by Robert Merle
Following my father’s orders, Pincers came to Mespech without baggage of any kind during the night, having told no one of his destination. He had been scarcely a fortnight within our walls when Monsieur Guillaume de La Porte arrived at the first drawbridge, accompanied by five men-at-arms, and requested to see the Brethren.
“Messieurs,” said the magistrate gravely as soon as he was introduced, “there is a rumour running about Sarlat that you have kidnapped and sequestered the curate of Marcuays to prevent him from saying Mass.”
“This is a rumour whose feet should be cut off, Lieutenant,” replied my father, “so that it may be prevented from running madly about, besmirching our good name, even as we do our Christian duty for this poor priest by saving him from the gallows.”
And leaving Sauveterre to explain things, he went to fetch Pincers, who confirmed everything with endless effusions of gratitude towards his hosts for all the goodness they had bestowed on him. He appeared in the most excellent form, glowing with portly splendour and health, his face reaching new shades of crimson, since la Maligou, who served him in his room, had plied him with extra wine and brought him the choicest cuts of meat.
As Jean de Siorac accompanied Monsieur de La Porte to the drawbridge, Catherine, who had been playing with her dolls near the well, ran up, her blonde braids flying behind her, and took my father’s hand, but said not a word, having exhausted her entire store of courage in accosting him in this way.
“My Lord,” said the police lieutenant, “I see that you are constructing a second wall around your moat. At such a moment, these new bulwarks are causing people’s tongues to wag.”
“They’re wrong again, Lieutenant. Mespech’s doors will always be open to the king…” (and he looked him straight in the eye) “and to the royal officers. But the Paris parliament has outlawed the reformers and I might have to defend myself against certain of my neighbours.”
“Ah, you’re worried about Fontenac,” said La Porte, frowning, “and you’re not wrong to do so. There’s no worse little tyrant in our provinces, yet he is so well supported by the bishop and even at the court that I can do nothing about him. Do you realize that when someone in his family falls ill there’s not a doctor in Sarlat that will dare to venture into his lair for fear of not getting out freely or even alive?”
My father returned from this conversation, holding Catherine’s fresh little hand in his own, happy to see her so pretty and lively, but finding no words to tell her, so great was his love for her. As he took his first step into the courtyard, Alazaïs appeared before him, looking quite wild, a full head taller than he. She said in a most abrupt tone: “My Lord, I must speak wi’ you about this excrement of a priest.”
“Well?” Alazaïs glanced at Catherine, and leaning forward spoke a few words in my father’s ear which caused him to start.
“Go back to your dolls, Catherine,” he said in a curt voice, “and you, Alazaïs, send this bawd to my library immediately.”
When la Maligou appeared in the library, all thighs, stomach and breasts (as my father put it), and mightily dishevelled, Jean de Siorac closed the door behind her and, after pacing in a circle around her, came to a halt in front of her, hands on his hips, and stared at her with his severest look: “Well, I have just received some interesting news! Every night you and the curate fornicate like rats in straw!”
As la Maligou began to shake her head in denial, Jean de Siorac raised his hand and said, almost in a shout, “Don’t lie to me, Maligou, or I’ll dismiss you within the hour!”
“Sweet Jesus!” moaned la Maligou naively. “But if I don’t lie, you’ll throw me out just the same!”
“So it’s true!”
La Maligou began to shake all over.
“Alas, My Lord, I dared not resist: he talks so sweet!”
“But his actions stink! Are you not ashamed to carry on like a putrid whore, you a married woman, committing adultery, and especially with Pincers?”
“That’s just it, My Lord, with a priest it’s only half a sin! Especially if he absolves me afterwards!”
Jean de Siorac raised his arms heavenward. “No one can absolve you of a deadly sin, you hussy, excepting God who is in heaven.”
“And so I pray him every night for the intercession of His Son,” said la Maligou, lowering her eyes, for at the same instant she was promising the Virgin Mary to burn a candle in front of her image in the barn if my father, by some miracle, would not dismiss her.
“And what if Pincers gives you a bastard?”
“Oh, no need to worry about that,” crooned la Maligou with her most sly and knowing look. “I know all the herbs and where to put them!”
“And what herbs are these?” asked my father, who was always curious about peasant customs.
“With all due respect, I cannot tell you,” answered la Maligou. “The noblewoman who taught me them swore me to silence.”
“You must tell me if you don’t want to be sent away.”
“My Lord,” said Maligou, her eyes opening wide and her heart beating wildly, “if I tell you then you won’t send me away?”
“You have my word on it,” affirmed Jean de Siorac, who from the first had wisely decided to hush up the affair.
“Oh, thank you God and sweet Jesus!” chanted la Maligou, who, with her arms crossed over her belly and her eyes chastely lowered, whispered to herself a prayer of thanksgiving: “And thanks be to you especially, Virgin Mary, for this miracle which you have wrought, and for forgiving my sins. I thought that as women we could always come to an understanding. But thanks again for your sweetness, good Virgin, and you shall have your candle, and that’s a promise, which only a wastrel would be fool enough to break.”
After la Maligou had revealed her secret herbs and “where to put them”, my father made her promise never to see Pincers again, day or night, from dawn to dusk, by candlelight or light of day, and never to brag of this fornication to any living soul. He then charged Coulondre Iron-arm to bring Pincers’s meals to him, which Coulondre did without the priest’s ever getting any information from him other than a few laconic and dire predictions about the end of the world.
Jean de Siorac was so discreet about the whole matter that he never said a word of it to Jean de Sauveterre until the priest was again outside our walls. “Oh Jean,” Sauveterre reproached, “you have hidden something from me!”
“I had to. I was afraid of what you would do.”
“And now that Pincers is gone, are you going to dismiss la Maligou?”
“Heavens no. I gave her my word. But most of all I don’t want her going around bragging to the entire countryside about her exploits. No, my brother, let us close our eyes to her sins and keep them closed. What’s more,” he said with a grin, “there’s not a pot nor a roast in Périgord that can touch hers.”
It was not Montluc but instead the lord of Saint-Geniès, the king’s governor in Périgord, who re-established the Catholic Church at Montignac. On 14th August his troops, armed with cannon, besieged Arnaud de Bord, who surrendered three days later with his partisans. On 11th September, after a vigorous trial, sixteen of them were hanged in the public square in Montignac, and among these sixteen poor Batifol, whose untimely end had been so lugubriously prophesied by Coulondre Iron-arm but two weeks before. As for Arnaud de Bord, he was not put to the torture until 18th October, though no one ever learnt the reasons for this cruel delay.
His future once again assured, Pincers had already been gone for two weeks when a certain Monsieur de L. (this is how he is designated in the Book of Reason) appeared at our gates one night accompanied by a small escort, and, despite the strict security measures at Mespech, he and his troop gained easy entry, for the Brethren seemed to be expecting them. His escort, though well fed and watered, was not allowed to mix with our servants, but was billeted in the barn where Alazaïs was alone sent to wait on them.
As for Monsieur de L., he took his meals alone in the library with the Brethren rather than in the
great hall, served by François, Samson and me, all of us greatly excited by the mystery surrounding this character and bursting with pride to be invited by my father to remain in their company after the meal. François was then fifteen years old, Samson and I going on twelve already, and my father, doubtless deeming us old enough to participate in the defence of Mespech (for we were daily exercised in the use of the sword, the blunderbuss and the pike by our soldiers), admitted us, if we promised to remain quiet as carps, to this council at which the destiny of the barony was to be decided.
Monsieur de L., whom I watched with much curiosity, surprised me not a little. He had a larger ruff, a richer doublet and a less austere face than any of the other Huguenots we regularly hosted at Mespech. Moreover, he did not speak the langue d’oc as we did, but expressed himself in French, a language which I was certainly capable of understanding, but with an accent I had never heard before and which I afterwards learnt was Parisian. His face, sporting neither moustache nor beard of any kind, was like a stone polished by frequent rubbing with the other stones of the court, his gestures open and frank, his attitude gracious and, though his pointed manner of speech shocked me a bit at first, I soon realized that Monsieur de L. was a paragon of courtesy, prodigal in his salutations and compliments, and tending to use ten words where one would suffice. He wore his hair long, quite clean and well curled, despite the difficulties of travel on horseback; his gloves, which he wore throughout the conversation, captured my admiration: they were of a very fine, soft leather I’d never seen before in the Sarlat region.
“Messieurs,” said Monsieur de L. after a long prologue of formalities, “you know my name, you know whom I serve as well as who sends me.”
He seemed quite satisfied with this overture, which he must have used more than once before, for he recited it without hesitation and quite easily. At the same time, he took on an air of modest pride, as though he carried with him, though unworthy of it, the reflection of the majesty he represented.
“Come to the point of your embassy with us, if you please, Monsieur,” said my father, whose tense expression and nervous hands indicated that he found this preamble a bit too long.
“Here it is,” said Monsieur de L. “Our forces, as you know, are assembling at Gourdon under the leadership of Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld and of Monsieur de Duras. They are several thousands strong, though I cannot tell you the exact number, and intend to link up with the army of the Prince de Condé at Orleans. Duras is a warrior and commanded the legion of Guyenne. François de La Rochefoucauld has also proved himself in battle. But the prince thought that the Baron de Mespech, who has served so long and so well, might contribute the additional support of his valour and his experience.”
I could see from my father’s expression that he was not the least bit surprised by this proposal, and that, in fact, he had been expecting it, but was not in the least happy about it.
“Monsieur,” he said with cold courtesy, “you serve the Vidame de Chartres, and accompanied him to England when he represented the Prince de Condé and Admiral de Coligny in negotiating the Treaty of Hampton Court with Queen Elizabeth.”
“’Tis true,” replied Monsieur de L., who, despite his easy manner, betrayed deep embarrassment at this reminder.
“It is said that for the price of her support to the Huguenots, Queen Elizabeth exacted from our allies the surrender of le Havre, a token she would not give back to France once the war is over, except in return for Calais.”
Monsieur de L.’s discomfort seemed to grow, and he appeared to pale considerably. “But surely you are not unaware, My Lord,” he said in an somewhat shaky voice, “that according to the terms of the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, France must return Calais to the English in 1567…”
“Or else, on that date, retain Calais indefinitely in exchange for 500,000 écus. And what king of France would ever prefer the solution I have just announced to the one you proposed?”
“But this is the solution that the Prince de Condé will most assuredly adopt, once the war is over.”
“But he won’t be able to!” cried my father heatedly. He rose and, pivoting around his chair, gripped the back with both hands. After some moments, his face contorted with grief and anger, he repeated, “He won’t be able to! Since he has ceded le Havre as a token to Queen Elizabeth! And do you think she will give up le Havre for any sum of money, when her sole aim in lending us assistance was the return of Calais?”
After this outburst, my father sat down again, still trembling with indignation, and, though Sauveterre had not moved, I could see very well from his expression that he shared my father’s sentiments about this deplorable bargain.
After a considerable pause, Monsieur de L. spoke in a quiet and flat voice, maintaining just enough dignity to impress my father: “I believe, My Lord, that when the Prince de Condé and Admiral de Coligny signed the Treaty of Hampton Court, they did not realize they had so gravely affected the future of Calais. They must have thought that the option of buying back the city remained open to them. Time was of the essence. The death knell of the reformers had been rung throughout the kingdom. But the prince and the admiral would think themselves most unhappy and unworthy if they had ever thought of reducing the kingdom.”
“And yet they have mortgaged it!” claimed Sauveterre. “France waited 200 years to retake Calais from the English, and God knows how much blood and tears such an enterprise cost us. Ask the Baron de Mespech. He was there! And now, with a few strokes of the pen, the prince and the admiral have lost the city. And for what? For the help of 6,000 English troops, half of whom are slated to occupy le Havre! And 100,000 crowns of aid! A ridiculous contribution in view of what Elizabeth can expect in return! A piece of the kingdom of France and no insignificant piece either!”
Following this speech, there was a moment of silence, which Monsieur de L. broke with a grave voice: “Although present, I took no part in the negotiations at Hampton Court. I realized that the bleak necessities we faced allowed the English queen to strangle us, and that our conditions were disastrous, and that we had made a very bad bargain. But after all, a treaty is only a treaty… Condé and Coligny are fighting with their backs to the wall. Baron de Siorac, are you going to refuse them your aid when the stakes are nothing less than the survival of the true religion in the kingdom of France?”
My father rose once more and took several steps across the room, his face troubled and his hands clenched behind his back, while his sons and Sauveterre watched him anxiously. We were afraid that he would be unable to resist such a pressing appeal, and we could already see him armed and on horseback, leaving Mespech to rejoin Condé and Coligny in an uncertain, and in his eyes, illegitimate war.
“Monsieur,” said Jean de Siorac finally, sitting down again and speaking calmly, “it would make me most unhappy to refuse you, for I would feel as though, in fact if not in spirit, I would be abandoning our cause. But if I accept, I would be equally distraught, for I would be taking up arms against my country and against my king. And so I must choose the former course. I will not join forces with the Prince de Condé. Please, Monsieur, I beg you, not another word. Anything you could say to me now, I have already told myself a hundred times over.”
I looked at Samson, infinitely relieved, and although François, still as an icon, did not turn his head, he seemed to me to breathe a sigh of relief as well. Monsieur de L. did not press the point, but instead made a rather lengthy speech, asking his hosts for a monetary contribution for the maintenance of the troops Duras was gathering at Gourdon. The two brothers, after retiring to a small office off the library to discuss the matter, returned with the sum of a thousand écus —an enormous sacrifice for anyone who knew them well. Monsieur de L. counted the money as though it were a matter of a few sols without the least sign of surprise. This done, he wrote, in his florid style, a handsome receipt in the name of the Prince de Condé. After which he asked his escort to be alerted, and, with a thousand compliments, took his leave.
During the days that followed, my father seemed to lose his old sense of play, torn as he was between his two allegiances, the one to the true religion, the other to his king, or, as he put it, “to his nation”. I learnt later that Condé himself, and even more so Coligny, had gone through the same agonies. They came out on the opposite side of this debate, and for this I certainly do not judge them. As for my father, it was the surrender of Calais that pushed him into the opposite camp, but not without a wound which took a long time to heal. A few years later, I heard Jean de Sauveterre remark that in a matter in which opposing duties came into play against each other, no matter what one chose, “one could only end up feeling he’d done the wrong thing”.
*
One week after the brief appearance of Monsieur de L. at Mespech, my mother gave birth to a stillborn child and was stricken herself with a raging fever. My father did not leave her bedside, and slept each night in the little cabinet that had housed Pincers, requesting to have his meals brought up to his wife’s chambers. Although he never appeared in the great hall, I knew that my mother’s condition worsened daily by the long sad face of Alazaïs when she came to the kitchen to get meat for my father and warm milk for the invalid.
This situation had lasted for a week when my father summoned me to the little cabinet he now used for a bedroom. I found him seated, elbows on a little table and head in hands. He did not move when I entered, and, troubled by his immobility—he who was ordinarily so lively and outgoing—I remained standing before him, scarcely daring to breathe, and my heart full of apprehension at seeing him so entirely altered in his bearing. It was even worse when, feeling my presence, he withdrew his hands from his face revealing his eyes, from which tears streamed, one by one, down his unshaven cheeks. I couldn’t believe my eyes and just stood staring at him, open-mouthed and stupid, my legs trembling beneath me, a terrible emptiness in my chest and my head swimming. The solid world I had known until now seemed to crumble and fall to pieces when I saw my hero crying.
