“Finally, as the king passed by the Cemetery of the Innocents one day, a sullen man wearing a green coat cried out, ‘In the name of our Lord and the Blessed Virgin, Sire, I must speak. Is it true that you plan to make war on the pope?’ The king wanted to stop and talk with this man, but we wouldn’t let him.
“It was these things that made him as sad as a man marching to his death when, on that unfortunate Friday of May 14, I saw him come down the stairs of the Louvre and get into his carriage. It was then that Monsieur d’Épernon called me and told me to get on the running board.”
“Do you recall,” asked Richelieu, “how many people were in the carriage, and how they were sitting?”
“Three people, Monseigneur: the king, Monsieur de Montbazon, and Monsieur d’Épernon. Monsieur d’Épernon was on the left, and the king in the middle. I distinctly saw a man leaning against the wall of the Louvre, as if waiting for the king to come out. Seeing the open carriage, which enabled him to recognize the king, he left the wall and followed us.”
“This was the assassin?”
“Yes, though I didn’t know it at the time. The king was without guards. He was on his way to see Monsieur de Sully, who was ill, but on the Rue de l’Arbre-Sec he changed his mind and directed them to take him to visit Mademoiselle Paulet, saying he wanted to ask her to undertake the education of his son Vendôme, who was developing nasty Italian tastes.”
“Continue, continue,” the cardinal insisted. “Don’t leave out a single detail.”
“Oh, Monseigneur! It’s as if I’m still there. It was a beautiful day, about four o’clock in the afternoon. Though everyone recognized Henri IV, no one shouted ‘Vive le roi!’ The people were surly and defiant.”
“When you reached the Rue des Bourdonnais, didn’t Monsieur d’Épernon bring something to the king’s attention?”
“Ah, Monseigneur,” Latil said, “it seems you know as much as I!”
“On the contrary, as I said, I know nothing. Continue.”
“Yes, Monseigneur, the duke gave him a letter. The king began to read it, and paid no further attention to what was happening around him.”
“That’s it,” murmured the cardinal.
“About a third of the way up the Rue de la Ferronnerie, a wine cart and a hay wagon had collided. There was quite a commotion. Our driver steered to the left, his wheels almost touching the wall of Saints-Innocents. I leaned against the door for fear of being crushed. The carriage slowed to a halt. Just then, a man stepped up on a borne, thrust me aside, pushed himself in front of Monsieur d’Épernon, who leaned back, and struck the first blow at the king. ‘To me,’ the king cried, ‘I’m hurt!’ And he raised the arm that held the letter. This gave the assassin the opening for a second blow. He struck. This time the king could utter nothing but a sigh—he was slain.
“‘The king is only wounded!’ Monsieur d’Épernon cried, and threw his cloak over him. Meanwhile I fought with the assassin and tried to hold him, as he carved my hands with his knife. My life was nothing. I finally let go when I saw they had him. ‘Don’t kill him,’ cried Monsieur d’Épernon. ‘Take him to the Louvre.’”
Richelieu placed his hand on that of the wounded man, as if to interrupt, and asked, “The duke said that?”
“Yes, Monseigneur, but only after the murderer was already taken and there was no danger they’d kill him. They took him to the Louvre. I followed. I thought of him as my captive. I waved my bloody hands and cried, ‘That’s him, he’s the one who killed the king!’ ‘Who?’ the people cried. ‘Who?’ ‘Him, the one dressed in green!’ They wept, they screamed, they threatened the assassin. At times, the king’s carriage couldn’t even move, so great was the press around it.
“Halfway back, I saw Concini, the Maréchal d’Ancre. Someone told him the fatal news, and he forced his way to the castle. He went straight to the queen’s chambers, opened her door, and, without mentioning any names, as if she’d know who he meant, he cried in Italian, ‘E amazzato.’”
“He is slain!” repeated Richelieu. “This matches the other reports perfectly. Now for the rest.”
“They took the assassin to the Hotel de Retz, next to the Louvre. They put guards at the door but left it open, so anyone could come in. It seemed to me that this man was my captive, so I stationed myself at his door. Among his visitors was Father Coton, the king’s confessor.”
“Coton himself? Are you sure?”
“He came, yes, Monseigneur.”
“Did he speak with Ravaillac?”
“He spoke with him.”
“Did you hear what they said?”
“Yes, certainly, and I can repeat it word for word.”
“Do so!”
“Coton said, with a paternal air, ‘My friend . . .’”
“He called Ravaillac his friend!”
“Yes. He said, ‘My friend, take care not to upset your betters.’”
“And how did the assassin take this?”
“Calmly, like a man who felt he was well protected.”
“Did he stay in the Hotel de Retz?”
“No. Monsieur d’Épernon took him back to his own mansion, where he was kept from the 14th through the 17th. The duke had plenty of time to talk to him in private. It wasn’t until the 17th that he was taken to the Conciergerie.”
“At what time, exactly, was the king slain?”
“At twenty minutes past four.”
“And by when was his death known throughout Paris?”
“Within nine hours. By half past six the queen had been proclaimed regent.”
“Proclaimed regent, a foreigner who still spoke Italian,” Richelieu said bitterly. “An Austrian, the grand-niece of Charles V, cousin of Philip II—in other words, the Catholic League incarnate. But let’s deal with Ravaillac’s end.”
“No one can tell you better than I how it happened. I was there when he was on the wheel. I had privileges, they said; ‘This is Monsieur d’Épernon’s page, who arrested the murderer,’ and the women kissed me, while the men shouted ‘Long live the king,’ though he was dead. The people, who at first had been stunned and oppressed by the news, had gone insane with fury. There were demonstrations outside the Conciergerie, where the people, unable to stone the culprit, stoned the walls in his place.”
“Ravaillac never named any accomplices?”
“Not during the interrogations. To me it was evident that, until the very end, he expected some sort of last-minute reprieve. He did say he’d spoken to some priests at Angoulême, confessing that he hoped to kill a heretic king, and instead of dissuading him, they’d given him absolution and a small reliquary that they said contained a piece of the true cross. This reliquary, when opened before the court, was empty. Thank God that at least the priests hadn’t dared to make the Lord Jesus an accomplice in such a crime.”
“What did he say when he saw he’d been deceived?”
“He only said, ‘The guilt of fraud is on the fraudulent.’”
“I’ve seen myself,” the cardinal said, “only a summary of the ‘process verbal,’ which said, ‘What happened when the prisoner was put to the question is the secret of the court.’”
“I wasn’t there when the question was put,” Latil said, “but I was next to the executioner at the wheel. The sentence was that the prisoner be tortured and quartered, but they didn’t limit themselves to that. The king’s attorney, Monsieur La Guesle, proposed adding molten lead, pitch, and boiling oil, accompanied by a mixture of wax and sulfur. His proposal was adopted with enthusiasm.
“If we’d let the people handle things, Ravaillac would have been torn to pieces in five minutes. When he came out of the prison and marched to the scaffold, there was such a storm of curses, threats, and cries of rage, that only then did he realize the magnitude of his crime. On the scaffold, he turned to the people and begged for mercy, asking, in a doleful voice, for the consolation of a Salve Regina.”
“And was he granted this consolation?”
“Oh
, yes! With one voice the entire crowd around the scaffold shouted, ‘Damnation to Judas!’”
“Continue,” Richelieu said. “You were on the scaffold, near the executioner, you say?”
“Yes, I was granted that favor,” Latil said, “for having arrested, or at least helped to arrest, the murderer.”
“Quite so,” the cardinal said. “I’ve been told he was confessed on the scaffold?”
“Here’s what happened, Monseigneur. Your Eminence understands that, when one has witnessed such a scene, days, months, and years may pass, but it will be remembered for a lifetime.
“After the first tugs of the horses, which failed to pull off any of his limbs, wounds were slashed into his arms, chest, and thighs with a razor, into which they poured, successively, molten lead, boiling oil, and sulfur. By then his body was one great wound, and he cried out to the executioner, ‘Stop! Stop! I’ll talk!’ The executioner paused. The court clerk, who was at the foot of the scaffold, came up and, on a sheet separate from the official process verbal, took down what the prisoner said.”
“Well,” the cardinal asked eagerly, “in that final moment, what did he confess?”
“I wanted to get closer,” Latil said, “but they stopped me. The only words I could clearly hear were the names of d’Épernon and of the queen.”
“But the process verbal? And this separate sheet? Did you never hear of them while in the house of the duke?”
“In fact, Monseigneur, I heard them spoken of often.”
“What was said?”
“It was said that the court reporter kept the process verbal hidden in a strongbox in the wall next to his bed. As for the single sheet, it was reputed to be in the possession of the family of Joly de Fleury, who denied having it. However, much to Monsieur d’Épernon’s dismay, he was said to have shown it to some friends, who, due to the clerk’s poor handwriting, had found it very difficult to make out the names of the duke and the queen.”
“So, after this sheet was written?”
“When the dictation was complete, the execution resumed. The horses provided by the provost were bags of bones, too weak to pull the prisoner apart, so a gentleman offered to lend his own horse to the procedure, and at the first pull it tore off a thigh. As the prisoner was still alive, the executioner moved to finish him, but the lackeys of all the lords attending the execution jumped the fence, climbed the scaffold, and cut his body to pieces with their swords. Then the people rushed in and tore it into smaller pieces, and carried off bits of the regicide to burn at the crossroads. On returning to the Louvre, I saw the Swiss Guard roasting a leg right under the queen’s windows. So there!”
“And that’s all you know?”
“Yes, Monseigneur, except I’ve often heard tell how the treasury Sully had gone to such trouble to amass was divided up among the great nobles.”
“Indeed. The Prince de Condé alone walked off with four million—but that’s not what concerns me. Let’s return to the business at hand. Tell me, amid all this, did you ever hear anything about a certain Marquise d’Escoman?”
“Yes, I believe I did!” Latil said. “A small woman, with a bent back, whose maiden name had been Jacqueline Le Voyer—and her name wasn’t Escoman, it was Coëtman. She was the duke’s mistress. And though she was called a marquise, she wasn’t really, as her husband’s name was just Isaac de Varenne, period. Ravaillac had spent six months at her house. She was accused of being his accomplice in the king’s assassination. She told everyone who’d listen that she barely knew Ravaillac, and that it was the queen mother who was behind the plot.”
“What happened to this woman?” the cardinal asked.
“She was arrested several days before the king’s murder.”
“Yes, and she remained in prison until 1619, when she was abducted and taken to some other prison, I don’t know which. Do you know?”
“Monseigneur will recall that in 1613, Parliament called a halt to the investigation, due to the sensitivity of the case. They considered the accusations a threat to the realm. After Concini was killed and Luynes was in the ascendant, the case could have been reopened, but Luynes preferred reconciliation with the queen mother to risking an open break that would expose her to Louis XIII’s wrath. Luynes, therefore, pushed Parliament into declaring that accusations against the queen were libelous. Marie de Médicis and d’Épernon were cleared, and Madame Coëtman was condemned in their place.”
“Indeed, that’s when she disappeared. But to what prison was she taken? That’s what I asked, and I assume you know the answer, since you evaded the point.”
“You’re right, Monseigneur. I can tell you where she is—or at least where she was, for since it’s been nine years, only God knows if she’s alive or dead.”
“God must grant that she lives!” the cardinal exclaimed, with a fervor that showed that his faith was driven by his need. He added, “I’ve observed that the more the body suffers, the more the soul takes command.”
“Well, Monseigneur,” said Latil, “she was confined in a place where the bones can’t rest until the flesh is gone.”
“And you know where this place is?” the cardinal asked eagerly.
“It was built on purpose to hold her, Monseigneur, in an angle of the courtyard in the Convent of Repentant Daughters. She was put in a mausoleum whose door was walled shut. She was given food and drink through a window with iron bars.”
“You saw this yourself?” demanded the cardinal.
“I saw it myself, Monseigneur. When we left, children were throwing stones, as if at a wild beast, while she cried, ‘They lie! I wasn’t the assassin, it was the ones who put me here.’”
The cardinal rose. “There’s not a moment to lose,” he said. “This is the woman I need.” Then, to Latil: “Heal and recover, my friend. And once recovered, have no fears for the future.”
“Peste! With a promise like that, I certainly won’t, Monseigneur. To be sure, it’s time.”
“Time for what?” Richelieu asked.
“Time we finished. I feel weak and . . . well . . . am I dying?” With a gasp, his head fell back on the pillow.
The cardinal looked around until he found a small bottle that seemed to contain a cordial. He poured a few drops of the liquor onto a teaspoon and made the man swallow it. Latil opened his eyes and gasped again, but in relief.
The cardinal then put his finger to his lips to enjoin the man to silence, pulled up the hood of his cloak, and went out.
XXII
The In Pace
It was about one-thirty in the morning or so, but the advanced hour was just one more reason for the cardinal to continue his investigations. If he presented himself at the door of the infamous convent in the daytime, wherein were collected the most immoral women from the worst places in Paris, he feared he might be recognized, and there might be speculation as to the reason for his visit. He knew the curtain that Concini, the queen mother, and d’Épernon had tried to draw across the terrible tragedy of the assassination of Henri IV. He knew, as we saw in the previous chapter, that all the written evidence had disappeared. He feared that the last living evidence might disappear as well. The attack on Latil demonstrated that he was following a thread that, at any moment, the hand of death could break. Here was this woman whose house, it was said, Ravaillac had shared for six months, and who, having learned a state secret, was now dead or dying in an in pace—for so they called those tombs devised by monks, those expert tormenters, to impose physical and mental suffering to the limit of what’s possible for strength to endure.
The Rue des Postes, the site of the Convent of Repentant Daughters (later replaced by the Madelonettes), was far from the Rue de l’Homme-Armé—or rather the Rue du Plâtre, where the false friar’s sedan chair awaited him. But the cardinal forestalled any objections from his porters by placing a silver crown in each one’s hand. They took a moment to discuss which route would be shortest, then decided to take the Rue des Billettes to the Rue de la Coutellerie, cro
ss the Pont Nôtre-Dame, and take Rue Saint-Jacques and the Rue de l’Estrapade to the Rue des Postes, where they’d find, on the corner of the Rue du Chevalier, the Convent of Repentant Daughters.
When the sedan chair stopped at the gate, two o’clock was sounding from the nearby Church of Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas. The cardinal stuck his head out the door and ordered one of the porters to ring the gate bell loudly. The larger of the two obeyed.
After a few minutes, during which the cardinal, impatient, had had the bell rung twice more, a small barred window opened in the gate and the head of the sister on duty appeared to ask what they wanted. “Ask her to tell the mother superior it’s a Capuchin monk sent by Father Joseph to speak to her about an important matter,” the cardinal said to one of the porters. The man repeated the sentence word for word.
“Which Father Joseph?” the sister asked.
“It seems to me there’s only one who matters,” said a commanding voice from within the chair. “The one who’s the cardinal’s secretary.”
This voice had such a tone of authority that the sister asked no further questions, just closed her window and disappeared.
The chair was set on the ground and the false monk climbed out. “Is the superior coming down?” he asked the sister when she reappeared at the window.
“This very instant. But if Your Reverence has just come to call on one of our prisoners, there was no need to wake the mother superior: I have the authority to let any worthy servant of God into one of our cells, whether that servant wears a frock or a robe.”
The cardinal’s eyes flashed like lightning. He knew she spoke the truth: the unlucky women who were locked in the convent in order to repent of their sins were often led, on the contrary, to commit new ones. His first indignant reaction was to refuse, but then it occurred to him that this might more easily get him to his goal. “Very well,” he said. “Lead me to the cell of the Dame de Coëtman.”
The sister stepped back. “Jésus-Dieu!” she said, crossing herself. “What name did Your Reverence say?”
“That is the name of one of your prisoners, I believe.”
The Red Sphinx Page 20