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A Jest Of Ambialet
by
“The pity of it–the treat you are missing!”–but Zephirine snored on, contemptuous.
After this had lasted, as I say, some ten minutes, Pere Philibert held up a hand.
“I was about to tell you,” said he, “something of this Ambialet of which you two are citizens. It is a true tale; and if you can pierce to the instruction it holds for you both, you will go away determined to end this scandal of our town and live in amity. Shall I proceed?”
Champollion twirled his cap uneasily. The widow fell back a pace, panting from her onslaught. Neither broke the sudden peace that had fallen on the orchard.
“Very well! You must know, then, to begin with, that this Ambialet–which you occupy with your petty broils–was once an important burg with its charters and liberties, its consul and council of prud’hommes and its own court of justice. It had its guilds, too–of midwives for instance, Maman Vacher, who were bound to obey any reasonable summons–“
“You, there, just listen to that!” put in the baker.
“And of bakers, M. Champollion, who sold bread at a price regulated by law, with a committee of five prohomes to see that they sold by just weight.”
“Eh? Eh? And I warrant the law allowed no yeast from Germany!”–This from the widow.
“Beyond doubt, my daughter, it would have countenanced no such invention; for the town held its charter from the Viscounts of Beziers and Albi, and might consume only such corn and wine as were grown in the Viscounty.”
“Parbleu!”–the baker shrugged his shoulders–“in the matter of wine we should fare well nowadays under such a rule!”
“In these times Ambialet grew its own wine, and by the tun. Had you but used your eyes on the way hither they might have counted old vine-stocks by the score; they lie this way and that amid the heather on either side of the calvary. Many of the inhabitants yet alive can remember the phylloxera destroying them.”
“Which came, moreover, from the Rouergue!” snapped Maman Vacher.
“Be silent, my daughter. Yes! these were thriving times for Ambialet before ever the heresy infected the Albigeois, and when every year brought the Great Pilgrimage and the Retreat. For three days before the Retreat, while yet the inns were filling, the whole town made merry under a president called the King of Youth–rex juventutis–who appointed his own officers, levied his own fines, and was for three days a greater man even than the Viscount of Beziers, from whom he derived his power by charter: ‘E volem e auctreiam quo lo Rei del Joven d’Ambilet puesco far sas fastas, tener ses senescals e sos jutges e sos sirvens. . .’ h’m, h’m.” Pere Philibert cast about to continue the quotation, but suddenly recollected that to his hearers its old French must be as good as Greek.
“–Well, as I was saying, this King of Youth held his merrymaking once in every year, at the time of the Great Pilgrimage. And on a certain year there came to Ambialet among the pilgrims one Tibbald, a merchant of Cahors, and a man (as you shall see) of unrighteous mind, in that he snatched at privy gain under cover of his soul’s benefit. This man, having arrived at Ambialet in the dusk, had no sooner sought out an inn than he inquired, ‘Who regulated this feast?’ The innkeeper directed him to the place, where he found the King of Youth setting up a maypole by torchlight; whom he plucked by the sleeve and drew aside for a secret talk.
“Now the fines and forfeits exacted by the King of Youth during his festival were always paid in wine–a pail of wine apiece from the newest married couple in the Viscounty, a pail of wine from anyone proved to have cut or plucked so much as a leaf from the great elm-tree in the place, a pail for damaging the Maypole, or stumbling in the dance, or hindering any of the processions. ‘We have granted this favour to our youth,’ says the charter, ‘because, having been witness of their merrymaking, we have taken great pleasure and satisfaction therein.’ You may guess, then, that in one way and another the King and his seneschals accumulated good store of wine by the end of the festival, when they shared it among the populace in a great carouse; nor were they held too strictly to account for the justice of particular fines by which the whole commonalty profited.