League of Spies

by Robert Merle

  My Angelina was absent from our lodgings when we arrived in Paris, and I left Larissa there in order to hurry to the Louvre to inform the king of my success. Henri was of course delighted that Queen Elizabeth seemed willing to ally herself with him against Guise, a plan that struck me personally as tortuous and problematic, given that Henri was willing to connive in the invasion of his own kingdom by a foreign army in the hope that Guise’s forces would be crushed. But his happiness was short-lived, since the king was rapidly overwhelmed by a series of plots that were constantly being hatched in Paris by the League (which seemed to grow them like the Hydra did heads), with the intention of invading the capital, assassinating his council, seizing his person and shutting him away in a monastery.

  On 18th February 1587, Mary Stuart was beheaded in the great hall of the castle at Fotheringhay, on a scaffold draped in black. That she was guilty no one could doubt, other than a few zealous League members, who quickly presumed to elevate to “sainthood” this adulterous accomplice in the murder of her husband, a traitor queen who, not content to bequeath her kingdom and that of England to a foreign sovereign, had plotted the death of Elizabeth and encouraged a foreign invasion. Still, the news of her execution didn’t fail to move me, since the killing of a woman is so abhorrent and unimaginable to me that, even had she been a thousand times more guilty, I would not have wished her to be punished, or beheaded.

  In consequence, there fell on Paris a rain of the most furious sermons, pamphlets, libels and satiric verses, both in Latin and French, which, on the one hand, praised to the blood-soaked heavens the “splendid soul” and “royal virtues” of the “martyred saint” Mary, while, on the other, condemning Elizabeth to the worst tortures, public obloquy and outer darkness. She was labelled “wicked”, “whore queen”, “dirty bitch”, “impious brothel-keeper”, “a prostitute who wants to cure her leprosy with innocent blood” and, finally, this, which raised their invective to the height of the ridiculous: “the execrable egg of a sacrilegious crow” (Henry VIII being the crow, since he’d rejected the Pope and established the Anglican Church, which made him a crow forever, and his “egg” despicable the moment she’d seen the light of day).

  If my memory is correct, it was towards the middle of June that the king learnt that a foreign army was massing on our eastern border, a force that Elizabeth had funded by channelling money through the king of Navarre (as my secret embassy to the queen had suggested she do); indeed, I saw that, on learning the news, Henri was not in the least aggrieved, since this army served his Machiavellian aims and, above all, provided him an argument with which to convince Guise to renounce the inexpiable war he’d been waging against the Huguenots, given the threat of this invasion by the reiters, especially since they were invading his own duchy of Lorraine, from which he drew most of his revenues.

  It was not easy getting Guise to sit down with the king—because, of course, the former suspected that, no matter what display of goodwill Henri attempted to project and the amiable letter his monarch had sent him, the king secretly hated him, and might well be planning an ambush or some other surprise to undo him. Ultimately, the queen mother, Catherine de’ Medici, who openly supported the League over the king (despite the fact that he was her son!), agreed to mediate, and went to see the duc in Châlons (where he’d set up his headquarters), where she persuaded him to come to Meaux to speak, face to face, with the king. In the end he did, though he temporized for several days, during which we learnt the sad exploit perpetrated at La Motte Saint-Eloi by the Duc de Joyeuse (for whom I’d once fashioned an entire army of carved wooden soldiers!). Some four or five hundred Huguenots who were besieged there agreed to surrender under on condition that their lives be spared, but were, against the duc’s word of honour and all the laws of warfare, pitilessly slaughtered—all but one, who escaped, and of whom I’ll have more to say later.

  This act was considered excessively cruel by the king and everyone at court—more worthy of one of the League’s brigands than of one of His Majesty’s lieutenants—and seemed entirely at odds with the frivolous, whimsical and ebullient character of the Duc de Joyeuse. The poet Agrippa d’Aubigné met him shortly thereafter and asked him why he’d done this.

  “Well,” explained Joyeuse, “can’t everyone see that the kingdom is coming apart and falling to pieces? And I, who want to have a role in the aftermath of this tragedy, understand that I must conform to what’s being preached in Paris. So this massacre, which I ordered with a heavy heart, is entirely in keeping with what our priests are saying in Paris—more so than if I had won and then shown mercy to my prisoners!”

  “Certainly, he is frivolous,” sighed the king to Chicot, after having heard the account of this massacre, “but he’s also frivolous in his ugly excesses. To dispatch, against all honour, 500 prisoners in order to be praised by the priests in their pulpits—that’s a pretty terrible judgement on both the priests and Joyeuse.”

  The other duc, the one who wanted to empty my master’s throne so he could sit on it, screwed up his courage enough to venture to Meaux, where the king and court were waiting for him, and arrived with a large retinue on 2nd July. I hadn’t seen him for a long time, and found him little changed, being, with the possible exception of Épernon, the tallest, most handsome and most vigorous, agile and dexterous of all the princes in France. There were few who could rival him in beauty of his face: he had gentle, almond-shaped eyes, fine features and a thick moustache that curled up from his ravishingly well-sculpted lips. And yet, as handsome and imposing as he was in the flesh, I couldn’t help detecting in him a false and hypocritical air.

  Not that the king couldn’t play his part as needed. The two men exchanged a tender embrace and amicable looks, along with suave protestations of friendship, though we know all too well what looks are worth—they cover the thoughts that cannot be expressed. But the real feelings disguised by these niceties were not at all the same. The king desired peace and worked ardently to achieve it, whereas Guise burned to walk through the blood of the French and the misery of the people (these idiots who so loved him) to clear a passage to the throne, his soul able to accept anything except the possibility of not reaching this goal.

  The venerable Dr Marc Miron having given him an enema that very morning, the king, despite his discomfort, received the Duc de Guise in his chambers. But not wishing to encourage the duc with the hope that he was suffering and that the throne would soon be vacant, he made the effort to get dressed before his dangerous visitor arrived, and had a table set with bread, wine and two capons. He then ordered Miron, Du Halde, Chicot and me to eat some of the capons before he himself sat down at table with a drumstick in his hand, pretending to tear at the flesh with his sharp teeth, when the guest from Lorraine entered, smiling broadly. Seeing at first glance the half-eaten feast laid out on the table, his face fell, but he then tried to regain his earlier sunny countenance.

  “My cousin,” the king said blithely, “I had an enema this morning, and was feeling quite empty, and so, as I was as hungry as a dog, thought I should gorge myself. Will you join me, cousin?”

  “Nay, sire,” Guise demurred. “’Twould be too great an honour, and I’ve already breakfasted!” He was then forced to kiss the king’s hand, now greasy from the capon, and barely brushed it with his moustache, albeit with as much respect as he could manage.

  “In any case,” announced the king as he rose from the table, wiping hands and mouth with the napkin Du Halde presented to him, “I’ve stuffed myself to the limit! A man shouldn’t be such a glutton that he can’t moderate his excesses! Corpus onustum hesternis vitiis animum quoque praegravat una,”† he continued gravely, but with an amusedly conspiratorial air, as if he’d forgotten that Guise knew no Latin. “But, my cousin, we must maintain clear heads to discuss our affairs, since they are of such great consequence for the future of our unhappy kingdom, which is so torn by questions of religion.”

  “Alas, sire,” replied the duc, joining his two hands toget
her sanctimoniously. “Would that it pleased God to make all of Your Majesty’s counsellors as zealous in the defence of the Holy Catholic Church as I am.”

  “Or as I am,” agreed the king with a somewhat haughty tone, “for you cannot doubt that I am strongly resolved to allow no other religion in my kingdom than the Catholic one. But we must be prudent, my cousin! You cannot be unaware that a great foreign army is being amassed on our eastern frontier, which, were we to take up arms against Navarre once more, would not hesitate to invade us, devastating our provinces, causing incalculable suffering and trampling the poor people to death as it goes. Such is the sad state of our affairs, and necessity has put a knife to our throats, so shouldn’t we agree to purchase a good peace rather than risk such a hazardous war?”

  “Well, sire!” cried the duc. “That’s not how I see it! I cannot accept a peace that doesn’t guarantee that the faith of our fathers would be saved! Indeed, sire, I beg you to cast your eyes on our dying religion and embrace its conservation with all your heart, believing that no sacrifice is too great or too perilous to achieve this noble end. Sire,” he continued, “your people can imagine nothing worse than the fall of heaven. And the Bible assures us that with our Lord’s cross as our standard, we can destroy all our enemies on earth.”

  Such hypocritical language—designed to hide the traitor duc’s crude ambition under the cover of religion—sickened the king, I think, for he turned his head away with a tremble in his upper lip that he couldn’t control, and began pacing back and forth, his hands behind his back.

  “My cousin,” he said at last, pausing before the duc, “aren’t you aware that peace offers no advantage to the Huguenots, since we profit from their realization that the only way to advance their affairs is by converting to Catholicism, which is necessary either to obtain a place in the government or to marry, since there are many more Catholic women in this country than the reformed kind. Clearly, we need time to achieve this reconquest, but it can be achieved by gentle means and persuasion, whereas by the knife we merely create martyrs, whose blood nourishes and multiplies their Church. The persecution against them began under my grandfather, and was continued by my brother Charles IX. I myself tried the sword at Moncontour, at Jarnac and at La Rochelle. And what have we gained from nearly half a century of combat, sieges, massacres and executions if not that the king of Navarre is stronger than ever, and that a great army of German reiters is menacing our frontiers? Is it nothing to you that, in order to invade our kingdom, they must pass through Lorraine and devastate the duchy from which you’ve issued?”

  “I will face this danger for the greater glory of the Catholic Church,” replied the duc, as proudly as if he were St George called personally by God to defeat the dragon of heresy, “and you, sire, swore to combat it in the Treaty of Nemours.”

  “Ever since it was signed, there have been nothing but infractions and contraventions of it—”

  “On your part, sire!” cried Guise, interrupting His Majesty, and shouting in a tone so loud, so abrupt and so insolent that Épernon put his hand on his dagger, but the king gave him such severe look that the arch-favourite dropped his hand to his side.

  And yet his gesture did not pass unnoticed by Guise, who spun around as though he feared to be stabbed in the back, a movement he executed deftly but also with the stiffness of one who is wearing a coat of mail underneath his doublet. Seeing only Du Halde and me behind him, who were calmly and peaceably leaning against the tapestry (though our thoughts would have immediately dispatched the man if they’d had the power to do so), he seemed reassured, and continued his violent speech, though in a different register.

  “I must protest, sire, against the terrible treatment that has been directed at those cities that demanded the extirpation of the pretended ‘reformed’ Church. Someone ruined the citadel in Mâcon! Someone took Valence! Someone disgraced Brissac, Croisilles, Gessan and Entragues because they belonged to the League! Someone redirected the monies that we’d amassed for the war! And therefore,” he continued bitterly (this series of “someones” clearly designating the king), “it would certainly seem as though someone wishes heresy to continue in our kingdom!”

  “And yet,” the king fired back, “there’s not a prince in this world who has worked harder than I at extinguishing it! But I think that the members of the League are going about it very badly. Which makes me think”—his black eyes suddenly sending sparks at the duc—“that they’re aspiring to much more than that.”

  These words, accompanied by that look, were so clear that the duc actually paled, opened his mouth to speak and abruptly closed it, looking around him with a suspicious air. But seeing Épernon seated on a stool, his arms crossed, his eyes lowered, and all the others as immobile as logs, he seemed to regain his confidence, but with the much less assured air of a hypocrite who has seen his mantle of sanctimoniousness suddenly stripped, and feels naked and ashamed.

  “But, sire,” he continued, more softly and finding it difficult to regain his self-assurance, “is there any evidence—”

  “There’s a good deal more of it than I’d like!” broke in the king. “Who in this country is ignorant that they have asked me to construct strongholds to protect against Huguenots in places where there’s no reason to fear them? That they have stolen a march on me and taken Dourlens and Pondormy? That they would have surprised me in Boulogne, if the valiant Captain Le Pierre hadn’t put down their coup? That they had Captain Le Pierre killed in a fight to punish him for having faithfully served his king? That they built a citadel at Vitryle-François against me? That they refused to accept the governor that I’d named at Rocroy? And as for the money that you’re so bitterly complaining about”—moving from “they” to “you” with a sudden light in his eyes—“didn’t you waste the 100,000 écus that you were given to build a citadel at Verdun? And that’s not all! There are lots of things I’m not mentioning out of respect for your honour…”

  “My honour, sire!” cried the duc, who had suddenly lost all the colour in his face, and who now leant against the wall after this brusque, frontal assault by his king, seemingly needing to regain his waning strength to make his escape, his honour (which in reality had now been demolished) not allowing him to remain here a minute longer.

  Seeing this, and not wishing a complete break with Guise, which didn’t suit his plans—since he calculated that if there was to be war, as seemed increasingly inevitable given the uncompromising position of the League, the huge foreign army would likely overwhelm the duc’s forces—the king suddenly changed his expression, his tone, his gestures and his look with surprising litheness, and, taking Guise by the arm in an almost friendly manner, he said playfully:

  “My good cousin, let’s speak no more of this! You allege that I’ve failed to uphold the Treaty of Nemours; I allege you’ve done the same. The two allegations counterbalance each other. What we need is to restore order to our kingdom, if possible. Now, however, we need to figure out how to combat the Huguenots and how to defeat the army of reiters amassed on our borders when they attack. But before we join forces, as I hope we shall, I would ask you to reconcile your differences with the Duc d’Épernon, who so aspires to be your friend.”

  The king said this last without a trace of a smile, though he knew, as everyone in the kingdom did, the strident hatred that separated these two men, who each aspired not to friendship with the other but to his death, Guise believing the “arch-favourite” to be the staunchest supporter of the throne that he wished to occupy, and Épernon considering Guise to be the arch-enemy of his king.

  However, the king had no sooner expressed the desire to see them reconciled than Épernon rose from his stool and came over to the duc and stood before him, his face all smiles and full of goodwill. Guise stood and returned his smile. There couldn’t have been a more surprising spectacle than to see these two felines pull in their claws and show only velvet paws with such a gentle and benevolent air.

  “Monseigneur,” said the
Duc d’Épernon with a bow, “I request the honour of becoming your most humble, closest and most devoted servant.”

  “Monsieur,” replied Guise (who, however honeyed and full of nectar he managed to be, could not condescend to call the king’s arch-favourite “Monseigneur”, since Guise believed he was a parvenu of the lowest extraction; indeed, the Duchesse de Montpensier had told all her priests to spread the word that he was the son of a notary and not descended from Nogaret as he claimed), “I ask you for the same honour and have no greater wish than to serve you as well.”

  “Monseigneur,” continued Épernon, “since I know no one greater or more noble than you in this kingdom, I beg you to dispose of my person and all my worldly goods as if they were yours.”

  “Monsieur, I shall not fail to do so. And as you have required this of me, I ask only the same of you. I will treat you as a brother; we will be as inseparable as two fingers on my hand.”

  “Monseigneur, in truth, I place you so far above all the lords of this kingdom that whatever you shall order me to do in the service of the king, I shall unfailingly execute your command.”

  “Monsieur,” replied Guise, who no doubt sensed the subtle derision in Épernon’s words, replied, “I too shall execute yours.”

  “Monseigneur, I am overwhelmed. Would you permit me to embrace you?”

  “Monsieur, the honour and pleasure will be mine!”

  At this our two great tigers placed their paws around each other’s necks (which they happily would have opened with their teeth) and gave each other an embrace that lasted so long, was so strong and affectionate, with so many pats on the back and kisses planted on each other’s cheeks, that you would have thought they were the two best friends in the world. Ultimately, the king (who seemed very happy with this spectacle) had to separate them, reminding them that his council was expecting all three of them in half an hour.