The Dream Maker

by Jean-Christophe Rufin

  “How much could a campaign like that cost? Let us suppose we invest all our means, and the affair lasts until winter . . . Three hundred thousand . . . No, no . . . I would say, rather, four hundred thousand écus. Would you give them to me, Messire Cœur?”

  He had again turned his gaze to me, as if awaiting my reaction. This was the worst question anyone had ever asked me. If I said no, I would be rebelling against my king and he would never forgive me. If I said yes, the sheer enormity of the sum would instantly reveal the extent of my fortune. The king was poorly versed in matters of finance. However, they were touched upon at the Council, and his quartermaster general kept him regularly informed as to the state of his treasury. He knew that I was rich and he was certainly aware that it was in part due to the duties he had conferred on me. But now for the first time, what we both knew, without ever having spoken of it, was about to appear in broad daylight, through my reply: I was richer than the king, richer than the state.

  “Yes,” I replied, and bowed.

  The moment I uttered it, I knew that this word was sealing my fate. It is not a good idea to contest the power of such men. He did not bat an eyelash, but I got the impression I was hearing my words fall into the darkest depths of his mind. He thanked me, with a cold smile. Then he told me that he would think about it.

  In the days that followed, he was once again in a good humor. When the queen, accompanied by Agnès and other women from her retinue, came joyfully to urge him to shine before the ladies, by leading his army to vanquish the English rabble, he laughed in a rather vain manner. It was obvious in any case that he rather liked the idea of the challenge. We removed to Roches-Tranchelion, not far from Chinon, for it was there that the king had decided to hold the great council. Opinion was unanimous, although one could discern two groups of individuals in the assembly. Some of them, friends of Agnès for the most part—but also some who were close to the Queen, minor lords who had been despoiled of their property in Normandy due to the English occupation, and even a few disinterested and sincere men—recommended war, out of a sense of conviction and honesty. The others rallied merely to please the king, for as good courtiers, they had discerned the signs, however discreet, of his change of heart.

  *

  Once the decision was made, everything happened very quickly. Scarcely three weeks after the council, Charles VII left Touraine at the head of his troops. King René, who had been keeping to his lands, in a constant bad temper ever since his brother had been banished, now forgot everything and rushed to join in the combat.

  By joking about how valiant the king was, about the impression he would make on the ladies, the Queen had intended to prick her husband’s self-esteem. But she had no intention of going with him to witness his exploits. Agnès, on the other hand, would have gladly begged for that favor. Perhaps she did ask the king. She said nothing to me, but she seemed greatly vexed to be staying behind. I had convinced the king that I had to stay for a few days in Touraine in order to make arrangements for campaign supplies. I would join him later, on the battleground. He consented. I was also given permission to stay alone with Agnès. When we met, I tried to understand what was making her so nervous. She did not usually suffer in this way from the king’s absence. It is true that since she had met him, there had been no actual wars in the land, at the most a few localized skirmishes. So she had not had the opportunity to show her support for him.

  And yet I could not get to the bottom of the reasons for her anxiety. Was she afraid for him? When he had been confronted with Talbot, who was commanding the English army, and though he was not yet twenty-four, the risks of a reversal had been considerable. Agnès could still recall the chivalric wars where the lords, with the king at their head, fought hand-to-hand and died in the hundreds or were captured. She could not imagine any better than I could the new forms of warfare that were about to be deployed, transformed by the action from a distance of culverins and bombards, the archery corps and the infantrymen.

  I had the feeling that she was also afraid for her own sake. The queen’s words, when she enjoined the king to “shine before the ladies,” had upset her. Perhaps Agnès pictured Charles in his glory, exalted by victory, and eager to prolong the reconquest of his provinces by other, more intimate conquests, where swooning women would open their hearts and bodies to him without hesitation.

  She had always feared her pregnancies, and had undergone three of them without the majority of courtiers knowing a thing, and now she pleaded with Charles to stay with her the night before his departure. She made a strange confession to me: she hoped that the gestures of love during that last night would plant (for the first time with her willing approval) a royal heir in her womb once again.

  By virtue of struggling to overcome the repulsion that the king had initially aroused in her, and fully aware of the persistent flaws in his character that meant that he was not to be trusted in the least, she had finally grown attached to him. This bond, over time, had become so vital to her that she could not conceive of life without it. In short, she loved Charles.

  I tried to calm her. I promised to keep an eye on the king during the campaign and to let her know if anything at any moment might indicate she had reason to be alarmed.

  Two weeks later, I went to the scene of battle. There was hardly any fighting; there were only victories. The towns rose up, encircled the English in their quarters, and opened their gates to the soldiers of the king of France. Pont-Audemer, Pont-l’Évèque, Lisieux, Mantes, Bernay, all fell. On August 28, when I arrived, the town of Vernon surrendered to the king. Dunois hoped to be given the place, but Charles decided to offer it to Agnès. He demanded the keys to the city and sent them to her at Loches by messenger. I was pleased for her. Two days later, we entered Louviers and for the first time the king held council in Normandy. It was decided we would march on Rouen immediately.

  I left again for Tours, while waiting for the capture of the city to be organized. Obviously, I could not resist going to see Agnès in Loches. The gift from the king had reassured her. Her wish had been fulfilled: she was pregnant, and for the first time she was not hiding the fact. Her condition gave a faint pink glow to her cheeks, and her expression was livelier. She was laughing, and seemed to have regained her spirits. But I knew her well, and I could sense in her a deeper anxiety and dark thoughts. The slightest noise startled her and the slightest alarm gave her eyes the frightened brilliance of a hounded doe’s.

  She had me tell her at length about the war, and never tired hearing of the king’s triumphs. I insisted on his valiance, but as I depicted it to her I was careful to show that he was in no danger. She listened thoughtfully. Her gown was so tight that it revealed the slight swelling of her womb. She was wearing the type of décolleté she preferred, and the stretching of the laces indicated that her breasts were full and taut. I do not know whether it was the news of her pregnancy, the shape it had given her, or the sudden presence of fecundity among all her other assets of charm and beauty, which hardly needed it otherwise, but for the first time in her presence I felt an intense, almost painful surge of lust. She was too intelligent not to have noticed. We exchanged a smile, and then immediately, as if to ward off the spell, she led me into the garden to show me her roses.

  I left her the next morning, reassured about her condition. Unfortunately, what I knew of the king caused me to fear that she had reason to remain on her guard. And when I returned to Rouen in mid-October, what I discovered confirmed my fears, and even horrified me.

  Negotiations to limit the bloodshed were underway with the English garrison. Emissaries from the populace of Rouen came and went between the camp of royal troops and the city, keeping the assailants informed about the situation inside the city and receiving instructions for those civilians who wished to take part in their liberation. Charles was biding his time. But the waiting was making everyone nervous, given the succession of almost daily victories since the beginning
of the campaign. Everyone, starting with the king, felt the end was in sight. At the same time, these final hours of war, incensed by the memory of years of atrocities committed in the region, were also full of joy, restrained now but just waiting to burst forth. The result was an almost continuous debauchery. The faraway sound of the cannonade brought wild exclamations from the royal camp. Charles displayed a forced and vaguely anxious cheer, drinking from morning to night with his courtiers. The serious men—Brézé, Dunois, and the Bureaus—kept well away from such excess: they were waging war. However, around men of power there is never any lack of volunteers prepared to deal with petty tasks and adjust their facial expressions to suit the mood of those they court. The enviable position of king’s pimp had been empty ever since Charles of Anjou had ceased to occupy it. Several less illustrious individuals with more vulgar taste were eager to put their energy to good use and take over the position. With the legendary appetite of his Valois ancestors, as well as their poor judgment, Charles now lay siege to the young serving girls or the fine Norman ladies, who put up very little resistance.

  Such excess was not worrying in and of itself. Charles had already displayed such indulgence in the past, and the exceptional circumstances of the last days of war could easily explain it. What was in my opinion far more serious, relative to Agnès’s fate, was the arrival of several young women from the court. The king had not taken the queen with him because she did not wish to go. But Agnès had pleaded with him, and he had objected, saying that no women were to take part in the campaign. Therefore the presence of this handful of ladies, all young and fresh, naturally took on a particular significance.

  My observation of these signs of debauchery was interrupted by the long-awaited news: Rouen had been captured. The rebellious populace opened the gates to Brézé and then to Dunois, each of whom was accompanied by a powerful cavalry. The English were retrenched in their castle, which was being bombarded by Bureau’s cannons. Finally, to the great chagrin of the people of Rouen, who would have liked to make them suffer a punishment in proportion to their crimes, the English were allowed to flee with their lives. They left behind a number of other fortifications as the price for this mercy, and now with Rouen all of Normandy was free.

  Now all that was needed was a consecration, a ceremony to illustrate for all time this ultimate victory. I sent for Jean de Villages and several of my young assistants who had some experience in organizing magnificent ceremonies. Convoys traveled day and night, bringing from the Argenterie precious cloth and ceremonial coats of arms. Finally on November 10 our procession entered the city, surrounding the king beneath his canopy.

  *

  The story of this triumph has often been told, and I have nothing to add other than my own impressions, since I had the great privilege of taking part in it. I rode alongside Dunois and Brézé. We were deafened by six trumpets just ahead of us. All three of us were wearing purple velvet doublets lined with marten’s fur. Our horses’ caparisons were embroidered with fine gold and silk. Mine was red with a white cross on it, for it had been ordered for the Duke of Savoy, but he had not been able to stay until the procession. There was an immense crowd, and we could tell that this was no ordinary royal spectacle, nor an everyday gathering of simple onlookers, rubbing their poverty up against the irritating but admirable contact of wealth and power. The inhabitants were enjoying their own celebration of freedom and victory, and the king had been invited as a benefactor and a relation. The old men wept with the memory of their suffering, and to honor those unfortunate victims who had not lived to see this day; the women once again felt hope for their children, and could tell themselves that they had not simply brought them into the world to suffer, but also to know peace and happiness. The young men were filled with energy, laughing and shouting the forbidden name, the one which until now they had to whisper in fear, because it belonged to the king of France.

  For those of us in Charles’s entourage, who were responsible for an entire country, this celebration bore us much further than the city where it was held. For France it meant the end of a century or more of war, misfortune, and ruin. To be sure, we still had to drive the English from Guyenne. But there they were far from their home base, and surrounded by hostile forces; it was only a matter of time. There had been at least one advantage to this endless war: it had ushered in the demise of the world of princes, who exchanged land and people as if they were inert things, the way a woman might bring a mill, a pond, or a forest to her marriage as part of her dowry. The man who had delivered these people from their yoke was the king of France; they were no longer the property of the local lord, but the king’s subjects.

  I glanced over at Charles from time to time. He was wearing a full suit of armor, with a hat of gray beaver fur, lined with vermilion silk. To the front of his headpiece I had attached a little fermail set with a big diamond. The king seemed to be nodding off on his horse, his eyes half closed. What was he feeling? I would not have been surprised, if I could have asked him, if he had answered: boredom. Before we mounted our horses, while the procession was being prepared, he had ordered white wine to be brought to his campaign tent. If he had drunk four or five glasses, it was not to calm the impatience anyone in his place might have felt, but rather to give himself the courage to confront an ordeal he would have gladly done without.

  When I had gone to find him to inform him of the order for the ceremony, he had asked trivial questions about the supper, for he wished to spend it in the company of a select few, those same ladies whose arrival we had witnessed several days earlier.

  This king truly had a strange destiny, tossed as he was into the world, so weak and humiliated, the scorned sovereign of a ravaged, occupied, divided land yet who, through his will alone, had overcome all the obstacles, putting an end to a war that everyone had thought would be eternal, terminating the Schism of the West, witnessing the fall of Byzantium and rescuing part of its heritage by opening his country to the Levant. And while he desired and organized all of this, it was not in the manner of an Alexander or a Caesar. Such men, in a moment of victory, would have ridden out bareheaded, borne by the crowd’s enthusiasm, and it would be clear to all that their armies had followed them because they were inebriated and adoring. But Charles had prepared everything in silence, like a thwarted child plotting his revenge. The great things he accomplished were merely the projected shadow of his petty calculations. His weakness meant that men of worth attached themselves to him, felt sorry for him, and he used them like lifeless playthings, never hesitating, should his feelings toward them change, to smash them to bits. And now that the hour of victory had come, now that the capricious child had had his revenge, he had none of those other ambitions which true conquerors always nourish, which grow and increase until they can grow no more; Charles’s rewards were selfish and petty: drink, entertainment, and lust. In short, a void.

  In the midst of great events there are often men about whom poets and dreamers will say, “Oh, if only I were in their place, what an unforgettable harvest of emotions I would reap!” And in comparison to this supposed turbulence, the calm of great figures passes for self-mastery. But these victors are often men without dreams, and for them hours of glory are monotonous and fastidious; to endure them they focus their thoughts on insignificant objects. An aching corn on their foot, their unassuaged appetites, the ill-timed memory of a kiss refused or awaited: their mind bathes in this lukewarm, stagnant liquid, while the crowd acclaims them.

  It was an endless day of festivity and emotion. Charles attended mass in the cathedral, and received endless tributes. People’s cries could be heard everywhere, even from out-of-doors. Drunken bell-ringers took turns at pulling the bell-ropes. The wine, food, and clothing that had been hidden from the English poured out into the street. Fortunately for the king, November days are short, and that one, in addition, was bitter cold. An easterly wind hurled icy gusts at the populace but could not subdue them: the feasting continued in
doors. After making an appearance at various official sites, the king withdrew to the intimate supper he was expecting.

  I spent a solitary evening surrounded by revelers. All those to whom I had lent money were eager to invite me, as if to prove the good use they had made of my funds. Their cordiality was unbearable. I refused to look on them as my debtors and, in general, to judge them in proportion to their fortune. I did not however, go so far as to view their debt as sufficient reason to appreciate their company. I was overcome by melancholy, and that me made me drink; the wine contributed further to my sadness. I finally made my escape from a house where the feasting was still at its height, and I began wandering through the streets.

  I happened upon Dunois. He was sitting on a guard stone, holding his head in his hands. When he saw me, he let out a hoarse cry of joy. There was nothing left of the cheer we had felt that morning. He too, with the help of the wine, was drifting on a flow of dark thoughts. This man who, thanks to an impressive pyramid of victories, titles, and lands, had managed to make others forget his illegitimate origins, was now, with the ebbing tide of triumph, once again the bastard of Orléans, that same man who had welcomed me to the court, who had gone looking for death and found glory, until this day we had just lived through and which, by fulfilling all our desires, had annihilated them. We pulled our hoods down over our brows, to keep our faces in shadow, and we wandered through the streets, speaking at length about the past, as if we refused the proof that it had abandoned us. Then Dunois began a soliloquy about further conquest. His forced enthusiasm did little to mask the fact that, if there were more battles, they would lack the invisible albeit essential uncertainty as to their outcome.