by Maude Julien
The best position from which to wage this battle would obviously be as Pope. Unfortunately, I could never have any claim to the role because apparently every future Holy Father has to undergo a trial in which a bishop reaches a hand under the aspirant’s robes, feels his testicles and announces loudly in Latin, ‘He has testicles, they are indeed there.’
I may not be able to be Pope but I could become the President of the French Republic. There’s something even better, though: ‘Kings come and go, presidents come and go, but others remain, the Cardinal Mazarins, the Richelieus and the Madame de Pompadours, who are the true wielders of power.’ My father tells me that these éminences grises who run the world from behind the scenes are Initiates given specific missions by other Initiates. Madame de Pompadour, a highly cultured woman, gave her support to the Count of Saint-Germain, working alongside him to raise everyone’s level of awareness, in order to allow primal energies to circulate. By doing this, they contributed to the advent of the Enlightenment movement, while also facilitating the process of reincarnation of the Beings of Light. Unlike Madame de Pompadour, Mazarin and Richelieu sadly failed: lured by wealth and power, they used their energies ‘in the wrong direction’ and died of horrible diseases.
Besides Madame de Pompadour, I can draw inspiration from other examples of strong women, such as Joséphine de Beauharnais, a superhuman who was originally at Napoleon’s side to guide him. But when success went to his head, he lost touch with Joséphine’s beneficial influence, which is what eventually led to his deservedly pitiful demise. In a different mould, Charlotte Corday, who assassinated the radical Jacobin Marat, was an admirable woman who acted for the good of France and not on a whim, as is often claimed.
Joan of Arc, on the other hand, was only a half-Initiate, lacking knowledge, and that is why she allowed herself to be led astray into idiotic religious devotion instead of lending her support to the Beings of Light. If Joan of Arc had been better educated she could have helped lead the world away from the path of darkness. All the same, the Beings of Light didn’t hold that against her: they saved her from being burned at the stake with the help of the Knights Templar and Bishop Cauchon, who is incorrectly depicted as her persecutor. The true story has been obscured, as it often is. Very few people know that Joan went on to marry and live out her days peacefully.
My father has a real passion for one exceptional heroine: Blandina, whose purity pacified the lions that were released to maul her in the arena, although she was then martyred by the Romans. Sadly, she too lacked teachings. If she had had the words to rally the crowds when those lions lay subjugated at her feet, she could have had the Emperor killed, and overthrown the empire… Of course, manipulating a crowd is an extremely difficult art: ‘You have to act quickly because if you wait too long, the sheep won’t move. And when you succeed in mobilizing them you have to get out of harm’s way immediately because they always turn on the powerful and trample them underfoot.’
I emerge from these sessions groggy and dejected. I can see that my father expects me to bring lions to heel, like Blandina, and hold forth in front of troops, like Joan of Arc, and to do it all with the class and subtlety of Madame de Pompadour…How will I ever manage such feats? Worst of all, I’m betraying my father by nurturing a secret longing for an ordinary life.
Ravaillac
Once my father has made up his mind what new outbuildings we are to construct in the grounds over the coming summer—a workshop, an aviary, among other projects—he must reach a decision about where they should be built, which he does with the help of a pendulum. He sits in state on his wooden crate and instructs us to walk around the garden until we reach a spot that inspires him. Then he takes out the pendulum, which he keeps on a velvet cushion in a green case, and dangles it at the end of its string. My mother and I have to stand motionless behind him while the pendulum circles for ages. Finally, my father shakes his head and puts it away. Then the whole performance is repeated for as many times as it takes to find the perfect site.
My father did not consult the pendulum when he decided to build the gymnasium directly over Arthur’s grave. This man who has endless theories about the hereafter, about energies, the planets, can’t come up with a single explanation for this choice. It’s as if he wishes Arthur never existed, as if he wants the creature I loved most in the world to sink into oblivion.
My father is still keen for me to be a potential recruit for a circus. Until the gymnasium is completed I have to do my somersault training in the dining room, and go onto the verandah to practise walking on my hands, handstands and the splits. I have no idea how to do any of these things. Neither do my parents, but they stubbornly continue to instruct me: ‘Put your hands on the ground, swing your legs towards the wall and stay like that.’ As physical contact is still strictly forbidden, neither of them helps me by holding my legs. Only after countless attempts and dozens of falls do I just about manage to do a headstand.
With somersaults, though, even after months of attempts, I can’t get my legs to ‘flip over’. My father is infuriated by my repeated failures, and my mother says accusingly, ‘If you can’t do it, it’s because you don’t want to. It’s a question of willpower.’ I keep hurting myself by falling flat on my back. My career in the circus is anything but promising.
My father also wants me to shake off my ridiculous fear of rats. From time to time he comes with me when I go to collect the duck eggs. He stands outside while I go into their shelter, where I often come face to face with a big muskrat ready to attack. I mustn’t scream or run away; if I do I risk having to spend the night locked in the duck shed.
Muskrats swarm all around the duck pond. I often spot them swimming through the black water. Sometimes when I do something cowardly I have to go and swim in that pond. Luckily this punishment is rare. I think my mother intervenes because she’s the one who would have to fish me out if I got into trouble in the water.
Far from abating, my terror of rats has actually become a full-fledged obsession. My mother and I are responsible for cleaning the zinc gutters on all the outbuildings in the grounds. We put a long ladder up against the wall and take turns going up to clear the rotten leaves that are blocking the drainpipes. One time when I scooped up a disgusting pile of vegetation, I felt something strange. I looked at the bundle in my hands and realized I was holding a dead rat with one of its eyes dangling out of the socket. My legs gave way and I fell, scraping myself badly on the rungs of the ladder. After that, I blacked out completely.
Ever since then, my father need only say, ‘Today you’ll go and clean the gutters’ for me to start feeling nauseous. Meanwhile my mother climbs up blithely and balances at the top of the ladder without holding on to anything. I get vertigo just from watching her.
When a wave of terror washes over me, I experience the physical sensation of my limbs being pulled until they are ripped off, as if I were being subjected to the torture of quartering that my father describes in the story of Ravaillac’s death. He tells me that after Ravaillac’s limbs were ripped off by four horses, he was left on the ground, to die in agony—it took more than a day. My father opens a book and shows me a terrifying illustration with the caption ‘The torture of Ravaillac’. As he talks, I become Ravaillac: no glimmer of hope, my limbs ripped off. It’s all over and my only prospect is protracted agony before a gloating crowd.
I’m so paralyzed with fear that I listen only distractedly to the rest. My father claims Ravaillac was the victim of a plot. He did not in fact kill King Henri IV, who was actually killed by one of his own companions who was travelling in the carriage with him. I must get used to the idea that innocence is no protection from an excruciating and unjust death. ‘That’s true human nature for you, that’s what the outside world can do to us, even—or particularly—if we’re innocent. Our will and mental strength alone can protect us.’
The quartering feeling that takes hold of me on that ladder is terrible, so much so that my body gradually learns to keep going l
ike a soldier under fire, or rather like an automaton. The life drains out of me, everything is extinguished, inside me there’s no life. Once the task is finished I feel none of the relief or pride or satisfaction of a job well done. There is just my deserted body. Only hours later do my senses start to reemerge, but it’s a difficult process, as if the life seeping back one drop at a time has been sapped forever of its strength.
I use the same technique to survive the ‘meditations on death’, which still take place about once a month. The cellars have undergone major building work, but any hope that they would be better is dashed. The new flooring unfortunately only amplifies the sound of the rats scurrying.
In spite of everything, I force myself to concentrate on the Beings of Light who are meant to appear to me in the darkness. I’m a little frightened of meeting my grandmother’s spirit, which is often present in the house: my father says she visits him in his bedroom at night. The dead know everything, and I’m afraid she’ll tell him that instead of carrying out the exercises he expects of me, I’m completely preoccupied by my fear, obsessed by the sound of the rats, and long for only one thing: the light bulb to come on again.
The Brick Wall
In the dangerous world into which my mission will someday take me, I will have to remember the protection that is my birthright as the daughter of a Grand Master of Freemasonry and a great knight of a secret order. If I’m kidnapped or find myself facing a firing squad, there’s no need to panic. I just have to remember: to cross my hands, turn them upwards above my head and cry, ‘Oh Lord, is there no help for the widow’s child!’ Help will come. Someone from the firing squad will halt the process and save me. Or a farm labourer working in the fields nearby will draw his weapon and come and set me free. Any ordinary passer-by could turn out to be a Freemason and will do whatever is necessary to help me.
I myself have to carry out a series of preparatory exercises, such as concentrating on my hands in order to make them slimmer and slimmer until they can slip out of handcuffs. Or focusing on the metal of the handcuffs or hemp of the ropes in order to ‘move’ them. I’m also taught that if I close my eyes I can leave my body to listen to what’s being said in the next room. These lessons are still only theory at this stage, because at my age there’s a risk that a stronger or more experienced entity could take over my body while I’m ‘away’, and I would not then be able to return. I have to practise imagining a silver thread connecting me to my bodily vessel so I can find my way back. I must wait until I’m twenty-one, the age of initiation, before embarking on my actual training.
Although I don’t really believe there’s a danger I’ll end up facing a firing squad, the idea of leaving my body makes me break out in a cold sweat. My father hammers into me that fear is the ‘indulgence of the weak’. But however hard I try, I am terrified all the time.
For some time now my father has made much of his powers of psychic insight. He can get inside the head of whomever he wants whenever he wants. He doesn’t even need to be physically present because he can move about without being seen. I have to understand that I can never hide anything from him: ‘I am everywhere. I see everything. Whatever you do, I know about it. Whatever you go on to do, I’ll know.’ I don’t know why he is so insistent. Does he think I am hiding ideas, hatching unholy plans?
Sometimes when I lie in bed at night I feel overwhelmingly sad. I cradle my pillow and imagine someone consoling me affectionately. I say the words I’d like to hear, ‘Don’t cry, my child. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. We love you, you know. You’re not as bad as you think, you’ll come to learn.’ But they are soon drowned out by a reprimanding voice: ‘Go ahead! Feel sorry for yourself…What a drama queen!’
It’s as if someone has flicked a switch: I have an irrepressible urge; I have to punish myself right away. I start by digging my nails into my thighs. But this isn’t punishment enough. I bite savagely into my upper arm, knowing no one will see the marks. I drive my teeth deeper and deeper into my flesh and keep my jaws clamped down for longer and longer.
Night after night I inflict abuse on myself, even drawing blood. It’s strangely calming. I know the pain will stop whenever I want. I was the one who decided when it should start; I will be the one to decide when it stops. However much it hurts, I draw some comfort from the idea that I’m in control.
I can’t take it anymore, I can’t put up with this suffering I neither understand nor know when it will end. But when I gradually release my clamped teeth, the loathing and contempt I feel for myself fade correspondingly. The storm of insults raging inside my head eventually abates too and I can finally fall sleep.
I try confusedly to find a way of blocking my father’s intolerable intrusions into my thoughts. If he can get inside my head at will, the animals I love are in danger too. If I let Linda out slightly earlier than usual, I have to make sure my father can’t ‘read’ this in my mind because he would take it out on her and I couldn’t bear that. So I try to keep my mind blank. I force myself to wipe away any thoughts, or rather not to think of anything, to remain ‘absent of thoughts’. As I open the door to her kennel, I keep saying, ‘Absent of thoughts, absent of thoughts…’ Similarly, when I hide Bibiche—a stray cat who has just had kittens in the garden—I create a sort of blackout inside my head. If my father can find their hideout by delving through my mind, I’m sure he’ll take his shotgun and kill Bibiche and her litter.
At times I build a brick wall at the entrance of my head and take shelter behind it to think. The idea came to me when I was helping Albert and Rémi with construction work. I’ve often watched them build walls and now I know how to do it. You have to concentrate hard and keep an eye on lots of little details: the consistency of the mortar must not be too soft or too dry; there can’t be too much or too little on the trowel; the brick must be positioned the right way when you tamp it down; each new layer of bricks has to be level…And before you know it, you have a wall in front of you and you can’t see beyond it! In my mind’s eye I construct one as I’ve seen it done: I scoop up some mortar with a trowel, take a red brick and nestle it into place, then more mortar, another brick…I set up a whole row of bricks, then move on to the next and so on. The work goes quickly because my mind builds walls at lightning speed. I just have to think ‘brick wall’ and there it is in a matter of seconds.
I build my brick wall every now and then, particularly when I want to do something in secret. If my father were to come across the wall he would think he’d bumped into my stupidity. He often tells me that labourers forced to carry out repetitive tasks—like tightening nuts and bolts or working in a production line—end up as morons. That is indeed the best way to dumb down the masses: make them do the same thing over and over, let them have their fireworks every Bastille Day and let them gorge themselves every New Year’s Eve. When the body repeats the same action, the mind adopts it and keeps the repetition going day and night, stopping all thought processes. So I persuade myself that, if my father sees my brick wall, he’ll think I’ve been ‘contaminated’ by my construction work with Albert and Rémi.
My mother is also obsessed with the idea that I hide my thoughts and dress them up in lies. ‘If you lie,’ she warns me, ‘I’ll know straightaway because your father will be dead in the morning.’ This threat sets my mind racing. Although I sometimes picture myself living happy and free without my parents, I’m terrified at the thought of my father dying and leaving me alone in this sinister world. Anyway, I don’t see how or what I could lie about, given how closely I’m monitored. But my mother hounds me so much about the paramount importance of total transparency that a diabolical idea eventually pops into the back of my mind: what if I tried a little lie, really small, a tiny lie, just to see what happens?
I have to say that since the incident with the tiger rug I’ve had my suspicions. If my father knows everything and sees everything, how come he walked over that tiger rug morning and evening for a week without noticing we had moved it? How come he didn’t
realize we came within an inch of destroying his sacrosanct bronze Athena?
After much hesitation, I test out a very minor lie relating to a secondary ‘rule’ concerning toilet paper. When I go pee I’m allowed to use only one square. This itself is a ‘favour’ I’m granted because in the past women used no paper at all. ‘You didn’t use more than you’re allowed, did you?’ My mother often asks and I say no. ‘Do you swear you didn’t?’ she adds. So one day I decide to use two squares of toilet paper.
Everything goes fine until bedtime…then in the night I’m plagued by nightmares. I see a firing squad but it’s not me up against the wall, it’s Linda or Bibiche—they have to pay for my crimes. Or when I go to wake my father I find him dead. So everything he said is true! I wonder anxiously how he’ll be reincarnated. I’m terrified he’ll want to be reincarnated into me, expelling me from my own body and taking it over. I finally wake with a start because in the dream, when I open my mouth to speak, it’s my father’s voice that comes out.
When I go to knock on his door the next morning, I’m full of dread. Eventually I hear ‘Come in.’ He’s not dead, then. He’s not even sick. I don’t know whether I’m relieved or distressed. Over the next few days I come up with other little lies: I slightly change the itinerary of my early morning walk but claim I’ve obeyed the instructions; I make small alterations to my solfège exercises; or when I walk past the statue of Athena I spit out ‘I hate you’ or ‘You’re ugly’, even though I’m supposed to worship her.