by Robert Merle
I leave you to guess the effect he had on the young women of the city, who came running en masse, devouring him with their eyes. But although the women of Montpellier might be, by common consent, the most beautiful wenches in the kingdom, my innocent Samson was entirely oblivious to the eager glances and blushing hot cheeks that he provoked, having amorous thoughts only for Dame Gertrude du Luc. Indeed, scarcely had we returned to our lodgings before he begged me to compose a missive describing in detail the actus triumphalis of which he’d been the hero—not that he didn’t know how to write, but because his style was so dry and curt it read like a prescription. I grudgingly acceded to his request, though I still felt some bitterness towards the lady, who’d not been content to float in the azure of Samson’s presence while here, but had wished to wallow in manure with another. To debauch herself with one of Monsieur de Joyeuse’s captains after leaving Samson’s arms! Is that faithful? Is it reasonable? Is it virtuous? Ha! I could have killed the wench for this infidelity!—although I thank God that my beloved Samson never learnt any of this, and that I was able to hide it from him, to keep from wounding his noble heart.
I myself was promoted to the rank of doctor on 14th April in the year of Our Lord 1572. To tell the truth, I was nervous enough to bite my nails nearly off before taking my triduanes, exams so named because they last three full days, during which, from morning till night, I had to defend my theses and argue in Latin not only with the four royal professors, but with other ordinary doctors, some of whom prepared insidious ambushes for such occasions, hoping to shine at the expense of the candidate.
However, having worked so diligently, devoured all my books, performed dissections and taken care of a good number of patients for my doctor-father Saporta, I was not without a good deal of confidence in my knowledge of medicine. And yet I worried terribly—not just about passing my triduanes, but about my inability, given my lack of funds, due to the immense expenses of medical school, to offer a grand dinner for all my friends. Of course, I could have written to my father, but I hated to cost him so many beautiful écus, and after turning this over in my mind for quite some time, I resolved to reveal my concerns to Madame de Joyeuse, while we were catching our breath together one afternoon after a session of our “school for sighs” behind her blue bed curtains.
“What?” cried this noble lady. “What are you telling me? That you need money? Why didn’t you say so! Shouldn’t my little cousin be enabled to live according to his rank as well as anyone else? Aglaé de Mérol will disburse 100 écus as you leave.”
“Ah, Madame!” I cried. “How grateful I am for your marvellous benevolence. You are as beautiful as you are generous, and I will be grateful to you with all my heart and with all my body for ever!”
Having said this, I lavished kisses on her pretty fingers, which were so suave, so smooth, so perfumed and more expert in caresses than any woman’s hand in the entire kingdom.
“Ah, my sweet little man!” replied Madame de Joyeuse, who loved lively people and who watched the effects of advancing age arrive with abject terror. “Don’t thank me; it’s nothing but a little gold and costs me so little since my father was so well-to-do. But you, my Pierre, you give me infinitely more than I could ever give you, so old and decrepit as I am.”
“Old, Madame! Decrepit!”
And in truth she was neither one nor the other but very bewitching in her mature and luscious beauty, as I was prompt to tell her, and with such persuasive force that, in the end, melting into my arms, inflamed and sighing, she whispered in my ear, with sweet tyranny, “My sweet, do that thing I like!” Oh, I so loved her then, for her infinite goodness and for the power she gave me over her!
When those 100 écus joyously tintinnabulated their way from her money box into my purse, beautiful Aglaé de Mérol, who was counting them out in the salon, suddenly burst out, in the petulant and lively way she enjoyed teasing me, “What’s this? Another gift? You’re costing us dearly, I think! Almost as much as Monsieur de Joyeuse! Though it’s true, you’re much better to us than he is!”
“Oh, Madame!”
“No ‘oh’! Our master has the unhappy habit of never being here, running after all the rustic petticoats in his jurisdiction. And you, venerable doctor, you’re here all the time and not afraid to administer your excellent cures!”
“Madame, I’m aghast! Is this any way for a virgin to talk?”
“Monsieur,” she replied, “I am a virgin, as you know, only reluctantly, since I can marry only a man who possesses 50,000 livres of income, and the three or four men in our region who qualify do not appeal to me in the least.”
“Madame,” I answered, pursuing our little banter, “haven’t I already explained to you that I’ll marry you as soon as I have 50,000 livres of income?”
“But you’ll never have them!” she laughed, for she loved our badinage. “Moreover, I very well know that you’re madly in love with your Angelina, and as constant in your love as you are inconstant in your body, sowing your seed to the winds.”
“I, Madame?”
“Don’t deny it! Whom are these coins destined for if not some chambermaid?”
“This chambermaid, as you call her, is named ‘doctor of medicine’.”
“How now? It costs you 100 écus to be promoted to doctor?”
“One hundred and thirty! I still need to find the other thirty! A candidate’s expenses are infinite!”
“If it’s thirty écus you need, I can give them to you out of my own purse here and now.”
“Oh, Madame!” I cried. “You’re the most beautiful angel on this earth, but I’d be ashamed to accept them.”
“What?” she exclaimed, her eye suddenly darkening with anger. “You would refuse my money because I can’t enrol in your ‘school of sighs’? Do we have to get to that point in our relationship before you consider me your friend?”
So I had to accept. She would have been angry, I’ll warrant, given that the sweet sex are so infinitely giving once their hearts have been touched, if only in friendship. For there had been no intimacies between us, other than a few pecks on her dimples and nothing but a very rapid little kiss on her lips but with both hands behind my back, which is how she’d ordered it. So I left the Joyeuse residence greatly burdened by gold coins, but unburdened of my worries and overcome with gratitude for these two wenches. However, now that my purse was filled, I had to empty it straightaway, however much it cost. I had to bring my doctor-father Chancellor Saporta his due, that is, thirty francs’ honorarium, for it was he who would preside over my triduanes. I was very hungry as I did so to catch sight of Typhème, the beautiful young bride of this greybeard, but of the sweetling there was not a trace. Saporta was a veritable Turk, and kept his wife closed in his room for fear that someone might steal her away—or even steal a look at her—so that I went away with nothing to show for my thirty écus, not even the pleasure of seeing her or even a word of thanks.
Dean Bazin—whom my schoolfellow Merdanson had named “the foetus” since he was so small, emaciated, puny and sickly; what’s more, he was venomous in look and speech—greeted me even less warmly. Since I was the “son” of Chancellor Saporta he hated me as much as he did my “father”.
Moreover, since his plan to preside over my triduanes had been undercut by Saporta, he felt cheated out of the thirty-écu honorarium, being as miserly and snivelling as any mother’s son in Provence. Which tells you with what grimaces and gnashing of teeth he pocketed my two écus and ten sols, predicting in his whistling voice what a stormy and vexatious time I’d have of it at my triduanes.
Dr Feynes, the only Catholic among the four royal professors, received my offering with his customary beneficence. Wan and pale, he was even more than usually self-effacing, feeling himself to be a timid little papist mouse who’d wandered into a Huguenot hole. I could expect no vexations from him, but no help either: he scarcely opened his muzzle and weighed but little in our disputations.
As for Dr Salomon d’A
ssas, whom I’d saved for last, he lavished more thanks for his two écus, ten sols than if I’d laid at his feet all the treasures of the king whose name he bore (though of course he had dropped this name in favour of d’Assas, the name of his lands in Frontignan). He received me once again under the leafy boughs of his garden and offered me some of the delicious nectar he drew from his vines along with some pastries baked by his chambermaid Zara, who looked so languidly graceful that I could have swallowed her whole after tasting her pies. But that was impossible and would have been downright felonious, given how much Dr d’Assas loved her and trusted in my friendship.
“Ah, Pierre de Siorac!” he warned. “Watch out! The man who’s predicted stormy and vexatious times for you has set innumerable pitfalls for you. Every one of his questions will be a trap! You can’t escape it.”
“But what can I do? How can I get around it?”
“Listen! Here’s what you must do,” continued d’Assas, who was round and benign from head to foot. Saying this, however, he opened his mouth, but suddenly fell silent.
“Venerable doctor, for heaven’s sake, tell me!”
“I don’t know,” he said, looking me over with his dark eyes, so mild yet so cunning. “Should I tell you?”
“Tell me, I beg you!”
“Promise me you’ll tell no one.”
“I swear!”
“It’s my belief, Pierre, that to pose a series of insidious questions to the candidate—questions on the most difficult, debatable and obscure points—is a nasty trick. Do you agree?”
“Of course!”
“Then, Pierre, the best defence against a ruse is a better one, yes?”
“Naturally!”
“Pierre, listen up! The man in question pretends to know Greek, but in fact never mastered it. He quotes things but all awry. So, my friend, between now and tomorrow you must memorize the passages from Hippocrates and Galen in your text, and when this so-and-so asks you a trick question, just answer calmly in Greek and with the casual air of a player taking a pawn.”
“But what if the Greek text has no relation to the question?”
“Ah, but that’s the beauty of it! Rabelais used this same trick with his most sticky debaters! And if they knew Greek, he’d stump them with his Hebrew!”
“Aha!” I laughed. “What an excellent trick and hilarious joke!”
And, looking at each other knowingly over our goblets of his delicious wine, we suddenly burst out in an uncontrollable belly laugh.
Later that same day I visited the doctors Pinarelle, Pennedepié and La Vérune, who were not members of the Royal College of Medicine, but ordinary doctors who gave occasional lectures at the school and were admitted to judging panels as a courtesy by Dr Saporta, though I would happily have done without their attendance, since they cost me six écus, thirty sols, which brought the honoraria paid to my judges to forty-three écus.
But that was not sufficient. On the eve of my triduanes I had gifts brought to the lodgings of each of the seven doctors that had been prescribed by an immemorial custom as to both quantity and quality:
A block of marzipan weighing at least four pounds, well iced with almond paste and stuffed with dried fruits.
Two pounds of sugared almonds.
Two candles made of good and sweet-smelling wax of at least a thumb’s thickness.
A pair of gloves.
These offerings were delivered to the seven lodgings by the beadle Figairasse, to whom I paid a commission of two écus, twenty sols, both for the delivery and for his role in introducing and seating the visitors at my exams—as well as for, to my greater glory, sounding the college’s bells when I had been proclaimed a doctor, and finally for preceding me through the streets of Montpellier, dressed in full armour, to announce throughout the city my triumph.
And in further obedience to ancient customs, I hired four musicians to play the fife, drum, trumpet and viol, and I brought them at sundown on the eve of my triduanes to serenade the doctors I’ve mentioned. Almost all of them condescended to open their windows and throw a few sols to the musicians (whom I’d paid handsomely), and acknowledge my deep bow while their wives clapped courteously. However, at Saporta’s house, Typhème, no doubt on orders from her husband, did not show herself. And as for the lodgings of Dean Bazin, they remained as closed as the heart of a miser, the dean no doubt wishing to make it clear just how detestable he found me. As I took my leave of the musicians, I reminded them to be at my parade three days thence, for when the beadle went before me, they were supposed to precede him playing happy tunes as would befit a triumph.
You must not imagine, dear reader, that with these offerings I’d completed my expenses, no matter how hard my heart ached at having to waste so much on these sumptuous superfluities. And isn’t it a great pity and a scandalous abuse that so much money was necessary when all that should have been required was knowledge? Well now, listen to this! During the three days that my exams lasted, custom required that I serve wine and cakes not just to the judging panel but to all the assistants who crowded into the examination hall to hear me, and who were rewarded with food and drink for having to sit through so many hours of tedium. And so I had to ask the innkeeper at the Three Kings to help me out during my triduanes, to which she consented graciously on condition that she be paid handsomely. Throughout the three days, she circulated through the hall with pitchers of wine, goblets, little pies and marzipans, aided by two sprightly chambermaids, who were pawed at by more than one member of the audience, including even the ordinary doctors, as these girls passed by, their two hands burdened with refreshments.
These expenses were heavy, but, sadly, necessary to keep my judges and assistants in good and benign humour, failing which the first would have turned me on the spit and the second would have jeered and taunted instead of applauding me as they did vociferously at every response I made, given how full their stomachs were and their spleens well doused and dilated with wine.
As expected, Bazin did his best to throw me to the winds, hog-tied, but at the first insidious question he posed, I answered with a long citation in Greek from Hippocrates, delivered distinctly and proudly, head held high and chest puffed out, and the audience, believing that I had turned the tables on the dean and put a stake through his heart, applauded wildly. At this, Dr d’Assas, bobbing his head, and baritoning from his nether parts, smiled angelically, while Chancellor Saporta, who knew Greek far too well to be a dupe to my hypocritical ruse, nevertheless remained mute and even stared scornfully at his dean, who sat down crestfallen, abashed and undone, and nearly choking on his own venom. To see the dean so thoroughly annihilated, the ordinary doctors thought twice before attempting to set any traps for me. However, Dr Pennedepié, who nourished a mortal hatred of Dr Pinarelle because he’d stolen one of his patients, wanted to use me to get revenge on his enemy, and asked me whether, in my opinion, a woman’s uterus was simple or bifurcated. The question couldn’t fail to embarrass me since I knew that Dr Pinarelle held, against all reason and evidence, Galen’s authority on this to be absolute and that his statement on St Luke’s day that he preferred “to be mistaken with Galen than be right with Vesalius” had made him the laughing stock of the entire town. So of course, Pennedepié was using me to embarrass his enemy. But since Bazin’s hatred was enough for a lifetime, I did not want to have either of these two doctors on my back. So I resolved to test the waters with the prudence of a cat, and replied in Latin very quietly and modestly:
“Venerable Dr Pennedepié, haec est vexata questio.* On the one hand, the great Galen, having dissected the uterus of a rabbit and found it bifurcated, asserted that the uterus of a woman must also be so constructed. And, no doubt, his opinion has considerable weight, given the authority of the doctor, who is universally venerated as one of the masters of Greek medicine. But, on the other hand, our contemporary Vesalius, a bold and able medical doctor, who was a student in our college, dissected a woman, and not a rabbit, and found that her uterus was uni
valve.”
Having said this, I remained silent.
“And you yourself, what do you believe? Univalve or bifurcated?” insisted the good Dr Pennedepié, pressing his advantage.
“Venerable Dr Pennedepié,” I replied, my face glowing with humility. “There are in this hall so many people more knowledgeable than I, and I would rather they decide this question.”
“And yet,” said Dr Pennedepié, “we must attempt to cure the illnesses of our women patients. So if you had a patient who had pain in her uterus, you would have to decide what to do.”
“In which case, venerable doctor, having always found the uterus in my dissections to be one, I would decide in favour of unicity, without in any way deprecating the great and venerable Galen, who judged according to the evidence available to him in his time.”
A dreadful silence fell on the assembly which would have done me in had not d’Assas suddenly raised his hands and cried in a loud voice:
“He has answered well and with enviable modesty for a candidate of his age!”
I thought I’d escaped relatively well from this ambush, but, as it turned out, not as well as I’d hoped. When the jury came to deliberate, Dr Pinarelle was opposed to awarding me the highest honours since I had, “in my presumptuous insolence, dared to confront the authority of the divine Galen”. As luck would have it, since he was but an ordinary doctor, he could voice his opinion but had no vote. What considerably surprised me was that Dr Bazin, who, as a royal professor, did have a deliberative vote, immediately voted for high honours, being too intelligent not to mask his defeat with the appearance of benevolence. He was a man who, even in the face of imminent death, put his career above all, so when he saw Madame de Joyeuse and her ladies-in-waiting appear at the final session of my triduanes and, all decked out in their most seductive finery, take up seats in the first row, the venomous looks he’d darted at me throughout the proceedings became quite suddenly and surprisingly benign.
