monk, Callistus, was the first to speak.
“Two years ago, at this time, I was a monk on the holy mountain of Athos. I lived with the brothers in the community, I was an obedient hegumen and behaved, insofar as my weakness allowed me, according to the rules established by the holy fathers.
“One night I dreamed St. Gregory Palama in the company of a king. The saint told me: ‘Callistus, Callistus, do you think you will reach the Kingdom of Heaven by digging in the garden? You got away from evil, hiding behind the monastery walls, but you did not defeat evil.’ So, I asked him: ‘Father, what am I to do?’ The saint told me: ‘Go out into the world!’ Thus, I left the monastery. I went out into the world, and every night that king appeared in my dreams showing me more details of the machine that you call demonic.
“I arrived in Paris where Providence led me to the home of honorable master Enguerrand, and there I met Josephus Ferrarius. And that was how the three of us made the first two-wheeler. Combining our dreams into one, we fulfilled the inconceivable will of God. I don’t know what purpose the two-wheeler will serve, nor do I want to know; I am unable to say anything about the secrets of the brotherhood. I think that the two-wheeler is the omen of the new age, the vehicle of man that will rise from the earth, one who leaves the house and raises his eyes into the heavens.
“But a man who stares into heaven long enough, sooner or later finds out that an even greater chasm exists inside himself and that, at the bottom of that chasm, hidden in the darkness, is an opening that leads to God. I interpret our actions as the will of the Savior for us to return to his words: ‘The Kingdom of God is within you!’ Those whom the devil convinced to build the Tower of Babylon, those wolves in sheep’s clothing, are among us again. We, the Little Brothers, have turned our face from this world and from idolatry and have returned to a spiritual faith. That is why I refuse to admit that I am in collusion with the Devil, and I am ready to suffer if I must, not turning back from the path dictated to me by my conscience.”
It was difficult and abhorrent for everyone who attended that interrogation to listen to these blasphemous words. Enguerrand did not wish to use his right to speak. He looked at the Inquisitor with impudence, at times scoffing at him, exchanging glances with his comrades. But the Marquis de Rocheteau magnanimously made up for Enguerrand’s silence, pouring out a flood of noxious words, insults and blasphemies:
“You wonder why we break mirrors? What kind of magic is this? Here is the answer: we break mirrors because that way the deception has only one side, this one where we all are. That is not enough for you. You don’t want God inside you, where you cannot hide your iniquities from Him, but you rather place him in front of you. On the outside you are whitewashed tombs, and on the inside you are rotting. And you think that you can frighten us with torture, while death and torture are exactly what we want. You try to scare us with the fire of the stake, and you already have one foot in the fire of hell, you hypocrites. But Ferrarius has escaped and you will never find him. He is now far away, followed by a few of the brothers; he has slipped out of the hand of your earthly justice. I know the date of my death, just as I know the date of my birth. I’ve got nothing else to say.”
Robert de Prevois, seeing that the heretics were not showing the slightest inclination toward recanting, ordered that Callistus, Enguerrand and the Marquis be tortured, for the salvation of their souls. But Satan, who finds hellish pleasure in ruining actions pleasing to God, filled the bodies of his subjects with supernatural strength and they were able to withstand the most strenuous of tortures, occasionally joking about it or ostensibly forgiving their torturers. Seeing that the Devil was winning, and fearing for the souls of others, Robert de Prevois ordered a public-wide repentance and dressed himself in a goat’s hair shirt.
In the meantime, one of the bandits who had slipped away from the justice of Dagobert raised a rebellion among the people and the crowd arrived in front of the prison, demanding that the heretics be set free. What was worse, the Satanic machine of Enguerrand and his company began to be replicated in Paris. The people, quick to do evil and slow to think, accepted the demonic two-wheelers because the rumor began that whoever could cover a certain distance sitting on such an apparatus without falling would have all sins forgiven. Hundreds of such monstrous two-wheelers appeared in Paris, disturbing public order and causing such scandals that it was shameful for an honest man to go out into the street.
In the meantime, the stubbornness of the heretics locked up and tortured in the dungeon began to soften. But they remained faithful to their belief, claiming that they had a Covenant with God and that they did not dare back down because they had sworn to undergo whatever suffering necessary. The Inquisitor told them that they had been blinded and that their covenant was with the Devil, but Callistus and Enguerrand did not want to give in. They had, they said, signed a covenant with God and that there was no doubt about it; the Devil does not personally bring a contract in which he is a party, but rather appears as a merchant, banker or mediator. The stipulations of the contract were ostensibly related to business, but that was trap, because the Devil later fits such a contract into the complex book of bills and debts that he uses to rule this world. The next day the Marquis fell unconscious because, according to his calculations, he was supposed to die the day after, which he actually did. But all Satan’s hopes were in vain; the experienced Father Robert did not allow himself to be deceived; he knew that the Devil attempts to confuse people by foreseeing events from the future.
Dagobert again had to take up his sword. The unruliness of the crowd demanding freedom for the heretics went beyond all measure of good taste, and the King ordered that an end be put to it. For three whole days the rebels put up a strong resistance, but they began to fail from exhaustion and it was not difficult for Dagobert to send them scurrying. The Satanic two-wheelers were gathered into a pile and burned, and their production and use was forbidden under the threat of the death penalty.
Since the anger of the crowd was silenced, and since the heretics refused to recant, they were sent before the court of the Holy Inquisition and sentenced to death by burning, with the hope that the flames would achieve that which neither mercy nor torture had. Listening to the reading of the sentence, Enguerrand de Auxbris-Malvoisin spoke for the first time since his arrest. He recited some kind of incantation:
And then you must pass
Through flames, painful and hard
But bringing salvation. Here, everything rotten will burn and
All that will be left is just that which
Fire is, but does not burn
and is not hot.
On January 28, Anno Domini 1348, the confessor visited the heretics in the dungeon and they miraculously agreed to give their confession. The cart carrying Enguerrand and Callistus was driven all the way across Paris as a warning and example of the fate of those who rebel against the Divine Order. The commoners, frightened, downtrodden because of the recent uprising and bloodshed, followed the heretics in silence on their long last journey. Before the sentence was publicly read, the Inquisitor asked the heretics if they wanted to repent, to which they answered that they had repented even before they had been caught. Then, Brother Guillaume read the sentence and Robert de Prevois gave the signal for the fire to be set to the stake. The heretics quickly vanished in the smoke and flames.
May it stand recorded for all generations that Enguerrand, before losing consciousness, shouted an incomprehensible word, certainly some kind of hellish incantation: Dharamsala, Dharamsala, Dharamsala…**
The Manuscript
