"So that is why Dulcibeni settled there."
"Perhaps. It is a pity that since the very beginning, for a number of theological reasons which I shall not now attempt to explain to you, the Jansenists have been accused of heresy."
"Yes, I know. Dulcibeni could be a heretic."
"Forget that. It is not what matters. Let us move on to the second motive for reflection."
"Namely?"
"All that hatred for princes and sovereigns. It is... how could I put it? It is all too Jansenist a sentiment. The obsession with kings who commit incest, marry harlots, beget bastard children; and the nobles who betray their elevated destiny and grow soft. These are themes which lead to rebellion, to disorder and turbulence."
"And so?"
"Nothing. It seems curious to me; where do those words come from? And above all, where can they lead? We know much about him, but at the same time, we know too little."
"Perhaps such ideas have something to do with the business about three to dine, the brothers and the farm."
"Do you mean the strange expressions which we heard in Tiracorda's house? Perhaps. We shall see tonight."
Night the Seventh
Between the 17th & 18th September, 1683
*
From Doctor Tiracorda's cabinet, tremulous candlelight filtered, while Dulcibeni sat down and laid on the table a bottle full of a greenish liquid. The doctor banged down on the board the goblets which had on the last occasion remained empty, because of the breaking of the bottle.
Atto and I crouched in the shadows of the next room, as we had done the night before. Our incursion into the house of Tiracorda had proved more difficult than expected: for a long while, one of the housemaids tidied up the kitchen, so that we were unable to leave the stables. Once the maid had ascended to the first floor, we tarried no little time in order to be quite certain that no one was moving from room to room any longer. While we were still waiting, Dulcibeni at last knocked at the door; the master of the house welcomed him and led him up to the study on the first floor, where we were now eavesdropping upon the pair.
We had missed the beginning of the conversation, and the two were once again testing one another with incomprehensible phrases. Tiracorda sipped placidly at the greenish beverage.
"Then I shall repeat," said the doctor. "A white field, a black seed, five sowers and two directing them. It is ab-so-lute-ly clear."
"It is no use, no use..." said Dulcibeni, defensively.
At that moment, by my side Atto Melani gave a slight start and I saw that he was silently cursing.
"Then, I shall tell you," said Tiracorda. "Writing."
"Writing?"
"But of course! The white field is the paper, the seed is the ink, the five sowers are the fingers of the hand and the two who direct the work are the eyes. Not bad, eh? Ha ha ha ha ha! Haaaaaa ha ha ha ha!"
The old Archiater once again gave himself up to ribald laughter.
"Remarkable," was Dulcibeni's sole comment.
At that moment, I too understood: enigmas. Tiracorda and Dulcibeni were amusing themselves with riddles. Even the mysterious phrases which we had overheard last night were certainly part of that same innocent entertainment. I looked at Atto and his countenance mirrored my own disappointment: once more we had been racking our brains for nothing. Dulcibeni, however, seemed to appreciate this pastime far less than his companion, and tried to change the subject as he had done during our previous visit.
"Bravo, Giovanni, bravo," said he, again filling the glasses. "But tell me now, how was he today?"
"Oh, nothing new. And did you sleep well?"
"For as long as I was able to," said Dulcibeni gravely.
"I understand, I understand," said Tiracorda, draining his glass and promptly refilling it. "You are so troubled," continued the physician. "But there are still a couple of things which you have not told me. Excuse me for dwelling on the past, but why did you not ask the Odescalchi for help with your daughter?"
"I did, I did," replied Dulcibeni. "I have already told you. But they said that they could do nothing for me. And then..."
"Ah yes, then came that nasty incident, the beating, the fall..." Tiracorda recalled.
"It was no fall, Giovanni. They struck me on the neck and then they threw me down from the second floor. It was a miracle that I escaped with my life," said Dulcibeni, somewhat impatiently, once again filling his friend's glass.
"Yes, yes, please pardon me, I should have remembered that from your collar; it is just that I am rather weary..." Tiracorda's voice was growing drowsy.
"Do not excuse yourself, Giovanni, but listen. Now it is your turn. I have three good ones."
Dulcibeni took out a book and began to read in a warm, resonant voice:
To tell you from A unto Zed, I intend,
What to name I would always presume;
And if I should claim to have Names for it all,
Why, then I'm but Ragges and Spume.
The one thing that counts is to 'wait the Boys' Call;
'Tis for them that my Stuff I consume.
And you, Masters, who tell 'em of me to inquire,
Know well that I am the good Son of a Friar.
The reading continued with two, three, four more bizarre little rhymes, with brief pauses in between.
"What say you, Giovanni?" asked Dulcibeni at length, after reading the series of riddles.
The only reply was a rhythmic bronchial murmur. Tiracorda was asleep.
At that juncture, something unforeseen occurred. Instead of rousing his friend, who had obviously drunk several glasses too many, Dulcibeni returned the book to his pocket and tiptoed to the secret closet behind Tiracorda's back, from which we had seen the latter take two little glasses the night before. Dulcibeni opened the door to the cupboard and began to busy himself with a number of vases and containers of spices. He then pulled out a ceramic vase on which were painted the waters of a pond, a few aquatic plants and strange little animals which I was unable to identify. There were little holes in the sides of the vase, as though to allow air to enter. Dulcibeni raised the vase to the candlelight and, removing its lid, looked into it. He then replaced the vase in the cupboard and began to rummage about in there.
"Giovanni!"
A woman's voice, strident and most disagreeable, came from the staircase and seemed to be approaching. Paradisa, the terrible wife of Tiracorda was beyond any doubt arriving. For a few instants, Dulcibeni stood as though petrified. Tiracorda, who seemed to be fast asleep, gave a start. Dulcibeni probably succeeded in closing the secret cupboard before the doctor awoke and surprised him searching among his things. Atto and I could not, however, observe the scene: yet again, we were caught between two fires. We looked all around, in desperation.
"Giovanniiii!" repeated Paradisa, drawing ever nearer. In Tiracorda's study, too, the alarm must be at its height: we heard a discreet but frenetic shifting of chairs, tables, doors, bottles and glasses; the doctor was hiding the evidence of his alcoholic misdeed.
"Giovanni!" declaimed Paradisa at last with a voice the colour of a clouded sky, as she entered the antechamber. At that precise moment, Abbot Melani and I were face to the ground among the legs of a row of chairs against the wall.
"Oh sinners, oh wretches, oh lost souls," Paradisa began to chant, solemn as a priestess, as she drew near to the door of Tiracorda's study.
"But, my dear wife, here is our friend Pompeo..."
"Silence, child of Satan!" screamed Paradisa. "My nose does not deceive me."
As we could hear from our uncomfortable position, the woman began to turn the study upside down, moving chairs and tables, opening and noisily slamming doors, cupboards and drawers, and knocking statuettes and ornaments one against the other in her search for proof of misconduct. Tiracorda and Dulcibeni strove in vain to calm her, assuring her that never, but never had it so much as entered their minds to drink anything but water.
"Your mouth, let me smell
your mouth!" screeched Paradisa. Her husband's refusal provoked yet more screams and a great to-do.
It was at that moment that we resolved to slip out from under the chairs where we were hiding and to flee in silence but with all possible speed.
"Women, women, curses. And we are even worse than they..."
Two or three minutes had passed and we were already underground, commenting upon the events which had just transpired. Atto was furious.
"I shall tell you what Tiracorda and Dulcibeni's mysteries were all about. The first one, that which you heard last night, do you remember it? One had to guess: what was there in common between 'Enter dumb into here' and 'Number to dine: three'. Solution: it is an anagram."
"An anagram?"
"Of course. The same letters in a sentence so disposed as to form another one. The second was a game to test one's presence of mind: a father has seven daughters; if each daughter has a brother, how many children has that father?
"Seven, multiplied by two: fourteen."
"Not even in your dreams! She has eight: as Tiracorda said, the brother of the one is the brother of the others. These are all silly things: that which Dulcibeni read this evening, which begins, 'To tell you from A unto Zed, I intend...' is utterly simple. The answer is: the dictionary."
"And the others?" I asked, stupefied by Atto's prompt wit.
"What does it matter?" he fumed. "I am not a seer. What we need to know is why Dulcibeni was trying to get Tiracorda drunk and then rummaging in his secret cupboard. And that we would have known, had it not been for the arrival of that madwoman Paradisa."
At that moment, I did indeed recall that little was known of Signora Paradisa in the Via dell'Orso. In the light of what we had seen and heard in Tiracorda's house, it was perhaps no accident that the woman almost never left the house.
"And now, what shall we do?" I asked, observing the rapid pace at which Atto was preceding me on the way back to the hostelry.
"We shall do the one thing that remains possible if we are to elucidate matters: we shall take a look in Pompeo Dulcibeni's chamber."
The one risk of such an operation was, of course, the sudden return of Dulcibeni. We, however, trusted to our own celerity, and to the relative slowness of the elderly Marchigiano, who would also need some time to disengage himself from Tiracorda's house.
"Pardon me, Signor Atto," I asked, after a few minutes' hard march, "but what do you expect to find in the apartment of Pompeo Dulcibeni?"
"What stupid questions you sometimes ask. Here we are facing one of the most tremendous mysteries in the history of France, and you ask what we shall find! And how should I know? Surely, something more about the imbroglio in which we are now caught up: Dulcibeni, friend of Tiracorda; Tiracorda, physician to the Pope; the Pope, enemy of Louis XIV; Devize, pupil of Corbetta; Corbetta, friend of Maria Teresa and Mademoiselle; Louis XIV enemy of Fouquet; Fouquet, travelling with Devize; Fouquet, friend of the abbot who stands before you... what more do you want?
Atto needed to unburden himself, and to do so he must needs talk.
"And besides," he continued, "Dulcibeni's apartment was also that of the Superintendent, or have you forgotten?"
He left me no time to reply, but added: "Poor Nicolas, his destiny was to be searched, even after his death."
"What do you mean?"
"Louis XIV had the Superintendent's cell searched continuously and in every possible manner throughout the twenty years of his imprisonment at Pinerol."
"Whatever was he looking for?" I asked with a jolt of surprise.
Melani stopped and, singing with all his heart, intoned a sad air by Master Rossi:
Infelice pensier,
chi ne conforta?
Ohime!
Chi ne consiglia?...*
Sighing, he adjusted his justaueorps, wiped his forehead and straightened his red stockings.
"Would that I knew what the King was looking for!" he answered disconsolately. "But I must needs explain: there are still a number of things which you should know," he added, after recovering his calm.
It was thus that, in order to make up for my ignorance, Atto Melani recounted to me the last chapter of the story of Nicolas Fouquet.
When the trial was over and he had been condemned to imprisonment for the rest of his days, Fouquet left Paris forever, bound for the fortress of Pinerol, his carriage making its way through the crowd which tearfully acclaimed him. He was accompanied by the musketeer d'Artagnan. Pinerol was situated in Piedmontese territory, on the border of the kingdom. Many wondered why so distant a place should have been chosen, and one which was, moreover, perilously close to the states of the Duke of Savoy. More than flight, however, the King feared Fouquet's many friends, and Pinerol represented the only way of removing him forever from their assistance.
As his gaoler, a musketeer was appointed from the escort which had accompanied Fouquet from one prison to another throughout the trial: Benigne d'Auvergne, Lord of Saint-Mars, personally recommended to the King by d'Artagnan. Saint-Mars was assigned eighty soldiers to guard one prisoner: Fouquet. He would report directly to the Minister for War, Le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois.
Fouquet's imprisonment was most rigorous: every communication with the outside world was forbidden him, whether oral or written: there were to be no visits of any kind or for whatever reason. He was not even permitted to take a breath of air within the confines of the fortress. He could read, but only such works as the King permitted, and one book at a time. Above all, he must not write: once returned, each book read by the prisoner was to be leafed through thoroughly by the faithful Saint-Mars, in case Fouquet might have annotated something or underlined some word. His Majesty charged himself with seeing to clothing, which was sent to Pinerol with each change of season.
* Unhappy thought, / Who can give comfort for't? / Alas! / Who can give counsel?
In that remote citadel, the climate was hard. Fouquet was not allowed to walk. Constrained to absolute immobility, the Superintendent's health declined rapidly. Despite this, he was denied the care of his personal physician, Pecquet. Fouquet did, however, obtain herbs with which to care unaided for his health. He was also allowed the company of two of his valets, who had agreed out of loyalty to share their master's fate.
Louis XIV knew how fascinating Fouquet's mind was. He could not refuse him the comforts of the Faith, but he recommended that his confessors should be changed frequently, lest he should win them over and use them to communicate with the outside world.
In June 1665, lightning struck the fortress and caused the explosion of a powder store. There were many deaths. Fouquet and his valets jumped out of a window. The chances of surviving that leap into the void were minimal; yet all three emerged unharmed. When the news reached Paris, poems circulated which commented upon the occurrence and called it a miracle: God wished to spare the Superintendent and to show the King a sign of His will. Many took up the cry: "Free Fouquet!" The King, however, did not yield; on the contrary, he persecuted whoever clamoured too loudly.
It was necessary to rebuild the fortress. In the meanwhile, Fouquet spent a year in the house of the Commissary for War of Pinerol, and then in another prison.
In the course of the work, Saint-Mars discovered among the ashes of Fouquet's furniture of what the Superintendent's intellect was capable. Louvois and the King were at once sent the little treasures of ingenuity found in the Squirrel's cell: notes written by Fouquet using a few capon's bones as a pen and as ink a little red wine mixed with lamp black. The prisoner had even managed to create an invisible ink and to find a hiding place for his writings in the back of a chair.
"But what was he trying to write?" I asked, shocked and moved by these pitiful stratagems.
"That has never been discovered," replied Atto. "All that was intercepted was sent to the King in great secret."
From that moment onwards, the King ordered that he should be searched thoroughly every day. Only reading then remained to him.
He was allowed a Bible, a history of France, a few Italian books, a dictionary of French rhymes and the works of Saint Bonaventure (while those of Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine were not permitted him).
He began to teach Latin and the rudiments of pharmacy to one of his valets.
But Fouquet was the Squirrel in all things: his astuteness and industry could not be bridled. Goaded on by Louvois, who knew the Superintendent well and could not believe that he would allow himself to be so easily defeated, Saint-Mars made a careful inspection of his underclothing. He was found to be wearing little ribbons of lace trimmings covered in minute writing, and many inscriptions were also found on the back of the lining of his doublet. The King at once ordered that Fouquet was to be issued solely with black clothing and undergarments. Towels and napkins were numbered so as to avoid the possibility that he might take possession of them.
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