DESERTED! 155 V. THE MYSTERY AT PLOUERNEL 164 VI. BERTHA AND NOMINOE 190 VII. EZ-LIBR 229 VIII. THE MANOR OF PLOUERNEL 251 IX. THE PEASANTS' DEFEAT 258 X. UNITED 265 EPILOGUE 282 FOOTNOTES

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

Bulwer Lytton observes of fiction that, when aspiring at something higher than mere romance, it does not pervert, but elucidates the facts of the times in which the scene is placed; hence, that fiction serves to illustrate those truths which history is too often compelled to leave to the tale-teller, the dramatist and the poet. In this story, The Blacksmith's Hammer; or, The Peasant Code—the seventeenth of the charming series of Eugene Sue's historic novels, The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages—the author reaches a height in which are combined all the elements that Bulwer Lytton distributes among history, tale, drama and poetry.

The history is clean cut; the tale fascinates; its dramatic presentation is matchless; last, not least, the poetic note is lyric. As historian, as tale-teller, as dramatist and as a poet the author excels himself in this narrative, that serves at once as a sequel of the age described in the previous story, The Pocket Bible; or, Christian the Printer, and as prelude to the great epopee of the next story that deals with the French Revolution.

DANIEL DE LEON.

New York, March, 1910.

INTRODUCTION.

I, Salaun Lebrenn, the son of Stephan, who was the son of Antonicq, who finished the legend of The Pocket Bible, begun by his grandfather Christian the printer—I, Salaun Lebrenn, am the writer of the following narrative.

To you, my last-born, Alain Lebrenn, the child of my old age, I bequeath this legend, a continuation of our plebeian annals. I shall join to these pages the head of a blacksmith's hammer. It will increase the number of our family relics. You are to transmit it, jointly with our annals, to your own descendants.

My grandfather Antonicq Lebrenn died in his sixty-eighth year, on November 11, 1616. Stephan, Antonicq's son, was twenty-three years of age at the time of his father's decease. He continued to be a farmer on the Karnak farm, a dependency of the fief of Mezlean, held under the suzerainty of the seigniory of Plouernel. Obedient to the law of usage, after a certain number of years Stephan became a vassal of the seigniory. At the age of twenty-six, in 1619, he married, and had two sons—myself, Salaun, born in 1625, and my brother Gildas, born in 1628. Our father Stephan, a good man, but timid and resigned, submitted without a murmur to all the impositions, all the affronts, and all the sufferings of vassalage. He died in his fifty-ninth year on February 13, 1651. My brother Gildas, a man of as good, patient and submissive a disposition as my father, succeeded him in the holding of the Karnak farm, located on the coast of Armorican Brittany. Myself, being of a less submissive disposition than Gildas, and having chosen a sailor's life for my vocation, engaged as ship's boy on board one of the vessels in the port of Vannes. I was then fifteen years old. I made many voyages, and attained the office of supercargo, and later of captain of a merchant vessel. Thanks to my earnings, I was later enabled to purchase a ship, and sail it on my own account. In 1646—during the reign of Louis XIV who succeeded his father Louis XIII—I married for the first time. My first wife was Janik Tankeru, the sister of a blacksmith of Vannes. My dear and lamented wife made my life as happy as circumstances allowed, and I returned to her the happiness I owed her. In 1651 she bore me a son whom I named Nominoë. Alas! I was to survive him. You will now read his history in this narrative that I leave to you, son of Joel—a lamentable narrative which I have written, often moistening it with my tears.

PART I.
HOLLAND.

CHAPTER I.
THE ST. ELOI.

Early in the month of August of the year 1672, a violent tempest raged on the coast of Holland. Driven by the storm, and already deprived of one of its masts, the French brigantine St. Eloi "fled before the gale," as mariners put it. With only a little triangular bit of sail spread forward, she strove to run into the port of Delft, which lies not far from The Hague. The enormous waves, furiously dashing against the jetty of the port, completely hid it behind a mist of foam. Aware of his close proximity to land, the captain gave at frequent intervals the signal of distress with two pieces of artillery that were placed upon the forecastle. He sought thereby to attract some daring pilot of the port to take charge of the partly dismantled craft, the plight of which became all the more distressful when a dash of the sea carried away a portion of the rudder, and