Annals of a Fortress. Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc
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outside the cutting, and at K the sunken road with its mound, L.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 5 represents the Némède, with its inclosure and the dwellings of the Druids.
Fig. 5.
The camp finished—except the habitations of the tribes, whose site was only marked by circles of stones—a certain number of young men were put to live there, who replaced each other every day. Arriving there at sunset, they remained in the camp until the beginning of the next night. Those of the former inhabitants of the valley who still lived were forbidden to enter the camp on pain of death.
The tribes prospered, enriching themselves with the produce of the earth and with their cattle. Some, having discovered copper ore in the neighbourhood, manufactured arms and utensils. There were also potters who wrought skilfully in clay. At certain periods of the year, merchants brought to the valley stuffs, salt, spices, and even wine in leathern bottles. They took in exchange articles of bronze, skins, cheese, and corn.
The tribes, not having had any fresh attacks to resist during a lengthened period, left off guarding the camp, which was rarely visited except on occasion of certain solemnities and of assemblies convoked by the Druids. The latter lived by themselves, surrounded by their college, within the vast inclosure which they cultivated, and where their sheep and cattle grazed. The ramparts, whose timber work had decayed, had sunk, and presented only a slight elevation. They were overgrown with vegetation in several places. But in the peaceful state in which the tribes were living, no one thought of repairing these defences.
The inhabitants of the valley had been frequently embroiled with the neighbouring tribes, and had often come to blows with them; but peace was soon restored, for none of these groups of tribes cherished the intention of subjugating its neighbours and seizing their territory.
Nevertheless repose was irksome to them, and their youths would often quit the valley in quest of adventures, and to see the world.
About 389 B.C., a great number of men, attracted by the seductive eloquence of a Brenn—a chief elected by certain tribes to command distant expeditions—had quitted their hearths in the hope of amassing wealthy spoils in the southern lands beyond the mountains. Two years having passed away, a small number made their appearance again in the valley; they brought with them gold and costly fabrics, and marvellous were the tales they told of the countries they had traversed, and in which they had been incessantly fighting.
They had seen cities environed by strong stone walls, and filled with magnificent public buildings and sumptuous mansions—richly fertile regions, where the vine and luscious fruits of every kind were cultivated.
Among other results of adventure, it was observed that those who returned from these distant expeditions had lost the habit of peaceful industry; and although more than half their comrades had perished by the way, their dreams were still of battles, and plunder, and adventures. They were idle, insolent, and irascible, and even aspired to a kind of lordship over the peaceable families that lived by industry. The latter had at first joyfully welcomed the unhoped-for return of these warriors; and had listened with admiration to the stories of their prowess and adventures recited around the family hearth; but their imperious bearing, their idleness and boasting, were beginning to become intolerable. Every day saw new quarrels arise, which generally ended in blood. The wives of these heroes were still more insolent than the warriors themselves, and presumed to treat their dependents as slaves, such as were those of the ladies in the countries so gloriously traversed by their husbands.
Things being in this state, the tribes of the valley had been summoned to a meeting in the old camp, according to custom, to deliberate on their common interests, and to endeavour to put an end to feuds. The men always repaired to these assemblies armed; the women used to come bringing food and drink; for these meetings were usually terminated by festivities lasting the whole night.
On the morning of the day appointed, the sound of trumpets re-echoed through the valley, and from every quarter the inhabitants might be seen flocking towards the hill. A wooden bridge had long since been built over the river near the mouth of the rivulet. When the chiefs of the tribes, accompanied by the mass of the people, presented themselves at the bridge, they found it occupied by the warriors, whose ranks had been increased by a large number of young men of the valley, and even other warriors, strangers to the tribes.
"It is at the camp and not here that the people meet," said one of the chiefs; "let us pass over." "You shall not pass," replied one of the warriors, "without listening to the conditions we propose." "We have neither conditions to submit to nor conditions to impose," rejoined the first; "the men of this country are free, and the land is theirs, in the valley and on the mountain; let us pass on!" "It will be by force then," replied the warrior, half unsheathing his sword.
A long-continued cry of indignation followed this defiance, and arms began to glitter in the sun among the crowd like flashes of lightning. The chiefs, however, imposed silence, and held the crowd in check. Then advancing in concert to the entrance of the bridge, one of them spoke thus:—"What do you want? Do you not belong to our tribes? Have you not flocks, and wives, and children born in the valley? What conditions do you aim to impose upon us—us who are your equals? Speak! What can you ask for more than you already possess? What wrongs have been done you? Why bring with you men who are strangers to the country, whom we do not know, and who have no claim to an interest among us?" "Answer him, answer him, Sigild," said all the warriors with one voice. Sigild advanced. He was a handsome young man, a native of the valley, tall and slight, with a mild look, and a beard just appearing; his breast covered with a small bronze cuirass which glittered in the sun: his white arms were bare, and adorned with bracelets of gold. He disdained a helmet, and his blond hair, fastened at the top of his head with a long golden pin, fell down over his back; chases[1] wrought in bright colours covered his legs; his waist was girt with a kind of scarf, which was gracefully thrown back over the shoulder and left arm. A narrow buckler and a sword hung at his side. He smiled, made a sign with his hand as if requesting silence, and said:—"Friends and brethren, we are all free—all of the same blood; we ought to remain united to conquer those who desire to plunder or to enslave us. Consider, however, that you have among you the élite of the warriors who have conquered powerful nations, and have spread the renown of the Gallic name beyond the mountains. Many have died in battle; but do not those who have returned to you after so many trials, bringing, with them a rich booty and having acquired skill in arms, deserve some consideration from you? Inured to war and always ready to shed their blood, are they not more fitted to defend your hearths than men who have done nothing but tend cattle and till the soil? They do not, however, ask you to keep them in idleness, or to consider them as chiefs or masters; their only wish is to defend you. They know to what extent you are encompassed by rapacious and envious men, who, jealous of the prosperity of your valley, are cherishing the most sinister designs against you. They know this because they have seen many peoples of whose existence you do not dream, though they are close to your borders. Lulled by a prolonged security, you are not in a condition to resist a serious attack. Now these warriors—your relations, your brothers, your friends, of the same blood as yourselves—have been considering with painful anxiety this state of repose in which you are living. They have, therefore, formed the intention—they, as men of war, to occupy the camp, to fortify it effectually, to make it a reliable place of refuge in case of invasion, and to defend themselves in it to the death. Is there any wrong in this? As to these warriors, whom you regard as strangers, they are brethren in arms who have fought side by side with us beyond the mountains, but who no longer finding their abodes on returning to their valleys devastated by marauders, ask an asylum with us. Besides, if they do not belong to your tribes, are they not Gauls like ourselves?
"We have wished to say this to you here, and not in the place of rendezvous