Là-bas

by J.-K. Huysmans

  CHAPTER IV

  "How is Gilles de Rais progressing?"

  "I have finished the first part of his life, making just the briefestpossible mention of his virtues and achievements."

  "Which are of no interest," remarked Des Hermies.

  "Evidently, since the name of Gilles de Rais would have perished fourcenturies ago but for the enormities of vice which it symbolizes. I amcoming to the crimes now. The great difficulty, you see, is to explainhow this man, who was a brave captain and a good Christian, all of asudden became a sacrilegious sadist and a coward."

  "Metamorphosed over night, as it were."

  "Worse. As if at a touch of a fairy's wand or of a playwright's pen.That is what mystifies his biographers. Of course untraceable influencesmust have been at work a long time, and there must have been occasionaloutcropping not mentioned in the chronicles. Here is a recapitulation ofour material.

  "Gilles de Rais was born about 1404 on the boundary between Brittany andAnjou, in the chateau de Machecoul. We know nothing of his childhood.His father died about the end of October, 1415, and his mother almostimmediately married a Sieur d'Estouville, abandoning her two sons,Gilles and Rene. They became the wards of their grandfather, Jean deCraon, 'a man old and ancient and of exceeding great age,' as the textssay. He seems to have allowed his two charges to run wild, and then tohave got rid of Gilles by marrying him to Catherine de Thouars, November30, 1420.

  "Gilles is known to have been at the court of the Dauphin five yearslater. His contemporaries represent him as a robust, active man, ofstriking beauty and rare elegance. We have no explicit statement as tothe role he played in this court, but one can easily imagine what sortof treatment the richest baron in France received at the hands of animpoverished king.

  "For at that moment Charles VII was in extremities. He was withoutmoney, prestige, or real authority. Even the cities along the Loirescarcely obeyed him. France, decimated a few years before, by theplague, and further depopulated by massacres, was in a deplorablesituation.

  "England, rising from the sea like the fabled polyp the Kraken, had casther tentacles over Brittany, Normandy, l'Ile de France, part of Picardy,the entire North, the Interior as far as Orleans, and crawling forwardleft in her wake towns squeezed dry and country exhausted.

  "In vain Charles clamoured for subsidies, invented excuses forexactions, and pressed the imposts. The paralyzed cities and fieldsabandoned to the wolves could afford no succour. Remember his very claimto the throne was disputed. He became like a blind man going the roundswith a tin cup begging sous. His court at Chinon was a snarl of intriguecomplicated by an occasional murder. Weary of being hunted, more or lessout of harm's way behind the Loire, Charles and his partisans finallyconsoled themselves by flaunting in the face of inevitable disaster thedevil-may-care debaucheries of the condemned making the most of the fewmoments left them. Forays and loans furnished them with opulent cheerand permitted them to carouse on a grand scale. The eternal _qui-vive_and the misfortunes of war were forgotten in the arms of courtesans.

  "What more could have been expected of a used-up sleepy-headed king, theissue of an infamous mother and a mad father?"

  "Oh, whatever you say about Charles VII pales beside the testimony ofthe portrait of him in the Louvre painted by Foucquet. That bestialface, with the eyes of a small-town ursurer and the sly psalm-singingmouth that butter wouldn't melt in, has often arrested me. Foucquetdepicts a debauched priest who has a bad cold and has been drinking sourwine. Yet you can see that this monarch is of the very same type as themore refined, less salacious, more prudently cruel, more obstinate andcunning Louis XI, his son and successor. Well, Charles VII was the manwho had Jean Sans Peur assassinated, and who abandoned Jeanne d'Arc.What more need be said?"

  "What indeed? Well, Gilles de Rais, who had raised an army at his ownexpense, was certainly welcomed by this court with open arms. There isno doubt that he footed the bills for tournaments and banquets, that hewas vigilantly 'tapped' by the courtiers, and that he lent the kingstaggering sums. But in spite of his popularity he never seems to haveevaded responsibility and wallowed in debauchery, like the king. We findGilles shortly afterward defending Anjou and Maine against the English.The chronicles say that he was 'a good and hardy captain,' but his'goodness' and 'hardiness' did not prevent him from being borne back byforce of numbers. The English armies, uniting, inundated the country,and, pushing on unchecked, invaded the interior. The king was ready toflee to the Mediterranean provinces and let France go, when Jeanne d'Arcappeared.

  "Gilles returned to court and was entrusted by Charles with the 'guardand defence' of the Maid of Orleans. He followed her everywhere, foughtat her side, even under the walls of Paris, and was with her at Rheimsthe day of the coronation, at which time, says Monstrelet, the kingrewarded his valour by naming him Marshal of France, at the age oftwenty-five."

  "Lord!" Des Hermies interrupted, "promotion came rapidly in those times.But I suppose warriors then weren't the bemedalled, time-servingincompetents they are now."

  "Oh, don't be misled. The title of Marshal of France didn't mean somuch in Gilles's time as it did afterward in the reign of Francis I, andnothing like what it has come to mean since Napoleon.

  "What was the conduct of Gilles de Rais toward Jeanne d'Arc? We have nocertain knowledge. M. Vallet de Viriville, without proof, accuses him oftreachery. M. l'abbe Bossard, on the contrary, claims--and allegesplausible reasons for entertaining the opinion--that he was loyal to herand watched over her devotedly.

  "What is certain is that Gilles's soul became saturated with mysticalideas. His whole history proves it.

  "He was constantly in association with this extraordinary maid whoseadventures seemed to attest the possibility of divine intervention inearthly affairs. He witnessed the miracle of a peasant girl dominating acourt of ruffians and bandits and arousing a cowardly king who was onthe point of flight. He witnessed the incredible episode of a virginbringing back to the fold such black rams as La Hire, Xaintrailles,Beaumanoir, Chabannes, Dunois, and Gaucourt, and washing their oldfleeces whiter than snow. Undoubtedly Gilles also, under hershepherding, docilely cropped the white grass of the gospel, tookcommunion the morning of a battle, and revered Jeanne as a saint.

  "He saw the Maid fulfil all her promises. She raised the siege ofOrleans, had the king consecrated at Rheims, and then declared that hermission was accomplished and asked as a boon that she be permitted toreturn home.

  "Now I should say that as a result of such an association Gilles'smysticism began to soar. Henceforth we have to deal with a man who ishalf-freebooter, half-monk. Moreover--"

  "Pardon the interruption, but I am not so sure that Jeanne d'Arc'sintervention was a good thing for France."

  "Why not?"

  "I will explain. You know that the defenders of Charles were for themost part Mediterranean cut-throats, ferocious pillagers, execrated bythe very people they came to protect. The Hundred Years' War, in effect,was a war of the South against the North. England at that epoch had notgot over the Conquest and was Norman in blood, language, and tradition.Suppose Jeanne d'Arc had stayed with her mother and stuck to herknitting. Charles VII would have been dispossessed and the war wouldhave come to an end. The Plantagenets would have reigned over Englandand France, which, in primeval times before the Channel existed, formedone territory occupied by one race, as you know. Thus there would havebeen a single united and powerful kingdom of the North, reaching as faras the province of Languedoc and embracing peoples whose tastes,instincts, and customs were alike. On the other hand, the coronation ofa Valois at Rheims created a heterogeneous and preposterous France,separating homogeneous elements, uniting the most incompatiblenationalities, races the most hostile to each other, and identifyingus--inseparably, alas!--with those stained-skinned, varnished-eyedmunchers of chocolate and raveners of garlic, who are not Frenchmen atall, but Spaniards and Italians. In a word, if it hadn't been for Jeanned'Arc, France would not now belong to that line of histrionic, forensic,per
fidious chatterboxes, the precious Latin race--Devil take it!"

  Durtal raised his eyebrows.

  "My, my," he said, laughing. "Your remarks prove to me that you areinterested in 'our own, our native land.' I should never have suspectedit of you."

  "Of course you wouldn't," said Des Hermies, relighting his cigarette."As has so often been said, 'My own, my native land is wherever I happento feel at home.' Now I don't feel at home except with the people of theNorth. But I interrupted you. Let's get back to the subject. What wereyou saying?"

  "I forget. Oh, yes. I was saying that the Maid had completed her task.Now we are confronted by a question to which there is seemingly noanswer. What did Gilles do when she was captured, how did he feel abouther death? We cannot tell. We know that he was lurking in the vicinityof Rouen at the time of the trial, but it is too much to conclude fromthat, like certain of his biographies, that he was plotting her rescue.

  "At any rate, after losing track of him completely, we find that he hasshut himself in at his castle of Tiffauges.

  "He is no longer the rough soldier, the uncouth fighting-man. At thetime when the misdeeds are about to begin, the artist and man of lettersdevelop in Gilles and, taking complete possession of him, incite him,under the impulsion of a perverted mysticism, to the most sophisticatedof cruelties, the most delicate of crimes.

  "For he was almost alone in his time, this baron de Rais. In an age whenhis peers were simple brutes, he sought the delicate delirium of art,dreamed of a literature soul-searching and profound; he even composed atreatise on the art of evoking demons; he gloried in the music of theChurch, and would have nothing about his that was not rare and difficultto obtain.

  "He was an erudite Latinist, a brilliant conversationalist, a sure andgenerous friend. He possessed a library extraordinary for an epoch whennothing was read but theology and lives of saints. We have thedescription of several of his manuscripts; Suetonius, Valerius Maximus,and an Ovid on parchment bound in red leather, with vermeil clasp andkey.

  "These books were his passion. He carried them with him when hetravelled. He had attached to his household a painter named Thomas whoilluminated them with ornate letters and miniatures, and Gilles himselfpainted the enamels which a specialist--discovered after an assiduoussearch--set in the gold-inwrought bindings. Gilles's taste infurnishings was elevated and bizarre. He revelled in abbatial stuffs,voluptuous silks, in the sombre gilding of old brocade. He likedknowingly spiced foods, ardent wines heavy with aromatics; he dreamed ofunknown gems, weird stones, uncanny metals. He was the Des Esseintes ofthe fifteenth century!

  "All this was very expensive, less so, perhaps, than the luxurious courtwhich made Tiffauges a place like none other.

  "He had a guard of two hundred men, knights, captains, squires, pages,and all these people had personal attendants who were magnificentlyequipped at Gilles's expense. The luxury of his chapel and collegium wasmadly extravagant. There was in residence at Tiffauges a completemetropolitan clergy, deans, vicars, treasurers, canons, clerks, deacons,scholasters, and choir boys. There is an inventory extant of thesurplices, stoles, and amices, and the fur choir hats with crowns ofsquirrel and linings of vair. There are countless sacerdotal ornaments.We find vermilion altar cloths, curtains of emerald silk, a cope ofvelvet, crimson and violet with orpheys of cloth of gold, another ofrose damask, satin dalmatics for the deacons, baldachins figured withhawks and falcons of Cyprus gold. We find plate, hammered chalices andciboria crusted with uncut jewels. There are reliquaries, among them asilver head of Saint Honore. A mass of sparkling jewelleries which anartist, installed in the chateau, cuts to order.

  "And anyone who came along was welcome. From all corners of Francecaravans journeyed toward this chateau where the artist, the poet, thescholar, found princely hospitality, cordial goodfellowship, gifts ofwelcome and largesse at departure.

  "Already undermined by the demands which the war had made on it, hisfortune was giving way beneath these expenditures. Now he began to walkthe terrible ways of usury. He borrowed of the most unscrupulousbourgeois, hypothecated his chateaux, alienated his lands. At times hewas reduced to asking advances on his religious ornaments, on hisjewels, on his books."

  "I am glad to see that the method of ruining oneself in the Middle Agesdid not differ sensibly from that of our days," said Des Hermies."However, our ancestors did not have Monte Carlo, the notaries, and theBourse."

  "And _did_ have sorcery and alchemy. A memorial addressed to the king bythe heirs of Gilles de Rais informs us that this immense fortune wassquandered in less than eight years.

  "Now it's the signories of Confolens, Chabanes, Chateaumorant, Lombert,ceded to a captain for a ridiculous price; now it's the fief of FontaineMilon, of Angers, the fortress of Saint Etienne de Mer Morte acquired byGuillaume Le Ferron for a song; again it's the chateaux of Blaison andof Chemille forfeited to Guillaume de la Jumeliere who never has to paya sou. But look, there's a long list of castellanies and forests, saltmines and farm lands," said Durtal, spreading out a great sheet of paperon which he had copied the account of the purchases and sales.

  "Frightened by his mad course, the family of the Marshal supplicated theking to intervene, and Charles VII,'sure,' as he said, 'of themalgovernance of the Sire de Rais,' forbade him, in grand council, byletters dated 'Amboise, 1436,' to sell or make over any fortress, anychateau, any land.

  "This order simply hastened the ruin of the interdicted. The grandskinflint, the master usurer of the time, Jean V, duke of Brittany,refused to publish the edict in his states, but, underhandedly, notifiedall those of his subjects who dealt with Gilles. No one now dared to buythe Marshal's domains for fear of incurring the wrath of the king, soJean V remained the sole purchaser and fixed the prices. You may judgehow liberal his prices were.

  "That explains Gilles's hatred of his family who had solicited theseletters patent of the king, and why, as long as he lived, he had nothingto do with his wife, nor with his daughter whom he consigned to adungeon at Pouzauges.

  "Now to return to the question which I put a while ago, how and withwhat motives Gilles quitted the court. I think the facts which I haveoutlined will partially explain.

  "It is evident that for quite a while, long before the Marshal retiredto his estates, Charles had been assailed by the complaints of Gilles'swife and other relatives. Moreover, the courtiers must have execratedthe young man on account of his riches and luxuries; and the king, thesame king who abandoned Jeanne d'Arc when he considered that she couldno longer be useful to him, found an occasion to avenge himself onGilles for the favours Gilles had done him. When the king needed moneyto finance his debaucheries or to raise troops he had not considered theMarshal lavish. Now that the Marshal was ruined the king censured himfor his prodigality, held him at arm's length, and spared him noreproach and no menace.

  "We may be sure Gilles had no reason to regret leaving this court, andanother thing is to be taken into consideration. He was doubtless sickand tired of the nomadic existence of a soldier. He was doubtlessimpatient to get back to a pacific atmosphere among books. Moreover, heseems to have been completely dominated by the passion for alchemy, forwhich he was ready to abandon all else. For it is worth noting that thisscience, which threw him into demonomania when he hoped to stave offinevitable ruin with it, he had loved for its own sake when he was rich.It was in fact toward the year 1426, when his coffers bulged with gold,that he attempted the 'great work' for the first time.

  "We shall find him, then, bent over his retorts in the chateau deTiffauges. That is the point to which I have brought my history, and nowI am about to begin on the series of crimes of magic and sadism."

  "But all this," said Des Hermies, "does not explain how, from a man ofpiety, he was suddenly changed into a Satanist, from a placid scholarinto a violator of little children, a 'ripper' of boys and girls."

  "I have already told you that there are no documents to bind togetherthe two parts of this life so strangely divided, but in what I have beennarrating you can p
ick out some of the threads of the duality. To beprecise, this man, as I have just had you observe, was a true mystic. Hewitnessed the most extraordinary events which history has ever shown.Association with Jeanne d'Arc certainly stimulated his desires for thedivine. Now from lofty Mysticism to base Satanism there is but one step.In the Beyond all things touch. He carried his zeal for prayer into theterritory of blasphemy. He was guided and controlled by that troop ofsacrilegious priests, transmuters of metals, and evokers of demons, bywhom he was surrounded at Tiffauges."

  "You think, then, that the Maid of Orleans was really responsible forhis career of evil?"

  "To a certain point. Consider. She roused an impetuous soul, ready foranything, as well for orgies of saintliness as for ecstasies of crime.

  "There was no transition between the two phases of his being. The momentJeanne was dead he fell into the hands of sorcerers who were the mostlearned of scoundrels and the most unscrupulous of scholars. These menwho frequented the chateau de Tiffauges were fervent Latinists,marvellous conversationalists, possessors of forgotten arcana, guardiansof world-old secrets. Gilles was evidently more fitted to live with themthan with men like Dunois and La Hire. These magicians, whom all thebiographers agree to represent--wrongly, I think--as vulgar parasitesand base knaves, were, as I view them, the patricians of intellect ofthe fifteenth century. Not having found places in the Church, where theywould certainly have accepted no position beneath that of cardinal orpope, they could, in those troubled times of ignorance, but take refugein the patronage of a great lord like Gilles. And Gilles was, indeed,the only one at that epoch who was intelligent enough and educatedenough to understand them.

  "To sum up: natural mysticism on one hand, and, on the other, dailyassociation with savants obsessed by Satanism. The sword of Damocleshanging over his head, to be conjured away by the will of the Devil,perhaps. An ardent, a mad curiosity concerning the forbidden sciences.All this explains why, little by little, as the bonds uniting him to theworld of alchemists and sorcerers grow stronger, he throws himself intothe occult and is swept on by it into the most unthinkable crimes.

  "Then as to being a 'ripper' of children--and he didn't immediatelybecome one, no, Gilles did not violate and trucidate little boys untilafter he became convinced of the vanity of alchemy--why, he does notdiffer greatly from the other barons of his times.

  "He exceeds them in the magnitude of his debauches, in opulence ofmurders, and that's all. It's a fact. Read Michelet. You will see thatthe princes of this epoch were redoubtable butchers. There was a sire deGiac who poisoned his wife, put her astride of his horse and rode atbreakneck speed for five leagues, until she died. There was another,whose name I have forgotten, who collared his father, dragged himbarefoot through the snow, and calmly thrust him into a subterraneanprison and left him there until he died. And how many others! I havetried, without success, to find whether in battles and forays theMarshal committed any serious misdeeds. I have discovered nothing,except that he had a pronounced taste for the gibbet; for he liked tostring up all the renegade French whom he surprised in the ranks of theEnglish or in the cities which were not very much devoted to the king.

  "We shall find his taste for this kind of torture manifesting itselflater on in the chateau de Tiffauges.

  "Now, in conclusion, add to all these factors a formidable pride, apride which incites him to say, during his trial, 'So potent was thestar under which I was born that I have done what no one in the worldhas done nor ever can do.'

  "And assuredly, the Marquis de Sade is only a timid bourgeois, amediocre fantasist, beside him!"

  "Since it is difficult to be a saint," said Des Hermies, "there isnothing for it but to be a Satanist. One of the two extremes.'Execration of impotence, hatred of the mediocre,' that, perhaps, is oneof the more indulgent definitions of Diabolism."

  "Perhaps. One can take pride in going as far in crime as a saint invirtue. And that expresses Gilles de Rais exactly."

  "All the same, it's a mean subject to handle."

  "It certainly is, but happily the documents are abundant. Satan wasterrible to the Middle Ages--"

  "And to the modern."

  "What do you mean?"

  That Satanism has come down in a straight, unbroken line from that ageto this."

  "Oh, no; you don't believe that at this very hour the devil is beingevoked and the black mass celebrated?"

  "Yes."

  "You are sure?"

  "Perfectly."

  "You amaze me. But, man! do you know that to witness such things wouldaid me signally in my work? No joking, you believe in a contemporarySatanistic manifestation? You have proofs?"

  "Yes, and of them we shall speak later, for today I am very busy.Tomorrow evening, when we dine with Carhaix. Don't forget. I'll come byfor you. Meanwhile think over the phrase which you applied a moment agoto the magicians: 'If they had entered the Church they would not haveconsented to be anything but cardinals and popes,' and then just thinkwhat kind of a clergy we have nowadays. The explanation of Satanism isthere, in great part, anyway, for without sacrilegious priests there isno mature Satanism."

  "But what do these priests want?"

  "Everything!" exclaimed Des Hermies.

  "Hmmm. Like Gilles de Rais, who asked the demon for 'knowledge, power,riches,' all that humanity covets, to be deeded to him by a title signedwith his own blood."