Deadman Walking (Post-Apocalyptic

Western LITRPG, Book 1) C.B. Titus

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 DEADMAN WALKING
©2023 C.B. TITUS

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 CONTENTS
1. Neither Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Bullets
2. A Kind Place
3. Deadzone
4. A Boon for Boon
5. The Long Machete of the Law
6. One by One
7. On the Road Again
8. Not Alone
9. Missing Person
10. Smell of Death
11. Barbed Wire Will Do
12. Home
13. Loading Up, Rolling Out
14. Collecting the Dead
15. Wrong Choice of Prey
16. The Iron Horde
17. Truckin’
18. Edge of the Black Woods
19. Tracking
20. Grizzly Encounter
21. Fringe Folk
22. A Quest?
23. Titans & Towers
24. Fresh Steel
25. Undetected
26. Creator
27. Welcome Back
28. Out of the Woods
29. Favor
30. Recruited
31. Stocking Up
32. Bullets and Broken Mirrors
33. Scum and Villainy
34. Three Marshals Walk into a Bar
35. Have Gun, Will Travel
36. Eye of the Storm
37. Scouting Trip
38. Full Frontal Assault
39. Siege
40. Suspect
41. Whisper of a Remnant
42. Feeding Gus
43. Anomaly
44. Duo
45. Pott’s Field
46. Meetings and Murders
47. Twice Dead
48. Hey There, Delilah
49. Petty Vengeance
50. Wrinkles
51. Unsuspected
52. Adjudication
53. A Low Profile
54. Tribute
55. Actions
56. Motorin’
57. Assault on Jasper
58. Rosy Language
59. Pre-Flight Checklist
60. Arrival
Thank you for reading Deadman Walking

Groups
LitRPG
ONE
 NEITHER RAIN, NOR SLEET, NOR BULLETS

T he Geiger counter at my waist buzzed gently as I walked along a ruined

chunk of I-10. The rads were high on the route, but that wasn’t a
problem for me. The only issue I had with them is that they made the
already hot night feel just that much hotter. It would help if I didn’t have to
cover my face, but that wasn’t really an option. Too many people would
shoot a deadman on sight, even one who’s a courier.
I took a canteen off my waist and pulled my bandana down from my
face, taking a long sip of water and clearing some of the dust from my
throat. This was the most boring, but also most important, part of my job—
walking. Sure, I got to take a direct route through deadzones that would kill
a normal person, and that saved a lot of time, but even a straight shot
between most settlements is days of travel. Days of putting one foot in front
of the other.
I’d known a few other couriers who’d used vehicles, motorcycles, cars,
even one who used a series of motorboats on what parts of the Mississippi
were still navigable. They’d all died. The noise the vehicles made had
attracted raiders, or worse. Though one had simply disappeared into one of
the stranger deadzones and never come out. Even if I was willing to risk it,
my route was mainly along Iron Horde territory, and they didn’t like to see
anyone who wasn’t their own out on a guzzler anyway.
I looked back at my cart. It followed a couple yards behind, the three
hundred pounds of cargo it carried well-secured in lead boxes to keep the
rads from seeping in. I’d tried to drive it when I’d first gotten it, but
apparently it could only follow. My weight probably would’ve cut into how
much I could lug between settlements anyway.
 I looked around for landmarks. My job gave me a kind of homing
feature that pointed me where I needed to go, but I preferred to be certain.
The ruined shell of an old gas station told me I wasn’t too far from Kind,
the last stop for most of my load. I scanned the horizon and noticed
movement ahead. I gave no indication of noticing and just kept walking. I
unholstered my pistol slowly, hoping my bulky clothes would hide the
motion, and started making a head count. There were two that I could see
and a third I could only smell. The fact that I hadn’t been shot yet led me to
believe they didn’t have anything long ranged, but that didn’t mean they
didn’t have something with real punch for up close.
I walked until they were just within my range and waited for one of
them to make a mistake. I didn’t have to wait long. One of them peeked his
head out from behind a rusted-out car. I swung my pistol up and took three
quick shots, one of which hit true. His head jolted back from the force of
the bullet before his body collapsed.
After that I dove behind my cart, making it behind the lead containers
just before several low-caliber rounds hit where I’d been standing. All of
the shots were coming from the same direction, which told me that the one I
could smell closing in behind me didn’t have a gun.
I popped out of cover and took a quick shot in the direction of the
shooter but hit nothing but air. I was forced to duck as he returned fire, one
bullet tearing through some of the shoulder fabric of my jacket.
It was then that the third one revealed himself, lunging from cover
toward me with an old fire axe above his head. He was a giant of man,
wearing scraps of old tires on his chest and a worn-out pair of jeans. His
eyes were so bloodshot they looked red. I shot him two times before he
could reach me, but he didn’t slow. I rolled toward him, hoping to throw
him off and stay close enough that the one with the gun wouldn’t be able to
take a shot without potentially hitting his ally.
I sat up and put two more rounds into the large man’s back, but he just
roared and turned around. I realized then that he was on blitz. I drew my
machete and placed myself so that he’d be between me and the shooter.
He charged me, swinging wildly with his axe, the veins on his neck so
engorged they looked like they might pop. I decided to try and make them.
Before he could bring down another swing, I slashed at his neck with
my machete, causing it to shoot out a wave of crimson. He took a few more
steps closer to me, his eyes full of rage before his brain realized he was
already dead and the life faded from them. I caught his body as it was
falling and brought my gun up in my left hand, popping off a round in the
direction of my shooter. I started running straight for where I knew he’d
taken cover, using the giant man’s body as cover.
The shooter began panicking, unloading whatever ammo he had left in
order to stop me, but his fear worsened his aim and he only managed to fill
his ally with more holes. I heard a click as he ran out of ammo, and I
dropped his friend so I could close in.
He chose that moment to cut and run, exposing himself. I took a breath,
lined up a shot, and exhaled, dropping him. I walked over to his body and
wiped the blood off my machete and onto his ragged clothes.
I wasted no time after that searching the bodies for anything useful. It
was a disappointing haul. The shooter had used most of his ammo, and his
gun had already been falling apart before the fight had started. The one with
the axe had half a vial of blitz left, but the stuff didn’t affect me the same
way it did humans, and no one at a settlement would buy a half-used vial.
Too many risks taking something after a seal is broken. The one I’d
managed to kill first had a handful of 9mm rounds on him and nothing else,
which wasn’t even enough to make up for all I’d unloaded into his friend.
I sighed, noticing the telltale blinking of a notification in the corner of
my eye. It looked like I’d at least gotten something out of the scuffle, aside
from my life of course. I began walking, wanting to put some distance
between myself and the bodies before something hungry smelled them. As I
did so, I pulled up the first notification.
Excellent work, Postman! You’ve successfully performed a secondary
goal of your job ‘Protecting the Cargo’! You’ve earned 50 Patriot Points!
That seemed low, but that was the issue with secondary goals. The
delivery part of my job was only mildly deadly and yielded much more PP
than the portion that recognized the many firefights I found myself in. I
checked my second notification.
Congratulations, Citizen! You have earned a rank in Pistol! Good job
exercising your 2nd Amendment rights!
That was good news. That brought me to rank 7. I was still low enough
in it that I could actually feel the increase in ability as I reloaded my pistol
just a bit more quickly than I’d been able to before. I’d been quite happy to
learn that the Postman job included a combat skill. There were a lot of jobs
that didn’t. That wasn’t to say a person without the “pistol” skill couldn’t
shoot—anyone could, it was just that they didn’t gain the benefit of having
it as a skill. I holstered my pistol and got back to working on my now
much-inflated Postman skill, walking, which was sitting pretty at 33.

Congratulations, Citizen! You have earned a rank in Walking! A great

way to see the beautiful vistas of this great nation.
Wonderful, what a great and useful skill to have as my highest, I thought
as I neared my destination. Kind was a small settlement. Maybe a little over
a hundred people. Like everyone in the area, they tithed to the Iron Horde.
I made sure my face was covered by my goggles and bandana. It was
difficult to keep them up without ears or a nose, but I managed. It was
alright if my nose was exposed, most people could stomach that, but my
teeth… they’d led to more than a few screams in the past. That was bad for
business. I made sure my gun was holstered and kept my cart in full view,
approaching the main gate slowly. Usually a desire to receive goods and
send some out was reason enough to keep from shooting at me. Usually.
Once I was a hundred feet from the gate, a warning shot rang out. I call
that a southern hello.
“Stay where you are! Hands up!”
I complied, raising my gloved hands into the air.
“State your business!”
“Courier!” I yelled, hearing my own voice for the first time in days.
There was a brief pause while the gate guard formulated a response.
“Come closer!”
I did, slowly, earning a full seventy-five feet more toward reaching
Walking rank 35. I made out more of the walls as I got close. Walls turned
out to be generous—it was more of a half circle of rusted-out trucks and
school buses with scrap metal piled around them. There were two men
standing behind some sandbags stacked on the top of a school bus, rifles
aimed. One was taller, covered in sunburn and bald, the other was shorter
with a blue tarp draped over himself, likely to avoid the same fate. I
watched as their eyes flicked to my cart and back to me.
“Where’s Slim?” the shorter of the two men asked.
“Dead. Swarmed by skippers in the deadzone near Red Lake. I took
over this part of his route.”
 “Damn, he owed me twelve cigs,” muttered the taller of the men.
The short one elbowed him. “What’s with the getup?”
Here came the hard part. “I’m a deadman. Didn’t want to scare anyone.”
The bald man’s mouth twisted up into a scowl, but the shorter man
managed to adopt a more politic expression.
“Wait here. I’ll need to talk to Boss.” The shorter man hopped down and
went off toward the run-down structures in the distance.
The bald man watched him run, and once he was at a fair distance he
lifted his rifle and pointed it at me, a scowl still on his face.
My gun was pointed at his head before he’d even turned around.
His eyes widened, but he kept his rifle pointed.
“Don’t be stupid,” I said.
“Can’t trust deadmen. You eat people.”
“I’ve never eaten anyone,” I lied, steadying my hand, slightly adjusting
where my gun was pointed. “If you miss me, I won’t miss you.”
I could see a bead of sweat drip down the man’s sunburnt face before he
pointed the gun down and looked away.
“Bad enough we already got one of you living here,” he muttered.
The other man returned then and opened the gate to let me in.
“Boss says he can come in. Deadman or not, if he’s got deliveries, we
want em.”
“Thanks,” I grunted, taking a moment to stop in front of the bald man.
He was tall, but I had a few inches on him. I simply stood and stared down
at him for a few moments until he looked away. Then I followed the other
one into town.
It was unusual that I would actually be invited into a town, especially on
the first delivery. There were a few who had grown used to me enough to
tolerate me in their streets, but Kind seemed to be unusually, well, kind so
far. Even the tense moment with the bald man was probably not even in my
top ten worst first encounters with someone.
Once I reached the nearest of the structures, I received several
notifications.
Congratulations, Citizen! You have earned a rank in Customer Service!
Here in the US of A we know the customer is always right!
That one almost made me laugh aloud. I wondered if I’d received the
rank for talking my way in, talking the other man down, or a combination
of both.
 Excellent work, Postman! You’ve successfully performed the primary
goal of your job ‘Delivery’! You’ve earned 151 Patriot Points!
Congratulations, Citizen! You’ve earned a level in courier, carrying on
the legacy of the Pony Express. You have received +1 Speed, +1
Endurance, and +1 Perception.
5th level also unlocks:
Special Delivery: You can mark a delivery ‘special,’ which will allow
you to track it if it’s lost.
Hmm, that one was interesting. The Postman job was a mixed bag in
terms of utility, but overall I was lucky to have it. Sure, jobs like “Marine”
or “Cop” had an edge in combat ability, but they weren’t an option for
everyone, and they rarely opened up on the R.A.S. Postman opened up
constantly because of the high mortality rate, so I snagged it up quickly. It
was one of the more common jobs for deadmen to take—we were uniquely
suited for the work.
I pulled up the rest of my sheet.

Citizen: Donovan
5th Level Postman
Patriot Points: 27

SPINES: Be the backbone of America!

Strength- 20
Perception- 15
Intelligence- 10
Nationalism- 3
Endurance- 23
Speed- 17

Job Abilities:
Neither Rain, Sleet, or Snow: You are unhampered by adverse
weather.
Express: You gain a 5% bonus to movement speed.
 Special Delivery: You can mark a delivery “special,” which will
allow you to track it.

Skills:
Walking- 34
Pistol- 7
Loading/unloading- 21
Customer Service- 12
Driving- 3

My Patriot Points were down to twenty-seven after the system

automatically spent the rest on the new level. That didn’t leave me much
walking-around money. Below the standard sheet there was some visual
distortion, followed by something that, as far as I knew, was exclusive to
me.

Virus:
Deadman- Bonus to all physical stats +5, negative to social-based
skills
Natural weapon- Teeth
Night Vision
TWO
 A KIND PLACE

W hen I reached the center of town, I opened the lead containers and let
people come and get their packages. They received notifications that
they’d arrived, so there was a small crowd gathered. I waited off to the side,
not wanting to scare anyone, but was surprised to find many of them
passing directly by me, some even managing thank yous and smiles. It
made me uncomfortable, but luckily there were still plenty of hateful looks
in the small crowd that gathered to even things out.
After everyone had gotten their packages, I walked up to my cart and
addressed the short man again.
“Let everyone know my next delivery is to Boon, then I loop back
around. I’ll be here to take the packages and letters tomorrow morning.”
The man nodded. Seemed to struggle with something for a moment,
then offered his hand.
“I’m JD.”
I blinked a few times. This town just kept getting weirder. Still, I
reached out and took his hand.
“Donovan.”
He retrieved his hand just a little too quickly, but I didn’t fault him for
it.
“There’s a bar in town. Tim’s place. He’ll take ammo, tobacco, fruit, or
PP of course if you’d rather not barter. I have a feeling he may cut you a
deal, whatever the case.”
“Where?”
“Toward the back wall,” he said, pointing. “There’s a cantina before that
one, but uh… the kids eat there.”
 “I understand. Thanks.”
I readjusted my goggles and bandana and headed in the direction he
pointed. Walking through the town, I could tell that it was a middling
settlement. Not too populous, not too prosperous, but getting along fine.
Most of the buildings were made from scrap and all of them were clustered
closely together. I saw small farms here and there that led me to believe the
main thing they tithed to the Iron Horde was food. Toward the center of
town I noticed a large central building made up of half an old plane with
paper lanterns strung up outside, unlit in the daylight, and the sounds of
people enjoying breakfast. I gave it a wide berth and kept moving toward
the edge of the town.
A lone building sat halfway between the town and the wall. I saw a
couple men and a woman in a pile outside the door, sleeping off, from what
I could smell, a legendary amount of hooch. I stepped over them and
walked in. The place was sleazy, but I had initially expected to sleep outside
of the walls after making my delivery, so I decided not to be choosy. The
lighting was dim, and the seating was mostly chairs ripped from cars,
though the bar had a few actual stools. I sat at one and rapped my knuckles
on the bar twice.
I heard some shuffling and a man emerged from the back room. I
immediately understood what the difference was in this town. He was short,
maybe a head smaller than me, his skin the color of exposed muscle tissue,
his eyes a watery yellow. Unlike me, he had a full head of brown hair that
he’d grown long and was using to cover his face, but I could still tell what
he was immediately. He was more handsome than me, but that’s a relative
statement. His yellow eyes lit up a bit when he saw me, and he approached
the bar.
“Welcome,” his voice was raspy, like he’d been a pack-a-day smoker
since he was two, and he smiled at me with yellow pointed teeth, smaller
and less sharp than my own, but still more than capable of tearing through
flesh.
I looked him over for a second before asking the question I’d wanted to
ask since I entered the bar. “Got hooch?”
His smile flickered for a moment—that hadn’t been the question he’d
wanted to hear, but he recovered quickly. He must have a high Customer
Service rank.
 “Sure, first rounds on me,” he reached behind the bar and I heard a
scoop and pour before a cup of foul-smelling liquid was placed in front of
me.
I sniffed it. “This what you serve the… regulars?”
He nodded.
“What about what you drink?”
He shook his head. “I uh, don’t drink.”
“A bartender who doesn’t drink? That’s almost as strange as a deadman
living somewhere besides Pott’s Field.”
He gave a small smile. “Drinking killed my pa.”
“Well, just a heads up, what gets them drunk is barely a tickle for us.” I
slammed the glass he gave me back, lifting my bandana over it, and
swallowed it quickly. “Thanks for the drink though.”
We sat in silence for a bit, the young deadman shuffling on his feet as I
took out my gun and began cleaning it. I didn’t want to get involved, but the
way he was staring at me eventually forced me to say something, if only to
settle him down.
“I’m Donovan,” I said, reaching out a hand for him to take. He was
startled, but shook it.
“Tim, nice to meet you.”
“So, how’s a deadman become a bartender?”
Tim smiled. “Well, I was born here. My ma was Boss’ sister, my pa was
his best friend. He made the town keep me when I was born, and kept them
from exiling Ma. She went missing a few years later though, and just a
while after that pa drank himself to death. Boss wanted to discourage folks
from drinkin too much after that, so he made me a bartender, helped me get
the job on the R.A.S. an everythin.”
I chuckled. “He uses you as a deterrent?”
“Well, that’s how it was at first, but now almost everyone comes in fer a
drink sometime.”
I wanted to explain to him how dangerous all of this was for him, but he
seemed like a sweet kid and I hoped I was wrong.
“You must be good with people.”
He smiled proudly. “I got my Customer Service rank up to twenty-two.”
“Respectable,” I said, cleaning my gun. I didn’t have the heart to tell
him that the deadman penalty for Customer Service put that closer to two.
No other deadman I’d spoken to had the Virus readout on the citizen sheet,
so he likely wasn’t aware of that himself. Still, the fact that he’d gone that
far was impressive.
“What do you do, mister?”
“I’m a courier. I travel between settlements, carrying letters and
packages.”
“You seen a lot of places?”
“Yes.”
“Anywhere extra special?”
I thought about it, picturing the places I’d been. Green-tinted wastes
crackling with odd electricity, a city of deadmen in the middle of the tear
that divides east from west, a river filled to the brim with gators the size of
cars, and a stretch of road where reality itself seemed to bend and fade. I
looked back at him.
“Not really.”

Tim had a spare room, which is to say he had a shack attached to the
side of the building with a bare mattress on it. I pulled out a worn
paperback and read for most of the day before closing my eyes. After that I
slept just as restfully as I would’ve if I’d been outside the walls, with a gun
in my hand and my eyes half opened.
I was woken up by rays of light pouring through holes in the shack’s
construction. I assessed my surroundings before I opened my eyes. No
unfamiliar smells or sounds, so I opened them, confirming I was alone. I sat
up and made my way to the bathroom, a blue bucket that I popped outside
the door once I was done.
I made my way back inside the bar and saw Tim just starting to drag a
few patrons outside to sober up. He was holding two at once, and I held the
door for him to toss them outside. After that he poured me a drink and slid
me a bowl of some kind of oats. I removed the bandana around my mouth
and noticed that even Tim’s eyes widened at my teeth. I took some dried
meat from a pouch and tore a few pieces into the oats before tucking in.
Tim looked at me questioningly.
“It was a deer. Attacked me on the road a ways back, had teeth like
razors. Radiated meat like this tastes better to us.”
“Really?”
 “Yeah.” I broke off a piece of the meat and handed it to him.
He nibbled at it tentatively, but then immediately shoved the entire thing
into his mouth, chewing ferociously.
I handed him the rest of what I had in my hand. I found myself feeling a
little responsible for him. It was clear he’d never encountered another
deadman. At the same time, I couldn’t stick around, and when I’d seen this
kind of thing in the past, it had never gone well. I finished eating before
deciding to speak.
“You should leave.”
Tim swallowed a piece of meat he’d been chewing. “What?”
“Kind. you should leave the town.”
“Why?”
I sighed. “Because eventually they’ll turn on you.”
“No they wouldn’t. I’ve been here since I was a kid, and they’ve always
treated me well.”
I looked around the shitty bar. Treated well was quite the overstatement.
“Tolerated and found a use for” seemed more fitting.
“Listen, kid, I’m just telling you how things are. The next time
something goes wrong, food runs low, someone goes missing, a raider slips
in, they’ll be looking for someone to blame, and you’re the only one who
doesn’t look like them.”
He glared at me. “It’s not like that here. Uncle Boss’d never let that
happen.”
“I just… I felt obligated to warn you. Do what you want. I’m not sure if
an Undertaker ever comes this way, but I know one hits Davis a short way
east. Pott’s Field ain’t a perfect place, but you’d be safe.”
“I’m safe here, and all fairness, mister, I don’t even fucking know you.”
I nodded. “I’ve said my piece. I’ll leave you be.” I covered my mouth
back up with my bandana. “Thank you for the room and the breakfast.” I
sent fifteen PP his way. He hadn’t made me pay for the food and room, but
a tip felt fair.
I left the bar, feeling Tim’s yellow eyes bore a hole in the back of my
head as I did. It wasn’t my desire to ruin people’s days, but it seemed to
happen pretty often.
When I reached the center of Kind there was a line of citizens waiting
with letters and packages. A lot of people had kin who were spread out
across the area since before the tearing. Regular caravans and traders could
handle goods, but I mostly wound up transporting gifts and letters that were
meant for those distant relatives, or quick communiques between settlement
leaders.
I started taking packages and letters, ignoring the clear trepidation they
felt handing them to me. I’d initially let people load their items themselves,
but I’d been screwed by collapsing towers of boxes too often; besides, there
were other benefits. I noted that there was a new notification as I loaded the
second-to-last box.
Congratulations, Citizen! You have earned a rank in
Loading/unloading! Even the Statue of Liberty was shipped here one piece
at a time!
I felt a small amount of shame for the warm feeling I got from
improving that trivial skill, but I did have a fundamental love of seeing
ranks go up and numbers improve. Besides, at least it wasn’t Walking.
“I’ll probably be back through in two or three weeks depending on
storms, or if I get killed.”
JD spoke up as the other Kind folk dispersed. “How could that happen?
Aren’t you already a deadman?” he asked with a wry smile.
I looked at him through my goggles for a few long seconds. “Ha,” I said
in monotone and started walking toward the gate.
THREE
 DEADZONE

T he most direct route between Kind and Boon was straight through a
deadzone. I wasn’t familiar with this one, but I figured I’d risk the trek
straight through to cut time off the journey.
The edges of deadzones aren’t usually distinct. If you didn’t have a
Geiger counter handy, or weren’t familiar with an area it could be easy to
wander into one without realizing it. This one snuck up on me. The road I
was walking slowly went from solid to broken through by plants and
patches of water, until I found myself walking through a thick swamp.
Deadzones tended to be areas with high rads, but they were named
deadzones because they killed people, not necessarily because they didn’t
hold life of their own. The swamp was teeming with it. Lizards the size of
dogs and frogs with long tails scurried away as I walked, sensing a more
dangerous predator than they could handle. I broke a branch from a tree that
bled a sticky orange substance, and I started using it to touch the ground in
front of me, using it to avoid drowning in soft patches of earth. My cart had
no issues, it just hummed softly as its treads carried it through any
difficulty.
As I walked my Geiger counter trilled loudly in areas of particularly
thick foliage, and as I reached what I gauged to be the center of the zone I
began to hear a loud buzzing noise. I removed my Geiger counter and held
it to my ear, but the buzzing wasn’t coming from it. I kept moving, and as I
did the buzzing grew louder.
I walked about another mile before I saw what was making the noise.
What looked like a black cloud was writhing in front of me. It undulated
and danced, moving in what seemed like random directions. After watching
it for a few minutes, I realized what it was. Mosquitos, thick as a cement
wall. I wasn’t sure if they’d noticed me and were ignoring me, or if they
were simply preoccupied with something else. None broke off from the
cloud to bite me. Instead, they moved as a single entity.
After watching them for a few minutes, I noticed something. A glint of
metal peeking through their thick cloud. I watched that spot a little longer
and was able to slowly piece together a picture of a body, guns, and a bag.
Salvage, valuable salvage. It’s one of the benefits of being able to
explore deadzones relatively freely. A lot of people wander in and die,
leaving behind goods that tend to lie untouched. I considered ignoring it,
but the gun didn’t look like the crap I was used to finding. It seemed well-
maintained. It seemed like whoever had died to leave it behind had taken
care of it.
I pulled out some meat and ate it while I considered what to do. The
mosquitos hadn’t bothered me yet, but I didn’t know if that would last if I
walked into them. My clothing covered most of my body, but I was certain
they could slip between the folds of it if they wanted to. I considered a fire,
but finding dry wood in a swamp didn’t seem likely. That left one option. I
pulled out my machete.

I yanked my machete out of the now-dead salamander. Its body

twitched as I did. I could’ve made short work of it with my pistol, but I
didn’t want to waste what ammo I had. I’d had to slowly sneak up on them
and strike before they could react. They were slippery bastards, but after an
hour’s work I had two of the salamanders and a half dozen of the frogs. I
pulled out a net I sometimes used to carry mail and shoved the newest body
into it. I didn’t earn PP for killing them since they weren’t attempting to
harm me or my cargo, but I figured the salvage opportunity would make all
the effort worth it.
When I returned the mosquitos were still there, a black pulsating mass
of buzzing. I took the net, aimed it, and threw it through the thick cloud. It
briefly knocked a hole in it, but that swiftly closed back up as the bugs
recovered. The buzzing grew excited, and I watched the mass slowly move
off of the body they’d most recently feasted on and head toward the fresh
blood I’d provided for them.
 I approached the corpse cautiously. It was covered in small holes from
the mosquitos, but what surprised me were two large ones. One was in his
chest and the other his stomach. They looked like they were burned around
the edges, and I could still catch a whiff of burnt flesh in the air.
A notification filled my vision.

Citizen, you have found a dead Marshal. You are being offered the
following job:
Federal Marshal

This job offers the following:

Stat focus: Strength, Perception, Intelligence
Skills: Long Guns, Pistols, Melee Weapons, Investigation, Tracking
Abilities for Lvl 1:
Under Cover: You may retain your previous job, and those with the
ability to read your sheet will see whichever job you choose to show.
You’re Under Arrest: You may temporarily remove all job-based
bonuses from a target to ease apprehending them. This person will
be highlighted in your vision while this ability is active.

This job receives PP based on the following criteria:

Completing investigations
Making arrests
Combat
Tracking suspects

This job will be granted to you as temporary, but can be made

permanent on the following condition: solve the murder of the
former Marshal.

I blinked—a Marshal. The dead man had been a Marshal. I’d heard the
rumors, but I’d never thought they really existed. They were dangerous to
the point that supposedly even the Iron Horde was wary of them.
 I shook off my surprise. What’s in front of me was more important than
notifications at the moment, especially since I was unsure if the mosquito
cloud would return. I found two rifles, a pistol, a bag half full of ammo and
provisions, a small notepad, and a metal badge with the word “Marshal”
stamped across it.
I heard an approaching buzz as the mosquitos returned and left the body
where it lay. One mosquito managed to land on my exposed wrist, and I
watched it take a drink then proceed to die. I’d assumed the rads in my
blood wouldn’t bother creatures that lived in the deadzone, but it was
possible that my virus made it even less tasty than the radiation did. Either
way, it looked like I may have been overly cautious. Better than dead
though.
I checked on my cart, and when I found that everything was fine I
started back on my previous path. Night fell before I reached the end of it,
but I pushed on. Deadzones were rarely a smart place to sleep. Luckily, my
great skill at Walking made the rest of the trek go smoothly.
The swamp ended as gradually as it began. Thick trees, pools of
glowing water, and strange mutant wildlife gradually gave way to barren
roads and shattered buildings. The trill of my Geiger counter slowly quieted
to a soft purr. I made a mental note to let any guides in the next town know
exactly what was killing people there, aside from the radiation.
I did a quick scan around to make sure no one was nearby and went to
find a place to camp. Eventually I found the husk of a bus and was lucky
enough that a few of the seats actually had padding. I parked my cart just
outside the door, making sure the cargo was locked down, and covered it
with a tarp. After that I climbed inside. I had a quick meal of meat and
looked through the Marshal’s provisions. I was gratified to find peppers,
some kind of hard bread, a few raw onions, and some dried meat. I treated
myself to one of the peppers and enjoyed the burning as the juices from it
filled my mouth. They were fresh. My guess was that he’d gotten them in
Boon.
One of the rifles I found was similar to one I’d used before. It took .308
ammo, which was good, because most gunsmiths made that pretty steadily.
The other rifle I didn’t recognize, along with two magazines of ammo in a
caliber I’d never seen. I dry fired it and gave it a closer look. I was
surprised to find that it was automatic. Between the unique ammo and the
auto fire it wouldn’t be practical for regular use, but I liked the idea of
having something powerful in my back pocket for emergencies. The
revolver was a .38. I’d seen them before and didn’t care for them as much
as my 9mm, but I bet I could pick up a decent amount of PP from the right
trader for it. The notepad was soaked through with a mixture of blood and
water, making it unreadable. Overall, the haul was worth the effort.
Once I was done, I turned my attention to the notification I’d gotten. I
gave it a long, focused read. There was an opportunity here. Jobs like this
one were hard to come by, and the fact that I could have both it and my
courier job meant there were no real negatives to taking it. None aside from
becoming embroiled in solving a murder.
I accepted the new job.

Congratulations! You have been granted the job of Federal Marshal

(temporary)!

You are carrying on the legacy of men like Wild Bill Hickock, Wyatt
Earp, and Bas Reeves!

That a marshal shall be appointed in and for each district for a term
of four years, but shall be removable from office at pleasure, whose
duty it shall be to attend the district and circuit courts when sitting
therein, and also the Supreme Court in the district in which that
court shall sit. And to execute throughout the district, all lawful
precepts directed to him, and issued under the authority of the
United States, and he shall have the power to command all
necessary assistance in the execution of his duty, and to appoint as
shall be occasion, one or more deputies. - Judiciary Act

This Job is granted as temporary and can be made permanent upon

completion of your first investigation: solve the murder of the
former Marshal.

You have 30 days to complete this.

I had no idea who the hell Bill Hickock and those folks were, but I
assumed they were impressive since they were included in a system
message. I also noticed that I should apparently have the ability to deputize
people, but I saw no such ability on my citizen sheet when I pulled it up.

Citizen: Donovan
5th Level Postman/ 1st Level Marshal (Temporary)
Patriot Points: 24

SPINES: Be the backbone of America!

Strength- 20
Perception- 15
Intelligence- 10
Nationalism- 3
Endurance- 23
Speed- 17

Job Abilities:
Neither Rain, Sleet, or Snow: You are unhampered by adverse
weather.
Express: You gain a 5% bonus to movement speed.
Special Delivery: You can mark a delivery “special,” which will
allow you to track it.
Under Cover: You may retain your previous job, and those with the
ability to read your sheet will see whichever job you choose to show.
You’re Under Arrest: You may temporarily remove all job-based
bonuses from a target to ease apprehending them. This person will
be highlighted in your vision while this ability is active.

Skills:
Walking- 34
Pistol- 8
Loading/unloading- 22
Customer Service- 12
Driving- 3
Melee Weapons- 1
Long Guns- 1
 Investigation- 1
Tracking- 1

Virus:
Deadman- Bonus to all physical stats +5, negative to social-based
skills
Natural weapon- Teeth
Night Vision

The new skills had a lot of value, particularly melee weapons. I was
already good with a machete, but having it as an actual skill meant I could
get much better with it a lot quicker. I also noticed my Pistol skill got an
automatic boost of one. I wanted to keep these new advantages, to use
them. All I needed to do was solve a murder. The strange wounds on the
body seemed to be the best clue to finding what may have happened. I went
into my sheet and activated my undercover ability to make only my
Postman job display. There was a chance the Marshal had been shot in
Boon, no sense in me taking the risk of being found out. If anyone had the
Mayor or other bureaucratic jobs now they’d only see the profession I had
allowed to display. Once I was done, I drew my duster closely about myself
and went to sleep.
FOUR
 A BOON FOR BOON

I woke up before dawn. I wanted to sleep more, but my night was full of
bad dreams that made old scars ache. I climbed out of the bus seat I’d
curled up in and slung my pack over my shoulders. The added weight of
yesterday’s loot made me grimace, but it was well worth it. Outside of the
bus my cart remained untouched. I got everything together and started back
on the road toward Boon.
Even with my brief detour the previous day I was making good time,
thanks to the shortcut I’d taken through the deadzone. After only about four
hours of working on my favorite skill, Boon began to come into sight. I’d
heard it described by another courier at one point, but seeing it was a
different story. The town was about five times larger than Kind had been. It
was built on two sides of a river, with the majority of the town on the river
itself. Old tourist steamships, small dinghies, and rotting yachts were all
strung together across the river and built on top of with wood and scrap-
metal structures. The shacks on the edges of the river all seemed to be for
merchants and security, and I could tell that the outermost boats were
fortified in case of attack. Even at the distance I was I could see freshly
burnt holes in the walls and barricades that made up the fortification.
Whatever weapon had killed the Marshal had also been used here.
When I was nearly at the outskirts I realized there were no traders in the
outer part of Boon, only security with guns. I made sure my cart was visible
and put my hands up after ensuring my bandana and goggles were covering
my face. They’d definitely been attacked and were likely a little trigger
happy, so I wanted to appear as friendly as possible.
 One of the men saw me and I watched him call for backup. I waited
where I was until there were three more men, who all approached me with
their rifles raised.
When they were close enough, I said, “Courier.”
One of the men, who had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth,
approached me a bit closer and looked me and my cart over. “Slim?”
“Dead.”
“You a deadman?”
“That obvious, huh?”
He took a long draw from his cigarette and spat out the butt. “Alright.”
He turned to the other armed men. “Let him in.”
I expected some argument, but they just nodded and took places behind
the cart so they could escort me into the outskirts of town. This was in a lot
of ways my ideal interaction. Quick, easy, no small talk. Unfortunately, this
was the one time I needed more details.
“Security always this tight?” I asked as I started unloading packages
onto a table one of the men had dragged out of a nearby shack.
“Should’ve been,” answered the man who’d been smoking as he lit
another cigarette. He was older, and had a face the shape of a cinderblock,
but meaner. In spite of his looks, he held out a cigarette to me.
“No thank you.”
He shrugged and pocketed it. I noticed his men giving me suspicious
glares as I continued the work of unloading, but whenever they seemed
about to say something, they’d catch themselves and look at the smoking
man.
“Something go down recently?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Listen, I’m going to be traveling around here and making deliveries.
Any chance I could get some more information?”
The man took a long inhale from his cigarette and blew it into the air.
“Raiders. Bout thirty of them. A few of them had some kind of weapon I
ain’t seen before. It was like it was shooting pure heat. Burned holes in
people, buildings. They rounded up everyone left outside and carted them
up north. Not sure exactly where to. I would avoid that whole area if I were
you.”
“Alright, thanks.” I finished unloading the boxes and let them know I’d
be back in two days to pick up any deliveries they had to head back to Kind.
I asked if there was a place I could sleep. They offered one of the most
outside buildings. That was typical, but I told them I’d camp out and return
later.
I walked out of the settlement and reviewed my notifications.
Excellent work, Postman! You’ve successfully performed the primary
goal of your job ‘Delivery’! You’ve earned 173 Patriot Points!
Congratulations, Citizen! You have earned a rank in Investigation! Here
in the US we have the right to question everything, except freedom!
Solid gains overall. I wondered if the R.A.S. would distinguish between
which jobs the PP belonged to, or if I’d be able to choose how to distribute
them. If I could choose that would be very helpful. Since leveling was
automatic, when someone received enough PP it could sometimes leave you
with too little to spend, but if I could just avoid choosing where to distribute
them it meant I could save PP when I wanted to use it to buy something in a
town. Considering how much higher settlements usually charged me than a
non-deadman, that could be very helpful.
I had some answers and a general location for where to take my
investigation. I also had enough information to make me reconsider what I
was doing. Around thirty raiders, powerful unknown weapons, and a mass
kidnapping. That was a lot to deal with. The advantages I’d received from
the new job were significant, but I’d been doing fine as a Postman.
Fine as a Postman wasn’t enough though. It had simply been the best of
the options I’d had. A job like Marshal felt right, felt like something I could
really use. Something that could help me do what I felt needed to be doing
when I felt like doing it. There was also the fact they’d kidnapped people,
probably to trade as slaves. I knew what it was like to experience that. I
might be able to save a few people the way I’d wanted to be. Maybe some
of the people I freed would only let out a small scream when they saw who
was rescuing them.
I broke from my thoughts and realized I was already heading north.
Apparently my feet knew what I wanted better than I did.

After a few hours of walking, I saw smoke. I drew my new hunting rifle
and began treading more carefully. Luckily, the area I was walking through
was wooded, so I had ample places to hide or take cover.
 Eventually I reached the source of the smoke. It was what looked to
have been a small encampment in the middle of a clearing. There was a ring
of small log cabins and other outbuildings arrayed in neat rows and lines. In
front of the structures was a sign that read, “Campsite.” The buildings were
riddled with holes—both bullet holes and the strange burns I’d seen in
Boon. I approached cautiously, hiding behind the walls of the building
closest to me and slipping from building to building, keeping my eyes and
the holes of my ears open and focused as I moved.
Unfortunately, they still got the drop on me. A gunshot rang out and
splintered the wood of a cabin wall next to me. I ducked down, just in time
for another to ring out. I dove backward and made my way to behind where
the cabin sat. The next shot hit the ground next to me. I went to the other
side of the cabin and peeked out just in time to see a man on the roof of the
opposite cabin line up a shot at me. He fired just as I swung my head back
behind cover.
I took a deep breath and considered my options. I could run straight and
lose him in the woods, but I needed more information. I could also trade
shots, but he was in a much better position than I was. I looked into the
cabin window and noticed that the door on the other side was mostly
closed. I slowly slid the window open and climbed inside, keeping as low as
I could.
Once I was inside I heard a noise coming from where I’d just been. I
slowly peeked out and saw a second man with a pistol. They’d been trying
to flank me.
I slowly made my way to the front of the cabin and peeked out toward
the sharpshooter. He was still looking at either edge of the cabin. I backed
into the shadows and began lining up a shot with my rifle. Once I was
certain, I pulled the trigger.
The first shot narrowly missed and buried itself behind him, but I let off
two more before he could react and those two dropped him. I watched his
body slump and slide off the roof, leaving a trail of blood behind. I leapt
through the front door and ducked to the side, drawing my pistol. The
second man went through the gap between cabins, and as he passed me I
made a shot low and caught his knee, making him tumble forward,
dropping his gun.
I closed the distance between us, my gun still ready, but he’d fallen
headfirst on a rock, leaving a bloody head print, and was no longer
conscious. I rolled him over. He was still breathing. That was good. I still
needed more information, and I didn’t mind earning another point in
Investigation the hard way.

My captive woke up in darkness. I watched him let out a “fuck” as the

pain in his knee registered. He started breathing rapidly and straining
against the rope I’d tied him to the chair with. I let him struggle for a little
bit, let him think he was alone. He couldn’t see in the dark like I could.
I’d covered all the windows to the cabin and searched the rest of them
for anything useful. What I’d found was blood, bodies, and burns. The
raiders had devastated this small settlement and, unlike Boon, it didn’t have
nearly the manpower or defense to stop them. I wasn’t in a mood to ask the
man questions nicely.
When he was good and scared, I placed a hand on his shoulder.
He jumped, “What the fuck!? Who’s there?”
I slowly brought my mouth next to his ear. “Me.”
He shook the chair, trying to get away, but all he managed to do was fall
over.
“What the fuck do you want?” His voice came out harsh, but I could
hear the little twinge of terror in his voice.
I lifted him, chair and all, and sat it back up. “Answers.”
“Fuck you!”
I jammed my finger into the bullet wound and twisted it.
He screamed, a little higher pitched than I expected, and once he was
done he spat in the direction he thought I was. I walked behind him and
drew the cloth I’d hung up to let some light in. I walked around to face him.
I removed my mask and goggles. It felt nice not to hide my face.
His eyes widened and a stain spread down his legs.
I brought my face close to his and he jerked back, almost falling over
again.
“Give me answers and I’ll let you live.”
He gave a trembling nod.
“How many of you are there? Where’s the rest of your group? How
many people have you taken? What are the strange weapons you’re using?”
 “There’s, uh, I don’t know, thirty, forty of us? Everyone’s up in Porto.
We’ve taken, like two dozen? Maybe more. I, I don’t know what the
weapons are, Jase found them. Only lets a few people touch em.”
“Did you kill the Marshal?”
“Marshal? The guy with the badge? We shot him, but he ran into a
deadzone before we could finish him off.”
“Hmm.” I frowned. I was hoping for more information on their
weapons, but it was better than nothing.
“Can I… can I go?”
“No.” I took my machete and slammed it into his skull. No reason to
waste a bullet.
FIVE
 THE LONG MACHETE OF THE LAW

I cleaned up and tossed the body outside. If I managed to free the people
who were taken, a man with his head cut in half wouldn’t be the first
thing they’d want to see on walking in the door. I looted the bodies of both
him and the shooter and came away with a handful of 9mm rounds and a
dozen .308s. I was also happy to find that the rooftop shooter and I shared a
boot size and traded mine out for his.
The fight and interrogation had netted me another rank in Long Gun,
Melee Weapons, and Investigation, but I hadn’t received any PP for it. I
assumed I wouldn’t receive any PP for the job objectives until I’d made it
permanent.
Whatever the case, I had more walking to do. I made my way in the
direction of where the raider I’d interrogated had said his group’s camp
was. I’d never been to Porto, or heard about it from another courier. I stayed
just off the main roads and paths. If they’d had the idea to leave some
people in the last settlement as an ambush, then they may also have patrols
set up. I was disappointed that I didn’t run into any by the time Porto came
into view. I’d hoped I’d be able to pick some of them off away from the
main group.
It was night, and the camp was lit by electric lamps. Porto generally
looked a lot like the other towns I’d seen. It was a broken mess of buildings
half repaired for people to live in and clinging to ideas about what the world
should be. The light of the lamps cast those buildings in deep shadows that
were broken up by the people walking across the light.
My first goal became clear—turning off the lights. I began creeping
closer to the settlement, looking for an area where I could find a decent
vantage on the entire place. Unfortunately, the tallest thing to climb was a
building almost halfway into the town that looked occupied, based on the
light I could see inside.
I crept along the edge of the camp. There were three men standing
guard at various points and doing a disorganized kind of patrolling. I took
off my pack and buried it, then slung the strange gun I’d gotten off the
Marshal over my shoulder and checked my pistol. I’d rely on the machete
to keep quiet as long as I could and switch to my guns if things got dicey,
which I knew they would. Then I hid my rifle in a bush, loaded with the
safety off. I’d use that spot as a fallback location.
Once I was done, I moved on the man patrolling at the far right. I crept
along the woods as long as possible and activated my new ability. He didn’t
seem to notice, but after I used it he became highlighted in my vision. I was
able to see him even when there were walls between us. I observed for a
few more moments and waited for him to turn his back, and when he did I
ran as fast as I could toward him.
He must’ve heard me. He turned around and went to whip his gun
around, but his movements were sluggish, and I could see some confusion
on his face.
His hesitation was all I needed to slam my machete into his chest. His
eyes widened and he gasped, struggling to scream, but only letting out what
little air remained in his lungs. I grabbed his body before it fell and moved
it behind the remains of a small building. After that I went to work on the
next two.
The middle guard had actually fallen asleep by the time I reached him. I
sheathed my machete and drew a small knife I kept at my waist. I didn’t
want to dull the blade on the machete more than I needed to. I dragged it
across his throat quickly, then hid his body as well. The third one was the
most alert. I climbed a building that sat behind him and waited for him to
cross under me. Once he did, I leapt down and drove my machete into his
back as I landed.
I let out a sigh. Good luck so far, three of roughly thirty down. I was
already a tenth of the way done.
After hiding the final body, I made my way to one of the standing
halogen lamps. The cord extended deeper into the camp toward another of
the lamps. From where I was standing I couldn’t tell exactly where it went,
but the arrangement of the wires indicated that whatever was powering
them was in the middle-west part of the town.
I climbed back up the building I’d leapt from to get a better vantage. It
wasn’t as helpful as the tall one would’ve been, but it did get me my first
decent view of the interior portion of Porto. It was about what I expected
from a raider town. Men with guns drinking hooch, dragging men and
women that I guessed had been taken from the nearby settlements into
darkened buildings, and scattered fights. Blitz and redeye were being used
freely and dangerously, it looked like an OD had already saved me the
trouble of killing one of them. The only sign that there was organization of
any kind was that one of the men was sitting on the top floor of a building
that had lost its upper half. He was bent over some powdered redeye,
snorting it with vigor, while two bored-looking women sat at his feet.
Across his back was what I assumed was one of the burning weapons. It
had a round barrel that ended in a point, almost like a pencil. Unlike any
other guns I’d seen, it shone brightly as if brand new, and I couldn’t tell
how it took ammunition.
I climbed back down with a much better mental map than I’d had
before. I started sneaking as carefully as I could along the edge of buildings,
rubble, or whatever other cover I could find. The area was well-lit, but it
seemed like the only men worried about an attack had been the ones they’d
placed on watch. I ducked into a building just as one of the raiders passed
by. I kept my breathing steady—I was about halfway to where all the wires
seemed to be leading.
I heard movement and moved my eyes from the door. There were three
people, two young women and a man. They looked up at me with terrified
eyes, I could see a number of fresh bruises on them, and they were
trembling. I held up a finger to my mouth, realizing that the hand was
covered in blood as I did so. They didn’t respond, but they didn’t make any
noise either, and that’s all I needed from them. After the space was clear I
began moving back toward where the wires led. I got into the building
without being detected and walked deeper inside. The building was
nondescript, but there were a number of muddy footprints that indicated
people were in and out of the room frequently.
I heard a noise and flattened myself against the wall. Unlike the outside,
the building itself wasn’t well-lit and I hoped it would help me blend in to
the wall. A man entered the hallway, his eyes blurry from drink, and walked
past me. I slashed my machete across his neck, decapitating him. I used
more strength than I’d meant to, but after seeing the captives the raiders had
taken up close, I no longer had any restraint. I tossed the body and headed
into an empty room off the hallway, following the cables back. They led me
into a room in the back, in the center of which was a massive hatch that had
been flung open, with stairs that led underground.
I warily made my way down, clearing rooms but finding them all
empty. The entire place was strange. The walls were cold metal, and cleaner
than anything I’d ever seen before, even with the muddy bootprints that led
deeper into it. There were pictures on walls and laid on tables that were
drawn on blue gridded paper in shapes I didn’t recognize. Computers with
still-intact monitors lined the walls in some rooms and filled the bunker
with a kind of low hum. I was tempted to see what I could gain from
booting one up. I’d managed to scrape together a working one at one point
using pieces and guidebooks I’d looted or purchased from merchants, so I
knew how they worked, but now wasn’t the time.
I followed the wires further down into what was turning out to be a
pretty big facility. It seemed stupid to me that the raiders didn’t simply live
in these tunnels, but that wasn’t my problem. Eventually I made it to the
source of the cords. There was what appeared to be some kind of generator,
and a series of plugs had been crudely assembled in such a way that I
wouldn’t be surprised if wiring them up had killed a few would-be
electricians as they’d worked on it. I hesitated. I’d have to move quickly
after I shut it down, but shutting it down from within and trapping myself
inside the bunker was a distinctly bad idea. I hadn’t expected the power
source to be so distant from the surface. I made my way back out and
grabbed a bundle of the wires, arraying them next to each other. I slipped a
leather glove onto my hand and held the handle of the machete tightly,
triple-checking that it had a wooden handle despite having used it for more
than a year. I raised it and struck downward hard. There was a flash of
sparks and the lights died.
There were a few choice exclamations and some screaming. I calmly
walked into the shadows of a nearby building and squatted down. It was
time to take advantage of my natural night vision. I located each of the
raiders and activated my Arrest ability. By the time I was done my vision
was filled with twenty-three highlighted raiders panicking, sobering up, and
even finding one of the bodies of the men I’d killed on the outskirts of the
town. They were off-balance, surprised, and scared. It was time to go to
work.
SIX
 ONE BY ONE

I was in my element. I slid my goggles off my eyes and pulled down my

bandana, exposing my teeth. It was one versus at least twenty-three, but
in the dark I had a real advantage. I moved quickly on the nearest of the
men. I’d have the biggest window of opportunity in the short period before
their eyes adjusted to the dark. I struck with my machete, worried the
muzzle flare of my guns would reveal my position. I wanted to even the
odds as much as possible before I reached that point. I slammed the
machete into the first one’s shoulder and it buried itself halfway through his
chest. I yanked it out and moved on the next one. His eyes were wide open
and bloodshot, and he was waving his gun around wildly. I swung at him,
but his wild movement meant I just cut off the arm holding his pistol. He
screamed and I slashed again, this time slicing his head in two horizontally.
I dove into the nearest building after that as a few gunshots rang out in
the direction of his screaming. I ignored the two still forms I saw sleeping
in the dark and dove out the nearest open window. Then I crept out to the
alley and watched as the glowing lights representing the raiders swarmed
like bees in a hive. About half of the men went to the bunker to determine
the cause of the power outage, and most of the others were just then
stumbling onto their dead friends, though the leader had two men go to his
side, and there were a couple on the outskirts of everything who seemed
eager to wait out any potential fighting.
I chose one on the outskirts as my next target and slipped between
buildings and ruined structures toward him. I sheathed my machete and
drew my knife. When I was certain his back was turned, I jumped up,
pulled his head back by the hair, threw him to the ground, and slit his throat.
I left him there and moved on the last one away from the larger groups. He
was hiding behind the corner of a building. I crept behind him and slammed
his head into the concrete wall he was crouched behind, dazing him, then I
drove my knife into the back of his neck and kept moving.
By now there were almost a dozen men around the wires I’d cut. They
were clustered together, and I saw the best opportunity I’d have to really
thin their numbers. I pulled out the gun I still didn’t recognize and found a
piece of cover. With the way they were clustered together, I didn’t need to
be accurate. I felt the new ranks in Long Gun steady my hand and improve
my stance subtly as I took aim. I squeezed the trigger.
The rifle dug into my arm as I fired more than twenty rounds in only a
few seconds. Screams rang out as their bodies fell to pieces. The power of
the gun surprised me, but I was still able to keep it steady as I mowed them
down. By the time the magazine was empty, all the glowing lights that had
lit the raiders had faded to black.
I went to move, and at that moment a red beam of light sliced through
the cover I was behind and scorched my back. I bit back a scream and
forced myself to keep moving as more red beams started cutting through the
buildings around me. I ducked behind a bar. I had just a few moments to
take another head count and found that there were only seven of the marked
raiders left. Four were up where the boss had been, and three were
scattered, having run when I’d opened fire on their allies. Before I could
think of my next move, more beams of red light cut through the bar, one of
them hitting my shoulder. This time I couldn’t stop myself from crying out.
Red beams slammed into me, and I had to force myself to move more
quickly. I ran in the only direction I thought might provide more cover—
directly under the building the shots were coming from. I watched the
movement of the men from below, and when they attempted to shoot down
I’d make sure their shots wouldn’t hit me, calmly moving to the side when
they lined up shots. I was gritting my teeth the entire time, riddled with
holes. Standing was becoming harder and harder, but I wasn’t done yet.
After a few more pot shots, two of the lights started to come down the
stairs to where I was hiding. I slowly made my way behind a pillar and
waited. Once they were completely in the room I slowly peeked out, aimed
my rifle, and fired two more times, dropping them both. As soon as I’d
made that noise, a flurry of red blasts slammed through the ground wildly. I
was lucky this time, as none of them hit, but the raider leader wasn’t so
lucky. All the shots they’d taken had weakened the floor he was standing
on, and the building began to collapse inward.
I ducked down behind the pillar, covering my head with my hands.
There was screaming, the sound of the building groaning as the floor fell in,
and then silence. I pushed off the debris that had fallen on me and made my
way to the fading light of the raider leader. He’d been impaled by a piece of
rebar and desperately reaching for the weapon that was a few feet from him.
He looked up at me with a look of pure malice. I smiled back—malice was
a step up from the fear people usually looked at me with. I picked up his
gun and left him there to bleed out.
I was surprised at how light it was. It was almost like lifting nothing at
all. I began aiming it at the remaining men marked in light. Because of its
ability to cut through cover, it only took a few shots to kill the remaining
raiders. After I was done with them, I dragged myself under some debris
and collapsed. My breathing was heavy, and I was too hurt from the fight to
move anymore. After I was certain I was hidden, I let unconsciousness take
me.

I was surprised when I woke up. I was surprised that I woke up. The
debris were still on top of me and the area sounded quiet, but I waited for a
couple minutes before pushing them off. I put my hands on the spots where
I knew I’d been wounded. I found holes in my clothes, but none in me. I
had always been tough, but that was new.
Once I stood my vision was suddenly swallowed up by a notification. I
tried to dismiss it, but it didn’t move from my eyes. I looked at it: it was
highlighted in the same way the raiders had been after I’d marked them, and
the text was bolder as well.

Destroy the weapons.

Destroy the bunker.
All PP and job benefits will be lost permanently if this is not
completed.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Ces résultats viennent d'être en partie confirmés, en partie
complétés ou rectifiés par M. G. Schnürer dans son ingénieuse
dissertation intitulée: Die Verfasser der sogenannten Fredegar-
Chronik, Fribourg en Suisse 1900, (fascicule 9 des Collectanea
Friburgensia).
L'Epitome de Frédégaire qui forme le livre III de la chronique dans
l'édition de Krusch, est un résumé consciencieux, mais non toujours
exact, des six premiers livres de Grégoire de Tours. Il s'y est glissé
plus d'une bévue, et l'auteur a inséré des légendes puisées à la
source populaire, qui amplifient le côté épique de certains récits.
Dans l'ensemble, Frédégaire ajoute très peu de chose à l'histoire
authentique de Clovis; mais il ne manque pas d'intérêt par rapport à
son histoire poétique, pour laquelle il nous a conservé de précieux
éléments.
Ranke a essayé de prouver, dans l'appendice du tome IV de sa
Weltgeschichte, que l'Epitome n'est pas un résumé de Grégoire,
mais un texte original reposant sur la base d'un récit historique
antérieur à la rédaction de l'Historia Francorum de ce dernier. Dans
cette hypothèse, Frédégaire, là où il s'écarte de Grégoire, mériterait
plus de confiance que ce dernier. Je crois avoir réfuté d'une manière
péremptoire cette bizarre et insoutenable opinion, dans mon étude
intitulée: l'Histoire de Clovis d'après Frédégaire (Revue des
questions historiques, t. XLVII, 1890).

LIBER HISTORIÆ

(Éd. Dom Bouquet, Recueil des historiens de Gaule et de

France, t. III; Krusch, M. G. H., Scriptores Rerum
Merovingicarum, t. II, Hanovre, 1888).
Cet ouvrage, connu jusque dans ces derniers temps sous le titre de
Gesta regum Francorum, que M. Krusch eût peut-être bien fait de lui
laisser dans l'intérêt de la clarté, est l'œuvre d'un moine de Saint-
Denis qui paraît originaire du pays de Laon ou de Soissons, et qui
l'acheva en l'année 727. Un Austrasien, chaud partisan de la maison
carolingienne, l'a remanié quelques années plus tard, et l'a en partie
abrégé, en partie complété. L'ouvrage est, comme l'Epitome de
Frédégaire, un résumé des six premiers livres de Grégoire de Tours,
continué par le récit des événements qui s'écoulèrent de 584 à 727.
Le résumé, qui seul nous intéresse, n'est pas toujours exact, car
l'auteur n'a pas toujours compris Grégoire; lui aussi est retourné
puiser à la source populaire indiquée par l'évêque de Tours, et a
ajouté à sa narration divers ornements légendaires. Il a visé encore
à augmenter la précision géographique d'un bon nombre de
renseignements donnés par ce dernier, et il les a complétés le plus
souvent par conjecture. Comme Frédégaire, il n'ajoute rien à
l'histoire réelle de Clovis; mais il nous sert à constater une nouvelle
phase de son histoire poétique. Voir sur l'auteur et sur son ouvrage
Krusch, dans la préface de son édition, et mon mémoire intitulé:
Étude critique sur le Gesta regum Francorum (Bulletin de l'Académie
royale de Belgique, 3e série, t. XIII, 1889).
Le Liber Historiæ Francorum, confondu de bonne heure avec la
chronique de Grégoire de Tours, est devenu, au moyen âge, et déjà
chez Hincmar, la source de presque tous les auteurs qui se sont
occupés des origines franques.
Les écrivains que nous avons à citer encore ne peuvent plus être
regardés comme des sources de l'histoire de Clovis; tout au plus
méritent-ils de nous intéresser en ce qu'ils nous montrent la manière
dont cette histoire a été conçue au cours des temps, et les efforts
consciencieux d'une érudition dépourvue de critique pour arriver à la
reconstituer au moyen des matériaux dont on disposait. Sous ce
rapport, la tentative la plus remarquable est celle d'Aimoin, moine de
l'abbaye de Fleury-sur-Loire, qui vivait encore en l'an 1008, et
duquel nous possédons plusieurs ouvrages, tels que les livres ii et iii
(en partie) des Miracles de Saint Benoît (éd. de Certain, Paris,
1857), ouvrage écrit en 1005, et la Vie d'Abbon de Fleury, fragment
d'une histoire inachevée de l'abbaye de ce nom (Mabillon, Acta
Sanctorum O. S. B., t. VI). Avant ces deux ouvrages, Aimoin avait
écrit son De Gestis regum Francorum libri IV, à la demande de son
abbé Abbon (1004), auquel il l'a dédié. L'ouvrage, qui devait aller
jusqu'à Pépin le Bref, est interrompu à la seizième année du règne
de Clovis II (653). C'est un travail de compilation, dans lequel il a
fondu tout ce qu'il a pris dans les meilleures sources, à savoir,
Grégoire de Tours, Frédégaire, le Liber Historiæ et autres. On n'y
trouve naturellement rien de nouveau, mais on devra y constater une
mise en œuvre qui ne manque pas d'intérêt, et le premier essai
sérieux d'une histoire de France. L'ouvrage d'Aimoin nous est
conservé en deux versions: l'une, qui représente son travail original,
se trouve éditée par A. Duchesne, t. III, et par Dom Bouquet, t. III.
L'autre, interpolée et continuée jusqu'en 1165, contient, au livre i,
l'épitaphe de Clovis attribuée à saint Remi. La meilleure notice que
nous possédions sur cet intéressant écrivain est toujours celle de
l'Histoire littéraire, au tome VII.
Roricon est beaucoup moins connu qu'Aimoin, et mérite moins de
l'être. Il paraît avoir été prieur de Saint-Denis, à Amiens, vers l'an
1100, et il est auteur d'un Gesta Francorum en quatre livres allant
depuis les origines de la nation jusqu'à la mort de Clovis, en 511. Il
ne fait guère qu'amplifier le Liber Historiæ et certains épisodes
légendaires de Frédégaire. Il ne faut pas prendre ses préfaces
idylliques pour autre chose que des fictions littéraires. La seule
chose qui lui appartient en propre, c'est d'avoir placé à Amiens la
capitale de Clodion et de Childéric; mais cette hypothèse, que nous
avons rencontrée ci-dessus, t. I, p. 183, note, et p. 220, ne sert qu'à
nous faire connaître le séjour de Roricon lui-même. Son œuvre a été
publiée par A. Duchesne, t. I, et par dom Bouquet, t. III. La meilleure
notice sur cet auteur est toujours celle de l'abbé Lebeuf dans les
Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, t. XVII (1751).
Il est inutile de continuer cette énumération. L'histoire des
Mérovingiens gardera à travers tout le moyen âge la forme que lui
ont donnée le Liber Historiæ et Aimoin, et tous les auteurs qui
l'étudieront la raconteront d'après eux. Les Chroniques de Saint-
Denis ne sont, pour la période qui nous occupe, que la traduction
d'Aimoin. Sigebert de Gembloux, Hermannus Contractus, Otton de
Frisingue et tous les autres chroniqueurs ayant quelques vues
générales se bornent à copier ces sources de seconde main,
fidèlement mais servilement. Le premier progrès de la science
historique, ce fut de percer la couche sous laquelle a été enterrée la
vraie source, qui est Grégoire de Tours, et de faire de nouveau jaillir
ses informations originales dans l'historiographie. Le second, auquel
je crois avoir contribué, consiste en ce qu'au lieu de reproduire
simplement Grégoire de Tours, on s'est informé de ses sources à lui,
et qu'on a tâché de se rendre un compte exact de la valeur
respective de ses divers renseignements. Une histoire scientifique
de Clovis ne pouvait pas être écrite avant que ce travail fût terminé.

§ II.—VIES DE SAINTS
Nous sommes obligés de faire une classification à part pour les
nombreuses vies de saints dont les héros ont été en rapports réels
ou fictifs avec Clovis. L'intérêt et la valeur de ces documents sont
fort variables, selon le degré de leur authenticité, et aussi selon la
nature des relations qui y sont consignées. On trouvera ci-dessous,
rangées par ordre alphabétique de sujets, les notices que je leur ai
consacrées. L'ordre adopté n'est certes pas le plus scientifique:
j'eusse de beaucoup préféré les ranger d'après la date des
documents, si celle-ci était connue pour tous, ou encore d'après la
place que les divers saints prennent dans l'histoire de Clovis, si cette
place était vraiment attestée par l'histoire. Je crois n'avoir omis
aucun document. Ma liste est plus complète que celle de dom
Bouquet, III, 369-405. Je ne me suis d'ailleurs pas contenté des
extraits de dom Bouquet, mais mon étude critique a porté sur les
textes entiers. Le travail ci-dessous, sans être original, est toujours
personnel, et les indications sont tenues au courant de la science.
Saint Arnoul de Tours (18 juillet)[362].—Le texte le plus ancien de
la vie de saint Arnoul de Tours est celui que les Bollandistes ont
publié dans le Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum... bibliothecæ
Parisiensis, t. I, pp. 415-428, et dont celui des Acta Sanctorum n'est
qu'un résumé. Cette histoire de saint Arnoul n'est qu'un roman pieux,
qui semble dépourvu de tout fondement historique; elle contient un
tissu d'invraisemblances et de fictions manifestes. Le Translatio
sancti Arnulfi (Analecta bollandiana, t. VIII, p. 97) augmente encore
le caractère légendaire de la vie, en identifiant l'évêque Patrice,
oncle de sainte Scariberge, qui est la femme d'Arnoul, avec saint
Patrick, apôtre de l'Irlande. Il est d'ailleurs inutile d'ajouter que les
diptyques de l'Église de Tours ignorent absolument le nom d'Arnoul.
(Voir Mgr Duchesne, les Anciens catalogues épiscopaux de la
province de Tours; Paris, 1890.)
[362] Les dates marquées entre parenthèses à la suite des noms des saints sont
celles de leur fête; on les trouve sous ces dates dans le recueil des Bollandistes;
S. R. M. désigne le recueil des Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum, éd. B. Krusch,
qui contient aux tomes II et III un bon nombre de vies de saints du sixième siècle.
Saint Césaire d'Arles (27 août).—Sa vie se trouve dans Mabillon,
Acta Sanctorum O. S. B., t. I, dans les Bollandistes, Acta Sanctorum,
t. VI d'août (1743), et dans S. R. M., t. III. Écrite par ses disciples
quelques années après sa mort (pas après 549) et dédiée à sa sœur
l'abbesse Césarie, elle est divisée en deux livres, dont le premier, de
beaucoup le plus important, est le seul qui intéresse l'histoire de
Clovis. Ce livre premier a pour auteurs les évêques Cyprien de
Toulon et Firmin d'Uzès, sans compter un inconnu du nom de
Viventius. Il y a peu d'écrits hagiographiques de cette valeur; il
mérite une entière confiance, et il nous a raconté, dans un tableau
plein de vie, l'épisode le plus intéressant de la guerre de Provence,
faite par le fils de Clovis aux lieutenants de Théodoric. Saint Césaire
a trouvé de nos jours deux biographes de valeur: ce sont C. F.
Arnold, Cæsarius von Arelate und die gallische Kirche seiner Zeit,
Leipzig, 1894, et l'abbé Malnory, Saint Césaire, évêque d'Arles,
Paris, 1894, (103e fascicule de la Bibliothèque de l'École des Hautes
Études.)
Sainte Clotilde (3 juin).—La vie de sainte Clotilde (Mabillon, Acta
Sanctorum O. S. B., t. I; Acta Sanctorum des Bollandistes, t. I de
juin; S. R. M., t. II) n'a guère été écrite que vers le dixième siècle, à
preuve la légende de la sainte Ampoule, qu'elle emprunte, en
l'amplifiant encore, à la vie de saint Remi par Hincmar, et une
allusion à la filiation mérovingienne de Charlemagne et de ses
descendants. La partie purement biographique de ce texte n'est
qu'une reproduction du Liber Historiæ; mais, ce qui lui donne de
l'intérêt, c'est qu'il a conservé un certain nombre de traditions
relatives à des fondations d'églises par sainte Clotilde. Bien qu'on ne
puisse revendiquer pour toutes ces traditions un caractère de
rigoureuse authenticité, leur âge et leur accent de sincérité les rend
hautement respectables, et je n'admets pas le jugement sommaire
de M. Krusch écrivant au sujet de l'auteur: Omnes quas novit sancti
Petri ecclesias gallicanas a Chrotilde vel constructas vel ampliatas
esse finxit. M. Krusch oublie que l'immense majorité des églises du
haut moyen âge était dédiée à saint Pierre, tantôt seul, tantôt
associé aux autres apôtres, et qu'il n'est pas étonnant que quatre ou
cinq fondations connues de Clotilde soient sous son patronage. Il y a
quantité de vies modernes de sainte Clotilde, mais, reposant toutes
sur des données légendaires, elles n'ont plus aujourd'hui aucune
valeur. Celle que j'ai écrite moi-même pour la collection Les Saints
(Sainte Clotilde, Paris, 1897), a rencontré deux espèces de
contradicteurs: ceux qui, comme M. l'abbé Poulain, étrangers à la
méthode critique et à la bibliographie du sujet, ont ignoré que les
légendes racontées par Grégoire de Tours sont définitivement
rayées de l'histoire, et ont cru pouvoir les raconter une fois de plus
d'après lui, (Sainte Clotilde, Paris, 1899), et ceux qui refusent à
l'historien le droit de reconstituer une physionomie d'après les
quelques traits qui en restent, en s'aidant des indications fournies
par ceux-ci et des lois psychologiques.
Saint Dié, solitaire à Blois (24 avril).—La vie de saint Dié, en deux
rédactions dont la plus développée est, comme d'ordinaire, la plus
récente, veut que Clovis ait recherché ce saint lors de son expédition
contre les Visigoths, se soit recommandé à ses prières, et, à son
retour victorieux, lui ait fait des libéralités en terres et en argent,
sigillo suo largitate communita, dit-elle au sujet de la donation en
terres. Le saint aurait fondé un monastère, et sur son tombeau aurait
surgi une église qui, détruite par les flammes, aurait été rebâtie sous
Charles le Chauve. On avait oublié la date de sa mort; selon
l'hagiographe, elle fut révélée en songe à l'abbé Blodesindus. Ce
document, en ce qui concerne la partie relative à Clovis, semble
s'inspirer de la vie de saint Solein, dont on gardait le corps à Blois; il
mentionne même ce saint et rappelle qu'au moment où Clovis fit la
connaissance de Dié, il n'était encore que le catéchumène de
l'évêque de Chartres.
Saint Éleuthère de Tournai (20 février).—Les documents relatifs
à ce saint ont été publiés par les Bollandistes dans les Acta
Sanctorum au tome III de février, et reproduits d'après eux par
Ghesquière, Acta Sanctorum Belgii, t. I. La plus ancienne rédaction
de sa vie serait, d'après Henschenius, antérieure aux invasions des
Normands. La seconde, qui contient et qui continue la première, est
d'un auteur qui se dit contemporain de Hédilon, évêque de Noyon-
Tournai (880-902). C'est dans cette dernière que se trouve le récit de
la confession faite par Clovis à saint Éleuthère, avec quantité
d'autres épisodes invraisemblables. La valeur historique de cet
ouvrage est très faible, quoi qu'en dise Ghesquière, o. c., p. 453. On
en jugera par ce seul fait que, dans les deux rédactions, le saint est
donné comme contemporain à la fois de Dioclétien et de Clovis!
Saint Eptade (24 août).—Sa vie est dans les Acta Sanctorum des
Bollandistes, au t. IV d'août (lire le commentaire de Cuperus) et dans
les S. R. M., t. III. Ce document, bien que le texte en soit fort
corrompu, présente divers caractères de bonne ancienneté, et le
récit paraît bien reposer sur une base historique. C'est l'opinion de
Pétigny, Études sur l'histoire, les lois et les institutions à l'époque
mérovingienne, t. II, p. 647, de Binding, Das Burgundisch-
Romanische Kœnigreich, pp. 188 et 196, de Lœning, Geschichte
des deutschen Kirchenrechts, t. II, p. 176, de Kaufmann,
Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, t. X, pp. 391-395, d'Arnold,
Cæsarius von Arelate, p. 242, et de Mgr. Duchesne, Bulletin critique,
1897, pp. 451-455. Binding, o. c., est le premier qui en ait constaté la
valeur historique. A. Jahn, Die Geschichte der Burgundionen und
Burgundiens, t. II, pp. 106-112, a essayé vainement de contester
l'authenticité de ce document. M. Krusch, qui fait sienne la
démonstration de Jahn en y ajoutant de nouvelles considérations,
n'est pas plus heureux dans la préface qu'il a mise en tête de la Vie
(S. R. M., t. III) et dans une dissertation du Neues Archiv. (t. xxv, pp.
131-257) en réponse à l'article ci-dessus mentionné de Mgr
Duchesne. Ses deux raisons sont: 1º que le Vita fait du saint un
évêque-abbé, dans l'intention d'arracher son monastère à la
juridiction de l'évêque, alors que c'est seulement à la fin du septième
siècle que la Gaule a connu ce genre de dignitaires; 2º que le
passage du Vita, c. 6: Erat beatissimus vir totius prudentiæ, in
sermone verax, in judicio justus, in consiliis providus, in commissu
fidelis, in interventu strenuus, in veritate conspicuus et in universa
morum honestate praecipuus est emprunté à Grégoire de Tours,
Historia Francorum, II, 32, où il est dit d'Aredius: Erat enim jocundus
in fabulis, strenuus in consiliis, justus in judiciis et in commisso
fidelis. A quoi l'on peut répondre: 1º que nulle part le Vita ne parle de
saint Eptade comme d'un abbé, et que l'accusation d'avoir voulu
étayer l'immunité du monastère de Cervon sur la double qualité
revendiquée pour le fondateur s'évanouit devant cette simple
constatation; qu'au surplus, même dans l'hypothèse que le
biographe aurait considéré le saint comme le premier abbé de
Cervon, l'intention qui lui est prêtée est absolument chimérique,
attendu que c'est en qualité d'évêque d'Auxerre, élu canoniquement,
et non d'évêque-abbé qu'il figure ici. Quant au second point, l'identité
d'une formule probablement très répandue dès le sixième siècle ne
prouve rien, d'autant plus que le texte du Vita est fort défiguré et que
M. Krusch lui-même l'appelle einen ausnehmend verzweifelten Fall
von Textcorruption (o. c., p. 157). Il faudrait d'autres arguments pour
démentir l'auteur, qui dit formellement au c. 14 qu'il fut un
contemporain du saint et qui insinue au c. 22 qu'il fut son familier
(qui erat illi familiaris, quem nominare necesse non est).
Il y a quelques années, M. A. Thomas, dans un article intitulé: Sur un
passage de la Vita sancti Eptadii (Mélanges Julien Havet, Paris,
1895, pp. 593 et suivantes), a discuté l'interprétation du passage du
Vita Eptadii qui est relatif à l'histoire de Clovis. Il ne veut pas y lire le
nom de la Cure (Quoranda) mais celui du Cousin (Quossa), son
affluent.
Je lui emprunte le texte de ce passage d'après les deux manuscrits
conservés à la Bibliothèque nationale de Paris, parce qu'il a été
défiguré d'une manière fort arbitraire par les conjectures de M.
Krusch dans l'édition des S. R. M.
Ms. 17002, fonds latin. Ms. 3809, fonds latin.
Eodem tempore quosse ad Eodem vero tempore ad fluvium
fluvium quorundam pacis
quendam pacis mediante
mediante
concordia duorum regum
concordia duorum regum
potencia,
supersticiosa complexa potentia id est Burgundionum et
id est Burgondionum genus et Francorum, convenit ac regem
Francorum hec rege Gundobado Gondebadum precellentissimus
rex Francorum Clodoveus
precellentissimus rex Francorum
suppliciter
Clodoveus suppliciter exoravit exoravit ut beatissimum
ut hunc beatissimum virum virum Dei Eptadium civitati sue
Autissiodorensi concederet
Dei Eptadium civitatis sue
antistitem
autisiodorense prestaret
ordinandum.
antestitem
ordinandum.
On trouve de bons renseignements sur le culte local de ce saint
dans Henry, Vie de saint Eptade, Avallon, 1863.
Sainte Geneviève de Paris (3 janvier).—Cette vie a été diverses
fois rééditée depuis 1643, qu'elle a paru dans le 1er volume des Acta
Sanctorum des Bollandistes. Trois éditions critiques en ont paru
coup sur coup dans les vingt dernières années: celle de M. Ch.
Kohler (Etude critique sur le texte de la vie latine de sainte
Geneviève de Paris, dans le 48e fascicule de la Bibliothèque de
l'École des Hautes Études, Paris, 1881), celle de M. l'abbé Narbey
(Quel est le texte de la vie authentique de sainte Geneviève? Étude
critique suivie de sa vie authentique et de la traduction, dans le
Bulletin d'histoire et d'archéologie du diocèse de Paris, 1884), et
enfin celle de M. Krusch dans S. R. M., t. III, 1896. Ces savants sont
totalement en désaccord sur le point de savoir comment il faut établir
le texte de la vie. M. Kohler, qui en a étudié vingt-neuf manuscrits,
les classe en quatre familles dont la première représente, selon lui,
le texte le plus ancien, diversement interpolé ou altéré dans les trois
autres familles. Selon M. Narbey, au contraire, suivi par M. Krusch,
le plus ancien se retrouverait dans les manuscrits de la seconde
famille de M. Kohler, et c'est d'après ceux-ci, dont le nombre est
porté à treize par les recherches de M. Krusch, que ce dernier,
comme M. Narbey lui-même, a établi son texte. Cette discussion
n'est pas close d'une manière définitive, car, comme le fait
remarquer Mgr. Duchesne, rien n'empêche que les manuscrits de la
deuxième famille Kohler, tout en présentant un texte moins altéré au
point de vue de la langue et de l'orthographe, ne fût-ce que parce
qu'ils sont en général plus anciens, aient été d'autre part l'objet des
interpolations dont les manuscrits de la première famille Kohler sont
exempts d'après ce dernier éditeur. On ne peut donc pas dire que
malgré tous les travaux sur ce document hagiographique, nous
soyons aujourd'hui en possession d'une édition définitive. MM.
Kohler et Krusch ont d'ailleurs mis parfaitement en lumière, chacun
dans un sens opposé, les indices qui plaident en faveur de
l'antériorité de l'une et de l'autre des deux familles.
La question de la date à laquelle fut composée la vie de sainte
Geneviève présente une importance capitale. L'auteur, qui avoue
n'avoir pas connu la sainte, nous dit qu'il écrit dix-huit ans après la
mort de celle-ci, c'est-à-dire, par conséquent, en 519 ou 520. C'est
sur la foi de cette affirmation qu'on a été à peu près unanime à
considérer son travail comme ayant la valeur d'une œuvre presque
contemporaine. Toutefois, certaines assertions de l'auteur, qui
semblaient difficiles à concilier avec ce que nous savons de l'histoire
des Mérovingiens, et en particulier les épisodes où il est parlé de
Childéric et du siège de dix ou cinq ans soutenu par la ville de Paris
contre les Francs, avaient déjà inspiré de la défiance à Adrien de
Valois (Rerum Francicarum, libri VIII, Paris, 1646, t. I, pp. 317-319),
sans que cependant il s'avisât de contester l'authenticité du
document. Bollandus, lui, n'avait pu se persuader totalement que la
Vie qu'il publiait était le texte primitif (Eademne tamen sit quæ est in
manibus ingenue fateor mihi non liquere, p. 137), mais ces doutes,
exprimés en passant, avaient été peu remarqués. Vers la fin du dix-
septième siècle, le génovéfain Claude du Molinet, dans son Histoire
de sainte Geneviève et de son abbaye royale et apostolique,
conservée en manuscrit à la bibliothèque de Sainte-Geneviève à
Paris, et, quelque temps après lui, Claude du Moulinet, abbé des
Tuileries, dans une Lettre critique sur les différentes Vies de sainte
Geneviève, également en manuscrit à la même bibliothèque, émirent
l'opinion que l'ouvrage était tout au plus du neuvième siècle. Mais
ces deux livres, n'ayant jamais vu le jour, restèrent sans influence
sur la conviction générale; au surplus, tous les deux partaient d'un
faux point de vue en prenant le texte de la quatrième famille Kohler,
rempli d'interpolations et d'anachronismes, pour le texte original.
Enfin, un protestant suédois du nom de Wallin porta la question
devant le public dans une véhémente dissertation intitulée: De
sancta Genovefa..... disquisitio historico-critico-theologica,
Wittenberg, 1723, in 4º. Pour Wallin, qui travaillait selon l'esprit des
centuriateurs de Magdebourg et avec une rare absence de sérénité
scientifique, l'auteur de la Vie était un faussaire du neuvième siècle
qui l'avait inventée de toutes pièces, et il n'était pas même certain
que sainte Geneviève eût jamais existé (si qua unquam fuit, p. 55).
Wallin alléguait contre l'authenticité divers arguments dont quelques-
uns ne laissent pas d'être spécieux, mais il était beaucoup plus
faible dans la réfutation de ceux qu'on alléguait en sa faveur; c'est
ainsi que, d'après lui, si l'auteur parle une langue manifestement
mérovingienne, c'est une ruse de plus pour se donner un vernis
d'antiquité. L'opinion de Wallin était d'ailleurs restée sans écho
jusqu'à nos jours, et un seul érudit à ma connaissance, M. L.
Lœning, dans sa Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenrechts,
Strasbourg, 1878 (t. II, p. 6, note) avait cru devoir, mais sans insister,
lui contester le caractère de source historique pour l'époque
mérovingienne. Le vrai débat ne commença en réalité que lorsqu'en
1893 M. B. Krusch se jeta dans l'arène avec sa retentissante
dissertation intitulée hardiment: Die Faelschung der Vita Genovefae,
Neues Archiv., t. XVIII.
Reprenant la thèse de Wallin, que d'ailleurs il ne mentionnait
pas[363], mais en s'appuyant sur une connaissance approfondie des
manuscrits, il concluait, comme le Suédois, que l'auteur est un
audacieux faussaire, moine de sainte Geneviève. Ce moine aurait
écrit vers 767, et aurait tiré toute l'histoire de sainte Geneviève de sa
cervelle, en vue de créer à son abbaye des titres de possession sur
certaines terres disputées par elle à l'église de Reims. Cette thèse si
aventureuse, et dont la démonstration laisse tant à désirer, a rallié
tout de suite M. Wattenbach, qui s'est empressé de qualifier le Vita
Genovefæ d'impudente fiction, freche Faelschung (Voir
Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter, 6e édition, t. II, p.
498.) M. Krusch a trouvé un redoutable contradicteur dans Mgr
Duchesne, qui réfute point par point l'argumentation du savant
archiviste de Bresslau, et qui maintient avec énergie la date
traditionnelle donnée par l'hagiographe lui-même (La vie de sainte
Geneviève est-elle authentique? dans la Bibliothèque de l'École des
Chartes, t. 54, 1893). M. Krusch lui a répondu assez faiblement dans
une dissertation intitulée, plus modestement, cette fois: Das Alter der
Vita Genovefæ (Neues Archiv, t. XIX, 1894), où il maintient,
d'ailleurs, toutes ses positions. Deux années plus tard, dans la
préface qu'il a mise en tête de son édition du Vita (Scriptores Rerum
Merovingicarum, t. III.), il rompait une nouvelle lance en faveur de sa
thèse et ajoutait quelques arguments à ceux qu'il avait présentés en
1893, ce qui provoqua une courte réplique de Mgr Duchesne dans le
Bulletin critique de 1897. Enfin, en 1898, M. Ch. Kohler à son tour
entrait en lice avec une solide dissertation intitulée: La vie de sainte
Geneviève est-elle apocryphe? (Revue historique, t. 67, 1898), où il
battait en brèche la classification des manuscrits faite par M. Krusch
et soutenait que le passage relatif à Saint-Denis, qui se trouve dans
la recension considérée par M. Krusch comme l'original, était une
interpolation. A la suite de cette longue discussion, le critique
bollandien qui s'est constitué juge des coups, et dont les articles très
judicieux ont reflété avec la plus grande sincérité l'impression mêlée
que produisait l'argumentation des divers contradicteurs (Analecta
Bollandiana, t. XII, p. 470; XIV, pp. 334-335; t. XVI, p. 87) a
finalement abandonné M. Krusch (t. XVI, p. 368), malgré la
sympathie visible que lui inspirait la vigoureuse polémique du savant
allemand[364]. Moi-même, s'il m'est permis de me citer, après un
nouvel et consciencieux examen de la question, j'ai abandonné
l'opinion mitoyenne que j'avais formulée dans l'Histoire poétique des
Mérovingiens, p. 503, et dans l'appendice de la première édition du
présent livre, p. 601. Loin de faire un pas de plus du côté de la thèse
de M. Krusch, comme celui-ci l'espérait (S. R. M., III, p. 685), je me
suis convaincu que mes raisons pour admettre un certain
remaniement du Vita au neuvième siècle étaient, en grande partie,
écartées par la démonstration de Mgr Duchesne et de M. Kohler, et
je vois contre la thèse de M. Krusch d'autres raisons que je me
propose d'exposer prochainement.
[363] Dans la première édition de ce livre, p. 600, j'avais cru pouvoir conclure de
ce silence à l'endroit de son prédécesseur que M. Krusch ignorait le travail de
Wallin. Depuis lors, M. Krusch a protesté contre cette hypothèse (S. R. M., t. III, p.
686): il n'a pas ignoré l'écrit en question, dit-il, mais ad rem ea fere nihil facit, cum
auctor doctissimus Carpentarii usus editione recensionem falsam esse
demonstraverit. Cette raison me paraît étrange; quelle qu'ait été l'opinion de
Wallin, trompé comme du Molinet et du Moulinet sur le texte original de la Vie, il
est certain que ce n'est pas à une recension de celle-ci, mais à la vie elle-même
qu'il s'est attaqué, et cela avec des arguments que M. Krusch n'a pas dédaigné de
lui emprunter tacitement.
[364] Je serais reconnaissant à M. Krusch de ne pas me dénoncer outre-Rhin
comme un ennemi de la science allemande parce que je lui donne, comme à
d'autres de ses compatriotes, le double qualificatif de savant allemand, ainsi qu'il
l'a fait dans le Neues Archiv, t. XX, p, 511. Tous ses amis français lui diront que
l'emploi d'une pareille expression n'implique nullement les noires intentions qu'il
m'a attribuées.

Mais, de ce qu'il reste établi que la Vie a bien été écrite au sixième
siècle, il ne s'ensuit nullement qu'elle mérite d'être crue sur parole
dans toutes ses parties. Il est certain qu'écrivant, comme il le dit, dix-
huit ans après la mort d'une sainte qui en a vécu plus de quatre-
vingts, et, de plus, ne la connaissant que par une tradition qui avait
dû, sur plus d'un point, subir l'influence de l'enthousiasme populaire
pour elle, il a pu introduire dans son récit des amplifications et des
légendes, tout spécialement dans l'histoire de l'enfance et de la
jeunesse de son héroïne. Faire le départ de cet élément légendaire
et du fond historique de la vie sera toujours un travail difficile, sinon
impossible, en l'absence de presque tout moyen de contrôle, et on
devra continuer de se servir des données du Vita avec une certaine
réserve. C'est avec les mêmes restrictions qu'il faut signaler les
principales vies modernes de la sainte, à savoir celle de Saintyves:
Vie de sainte Geneviève, patronne de Paris et du royaume de
France, Paris, 1846, qui reste la meilleure; celle de l'abbé Vidien,
Sainte Geneviève, patronne de Paris et son influence sur les
destinées de la France, Paris, 1889; et celle de M. l'abbé Lesètre,
Sainte Geneviève, Paris, 1900 (Collection Les Saints), qui, toutes les
deux, pèchent par l'insuffisance de la critique.
Saint Fridolin, abbé de Saeckingen (6 mars).—La vie de ce saint,
écrite au dixième siècle par un moine de Saeckingen nommé
Balther, et dédiée à Notger de Saint-Gall, se trouve au tome I de
mars des Bollandistes, au tome I de Mone, Quellensammlung der
badischen Landesgeschichte, Karlsruhe, 1848, et au tome III des
Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum. D'après ceux-là, il s'agirait de
Notger le Bègue; d'après M. Krusch, de Notger à la Lèvre.
L'auteur raconte, à peu près à la manière de Hincmar dans sa vie de
saint Remi, qu'en rentrant d'un voyage de quatre ans à travers la
France jusqu'aux confins de l'Espagne, il a trouvé cet écrit dans le
monastère de Helera, fondé autrefois par le saint sur la Moselle;
l'exemplaire qui existait à Saeckingen même avait été, dit-il, détruit
par les Normands, mais il était encore dans le souvenir de plus d'un
moine de ce lieu: «Adhuc etiam supersunt multi, qui eumdem librum
antequam ita, ceu dixi, perderetur, non solum viderunt sed sæpius
legerunt: sicque verum esse profitentur, veluti jam per me narratur.»
o. c. p. 434, A. Il ajoute que, comme on ne voulut pas lui laisser
emporter le volume, il l'apprit par cœur, en partie textuellement, et,
rentré chez lui, le mit par écrit en se servant de sa seule mémoire. Ni
ces détails, qui sentent le roman, ni la vie elle-même, ne peuvent
nous empêcher de constater que nous sommes en présence d'une
fiction.
Saint Germier de Toulouse (16 mai).—La vie de saint Germier est
signalée comme ayant existé avant 1245 dans un passionnaire de
l'abbaye de Lézat; mais on ne la possède aujourd'hui que dans le
manuscrit 477 de la bibliothèque de Toulouse, qui est du
commencement du quatorzième siècle. C'est d'après une copie
défectueuse de ce texte que Papebroch l'avait publiée dans les Acta
Sanctorum, t. III de mai, p. 592. L'abbé Douais vient de la publier
d'après le manuscrit 477 lui-même dans le tome L des Mémoires de
la Société des Antiquaires de France (1890). Les auteurs de
l'Histoire générale du Languedoc placent la composition de cette vie
à la fin du onzième siècle, ce qui n'est pas de nature à lui faire
accorder beaucoup de valeur. Il est vrai qu'elle semble se référer à
un écrit plus ancien; car on y lit, p. 80, que saint Germier, passant la
mer, vint à Toulouse accompagné seulement de deux jeunes clercs:
quorum unus Placidius alter Preciosus vocabatur... quorum unus
Preciosus sanctissimi confessoris Germerii vitam vel actus longe
post scripsisse peribetur. M. Douais croit même retrouver dans le
texte qu'il publie des indices d'une rédaction mérovingienne
antérieure, qui aurait été fondue dans l'actuelle; j'avoue que je n'ai
pas été aussi heureux que lui.
Selon M. l'abbé Douais, dans l'Examen critique qu'il place en tête de
la vie du saint, celui-ci serait devenu évêque de Toulouse en 507 ou
au plus tard en 511, et son entrevue avec Clovis aurait eu lieu
pendant la guerre d'Aquitaine, soit à l'aller, soit au retour de l'armée
franque. M. Douais s'attache aussi à rendre probable la tradition
relative à l'amitié de saint Germier et de saint Remi de Reims. En
revanche, Mgr Duchesne ne paraît pas sûr que saint Germier ait
jamais existé, et, de fait, il ne l'accueille pas sur sa liste des évêques
de Toulouse (Duchesne, les Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule,
Paris, 1894, p. 296, cf. Analecta Bollandiana, t. X, p. 61.)
Saint Gildard ou Godard de Rouen (8 juin).—La vie de ce saint a
été publiée dans les Analecta Bollandiana, t. VIII, pp. 393-402. Elle
n'est pas antérieure au premier quart du dixième siècle, puisqu'il y
est parlé de Rouen comme de la capitale des Normands (metropolis
Danorum, p. 397). Saint Gildard y est présenté comme un jumeau
de saint Médard, mort le même jour et à la même heure; bon
nombre de faits de la vie de saint Médard par le pseudo-Fortunat
sont purement et simplement racontés ici de saint Gildard. Cette
substitution de personnages paraît devoir son origine à la
coïncidence de la fête des deux saints au même jour du calendrier.
La partie originale de la vie de Saint Gildard, c'est un curieux
passage où la conversion de Clovis est présentée comme le résultat
de ses efforts et de ceux de son frère Médard: tous deux, étant du
palais, auraient fréquemment exhorté le roi à se faire chrétien, et,
unis à saint Remi, ils auraient fini par le décider. Je reproduis ici tout
le passage, qui est peu connu:
«His crebro cum rege Clodoveo ratiocinantibus et de futura vita vel
ex perceptione regni cœlestis philosophantibus vera quoque
assertione quæ sunt supernæ patriæ declarantibus patienter idem
princeps aurem præbebat divinis persuasionibus. Tandem tactus
Spiritu sancto intrinsecus non solum monitis salutaribus consensit,
sed etiam tirocinium christianæ militiæ suscepit, ac non multo post,
defuncto Remorum archiepiscopo, clamore populi et providentia Dei
Remedius in cathedra pontificali levatur præsul.
»Eadem tempestate accidit etiam Veromandensium pontificem
obisse et Rotomagensium metropolis Danorum archipræsulem
hominem exuisse. In quorum patriarchio et favore vulgi ac
auctoritate regis divinique testimonio oraculi, duæ ecclesiæ
statuuntur columnæ: Medardus Veromandensium, Gildardus vero
Rotomagensium sedis consecrantur episcopi. Beatus itaque
Remedius qui et Remigius non destitit cum beatissimo Medardo
cœptum christianæ fidei iter regi propalare, donec quirent sæpe
dictum principem sacri fonte baptismatis perfundere. Quod et factum
est. Nam in civitatem Remorum venientes in basilica sancti Petri,
quæ nunc dicitur ad palatium, missas celebraverunt et ea quæ Dei
sunt agentes, beatus Remedius regem baptizavit, et de sacro fonte
illum beatus Medardus suscepit. Persuasu denique patris,
benevolentia ac devotione regia nobilissimus filius vocabulo
Clotharius ejusdem fidei suscepit sacramentum, et suæ acceptionis
sanctissimum patrem habere promeruit Medardum.» (O. c., p. 397.)
La grosse erreur qui consiste à mentionner dans la dernière phrase
Clotaire, fils catholique de Clotilde, et qui peut-être n'était pas encore
né à l'époque du baptême de son père, donne la mesure qu'il
convient d'attribuer à la Vie de saint Gildard.
Saint Hilaire de Poitiers (14 janvier).—La vie de ce saint, mort en
378, fut écrite au sixième siècle, à la demande de l'évêque
Pascentius de Poitiers, par le célèbre Fortunat; on la trouve dans
l'édition des œuvres de cet auteur par Leo et Krusch, M. G. H.,
Auctor. Antiquiss., t. IV. Elle est composée de deux parties: la
biographie proprement dite, dont la paternité a été souvent
contestée à Fortunat pour des raisons d'ailleurs insuffisantes, et les
miracles du saint, que tout le monde s'accorde à reconnaître comme
l'œuvre de cet auteur. C'est dans cette dernière partie que se trouve
l'épisode du signal de feu qui, de la tour de Saint-Hilaire, vint briller
sur la tente de Clovis. Écrit entre 565 et 575, d'après les traditions
poitevines recueillies sur place, il a fort probablement été puisé à la
même source que le récit de Grégoire de Tours, et cependant il s'en
écarte considérablement. On connaît la version de Grégoire. Il est à
remarquer que, d'après Fortunat, le signal de feu fut donné au milieu
de la nuit (media nocte meruit de basilica beati viri lumen super se
venientem aspicere), et que Clovis fut averti de ne pas aller au
combat avant d'avoir été prier sur le tombeau de ce saint (admonitus
ut festinanter sed non sine venerabilis loci oratione adversum hostes
conflictaturus descenderet), enfin, que le saint fit entendre sa voix au
roi franc (parum illi fuit pro solatio regis signum ostendere luminis,
nisi aperte monitus addidisset et vocis). D'après cela, il faudrait
admettre que Clovis était déjà maître de Poitiers lorsqu'il reçut le
signe lumineux et qu'il entendit la voix du saint: il ne pouvait pas aller
prier dans la basilique si Poitiers n'était à lui, et le mot descenderet
indique bien qu'il occupait la ville. Il faudrait admettre encore que la
bataille ne s'est pas livrée à Vouillé, mais au sud de Poitiers; car
comment supposer que le roi franc eût pu s'emparer de la ville sans
coup férir, si Alaric avait été campé dans le voisinage pour la
protéger? Il faudrait donc modifier singulièrement notre récit de la
bataille de Vouillé, si l'on pouvait croire que Fortunat est l'écho fidèle
de la tradition poitevine. Mais Grégoire de Tours lui-même, par la
manière dont il la rapporte, semble n'avoir pas cru aux détails
donnés par Fortunat. Et, de fait, ces derniers sont contradictoires: le
signe lumineux devient absolument inutile, si la ville de Poitiers et la
basilique de Saint-Hilaire sont aux mains de Clovis; à plus forte
raison la voix surnaturelle. Aperçu de loin, et venant d'un poste
encore aux mains de l'ennemi, le signe lumineux a toute sa valeur.
Nous sommes donc obligé de croire que la version de Grégoire est
la seule admissible, et tout ce qui se trouve en plus dans Fortunat
est une superfétation oiseuse.
Saint Jean de Réomé (28 janvier).—La vie de saint Jean de Réomé
fut écrite vers 659 par l'abbé Jonas de Bobbio, pendant le court
séjour qu'il fit au monastère de Moutier-Saint-Jean, fondé par ce
saint dans les environs de Semur (Côte-d'Or). Nous n'en avons
possédé longtemps qu'un remaniement du neuvième siècle, publié
par Mabillon (Acta Sanctorum O. S. B. t. I), et un second
remaniement plus développé qui a été publié d'abord par Roverius
(Reomaus seu historia monasterii sancti Joannis Reomaensis, Paris,
1637), et ensuite par les Bollandistes (Acta Sanctorum, t. II de
février). Le texte original a été retrouvé de nos jours par Krusch et
publié par lui dans Mittheilungen des Instituts für œsterreichische
Geschichtsforschung, t. XIV. Les principales questions relatives à cet
écrit ont été savamment élucidées par Stoeber dans
Sitzungsberichte der phil. hist. Classe der K. Akademie der
Wissenschaften, Vienne, 1885, et par Krusch en tête du texte publié
par lui.
Saint Léonard, solitaire en Limousin.—La vie de saint Léonard a
été publiée pour la première fois par M. le chanoine Arbellot (Vie de
saint Léonard, solitaire en Limousin, Paris, 1863, pp. 277-289); elle
vient d'être rééditée dans S. R. M., t. III. Cet ouvrage, que l'éditeur
voudrait faire remonter jusqu'au huitième siècle tout au moins, ne
semble pas antérieur au onzième (Histoire littéraire de France, t.
VIII). A cette date, l'évêque Jourdain de Limoges ne la connaissait
pas encore, puisqu'il demandait à Fulbert de Chartres de lui procurer
une biographie de son saint: «Jordanus etiam, Lemovicensis
episcopus, cui olim suffragium præstiti apud archiepiscopum
Bituricensem, plurima te salute impertiens, rogat suppliciter ut mittas
ei vitam sancti Leonardi, in episcopatu suo quiescentis ut aiunt;
sicubi reperire poteris, pulchre dicas hoc feneratum esse (Patrol. lat.,
t. CXLI, col. 275, cité par M. le chanoine Arbellot, o. c., p. 241). Ce
passage n'est susceptible que d'une seule interprétation, celle que
lui ont donnée les auteurs de l'Histoire littéraire de France, en
concluant qu'il n'existait pas de vie de saint Léonard à la
connaissance de Jourdain, et qu'il désirait ardemment qu'on en
découvrît une. Comment le vénérable éditeur de la vie a-t-il pu traiter
d'étrange méprise cette interprétation et écrire: «Sans doute, elle (la
vie de saint Léonard) ne se trouvait pas dans la bibliothèque de
l'évêque de Limoges, mais si elle n'eût existé nulle autre part,
Jourdain l'eût-il fait demander à l'évêque de Chartres?» L'erreur est
manifeste. Au surplus, l'ouvrage, conservé dans plusieurs
manuscrits du onzième et du douzième siècle, est à peu près
entièrement fabuleux, et on ne doit rien croire des prétendues
relations du saint avec Clovis. M. le chanoine Arbellot montre lui-
même (o. c., pp. 259 et suivantes) qu'il ne peut pas être question de
ce roi, bien qu'il se refuse à reconnaître le caractère légendaire de
l'épisode.
Saint Maixent (26 juin).—La rédaction primitive de la vie de ce
saint, connue et utilisée par Grégoire de Tours (v. ci-dessus p. 237),
a été remplacée de bonne heure par deux recensions plus
modernes. La première se trouve dans Mabillon (Acta Sanctorum O.
S. B., t. I), la seconde dans les Bollandistes (Acta Sanctorum, t. V de
juin). Cette dernière contient des indices de postériorité qui ne
permettent pas de la faire remonter au delà du commencement du
septième siècle. L'autre n'est guère plus ancienne, car elle a en
commun avec la précédente l'amplification légendaire qui introduit
Clovis lui-même dans l'épisode du soldat pillard, et le fait tomber aux
genoux du saint. Sur la modernité de ces recensions, voir mon étude
sur les Sources de l'histoire de Clovis dans Grégoire de Tours.
Saint Melaine (6 janvier).—Nous possédons actuellement la vie de
saint Melaine en trois recensions. L'une se trouve dans les Acta
Sanctorum des Bollandistes, t. I de janvier; une autre a été publiée
par les Bollandistes dans le t. I du Catalogus codicum
hagiographicorum bibliothecæ nationalis Parisiensis, p. 71, et en
partie dans les Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum, t. III, la troisième
enfin dans le t. II du Catalogus, p. 531.
C'est cette dernière qui paraît aux Bollandistes modernes la plus
ancienne, tandis que M. Lippert (Zur Vita Melanii dans Neues Archiv,
t. XIV, 1889) et M. Krusch, (S. R. M., t. III, p. 370) ont prouvé, d'une
manière selon moi irréfutable, que c'est la première qui est la plus
ancienne. Contrairement à Bollandus, qui regarde la vie comme
contemporaine, et qui est suivi par dom Rivet (Histoire littéraire de la
France t. III) et par dom Plaine (Étude comparative des trois
anciennes Vies de saint Melaine dans Revue historique de l'Ouest, t.
V et VIII; cf. Analecta Bollandiana, t. XIII, p. 179) les deux érudits
allemands rendent vraisemblable qu'elle est du neuvième siècle, et
antérieure à la translation des reliques du saint à Bourges en 853,
mais postérieure à l'Adnotatio de Synodis, qui est elle-même du
huitième ou du neuvième siècle et qui a servi de source à la Vie.
Saint Mesmin, abbé de Micy (15 décembre).—Nous possédons
deux Vies de saint Mesmin de Micy. La première existe dans des
manuscrits du dixième siècle, et a été copiée au onzième par
Hugues de Flavigny. Mabillon, qui l'a publiée dans les Acta
Sanctorum O. S. B., t. I, la croit du septième siècle. Nous en
possédons une rédaction assez différente, dont la partie
substantielle a été publiée par les Bollandistes, dans le Catalogus
codicum hagiographicorum bibl. nat. Paris., t. I, pp. 300-303, d'après
un manuscrit du onzième siècle. Bien que cette Vie ait déjà un
caractère assez légendaire, elle paraît cependant reposer sur un
fond historique solide, et avoir connu un diplôme de fondation de
l'abbaye, émis par Clovis. La seconde a pour auteur Bertold, moine
de Micy, et est dédiée à l'évêque Jonas d'Orléans († 843). Il y aurait
lieu d'examiner les rapports qu'il y a entre ces deux documents,
jusqu'à présent fort peu étudiés, et dont le premier mérite une
sérieuse attention.
Saint Paterne, évêque de Vannes (15 avril).—Sa vie se trouve
dans les Acta Sanctorum des Bollandistes, tome II d'avril. C'est un
écrit du quatorzième siècle, dû au moine Jean de Tynemouth, rempli
de fables, et qui identifie de la manière la plus bizarre ce saint
d'Armorique avec un saint gallois du même nom, vénéré dans le
Cardiganshire. Le saint Paterne historique fut ordonné évêque de
Vannes vers 465; on ne sait pas la date de sa mort, mais au concile
d'Orléans, en 511, son successeur était Modestus. Au reste, le
premier document qui le mette en rapport avec Clovis est un sermon
prêché au douzième siècle à Vannes et contenant une description
des reliques de l'église de cette ville; un fragment de ce document a
été publié par M. A. de la Borderie dans Saint Paterne, premier
évêque de Vannes, Vannes 1893, et dans l'Histoire de Bretagne, t. I,
p. 331. Contre ce rapprochement, voyez Mgr Duchesne, Saint
Paterne, Revue Celtique, (1893) et Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne
Gaule t. II (1900), p. 371.
Saint Remi, évêque de Reims (1er octobre).—Nous savons qu'il
existait du temps de saint Grégoire de Tours une Vie de saint Remi,
dans laquelle, selon toute apparence, le chroniqueur franc avait
puisé une bonne partie de ses renseignements sur Clovis. (V. ci-
dessus p. 236.) Cette Vie, malheureusement, disparut de bonne
heure, et fut remplacée vers le commencement du huitième siècle, si
je ne me trompe, par un écrit qui laissait de côté le rôle public du
saint pour ne le faire connaître que comme thaumaturge (Acta