insurgents. "Death to him, like a wolf caught in a trap!"