The Iron King

by Maurice Druon

  But, indeed, the twenty-three cardinals who were present at Carpentras, cardinals who came from all over the Christian world, from Italy, from France, from Spain, from Sicily and from Germany, and who had acquired their dignity for peculiarly unequal services, were divided into almost as many rival camps as there were birettas.

  Theological argument, political opposition, rivalry of interest, and family jealousies exacerbated their disagreement. With the Italian cardinals in particular, there existed irremediable hatreds between the Caetani, the Colonna and the Orsini.

  ‘These eight Italian cardinals,’ said Marigny, ‘are agreed upon one point only, that of removing the Papacy back to Rome. Fortunately, they are not in agreement as to who should be elected Pope.’

  ‘That agreement may well come with time,’ remarked Monseigneur of Valois.

  ‘That is why they must not be allowed to have the time,’ replied Marigny.

  There was a brief silence, and at that moment Nogaret felt a sensation of nausea in his stomach and a difficulty in breathing. He found it hard to sit upright in his chair and to control the trembling of his body. Then suddenly his fatigue disappeared; he breathed deeply and wiped his forehead.

  ‘For many Christians,’ said Charles of Valois, ‘Rome is the seat of the Papacy, in their eyes Rome is the centre of the world.’

  ‘That, undoubtedly, would be convenient for the Emperor of Constantinople, but not for the King of France,’ said Marigny.

  ‘All the same, Messire Enguerrand, you cannot undo the labour of centuries and prevent the throne of Saint Peter being situated where it was founded.’

  ‘But whenever the Pope wishes to rule from Rome, he is never able to remain there,’ cried Marigny. ‘He is invariably compelled to fly before the different factions that divide the City and to take refuge in some castle or other under the protection of this town or that, with troops to guard him who do not even belong to him. He is in fact much happier under the protection of our garrison of Villeneuve installed upon the farther bank of the Rhône.’

  ‘The Pope will remain in his establishment at Avignon,’ said the King.

  ‘I know Francesco Caetani well,’ went on Charles of Valois; ‘he is a man of great learning and merit upon whom I may be able to bring some influence to bear.’

  ‘I don’t want to have this Caetani at all,’ said the King. ‘He belongs to the family of Boniface, and he will renew the errors of the bull Unam Sanctam.’24

  Philippe of Poitiers, who had said nothing until that moment, now interrupted with a forward movement of his long body.

  ‘There are,’ he said, ‘so many intrigues in this business that one intrigue should cancel out another. If we don’t bring pressure to bear, we shall be involved in a conclave which may well last a year. In more difficult circumstances than these, Messire de Nogaret has shown what he is capable of doing. It is up to us to be the most tenacious and stubborn party.’

  After a moment’s silence, Philip the Fair turned to Nogaret.

  The latter was pale in the face and seemed to be breathing with difficulty.

  ‘What do you advise, Nogaret?’

  ‘Yes, Sire,’ said the Keeper of the Seals with an effort.

  He put a shaking hand to his forehead.

  ‘May I be excused. This appalling heat …’

  ‘It is not hot at all,’ said Hugues de Bouville.

  Nogaret, with a great effort, said in a distant voice, ‘The interests of the kingdom and of the Faith demand that we should act in this way.’

  He fell silent, and no one could understand why he had said so little.

  ‘And your advice, Marigny?’

  ‘I propose that we should find some pretext for removing the remains of the late Pope, as was his desire, to Cahors, in order to show the conclave that this is a matter for haste. Bertrand de Got, Clement’s nephew, might well be charged with this pious mission. Messire de Nogaret would set out upon his journey, with all necessary powers, accompanied by a sufficient armed escort. His escort would guarantee his powers.’

  Charles of Valois turned his head away; he disapproved of this show of force.

  ‘And how does my annulment come into all this business?’ asked Louis of Navarre.

  ‘Be quiet, Louis,’ said the King. ‘That is exactly what we are endeavouring to determine.’

  ‘Yes, Sire,’ said Nogaret without even realising that he had spoken.

  His voice was low and hoarse. He felt troubled in mind and appeared to see things out of focus. The beams of the hall suddenly seemed to him as high as those of the Sainte-Chapelle. Then, suddenly, they seemed as near as those of the subterranean chambers in which he was accustomed to interrogate his prisoners.

  ‘What is going on?’ he asked, trying to loosen the buttons of his coat. He appeared to have suffered a sudden cramp, his knees were raised against his stomach, his head was lowered, and his hands clutched at his chest. The King rose, followed by all those present. Nogaret cried aloud as if strangled and fell vomiting upon the floor.

  It was Hugues de Bouville, the Grand Chamberlain, who took him back to his house where he was immediately visited by the King’s doctors.

  These consulted lengthily among themselves before coming to give the Sovereign their diagnosis. Their report meant nothing whatever. But very soon, both at the Court and in the town, there was talk of some unknown malady. Poison? It was said that the most powerful antidotes had been tried. Affairs of state, that day, were to all intents and purposes suspended.

  When the Countess Mahaut learnt the news from Beatrice, she merely said, ‘He is paying,’ and sat down to eat.

  Nogaret was paying. For some hours now he had not recognised those about him. He was at death’s door upon his bed and, lying on his side, his body shaken with spasms, was spitting blood.

  At first he had endeavoured to remain sufficiently upright to lean over a basin, but now he no longer had the strength to do so and his blood, flowing from his mouth, fell upon a thick sheet that a servant changed from time to time.

  The room was full of people; couriers in relays, taking the latest news to the King, servants, major-domos, secretaries and, in a corner, forming a small, sly, talkative group, were Nogaret’s relations, thinking of the possible spoils and putting a value upon the furniture.

  As far as Nogaret was concerned, these were all unrecognisable spectres, moving upon a far, illogical, pointless plain, amid what seemed to him but a confused noise. But there were other more visible presences that appeared to him alone.

  For, at this hour, when the anguish of sin had come upon him for the first time, he thought of the death of others, and felt at the last that he was the brother of all those whom he had persecuted, hounded, made martyrs of, and executed. Those who had died under interrogation, in prison, at the stake, on the wheel, now arose from his overwrought imagination and appeared to close in upon him, almost near enough to touch him.

  ‘Go back, go back!’ he screamed in terror.

  The doctors ran to him. Nogaret, haggard, twisting upon his bed, his eyes rolling in terror, was endeavouring to repulse the shades.

  And the smell of his own vomited blood seemed to him to be the smell of the blood of his, victims.

  He suddenly sat up and then fell back again. Those present had retreated to a distance and were watching him, he who was one of the masters of the kingdom, fade into the shadows. With his hands to his throat, he struggled to ward off the red-hot irons which had so often burnt naked breasts in his presence. His legs were at the mercy of appalling cramps and he was heard to cry, ‘The pincers, the pincers! Take them away for mercy’s sake!’

  It was the same cry that the brothers Aunay had uttered in their prison of Pontoise.

  The nightmare in which Nogaret fought was no other than the reflection of his own life, in so far as it had affected others.

  ‘I did nothing in my own name! I served the King, the King alone.’

  Before the bar of agony the lawyer was making a
last pleading.

  The room emptied towards eleven o’clock at night. Only one doctor, a barber-surgeon and one old retainer remained with Nogaret. The King’s couriers, wrapped in their cloaks, slept side by side upon the floor of the ante-chamber. His family had gone, not without certain regrets. One of them had slipped a purse into a servant’s hand, saying, ‘Let me know when it is all over.’

  Bouville, who had come to get news, questioned the doctor on duty.

  ‘Nothing we can do has been any use,’ the latter said in a low voice. ‘He is vomiting less, but he is still in delirium. We can but await the end! Unless some miracle …’

  With the death rattle in his throat, Nogaret, lying upon his bed, alone knew that the dead Templars awaited him in the shades.

  They passed before him, some on horseback, clothed in their surcoats of war, others raising their bodies shattered by torture; there they stood, lining an empty road, bordered by precipices and lit by the light of pyres.

  ‘Aymon de Barbonne … Jean de Furne … Pierre Suffet … Brintinhiac … Guillaume Bocelli … Ponsard de Gizy …’

  Was it the shades who uttered their names, or was it merely the dying man no longer aware of his own words?

  ‘The sons of Cathare!’25 cried a voice which suddenly drowned all others.

  And, surging suddenly out of darkest night, the tall figure of Boniface VIII became manifest in that immense distance of space that was Nogaret’s consciousness, that space which contained mountains and valleys, and in which huge crowds marched onwards towards the Last Judgment.

  ‘Sons of Cathare!’

  At the sound of Boniface’s voice, the whole drama of Nogaret’s life revived. He saw himself, upon a September day, beneath the bright Italian sun, riding at the head of six hundred horsemen and a thousand artillerymen towards the rock of Anagni; beside him rode Sciarra Colonna, the mortal enemy of Boniface, the man who had preferred to serve three years chained to an oar in a Berber galley rather than be recognised and risk being handed over to the Pope. Thierry d’Hirson was a member of that expedition. The little town had opened its gates of its own accord; the Caetani Palace was taken and, passing through the interior of the Cathedral, the attackers had invaded the Pope’s apartments. And there the old Pope, who was then eighty-six, his tiara upon his head, crucifix in hand, alone in a huge deserted hall, had watched the armed horde burst in upon him. Summoned to abdicate, he had replied, ‘This is my neck, this is my head; if I die, I shall die as Pope.’ Sciarra Colonna struck him in the face with his steel gauntlet.

  From the profound depths of his agony, Nogaret cried, ‘At least I prevented his killing him.’

  The City had been given over to pillage. Two days later, the inhabitants had changed sides, had fallen upon the French troops, and had wounded Nogaret who had been compelled to fly for his life. Nevertheless he had achieved his object. The old man’s mind had not been able to resist fear, anger and outrage. When he had been released, Boniface had wept like a child. When he had been brought back to Rome he had become subject to wild dementia, insulting everyone who approached him, refusing all food and dragging himself upon all fours about the room in which he was held prisoner. A month later, the King of France had triumphed, the Pope was dead, blaspheming and refusing, in an access of rage, even the last sacraments.

  Bending over Nogaret, a doctor looked down upon this body which was still imperceptibly struggling against an excommunication from which he had long ago been relieved.

  ‘Pope Clement … the Chevalier Guillaume de Nogaret … King Philip.’

  As Nogaret’s lips feebly articulated the words, the echo of the Grand Master’s voice suddenly burst upon his mind.

  ‘I am burning,’ he said again.

  At four o’clock in the morning, the Bishop of Paris came to administer the last sacraments to the Keeper of the Seals. It was a simple ceremony. A prayer was said above the prostrate body, those present knelt, trembling with fatigue and unreasoning fear.

  The Bishop remained a moment in prayer at the foot of the bed. Nogaret was motionless, sunk among his sheets as if already a heavy stone were resting upon him. The Bishop departed, and it seemed that all was over; the doctor went up to the bed; Nogaret was still alive.

  The windows grew grey in the faint light of dawn, and an insistent bell rang out across the Seine from beyond the end of the world. The old servant opened a window, greedily breathing in the fresh air. Paris smelled of springtime and new leaves. The city was awakening to a subdued clamour.

  The patient was heard to murmur, ‘Have pity!’

  When they looked round, Nogaret was dead and a trickle of blood was already drying at his nostrils. The doctor said, ‘God has taken him!’

  Then the old servant went and took from Master Engelbert’s last delivery two long white candles which he placed in a candelabra and moved near the bed to light the last vigil of the Keeper of the Seals of France.

  3

  The Documents of a Reign

  HARDLY HAD THE KEEPER of the Seals given up the ghost, when Messire Alain de Pareilles, in the name of the King, entered Nogaret’s house to seize all the documents, papers and dossiers. He had every chest and drawer opened. The few drawers of which Nogaret had kept the key in some secret place were forced.

  In an hour’s time, Alain de Pareilles had returned to the palace with a mass of archives, papers, parchments and tablets which, upon the order of Hugues de Bouville, were placed in the middle of the great oak table filling one whole side of the royal study.

  Then the King himself came to pay a last visit to Nogaret. He remained but a short time before the body. He prayed silently. His eyes never for a moment left the face of the dead man, as if he still had one last question to ask him who had shared all his secrets and had served him so well.

  Returning to the palace, Philip the Fair, followed by three sergeants-at-arms, appeared somewhat bowed as he walked. In the clear morning, servants were calling the citizens to the public baths. Life in Paris was beginning again and carefree children were already chasing each other through the streets.

  Philip the Fair crossed the Mercers’ Hall and re-entered the palace. He at once set himself, with the assistance of Maillard, his private secretary, to examine the documents which had been brought from Nogaret’s house. The sudden disappearance of the Keeper of the Seals left many important matters pending.

  At seven o’clock Enguerrand de Marigny came to see the King. The two men looked at each other in silence while the secretary retired.

  ‘The Pope,’ the King said curtly, ‘and now Nogaret …’

  There was concern, even distress in his voice as he said the words. Marigny went to the table and took the chair the sovereign indicated. For a moment he remained silent, then he said, ‘Well, these are but strange coincidences, Sire, that is all! Similar things happen every day, but we are not concerned about them because they do not come to our notice.’

  ‘We are getting older, Marigny.’

  He was forty-six years of age, and Marigny was forty-nine. Comparatively few men, at that period, reached their fiftieth year.

  ‘We shall have to look into all this,’ the King went on, indicating the papers.

  And, without saying anything more, they both devoted themselves to the business of selecting what should be destroyed, classifying what Marigny should preserve, or what should be handed to the various legal advisers.

  There was silence in the King’s study, hardly disturbed by the distant cries of the street-sellers, the rumour of workaday Paris. The King’s pale forehead was bent over the open files of which the most important were bound in leather bindings bearing Nogaret’s cipher. Philip saw the whole of his reign pass before his eyes, twenty-nine years in which he had held the fate of millions of men in his hands, and imposed his influence upon the whole of Europe.

  And suddenly this whole series of events seemed remote from his true life, his real destiny. Everything suddenly appeared to him in a new light with strange shad
ows.

  He was discovering what others thought and wrote about him, he saw himself from outside. Nogaret had kept reports from agents, the minutes of interrogations, letters, even police records. From all these lines of written words arose a picture of the King which he himself could not recognise, the picture of someone distant, hard, a stranger to the hardships of mankind, inaccessible to pity. Astonished, he read a couple of sentences written by Bernard de Saisset, the Bishop whose revolt had unleashed the quarrel with Boniface VIII. There were two cold and terrible phrases: ‘He may well be the most handsome man in the world, but he knows only how to look at people in silence. He is not a man, nor a beast; he is a statue.’

  And there were also these words written by another witness of his reign: ‘Nothing will make him bend, he is an Iron King.’

  ‘An Iron King,’ murmured Philip the Fair. ‘Have I so successfully concealed my weaknesses? How little others know us, and how wrongly judged I shall be!’

  Suddenly, seeing a written name, he remembered an extraordinary embassy which he had received at the very beginning of his reign. Rabban Kaumas, a Chinese Nestorian Bishop, had come to France, sent by the Great Khan of Persia, the descendant of Gengis Khan, in order to suggest an alliance to the King of France, and war against the Turks with an army of a hundred thousand men.

  At that time Philip the Fair was twenty years old. How wonderfully seductive to a young man had seemed this dream of a crusade, a crusade in which Europe and Asia would participate; what an enterprise worthy of Alexander! Nevertheless, on that day, he had chosen a different road. No more crusades, no more warlike adventures; it was to France and to peace that he wished to devote all his efforts. Had he been right? How strong would France be, had he accepted the Khan of Persia’s alliance? For one moment he dreamed of a gigantic reconquest of the Christian territories which would have carried his glory far down the centuries. … Then he returned to reality and selected a new pile of dusty parchments.