United States or Georgia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He recalled the offence, 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 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.
Van Tricasse then sent one of the aides-de-camp of the confectioner-general, citizen Hildevert Shuman, a manufacturer of barley-sugar, a very firm and energetic man, who carried to the authorities of Virgamen the original minute of the indictment drawn up in 1195 by order of the Burgomaster Natalís Van Tricasse.
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 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 honours of a triumph, such as was given in the times of the Romans to that one of its generals who should return victorious.
After the explosion, which indeed did not cause a very lively sensation, each one, without knowing why, mechanically took his way home, the burgomaster leaning on the counsellor's arm, the advocate Schut going arm in arm with Custos the doctor, Frantz Niklausse walking with equal familiarity with Simon Collaert, each going tranquilly, noiselessly, without even being conscious of what had happened, and having already forgotten Virgamen and their revenge.
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.
It was the month of May. The sun had absorbed all the vapours. What a pure and limpid atmosphere! The most minute objects over a broad space might be discerned. The walls of Virgamen, glistening in their whiteness, its red, pointed roofs, its belfries shining in the sunlight appeared a few miles off. And this was the town that was foredoomed to all the horrors of fire and pillage!
The authorities of Virgamen could not at first imagine of what the envoy spoke, and the latter, despite his official character, was conducted back to the frontier very cavalierly.
The authorities of Virgamen burst out laughing, and served the aide-de-camp in the same manner as the rural policeman. The burgomaster then assembled the dignitaries of the town.
Word Of The Day