Eh bien, he had been patient with his wounded falcon for a very long time. And did I trap you today, mon pauvre Philippe, you who wished to hide here in the Society because you could not face the rigors of the mews and then discovered that a Jesuit does not have even a falconer’s gauntlet with which to protect himself? Only the grace of God and his own wits.
Did I leave my apartments unlocked simply to tempt you into the sin you have now committed? I think I simply forgot. I am guilty of an oversight, nothing more. And if you had merely satisfied yourself that your drawings were still in my possession and gone away, I could perhaps leave you to the punishment of your own overscrupulous conscience. But as it is … And you took not just the damning pictures which will excite Vaudreuil and the rest of the Canadians to defend with still greater fervor their kingdom of snow, you took Loualt’s chart as well. So I must act. After evening prayers, I think. Leaving you a little more time to agonize over your sins will make it easier in the end.
The bell chimed, signaling the end of collation. Monsieur le Provincial rose and led his sons in a brief grace after meals. When it was finished they left the refectory in silence, but not in procession. Jesuits were not monks. They did not move through their house in liturgical conformity. Each man went where he wished for the few minutes until the bell would again summon him to the church for evening prayers.
Phillppe returned to his small room and reclaimed his deerskin envelope. It was a warm summer’s night; he would have no need of a cloak. The bell rang. Philippe walked not to the church where his community gathered, but to a side door that gave out on the street that ran beside the west facade of the grand Collège des Jésuites.
Philippe pushed open the door of the little public chapel of the Poor Clares. Père Antoine knelt in the back. The Jesuit breathed a sigh of relief and made the sign of the cross in thanksgiving.
He had nearly panicked when he found no one at the Franciscan’s cottage. He had made no other plan, no decision except that he must somehow enlist the aid of the only man in Québec he was sure was not in league with Louis Roget. But how wise was the good God. Here in this place sanctified by the prayers of these remarkable nuns, it would be better, easier. He had been brought to confront Père Antoine in a situation perfectly suited to the occasion. It was yet another sign that he was doing the right thing.
The nuns were chanting Compline, the final Hour of the day. Be on your guard, their singsong voices told him, for the devil like a roaring lion goes about seeking whom he may devour. Philippe knew it was true. But surely the devil could not follow him here to this holy place. The Fallen One could not survive among these women who had given up everything for the love of Almighty God. The Jesuit dropped to his knees beside the other priest.
Antoine turned and looked to see who had joined him for night prayers. Alors! Something remarkable is happening. Jesuits do not go about in the Lower Town in the evenings. They dined with the rich and powerful in the grand houses above. And this one looks as pale as if he has stood at the gates of hell. I think, my brother priest, that Louis Roget does not know you are here at this moment. And that if he did know, he would not be happy. Eh bien. We will pray together now. When you wish to talk you will let me know. Perhaps you will even tell me what it is you carry in that envelope you hold so close to your heart.
The chant continued for another while. “Nunc dimittis …” Now, Lord, you can dismiss your servant. Both priests kept their gaze on the altar and appeared to be entirely focused on the prayers. At last the service ended with a hymn to the Virgin. “Salve Regina,” the nuns sang, “Mater misericordiae …” Hail Holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope.
Philippe heard the soft sounds of the women’s bare feet on the stone floors as they left the choir, singing as they went to their cells. “O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.” Only because their monastery was so small could he hear the final loving notes of the nuns’ entreaty to the gentle and merciful Mother of God.
Antoine turned his head. Both men still knelt, leaning only on their faith. “Do you wish to confess, Brother?”
Philippe shook his head. “It is past time for confession, Père Antoine. At least of the sort you mean.”
“You know my name, mon Frère, but I do not know yours.”
“I am Philippe Faucon.”
“Ah yes, the Jesuit who makes the beautiful drawings. I have heard of you.” Antoine nodded toward the envelope. “Have you brought me some of your drawings?”
“I have brought you the truth about les Anglais. And the means to save Québec.”
Antoine’s belly knotted and his heart raced. Mother of God, grant that I make no mistake. “Those are grave matters, brother. Maybe it is better if we go to my—”
“I wish to remain right here, in the presence of the Holy Sacrament.” The eyes of the Jesuit and the Franciscan were locked. Neither looked away. “Antoine Rubin de Montaigne,” Philippe said, “as you are a priest of God and He is your judge, are you a spy for the English?”
It was the most extraordinary question anyone had ever asked him. Antoine took a deep breath before he answered. “As God is my judge, I am not. What would give you such an idea?”
“You conspire with the evil renegade Lantak. You send him to make war on your enemies.”
“On the enemies of Holy Church. Only for the sake of the Gospel.” Antoine’s chest rolled and his palms were sweaty. The Jesuit knows something truly momentous, and he does not trust Louis Roget with the knowledge. You have brought him here to me, mon Dieu. Let me make no mistakes. “Mon Frère, I swear to you on my immortal soul that I am a loyal son of the Church and of France.”
“So help you God?”
“So help me God.”
Philippe was very calm. He was the avenging sword of St. Michael the Archangel, the voice of both prosecutor and judge. Now he came to a verdict The Franciscan might not speak the entire truth, but he did not lie. He was not a spy, and the best interests of the Holy Faith were uppermost in his mind and heart. Philippe began to tremble. He had risked so much. Now, at the end, he must risk everything.
“Please,” Antoine pleaded, “Frère Philippe, you are ill, I think. Let us go to my cottage. I cannot offer you much, but I have some petite bière. It might—”
“We will finish our business here, Père Antoine. Then it is best that we leave separately. And with great care.” Philippe opened the envelope and withdrew the contents, his drawings and Loualt’s. Antoine took them eagerly and started to thumb through the pile. “No,” Philippe commanded. “Do not look now. Put these under your scapular. Take them back to your house and study them there. No one must know you have them.”
Antoine looked quickly at the door to the street. It was shut, and the only windows were high up on the walls. “We are entirely alone, mon cher Frère. Calm yourself.”
“Later I will be calm. First tell me, do you know what is said about La Traverse, the impassable channel—”
“—only the local pilots can navigate. Of course.”
“Bon. That is as I expected. I counsel you to look very carefully at the old map, Père Antoine.” The Franciscan began again to leaf through the papers. “Non! I told you, not here. Not yet What I have given you is truth, whole and entire. It is a dangerous thing; guard it well. I swear that when you see what you have, you will understand.” Holding his now empty envelope Philippe stood up. “Remember, wait a little before you leave. Then be sure you are not followed, go straight home, and lock your door before you examine the drawings I have given you. After that, my brother priest, for the love of God and his Church, do what is right and necessary.”
Was this Jesuit mad? No, probably not. For nearly two years Antoine had frequently felt himself followed and watched. He watched Faucon walk unsteadily toward the door, a black wraith who seemed lost inside his soutane. At the last moment the other priest paused and turned to him. “Pray give me your blessing, mon Père.”
The Franciscan ma
de a sweeping sign of the cross in the air that separated the two men. “Go with God, Philippe.” The door of the chapel closed behind the Jesuit.
Followed, by someone or something that wished him ill. How long had he suspected but told himself he was being foolish. Mon Dieu, You protect me despite my own folly. And now … Panic threatened. Antoine clutched the precious drawings and looked about the poor and all but empty chapel for a place to hide.
Louis Roget waited for the length of three Paters and three Aves. No one had left the monastery chapel after Philippe, but he could not trust such scant evidence.
Nearly nine o’clock, but still bright as day. In Canada even the sun did not behave in a normal fashion. In summer it lingered too long and in winter it almost did not come at all. Eh bien, some things were as they were. He could not wait for the shadows of night to protect him. Besides, there was nothing suspicious in a poor fisherman of the Lower Town visiting the chapel of the holy Clares to pray before retiring.
The Provincial congratulated himself on the wise decision to spend the few moments after he realized that Philippe had not appeared for evening prayers changing into the clothes of a habitant. He pulled the broad-brimmed black hat farther over his eyes, then, walking with the constant stoop of a man who had done physical labor his entire life, he crossed the alley to the door of the chapel and pushed it open.
Inside was dimmer than the street. Roget removed his hat and genuflected toward the altar while he waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. When they did he saw no one, just the scattered prie-dieux, the altar prepared for the morning’s Mass, and the flickering sanctuary candle. Behind everything was the forbidding iron grille with its heavy curtains, hiding the nuns from the outside world.
Was there no confessional in this place? Surely even Poor Clares must confess. He looked, but he saw nothing that appeared to serve that purpose. And no one. Philippe had been alone when he came here, and grâce àDieu, when the tortured falcon came out of this place, he still had the leather envelope that must have held his stolen drawings and the map of Louait. I should have destroyed both long since, mon Dieu, but the work was so exquisitely done. Such talent. I had hoped that sometime in the future, when it was not so incendiary or important, their art would add to the glory of the Society, and thus to You. Forgive me my weakness.
In the confessional built so cleverly into the grille that no one unfamiliar with the ways of cloistered Poor Clares would recognize it for what it was, Père Antoine held his breath, and thanked the Virgin for the inspiration that had brought him here to wait as Philippe Faucon said he must before leaving the chapel. The confessional door was open just a crack. Thank God he had dared that much. No mistake, it was Louis Roget. Antoine pressed to his heart the drawings he still had not properly seen.
Monsieur le Provincial hurried back into the street and paused for a moment, deciding what to do next. At one end this alley of the Franciscans emerged onto the broad Côte de la Montagne that climbed the hills to the Upper Town; at the other it led to a narrow, twisting road that rose much more steeply to the cliffs high above the river. That was the direction Philippe had taken. The Provincial had seen the last flick of the hem of his falcon’s soutane go around that corner. Now, still in the measured pace of a man exhausted by the burden of surviving in this place, Louis Roget made his decision and went after him.
Philippe walked along the steep cliffs west of the walls of the Upper Town. The headland was a flat plain divided into small farms where a few habitants grew vegetables. In Québec they said those same fields had first been planted by another companion of Champlain, Abraham Martin; that was why they were called the Plains of Abraham.
Had Abraham Martin known these footpaths as well as he did? What about Louait? Yes, probably so. The ordinary people knew them as well. Philippe had sometimes seen women making their way among these narrow byways, using shortcuts because of their heavy loads. This way down to the inlet below, for example, this faint declivity in the cliff face. It wasn’t truly a path, but here if one were careful and used the saplings for purchase, it was possible to climb down the sheer side of the promontory and reach the sheltered cove. It was the only possible descent for leagues in either direction.
Philippe looked down at the majestic river, racing away from Québec toward somewhere better. He started down. I can only put everything in your hands, mon Dieu, and ask your Blessed Mother to intervene to save my soul.
He knew the name of the cove, why could he not remember it? Ah, yes. L’Anse au Foufon, the Fuller’s Cove, where the women dug the clay that they rubbed on newly woven cloth to give a supple finish. The narrow crescent of beach was covered in shale. He left no footprints as he walked across it and into the river. There was a moment’s shock when the cold water lapped around his ankles, but Philippe went forward, into the broad and deep St. Lawrence, holding the deer-skin envelope above his head. When the water reached his waist he began to sing, his voice loud and clear and full of hope. “O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.”
From his place high on the cliffs above l’Anse au Foulon, Louis Roget continued to tell his beads as he heard the last notes of the hymn to the Virgin, then saw the water close over the falcon’s head. I could not save him, Lord. I was too far away when I realized what he intended to do. Surely you will forgive his grave sin of suicide. He was a wounded soul, too weak to survive. I will tell the others that I have sent him back to l’Acadie to see if he can be of any assistance to those few habitants who remain; that he wanted to go. Indeed he insisted on it. They will think him yet another Jesuit hero. And I thank You that he has taken those wretched drawings with him. Monsieur le Provincial made the sign of the cross over the water where he had last seen the Jesuit, then turned and made his way back to the Collège des Jésusites.
TUESDAY, JULY 24, 1757
MONASTERY OF THE POOR CLARES, QUéBEC
“It is impossible.”
“It is necessary.”
Mère Marie Rose could not believe she was being asked to consent to this thing. “Mon Père, forgive me, but what you ask … Soeur Stephane is a nun in vows. She has sworn to God to remain always enclosed, and—”
“And when the Saracens threatened Assisi,” Antoine interrupted, “what did our Holy Mother Clare do? She climbed to the parapets, holding the monstrance that contained the Holy Sacrament. She repelled the invaders and Assisi was saved. Is that not exactly what happened, Mother Abbess?”
“Yes, but—”
Antoine heard the slight doubt in her voice and pressed his advantage. “There are no buts. It must be as I say.” The confessional was stifling. It took all his stamina to summon the breath to continue the argument he had made for the last ten minutes, and at least twice a day for the two days since the drawings had been given into his charge. “St. Clare showed her face to the world because the safety of her city and her Church required it. Is she not the example you and your daughters have sworn to follow?”
“But Soeur Stephane is so young, so untried as yet in our life. She has not been here three whole years. Why not Soeur Angelique, or Soeur Joseph?”
“Soeur Stephane is the most clever of your daughters.” Antoine had been confessing the little nun since the moment she arrived in Québec; he was convinced of her intelligence and resourcefulness. The ability to think and act quickly might be required for his scheme to work. “Besides, only she speaks perfect English. So if by chance she were intercepted she could—”
“Mon Dieu! You told me there would be no danger.” The abbess made a quick sign of the cross, and begged God that she might endure the pain of kneeling here as long as it took to protect her authority and the souls of her daughters.
“I said, if something should happen, ma Mère. But she need go only as far as Montréal.” Père Antoine mopped the sweat from his face with the hem of his scapular. “Mère Marie Rose, listen to me very carefully. I have information that shows how the most terrible disaster can come upon this city. If we do not preven
t it, New France is finished. The Church is finished here. Heretics will overrun this land and millions of souls will perish.”
Sacré Coeur! That she should be asked to take on herself the responsibility for such a thing. Mère Marie Rose trembled. The voice of the priest continued to hammer at her conscience. “If I could go myself I would do so in an instant.” Now his voice was less commanding, more pleading. “I am watched, Mère Marie Rose, suspected. I cannot go. Is a vow made by one young woman—a vow, I might add, that I am entirely and legally able to temporarily dispense—more important than that?”
“If we could wait until September, when Soeur Stephane will renew her vows as we all do every year. I could let her go before she has again made her promises. For a few days she would not be in vows at all.”
“By September, ma Mère, the vultures might well be picking over our flesh.”
Marie Rose told herself she was shaking with fatigue, not fear, and that the tears that ran down her cheeks were caused by exhaustion, not surrender. “I have been given the care of this girl’s soul, mon Père. I cannot lightly ignore that responsibility.”
Her voice gave her away. Antoine knew he had won. Grâce à Dieu. “Not lightly, ma Mère. After much prayer and consultation with your confessor, who is the Delegate of the Minister General in Rome. For the good of thousands and the glory of God.”
Much prayer indeed. She had prayed without ceasing since Père Antoine made his proposal two days before. And this morning, during Lauds, the very same image had come to her, of Holy Mother Clare standing on the walls of Assisi, facing the world and repelling the Moslem invaders who had almost overrun all Europe, by holding up the monstrance that contained the Sacred Host. “Very well.” She whispered the words, beating her chest in penance as she spoke them. For my fault, for my fault, for my most grievous fault “Very well, it will be as you say.”
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