Fortunes of France 4: League of Spies

by Robert Merle

  “Why, nothing!” said d’O, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “Nothing! Big body, little brain. In short, a Goliath!”

  “A Goliath!” I said. “But he was a hypocrite, a sneak, a liar…”

  “Yes, of course,” agreed d’O, “but his lies were grotesque, his plans obvious and his hypocrisy transparent. Because the king didn’t have d’Ornano kill him on his return to Paris, Guise imagined he’d never dare do it. God knows he received plenty of warning in Blois! He didn’t believe any of it! He understood nothing about the character of his king. Because Henri is good, Guise thought he was a coward. Because he had a feminine side, his cousin thought him weak. But weakness and womanhood are not synonymous. Guise should have known this given how easily Madame de Sauves wrapped him around her little finger.”

  “But wouldn’t you have thought that the duc’s face would betray some degree of apprehension on that morning given that he was alone without his retinue in a chateau that was unfriendly to him?”

  “Not at all! The duc displayed everywhere he went that natural bravery of men who don’t think. That morning, he was cold and he was hungry. He was cold because, being foppish, he was wearing only his light-grey satin doublet, which was much too thin for the season. He was hungry because he slept too late in la Sauves’s pretty arms and forgot to take any breakfast. What’s more, his valet forgot to furnish him with his comfit box full of the Damascus grapes that he usually ate each morning for breakfast.”

  “Péricard,” said the duc to his secretary, “I’m so hungry I’m like to faint! Be good enough to find my valet and ask him for my comfit box.”

  Péricard had scarcely left when Larchant entered the room with several guards and played his role to perfection (which was all the more believable since he had the frank, regular and tanned face of a good soldier who would never be involved in anything dishonest). He bowed to the duc and said:

  “Monseigneur, these poor men begged me to pray the council to be allowed to remain here until His Majesty arrives so that he may hear their complaint that if they aren’t paid they’ll be forced to sell their horses and return home on foot.”

  “Monsieur de Larchant,” replied Guise, “I will help them and I will help you as well. It’s entirely reasonable that this be straightened out.”

  “But,” broke in secretary of state Marcel, quite innocently since he wasn’t in on the plot, “I see a notation here in my book that indicates that 200 écus has been set aside for them.”

  Hearing this, Larchant withdrew with his guards from the council room, but not, of course, from the stairway.

  Meanwhile, since Péricard still hadn’t returned with the duc’s comfit box, the duc turned to Monsieur de Saint-Prix, the king’s first manservant, and said:

  “Monsieur de Saint Prix, I seem to be without my comfit box. I wonder if I might ask you for a few crumbs from the king’s?”

  “Monseigneur,” replied Monsieur de Saint-Prix, “would a few Brignoles plums be acceptable?”

  “Certainly, Monsieur,” said the duc.

  At this, the council’s usher, Jean Guéroult, brought the king’s comfit box and explained that the guards had blocked Péricard’s reentry when he tried to return. The duc thanked him, ate the plums and some Damascus grapes, and then placed the beautifully wrought box on a table nearby. Then, suddenly penetrated by the dankness in the air, given his summery attire, he rose, approached the fire and, shivering profusely, proclaimed:

  “I’m cold! My chest hurts! Have them light the fire!”

  Once a valet had thrown another log on, the duc sat down on a stool next to the fire, but whether he had gone too quickly from cold to hot, had eaten the plums and grapes too quickly, or else was too exhausted from his night with Madame de Sauves, his symptoms worsened and his nose suddenly started to bleed. He looked for his handkerchief in his breeches, but couldn’t find it, and said:

  “My valet was in such haste this morning that he didn’t provide me with what I need. Monsieur Guéroult, may I ask you to try to have Péricard admitted so he may bring my things?”

  But Guéroult seemed to have disappeared, so Monsieur de Saint-Prix brought the duc a handkerchief belonging to the king, and, Martin Ruzé having just arrived with the agenda for the meeting, the members of the council took their seats around the table, where they were joined by the duc, his comfit box in one hand and his handkerchief in the other, which he rolled into a ball since his nosebleed had stopped.

  Here I interrupt François d’O’s account, and turn to my own observations of what happened. I was at that moment in the king’s apartments, that is, in the new cabinet, with the king, d’Entragues, Bellegarde, Du Halde and secretary of state Revol, to whom the king now said, his face calm and his voice resolute but quiet:

  “Revol, it’s time. Go and tell Guise that I’m waiting for him in my old cabinet.”

  Revol opened the door of the new cabinet that led to the king’s chamber and raised the tapestry, but suddenly reappeared.

  “My God, Revol!” said the king. “What’s the matter? What’s happened? You look pale! You’re not going to spoil everything! Rub your cheeks! Rub your cheeks, Revol!”

  “I haven’t turned pale, sire. This is my natural complexion.”

  “But why have you come back? What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing’s the matter, sire. It’s Monsieur de Nambu, who won’t open the door to me without your order.”

  The king raised the tapestry, since the door was still open, and said to Nambu, who was guarding the door to the council room:

  “Nambu, let Monsieur Revol leave and then let the duc back in here—but only the duc!”

  Nambu obeyed, and the king dropped the tapestry, continued standing behind it and called me to his side (though I had no idea why); I was glad of it, since between the length of tapestry and the door frame there was a small crack that allowed me a view of the room.

  The council, François d’O told me later, was debating a proposal that had been submitted by the committee on finance when Revol entered, seemingly on unsteady feet, his face so white and his body so frail of substance that he seemed to have been awakened from the dead, and it was indeed death that he was bringing as messenger to the Lorraine duc. As he approached the man, he made a deep bow and said in a voice so timid and weak that it seemed to be his last breath:

  “Monseigneur, the king requests your company in his old cabinet.”

  After which, he stepped away, or rather, was obliterated—almost reduced to nothing—when Guise rose, in all the majestic symmetry of his enormous frame, so powerful, well built and muscular that he appeared indestructible, and at this moment luminous, because of the pale-grey satin in which he was clothed, the strings of pearls that adorned his doublet, his blond hair and his azure eyes, which were never fixed on a lady of the court without her nearly swooning, her virtue already compromised. When he’d stood to his full height, he leant over and took from his comfit box a few of the Brignoles plums that Monsieur de Saint-Prix had brought him, and threw the rest negligently on the tablecloth, saying playfully:

  “Messieurs, who would like some?”

  This said, he smiled, his long, carnivorous jaw opening to reveal a set of brilliant teeth so straight it seemed that a jeweller had set them in place. He seemed entirely recovered from his sudden attack of illness, except that his scarred left eye was watering—but we were so accustomed to this double face, half sad, half smiling, that we thought nothing of it. He was, no doubt, convinced, after all the recent affability and compliments the king had showered on him, that His Majesty was inviting him into his cabinet to discuss his appointment as constable of France. Throwing his cloak over his shoulders, he playfully draped the tail over his right arm, then his left, with a conniving smile to us all, as though asking us to witness that the hang of this garment was more important to him than any interview with the king. Having tried out several poses, the implied derision of which escaped no one, he threw the tail of the cloak over
his left arm, in two loops, “in the wildest manner”, took his comfit box and his handkerchief in his left hand and his plumed hat in his right, and, bowing in a royal gesture, said in a very loud voice, “Adieu, Messieurs!”; in two steps he was at the king’s door, where he knocked once. Monsieur de Nambu immediately opening it, the duc entered, upon which Nambu quickly closed and bolted the door, though perhaps a little more forcefully than usual, a gesture that startled the Cardinal de Guise, who suddenly looked disquieted.

  As for me, with my eye still glued to the crack between curtain and door frame, I didn’t see Guise enter the king’s chamber, but I heard his step and I saw the eight Gascons rise from their seats and raise their hands to their black velvet hats as if to greet him. The duc walked around the king’s bed to reach the door of the old oratory, his step majestic and nonchalant, and was followed by the eight, as if they were a respectful escort, their left arms hanging down, but their right arms already reaching behind their backs under their short capes for their daggers. This double progress towards the door seemed impossibly slow, and the Gascons, all of whom were a full head shorter than their prey, looked like nothing so much as a group of panthers, dangerous in their supple and padded steps, pursuing a great tiger.

  Since the both of the duc’s hands were encumbered, the left by his comfit box and the right by his hat, he raised the tapestry over the door with his elbow, and leant down to duck under the low door. But, as he did so, he glanced back over his shoulder at the Gascons, who were circled very close behind him, their faces so tense and drawn that he exclaimed, half in surprise, half in anger:

  “Eh, Messieurs!”

  He never said another word. La Bastide seized his arm and Montseris struck a blow at his throat, believing that the duc must be wearing a coat of mail, and that he could only be wounded there. At this, all of the others fell on him with cries of “Kill him! Death to the duc! Kill him!”—some seizing his arms, others his legs and one his sword, to prevent him from drawing it, striking him repeatedly all over his body now that they realized he had was wearing only a shirt beneath his doublet. The duc continued to struggle with prodigious force, shaking these cats from his body and striking them with his comfit box and his fists, but he was ultimately submerged by their number and weakened by the wounds to his vital parts, from which blood was flowing and staining his satin doublet. All that could be seen now was a confused melee of furious little men swarming over this giant, like a pack of hounds over the flanks of a wild boar. Once he stopped resisting, they stepped away from him, thinking he’d fall to the floor.

  But the duc, still standing, though staggering, his mouth open and emitting a whistling sound as he struggled to breathe, held out his hands in front of him, his eyes already unseeing and half-closed, and stumbled forward towards the royal bed, as though he were trying to get to the door that Monsieur de Nambu was guarding. Seeing this, Laugnac—who up until this moment had remained immobile, his arms crossed, sitting on a trunk, his sword, unhooked but not unsheathed, on his knees—stood up, and, at arm’s length, struck him in the stomach with his scabbard, at which the duc collapsed at the foot of the bed, his head on the step and his great body staining forever a small Bohemian rug that was placed there.

  Meanwhile, according to what I heard later from François d’O, hearing the cries and tumult from the king’s chambers, there ensued a great commotion in the council room. Everyone leapt to their feet and the Cardinal de Guise shouted, “All is lost!” and rushed to the door of the king’s chambers, banging furiously on it. Then, realizing they wouldn’t open it, he ran to the door of the queen’s chambers to attempt to flee. But the Maréchal d’Aumont, stepping in front of him, drew his sword and cried:

  “In the name of God, don’t move, Monsieur! The king wants to see you!”

  Immediately the hall was full of Larchant’s guards, who didn’t hesitate to seize the Cardinal de Guise and the archbishop of Lyons and lead them to a little garret on the third floor, which had been prepared for his Capuchin monks by the king. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind as to what would happen to them—or at least to the cardinal—as soon as the king had found a man who would dare stain his holy purple with blood.

  As for me, I remember very well that, after the duc fell, it seemed an eternity before the king moved, his face petrified, as though he couldn’t believe that this arch-enemy of his throne, of his life and of his state had ceased to be able to harm him. And when he was finally convinced of the immobility of his nemesis, he stood on the threshold of the room, turned to me and said:

  “My son, you are a doctor. Please confirm that he’s dead.”

  And suddenly I understood why he’d kept me with him ever since the previous evening.

  In truth, one look would have been enough for me to make my declaration, but understanding the king’s need for absolute certainty, I knelt beside the body, which seemed to me even bigger than when it was standing. This thought was later ascribed to the king, but he never said it, any more than he kicked the cadaver or pierced it with his sword; nor did the queen mother truly exclaim, when she learnt of the duc’s murder, “My son, that’s nicely cut, and now you have to sew it up.”

  I closely examined the duc’s wounds and found one on his neck, another below his left breast, another above his right eye and four more in his stomach. I suppose that there were other wounds in his back and kidneys, but I didn’t see the necessity of turning him over since his body was so heavy and bloody and his death so obvious. However, to satisfy the king, who evidently couldn’t believe his eyes, I took from my leggings a small mirror, which I held up to the duc’s lips, but it didn’t cloud up at all. I held it there for quite a while, having trouble, myself, accepting that this great zealot of intolerance, author of the civil war and the massacre of the Huguenots had finally given up his soul to whoever wanted to receive it from his lips.

  “Beaulieu,” said the king to one of his secretaries of state, “look and see what he has on him.”

  Which Beaulieu did, rather unhappily, kneeling down and attempting to avoid being stained by the ocean of blood.

  He found, tied around Guise’s arm, a small key attached to a golden chain. In his breeches there was a small purse containing twelve écus and a piece of paper, on which the duc had written: “To keep the war going in France, we’ll need 700,000 livres every month.” This message was thought to have been intended for Mendoza, and was additional proof, if any were needed, of Guise’s treason.

  The king seized the note that Beaulieu handed to him and asked him to remove from the duc’s finger a ring bearing a diamond shaped like a heart; and, taking this ring in his fingers, the king looked calmly around at the men assembled there and said, without raising his voice:

  “The king of Paris is dead. I am now the king of France and again master, and not a slave and captive, as I have been since the day of the barricades.”

  After which, giving me a sign to follow him into his new cabinet, and having closed the door behind us, he said:

  “My son, please take this ring to the king of Navarre. He will recognize it. His shameless wife gave it to Guise when she was consorting with him. And when he sees it, Navarre will know that we shall henceforth be in league against the League!”

  * “What’s new, my son?”

  † “By God, sire, I’ll kill him for you!”

  About the Author

  Born in 1908, ROBERT MERLE was originally an English teacher before serving as an interpreter with the British army during the Second World War, which led to his capture by the German army at Dunkirk. He published his hugely popular Fortunes of France series over four decades, from 1977 to 2003, the final instalment appearing just a year before his death in 2004. League of Spies is the fourth book in the series, after The Brethren, City of Wisdom and Blood and Heretic Dawn.

  PUSHKIN PRESS

  Pushkin Press was founded in 1997, and publishes novels, essays, memoirs, children’s books—everything from timeless classics to the
urgent and contemporary.

  Our books represent exciting, high-quality writing from around the world: we publish some of the twentieth century’s most widely acclaimed, brilliant authors such as Stefan Zweig, Marcel Aymé, Teffi, Antal Szerb, Gaito Gazdanov and Yasushi Inoue, as well as compelling and award-winning contemporary writers, including Andrés Neuman, Edith Pearlman, Eka Kurniawan, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen and Chigozie Obioma.

  Pushkin Press publishes the world’s best stories, to be read and read again. To discover more, visit www.pushkinpress.com.

  THE SPECTRE OF ALEXANDER WOLF

  GAITO GAZDANOV

  ‘A mesmerising work of literature’ Antony Beevor

  SUMMER BEFORE THE DARK

  VOLKER WEIDERMANN

  ‘For such a slim book to convey with such poignancy the extinction of a generation of “Great Europeans” is a triumph’ Sunday Telegraph

  MESSAGES FROM A LOAT WORLD

  STEFAN ZWEIG

  ‘At a time of monetary crisis and political disorder… Zweig’s celebration of the brotherhood of peoples reminds us that there is another way’ The Nation

  THE EVENINGS

  GERARD REVE

  ‘Not only a masterpiece but a cornerstone manqué of modern European literature’ Tim Parks, Guardian

  Copyright

  Pushkin Press

  71–75 Shelton Street

  London WC2H 9JQ

  Original text © 2018 Estate of Robert Merle

  English translation © 2018 T. Jefferson Kline

  League of Spies was first published in French as Le Prince que voilà in 1982

  First published by Pushkin Press in 2018

  1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

  ISBN 13: 978–1–78227–407–0

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Pushkin Press