Fortunes of France 4: League of Spies

by Robert Merle

  “È ben trovato,” he repeated, shaking his head and resorting to Italian, not so much because of his Florentine heritage on his mother’s side, but simply because he loved the language, and I’d heard him say more than once that he found it more elegant and flexible than French.

  And, shaking his head again, he repeated:

  “Bene, bene, bene: ‘barrels’, a ‘barricade’—what could be simpler? What a discovery, my Siorac. And so inexpensive: some casks, some dirt, a few paving stones! And the king’s regiments are completely blocked! Our good Leaguers are not so stupid as I thought. Du Halde, hatred seems to make them smarter!”

  “But sire,” observed Du Halde, his long, austere face expressing the alarm he felt at hearing this, “in such a case, a prince could never restore order and reason in a seditious city!”

  “Oh, yes he could,” countered the king, “but only by means much slower and more considered than street fights, which are always so costly in human life for both sides, and spill rivers of blood for an uncertain outcome. The proof is in what our good Leaguers call the ‘happy day of Saint-Séverin’, when two or three stinking priests and three dozen rascals held my guards in check. To win that struggle, we would have had to use cannon, and massacre an entire quarter.”

  “But sire,” said Du Halde stiffly, “if that’s the way to ensure ultimate victory—”

  “No, no, my good Du Halde!” interrupted the king animatedly. “A king must never put himself in the position of slaughtering his subjects! It is an unnatural act, and as useless as it is inhuman! That’s the lesson I learnt from the St Bartholomew’s day massacre.”

  Hearing these beautiful and noble words, and recognizing the courage the king had had to display in downplaying his own successes at Jarnac and Moncontour, I was so overcome with feeling that I threw myself at his feet and presumed to seize his hand and kiss it.

  “Well now!” he said with an affectionately derisive smile (and giving me an affectionate pat on the cheek as he pulled his hand from mine). “Now now, Siorac, look at how happy you are that I denounced the St Bartholomew’s day massacre! Aren’t you a good Catholic?”

  “Sire,” I replied, “if being a good Catholic means plotting against the crown, and being hateful and seditious, then no, I’m not. But if being a good Catholic means hearing Mass and serving his king, then, sire, count me as a member of that Church.”

  “Well said, Siorac,” smiled the king, giving two taps with his hands to the arms of his chair. “My own Church is one of good and honest people who do not want to use the sword to exterminate heretics, but rather reason to persuade them. My own Church is also one that believes in pardon, which I shall use, Du Halde, with all of my subjects who are acting so blindly, since I desire neither their blood nor their lives, but rather their preservation, as fervently as a father would that of his children.”

  “Sire,” asked Du Halde, “would you use such mercy towards the one who is blinding them?”

  “I don’t know yet,” answered the king with a thin, sinuous smile, looking at Du Halde out of the corner of his beautiful black eyes. “But why not, if he were to become truly repentant?”

  “I wouldn’t believe it,” laughed Chicot.

  “What wouldn’t you believe, my fool?”

  “Neither his repentance nor his forbearance. You’re a sly dog, Henri. Guise has his moment now, but you’ll have yours tomorrow.”

  “Amen!” breathed Du Halde.

  “Siorac,” said the king, not wishing to pursue this conversation, and seizing the watch that hung around Du Halde’s neck and giving it a quick glance, “it is almost time for my council. Is that all you learnt from this fly who believes he’s a lion?”

  “No, sire. He heard from a very reliable source that there is also a plot against you being hatched by Madame Limp, who would love to be queen. Having determined that when you return from Vincennes you pass by a house in Roquette that belongs to her, she has planned to hide some forty spadaccini there, who will seize your carriage as you pass by and kill the five or six gentlemen in your retinue and take you prisoner.”

  “Ah, sire!” cried Du Halde. “I told you that your escort was too weak!”

  “Who would have thought,” said the king, paling in anger, “that this wicked woman, who sent the queen and the queen mother to beg me on their knees not to exile her, far from desisting from her execrable designs, would dare, so soon after her pardon, to attack my royal person? And yet, if I press her too hard on this occasion, she’ll proclaim her innocence and accuse me of calumny and send off a note to her priests to the effect that I’m attacking a weak woman, because I don’t like her sex. Du Halde, I will satisfy you! From now on I won’t leave the Louvre without the protection of my Forty-five Guardsmen, fully armed. And as for the desperate enterprises of those of my subjects who have taken up arms against my authority, I shall fortify all the strongholds in my capital in such a way as to rid those seditious rebels who would attack them of any further taste for doing so! Siorac,” he said, rising and presenting his hand to me, “continue, I beg you, to serve me well, and be as affectionate in the future as you always have been, bringing me from time to time the buzzings of this good fly who swoops over the dungheap of the League to discover its deliberations.”

  I have reported this conversation exactly as it happened, without polishing or pruning the king’s words, because I wanted to give a detailed portrait of the king just as he was: sometimes familiar and witty, at others serious and majestic, but always using language in the same refined way that he dressed, having a great appetite for art and a great love of words—for he’d studied rhetoric with Pibrac, and founded an academy with him. He was, moreover, a great admirer of Rabelais, Ronsard, Villon and, ever since they’d first appeared, the Essais of Michel de Montaigne, whom he revered for his luminous lucidity, his supple style and his reasonable approach to life. And I can well remember in this respect how, at Chartres, Henri was upset and angry with the League for having thrown Montaigne in the Bastille (if only for a few days, and until the queen mother had him released), since they so hated a mind whose gentle humanism was at such odds with their fanaticism.

  During the four months that followed this conversation, I saw the king several times, while disguised as Baragran, to keep him informed of the seditious plans of the League in Paris, and notably of their intention to assassinate Épernon at the fair at Saint-Germain in February or March 1588 (my memory is not very precise about the date). Épernon was very brave and high-handed, as I’ve already indicated; and, the king’s council (most of whose members were creatures of the queen mother, and were more or less supportive of the League) having hypocritically questioned the information provided by Mosca as being possibly of Huguenot inspiration, the duc wanted to be certain of the value of the information. So he secretly put on a coat of mail under his doublet and had himself followed at some distance by a large escort as he walked around the fair. There a group of students from the university suddenly surrounded him and tried to start an argument, pulling out their knives, and would have surely cut him to ribbons had not the escort rushed up and put them to flight.

  I was very glad that this experience reaffirmed the king’s trust in his “fly” and, of course, in me, who brought him these “buzzings”. And may I just say here, without too much fanfare, that I advised the king to have all the students at the Sorbonne disarmed, since the shitty pedants who taught there had turned them into turbulent and dangerous fanatics, and they had frequently been found to be the source of various disturbances at public events. The king found this idea good and expedient, and sent his prosecutor to the part of the city known as l’Université to search for and remove all weapons, both swords and firearms. But the booty turned out to be very slight, which led the king to believe that l’Université had been forewarned by the members of his council who’d been won over by the League, and that the arms had been hidden in convents in that quarter, which were already overflowing, according to Mosca, with ar
quebuses, pistols and pikes that the League had amassed in these inviolable places in preparation for the insurrection it was planning almost openly against the king—which, it was rumoured, would break out any day now.

  Except for going to see the king very early every morning, I rarely left Alizon’s lodgings, fearing to be recognized by the League’s spies, though this was improbable given the disguise I had, and, in addition, the beard that I allowed to devour my face. At this time Quéribus was operating as go-between for the king and me, just as I served this function for the king and Mosca, and my brother-in-law would visit me at Alizon’s under the pretext of accompanying Catherine there, who was having my “little fly from hell” make many additions to her wardrobe. I well remember their last visit to the shop, which took place towards the end of March, in which he informed me of the manoeuvres of the Duc d’Aumale in Picardy, which the duc held almost entirely in his hands, save for the cities of Calais and Boulogne, despite his repeated attacks on the latter.

  “Well, Pierre!” exclaimed Quéribus. “Please excuse me, but I don’t think I could embrace you, dressed the way you are! I simply cannot get used to your costume! Fie then! A merchant! And that beard! These clothes! Your untended hair! Ah, Pierre! I’d rather die from a thousand sword thrusts than descend to this level of baseness!”

  “But I’m doing this for my king!” I explained, somewhat put off by his attitude. “And I’m defending him in a way no naked sword would do.”

  “Oh yes, of course, of course,” grumbled Quéribus, “but in disguising yourself in this way you show a degree of self-denial that I could never achieve. As I look at you dressed like that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

  “I would be sincerely wounded,” I replied stiffly, “if my clothes caused you to despise me, since I believe I have other claims to your affection.”

  “Ah, Pierre,” blushed Quéribus, “this is too silly of me! You are worth infinitely more than I, who am, when all is said and done, but a courtier whose only merit is that he is faithful to his sovereign. Please forgive me, I beg you. Your hand on it, Pierre.”

  I gave him my hand immediately, and noticed from his expression that he was very disappointed not to see the rings I usually wore on it, but didn’t dare say so since he was so ashamed of having wounded me.

  “Pierre,” he confided, “the king wants you to contact again this fellow whom he calls Mosca—what a strange name!—since he’s so worried by the developments in Picardy. The Prince de Condé, who was the titular governor, has just died, poisoned by his wife, and in his place the king has named the Duc de Nevers.”

  “Nevers? I’ve heard tell that he was courting the League.”

  “That love affair didn’t work out,” replied Quéribus with a smile, “and Nevers has come back to the king, who, as I said, named him governor of Picardy. But Aumale, who has occupied Picardy for his cousin Guise, refuses to step down.”

  “What?” I cried. “He’s refused? He refuses to accept a governor named by the king! That’s open rebellion!”

  “It gets worse. Aumale, at the head of 1,200 arquebusiers, has taken Abbeville in Guise’s name, and, to the king’s envoy who asked for an explanation of these actions, he dared reply with the utmost insolence that the Picard gentlemen will not suffer in their province either royal garrison or a Gascon governor. Which response, as you can imagine, my Pierre, was not well received by the king, who sees Picardy as a key piece in this game.”

  “And why so?”

  “Ah, my Pierre,” protested Quéribus, “don’t ask me! As you know I don’t have a head for politics and never get involved in its twists and turns.”

  “But what can Mosca tell me about Picardy, since he lives, as I do, in Paris?”

  “I know not.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes, indeed! Except,” he continued, stroking his moustache, “that the king did me the favour of finding another nickname for me! He no longer calls me ‘my Quarreller Quéribus’, but instead ‘my cocky cockerel’! Isn’t that sweet?” he continued, standing up to contemplate himself in the mirror, his hands on his hips and turning this way and that to exhibit his figure. “So, my Pierre, what do you think? ‘My cocky cockerel’! Isn’t that just a superb nickname? Could His Majesty have discovered a more gallant alliteration?”

  “Or one that suits you better,” I said seriously, “for I have to admit that there are few gentlemen more dashing than you at court.”

  “Ah, Monsieur my brother!” gushed Quéribus. “You’re blinded by your affection for me! Some people claim that Laugnac de Montpezat would be able to turn many a pretty head if his inclination were in that direction.”

  “Laugnac! The head of the Forty-five Guardsmen! Ah, my brother! Leave that swarthy fellow to his cut-throats! He’s so ordinary-looking it makes you sick!”

  “My brother,” laughed Quéribus, his eyes shining, “your hand! I must take my leave. ’Sblood! You can’t see your face behind that merchant’s beard! I must leave whether Madame my wife has finished or not with Alizon. You know how frivolous these women are! There’s no limit to their gabbing when it comes to finery! But the king ordered me to go to the Maréchale de Joyeuse’s salon this afternoon to speak with Lady Stafford.”

  “Really! On what subject, if I may ask?” I asked, frowning, somewhat stung that the king sent him to hunt in my woods.

  “But you’re precisely the subject! ’Sblood! I completely forgot! What a feather-brained fellow I am! The king wants to know if you feel that it would be useful for me to tell Lady Stafford where you’re staying presently and under what name, so that your contact with the English could be re-established. The king fears inviting Lady Stafford to the Louvre, since there are so many spies about. He can’t even trust his own walls! So, what do you say? Is it a good idea? Should I tell Lady Stafford?”

  “Certainly! But with extreme discretion—and whisper it in her ear and only to her. You can identify me simply as ‘the Lark’.”

  “The Lark!” echoed Quéribus, breaking out laughing, with his hand covering his mouth (in imitation of the king and many others at court). “My brother, I shall not forget that! And, speaking of birds, what do you think of the peacock that I had embroidered on the left sleeve of my doublet? Quite stylish, no? Its eye is a ruby and its wings are rimmed with real pearls.”

  “And what are those three embroidered vs coming out of its mouth?”

  “Veni, vidi, vici.”

  “Ah, my Quéribus!” I laughed. “If I weren’t afraid of annoying you with my beard and clothing, I’d embrace you!”

  “The intention is as good as the act!” Quéribus threw over his shoulder as he pivoted towards the door. “I must go! Do you know, Pierre,” he added, with his hand on the doorknob, “why the Demoiselle de La Trémoille had the Prince de Condé poisoned by her page?”

  “No.”

  “She was having an affair. The prince found out about it and wanted to shut her away in a convent. So she had him killed. And now it won’t be a convent she’s locked in but a jail cell! This is the way of the world, Pierre…”

  “And whom was the affair with?”

  “Why, her page, of course! Isn’t that what you imagined?”

  “What did they do to the page?”

  “They would have had him castrated before drawing and quartering him for cuckolding a prince. But they couldn’t catch him. He scandalously scampered off! My Pierre,” he continued with a laugh, his hand over his mouth, “what do you think of my alliteration?”

  “By my conscience,” I replied, imitating the high intonation of our courtiers, “I find it wonderfully cute!”

  “Truly?”

  “Truly!”

  “In that case, I’ll repeat it to the king.”

  And at that he departed with the usual spring in his step, leaving in his wake the smell of his musk perfume and the brilliance of his multicoloured plumage. Oh, my handsome Quéribus! So frivolous and so silly! Yet so faithful to the king ami
d the great haemorrhage of French nobles, who were continually flowing out of the Louvre towards Guise at Soissons, like impatient rats leaving the ship of state, which appeared to be sinking, to climb aboard a vessel that was sailing towards the throne.

  Poor, great England—her freedom, her religion and her queen so sorely threatened by the immense armada (blessed by the Pope, who actually referred to it as “my daughter”) that Spain was readying to invade her shores. Their queen must have been excessively on the alert to judge by the alacrity of my Lady Stafford in reopening the lines of communication with my king, for, by eleven o’clock the next morning, Alizon came to tell me that a lady of quality, masked in black and speaking strange gibberish, begged to see me.

  “My Pierre, I told her she was mistaken, that there was no one named Baragran here.”

  “And what was her response?”

  “That she couldn’t be mistaken. That she would wait for you and, what’s more, that you knew her well.”

  “What does she look like?”

  “I couldn’t say. She refused to take off her mask, even though I asked her to.”

  “Ask her to come up.”

  “What! Here! To our room?”

  “My friend, if she is who I believe she is, her visit must remain a secret,” I replied, sitting down on the bed after having pulled the curtains.

  “What?” cried my little fly from hell. “On the bed! You’re going to cuddle in here! What’s the meaning of this?”

  “Nothing, Alizon,” I laughed. “I have to see her from behind the curtains and ask her to take her mask off before I reveal my identity to her.”

  Which was done, except that when the mystery woman took off her mask, I was amazed to recognize, not as I had expected the lady-in-waiting of Lady Stafford, but the black, almond-shaped eyes of Lady Markby, the very one who had awakened me at the Pope’s Head Tavern in London by pressing the ambassadress’s ring to my lips.