City of Wisdom and Blood

by Robert Merle

  “Ah, my sweet!” she said after a moment or so in her gentlest tones, looking at me with those golden-brown eyes. “Is it so terrible that you can’t even speak of it, even with me? Don’t you know that I’m your friend, and that I’ll never withhold my friendship or my support no matter what you may have done?”

  I was so touched by these words that I began to weep, but still couldn’t talk, my throat was in such knots.

  “My Pierre,” said Madame de Joyeuse, “don’t sit there like a log on that stool. Come here, in my arms, like this: rest your head there, and tell me everything—I desire it,” she added with an authoritative tone.

  This tone convinced me. I obeyed her as I always did, partly because she was fifteen years older than I, partly because she was a grande dame whom I admired, but mostly because I was so infinitely grateful for all her marvellous goodness. And so, snugly nestled into her welcoming body, my cheek on her breast, one arm around her waist, I told her all, without omitting a single detail or disguising anything, confident that she’d pardon me everything. Oh, you papists! Answer me! Could we ever find a better confessor than the woman who loves us?

  This is not to say that Madame de Joyeuse didn’t break into my tale with indignant objections and murmurs, such as: “Oh, Pierre! How could you?”; “But, my sweet, that’s dishonest!”; “Jesus! How horrible!”; “Fie! You’re breaking all the laws!”; “O Lord, I’ve never heard of anything so infamous!”; “What! You did it with a witch? And on a gravestone!” But at each outburst her gestures belied her words, for she caressed my hair with one hand while her other hand was gently squeezing my shoulder, which assured me that I was still her friend.

  Finally, I got to the worst part. During my description of what happened in the rue de la Barrelerie, she remained silent and still, not moving a finger. But after a few eloquent sighs, which I concluded were half compassionate on my account and half regretful on hers, she said in a most reassuring tone, “You should know, Pierre, that my husband, who is very worldly-wise, considers such pretensions a huge farce. He thinks the string knotting is neither infernal nor real; that the knot is in the knotter and nowhere else. That it’s one’s own imagination that produces the impotence. He also says that Michel de Montaigne demonstrated this for him in Bordeaux with many convincing examples and powerful reasons.”

  I found this somewhat comforting, yet still couldn’t persuade myself that I didn’t feel some paralysis of the vitality in my body that I didn’t believe I could overcome. And feeling thus, I remained nestled up against her, unable to move and as if plunged into abject terror, fearing above all to dishonour myself by failing to finish what I’d started.

  “Oh, Pierre!” she said as if she’d heard every one of my inmost thoughts. “You’re too young and too brave for this curse, as you call it, to weigh on you more than a week! Good heavens! A string knot! My husband is right. It’s just a charlatan’s trick! A silly superstition! A trap for the ignorant. Pierre, are you some simple labourer that you should be terrorized by a village sorceress? Are you going to believe the Mangane wench’s old wives’ tales or Michel de Montaigne’s learned reasons?”

  “Ah, Madame!” I replied. “I’d dare believe you if I weren’t so dog-tired, broken and beaten that I feel like the shadow of my former self.”

  “That’s just the effects of your remorse, my little cousin, for having committed such outrageous and scandalous sins. And your imagination holds such sway over you that this knot business is simply the punishment you think you deserve. In a week, you’ll be back to your gallant ways in my arms! I order it!”

  “Oh, Madame, must I obey you?”

  “You’d better not fail to do so! Are my spells any less powerful than those of that ignorant little girl? Are my potions less effective? Am I any less beautiful?”

  “Oh, Madame!” I cried, full of fire. “You’re a thousand times more beautiful than that shadowy creature! Your face shines with such brilliance, and your body is divine in all its parts.”

  She was much moved by this and blushed right down to her breasts, since she was accustomed to hearing such sweet words as a prelude to our love-making. Meanwhile, complaining of the heat, she wriggled about and began unhooking her chemise, and tried very hard to arouse me since I was clearly making no efforts on my own, believing them to be in vain. We remained in this impasse for a few moments, she reddening increasingly from the impulses she was feeling, and I remaining quite still and quiet like a rabbit hidden in a bush. Finally, growing impatient at my immobility, she said with a little laugh to hide her shamelessness, “My sweet, is there any reason why, even if you can’t take your own pleasure today, you refuse me mine?”

  “Oh, Madame!” I gasped. “I beg you, tell me what to do! There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, I love you so much!”

  And so she ordered me to play her chambermaid and to finish undressing her: which I did, not without great sighs of regret that I couldn’t enjoy the beauties I could see before me. Then undressed myself. And finally, taking and guiding my hand just as she had the first time she’d initiated me into these intimacies, she said, “My sweet, do that thing I like.” I did as she asked, and she began writhing with pleasure, making those moaning sounds that so annoyed Mademoiselle de Mérol. But before finishing her pleasure, she stopped and told me to lie on top of her. Which I did, not without great embarrassment, as you may imagine, because of my inertia, but now she put her hands on my shoulders and gently pushed me downward, showing me with this gesture that she wanted me to put my mouth where my finger had been. And though this caress, that I’d never heard tell of before, seemed at first very strange, or even sinful, I was careful not to disobey Madame, thinking that I owed her this compensation for the insufficiencies fate had inflicted on me. However, once I’d recovered from my surprise, and observing that her moans were becoming more acute, and the writhing more intense, I felt enormous pleasure to be giving such exquisite pleasure to a woman who had been so good to me. This thought increased my appetite for this strange activity, and I applied myself enthusiastically, though not without tenderness, to my caresses, which she must have felt, for she arrived at the height of her pleasure with more panting, moans, cries and tumultuous writhing than I’d ever seen before.

  When this tempest subsided into calm, she whispered, still breathless, her arms akimbo, “Oh, my little cousin, if I dared speak this way without blasphemy—which I hope I may do, for I fear God, go to confession and am in church every Sunday—I’d say that was divine and that I’m going to think of it often before I see you healthy and whole again next Wednesday, in the hope that you’ll provide me the other pleasure that we share.”

  She accompanied these words with so many caresses, kisses and great compliments on the way I’d performed (not without adding to her praises a few words of advice on how to do even better the next time) that even though I hadn’t been able to possess her, I felt that I was her lover again: this considerably calmed my fears and gave a new spring to my step as I returned to the pharmacy. There, having swallowed my spartan gruel without saying a word to anyone, I ran to my room and threw myself on my bed. Alas! I still couldn’t sleep, despite being less anxious about the curse.

  During the evening of the following day, a valet wearing Madame de Joyeuse’s livery brought me a letter from Madame attached to a small package.

  My dear little cousin,

  In this packet you will find a sachet of curative herbs that Michel de Montaigne gave to my husband, who was once in a predicament similar to yours. Wear it day and night round your neck, next to the medallion of the Virgin that your mother gave you on her deathbed, even though you don’t worship Her, evil Huguenot that you are. This sachet will do wonders. You’ll see what I mean next Wednesday, when we shall see each other again.

  My little martyred cousin, I offer you my fingertips.

  Eléonore de Joyeuse

  “Of course, her fingertips!” I laughed to myself. “What an expression! Oh, how elegantly t
hese noblewomen speak—and do—everything, while hiding behind their words.” I was nonetheless very touched that she had been so thoughtful as to send me her valet—she who had nothing to do all day. I ran to my room, opened the package and hung the sachet around my neck and never took it off day or night, following the advice of Michel de Montaigne, whom I’d never met but whose wisdom had been highly praised by our late friend Étienne de La Boétie.

  On rereading Madame de Joyeuse’s letter, however, I noticed a postscriptum that I hadn’t seen before:

  Cossolat will see you at noon tomorrow at the Three Kings.

  “Oh, marry!” I moaned to myself. “Did she tell him everything?” For I’d long suspected that there was a secret intelligence between them, though certainly not for the reason you’d imagine, the lady considering herself too elevated for a mere officer of the law, but rather to facilitate various intrigues throughout Provence that she did or undid in the service of her husband. Which reminded me that I’d just done her a disservice by saying that she had nothing to occupy her time all day.

  At noon, the hostess of the Three Kings, still full of resentment, made a sour face at me despite my smile, and, pushing me roughly by the shoulder, led me to a little cabinet where Cossolat was sitting down to a roast and flagon, looking quite severe.

  “Monsieur,” I said, half serious, half in jest, “have you sent for me to throw me into jail?”

  “Not yet, Siorac,” he replied extremely coldly, “though certain it is that you deserve it.”

  “He knows everything,” I thought, and, my legs shaking with fear, I sat down opposite him. Cossolat continued eating and drinking as if I weren’t there, never opening his mouth except to ingest his dinner, which began to irk me no end, being unaccustomed to being treated so badly, especially by him, who was normally so respectful of nobility.

  “Monsieur,” he said finally, “is there anything left of the 200 écus Madame de Joyeuse gave you?”

  “Certainly,” I answered, astonished at this indiscretion. “I’ve spent roughly one quarter of it.”

  “Then order a roast and a flagon from our hostess, and pay her ten écus.”

  “Ten écus!” I cried. “For a roast and drink that cost ten sols?”

  “Not at all! Ten écus for the money you lost her by scaring off Caudebec and his roumieux with your story of the plague.”

  I’m a good Huguenot and a good enough manager of my money, though not as stingy as Samson or Sauveterre. But I immediately understood that without these ten écus (from which Cossolat would doubtless profit one way or another), I’d never get back into my hostess’s good graces, an eventuality I knew I could not risk. So I resigned myself to be squeezed at bit—especially since, for various reasons, I wasn’t in a position to be as proud of myself as I’d have liked to be.

  “Here are your ten écus,” I said, taking them out one by one from my purse and placing them on the table.

  Cossolat clapped his hands, and immediately the door to the kitchen opened, and our hostess emerged, her eyes shining at the sight of all my gold. “My girl,” said Cossolat, “Siorac, here, would like a bit of roast and some drink and here’s his payment. Give him a kiss on the cheek and be his friend.”

  All honey and smiles, our hostess, having rapidly pocketed my money, obeyed, and never, in all the bloom of my youth, did a kiss cost me so dearly. Cossolat, of course, as he watched her retire with an extra roll of her hips, seemed very happy with the outcome of this business, but his expression changed for the worse.

  “Ah! Pierre! Pierre! Pierre! Why didn’t you speak to Madame de Joyeuse about your crimes the next day instead of waiting three days! I could have hushed up the whole business, but now I can’t. The Présidial got wind of it, had the Mangane girl arrested and tortured her. She gave them Cabassus’s name but luckily didn’t know your name or those of your friends, but she described you.”

  At a knock on the door, he fell silent. Preceded by a chambermaid, who brought me a flagon of wine and a knife, our hostess served me my roast, and, as she was leaving, ran her fingers along the back of my neck. “My girl,” frowned Cossolat, “you’ve shown enough gratitude. Enough is enough.” She blushed and departed smartly.

  “So what’s going to happen to Cabassus?”

  “What did you say? You’re worried about Cabassus and not your own neck? Is your head so light that you’re not worried about losing it?”

  At this joke, which I did not appreciate, he burst out laughing, being a man of natural coarseness, though he was fiercely devoted to those of his own party. “Cabassus,” he answered finally, “is protected by the diocese of Saint-Denis, who prefers to consider him as a madman rather than an atheist. For the last ten years, they’ve relegated him to that farm for his own protection and stripped him of all his priestly duties. Being a priest, he won’t risk much if he can only keep his mouth shut.”

  “But sadly,” I mused, “he’s crazy and gabs like a mill wheel.”

  “In that case,” said Cossolat, “he’d better flee and hide.”

  “He won’t do either. Cabassus is very invested in his own unbelief, and only lacks the right occasion to confess urbi et orbi this bizarre faith that he has revealed in his treatise, entitled Nego.”

  “What!” cried Cossolat, “He’s put all of his crazy ideas in writing? By the belly of St Peter! He’s cooked! What can I do now to stop it? If Cabassus is arrested he’ll be tortured, and he’ll reveal your names and you’ll fall as well.”

  His words gave me such a chill I couldn’t eat another bite.

  “There, there!” soothed Cossolat, who really wasn’t such a mean-spirited fellow. “Eat up! You’re not yet kneeling on the scaffold offering your neck to the hangman! You have powerful friends! You know, Pierre, the worst that can happen is that you’ll be obliged to flee the city on the sly, the way your father did in his youth, when he killed that man in a duel.”

  “Ah, but next to death, I can’t imagine a fate worse than exile! I’d never recover. I cannot imagine a life without medicine—it’s my great love!”

  “I think you love it too much!” rejoined Cossolat.

  But how I managed to finish my roast after that, I know not. “Cossolat,” I said, “what do you think? Is the Mangane girl really a witch? Or are her curses just foolishness and error?”

  Cossolat shrugged his shoulders. “The girl is a madwoman raised by crazy people who believed they were witches and who were burnt at the stake based on their own confessions. But whether these confessions were sincere or frightful, stupid boasting I’ve no way of knowing.”

  “So what makes you doubt them?” I asked, quite surprised.

  “Well, mostly from this girl herself. When she was tortured, she confessed to having fornicated with Beelzebub on the tombstone of the Grand Inquisitor.”

  “But that was me!” I cried. “And she knows it perfectly well since she then accused me of impersonating Satan himself.”

  “Well, then, she’s lying! It’s clear!” said Cossolat. “And if she’s lying about that, couldn’t she be lying about all the rest? Claiming in her insane pride, at risk of burning at the stake, that she’s got a power she doesn’t have?”

  This set me to thinking, as you might imagine, and doubtless would have calmed my fears about impotence if the threat of an even worse consequence weren’t weighing on me. “Ah!” I thought, my throat so constricted I could hardly breathe. “If I had to flee, how would I ever face my father in Mespech?”

  “Cossolat,” I said, as if he’d been able to hear my thoughts, “what must I do to avoid this terrible extremity?”

  “Wait, and keep your ears open.”

  “What? Aren’t yours sufficient?”

  And seizing my meaning, Cossolat smiled faintly. “Mine, alas, can’t be everywhere. But Fogacer’s, now, they’d be more useful than mine.”

  “Fogacer?” I said, astonished.

  “Fogacer,” replied Cossolat, “is a friend of the Présidial judge, who was rid
iculed in effigy at carnival.”

  “So this judge might possibly reveal to his friend the contents of his secret instructions.”

  “Aha! You understand!” said Cossolat. “It’s no different with these strange men than it is with us and our wenches. The appetite we have for another can be our Achilles heel. All our weakness can be traced to that. Even I, who consider myself an honest man, just extorted ten écus from you to please our hostess. Though that was a matter of justice,” he added as he rose.

  I wanted to see Fogacer that very evening, but wasn’t able to for two days, as our illustrious master informed me that he was at the country home of a rich merchant who, since Rondelet’s death, swore only by my tutor. On the third day, as I was preparing to go to bed, I heard him moving about in his room and went to knock on his door.

  He seemed to be happy to see me enter his room with such familiarity, for, since what had happened between us at carnival on the rue de l’Espazerie, he’d put some distance between us, no doubt from shame, which, out of my own shame, I hadn’t tried to bridge.

  “Ah, Siorac!” he said, raising that satanic eyebrow and hiding his emotions behind his usual humorous tone. “What’s that hanging by the medallion of the Virgin? A sachet? What’s the meaning of this? Have you become a double-idolater, you, a confirmed Huguenot?”

  “Not at all,” I replied, “it’s just a herbal medicine to counteract a nervous malady that I seem to have, and that occasionally flares up.”

  “Ah, indeed!” he said sceptically. “You don’t look your usual self! But, Pierre, sit down and tell me the what and wherefore of your ‘nervous’ disorder. If your cheeks weren’t so hollow (as you seem to have lost weight) I’d say they were bursting with questions. My son, lance this boil and let the pus out! Who’s it about?”