The Angel Asrael

by S. Henry Berthoud

  He was still speaking when soldiers seized him and bound his arms.

  “By Saint Hubert!” said their leader; “this is a good prize that will be worth a big reward. You heard him. One, two, four, six, ten witnesses: he’s sold himself to the Devil on condition that he would kill this poor cantor. God be praised! We were there to catch a poacher, and it’s a sorcerer we’re bringing back.

  “It’s necessary to leave the cadaver here; it’s up to the bailiff to collect it; we simple forest wardens don’t have the right. Let’s go, comrades, let’s take this man to Messire the Lord Provost, who’s at the château now among the King’s retinue.”

  They set forth on the march, and the crowd that Henriot’s arrest had gathered recoiled precipitately and opened a wide path, so fearful were people of touching even the garment of a scoundrel sold to the Devil.”

  A few moments later the bailiff came to have the corpse taken away. There was no longer anything there. He crossed himself, trembling; as did, the hirelings and the peasants who were accompanying him—for who could doubt that the Devil had taken away the cadaver, in order that no evidence should remain against the sorcerer?

  An hour later, the Lord Provost judged the poor young man; firstly, that was to attest to his activity and his zeal; secondly, he encountered sorcerers to burn too rarely for him not to put some urgency into the matter.

  The people who had been unable to get into the hall of the tribunal were gathered outside the door, conversing between themselves about the strange event, whose denouement they were awaiting impatiently.

  A short, fat, red-faced man clad in black approached one of the groups and enquired as to the reasons for such a gathering.

  “A sorcerer!”

  “A man who has given himself to the Devil!”

  “He’ll be hanged!”

  “He’ll be burned!”

  The exclamations came from all directions.

  A tall peasant, who surpassed the little man by at least a head, started recounting the affair at length. His listener was no less attentive; he interrupted incessantly to ask some ludicrous question, laughed in everyone’s faced in the most unceremonious fashion, and then, plating himself without listening to the end of the interminable story, and shoved his elbows to the right and left with the intention of penetrating into the tribunal.

  That project nearly proved unfortunate for the little man, however. His discourteous interruptions and bursts of laughter had offended many people; the discontent increased further on seeing the casual fashion in which he was bumping into everyone. But the indignation peaked, and cries and threats rose up from everywhere when he took a pretty young girl by the chin, and kissed her gaily on the lips.

  He might perhaps have received a few solid slaps in recompense, if two pages who happened to be standing on the threshold of the tribunal had not perceived him in the middle of the crowd.

  “Hey! What are you doing there?” they demanded of him. “By God! Make room bumpkins! Back, rabble, or it will cost more than one of you a rib or a backbone! Come in, Master François Rabelais.”

  In the left wing of the Château d’Anet was an apartment from whose windows one discovered a delightful view. The hangings and the furniture were of an extreme richness, laden with the monograms of Diane de Poitiers and Henri II. Everywhere, the needle had embroidered, everywhere, the brush had reproduced the silver crescent of the duchesse and the golden fleurs-de-lis of the monarch.

  There, sprawled on velvet cushions, completely naked, was a woman. Her slim figure, the admirable contours of a voluptuous breast, the whiteness of her skin, the regularity of her teeth, and above all hr long black way hair, could only belong to the beautiful Duchesse de Valentinois; it was, in fact, Diane.

  It was that celebrated woman, whose supernatural beauty seemed to have been spared by time, and who conserved at the age of forty-seven the freshness and seductive forms of adolescence; she was “the incomparable Phoebe” in memory of whom Brantôme ecstasizes in his Dames galantes: “Six months before her death, I saw her still so beautiful that I know of no heart of stone that would not have been moved by her… Her beauty, her grace and her beautiful appearance were all similar to what they had always been.”

  The King’s old sculptor, Jean Goujon, dressed as people were in the time of François I, was placidly modeling the beautiful creature who was offering herself to his gaze without the slightest veil. He could have been working from a bronze statue and would not have struck his chisel with a more impassive calm.

  “Now then,” growled the sculptor, in a surly tone, “if Your Majesty does not put an end to her transports, I shall be forced to leave my statue imperfect, for these continual movements are rendering my work impossible.”

  The King, accustomed to the old artist’s abruptness, smiled and replied: “I believe he’s complaining! The man who can contemplate at his ease the most marvelous beauty on earth, and acquire an everlasting renown by reproducing such attractions in marble! Besides which, Master Goujon, your statue is too advanced for you to leave it there; you’d lose too much entitlement to glory and effort.”

  In fact, the beautiful production of statuary was almost complete. Goujon, in giving Diane all the emblems of the hunt, had represented her, in order to satisfy the King, in the state of nature that custom attributes preferentially to Venus. Moreover, there was nothing antique and very little of the ideal in the stature; the features, the coiffure and the proportions offered as exact an image as possible of the Duchesse de Valentinois.

  The sculptor, forgetting his discontentment, had picked up the chisel that he had thrown away, and the King had sat down in his armchair again, when the door opened abruptly and Rabelais hurtled into the room.

  Diane uttered a scream, and enveloped herself in haste, as best she could, in the kind’s mantle. A sudden blush spread over her face, all the way to a breast imperfectly veiled by the short mantle.

  Undisconcerted, Rabelais seized an end of the mantle, and Jean Goujon was forced to release the importunate, every movement of whom uncovered one of Diane’s charms. As for the King, against whom the Duchesse was pressing, he could not help the sculptor in any way to throw Rabelais out.

  “Sire, by the bottrine, I swear that I won’t let go of this mantle until I’ve obtained mercy for a poor devil who has just been condemned to be burned by the Lord Provost.”

  As he finished speaking he tugged the mantle gently.

  “Grant him that,” demanded the Duchesse, half-annoyed and doing her best to hide herself, but still rather ineffectively, from Rabelais’ brazen gaze.

  “It shall be as you desire, beautiful friend…but you get out, boor.”

  “I need one more mercy,” Master François continued, evidently taking pleasure in gazing at the attractive Diane in her voluptuous accoutrement.

  “What mercy? Speak…”

  “Mine, Sire.”

  “You have that too... Get out, then!”

  “Here, sign: that’s all that’s necessary…good…and now your seal....”

  Rabelais finally withdrew.

  About two hours later, a page came to tell him that he had been summoned by the King. The historian of Pantagruel obeyed immediately, and the page led him into a vast room where the entire court was united, arranged in a semicircle.

  In the center of that semicircle, next to Diane, the King was sitting, the physiognomy of whom, rendered even more striking by a black beard, displayed an expression of melancholy and harshness.

  On seeing the indiscreet individual who had surprised her in such a singular situation a little while before, the Duchesse lowered her head and veiled her face with her fan of plumes.

  “Your ladies-in-waiting have done what they can to spoil nature,” Rabelais said in a low voice, “you were much better adorned this morning.”

  The Duchesse did not reply, but through the fan of plumes, Rabelais’ piercing gaze seemed to perceive a smile and a gaze that did not express too much anger.

&nb
sp; The King ordered Rabelais to explain the reasons for which he had taken such a keen interest in the wretch for whom he had requested mercy that morning. The Curé of Meudon commenced immediately, without having to be begged.

  “The fever of thirst—thirst for wine, I mean—started burning my throat yesterday at vespers. ‘Quick and soon my remedy!’ I exclaimed: ‘sudden goblets to fill and bottles to clink.’

  “Now, when the good evil arrived, I had with me Grégoire Bonneau, cantor of the royal chapel. Since then, I have fallen into the suspicion that I, François Rabelais, might well have caught the fever of thirst from him, for it torments the poor man night and day.

  “Whether the contagious fever came from him or me, I care little; let anyone make of it what they will: I only know that both of us began to shiver with it. Pressing evil, prompt remedy! There we were, both shouting as loudly as we could: ‘Valet, pour, pour, pour, out without pure water, and fill the glass up to the brim, but without spilling any, it’s too precious a liquid for a single drop to go to waste... Oh, false fever, won’t you go away? Look, here’s another glass; then another, and then that one...By my faith, old woman, you’re soaked, doomed, not to say banged up!’

  “So much was poured and repoured, drunk and redrunk, that the fever departed and took with it, arm in arm, reason, equilibrium and continence. Grégoire went off, I know full well to whose house, and I went for a walk in the woods where, waiting for me, was a certain...”

  An old seigneur, a friend of Rabelais, tugged his sleeve gently, as a mute warning to restrain the intemperance of is language; for Henri II was of a serious and reserved character. His romantic passion for Diane and the fidelity that he maintained to his mistress added further to the aversion he had for debauchery and lewdness.

  The adroit Duchesse de Valentinois, to render even greater the empire that she exercised over the monarch, flattered that ostentation of grave mores; she gave to everyone that surrounded her a character of reserve that contrasted singularly with the dissolute court of Catherine de Medicis. There, there was nothing but licentious talk, amorous and public intrigues. Thus, by a strange bizarrerie, there was in the house of the concubine a decency full of dignity, and in that of the legitimate wife a brazen profligacy.

  All those ideas presented themselves to Rabelais rapidly, and made him understand how good the secret admonition of the old seigneur was. The King had been able to pardon him for that morning’s escapade; no one had seen it; but he would infallibly be annoyed by obscene words spoken in front of his entire court. Rabelais therefore interrupted himself briefly, substituting an equivocal gesture and a smile full of finesse for reticence he was making, and continued as follows:

  “The bells of the château were chiming midnight when we were still lost in the wood. In the end, though, the rain reminded us to decamp, and, thanks to the patron saint of sinners…and sinneresses…it was given to us to arrive at the hamlet without mishap and without having been seen by anyone, except for one man, as he will tell you later. The mystery of our stroll rejoiced my companion greatly…I shan’t say where it as a he or a she...

  “Today, at nones, drunkenness and dizziness departing from my head, reason returned to it. Now, it had never seemed to me to be so gross and so weighty; it was lolling about in my brain so much that the poor thing was swelling up, quite painfully. Fresh air was called to the rescue.

  “When I went past the bailiff’s house there was a horde of merciful people who were rejoining in some good news: to wit, that a sorcerer as being judged, who would doubtless be hanged and burnt. Justice is sometimes ludicrous and hilarious. I sat down in the place of honor behind the Lord Provost Trinquamelle.

  “Messire Trinquamelle had just heard the witnesses. Then, blowing his nose sonorously like a canon, he enquired of the sorcerer: ‘What do you say, scoundrel?’

  “The sorcerer, belling like a stag at bay, began to respond: ‘Yes, it’s true; I’ve sold myself body and soul to the Evil Spirit, for a thousand écus au soleil; he paid me them dishonestly by the heritage of my cousin, passed away last night. I’ve caused the death of one of my relatives, yes, but Heaven is my witness that I did not intend that to happen; I only wanted a thousand écus au soleil to marry Marie, Marie whom I love so much!”

  “At that moment I raised myself up in order to see the face of the poor fellow more easily.

  “At the sight of me he fell in a faint. ‘There he is!’ he said. ‘There’s the Devil who bought my soul! He’s hiding behind the provost…I saw him in the wood... he was following a white phantom... Have mercy on me! He’s come to carry me off to Hell!’

  “Everyone started looking at me and laughing, for, thank God, François Rabelais is known to be a devil of a fellow, impish perhaps, but not a buyer of souls. As that genteel page behind You Majesty, who was at the tribunal, observed, if I had a thousand écus au soleil in my wallet, I wouldn’t be lying in wait in a wood to buy souls; the wine merchant would have the lot.

  “Messire Trinquamelle shrugged his shoulders, invited me to supper for today, which I refused; then, as if he intended to corner water to prevent anyone else serving it at table, he hastened to render his verdict in order that the meal wouldn’t be cold when he arrived.

  “Henriot Maurepain was condemned to be hanged the same day, at vespers, after which his body would be burned and the ashes thrown to the wind.

  “I went out feeling sorry for the so-celled sorcerer, who could be taken, at the worst, for an unhinged mind. But why had he recognized me as the Devil? That was what intrigued me. Suddenly, I remembered. That was the man I had encountered in the forest the previous night with Mathurine…curse my tongue! My secret’s out!

  “The innocent cause of the poor fellow’s misfortune, I had, in all conscience, to remedy it. You know, Sire, how his mercy was granted to me benevolently by Your Majesty, on the intercession of Madame la Duchesse. You’ll remember also by what means I received recompense for my good deed, if one can call recompense a fiery memory that will prevent me from sleeping for more than three nights; a memory that will cost me, in order to be forgotten, more than thirty bottles of Lacryma Christi. If it pleases the one who caused the malady to procure the remedy, she would be very welcome. Amen.”

  “My cellarman will bring them to your house, Master Rabelais,” the beautiful Diane put in, whose cheeks were still covered, this time by a modest blush.

  “Oyez, oyez, for here comes the most marvelous. On emerging from the château, I encountered my friend the great cantor Bonneau, who was as pale and distraught as if he had been drinking nothing but pure water for two full weeks. He had woken up at daybreak in the middle of the wood, where he had been asleep since the night before, at the same spot where he had fallen down dead drunk.

  “I began to see the story clearly. ‘Come with me,’ I said. ‘Come and do a merciful deed: extracting a poor fellow from the claws of justice.’

  “‘Right!’ he replied. ‘What’s the prisoner’s name?’

  “‘You’ll soon find out.’

  “We went into the prison. At the sight of us, Henriot uttered loud screams. ‘Oh, mercy! The Devil! The Devil! The soul of my dead cousin!’

  “Everything was explained; the poor fool had seen me and…the white phantom…in the wood at the moment when he was summoning the Devil; in the morning he had tripped over his cousin, profoundly asleep from good wine and amour, which are two famous soporifics if ever there was one. I recommend them as such, as a physician, to these noble Seigneurs, and to you as well, Mesdames. If your heart bids you, you’ll always find the latter of those drugs in my laboratory, always provided that you’re neither ugly nor ill-tempered, for then it loses its virtue.”

  There is no need to add that Henriot Maurepain was liberated, and that he married Marie, endowed by the Duchesse de Valentinois. The noble lady did not forget, either, to send Rabelais the same evening the thirty bottles of Lacryma Christi she had promised.

  There were, however, many people, and the Lord
Provost Trinquamelle was of that number, who claimed that the Devil had had a good deal to do with that affair. “Satan might well,” he said, “have resuscitated Grégoire, as he had killed him. The intervention of Rabelais, which certainly cannot pass for very orthodox, gives a great deal of weight to my suspicions. In any case, the judgment might have been rendered in error without it being necessary to overturn it; one cannot have too much respect for the sentences passed by men of the law, especially the Lord Provost.”

  Fortunately, a few days later there was a fine execution of heretics and sorcerers, among whom was the old sinner Mathias. That satisfied the zeal of the malcontents, and the young bridegroom and Rabelais were left in peace.

  THE EGLANTINE;

  or, The Death of Hugues, Sire d’Ostremont

  1598

  Undoubtedly, there can be no pure and unalloyed good

  fortune in this world; for frightful examples of its

  fragility spoil the delight of the happy, as the sword

  suspended over his head by Dionysius, tyrant of

  Syracuse, informed a certain Damocles.

  (Sermon delivered by the Rev. Père Laurent

  in the monastery of Notre-Dame on the first Sunday

  in Advent of the year 1521.)

  Nothing but tears could be heard in the palace of good King René. That Prince had departed in mid-morning to go hunting, having with him for an escort only a small number of hunters, and although the night was well-advanced, he had not yet returned.

  Prey to the keenest anxieties, the officers of his house, the pages and the varlets, gathered in the vestibule, were deploring the fruitlessness of their searches. A few were reciting prayers, which they interrupted at the slightest sound, for immediately, they believed that the good King had finally returned.

  The almoner Marini, an austere priest who possessed all René’s confidence, strove in vain to dissimulate the dread that his agitation and pallor revealed. Sometimes he advanced toward the desolate group, as if he had a question to ask, and then withdrew abruptly without speaking, marching at a rapid pace; sometimes, he proffered a few inconsequential words in a low voice.