by Judith Rock
Inside, they stopped short, trying to make sense of a chaos that Charles had never expected to see in a consecrated place. At the front of the Mary chapel, a quartet of boys stood faced off against two furious Jesuits. Most of the other fifty or so boys—all aged seventeen or eighteen, by the look of them—were still kneeling on the stone floor, but some had drawn away and stood by the walls, their faces white with shock. Others, though, grinned broadly as they watched.
“But King Philip is Pater Noster to you,” the best-dressed boy, obvious leader of the troublemakers, jeered at the pair of Jesuits facing him. The proctors started toward him.
“Wait,” Charles said softly. “We need to hear more.” The day he’d taken the shortcut through the day students’ court, he’d seen this boy in the center of the huddle of students, holding whatever the others had been looking at.
Apparently oblivious of Charles and the proctors standing by the chapel door, the ringleader said tauntingly, “You always teach us that we must speak the truth. So we’ll pray to your Jesuit Pater again!” He threw back his head like a crowing cock and his supporters joined in.
“Philippe, you’re king of everyone,
we won’t be mute, we won’t be dumb.
We’ll confess to all just who we are,
We’re your dear sons, to us you are: Our Father!”
The Monita Secreta, Charles thought, with a tired sigh. The blasphemous Pater Noster had been printed at the back of the copy he’d read in the library. He nodded grimly to the proctors, and the three of them strode up the single center aisle. The priest who’d been faced off with the boys saw them coming and grabbed for the ringleader’s arm. But the boy twisted easily away and skipped backward a few paces, now singing the blasphemous prayer to a street tune while his confrères laughed and shoved the priest and his assistant away. The gleeful singer didn’t know anyone was behind him until Charles’s hand closed on his arm and twisted it behind his back.
“Out,” Charles said through his teeth. “And shut up.” The boy yelped and struggled, but Charles gripped his shoulder and sank his fingers hard into the young muscle. “Another word, any more struggle, and who knows? Frère Brunet may be working on your dislocated shoulder.”
“You can’t,” the captive snarled. “It’s against the rules. You’re not—”
“You are deficient in grammar,” Charles said sweetly. “I shouldn’t. But I can. What’s your name?” The boy didn’t answer, and Charles’s fingers dug deeper. “Your name!”
“Ow! Louis Poquelin.”
The proctors and the priest’s young assistant—whom Charles recognized now as a teaching scholastic—had subdued the ringleader’s three lieutenants and were marching them out of the chapel. Charles recognized the student with red hair—red hair was unusual in the college—as another of the day boys he’d seen when he’d crossed the day students’ court. Keeping a grip on his own captive, Charles scanned the faces of the remaining boys in the Mary chapel, his gaze lingering on those who were still grinning and had obviously enjoyed the rebellion.
“Mon père,” he said loudly and distinctly to the priest, who was dusting his hands after delivering the last of the three conspirators to the proctors. “Please keep your Congregation here. Don’t let anyone get rid of anything. They’re all going to be searched. Someone will come to help you.”
The disheveled priest nodded and turned to his now-silent flock.
As Charles, the proctors, and their captives crossed the Cour d’honneur, Charles saw the rector’s face briefly at his office window. When the little cavalcade reached the grand salon, Père Le Picart was there waiting for them.
“I heard the noise,” he said. “What has happened?” His gaze went from student to student.
The proctors looked at Charles. “Blasphemy, for one thing, mon père,” he said. “In the Mary chapel where these boys’ Congregation of the Virgin was meeting.” He turned his captured student over to the proctor who had only one boy in his charge. “Mon père, will you send proctors to search the other Congregation members? They’re all still in the chapel.” He lowered his voice. “I think that these we’ve brought—and probably others, too—have been reading Le Cabinet.”
Le Picart looked as near cursing as Charles had ever seen him. “How? Students aren’t allowed it in the library.”
“But day students are free to go where they wish and buy what they can out of school hours. They were taunting the priest with the King of Spain Pater Noster from the back of the book. And several days ago, I saw at least two of them—the one there with red hair and Monsieur Louis Poquelin beside him—showing something to an avid huddle of boys.”
The rector’s face was rigid with anger as he turned to the proctors. “Mes frères, you may leave these malefactors with us. Please find a third brother and go back to the Mary chapel. See that every boy takes off his scholar’s gown and turns out the pockets of his coat. And any other hiding place there may be in his clothing. Any books you find, bring to me. Along with their owners.”
“Yes, mon père.”
The older proctor raised his eyebrows at Charles, who nodded and took charge of three of the captives. The other scholastic took charge of Poquelin, who seemed to be the rebellion’s ringleader. The proctors went to carry out the rector’s order, and the rector knocked sharply on the office door of Père Montville, who was in charge of day students. Le Picart was about to knock again when the door opened. The skullcap Montville wore for warmth had slipped sideways, and he was blinking and stifling a yawn. His good-natured round face was apologetic. He bowed to Le Picart.
“Forgive me, mon père. I confess I had fallen asleep. Last night I fear I played my poor violin somewhat late. At the Professed House, you know, because—well, I’m sure you didn’t come to hear about my struggles with music. Come in, come in.” Belatedly, he saw the little crowd behind Le Picart, and his sleepy blue eyes opened wider. “Oh. Oh, dear. Come in, everyone.”
The rector, who had patiently waited out the flood of talk, went into the cramped office without explanation. Charles and the other scholastic herded the four boys in and lined them up in the shallow alcove across from Montville’s desk, there being nowhere else to put them. Montville placed a chair, facing the alcove, for the rector. Then, pushing his skullcap straight, he sat down behind his desk and waited for Le Picart to tell him why his office was full of people. Le Picart told Montville what he knew and then nodded at the scholastic from the chapel. The pale scholastic, obviously holding himself rigidly in check, bowed to the rector.
“The older externes’ Congregation of the Holy Virgin was meeting in the small chapel,” he said. “I am, as you know, mes pères, assigned to help with that congregation. We were all reverently kneeling, beginning the meeting with prayer. But as we began the Pater Noster, these four students started bellowing blasphemy and taunting us. The devil never sleeps!”
The young man’s clasped hands were shaking and his knuckles were white. He was scared, Charles realized, perhaps even more frightened than angry at what he’d seen and heard. The four boys kept their faces carefully blank, but their eyes gleamed with satisfaction.
“And what exactly was this blasphemy?” Montville said.
The scholastic flinched and swallowed. “I hardly like to say, mon père.”
“I don’t suppose you do. But you must.”
“It was a blasphemous rendering of the Our Father.” The young Jesuit was almost whispering. “It was addressed to Philippe, the Spanish king. These—creatures—were laughing at us, they said that this blasphemy is the secret Jesuit Pater Noster.”
The rector looked at Charles. “And where,” he demanded of the shaken scholastic, “did they find this so-called Pater Noster?”
“I don’t know, mon père. Perhaps they made it up themselves. Though I hate to think their depravity goes so deep.” The scholastic turned suddenly to Charle
s. “You also heard it, maître.”
“I did. They didn’t make it up.” Charles looked inquiringly at the rector, who slightly shook his head. Not naming Le Cabinet, Charles went on, “They got it from a book.”
“Search them,” the rector said.
Charles started with Poquelin. He made him take off his scholar’s gown, which had no pockets, and then his new-looking coat of rich brown wool. Charles went through the two pockets on the coat’s front and found only a few coins and a broken quill.
“Pull up your shirt,” Charles said.
It was Poquelin’s turn to look shocked. Charles thought he was going to resist, but then he shrugged, tugged his shirt free from his breeches, and pulled a small book out of his waistband.
Charles took it, saw that it was indeed Le Cabinet jesuitique, and handed it to the rector. Montville leaned to see its cover and his mouth fell open.
“Where did you get this?” Le Picart said to Poquelin, so quietly that the hair stood up on Charles’s neck. “How long have you had it?”
When Poquelin didn’t answer, Charles said, “Monsieur Poquelin, on Tuesday, I saw you and your friend here with other boys in a corner of the passage between the day students’ court and the main court. You were holding something, and the others were gathered around looking at it. I think it was Le Cabinet.”
“Is that true?” Le Picart’s voice rumbled like thunder and all four boys flinched. “You have not only read this filth yourself, you have corrupted others with it?”
Charles almost felt sorry for the boys. In his time at Louis le Grand, he’d learned that Le Picart could be the gentlest and most perceptive of men. He’d also learned that the rector’s sense of right and truth was formidable, and that he had no use for lazy men or lazy half-truths. Or for fools, Charles thought with a sigh, seeing that Poquelin had thrust up his chin and was staring fixedly into the distance, acting for his own enjoyment the captured hero of a romance undergoing interrogation.
“Search the others,” Montville said in disgust, putting the copy of Le Cabinet on his desk. As though distance would make it less objectionable, he pushed the book away from him with a finger, raising a small cloud of dust.
Charles and the other scholastic searched the remaining three and came up with several illustrated pages torn from Dutch pornography, a small crumbling cake, a ruined quill, and a slingshot. Another copy of Le Cabinet was under the red-haired boy’s shirt.
“What’s your name?” Montville said curtly, as the book was put with the first one on his desk.
As the boy mumbled his name, Montville sneezed, and all Charles heard was “Jacques.” Sighing, Montville told the scholastic to take the two boys who had not had copies of Le Cabinet to wait in the grand salon. “Sit and think of what you’ve done,” he said darkly. “Pray for the Virgin’s forgiveness for desecrating her chapel and failing in the service you owe her and the college.”
The scholastic took them away and Montville turned his scowl on the red-haired boy.
“Where did you get this book?”
But Jacques proved as mulish as Louis Poquelin. Montville and the rector fired questions at the pair of them, while Charles wondered how the boys had even known about the old anti-Jesuit libel. From their families? But why would a Jesuit-hating family send boys to Louis le Grand? On the other hand, even Protestants sometimes went to Jesuit schools, because the education was good. Charles’s stomach growled, and he realized sadly that he’d missed the midday meal again.
“—but your own father is a Gentleman of the Professed House,” Le Picart was saying to Poquelin.
“And he’s so very pious, so very superior,” the boy mocked. “My father is a true tartuffe.”
Charles stared at him. Tartuffe. Poquelin. He looked questioningly at the rector.
The rector nodded wearily. “So, Monsieur Poquelin, you share the opinions your father’s illustrious cousin Jean-Baptiste Poquelin put forth in his play Tartuffe?”
“Yes, and he was exactly right!”
“We educated little Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, you know,” Le Picart said. “Before he went out into the world and called himself Molière.”
“Of course I know that. He was here at Louis le Grand, he knew Jesuits, he knew the Congregations, he saw everything, that’s why he could write Tartuffe and expose you all! And now his cousin, my poor father, is the biggest hypocrite in the most important Holy Virgin Congregation in Paris, the so very holy Gentlemen of the Professed House. You’re all—” Poquelin’s face worked, but Charles guessed that he couldn’t quite find the courage to call Le Picart a hypocrite to his face.
“What your father’s cousin Molière saw and understood,” the rector said evenly, “was that piety can indeed cover its opposite. It often does. But that does not mean—and Molière never said it meant—that to be pious is to be a hypocrite. For all your years with us, Monsieur Poquelin, I see that we have not taught you to think logically. Which is a pity, because your time with us is ended.” The rector’s words rang like hammer blows on a steel sword. “If you agree, Père Montville?”
“With regret. And sadness. But yes, I certainly agree.”
Louis Poquelin’s chest swelled with martyred satisfaction.
Montville sighed and looked at the boy whose surname Charles hadn’t heard. “You, on the other hand, monsieur, do not surprise me so much. We dismissed your brother some years ago for similar reasons. But your mother begged us to take you, in spite of him. She will be heartbroken to see you go the same way.”
“The same way?” Charles said.
“His older brother fell into freethinking. Their mother is a devout woman who gives generously to the Ursuline nuns’ charities. And to ours.”
“That’s why you want me to stay,” the boy said triumphantly. “So you can have more of her money than she’ll give you if you throw me out.”
“Monsieur Coriot,” Montville said wearily, “you have put yourself beyond all chance of staying. I only want one thing of you. Where did you get your copy of this book?”
Startled, Charles blurted out, “Coriot? Is that his name?” Montville nodded impatiently, and Charles said, before Montville could return to his questioning, “Where do you live, Monsieur Coriot?”
“South of the walls. Why do you—”
Montville cut him off, repeating his question about the book.
Charles watched Jacques, thinking that he was surely the younger brother of the man Alexandre Lunel had been staying with when his brother Paul disappeared. Which might well mean that this Jacques had known Paul Lunel.
A sharp rap came at Montville’s door.
“Now what?” Montville glared at the door. “No doubt someone has come to say that there’s a squadron of Huguenots and Lutherans at the gate. Oh, well, entrez!”
The serenely placid lay brother who stuck his head in looked as though Luther himself, resurrected and battering down the door with a Bible, wouldn’t bother him. “A Gentleman of the Professed House to see you, mon père,” he said to Le Picart. “Monsieur Louis Poquelin. He wants to complain about someone.”
A hastily smothered sound escaped Charles, and the rector looked thoughtfully at him.
“Tell Monsieur Poquelin to come in,” Le Picart said.
The rector and Charles and Montville looked at the Poquelin son. But young Louis seemed not at all bothered by the news that his father was there.
“When your father comes in, you will stay there in the alcove and hold your tongue,” Le Picart said. “I will tell him what has occurred.”
“I promise you I will not hold my tongue if you lie!”
Le Picart regarded him sadly. “When have you ever known one of us to lie?”
“It says so right in that book—and it’s my book, I want it back, you can’t keep it! It says Jesuits lie all the time, it says—”
“If you i
nsist on believing idiocies, have the decency to keep them to yourself,” Le Picart said.
Poquelin shut up—in sheer surprise, Charles thought. The elder Poquelin came in and bowed so humbly that he had to twist his neck to look at the rector. As Charles had feared, Poquelin was the man who had chastised him in the market.
The rector stood. “I was about to send for you, Monsieur Poquelin.”
Poquelin, who had not noticed Charles or the two boys standing back in the alcove, bowed even farther toward the floor. “Ah. So you know, then, about your unfortunate sheep,” the newcomer intoned. “I am glad. One must stop these things at the very beginning if young men are not to be lost. Though in one so long under your tutelage, I would have thought—ah, well. But I am a humble man and it is not for me to judge.” He folded his plump hands together and straightened a little to smile sadly up at the rector. “Have you beaten him?” he said hopefully.
The rector frowned in confusion. “I haven’t beaten anyone. I’ve only just discovered what he’s done.”
Poquelin drew himself almost to a normal posture, and Charles saw his eyes gleam. “I know that Jesuits don’t like to do the beating themselves. I would be glad to offer my humble services. Though that would be almost too much honor, mon père, allowing so humble a Gentleman to thrash a Jesuit for having—um—concourse with a strumpet in the market. If you insist, of course, I can only do my duty.”
Père Le Picart, momentarily speechless, gaped at Poquelin. The two students were listening round-eyed. Charles sighed inwardly and tried to think how to deal with this without saying more than the boys and Poquelin should hear.
“What Jesuit are you talking about, monsieur?” the rector demanded.
Charles stepped out of the alcove. “He means me, mon père.”
CHAPTER 20
“You?” The rector’s tone was mildly inquiring, but the look on his face was anything but mild. “And what were you doing in the market, Maître du Luc?”