by Robert Merle
“What! Carry him some more?” cried the soldier who had confronted Anicet, mine remaining as mute as a stone.
“Perhaps this will help you decide what to do,” I said, seizing the pistol that was hanging from the left side of my belt and aiming it at him.
The man resheathed his sword without further discussion, and prepared to pick up this burden that he now so reviled, since he was no longer sure to get any profit from it. The strangest thing about this controversy was that the other executioners, who had been watching it unfold, simply stood by in silence, as if dazed with fatigue, and seemed almost unable to understand what it was about and unwilling to intervene. One might almost have said that the business no longer concerned them, and that they were now only killing out of some force of habit that had taken hold of them during the night.
We found Captain Bouillargues in his house, armed for war, but, from what I could tell, little inclined to stick his nose out of his burrow, too smart to be seen at the bishop’s palace, knowing all too well what was going on there, since it was he and the judges who’d ordered it. He was a big man, heavy and fat, looking like a bear in every aspect but his face, which was definitely more fox than bear, with cunning little eyes and a mobile and ferrety nose, as if designed to sniff out traps before sticking his paw into them. Clearly he was not the kind of thief to raid a chicken coop openly or to participate in looting the house of a papist who’d fled, as François Pavée had done in Montcalm’s lodgings! On the other hand, I’d heard from Dame Étienne André herself that she secretly paid 1,000 livres to Bouillargues (in whom everything was false, including his name, which was, in reality, Pierre Suau) to spare the life of her husband, whom he’d had arrested. And long after the “Michelade” was over (which is what this massacre came to be called since it was the day after Michaelmas), I learnt that Bouillargues received ransom money from many people that night and that he operated an open market on the sale of lives of people he had the power to dispatch or save, enriching himself with anonymous monies, and not, like François Pavée and other imprudent fools, with booty whose origins could later be identified.
I wanted to penetrate this lair, where the blood of other people was being trafficked, and left Pierre Journet in the street, groaning but not in extremis, in the company of Anicet and the two soldiers, who looked quite crestfallen and were beginning to regret that they were there. Miroul and Samson, whom I didn’t want to get mixed up in this business, since I couldn’t foresee how things might turn out, had remained behind at the bishop’s palace to await my return.
I found Bouillargues surrounded by emissaries, whom he was dispatching every minute or so to various corners of Nîmes, and guarded by four or five secretaries whose palms I had to grease in order to get an audience with him. Even then he received me with crafty reserve, asking who I was and whether I was the kind of fowl that could be plucked, and was clearly ready to up the ante if I was there to try to ransom a friend. I managed to remain calm, without a trace of insolence or brashness, while maintaining the air of someone who’s not going to be browbeaten. I told him my name, where I was from and whose son I was, and gave him first the letter from Cossolat that was addressed to him, and, when he’d read that, the letter from Monsieur de Chambrun. The first appeared to impress him more than the second. Seeing that I was under the protection of both Cossolat and Monsieur de Joyeuse (who, even though he was a papist, was someone to be reckoned with), he immediately changed his tone, his countenance and his behaviour, and very politely bade me be seated and asked what had caused my quarrel with François Pavée, looking very distressed upon hearing that Pavée had been usurping his prerogatives by ordering someone to be killed without obtaining his permission. In the heat of his anger, he dictated a letter for Pavée to a secretary, and had it delivered on the spot. This done, he wrote my name, and those of Samson and Miroul, on safe-conduct papers he took from a stack on his table, no doubt prepared in advance to exact money from various papists. When he’d signed them, and I’d placed them with enormous relief in the pocket of my doublet, I told him, without naming him, the story of the little cleric whom Anicet and I had saved from the talons of the vultures at the bishop’s palace, and invited him to step out in the street for a moment to adjudicate on the issue. Shrugging his powerful shoulders in a way that showed of what little consequence he considered this matter, and that he only consented to do this as a favour to me, Bouillargues rose and, swaying like a bear, but with a surprising degree of agility, opened the door onto the street. Scarcely had he caught sight of the little cleric, however, when he roared, “Good God, it’s you, my little Pierre! Who has done this to you? Who wounded you? Justice will be done! Was it these two?” he added, looking at the two soldiers and seizing his dagger.
“No, no!” I broke in. “It was Robert Aymée.”
“Aymée! Well, not very aymée-able at all!” cried Bouillargues. “’Sblood, I’ll cut his liver out. Everyone in Nîmes knows that Pierre Journet was raised by my wet nurse and is very dear to me! You rogues, carry Pierre inside and put him gently on my bed. And you,” he said, turning to a major-domo who had followed him outside, “send for Domanil, the surgeon; fly like an arrow or I’ll have your neck! Monsieur de Siorac,” he continued, real tears streaming down his cheeks (seeing which, I could hardly believe my eyes) and giving me an enormous hug, “I’ll remember your name if I live to be a hundred.”
At this point, he looked over at Anicet and, seeing that he was as poor as Job, wanted to give him an écu, but Anicet refused, saying that he’d merely acted out of compassion. Meanwhile, the two soldiers, now silent, eyes lowered and looking very crestfallen, carried Pierre Journet in and placed him on Bouillargues’s bed with as much tender care as they’d previously used cruelty, when, an hour before, they’d thrown him on the paving stones in the courtyard of the bishop’s palace. This done, they tried to become as invisible as possible, and left very happily with us, fearing that Bouillargues might still turn the anger on them that, half crying, half roaring, he continued to vent on Robert Aymée. I left Bouillargues after many more expressions of gratitude on his part, and thought how surprising it was that this fox had something resembling a heart after all, even though it seemed to beat only for members of his family, and not for other men, who, by and large, seemed to be rejected outside the community of mankind.
Scarcely had I left his house, however, when, changing my mind, I retraced my steps and found Bouillargues sitting by the bed of the wounded man. I took him aside and whispered, “Captain, I’ve heard they’ve arrested Bernard d’Elbène, the bishop of Nîmes. Are they going to kill him too? Haven’t we had enough bloodshed?”
Bouillargues lowered his eyes, and said, feigning compassion for the bishop, “For my part, I didn’t order him to be dispatched, and I would a thousand times have preferred to hold him hostage and demand a ransom.” (This was no doubt true.) “But I don’t know what the judges have decided.”
“Pardon my curiosity, Captain,” I said quietly, “but who are these judges I’ve heard so much about here?”
“Ah, Monsieur de Siorac, who knows?” replied Bouillargues, squinting at me with the air of a man who knew full well. Whereupon, he gave me a bear hug, thanked me again profusely and, giving me a pat on the back, withdrew.
You can imagine that I wasn’t happy to be returning to the courtyard of the bishop’s palace, if only to fetch Samson and Miroul, for my imagination was full of the torches, the pavement shining with blood, the screams, the bodies that were despoiled and the well where they threw all those bodies in a tangled mess—horrible scenes that I wished never to have witnessed.
As I walked along, full of these sad thoughts, one of the soldiers who had almost killed Pierre Journet tugged at my sleeve and thanked me for having said that it was Robert Aymée who had wounded the boy. I answered that I didn’t want Bouillargues to stab him right then and there, or his friend, but that if they really wanted to express their gratitude, they’d stop the killing and b
oth return to their lodgings. He promised me they would, but excused himself for having to accompany me back to the bishop’s palace since they had hidden their loot and didn’t want to lose it as they were both tanners and had been out of work for six months and hoped to sell the clothes they’d taken from the papists to buy a bit of bread for their children, who were now thin as cartwheel spokes having had so little to eat for so long. I asked Guillaume (the other soldier was named Louis, but was as quiet as a carp), if there was any money in their loot.
“Alas, no, Monsieur, not a sol. The soldiers who took them to city hall pocketed everything including their rings and jewels, and left us nothing but their clothes.”
Hearing this, and touched by what they’d told me about their children, convinced they’d only acted on the orders given them, and moved by the bitter necessity that beset them, I gave each of them an écu, which they accepted, the one silent as ever but face crimson with joy, the other with infinite thanks. As for the latter, Guillaume was as expressive as a puppy, jumping up and down, hugging me and swearing himself at my service should I ever require it. And, seeing that Anicet was feeling a bit out of joint at seeing me being so lavish with our former enemies, I also gave him an écu, which at first he refused, but which he ended up accepting at my insistence, assuring me with some pride that he wasn’t out of work and lived by honest means, even if humbly so.
Morning had broken, and the sun was just coming out over the houses, when we reached an intersection that had a well at its centre, called the Well of the Great Table, as I learnt from Guillaume. At the corner, we joined up with a larger platoon, which was guarding a group of three or four papists whom they were taking to the bishop’s palace, and these soldiers were very exercised, shouting, “Kill the papists! It’s a new world!” which had been the slogan of the previous night.
Anicet suddenly cried, “But that’s the bishop, Bernard d’Elbène! And next to him is his major-domo, Maître de Sainte-Sophie!”
As he said this, the large swarthy devil that was commanding the group called a halt, and walked over to the major-domo, a pike in his hand, and cried furiously, “Ah, you scoundrel! You’ve got fat enough on our money! This will help you lose some of that blubber!” And saying this, with a furious blow, he thrust his pike into the man’s stomach, pulled it out and plunged it in again. Seeing this, some of the soldiers set upon the major-domo and began stabbing him, some with daggers, some with swords, so quickly and thoroughly that he hardly had time to moan. He fell, and as he lay in agony on the paving stones, they kept stabbing him.
Some of these, whose bloodlust hadn’t yet been satisfied, cried that they should immediately dispatch the bishop! Others protested, saying that they’d received no order to execute him. The bloodthirsty ones, however, couldn’t get close enough to the bishop to strike him because others of the soldiers were pressing around him, trying to pull his rings from his fingers.
“Guillaume,” I whispered, “who’s that tall scoundrel who just killed the major-domo?”
“Robert Aymée.”
“What? The one who wounded Pierre Journet?”
“The same!”
Stepping right up to this fellow, I grabbed him by the elbow and said, “Monsieur, I’d like a word with you, if you please. Captain Bouillargues is very distraught and angry with you because when you were at the councillor of Sauvignargues’s house you wounded his little ‘brother’ Pierre Journet. He’s so furious about this he’s sworn to cut your liver out when he catches up with you.”
“What?” gasped Aymée. “The shitty little curate I found this morning with the bishop—”
“Was his protégé.”
“But I didn’t know that!” cried Aymée, looking very abashed and crestfallen.
“Ah, my friend,” I said, searching for the best way to dress up the truth to make it sound as threatening as possible, “the captain thinks that you did know it, and that you did it to spite him! Monsieur Aymée, if I were you I’d go right over to Bouillargues’s lodgings to clear this up. He’s spitting such fire and brimstone against you it makes a body shudder to hear it.”
“I’ll go there right away!” said Robert Aymée.
And, calling to his platoon, he said, “Hey there, mates, you don’t need me to put the bishop in the palace and drown him in his well!”
And, having launched this ugly pleasantry, by which he tried to hide his terror, he walked off with great strides, without even asking my name, and, as far as I could tell, in a direction diametrically opposite the one that led to Bouillargues’s house. I was fairly certain that this Aymée character, as cowardly as he was cruel, was heading home to hide under his bed until Pierre Journet had recovered! Which he did eventually, though he would first spend two months very near death.
Meanwhile, the platoon, without Robert Aymée, continued on to the bishop’s palace, and we followed it, Anicet on my right and Guillaume and Louis on my left, and all three intent on letting me know that they felt that it would be a pity to kill the bishop, who, they insisted, was not a bad man, indeed far from it, as he spent the lion’s share of his money on charity, lived simply in his palace, ate little and drank less; moreover, they claimed, no one had ever heard him preaching against the Huguenots as Quatrebar and Sausset and certain papist merchants of Nîmes had done, even more zealously than the priests. Their sense was that he was straightforward, good and very welcoming to the artisans and poor of the city. All three felt that the Huguenots could find common ground with him, had it not been for the episcopal court surrounding him, who howled constantly at our heels like a pack of hungry wolves.
Some of the most fanatical of our soldiers had stripped the bishop to his doublet and, to humiliate him, had placed on his head a silly bonnet with lots of ribbon, while others, as we walked along, made cruel jokes about the fate that awaited him. Bernard d’Elbène bore all of this without a murmur, and without any of the defiance that Quatrebar had displayed. He was praying quietly, perhaps not wishing to offend his captors by intoning the Ave Maria; at the same time, without lowering his eyes, he looked at those who were leading him to his Calvary with neither hatred nor resentment, as if he had already pardoned them. His fortitude and his meekness so impressed the most zealous of his captors that they ceased their mockery and threats—all except one man named Simon, of whom I’ll say more later. The bishop was of medium height, had a pale complexion, white hair and hands that trembled, but it was clear that this was not from fear but from old age.
As soon as we entered the courtyard of the bishop’s palace, Bernard d’Elbène, seeing from the oceans of blood the butchery that had taken place there, threw himself on his knees, and with loud sighs and tears streaming from his eyes began to pray for the salvation of the souls of the martyred. The score of soldiers gathered there, sensing that this great grief was not for himself but for others, immediately began to feel some shame. Moreover, exhausted by the terrible fatigue of their bloody night, they allowed the bishop to pray much longer than they’d permitted anyone else to do. But finally, one among them, growing impatient, approached Bernard d’Elbène and snarled, bloody sword in hand, yet not daring to touch him, “Enough praying! Take off your doublet, Bishop, I don’t want to ruin it when I kill you.”
At which, the bishop, without batting an eyelid and with perfect composure, removed his doublet and, hesitating for a moment as to whether to lay it on the pavement, not wishing to stain it with the blood that was there, handed it to his executioner, saying gently, “Here, my son. I hope you can make good use of it, though it’s a bit threadbare.”
The soldier blushed at the idea that the loot was being offered to him by his victim rather than being stolen by him; that this was witnessed by everyone present, which caused some laughter, and that the doublet was threadbare caused him great embarrassment. He stood there with the doublet in one hand and his sword in the other, unable to decide whether or not to strike the man, which seemed greatly to irritate one of the most rabid of his companion
s, a sort of gnome with a loud mouth, who had spent the entire time during their march lambasting the bishop with ugly lampoons and insults. “Hey, Martin,” he called with a hectoring tone, “you idiot! Are you a man or a woman sitting at your loom? Kill him! If you don’t have the balls, I still have enough appetite to kill a bishop!”
And, raising his dagger, he would have killed the bishop on the spot, if a young lad who had a good face and a gentle manner hadn’t leapt in front of him and pointed his pistol and sword at his chest. “No!” cried this fellow stubbornly. “You’re not going to kill him! I’m offering him his life! And no one here’s going to take it from him except at the price of his own!”
“What, Coussinal,” cried Simon. “What’s happened to you? You’re defending a papist bishop against your own Huguenot brothers?”
“I don’t give a damn whether he’s a papist or not,” replied Coussinal. “He sheltered my mother, for an entire winter, against famine and cold. And since he saved her life, I’m saving his!”
“Ah, bloody hell! What a pretty story!” cried Simon in the most venomous tone. “I think I’m going to cry! Mates, do you hear this sheep bleating? His mother! ’Sblood! What’s this bastard’s mother to us? Friends, who was the head of the papists in Nîmes? The bishop! Are we going to kill all the soldiers and then pardon the general? Mates, what’s Coussinal up to here if it’s not treason? Nothing less than treason! This shitty little Coussinal is just a Huguenot in the pay of the bishop! Friends, have at ’em! Kill them both! Let’s off the bishop and this rogue Coussinal with him!”
“We’ll see,” said Coussinal, who wasn’t as eloquent as Simon, but whose eyes were blazing and who, standing in front of the bishop, was leaning into his adversary, his pistol in one hand and his sword in the other.
