Fortunes of France 4: League of Spies

by Robert Merle

  Meanwhile, Du Halde had the valets bring in more logs and candles to light up the room, and the king, bending over the fire, whispered to me:

  “My son, you must have found your man, since you’re here. And what did he say? Speak sotto voce since this floor might have ears.”

  And so I quietly recounted the story Venetianelli had told me, while the king listened without batting an eyelid or pursing his lips, but with his eyes closed, his head to one side and his body immobile in a very meditative air. Afterwards, he said not a word, other than to thank me for having minutely copied out the words of Venetianelli, whose name, I noticed, he refused to pronounce, calling him “the man” or “the fellow”. Barely, however, had he taken the manuscript from my hands when there was a knock at the door that led from the king’s chambers down, via a spiral staircase, to the queen mother’s room, which was located directly beneath his. Which is why, I believe, he’d said that the floor might have ears.

  “Sire,” said the usher, passing his head through the very narrow opening he’d made, “it is Madame de Sauves, who is bringing Her Majesty the queen mother to be received by you.”

  “Monsieur,” answered the king, looking at him coldly, “what’s the point of placing you at my door, and three of Larchant’s guards in the stairway, if you let yourself be besieged by my mother’s creatures? Repulse the woman, Monsieur!”

  “But sire,” said the usher, looking most unhappy, “Madame de Sauves can hear you! She’s right behind me!”

  “Well then,” screamed the king in fury, “since she can hear me, I want her to know that I do not like her sticking to my door like a louse in the hair of a tramp!”

  “Sire,” the usher cried, “she’s running away, her hands over her ears!”

  “Well,” shouted the king at the top of his lungs as he walked over to the door and stuck his head out, “her ears! They’re just the part of her I hate! Monsieur,” he screamed at the usher, and no doubt at Larchant’s guards, “make damnably sure, henceforth, that no earbearing being, male or female, is able to put the tip of his or her toe on the first step of that staircase. Do you hear me?”

  “Sire,” observed Du Halde, with a discreetly reproachful air that he alone dared take with the king, “the queen mother will have heard you.”

  “I hope so!” replied the king, calming down suddenly. “Otherwise, would I have shouted so loudly? Du Halde, am I not the king at least in these few square feet of my rooms? Must I be constantly spied on? My son,” he continued sotto voce, turning to me (but, I noticed without naming me), “take Laugnac and a dozen of the Forty-five out to the little pavilion at the end of the gardens. Have a great fire lit and wait for me to join you there with a few trusted friends once the council is done. Also,” he added with a sad smile as he offered me his hand, “you, my son, who are so bright, find a way to make this interminable rain stop! By the holy fog, it will be the end of me!”

  It was well after noon and the council long since finished when I saw, one by one, the “trusted friends” of the king arrive at the little pavilion at the end of the park: François d’O, Rambouillet, the great écuyer Bellegarde, Alphonse d’Ornano, called “the Corsican”, the Maréchal d’Aumont, secretary of state Revol, minister of justice Montholon and, finally, the king himself, accompanied by Du Halde, who was trying to keep the diluvian rain from his monarch by means of an Italian ombrello so little that it encumbered his arm more than it protected the head of the king. So ineffective was it that the plume on His Majesty’s hat was so soaked with rain that the feathers all remained stuck together. Bellegarde pointed this out to the king as he entered the pavilion, and so the king gave his hat to Du Halde and asked him to place it near the fire to return its lustre, but not so near that it burned. All of those present could observe, as I did, the excessive anger of the king at this incident, despite the fact that he had many other subjects, and graver ones, to be vexed about. However, as the flames in the fireplace rose high and bright, and the little room was comfortable and well lit with candles (the pitch-black skies making them necessary), the king’s mood lightened by degrees and he joked that it was much better to have a little pavilion where he could be comfortable than a huge, cold chateau where the walls had ears.

  As for me, unsure as to whether or not I was invited to be present at this council, I began to leave the room, but the king caught sight of me and asked me to stay, saying that he would need me as a witness. As he sat down with his back to the fire, the king asked Revol to fetch a small leather wallet, from which he drew three or four papers that he held on his lap and quoted from or read to support his words. These papers constituted the proof, he said, of the Duc de Guise’s rebellion, of his felony, of his connivance with foreign governments, and of his ongoing plot to assassinate his royal person.

  Touching this assassination plot, he read a letter from the Duc de Guise, signed by his hand, in which the duc said to his correspondent that he had the Louvre “so closely surrounded” that he could “answer for what was inside”.

  “What was inside, Messieurs,” said the king with a wry smile, “was me.”

  He handed this letter to Du Halde for him to carry to his assistants, and then continued, in a measured tone, his indictment, in which he claimed to have proof that the duc was soliciting monies from a foreign prince in order to provide resources for his enterprises against the crown; as proof, he produced the letter that Guise had written to Felipe II and that I’d been lucky enough to steal from la Montpensier. The Maréchal d’Aumont wanted to know how I’d been able to appropriate this document; the king bade me explain, which, as you would expect, made me feel somewhat ashamed, but His Majesty insisted, and so I consented in the end to tell the embarrassing story, which did not fail to produce some smiles, particularly from the Maréchal d’Aumont, who was a Frenchman of the old school, very devoted to his country and to his king, and who said to me, half-joking and half-serious, that there were no lengths one would not in good conscience go to serve one’s sovereign.

  The king denounced the League’s plot, and the Estates for reducing him virtually to impoverishment by refusing to grant him any funds, and for conniving with Guise’s plot to seize his person. In support of this claim, he read Venetianelli’s report exactly as I’d written it down, and this produced a very powerful effect—although it was less powerful than the one I produced by removing from my leggings the bewitched doll that I’d taken from La Cavalletta’s basket. I did this in answer to François d’O’s question as to how I’d been able to get such a hold on the actor, and the king was the most surprised of all, since I hadn’t had time that morning to show him the magic bambola by which they had planned to kill him from a distance.

  The king then discussed his resentment of the Duc de Savoie, who, in October, had seized the Marquisate of Saluzzo, the last of France’s possessions in Italy, and there was no doubt, given the connections between the Duc de Savoie and the Duc de Guise, that the former would never have risked such a venture without the latter’s assent. And no doubt Guise had offered this assent in return for promises of troops and money to wage war on his own king.

  “Messieurs,” said Henri, “the thing is clear and I’ve now acquainted you with all of the proofs which show and make certain and assured that Monsieur de Guise has plotted to seize the kingdom, after having destroyed its foundations. Well, Messieurs, given that you are the firmest of those foundations, whose destruction would closely precede or follow mine, I must ask you, what do you advise me to do in this predicament?”

  Having said this, he turned towards the minister of justice, Montholon, who was, with Revol, one of the ministers appointed after the firing of the queen mother’s puppets, and assuredly a very honest man and very faithful to the king, but whose large eyes in the middle of his round face betrayed not a whit of intelligence or talent.

  “Sire,” said Montholon, “it is my opinion that, in this troubled and dangerous state of affairs in which the hand of Monsieur de Guise has played
such a destructive and major part, it would be best to arrest him and bring him to trial.”

  “Rambouillet?” said the king, his face inscrutable.

  “By my faith, sire, I agree with Montholon.”

  “Revol?”

  The secretary of state, Revol was as much a man of the law as Montholon, and one would have expected him to acquiesce to the proposition of the minister of justice, especially since his weak and timorous demeanour seemed to predispose him to it, being very feeble, with a long, white face that made him look as though he were turning into chalk. But he created considerable surprise when he said in his gentle and timid voice:

  “Sire, if you arrest Monsieur de Guise, where will you find the place, the judges and the witnesses to conduct this trial? Cato, the wisest of the Romans, said that it was much better to strike a traitor to one’s country down than to have him arrested and then consult as to whether to condemn him to death. When the state is in peril, the execution must precede the judgement.”

  “D’Aumont?”

  “Sire,” the maréchal replied in his raucous voice, “we would be dishonoured and our swords as well, if we were to tolerate for one more day the insults of this traitor! The more we bend, the more he puts his foot on our chests! To hell with the trial! When the crime is lese-majesty, a prompt death is the only punishment.”

  “François d’O?”

  “Sire,” said François d’O, “I am also of this opinion.”

  “Bellegarde?”

  “Sire, d’Aumont has said what we must do.”

  “My Corsican?”

  “Sire, as Revol has said, the punishment must precede the judgement.”

  “I believe so as well,” said the king, after a moment of silence, “since I’ve debated with myself for quite some time and decided that a trial would be completely impossible in the straits in which I find myself. And yet, I have difficulty reaching the decision that you’re recommending since I abhor bloodshed. But in the end, I believe that since my arch-enemy is ever pushing his advantage further, allowing him to continue living will mean my death, the deaths of all of my friends and the ruination of my kingdom. Guise is too powerful for us to be able to arrest and try him. To throw him in prison would be to throw a net over a wild boar that can easily tear through the string.”

  “Sire,” said Rambouillet, who, despite not being a flatterer in the least, nourished unlimited admiration for the king, along with a naive and sincere affection for the man, “if your position does not agree with mine, then mine must be wrong. I will take your side in this.”

  The king smiled and turned to Montholon, who, however, remained silent, having as he did the obstinacy of an ass or a mule, which made him persevere on the wrong path simply because it was the path he’d chosen. I believe that this silence was the reason Henri dismissed him a short time afterwards, on suspicion that Montholon was in league with Guise—something that, in my opinion, was false.

  In any case, Montholon said not a word, his eyes closed in defiance, and the king elected to say no more, but turned to Du Halde and asked him what time it was according to the watch that hung around his neck. Then, saying that he should not remain too long outside his principal lodgings, he gave us leave to depart, either because he wished to meditate some more on his decision, or else because, his decision made, he wished to keep the date and the circumstances of its execution secret.

  On 20th December, a Tuesday, I received a visit at nightfall at the Two Pigeons Inn from Venetianelli, who seemed quite jubilant at the idea of satisfying his anger at his protector by dropping in my lap some news that was swelling his cheeks. However, sensing the weight and value of this new information, he first wanted to bargain with me on an acceptable price, and asked me to return the bambola before he even opened his mouth. Unwilling to consent to this, yet being very anxious to conserve the good graces of this vain and touchy fellow, I flattered him up and down, and, as Margot brought me my dinner, urged him to share his news with me, claiming that since I felt such friendship and trust in him, I didn’t want to hide my face from him any longer. So saying, I removed my mask (which I was forced to do in any case by my repast) and assured him that, the next time, I would reveal my name and parentage to him, hinting that they were among the highest in the kingdom. As for the bambola, which I placed between us on the table, I begged him to agree to let me decide when I would return it to him. To which Venetianelli ultimately agreed, so impressed was he by my civility and condescension.

  “Monsieur,” he said, as soon as Margot had brought our meat and pitchers of wine, and closed the door behind her, “what I have to tell is but one word, but this word is worth an entire book, such heavy and huge consequences does it have for the great men whom it concerns: the ‘great man of Blois’, as Nostradamus would say, by which the king is clearly designated, and his ‘friend’, which can designate only Guise.”

  “Well,” I said, only advancing my paw in this matter to withdraw it, “you know Nostradamus’s prediction!”

  “I know it,” said Venetianelli, with an air of immense and incommunicable wisdom, “and I believe that it is entirely certain, since it affirms that the ‘great man of Blois’ cannot help but kill his ‘friend’ since it is written in the stars.”

  “Ah, yes, the stars!” I smiled. “Which, according to Regiomontanus, have already predicted the end of the world in 1588! We are but ten days away from 1589 and the world is still here, as solid as ever, and seems little disposed to disintegrate under our feet.”

  “Monsieur,” replied Venetianelli, “if you don’t believe in the stars, believe at least in personalities. If I were to tell Guise that he would be killed tomorrow, he’d laugh in my face. What’s the use of handing a mirror to a man if his power blinds him? Guise is from Lorraine, and even if the court of France has cleaned him up a bit, he still suffers from a certain Germanic dullness that cannot help being trumped by the Florentine finesse of the son of Catherine de’ Medici. Moreover, the king is a sodomite—and who says ‘sodomite’ says ‘actor’.”

  “Signore,” I smiled, “I admire your Venetian lucidity, but, I beg you, don’t keep me in suspense! Tell me the ‘word’ that you mentioned and I shall decide whether it’s worth, as you claim, an entire book.”

  “Or at least a doll,” he replied. “Monsieur, here it is. Try telling me it’s not charged with powder to the maximum: tomorrow, Monsieur, at the very latest, after Mass or vespers, the Duc de Guise will tell the king that, being tired and bruised by all the suspicions that have been directed at him by His Majesty concerning his most innocent actions, he has decided to resign his title of lieutenant general and leave Blois.”

  “Well,” I said, open-mouthed, “this seems to me to be excessively threatening. But, Signore,” I added, heaping on the compliments not with a spoon but a trowel, as if I were addressing a lady, “you, whose penetrating vision pierces the most arcane hidden intentions, can you tell me what the duc’s motivations are in this half-break from his king?”

  “He hopes that the king, terrified by his departure, will try to retain him by promoting him to the position of constable of France or, which amounts to the same thing, that the Estates will beg the king to confer this title on him, threatening to dissolve and leave him penniless if he refuses.”

  “Well, Signore!” I replied. “I would never have imagined such an exorbitant and arrogant request! If I remember correctly, we haven’t had a constable of France for twenty years, given how much our kings have feared to invest anyone with such immense powers as to make him the rival of the sovereign. Guise, constable! He who is already king of Paris! And the king of the Estates-General! ’Sblood! He’d be an enormous cat, with the king a very little mouse.”

  “But then,” said Venetianelli with a conspiratorial smile, “he would only have more reason to get rid of the cat, before it can fatten itself on him!”

  That was exactly the thought that occurred to me at that very moment, but I had no interest in divulging it to thi
s actor, especially since he wouldn’t have many more occasions to share his precious provender with me, so I contented myself with saying:

  “Signore, you didn’t disappoint me: the one word spoke volumes. Here is the bambola. It’s yours. But permit me, before you return it to La Cavalletta, to remove this needle from its heart—such an insult to and contradiction of the stars and Nostradamus. If, however, by the end of this week, you hear any news of great consequence, may I count on your friendship to inform me of it?”

  Venetianelli assured me of it, as he said a fond goodbye with such an effusion of friendship that I felt somewhat ashamed of the underhand means I had employed. But can’t a rascal who’s proud of his knavery also have some natural naivety that makes him amiable and tolerable?

  * “May he be shamed who thinks badly of it!”

  † “I’m sharpening it” [aiguiser = to sharpen] / “I have Guise!”

  ‡ “Better one friend than a hundred relatives” (Seneca); “or than a mother.”

  § “A great rascal.”

  ¶ “Queen of hearts.”

  || “Patience, my friend. He who eats the king’s chickens will throw up the feathers a hundred years later!”

  ** Rosny was later known as Sully, one of the advisors of Navarre.