Sabine Baring-Gould - Noémi

Accordingly Jean del' Peyra rode back a good part of the way he had traced the previous day, but half-way turned left to Sarlat instead of right to La Roque.

The little city of Sarlat occupies a basin at the juncture of some insignificant streams, and was chosen by the first settlers – monks – as being in an almost inaccessible position, when Périgord was covered with forest. It was to be reached only through difficult and tortuous glens. A flourishing town it never was, and never could be, as it had no fertile country round to feed it. It was a town that struggled on – and drew its main importance from the fact of its serving as a centre of French influence against the all-pervading English power. It had another source of life in that, being under the pastoral staff instead of under the sword, it had better chance of peace than had a town owing duty, military and pecuniary, to a lay lord. The baron, if not on the defensive, was not happy unless levying war, whereas the ecclesiastical chief acted solely in the defensive.

The protection of the district ruled by the Bishop of Sarlat was no easy or inexpensive matter, hemmed in as it was by insolent seigneurs, who pretended to serve the English when wronging their French neighbours. Moreover the strong town of Domme, on the Dordogne, facing La Roque, was in the hands of the English, and was garrisoned for them under the command of the notorious Captain, Le Gros Guillem.

This man had his own fastness above the Vézère, on the left bank, below the juncture of the Beune with the river, a place called by the people "L'Eglise de Guillem," in bitterness of heart and loathing, because there, according to the popular belief, he had his sanctuary in which he worshipped the devil. Few, if any, of the peasants had been suffered to enter this fortress, half-natural, half-artificial. Such as had gained a closer view than could be obtained from two hundred feet below by the river bank said that it consisted of a series of chambers, partly natural, scooped in the rock, and of a cavern of unknown depth with winding entrance, that led, it was rumoured, into the place of torment; and at the entrance, excavated in a projecting piece of rock, was a holy-water stoup such as is seen in churches. This, however, it was whispered, was filled with blood, and Le Gros Guillem, when he entered the cave to adore the fiend, dipped his finger therein, and signed himself with some cabalistic figure, of which none save he knew the significance.

Between his own stronghold of L'Eglise and the walled town of Domme, Guillem was often on the move.

Without much difficulty, Jean del' Peyra obtained access to the Bishop, an amiable, frightened, and feeble man, little suited to cope with the difficulties of his situation. Jean told him the reason why he had come.

"But," said the Bishop, "you are not my vassal. I am not bound to sustain you." And he put his hands to his head and pressed it.

"I know that, Monseigneur; but you are French, and so is my father; and we French must hold together and help each other."

"You must go to the French Governor of Guyenne."

"Where is he! What can he do? There is no time to be lost to save the men."

The Bishop squeezed his head. "I am unable to do anything. A hundred livres of Bergerac – that is a large sum. If it had been livres of Tours, it would have been better. Here!" – he signed to his treasurer – "How much have I? Is there anything in my store?"

"Nothing," answered the official. "Monseigneur has had to pay the garrison of La Roque, and all the money is out."

"You hear what he says," said the Bishop dispiritedly. "I have nothing!"

"Then the seven men must be mutilated."

"It is too horrible! And the poor wives and children! Ah! we are in terrible times. I pray the Lord daily to take me out of it into the Rest there remains for the people of God; or, better still, to translate me to another see."

"Yes, Monseigneur; but whilst we are here we must do what we can for our fellows, and to save them from further miseries."

"That is true, boy, very true. I wish I had money. But it comes in in trickles and goes out in floods. I will tell you what to do. Go to the Saint Suaire at Cadouin and pray that the Holy Napkin may help."

"I am afraid the help may come too late! The Napkin, I hear, is slow in answering prayer."

"Not if you threaten it with the Saint Suaire at Cahors. Those two Holy Napkins are so near that they are as jealous of each other as two handsome girls; and if they met would tear each other as cats. Tell the Saint Suaire at Cadouin that if you are not helped at once you will apply to her sister at Cahors."

"I have been told that it costs money to make the Saint Suaire listen to one's addresses, and I want to receive and not to pay."

"Not much, not much!" protested the Bishop.

"Besides, Monseigneur," said the youth, "there might be delay while the two Holy Napkins were fighting out the question which was to help us. And then – to have such a squabble might not be conducive to religion."

"There is something in that," said the Bishop. "Oh, my head! my poor head!" He considered a while, and then with a sigh said – "I'll indulge butter. I will!"

"I do not understand, my lord."

"I'll allow the faithful to eat butter in Lent, if they will pay a few sols for the privilege. That will raise a good sum."

"Yes, but Lent is six months hence, and the men will be mutilated in twelve days."

"Besides, I want the butter money for the cathedral, which is a shabby building! What a world of woe we live in!"

"Monseigneur, can you not help me? Must seven homes be rendered desolate for lack of a hundred livres?"

"Oh, my head! it will burst! I have no money, but I will do all in my power to assist you. Ogier del' Peyra is a good man, and good men are few. Go to Levi in the Market Place. He is the only man in Sarlat who grows rich in the general impoverishment. He must help you. Tell him that I will guarantee the sum. If he will give you the money, then he shall make me pay a denier every time I light my fire and warm my old bones at it. He can see my chimney from his house, and whenever he notices smoke rise from it, let him come in and demand his denier."

"It will take a hundred years like that to clear off the principal and meet the interest."

The Bishop raised his hands and clasped them despairingly. "I have done my utmost!"

"Then I am to carry the tidings to seven wives that the Church cannot help them?"

"No – no! Try Levi with the butter-money. I did desire to have a beautiful tower to my cathedral, but seven poor homes is better than fine carving, and I will promise him the butter-money. Try him with that – if that fails, then I am helpless. My head! my head! It will never rest till laid in the grave. O sacred Napkins of Cadouin and Cahors! Take care of yourselves and be more indulgent to us miserable creatures, or I will publish a mandment recommending the Napkin of Compiègne, or that of Besançon, and then where will you be?"

Jean del' Peyra left the Bishop's castle, which stood on rising ground above the town, and was well fortified against attack, and entered the city to find Levi. The Jew lived in the little square before the cathedral.

The Bishop might well say that his episcopal seat was shabby, for the minster was small and rude in structure, a building of the Romanesque period such as delighted the monks to erect, and of which many superb examples exist in Guyenne. The monastic body at Sarlat had not been rich enough or sufficiently skilled in building to give themselves as stately a church as Souillac, Moissac, or Cadouin. It consisted, like nearly every other sacred dwelling of the period, of an oblong domed building, consisting of three squares raised on arches surmounted by Oriental cupolas, with an unfinished tower at the west end. The visitor to Sarlat at the present day will see a cathedral erected a century and more after the date of our story, in a debased but not unpicturesque style.