he first ladies-of-the-night were three young daughters, nieces of king Grallon, whose heir Ahes commit enough crimes to attract the city of Is the divine wrath that destroyed it like Sodom and Gomorrah.
English trans. Erik Stohellou
© 2011 Erik Stohellou
he first ladies-of-the-night were three young daughters, nieces of king Grallon, whose heir Ahes commit enough crimes to attract the city of Is the divine wrath that destroyed it like Sodom and Gomorrah.
The three king's nieces were pure as the princess Ahes was guilty and, as often happens, their holiness was considered a crime in the eyes of Ahes' favorites.
The good king Grallon was too weak to defend her nieces against her daughter. Apart from its weakness, it was a worthy king.
I must tell you that the city of Is, which perhaps you never heard of, was, at the time of King Grallon, St. Gwennole and St. Corentin, the first city in the world. From her Paris took its name. Paris being indeed the most beautiful capital after the city of Is, Par-Is was called, that is to say, like the city of Is.
The fact is absolutely certain, although most historians have failed to mention.
The city of Is was built near the sea and occupied a vast area. Its towers were so many that none knew the account, palaces dazzled the eye with their variety as well as by their magnificence.
In one of these palaces, which was devoted to the fine arts, a thousand young people were educated at the expense of the state and received lessons from one hundred teachers, all men of genius. The French came to see the city of Is as Bas-Bretons now clog Paris, the city of Is laughing good of their accents and their manners.
The chariot races, concerts and walk when we met an imbalance in his ways and left gaping naively to the wonders of the beautiful city, everyone said, 'tis surely a clumsy from Paris!
Above all these miracles of magnitude, the town of Is had an ornament that will always lack in Paris: it was the sea, the vast sea, the love of God and man, the mirror where the sky looks in turn the blue star of the firmament and the gold of its shining sun.
The world wants his metropolis to have her feet in the sea, which is the wealth and power. So, some day, the sea will come to Paris, or Paris will go to the sea.
The city of Is was very enhanced, she had the sea. From the windows of her palace, she saw this bed of purple and gold when the evening sun glare lulls his fatigue. A forest of masts, longer and wider than the forest of Broceliande, swung around its docks flags of all countries in the world. This is London, the gloomy city, dismal, but opulent of all, who collected this part of the legacy of King Grallon.
Thus, each of the two races has had its share according to his genius, to the French the glory of art, to the British the wealth born of navigation and traffic.
Too much prosperity brings evil. The saints who then abounded in convents and monasteries in Brittany met once, and the city of Is astonished saw that army of Christ's soldiers who did not wear weapons, she saw the long white beards these fronts humiliated, but crowned with halos.
It is said that the Saints had come to tell the king Grallon the fall of Babylon.
The king Grallon was afraid. He would have liked to drive corruption out of his city, but corruption was named Ahes and the king Grallon had all the tenderness of fathers.
Who thus moreover ever listened to the saints?
The city of Is was defended against the sea by a wall of marble that had twelve gates, so that the tide could flood docks. The king kept the keys of the twelve gates under the pillow of his bed, as a traitor or careless hand could used them to introduce the death.
One morning the Princess Ahes came tothe king, she offered her forehead to his kisses where played loops of his black hair, bathed in exquisite anointing, she called her smile on her lips, which intoxicated as a hot beverage, and said:
- Lord, the three princesses, your nieces, Ysol, Ellé and Milla have insulted your daughter.
- And how, beloved, the king asked the three holy recluses could they insult the queen of my heart?
Ahes could not answer that it was their sanctity, which blamed its disturbances. She called the tears to her rescue. When Grallon saw her weeping, he gave his nieces Ellé, Ysol and Milla.
He would have given his soul.
Ahes found his smile to thank his father, but before leaving she stole the keys to the locks that were under the pillow.
There was a ship at anchor in the East, owned by a powerful prince who promised to Princess Ahes the three most beautiful diamonds of Golconda if she wanted to introduce it into the city. She loved diamonds ; evil cost nothing to his lost soul. That was to introduce the foreign prince that she had stolen the keys to the bedside of his father.
A great feast was prepared in his palace to celebrate the prince of the East. For dessert, Ahes planned to call her three cousins and to deliver them as slaves to the Oriental, so that they were taken in the unfaithful countries.
But that same morning, a tonsured man came through the streets of the city, riding on a gray donkey marked with a white cross.
The tonsured man did not speak to people, but he sang with a loud voice and deep, all along the way, the verses of the Latin Dies irae.
He blessed in passing the churches all the windows of which opened to his voice the high frames of their ribs to give passage to the statues of saints and pious people pictures flying off into the sky.
It was an extraordinary thing, and who had never seen. The people of the city of Is wondering: What does that mean? what does that mean?
But none of them could answer.
Princess Ahes, informed of the fact, gave the order to seize the tonsured man and his donkey.
She laughed because she had a gay character:
- Since the stone saints give us way, we will take the church to put our horses.
Others have said and even have done this since that time, as man without God descends below the brutes on all fours.
The tonsured man was thrown the tonsure at the bottom of his mount. Yet he came to the palace of the king and called three times:
- Grallon! Grallon! Grallon!
Then he added:
- Grallon , you lose your city, save your soul!
He stopped at the prison where the three young sisters were Milla, Ellé and Ysol. He made the sign of the cross on the door, saying:
- Soul of the earth, the soul of the sea, the soul of the air!
And when the guards of the princess Ahes rushed to seize him, he vanished like a vapor and pronounced the name of St. Gwennole.
The donkey escaped those who had stolen it, and took refuge in the palace of King Grallon.
Then the night came. In the darkness, the palace of the princess Ahes began to shine like a big crystal chandelier. The feast began and the prince of the East put himself the three diamonds as big as eggs and throwing fire with a thousand faces, in Ahes' beautiful black hair.
Outside, there were storm. The sea Shouted and tormented ships, at anchor, groaned. Ahes heard the storm. She raised the cup and, defying the ocean, she cried:
- Here's to you, storm!
The dam was high, thick, solid as a mountain. One could rejoice in the city of Is, despite threats from the sea. The wall had been proven against the stronger storms and higher tides.
However, the good king Grallon went to bed at nine o'clock, as usual, as it was orderly life. At midnight he was awakened by a voice saying to him:
- Arise, Grallon renown!
He looked around him, rubbing his eyes and saw the donkey staring at him with eyes of fire. The sea roared so loud that he thought the English were in the city.
- Who said that? he asked. Donkey, do you?
It was the donkey, because the donkey answered:
- You lose your city, save your soul.
King Grallon was not yet awake. He set astride the back of the donkey, just in case, and the donkey rushed down the stairs. When they reached the street, the king said:
- If there is danger, let's go warn my daughter Ahes.
- Save your soul, replied his mount.
The king saw that the donkey had prejudices against princess Ahes. To cajole it he spoke about the three saints.
- Let's go, he went, to get my three nieces, Ysol, Ellé and Milla.
- Save your soul!
The Good king Grallon might tighten the rein, the donkey was going faster than the wind, he went to the east, where the mountains were. No way to stop it.
Behind him, the king heard a strange noise and no longer like the distant roar of the storm.
- What is this? he asked again.
The donkey answered for the fourth time:
- Save your soul.
It was already a lot for a donkey. Few men speak that well.
- Hola! shouted right now Ahes in his palace, bring me my three dear cousins, Ellé, Ysol and Milla!
The wine of France had put his face on fire. The Prince of the East gave her compliments of Golconda, sparkling like diamonds.
The three little saints were brought: three angels of God! Their soft blue eyes were fixed on Ahes, and all three at once they murmured:
- Repent, daughter of King!
Ahes laughed. In that time, the strange noise that Grallon had heard entered the banquet hall, and the princess asked, too:
- What is this?
- This is the anger of the Lord, answered the three virgins.
- It's the ocean that is feasting too, said the prince of the East, whose eyes laughed a terrible laugh.
- Good! shouted the princess, and if the ocean comes, we'll drink it!
We should not judge the princesses of that time by the beautiful Ahes. It is because of her that some ladies today are still called "princesses", by which is meant they drank all the shame and threw their caps over all the mills.
The fact is that the other princesses have no habit of behaving like this Ahes who supped too well, and that evening, she had dined better than other nights.
In his joy, she ordered his officers to lock the three saints in prison. Ysol, Ellé and Milla, hearing the order, joined their children's hands and asked God for forgiveness of their persecutor.
But the ocean had heard the insane challenge of Princess Ahes. A heart-rending voice like the cry of the coming storms and no one knew from where, uttered these words:
- Daughter of the King, drink me!
And a huge wave came in through broken windows.
It was in the banquet hall, a single cry of a thousand blasphemies. Above this cry, the voice of three virgins arose, saying:
- Hosanna! In the highest heaven!
The Prince of East seized Ahes in his knotted arms. His eyes shone like two coals. The smoke was coming out of his mouth.
The sea was getting into the room like on shore. The sea, rising, could not drown his eyes. You need something other than sea water to extinguish the pupil of the devil.
But from where did it come, the sea? Had she broken the dam, strong and high as a mountain?
The sea came in through the gates that Ahes herself had opened with the keys stolen from the king's Grallon bedside. The princess had found the diamonds so beautiful that she had forgotten to close the lock where at low tide, she introduced the prince of the East.
And the Ocean entered at high tide, and Princess Ahes, as she told of bravado, drank the ocean.
All the guests were already under water, which stifled their last gasp. The three virgins floated above the waves and praised God.
However, when the good king Grallon, mounted on his donkey, was the top of the mountain, he looked back at his capital city, the finest, greatest, most noble cities lit by the sun. He saw nothing, the good king Grallon: no towers, no bells, no terraces, no golden domes or jagged ramparts like festoons. Instead of that, it was the sea, calm and silent, because the storm had suddenly subsided, and the ocean on the dead city unfolded an immense shroud.
There was nothing, nothing, you understand, Georgette, dear daughter? nothing but three white shapes floating.
King Grallon knelt and struck his chest. The donkey was gone, but when the king Grallon rose, he found near him saint Gwennole with the halo around his bald head and long gray beard falling on his chest.
They came both from the shore, to see these white objects floating on the disaster.
It was a star of the sky, a flower of the earth and vapor from water.
The little star, which appears in the morning, and the diligent perceive as a sign of hope; the candid flower, which wreathes our hedges, its silver bells hanging in the green of wild plum, the bell of the virgin; the steam, finally, the dear little cloud rising from the watery grave, just closed, and shows us once again, vaguely, as in a dream, the earthly form of the angel who went back to heaven.
Les Ladies-of-the-night, the three Ladies-of-the-night: the star, the flower, the wandering spirit, the soul of the water, the soul of the earth, the soul of the air; Ysol, Ellé, Milla.
Copyright 2011 Erik Stohellou
Sources : Paul Feval, Romans enfantins. Paris, E. Ducrocq, 1862
|