League of Spies

by Robert Merle

  “My poor Mosca,” I smiled, “from what I can see, it’s not easy to betray either side! Luckily for you, I am here! Standing right here before you! And all ears! So you can now completely absolve your conscience and comfort your heart. Speak, my good Mosca! Speak without further delay!”

  “But, Monsieur chevalier,” countered Mosca, “here’s your valet with a writing desk…”

  “You aren’t seeing clearly, Monsieur,” objected Miroul archly. “The man you see sitting at this table is the secretary of Monsieur de Siorac.”

  “Monsieur chevalier,” snarled Mosca, “if it’s a deposition you want, your swords will never make me sign it! There’s no way a lieutenant of the provostry will incriminate himself!”

  “Calm down, Monsieur Mosca,” I smiled, “we’re just taking notes. Your real name will not be mentioned.”

  “If that’s the way it is,” he replied, looking much more confident, “and if it’s to be done correctly—with a few changes to the supposed names—then don’t call me ‘Mosca’, the fly, but ‘Leo’, the lion.”

  “‘Leo’,” I conceded, “since you’re a lion, roar me a beautiful story and I’ll be happy.”

  “Monsieur chevalier, it is more worthy of a moan than a roar, given how troubled the times are and how much blood will be spilt (perhaps including mine). But, to be brief, it’s like this: on the second of January, Maître Leclerc, a prosecutor at the court of the parliament, and Georges Michelet, a staff sergeant at the Grand Châtelet, good people whom I’ve known for twenty years, came to fetch me in my lodgings and suggested that there would be a good occasion to improve my lot, and, if I was willing, earn a good pile of money.”

  “What wisdom they displayed,” interjected Giacomi in Italian, “to talk knavery to a knave.”

  “And,” Mosca continued, “to win the favour of some great lords, who could see to my advancement professionally, as long as I went along with the plans they were about to execute—which, moreover, would contribute to the conservation of the Holy Roman and Apostolic faith.”

  “Who would not want to cooperate in such a noble cause?” observed Giacomi.

  “Which is why I swore to join their League, which they call the Holy League. So, on the third of this month, I went to see Maître Leclerc in his lodgings, where I met with several others of the same party, the Seigneur de Maineville having been sent to us by the Duc de Guise to explain the enterprise. This gentleman explained that the Catholic religion would be lost if we didn’t put things in order, and that there were more than 10,000 Huguenots hidden in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, who, when the moment came, would launch a St Bartholomew’s slaughter of the Catholics in order to preserve the throne for the king of Navarre.”

  “And you believed him, Mosca?” I said, raising my eyebrows.

  “Monsieur,” he replied, “I’m a lieutenant in the provostry of the Île-de-France, so I know very well that the only people ‘hiding’ in the hovels and shacks of the Faubourg Saint-Germain are plague-carriers, thieves, pickpockets, bandits and whores.”

  “But you didn’t contradict him?” I observed.

  “Monsieur chevalier, who am I to dare to contradict the Duc de Guise when the most powerful people in the land don’t dare naysay him? What’s more, the Seigneur de Maineville, since he was the one speaking and not me, also told us that the king, who goes to monasteries and apes the penitents, dared in his treachery to offer 200,000 écus to Navarre so that he would secretly wage war on the Catholics.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “Monsieur chevalier,” replied Mosca with a kind of rampant haughtiness, “what I believe or don’t believe is a matter of conscience.”

  “And of heart,” added Giacomi.

  “And did you believe,” I asked, looking him straight in the eye, “that I was the instrument of this transaction?”

  “The Holy League was the first to claim it, but then later denied it; thus I don’t have to believe it any more.”

  “And so,” I concluded, “the moment the League calls itself ‘holy’, fables become truth and truth becomes a fable.”

  “Monsieur chevalier,” returned Mosca, “from the moment you are a member of a party you must either believe everything or leave.”

  “So you believed everything?”

  “Monsieur chevalier, I beg you, let’s leave what I believe and what I don’t believe out of this and get to the crux of the matter. So, the Seigneur de Maineville told us on this occasion that we needed to counter all of the efforts of the ‘politicals’, the king’s parliament and the king himself in support of the Huguenots and against the Catholic religion; and, in this pursuit, all members of the Holy League having sworn to die rather than tolerate such enterprises, we should secretly arm our supporters in Paris in order to make ourselves the superior force. He also told us that the Holy League was not supported only by the priests, but also by the faculty at the Sorbonne, by the Lorraine princes, by the Pope himself and by the king of Spain.”

  “Which constitutes treason for consorting with foreign powers and open rebellion,” I observed with a frown. “This is starting off well, and at the end of this road lies the Inquisition.”

  “Monsieur chevalier, I would like you to remember that you promised me my life and 20,000 écus.”

  “A promise made, a promise kept. And what was your role in this subterranean business?”

  “To purchase arms. The provost Hardi, who’s very old, depends entirely on me as his lieutenant, and since the king forbade the sale of arms to anyone without proper identity, in my capacity as lieutenant of the provostry I can purchase them on the pretext of fortifying our strongholds, and pretend that I’ve received this commission from the king.”

  “That’s a damnable fraud! And so you purchased some, Mosca?”

  “Since the second of January, to the tune of 6,000 écus.”

  “’Sblood! Six thousand écus! And how many of these 6,000 found their way into your purse?”

  “Very few, alas!”

  “And where have these arms been taken?”

  “To the lodgings of Leclerc, Campan, Crusset and Guise.”

  “And who provided the money to buy them? Did you ask?”

  “I didn’t fail to ask Maître Jean Leclerc, who told me that the donors were all honourable men who wished to remain anonymous for the moment, so that they wouldn’t be found out prematurely.”

  “Ah, that’s very prudent of them! And besides this cache of arms by which the blood of natural-born Frenchmen will be spilt, as you’ve said, Mosca, what are the other enterprises of the Holy League?”

  “They’ve been ‘working on’ the labourers and inhabitants of Paris.”

  “‘Working on’? What does this jargon mean?”

  “Trying to win them to our cause. And it has succeeded.”

  “And who are the ‘workers’?” I replied, winking at Miroul so that he’d write down the names.

  “There are a lot of them,” Mosca replied, noticing, of course, my wink to Miroul; not wishing to be pressed harder on this matter, he equivocated, saying, “Each one ‘worked’ in his particular corporation or on those over whom he held some power, based on his status or neighbourhood.”

  “Monsieur Mosca,” I counselled, “20,000 écus is a lot of money, so you’re going to have to give me a more precise account.”

  “Monsieur,” sighed Mosca with a mournful look that accentuated his foxy muzzle, “I will accede to your demands, provided that your secretary writes ‘Leo’ throughout and not ‘Mosca’.”

  “Res effecta, Leo,”§ said Miroul, who, ever since he’d become my secretary, showed off his Latin at every opportunity. And to this he added, “Promissio boni viri fit obligatio.”¶

  “All right,” conceded Mosca, with another dramatic sigh. “Here are the names, though it pains me greatly to pronounce them, since I like each of them so much and wouldn’t have wished to betray them if my fidelity to my king hadn’t made it my duty to do so.”

&
nbsp; “Now there,” exclaimed Giacomi wryly, “are some truly honest feelings!”

  “The names, Mosca!” I cried, cutting short his theatrical grimaces.

  In the end, he produced them, and I couldn’t help reflecting somewhat on them and the great mass of information we’d received; but I needed to put on a serene and confident front, though I was devoured by anxiety, since Paris was now manifestly lost to the king, given that the city was being “worked on” by so many violent Leaguers, not to mention the abusive sermons by its priests. Of course, I couldn’t reveal these feelings to Poulain, whom I trusted as much as I would a viper, so I asked him about the intended use of all of these arms, as well as about the purpose of their “working” on the people of Paris,

  and the secret meetings at which the blood of the French people was discussed.

  “But,” said Mosca, “nothing less than the taking of Paris by the Holy League! And then the capture of the king in his Louvre, after the massacre of his advisors, officers, favourites, principal members of parliament, ‘politicals’ and any nobles who dare offer him their support. The plans have already been drawn up! The powder is ready! The only thing we’re waiting for is the spark, which will come from two sides: the army Guise is assembling, and the Spanish.”

  “Well, for the latter,” I mused with a smile and as if in jest, “all they have to do is cross the Pyrenees!”

  “Oh, no, Monsieur!” corrected Mosca, as though annoyed by my tone. “That won’t be necessary! The League has already decided to take Boulogne very soon and to deliver the port to Felipe II so his army can come ashore there.”

  I noticed that Mosca was biting his lip for having too quickly divulged this information, but, stunned by his revelation of this plot to take Boulogne, and of the immense consequences should it succeed, I pressed him with so many bribes and menaces that in the end he revealed the entire plan.

  “It was in the Jesuits’ house over the last two days that this assault was devised. They know that the provost Vétus, whom they have successfully ‘worked on’, is accustomed to spend three months at a time in Boulogne, and so they decided that, on his next visit, he will take fifty soldiers that he will be given under the guise of an escort, seize one of the gates of the city and, this done, open it to the Duc d’Aumale, a cousin of Guise’s, who will have amassed the necessary forces in the surrounding area.”

  I was so terrified for the king in this enterprise that I slept very little after Mosca left us, after promising to return to see me whenever I should contact him, so that I could ascertain how great a threat this invasion of Boulogne would be—not just to France, but also to Queen Elizabeth, who was our natural ally against these papist and Guisard manoeuvres, and who would be equally threatened by this attack, which had been planned, as I now realized, by the Jesuits, who’d been introduced to the League and who burned with a passionate zeal to reconquer England.

  I was able to see the king as soon as he’d risen, and when I entered his chambers under the pretext of taking his pulse, I handed him my notes from the previous day’s conversation and whispered in his ear that they contained most urgent and consequential information. He promised to read them as soon as he’d been to his chapel to say his prayers and conferred with the English ambassador, who’d asked for the earliest possible meeting—but he asked, with his usual courtesy, that I wait in his antechamber for him to call me.

  Meanwhile, scarcely had I left the king’s chambers when I was seized by the arm, but this time in a most amicable fashion, by Laugnac de Montpezat, who offered me sincere apologies for having stopped and searched me with five of his guardsmen on my previous visit, saying that he hadn’t had the honour of making my acquaintance, since he was just arriving as I was leaving with the Duc d’Épernon to go to Guyenne, and then, on my return, I had left for my long retreat to my estate at Montfort. He used the word “retreat” rather than “exile”, with a subtle smile, as though he wanted to get more information out of me, knowing that in such situations words are better than silence. But I took cover behind my Périgordian amiability, which was every bit as serviceable as the pleasing Gascon manners he had on display, so that we were immediately all honey and smiles. And yet, looking him straight in the eye, I realized that I didn’t like what I saw—not that Laugnac wasn’t tall and handsome, with skin, beard and eyes that had a Saracen look to them, but there was something forced in his expression that I didn’t completely trust.

  While we were thus engaged, Lord Stafford appeared on his way to see the king; we all bowed to him, but received only a curt nod of the head in reply.

  “’Tis bruited about,” said Laugnac, throwing an affectionate arm over my shoulder, “that Lord Stafford has come to offer His Majesty the Order of the Garter, which Queen Elizabeth wishes to confer on him, but only with his consent. Do you think it’s true?”

  “Well, Laugnac! What opinion could I have about it? You know much more about it than I do!”

  “And yet,” smiled Laugnac, “I saw you talking to Lady Stafford in the salon of the Maréchale de Joyeuse!”

  “Laugnac,” I replied, smiling back at him, “who wouldn’t enjoy a conversation with such a noble and beautiful lady, whose virtue could not but contribute to her beauty?”

  At this, he took his leave with another exchange of smiles, leaving me feeling very uncomfortable with his inquisition and quite suspicious of his new-found favour. To tell the truth, having served my beloved king for more than ten years, I didn’t quite trust these courtiers who, in ten months, had won Henri’s friendship, since I couldn’t help feeling that if they’d risen like the foam on a wave, they might well have the same airy consistency and that their devotion might prove to be no more than a bubble that, being half air and half water, bursts in the first unfavourable breeze.

  The king, who’d received the English ambassador in the privacy of his rooms—an arrangement that set Guisard tongues wagging and conjecturing, since they had no ear to listen in on the proceedings as they would have had at a public audience—had me fetched at about ten o’clock, and, as soon as I arrived, came straight to the point:

  “Siorac, if what you have written is true, it is of the greatest possible consequence. But is it true? What are we to believe of the report of this Mosca, this Leo or this Poulain?”

  “Sire, he’s the most venal rascal in all creation. If it happened that someone wanted to buy his mother, he’d sell her.”

  “So the entire thing might be a fabrication.”

  “It might be. And yet, sire, I believe we must proceed as though the opposite were true. For two reasons: first, because Mosca incriminated himself regarding the purchase of arms; second, because we cannot afford to ignore the possibility of this attack on Boulogne taking place at some point.”

  “That’s very reasonable talk,” admitted the king. “In any case, we must prepare for it in advance, and warn Monsieur de Bernay, who commands our troops in Boulogne. But how can I do this without leaking word of what we’re up to and chasing our rats away prematurely? We can’t use ordinary channels; instead we must use secrecy and stealth.”

  “Sire, command me and I’m away! That way only you and I will know about it.”

  “Ah, Siorac!” smiled Henri. “I love your eagerness to serve me and I love you for it! But I absolutely do not want to place you in such great peril! They’d assassinate you.”

  “In that case I won’t go without a disguise. I’ll pass myself off as a merchant.”

  “A merchant!” replied the king, who found this idea hilarious. “What would you sell in Boulogne?”

  “Bonnets, sire.”

  “Bonnets?” laughed the king. “Men’s?”

  “No, sire, ladies’. I’ve heard tell that Madame de Bernay is a young and beautiful woman and I’ll wager that, living as she does in Boulogne, she’ll be delighted to acquire the latest Paris fashions.”

  I was well advanced on my bonnet idea, but encountered serious resistance from Alizon, who initially refused to
accompany me for such a long trip, though she had complete confidence in her colleague—none other than Baragran, whom she’d known from the time they worked for the cheapskate Recroche, and whom she’d hired after the master’s death, despite that fact that they’d quarrelled for ten years while in the skinflint’s service. She’d then married a master bonnet-maker, who had died two years earlier. The subject of her quarrels with Baragran was that she thought he bent too easily to Recroche’s every demand. But, as soon as she became the mistress of her atelier, what she had taken for servility in poor Baragran turned into obedience, fidelity and honesty, and he never cheated her out of a penny. She loved him dearly for these qualities, and might have married him, I’ll wager, had she not considered herself to be above him in rank and thought she could pass for a lady, or at least a bourgeoise, in her manners and dress.

  I overcame her refusal to accompany me by assuring her that she would make many sales of bonnets and other items of fashion to the noble ladies of Boulogne. But what really convinced her was that she would travel in a coach (having no appetite to subject her tender thighs to a saddle), and especially that she would pass for my wife and lodge in the inns with me, and that I would take her late husband’s name as an alias. Hearing all this, my “little fly from hell” threw her arms around me and began showering me with kisses, but I told her that I’d sworn fidelity to my Angelina and that my spousal role was for public but not private consumption. But whether the very idea of our appearance as a couple was enough for her, or whether, knowing me for so long and having enticing memories of our earlier connection, she thought I would not be so valiant as to resist so many opportunities to renew it, my answer did not seem to dampen her spirits one bit. She happily set about planning our clothes for the coming voyage, arguing that they must be of the very finest quality, since the better a merchant looks, the more he sells.

  It took two days to obtain these clothes, but as soon as we had put them on, Alizon observed that my every movement betrayed a certain air of aristocratic ease and high birth, something I’d got from being at court; that my left hand was too often reaching for the hilt of my absent sword; that I needed to display less nonchalance and more pomp; that I didn’t walk, sit down or blow my nose like a merchant; that I shouldn’t look so self-assured but act more like an ordinary fellow who had some means; and that I shouldn’t prance and twirl around but go flat-footed, with my feet more splayed than straight. She said I must also remove the gold earring from my right ear, which made me look too much like a courtier, a sailor or a soldier, flatten down my curly hair, refrain from the use of any perfumes, and remove my physician’s ring and my two other jewelled rings, wearing instead a silver timepiece on a cord around my neck, consulting it gravely from time to time to indicate that my time was precious. I should also avoid the high-pitched laughter of a courtier, speak slowly and roll my rs, and trudge soberly along in the old style rather than walk with a sprightly step as they do in Paris. As she continued with these prescriptions, she became more and more prey to hilarity, and warned me through her laughter that if I didn’t alter my look and demeanour, my colleagues in Boulogne would see right through my disguise and discover the truth.