by Robert Merle
On the request of the consuls of Sarlat, the bishop had ordered prayers in all the churches of the diocese that year, and a great procession to the chapel of the Virgin between Daglan and Saint-Pompon, under a blistering sun, behind a cross, with chants from the Litany of the Saints. They had taken great care to omit no one from this prayer, afraid of vexing the forgotten saint and causing him to continue the drought. The priests had gone hoarse reciting secret Latin prayers known to be particularly effective against drought. The faithful had gone to confession en masse and had given alms with unusual liberality, especially given how poor they were then, yet, despite all these remedies, no rains had fallen, and with winter real misery had set in, and farmers had sold or butchered their starving livestock, small sharecroppers were ruined as owners mortgaged their land away, hundreds of day labourers were dismissed and, without work, turned to wandering the roads of France, begging or eating acorns and tree bark.
So Faujanet was happy that the grass under his scythe was high, thick and succulent, for this hay, if bad weather didn’t rot it before it reached the lofts, meant fatted veal, beef and mutton, lots of milk, vigorous horses to pull the ploughs through the fallow land—in short wealth and happiness for the little people. The lords, like his masters at Mespech, always had vast reserves to keep them alive, and even profited from bad years, but the small farmers never had enough. If the Lord’s heart hardened again towards the people of Sarlat as it had in 1557—though no one could ever understand why He had it in for the Périgordians, who were not visibly more sinful than others—and if He stopped the clouds from sending rain on the province, then the poor would quickly suffer the pain and hardship of hunger.
That winter there was no end to the talk in the countryside around Taniès, Sireil and Marcuays about the wolf that Jonas had tamed. I myself couldn’t wait to see it, and Samson and I got permission from the Brethren to accompany Jonas to his cave one Sunday evening and to spend the whole night there.
Certainly it’s not every day that you get to sleep in a cave, whose entrance is closed by a large rock, like the one the Cyclops Polyphemus slept in, and which has a hole in the domed roof over your head to let the smoke from the fire escape. And it’s not an ordinary thing, when you’re going on ten years old, to sleep beside a wild-eyed wolf with feral coat, along with a goat and kids that the wolf doesn’t touch, not to mention the Herculean Jonas wrapped in his sheepskin, and in his own fur which is as thick as the wolf’s.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. First we got to stay up late, sitting around the fire Jonas had built on a hearth of raised stones, whose flames did battle with the cold wind that came rushing through the circular hole in the vaulted roof until they vanquished this cold breeze from above, which retreated before the smoke and the current of warm air from below. La Maligou had provisioned us with a roast chicken, wrapped in a napkin and placed in a basket, and Samson and I each ate a leg, Jonas the two breasts, and the wolf—or rather she-wolf—the carcass. It was wonderful to hear her cracking the bones in her powerful jaw, stretched out in her wild coat between Jonas and me, her head slightly askew, her eyes half-closed in the voluptuousness of the moment. For dessert there were excellent walnuts, which Jonas broke like peas between his thumb and index finger and then shelled in a trice. Throwing the shells into the fire, he planted their meat in a fresh cheese offered by his goat, who also provided us with milk for our dinner, which we drank from a pitcher Jonas passed around, the wolf even getting her share in her own bowl. You should have seen her lapping up this foaming milk as if she were a cat, then licking her chops to catch every last drop.
“Jonas,” said Samson, “isn’t your wolf going to gobble up your goat someday?”
“Why would she do that?” asked Jonas. “My goat gives her milk same as to me.”
“But does she know it’s the goat who gives it?”
“Surely she does. Don’t go thinking that animals are so dumb. I never milk my goat without having my wolf at my side, her tongue out and mouth wide open hoping for a warm stray drop from her teat. Of course she knows.”
“But wolves like meat,” I pointed out.
“So I give her enough from my hunting.” Without getting up, Jonas reached out his long muscular arm, grabbed a bulging sack and pulled out three handfuls of chestnuts, which, given the size of his hands, made a handsome pile in front of him. A little to one side of the brightly burning fire, he made a small oven of hot coals into which he slipped the chestnuts. A wonderful odour filled the cave and brought back memories of our evenings at Mespech when the first bitter frosts had come on.
“Jonas,” said Samson, “they say that your goat is going to turn into a wench someday and that you’ll marry her.”
“Who says so?”
“Cabusse.”
“If God could only grant such things!” mused Jonas without so much as a smile. “For I could well use the company. But all things being equal, I’d just as soon it were the wolf that would change into a woman and not the goat.”
“Why so?”
“Because my goat gives me milk and cheese, which a woman couldn’t. And besides,” he added, staring into the fire and speaking in a tone so serious that one would have thought the transformation was not only possible but quite imminent, “my she-wolf is a beauty. Lots of wenches would be proud to have her bright eyes and her thick hair.”
So saying, he plunged his hands into her fur and caressed the animal, and the wolf, turning her head towards him, gave out a sigh and looked at him so lovingly that I really believed that a miracle was about to be performed right there beneath my eyes as I stuffed myself with roasted chestnuts.
“Jonas,” said Samson, “how did you tame your wolf?”
“With patience and love. I found her in a foxhole that she’d enlarged, her eyes all feverish and so skinny that her ribs showed. She’d broken a paw, and to get away from her pack, who, as you know, always kill and eat their wounded, she had hidden away there. I brought her milk, then a bit of meat, and when she was strong enough to pull herself out of the den I put a hemp rope about her muzzle and splinted up her paw.”
“So you can also set bones, Jonas?” I queried, looking at him with new respect.
“Yes I can. I learnt it from my great-uncle, who was considered by his village to be a bit of a sorcerer, but for good, not evil, so much so that even the village priest respected him. Oh, if only he were still alive!” he sighed, his words trailing off as he looked dreamily at his wolf.
And conversing thus, Samson and I gradually fell asleep on the mattress of chestnut leaves prepared by Jonas, three large sheepskins piled on top of us. It was so warm that, when I awoke at dawn with the fire gone out, my face was frozen but my body toasty. I was amazed, on opening my eyes, not to find myself in the tower room at Mespech, and I was about to close them again when they encountered two yellow eyes of a wild animal staring straight at them. My hair stood on end. It was the wolf.
“Jonas!” I cried.
“What is it?” asked Jonas, standing over me at what seemed a prodigious height.
“Your wolf is staring at me.”
“Like a dog looks at a bishop,” answered Jonas. “Go to sleep, Master Pierre. It’s not time for the morning milking and the fire isn’t lit yet.”
I went back to sleep and dreamt that an old man with a dark, terrifying look was entering the cave. He was enormous, bigger even than Jonas, and, leaning towards him, pronounced some unintelligible words and made some strange signs over his head. Then Jonas’s face turned into a muzzle and his great body was transformed into a wolf’s. He got up, yawned, showing huge pointed white teeth and then, moving over to sit next to his she-wolf, licked his chops. He looked at me intensely but I couldn’t tell whether it was with hatred or friendship.
Scarcely were we back at Mespech than Barberine, who had been waiting for us, came running out to meet us, her baby in her arms and little Hélix at her heels, making faces at us from behind her back. “Sweet Jesus, there
you are! The baron and Monsieur de Sauveterre are in the library waiting for you with some very important news. But you can’t go in there like that! You stink. Go and wash your face and comb your hair.”
Which we did, changing our linen as well since Barberine complained that even after a bath we smelt “like goat, or wolf, or worse yet”. While we were each slipping on a starched shirt that smelt of lavender, la Maligou came in to sniff us. “Oh, my poor dears!” she moaned. “I smell sulphur on you.” (And she made the sign of the cross over our heads.) “It’s just as I thought, that wolf is a sorceress who has taken the form of an animal to bewitch our stonecutter and lead him straight to hell.”
“Be still, Maligou,” corrected Barberine. “The captains don’t hold with this kind of talk, especially around our young masters.” (But it was easy to see that la Maligou’s words had made a huge impression on her.)
“So tell me, Master Pierre,” said la Maligou, turning towards me with a knowing air, “does Jonas love his wolf?”
“Oh, yes!” I said. “So much so that he wishes God would turn his wolf into a woman so he could marry her.”
“Alas!” said la Maligou, her whole jelly-like body trembling with compassion. “It’s just as I thought. Our poor stonecutter is all bewitched and fooled and caught in the snares of the seventy-seven demons of hell. It’s not the Lord God who changes wolves into women, Master Pierre,” she continued authoritatively, “it’s the Devil. And when it happens, there won’t be any church wedding, but shameful carryings-on hidden in a cave with a goat to witness it. Alas, poor Jonas! There was never a prettier man in Sarlat. So tall, so strong and so hairy! But as they say: lust and lechery are the road to hell.”
“You ought to know well enough,” rejoined Barberine, much displeased by this talk, “you who sinned fourteen times in your barn with the Gypsy captain!”
“Fifteen,” sighed la Maligou, making the sign of the cross. “But I never sinned. You know very well I was forced. At least the first time. As for the rest I gave myself up to the will of God.”
The Brethren were waiting for us in the library in the company of an old man clothed entirely in black, and whose white hair, pale visage, broad shoulders and majestic bearing seemed to us the Moses of our Bible. I later learnt that his name was Raymond Duroy and that he was a minister of the reformed religion at Sarlat, though of course celebrating his services clandestinely. Sauveterre, also dressed in black, was seated with Raymond Duroy, both looking very grave and austere. But my father, dressed in green (which was my mother’s colour), paced up and down, stopped in front of the window, pivoted on his heels, walked behind Sauveterre’s armchair, seizing the back with both hands, then moved away again, returning to the window, his expression not so much grave as tense. Obviously unable to remain in place for one minute, and, in his usual way, with his brisk step, his perfect bearing, his rapid movements, and his elegant gestures, at times placing his hands on his hips in his favourite position, he swelled out his powerful chest, lifted his chin, and turned his head from one side to the other with an impatient air.
“Well, my little rascals!” he exclaimed as we entered, his face suddenly brightening but resisting the temptation to pick us up in his arms and give us his usual kiss. “Have you seen the wolf? Is it beautiful? Are you satisfied?”
“Yes, we are,” I replied, a bit reticently after what I had just heard from la Maligou.
“Well then,” said my father, who was quite intent ever since my famous quarrel with François that peace should reign among his sons, “greet your brother and be seated.”
I stepped forward and now saw François, the back of whose chair had hidden him from view until now, and who was sitting opposite the Brethren and Raymond Duroy, cross-legged, looking very serious, the very image of virtue. I greeted him, and leaning towards us, he did me the honour of kissing me on each cheek, and did the same for Samson.
“My sons,” continued my father, solemnly mastering his feelings, “we have some news of great import to share with you, as well as a grave decision Sauveterre and I have taken.” He paused before continuing: “This is the news: François II died on 5th December of an infection in his ear. He had scarcely reigned a year and a half. He was only sixteen when he died.” Here he stopped and looked at the Reverend Duroy as if expecting some commentary, and the minister, his hands resting on the arms of the chair, raising his long white beard and pale face towards us, said in a grave voice while remaining perfectly still:
“God has intervened in this! He has struck down the father in his eye and the son in his ear. The former because he would not look at the truths of the Reformation. The latter because he would not listen to them.”
“As a consequence,” said my father, “the Guise family has been banished from power. And the time was never so ripe as now for our cause throughout the kingdom. Two royal princes have taken sides with us: Anthoine de Bourbon, the king of Navarre, and his brother the Prince de Condé, whom Guise had imprisoned, but whom Queen Catherine, the regent, Charles IX being still a minor, has set free. Coligny has been reinstated with full powers. He is once again admiral of France, and d’Andelot again the major general of the infantry. Ten bishops of the realm have come out on our side, and among them the bishop of Périgueux. Michel de L’Hospital, the chancellor named by Queen Catherine, secretly favours our cause, and the regent herself, it seems, is inclined towards the Reformation. In truth,” he continued with a rapid smile, “she is a wolf, but, like Jonas’s, is becoming a sheep.” He paused. “Here in Périgord the four Caumont brothers, whose power derives from the impregnable Château de Castelnau, have long since embraced the cause, and the Baron de Biron, captain of the companies of the king in the seneschalty of Sarlat, would not move against us even if ordered to. The proof is that when there was a riot at the beginning of December in Sarlat because the populace was upset that the Reverend Duroy here had buried a reformist, Monsieur Delpeyrat, under the lantern of the dead with neither priests nor torches, Biron refused to lend the bishop of Sarlat the support of his men at arms.”
My father fell silent again, then said gravely, pronouncing each of his words clearly and emphatically: “Sauveterre and I have decided, after much reflection, that the moment has come to cease hearing Mass and openly to declare our faith. My sons,” he added, coming to a halt in front of us, his hands on his hips and glancing at each one of us in turn with an impatient and severe look, “how does this sit with you? Speak! Will you follow your father?”
“I will espouse my father’s faith right willingly and with all my heart,” said François, somewhat too hastily, I felt.
“I am already of the faith,” said Samson in a quiet voice. “I know no other.”
Since I alone said nothing, my father threw me an imperious look and said curtly, “And you, Pierre?”
I replied, my heart pounding, “I was raised by my mother, by your agreement, in the Catholic religion. But I am only ten years old. I am still very ignorant. Grant me that, before I follow you, I may be given instruction in the reformed religion.” My father’s eyes blazed: “I will not be satisfied with a dilatory reply!” he snapped. “Beware, Pierre, lest this delay in following me be inspired by the Devil!…”
The Reverend Raymond Duroy raised his hand and, turning his noble and austere face towards my father, said in a grave voice: “Only on a resistant ground can a solid faith be built. Not everything can be imputed to the Evil One. If Pierre wishes to be instructed into the truths of our faith, I will accept the task of teaching him.”
Still shaken by this sudden anger of my father—who was in everything my model and my hero—I stared at the Reverend Duroy. I was grateful to him for his unexpected help, but the more I observed his athletic build, his venerable white beard and his high forehead denoting wisdom and knowledge, the more diminished I felt in his presence. His deep dark eyes shone from his pale yet vigorous countenance and his stare was so intense that I could hardly look him in the eye. Then and there I told myself t
hat I had about as much chance resisting this formidable champion of the new faith as I would wrestling barehanded with Jonas.
6
IT DIDN’T TAKE the Reverend Duroy a week to convert me. He even spent much of this time in other activities, for he was a man of untiring energy, always riding through the countryside preaching the Word among the people.
Even before he opened his mouth, I felt he had won the battle: I had already long since figured out that the Mass at Mespech was for women and servants. The Catholic cult seemed to consist of Father Pincers, an ignorant lecherous drunk, insistently posing scabrous questions about sexuality which always left me confused. I also equated Catholicism with the miscreants who had burnt Anne du Bourg and, before him, a long list of martyrs whose names were cited with veneration by the Brethren. I admired no one more than my father and Uncle de Sauveterre, and, through them, I had already adopted the cause of the persecuted Huguenots long before I embraced their faith.
And yet, I did not embrace that faith without some reticence, for I had some reservations I knew I must stifle to avoid worse quarrels with my father. For example, I could not grasp the difference between salvation by grace rather than by works, and, from my own simplistic viewpoint, my mother’s religion was much more satisfying on this point. Moreover, I was much attached to the idea of Purgatory, which I found to be a most useful institution, where, in my repentance, I would have gladly accepted a short stay to wash away my sins, and in particular my games with little Hélix. I was even more attached to the Virgin Mary, whom I confusedly identified with Barberine, with her warm bosom, her sweet face and her consoling arms. In my humble and puerile opinion, there seemed to be only men to love in this new religion. And what I felt then, I still believe in some way. Even putting idolatry and images aside, no Creator can escape some resemblance to man. Isn’t it a pity that nothing womanly is made holy, not even her maternal function?