"'Sdeath! It was the difference between master and slave."
"Or, if you prefer the term, between _Frank_ and _Gaul_, grandfather."
"But, my little man, how did it happen that our forefathers the Gauls allowed themselves to be martyrized in that fashion by a handful of Franks--no, Cossacks, I mean, for so many centuries?"
"Oh, grandfather! The Franks possessed the soil which they had stolen; hence they possessed the fullness thereof. Their army, a numerous body, consisted of pitiless recruits from their own country. Besides, almost exhausted by their long struggle against the Romans, a frightful affliction was furthermore in store for our fathers--the priests."
"That's all that was wanting to finish them up!"
"To their eternal shame, the larger portion of the Gallic bishops, immediately upon the Frankish invasion, betrayed their own country, and made common cause with the Frankish Kings and seigneurs, whom they speedily dominated through cunning and flattery, and from whom they wheedled all the lands and money possible. Accordingly, just as with the conquerors themselves, a large number of holy priests held serfs whom they either sold or exploited, and lived amidst shocking debauchery, degrading, tyrannizing and brutifying at their own sweet pleasure the Gallic masses to whom they preached resignation, and respect for, and obedience to the Franks, threatening with the devil and his horns whatever wretched being might attempt a revolt for the independence of his country from the foreign Kings and seigneurs, the only source of whose power and wealth was violence, rapine and murder."[7]
"I see it all! But, my little man, did our forefathers allow themselves to be shorn without kicking--all that time, from the conquest down to the Revolution, when we turned upon those Frankish Kings and seigneurs, and, along with them, their clergy, who stuck to the habit of gathering fat upon their ribs?"
"It is not likely that everything went on without numerous revolts on the part of the serfs against the Kings, the seigneurs and the priests. But, grandfather, I have told you the little that I know, and even that little I learned only while carpentering in the shop of Monsieur Lebrenn, the linendraper opposite us."