by Robert Merle
“The one on the right is called the Îlot du Patriarche, and the one on the left the Îlot du Passeur-aux-Vaches.|||| The king, to whom they belong, had the idea of connecting them and joining them to the Île de la Cité to sell them to builders, but the project died for lack of money. Behind you, Monsieur, there are three other little islands that you can’t see, since they’re hidden by the cathedral, and the king also wanted to join them into one and call it the Île Notre-Dame, but that project also fell into the dirty water of the Seine.”
“Are there cows on Îlot du Passeur-aux-Vaches?”
“Of course, and there’s no need for a cowherd, which is a great saving of money.”
“Well,” I mused, not knowing what to look at since I saw so many marvels, “how many people are there in this immense city?”
“Three hundred thousand.”
“And streets?”
“Four hundred and thirteen.”
“What! Someone counted them?”
“Naturally!” snorted Aymotin, his dander up, as if all of these streets belonged to him. “Listen to these verses that I learnt in school:
“Within the Île de la Cité you’ll find
Thirty-six streets that twist and wind,
While over in Hulepoix quarter you’ll see
Enough streets to total eighty-three!
But over in Saint-Denis, you will discover
Six less than 300; so over
All the three quarters you’ll have seen
No fewer streets than 413.”
“Four hundred and thirteen!” I gasped. “How could you ever find someone you knew if you didn’t know where they lived?”
At this, Aymotin looked at me curiously and asked if I was in the situation I’d just described, and I, not wishing to speak to him about my Angelina, the thought of whom was driving me to despair, simply said that I was looking for a friend, who, like me, was a doctor from the Royal College of Medicine in Montpellier (at which I noticed that he trembled slightly, although he still appeared to be on his guard, maintaining the perpetually gay, suave and attentive smile that he wore like a mask on his pretty face).
“His name is Fogacer,” I said, “and though we are of different complexions, Fogacer being little interested in petticoats and I chasing them like mad, we get along well and have become great friends. Do you know him?”
“I’m afraid not,” replied Aymotin rather too quickly, lowering his eyes and turning away.
“Aymotin,” I said, not without considerable heat, “if you know him, it would be tragic if you didn’t tell me how to find him; I need so much to see him.”
Turning back to face me, and looking me in the eye, Aymotin took a step towards me and spoke in very grave tones that I never would have expected either from his age nor from the silly antics that he’d thus far exhibited to me.
“Monsieur,” he announced, “I am, both as a cleric and by nature, discreet. And all the more so by my complexion, which is exactly what you have guessed it to be. My memory has therefore become a tomb. A face, a name, an address—everything falls into its depths and is buried there. I could never remember anything that might incriminate another.”
Having reflected on this amazing declaration, I was more than ever convinced that Aymotin was a member of this great brotherhood, whose members, in the great appetite that they have for each other, have abolished all differences between them—of rank, of wealth, of knowledge and of religion, and live out, in this equality, their perilous passions, promising only to keep their mutual secret and knowing that there will be no quarter, for one or the other, if they are discovered.
“Aymotin,” I said, “that’s fine. I understand you. All I ask of you, then, is to remember a name and an address and to provide them to this doctor if Fortune were to lead you to cross paths. My name is Pierre de Siorac and I’m lodged in the rue de la Ferronnerie in the home of the bonnet-maker Maître Recroche. Here are the five sols for the cathedral chapter. And five more for you.”
“Monsieur,” said Aymotin, suddenly returning three of the sols I’d given him, “I’ve kept just two. And for what you’ve said, I would not ask for any payment. I will do what you ask if I can. I like to oblige good, honest and charitable people.”
And thereupon, contemplating me like a hen sparrow might her mate, shaking his black curls from right to left and uttering a deep sigh, he gave me such a piteous look that I might have accommodated it if he had only been of the tender sex to which he wanted so much to belong. But, finding this thought somewhat embarrassing, I again leant over the balustrade to cast a last glance at the square below, where the tiny size of the people seen from so high above had so diverted me only minutes before.
And recognizing Pompée by her chestnut coat, I was suddenly speechless to see her at the centre of a great tumult, and four or five beggars trying to wrest her away from Miroul, who was desperately fighting them off with fists and kicks, and who was unable, finally, to avoid defeat by so many assailants.
“’Sblood, Aymotin!” I cried. “They’re trying to take my mare!”
And running, I hurtled down the stairs of the tower, rushed out the door, past the portal and onto the cathedral court, and unsheathing, fell like lightning on these miscreants, making strange cries and having at them with the flat of my sword, careful not to pierce any of them—except one who pulled out a knife from his rags and would have stabbed me, for which I punished him by slashing his arm with my dagger. At this, he dropped his weapon, and ran away, crying that he’d been killed, the others following behind him, disappearing into the adjoining streets like cockroaches into their holes.
“Miroul!” I cried, once I’d won the field. “You’re bleeding! Are you wounded?”
“It’s just a bruise to my fist,” replied Miroul, “and nothing serious. But Monsieur, look at your doublet! You can’t go visiting Monsieur de Nançay looking like that! We’ll have to sew you up first!”
Sadly, he was right! My blue satin doublet, which had been so carefully made by the Jewish tailor in Montpellier, was brand new and, I must say, very becoming and, if I do say so, very beautiful. And even though the frivolous lady in the rue des Sablons despised it as being “not in fashion”, this doublet which I was so proud of and wore with such pride had suffered a two-inch rip on its front, and when I looked more closely, I confess, dear reader, that I was near tears. Oh, Lord! What a strange animal is man! When I should have been on my knees giving thanks to Providence for saving my life in this encounter in which the blade of my assailant had passed so close to my heart, I was broken-hearted at the damage to my clothing!
“Monsieur,” said a fellow who, along with a good three dozen Guillaumes and Gautiers, had watched, open-mouthed, the attempted robbery of my horse without so much as lifting a finger or calling for help, “it’s a fact that your doublet is badly torn!”
“And whose fault is that,” I cried angrily, “if not those who stood around watching these villains do their business without a word or any effort to help my valet?”
“Well, Monsieur,” cried a Gautier, “risk getting beaten up? And in a street fight? I’d be careful not to intervene, as much as I might pity the loss of your doublet!”
“And who says it’s lost?” I screamed against all reason.
“Well, it’s a fact, isn’t it, that it’s ruined,” observed another, “and I can’t see how even the best seamstress would be able to do much for it.”
“Monsieur,” said another, “take it to the used-clothes market. The Jews will buy it from you. Won’t be much, but it’s better than nothing.”
“Wait, Monsieur!” cried Miroul, seeing me flushed with anger, and so out of control that I was on the verge of drawing my sword again. “I beg you! No need to get angry! You’re safe! Your Pompée as well! Let’s go back to our lodgings! Alizon will do wonders with your doublet!”
“Can you believe it, Miroul?” I said in langue d’oc. “In broad daylight! In front of Notre-Dame! In front of these gawki
ng onlookers! ’Sblood! Why is Paris so famous? It’s a cut-throat’s heaven!”
* “The wise man accepts his misfortune with patience.”
† “’Tis God’s truth!”
‡ “Savage beast!”
§ “The more stupid a man is, the more insolent he becomes.”
¶ “It is a bad thing to slander even a bad brother!”
|| “God in His wisdom hides under a mantle of darkness the events of the future.”
** “He sleeps well who isn’t aware he’s sleeping badly.”
†† “Don’t be ashamed to love a pretty serving girl.”
‡‡ “His right arm.”
§§ “An empty stomach rarely rejects vulgar food.”
¶¶ “Rome has as many girls as the sky has stars.”
|||| “Islet of the Patriarch”; “Islet of the Cows’ Ferryman”.
5
MAÎTRE RECROCHE HAD NOT YET returned to the house when we got back, but Alizon, who was just waking up, had no sooner seen my torn doublet than she had taken it from me, threaded a needle with some blue silk thread, and undertaken to repair it. As her fingers flew, she listened wide-eyed to my story with eager ears and cries of “Amazing!” or other glosses on my tale.
“Ah, Monsieur,” she said in her rapid and sharp Parisian accent, “it’s a miracle you weren’t killed! One valet to guard two horses? What were you thinking? There are more thieves in Paris than lice on the head of a monk! Blessed Virgin! They’d steal the king’s carriage with the king inside it if his Swiss guards weren’t there to fend them off!”
“Alizon,” I replied, “you sew beautifully, but do you think the repairs will be visible?”
“Well, as for that,” she sighed, stretching and pulling her shoulders back, either to rest a bit or to show her figure off (or both?), “it won’t show as much as a man’s member does in the middle of his body but more than the eyeliner on a woman’s face. You can’t repair clothing without leaving a scar, and especially silk. You could still go about in this doublet, but you certainly couldn’t wear it to visit the king in his Louvre, if that’s what you want to do. You’d have to order another one, my noble Monsieur, and all the more so since…”
“Since, Alizon?” I asked, since she wouldn’t go on.
“Well, Monsieur,” she said looking at me sweetly, “I don’t want to wound your pride, as you are so nice, but this doublet I’ve just repaired is most assuredly not fashionable here. In Paris, a doublet has to be much more ample in the shoulders, and wider under the arms to include a pocket for your purse, and should finish up in a point at the fly, with some stuffing to inflate the stomach, especially since you’re so thin. It’s the Duc d’Anjou who wants it so, since he thinks a good stomach adds nobility to a man’s silhouette.”
“Another doublet, Alizon?” I cried. “How you talk! Samson will never give me the money for it, since he keeps so tight a watch on our purse! And as for me, I wouldn’t go ordering a doublet with the little bit of money I’ve got left.”
In response, Alizon threw me a glance, then another, and yet one more while she continued sewing with an unstoppable speed, and all I could think about was how dark she was, of skin, of eyes and of hair, sweet little fly from hell that she was, with her little body so slender, so shapely and so lively, with a waist you could enclose with your two hands like a child’s.
“Well, Monsieur,” she said after what seemed like a very long time, “what a pity! If I were a high and mighty noblewoman, living for my pleasure without a care in the world, I’d give you the money you need to make you as beautiful in your clothes as you are without.”
I opened my mouth to thank her for such a sweet compliment when the door of the workshop flew open and Maître Recroche burst in with a package in his hand, all muddy and battered and in a such a bad humour it looked as though he could eat a bonnet. “Baba!” he cried in an angry voice and with his eyebrows raised. “What goes on in here when the master’s away? Are you sleeping? Hey, Baragran! Coquillon! Get up! Get up!” he repeated, administering a hard kick in the kidneys. “You think you can laze about? Sleep all day?”
“And you all night, while we’re working!” spit Alizon.
“Shut your little trap!” he said, raising his arm as if to slap her, but Alizon seized her scissors and held them so resolutely in front of her face, her black eyes blazing fire, that Recroche quickly put his hands behind his back and said, “What’s this? A doublet? Are we making doublets here now?”
“Nothing but a repair,” said Alizon, “and it’s done. Monsieur de Siorac, here’s your clothing.”
“What?” cried Recroche, rubbing his vulture’s beak with his index finger. “So you’re doing work for someone else in my atelier? And during time that you owe to me? That’s a felony! It’s entirely against the rules of the guild!”
“Ah, yes! These rules! It was your colleagues and you who wrote them!” sneered Alizon.
“Maître Recroche,” I intervened, “’tis I who asked Alizon to do this repair. And since she did it in your atelier, on your time—”
“Using my thread and my needles,” snarled Recroche.
“And your scissors,” observed Alizon bitterly.
“I’ll pay you for it.”
“That will be two sols,” said Maître Recroche in the most modest tones and lowering his eyes.
“What?” shrieked Alizon, now abuzz like a bee whose hive has been hit. “What! Two sols for two minutes of my work when you pay me three sols, five deniers for an entire day!”
“Silly hen!” cried Maître Recroche with utter scorn. “The price of your labour and the price I demand for my goods are two different things. Without that, where would I get any profit? And this,” he said, seizing my doublet, “is an exquisite repair, executed with the tiniest needlepoints, an example of the very high quality of work done in my atelier.”
“Ah, Maître Recroche,” I laughed through my anger, taking my clothing from him, “say no more, or you’ll end up charging me double for my doublet! Not a word more! Here are your little coins. And thank you so much for the needle and the thread, the stool she sat on and for Alizon’s marvellous work.”
At this Alizon laughed out loud and even Baragran smiled, anxious as he was to remain in his master’s good graces and not to be replaced by a wench worth only three sols, five deniers.
“All right! Back to work!” ordered Recroche, whose humour had softened a bit since my two sols were warming his wallet. “Monsieur de Siorac,” he said, “please don’t believe that everything is about profit in my work. I had to wait three long hours in the antechamber of the Baronne des Tourelles to deliver the bonnets she’d ordered to be sent no later than daybreak. Three hours! While the baronne was asleep! You hear? Asleep! And she is still sleeping, I’ll warrant!”
At this point there came a knock on the door. Coquillon, at a sign from his master, ran to open and an insolent knave of a valet strutted in wearing an amaranth livery with flaps of gold, and sniffed in a very haughty tone, “Is there a Maître Recroche hereabouts?”
“There is!” answered Recroche, as amiable as the iron bands that reinforced his doors.
“My mistress,” said the valet, nose in air, “the Baronne des Tourelles, desires a word with you.”
“She would be most welcome!” replied Recroche curtly; after which, hands behind his back, he pretended to be studying the ceiling, finding this valet, I surmised, to be an insufferable buffoon. For his part, the valet looked at us one after the other as if we were so many piles of excrement by the side of the road, and sniffed as if he were afraid we might infect him with our breathing.
“I shall go,” he said through pursed lips, “and inform my mistress.”
And off he went. If one were to judge the mistress by the servant, one could only see in him a bad augury of what was to come, and I already imagined her with the traits of an angry gorgon. But, oh reader! What a mistake! I didn’t have eyes enough to devour her when she came in, all a-spa
rkle in her pale-green satin gown, copied, as Alizon explained later, from ones that Princesse Margot had worn, which were the most ample petticoats in the entire kingdom, so ample indeed that the ladies who wore them could scarcely fit through a doorway. Above this sumptuous, flared dress, her bodice was laced tightly enough to accentuate and swell her breasts and make them appear so round and large that they seemed almost bare. Above these charms, her long, gracious neck was set off by a large round collar that extended up behind her neck like a lace tail of a peacock. This ornament was studded by pure oriental pearls, set in three rows, encircling her neck. Her hair was braided in coils in which glittering emeralds and golden combs could be seen. It was a marvel that such a structure could maintain its balance on this pretty head.
And what a beautiful sweet face she had! It resembled the face of the Virgin I’d seen in Notre-Dame: a fine, straight nose, a cherry-coloured mouth, eyes blacker than jade. But the Virgin was sculpted in marble, and this face was so lively and animated that you would have said it was that of a sweet baby robin, turning its beak this way and that, hopping from branch to branch.
This beauty was followed by a pretty, strong chambermaid (whom Miroul immediately engaged in a battle of seductive looks) who carried the lady’s purse, her perfume bottle, her handkerchief and her mask; by a little valet carrying a fan; and by a heavy devil of a groom who was dragging at the end of a rope a plank which (as I saw later) he was to place on the sticky pavement outside the door so that his mistress wouldn’t soil her dainty slippers when she got out of her carriage.
I was able to catch a glimpse of one of these dainty shoes under the vertiginous movement of the folds of her gown and saw that it was of a matching green satin with a gold buckle and a very high heel. Thus perched on one end atop her heels and on the other enlarged by three good inches by her majestic coiffure, the Baronne des Tourelles seemed taller than I, and more voluminous as well, but her middle seemed so thin that, in all, she resembled an hourglass.
