“Just as Melac, the French commander of Landau, did!” I interjected.
“As every true commander will and must do in such situations,” replied Atto gravely. “That also explains why officers must belong to noble and wealthy families: nobility can reach where others cannot.”
It was the second half of August 1703. The resistance of the small garrison was heroic, but the French were gaining the upper hand, thanks to the leadership of the Duke of Bourgogne and above all that of Marshal Vauban, the Sun King’s great military engineer.
“The one who had fortified Landau?”
“The very same. And he had fortified Brisach too, when it was under French control, and knew it like the back of his hands.”
The imperial officers had lost all hope now, but Marsili was unflagging: with his own hands he fixed the artillery pieces, designed mines and barriers and kept all those who still wanted to fight close about him. Dell’Arco summoned a war council; the officers no longer hoped for any relief and decided unanimously to surrender. Only Marsili was determined to preserve their honour. The French must grant his garrison military honours – he thundered in front of the other officers – a drum roll and flying colours. Everyone must know that Brisach had been lost with honour. On 8th September 1703 the imperial troops, exhausted, filthy and bleeding, left their fortress, parading with heads held high, while the French stared in disbelief: was it really this handful of scarecrows that had pinned them down for all these months? Someone whispered to the conquerors that the true soul of these wild men was Marsili, who was just as ragged and weary as all the others, but whose reddened eyes gleamed with the rage of defeat; it was clear that he would have fought on and on, if he had only had the right companions, curse it! Because cowardice, like ignorance, is an offence to the nobility of war.
But the worst was yet to come. Released with the other officers, he rejoined the ranks of the imperials, and at once the war tribunal was convened.
“The war tribunal?” I said in surprise. “Why?”
“Dell’Arco, Marsili and the other officers were indicted for having surrendered.”
“But what else could they have done? They were a tenth the number of the French.”
“Listen.”
Very swiftly, on 15th February, the sentences were issued: Dell’Arco was to be beheaded, Marsili to lose his rank and military honour. Three days later, Dell’Arco was executed at Bregenz, in the public square, like an ordinary criminal. Marsili had his sabre symbolically broken. He survived, but was forever dishonoured. The crowd’s rage, and above all the Margrave of Baden’s desire for revenge, were placated: it was no accident that the other officers had their sentences suspended.
It was then and only then that Marsili – the courageous Marsili, who, after enduring hellish imprisonment on the Turkish field, after being tortured and wounded, after dragging his bleeding body to Bologna, had desired above all else to return and serve his emperor; Marsili, who had never bowed his head before the envy, malice and meanness of his fellow soldiers; Marsili, who had won on the field the esteem and gratitude of the King of the Romans, the future Joseph I; Marsili, the scholar and scientist, the Bolognese nobleman who could talk on easy terms with the common soldiery; he who, every evening, wore his fingers away counting the dead that day, while the other officers drank and laughed and gambled away the money stolen from the garrison’s funds – it was then and only then that Marsili understood: all that had been needed to annihilate him, the man who had kept tens of thousands of French troops in check, was the envy of one man, one on his own side: the Margrave of Baden.
“Oh, military jealousy, what horrors you are capable of!” exclaimed Atto mournfully. “Oh, soldier’s envy, how atrocious your crimes are! Oh, officer’s rancour, how shameful your wicked actions, all craven, all secret, all perfect! How many unwitting combatants have you sent to death by deceit? How many courageous captains have you locked up in military prisons, replacing them with idlers and cowards? How many sergeants have you slaughtered treacherously in the ditches of Lombardy, in the snow of Bavaria, in the cold ford of a Hungarian river, so that you might hang on their rivals’ breasts the medal of infamy? The Margrave of Baden is not the real criminal. It is you, military jealousy, the faceless monster that broke the career and life of Count Luigi Ferdinando Marsili, dishonouring him and turning him into a renegade. You are the monster that kills by shooting in the back, that vilifies the upright, promotes the inept, detains provisions, provides incorrect information about the enemy, sends faulty weapons to the front, denies relief to the besieged, reports lies to headquarters. And so, battle after battle, war after war, you crush the valiant to the ground, devouring their spoils, while you fondly prop up the weak shoulders of the spiteful, the petty and the cowardly: they invoke you and with your aid they seek the ruin of the good.”
Atto fell silent. The old castrato had, of course, never fought, but his voice vibrated with the contempt of one who had understood all the cruelty of war. Questions were already rushing to my lips.
“You said Marsili is a renegade. Why?”
“That’s what they called him, because later he commanded the Pope’s army, even though at the trial of Bregenz he had sworn he would never fight on the same side as the enemies of the Emperor. But the oath had been extorted from him by force: how could it be considered valid? And he said yes to the Pope because he was from Bologna, and therefore a subject of the Pope. The French and the Dutch had offered him a post as general, but he had refused to fight for those enemies that had killed so many of his comrades. Despite this, His Most Christian Majesty invited him to Paris and presented him at court with all honours: ‘Count Marsili, who served the House of Austria for so long and who was so unjustly degraded over the question of Brisach; how grave this injustice is, I know all too well.’ ”
My cheeks had flushed with anger, pity and compassion on hearing Marsili’s absurd and cruel fate. Was that how his loyalty to the Empire was rewarded?
Abbot Melani, meanwhile, was struggling up from our improvised seat. His legs were stiff. I handed him his stick and helped him to his feet.
“But, Signor Atto,” I objected while we resumed our slow stroll, “you attribute to the Most Serene Prince of Savoy the same base passions as the Margrave of Baden. But so far, apart from a forged letter, you haven’t been able to produce anything more than suppositions. Even the coin of Landau, which Eugene held in his hand during the audience with the Agha, well, what does it prove? Nothing. Couldn’t it be that it reminds the Prince of his beloved sovereign’s most beautiful personal victory rather than an affront to his own reputation as a soldier? Everyone knows with what exemplary fidelity Eugene has served the Empire so far. He might be frustrated at having been overshadowed twice at Landau, and at not being able to go and fight in Spain because of Joseph’s opposition, but you must admit it’s very difficult to believe that the Prince of Savoy is conspiring against the life of his sovereign out of military jealousy or from fear that peace will deprive him of his power.”
“It’s not only ancient history that you don’t know, but also the race of those like Eugene.”
“Oh come on now,” I protested, “you referred earlier to this presumed race. Why don’t you speak clearly for once?”
“Oof! I didn’t want to face this question. But since the stakes are so high, may God forgive me . . . It’s only fair that you should know. Besides it is not our fault if Eugene is a . . . how can I put it?” he hesitated.
I stayed silent, waiting for the word.
“A woman-man,” he said at last with a slight sigh, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
“A woman-man?” I said in amazement. “You mean that he too . . . that they’ve cut . . . I mean . . .”
“No, no! What are you thinking of?” exclaimed Atto. “He . . . he loves men!”
His irritation at my misapprehension had finally given the Abbot the gift of clarity. He was telling me that the Most Serene Prince Eugene
of Savoy was a sodomite.
“The minister of war? The most valiant general in the Austrian army?”
“Here in Austria this matter has been kept more or less secret,” he went on, “but in Paris everyone knows it.”
“You’re lying,” I tried to argue back. “Eugene of Savoy may be ambitious, as you say, envious of his Emperor, but not a . . .”
Then I too hesitated. Standing in front of me was Atto Melani, famous castrato. A poor unsexed being, robbed of his virility by the cruel choice of his parents. After his early youth, in which he had been a successful singer, he had undoubtedly known the shame of sodomy, the sorrow of mockery, isolation, loneliness and sadness.
He must have understood my embarrassment at once, and he spared me, going straight on with his explanation.
As Atto had hinted the first time he had spoken of it, Eugene’s youth had been a disaster. He had grown up at the Hôtel de Soissons, the Parisian residence of his paternal family, a splendid building where there was no shortage of comforts, amusements and games. But his parents had left him to vegetate amid governesses and nurses, without providing any upbringing, attention or love. His mother was a famous schemer, obsessed with court intrigues and the power games at Versailles, a suspected poisoner who had eventually been banished from the kingdom on this account. She certainly had no time to waste on little Eugene, the last of her many children. His father was too weak a character to make up for his consort’s errors, and in any case he had died prematurely (she was, indeed, suspected of having poisoned him). The boy grew up under the influence of his older brothers and sisters and other debauched young aristocrats, all arrogant and spoilt, with no guide to teach them any authority or decorum. The children thought they could do anything, and indeed nothing was every forbidden them. Instead of teachers and preceptors, all they had were footmen and butlers. There was no such thing as study: just playthings, toys and games. They knew no limits, no fear of God.
“If the nurses and house tutors dared to remind them that they must not break a certain object, or that a certain game might be dangerous, or that certain words were contrary to the dignity of good families, they were merely derided, mocked, insulted and even spat upon,” said Atto.
After their early years as thoughtless hooligans, Eugene and the young reprobates entered puberty. Everything was transformed; mischief and playfulness were tinged with quite different colours.
“The handsome lads began to lust after the beautiful girls, and the girls to look for their equals,” explained Abbot Melani.
With the same unreasoning wildness of their early years, they now played quite different games. Their bodies no longer thrilled over a stolen toy, a lunge too far with a wooden sword or a foolish prank, but for quite different things. Their mouths, which had till then been used for singing and talking, now also knew how to kiss. Idleness fuelled the flames.
And so, whereas previously the humble servants had tried to prevent the children from coming into contact with each other lest they should get hurt, now, when there was contact, they preferred to turn their backs and leave them to it, because they did not have the right words (and above all the courage) to prevent the little princes and princesses from giving and taking what they wanted.
The games were for two, but also three or four. There was always an audience; the onlookers and participants were always ready to change places. To ensure a greater variety of games, the couplings were free, and knew no limits of gender or of position. The days were long, their energies still wild, and their scruples non-existent.
“Boredom due to excessive wealth often leads down strange paths, and I hardly need go into details. These are things we all know. By hearsay, of course,” clarified Atto, in a grave tone.
When it was cold, they played their games at home. All they required was a curtain, a dark corner, a space under the stairs, and satisfaction was guaranteed for two or more, as the case might be, without standing on ceremony. If there were women, fine. Otherwise they managed without.
“And it’s absurd for the French to call this thing ‘the Italian vice’,” said Abbot Melani, suddenly growing heated. “It’s the same hypocrisy the Italians use when they call syphilis ‘the French sickness’: a stupid attempt to pass off one’s own failings on another. Let us be clear about it: is not France the homeland of that vice? The race of women-men was born there, in the land of Vercingetorix. Do not the French symbolise their homeland with a cock? Well then, I say, what creature better reflects the foolish, overblown arrogance of the French sodomites?”
He had turned indignant, had Abbot Melani, against France and its inverts: he, a naturalised Frenchman and an invert by castration (but I well knew that a woman had been, and was still, the love of his whole life). It was as if in old age Atto suddenly detested all that had been precious to him throughout his life: the kingdom of Louis XIV, who had made him rich and influential, and his castration, which had opened to him the doors of opera and the great world (Atto had been born the son of a poor bell-ringer). The greatest slanderers of sodomites, I thought, are the sodomites themselves, who know their innermost nature better than anyone.
At that point he began to reel off the golden book of the pansies of France, as if he had been waiting for this opportunity for years:
“Everyone knows about Henry III of Valois. But we also know every detail of Louis XIII, father of His Most Christian Majesty. Gaston d’Orléans, His Majesty’s uncle, had the same vice. Monsieur, His Majesty’s brother, was a collector of mignons, or of little boys.”
I was speechless. Grandfathers, uncles, brothers: the Most Christian King of France, according to Atto, was surrounded by perverts.
He went on to list a series of characters; all, he claimed, well known in France: the Gran Condé, the Cavalier of Lorraine, Guiche, d’Effiat, Manicamp, Châtillon . . . And many relatives of Eugene: his elder brother Philippe, his two cousins Ludovique and Philippe Vendôme, the Prince of Turenne and the young François Louis de la Roche-sur-Yon, recited Atto, leaving me free to imagine that sodomy went hand in hand with incest.
All those noble names were forever engaged in an obscene ballet of ephebic and virile love affairs, in defiance of nature, religion and decency. They were mad nights, those of the Parisian debauchers, sleepless nights scented with the oils they rubbed all over their bodies before lying down together, nights spent choosing this or that feminine garment, trying on skirts, bracelets and earrings in front of the mirror . . .
“ ‘The Italian vice’ they call it!” he repeated, as if this were what most enraged him. “In what Italian court will you find such foul frenzies? Indeed, in what European court? In England there have been just two cases, both well known: Edward II Plantagenet and William III of Orange, who was Dutch. But the former descended directly from the beautiful and depraved Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the latter’s maternal grandmother was Henriette of France, sister of Louis XIII. Exceptions, therefore, in which French blood prevailed. But at the court of France, when you try to draw up a list of the depraved, you always end up losing count. Madame Palatina was right when she said that nowadays the only ones who love women are men of the lowest ranks! And there is no point in making subtle distinctions, as the Parisians do, between the effeminate and the sodomites. In mud, water and earth become a single thing.”
While Atto inveighed in this fashion, I found myself reeling from shock after shock: even William of Orange, the condottiero whose feats I had learned of during my first adventure with Atto, almost three decades earlier, had belonged to the race of women-men!
In Paris, about forty years earlier, his story proceeded, the Cavalier of Lorraine, a well-known sodomite, and his worthy friends Tallard and Biran had founded nothing less than a secret sect of unnatural love. The members vowed never to touch women again – not even their wives, if they were married. The new initiates agreed to be “visited” by the four Grand Masters who ruled over the confraternity, and they swore an oath of secrecy about both the sect and its �
��rituals”.
The coterie was so successful that it attracted new candidates almost daily, even of illustrious name. For example the Count of Vermandois, illegitimate son of Louis XIV and of Madame La Vallière, who had the privilege of choosing which of the four Grand Masters would “visit” him.
“The other three took it badly, because Vermandois was really very good-looking,” said Atto with a touch of embarrassment in his voice, which betrayed the involuntary preferences cultivated by the young castrato many years earlier.
While Atto talked, I gradually saw more deeply into his innermost self. And I perceived the relief with which the Abbot was living the last stage of his life: decrepitude. He was now finally free from the effects of the mutilation that had precluded him from enjoying the love of women. Extreme old age, which extinguishes all carnal fire, had buried all traces of effeminacy amid the castrato’s wrinkles, just as it had sapped the virility of his contemporaries. Even the white lead of his face, the carmine and the moles on his cheeks were not as exaggerated as in former days; the Abbot applied them now as did all gentlemen. And he was no longer bedecked with tassels or red and yellow ribbons: Melani always wore dark clothes, as befitted an elderly man.
At the ripe age of eighty-five, in short, Atto was a little old man just like so many others. And he was savouring the pleasure of finally railing against the woman-man he had once been.
“So you say that the father, uncle, brother and a son of His Majesty the King of France are notorious inverts . . .” I said, almost incredulous.
Veritas (Atto Melani) Page 50