by Robert Merle
No doubt Quéribus would have found it extremely vulgar to be, like Fogacer, an atheist, for, in truth, he could never have come to the position through study and reflection since, other than Ronsard, he’d read nothing. And yet would a true believer ever have suggested making a bargain, so light-heartedly and in such jest, with Monsieur de Montcalm, to trump hell with his worldly advancement?
Exemplo plus quam ratione vivimus.† Catherine, the true sovereign of the kingdom since the death of her husband, Henri II, appeared to have no religious zeal whatsoever. Niece of a Pope who was so blatantly dishonest that no one believed him even when he spoke the truth, you would have said that this Machiavelli in skirts had developed a disorder that could best be defined as “indifference” and that spread from her to those around her until the entire court was infected with it. Catholicism, the reformed religion—it was all the same to Catherine. To convince the Cardinal de Bourbon to preside over the marriage of Margot and Henri de Navarre, she produced a letter from the papal ambassador that falsely proclaimed that the Holy Father had given his authorization to this marriage “against nature”. It was so widely known that Catherine didn’t care about the heresy of her future son-in-law that the priests and people of Paris hated her for having arranged this “infamous” union, calling her “Jezebel” and throwing all sorts of accusations at her, condemning her to public obloquy. It was not to defend a religion, which she cared about as much as a fish cares about an apple, but by political calculation that, in order to maintain her personal power against that of Coligny, she stumbled, through an unpredictable concatenation of events, from the murder of a man to the most vile massacre in our history. When Navarre was forced to recant his Huguenot faith after the St Bartholomew massacre and went to hear Mass for the first time, Catherine, turning to the foreign ambassadors, laughed out loud, as if the horrible apocalypse that the kingdom had experienced during the night of 23rd–24th August had, in her eyes, merely been a farce, and the conversion of a prince, accomplished by holding a knife to his throat, a cause for unbridled mirth.
My good Quéribus was, thank God, no party to these horrors, but, as a member of this court, he shared its indifference, and thought nothing of Monsieur de Montcalm’s trading of eternal damnation for his appointment as seneschal of Nîmes, which he also considered a joke. Moreover, because of his fortune in belonging to the court, he knew a great deal about many people, including the appetites of Monsieur de Montcalm, whom he’d never seen! Well, I thought, so this is the advantage that accrues to the lords who occupy the Louvre and enjoy proximity to the king. They decry what the common man believes and know what he doesn’t know. And what infinite resources accrue to them through their daily actions, both from this disbelief and this knowledge I leave to your imagination.
My Quéribus was merely an elegant young man, as well as, if one wished to be censorious, vainglorious and chatty, and enjoyed, I believe, an almost infinite degree of luxury. But he had more heart, and was of a much less heady and light-hearted nature than he first appeared, for the letter he’d promised to write to Monsieur de Montcalm, which I assumed was merely an empty promise, a compliment paid in the morning and forgotten by evening, my good baron actually wrote (though he struggled to do it and made copious spelling mistakes) and sent off to the chateau in Barbentane—the effect it had on Monsieur de Montcalm I shall relate later in these memoirs.
Maestro Giacomi’s greeting was less uproarious, but was very touching in its quiet dignity, for he’d been worried about me, having heard from Fogacer that the Baronne des Tourelles had reacted hysterically to the letter I’d sent her, mocking her, and that she sought to hire some assassins to effect her revenge on me. I begged him to cross swords with me, wishing to get some exercise after my trip, and, after our combat, while still breathing hard and sweating from our exertions, he pulled me into a window embrasure and said softly, his eyes watchful:
“My brother, listen carefully. I’ve decided to teach you my secret sword thrust.”
“What?” I gasped, shuddering and barely able to believe my ears. “Your calf strike?” Jarnac’s move? Giacomi, you’d do that for me?”
“My brother,” he said gravely, “I must do so, given the danger you run with these hired assassins, who know everything there is to know about ambushing a man at night and who are as much to be feared as tigers. They won’t engage you in a duel, but will have at you en masse.”
“But I’ll have Miroul with me.”
“There will be only the two of you and, most likely, four or more of them. And that’s how my trick will get you out of trouble. For it works so quickly and so irremediably that in two seconds you’ll have two men on the ground, not dead, but mutilated and screaming in anguish, which will so terrify the others that they’ll flee the scene.”
I looked at Giacomi, unable to find my voice to answer him, my eyes wide, my whole being paralysed in disbelief at the notion that, to protect me, he would share with me this secret of swordplay that he’d inherited from his teacher, that he was the only one in the world to have mastered (other than Jarnac, but Jarnac was now old and infirm) and that he valued more than all the treasures of the Grand Turk. I can well imagine that it was not without much bitter inner debate and out of the deepest friendship that Giacomi had decided to divulge his famous trick. Only after asking me to swear on the Bible never to reveal his secret to anyone and to employ it myself only if my life depended on it in a manifestly unequal combat did Giacomi teach it to me, which he did over the next few days, in a private room protected from the view of any onlookers, which Quéribus offered us in his house in the grand’rue Saint-Honoré. Not even Miroul was allowed to watch.
On 17th August Princesse Margot was officially engaged to Henri de Navarre and the wedding was set for the next day. Quéribus told me that, if I wished, he could arrange for me to be admitted to the platform, erected outside Notre-Dame, where the benediction would be given, Navarre having refused to enter the cathedral to hear the Mass.
“My good friend,” I replied, “might it be possible for me to be accompanied by a noblewoman from Normandy and her chambermaid?”
“What?” laughed Quéribus. “So now you’re the lover of a noblewoman just as you were in Montpellier! You’ve been keeping secrets from me!”
“Not at all! She belongs to my brother Samson and not to me, and while he’s in Montfort, I’m her chaperone.”
“You’re killing me!” cried Quéribus, laughing all the harder. “What kind of a chaperone is this? Good God! I’d have more trust asking a fox to protect my henhouse!”
Dame Gertrude and Zara nearly suffocated me beneath all the kisses, hugs and caresses they bestowed on me when I arrived at their lodgings in the rue Brisemiche to announce the good news. They’d despaired of getting to see the ceremony and were thrilled that they’d be able to see up close the dresses and finery of Margot and the queen mother, as well as all the royal princes and handsome gentlemen that would be attending.
I left them to tend to their preparations and headed off to see Alizon in her lodgings, since the king had decreed that no one should be required to work on the day before the royal wedding, so that they could decorate all the streets and intersections of Paris for the wedding festivities.
Her lodgings, which consisted of one tiny little room, were on the rue Tirechappe, under the roof, which made them exceptionally hot on this August afternoon; the only air came from a small dormer window, next to which my beautiful companion was sitting, her sewing needle working as rapidly as a spider spins her web.
I entered straightaway without knocking, the door being ajar to let some air circulate through the room.
“So Alizon,” I greeted her, bending as I approached her so as not to bang my head on the low ceiling, “you’re sewing! On your day off!”
“Ah, Monsieur,” she replied without getting up, her manner at once busy, agitated and happy, “I have to! I’m making a new petticoat that I want to wear tomorrow for the marriage of Prin
cesse Margot, since the king requested all the inhabitants of Paris to wear their finest clothes to honour his sister!”
“What, Alizon!” I said, a bit piqued that she kept at her task without stopping to give me a kiss, “you’re going to this marriage that you think is so shameful?”
“Well, Monsieur,” she replied without missing a stitch, her tongue as lively as her fingers, “’tis infamous for sure and entirely against nature. It’s truly a union of air and fire—the air of Paradise and the fire of hell.”
“So why attend in that case?” I asked, secretly amused at the notion that Margot could be compared to the air of Paradise since everyone knew about her profligate carryings-on with Guise.
“Blessed Virgin!” cried Alizon. “Do you expect me to sit at home when everyone else is going? A wedding is a wedding! Am I going to miss seeing the most beautiful ceremony of the reign just because the groom is a heretical dog? But Monsieur,” she continued with a sigh, “I’m desperate! Dusk is falling and I have no candle that would allow me to finish before going to bed, I’m so exhausted!”
“What about little Henriot?” I asked, seeing the empty cradle next to her bed.
“My neighbour is looking after him. He’s been so noisy that I can’t keep him in here when I’m working.”
“I’m going to see him,” I said, turning on my heels, disappointed (frankly) that this damned petticoat prevented me from taking her in my arms as I wanted after my three days in Montfort.
Little Henriot was laughing like an angel (which he strongly resembled) so that I didn’t have any trouble finding the right door; nor did I have to knock, since all the doors were open to allow a bit of fresh air to circulate through the rooms.
And what a pretty little fellow he was, so round and pink and, as I said, so jolly! As soon as I laid eyes on him I thought what a marvel it was that in Paris, despite the stench in the air, there could be children as beautiful as the ones at Mespech, since it’s milk and love that make them so—I mean the great love that surrounds them and is a form of nourishment every bit as necessary as the other, one that clearly wasn’t lacking here, from what I could tell, as much from the mother as from the neighbour, who was carrying the child in her arms and who was prattling and humming to him as if he were her own son. I was delighted with this pretty tableau—both the child and the comely and welcoming lass who was caring for him and who didn’t need any introduction, since she already knew who I was and was happy to entrust me with the child while she went off, at my request, to buy two candles, an errand for which I paid her a sol.
I returned to Alizon’s little room with the child in my arms, who neither whimpered nor cried, and was quite happy to let an unknown man carry him around, fascinated as he was by my doublet and the rows of pearls that he tried to grab with his tiny hands.
“Oh, Monsieur,” gasped Alizon, who breathed two deep sighs (but without dropping a stitch), the first an expression of pure joy, the second a mix of joy and sadness, “how happy I am to see little Henriot in your arms. It’s obvious you love children. Whether your Little Sissy bears you a son or a daughter, you’ll be a good father, and she’ll never have to worry about her child, as I do, fearing to fall sick with some disease that would keep me from working for Maître Recroche and at the baths at night. And if my health fails, exhausted as I already am both by the work and by the lack of sleep, what will become of my little Henriot?”
“Alizon,” I said, “I’ve already thought of that.”
Then, with little Henriot in my arms, I went to close the door of the tiny room, and, returning to her side, I whispered so softly that none of her neighbours might hear:
“My sweet, I will always honour you with my friendship, and your little man as well, and want you to stop selling your body at the baths, which I know brings you great shame, not to mention the Italian malady that you might contract there. And so I’m going to give you fifteen écus to pay your nursemaid for a year.”
“What?” she whispered, following my lead. “Fifteen écus!” But she couldn’t say another word because there was a knock at the door, and her neighbour came in carrying the two candles, which Henriot immediately reached for; and when he couldn’t grab them he began to howl to wake the deaf, which made me very glad to hand him back to her, who carried him back to her room with a saucy look at the two of us as I closed the door behind her.
I counted out the fifteen écus into Alizon’s lap, as she sat there open-mouthed and mute (having never seen so much money before in her life), looking at me without breathing a word, almost forgetting the new petticoat she had begun, and which she cared so much about, as if this princely marriage had replaced the one little Henriot’s father had fallaciously promised her.
However, once her treasure was tied up in a sack, and the sack placed in a hole in the wall covered by a brick, I could see that she was torn between finishing her sewing project and the gratitude she would have liked to express to me; but, however much my male instincts were pressing me, I could see that her dressmaking was of so great a consequence to her that our love-making necessarily came second, and so I left her under the pretext that Giacomi was waiting for me outside in the street. As I left, I could see her black eyes fix mine with such a great love that, to this day, I have only to close my eyes to remember that look and to experience her love again with all the emotion I felt at that moment.
I was very surprised as I stepped out into the rue Tirechappe to see so many people out and about, given that it is the Parisians’ wont, as soon as evening falls, to lock themselves in their houses, abandoning the streets to the bad boys of the night. But tonight, they were all occupied in building, by the light of their torches, a wooden triumphal arch, which they were decorating with branches and garlands of flowers, as if the royal procession were going to go by—which surely was not the case, since the procession was to go from the Louvre to Notre-Dame.
“That’s beautiful work and well built!” I observed to a heavyset fellow in his shirtsleeves, all sweaty from nailing the various pieces of wood together. “But isn’t it a lot of work for an arch that will only be standing for a day?”
As I said this, I tried to imitate the lively, clipped speech of the Parisians, since they seem all too ready to suspect anyone from the langue d’oc of being Huguenots.
“Not a bit of it, Monsieur,” replied the fellow in a fairly civil tone. “We’re going to leave it up for a good week, until St Bartholomew’s day, to honour both Princesse Margot and the saint. As for the labour and the expense, they’re shared: the bourgeois of our street pay for the wood and iron and the labourers do the construction.”
As I walked from the rue Tirechappe to the rue de la Ferronnerie, I counted no fewer than three arches that were being built and decorated in the same manner, none of them on the route of the royal procession, but all of them interesting to see, given the numbers of people working on them, their enjoyment of the work, the torches and candles that were shining in all the windows (none of whose shutters had been closed, despite the lateness of the hour), and the way all the people were chatting and calling out to each other from one house to the next, while the wenches and chambermaids were out throwing pails of water into the street to wash away the refuse and mud, a daily cleansing prescribed by royal ordinance but respected only on great occasions like this one—Parisians being by nature the least law-abiding of any citizenry in the world.
When Quéribus arrived to pick me up in his carriage on the morning of 18th August, I was very surprised to see the streets decorated with a large number of large, beautiful tapestries, with brilliant designs and colours, which the nobles and bourgeois had removed from their walls and hung on their balconies—as was their custom, I learnt, when processions were scheduled to pass by their houses. What was curious, however, was that it wasn’t just the streets where the royal procession was to pass that were so decorated, but every street in the capital that housed noble and well-to-do families.
During the night, tri
umphal arches, like the three I’d seen the night before, had sprung up everywhere, and I couldn’t help admiring the marvellous work that had been done so rapidly on these structures, which were not only finely crafted, but also magnificently painted in floral and bucolic designs, and in a style that I’ve never seen anywhere but in Paris, whose inhabitants, for all their ferocity, rebelliousness and insurgencies, seem nevertheless to possess a high degree of artistic sensitivity. Under the bright August sun, which was not yet too intemperate, all of these tapestries, as well as the flowerpots blooming with bright colours on the balconies, the paving stones, which were, for once, freshly washed, and the streets inundated with festive, well-dressed crowds, all contributed to a sense of amazement at the city’s splendour, its beauty and its wealth that I’d never experienced before. “Ah,” I thought, “so this is what makes Paris the envy of all the other nations! Here she is, clean and decked out in her glory the way she ought to be every day!”
We picked up Gertrude du Luc and Zara in the rue Brisemiche, and I don’t need to detail with what alacrity Quéribus was set upon by the beautiful Norman and her chambermaid, who was alluringly clad in one of her mistress’s dresses and looking more like a noblewoman than a servant, so much had she discovered a new sense of refinement from her close contact with her mistress. As for Quéribus, he responded in kind, and in the ensuing combat both sides launched enough darts and arrows from point-blank range to cause irreparable damage to any hearts and bodies who chanced to be in range of their bows. Nor did I escape entirely unscathed, particularly by Zara’s missiles, for, however much she professed to have no taste for men, she certainly enjoyed being the object of their attentions and affections.
