by Robert Merle
“Do we know what this property is, Father?”
“We don’t yet know completely, but perhaps we’re on our way to discovering it. Miroul, bring your candelabrum nearer. Look at his heart, Pierre. Do you see these little doors? Sylvius in Paris and Acquapendente in Padua have described them in great detail. They’re doors, no doubt about it, or sluices, which, opening and closing by turns, admit or refuse the flow of blood. Is the heart the motor we’re looking for? Servetus thought so, for he wrote about the ‘attraction’ the heart exerts on blood.”
“Servetus? Michael Servetus whom Calvin burned at the stake in Geneva?”
“He burned him for heresy, not because of his medical theories, both of which, to tell the truth, Servetus included in his book Christianismi restitutio, all the copies of which were set on fire and reduced, like their author, to ashes.”
“All of them, Father?” I gasped through the knot in my throat that practically stifled my voice as I remembered the atheist abbot, Cabassus, who was burnt alive on the public square in Montpellier along with his treatise, Nego.
“All but one,” replied my father. “All but one that luckily fell away from the pyre a little singed by the fire, but still intact.† I bought it from a little Jewish bookseller in Geneva on one of my trips there. I still have it.”
And, laying his knife on the cadaver, my father went to look for Servetus’s treatise on the shelves in his library, and, his eyes shining with a strange light, he opened it to a page bookmarked by a ribbon. I’m not ashamed to say that I caught my breath, so possessed was I from head to heel by such a burning desire for learning that it made my heart nearly leap out of my chest.
“Here’s the magnum opus,” he said, his hands trembling feverishly. “My son, I abhor the theology that is set out in these pages, but I treasure the medical knowledge they hold, above all my other possessions, for Servetus has provided a luminous explanation of the function of our noblest organs. Listen, Pierre, open your ears to what I’m going to read to you, for this is the ultimate and unsurpassable summum‡ of the medical knowledge of our times.
“The mass of blood flows through the lungs, and there receives the benefits of purification, eliminating all impurities and fatty humours, after which it is recalled by the attraction of the heart.”
“Oh, Father!” I exclaimed, trembling like a leaf in April. “Read it again, I beg you! What a sublime passage! I feel illuminated by its beauty!”
And so my father, his voice trembling, reread the passage that I’ve just written here in a pen as shaky as his voice was, for I was careful to memorize it word for word, to seal it for ever in the storehouse of my mind. It’s still there, entire, intact and untouched like the most glorious banner ever planted on the shores of a new land by this peaceful explorer of the human anatomy.
“How can it be, Father, that our minds are so suddenly illuminated by the striking clarity of this text? Why is it that we immediately believe it to be true?”
“Because it lines up perfectly,” my father replied joyfully, “with the reason God gave us to recognize evidence of the truth. You haven’t forgotten what was famously written about the heart by Aristotle—whom the papists have made an idol and whose every word is held sacred by them—that it is a hot organ, and since it risks overheating, the lungs are bellows that provide fresh air to keep it cool. What nonsense!” cried my father, holding high Servetus’s Christianismi restitutio. “Nonsense and totally obvious absurdities! Fallacies and tomfoolery! Idiocy masquerading as science! Isn’t it flagrantly evident that in the heat of summer, the lungs breathe in hot air, which couldn’t possibly cool the heart! Quite the contrary! And Michael Servetus has produced irrefutable evidence in the passage I just read. For what possible purpose could the lungs bring in air if not to nourish and purify the blood, and how would the blood leave the lungs if it weren’t recalled—note this word, please!—if it weren’t recalled by the heart?”
“Agreed!” I cried, feeling as though inebriated from drinking from this cup of knowledge. “It’s the truth, you can sense it; it is the marvellous truth, the secret of all palpitating life in one sentence! For there is no life without the blood that flows, winds and branches out throughout our body. But, Father, why did this brilliant mind have to perish in flames?”
“Oh, Pierre,” replied Jean de Siorac, his face suddenly full of sadness, “I cannot entirely fault Calvin; Michael Servetus in his crazy audacity had dared to deny this other irrefutable truth: the mystery of the Holy Trinity.”
I certainly did not wish to argue with my father, for fear of increasing his distress, but it did seem to me, in my heart of hearts, that these two kinds of evidence, the medical and the theological, were of very different orders, the first being based on our observation of nature, and the second, I mean the Holy Trinity, being based on the authority of a sacred text, and therefore sacred but not intelligible to our human understanding, so that we had to swallow it without chewing it, our eyes closed tight; which meant that I for one swallowed it as I would an apothecary’s pill, without looking at it or tasting it, and without the divine illumination that I found in Servetus’s truth.
My father, having washed his hands in vinegar after his dissection, and finally feeling the fatigue of all the rushing around we’d done, suggested we take some refreshment before going to bed. I acquiesced with the greatest enthusiasm since, being in the bloom of my youth, my stomach was insatiable. Miroul lit our way to the great hall and served us up some victuals, then sat down with us to devour them. Which we did, at least for a few moments, in silence, our mouths watering and working our jaws like ravenous bulls in a pasture, very happy to be there, safe and sound, the wicked who’d tried to kill us now dead, and all of our goods intact—save for one oaken door.
’Sblood! How good it was to feel the solid walls of Mespech around us, its vast lake and its outer walls. And stretching out beyond our well-managed domain, which provided for all our worldly needs. For nothing was brought to our table that was not raised on our land: the ham from our pigs at les Beunes, the butter from our milch cows, our bread from the wheat of our fields and our red wine from our own vineyard—even the table was made of oak from one of our trees. I’d come upon it in the woods one evening after the wind had toppled it, lying there waiting to be sawed.
Among all the innumerable marvels of nature that God in His goodness has provided, we must not forget our food, which is not only a pleasure to the palate but our best defence against contagion: a truth I learnt from my father, who’d read it in Ambroise Paré’s learned treatise on the plague. Paré teaches us that a well-nourished body is like a well-defended fortress, with moats, walls and drawbridge. For if our veins and arteries are not well provided with food, they will allow the poisons in the air to enter the body, and principally the heart, the lungs and the genitals.
And so, I reasoned, as I heaped the fruits of our harvest on my plate, I was fortifying myself, and could almost feel the bread, wine and meat running through the subterranean canals of my system, like brave little soldiers, ready to kick out any evil intruders that contagion might have brought to the gates of my bodily castle. And, stretching out my legs in front of me, sipping an excellent glass of wine, with my beloved father on my right and Miroul on my left, able to speak our minds in confidence and friendship, I felt a deep contentment—my spleen and liver healthy and happy as well.
“Father,” I asked, in the midst of such good feeling, “may I ask what plans you have for Little Sissy?”
At this my father’s eyebrows arched in surprise and an amused glint appeared in his eye. “Well, only that she should continue as she is. Isn’t she your chambermaid?”
“Certainly.”
And since I said no more, my father continued with as innocent a tone as he could manage, but his left eyebrow arched quizzically, “So, do you think she should have other duties?”
Hearing which, I decided to hold nothing back: “Well, yes!”
“Yes? Which ones?�
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“Well, I think…” I replied, but was too ashamed to continue.
“You think what?”
“I think…” But I still couldn’t get any further.
“Aha!” laughed my father. “What good is thought without speech? If your mind is pregnant with an idea, for goodness’ sake give birth to it!”
“Well,” I ventured, my throat so tight I could hardly speak, “my thought is that Little Sissy, beautiful as she is, is probably better at unmaking beds than making them.”
My father burst out laughing so hard I thought the buttons would pop off his shirt, while on my other side Miroul, who could not afford to smile, kept his blue eye cold as ice while his brown eye glinted with mirth.
“So, my son! You’ve a taste for this little serpent and her little apples? Well, proceed! For never was there a prettier, more buxom little wench in all Sarlat. Sad to say, speaking frankly and plainly, I would have wished that your older brother, François, might take a fancy to enter these pretty lists to break his first lance. But he turns up his nose at having anything to do with our people and wants to try his luck with some noblewoman, which, since I’m not the king, it’s not in my power to grant. So here he is, at his age, a virgin and wetter behind the ears than a newly hatched chick whose shell is still sticking to her behind.”
I made no answer to this, since I could see that my father, for all his joking, was saddened by the fact that his firstborn was so slow to become a man and produce an heir, even if an illegitimate one. After all, his father had recognized his own bastard children (which was fairly common in Périgord, especially among the nobles of the region), and treated them all as his legitimate sons, and even Sauveterre treated them as his nephews, for if my uncle thought profligacy was a sin, fecundity in such a threatened community he considered a virtue. This was another reason Fontenac was so despised in our family: he had respect neither for his own blood nor for the blood of others, and banished from his walls all the children he’d conceived out of wedlock.
“But Father,” I said, partly to end the long silence that ensued after his words, “did you ever tell François your feelings about Little Sissy? Perhaps he believed you were reserving her for yourself? Fruit forbidden to your sons?”
My father looked me in the eye and burst out laughing again. “Now there’s a question, my dear Pierre, that I would term both clever and cutting, and that has, quite effectively, as they say, killed two birds with one stone.”
But he never did answer my question, and, rising in an abrupt and military manner, he made a sign to Miroul to take up the candelabrum and light our way. “My son,” he said curtly, “to bed!”
I followed him, quite crestfallen, since nothing appeared to have been resolved, neither for the present nor for the foreseeable future, as to the bitterness of my solitude. However, as we approached the room where the Baron de Mespech slept with Franchou, he suddenly turned around and, with a saucy light in his eyes, gave me a huge hug, planted big kisses on both my cheeks and whispered in my ear, “Vale, mi fili; et sicut pater tuus, ne sit ancillae formosae amor pudori.”§
“Oh, Father!” I cried, but not a word more, I was so choked with emotion.
The door closed on Jean de Siorac, I embraced my gentle Miroul, who, as sleepy as he was, smiled at me, letting me know that he had understood what my father said, however little he understood Latin. He wanted to give me the candelabrum, but I refused, as I wished to keep both hands free and to enjoy the light of the moon, which was flooding through the windows. Once Miroul was gone, I headed towards Barberine’s chambers in the west tower, which she shared with Annet, Jacquou and Little Sissy, who slept together in a bed on the opposite side of the room. Naked though she was, I picked the last of these up in my arms, careful not to wake her, carried her into my room, placed her on my bed and climbed in next to her. She continued to sleep soundly, her breathing peaceful and regular.
So, holding myself back, though it was terribly hard, I forced myself to wait for daybreak, when she would open her eyes of her own accord. I held her close in my arms, her body so svelte, her skin so soft, her flesh so ripe, her innocent face bathed in moonlight, and so it was a long, sleepy, dreamy wait, which I remember vividly to this day; even more vividly do I remember what followed, so strident is our appetite for such fruit and such devotion.
And certainly it was a cardinal sin, as Alazaïs’s mutterings, Sauveterre’s frowns and my father’s rakish smile all attested. But isn’t it hypocrisy to repent one’s sins without discontinuing them? And how can I ask forgiveness of my Creator when I never stop being happy that He granted the first man this sweet and seductive companion in the Garden of Eden?
The ardent desires I felt for my Angelina, the suffering her absence caused me, had in no way abated and I thought of Mespech, which kept us so far apart, as a kind of jail, but it was a jail I could now more easily accept. Not that I felt the kind of tender friendship for Little Sissy that I’d felt for little Hélix when I was younger. But I enjoyed and liked this “Gypsy” girl, who was very demonstrative with her feelings, quick to anger, to bite or to scratch, yet ferociously proud, it seemed, to be my wench. She was mischievous, impish, more stubborn than docile, and yet she preferred to lie about than to exercise, and, in the housework, she avoided the hard tasks, dreamt a lot and focused little, was sassy and rebellious with Alazaïs and confronted this mountain of a woman like a hissing little snake, and never wholly gave in however many slaps she got. With men (except Sauveterre) she was prickly and at the least provocation reacted with a dirty look or a shrug of the shoulders. With women (except Barberine, whom she liked) she stung like a wasp. With everyone she could be execrably malicious. Otherwise she had a pretty good heart.
*
The spring of 1568 was as beautiful as the winter had been hard. There was enough gentle rain to nourish the soil and enough sun to swell every living thing with sap. Flowers made their appearance in mid-March, their first buds glazed and shining. Sadly the spring didn’t just bring a renewal of life; it also revived the war that had been hibernating in the limitless mud of winter. Our Huguenot army was no longer a force of 2,000 ragtag adventurers who’d been so afraid when they laid siege to Paris. To these had been added 10,000 reiters and lansquenets dispatched by the Elector of the Palatinate, as well as significant reinforcements from Rouergue, Quercy and the Dauphiné, so that the entire army had now swelled to some 30,000 men. Condé and Coligny had decided to direct their attack on Chartres, the breadbasket of the capital.
Since the constable was dead, Catherine de’ Medici had entrusted her entire army to her cherished son, her sweetling, the Duc d’Anjou, who was just my age. And if the Huguenots took Chartres, who knows what would become of the beautiful wheat fields of Beauce? Catherine was a good mother, but only to one of her children. She disliked her eldest, Charles IX, but since she loved what he brought her, the governance of the kingdom, she had no intention of risking everything—especially the life and reputation of Anjou—in such a hazardous roll of the dice as this uncertain battle. So she proposed a treaty, and Condé, who hadn’t a sol to pay his German reiters, agreed to sign the Peace of Longjumeau, which was as counterfeit a treaty as ever was signed. The ink on this agreement was scarcely dry before persecutions against the Huguenots started again all over the kingdom. The Peace of Longjumeau was signed on 23rd March and we learnt of it on 8th April, so fast did this news travel from Huguenot to Huguenot in the Sarlat region during these troubled times.
“What say you, Father?” I said bursting into his library. “May it please you to give Samson and me permission, now that the war has ended, to return to Montpellier?”
“And what would you do there?” asked Jean de Siorac. “The lectures ended at Easter.”
“Lectures at the college, to be sure, but not the private courses that Chancellor Saporta and Dean Bazin offer for money. Moreover, if I arrive in time, my doctor-father Saporta will perhaps allow me to sit for the baccalaureate in medicine,
so I could visit the sick and deliver prescriptions to help cure their ills.”
“Ah!” sighed my father. “That’s all well and good, but what about all the risks and perils in Montpellier?”
“My dear father, the risks there aren’t any greater than they are here, where we hardly dare stick our noses out of doors for fear of some rebuff as long as that dog Fontenac goes unpunished. What’s more, if I can believe what Madame de Joyeuse has written, the papists in Montpellier have considerably lessened their ill feeling for me after what I did to save the bishop of Nîmes.”
“But do you really believe what she says?” sighed my father. “I rather think this noble lady is very hungry to see you again.”
He argued the point with me for two days, and was very sorry to let Samson and me go since we had such happiness together throughout our winter in Mespech, but still! We had to go to take our exams and Samson had to return to finish his work in Maître Sanche’s pharmacy, else he’d never be able to become an apothecary. Ultimately resigning himself reluctantly to our departure—as did Uncle Sauveterre with no less chagrin, though he hid it under his frowns—my father resolved to accompany us there with Cabusse and Petremol.
Poor father! And poor us! He left us in Montpellier on 28th April 1568 and didn’t see us again in Mespech until September 1570, two and a half years later. The war between the Huguenots and the royalists had not failed to rekindle, Catherine de’ Medici having tried to capture and kill Condé and Coligny at Noyers. And as the war was once again ravaging the whole country, it became almost impossible to travel the major roads of France without risking a hostile encounter with the papists.