Heretic Dawn

by Robert Merle

  It took us an entire hour to get back to our carriage because the crush of the crowd on Île de la Cité was even greater now than when we arrived. We couldn’t help hearing what the people around us were saying, and it appeared that, even though they were quite ready to celebrate the event now that it was accomplished, they were not in the least reconciled to this union. Nor were they dissuaded from this opinion by all the zealous priests who were fulminating against “Jezebel” and “Ahab”, both from the pulpit and out here in the street, referring, of course, to Catherine and the king, who were suspected of secretly being in league with the reformers. Proof that everyone in this zealous century appears to be a heretic to everyone else! The name “Jezebel” had already been given to Catherine after her unsuccessful attempt at Bayonne to get Felipe II of Spain to agree to eradicate the Huguenots if she’d consent to a Spanish wedding.

  For four days and four long nights after the marriage of Margot, there were constant banquets, balls and galas at the Louvre. I attended all of them, and would have been happy enough had there not been nasty jabs and thorny remarks about those of my religion. No one seemed to trust this feigned reconciliation, quite the contrary. The papists had nothing but grimaces, digs, nasty jokes and malicious snubs to share with us.

  On 20th August, an enormous platform was constructed outside the Hôtel du Petit-Bourbon, and members of the royal family gave a pantomime, one that stuck in our throats. A small group of evil horsemen—representing Navarre, Condé and La Rochefoucauld—could be seen attacking Paradise, which was made up of twelve nymphs, including Margot and Marie de Clèves (Condé’s wife), whom the Duc d’Anjou was desperately in love with. Some angels—played by the king, Anjou and Alençon themselves—intervened, defeated the wicked horsemen and drove them back into hell on the left-hand side of the stage, where there was a bonfire and some sulphurous vapour. This done, the angels danced with the nymphs for a long time while some devils tortured the captured knights, who were ultimately pardoned and delivered, thanks, primarily, to the intercession of the nymphs, and not by their own means—an ending which merely added to the outrage of the allegory.

  On 21st August it was worse. Some Turks, dressed to look like grotesque versions of Navarre and Condé, attacked some bare-breasted Amazons, who were played by the king and his two brothers—who, women though they were, defeated them in a trice.

  That same day, Gertrude du Luc asked me to accompany her to a sermon given by Father Victor, whose fame had reached Normandy. He was a tall man, whose height and powerful voice seemed better suited to bearing arms than to the frock that he wore. Banging his fists on the lectern, he spoke for two long hours on the princely marriage, calling it an impious act whose punishment would be visited not just on “those who had made it” but on an entire people. At the conclusion, he crossed his muscular arms over his chest, threw his head back and stared heavenward, as if he were drawing from there, as from a well, some sacred inspiration, and then cried in a voice that shook the vaults of his church:

  “God will not suffer this execrable coupling!”

  At this, the faithful who’d heard him, gaping and short of breath, responded with a murmur of assent, which gradually swelled to a kind of growling so savage and terrible that I could only compare it to a pack of mastiffs pulling violently on their leashes, their maws gaping wide and their huge teeth bared in violent lust.

  * “Trust me, for I have the requisite experience.”

  † “We live more by example than by reason.”

  9

  IN THE EVENING of that same 21st August, Quéribus invited me to share his country house in Saint-Cloud, where he wanted to escape the heat of the city in the company of Dame Gertrude du Luc and Zara, but, though I was tempted by the peacefulness of the countryside after all the commotion of the festivities, I didn’t want to make the trip. When I left the church where Father Victor had delivered his sermon, I ran into the tennis master and ball-maker Delay, who was very fond of me because I was always happy to listen to his court rumours, being so new at the Louvre, and so unused to the ways of the capital, and he told me that another month in Paris would turn me into a perfect gallant, so stylish did I appear.

  Delay, learning of my approaching departure, wanted to know—being such an inquisitive fellow—whether I was happy to be returning to the provinces.

  “Alas, no,” I sighed, “I came to seek the king’s pardon for having killed a gentleman in Sarlat, though in a loyal duel. But since the king thinks I’m attached to the Duc d’Anjou because of the affair of the doublet, he’s closed his door to me.”

  “What’s this?” said Delay frowning deeply. “Charles has refused you an audience? By my faith, I’ll get him to change his mind! You can count on it! It’s as good as done: you’ll speak to the king tomorrow. Be at my tennis court at ten o’clock, and I’ll put you into a doubles match that Charles is supposed to play against Guise, Téligny and the Bâtard d’Angoulême. But I’ve just learnt that the bâtard is sick in bed with a high fever and a terrible headache, so I’ll arrange for you to take his place.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears to hear him speak so decisively, as though he could dispose of the king as he pleased. How could a tennis master succeed where Monsieur de Nançay had failed? However, since I’d seen Delay address the king with extraordinary effrontery, and since I’d observed that at court it’s not necessarily the most powerful who have the ear of the king but often the opposite, I decided to run the risk, which wasn’t so great anyway since in truth I had little appetite to travel to Saint-Cloud.

  I reasoned that to hold Zara in my arms would be of little comfort to me if I knew that Gertrude was holding Quéribus in hers. My heart would bleed if I had to witness the infidelity she’d inflict on my brother and virtually on me. Since I’d had such trouble resisting her advances myself, I hoped that she wouldn’t then offer them to another.

  So I headed to the Louvre at ten o’clock on 22nd August and, just as I was approaching the entrance, I saw the king, surrounded by his courtiers, leave the chapel of the Hôtel du Petit-Bourbon, where he’d gone, I supposed, to hear Mass. At the same moment, Admiral de Coligny, followed by several Protestant gentlemen, was leaving the Louvre, and, as the two groups met in the middle of the little square in front of the chateau—the one clad in brilliant colours, the other clothed all in black—their leaders greeted, embraced and congratulated each other with a degree of friendly effusion for which the king himself set the tone by calling Coligny “my father” and kissing him on both cheeks. After which the king took his arm, and I heard him invite the admiral to come and watch him play tennis at the Five Virgins, to which Coligny acquiesced out of pure civility, saying that he would attend “for a few moments”, doubtless secretly believing that such games, balls, suppers and pantomimes as had succeeded each other since the wedding were excessively frivolous.

  As for me, who’d never seen Coligny up so close—the king of the Huguenots being just as difficult of access as the king of France, though the former displayed no pomp whatsoever and was not accompanied by any escort—I observed him all the while with great curiosity and found him to be of a very serious disposition, with just a hint of inflexibility in his light-grey eyes, which struck me as very imposing. The strands of hair that protruded from his dark-red velvet cap were more white than brown, and his face was quite wrinkled, but his body was still robust, no doubt thanks to his frugal and austere nature. He was dressed in a black velvet doublet, and wore appended to a black ribbon round his neck the order of Saint-Michel, which he never removed. He wore a pair of old-fashioned baggy hose of the same colour, and slippers which seemed to fall off his feet too often, as happened at least twice that I observed, for he had to back up and tap his heel to get them back on—an activity that seemed very ill-matched to the dignity of such a great man, but one that was, as insignificant as it seemed, of great consequence in the terrible chain of events that were to lead to so much bloodshed.

  Among the gentleme
n accompanying Coligny, I spied Geoffroy de Caumont, lord of Castelnau and Milandes, my cousin on my mother’s side, and came up to greet him. He appeared very glad to see me, embraced me warmly and presented me to the others of his company: to Téligny, whom I’d seen playing tennis; to the Comte de Montgomery, an old greybeard who’d fallen into disfavour at court after a splinter from his unfortunate lance caused the death of Henri II; to Monsieur de Ferrières, the Vidame de Chartres, without doubt the wisest of the Protestant leaders; to Monsieur de Briquemaut, who’d fought at Calais fourteen years earlier; to the Comte de La Rochefoucauld, still in the flower of his youth; and finally to Monsieur de La Force, a relative of Caumont, who was flanked by his two sons. Alas! Of all of these valiant lords, who seemed so self-assured that sunny August morning, how many were enjoying the penultimate day of their lives!

  I followed along behind them as Coligny and the king continued to speak in the affectionate way I’d observed, and was just going into the Five Virgins tennis courts when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I spun around.

  “Mi fili,” Fogacer whispered, “I’ve come to take my leave of you, very sad that I will be deprived of the light of your beautiful visage. I’m quitting Paris.”

  “But where will you go?” I asked in surprise.

  “Where? I know not,” said Fogacer, arching his diabolical eyebrow, “though I’ve told the Duc d’Anjou I’ll be visiting my aged mother in Provence, who, in fact, died when I was a child. I must depart like a leaf in the wind.”

  “What? With no destination?”

  “Well, not quite,” he said, lowering his voice even further. “On a stage on the Pont aux Meuniers yesterday I met a little acrobat who enchanted me with his thousand and one tricks, so gracious and cute he would have seduced St Jerome while he was meditating on death and the sins of the world. You know what mine is. Trahit sua quemque voluptas.* The show is leaving tomorrow for the provinces and I’m going with them.”

  “Oh, Fogacer,” I said, worried, “is this reasonable?”

  “Is it reasonable to while away my days uselessly here when all I can do is dream of him?”

  There was really nothing I could say, knowing all too well how powerful such dreams are, however different the object may be that inspires them.

  “Fogacer,” I said simply, “I wish you all the happiness in the world.”

  He laughed, but I think his laughter was meant to hide his emotion, and he assured me, still laughing, that if he could pray, he would pray that I obtain a pardon from the king; then he gave me a strong, but very brief, almost furtive hug, and hurried away like a black insect, leaving me feeling very astonished that his absence should create such a void in me. I felt suddenly very alone there, with Samson in Montfort and Quéribus in Saint-Cloud. And while I stood there in a daze, as if nailed to the spot, someone seized me very familiarly by the arm, and I heard Maître Delay scolding me in his brazen Parisian way:

  “Monsieur de Siorac! What are you doing hanging about out here, staring at the pigeons? The thing is arranged, just as I promised! The king has agreed to take you as his partner, on the assurance I gave him that with you he couldn’t help winning—not just the match, but the 200 écus that Guise and Téligny have just bet on it. Hurry, my friend! The king is as impatient as a devil in a font!”

  And indeed he was! He was so anxious to see me in shirtsleeves and ready to play, as he stood there jumping up and down, brandishing his racquet, that he hardly responded to my deep bow. Never in my life did my doublet come off faster than it did on that day, Delay grabbing it and thrusting a racquet into my hand.

  “So now! Let’s play!” shouted Charles IX ferociously. “By God, we’ll grind them to powder, the both of them. And what’s your name?”

  “Pierre de Siorac, sire. I’m the younger son of the Baron de Mespech, in Périgord.”

  “Siorac,” muttered the king, who entirely lacked in his manners and his speech the exquisite politeness of the Duc d’Anjou, “how’s your backhand? Good enough?”

  “Sire, that’s what I’ve been told.”

  “Then play to Téligny’s backhand, which is weak.”

  And so I followed his command with every shot I took—a relentlessness I would have found discourteous in a singles match—so effectively that we won the first set without allowing our adversaries to take a single game. Téligny failed to return a single one of my backhand shots and the duc himself played less well than he was accustomed to, seeming at times lost in his thoughts, and at other times looking around to see if he could spy Coligny, as if he were impatient to see him there. Meanwhile, the admiral was seated in the stands, as calm and composed as I’d heard was his usual manner, and civilly applauded the winning shots, though he privately considered this sport—and all the games and jousts he’d had to swallow since the 18th—entirely frivolous. But the king had proclaimed that he wanted to enjoy himself to the hilt as long as the festivities lasted, and refused to discuss any matters of state, no matter how urgent, until the gala was over.

  At this point, the king cried out that he needed to change his shirt, which was drenched, given the incredible heat that had built up between the four walls of the pavilion, and the admiral rose and asked to take his leave and departed, surrounded by his gentlemen (and Guise seemed to me to be quite relieved to see him go). While the king was being vigorously rubbed down by his valet, Delay went up to him and said, with his usual bluntness:

  “Sire, Monsieur de Siorac is seeking your pardon for having killed a gentleman in a loyal duel.”

  “Have I not proclaimed that all duels are to cease?” replied the king sullenly and with a grimace, yet with clear indifference.

  “Sire,” I dared to reply, “I was ambushed while returning to my home and the traitor, before provoking me, had hidden a coat of mail until his doublet.”

  “’Sblood!” cried the king, his face lighting up with interest. “So then how did you kill him?”

  “With two inches of steel in his right eye.”

  “Two inches!” said the king approvingly, with a cruel light in his eyes. “Two inches! What a majestic blow! Siorac, you’ll have my pardon!”

  “Sire,” broke in Delay, who knew the value of such promises, “why not sign it on the spot? Here’s paper and pen. You can write on my valet’s back.”

  “How tiresome you are, Delay!” snapped the king, who now had a fresh shirt on and was ready to recommence the game.

  “Sire,” insisted Delay, not the least bit discouraged, and doubtless knowing as well as the queen mother did how importunity could overcome the king’s will. “Sire, you always say, ‘Strike while the iron—’”

  “Enough, Delay. Enough! I want to play!”

  “Sire,” Delay objected. “You’re too good a blacksmith to fail to strike while the iron’s hot.”

  “All right!” growled the king, defeated as much by Delay’s insistence as by his cajolery. “My pen, dammit!”

  And he scribbled my pardon on the back of the valet, to whom, as soon as he’d signed it, he delivered a big kick in the backside as if to get revenge for the violence he’d suffered. And when the poor lackey fell to the ground, Charles burst out laughing uproariously, and, his good humour restored, brandishing his racquet and leaping like an acrobat, he cried:

  “Back to work, partner! By God, were going to grind them into powder! The 200 écus are mine!”

  I didn’t need to be coaxed! My pardon in my pocket, and without time to thank Delay, but beaming with pleasure at having finally obtained it after so long a wait and so many trials and tribulations at the court, I played like a madman, ready to deliver so many blows to the unfortunate Téligny that he wouldn’t know where to hide! And I remember that after this he didn’t score a single point; nor did Guise, who, ever since Coligny’s departure, seemed so absent that you would have guessed that he wasn’t even following the ball and that he was swinging at it blindly. At any rate, we quickly won four games in a row and would soon have made a clean sweep of it
, but suddenly there was a great commotion at the door, and we saw Yolet, Coligny’s valet, burst onto the court, panting, tears gushing from his eyes and so terrified that when he opened his mouth all he could do was shout “Oh, sire! Oh, sire” as he threw himself on his knees before the king.

  “For the love of God,” cried the king, “what’s happened? How dare you interrupt the king when he’s playing!”

  “Oh, sire!” wept Yolet, who in his despair was tearing out his hair and scratching his cheeks. “There’s been an attempt to kill the admiral!”

  “What?” said Guise, stiffening. “An attempt?”

  And to the end of my days I shall remember the immense disappointment in his voice when he said these words, “An attempt?” and the way he immediately fell silent, his body immobile, his face inscrutable and his eyes staring blankly at the ground.

  “Ah!” said the king, open-mouthed. Looking at Yolet, Guise and the ball he was holding, he suddenly became childishly petulant, upset that his tennis game should have been interrupted, and, throwing down his racquet, he screamed:

  “Won’t they ever leave me in peace?”

  And glaring bitterly at each one of us as though we’d been the cause of this interruption, he stormed off, his valet running after him, without ever thinking to enquire whether the admiral had been killed or only wounded. Finally, Téligny, shaking Yolet with both hands as he knelt there on the ground crying and moaning, asked about Coligny in a voice that was barely audible, whereupon Yolet answered:

  “Wounded.”

  “Monsieur de Téligny,” said Delay in the officious way he adopted as owner of the tennis court, “might I remind you that Monsieur de Siorac is a physician?”