Merchants of Virtue

by Paul C R Monk

  They continued until they reached a large building which housed the galley slave hospital. They were then ushered into a large room already abuzz with two hundred men and women. They all constituted the next shipment for Saint Domingue, a French territory in the Caribbean Sea.

  *

  Jacob was exhausted from the voyage but glad to be able to rest on firm ground. He wanted to mingle amid the strangers of every age, rank and condition, in the hope of hearing the unmistakable accent of his home town. But he had hardly the strength to stand up straight, and besides, he soon found himself in conversation with some fellow detainees from the tartan. He would go for a saunter tomorrow.

  The guards were already lighting the night lamps, and sheeting was being drawn down across the middle of the ward to divide it into separate male and female sleeping quarters. The newcomers were given shabby straw mattresses, previously used by sick galley slaves, and ordered to find a place to settle or risk a hiding.

  ‘Well, then, I shall bid you good night, Madame,’ said Jacob to a lady of some distinction with whom he had been sharing his first impressions. The vast room had just a few high windows and was scarcely less dismal than the round tower of Aigues-Mortes. But at least he had good company.

  ‘May the Lord bring you rest, sir,’ said the lady.

  Her name was Madame de Fontenay, seventy years old and fit as a fiddle. She was chaperoning Mademoiselle Marianne Duvivier, the demoiselle who had courageously held the sailor’s gaze on board the tartan. Madame de Fontenay had literally fallen into conversation with Jacob during the voyage after he caught her as she stumbled. He had since taken it upon himself to watch over her and her granddaughter, although in truth, she had been more comfort to him during his seasickness than he to her.

  Jacob said, ‘I pray you find some sleep too, Madame.’

  ‘Oh,’ replied Madame de Fontenay with merriment in her voice, ‘I have learnt to sleep with one eye open, for I shall have plenty of time to catch up on lost nights where I am headed.’ She gave a fleeting glance upward as if she were peeping into heaven.

  Jacob smiled, then bade goodnight to Mademoiselle Duvivier.

  He set out his straw mattress against the wall and kneeled in preparation for his evening prayer.

  ‘Be careful when you pray here, my friend,’ said a gentleman in a low voice next to him. The man in his late fifties could see that his new neighbour was one of the newcomers.

  For his part, Jacob wondered if the man was a Huguenot or a common prisoner, for he did not look as though he was going to say his prayers. But then, on looking around, Delpech realised that no one else was either. The man flicked his eyes up at the approaching guard doing his rounds and carrying a hard wooden club.

  ‘I see,’ said Jacob, ‘I shall wait till they extinguish the lights.’

  ‘They don’t,’ said the man. ‘And they don’t let up doing their rounds neither…’

  As they spoke, an old man with his back to them ten yards in front rose up on his knees in prayer. The guard bounded forward and cracked the man’s joined knuckles with his long club. Jacob could not abide such a display of needless cruelty. Forgetting his fatigue, he stood up and shouted, ‘How dare you, sir!’

  The guard turned. He strode swiftly with a limp toward Delpech and, holding his long truncheon with two hands, he thrust it under Jacob’s chin driving him against the whitewashed wall. Jacob was forced up onto his toes which virtually left the ground, and which was also a testimony to how much weight he had lost.

  In a low growl the guard said: ‘Don’t you dare try to impede a King’s guard from doing his duty. Try it again and I’ll have you seated in one of our galleys quicker than you can say Pope Innocent XI! You got that?’

  The old man who had been rapped on the knuckles was now standing a short distance behind the guard gesturing to Jacob to let it drop, that it was not worth risking being sent to the galleys. But it was the guard’s informal use of you that made Delpech see there was no point arguing over an injustice with a man who lacked the minima of social etiquette.

  Jacob had just met Arnaud Canet, chief guard, mid-thirties, a quick eye, powerful neck and thick forearms.

  *

  Arnaud Canet had been a sailor on the high seas before losing a leg, crushed by a cannon when he was twenty-seven. He had since worked up through the ranks at the arsenal where he had guarded some of France’s most treacherous villains, at least, the ones who had escaped the executioner’s talents.

  He had guarded a broad range of delinquents from petty thieves to infidels, and clandestine salt sellers to Algerian pirates. Criminals of every race, class and colour had been paraded before Canet’s unblinking eye, especially nowadays, what with the King’s policy to enlarge his galley fleet. Indeed, the galley slave ships had grown in numbers from ten to thirty since he had started at the arsenal. The new trend was recruiting Protestants, though this batch was lucky, they were going to the American islands. But whatever their crime, a criminal was a criminal, and by far the best and safest way to deal with criminals was to treat them all as scoundrels.

  Canet knew from experience at sea that the only way to prevent mutiny was to nip it in the bud. So his guards, through fear of revolt or cocky courage, did their rounds in search of opportunities to brandish their clubs on man or woman, young or old, in order to stamp out potential firebrands and demagogues. If allowed to flourish, such hotheads could incite a movement of riot.

  One such opportunity arose when the reformist convicts prayed on their knees to their Protestant god. Such an act had been banned and their god banished from the realm by the King himself. But for Jacob, like for every other Huguenot, prayer was the spiritual staple that kept him going. Being without it was like living without God, and that was every bit as insufferable as the dreadful scenes from Dante’s Inferno.

  So it presented the perfect occasion for the guards to lay down their authority.

  However, these Protestants were not martyrs and the group reflex was to discreetly gather round the kneeling coreligionists so forming a human screen. When one group went down, those standing around them tacitly moved close together to create a random ring three or four people deep.

  By the second day, Jacob and the other newcomers had cottoned on. In this way, only rarely did the guards get a clean swipe at the recidivist worshippers.

  But Canet was an old hand: it did not take long for him to suss out their tactics. He was nobody’s fool.

  ‘They’re pissing in my boots, they are!’ he said to his crew one day. Did these bourgeois really think they could pull the wool over the eyes of a battle-seasoned veteran and son of a tinker? So he told his guards to lie low for a few days, lead the lambs into a false sense of security.

  ‘Then the wolves will pounce!’ he said, punctuating his pep talk in the guardroom with a gruff vengeful growl.

  *

  Because of his altercation just after his arrival, Jacob had kept a sharper than usual eye on the guards whose demeanour seemed to have changed slightly. He noticed they appeared to swagger more, and even turn a blind eye when people congregated.

  ‘It may well be they were just setting down their law,’ said Monsieur Blanchard, the gentleman who had warned Jacob about praying in the open.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jacob, scratching his six-day beard, ‘I suppose their argument could be that it is always easier to begin with a tight rein then loosen it, rather than the contrary.’

  ‘They have tested us,’ said Madame de Fontenay, ‘now they realise we are not to be treated as criminals.’

  ‘Perhaps. Or perhaps not,’ said Jacob musingly as he turned to eye an approaching guard slapping his club in one hand in double time to his step.

  *

  The following morning, Canet told his guards the time had come to reap the rewards of the successful application of his plan.

  ‘Prohibited action, means punitive re-action!’ he said smashing his big square fist into the wooden staff table.

  He w
as looking forward to it: he had not cracked his stick over anyone’s shoulder blades for two full days, and it was making him bearish, even to his wife. But she ought to know by now not to go on at a man when he was uptight. She would just have to avoid going out uncovered for a few days. He nonetheless regretted his slip of the hand, and had to even stifle a desire to blame the state for sending so many soft bourgeois pigeons through Marseille. As if he hadn’t enough work with the usual crowd of galley slaves to break in. They, at least, put up a descent fight and had the mettle to take a fair battering for it.

  So this morning, he was really looking forward to letting the cats among the pigeons.

  Their chosen tactic was to bide their time for a large round of people to form. ‘The more the merrier,’ said one of the guards called Durand, a slim man of medium stature with a goatee beard.

  After the Huguenots’ meagre slops, and black bread from the arsenal bakery, Canet went on the prowl. He had to be extra careful to keep a little malicious smile from pleating the corners of his mouth. He must give nothing away, the surprise must be total.

  Now that he had taken time to observe their little circus he was easily able to identify a screen forming despite their attempt at discretion. He did not have to wait for long before a large group was beginning to cluster near the middle of the ward. It was perfectly placed, allowing him and his guards to slowly surround it, and probably offered a good-size group of Huguenots to bash. He chuckled to himself at their naive attempt to conceal their manoeuvres. Some of them had even forgotten their prudence now that they had been given some leash, probably imagining that he and his guards were deliberately turning a blind eye to their law-breaking.

  He gave the sign to Durand who was ten paces away. It consisted of three slaps of the club in his hand repeated twice. Durand signalled likewise to the next guard, and suddenly Canet could feel a new tension in the air.

  Within thirty seconds he knew his guards would be in place. On the other side the two guards began to centre on the group and instinctively, Huguenots from Canet’s side, began to shuffle round to where the agitation was coming from. It was the cue. Now that the human wall on his side had thinned, he could bowl in. With authority and the stern use of his club he quickly blazed a trail through the protesting crowd to the epicentre.

  There his eyes were met not with ten or fifteen suppliant Huguenots in the act of their crime, but with old Madame de Fontaney squatting over a bucket!

  After the initial shock, Arnaud Canet roared his frustration through gritted teeth. ‘So this is how you honour your god, is it, old woman?’ he said as the other two guards pushed through to join him. They instinctively shielded their eyes in disgust. Canet continued. ‘It does not surprise me your god accepts offerings of crap!’

  ‘As you well observe, Monsieur, this is not a call of God, it is a call of nature,’ corrected the old woman. ‘Now, if you will excuse me. It is demeaning enough for a lady to the manor born to find herself squatting on the throne amid her brethren, let alone in the company of her jailers!’

  The sham was the talk of the ward for the rest of the week and guards became less inclined to break through the crowd, unnerved as they were by what they might find. Would those at the centre be kneeling or squatting? There were limits to even the coarsest sensibilities.

  *

  ‘I am not familiar with these ports of midi,’ said Jacob. ‘I usually ship via Bordeaux or the northern ports. They present less of a risk of capture.’

  ‘Indeed, sir,’ said Monsieur Blanchard, ‘and I only hope we shall sail under good escort, for as you well know, the sea offshore is infested with Barbary pirates, I do not want to end up in the prisons of Mulay Ismail.’

  ‘Goodness gracious, neither do I,’ said Mademoiselle Duvivier who shuddered at the thought of losing her virginity to a dark infidel.

  They were talking about their imminent departure for America. They had been informed they would set sail on the 18th September, in less than a week. It was held in higher spheres that letting them know in advance would make them more susceptible to conversion as the fateful date approached. But the high hopes of conversion only fed Canet’s frustration further: so far the Huguenots had remained infuriatingly steadfast.

  A little before lunchtime, Jacob was standing near the wall at the imaginary dividing line where both sexes mingled by day. He was in the company of his usual circle of new acquaintances which included Madame de Fontenay, Mademoiselle Duvivier, Monsieur Blanchard, and a few others. It was certainly a comfort to be among like-minded people as opposed to the solitude of his imprisonment in the dungeon of Cahors. To pass the time they had each told their story, how their brutal fall from their station was like the earth trembling beneath their feet. Monsieur Blanchard had been a master periwig maker to the King before having to turn his hand to buying and selling, as did many a Huguenot deprived by law of their livelihood. Madame de Fontenay’s deceased husband, landowner and aristocrat, had served the King in arms. She had been caught praying at a clandestine assembly with her granddaughter Marianne Duvivier. Mademoiselle Duvivier’s mother died in childbirth, her father fell at the Battle of Entzheim a few years later. Her grandmother was her only family.

  The beating of a drum interrupted their conversation and silenced the chatter of the ward.

  ‘Jacob Delpech de Castanet of Montauban, you are asked to manifest yourself,’ called out Canet’s voice above the crowd.

  A rush of anxiety sped through Jacob’s veins causing him to become almost out of breath. Could Robert have managed a last minute reprieve?

  ‘Over here, sir,’ Jacob called out.

  Arnaud Canet limped through the parting crowd with a bounce in his step and a malicious rictus at the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘are you the father of one Louise Delpech?’

  The name of Jacob’s daughter seemed to take him back an eternity. He had not seen her for two full years, since Jeanne escaped through the gate of Montauban with Lulu on her lap. Robert had recounted to him in a letter the whole episode of Jeanne’s determination to protect her children. Now, life before the dragonnade seemed like a dream. He had never forgotten that poor Jeanne and his children had also been living a nightmare, and he had prayed every day for their safety and well-being. Of course they are well. Of course they are all right, he would constantly repeat in his mind between conversations, before his prayers, and before sleep, to chase away morbid thoughts of their suffering, suffering which he could not witness nor temper.

  ‘I am, sir,’ said Jacob with a sudden sickness in his heart. Canet loved to see a bourgeois deflate with fear.

  ‘I am to inform you she’s dead.’

  Jacob turned white. ‘Sir, please,’ he said before the guard turned on his heels, ‘are you certain?’

  ‘Can you read the King’s French?’

  Jacob could only find the strength to nod.

  ‘Cop that then, keep it as a souvenir from Marseille.’

  Canet turned with total satisfaction, and continued on his round.

  Jacob’s eyes fell on the note. Then he collapsed.

  (iv)

  By 1687 the passion for protestant persecution had abated a little, which made Jeanne’s escape more feasible, though it was not without risk. It was a time of exodus for thousands of converts who could no longer bear to live as impostors, and who often gave up their worldly possessions for the sake of a free conscience.

  Since the Revocation, a network had sprung up along the roads of exile. A multitude of guides offered their services to fleeing Huguenots. And although the authorities were as keen as ever to prevent tradesmen and academics from leaving the country, they simply did not have the policing resources to do so.

  Nonetheless if Jeanne was to stand a chance of escaping to Geneva she had to have a good guide, Robert had concluded, even if it cost the astronomic sum of two thousand livres. It was a small fortune, the price of the farmhouse where Jeanne first found refuge. But it could lat
er be taken out of the children’s inheritance which the state would legally have to one day honour. And anyway, if the money could not be recovered, Robert considered it a small price to pay for appeasing his own conscience.

  Jeanne followed the weaver on mule-back. It was a long and scary night journey to Villefranche in Rouergue. But the warm night air and her newfound freedom after sixteen months in hiding helped her overcome her fears of capture. They rode over flat country to Caussade, before passing into the limestone hills of Quercy. Then on they travelled by Caylus, and along the gorges of the province of Rouergue.

  They arrived at Villefranche on schedule, an hour after daybreak. Outside the bastide city they stopped at an inn run by a former Huguenot, where a guide, a thickset man of average height and few words, was waiting at a table near the window with two other evacuees who sat in silence. His wide-brimmed hat still obscured his weather-worn face. And beneath an aquiline nose Jeanne noted his bushy moustache was beginning to turn grey. The name he gave was David Trouvier.

  Jeanne had learnt enough patois to pass for a peasant, nevertheless something compelled her to speak to her new guide in French, as if to assert her true status. Despite having occupied many a night learning how to spin thread and weave cloth to make herself useful to Monsieur Cordelle, she had not lost her ingrained sense of social rank.

  It at first surprised her to discover how insignificant she had become, dressed as she was in Marie’s clothing – a blue skirt, white blouse, laced bonnet, and a shawl for night travel. Nobody among the departing voyagers and travelling merchants had given a second turn of the head when she had walked into the inn.

  Yet she had grown as a woman, become more worldly in her lower class garb, even though her gait was still one of a manor-born lady, poised and erect, and without the stoop of the peasant. She had conditioned herself not to give in to melancholy or doubt, but to be strong and determined to bring her family back together. This is what fuelled her resolution to get to Geneva where there would be hope.

  She had developed such a deep understanding of the peasant’s way of life that when the other two evacuees first set eyes on her, they must have wondered how in the world a country woman could pay the price of the passage to Geneva. Only when she lowered her shawl to reveal her head carriage and they heard her talk did they realise her true condition. Jeanne gave a discreet smile and nodded at the two young people. He was a cabinetmaker by the name of Etienne Lambrois, and was accompanied by his sister, who he introduced as Mademoiselle Claire. It gave both ladies reassurance to find another woman among their little party, and they sat down together on the bench.