The Angel Asrael

by S. Henry Berthoud

  “That’s a worthy, a praiseworthy and a pious design!” exclaimed Liétard, trembling with joy and rubbing his hands. “We receive with gratitude the gift that you’re making us. On the epitaph that will be place in the choir of the cathedral when you are no more—for you shall be buried in the crypt of our church—it will be engraved that you consecrated your wealth to the re-edification of the dwelling of your bishop, persecuted by heretics. Our provost, Messire Nicolas de Chiêvre, who yields nothing to any rubricator for writing, will draw up the deed immediately.”

  “But in the name of our holy patron,” the provost asked, anxiously, “what can have inspired you to such a grave resolution. I saw you two days ago; you appeared disposed to live as a good Christian, as you have done to this day, but not to deprive yourself and your family of all patrimony.”

  During this speech by Nicolas the bishop darted angry glances at him, and sought to impose silence on him.

  “It’s the soul of my brother, which appeared to me yesterday at Vespers in the church of the Carmelites.”

  “You saw your brother’s soul yesterday?” asked the bishop, signing himself. “Requiescat in pace! May Heaven preserve me from such visions!” With the interest that an old woman takes in a tale told to frighten and amuse her, he added: “You saw him? Really saw?”

  “Alas, it’s not the first time, Monseigneur. If you’ll permit, I’ll tell you the story of my brother’s misfortunes and his incomprehensible adventures...”

  “I’d like that; never in my life have I heard tell of such a marvelous story as the one you describe, Master Delavigne. But before then, let’s kneel down and recite, devoutly, a de profundis for the dead.”

  All three knelt down, and when they got up again:

  “You’ll recall that on the day of the dead last year, the episcopal manor was besieged by the late Monseigneur Gérard de Saint-Aubert...”

  “Holy Virgin! Yes, I remember! If I were tempted to forget, the ruins of the church and my own palace, and the large sums that it has cost me to rebuild them would enable me to remember only to bitterly! Without the prudence of Messire de Chiêvre—for we were not at Cambrai in those days of desolation—and without the miraculous protection of the benevolent Archangel Saint Michael, it would have been the end of our treasures forever. For Maufilâtre scarcely respected the sacred vases and holy vessels any more than if they belonged to the most wretched Jew.”

  “Monseigneur Gérard had quit the manor of Saint-Aubert scarcely an hour before in order to surprise the Episcopal manor when the cadaver of my sister-in-law Gertrude was found in the moat of the tower. You have heard tell that a soldier had seen her unfortunate husband, my brother Amalric, fall the previous night, and that the dead man’s soul came the following day to give Monseigneur the fatal advice to attack the manor. We have discovered since that Dame Gertrude had committed the sin of adultery with Monseigneur Gérard...”

  “You see? I recognize him well in that, the joyous companion, the most brazen friend I ever encountered in my life!”

  “Doubtless the unfortunate Amalric, who returned to Saint-Aubert without being expected there, discovered the infidelity of his culpable spouse, and, in despair, precipitated himself into the tower moat. Now, it was the feast of the dead, and you know that the body of whomsoever perished violently on that day can only remain peacefully in his bier after being avenged on the person who has caused his death.

  “On the news of the fatal accident that had happened to her lady of the bedchamber, Madame Ermangarde experienced such horrible convulsions that the physician declared that she only had an hour to live. I mounted a horse immediately and ran in all haste to inform Monseigneur of that terrible news.

  “When I succeeded in reaching him, he was approaching Cambrai, and my brother had only just joined him, which surprised me greatly, for he had left the château only a few minutes after Monseigneur—and yet he had galloped all along the route, for his horse was bathed in sweat.

  “After having acquitted my sad duty toward my master, who scarcely appeared to care and continued to hasten his men-at-arms, I approached my brother, not knowing what precaution to take in order to announce the terrible death of his wife.

  “‘Gertrude…Gertrude…!’ The sobs cut off my voice, and I could only proffer that name.

  “‘Well?’ he said, fixing his immobile eyes upon me, and without moving is blanched lips.’

  “‘Her cadaver had been found in the tower moat.’

  “He started to laugh—to laugh at such news! I hastened to draw away, for his laughter was frightful, as the Devil’s must be.

  “My heart horribly constricted, for I could see only too well, alas, that it was not my brother but a revenant that was there, I accosted Monseigneur in order to take my leave of him and to enquire as to what orders he had to give me for Saint-Aubert.

  “‘None,’ he said to me. ‘Come with me to Cambrai; I have need of you. You’ll know for what reason in a little while.’

  “Night had fallen in the meantime.

  “When we arrived under the walls of the bishopric, the greatest silence reigned around us. Ladders were set up; men filled the ditch and got ready to assault the defenseless manor, all of whose inhabitants were asleep...

  “You know the rest. A terrible discharge of arrows and stones crushed the besiegers and an ambush of two hundred men-at-arms hidden nearby came to attack them from the rear. No carnage was ever as prompt or as frightful.

  “For myself, I was wandering in the dark, in the midst of stones and arrows that were whistling all around. I was leading a fresh horse in order to give it to Monseigneur Gérard, for nothing remained to him but to take flight. Alas, I found him mortally wounded, calling loudly for a priest. After having bandaged his large wound as best I could I was about to set off to find a priest I had seen a few paces away, confessing the wounded, when a glacial hand endowed with a supernatural force seized me and stopped me. It was my brother’s soul! This time, there was no doubt about it. No living man ever had such a visage and such a gaze.

  “‘A priest!’ he said. ‘A priest! You, Gérard? No. You’re damned. Your father’s murderer, your wife’s torturer, Gertrude’s seducer, you’ll be damned, damned for all eternity.’

  “At the same moment, the hand that retained me let go. An enormous stone had just broken Monseigneur’s head, and my brother’s soul disappeared.

  “Yesterday evening, after having heard the office for the dead at the episcopal church, I was passing the convent of the Carmelites. I had the idea of going there to make a station in the chapel, which was deserted. I had scarcely recited half of a de profundis, than I saw a phantom coming directly toward me. He was waving his arms despairingly and utterly inarticulate groans, Oh, Holy Virgin, it was my brother Amalric! I saw him as I see you. My strength abandoned me...

  “When I recovered consciousness, the church was deserted again.

  “On returning home, to which I retired with great difficulty, everyone was frightened by my pallor and my agitation. My distress was so great that I could not say a word about my frightful adventure; it was necessary to put me to bed incontinently. Fever shook my limbs in such a fashion as to render me an object of pity for the most hardened.

  “After a long sleepless night of delirium, I became drowsy at daybreak approached.

  “Suddenly, an icy hand weighed upon my breast; it was stifling me; I wanted to cry out, to struggle, but I could not utter a word or make a movement. My brother’s soul was there again.

  “‘Pray for me, pray for me, from matins until vespers. I am burning in the fires of purgatory. Save my soul! It requires more de profundis to redeem it than there are souls in Hell.’

  “No mouth pronounced those words, and yet I heard them very distinctly, three different times. After that, the hand was removed from my breast and I fell into a profound sleep, until midday.

  “When I awoke, I assembled my family and I set about telling them what had happened to me since the prev
ious evening. Then, Monseigneur, all of a common accord, we resolve to consecrate the rest of our lives to redeeming my brother’s soul from purgatory. I told you just now in what place each of us desires to be cloistered.

  “Of the wealth I have acquired I shall make three parts. One will serve to reestablish the church of Our Lady, the second to endow the hospital of Saint Julien where I count in ending my days in the service of the sick, and with the third I shall redeem the toll established at the Porte de Selles. Each traveler will no longer have to give either an obol or a measure of oats, provided that he recites a de profundis with the intention of my late brother, Amalric Delavigne.”

  “Those are strange adventures,” said Nicolas de Chiêvre, with a pensive expression.

  “Yes, very strange adventures,” continued Liétard. “But you have taken a sage and holy resolution, Master Delavigne. We approve of it greatly, and it only remains for us to execute it rapidly.

  “We will take responsibility for redeeming from Sire Fulcard the toll at the Porte de Selles, which Madame Hildeberge his wife gave him as a dowry. In our consideration and in favor of your pious motive, he will give us a good price.

  “Now, Messire Nicolas, go draw up the deed of donation of all his wealth that that Master Delavigne is making to the church of Our Lady and the hospital of Saint Julien. Put there: Perturbatores precipitentur in infernum cum Dathan et Abiron; conservatores aeternae beatiuidinis gadio donentur. Add that he will report to our wisdom for the division.”

  “Such a determination,” hazarded the provost, “requires to be ripened sagely for a few days.”

  “Holy Virgin! When Heaven has spoken, to want to prevent obedience of its orders! Go, Messire Nicolas, obey promptly what we command, or fear incurring our disgrace.”

  The provost obeyed, although with evident reluctance, Master Wirembault Delavigne signed at the bottom of the parchment, which was sealed with the great seal of the cathedral church.

  “Master,” said Liétard, when all was concluded, “Tomorrow you will be received among the religious hospitalers of Saint Julien. As for the rest of your will, it will be observed like that of a father on his deathbed. We will do more; we will join our prayers with yours for the repose of the soul of Gilles-Amalric Delavigne, squire while alive. Tomorrow, a solemn office will be celebrated with his intention.

  “Now, receive our benediction and go in peace, full of confidence in the Lord’s mercy.”

  The following morning, Liétard was still sleeping profoundly and calmly when someone came to tell him that the superior of the Carmelites was asking insistently to speak to him without delay. After a few bitter complaints on the prelate’s part regarding the fatigues of his ministry, the monk was introduced.

  “Monseigneur,” he said, after kneeling down to receive Liétard’s benediction, I came about a year ago to consult you relative to the request of a stranger to make a rich gift to our convent, provided that he was admitted as a novice without enquiring as to his name.”

  “Well? I gave you permission, as I remember.”

  “That man exercised the cruelest austerities on his body; he spent the night moaning, never quitting his cilice, and rent himself with atrocious mortification. To judge by the rigor of his penitence, he must have committed very great sins.

  “This morning he was found dying in the choir of the chapel. I tried to encourage him in his final moments; nothing could calm his remorse. He rendered his last sigh despairing of God’s mercy, accusing himself of the murder of his wife and the damnation of Seigneur Gérard Saint-Aubert...”

  At those words, Liétard raised himself precipitately into a sitting position.

  “Under pain of mortal sin, Brother Superior,” he exclaimed, troubled by an emotion that was not customary to him, “yes, under pain or mortal sin, I forbid you ever to say a word about all this, particularly to the provost of our church, Master Nicolas de Chiêvre. Think hard, Brother Superior, under pain of mortal sin!

  “Now go; have the dead man buried immediately, with a hood pulled down over his face. That is for the greatest mark of humility. Pray, you and your monks, that he rest in peace. The Lord’s mercy is infinite.

  “The extent of the repentance testified by the novice will doubtless find him mercy before God. The assistance of our episcopal prayers will aid him as much as their feeble merit can. Requiescat in pace, my brother!”

  “Amen,” responded the Carmelite, and he went away.

  THE COOK’S SON7

  1219

  Rien ne m’est plus, plus ne m’est rien.

  (The motto of Valentine of Milan.)8

  In 1205, in the month of March, under the episcopacy of Monseigneur Jean de Béthune of Hainaut, the king of the guild, or brotherhood, of mulquiniers, rendered up his soul.9

  After long negotiations and endless discussions, for among the merchants and dressers of batiste thread there was more than one rich bourgeois desirous of a similar dignity, they elected for the dead man’s successor Master Eustache Dinault, who was a good companion, of sage advice and jovial humor.

  You will understand, moreover, what celebrations followed, and for more than seven weeks.

  First of all, the king of the mulquiniers, in honor of the three holy persons of the trinity, fed for three days in succession, in three different places, all the members of the guild, not to mention his relatives, his allies, his friends and his acquaintances. Thus the statutes of the guilds required.

  On the other hand, and as custom made it a duty for them, the richest members of the guild took it to heart to entertain in an appropriate manner, and each in his turn, the man who had been elected as the head of their brotherhood.

  Nothing is as impossible, in my view, as to determine how much was expended in the purchase of victuals, nor the number of wine-casks, which as the jovial expression of the making of mulquiniers put it, “lost their soul” on that occasion.

  It is better to write quite simply that the mulquiniers placed themselves side by side at table at the hour of vespers and departed at dead of night, and only when the bell in the tower chimed the curfew; and everyone moaned “Already!” when the clear, slow sound began to ring.

  It was at a similar hour, and a few days after the festival of Easter, that one of the most honorable members of the corporation of mulquiniers, Master Bartholomé Le Baudain bid farewell to his guests.

  There was no longer anyone in the great banqueting hall but him and two very different individuals; one was the canon Nicolas Watremetz; the second an individual clad in a multicolored doublet covered in little bells, whose silvery tinkle sounded at the slightest movement. For the time being, it was necessary to hasten the canon’s servants, who were striving to saddle their master’s mule, which they were not able to do very quickly, because they had clinked glasses with such fervor in honor of Master Eustache Dinault that their hands had difficulty knotting the girth-straps.

  Seeing that, Master Le Bauduin enjoined the man with the bells, whose name was Nicolas Parigault and who was the sot-seuris or court jester of the guild of mulquiniers, to accompany Messire the canon as far as his lodgings, or the Episcopal manor. He also recommended him, many times over, to walk in front of the canon’s mule, torch in hand—a necessary precaution for arriving without encumbrance on the far side of the “accursed warren” that was located half-way along the route.

  The area known by the name was the assemblage of the Rue des Juifs, the crossroads of the Coup-Oreille and the Ruelle des Belottes, places haunted by miscreants, thieves and prostitutes. The executioner’s dwelling, with its scaffold and gibbet, stood in that place of ill-repute, like a perpetual and salubrious reminder of the chastisement reserved for people of such evil species.

  Master Le Baudain had a house on the most elevated part of the Mont-des-Boeufs, next to the church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The journey to the Episcopal manor becoming, in consequence, long in duration, the sot-seuris thought it his duty, on the way, to cheer up the rich canon, a favorite
of Monseigneur the Bishop, who would assuredly not fail to remunerate him appropriately for his joviality and quips.

  To that end, the jester set about imitating, grotesquely, the drunkenness of varlets and telling ludicrous stories. The worthy canon uttered busts of laughter, and, put in a good humor by that encouragement, the man with the bells redoubled the jokes and mocked the entire company of Messire Watremetz to excess.

  “Brother,” he said, passing his arm beneath that of a stout varlet who could hardly stand up so often had he raised his elbow during the evening, “worthy and gallant friend, you do well to cross yourself in that fashion at the noises and clamors coming from the accursed warren. Cross yourself again, for God help us, the Devil comes in person to hold a sabbat in the region we are traversing. He has for society the hanged men that he unhooks from the gibbet and the Jews, those miscreants whose greatest feast is the flesh of a Christian child. I get gooseflesh just thinking about it.

  “By Saint Touch-me-Not, can you hear? What black figures are stirring over there in the shadows? One can hear nothing more now, one can see nothing more. Don’t believe that the debauchees have taken flight at the sight of us; I tell you, my brother, we have well and truly seen pale revenants, infernal devils, and, God preserve us, perhaps worse things still.”

  While he was making mock in this fashion, to the great pleasure of the canon, the sot-seuris, stumbling unexpectedly, fell face down on the ground and uttered a cry of distress. This time, it was not feigned, but a plaint in good faith: can you imagine that two hairy hands were running through his hair, and that sharp teeth were biting his face and ears?

  “Messire Canon,” he cried, piteously, Messire Canon, I am, as a punishment for my heretical mockeries, at grips with the infernal Devil!”