The Cellars of Notre Dame

by Barbara Frale

  The queen jumped to her feet and began walking around the room without even noticing the cold, so tense was she. “My husband is a ceremonious man as regards certain things,” he added in a vibrant voice, “and love requires its time. But of course, I can’t know how his passions may mount when desire overcomes him like a rabid dog.”

  “Joan, think! Your husband is a scrupulously religious man, he would never go to fornicate in a sacred place. The thought alone would seem blasphemous to him. If he really does meet the Countess of Artois to do certain things, then it must happen elsewhere – somewhere that is more comfortable and more discreet. But if I may be honest, I doubt that they are lovers. This clandestine meeting you tell me of has all the hallmarks of something political.”

  Joan’s eyes blazed.

  “A political affair? To what end?”

  “I don’t know, child. Perhaps your husband seeks Matilda’s help to silence some slander that the bishop of Pamiers is putting into circulation. Saisset is in jail, but the rumours circulate, and calumny can prove even sharper than a sword.”

  Struck by her aged nurse’s words, the queen sat down next to her.

  “To what are you referring, Donna Gilla?”

  The old nurse hesitated, uncertain whether to speak or not, and decided that her shoulders were not broad enough to run the risk of saying certain things openly; but she could still give the queen one piece of good advice.

  “Listen to me, Joan. There are hidden aspects to this awful story of Monsignor Saisset that is splitting the country in two that have nothing to do with the autonomy of the fiefs. aspects, which should not be taken lightly. You know your husband never had much respect for his father. They called him Philip the Bold, but only to tease him: the only bold thing about him was the way he rode a horse. But the affection your husband holds for the memory of his grandfather Louis IX is a different matter altogether. He does everything possible to show the world that he is exactly like him, even physically. There must be a reason!”

  “What are you trying to tell me?”

  Embarrassed, the elderly lady tried to choose her words carefully so as to convey a clear message to the queen within the limits she must scrupulously observe.

  “Remember the Bible, Joan: the sins of the fathers fall on the children. I fear your husband must pay for a sin committed by his father. It was a very serious sin, and when the deceased king stained himself with it, the terror that God would devastate the kingdom to punish him fell over all of France. Powerful barons asked the king to abdicate the throne before his madness ruined them all. Philip the Bold succeeded in calming the rumours, but in exchange he was forced to pay a terrible price in blood.”

  “A price in blood? Stop speaking in riddles!”

  “I love you like a daughter, Joan, but I cannot speak. Do you think my status at court is so unassailable that my life would be spared if the king discovered I uttered offensive words about his father?”

  “So Philip III was so dishonoured that he almost had to abdicate?”

  “Yes, child. He was irremediably immersed in shame. But the question was so intimate and private that you certainly won’t find even the vaguest mention of it in the pages of the annals of France. There is only one way for you to get to the truth: you will have to talk to Queen Marie of Brabant. As hateful as she is, she is the widow of Philip III. If anyone knows everything about that man’s intimate life, it can only be her.”

  III

  The hall of the castle to which Marie of Brabante had retired to private life – or rather, where she was informally confined to a regime of polite house arrest by order of her step-son Philip IV – was furnished in line with the style of her native land. For the prevailing taste in Paris it was arid, Nordic and devoid of affectation; an environment with an atmosphere as glacial and unfriendly as the person who lived in it.

  It had cost Joan a lot of courage to resolve to take that repellent step, but she was counting on obtaining some results, and if she succeeded, the sacrifice would have been worth it. If the origin of her husband’s inconfessable worry did lie in the folds of the past, if Philip IV had indeed hated Monsignor Saisset for those scandalous insinuations about his illegitimate birth, perhaps all was not lost. Marie of Brabant, the widow of Philip III, had had two children with him: Louis, Prince of Évreux, and Princess Margaret of France, now the wife of the English sovereign. Joan did not expect a confession, from her – she would certainly never go so far as to admit that she had to make do to show the world that she was not sterile – but rather the opposite, that in short she would defend the virility of her deceased spouse to the death, even if only to ward off the suspicion of adultery. That in itself would be enough. With that hope in her heart, Joan had agreed to drink the bitter cup and go to see her.

  Seated at the loom, Philip III’s elderly widow was embroidering a decorated tapestry which showed the tearful story of Tristan and Isolde; she cast her a fleeting glance, even though the servants had obviously announced the visit of such an important person with immense deference. Joan now occupied the place on the throne that one day had been hers, but bad blood had always run between them.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you, Joan?” she said without so much as taking her eyes off the work. “What brings you to this remote little country fort?”

  Joan of Navarre took a deep breath; a natural gesture for someone preparing for confrontation.

  “There’s something I need to know, Marie. And you can help me. I hope you will be loyal to France by telling me the truth.”

  Strange, this attitude of the queen. Unusual, peremptory but underlain by a layer of worry. Marie of Brabant noticed it, but waited for Joan to speak.

  “Some people have suggested to me that my husband’s anger against the bishop of Pamiers does not have political roots,” she said. “They say there is something else. Monsignor Saisset has a poisonous tongue, and makes grave personal accusations against the king.”

  Marie from Brabant sneered with amusement. “I have heard about his verbal intemperance,” she admitted, in a tone that was as caustic as it was allusive. “Let us also say that the good bishop wanted to twist the knife in the wound.”

  “And is it true?” Joan said. “Did Queen Isabella of Aragon have to turn to another man in order to conceive?”

  Marie of Brabant’s face assumed a theatrically exaggerated expression of shock.

  “How could I know certain things?” said Joan of Navarra, glaring at her.

  “You are the only one who can answer this question, in truth. Was King Philip III… I mean, did he suffer from impotence?”

  It had cost her a lot to say certain words, but the warnings of the wet-nurse, her tense expression and her nebulous words had pushed her towards this conjecture which, if it was true, would clarify a great many things. First of all: her husband’s obsession with wanting to prove that he was the nephew of Saint Louis IX. To descend from the holy king, Philip IV must necessarily have been the fruit of the loins of his son, Philip the Bold.

  But the old queen was silent as, with irritation, she unravelled thread from a spindle. She meditated carefully on what to reply before she eventually turned her eyes on Joan.

  “No,” she replied confidently. Too confidently, perhaps. “On the contrary, my husband was so exuberant in a lover that he even enjoyed the luxury of illicit relationships. Like yours, for that matter. Like father Like Son!”

  Joan put back in place a strand of hair that had escaped from her veil. Despite the cold, her forehead was damp with sweat. She sensed in Marie of Brabant’s words a vein of dull rancour – of bitterness and raw shame. She attributed it to the woman’s desire to hurt her.

  “We’re not talking about my husband,” she objected uncertainly. Marie of Brabant gave her a treacherous smile. “I pity you, Joan. I too had to cry the tears of a betrayed wife, but at least I didn’t feel inferior to the woman who stole into my husband’s bed. Good grief, she wasn’t as beautiful as your rival!
”

  Joan felt her blood freeze, but she couldn’t let her guard down. Marie had no intention of letting slip details of her husband’s manly qualities – in fact, seemed anxious to divert the conversation to another topic, about which she hinted to know a great deal. Curiosity is a woman, as they say. And Joan, unfortunately, fell into the trap.

  “Thank you for your frankness, Madame,” she snapped. “Since you have raised the matter, I would ask you to be more explicit. Are you suggesting that my husband’s lover is the Countess of Artois?”

  Joan had tried hard to keep her cool and to face the painful question without compromising her royal dignity; despite the praiseworthy effort, though, her proud Spanish lip now trembled with anxiety. Philip III’s elderly widow noticed and the pleasure it sparked in her heart elicited a vague smile, tinged with cruelty. It was all too obvious – she wanted to get a word, a sign, out of her that would confirm her fears. And she must be desperate if she was willing to humiliate herself like this.

  “Joan, what manner of question is that to ask me! Do you really think I am so reckless as to answer you?”

  The queen was deeply irritated. She should have turned on her heel and marched out, because the conversation had moved very far from the subject she had come to investigate; but, unfortunately, the lure had been thrown and the fish had taken the bait.

  “Marie, I appeal to your conscience,” she urged. “My husband was consecrated. He cannot do what he wants, he is not a man like other men. If he commits adultery, the wrath of God will fall not only upon him, it will fall upon the people as well. You are his stepmother, you have the duty to instruct him to behave irreproachably.”

  Marie of Brabant stretched the silk thread and cut it with her teeth which, despite her advanced age, were still strong and sharp, then gave her a scornful look.

  “You know that my stepson and I have never enjoyed a close relationship,” she said. “I cannot question him on such private matters. Why don’t you ask Matilda instead?”

  “She would never tell me the truth,” the sovereign murmured. “You know all about it, and you must intervene to prevent harm befalling the country. Matilda is your niece, and there has always been intimacy between you. At the time, you tried to force your husband to have her married to Philip. Or do you want to deny it?”

  “Why should I deny it?” Marie answered. “Matilda would have been a perfect queen, because he has the blood of the finest nobility – her family descends from Charlemagne. And she was perfect for the young heir to the throne. They loved each other. They have always loved each other. And then you turned up. The little queen of Navarre, a tiny village lost in the Pyrenees who had run away with her mother to Paris to avoid being killed in a revolt. You got in the way, you took advantage of the fact that old Queen Margaret of Provence was so fond of you. ‘ chirped the elderly queen, mimicking her mother-in-law’s voice. “She imposed it upon my husband, who didn’t have a modicum of character and he ended up lowering his breeches in front of his mother. You won in the end. And poor Philip, who dreamed of that ethereal French blonde, found himself in bed with a red-haired Spaniard. One with a face covered in freckles to boot!”

  Offended, Joan stiffened and stood straight.

  “That is not at all the way things went.”

  There was courage and haughtiness in her voice, but her eyes betrayed unease. Unfortunately she had to admit at least to herself that the king of France’s stepmother was not entirely wrong. Joan remembered well the day she learned of the engagement – it was imprinted in her memory like the brand of burning iron on the skin of public sinners. Her cousin Prince Philip, the prince of her dreams, as strong as a rock and as beautiful as a god, had formally committed himself to marrying Matilda, daughter of the extremely rich count of Artois. And who wouldn’t have wanted to, if it came to that? Beautiful, intelligent, refined. Not to mention that she brought to the anaemic Crown a remarkable patrimony, since the count was willing to pay out a fortune to find himself one day the father-in-law of His Majesty the king of France. For Joan it had been like feeling a lance penetrate her chest. For three days she had neither eaten nor drunk a drop of water, and had lain on the bed sobbing desperately. And they’d all been there, consoling her and racking their brains about what the possible reason for her sadness could be. Only Margaret of Provence had realized, and she had realized immediately, because she knew the girl well. She had grown fond of her, and Joan called her a grandmother, even though she was her great aunt: she liked to slip into the bed of the old widow to hear from her the story of when St. Louis left on his final crusade. Margaret had understood immediately, but she didn’t know what to say or how to help her. Then an idea came to her: was money not the key to everything? So she had confronted her son Philip III, who knew nothing about accounting and even less about women, and had pointed out to him that Matilda was not the only palatable candidate for the heir of France; there was little Joan with her big black eyes, who had the merit of already being a queen and of bequeathing her husband another kingdom, albeit a small one. The money the Count of Artois was offering for his daughter Matilda was a tidy sum, but he could get more; besides being queen of Navarre, Joan was also a countess of Champagne and Brie, the richest region in Europe, and made mind-boggling amounts of money from its fairs, which attracted hordes of merchants from all over Europe. Never mind a dowry, you’d be raking it in there four times a year! Joan had been the best choice, in every respect, thus she had prevailed.

  In that moment, Prince Philip was walking hand in hand – for those betrothed were permitted to do so – through the royal gardens with Matilda, enjoying the aromas of ripe fruit, sharing their dreams and talking of how to make France greater and stronger than ever. They were interrupted to be told the news. At first, the prince did not understand – what they were telling him was so incongruous that he could not make sense of it. It was a reaction that the Chamberlain had anticipated; he repeated the concept and offered the prince a glass of wine, because he thought that drinking something strong would be of help to young Philip .

  The boy had remained as silent as a mute, holding that chalice, which was a fragile masterpiece of Venetian artistry and drinking slowly. He did not protest. He did not say a word. But when he reopened his hand, the Chamberlain noticed that the prince had shattered the glass, squeezing it with desperate force, and that several shards of glass stuck out his bloody flesh. Even after all these years, the scars were still there to remind him of the solemn defeat that had guided his destiny.

  Marie of Brabant knew that at that moment Joan was experiencing the agony of memory, and smiled at her, even though her eyes were full of murderous animosity.

  “You are a bad woman, Marie,” said the hurt queen. “The truth is that you have always hated your stepson. Some even say that you tried to kill him to have your own son Luigi put on the throne.”

  Marie of Brabant stood up abruptly.

  “You killed him, Joan!” she snapped. “You devastated his life when you put yourself between him and the woman he loved. What do you expect now? Did you think marriage would change things? Did you think you would bewitch him between the sheets?”

  “We have had children,” the queen defended herself, her eyes shining with tears. “My husband has given me repeated proof that he doesn’t disdain my bed!”

  “So I see,” said Marie, with poisonous sarcasm. “In fact you ask me to confirm that Matilda is his lover. But at the end of the day, you can feel lucky, Joan. Sovereigns have many concubines, they come and go like ships in the night. Your husband, though, is satisfied with only one!!”

  It was too much, even for a character as resolute as Joan’s. She spun on her heel and left without saying goodbye, slamming the door loudly behind her.

  IV

  The door opened silently. As discreet as usual, Alphonse de la Cerda carefully pushed open the monumental door of rare woods that gave access to the king’s room. Philip IV stood at the window, contemplating the city that lay
at his feet. Twilight gilded the slate roofs and rendered the Seine as bright as a river of fire.

  “Sire,” Castilian greeted him. The king glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, and that was enough to realize that he was not coming to bring good tidings.

  “News from Italy?”

  Castilian handed him a letter that had just arrived with the diplomatic correspondence. It was a secret missive and therefore did not contain the names of either the sender or the recipient, or indeed any particular greetings or epithets which might reveal the identity of the two interlocutors. In any case, Philip IV immediately realized that the writer was Cardinal Lemoine, whom he had previously asked to act in the most total reserve and to do everything in his power to ensure that the Catalan took the road to France, willingly or otherwise. The trusted Lemoine had once served Philip III, so he was aware of what troubled his heart as well as what the king of France actually wanted from Arnaldo; it was possible to give orders to this faithful veteran of French diplomacy using brief intimations and without the embarrassment of having to openly speak of any of the squalid vicissitudes of the past.

  The letter read thus:

  The matter which interests you has been put in good hands, I think. The person dealing with it is the nephew of the master of the house, and even though he is very young, he seems to me a careful and alert youth. Above all, he knows about medicine; when I learned this detail, I decided he was the right person for the task, because he will be able to discern if your acquaintance the old man will wish to collaborate and provide you with the right remedy, or will rather attempt an imposture. I threw the name of Pier de la Brosse in there, as though by chance, and a little later also that of Marie of Brabant; the boy is too young to grasp my allusion, but something in his temperament tells me he will find the key to the problem.

  Naturally, my lips remained sealed as regards the secret, as my heart is sealed with loyalty to your person. I thought it appropriate to address the boy to Father Egidio Colonna, who is a man worthy of the utmost consideration and who will not fail to communicate what he must, but using the words most appropriate to steer the young man towards achieving his goal and, at the same time, protecting your honour.