Works of Jules Verne/Dr. Ox's Experiment/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI
In which the Quiquendonians Adopt an Heroic Resolution
We have seen to what a deplorable condition the people of Quiquendone were reduced. Their heads were in a ferment. They no longer knew or recognized themselves. The most peaceable citizens had become quarrelsome. If you looked at them askance, they would speedily send you a challenge. Some let their mustaches grow, and several—the most belligerent—curled them up at the ends.
This being the condition, the administration of the town and the maintenance of order in the streets became difficult tasks, for the government had not been organized for such a state of things. The burgomaster—that worthy Van Tricasse whom we have seen so placid, so dull, so incapable of coming to any decision—the burgomaster became intractable. His house resounded with the sharpness of his voice. He made twenty decisions a day, scolding his officials, and himself enforcing the regulations of his administration.
Ah, what a change! The amiable and tranquil mansion of the burgomaster, that good Flemish home—where was its former calm? What changes had taken place in your household economy? Madame Van Tricasse had become acrid, whimsical, harsh. Her husband sometimes succeeded in drowning her voice by talking louder than she, but could not silence her. The petulant humor of this worthy dame was excited by everything. Nothing went right. The servants offended her every moment. Tatanemance, her sister-in-law, who was not less irritable, replied sharply to her. M. Van Tricasse naturally supported Lotche, his servant as is the case in all good households, and this permanently exasperated Madame, who constantly disputed, discussed, and made scenes with her husband.
"What on earth is the matter with us?" cried the unhappy burgomaster. "What is this fire that is devouring us? Are we possessed with the devil? Ah, Madame Van Tricasse, Madame Van Tricasse, you will end by making me die before you, and thus violate all the traditions of the family!"
The reader will not have forgotten the strange custom by which M. Van Tricasse would become a widower and marry again, so as not to break the chain of descent.
Meanwhile, this disposition of all minds produced other curious effects worthy of note. This excitement, the cause of which has so far escaped us, brought about unexpected physiological changes. Talents, hitherto unrecognized, betrayed themselves. Aptitudes were suddenly revealed. Artists, before common-place, displayed new ability. Politicians and authors arose. Orators proved themselves equal to the most arduous debates, and on every question inflamed audiences which were quite ready to be inflamed. From the sessions of the council, this movement spread to the public political meetings, and a club was formed at Quiquendone; while twenty newspapers, the Quiquendone Signal, the Quiquendone Impartial, the Quiquendone Radical, and so on, written in an inflammatory style, raised the most important questions.
But what about? you will ask. Apropos of everything, and of nothing; apropos of the Oudenarde tower, which was falling, and which some wished to pull down, and others to prop up; apropos of the police regulations issued by the council, which some obstinate citizens threatened to resist; apropos of the sweeping of the gutters, repairing the sewers, and so on. Nor did the enraged orators confine themselves to the internal administration of the town. Carried on by the current, they went further, and essayed to plunge their fellow-citizens into the hazards of war.
Quiquendone had had for eight or nine hundred years a casus belli of the best quality; but she had preciously laid it up like a relic, and there had seemed some probability that it would become effete, and no longer serviceable. This was what had given rise to the casus belli. It is not generally known that Quiquendone, in this cosy corner of Flanders, lies next to the little town of Virgamen. The territories of the two communities are contiguous. Well, in 1185, some time before Count Baldwin's departure to the Crusades, a Virgamen cow—not a cow belonging to a citizen, but a cow which was common property, let it be observed—audaciously ventured to pasture on the territory of Quiquendone. This unfortunate beast had scarcely eaten three mouth fuls; but the offense, the abuse, the crime—whatever you will—was committed and duly indicted, for the magistrates, at that time had already begun to know how to write.
"We will take revenge at the proper moment," said simply Natalis Van Tricasse, the thirty-second predecessor of the burgomaster of this story, "and the Virgamenians will lose nothing by waiting."
The Virgamenians were forewarned. They waited, thinking, without doubt, that the remembrance of the offense would fade away with the lapse of time; and really, for several centuries, they lived on good terms with their neighbors of Quiquendone.
But they counted without their hosts, or rather without this strange epidemic, which, radically changing the character of the Quiquendonians, aroused their dormant vengeance. It was at the club of the Rue Monstrelet that the truculent orator Schut, abruptly introducing the subject to his hearers, inflamed them with the expressions and metaphors used on such occasions. He recalled the offense, the injury which had been done to Quiquendone, and which a nation "jealous of its rights" could not admit as a precedent; he showed the insult to be still existing, the wound still bleeding; he spoke of certain special head-shakings on the part of the people of Virgamen, which indicated in what degree of contempt they regarded the people of Quiquendone; he appealed to his fellow-citizens, who, unconsciously perhaps, had supported this mortal insult for long centuries; he adjured the "children of the ancient town" to have no other purpose than to obtain a substantial reparation. And, lastly, he made an appeal to "all the living energies of the nation"!
With what enthusiasm these words, so new to Quiquendonian ears, were greeted, may be surmised, but cannot be told. All the auditors rose, and with extended arms demanded war with loud cries. Never had the Advocate Schut achieved such a success, and it must be avowed that his triumphs were not few.
The burgomaster, the counselor, all the notabilities present at this memorable meeting, would have vainly attempted to resist the popular outburst. Besides, they had no desire to do so, and cried as loud, if not louder, than the rest: "To the frontier! To the frontier!"
As the frontier was but three kilometers from the walls of Quiquendone, it is certain that the Virgamenians ran a real danger, for they might easily be invaded without having had time to look about them.
Meanwhile, Josse Lietrinck, the worthy chemist, who alone had preserved his senses on this grave occasion, tried to make his fellow-citizens comprehend that guns, cannon and generals were equally wanting to their design. They replied to him, not without many impatient gestures, that these generals, cannon, and guns would be improvised; that the right and love of country sufficed, and rendered a people irresistible.
Hereupon the burgomaster himself came forward, and in a sublime harangue make short work of those pusillanimous people who disguise their fear under a veil of prudence, which veil he tore off with a patriotic hand. At this sally it seemed as if the hall would fall in under the applause.
The vote was eagerly demanded, and was taken amid acclamations. The cries of "To Virgamen! to Virgamen!" redoubled.
The burgomaster then took it upon himself to put the armies in motion, and in the name of the town he promised the honors of a triumph, such as was given in the times of the Romans to that one of its generals who should return victorious.
Meanwhile, Josse Lietrinck, who was an obstinate fellow, and did not regard himself as beaten, though he really had been, insisted on making another observation. He wished to remark that the triumph was only accorded at Rome to those victorious generals who had killed five thousand of the enemy.
"Well, well!" cried the meeting deliriously.
"And as the population of the town of Virgamen consists of but three thousand, five hundred and seventy-five inhabitants, it would be difficult, unless the same person was killed several times———" But they did not let the luckless logician finish, and he was turned out, hustled and bruised.
"Citizens," said Pulmacher, the grocer, who usually sold groceries by retail, "whatever this cowardly apothecary may have said, I engage by myself to kill five thousand Virgamenians, if you will accept my services!"
"Five thousand, five hundred!" cried a yet more resolute patriot.
"Six thousand, six hundred!" retorted the grocer.
"Seven thousand!" cried Jean Orbideck, the confectioner of the Rue Hembling, who was on the road to fortune by making whipped creams.
"Adjudged!" exclaimed the burgomaster Van Tricasse, on finding that no one else rose on the bid.
And this was how Jean Orbideck, the confectioner, became general-in-chief of the forces of Quiquendone.