The Cellars of Notre Dame

by Barbara Frale

  V

  Those who arrived breathless at the summit of the towers of Notre-Dame saw Paris not as one big city but as the product of three different cities that had grown side by side over time; none could stand without the other two.

  The Old City occupied the island in the centre of the Seine; it resembled an enormous tortoise, its bridges, scaly with tiles, like paws under the grey shell of its rooftops. It was squeezed in between the other two, the university district and the New City, like an elderly mother who leans upon her two beautiful young daughters. It also looked somewhat look like a ship anchored in the river, with its stern to the east and its bow to the west, where there was a boundless clutter of old houses above which soared the leaded roof of the Sainte Chapelle, topped by a high and jagged spire which made it look like an elephant with a little tower on its back. At the other end, at the stern, the churchyard of Notre-Dame opened up, a beautiful square surrounded by old houses onto which three large streets opened.

  This was the mystical heart of Paris: the great stone cathedral with those statues which told the story of the whole world, those mighty towers and those legendary underground labyrinths dug into the womb of the earth.

  On the south side of the square you could see the rough, grim facade of the hospital, its roof so shabby that it seemed to be covered with pustules and warts. To the right and left, in the east and west, inside the circle of walls that surrounded the Old City, rose the bell towers of the twenty-one churches of all ages, shapes and sizes, from the low and worm-eaten Romanesque bell tower of Saint -Denis-du-Pas up to the slender spiers that rose from the yard of Saint-Landry. Behind Notre-Dame, there was the cloister with its Gothic galleries, and to the south the semi-Romanic palace of monsignor bishop. Finally, beyond the Sainte-Chapelle, towards the west, were the towers of the Palace of Justice on the water’s edge, while the groves of the royal gardens, which covered the western tip of the Old City, hid the islet of the Ferryman. As for the water, you could not see it at all from the towers of Notre-Dame; the Seine disappeared beneath the bridges, and the bridges disappeared beneath the houses.

  They who arrived breathlessly at the top of the towers of Notre-Dame saw a tangle of roofs, chimneys, streets, bridges, squares, spiers and bell towers. In reality, those who had the opportunity to appreciate that view were few, since an unwritten rule followed with slavish observance by canons reserved access to the roof of the towers only for the royal family, and in that very small circle of individuals, there was only one who had the courage to actually go up there, finding there only the wind that blew in impetuous gusts over the city and the abyss that lay below on all sides.

  He did it because he wasn’t afraid of anything; thus he had been taught in the harsh training he had endured as a child, when, at the age of eight, the sudden and suspicious death of his elder brother, Prince Luigi, had suddenly made him the heir to the throne of France and catapulted him into life of the sovereigns, where there was no room for fear or for weakness.

  That day he had lost his innocence and every right to be considered a child, and he had said goodbye to a part of his soul. On the other hand, that sacrifice had made him aware that he possessed a strength greater than that of the rest of the human race: a capacity to rise above all that which made the others beholden, if not actually slaves, to desires and passions.

  A single passion dwelt in his heart – if, indeed, he had one, for many remained unconvinced that he did: he loved Paris as he loved himself, and the French people much more even than that. Looking at the city from so high up allowed him to take it all in and to see it grow from month to month and from year to year with the tenderness with which one raises a child, and it filled him with such joy that he felt as light as a hawk that rode the updrafts of the skies. It was therefore impossible for him to run the risk of falling from the balustrade upon which he stood.

  He liked to admire from up there the three souls that formed Paris: the Île-de-la-Cité, ruled by the bishop monsignor, the Rive Droite which obeyed the merchant provost, and finally the Rive Gauche, where the rector of the University governed.

  And the king? He was almost a guest in his own capital. Absent most of the time, loyal to the duty of visiting the various regions so he could be seen by the vassals and the people, to administer justice, taking a little from here and a little from there for the great mass of victuals necessary to feed the five hundred odd mouths that always accompanied him – because that was how many dignitaries had the right to accompany the sovereign.

  When he was in Paris, Philip IV was discreetly kept at a distance, locked up in the castle of the Louvre or in the Palace in the centre of the island, from which he went out only to attend religious services or some session of Parliament.

  But then, he was not really a person like the others, and it was precisely an inability to rise above common human weaknesses that had discredited his father Philip the Bold. Like Louis IX, whom Pope Boniface VIII had canonized and described as ‘more than a man’, Philip IV wanted to personify the role of thaumaturge king, who must above all be a model for everyone else. He did not feel like a man, therefore, but like an entire people. Not an individual, but twenty million subjects.

  He usually officiated the harsh ritual that was his life with impeccable dignity, and this self-denial gave him the advantage of being admired even by his detractors; sometimes, though, the king of marble and iron remembered his own humanity, and it weighed upon him.

  In those moments when some of the wounds that had marked his past burned harder than usual and the pain became unbearable, he went up there, to the highest part of the towers of Notre-Dame. He climbed up there and stood before the abyss, listening to the awakening of the bells that rang out the Ave Marias sparkling like a trail of stars in the midsummer sky.

  Light steps behind him distracted him from his thoughts. The discreet steps of a woman and the rustle of silk skirts on the stone floor. Philip IV did not move; he didn’t have to turn to know who it was. Only one person was allowed to join him up there. The only person who ultimately kept the keys of his soul.

  Joan of Navarre advanced slowly, every gust of wind on her face making her jump and tremble to her core.

  “Please come down,” she pleaded, “it pains me to see you up there!”

  “What is it?” was his curt response to that heartfelt prayer.

  The queen took a few more steps towards him. Slowly, because thus it is prudent to behave with a wounded beast. Slowly, so as to let it gradually get used to one’s scent.

  “I have two things to tell you,” she murmured.

  The king still did not turn to look at her, but the expression on his face which stared into the void grew dark.

  “Good or bad?” he asked, in a hostile voice.

  “I know you come up here when you are suffering,” she said gently, “so I would never come here to give you bad news.”

  The sovereign’s expression became less grim. He turned his head to look at her only out of the corner of his eye.

  Joan took a deep breath, then said, “The sentries found something in the basement of the Tower of Nesle. A small storage room where a suit of armour made from metal scales and a strangely shaped helmet were hidden. They say it is a bronze helmet from the time of the Caesars. A gladiator’s helmet. The chief of the Châtelet is practically out of his senses with joy. That armour belongs to the criminal who terrorizes the city.”

  “The one they call Lanius?”

  Joan brightened. “Exactly! It means that you have finally caught him after hunting him for years. They say you must behead him publicly. It will be an exemplary lesson for the criminals who infest Paris.”

  A bitter and slightly mocking smile appeared on the king’s face.

  “Decapitate a helmet? That would be a little unusual. Have everything put back immediately as it was, as if it had never been touched. Sooner or later he will come back and get his things, and then we’ll have him. The second piece of news?”

  Jo
an nodded, but did not intend to give up the prize without having obtained a lavish reward.

  “There is a letter,” she murmured softly, “but I cannot give it to you if you stay up there. I cannot come close. I am afraid of heights.”

  “Then I won’t read it,” he replied dryly.

  “In that case, Alphonse will send it back to the sender. In Rome.”

  The name of that city triggered something in the soul of the king which made him soften slightly. He turned his head and looked at her, reading on her face that hard, crystalline obstinacy that Joan wore like armour in cases of real necessity; the same obstinacy against which, if he were honest, nothing could be done. He crouched down, put his hands on the edge of the parapet and climbed down to the terrace floor. He walked towards her, and when he was in front of her, looking her in the face, he held out his hand for the missive.

  “I was surprised to read the recipient’s name,” she said. “It is addressed to the knight of Fontainebleau. But Alphonse is in no doubt: it is for you.”

  Philip IV walked behind her and, a little brusquely, snatched out of her hands the folded sheet of paper that she was holding hidden behind her back, seeking answers for the strangeness of her behaviour. He squeezed her wrist so hard that by reflex her fingers let go. It was like a game between two capricious children who were angry with one another: the strongest wins. He was the strongest, which, at the end of the day, was what they both preferred.

  When the letter was in his hands, the king tried to restrain himself, but the tension was too much and so he tore off the string. The sheet contained a very accurate drawing that looked as if it were an anatomical map of part of the human body; it was accompanied by a few lines in a harmonious and rounded hand that read:

  From the by the wise Abul-Qasim of Cordova.

  Anatomical dissection shows unquestionably that the canal of the rectum, in which the unnatural amorous act takes place, does not communicate in any way with the conduits through which the virile seed passes. The ignorant belief that men who practice sodomy become sterile or incapable of procreating healthy children is therefore false and absurd.

  Everything in fact resides in the hands of God: only his is the gift of life, as well as understanding and forgiveness.

  For a moment, Philip IV closed his deep blue eyes. It was the scientific proof that Arnaldo da Villanova had been supposed to produce before the most influential professors of Paris… For months he had been badgering the pope with official and unofficial requests to convince the Catalan to send him the text – months of frustrated hopes and efforts which inexorably ended in nothing. And now the proof capable of redeeming his honour forever was right there, in Joan’s hands!

  “How did you do it?” he murmured, his voice slightly hoarse.

  “The Catalan is very fond of a certain person in Rome,” she replied. “It is a peculiar fact, given the old man’s reserved nature. Cardinal Matthew of Acquasparta asked this person for help. They had to be told what could be done to return you sleep and serenity. For love of this person, and no other, Arnaldo sent you the answer.”

  The face of the sovereign hardened.

  “Did the cardinal speak in my name without consulting me? How dare he? I gave him no commission!”

  “I did,” she said, raising her head proudly. “There was no other way to circumvent the resentment that Arnaldo feels for you. The greatest victories are those obtained without weapons, Philip. I know this well, because unlike you, I am the head of a tiny State that cannot count on a powerful army. Most of the time, my only resource is cunning.”

  The king gave her a look that was half admiration and half challenge, and which set her blood on fire. In that look, there was more than passion – there was the intention to settle their accounts in the shadows of a secret room where there are no longer kings or queens but only whispers of pleasure torn from flesh that burns with desire.

  In the depths of her soul, Joan exulted. She had been right about him once again. He might have other women, perhaps, but she and she alone was his companion. Because she knew him better than anyone else. Because she was the only one who was able to touch his heart.

  “I want to know something,” he said without removing his eyes from her face. “Who is the person the cardinal used? Arnaldo must love them very much.”

  Joan shook her head. At the bottom of the sheet there was no signature, only a small elegant flourish. Next to it was a drawing of a crescent moon. More than enough for him to understand: . Crescent Moon.

  “So it’s as I thought…” he muttered in amazement. “Arnaldo has found his second apprentice!”

  At that moment, like a signal from the sky, the bells of the thousand churches of Paris all started to ring together. Little by little, growing in intensity, those thousand sounds merged with each other into a single magnificent concert. A ripple of sonic vibrations that rang out incessantly from the innumerable bell towers and floated, swayed and leaped through the air over the city, extending far beyond the horizon the deafening circle of their oscillations.

  The king looked at Paris and thought that there was nothing more beautiful in the world than that tumult of those bells – those ten thousand bronze voices that sang together in stone flutes three hundred feet above the ground.

  The city was an orchestra and the perfect symphony it played made up the music of his life: and inside it there was all the clamour of a storm.

  DICTIONARY OF MAIN CHARACTERS AND HISTORICAL THEMES.

  Alfonso de la Cerda, known as The Disinherited

  (Valladolid, 1270 – Piedrahita around 1325). Son of Fernando III, heir to the throne of Castile, and Princess Bianca, daughter of King Louis IX of France, he was ousted at the age of 5 by Sancho IV, usurper of the Castilian throne, when Fernando III died fighting the Saracens. While his mother Bianca was imprisoned by Sancho, Alphonse was secured by his great-uncle Peter III, king of Aragon, who locked him in Xativa castle near Valencia. Alphonse spent the rest of his childhood and adolescence in that fortress until he was released in 1288. In 1291, hoping for the help of his cousin Philip IV, he took refuge in Paris with him, serving as ambassador. Philip IV tried several times to have the throne of Castile given to his cousin, but the complex power games between the Christian monarchies in the Iberian area frustrated his efforts; he however named Alphonse Baron of Lunel (1303), and obtained for him the creation of a vast potentate which included Alba, Béjar and Gibraleón.

  Durante Alighieri, known as Dante.

  (Florence, May 1265 – Ravenna, 1321) Poet, military man and politician.

  Born from a noble family with distant Paduan ancestry, as his surname reveals, he was sent to study at a very early age and finished his studies with a stay in Bologna (1287), home to one of the most prestigious medieval universities. Possessing a wide-ranging education in poetry, music, military matters and in the art of hunting with birds of prey, as befit a young man of the aristocracy of the time, he took part with the Guelphs at the battle of Campaldino, fighting in the front line with the knights who carried out the assault (the “feditori a cavallo”). He voluntarily enrolled in the Guild of Doctors and Apothecaries when, in 1291, the Ordinances of Justice of Giano della Bella prohibited nobles from actively participating in the political life of the Florentine Republic. In October 1294 Florence sent an embassy to Naples to pay homage to the newly elected Pope Celestine V, and Dante was probably among the envoys; his presence in Rome in the autumn of 1301 is certain, as he had was appointed by the Council of the Hundred, of which he had been prior from the 1st of April to the 30th of September of the same year. Dante and his colleagues had to haggle with the Pope over a series of economic and political questions concerning Florence, which at that time was troubled by violent factional struggles; while the other representatives were sent back to their city, Dante was detained by Boniface VIII for reasons which are still obscure, until, in March 1302, he was made known that he had in the meantime been sentenced to exile. Thus began Dante’s long wan
dering of the courts of the Italian lords, seeking protection and political support to return to his city, perhaps interrupted by a stay in Paris (1309-1310) to complete his theological studies. Despite the economic difficulties caused by the condition of exile, he never abandoned the fervent political passion that animated him, of which traces remain in all his works, and mainly in his greatest work, the Divine Comedy, which the Alighieri most likely began to compose in 1300, during the first Jubilee. He fell ill with malaria while returning from a trip to Venice and died on September 14th, 1321 in Ravenna, where his daughter Antonia was a nun in the Olivetane convent.

  Arnaldo da Villanova

  (Villanova near Valencia, around 1238 – Genoa, 1312) A famous Catalan physician and theologian. A prominent figure among the intellectuals of his time, he taught medicine at the University of Montpellier and at the Medical School of Salerno. He possessed a culture of extraordinary vastness: besides mastering Arabic, he also knew the Semitic languages, the ancient idiom of the Chaldeans, astrology and the hermetic doctrines of the Kabbalists. In his most famous work, the , he prescribes many rules for health the value of which modern medicine has rediscovered; in another booklet entitled Arnaldo even teaches how to disinfect wounds, as well as the doctor’s hands and the silk thread and needle used to perform the sutures, using – aquavitae; in this way he anticipated the discovery of bacteria by several centuries. In 1299, while in Paris in the service of King Philip IV, he was accused of spreading impiety and imprisoned on the advice of the jurist Guglielmo Nogaret, who had been his colleague in Montpellier, he appealed to the Pope. Boniface VIII summoned him to the Curia and made him his personal physician, greatly benefiting from his care. Arnaldo, however, was surrounded by a dubious reputation: some of his medical remedies exploited the power of the celestial bodies on human physiology and were in this akin to the prescriptions of , the famous text of astral magic of Islamic origin. According to the jurist Giovanni d’Andrea, writing in around 1346 on the basis of earlier sources, Arnaldo performed the transmutation of lead into gold before the cardinals and allowed those present to test the quality of the metal; other sources indicate that he was working for Boniface VIII in the manufacture of an elixir capable of prolonging life which was so effective that it could be considered an instrument of immortality.