Merchants of Virtue

by Paul C R Monk

  The soldiers approached the little wooden jetty and commanded the boater to stop punting. They rode into the water up to the flat-bottomed boat on the downstream side so that it protected them from the splash of the flow. Their stirrups were just twelve inches above the water’s surface.

  ‘What are you carrying?’ said the younger of the horsemen.

  ‘Usual, sir,’ said the ferryman, ‘wheat, tiles and barrels of wine.’

  ‘Why are you taking passengers?’

  ‘Been visiting family, sir,’ said David before the boater could answer. ‘On our way home.’

  ‘Your passport paper.’

  Under the force of the current the boat bobbed. David reached over the edge and passed his passport to the officer. It was a fake, but a good one, and the seal on the letter was genuine.

  ‘Where you from?’

  ‘Rumilly, sir. Been visiting the wife’s sister.’

  ‘There is a bridge further downstream. Why are you crossing here?’

  ‘To save time. It’s only three leagues from Seyssel.’

  ‘Huguenots have been found trying to cross thinking we are too busy to patrol here,’ said the soldier with a hint of sarcasm. Jeanne’s heart pounded so hard she could hear its pulse in her ears despite the rush of the river.

  ‘Your wife’s passport,’ said the soldier, steadying his horse.

  Jeanne looked in bewilderment to Trouvier.

  ‘Your papers. This!’ snapped the guard, waving Trouvier’s forged permit to travel. ‘Where is your passport paper?’

  What could she do? For a moment her mind was numbed.

  Trouvier suspected he was about to be arrested, which meant he would hang by the first snowfall. He stood smiling up at the young soldier, wondering if he had a devil’s chance of reaching his arm. No, he was not ready to swing yet. For ninety yards to freedom he was prepared to kill a man, or be killed. It could not be much different from slicing a lamb’s throat. He slowly placed his hand on his sheathed skinning knife tucked under his belt, and waited for the right moment.

  Jeanne, meanwhile, opened her travelling sack. ‘Boudiou, boudiou,’ she said in Occitan, which in French meant Good God. She was not taking His name in vain. She was praying for a miracle.

  Her hand fell upon her leather wallet. She had an idea.

  She reached over to pass the wallet to the soldier’s outstretched hand. Trouvier clasped his knife handle, but then a timely gust kicked into the stacked cargo and made the boat dip down. Jeanne let slip the wallet. It was as if a wave had snatched her babies from her hands. Her cry of pain was genuine as she watched her precious drawings being whisked away by the rapid current.

  She looked up at David who had to suppress his surprise when she hurled in fluent patois, ‘My god, my wallet, I’ve lost my wallet! It’s your fault for bringing us here! Now what?’ It was a risk but she had noted that the soldiers had accents from the north. She speculated that they would probably not know which kingdom her patois was from, never mind which region.

  The soldier turned to his superior who said: ‘Search her bag, if she’s a fugitive she’ll be carrying a Protestant Bible.’

  The lady has her wits about her, thought Trouvier who loosened his clasp on his knife. Jeanne handed her bag to the soldier, confident in the knowledge that he would not find her Bible by the simple fact that she wore it on her person. It was called a chignon Bible because it was small enough for ladies to hide in their hair.

  The soldier rummaged around in the sack. Then he shook his head to his superior who had been half expecting to find a bourgeoise in disguise. But Huguenot ladies are not educated to speak patois. They are bred to speak the King’s French. They would not lower themselves to speak the language of peasants.

  Jeanne hurled more of her patois at David about the fading light. He stood there exactly like an embarrassed husband, gormless.

  ‘Please forgive her insolence, sir,’ he said. But the senior guard had already held up a hand, laughed out loud, and waved them on. The young guard threw Jeanne’s sack to the ‘harassed husband’. They then turned their horses, rode back up the shore, and cantered away. The boatman pushed on his punt.

  Half an hour later, they were standing in the Duchy of Savoy. Jeanne and Claire fell into each other’s arms, rejoicing for their imminent freedom from persecution. Beneath the joy, however, Jeanne hid her grief at the loss of the precious drawings of her children.

  *

  By the second day’s ride from Seyssel they were easier about travelling by daylight. Now that the storm had passed, Jeanne even began to marvel at the spectacular mountainscapes, the lush alpine meadows, rocky ravines and snow-capped crests high above.

  Following the French King’s example, Victor Amadeus II of Savoy had instigated a purge of Protestantism from his Duchy. However, unlike their French counterparts, the Savoyard Protestants known as Waldensians, were at least allowed to leave the dukedom if they did not wish to become Catholics overnight. Nevertheless, to avoid any unpleasant encounters with the duke’s soldiers who now had a licence to harass, David Trouvier kept his group off the beaten track.

  Trouvier invariably marked the pace up front, Monsieur Lambrois kept up the rear, while Jeanne and Mademoiselle Claire rode alongside each other wherever the path permitted. Despite the fatigue from weeks of travel, and the shift to sleeping at night, the journey took on a more convivial mood. And now that they had left French soil their conversation became less constrained, despite the guide’s reminder that danger could still be lurking.

  ‘To tell the truth, we were to wed two years ago,’ said Mademoiselle Claire as she and Jeanne rode abreast along the mountain trail in the cool morning sun. ‘But the Revocation put a stop to all our plans. I tried to convert but I could not bring myself to marry before a Catholic altar.’

  ‘So you decided to leave,’ said Jeanne who sensed the young woman’s deliverance as she voiced her secret.

  Claire simply nodded. It brought back scenes of farewell and the thought of perhaps never seeing her family again in this life. She needed an instant for the surge of emotion to subside.

  Jeanne understood her agitation. She said with finality, ‘You were right, my dear, to follow your conscience.’

  After a moment Claire said, ‘It was Etienne who suggested we leave France, he could not bear us not being married. My dear father told the authorities I would be staying with my aunt in Bordeaux. Then we left with his blessing, though I cannot help feeling bad about it, like I’m running away.’

  ‘You need not. You have followed your heart, and you were right,’ said Jeanne. ‘Listen to me, if I had left France when my husband first suggested it, we would both be together with our children now. And I would not be here today travelling without them like a lonely spinster.’ Claire was pressing Jeanne’s arm in sympathy when there was a movement above and then falling rubble ahead.

  Two mountain men jumped down from a rock ledge with muskets at their belts. David raised a hand to halt the mules. Jeanne froze. Claire now pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle her fright as Etienne trotted up to join the guide.

  ‘Where go you?’ said one of the men striding forward to meet them head-on. He wore a red neck scarf and a wide-brimmed hat similar to that of Trouvier.

  ‘Geneva, if my life’s worth living!’ affirmed David in a raised voice. Jeanne thought it rather bold, perhaps too bold. The guide dismounted. But then both men’s faces blossomed into a broad smile as they walked into each other’s arms.

  ‘Cousin, your timing is impeccable,’ said the man. David then grasped the arm of the second man – ten years younger than his cousin – in a manifestation of friendship.

  Jeanne smiled her relief. Claire let out a little laugh in appreciation of the caper. Lambrois jumped down from his mule.

  David introduced his cousin, Thomas Trouvier, who was accompanied by a man named Jacques who carried a cane and wore a brown knitted cap.

  ‘Monsieur, Mesdames, fear not. You are amo
ng friends,’ said Thomas. He then explained to the group that on this day, the Lord’s Day, they were lookouts. For what, the party would soon hear and see for themselves.

  The man named Jacques, a taciturn shepherd in his thirties, led them on. Towing his mule, David walked beside Thomas while exchanging news of high waters and impending snowfalls. Jeanne, Claire and Etienne Lambrois followed on mule back.

  After a five minute trek they veered off the mountain path. Everyone dismounted to avoid the low branches. In a moment they could hear singing, then the rocky path developed into a clearing fringed by spindly spruce trees, and they were met with the heartening sight of a congregation of Waldensians who had just broken into beautiful song. Jeanne recognised the song ‘Through The Desert Of My suffering’.

  The preacher was standing on wooden steps. The congregation of about sixty souls of every age and condition was standing, kneeling or sitting on rocks all around, like the first Christians persecuted by Romans, thought Jeanne. Today, however, it was Roman Catholics who were the persecutors. Clandestine services in the hills like this one were held throughout Savoy for Protestants no longer allowed to practice their faith in their villages.

  Jeanne let fall the rein of her mule and walked into the assembly. She knelt down, and a feeling of rejuvenation inhabited her. It was as if a great burden was being lifted from her back as she thanked Christ for helping her keep her faith.

  Claire and Etienne exchanged a loving smile, advanced together, then knelt beside Jeanne and joined in the last couplets of the song.

  It assuaged Jeanne’s heart to feel her warm tears stream down her cold cheeks as she prayed to God for her husband and her children. She resolved there and then that once she arrived in Geneva, she would spend the remainder of her money, if necessary, to bring at least Elizabeth to her side. Elizabeth was old enough to stand up to the rigours of the long and perilous journey. That is what she would do once she got to Geneva.

  *

  They passed over the drawbridge the following day, and entered through the south city gate recently fortified. Labourers and builders on scaffold were finishing reinforcement work along the stone ramparts.

  Trouvier led his party on through the tall interior gate, porte de la Tartace, then to the lower city centre. The colourful hullabaloo of the bustling market with its savoury smells and unashamed abundance was a heartening sight indeed. People knew instinctively whence they had come, and as they filled their gourdes with water at a fountain some folk doffed their hats in a sign of welcome, while a few others hard-stared with curiosity, or was it disapproval?

  Having stabled their mules, a short time later they pushed the heavy door of a tavern where they ordered food and sent a messenger to inform their contacts of their arrival. Soon Claire and her cabinetmaker were met by the relative who had offered them board and lodging until they were properly married and settled. Jeanne was glad to see he was a very civil man, middle-aged and soberly dressed. Of course Jeanne would see them again, of course they would sit together in church. Etienne Lambrois and his bride-to-be took their leave in an effusion of thanks to both their guide and Madame Delpech.

  The log fire crackled in the hearth. A dog sat scratching itself by their table, then yawned. Now alone with Trouvier, Jeanne seized the moment to ask him if he would bring her one of her children from Montauban. But the guide whose usual job was shearing and shepherding had thought a lot since the river episode in Seyssel. He had got out of a tricky spot, partly, it was true, thanks to Jeanne. But the fact remained that he had been close to either being arrested or committing murder. Both notions made him feel uncomfortable. His luck had held out until now, so maybe he ought not to push it any further. Besides, he had already made a handsome stash of money, much more than he could have earned in many years of herding and shearing sheep, and he hoped to be around long enough to enjoy it, maybe get himself a place of his own. He was not without sympathy for the lady who was desperate to recover some of her children. But as a matter of principle, he tried to never get involved; it was a question of self-preservation. After all, it was his head that would be on the block should he get caught. He told her he could not.

  A neatly dressed gentleman walked into the tavern where people were drinking ale and smoking wooden pipes. He had a well-trimmed beard, wore a dark tunic and white cloth collar under a black cloak. He scanned the noisy room twice before his eyes fell again upon a country woman with her flank to him. She was wearing a peasant woman’s white bonnet and was deep in conversation with a man of rustic appearance. Could that possibly be Jeanne Delpech de Castanet? Surely not. Yet the poise of her head compelled him to walk over to the table where earthen bowls of stew and wooden tankards of ale had been served. He had a difficult task.

  Trouvier looked up on the approach of the gentleman who doffed his felt hat revealing his thinning grey hair. Jeanne turned to face him.

  ‘Madame Delpech? Thank God you have arrived safely.’

  She instantly recognised Samuel Duvaux, the former pastor of Montauban who had left France three years before the Revocation. He had aged but had retained his benevolent smile. After the introductions he pulled up a stool to take the weight off his feet. He explained he had been expecting her.

  ‘Indeed, I received another note from your dear sister,’ said the pastor who immediately regretted mentioning Suzanne’s letter. He adroitly steered his train of conversation into another direction. ‘I thought you would be here last week, actually, and was beginning to worry. But your room is made up and you must know, as a refugee you are officially welcome to winter in Geneva until April, although if you need to stay longer I am sure we shall be able to sort something out.’ But his uncharacteristic quick succession of pleasantries did not go unnoticed to Jeanne.

  She said, ‘Thank you so much. What news has my sister?’ The pastor’s delayed response, his expression that became more solemn, told her all was not well. ‘Something is wrong,’ Jeanne said, ‘isn’t there?’

  ‘My dear, lady, I fear this is perhaps not the place…’

  ‘Tell me, please,’ she said. She was prepared for Jacob’s passing, had been for so long. It would almost come as a deliverance, for it would perhaps mean she would no longer have nightmares of him being tortured.

  Pastor Duvaux touched her arm and said, ‘Your daughter. Louise.’

  He did not need to say anymore. Jeanne remained silent, dignified in her grief.

  That evening the soft bed and clean linen gave comfort to her body but no consolation to her mind. Her eyes were red and her face swollen from silently mourning the death of her daughter.

  She reread the letter written by the hand of Suzanne. There was no signature, no mention of names either. It was a precautionary practice that gave protection in case the document got into the wrong hands. It told her that it was a fever that had taken her child away. The nurse said she had been playing near the latrines. She always was such an inquisitive child. Jeanne wrapped her arms around her belly, brought her knees up to the foetal position as she realised she would never be able to visit her child’s grave. Could all this hardship have been for nothing? Was there no end to it?

  Then she remembered that Jesus had said, ‘Let the little children come to me.’ She fell asleep.

  *

  Three days had passed since Jeanne’s first night in Geneva. The thin layer of snow that fell during the night by morning had melted. A little before noon Monsieur Trouvier was shown into the pastor’s parlour. He got to his feet when Jeanne entered. She had given up her peasant garb for a simple dress and shawl. Trouvier noticed she looked refreshed but pale. Jeanne noticed how much her guide looked out of place in the simple but elegant sitting room. She well knew what an astute man he was, and what mettle he was made of. And yet, standing there in his boots holding his grubby hat, he looked more rural than ever, almost uncivilised. This is how she would have seen him before her hardships began. But now she knew different. Her struggles had made her a better person, she thou
ght to herself. She smiled and sat down on the edge of an armchair.

  She said, ‘Thank you for your visit, Monsieur Trouvier, please take a seat.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ said the guide as he took a pew on the chair opposite. ‘I’ll go for you. I can bring back one of your children. Only one.’

  ‘Thank you, thank you,’ said Jeanne holding her hands together.

  ‘But you do realise that a young child under ten unused to the wilds might not survive the journey.’

  ‘Yes, I have thought about that. Elizabeth shall go with you. She is thirteen years old.’

  ‘Thirteen is good. All right then. Though there is the added danger of winter. Although on the other hand, I s’pose the cold nights will keep the patrols away.’

  13

  December 1687 to February 1688

  Two months quickly passed, during which Jeanne discovered she could earn a modest living from weaving. She had used the best part of her remaining money to purchase a small loom. Church acquaintances tried to persuade her that artisan work was below her. But she would not accept charity from the refugee relief fund, and only continued staying at the pastor’s residence because of his gentle insistence. Her clientele grew, thanks to the church, and to the reputation of Huguenot weavers whose techniques she had learnt from Monsieur Cordelle.

  She had lost everything. She no longer cared for material values, so she found she could live on very little and put coin aside for when she would no longer just have herself to upkeep. She looked forward to one day soon being reunited with her eldest daughter. Any spare time was used making for Elizabeth a set of winter clothes which she could alter accordingly when she saw her. Jeanne often wondered what she was like now. A proper little madam, knowing Lizzy.

  Every day she thanked the Lord for placing in her path a weaver and a shepherd, and considered how the humblest in society had given her self-sufficiency and filled her with hope to carry on.

  A week before Christmastide she received a note. Judging from the untutored handwriting it could only be from Trouvier. She tore it open with trembling hands. It read: Your little lady wishes to stay with her friends. She refuses to leave her hometown. I cannot wait anymore. I am very sorry.