by A L Berridge
But you know how it is with the French, Señor, the business was on, off, on, off, every month a different story, and at the end of 1640 they were jumpy as cats. The Cardinal had his eye on the Sedan all right, he’d caught a courier from England, tortured him too, would you believe, and was looking at Bouillon very beady indeed. But much worse for us was a silly brawl that gave away our main contact to a passing nobleman, and looking like to uncover our whole network in Paris.
Now that’s serious, Señor, there’s no chance for the rebellion without Paris in our pockets. Old Louis wasn’t going to chop his First Minister and sign away territory to Spain because Champagne was ablaze, we needed insurrection within his own gates and men at court to guide it. My Capitán said we should reason with this nobleman, show him peace with Spain was best for France, but our courier said ‘I don’t think so, Señor. It was André de Roland.’ My Capitán looks at him a moment, then rolls up our map of France without a word.
It wasn’t often he was wrong, Señor, but next news comes de Roland’s discredited and on the run, that he can say what he likes and no one will believe him. My Capitán demands all the details, but when he’s got them he just walks out and bless me if he doesn’t come back drunk. Not a word of a lie, Señor, I find him in his chamber that night doing point exercises against his shadow on the wall. Never mind the state he’s in, the sword never wavers, he holds it as steady as if he’s all of a piece with the steel. There’s a moth on the curtains, and he twirls to go at it overhanded over his shoulder, and there it is skewered on the tip of his rapier. He says ‘You see, Carlos? You see how clean that is?’
I say ‘Of course it is, I oiled it only this morning.’
He sits on the bed and rocks with laughter. ‘Dear Carlos,’ he says to me, and he does, Señor, he says ‘Dear Carlos.’ Then he looks at the wall as if he sees pictures in it and says ‘To hell with politics. Why can’t we just go back to war?’
Well, I thought we would, Señor, I thought all these upsets would scare off our temperamental French allies for good and all, but my Capitán says no, if there’s one thing can make a flock of birds start flying in the same direction it’s fear. And he was right, Señor, they were all frightened now. Soissons, Bouillon, Orléans, all the big ones, yes and young Cinq-Mars too, it seems to them their only hope is to band together and make the revolt happen. 1641 comes and we’re looking a lot more like business.
The Conde-Duque likes it, he says we can promise seven thousand troops and as much again in a joint Imperial Army, to say nothing of fifty thousand pistoles for the campaign. That’s more than enough, Señor, what with the Sedan’s own army and the promised uprising in Champagne. My Capitán’s only fear is it starting before the 8th of June when our year runs out, and him not able to fight himself.
‘There’s no danger of that, Señor,’ I tell him. ‘Look how slow they’ve been so far. You don’t think it’ll happen before the autumn, do you?’
He smiles and says ‘I think you should pack a bag.’
Anne du Pré
Extract from her diary, dated 26 March 1641
I suspect their business is coming to a head. Bouchard, Lavigne and d’Arsy were closeted with Florian for quite two hours today, murmuring in low, important voices. Father never attends these meetings, I think he prefers not to know what they discuss, but today even he joined them briefly before going to the Chambres des Comptes. The others came into the salon afterwards and I hoped they would speak of their affairs, but all I heard was d’Arsy saying ‘June’s not so long, we can wait, can’t we?’ before Bouchard stopped him.
He still does not trust me, and I’m not sure what more I can do. I have disgusted myself with the submissiveness I have shown to Florian. I have had Father take me to the Couvent de la Visitation to ask spiritual help for my womanly errors, although the hypocrisy of it makes me sick. I have voluntarily confessed to Père Ignace, and the lies I have told that abominable man make me blush at the memory. All of this must be going back to Bouchard, but he seems determined only to force me into a reaction that will prove me a liar. He is rude to Clement, he makes disparaging remarks about Jeanette, he even manages snide references to garden sheds, and I can do nothing but smile and endure it.
But today was the worst. I thought myself safe at first, for he seemed to have other things on his mind, and scarcely acknowledged my presence before announcing to the others that Gondi has received a letter from the Duchesse de Chevreuse.
D’Arsy frowned. ‘That’s a devil of a risk. Doesn’t she know what happened to la Vigerie? All our couriers are watched.’
Bouchard waved dismissively. ‘I expect she found some lovesick English boy to take it. There was nothing incriminating anyway, only a little society news.’
His eyes slid casually round to me, and I felt my mouth suddenly dry.
‘Oh, do tell,’ said Lavigne eagerly. ‘La Chevreuse has the best nose for gossip.’
‘Her eyes aren’t bad either,’ said Bouchard. ‘And she says de Roland isn’t in England.’
There was a moment’s silence, then d’Arsy made an exclamation and sat up straight.
‘But he must be!’ squeaked Lavigne. ‘He can’t be in Rome, Gondi would have heard. He’s an exile, he couldn’t be anywhere else without Guise knowing.’
‘Oh, he could,’ said Bouchard. ‘Has it occurred to you he could have stayed in France?’
He was watching me, I knew he was, I felt his eyes on my skin.
D’Arsy gave a sudden grunt of amusement. ‘God, I wonder. He could have, you know, he’s audacious enough.’
‘That’s one word for it,’ said Bouchard.
Lavigne emitted a shrill peal of laughter. Bouchard turned to look at him, and for a moment they shared a smile.
Florian watched them wonderingly. ‘But, Monseigneur, why does it matter? He isn’t any danger to us now, is he?’
‘Oh, hang the danger,’ said Bouchard. ‘I’m talking about honour. D’Arsy has a little something to settle with him too, don’t you, d’Arsy?’
D’Arsy looked up. ‘I owe him a fair fight, which is what I engaged for, God help me. What’s your excuse?’
Bouchard’s face darkened crimson. ‘He murdered Dubosc, didn’t he? Doesn’t friendship mean anything to you?’
It means everything to Florian. He said at once ‘It’s justice, d’Arsy. Monseigneur is thinking of us all. I should have seen that. His interest is only in justice.’
My poor brother. Bouchard patted his shoulder as if he were a favourite spaniel, and said ‘You see, d’Arsy? Justice. Now how shall we see about getting it?’
It was clear something vile was intended, yet my heart pounded harder and firmer as I realized my opportunity. Bouchard may have staged this conversation to test my reaction, but for the first time I had a chance to learn something important.
I affected to be quite untroubled, and served them myself with wine and sweetmeats so they need not be restrained by the presence of servants. I smiled at disgusting Lavigne, I polished Bouchard’s glass, I even allowed d’Arsy to flirt with me, but none of them seemed to know their next move. Jacques has never left Paris, neither has that nice M. de Chouy. The Comte has been to the Auvergne, but d’Arsy is quite sure that means nothing. He said they’d watched the place in case the Comte led them abroad, and if André had been hiding there his men would certainly have known.
‘Then where?’ said Lavigne. ‘It’s too ridiculous. He’s a gentleman, he can’t go to ground like a rabbit.’
Bouchard’s hand was arrested on its way to the sweetmeat tray. Then he picked up a honeyed almond and tossed it in his palm. ‘Maybe he can. Maybe we should forget the drawing rooms and start looking in the gutter. You forget, Messieurs, he has friends there too.’
‘Not that we’d know,’ said Lavigne disdainfully.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Bouchard. ‘The one I’m thinking of might rather appeal to you. Someone we know he befriended. Someone we know disappeared only a couple of
days before he did. Someone we wouldn’t mind seeing again on our own account.’
It may have been a trick of the candles, but I thought Lavigne’s mouth looked suddenly wet. ‘But you said it yourself, she’s gone. You said it didn’t matter, no one would listen to a slut like that. You said she wasn’t worth looking for.’
Bouchard threw the nut in his mouth and smiled as he chewed. He said ‘She is now.’
Albert Grimauld
Ever looked after a powder store? Trust me, it’s a piece of cat’s piss compared to looking after André de Roland. Stick him in the remotest place in Europe and he’d still find a way of drawing trouble like another man draws breath.
And remote is right, oh my word. We were in a little village called Saint-Jean aux Bois, buried deep in the Forest of Compiègne with nothing and its bastards for miles. It was built round the old Abbey, see, proper-walled and fortified with gates, but nothing worth the nicking inside, nothing but a church, a bakery, a smithy, and one little inn for the comfort of the lucky buggers who were passing straight through. Even the monks had scarpered for the city, and I couldn’t blame them.
The inn itself now, that wasn’t so bad. Bernadette did the serving, me and André did the heavy work, and a softer billet I’ve never had. It was old, I’d say, half-timbering and thatch, but good stone floors against the damp and all kept clean as a bride’s dress. There were flowers in baskets and climbing up the walls, shutters done up blue and yellow, it was pretty as a painting and twice as snug. Set the thing down in Amiens or somewhere worth living and I’d of been ready to marry the widow and move right in.
Ah, now, pass the wine and I’ll tell you about Martine. Sweet-tempered lady, soft little voice, put you in mind of a plump wood-pigeon. She was the wrong side of forty, but then I was more than thirty myself, and that’s when you want the older ones, see, you want a woman won’t rob you blind and run off with your junior officer. But she was sweet with it too, Martine. She’d a weak chest and maybe that had to do with it, but there was nothing harsh about her, never raised her voice to me, not once. There was times I thought ‘Sod Amiens and anything like it, a man could go further and fare worse.’
It would have been all pudding that place if it weren’t for André. We kept him out of sight while his wound was mending and his whiskers growing, but once he was out we were stuffed six ways to Stralsund. He could make his voice rough and his walk humble, he could do everything people said he could, but he was different in his head and it showed. He was opening doors for people, he was bowing and calling them ‘Madame’, he was looking at them bright-eyed and perky, and drawing attention like a nun in a whorehouse.
And we couldn’t do a thing with him. Bernadette used to fair yell at him, she’d say ‘Chevalier, you are going to get yourself thrown in prison or killed,’ and he’d try his heart out for days afterwards, but next thing there’d be the wheelwright’s wife fretting about her son in Germany, and there’d be André sitting down to help her write a ruddy letter. He never meant no harm, no, nor saw it neither, but he had ‘gentleman on the run’ writ over his head like fireworks in the sky.
Ah, but a man’s real self has to come out somehow, and he’d worse things fermenting inside him nor nice manners. Poor little bugger, he’d been shafted from here to Hesdin, lost his reputation and everything he owned, and nothing to be done about it but wait tables. He was twisting and turning in on himself like a sizzling fuse, and looking every which way for something to fight.
We kept his sword hid in the stable, but he was forever nipping into the woods to do what he called his ‘exercises’, and I reckon he was hoping to run into the bandits we’d got swarming all over the forest. He never did, they’d the sense to avoid anywhere with walls and people, but he took the threat of it very serious and made us take guns whenever we went out. He was worried for the women too, the inn being stuck away near the old abbey and nothing but the smithy within call, so he bought a wheel-lock musket in Compiègne and taught Bernadette to load and fire it herself.
But the danger was a sight closer to home nor that. Having the gentlemen notice he was a cut above the usual mutton didn’t do no harm, they weren’t going to get talking about an inn servant, not they. But the females? It weren’t so bad when his whiskers was on the way, he’d that callow moth-eaten look didn’t do him no favours at all, but once he’d got himself a neat little beard and moustache he was turning heads to Honnecourt. He was young and tall and straight, and there weren’t so many of them in Saint-Jean-in-the-Middle-of-Nowhere. They were over him like mould.
It was the visiting ladies needed watching, especially them old ones, the hags with blond footmen and predatory eyes. He called himself ‘Gauthier’ back then, and them ladies, it was always ‘Oh, perhaps Gauthier might bring me a posset in bed,’ or ‘I’m so frightened of bandits, perhaps Gauthier might sleep outside my room.’ Bollocks in spades, and spades trumps. If I hadn’t shared his bed they’d have been climbing right in it with him.
He never touched them, not one, he’d learned a healthy distrust of women his own kind. He didn’t mind the local girls, I’d see him at the well of an evening helping them with their buckets, and he was that relaxed you’d think him a different man. He’d sit casual on the parapet with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows, chatting and laughing and joining in the village talk, and I’d believe it then, the things they said about him and the life he’d led. But there was danger in it and I should of seen it, a man ought never let down his guard with a female. They had him picked for gentle-born by Christmas, and by March I reckon there were folk getting close to a name.
Martine said it didn’t matter. She said ‘They like him, Grimauld, they won’t say nothing to do him harm.’
‘Ah,’ says I, ‘but what about them visitors, my poppet? What’s to stop them picking up the gossip and passing it on as it might be at Compiègne?’
‘Silly old fool,’ she says, laughing so much it sets off her wheezing. ‘This is Saint-Jean aux Bois you’re in now. These are gentry folk in Paris you’re worrying about, why in the Lord’s name would they be poking about down here?’
Anne du Pré
Extract from her diary, dated 10 April 1641
I must act. I have almost forgotten how, but I must act.
Florian’s friends were in boisterous mood tonight, and I could have learned even more but for Bouchard’s mistrust. Lavigne boasted openly how he had learned from a girl’s former employers the whereabouts of her family, and might even have named the place if Bouchard had not turned the subject. It must be a big town, for Lavigne’s spies have spent some days searching there without result, but today they reported back a rumour of a young menial so noble in his behaviour he returned a visiting lady her jewels which she had hidden for safekeeping and was about to leave behind. They are quite certain this must be André, but still they would not say where, and there could be no possible reason for me to ask. I could only sit in utter frustration while they talked about the theatre.
Then a tap at the door introduced Lavigne’s frightening lackey. I have never seen him closely before, and truly he is a nightmare of a man, his face shot with broken red veins and his mouth crowded with pointed yellow teeth. No one can understand why fashionable Lavigne bears with so vile a servant as Pirauld, but today I was glad of him for he asked when the horses were needed for tomorrow’s journey and Lavigne told him at daybreak.
The urgency is therefore acute, and I must act now, tonight. How is harder, for Jeanette is watched as well as I and our only hope of sending messages is by the fish boy, but he may not call until mid-morning, which may be too late.
I must try anyway. Jeanette shall write it so my hand will not be recognized, and we shall not sign a name. Perhaps the Comtesse will trust it. Perhaps it will reach her in time. Perhaps at last I can do something to help.
Ten
Anne du Pré
Letter to Elisabeth, Comtesse de Vallon, dated 11 April 1641
Madame,
Those who mean your grandson ill departed today on a journey to seek him. I cannot tell you where, only that their destination is to do with the family of a girl he knows and that somehow the Chevalier has given himself away. If you wish to help him, you will ensure he is warned and has support.
Believe me, Madame. I am only a servant in their employ, but like many in Paris I have great sympathy and respect for the Chevalier de Roland and would dare much to help him.
A Friend
Jacques de Roland
We knew it was her right away. It wasn’t her writing, but there wasn’t a maid in the city could construct a sentence like that, let alone write it without a single mistake. The fish boy even admitted he’d got it from a woman in the Place Dauphine.
‘I thought better of Anne,’ said the Comtesse. ‘To betray the Chevalier to save her brother is one thing, but this is a clear attempt to find and murder him for no reason at all.’
I’d got to agree. There was no place mentioned, they didn’t know where the boy was at all, they were just hoping we’d go dashing off and lead them right to him.
We put the letter aside, then in the afternoon we went to the Hôtel de Ville with my uncle and I was legitimated. It was only a formality, a bunch of people nodding their heads and a load of papers to sign, but I came out with a new name and was suddenly a new person. When we got home the servants lined up in the courtyard and bowed. Philibert was swanking unbearably because now he was valet to M. de Roland himself, and I’m almost sure he spent the night with Agnès.
The Comte actually stayed to drink wine with us before going home. As he left he squeezed my arm and said ‘You’re giving the family a second chance, Jacques. You won’t be a fool and waste it, will you?’
I said ‘No.’