City of Wisdom and Blood

by Robert Merle

  While he was saying this, Possaque called a halt in front of a beautiful house and knocked violently on the door with the handle of his sword. As there was no answer, he ordered his men to break it open, but they were unable to do so since it was a strong oak door, reinforced with iron bands. At this point, an upper window opened, and a well-dressed white-haired woman asked Possaque what he wanted.

  “Wench,” he shouted, “we want this scoundrel, this rogue, this thief, I mean this first consul of shit, your son, Gui Rochette! We want him to come down here and explain his management of our city!”

  “My son,” she replied with great dignity, “does not deserve these nasty and filthy words. In any case, he’s not here.”

  “Oh yes, he is, bitch! There’s no doubt about it!” yelled Possaque. “Tell him to get himself out here this instant, or I’ll set fire to your house!”

  “Whether or no you set fire to my house, he’s not here, and as Christ is my witness, I repeat and I swear it. Where he is now I have no idea; he left suddenly around noon and without his hat.”

  Hearing this, our men grumbled and swore a lot with terrible curses that the scoundrel had fled the city. “Quiet!” shouted Possaque. “That’s not possible! By noon, we’d closed all the gates!” At this the lady paled visibly; Possaque must have seen her loss of composure and, deciding that she must be telling the truth, ordered his troops to move on.

  I foresaw that nothing good could come of this first encounter, nor from the brutal and profane way that Possaque had addressed the old woman, and, turning to Vigier, I whispered, “What did Gui Rochette do to warrant being treated this way?”

  “Nothing, Monsieur,” said the carder, “except for serving as the first consul and being fiercely opposed to us Huguenots and being the reason that last November they chose four consuls, all four of whom are papists, and not two of theirs and two of ours, as we’d asked for. We protested this election to the lieutenant general, Monsieur de Joyeuse, but that little piece of shit vicomte who eats his meat with a fork (as you’ve probably heard!) decided against us. Rochette is going to die if we find him, and maybe the three others with him, though it’s not so sure about the others since they’re less papist than Rochette. He’s always sucking up to the bishop, Bernard d’Elbène, kissing his hand and drooling over the stakes they’ll erect to burn us all, with the king’s blessing! By the belly of St Michael! We’re going to wipe out this entire brood!”

  “What?” I gasped. “The bishop too?”

  “The bishop too! Though he’s not such a bad man. But we won’t be such Turks as they are. We won’t burn them at the stake; that would heat things up too much.” (And here he laughed at his little joke.) “No, my lad! A nice thrust of the dagger ought to do the trick and off they go to worship the Virgin Mary in the other world, leaving this one to us!”

  Listening to Vigier go on like this, emphasizing his words with great sword thrusts in the air, I began to sense that the intensity of his hatred of the papists and the everlasting persecutions and threats they’d levelled at the reformists was going to lead to some terrible bloodshed before the end of this September day, which had started out so sunny and beautiful.

  I was in the midst of these sad thoughts when a troop of Huguenots who were coming from the opposite direction met us and, as we squeezed to the right to let them pass, their leader, a tall redhead, full of spit and vinegar, shouted at the top of his lungs, “Companions! It’s a new world! Condé and Coligny have taken the king prisoner at the Château de Monceaux! They’ve offed the old bitch, Catherine de’ Medici! And her two pups, Anjou and Alençon! Comrades! Our brothers have taken Lyons. Soon we’ll have Montpellier! Toulouse! Paris!”

  I doubted this news the minute I heard it and, indeed, I was right, but it had an extraordinary effect on Samson, whom I quietly urged to be silent, and on the rest of our troop, giving them the false hope that the kingdom was now at their feet and swelling immeasurably their thirst for revenge and the belief they no longer had to answer for their bloody deeds to anyone, not even the king, who was thought to be in their hands. I immediately saw the unfortunate effects of their exaltation when Possaque asked the tall redhead who the two fellows were they had captured.

  “Ah! Just small fry that I’m taking to city hall,” said the redhead. “Guérinot, a cobbler, and Doladille, a silk worker, both papist fanatics.”

  “Small fry indeed!” sneered Possaque, shrugging his shoulders.

  But Jean Vigier, hearing Doladille’s name, turned ashen from anger. And shoving everyone aside, he marched up to the unfortunate silk worker and, taking him by the collar, cried, “Ah, Doladille! Ah, villain! So here you are!” And he struck him with his sword so awkwardly that he opened a deep wound in his left arm. Possaque grabbed Vigier by the arm and berated him soundly, telling him it was not up to him, but up to their leaders, to decide about executions. And after roundly putting him in his place, Possaque sent him to the back of the platoon, where Vigier, observing when we started marching again that I wasn’t speaking to him, said innocently, “Hey, what’s with you? You don’t like me any more?”

  “Ah, Vigier! To strike an unarmed man! Fie then! You should be ashamed!”

  “But, Monsieur, that’s not just any man, that’s Doladille!”

  “And who’s this Doladille?”

  “He’s a silk worker, as you heard, and is always belittling and despising my work in wool.”

  “So that’s enough reason to kill him?”

  “Well, he also cuckolded me with my wife and went about bragging about it!”

  “That’s a piece of treachery to be sure—”

  “Ha, Monsieur! There’s worse. Swelled with malice, this Doladille, nasty papist that he is, has gone about saying that since Charles IX outlawed the reformist religion, he’s going to kill me with his bare hands and marry my widow, claiming he’s got what it takes in his pants to convert her back to the true religion!”

  We couldn’t argue any further, since Possaque called me to show me the Seashell inn, which he succeeded in getting opened up to us only after many shouts and banging on the doors. The door opened only halfway, however, and the innkeeper, a very pretty, high-breasted woman, with a proud look and an assertive tongue, appeared.

  “Who’s that?” she asked, fiercely. “I’m closed. I was ordered to do so.”

  “Well, I’m ordering you to open,” snarled Possaque. “Give these gentlemen accommodation and no back talk. They’ve just arrived from Montpellier and they need a place to stay.”

  Whereupon, with little show of civility, and Vigier the only one to wave goodbye, the troop continued their hunt for papists, no doubt hoping to bring back to city hall more substantial game than a shoemaker and a silk worker.

  Meanwhile, the innkeeper, without a word, her expression as cold as ice, put me in one room and Samson in another, and had her valet help Miroul tend to our horses in the stables.

  “My friend,” I said, retaining her for a moment by her arm, “what’s this! Why do you look so unpleasant? Your eyes are so cold and your mouth pinched so hard. What have I done to displease you so thoroughly?”

  “Monsieur,” she said, “nothing in your looks, which I could get along with well enough. It’s your actions that displease me so.”

  “My actions? What have I done?”

  “Nothing,” she replied, her eyes flashing, “except come all the way from Montpellier to join in the massacres here.”

  “Oh, Madame!” I cried. “This is unjust! I’ve never killed a soul except in loyal combat. And I’m not about to start in your fair city. I’m in Nîmes to visit a friend who happens to be a papist. But seeing the colour of things here on my arrival, I didn’t want to name him. So here I am in your inn, by order of Possaque, and very sorry to be here against your will.”

  “Monsieur,” she softened, “should I believe you?”

  “You should, my friend,” I replied, putting my hands on her shoulders. “I’m a Huguenot, but not as fanatical a
nd bitter as some that I’ve seen here.”

  “Monsieur,” she said, growing friendlier, “can I trust you? Can you name the person you were going to stay with?”

  “My friend,” I answered, “I’ll do better: I’ll show you the letter that I’m supposed to transmit to him. Here it is,” I continued, and, removing my coat of mail, I took from my doublet the letter and held it out to her. “It’s not sealed, you may read it.”

  “Ah, Monsieur,” she said, now entirely reassured, “you’re acting in such an open and honest way with me that I’m beginning to like you.” Then, reddening, she added with evident shame, “I know how to count, Monsieur, but can’t read much. May I send for my cook, who reads as well as a bishop? He’ll tell me whether I can trust you as much as my feelings are urging me to.”

  At this she gave me a sweet look and such a warm smile that I could not but consent. And having said a few words privately to her chambermaid, she sat down on a stool, and I sat down in turn, having nothing better to do than wait, and we looked at each other for some time without saying anything, since each of us seemed to be enjoying what we saw, though the time had not yet come to say so.

  There was a knock, and at the innkeeper’s invitation the cook stepped through the door, a portly fellow with a jolly face, large nose and easy-going manner. My hostess immediately handed him the letter, and asked him politely if he would read it. Hearing this, the cook made me a small bow, but did not remove his white hat, which surprised me a bit. Then, without being invited to do so, he took a seat, with a certain pomp, and read the letter with great seriousness, while the innkeeper listened with a degree of respect that few cooks could expect from their mistresses. When he’d done, the cook rose, made a deep bow, still without removing his chef ’s hat, handed the letter to the innkeeper, crossed his hands over his stomach and said in a suave voice: “Madame, the letter is from Madame the Vicomtesse de Joyeuse and addressed to Monsieur de Montcalm, our chief magistrate, to whom the vicomtesse recommends this gentleman, who is her little cousin.”

  “The little cousin of Madame de Joyeuse!” cried the innkeeper, very impressed and looking at me with new respect.

  “This gentleman is named Pierre de Siorac,” said the cook, raising his hand as if he were not accustomed to being interrupted. “He’s the younger son of the Baron de Mespech in Périgord. Monsieur de Siorac and his brother Samson are both students. And as Pierre de Siorac has exhibited some rash behaviour in Montpellier” (and here my hostess looked at me tenderly, never imagining that my indiscretions could be anything other than what she guessed they must be) “the vicomtesse asks Monsieur de Montcalm to host them for a time until things in Montpellier have settled down again. Madame de Joyeuse adds that Pierre de Siorac is, like his father, a Huguenot loyalist, and that in no case would he ever bear arms against his king—”

  “Ah, Monsieur!” cried the innkeeper. “That’s excellent news! I’m reassured! You now have my entire trust! I will hide nothing from you either!—”

  “Madame,” the cook broke in, frowning with all the authority his literacy provided him, “you are too quickly investing your trust! Monsieur de Siorac has every appearance of being a true gentleman, but he is a Huguenot, no doubt faithful to his sect.”

  “Of course!” I cried. “But not to the point of assassinating anyone! Nor of taking a city from the king! Comrade,” I said, walking up to the cook and taking him by both hands (which were very soft and not at all what one would have expected from his profession), “if I can help anyone here to save his life by preserving him from the excesses that my party may commit, I’ll do it!”

  And as I said this, with some emotion and fire, I couldn’t help thinking that this fellow’s toque, which he refused to remove when bowing, may well hide the tonsured head of a priest beneath it, one who might have needed to disguise himself as a cook to escape the hunt that was currently going on in Nîmes for anyone wearing a cassock. “But,” I added, “all is not yet lost! They’re taking prisoners, but not killing them!”

  “Ah, Monsieur de Siorac!” cried the cook, choking back his tears. “You’re harbouring false hopes! Don’t be fooled. Although the orders are, for the moment, to bring all the captured papists to city hall safe and sound, we’ve heard that the plan is secretly to execute all of them tonight. And in at least one case, already, their fanatical fury has run ahead of their plans: this morning, a little before noon, the vicar general, Jean Péberan, was surprised in his rooms by the clerk of the magistrate, La Grange, and a score of armed men who cut him down on the spot, stabbing him more than a hundred times with daggers and swords.”

  “Ah, what villainy!” I gasped. “Now I’m beginning to fear for the safety of Monsieur de Montcalm. Is he considered an enemy of the Huguenots in Nîmes?”

  “One of the worst,” said the innkeeper. “But rumour has it that he escaped with his wife and daughter before they closed the city gates. And some people claim to have seen the three of them heading west on the Provence road where Montcalm has a well-defended chateau with a moat, towers and machicolations.”

  “My friend,” I said to my hostess, “as soon as you’ve provided me some victuals, for I’m very hungry, I’ll go see what I can find out about Monsieur de Montcalm. Meanwhile, please hide this letter addressed to him in a safe place so that they won’t find it on me if I’m searched by the more excitable members of my party.”

  The innkeeper rose from her stool and very courteously asked the “cook” to prepare my roast meat. This latter, who apparently had no thought of performing this duty, immediately rose as well. But before withdrawing, he stepped over to me, looked at me beseechingly and said in a tone of supplication, “Monsieur, the bishop’s palace is next to Monsieur de Montcalm’s house, so if you’re heading in that direction, I wonder if you could take a look, and keep your ears open as well for any news of our bishop, Bernard d’Elbène, who, so far, has managed to throw his enemies off his tracks.”

  “Monsieur,” I replied, “for the love of Christ, I will do as you ask.”

  Hearing this, the “cook” gave me a deep bow, his toque still on his head, and returned to his kitchen.

  I wanted to eat my meal in my room, alone with Samson. And when we’d finished, speaking with as much urgency as I could muster, I told him that I was going out, but without him, that he should absolutely remain in his room and speak to no one, and that if any Huguenots questioned him he was to say that we were simply here to visit Nîmes and to deliver a letter to Captain Bouillargues, and to leave it at that without saying anything more or giving his opinion on anything that was happening here. I stressed that he was not to get involved in anything that was going on in Nîmes, or say anything that might offend the king or the queen mother or the king’s brothers, since I very much doubted the news of their misfortune that had been reported to Possaque. And finally, embracing him tenderly, I told him to remember that our father had always been a Huguenot loyalist and that he’d never consented to take up arms against his king, nor taken part in the siege of Sarlat, believing that it was a rebellion pure and simple, and that he should consider that the executions of priests and of the papist merchants, however fanatical they may have been against our cult, were nothing more than common murders, repugnant to any sense of honour, and bloody infractions of our laws.

  I took my dagger and sword, but did not put my armour or helmet on, since the late-September heat was stifling. When the innkeeper let me out by a back door that gave onto an alley, whom did I find waiting for me, armed exactly as I was? “Miroul!” I exclaimed, open-mouthed. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m not leaving you, Monsieur,” he said, his chestnut eye twinkling and his blue eye cold as ice.

  “But how did you get out here?”

  “By that window up there on the second storey.”

  “Sweet Mother of God!” said the innkeeper. “You’d have to be a fly or a bird to get down from there without breaking your neck!”

  “Ha! I’ve se
en him do better than that!” I said, proud of Miroul’s nearly unbelievable agility, for, as the reader may remember, he’d once scaled the walls of Mespech and got through all our defences noiselessly to come and steal some ham from our kitchens, poor little rogue that he was back then, dying of hunger.

  “Miroul,” I said, pretending to be angry, “who told you to follow me?”

  “Your father, the Baron de Mespech, everywhere he thought you might be in danger. And it seems like we’re in the thick of it here.”

  “Indeed it does, he’s right!” said our hostess. “My noble friend, take care of yourself! And you, Miroul, keep him safe!”

  This said, and not without a very sweet look from her beautiful eyes that seemed to send me a sheaf of promises, she closed the door. “Ah!” I mused. “If I get back safely, this house is going to be very welcoming!”

  Once in the street we found more platoons of armed men running this way and that, all worked up and tirelessly shouting, “Kill the papists! It’s a new world!” and looking us over suspiciously as they went by, since they didn’t recognize us. But I managed to look so calm, serious and self-assured that no one dared accost us to ask what we were doing there. And though I had trouble concealing my compassion when I saw, in the midst of these bloodthirsty platoons, monks, priests or papist merchants being led to city hall to be locked in subterranean dungeons, I managed to look the other way and quicken my step and appear as though I were on some urgent mission so that I passed through all the meshes of this enormous net without incident and reached the cathedral, not far from which, according to the innkeeper, were located both the bishop’s palace and Monsieur de Montcalm’s mansion.

  Once there, I felt as though I were out of danger, since, whenever a wave of Huguenots surged onto the cathedral square, they were all focused on their business, some armed, others not, pillaging the churches and sacking them, carrying off crosses, icons, statues and the canons’ stalls, hacking these last to pieces, and bearing away any sacred vessels or gold-embroidered vestments. Some had built a great bonfire in the middle of the square, where they were burning the documents and feudal titles belonging to the cathedral, shouting that it was all over—that no one in Nîmes would ever again pay a sol in tax to the canons! They were all so drunk with destruction and looting, and displayed such intense focus and unimaginable joy, as if they really believed that out of the cinders of this debris a new world would be born, that Miroul and I could pass through them unnoticed and reach the bishop’s palace. But I dared not enter, for the building was full of soldiers who were destroying everything they could, their eyes full of fury and their faces bathed in sweat in the suffocating heat.