And, without bothering about the messenger, he spurred his horse and returned with his escort to the princess.
At that same moment, the storm, which had been threatening for some time, burst over Bordeaux and rain, together with lightning, fell on the Place de l’Esplanade, as though to wash away the innocent blood.
V
While all this was going on in Bordeaux, while the mob was dragging the body of the unfortunate Canolles through the streets, while the Duke de La Rochefoucauld was returning to flatter the princess’s pride by telling her that in doing evil she was as powerful as a queen, and while Cauvignac, along with Barabbas, was making for the gates of the town, considering that there was no sense in prolonging their stay, a carriage drawn by four breathless horses, streaming with foam, was stopping on the banks of the Garonne opposite Bordeaux, between the villages of Belcroix and La Bastide.
The clocks had just struck eleven.
A courier, following on horseback, jumped down hurriedly as soon as he saw the coach standing motionless and opened the door. A woman quickly got down, looking up at the sky, which was coloured by a blood-red light, and listening to the distant shouts and noises.
‘Are you sure there was no one following us?’ she asked her maid, who was climbing down after her.
‘No, Madame,’ the girl replied. ‘The two grooms who stayed behind at Madame’s orders have just caught up with the coach and saw nothing.’
‘And you? Can’t you hear anything from the direction of the town?’
‘I think I can make out some distant shouts.’
‘Can you see anything?’
‘Something that looks like the glow of a fire.’
‘Those are torches.’
‘Yes, Madame, because they are waving about and running like will-o’ -the-wisps. Do you hear that, Madame? The noise is getting louder, and one can almost hear what they are shouting.’
‘My God!’ the young woman stammered, falling to her knees on the damp ground. ‘My God, my God!’
That was her only prayer. There was a single word in her mind, and her mouth could only utter one word: the name of Him alone who could accomplish a miracle for her.
The maid had not been mistaken. The flames of the torches were waving, and the cries seemed to be getting closer. They could hear a gunshot, followed by fifty more, then a great roar. Then the torches went out, and the shouts faded. The rain began to fall, and a storm was rumbling in the sky. But what did that matter to the young woman? It was not thunder that she feared.
She kept staring at the place where she had heard a great noise. She could no longer see or hear anything. In the flashes of lightning, it seemed to her that the square was empty.
‘I can’t bear to wait any longer,’ she exclaimed. ‘To Bordeaux! Take me to Bordeaux!’
Suddenly, they heard the sound of horses coming towards them.
‘Ah!’ she cried, ‘They are coming at last! Here they are. Farewell, Finette, you can leave. I have to go on alone. Let her mount behind you, Lombard, and leave behind everything I brought with me in the coach.’
‘But what are you going to do, Madame?’ the maid asked in alarm.
‘Farewell, Finette, farewell!’
‘But why are you saying farewell, Madame? Where are you going?’
‘To Bordeaux.’
‘But don’t do that, Madame, for heaven’s sake! They will kill you.’
‘So? Why do you think I want to go there?’
‘Oh, Madame! Lombard, help me! Help me, stop Madame…’
‘Hush, Finette. You go. I have remembered you, don’t worry. I don’t want you to come to any harm. Do as I say… They are coming… Here they are!’
A rider was indeed coming up, followed at a short distance by another. His horse could be heard roaring, rather than breathing.
‘Sister, Sister!’ he shouted. ‘I have got here in time!’
‘Cauvignac!’ Nanon cried. ‘Well, is it agreed? Are they waiting? Let’s go.’
But instead of replying, Cauvignac leapt off his horse and grasped Nanon in his arms. She let him embrace her, with the inertness of a ghost and the rigidity of the insane. Cauvignac placed her in the carriage, told Finette and Lombard to get in beside her, closed the door and got back on his horse. Poor Nanon, who had come back to her senses, was shouting and struggling in vain.
‘Don’t let her go,’ said Cauvignac. ‘Don’t let her go for anything in the world. You, Barabbas, keep an eye on the other door, and, Coachman, if you slow to less than a gallop, I’ll blow your brains out.’
These orders came so fast there was a moment’s hesitation. The carriage took some time to get started, the servants were shivering and the horses unwilling to leave.
‘By all the devils, won’t you hurry up!’ Cauvignac bellowed. ‘They’re coming, they’re coming!’
In the distance, one could start to make out the sound of horses’ hooves echoing, like the rolling of thunder as it approaches, swift and threatening.
Fear is contagious. Hearing Cauvignac’s voice, the coachman realized that some great danger was approaching, and he seized his horses’ reins.
‘Where are we going?’ he stammered.
‘To Bordeaux, to Bordeaux!’ Nanon shouted, from inside the carriage.
‘To Libourne, damnation take it!’ yelled Cauvignac.
‘Monsieur, the horses will drop before they have done two leagues.’
‘I’m not asking them to do as much as that,’ Cauvignac said, whipping them with the blade of his sword. ‘As long as they reach Ferguzon’s camp, that’s all I ask.’
The heavy machine shuddered, set off and advanced with fearful speed. The men and the horses, sweating, panting and bloody, drove one another forward, the first with shouts, the second with neighs.
Nanon tried to fight, to struggle, to leap out of the carriage. But she had exhausted all her strength. She slipped back, powerless, neither hearing nor seeing. Trying to distinguish Cauvignac in the tangled mass of fleeting shadows, she felt dizzy and closed her eyes. She gave a cry and sank, cold and lifeless, into the arms of her chambermaid.
Cauvignac had ridden on ahead of the carriage, overtaking the horses. His own mount struck a trail of sparks from the cobbles.
‘Here, Ferguzon! Here!’ he cried, and heard what sounded like a cheer in the distance. ‘Hell,’ Cauvignac shouted. ‘You’re playing against me, but I think that you’ll lose again today. Ferguzon, help me! Ferguzon!’
Two or three shots rang out behind them, but ahead there was a general volley of fire. The carriage stopped. Two of the horses had dropped from exhaustion, and a third had been struck by a musket ball.
Ferguzon and his men fell upon the troops of the Duke de La Rochefoucauld. As they were three times as many, the men from Bordeaux were unable to fight back and turned about. Victors and vanquished, pursuers and pursued, like a cloud carried on the wind, vanished into the night.
Cauvignac was left alone with the servants and Finette beside Nanon’s unconscious form.
Fortunately, they were only a hundred yards from the village of Carbonblanc. Cauvignac took Nanon in his arms as far as the first house on the outskirts, and there, after giving orders for the carriage to be brought, he put his sister on a bed, and, taking something from his breast which Finette could not make out, he slipped it into the poor woman’s clenched fist.
The next day, waking from what she took to be a frightful dream, Nanon put that same hand to her face and something silky and sweet-smelling caressed her pale lips. It was a lock of Canolles’s hair that Cauvignac had saved, at the risk of his life, from the tigers of Bordeaux.
VI
For eight days and nights Madame de Cambes remained delirious on the bed, where she had been brought, swooning, after she learned the dreadful news.
Her maids attended to her, but it was Pompée who kept guard at the door: only this old servant, kneeling beside the bed of his unfortunate mistress, could light a spark of understanding in
her.
Many people came to visit, but the faithful retainer, keeping as strictly to his duty as an old soldier, bravely refused entry to anyone, firstly out of his own belief that any visit would be unwelcome to his mistress, then on the orders of the doctor, who was afraid of the effects of any strong emotion on Madame de Cambes.
Every morning, Lenet presented himself at the poor young woman’s door, but he was no more allowed entry than anyone else. The princess herself arrived one day with a large retinue after visiting the mother of poor Richon, who was living in a suburb of the town. Madame de Condé’s aim, apart from the concern that she felt for the viscountess, was to demonstrate her total impartiality.
So she arrived, intending to play the queen, but Pompée respectfully informed her that he had clear and formal instructions, and that all men, even dukes and generals, and that all women, even princesses, were subject to these orders – and Madame de Condé more than anyone, since after what had happened, her visit might cause a frightful relapse in the patient.
The princess, who was answering a call of duty (or thought she was) was only too happy to leave and did so, with her train, without needing to be asked twice.
On the ninth day, Claire regained her senses. It was observed that throughout her delirium, which had lasted eight times twenty-four hours, she had not ceased to weep. Although normally fever dries up tears, hers had, as it were, left a furrow beneath her eyelid, which was circled with red and pale blue, like that of the sublime Virgin by Rubens.6
On the ninth day, as we said, at the moment when it was least expected, when they were starting to despair of her reason, she recovered it suddenly and as if by enchantment. Her tears ceased, and her eyes looked all round her, pausing with a sad smile for the women, who had served her so well, and for Pompée, who had guarded her so faithfully. For a few hours, she remained silent, leaning on her elbow and following, dry-eyed, the same thought that constantly returned with increased force to her reawakened mind.
Then, suddenly, without considering whether she was strong enough, she said: ‘Dress me.’
The women came over to her, amazed, and tried to make some suggestions. Pompée came into the room and clasped his hands as though begging her. But the viscountess simply repeated, softly but firmly: ‘I asked you to dress me, so do it.’
The maids began to obey. Pompée bowed and backed out of the room.
Alas, the plump pink cheeks were now as pale and thin as those of a dying woman. Her hand, still lovely and elegant, had a transparency and dull pallor like ivory, as it lay on her breast, whiter than the linen she was wearing. Under her skin ran those violet veins which are a symptom of exhaustion after much suffering. The clothes that she had taken off, as it were, the day before, and which outlined her elegant figure, now fell around her in long, broad folds. They dressed her, as she had asked, but it was a long business, because she was so weak that on three occasions she nearly fainted. Then, when she was dressed, she went over to a window. But starting back, as though the sight of the sky and the town had terrified her, she went and sat at a table, asked for a pen and ink and wrote to the princess, asking her to grant the favour of an audience. Ten minutes after the letter had been sent to the princess by Pompée, they heard the sound of a carriage drawing up in front of the house, and almost immediately afterwards Madame de Tourville was announced.
‘Is it really you who wrote to the princess to ask for an audience?’ she asked the viscountess.
‘Yes, Madame,’ said Claire. ‘Will she refuse?’
‘Oh, no, quite the opposite, dear child. I have hurried here to tell you on her behalf that you do not need an audience, that you can see Her Highness at any hour of the day or night.’
‘Thank you, Madame,’ said the viscountess. ‘I shall take advantage of the offer.’
‘What!’ Madame de Tourville exclaimed. ‘Are you going out in your present state?’
‘Have no fear, Madame,’ the viscountess replied. ‘I am feeling perfectly well.’
‘And when are you coming?’
‘In a moment.’
‘I shall inform Her Highness.’
Madame de Tourville left as she had entered, after making an eleborate curtsey to the viscountess. The news of the unexpected visit, as one may imagine, produced a considerable stir in this little court: the viscountess’s situation had inspired a lively and universal interest, because not everyone by any means approved of the princess’s behaviour in recent events. So curiosity was at its height: officers, ladies-in-waiting and courtiers filled Madame de Condé’s rooms, unable to believe in the coming visit, because only the day before Claire’s state had been reported to be almost desperate.
Suddenly, they announced the Viscountess de Cambes, and Claire appeared.
At the sight of this face, as pale as wax, as cold and fixed as marble, with what seemed like only a single glimmer in her hollow, dark-ringed eyes – the last reflection of the tears she had shed – a murmur of sympathy rose around the princess.
Claire seemed unaware of it.
Lenet came to meet her, very moved, and shyly offered her his hand. But Claire, without giving him hers in return, saluted Madame de Condé with dignity and nobility, then walked towards her along the whole length of the hall, with firm steps, though she was so pale that at every step one might have thought she was about to fall.
The princess, herself very pale and anxious, watched Claire approach with something like terror, and she did not have the strength to disguise this feeling.
‘Madame,’ the viscountess said in a solemn voice, ‘I asked Your Highness for this audience, which she has been good enough to grant me, in order to enquire in the presence of everyone, whether, in the time that I have had the honour to serve you, you have been satisfied with my loyalty and my devotion.’
The princess put a handkerchief to her lips and replied, stammering: ‘Of course I am, dear Viscountess. I have always had occasion to praise you, and I have more than once expressed my gratitude to you.’
‘This acknowledgement is precious to me, Madame,’ the viscountess replied, ‘because it allows me to beg Your Highness to let me go.’
‘What, Claire!’ the princess exclaimed. ‘Are you leaving me?’
Claire bowed respectfully, but said nothing.
On every face there were signs of shame, remorse or grief. A funereal silence hovered around the room.
‘But why are you leaving?’ the princess asked.
‘I have only a short time to live, Madame,’ the viscountess replied. ‘And I should like to use this short time in working towards my salvation.’
‘Claire, dear Claire,’ the princess said. ‘Please consider…’
‘Madame,’ the viscountess interrupted. ‘I have two favours to ask of you. May I hope that you will grant them?’
‘Oh, speak, speak,’ said Madame de Condé. ‘I should be so happy to do something for you.’
‘You can do something, Madame.’
‘So what are the favours?
‘The first is to give me the place of abbess at Sainte-Radegonde, which has been vacant since the death of Madame de Montivy.’
‘You, an abbess, my child! You can’t be thinking of it.’
‘And the second, Madame,’ Claire said, with a slight trembling in her voice, ‘is that I may be permitted to have buried in my estate at Cambes the body of my fiancé, Baron Raoul de Canolles, who was murdered by the inhabitants of Bordeaux.’
The princess turned away, grasping her heart with a trembling hand. The Duke de La Rochefoucauld went pale and lost his composure. Lenet opened the door of the room and ran out.
‘Your Highness does not reply,’ said Claire. ‘Do you refuse? Perhaps I have asked too much.’
Madame de Condé had only the strength to give a nod of assent, before falling back, fainting, into her chair.
Claire turned round with the stiffness of a statue and, as the crowd parted to let her through, marched upright and impassive past the rows
of bending foreheads. It was only when she had left the room that they realized that no one had thought to assist Madame de Condé.
Five minutes later a carriage slowly drove out of the courtyard. It was the viscountess leaving Bordeaux.
‘What has Your Highness decided?’ Madame de Tourville asked Madame de Condé, when she came round.
‘That the two wishes expressed by the Viscountess de Cambes just now should be carried out and that she should be asked to forgive us.’
THE ABBESS OF SAINTE-RADEGONDE DE PESSAC
A month had passed since the events just described.
One Sunday evening, after vespers, the Abbess of the Convent of Sainte-Radegonde de Pessac was the last to return from the church which stood at the far end of the convent garden. From time to time, she would turn her eyes, red with tears, towards a dark clump of limes and fir trees, with an expression of such regret that one might have thought her heart had stayed at that spot and she could not move away from it.
In front of her, in single file along the path to the house, a long line of nuns, silent and veiled, looked like a procession of ghosts returning to their tombs, with another ghost behind them, turning away and still yearning for earth.
Gradually, one by one, the nuns vanished beneath the dark vaults of the cloister. The mother superior watched them until the last one had gone, then slumped down with an indescribable look of despair on the capital of a gothic column, half buried in the grass.
‘Oh, my God, my God!’ she said, putting a hand to her heart. ‘You are my witness that I cannot bear this life. I had no notion of it. It was solitude and obscurity that I sought in the cloister, not all these eyes staring at me.’
She got up and took a step towards the little cluster of firs.
‘After all,’ she said, ‘what do I care for this world, since I have renounced it? The world has done me nothing but harm; society has been cruel towards me. So why should I worry about what the world thinks? I have taken refuge with God and belong only to Him. But perhaps God has forbidden this love which still lives in my heart and devours it. Well, then! Let Him tear it from my soul, or tear my soul from my body.’
The Women's War Page 57