Fortunes of France: The Brethren

by Robert Merle

  Ricou pulled a scroll from his pocket, unfurled it, and though he read it slowly and distinctly, I couldn’t understand a word of it at the time. As I read it today I remember that the only thing that struck me then was that my father might be killed in the war, a thought that had not yet occurred to me and that overwhelmed me.

  If such an event occurred, Maître Ricou informed us, Monsieur de Sauveterre, Écuyer, agreed to consider Isabelle de Siorac as his own sister and to provide her with food and hearth for the rest of her days. He was also to provide for François, Pierre, Samson and Catherine, whom he would consider to be his own children. On coming of age, François de Siorac would join Sauveterre as lords of Mespech although the latter would continue to assume the management and defence of the household until his death. An appropriate sum of money would be given to each of his younger sons, Pierre de Siorac and Samson de Siorac, as they came of age, so that they might carry out their studies at Montpellier: Pierre in medicine and Samson in law. On her wedding day, Catherine was to receive the same fields, woods and quarry which Isabelle de Caumont had brought in dowry to Mespech. If Monsieur de Sauveterre were to die before the four children had reached majority, the Caumont cousins would become co-tutors with Isabelle.

  Having finished his reading, Maître Ricou invited all present to pose any questions they might have, and my mother asked in a trembling voice whether the fact of naming Samson in the codicil was sufficient to legitimize his birth. “No,” answered the notary, “in order for Samson to be legitimized, a special request would have to be addressed to the king, and in the present case, the child is merely recognized, which,” he emphasized, “in no way undermines the inheritor of the estate.” My father listened to this explanation without so much as a word, a sign or a look in my mother’s direction.

  François de Caumont asked if it might be possible to specify the “appropriate sum of money” which would be allotted to Pierre and Samson for their studies. Sauveterre proposed 3,000 livres for each, to be inflated or deflated according to the current price of grain, a proposal that was immediately accepted by my father and co-signed by Ricou.

  Geoffroy de Caumont wished to know why, at the age of six, Pierre de Siorac was already destined to the study of medicine and Samson to the law. My father replied with a smile that, as younger brothers, we would need a serious profession in order to make our way in life; that he had already been struck by the interest I showed in sick people he had attended, and by all the questions I asked on this subject. As for Samson, he had a precise and practical turn of mind, which, my father felt, would lead him to an interest in the law. He added that, of course, he might be mistaken about all of this, but that, in any case, each of his younger sons should receive the prescribed sum whatever subject he wished to pursue in order to gain an honourable situation in life. François de Caumont requested that this consideration be added to the codicil, which was done. The act was then signed by Sauveterre, Siorac, Isabelle de Siorac, François and Geoffroy de Caumont, the two Siorac cousins, and Cabusse as well, who was the only one of our people who could sign his name, which he did with a great flourish.

  After many compliments, the notary withdrew. Marsal and Coulondre were to accompany him back to Sarlat, armed to the teeth, for the roads had again become dangerous, and it was rumoured that a large band of Gypsies had been pillaging outlying farms near Belvès and even attacking some of the chateaux. As for François and Geoffroy de Caumont, they were to spend the night at Mespech, and set out the next morning with my father towards Périgueux, where a great assembly of nobles was being gathered for the march to Paris.

  Once Ricou had left, my father announced in a sombre and sonorous voice, “My friends, in view of the perils we are going to meet in the north in our defence of the kingdom and of the dangers that those who remain here may have to confront, I ask that we all commend each other to the grace and mercy of God in a short prayer recited together.” Whereupon, with a grave voice but without the bombast or any of the mechanical quality that our priest always adopts, without mumbling or stumbling over words, but pronouncing each of them in a sincere tone as if each one were new to him, Jean de Siorac recited the Our Father, and we all began to pray along with him, including the children.

  Night had fallen and the hall was lit only by the two oil lamps on the table. I was astonished by this Our Father, recited so slowly, with such force and fervour. And believing that my father was going to be killed in battle, just as the horrible notary had said repeatedly while reading his document, a shiver went down my spine and tears streamed down my cheeks. Certainly I loved my mother and adored Barberine, who had suckled me and raised me and Samson—much more than my elder brother—and my little sister Catherine. But no one at Mespech seemed more admirable, stronger, more knowledgeable in all things, wiser, more able and indestructible than Jean de Siorac. I loved everything about him, his clear eyes, his eloquence, and especially the way he stood so straight and tall, head held high, the scar on his cheek adding to his majesty.

  As the prayer came to an end, my tears continued to flow unremittingly and I didn’t even try to wipe my eyes. Then an incident occurred which broke the solemnity of the scene and shook me to the core. In the silence following the prayer, Isabelle de Siorac suddenly announced with her usual petulance, “My dear husband, I would like to add to the paternoster a little prayer intended for your special protection.” And she immediately began the Ave Maria.

  Had lightning struck the middle of the great hall of Mespech, it could not have produced a more terrifying effect. Sauveterre and Siorac stood silent, still as statues, fists clenched behind their backs, teeth gritted, staring icily at Isabelle. Geoffroy directed an equally furious look at his cousin, and his elder brother, who was also a reformer, though not so passionate as the others, seemed intensely embarrassed. Cathau, Barberine, little Hélix and I recited the Ave Maria along with Isabelle. Samson, who had never been prey to the influence of my mother and who was consequently ignorant of this prayer, said not a word. As for François, after reciting the opening words, he stopped short as soon as he saw my father’s face. I resented his cowardice and continued reciting to the bitter end, convinced that my mother was wrong to have so antagonized my father, yet little inclined to abandon her, for I could see her chin trembling as she braved the terrible stares from all sides. As for my cousins and the soldiers, all remained immobile, their eyes glued to the floor, utterly silent, looking as if they wished they were a thousand leagues away.

  “My friends,” said my father when she had finished, his face pale, his teeth clenched, but his speech calm enough, “you may withdraw into your chambers for the night, I must take leave of my wife.”

  He warmly embraced François and Geoffroy de Caumont, who were the first to retire, followed by Sauveterre, who escorted them, limping, to their rooms. My cousins and the soldiers were next, and with them went François, who was no longer treated as a child and had his own room. Cathau and Barberine were slowest to withdraw, gathering the children in their skirts. Once the door to the great hall was closed, I noticed that they lingered in the kitchen, seeming to busy themselves there and imposing the strictest silence on all of us.

  Their delay was rewarded, for, after a long silence, we could hear my father say: “Madame, you might have avoided offending me in front of my friends and my children, and this on the eve of my departure for the war unsure that you will ever see me again.”

  There was another silence, broken by my mother’s trembling and tearful voice:

  “My dear husband, I did not think to brook your anger in reciting a prayer of the Catholic religion in which we were married.”

  Here we could hear sobs as my father replied: “My friend, it is too late for tears.” But his tone was considerably softened, and Barberine later told Cathau that if my mother had persevered in her tears and silence, everything might have turned out for the best. Instead, my mother added,

  “Truly I did not mean any harm. I only wanted to brin
g you the protection of the Virgin.”

  “Is Christ not enough for you?” cried my father angrily. “Why do you need the intercession of your little gods and goddesses? Have you no sense, woman? There’s nothing but pagan superstition, stinking idolatry and pestiferous ignorance of God’s Word in your worship. I’ve explained this to you a thousand times, Madame, and since you have the good fortune to know how to read, why do you refuse to seek the Word of God as it is given in the Holy Scriptures, rather than relying blindly on the tales of your priests?”

  At this point, little Hélix gave my arm a terrible pinch and I responded with an elbow, which missed its mark and hit a kettle, knocking it with a great crash to the kitchen floor. The door of the great hall flew open and my father’s head appeared, flushed crimson, his eyes ablaze, and he thundered, “What are you doing in here? To bed! To bed! Or every last one of you’ll get the whip, boys and girls alike, young and old, no matter what your condition!” Barberine gave a shriek, and, seizing her lamp, disappeared into the stairwell, all of us on her heels, panting with terror.

  Cathau, the lithe chambermaid Cabusse had taken such a fancy to, slept in the little room adjoining my mother’s bedroom, and she took a hasty leave of Barberine on the first landing, her eyes and lips full of the commentary they would share the next morning but must now sleep on. Our nurse, lamp in hand, shepherded her little troop into the room in the west tower where she slept in a bed whose great size was commensurate with her own. Catherine’s bed was next to hers, little Hélix’s on the other side, but shoved against the wall to allow passage between them, while Samson and I shared a bed on the far side of the fireplace. In the frigid winter weather, we lit a great blaze at nightfall against the terrible glacial draughts blowing through the machicolations pierced in the walls, which, during an attack, permitted rocks, hot pitch or boiling water to be hurled on any attackers, but which now allowed the humidity of the moats to infiltrate our beds.

  Barberine placed the oil lamp on the night table and came to tuck us into our beds with the care, caresses and kisses with which she always dosed these rites, her deep, lyrical voice finding sweet words for each one of us (including Samson, though she’d never suckled him), calling little Hélix “My big rascal! Little devil! Sweet sorceress!”; Catherine “My little golden écu! My pearl of God!”; Samson “My little fox cub! My curly little St John!”; and me “My sweet! Dear heart! My little rooster!” These are only examples of her nicknames for us, for she imagined new ones every night, each one perfectly fitting the person and the occasion, never calling one of us by a name she’d used for another on another night, which, I’m sure, would have wounded us no end.

  Catherine and Samson fell asleep during this rite, but not little Hélix, who, leaning on one elbow, and behind Barberine’s spacious back, made her last faces at me. I did not doze off either, but only pretended to do so, and, turning on my side, one eye closed, seemingly the innocent angel, I watched Barberine undress, while her gigantic shadow, projected by the lamp onto the curved tower wall, made its final preparations for sleep.

  I now understand that Barberine was not as colossal as I’d believed at the age of six. She was, however, a large woman with luxuriant black hair, a round face, large mouth, round and robust neck, wide shoulders, huge bosom with firm and abundant white breasts from which I had drunk life, and which now dazzled me in the lamplight as, sighing, she unlaced the red bodice which imprisoned them. And they seemed to swell, impatient for liberation, as Barberine undid with her large fingers the last knots holding the lacing firmly in place. Finally they made their appearance, milky and round, fabulously enlarged by the shadow on the wall, as if the tower itself had become a huge breast which would come to rest on our cheeks during the night. Barberine carefully folded her red halter and her corset, and then her skirt, her apron and finally her green velvet petticoat, striped with three red bands, one at the waist, a second around her thigh and the third at the hem. Then she pulled on an ample white sleeveless nightgown, cut very low so that her liberated bosom could undulate freely. As her body came to rest on her woollen mattress she sighed with sleepy content. I had only this brief moment to ask a question or make a request, since only seconds later the lamp would be extinguished and she with it, sinking into a sleep so deep that ten arquebuses firing simultaneously in the tower room would not have stirred her.

  I slipped out of bed and ran over to hers to curl up and snuggle in her arms.

  “And who is this pretty little mouse?” asked Barberine in her low sing-song voice, squeezing me tight. “What could it want?”

  “Barberine, why did my mother make my father so angry?”

  “Because she was upset herself,” said Barberine, who never lied.

  “Upset about what?”

  “Because the notary called Samson ‘Samson de Siorac’.”

  “Isn’t that his name, then?” I asked astonished.

  “Now it is, yes.”

  “And what was it before?”

  “He didn’t have a name.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears.

  “But he’s my brother!”

  “Of course!” replied Barberine. “And a handsome, strong and honest lad he is, like a shiny new coin. It would have been a great pity not to name him Siorac and God bless him!” And, between her teeth, “And the Virgin Mary, too. Go on, my little mouse, back to your hole. I’m dousing the lamp.”

  And even before I could get back to my bed, she blew out the lamp, so that I “lost my way” in the dark and found myself in little Hélix’s bed, who, all ears, was wide awake and whose arms encircled me with astonishing force.

  It’s true that she was already ten years old and I don’t know why we called her little Hélix, for she was no longer little, far from it and almost completely formed already.

  “Aha, I’ve got you!” she whispered. “And now that I’ve got you, I’m going to eat you right up like a she-devil.”

  “S’not true!” I hissed. “I don’t believe you, you don’t have teeth like a wolf.”

  “What about this?” she said, rolling me over on my back and putting her full weight on me. “Me,” she continued half-scolding, half-laughing, trying to nibble my ear, “I always begin with the ears, because they’re the best morsels, like the coxcomb or the artichoke heart! But after the ears, I eat everything else, bit by bit, right down to the bones.”

  “Not true, I tell you, and you’re crushing me! Get off me! Or I’ll call Barberine!”

  “My mother’s asleep,” she laughed shamelessly. “So, my little mouse, you’ve met your cat. Keep still or you’ll feel my claws.”

  “If you’re a cat,” I answered bravely, “tomorrow I’ll take my father’s sword and cut you in two, from the guzzle to the zatch!”

  “Fie then!” cajoled little Hélix. “No bragging little mouse! Listen once and for all: if you don’t sleep in my bed I’ll eat you all up.”

  I answered neither yea nor nay, so astonished was I to find her at once so plump and so strong, gave up the struggle and fell asleep in her arms. At daybreak, however, she woke me with a violent pinch and, pretending to be angry at finding me in her bed, sent me off to my own with dispatch.

  My father’s departure deprived us as well of Cabusse, who, among other duties, was our cook. He enjoyed an easy familiarity with Cathau and Barberine. Neither one, however, tolerated his advances for fear of being sent away, though Cathau would have been hard pressed to resist if the master’s eye hadn’t kept her in line, for she found herself attracted to Cabusse’s formidable moustache, his great size, his coaxing ways and his Gascon accent. Alas, now, when she came down of a morning to fetch hot milk for her mistress, Cabusse would no longer be there to say in his warm voice, “Greetings, my sweet! How fare you this day? And how could you not fare well, fresh as you are, with cheeks as red as apples and lips like cherries! How you make the kitchen shine just by comin’ in! They say ‘A lass who’s pale seeks her male,’ but I don’t believe it! It’s just the ot
her way round! Whoever saw a turnip fall in love?”

  But even Cabusse, as hardy a soldier as they come, spoke in a whisper to Cathau, so fearful was he of being heard by the captains.

  To replace Cabusse as cook, they tried Barberine, but Barberine, who had nourished so many children in the natural way, turned out to have no culinary talent whatsoever for nourishing grown-ups. So Sauveterre called on la Maligou, wife of the man who had had such trouble guarding Mespech against the evil schemes of Fontenac. La Maligou came and stayed. As voluminous as Barberine, she lacked our nursemaid’s strength, and possessed not the least grain of common sense or reason in her great ruffled head, being all vanity and chatter, as credulous and superstitious as they come, genuflecting twenty times a day, crossing her fingers to conjure fate, throwing salt over her shoulder and in front of her pot (which she somehow cooked to perfection), always careful to draw a circle with her finger on the kitchen floor behind her to prevent the Devil from whipping up her skirts and cowling her while she was bent over her fire.

  She brought with her daughter, named Suzon, but later we turned to calling her “Little Sissy”, a name which stuck. At the time of her arrival she was a little devil of three years, with the skin of a Saracen, thin and graceful as a blade, her close-set eyes liquid and malicious enough to damn you, yet of a good heart all the same. At six, already tall for my age, I carried her on my shoulders, leaving Catherine to pout on her little chair, her two blonde braids encircling her scowling face, while little Hélix wrestled with her barely contained fury, for no one dared lay a finger on Little Sissy, since la Maligou had a sharp eye and a fast hand.