by Robert Merle
When I returned to Mespech in 1570, the first thing my father did was to have me read dispatches he’d received during these troubles from two dear friends, one named Rouffignac, who was fighting in the Huguenot army, and the second none other than the Vicomte d’Argence, a captain in the royal armies, the very man who captured Condé in the battle of Jarnac. I read these missives with the greatest of interest, and since they were never published and both of their authors have since been called by their Maker, I’m going to provide my readers with the marrow of their contents for their instruction.
Although he admired Admiral de Coligny, Rouffignac did not hide his belief that the admiral had committed an incredible error on this occasion. When Tavannes (who was the de facto leader of Anjou’s royal army) appeared on the right bank of the Charente river, and the Châteauneuf bridge, Condé was occupying Bassac and Coligny Jarnac. And the admiral, rather than immediately falling back to join Condé’s troops, lost an incredible amount of time calling his scouts back, and when finally he was forced to fight, Tavannes pressed him so hard that he came within a hair’s breadth of being overrun, and appealed to Condé for reinforcements. Rouffignac wrote:
Destiny would have it that, as the Prince de Condé put foot to stirrup, La Rochefoucauld’s horse stepped on his foot and broke his leg so badly that the bone was sticking through his boot. He nevertheless insisted on joining the battle, and, grimacing terribly, painfully pulled himself into his saddle.
“Messieurs,” he said to the gentlemen surrounding him (among whom was La Rochefoucauld, who, in tears, was savagely whipping his horse), “see in what state the Prince de Bourbon enters the fight for Christ and country!” This said, he charged with his customary impetuosity an enemy that was ten times greater than his forces.
We all know what followed. Coligny attempted to bring relief, but before they could reach him, Condé was surrounded by a mass of royal troops, his horse killed beneath him. He leant up against a tree, threw his useless pistols from him, drew sword and dagger and continued to fight tooth and nail. “I recognized him,” wrote d’Argence,
and ran to his side. “Monseigneur,” I said, as I commanded the soldiers surrounding us to lower their swords, “my name is d’Argence and I’m at your service. May it please your highness to surrender to me. You can no longer fight since your leg bone is sticking out of your boot.” And as he did not answer, I repeated, “For pity’s sake, Monseigneur! Surrender! I swear I will guarantee you safe passage.”
“Then I am your prisoner,” groaned Condé most bitterly, and threw down his sword and dagger.
As he said this, I saw the Duc d’Anjou’s guards galloping towards us, all aflame in their bright-red capes.
“Aha,” said Condé, without batting an eye and despite his terrible pain, “here come the red crows to pick my bones.”
“Monseigneur,” I said, “now indeed you are in great peril! Hide your face so they won’t recognize you!”
But he wouldn’t consent to do so, since such a masquerade was beneath his dignity.
“Ah, d’Argence,” he sighed, “you won’t be able to save me now!”
And, indeed, no sooner had Montesquiou, the captain of Anjou’s guards, heard the name of the prisoner, he cried, “Kill him, by God! Kill him!”
I ran to his side as he dismounted and told him that the prince was my prisoner, and that I’d guaranteed him safe passage, but Montesquiou strode over to Condé armed with his pistol and, without a word, stepped behind him and shot him in the head, so that one eye was blown out of its socket by the bullet.
“Ah, Montesquiou,” I cried, “an unarmed man! A prince by blood! This is villainy!”
“’Tis villainy indeed,” agreed Montesquiou, and, looking down at the dying prince, tears streaming down his tanned face, he added, “As you know all too well, I’m not the one who ordered this done.”
I did indeed know that the order to dispatch forthwith all of the captured Huguenot captains—and especially Condé and Coligny—if they fell into our hands, had come directly from the Duc d’Anjou, who had also ordered that the body of Condé be brought to him, not on a horse, as would have befitted his nobility, but—as the ultimate insult and degradation—on an ass, his head and legs dangling on either side—an indignity that caused more than one of his royal captains to blame him privately, since Condé had been such a valiant warrior.
My father was rereading this letter over my shoulder while I was seated at the table in his library, so I said, “Is this not an odious murder?”
“Odious! And what’s more a huge mistake! For it would have been easier for the king to come to terms with Condé than with Coligny. I don’t remember who it was who said of Condé,
“This little prince, as handsome as a king
Would always laugh and always sing.
“By the belly of St Anthony, that’s him all right! The prince was valiant in combat, decisive, high-handed, scrupulous, quick to anger and, it must be said, perhaps too easy-going. Having a head more passionate than political, he twice signed treaties with the Medicis that were most disadvantageous to our side. But read what Rouffignac said about Coligny.”
The admiral, I must confess here, was not always wise in his conduct of battles, as we saw at Jarnac. But he was a man of faith and of trust, tenacious, untouched by despair and anchored in the belief that no single battle could lose the war. He was exceptionally crafty in retreat. And in this case, withdrawing his army under the cover of night after the sad day at Jarnac, he was able to save it and find a safe place to encamp. The queen of Navarre joined him there. Oh, my friend, what a fearless and unflinching Huguenot we have there! She introduced to the soldiers Condé, the son of the slain leader, and her own son, Henri de Navarre, who was then just sixteen years old.
“Ah, Father,” I sighed in envy of the young prince, “isn’t it a pity? Navarre is two years younger than I but has already taken the field of battle!”
“My son,” replied my father, raising his eyebrows in jest, “what are you telling me? Are you a Bourbon? Are you a blooded prince? Are you in line to inherit the throne of France should the three sons of Catherine de’ Medici die childless? Let Navarre jockey for his own position in history, and as for you, continue your work here. That’s the wisest course.”
Thus chided and put in my place, but more as a pleasantry than as a corrective, I continued Rouffignac’s letter.
If the admiral lost the battle of Jarnac because of the error I’ve just described, he lost the battle of Moncontour because of the mistakes of his German reiters. The moment they occupied the strongholds that Coligny had designated for them, our Germans threw down their arms and demanded their pay! “No money,” they shouted in their gibberish, “no combat!” Ah, my friend, what a fix! What a reversal! And what a fatal delay—which was fatal to none more than themselves. For surprised in the flatlands while they were arguing, the Duc d’Anjou’s Swiss guards surrounded them, fell upon them and, due to the longstanding jealousy between these two groups of mercenaries, slaughtered them all down to the last man. And that was the only salary they ever would receive in this life, the poor beggars!
As for us, after Jarnac, we lost the battle of Moncontour to the greater glory of the Duc d’Anjou (even though he did nothing, for it was Tavannes who did it all), which delighted the old bitch Medici, charmed that her favourite son was carving out a reputation for himself greater than that of his brother the king. But do you think that this reversal brought down Coligny, all wounded as he was, one cheek pierced by a bullet and four teeth broken? Not a bit of it. At Moncontour the remains of our army began a long, unbelievable and twisting march that you’ve probably heard echoes of.
Listen! From Saintes, to which we’d retreated, we succeeded in getting to Aiguillon, where we took and pillaged the chateau—abandoning along our way the horses we’d exhausted—and from thence to Montauban where we were reunited with the army of the seven vicomtes. Thus fortified and reinforced, we devastated the countrys
ide around Toulouse, to punish this fat, ignorant town for the murder of Rapin. From there, on to Carcassonne, which we were careful not to attack, having no appetite to break our teeth on its ramparts. Then to Narbonne, which we also refrained from attacking, instead sacking the inland countryside, our trumpets sounding “Papau! Papau!” to mock the papists there. Then, heading south, we crossed—believe it or not!—into Roussillon, to thumb our noses at Felipe II, this white tombstone of a Spanish king, and prove that all the Huguenots hadn’t died at Moncontour!
There we did some pilfering and, returning through Montpellier (where your two handsome scholars were living), we refrained from attacking this silly town but contented ourselves with pillaging the surrounding villages. But at Nîmes we settled in for a while since this town was now loyal to the Huguenot cause.
From Nîmes, we travelled north through the Rhône valley and reached Saint-Étienne and then la Charité, which is also loyal to us, as you know, and where we were able to recruit some more soldiers and collect arms, cannon and money.
But listen carefully! Almost every time we confronted the royal garrisons in this winding valley, we were beaten, and yet, each time, we vanished only to reappear somewhere else, burning and pillaging, like the wolf who, instead of letting himself be trapped, bites and flees: and so it is that without winning a single battle, Coligny won a war of attrition on his enemies.
“My father,” I said, amazed, “so Coligny won the war by a tactic of retreating?”
“Rouffignac,” laughed my father, “is a Gascon, a braggart and of a bellicose temper. And yet what he says is at least half-true. You should read d’Argence if you want to understand the other half.” And so saying, he handed me the page that d’Argence had filled with a hand as tiny and careful as Rouffignac’s was large and untutored, though, out of an innate prudence, he’d never signed it.
My friend, what a strange world the court is, where, to belong, you must turn your back on everyone: brother, mother, sister and friend! After Moncontour, the Duc d’Anjou’s laurels are causing the king to lose sleep and bite his nails. He wants by hook or by crook to take control of the army but instead of overrunning Coligny in his lair, he’s bogged down at the siege of Saint-Jean-d’Angély. Guise, whose glory has been overshadowed in this army, is also becoming increasingly bitter at the Duc d’Anjou’s current fame. He’s written to Felipe II that the king’s brother is secretly plotting with Coligny. So from the depths of his Escorial, Felipe has decided to believe him and has refused us any of the gold he gets from the Americas. Not a sol in 1570 to help end the war! But Guise has done worse than this: he’s making eyes at Margot, the king’s sister. This flint is sure to spark a fire on such a torch.
She’s as hot—nay, in as great heat—as ever, since she was broken in by her brothers at a very tender age, and unzipped the duc in a trice and tucked him into her bed. The king’s got wind of this profligacy. He ordered Margot to appear at dawn, and scarcely was she in his presence before he and Catherine leapt on her like furious fishmongers, and hit and kicked her, scratching and bruising her, and ripping her chemise. When Guise learnt of this the next day, he naturally feared assassination by the king’s henchmen, so he fled and got himself married. But now he’s in disgrace for having aimed at the throne by the whiteness of her thighs, and all the most zealous papists who were supporting him have fallen out of favour as well.
Catherine has other reasons to be angry with the leaders of the Catholic party. Felipe II, now a widower since the death of her daughter, Elizabeth, refuses to consider Margot, whom Catherine is pressing on him, since he’s doubtless afraid the girl’s flames make a bad match for his own icy nature. And right from under Medici’s nose, he’s stealing the older of the Austrian archduchesses, whom she was planning to marry to Charles IX, leaving the younger one for the French king. What’s even better, this haughty Spanish sovereign insists that the marriage contract of his cousin, Charles, be signed a quarter of an hour after his own! Ah, my friend! This younger sister and this quarter-hour, how heavy they weigh on our hearts! So she’s very tempted to get revenge on the presumptuous Spanish monarch and on Guise by making peace with Coligny, who, though always beaten, keeps rising from his own ashes like the phoenix. And so they’ve wrapped up and signed the Peace of Saint-Germain, which I’ll warrant is good for your side as long as both sides respect it.
“So, Father,” I asked, “is d’Argence right? Is this peace good for the Huguenots?”
“Not in the least,” sighed my father as he stood behind me, leaning both hands on my shoulders. “In no way, Pierre. Freedom of conscience has been granted, but freedom to worship is restricted to the chateaux and to two cities by region. What is freedom of conscience if freedom to worship is not full and entire? That’s why this Peace of Saint-Germain doesn’t augur well: the war with the papists cannot fail to flare up again.”
* “The safety of our young depends on knowing these things.”
† This copy can be found today in the National Library of France in Paris. [Author’s note.]
‡ “Summit.”
§ “Be well, my son; and, like your father, don’t be ashamed to love a beautiful serving girl.”
2
IT WAS NEVERTHELESS A WELCOME RESPITE, which lasted two years. I hope the reader will forgive me for galloping roughshod over this period in order to get to the incredible setback and immense peril that led me to travel to Paris to seek the king’s pardon.
My beloved Samson was named “master apothecary” in August of 1571, a promotion I cannot remember without recalling the famous onion market that was held in Montpellier on the same day, while my brother was creating, at considerable expense to us, a therapeutic solution composed of more than twenty-seven different elements, a potion so secret that none, not even physicians, were allowed to see it, the vision of these mysteries being reserved solely for the use of master apothecaries, who, because of their rank, were granted access to them.
While he was busy concocting this famous medicine, whose properties are sovereign in the treatment of a number of diseases, I found myself wandering through the winding streets of Montpellier under a sun hot enough to bake flies (even though reed mats had been hung from house to house over the streets to lessen the heat). I happened onto the place de la Canourgue and there encountered a most astonishing sight, the likes of which I’ve never seen anywhere else: an entire city constructed entirely of onions.
These bulbs are sold by the batch in the Sarlat region, but here the farmers braid them very artistically, and these braids are piled up carefully so as to create ramparts ten feet high, between which narrow passages are effected in such a way that the entire square becomes a city in which one can walk to the right or to the left between these odiferous walls. There are so many of these passageways that you could lose yourself in their labyrinthine network. I was thoroughly delighted with this spectacle, never having seen such a prodigious quantity of the vegetable which, in the south of France, raw or cooked, is so much a staple of the cuisine that the people of Montpellier will, on this single day, buy enough to last the entire year. But even more than by the quantity of the bulbs, I was amazed by the variety that was displayed here: there were onions of every size, consistency and colour, some yellow, some red, some as big as your fist, others the size of an apricot and others still tiny, white and quite sweet to the taste.
I stayed there for at least two hours, so amused was I—almost as pleased as Anne de Joyeuse had been when I’d presented him with the army of wooden soldiers. I also enjoyed the spectacle of the mass of people who’d gathered in and around this city of onions, both girls and housewives who’d come for their annual purchase and the workers and gapers, who’d come simply to dawdle. For they all seemed to be having the time of their lives, walking through the maze of onions, laughing and chattering to each other, enjoying the soothing perfume of this healthy and comforting vegetable, so good for the heart, for the liver and for the genitals, certainly medicinal in many
different ways. This great multitude also rejoiced, no doubt, to see piled before them an immense quantity of food sprung from the rich earth of the region, out of the goodness and mercy of the Creator, so that all, even the poorest among them, could be assured of food for the coming winter. For a braid of these onions costs but two sols, and, with a crust of bread and a single bulb of these good fruits, any beggar will have enough for a decent meal.
At every corner of these castles of fruit, each man standing with his wench, the labourers who’d sown and harvested these onions were singing out in Provençal: “Beautiful onions. Beautiful onions!” Or else: “Eat an onion—it’s good medicine!” Or yet again: “Eat an onion and live a long life!” Or again: “Who eats his onions in goodly measure / Will work his wench with greater pleasure!”
These salesmen, so happy to be raking in such piles of money to recompense them for their hard work, nevertheless kept their eyes peeled and a long rod in their hands to rap the knuckles of anyone who tried to steal any of their produce as they walked by. But they flailed these petty thieves without malice, shouts or frowns, somehow maintaining the general good humour of the labourers of this region.
This onion market is held every 24th August, the feast of St Bartholomew, a saint who, for us Huguenots, is no different from any of the other papist saints whom we’d dismissed, belonging more to a cult of superstition than to faith, but he was a saint whose name we would hold in infinite execration for ever, after the events of exactly one year later, as I will relate.
My gentle Samson so loved his work that he was transported with pleasure to have been promoted to master apothecary after his years of hard toil. Following this triumph, as was the custom, he was paraded on horseback through the city. Given his beauty, both of visage and of body, I heard several onlookers opine that it was a pity he was a Huguenot, given how much he looked like the Archangel Michael, just stepped out from a stained-glass window.