The Blood of Toulouse

by Maurice Magre

  I went almost every evening to the public dance-hall that had been built on waste ground neighboring the Montolieu Gate. But a state of mind so bellicose reigned there that it became fashionable to dance with a sword by one’s side. Robes were ripped by the points of weapons and the brawls that resulted were so numerous that dancing lost its attraction.

  At first I had found pleasure in being the center of attention of all eyes, but it soon embarrassed me. The young people who surrounded me had a visible anxious determination not to quarrel with me; I read apprehension in many faces, and when I danced, a void immediately formed around me.

  I took a great pleasure in frequenting poets. Pierre Raymond took me to gatherings in which they recited their poems to one another. They lasted until and advanced hour of the night. My pleasure was then combated by the strange facility in sleeping that I had always had. I often abandoned myself to it. There was the stout Guilhem de Figueiras, who was always accompanied by some prostitute or other. He could not go an hour without drinking, and the whore carried a bottle of wine under her robe, which she slipped to him when the audience was acclaiming the beauty of poems. There was Gérard le Roux, celebrated for his success with women and the large size of his feet. I once saw Pierre Vidal.11 He was old and sad, but preceded by such a reputation for gaiety that it was sufficient for him to open his mouth and show his shaky teeth for everyone to laugh.

  It was, however, me who obtained the greatest success of laughter on the evening when I read the first poem of my composition. The sadness of the subject did not motivate that laughter at all, and from that day on I renounced the company of poets.

  I had neglected Sézelia somewhat. When I went to see her again, instead of the reproaches I expected, she asked me abruptly: “When are you leaving Toulouse?”

  I responded that I was attached to the person of Comte Raymond, and that he was not thinking of going far from Toulouse at the moment.”

  “It’s necessary that you leave Toulouse without delay.”

  “Why?”

  “The city will be completely destroyed, destroyed from top to bottom.”

  And she repeated the certainty of that redoubtable event.

  I thought at first that it was one of those follies common enough among women. But she insisted so many times, even proposing to depart for the Orient with me, under the pretext of a pilgrimage, that I ended up becoming anxious. I pressed her to tell me what made her believe in the destruction of Toulouse, a city whose origin was lost in the obscurity of time and was probably as immortal as the planet itself.”

  She ended up admitting to me that she had it from Foulque, the Bishop of Toulouse.

  He hated the city because of the heresy of its inhabitants. Gradually, he had identified the heresy with the houses and the monuments. The corruption had been introduced into the stones, flowed in the gutters and sheltered in the shadow of the streets. He dreamed of an exemplary punishment. The churches above all were accursed. They would be demolished stone by stone. The spire of Saint Sernin would no longer rise into the sky. The bells would lose their concavity and become ingots again.

  As I did not lend credence to such an abominable project, she gave me precise details. Bishop Foulque had written to the Pope to explain the necessity of destroying the heretic capital. He had an understanding with the Bishops of Foix, Albi and Béziers. Furthermore, he was kept informed by clerics who arrived every day from the North. The crusade against the Midi had been preached with the same ardor as the crusade against the Infidels. An immense army from France and Germany was about to assemble in Lyon and invade Occitania.

  I resolved to report those assertions to my master the Comte de Toulouse. But I did not have the possibility. When I presented myself before him the next day he looked at me severely and almost angrily, and told me that he was leaving for Saint Gilles that very day but that he was taking other squires than Thibaut and me, for we were not men with whom one could go to such a place with security. He quit Toulouse precipitately, and almost without escort.

  He only came back a month later. I saw him again on the day of his return in the hall of knights in the Château Narbonnais. He was exhausted, with an expression that was almost haggard. I understood by the fashion in which he winked at me in passing that his sentiments were still benevolent in my regard. In the evening, Thibaut and I received an order to be ready to accompany him.

  “We’re to be armed, it appears,” Thibaut told me. “And yet it’s to the Chapter that we’re going.”

  The Comte de Toulouse had convened a meeting of the Capitouls. Custom dictated that it was him who went to the house of the Chapter in order to mark the precedence of the city magistrates over their seigneur.

  As we left the Rue des Nobles on horseback, we were joined by an individual who was wearing a sword beneath a black robe and resembled a cleric rater than a soldier. I was getting ready to move him aside rudely when the Comte turned round and said to me: “This is Brother Laurent Guillaume. He’s attached to my person henceforth.”

  We found out subsequently that he was a spy that Pope Innocent had placed next to him.

  The capitulary house was behind Saint Sernin adjacent to the outlying district. It was an ancient Roman edifice, perhaps a temple which had been reconstructed. On the façade, twelve columns resembled immobile magistrates of stone. The streets were encumbered by the horses of consuls.

  The Comte was already climbing the steps of the threshold when I saw the man he had named as Laurent Guillaume cross himself several times. He approached me with a sly expression and said to me in a low voice: “I’ve received from God the faculty of perceiving with my sensibility the effluvia of pagan or heretical thoughts. This is a place where idols were once worshiped.”

  I enjoined him rather brutally to stay on the threshold with the servants and the horses in order to avoid those excessively dolorous perceptions. I must have been mistaken about the rank he occupied, for he made no reply and marched behind me, lowering his eyes, but with a tranquil tread.

  The twenty-four Capitouls, those of the city and those of the outlying district, were already occupying their sculpted wooden seats. I noticed an unaccustomed stiffness in the line of their backs. Arnaud Bernard’s face, with its square jaw, seemed a geometric puzzle. Some were clad in sumptuous robes. Bernard de Colomiès was making the rings on his fingers sparkle ostentatiously. Raymond Astre was shivering under heaped-up furs. I saw eyes rendered bright by the cunning of merchants, the broad shoulders of large farmers, the long and twisted hands of money-handlers. The hollow features and pallor of more than one face revealed the practices of Albigensian asceticism. The flames of torches agitated by an air current gave bright light followed by penumbras. At the back, a wooden Christ, covered with mildew because of the dampness of the hall, gave the impression of falling into decomposition.

  I had scarcely taken my place alongside a few scribes and servants behind a balustrade facing the Christ when an angry rumor rose up. Bishop Foulque had just come in. He traversed the hall theatrically and went to sit down in the armchair opposite the Comte’s. The Capitouls, at first mute with surprise, had stood up and were questioning one another. Several made as if to leave. Others, turned toward the Comte, were saying things to him that I could not hear.

  Finally, the voice of Arnaud Bernard dominated the noise.

  “The members of the Chapter desire to know who summoned the Bishop to their meeting.”

  The Comte stood up and replied, with embarrassment. It was him. Ought not every decision to be approved by the representative of God? He had just been reconciled with the Church. He hoped at all Toulousans would rejoice in that.

  The story of what had happened in Saint Gilles had been running around the city since the morning. The Comte de Toulouse, naked above the waist, had been beaten with rods in the cathedral by the papal legate Milon. Then the latter had led him to one of the crypts of the basilica and made him prostrate himself before the stone where the remains of Pierre de Ca
stelnau reposed.

  No, the Toulousans did not rejoice because their seigneur had been humiliated. Étienne Cerabordes, the dealer in fruits and vegetables, and Pons Barbadal, the wine merchant, had the same idea and spat in order to express their scorn.

  “Is Toulouse not the most powerful city in the world?” cried Pierre Guitard.

  Comte Raymond, pale and resigned, attempted to explain himself. “I believed myself obliged to incline before the will of Pope Innocent.”

  Clamors interrupted him.

  “Why?”

  “Why obey the Antichrist?”

  “It’s the Pope who ought to explain himself on his knees here.”

  Bishop Foulque had stood up. His face was covered by a mask of hypocritical sadness but he had difficulty dissimulating a detestable joy. Clasping his bosom with his hands he adjured his children to reenter the fold of the Church. He knew full well that they were being devoured by the serpent of heresy. For a long time he had seen that symbolic serpent biting the heart of the people of Toulouse, but he, Foulque, would crush the head of the serpent under his foot.

  “You remember the foot of Barral de Baux!” cried Arnaud d’Escalquens, a fat jovial man who had the faculty of expressing his thoughts as soon as they were conceived. Before taking holy orders, Foulque had courted Alazaïs de Marseille, and. in the wake of a gross attempt at seduction, the latter had had her husband expel him with kicks.

  The voice of Arnaud Bernad resounded again. It was loud and vibrant. The quadrilateral of his bearded face was turned toward the Comte.

  “To what else have you consented?”

  I saw my master lower his head, and then he made a great effort. Rapidly, he began to talk.

  The army gathered at Lyon was immense and it was expecting further reinforcements. All the Barons of the North were there, Eudes, Duc de Bourgogne, Hervé, Comte de Nevers, the Comte de Bar: cruel and unscrupulous men commanded by a half-English adventurer, Simon de Montfort, of the Leicester family, chosen as leader because of his absence of pity. Faithful Provençals had traveled up the Rhône and had brought him news of the state of mind of that army. It had gathered purely for pillage. The crusaders were talking about Béziers, Carcassonne and Toulouse as the companions of Godefroy de Bouillon had once talked about Jerusalem. It was the wealth of those cities that they wanted and the beauty of their women. He had believed that he was doing his duty in sacrificing his pride to save them.

  “What about our soldiers and our ramparts?” cried Arnaud Bernard, who still had the dust of stones sawn on the towers whose repairs he was supervising in his hair.

  The richest among the Capitouls consulted one another with their gazes, feeling the same anxiety at the evocation of pillage.

  Then Bishop Foulque spoke.

  How merciful God had been to enlighten the soul of Comte Raymond! He had permitted him to repent. The Comte de Toulouse repented of the scandalous support that he had so far lent to the heretics. He had become a beloved son of the Holy Church. And what the Holy Church asked of him as a pledge of his repentance? Almost nothing, for it was magnanimous to sinners. The Comte de Toulouse would deliver six fortified places to the crusaders. He would give full power to religious tribunals to render justice on his lands. He would take part in the crusade himself with his cavaliers.

  A long silence followed. Every one believed that he had misunderstood. Suddenly, a loud burst of laughter was heard. It was Arnaud d’Escalquens, who was pretending to take the Bishop’s speech as a joke.

  “So the Comte de Toulouse is going to guide his enemies through his own domains himself!”

  Suddenly, everyone burst forth in protests. So their ancient right of rendering justice themselves was abolished! Ecclesiastical justice would henceforth be the only justice. If the Northern crusaders came as far as Toulouse they would find the drawbridges raised and the Toulousans on the ramparts even if the Comte was among them!

  “Only the heretics can fear the crusade,” shouted Foulque, “and if there are any among you who fear...”

  “So what? What if there are heretics among us?” said Pierre de Roaix, turning his marble face, framed by a crown of white hair, toward the Bishop.

  “They will die, even if they are Capitouls like you! Ecclesiastical justice does not recognize the inviolability of Capitouls.”

  I thought that several were about to launch themselves at the Bishop. I sensed a hand that seized my arm. Beside me, Laurent Guillaume had drawn his sword.

  “The moment has come,” he said, “to throw ourselves upon these accursed Toulousans.”

  I replied that he was in the presence of the most illustrious men in the city, and that if he did not sheath his sword again, it would be me with whom he would have to deal.

  I heard the low voice of the Comte, who was trying to legitimate his conduct. He had reflected, measured the forces in presence. Defeat, in case of conflict, would be certain. He was sacrificing the Albigensians, it was true, but Toulouse would be saved.

  “Better that Toulouse perish!”

  “We will never surrender the Albigensians!”

  “We’ll take the bishops and monks as hostages!”

  Foulque had quit his chair and retreated to the back of the room, where I was. A few men who composed his personal guard were there. When he was among them, he raised his open arms above his head, making the gesture of repelling an invisible image in the air.

  “Toulouse is like Sodom and Gomorrah! Horses will make use of your beds as troughs! Lots will be drawn in the soldiers’ camps for your wives and your daughters, with chains around their necks. Colomiès the jeweler, your coffers of pearls will be disemboweled! Astre, sensitive to cold, the mercenaries will put on your furs and you will run naked in the fields to warm yourself! You will labor, Arnaud Bernard, builder of walls, in the places where you have erected stone barbicans! You can invoke your invisible Pope then!”

  A wooden stool was stopped in flight by a pike at the moment when it was about to fall on the Bishop’s head. All the Capitouls, fists raised, had launched themselves toward him. He retreated to the door, framed by his men-at-arms. The wind, blowing with more force, curbed the flames of the torches so much that the room was plunged momentarily into darkness. Then was heard:

  “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, I curse the heretic race of Toulousans!”

  When the palpitation of the light ceased, the Bishop had left the hall.

  But the Capitouls were already at odds. Pierre Carabordes and Pons Barbadal cried that they were good Christians and did not care about the Albigensian heresy. Others summoned the Comte to have the Bishop arrested, to break with the Pope and to raise armies against the Northern Barons. The Comte, his arms folded and his eyes staring, stamped his foot, swearing that his decision was irrevocable, but I understood by a certain gleam beneath his eyelids that he was prey to uncertainty and envisaging internally the consequences of a change of mind.

  Perhaps there was still time. If, at that moment, the Comte de Toulouse had cried: “Men of my homeland, let us unite against the common enemy, even if that enemy is the Pope of Rome!” perhaps the Midi would have been saved. An obscure witness of that scene, I was tempted to bound into the middle of the hall to adjure the Comte to turn back, and the Toulousans to unite with their seigneur. But what would the word of a young squire have been worth?

  I sensed that one man understood, as I did, the value of that moment, and measured the possibility of bringing the Comte de Toulouse back to his true destiny by means of a splendid speech. That was Arnaud Bernard. I saw distinctly on his features the sincere desire to stifle an ancient rancor. Raising his hand to impose silence on everyone, he took a step forward.

  By what aberration did the Comte misinterpret that gesture? Did he suppose that the Capitoul whose wife he had once taken was advancing toward him to strike him? Or, weary of the cries of protest, did he want to put an end to them by an irreparable gesture of menace? He recoiled slightly and half-drew h
is sword. For a few seconds, Arnaud Bernard and he stood face to face, and there was between them the force of a dormant hatred, the mystery of a memory of a woman whose amour two men had shared.

  Between parted cloaks, the blue-tinted gleam of blades flashed. Thibaut and I ran behind our master. I heard Laurent Guillaume whisper in my ear: “The advantage is to the man who strikes the first blow. And I noticed the hideous character of his face.

  “It’s your salvation I want!” cried the Comte again, in the tone of a man who is not sure of what he is saying. “You’ll thank me later for having saved your houses, for having conserved your wives and daughters.”

  In the silence that followed that speech, Armand d’Escalquens was heard to exclaim: “Especially our wives!”

  Assuredly, he only wanted to make a humorous allusion to the Comte’s mores and was not thinking about Arnaud Bernard’s wife. But everyone suddenly thought of that; everyone evoked the blonde Alix Bernard, heroine of an unknown drama, who was said to be still alive and mad in a cell in a Toulousan convent. Under the mildewed Christ on the wall I saw, by means of the gaze of the soul, Alix Bernard of the golden hair gazing with dead opal eyes at the lover and the husband forever separated by the phantom of her flesh. There was a kind of occult presence that immobilized arms and chilled furies.

  The Comte made us a sign to follow him and we traversed an assembly as motionless as if an enchantment had suddenly turned its members to stone.