If God sees into souls, he could take account of the fact that when I got to my feet, the syllables of my oath were still floating on my lips, and I only had the intention of shouting pacifying words through the door. I searched for a general remark about the blindness into which we had thrown drink, the necessity of sleep and forgetfulness.
What happened then? Perhaps, as I have thought by virtue of certain indications, there is a personal genius in my épée that, although deprived of speech, offers suggestions and impels actions in accordance with its nature. Perhaps the things that were being said in the street by infamous men—of which I perceived fragments such as: Miserable hovel of beggars! His old caricature of a mother—were of a character such that one could not hear them without a complete transformation of the living fires that circulate in the blood vessels.
The door of the house was narrow, made of stout oak, and held shut by the thick transversal beam. I understood that several men were braced against it, attempting to break it down. They were breathing heavily, and one of them said:
“He must be shivering with fear on the other side.”
Gold alone, with his power of vision, can testify that my intention was simply to show those degraded individuals that I was not afraid of them. I remember that, during the moments that followed, I constantly had the sensation that my mother’s tear was luminous on my forehead, like a fantastic star, the sight of which would dazzle my enemies.
I threw myself at the door and with a single thrust, I pulled away the beam that ensured its closure.
Events never happen as the imagination represents their details. I had seized my épée in my right hand, and I believed confusedly that a kind of Archangel Michael would appear to the indigenes in the street, with a star placed on his forehead.
For a second I had that illusion, for those who were shoving the door fell to the floor, and I was able to believe that they were prostrating themselves. But a fat man, whom I recognized by his silhouette as Balbaria, leapt over those who had fallen with a surprising agility.
That Balbaria had an arm longer than any other, and the right side of his face as more developed than the left. One ear almost hung down to the shoulder. At least, I saw him thus, and I had not refrained, in the course of our expedition, from laughing at such a disproportion, which no one apart from me had noticed.
He seized me by the throat with his deformed but strangely solid hand, crying: “I’ve got him!”
In a din of broken things, forms filled the room.
Subsequently, I was astonished by the brevity of that scene. Doubtless it was the howl that Balbaria uttered that sowed fear in souls. The cutting edge of my blade sawed through the arm near the elbow. I was able to recoil as far as the staircase. I was suddenly animated by a marvelous presence of mind.
The room was only illuminated by a night-light attached to the wall and the lunar circle that the open door made. All my thrusts must have carried. But that is not sufficient to explain that panic so rapidly took hold of the assailants. Like the waves of a tide that has reached the extremity of its force, they flowed back into the street. I was able to close the door behind them and bolt it again.
An occult intervention had occurred, and had preserved me from the complete invasion of my house by those furious individuals. But I immediately wondered why it had not occurred sooner. A minute sooner would have sufficed. What a caprice there is in providential interventions.
Everything around me was devastated. Balbaria’s blood or someone else’s, was forming ruddy pools on the diamond-shaped floor-tiles. The mirror had shattered into smithereens. I nearly uttered a cry on seeing the miniature of Bérangère de Palassol that the painter Thomas Capellan had painted for me partly ripped from its frame and soiled.
I thought at first of going to give my mother an explanation. But what? The best thing was to tell her the truth. I did not have time. A rumor was coming from the street,
What was happening there? Had the chastisement been insufficient? Or perhaps too great?
As the tumult became louder, I thought that the wisest thing to do was to find out what it was. I climbed the stairs in three bounds and went open my bedroom window, which overlooked the Rue Malcousinat.
The sound produced by the shutters provoked a clamor. I was able to see that a man, doubtless traversed by an unconsidered thrust, was lying on the ground. Several others were carrying a beam for which they must have gone in search to the Rue des Changes, where there was a house undergoing demolition. I distinguished the monstrous silhouette of Rabastens and the thin caricature that was the Cornusson son. A few lights illuminated windows here and there. I recognized, on the first floor of the house facing mine, a certain Donadieu, candle in hand, who could not know anything of the quarrel, but was nevertheless turning in my direction a face full of hatred.
Only a man who weighs his intentions and know the extent to which they differ from the actions they engender can know the words that I pronounced and no one heard. They were words of conciliation. I tried to summarize rapidly the infamy of Rabastens and Cornusson in my regard and to explain that the incident that had occurred that evening was its fatal conclusion. But it seemed to me that no one was listening. Injustice possessed those frantic creatures.
Suddenly, a detonation resounded, followed by a little noise near my head. A musket-ball had just brushed me. I recoiled, but without haste, in order to show my indifference in the face of danger. Their aim was poor. But they were going to see!
I had a Spanish musket I my cupboard, of an old-fashioned form, but which I always kept ready for use. The troubled times that Toulouse was traversing required the possession of a musket. I seized it, installed the fork on the window-sill and fired, almost without taking aim.
Doubtless Cornusson merited being punished, for I saw him fall against the opposite wall. The clamors of hatred redoubled. At the same time, the blows of the beam resounded that several men were using as a battering-ram against my door.
I was astonished that the soldiers of La Maynade had not yet come. As I was struggling with my musket in the hope of firing a second shot, I heard them arriving from the Rue des Changes and the Rue du Pont, and Rabastens’ band negotiated with them.
Expert in crime, Rabastens was even more so in lying. It was necessary to ward off his assertions. I deliberated as to whether I ought not to go downstairs, open my door and place myself in the hands of the sergeant of the watch. But I recognized the voice of Captain Mauric. He had come in person! The captain of the watch, in consequence of a few nocturnal quarrels, had pronounced inconceivable words in my regard, which testified to the villainy of his soul.
“That’s a swashbuckler that I’ll bring to account the next time,” he had said to the venerable magistrate Jean de Balanquier,2 who was a friend of my father and who had interceded on my behalf.
Now, the next time had arrived. Captain Mauric ought to have taken possession of Rabastens and his troop of bandits who were disturbing the nocturnal peace by firing gunshots and trying to break down the door of a house using a beam as a battering-ram. Instead of that, by the light of a torch that one of the men was holding, I saw him leaning over the recumbent Cornusson and helping him to get up, and I distinguished in the curve of his back the respectful baseness that the son of a former seneschal can inspire in a chief of police.
“Captain Mauric,” I shouted, in a loud voice, “in making a pact with assassins you’re becoming an assassin yourself.”
I thought, too late, that that was not calculated to settle my affairs, but truthful words spring forth with the same force as water once sprang forth under the staff of Moses.
Another detonation rang out. And the wielders of the beam, who had stopped momentarily with the arrival of La Maynarde’s men, recommenced striking my door with regular blows, as if they were accomplishing a just and excellent task.
Anger provokes a state of intoxication that is dolorous at first but becomes blissful at a certain degree by virtue of the to
tal loss of the reasonable faculties. At a stroke I attained that height, at which consciousness has no place. I sensed my strength multiplied, and that is what enabled me to lift up an enormous dresser, of which I would have been incapable at any other moment, to carry it to the window and to launch it into the street. It fell with an enormous crash, and cries of rage and dolor went up. I launched all the other furniture with the same ease, until the room was entirely bare, with the exception of the bed, which was fortunately, or unfortunately, fixed to the floor and the ceiling by its columns of sculpted wood.
“They’ll kill you! Save yourself, I beg you!”
My mother was beside me, and I remember having been struck by her extreme smallness, as if I were seeing her for the first time. Her hands were clasped together, and in spite of the dramatic character of the situation, I had difficulty not exclaiming at the exiguity of her stature.
“It’s not my fault, I swear to you!” I cried. “There’s a power that has come, which has seized me, which acted in my stead….”
I felt on my forehead the gesture of a waxen hand, which meant that words were futile.
“Don’t worry about me. I recognize the voice of the Seigneur de Venerque, who loved our father so much. I’ve nothing to fear, since he’s there.”
Jean de Balanquier, Seigneur de Venerque, was the magistrate in charge of the police. I was astounded to know that he was present. The affair must be considered very important for him to be summoned in the middle of the night.
The affair was, however, insignificant in principle. Bandits drunk on wine had wanted to take me for a dupe. I had slapped one. Perhaps, in the dark, I had delivered an unfortunate sword-thrust. But I had fled, and that would not be interpreted in a pacific fashion. My house had been invaded. Did I not have the right to defend myself? Undoubtedly the blows I had struck at hazard and in the dark, blows that often strike empty space, had been directed unwittingly by a occult power—for I recognized an occult power in all of that.
But it was not the time to determine the part played by God and that of the Devil….
When one is lost in the tempest of events, a man always has a mast to which to cling, which is the appetite for life. He accomplishes mechanically the actions most appropriate to perpetuate his existence. I glimpsed in a second what it was necessary to do.
At the extremity of a kind of ladder ending in a mansard there was a skylight that overlooked the roofs. That was the route of my salvation, on condition that I acted quickly.
The sound of the beam against my door had paused for a brief interval, doubtless corresponding to the arrival of the Seigneur de Venerque, but it had resumed and I had just heard a crack that presaged an imminent yielding of the door.
I clasped my mother in my arms.
“Quickly!” she said, again.
I took a few steps, opened a door and stepped on to the ladder that led to the roof.
But without reflecting, moved suddenly by an internal force, I turned back and tumbled down the ladder. I had left my sword in the room downstairs, and, as I was about to depart without it, I had had the sentiment of abandoning an inseparable companion.
The door was about to collapse. I lost a few seconds then searching for the épée that I had left on the bottom step of the stairway. It was shining with an unusual gleam. It was longer than usual. It has a singular life. When I seized it by the hilt and replaced it in its scabbard it seemed to me that I was enveloping in a robe a maleficent creature, bloodstained but supple and beautiful, which bore evil in its substance, a fraternal creature destined to accompany me for a long time and to communicate to me the poisons nourished in its steel bosom.
I had vertigo, and it required a great effort or me to tear myself way from the attraction of the combat. Perhaps, without a further appeal from my mother, I would not have been above to tear my gaze away from the door, which flew into splinters.
Finally, I launched myself forth, I carefully closed the door behind me that gave access to the ladder. It was quite well hidden, and a few minutes would go by before anyone found it.
When I emerged on to the roofs, I felt the nocturnal air like a refreshing wave. It is a particularity of my nature to pass with disconcerting rapidity from one state of mind to another. After having crawled for a few minutes among the gutters and between the chimneys I let myself fall on to my back. A great lassitude seized me, and, at the same time, a perfect serenity. I nearly threw my sword away, but I thought about the racket it would make as it fell into the street.
To my right I saw the bell-tower of La Dalbade and the confused mass of the Château Narbonnais. To my left, Saint-Sernin projected its steeple into the sky with the unalterable patience that a heart of eternal stone gives. And in all directions I saw the stars, as far as the eye could see, and it seemed to me that they were falling like rain on sleeping Toulouse. How beautiful they were, and how insensate I had been not to come to contemplate them more frequently! In truth, it was an ideal situation to be lying on the roof of a house in that marvelous city.
But the gleam of the stars paled. In the distance, a belfry projected a flock of brazen birds through motionless spaces. The sky became the color of ash and smoke, and in the distance, above the distant slopes of Pech David, there was a tiny solar bloodstain. What, morning already, and the end of the nocturnal delight that I was savoring! How rapid everything was, most of all the celestial colors and the fleeting gleam of the stars!
Voices wrenched me out of my torpor. My enemies were pursuing me, then, even into the sky. I recommenced crawling, but my course was limited by the abysms of the streets. In the end, a kind of vertigo gripped me, and I wondered whether the wisest thing might not be to leap into the void at random.
Isaac Andréa had often told me that every man, especially if he is a good man, has several invisible spirits that protect him. It was time for a decisive and dangerous experiment. If Isaac Andréa had told the truth, it would be easy for my spirits to sustain me in my fall.
And as I deliberated as to whether I ought to trust that uncertain promise, the spirits in question, which were perhaps deliberating in their own account as to the most favorable means of stealing me away from my persecutors, found an unexpected resource.
A skylight that I had perceived, not far away from me, like an obscure eye, opened slowly. The opening was about to increase and becoming gaping. I scarcely had any choice as to the means of getting out of trouble, and I leapt into the unknown with the greatest possible lightness.
I did not fall from a great height. A hand, moreover, helped me to get up. I was about to put myself on the defensive when, gaping with astonishment. I realized that I had before me the thin silhouette and the large-nosed face of my friend and protector, the Jesuit Du Jarric.
FATHER DU JARRIC
“My son, knowledge of the world is worth more than reading Aristotle. And in any case, you don’t read Aristotle. India…if you only knew! There are glow-worms more luminous than lamps. Many times, in the evening, deprived of light, I have been able to read at my ease beside one of them. The elephant’s nose is an enigma that a reasonable mind cannot succeed in penetrating. And there is an even greater enigma, which is the presence of gold. Gold is extraordinarily abundant in that distant land. Why that metal is distributed over the planet in such an unequal fashion is another mystery. The world is made of mysteries. There are human souls that are in rapport with the abundance of gold, especially the souls of powerful men, the souls of kings. If you come with me, as everything seems to anticipate, you will get close to a sovereign, the Emperor Akbar, whose soul is like a block of gold.”
Thus spoke, in the disjointed fashion habitual to him, my cousin the Jesuit Pierre Du Jarric. His principal characteristic was a long hooked nose—which, according to my personal observations, always accompanies a certain evenness of character and a certain mental wisdom. In my childhood, when the Fodoases still owned a town house near the Saint Étienne cathedral, I had often listened, wonderstruck, to his
paradoxical speeches. He was proud then to be the first man in France to have reached the land of India.3
“The missionary who goes forth to convert the pagans,” he said then, “secretly aspires to convert himself.”
I had not understood what he meant until much later. When he had departed for Goa with the Portuguese Jesuits, people had bid him farewell like someone who would never be seen again. India! No one, apart from scholars, and few of them, knew where that land was situated. It evoked for me vaults of palm trees, bronzed men carrying curved sabers, and serpents sliding through jungles. One quickly gets used to no longer seeing those one knows. Pierre Du Jarric was considered as having disappeared forever. He had, however, come back, scarcely aged, and already avid to depart again. I had known of his presence in Toulouse but had not worried about it, the orientation of my life—so, at least, I believed—having taken me far away from any man who was guided by virtue.
“Look what has fallen from the sky at the moment when I believed that you were in the infernal realms,” he has said to me, without manifesting any astonishment when I had leapt through the skylight of his room.
The convent of the Jesuits occupied a large quadrilateral between the Rue du Pont, the Rue des Changes and the Rue Malcousinat. Expelled from Pamiers following an attack by Protestants, the Jesuits had taken refuge in Toulouse and their community was redoubtable, unpopular and powerful. I had thought myself temporarily in safety.
I had given my cousin a sincere account of the night’s events and he had listened to me, shaking his head and sometimes blinking his mischievous eyes, as if all that were known to him.
“I can keep you in my room and let you out by night without anyone knowing. But where will you go? Your house will be guarded and within a few hours Captain Mauric will have put his hand on you, and sent you to a dungeon in the Château Narbonnais. People are hanged for less than that.”
Jean de Fodoas Page 2
