Heretic Dawn

by Robert Merle

  “Ah, Maître Recroche,” I sighed, “now I understand you! You’re setting prices by the pearl, not by the cost of your hay! But, let’s shake on it and not discuss it further. You’ll have your fourteen sols.”

  “May I, however, Monseigneur,” Recroche continued, bowing a third time (all these bows being, I surmised, the reason for the hump in the middle of his shoulders), “may I presume to give you my opinion?”

  “Presume and speak, Maître Recroche!”

  “Since you have no carriage to take you about in Paris, but must go on foot, these pearls you’re wearing put you in danger of being robbed. Why not sell them at a good price to a jeweller I know and replace them with false ones, which are so well imitated that no one will ever know the difference.”

  “But,” I pointed out to him, “the robbers will believe they’re real and will rob me anyway!”

  “Oh, no they won’t!” said Maître Recroche. “Parisian thieves never make a mistake like that!”

  I laughed, of course, and assured Maître Recroche that I’d consider his sage counsel, secretly suspecting that the jeweller he’d recommended would involve him to some degree in the sale. As I watched him depart, I thought how right Alizon had been. This cheapskate would shave an egg and squeezed money out of everything, even stone.

  Alizon, whom I found busily working away in the atelier the next morning, looking happy and lively, though her eyes were red from her short night, asked me if I was still angry that Madame des Tourelles had disappointed me, and complimented me on my new doublet, which she’d forgotten to do the night before, she’d been so glad that I’d returned so quickly to our lodgings. She blushed as she did so, despite her dark complexion, adding that, truly to succeed at court, I’d need thirty more like it, since our dandies at the Louvre considered it a requirement to change their doublets every day.

  “Well, Alizon,” I replied, “as for the lady in question, if you must know, I can’t feel much attachment where there’s no tenderness. These arch-coquettes are like tortoises: one never knows where to caress them. And if you ever try turning them on their backs, all you find is more shell and nothing that pleases your fingers or touches your heart.”

  Alizon burst out laughing at this and wished me good luck and happiness in my quest at the Louvre; but alas! I went there only half-heartedly, remembering what Fogacer had told me, having little hope the king would receive me after the favours the Duc d’Anjou had bestowed on me. And indeed, scarcely had I said good morning to Monsieur de Nançay (whom I found, as usual, at the tennis court of the Five Virgins, waiting for the Bâtard d’Angoulême to join him for a game) when the captain told me not to think about my petition for the moment, since the king had heard that I had signed on with his brother, Huguenot though I was, and thought that if I loved Anjou so much, I should follow him to Poland when he is elected king of that country, which he prayed every day that God would accomplish.

  “But Monsieur de Nançay,” I said, “couldn’t you explain to the king how fortuitous this all was, due to an accident of fate, a meaningless quarrel with Monsieur de Quéribus?”

  “Yes, of course I did! But when the king is angry he closes up like an oyster, and won’t listen to anything.”

  “Then there’s nothing for me to do,” I replied, wholly crestfallen, “but return to Périgord, where my head will lie just as unsteadily on my shoulders as when I came here.”

  “Now don’t give up so quickly!” counselled Nançay, lowering his voice. “The man we’re talking about,” he continued, not without some bitterness, “flies into fits of anger, grows obstinate, emits fire and brimstone, and then, suddenly changes tack and does exactly the opposite of what he’d just sworn to do. He’s a toy top that the same hand turns this way and that but always makes the same whirr.”

  “And what hand is that?” I asked, amazed that the captain should speak so openly of his king.

  “Female and Florentine.”

  “So we’ll have to pass through her.”

  “Not on your life! He doesn’t listen to her much now since Coligny alone has the ear of the king. He’s seduced Charles with his plan of waging war in Flanders, where papists and Huguenots will throw themselves together into the struggle of the Flemish against the Spanish monarch. The king likes to imagine himself in the clash of war—he who can’t spend more than an hour on horseback without coughing himself to death and vomiting up blood from his lungs.”

  Nançay couldn’t say any more, because the Bâtard d’Angoulême strode up, his eyes, skin and hair jet black, followed by Téligny, the amiable and candid son-in-law of Coligny, who looked, as he followed along behind the Grand Prieur of France, like nothing so much as a white dove following a black crow.

  “Well now!” said the bâtard in an unsociable voice, without bothering to greet anyone, “since Nançay and Siorac are here, let’s play doubles and not hang about!”

  And without further ado, he put me, in his usual abrupt way, with Téligny, taking Nançay with him, which he thought would surely assure him an easy victory, and a few equally easy écus, which he’d win from betting on the outcome. But Nançay objected immediately, not wishing to wipe out the Huguenot camp so easily, since Téligny was our Achilles heel.

  While Delay was testing the balls, one by one, with Nançay, I approached Téligny and asked whether he might arrange for me to meet Coligny to ask his help in presenting my petition to the king, who seemed not to want to receive me since he believed I was under Anjou’s sway.

  “Whether you are or not,” replied Téligny, with great courtesy, “won’t make any difference in the matter. Admiral de Coligny has made an irrevocable vow not to present to the sovereign any personal requests, since he wants to use the influence he has on the king uniquely in service of the great affairs of the kingdom.”

  “Ah, well,” I thought to myself, “that’s our Huguenots for you! Duty first! Only duty! People don’t matter! Oh, how I fear for this sense of duty in the midst of the court, where perfidy reigns every bit as much as honour!”

  Our tennis match was rather disappointing, since the Grand Prieur showed so much displeasure at not winning as well as he wanted to that he became rude, angry and scolding, throwing down his racquet as his half-brother, the king, had done, with dreadful imprecations (which caused poor Téligny to tremble with fear), disputing lost points furiously and throwing us nasty looks when we won a game, which happened more than once, Monsieur de Nançay, unhappy with the bâtard’s failure to consult him on the sides, playing only half-heartedly and using his formidable backhand only sparingly.

  I’m unable to remember the Bâtard d’Angoulême as he was that day, on that peaceful tennis court, without two other memories barging into my mind: I saw him in the torchlight of that sinister night, the eve of St Bartholomew’s day, his unsheathed sword in hand, pushing with his booted foot the body of Coligny, whom his assassins had thrown from the window of his house on the rue de Béthisy; and again, one last time, on the day of his death, fourteen years later, in June of 1586, at Aix-en-Provence, where I happened to encounter him by chance. He’d started a quarrel with Altoviti, the captain of the galleys of Marseilles, whom he’d accused of having written nasty letters to the court about him. Altoviti denied this accusation, which put the Grand Prieur into such a fury that, with no regard for the dignity of his accusation, without witnesses to support it, without a challenge, without honour, he drew his sword and thrust it through the body of Altoviti, who fell to his knees, but, mortally wounded as he was, still had the strength to draw a dagger from his doublet and plunge it into the Grand Prieur’s stomach. After this, Altoviti died, as did the Grand Prieur eight hours later, following his victim to the tribunal of the Sovereign Judge, exhaling up to his last breath frightful blasphemies against Altoviti.

  Without Quéribus, I think I would have had the feeling that I was spending my days in this brief life in a vain quest. But the baron was mad about fencing, and practised morning and night, and since, for my pa
rt, all I could do was to wait for the king to soften his position regarding my petition, I followed him to the fencing gallery that I have already described, and faced off, at times with Giacomi, at other times with Silvie, who’d become great friends with his Italian counterpart, being men who would not allow their characters to interfere with their talents. So, rather than fear Giacomi as a rival, as a lesser man might have done, he had recommended him to other gentlemen, whom Giacomi had taken on as his students.

  You had to get up very early to see the two of them face off against each other, which they did daily, but in secret, for nothing erodes a fencing master’s skills faster than to spend his days crossing swords with incompetent opponents. I was unable to determine whether they were equal in skill, and, contrary to what my gentle Miroul had said, it’s my opinion that it was impossible to do so, for, in their assaults, neither was able to avoid the other’s hits, nor able to count his own. But that was not the point of their work. Rather, they worked tirelessly to outdo each other in certain moves that they taught each other (without, however, going as far as to reveal their most secret tricks). Silvie, famous for a thrust that struck the throat, which he’d taught to Anjou and Quéribus only after making them swear that they’d only use it in the most desperate defence of their lives, was a thin giant of a man, as supple and spare as a wire, possessing, as Giacomi did, a marvellous affability, caring for his neighbour more than any pastor or priest, beneficent and courteous to all, loving his art only for itself, and very much opposed to cartels and blood. And yet, if he had a fault, he seemed to me a bit vain; in this he was the opposite of Giacomi, who pushed his denial of any talent to the point of humility. Indeed, he’d never confided to anyone but me that he was the only one in the world to possess the famous calf thrust called “Jarnac’s thrust”, because the baron of this name had used it twenty-five years previously in a fair duel against La Châtaigneraie, having learnt it from a famous Italian maestro.

  The 10th of August being a Sunday, Pierre de L’Étoile had his valet deliver a note to tell me that he’d come to collect me as he’d proposed, to take me to Saint-Eustache (which was quite nearby, situated at the bottom of the rue des Prouvelles) to hear the sermon of the priest Maillard, who was loved by his congregation for his tumultuous eloquence.

  And so, at the stroke of ten, Coquillon came up to tell me that Monsieur de L’Étoile was waiting for me in the atelier, where I found him, stiffly clad in black, with his usual scowl, and yet in his babbling, both ribald and indignant about the immorality of our times.

  “Well,” he said, with his bitter smile, “so here’s the doublet I’ve been hearing so much about! My dear Siorac, what’s going on? You’ve quarrelled! Anjou loves you! The king hates you! And the Baronne des Tourelles is looking for someone to assassinate you!”

  “What?” I replied, as we emerged onto the rue de la Ferronnerie. “Are Parisian women so nasty?”

  “It’s not just Paris, it’s everywhere in the kingdom!” sneered Monsieur de L’Étoile. “There’s no more malicious animal in the world than woman and no animal more lubricious than man.”

  “Ha! Ha!” I laughed. “Can you prove it?”

  “A thousand times over!” said L’Étoile, shaking his head. “Listen to this! Monsieur de Neuville, a councillor in the parliament here, a confused young man, with little learning and less wisdom, so small a brain that he probably couldn’t cook a roast, goes around bragging about the size of his member. Now, in an alley opposite his house, there lives a merchant, whose beautiful wife can often be seen at her window. So he decided this August to go parading naked at his window, trying to show off his advantages, and the lady, getting an eyeful of these, went to tell her husband about it. The husband then hid in his window with a small crossbow, and shot a tiny dart at this proud target, so wounding it that the councillor had to take to his bed. This happened yesterday, Siorac, in this very street where we’re walking.”

  “Ah, that’s marvellous, my dear L’Étoile! How did you hear of it?”

  “Well, I have a reputation for knowing everything,” said L’Étoile, “so that an egg doesn’t get laid in Paris without some vain Gautier rushing to tell me about it, asking me if I know about it.”

  I noticed, as we neared the church of Saint-Eustache, that a great crowd of people was arriving from all of the surrounding streets. “Is this Maillard so learned?”

  “Not at all. He’s just one of the thousands of priests and monks who shape the opinions of the Parisians.”

  “Thousands?” I asked, amazed. “Are there really that many?”

  “Ah, Siorac,” whispered L’Étoile, “the place is crawling with them. There are at least ten in every street, and there are 413 streets in the capital. Siorac, be very careful not to smile or laugh at what Maillard says in Saint-Eustache, no matter how absurd: his parishioners would tear you to pieces.”

  “Trust me,” I replied, elbowing him playfully, “I shall be as prayerful and humble as the Devil himself!”

  Oh reader! You should have seen Maillard when he appeared in the pulpit! What a low and ugly face he had, with his large and oily nose, big, bloodthirsty mouth, blazing eyes, shaggy eyebrows, reddish and pimply skin, and butcher’s hands more suited to cutting throats in an abattoir than to making the sign of the cross in absolution.

  “Today,” he said, eyes lowered in feigned humility and speaking quietly in his deep voice, which would follow a steady crescendo throughout his sermon and ultimately explode like thunder, “I’m going to speak about women and heretics.”

  Having said this, he paused and appeared to be praying, and though the church was full of people there was such silence you could have heard a nun breaking wind.

  “Oh, you women! Oh, you girls! Oh, you maidens!” said Maillard, hammering his lectern with his fist. “You who live in vanity and lubricity, take heed! You who know only how to lead men into temptation! You who make up your faces to attract your customers! You who cover your heads with vainglorious wigs and hairpieces whose blonde hair waves over your pearled foreheads! Oh, you women! What are you doing? The Lord gave you a face and you invent another one! He gave you a body and you invent another one! You squeeze and press your breasts into close bodices! You swell your thighs with hoop skirts! You increase your backsides with false arses! You raise yourselves on high heels! You pout! You flirt! You give inviting glances! You sway when you walk and one has only to look at you to know you’re deep in sin!”

  And here Maillard closed his eyes and moved his lips as though he were praying again, while his congregation, awaiting his next words, held their breath.

  “Oh, you women! Oh, you girls! Oh, you maidens!” continued Maillard in a menacing voice, banging his enormous fists on his lectern again. “Do you ever think about what you’re doing? You who claim to be so modest that you don’t even show yourselves naked to your husbands, but shamelessly parade your bodies in the street, have you thought about what’s going to happen when you stand before the Lord’s tribunal after you die?”

  And, after another pause, Maillard continued in a thunderous voice:

  “Well, I’ll tell you here and now! As punishment for your vanities and excesses, the devils in hell will strip you naked; these devils will drag you thousands of times across the entire length of hell, not before one man, but before 100,000 men, who will shout at you and laugh at you, seeing your shame and degradation. And how embarrassed you’ll be then, when you’re dragged naked before men, showing them all your shameful places, dragged throughout hell a thousand thousand times in a great fanfare of trumpets, with devils laughing and mocking you and shouting, ‘Look! Look! See this whore! Look at this lewd bawd! This is Mademoiselle so-and-so who lives in such and such a street in Paris!’—naming you and naming your street—‘who has so often lain with such and such a man and so many others!’

  “And then 100,000 and another 100,000 people who, during your life, you women, you’ve know well, your dead parents, your friends, your neighbours, a
ll furious with you, vowing mortal hatred, will run up to make fun of you, saying to each other, ‘There she is, naked! The bawd! There she is, the fat bitch! After her, devils! Attack her, you demons! Get her, you furies! All together, now, leap on these shameless whores!’ And they will give you back double in torments and torture all the pleasures you stole in this life!”

  Having screamed these words at the top of his lungs, Maillard fell silent again, his face crimson, his fists clenched on his lectern, his eyes half-closed, watching his flock as if spying on them to see the effects of his words, which, as far as I could tell, appealed much more to the men than to the women, for, to hear him, you’d think it was only the latter who were sinners and not the former. And as I looked around, I observed among the women signs of both fear and anger, and sensed that it was dawning on them how unjust he’d been to them, a feeling they could express only through the furtive looks they exchanged. Whether Maillard could feel these mutinous reactions, or whether he was carried away by the voluptuousness of his images of hell, I know not, but, regaining his breath and his voice, he launched again into descriptions of the tortures and torments the devils would inflict on these naked women, and in such horrible and repulsive detail that I could not possibly repeat them here without offending my readers.

  In any case, he succeeded in casting such fear into the hearts of these women for the crime of being women that it seemed to me that he was seeking revenge on them for his having been denied access to their bodies by his vows.

  What’s more, this sermon, for all its mad cruelty, struck me as particularly useless, because I don’t believe the terrors of the afterlife have ever prevailed in men’s hearts over the pleasures of the moment, especially since, in the papist religion, it was enough for these sinning women to go to have their confession heard to wash them of all their sins and wipe their slates clean. The most one could hope to gain from such depraved eloquence was that it might increase the number of penitents and the sums of money they’d have to pay the priests for their absolution.