BRITTANY
A wild young nobleman, Louis-Fran9ois de Guerande, Seigneur ofLocmaria, lived a reckless life in the early seventeenth century. He terrorized the neighborhood, so whenever he went out on the rampage his virtuous mother rang the bell of the chateau to warn her neighbors.
One day, the Clerk of Garlon was visiting the family of his wife-to-be, Annaik. He
Asked the girl’s mother where she was, as he wanted to take her dancing on the green. The mother answered that the girl was upstairs asleep and that he should take care not to wake her.
The Clerk of Garlon ran upstairs and knocked at Annaik’s door. He could not understand why she was asleep in bed when everyone else was out, intent on dancing on the green.
“I don’t want to go to the dance because I fear the Marquis,” she said.
“The Marquis can do you no harm so long as I am with you,” said the Clerk. “Come, Annaik, I will look after you.”
The girl rose and dressed in velvet embroidered with silver. The Clerk too was finely dressed, with a peacock’s feather in his hat.
The Marquis de Guerande leaped onto his horse and rode out from his chateau. As he galloped along the road, he overtook the Clerk of Garlon and Annaik. “Ah, you go to the dance. It is customary to wrestle there, is it not?”
“It is, sir,” the Clerk said, politely.
The Marquis smiled roguishly at the girl and tried to persuade the Clerk to take off his doublet and wrestle with him. But the Clerk declined; he did not think it appropriate because of the difference in their social status.
“You are the son of a peasant, you say,” said the Marquis, “yet you take your choice of the village girls!”
“I did not choose this maiden, sir,” said the Clerk. “God gave her to me.”
Annaik was now very frightened. She could see that she was threatened by the Marquis. The Clerk tried to reassure her by holding her hand, while the Marquis was reveling in the fear he inspired. He tried to lure the Clerk into a sword fight.
“I wear no sword, sir. The club is my only weapon,” said the Clerk.
Then, without any sense of honor whatever, the Marquis drew his sword and ran the Clerk through with it.
Annaik was overcome by grief and rage. She leaped at the Marquis and pulled his sword out of his hand. Then she dragged him to the green, where the dance had begun, and pulled him around until he was exhausted. She dropped his senseless body on the grass and hurried home.
“Good mother, if you love me, make my bed, for I am sick unto death.”
The mother thought she had danced too much; that was what had made her ill.
“I have not danced at all,’ said Annaik. “The wicked Marquis has killed the poor Clerk. Tell the sexton who buries him not to throw in too much earth. In a little while he will have to put me beside him. We may not share the same marriage bed, but we shall sleep in the same grave. We shall be joined at least in heaven.”
World History
