The Dream Maker

by Jean-Christophe Rufin

  The sky that morning was heavy with cloud, yellow beneath an invisible sun. The freezing air smelled of plowed fields, and crows circled above the castle walls. Agnès stood slightly back from the door, no doubt so that the faint shadow would hide her face and not show her lingering discomfiture. Our transgression had broken something and we both knew it. I was even more upset than she was. Unlike me, she must have known that this misunderstanding would be without consequence, for the simple reason that another event would soon come to occult it and remove all its substance. She waved goodbye and before my horse had left the courtyard she had already gone back inside. The door closed behind her. I would never see her again.

  V.

  TOWARD REBIRTH

  What came thereafter is a matter of record. It belongs to History. The king regarded Agnès’s death as an event of considerable importance, almost equal to his victories. But the mausoleums and royal endowments, the low masses said twice a week for the salvation of her soul, and even the ducal crown which Charles granted to her posthumously perpetuate the image of a woman who was not the one I had known. For me that woman vanished the moment the door at Loches closed behind her: who will ever know what her last feelings were? Her last thoughts? What we know of her is her path through life and a few dates. We know that she left Touraine not long after my own departure, at the beginning of January, in wintry weather. She braved the cold and the danger of the roads, which were still not safe from lurking rowdy soldiers formerly allied with England and now left to their own resources. The king was again at war, and the women who had joined him to celebrate his triumph in Rouen had departed. The few fortifications that remained to be reconquered put up very little resistance. Charles could parade in full regalia and even lead the attack without great risk to his person.

  Agnès had faced greater peril, and yet she was the one who admired him. He enjoyed having her near him. All the witnesses have told me that these few days were happy. Did she complain to him about his infidelity, or was she content merely to have her place again, for everyone to see? I think she was too clever to risk resorting to reprimands. And she must not have felt sufficiently irreproachable, given what we had experienced together, to pose as the virtuous one. Those who were close to Charles and Agnès during these last days insist on the harmony that seemed to reign between them. I have every reason to believe they are telling the truth. Agnès was sincerely happy to be with the king again and to share his glory, so much so that she would be blind to his vainglorious posing as a great leader, and above all she would ignore the fact that he had complacently received tributes from another woman.

  Agnès and I shared the same paradoxical feelings regarding this strange individual. We knew that he was capable of betraying us or even surrendering us without a qualm to our worst enemies, that he could contemplate our annihilation without lifting a finger, as he had done with Joan of Arc; and yet, at the very thought that we had been unfaithful to him, we were crushed with the fear of making him suffer even the slightest bit.

  In any event, there were those days of happiness. Her ladies-in-waiting later told me that, after the hardships of the journey, and surely already weakened by illness, Agnès had used up every ounce of strength remaining to respond to the king’s enthusiasm, to stay up late and laugh with him. When he left again on a new campaign at the beginning of February, the moment he was out of sight Agnès collapsed.

  People have often described her dying days, in terms destined to honor her piety. Among the various other gifts the pope had given me for her there was a plenary indulgence, which assured her of absolution in her final hours. The document had stayed behind in Loches, but her confessor took her at her word. Now in this time where I myself have need of such a viaticum for the hereafter, I realize how great the gulf between myself and my religion has grown. However, it is with infinite tenderness that I think of the deep, naïve trust which Agnès placed in such promises, made by men in the name of a God whose very existence—and, above all, desires—they knew nothing of.

  Everything happened so quickly that I did not hear of this apotheosis or of her death. On February 15 a messenger came to inform me, in Montpellier, where I had come on business, that Agnès had died and that she had designated me, along with Étienne Chevalier and her doctor, Robert Poitevin, as one of the three executors of her will.

  All through the months that followed Agnès’s death, I continued to live and to act so that anyone who met me in those days would think nothing had changed. However, deep inside I felt empty and cold. The circumstances of our last meeting had stripped from any mention of Agnès the peace I had known prior to that. When I thought of her, it was to feel the pain of our misunderstanding, and to wish to the verge of insanity that we could go back in time, cancel certain gestures, and find again our lost innocence. But not to think of her was to abandon her and kill her a second time.

  Nothing could take my mind off this dilemma. I threw myself into still more travel and activity, trying in vain to escape.

  One of the effects of Agnès’s death was to enhance the danger that hovered over her friends. Brézé, whom she had always defended and even saved on more than one occasion, was the first to pay, only a few weeks later. On the pretext of granting him a grand-sounding title in Normandy, the king removed him from the council. This was yet another reason for me to fear the worst. However, Agnès’s death had another consequence, which, in the case in point, proved useful: it had killed all feelings other than those connected to her memory. I no longer felt either joy or sorrow or, in this case, fear. To be sure, I went on as previously, preparing to shelter my business and, before long, myself from the king. But I did this methodically and without passion. The torment of uncertainty, the nightmares that used to wake me in a sweat, the fear at the most unexpected times at the thought of disgrace, or the memory of the king’s icy gaze when I had lent him the four hundred thousand écus: all of that had disappeared. An abnormal but convenient indifference caused me to greet every event with equal detachment. I prepared for the worst but I no longer feared it.

  Moreover, the circumstances during the spring following Agnès’s death were indirectly favorable to me, and for a time they warded off any risk of disgrace. A strong English contingent had landed in Normandy to join Somerset’s troops, who had stayed behind after their defeat in Rouen. The war had resumed. The king was alarmed. Dunois was retained at another front. He hastily appointed a commander in chief whose experience was not as great. He reckoned that the lack of a commander would be attenuated by the quality of the troops and materiel. He needed money more than ever, and a great deal of it. Once again he turned to me. I no longer dreaded revealing the extent of my fortune to him: he already knew. I paid up. The outcome of the battle, uncertain to begin with, was in our favor. Although it was not what anyone wanted, the fighting took place in the village of Formigny. It was a complete success for the armies of France, and it was England’s last offensive.

  All that remained in English hands in Normandy was the fortification at Cherbourg. The king absolutely insisted on taking it, in order to remove once and for all any chance of a new invasion. Alas, Dunois and the other men of war maintained that there was nothing to be gained by besieging the city, as our fleet was not powerful enough to blockade the port. They had to find another way. There was one, and once again it was through me.

  The Englishman in command of the garrison at Cherbourg had a son, who was held prisoner in France. According to custom, by virtue of the value they represented, the king would allocate these captives to some of us in reward for services rendered during the war. My financial assistance had earned me the right to receive several of them, including the son of this English captain. The king then ordered me to negotiate with the father in order to obtain the surrender of Cherbourg in exchange for the prisoner’s release. There were other details to see to, and we could be sure that the English would not concede anything easily. They demanded payment
for the return of their troops to England. Which I provided, obviously—a considerable amount. It all ended well. Father and son were reunited, and Cherbourg was liberated on August 12.

  I knew I could contribute to this type of intervention for some time. After Normandy, the royal offensive against the remaining English presence turned to Guyenne. Every campaign was an opportunity for me to buy some time and keep the threat at bay. And yet I knew that this was a fragile interlude. One episode, in case I had forgotten, came to remind me that royal lightning could strike anywhere, at any time: the conviction of Jean de Xaincoins.

  Xaincoins was younger than I, and he had spent his entire career in the king’s closest circles. Still, we had many things in common. He was also from the Berry and from a modest family; he was in finance, as a treasurer and tax collector; he was the king’s steward to the states of the Limousin, as I was to the Languedoc; and for the last two years he had also been a member of the Council. He was disgraced pursuant to base denunciations. The legal proceedings left him no chance. Of all the things to which he was sentenced, it seems that the most significant was a fine for sixty thousand écus that he was to pay to the king.

  As soon as I got wind of this affair, without waiting for the verdict I decided to expedite my preparations to protect myself from a similar adventure. My request to be registered as a burgher in Marseille was taking too long. I pressured my agent there to hasten matters to a conclusion. I could not suddenly abandon Montpellier for Marseille without attracting a great deal of attention. But I arranged for our ships to stay in port for longer periods, and I included in their cargo an ever-increasing share for the merchants of Provence.

  I even sent Jean de Villages in the utmost secrecy to the king of Aragon and the Two Sicilies. He returned with a safe conduct that enabled me to transfer some of my property to Naples.

  *

  On the face of things, nothing had changed. The king behaved amiably toward me and even gratified me quite frequently with favors and attention that made everyone believe, even if I did not, that his kindly disposition toward me was intact. There was tension, however, in the atmosphere. Brézé had been sent away, old Tanguy du Châtel was eliminated, Dunois was becoming progressively more vulgar with each of his victories and all the property he was accumulating—all of which meant that the support I used to find in the king’s entourage was gone. Other individuals had arrived on the scene and were becoming increasingly influential. Many of them were in my debt, which did not please me either. I saw it not so much as a danger as an inconvenience: I know from experience that sincerity is not compatible with the humiliation everyone feels when they are indebted, with the exception of perhaps a few noble souls who judge neither themselves nor others on this basis.

  Most of these newcomers were strangers to me, and my relations with them remained distant. Thus without realizing it, I was exacerbating the wound to their self-esteem. It was not scorn on my part, only a sign of weariness. I no longer felt I had the strength to establish the sort of complicity, trust, and, if I am honest, friendship that I had shared with those I had known ten or fifteen years earlier and who, today, were far away or missing altogether.

  My immense prosperity, together with the somewhat sad detachment that had been my ordinary state since Agnès’s death, all contributed to make me a solemn person, and difficult to approach. My very gestures had become slower, my step heavier. This became apparent to me quite suddenly one evening in Tours during the calm of the first winter after Agnès’s death.

  I had been working all day at the Argenterie together with a new accountant whom Guillaume de Varye had hired. He was surrounded by several shop boys who were young and industrious, and very clever in business despite their age. It was the time of the Epiphany, and I knew that several of them had recently married and that their families were waiting for them for a little celebration. At around six o’clock in the evening, when darkness was beginning to fill the office, I gave them leave to depart. I used the pretext of a letter I had to write to stay there by myself. The night watchman stood by the entrance and would lock the doors again behind me when I left.

  Silence fell, and darkness crept into the room, kept at bay only by a single candle. After a few minutes during which I sat motionless, I stood up, took the copper candleholder, and opened the door leading to the warehouse. I walked down among the shelves and clothing racks. My footsteps echoed on the tiles and faded away in the huge space of the warehouse. With the feeble light of my candle I could not see the roof, far above my head, or even the walls of the building, for it was too big. I walked through the obscurity, and now and again I caught a glimpse of something gleaming colorfully in the dark, and I could smell all the particular odors. Bolts of fabric stacked high, the coppery sheen of new weaponry, jars filled with rare substances faded into the heights and depths of the space. From time to time the light aroused the gentle undulation of furs, the metal skin of breastplates, the glossy surface of blue ceramics from China. On I walked, and wherever I went new treasures appeared and gave way to still others. All the world’s riches were gathered there, taken from the forests of Siberia and the deserts of Africa. The skill of craftsmen from Damascus was displayed alongside the talents of Flemish weavers; spices ripened in Oriental warmth stood among marvels from the earth—minerals, gems, fossils. This was the center of the world. And it had not been acquired through conquest or pillage, but through trade, the talent of industry, and the freedom of mankind. The energy that had been wrested at last from warfare now spread to all the works of peacetime. It held the weaver’s arm, guided the steps of the laborer, gave courage to the miner and agility to the craftsman.

  This was the world I had dreamt of. But reality does not have the lightness of dreams. The success of my plans went far beyond anything I could have imagined, and I felt as though I were being crushed beneath the weight of it. Again I saw myself in the procession entering Rouen, and I was stifled by the thick fabrics, sweating in my velvet attire, and feeling how even my horse was restricted by his ceremonial saddlery.

  This was what I had become. The freedom and peace for which I had labored were everywhere except in myself. I was invaded by a mad, painful, urgent desire to give up this life, to return to the peaceful enjoyment of a sufficient and modest prosperity. To recover the idleness and dreams, love . . . If Agnès had lived, would she have understood? Would we have decided to run away together? I would have wanted nothing more than to set off with her again on the path to the Levant, to ask the Sultan permission to reside in Damascus, even if it meant leaving him all my fortune.

  Agnès was no more, but the desire for freedom remained. That night I told myself that perhaps my fear of the king was providential: by compelling me to flee the kingdom, it would give me the opportunity to put an end to the slavery that all these duties and inhuman fortune had become. What I had shipped to Naples would suffice to settle there. From Naples I could continue to oversee the navigation of several galleys from Marseille. Who knows? Perhaps I could go with them to the Levant. I foresaw a new life. In the heavy darkness, saturated with the odors of new leather and spices, I thought I could see a light, glowing yellow, moving so quickly and nimbly that I could not keep it in my gaze. I kept on walking and still I could not see the end of this cavern of riches. And suddenly I saw a name on the flash of light that was guiding me like a star. The light was not in the objects surrounding me, although the flickering of the candle sometimes gave that illusion. It was buried deep inside me, and it had come back this evening, as at every decisive moment in my life, to show me the way: it was the leopard from my childhood.

  *

  So I knew what I had to do. However, before I could leave this life and begin a new one, I still had to devote myself to certain obligations. It was a sign of how burdened I had become that I found it impossible to act without things constantly holding me back. It was as if I were maneuvering a cart that was overloaded, where too many peop
le had climbed on board for me suddenly to stop.

  My business was a burden, but not the heaviest, particularly if I ceased to add to my fortune and resigned myself to protecting what was strictly necessary. In truth, in those days, the greatest constraints, the ones which drove me to defer my departure, came primarily from my family.

  With Macé over the years we had attained a form of attachment and respect which had long ceased to be love but which preserved a certain measure of complicity and would keep me from causing her any displeasure. Her ambitions had been fulfilled beyond her wildest dreams, and she had reached a level where she could act simply even when she was demanding, behave quite naturally amidst ostentation, and exercise restraint even in moments of splendor, all of which are the mark of either an old fortune or an authentic nobility of the heart. She had learned to organize cheerful ceremonies that brought elegant women together with original minds, and they always included a great number of prelates, titled guests, and influential merchants. Everyone felt at ease, the atmosphere was joyful, and the conversation was stimulated by the music and the fine fare. Macé would not have been capable of such generosity toward people had she remained, like in the old days, so eager to occupy the highest rank and be admired for her beauty and her piety, her fortune and her education. But she had changed greatly. These last years had marked her. Two very cold winters had kept her bedridden for long periods. Her hair had turned white. Her teeth pained her and her smile had lost its brilliance. Like so many others, she could have concealed the ravages of time by using artifice. But, on the contrary, without making a show of it, she had accepted them.