by Robert Merle
This “whom I love” caused a terrible pallor in Isabelle and she vacillated more at that than at any other moment of the discussion. Yet she recovered herself almost immediately and said with utter finality: “I read my Catholic missal, and the hours of the Blessed Virgin, for these books are permitted me. But I shall read neither the Old nor the New Testament, for the Church forbids it of me. And I hold firmly to the belief that outside the Church there is no salvation.”
“What are you saying, Madame?” cried my father, paling in his turn. And, turning to the minister, he said, his voice choked with grief. “Did you hear this blasphemy?”
“Alas,” said Duroy, “it is a rare abomination to substitute the Roman Church for Christ and to make of it an idol. Madame, say rather, outside of Christ there is no salvation.”
Isabelle, as yet unbowed by my father’s anger, seemed deeply moved, not by Duroy’s remark, but rather by the evident pain her own words had caused her husband. She fell silent, and there seemed to be a momentary truce among all combatants, as if each were regaining his breath and were trying to recover from the many blows given and received.
Geoffroy de Caumont, in his turn, took up the argument. The most zealous of the four Caumont brothers, he was prior of Brive and abbot of Uzerche, Vigeais and Clairac. But in becoming Huguenot, he had not abandoned his offices and benefits, converting his flock and his monks by high-handed rather than gentler means. In stature, he was a man of average height, with rather fierce eyes and dark skin and hair.
“My cousin,” he said gruffly, “you, for whom all tradition is holy, you would do well to follow the other women in our family and obey your husband. You dishonour the Caumont family with your obstinacy. You’re more hardheaded, my cousin, than the stubbornest goat, and you should be careful lest your wilfulness disgust your husband and cause him to repudiate you.”
“Even if my husband were to send me away,” replied Isabelle, her voice trembling, “I am too confident of your own friendship for me to fear that you should reject me.”
“Not so, Madame!” frowned Geoffroy de Caumont. “Not so! Neither my brothers, François and Jean, nor your other relatives and friends would have anything to do with you, and there would be no haven for you in the entire length and breadth of our province.”
Isabelle valiantly faced this blow, stating in a strong voice: “Monsieur, if you forsake me, the Church will not forsake me. And I prefer to be the most wretched person in the world than to leave the Church for men.”
“Idolatress!” cried my father, torn between anger and grief. “The Church, always the Church! And God, Madame, what make you of Him?”
“For me,” said Isabelle, “the Church and God are one and the same.”
A troubled silence followed these words, and then Geoffroy de Caumont burst out furiously, “Madame, having a husband, a brother, sons and your entire family converted to the reformed religion, you must understand that by remaining a papist you repudiate all the natural and sacred ties that bind you to your family. And that by all of these you will be henceforth seen not as a spouse, but as the whore of the Baron de Siorac!”
“That’s as may be,” replied Isabelle, drawing herself to her full height, “but then, Monsieur, if I am a whore then you must be a whoremonger, for God knows you arranged this marriage.”
Geoffroy de Caumont paled, and my father, for whom the words “repudiate” and “whore” caused as much pain as they did for Isabelle, rose and said in a curt but courteous voice: “Madame, this interview has tired you. We shall bring it to a close. And with your permission, I shall accompany you to your apartment.”
“I shall go alone,” said Isabelle. With tears in her eyes, but unvanquished and unbowed, she turned on her heels and left the room with a majestic sweep of her full dress.
As Isabelle remained anchored and unshakable in the faith of her fathers, and refused any compromise, the dispute between her and my father continued over the months and years that followed. It raged, in fact, from 23rd December 1560 until 15th April 1563, shaking Mespech to its very foundations. The ferment of discord, verging at times on hatred, that this furious quarrel raised in our ordered and peaceful community, not only drove a wedge between husband and wife, but plagued the servants, upset the children and at times even—especially in the matter of whether to dismiss Franchou or not—divided the Brethren.
Despite her grand airs, querulousness and the frequent blows of her cane, Isabelle knew how to win over her chambermaids, and Franchou, after Cathau, had rapidly developed an almost devotional affection for her. This explains why the Brethren and the Reverend Duroy, expecting an easy conversion of the servants after the mistress, were dismayed to encounter a stone wall. From the outset, crossing her big red arms over her large breasts, Franchou flatly swore by the Virgin and by all the saints that she wanted none of the wickedness that had caused her mistress such tears; that she loved Madame, and she intended to live and die in her mistress’s religion. Neither carrot nor stick could dislodge her from this position.
My father was most distressed to discover the poor chambermaid so hardheaded, but in his heart he was secretly moved by the great love she bore her mistress, and once Franchou had left the room, Sauveterre’s rough proposal to get rid of her at once ended up by rubbing him the wrong way. In a haughty and abrupt tone, he replied that it would be cruel to deprive Isabelle of her chambermaid at a moment when she felt so isolated at Mespech, and, moreover, the matter of Isabelle’s servants fell solely under his own jurisdiction. Having said this, he turned and left the room, leaving Sauveterre deeply hurt by his tone, his look and his words.
And so it was that onto the larger quarrel was grafted a smaller one between the two brothers, as thorny for one as for the other, and which lasted a full month. Seconded by the Reverend Duroy, Sauveterre redoubled his attack. They argued that Franchou was a deplorable example to all the other servants, particularly Barberine and la Maligou, still much attached to the papist superstitions and likely to be inspired by their mistress’s rebellion. This bad apple would spoil the entire basketful, and create a female clan at Mespech more or less openly supportive of Isabelle, one which would not be without influence on the children and the male servants. What’s more, if they had to rely on Isabelle’s discernment and discretion in her dealings with Pincers, the latter would be in an excellent position to pump all kinds of information out of the naive Franchou and pass it on to the bishop of Sarlat who would thus be weekly informed about everything that was going on at Mespech.
This reasoning finally persuaded my father, but lacking the heart to throw Franchou out (all the more so since, innocently enough in his own mind, he had a weakness for her), he found her a position with a Huguenot lady in Sarlat who treated her very well, won her over and within a month had converted her. My father was so happy with this outcome that he never went to Sarlat without paying a visit to our former chambermaid, bringing her some little gift and, in his playful way, patting her large red arms and giving her two big kisses on her fresh cheeks. All of this he did innocently and publicly, often in my presence, yet it surprised me for he never would have acted this way at Mespech.
My mother, however, seeing Franchou depart so quickly after Cathau, was plunged into black despair and was filled with bitter resentment towards my father. She kept after him from dawn to dusk, and often late into the night, with such biting recriminations that my father avoided her altogether, fleeing from room to room as though ten devils were at his heels.
“You were right, Jean,” he confided to Sauveterre in his Book of Reason, “her breast blinded me to her cross, and now I have my own cross to bear for it.”
Things got even worse when the Brethren decided to replace Franchou with Toinon, a girl from Taniès whom Duroy had converted. Scarcely had my mother learnt that a heretic had been placed in her service than she conceived a hatred for her and began to persecute her, showering her with insults, calling her “wench”, “stupid hen”, “lazy fool”, “bitc
h”, “whore”, “bawd”, “little turd”, and worse yet. I even witnessed with my own eyes once, when Toinon was holding up her mirror for her preening, that my mother pricked her arm with a pin deep enough to draw blood simply because she moved the glass. After a month of such treatment, of being whipped, beaten, insulted and pricked, poor Toinon packed her bags in tears and left us.
“Madame,” scolded my father, “if you insist on playing the child, instead of a chambermaid I shall hire a governess.”
And so Mespech witnessed the arrival of a mountain of a woman, Huguenot to the core, with a moustache and broad shoulders, severe and tight-lipped, two heads taller than my mother, who received insults with a calm indifference. For two weeks my mother hesitated to slap her, so far did her broad face seem beyond her reach. But finally, one fine summer morning, in my mother’s chambers the battle was engaged.
“Alazaïs,” ordered Isabelle, “put this table over there.”
Without a word, Alazaïs lifted the heavy piece and placed it where my mother had told her to.
“On second thoughts,” said Isabelle, “that’s not the right place. Put it over here.”
Alazaïs obeyed.
“No, that’s not right either. Put it over in this corner.”
Alazaïs complied, but when my mother immediately ordered another move, she said in her rude voice: “Madame, that’s enough wickedness. A fig for your games. The table will stay where it is.”
“You riff-raff!” cried my mother beside herself. “How dare you speak to me like that!” And grabbing hold of her cane, she raised it to strike her. But Alazaïs, without budging an inch, seized the cane, tore it from Isabelle’s hands, broke it in two over her knee and threw the pieces out a window overlooking the moat. For more than a month, the servants would secretly enjoy the sight of the two sticks floating in the water.
Isabelle gave such a roar that my father came running. When he opened the door of her chambers, he saw her, pale and dishevelled, eyes ablaze, rushing at Alazaïs with a small knife in her hand. But the robust chambermaid, without retreating one step, seized her wrist on the fly and twisted it, causing the weapon to fall and embed itself in the floorboards, from which my father immediately pulled it.
“Monsieur,” howled my mother, “if this horrible bawd is not out of here within the hour, ’tis I who will be gone.”
“Sit down, Madame,” said my father in a tone that brooked no response, “and cease this shouting. If you’ve come to the point of assassinating our servants then perhaps you should leave. For you may be certain that, had you had the misfortune to kill your chambermaid, I would hand you over to the judges in Sarlat to spend the rest of your days languishing in jail.”
“Oh, my lord, I can see well enough that you don’t love me any more!” sobbed Isabelle, tears streaming from her eyes and wringing her hands with despair.
“Unfortunately, I do!” confessed my father slipping into a chair with such a tired and chagrined air that it caused Isabelle more trouble than any amount of reproaches could have. He added with a sigh, “Alas, if I did not love you so much I would not tolerate your antics one minute longer.”
“Am I so mad, then, my poor Jean?” said my mother, throwing herself at his knees.
“Mad enough to tie up,” sighed my father, who had never been able to resist my mother’s beauty, her tears or her conniving ways. And on this occasion, he was so touched to see her kneeling thus submissive at his feet that he clutched her to him and kissed her on the lips.
Seeing this, Alazaïs raised her eyebrows, left the room and, with her heavy musketeer’s gait, went searching for Sauveterre in his tower. “Monsieur,” she said in her rough voice, “I think I must leave Mespech.”
“And wherefore, my poor creature?” asked Sauveterre.
“I can see that the baron is bewitched by his papist. She just tried to kill me and three minutes later he coddles her and licks her face.”
Alazaïs did not leave Mespech, and the spell cast on my father lasted only long enough for Isabelle to conceive. Whereupon, Barberine had to depart to get herself another child from her husband, and little Hélix again became mistress of the tower and the children, which made our secret nocturnal delights all the easier.
The episode of the dagger and the subsequent reconciliation were but a calm in the long quarrel between Isabelle and my father, after which the storm raged again day and night. For Isabelle was scarcely pregnant before she declared openly and brazenly that the child would be baptized according to the rites of her Church, as my father had promised her before their marriage. It was oil on the fire, which flamed up again right to heaven, not without great chagrin on each side. My father, given his great love for Isabelle, despaired at the thought that in persevering in her papist idolatry, she was consigning herself and his future son to eternal damnation.
I confess that in my tenderest youth and no less so now that I am grown, I do not see things this way. Raised as I was between two religions, and forced to choose between them by no little amount of pressure, I cannot hate the one I abandoned, cannot abominate its “errors” as much as my father did, nor can I believe that those who follow them in good faith are damned to hell, my poor mother least of all. But few people, men or women, in those times found such tolerance in themselves, as what follows will all too clearly show. For the cruel disagreement which split Mespech was but a feeble and tiny reflection of the disputes that raged at that time throughout the entire kingdom between Catholics and Huguenots, causing such passions, such tumult and, finally, such frightful civil wars that the fortunes of France were all but buried.
7
AS A YOUNG MAN, Étienne de La Boétie, son of the police lieutenant who had helped the Brethren to acquire Mespech, had been named counsellor to the parliament in Bordeaux in recognition of his great talents. Each time he visited Michel de Montaigne, his “intimate brother and immutable friend” at his chateau, he went on to Sarlat to rest for two or three days in the house where he was born, or, if the season permitted, at the little manor house that he owned about a league from the town. On his return he never failed to stop off at Mespech.
I read in my father’s Book of Reason that Étienne dined with the Brethren on 16th December 1561. As chance would have it, he encountered Isabelle’s cousin, Geoffroy de Caumont, as confirmed a Huguenot, as I have said, as she was an unswerving Catholic. What is interesting in this chance encounter between the two men is that the regent, knowing the great reputation and wisdom of Étienne de La Boétie, had just named him counsellor to Monsieur de Burie, the lieutenant general of Guyenne (alas not the only person occupying this function). Burie had his hands full in these troubled times, attempting to accommodate or reconcile all the king’s subjects. The meal, taken in the presence of our servants, was civil enough, but after dinner these gentlemen retired, as was the custom, to the privacy of my father’s library, where a great fire was burning and where the conversation took a different turn, Étienne de La Boétie evoking the troubles that had broken out between Catholics and reformers in the Agenais, Quercy and Périgord regions. This conversation was transcribed verbatim the next day in my father’s Book of Reason, so taken was he by La Boétie’s effortless and eloquent wisdom, a grain whose meatiness was equal to the beauty of the wheat field that bore it. What a pity that death has since robbed us of this youth whose genius could have laid claim to the highest offices of the land, and offered so much through his wisdom and moderation.
It soon appeared that La Boétie had serious warnings not only for the Brethren but especially for Geoffroy de Caumont. Étienne’s bright eyes and smile lit up his rather plain features, and his plainness was altogether forgotten the minute he opened his mouth to speak.
“’Tis a misfortune,” he said with a smile, “that men do not easily accept others’ beliefs. As soon as Catherine de’ Medici and Michel de L’Hospital put an end to the persecutions which plagued you, the Reformation gathered strength, especially in the south. But your Huguenot
brothers have matched gains in strength with an increase in intolerance. In Agen, as you know, they attacked the church of Sainte-Foy, broke crosses and altarpieces, destroyed relics and icons, burned the holy ornaments and the missals and converted the church into a temple barring entry to any Catholic priest. They did the same at Issigeac and in many other towns.”
“The fact is,” growled Geoffroy de Caumont, frowning, “that we cannot permit the papists’ idolatrous cult of these relics, crosses and statues—a practice entirely contrary, as you know, Monsieur de La Boétie, to the Word of God.”
“Quite the contrary, Monsieur Abbot of Clairac,” replied La Boétie with gentle irony. “You must permit it, for the simple reason that you want the Catholics to accept your denuded temples. The iconoclasm of the reformers, besides their occasional destruction of masterpieces of art, offends the consciences of many good subjects of the king who rightly consider that they are entitled to the same rights as yourselves in this kingdom.”
“If these same ‘good subjects’, as you say, had the king’s ear,” said Caumont, “they’d send us all right to the stake. We’ve already seen it happen under Henri II and François II.”
“Guise and his followers were in command then,” said La Boétie, “but with the regency of the queen mother, times have changed indeed. And do you believe,” he added with a smile, “I’d burn you, Monsieur de Caumont, if it were in my power?”
“Ah, Monsieur de La Boétie,” laughed my father, “you are an exceptional Catholic, and, like your good friend Michel de Montaigne, unusually tolerant and open to many things. You are a faithful servant of the king and yet when you were younger, you wrote a powerful declaration against absolute power. And you are a very particular kind of papist. You may go to Mass, but you are anti-Roman in spirit, hostile to icons, to relics, to indulgences, and a friend of the profound reforms within the Church. It was your insistence on the spirit of conciliation at Agen and Issigeac that convinced Monsieur de Burie to share the churches part-time between Catholics and reformers. No mean feat!”