The Dream Maker

by Jean-Christophe Rufin

  She stood up and went to open the door to a cupboard in the wall behind us. She took out a jug of water and two glasses.

  “It is time to restrain the influence of the Anjou clan,” she said, like a judge peremptorily handing down a sentence.

  Then she added, “And besides, Pierre de Brézé agrees with me on this matter.”

  I knew she was on good terms with the seneschal. I felt a sudden sting of intense jealousy. Did she share the same intimacy with him? While her intimacy with the king only caused me sadness, a relationship with Brézé would have filled me with rage. She smiled and, guessing my thoughts, she sat down again next to me and stroked my hand.

  “No, my Cœur! Pierre is a friend but I have not recognized him as a brother, like you. That’s because there is nothing of the stray angel in him. He is a fine, upstanding man, but he is a man all the same, no more. He can be brutal, as he has proved in the past. Our friendship is sincere, but it is his fervor as a soldier I must restrain. That does not prevent us from being in agreement. My own interests and Brézé’s regarding the well-being of the king and of the realm are in accord. Charles has defeated the English, and subjected the princes. One final obstacle remains for him to be completely free, and a great king: he must remove the Anjou clan who are reigning in his place.”

  “But Brézé owes everything to the Angevins.”

  “He shows more loyalty to the king than to anyone. His opinion is that the House of Anjou has become dangerously powerful. They are weaving their web, and when they remove their veils it will be too late.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I am leaving it up to Pierre to choose the time and the manner. It is he who a few years ago rid the king of that dreadful La Trémoille. He is clever at this sort of brilliant maneuvering, and the king fears him.”

  “And when will he lead the offensive?”

  “He’s waiting for the right moment, and it will come soon. In the meantime, each of us must encourage the king’s mistrust of the Anjou family. Our best ally is poor René. The more he displays his wealth and struts about, the more he annoys Charles and gives him reason to fear him.”

  I was fairly convinced by Agnès’s arguments, and knew myself that the influence of the princes, even when limited to one family, must be curbed at any cost. Nothing shocked me about Agnès and Brézé’s change of heart. The Anjou clan had used them unscrupulously and would not hesitate to do away with them if need be. They acted only to protect themselves. But one thing did bother me, with regard to the trust I wanted to show Agnès: how could she betray Isabelle of Lorraine so callously, a woman to whom she owed everything? So I asked her quite openly. She reacted vigorously, like an animal being forced.

  “When the men of that family introduced me to the king,” she spat, “when they sold me to him like an animal, and I was still innocent, Isabelle tried to defend me. There were terrible scenes between her and her brother-in-law. But her husband was a weak man, and he disowned her, forcing her to yield. We wept all that night. She held me to her and made me swear to obtain my revenge some day. At the time I did not know what she meant, but I swore. And now, the time has come. Not only am I not betraying her but, in fact, I am obeying her!”

  On these words she stood up and took me by the hand. We went back to my room. Once again she nestled close to me.

  “When did they introduce you to the king?”

  “Over two years ago. I was nineteen when I saw Charles for the first time, in Toulouse. I was very different then. I have learned a great deal in two years.”

  A silence fell, and I sensed she was getting drowsy. But before she fell asleep I wanted to ask her one more question.

  “So,” I said hesitantly, “what do you expect from me?”

  She laughed.

  “Nothing, mon Cœur. Above all, do not get involved. You have brought me something irreplaceable: you are the only person to whom I can speak freely. With Brézé we may have this plan in common, but otherwise there are very few things I can trust him with. I remain on my guard. You are my brother, my friend.”

  “And what makes you think I will not betray you?”

  She stroked my cheek.

  “I know you as well as I know myself. We are two pieces of a star that has split apart and fallen to earth. Don’t you believe in that sort of thing? And yet it is God himself who has told me.”

  “God?”

  “He answers me when I pray.”

  She raised herself up on her elbow and gave me a stern look.

  “Do not tell me you have no faith!”

  “To be honest—”

  “Be silent. You are proud and ignorant.”

  She smiled, then put her head back on my shoulder. I could tell she was falling asleep.

  “If we are caught like this—”

  “My lady-in-waiting has orders not to come until morning unless I call for her.”

  With a yawn she added, “And besides, we have nothing to fear from her.”

  A few seconds later she was sound asleep. I lay awake for a long time, troubled by the sudden appearance in my life of this little woman who was so determined and so tender, so familiar and so mysterious. I fell prey to hurried thoughts, unable to pin any of them down. Contradictory feelings divided my heart. I was afraid of desiring her, and thus of betraying not only the king but also the trust she had placed in me. At the same time, rather foolishly, I felt guilty for not seeming enterprising enough; would she not take my coldness, as a man, for disdain? Eventually I cast off this ridiculous torment and surrendered unrestrainedly to complete happiness. After all, I had had no lack of carnal opportunities, and they had never fulfilled me. What was lacking, above all, was a friendship of the sort a man and a woman can have only when they are well matched. Agnès brought me the trust, truth, simplicity, and love that I needed as much as she did. I allowed myself to succumb to the delight of this unexpected relationship, and decided that, whatever happened, I would place this trust above anything else. As for the rest, the shape this friendship would take . . . we would see.

  *

  We stayed at Beauté for five days, five whole days and nights where we were constantly in each other’s company. Agnès talked to me about everything, about her childhood, her fears, and her dreams, and I, for the first time, was able to open my heart completely to someone. I could never have revealed to Macé my doubts and my peculiar ideas. Agnès understood everything. If there were certain things that I kept silent, it was because I was sure that she had already understood them.

  Thus began the strange affection that in those years made Agnès the most precious creature on earth for me. It was not that the flesh was completely absent from this relationship, because we did love to feel our bodies touching, and the tenderness between us took the delightful form of kisses and caresses. However, for a very long time, and until those last grievous moments, which I hope I will have time to evoke, we were not lovers. It was as if we knew that to cross that boundary would have caused us to enter another space, where all the rest of our relationship would have been taken from us. Thus, our unfulfilled desire, rather than being limited to one act alone, radiated through all our gestures and all our thoughts, and gave that which, in spite of everything, I dare to call “our love” an unequaled intensity, and an inimitable coloring.

  It was now out of the question for me to leave the court. I needed to be near Agnès, to be able to share with her, even if it was only a brief look. Life with the king obliged us to be extremely cautious. We were careful never to arouse Charles’s suspicions, although he was quick to take offense. We feigned indifference, long days where we never went near one another. And we had to plan well in advance if we wanted to meet. I had let Marc in on the secret, which was unnecessary because he already knew everything. Agnès used the same lady-in-waiting, a woman from Picardy like herself, a girl who was trustworthy and
from a village next to the one where she was born. There were times when we were able to spend two or three long spells of an afternoon or evening together in the same week. But a month or more might also go by when we were unable to meet. I am referring, naturally, to private meetings; there was no lack of official occasions to see or speak to one another.

  These opportunities became all the more frequent once the revolution Agnès had foretold took place, not long after our discussion at the castle at Beauté. Brézé was wily enough to determine when the time had come to move beyond clever appearances. When he judged that the king was ready, he removed his mask. He asserted that a new plot was underway, led by the Anjou clan, that he had proof of it and that it was urgent to act. The king, at his request, banished several lords who were close to the Angevins, and enjoined René to withdraw to his estate. As for René’s brother, Brézé was able to persuade him that if he showed his face again at the council, he ran the risk of being assassinated. Anjou knew what the seneschal was capable of, and he did not come again.

  Thus, the king was rid of the Anjou clan, quietly and bloodlessly, and in only a matter of days. He suddenly found himself with a new coterie, and the great lords were now absent.

  Because of this upheaval, my own position changed. Thus far I had been tolerated at the council, like the other burghers, because of the services I provided. Now that Charles of Anjou was no longer there, I found myself surrounded by other burghers and minor noblemen like Brézé. He was now the strongman of the Council. We formed a group around him recruited on the basis of competence, rather than birth. What we could not bring to the Council in the way of illustrious family origins we compensated for in numbers: thus we had the Juvénal brothers, the Coëtivy brothers, and the two Bureaus.

  Agnès gained doubly through this change of affairs. On the one hand, with Charles of Anjou gone, she was rid of the man who had first handed her over to the king, and then proceeded, with the same offhand cruelty, to provide him with new girls. Moreover, the men who now sat on the Council were primarily her friends. Combined with the influence she had over the king, she was now in a position to play a leading role. This did not shelter her from danger. Her power elicited still more jealousy than in the early days of her affair. The Dauphin despised her, because he saw her, quite rightfully, as a rival who had even greater influence over the affairs of the realm than he did himself. But the greatest danger threatening Agnès, which she well knew, remained the king.

  He may have changed his manners, but deep down he was still every bit as mean and inconstant. In spite of her quick wits and painstaking daily scrutiny of Charles’s moods, Agnès could never be completely sure of him. She made a constant effort to be charming and surprising. As she had told me, she dreaded nothing so much as pregnancy. It made her heavy, and however she might try to hide them, her pregnancies always necessitated a brief and dangerous absence, the time required to give birth. Unfortunately for her, the Valois temperament Charles had inherited gave him a vigor and appetite that kept Agnès pregnant almost as often as the Queen. The difference between the two women, however, could not have been greater. The queen made a public display of her gestation periods. She went from bed to chaise longue in a perpetual complaint of nausea, edema, and cravings. For her it was a triumph to give birth; it was the moment when the entire court seemed to take notice of her existence, and the king himself brought her a splendid gift. For Agnès, pregnancy was an invisible state where she must intensify her activity and care for her own person. She hid the rosacea on her cheeks beneath plaster of ceruse. She made the most of the other effects of her condition, particularly the swelling of her breasts. She had duly noted that the king found this detail interesting. Her seamstress shamelessly emphasized her attributes with décolletés that opened with laces that could be loosened as the weeks went by, revealing the increasingly prominent curves of her breasts.

  As for the actual birth, I never knew where it took place. Agnès would disappear for a short week, and when she came back everybody would compliment her on her complexion. Her children were daughters, and immediately after their birth they were placed with families who were friends. The Coëtivys took in two of them.

  We were constantly moving about. The king did not like Paris, as we knew, and he never wanted to make it his capital. He preferred to travel all around the kingdom. This incessant movement filled our lives with constant novelty. We would go from one place to the next, never settling in: in that way our surroundings never had time to succumb to the wearing of routine. We lived in a state of perpetual surprise. We got lost along unfamiliar corridors, and we knocked on four doors before finding the room we were looking for. Nighttime feasting was an opportunity to restore life to dull dwellings.

  In spite of the jealousy and fear which still lurked in people’s minds, we lived in constant good humor, and clearly Agnès had something to do with this. It was obvious that the king had exchanged his timidity for a boldness that verged on provocation, and he had placed his mistress among the ladies of the queen’s retinue. This close proximity could have caused turmoil; on the contrary, the two women found it suited them. The queen, too, had changed. Now she was rich, and she had asked me to advise her in her affairs. She had set about trading in wine, dealing in fabrics from the East, and she bought precious gems with her profits. She took great pains with the castles where the court stayed, and showed considerable taste in decorating buildings and gardens.

  Agnès’s presence had freed her somewhat from Charles’s attentions, which, in fact, had brought her little else than suffering and grief, for many of her children had died very young. She seemed to have reached an age where the woman behind the mother and spouse was revealed at last. Agnès, in her way, had contributed to this. The queen, therefore, had no reason to complain of the situation.

  It has to be said that this new life coincided with a period of luxury and plenty, which made everything easier and more pleasant. Obviously I was called upon to fuel this great blaze, into which I tossed armfuls of the Argenterie riches. And these riches were increasingly significant. Our commercial endeavors were beginning to yield their fruit on a grand scale. It had taken time to establish our networks and turn the flow of merchandise in our direction, but now the movement was well underway. By ensuring a core of regular orders, the court supported our activity. The result was unequalled wealth, even though that wealth was founded on the credit I extended.

  The women used every opportunity to appear in public to display their latest finery. Horn-shaped headdresses had become gigantic, the trains of their gowns were endless, and there was no limit to their décolletés. Even the most ordinary gowns were made of silk, and their jewelry was magnificent. Agnès was very eager to be at the forefront of all such novelties. This made the king’s task very difficult, but gladdened my heart. For in order to give her presents, which was a weekly obligation, Charles had to find a new idea, an exceptional item, some never-before-seen finery which alone could meet his demanding mistress’s expectations. And, naturally, he turned to me. I applied all my skill, which the king expected, and all my love, which he could not suspect. When Agnès received a rare jewel, a silk from the Orient, or an exotic animal from the king, she knew that I had chosen them. It was a minor betrayal, to be sure, but one which caused no harm and kept us all content.

  *

  The other activity which gave me an opportunity to be close to Agnès and safely establish a complicity with her in the open was our patronage of the arts. Now that peace and wealth had come, the French court was caught up in a frenzy of creativity and beauty. Hitherto, only Burgundy had been prosperous and peaceful enough to foster the arts. Charles eventually understood that he too must take up this challenge. It was an additional reason for him to look toward Italy and the East. He had been much preoccupied with England, but that barbarian confrontation had brought only brutality and ruin. For refinement and new work, he must look elsewhere.

 
Agnès, with her Italian culture, guided and encouraged him. I used my network of agents to import works of art and even, if they were willing, the artists themselves. A painter called Fouquet, who had just returned from Italy, had received the welcome and protection of a member of the council, Étienne Chevalier, whose portrait he had painted, featuring him next to his patron saint. I had gone to meet the painter, and when Agnès found this out she arranged for me to introduce him to her.

  This Fouquet was a fairly young man, short in stature and always scruffy, who gladly whiled away his time in taverns and swore like his drinking companions. His hands were splattered with paint and his clothes were torn. All of these details should have made him repulsive, and yet he projected irresistible charm and power from his eyes alone. They were light green, shining feverishly, incredibly mobile but capable at any moment of staring intensely at an object, swooping down, and making off with it the way a raptor would have with its talons. I wondered what sort of effect he would have on Agnès. One day, when we had settled in Tours, I set about organizing the promised meeting. This fellow only suited himself, and he refused to go as far as the castle. At best, he agreed to receive us in his studio. Agnès liked this idea and mentioned it to the king as if it were a fine joke. For a moment I was afraid he might want to go with her. But he refrained, and we set out on our own. We spent an afternoon of bliss. In those days Fouquet had his studio in a hamlet down by the Loire. He employed two companions to prepare his canvases and mix his paints.

  Agnès took an immediate liking to him. It must be said that to find Fouquet surrounded by his paintings was the best way to make his acquaintance. It was strange to see such works coming from such a dirty, untidy personage—luminous works of calm beauty, precise execution, and a delicacy of colors and shapes which were totally lacking in the artist himself. His portraits, in particular, set his characters in another world, as if he had removed them from their reality in order to restore them in the décor of their dreams. He and Agnès had a shared ability to understand human beings beyond mere appearance, and to unveil their secret affinities. They immediately liked one another, not the way lovers would—she would have leapt up in indignation at the idea—nor as brother and sister, a kinship she reserved for me. They saw one another, rather, as fellow magicians, creatures who, in a less cultured place, would have been treated as witches. Fouquet compounded friendship with his veneration of beauty, which left him paralyzed with admiration in Agnès’s presence.