City of Wisdom and Blood

by Robert Merle

  “No.”

  “Then you’re an idolater.”

  At this, they all looked at me with as much horror as if they’d caught me kneeling before the golden calf. “Well!” I thought as the sweat dripped down between my shoulder blades. “This time I’m done for. Everything becomes violence and terror the minute you touch religion! Idolatry is fanatical, but so is anti-idolatry. Montluc cut off a man’s head for having broken a cross. And these men were going to cut my throat for wearing a medallion.”

  “My friends,” I said, “this medallion was given me by my mother on her deathbed. She was a papist and made me swear to wear it after she died. It’s because of my dead mother’s idolatry that it’s dangling from my neck, not because I worship Mary. The truth is that I pray to God the same way you do, without any intercession of Mary or the saints.”

  “To be sure,” sneered Jean Vigier, “you’ve got a ready tongue! It’s quite a story you tell! But is it true? Who shall say?” he added with a burp that would have unstopped a chimney.

  “The man’s not from Nîmes,” mumbled the thin man in his cups. “Listen to me! He’s from Montpellier. And as everyone knows, it’s no good lying when you’ve come a long way.”

  “But I’m not lying!” I cried in desperation. “That I’m a good, loyal and sincere Huguenot is all written down in black and white in the letter Monsieur de Chambrun wrote to Captain Bouillargues! Are you going to cut my throat because you don’t know how to read? And why don’t you know your letters in the first place? I’ve heard that all the artisans and labourers who join our religion learn to read right away so they can decipher the Holy Bible.”

  At this reproach, they all lowered their heads and stared into their goblets, looking quite ashamed, I thought. Then the little round bald-headed man said, in a trembling voice and with tears in his eyes (not just, I think, because of the wine he’d drunk), “Monsieur! We’re all recent converts to the true religion and though they told us we’d need to learn to read to be able to decipher the sacred texts, I can’t go learning to read when I’m working fifteen hours a day and I’ve got five mouths to feed with the little I earn. I just don’t have the energy, come sundown, to go to work with my head however much I might try. I just can’t seem to make any progress.”

  “I completely understand,” I said, “that no one here knows how to read. So, go and fetch Monsieur de Chambrun. He’ll tell you what you want to know about my religion.”

  “By my faith, that’s not a bad idea!” said the little round man.

  But when he tried to stand, he fell back onto his stool, having lost the use of his legs.

  “Ah, bah!” mumbled Jean Vigier, his nose in his goblet. “We’ve been betrayed. I’m not going to let this go. The man has an idol around his neck.” And thereupon he burped.

  “Thish wine ishn’t sho bad,” said the tall, thin man with the yellowing skin. “But I’m not forgedding my order even though I’m not through eading. You shir, jush wait a bit. In a moment we’ll kill you.”

  “What?” said the little round man. “We’re not going to fetch Mish-yor de Chambrun?” But when he tried to get up he fell back on his stool.

  “Hey!” proclaimed the tall, dark-haired fellow on his left. “Doesn’ matter what the minshter thinksh or whether this rascal is papist or Huguenot, lesh jush kill ’im. The Lord up there will decide. Miroul, I’m going to shing a shong about my weaversh’ trade becaush I’m a weaver like that little fat fellow over there. Can you accompany me?”

  “Depends,” said Miroul, “are you going to kill me like my master?”

  “Of coursh!”

  “With or without an idol?” said Miroul, his brown eye smiling and his blue one cold.

  “With or without.”

  “Then I’m your man. Sing, weaver!”

  And, Miroul giving me a quick look, I came over and stood beside him, which is to say, quite near the door, and was reassured to observe that I still had my sword and dagger in my belt, as did Miroul, our executioners never having thought to disarm us, perhaps because there were so many of them and only two of us. And certainly, if it came to a fight, we would have been able to kill more than a few of them. But I had no taste for bloodshed with these fellows, however badly they understood the precepts of religion.

  Meanwhile the weaver was singing a song that had nothing to do with weaving and would have made the chambermaids blush if they hadn’t been accustomed to hearing such stuff at various banquets. After the weaver it was the wool carder who had to share his song, then a cobbler, and then a silk worker. In their refrains, in which each one tried to exalt his trade over the others, there was plenty of lewdness. The wool carder’s song was about a pretty wench who asked her beau to give her a pretty thread that would make her bobbin fatter.

  “Bloody hell!” said the thin man, who, though he was a shoemaker, hadn’t wanted to sing a song about his trade. “I think it’s downright sinful to sing dirty songs and eat, drink and make merry when we haven’t found where this shithead of a bishop is hiding.” And at these words the innkeeper looked up with alarm. “Comrades,” he continued, banging his fist on the table and rolling his eyes furiously, “we’re doing God’s work pretty badly here!”

  And hearing the words “God’s work” I feared the worst, for, whether he’s a papist or a Huguenot, a man tends to use them in the service of his worst instincts.

  “Friends!” continued the shoemaker, banging on the table. “Let’s dispatch this gentleman right now. We’ve waited long enough!”

  “He’s right!” agreed Jean Vigier. “He’s a traitor. ’Sgot an idol around his neck!”

  “So let’s do him!” said the shoemaker, drawing his dagger, though he didn’t stand up.

  “What?” cried the innkeeper, standing over him like a Fury, and no more afraid of his dagger than if he’d had a spoon in his hand. “What?” she screamed. “Kill him in here? Shoemaker, is this how a cobbler understands civility? You’ll get blood on my floor, and I just washed it!”

  “Hadn’t thought of that!” mumbled the cobbler, looking vaguely troubled at his dagger as if he were astonished to see it in his hand.

  “Cobbler,” I said, “your hostess is right. Let’s the three of us go outside so we don’t ruin her floor.”

  “Three?” said the cobbler.

  “I thought your order was to kill the valet too?” said Miroul gravely. “With or without an idol.”

  “Well, yes—”

  “So, let’s be off,” I said, hoping this would be a good occasion to finish this business.

  “Monsieur!” said the cobbler, struggling with some difficulty to his feet. “It’s very nice of you to be so amenable to being killed. I’m not a cruel man so I’ll get it over with quickly.”

  He took several steps towards the door, where he would have fallen flat on his face if we hadn’t held him up. Some of his companions made as if to get up and follow, since a man’s death is always an enticing spectacle. But our good soldiers’ legs were so heavy, their stomachs so anchored to the table and the chambermaids were just now bringing such quantities of delicious wine that they changed their minds. It’s no doubt true that these rogues had precious few occasions to eat and drink their fill, working as they did for miserable wages and only getting their fill on holidays.

  With Miroul’s help, each of us holding an arm, we managed to get the cobbler out into the back courtyard of the place, between the sinkhole and the kitchen, on the threshold of which all the kitchen help had quietly gathered on orders from the cook. At this point the cobbler couldn’t take another step and his legs gave way from under him. But since, in falling, he began waving his dagger in the air, Miroul snatched it from him in a trice.

  “Monsieur, where’s my dagger?” said the cobbler, flexing his fingers and looking wildly at me.

  “In your hand.”

  “Yesh,” he garbled, “I shee it but I don feel it.”

  “That’s because your hand is so heavy and the dagger’s s
o light.”

  “Comrade,” he continued, “how come you’re not trying to shtop me from killing you?”

  “So why is it, now, that you want to kill me?”

  “Ah, Monsieur, I’m not happy about it. Indeed I’m thinking maybe you’re not a papisht after all.”

  “So, why do you want me dead?”

  “Because you’re not from Nîmes. And who can trusht a man who’sh not from Nîmes?”

  “How right you are, cobbler. So, do your duty. Strike me right in the heart, now!”

  And, seizing his empty fist, I give myself a blow in the chest, and cried, “I’m killed!”

  Moving quickly around behind him, I made a sign to Miroul to imitate my death, which he did a marvellous job of, his brown eye gaily glinting. After which I give the cobbler a little push from behind and he fell on his knees, feeling around on the pavement as if he were looking for our bodies, and stammering, “D-did I k-k-kill them?”

  I turned to the cook, the one who never removed his toque, and whispered, believing that he’d enjoy taking part in the fun: “Friend, sprinkle some chicken’s blood on his face. And on his dagger. And when you’ve done that, give him a goblet of brandy. That’ll help him sleep for about ten hours and dream he killed us. As for you,” I said to one of the kitchen boys, “here’s two sols. Be a good fellow and saddle and bridle our horses and bring them round to the back door.”

  I was careful not to return to the dining room, where our valiant soldiers were singing a medley of bawdy songs in a horrible cacophony. Instead I passed by that room after the innkeeper closed the door, and went up to my chamber, where I found Samson biting his nails after hearing from our hostess what was going on at the banquet. I told him the rest as briefly as possible, instructing him and Miroul to arm for war, with helmet and armour.

  “Where are we going?” asked Samson. “All the city gates are closed.”

  “To look for Captain Bouillargues, to give him our safe-conduct letters and ask him to let us leave.”

  “But aren’t we in terrible danger if we go out now when François Pavée is looking for us?”

  “Yes, but it’s dark out now. Our helmets will partly conceal our faces. And fully armoured as we are—and they are—we’re more likely to go unnoticed than if we wore our doublets.”

  Someone knocked at our door and, opening it part way, I saw that it was our hostess. Not wishing to speak with her in front of Samson, I led her to my room and quickly drew the bolt.

  “Oh!” she said. “Have you heard? They haven’t taken the bishop. Where’s Montcalm?”

  “He has fled.”

  “Thanks be to the Mother of God!” she said. “But,” she continued tenderly, “are you leaving this minute, my noble friend? You don’t risk anything by staying here. We’ve taken the idiot cobbler back into the dining room where he announced that he’d killed you both, and then fell asleep like a log. Must you leave right away?”

  “My friend,” I smiled, “I’m so sorry to have to leave you, but I must find this Bouillargues and get our safe-conduct papers.”

  “But you have time! It isn’t dark enough yet.”

  “Well then, as we wait, let’s talk about you. There’s no point in herding sheep if you don’t get some wool. Here’s five écus to cover that banquet! Will that satisfy you?”

  “Ah, my friend,” she said, looking at me with a sidelong glance, “no money between us!”

  And while she was protesting, the écus found their way into her purse without too much complaint, and as for me, I wasn’t sorry to have paid for so much wine to save me from spilling my own blood. But as my fifth écu dropped into her purse, she stood silently looking at me with her eyes like moons, and I, knowing full well what she wanted, and what I desired as well, and being so happy to be alive after having come so close to not being so, and so unsure of remaining so after leaving her inn, wanted to enjoy this calm between two storms. However brief this paradise was to be, I wanted to enter it if only for the length of one sigh. Ah, reader, don’t frown. If it’s a sin to be so worldly, forgive me. Life is so sweet. Was it not marvellous to feel the warmth and vibrancy of this woman’s arms when, at that very minute, I could have found myself lying cold and bloody on the cobblestones?

  14

  I’D HEARD TALK among my executioners around the banquet table of a huge gathering that was to take place at nine o’clock that night in front of the cathedral. I decided to go there with Samson and Miroul, reckoning that if we were ever to find Captain Bouillargues, it would be there, and we could venture out at night with a helmet on, especially in such a large crowd, without being recognized. As soon as we arrived at the cathedral, it was evident, from the babel of local Provençal dialects being spoken here, that hundreds of Huguenots from all the surrounding villages had descended on Nîmes once they’d heard the city had been taken by the reformists. I also saw that far from being despised or treated as suspicious in any way, as my cobbler would have done, these strangers were welcomed by the people of Nîmes.

  There was a great feeling of happiness in the crowd, whose members were feeling avenged for the cruel persecutions that had been inflicted on them since the reign of François I. And though many were shouting, “Kill the papists! It’s a new world!” I saw no movement whatsoever to spread out into the city, to break into houses and kill the papists without sparing women, girls or babies—as, alas, the papists were to do five years later to our people on that dreadful St Bartholomew’s night.

  We were there for about an hour, mingling among the populace, before daring to speak to anyone, but finally saw a man with a pleasant face and, according to what we overheard of his conversation, who seemed to know many important people in Nîmes, so I sent Samson over to him, since my brother was as yet entirely unknown in the city, given that he’d never left the inn.

  “Greetings, young man!” said the man, staring at Samson as if he’d just met the Archangel Michael descending in glory and beauty from one of the stained-glass windows in the cathedral. And when he’d heard Samson’s request, he said, “If you need Captain Bouillargues, you need only follow the platoon of Pierre Cellerier, who’s leaving presently for city hall, and there you’ll find the captain.”

  “So is this Pierre Cellerier also a captain?” asked Samson.

  “Not at all. He’s a jeweller and one of the richest men in Nîmes, but a severe and unbending Huguenot.”

  I pulled Samson by the elbow, fearing he would talk too much, and we immediately fell in behind the platoon, which was about thirty strong, and marching smartly three abreast. This Miroul, Samson and I imitated, so no one seemed surprised. It was now very dark, and as the platoon was lit by four or five torchbearers at the head of the company, we were able to remain in the shadows.

  We arrived at city hall, and instead of the soldiers remaining outside as I would have expected, Pierre Cellerier ordered them to follow him, and, descending several steps, the troop found itself in front of a heavily guarded door, which the guards unlocked for us, giving us access to a large room where the papist prisoners were being held. This room was normally used as an abattoir and butchering shop, to provide meat to sick people during Lent. It was very humid with low ceilings and was unevenly paved, with a central gutter to drain away blood. As for windows there were some small openings with strips of iron across them, which is doubtless why the place had been chosen as a keep for about one hundred prisoners, mostly priests and monks of different orders, but including some merchants and a few artisans, among whom I noticed Doladille, whom Jean Vigier had wounded on the arm.

  Since all of these unfortunates had been mildewing in the darkness, as soon as they saw the torchlight and the armed soldiers they backed away, cowering, dazzled and terrified, some blinking like owls in sunlight, others shading their eyes with their hands, but all shrinking as far as possible from us, for they believed we were going to slaughter them on the spot like sheep during Lent. And to tell the truth I feared the same thing, seeing the savag
e looks Pierre Cellerier and the others were directing at them, their eyes so full of the hatred and bitterness that had been stewed and restewed in the cauldron of persecution.

  Pierre Cellerier stepped forward into the space from which the prisoners had retreated, and ordering a torchbearer to give him light, he pulled a list from his doublet and began reading some names. Cellerier was a thickset, broad-shouldered man, though not very tall. His face, lit from the side by the torch, seemed rough-hewn, furrowed by wrinkles and fairly plain. His voice, bearing and expression all suggested a butcher rather than a jeweller, much more at home in this slaughterhouse than with working delicate gems.

  He began by calling the name of the first consul, Gui Rochette, whose mother had been so uncivilly questioned by Possaque earlier in the day. Gui Rochette, a handsome, well-dressed man, stepped forward courageously and with dignity, knowing full well the fate that awaited him. And he didn’t flinch or say a word when two soldiers rudely seized him by the arms. However, when, after him, Cellerier called, “Robert Grégoire, lawyer,” the first consul of Nîmes looked very upset and, turning his head towards the jeweller, whom, till then, he’d affected not to notice, said, “In the name of God, I beg you, Monsieur, not Grégoire. He’s done nothing other than to be my brother!”

  “It’s enough that he’s your brother,” snarled Cellerier, frowning. But perhaps the cruel absurdity of his words struck him, for he added, “In any case, the judges have decided it this way.” And he repeated, “Robert Grégoire, lawyer!”

  And the brother, looking very young and extremely terrified, stepped forward, and was seized by the soldiers, but less roughly, as if they were secretly astonished that he was being delivered up to their knives.

  The third man called was a monk, to whom Cellerier gave his title, but in a much more derisive voice than to Grégoire. “Jean Quatrebar, Augustinian prior and ordinary preacher at the cathedral church.” He gave a vengeful inflection to the way he pronounced the word “preacher”, and as Quatrebar stepped forward, the soldiers hooted at him and I wondered whether in his sermons in the cathedral Quatrebar hadn’t more than once damned our Huguenot brothers to the flames of hell—and, what’s worse, to the flames of the stake here on earth. He walked towards the soldiers with a bullying and defiant step, his head raised, eyes aflame, and looking down at Cellerier from his height of six feet, he said in a sonorous voice,