City of Wisdom and Blood

by Robert Merle

  Whereupon, bowing to the rest of the roumieux, who sat mute and paralysed in front of their plates, I went back and sat down at my table with a tranquil air.

  “Oh, Pierre,” whispered my hostess, “what knavishness is this! You’re going to ruin me! All these pretty Norman écus that are fleeing my inn!”

  “My friend,” I said, lowering my head in mock remorse, “I beg a thousand pardons. My tongue got the better of me. I didn’t know what I was saying.”

  “Now that I don’t believe!” she answered. “You never say a word you haven’t thought out. I know you too well, and I’ll find out why you chased my clientele away.”

  And she did find out, from Cossolat, who, far from resenting me, when he learnt of the sudden departure of the roumieux, laughed until I thought his sides would split.

  “Oh, Pierre,” he said, “there are two sides to your little trick, so what were you trying to do? Prevent me from giving a pair of horns to your brother? Or prevent yourself from doing it?”

  But I knew not how to respond since I was unsure myself. Sometimes it’s very difficult to sort out one’s feelings, and harder still, one’s desires.

  *

  When this business was done, which had stirred me up quite a lot, I went to look for Maître Sanche, and after politely asking his pardon for all the trouble I’d introduced into his household, I begged him to tell me where I might find Fontanette, for I clearly owed her succour and compensation.

  “Alas, my Pierre, I do not know,” he sighed. “Dame Rachel knew and doesn’t seem to be able to remember. And what choice do I have but to believe her? Oh, my nephew, a woman’s will is a boil that no surgeon can ever lance!” He went on to urge me with great feeling to resume taking my meals at his table, since, he said, my absence saddened the whole company. “Except Dame Rachel,” I corrected, “who asked you to kick me out.”

  “I am master of my house,” said Maître Sanche, reasserting himself. “I decide who sits at my table. Certainly our rules of morality are stricter in the city than they are in the country, where a younger son’s weakness for a chambermaid can have little consequence. And since you were raised in such tolerance, I see no reason to impose our more severe rules.”

  “Sadly, it is poor Fontanette who must pay the price for both of us.”

  “Alas, Pierre,” said Maître Sanche, suddenly looking very mournful, “I was very fond of the girl. She brightened our lives with her beauty and sweetness. I’m very sad she’s gone.”

  I was very moved by his words, and throwing myself in his arms, I kissed him on both cheeks and promised to return to his table the following Wednesday.

  I’d chosen Wednesday, because that was the day Martinez was supposed to deliver my new pale-blue satin doublet, my stockings of the same colour with the red slashes and a small cap with a blue feather—since blue was Madame de Joyeuse’s colour, as the tailor had been sure to inform me. I was so thrilled to admire myself in the tailor’s full-length mirror and to see how handsome I looked in my new clothes, that I paid the tailor on the spot and even added four écus to the agreed sum.

  “Ah, Monsieur de Siorac,” Martinez beamed, his olive skin reddening with pleasure, “a gentleman who pays cash on the nail is a rarity indeed! But it’s even more rare to be given extra payment. If it weren’t for my humble birth, I would embrace you, Monsieur! But I know who can do it for me.”

  And clapping his hands in a certain way, his four daughters appeared suddenly, and handing each of them one of the four extra écus, he said, “My girls, here’s an addition to your purses. Thank Monsieur de Siorac for his generosity and I’ll allow you to give him a kiss.” Which the four girls did, one after another, in the sweetest manner, leaving me dazzled and almost bewitched by their gazelle-like, smiling eyes.

  “Oh, Martinez,” I gasped, laughing, “after this you will always be my tailor!”

  I stepped out into the rue de la Barrelerie, strutting shamelessly and, since the bells were just striking twelve noon, and there were no passers-by, I had to be my own audience, and so I watched myself on the sly, admiring my nonchalant manner, my mind floating on air. My return to Maître Sanche’s table was no abject act of repentance, playing the guilty one clothed in sackcloth, head covered with ashes and rolling in the dust. I managed to time my entrance with that of the master, who, when he saw me, stopped dead in his tracks; Dame Rachel froze at her place, and the others sat mute with astonishment.

  “My nephew!” cried Maître Sanche when he’d recovered. “How gallantly you’re dressed! What finery! What a splendid doublet! And where might you be going in such elegant clothes?”

  “My illustrious master,” I replied, “this is not vanity nor ostentation, but simply obligation. I am invited this afternoon to the home of Madame de Joyeuse, since I am, as you know, her little cousin.”

  “Oh, que matador! Que matador!” cried Maître Sanche in his Sephardic jargon. Which was roughly translated as: “How handsome he is!” “My nephew,” he continued, “please greet my wife, who has ordered a special dinner to celebrate your return.”

  Which I did with the best grace in the world, and bowed almost to the ground, but without a trace of a smile, and I have no idea how she received my greeting since, as I bowed, I was careful not to look at her. Shimmering in my blue satin and the object of everyone’s eyes, I sat down to this “festive” meal that Maître Sanche had announced, though it scarcely merited this name, but everyone did eat very nearly enough that day. All the while, Fogacer, with one eye on his bowl and the other on my brilliant new doublet, smiled to himself, while Maître Sanche kept repeating, half tenderly, half jokingly, “Que matador! Que matador!”

  And so the winter passed without much improvement in my relations with Dame Rachel, her agate eyes never seeming to notice me, and, for my part, I made no attempt to repair things with her, since every time I recalled how basely she’d behaved by refusing to tell me where Fontanette had gone, I was again seized with nearly uncontrollable fury. And, to tell the truth, what angered me the most about her behaviour was that she had been able to cover her spite and cruelty under the cloak of religion.

  My beloved Samson was so dreamy and so much in his own world that neither Thomassine nor Azaïs ever breathed a word to him of the long conversation that Cossolat had had with his lady in her room at the needle shop. Nor did he ever learn the reasons for the sudden departure of the roumieux, and, though he suffered a lot since he was in the bloom of his youth and it was his first love, I consoled myself with the realization that he would have suffered infinitely more had he ever discovered the truth. Upon her return to Normandy, the minx had the gall to write him a very tender letter, to which my brother asked me to respond, but I refused outright and told him he was old enough now to write his own letters. Which he did, but the result was pitifully brief and gauche. She answered nevertheless, and a little trickle of correspondence continued between them for the next four years, though they never saw each other, proof that the lady wasn’t without some fondness for him. But this fondness didn’t prevent her from leaning elsewhere and dipping her tender leaves into other waters. Alas, what could anyone do? Can you change the nose of a dog that runs in all directions at once? For from censuring such behaviour, I believe that it’s no great matter if a woman behaves that way, as long as one doesn’t fall in love with her.

  I continued to visit Madame de Joyeuse throughout the winter, and things progressed so well between us that ultimately I became the first among her martyrs, though the others, it must be said, had mostly grown weary under the harness, so the lady was pleased to discover in me a freshness, an effrontery, a gaiety—and most of all an imagination capable of inventing new compliments, when the sedative virtues of the old ones had been exhausted. But what drew her to me the most was, in truth, that, grateful for her generosity and goodness, I really loved—and liked—her, and I have to say that she granted me some privileges that a martyr ought not to have received. For example, in the privacy of her cabinet
I would massage her back and breasts with ointments, not to mention a variety of kisses we exchanged on the floor next to her bed and a thousand different caresses—but which never passed the threshold beyond which Madame de Joyeuse would have felt she had been unfaithful to her husband.

  That threshold, however, seemed to shift, in a way you can easily imagine, and so when I was alone with the lady behind the blue curtains of her four-poster and my kisses and hugs had got her very excited, she allowed herself to say, guiding my hand, “My pretty little cousin, do what I want now.” So I good-heartedly gave in to her demands, and she began sighing and moaning and making such violent cries that you would have thought she was giving up the ghost. Certainly I was not so callow that I didn’t know what that meant. But I secretly admired the fact that, however much she pursued these pleasures, Madame de Joyeuse was careful never to break faith with her husband. And I’ve often thought that the little abbot who heard her confession—if, indeed, she confessed all—must have been a very benign or an infinitely tactful priest. For, in truth, the poor lady saw very little of her husband, who was always riding off here and there on his trusty steed, in his travels across France and throughout Provence, in the service of the king, and must have straddled many other mounts that were brought to him at each halting place and which he never got enough of.

  Of my intimacies with Madame de Joyeuse, Aglaé couldn’t help feeling resentful, and displayed these feelings when we were alone together.

  “So, monster,” she would say, “what did you do to Madame that made her moan so much?”

  “Nothing,” I’d answer, “that I wouldn’t gladly do to you if you let me.”

  “Fie then!” she sniffed haughtily. “I’m a virgin! And may the blessed and sacred Virgin keep me in this state until I am married! It seems to me, however,” she added after a moment, “the if the Devil were to tempt me enough to make me moan with you, our ages would be much better matched.”

  I found this something of a betrayal of her mistress, but said nothing. “Aglaé,” I replied, “Madame de Joyeuse is such a good person and I love her and I’d be ready to do anything she might ask, even if it meant pulling the moon out of the sky with my teeth. As for her age, it doesn’t make any difference between us.”

  “Well, I see then,” she said bitterly and close to tears, “that you’re a new kind of martyr: a happy martyr.”

  And as I looked at her and felt the pain behind the gibe, I tried to pour some balm on this wound.

  “With Madame de Joyeuse I am indeed a happy martyr, but with you, Aglaé, I’m an unhappy martyr since, for lack of 50,000 livres, I cannot ask you to marry me.” And the word “marry” was like a magic wand. As soon as I’d uttered the word, joy sparkled in Aglaé’s eyes.

  “Do you really think about it?” she asked, her delectable dimples showing in her smile.

  “Yes!” I said. “And I swear it by these dimples!” (Not wanting to swear by any other oath.) And so saying, I gave each of them a little kiss one after the other, but when I went to kiss the left dimple, Aglaé accidentally moved her head in the other direction, and I kissed her lips, a kiss that she was slow to put an end to.

  “What impertinence!” she cried, pretending to be ashamed (but also really feeling some shame since she was of a naturally innocent nature). “Monster! Begone!”

  On the lawn that filled the courtyard of their mansion, I met the Vicomte de Joyeuse, who, as soon as he caught sight of me, left his officers and came to meet me, embraced me warmly and whispered in my ear, “Ah, Siorac! Or rather my little cousin!” (And here he smiled.) “I’m so grateful to you for entertaining Madame de Joyeuse. You must have a special charm for calming querulous wives. Ever since you’ve been coming here, there are no more rude words or stinging comments, just smiles and accommodation.”

  I returned Joyeuse’s bow, but hardly knew what to say since my conscience pricked me not a little given his use of the word “charm”. And yet it occurred to me that I shouldn’t have so many scruples since everyone seemed to be happy. “My, my,” I thought as I left their mansion, “very appealing, my blue doublet—by the belly of St Anthony! I’m in very good standing here!” And saying this—since we are all so blind about what the future holds—I could not possibly have foreseen to what degree, by my own fault, I would need help to get out of a dangerous situation.

  Meanwhile, happy with Thomassine, happy in a different way with Madame de Joyeuse, I still thought of my poor Fontanette, even though several months had passed since I’d lost her. And even though I was working very hard at the Royal College—attending lectures, taking notes, organizing them afterwards and, in the evening, rereading the authors that had been commented on that day—and on Wednesdays was very occupied with Madame de Joyeuse, I still managed every Sunday to saddle my Accla and continue my search for Fontanette, village by village, on every road that led out from Montpellier towards the surrounding countryside. But it was all in vain. I couldn’t find any trace of the poor girl and, as the months passed, I gave up my search and almost never thought about her any more.

  10

  I, WHO KNEW the rigours of the Sarlat winters, where snow is not rare in the hills during the coldest months, couldn’t help delighting in the moderate climate of Montpellier; the sun shone bright and hot in January almost every day, and the evenings were so mild that we didn’t even have to light fires for warmth at night. We would burn scrub oak logs, boxwood branches, old vine-stock, rosemary and heather roots, all of which made beautiful flames, with rich colours, and embalmed the air with their essences. To the curative qualities of these essences I attribute the fact that during my entire stay in Montpellier I never caught a single head cold, though in other locales I’m susceptible to them.

  The Montpellierians’ high spirits, evident in their daily socializing, regardless of their age or sex, are especially evident during carnival and Mardi Gras, which are originally pagan festivals, despite the fact that tradition links them to the Christian practice of Lent. I have to admit than in my native Sarlat region, we don’t have such marvellous exuberance or such a great love of singing, dancing, music and fancy dress. The reader can well imagine that without neglecting my medical studies, at which I laboured daily like a weaver at his loom (in the sense that I was weaving every day the cloth of my future knowledge), I didn’t fail to take advantage of these many occasions to join in the joyful processions that wound through the city.

  In Montpellier, January is the month when young men give aubades to their sweethearts: for these they hire three musicians (who are otherwise not much in demand that month), two of whom play the oboe or the guitar and the third of whom plays the cymbals, a tambourine or a fife with admirable dexterity. On my return to the pharmacy in the evening, as soon as I saw such a troupe preceded by servants carrying torches, I’d follow them. When they arrived at the home of the girl, the musicians would play their first piece. Then the father would open one of the windows overlooking the street and demand to know the name of the gallant. And if, when the gallant took his mask off and gave his name, the name was agreeable to the father, the window would remain open. If not, the window was closed and the house would remain closed and dark for the rest of the aubade. But there were no insults or ugly words, nor any pots of water, urine or excrement thrown on the performers, as is done, alas, in other regions. Such brutalities are unknown among the Montpellierians, whose customs are as benign and courteous as the climate is mild.

  From all this great gaiety at the beginning of the year, one might suppose that every new year brought nothing but happiness, which is certainly not always the case and certainly was not the case for the year 1567, which was beginning, and which would witness, before its end, a renewal of our fratricidal wars, as the Huguenots and the papists began tearing each other apart once again in our unfortunate kingdom.

  But the future is like a parchment that’s rolled up on itself and can only be deciphered as the days unroll from it, so that, for the time being at l
east, I felt very lighthearted and could abandon myself with the entire city to the games its friendly inhabitants so enjoyed.

  I was very involved in these activities, as you would expect. With eyes and ears wide open, and driven by the insatiable curiosity of my fifteen years, I watched with great interest these games that were unknown in our Périgord.

  On Mardi Gras, the most exciting of the day’s activities is the hoop dance that takes place on the place de la Canourgue—the most beautiful of the open spaces in Montpellier, where we’d seen the delightful ballet of the sugared almonds on the day we arrived.

  Today it wasn’t sugared almonds or any other sweets that were being enjoyed but hoops—either white or golden—which were held by a group of young noblewomen, dressed in long white gowns, sparkling with jewellery and wearing masks. Their partners were also dressed in white, and the game, for the men, consisted of jumping through the hoops that the girls held, to the sound of fifes, cymbals and tambourines. If the gallant who wanted to jump through her hoop didn’t appeal to the damsel, she would pull it up suddenly, and trip the lad. If she liked him but wanted to test him, she would hold out the hoop only for a moment and then pull it away, so that the suitor would have to dive, head and hands first, through the hoop and somersault onto the paving stones, risking serious injury. If, however, he succeeded in this feat, he would be enthusiastically applauded and the girl, shyly blushing and coyly eyeing her beau, would signify that her hoop was “taken”. And even though the purpose and outcome of this dance were obvious to everyone, the admirable thing was that it was accomplished without any coarseness or lewd comments, or ribald laughter, but with an elegance and grace that amazed me.