Authors: Robert Merle
“Thank the Lord,” he said in a voice choked with emotion, holding my head tight against his to hide his tears, “you’re safe! And my Samson as well! And Miroul! And Giacomi! The traitor must have got wind of your arrival and posted a watchman in Sarlat to signal your arrival and prepare this nasty ambush. My two younger sons! What a devilish business! What a blow it would have been if he had succeeded!”
Samson arrived at this moment and we were both warmly welcomed by all the Mespech community, all of our servants wishing to hug and embrace us, overcome as they were with joy at seeing us safe and sound after the terrible fear they’d had at the thought of losing us while they were out haying. And that was only the men of our household. You can imagine what it was like when we reached the chateau and the wenches got involved! There were tears, cries, caresses, jokes and questions to last a lifetime! And after these expressions of love and welcome from all of them, my father pulled us away and led us to the library, where Sauveterre was ensconced, laid up for the past two days with terrible pain in his bad leg—and in a very bad mood, it appeared.
However, his severe black eyes (whose sudden wrath I so feared when I was younger) softened when he saw us, and he embraced us,
albeit with dry eyes (though I thought I detected some trembling in his lower lip despite his implacable Huguenot austerity). He had to hear the whole story, which I recounted as clearly as I could and which he listened to very diligently. After this, he sighed deeply and said, “When you cut down a fig tree, you have to destroy its roots. Otherwise it will grow back again and leave a new tree in its place. You were well advised to kill Fontenac in a loyal duel, but, duel or no duel, you should have dispatched that dog Malvézie. My nephew, you fought well, but didn’t kill anything. Our troubles are not over, quite the contrary.”
On Sauveterre’s advice, and so that no one could claim that his testimony had been extorted by torture, we did not keep the Gypsy at Mespech, but sent him off under careful escort to Monsieur de Puymartin, who was a papist but one of our good friends who had fought alongside my father against the rascals at la Lendrevie after the plague in Sarlat.
Puymartin consented to employ him as his basket-maker. The Gypsy had no desire to return to Malvézie at Fontenac’s chateau after testifying before Ricou, the notary, about what he’d seen on the les Beunes road.
The day after the duel, Monsieur de La Porte, the police lieutenant in Sarlat, paid a visit to the Brethren at their request, bringing a clerk and a doctor, and examined at my father’s behest the body of Fontenac. La Porte determined that, as Giacomi had suspected, the baron was wearing a coat of chain mail under his doublet, and, asking the doctor to examine the wound to his eye to discover whether it had been caused by bullet or sword, they concluded that it could only have been caused by a blade. My father then showed them the bodies of Fontenac’s men who’d been killed in the encounter, as well
as the two arquebuses they’d used to fire from the bushes and that bore, engraved in their stocks, the name of the artisan in Sarlat who’d made them. When presented with them, the man remembered having sold them to the brigand baron the previous Easter.
But Monsieur de La Porte was not yet satisfied, as he was extremely meticulous and prudent in these matters and he insisted on hearing, separately, one after the other, the witnesses and actors in this drama, namely, Samson, Giacomi, Miroul and myself. As he was concluding his investigation, Puymartin arrived with Ricou, the notary, and three of his men, and passed on to La Porte the testimony that the notary had written in Provençal under dictation from the Gypsy. But Monsieur de La Porte would accept Ricou’s report only after it had been translated into French, since there was a royal ordinance that required that all evidence submitted in courts of justice be in the language of the north. So while the notary laboured over his translation, La Porte asked me to write down the details of my duel with the Baron de Fontenac. He waited till I’d finished my work and the notary had completed his before departing.
He took his leave very politely, as was his wont, his eyes always very glacial, without giving his opinion on anything or making any pronouncements, abiding scrupulously by the letter of his office. However, the way he smiled suddenly when he said goodbye to my father suggested that he considered his work done.
And so it was, but the same was not true of that of the judge, who, as Monsieur de La Porte had warned us, arrived a week later at sunset, without any escort (which might be explained by the fact that his country house was so near to Mespech). Samson and I and the Brethren were the only ones to speak with him. The five candles of the candelabrum, lit in honour of our host, despite our Huguenot economy, illuminated the honest, square, ruddy face of this Périgordian gentleman, sitting above his white ruff collar.
“Monsieur,” he began, “I have not forgotten your valiant conduct during the outbreak of the plague in Sarlat and how, not content to provision the starving inhabitants with a huge side of beef, you were the only one, with Puymartin, to dare confront the butcher of la Lendrevie and to defeat his band of brigands. And so I have come here, not in my role as judge of the seneschalty, but in my own person, to warn you that a plot is being hatched against your house. Things are taking a very bad turn against your sons that I don’t like at all!”
“What?” exclaimed my father. “The baron set up a dastardly ambush and now you’re nitpicking over my sons’ behaviour!”
“We’re not talking about lice, my friend, but libel, and libel from you-know-who! They can’t forgive Mespech for being a nest of heretics and although we’ve made peace with your side and Coligny is now received at the king’s court and well ensconced, it would seem, in the royal favour, some Présidial judges, out of religious fervour, are inclined to place the blame on your sons.”
“And on what evidence would these judges base such an iniquitous falsehood?” demanded Uncle Sauveterre.
“On the basis of the testimony of the priest of Marcuays, of course!”
“Pincers!” cried my father. “But is there anyone in Sarlat or in the entire region who doesn’t despise this drunken scoundrel?”
“He’s a priest,” said Monsieur de La Porte, “and that’s enough for his testimony, however full of inconsistencies it may be, to outweigh the Gypsy’s.”
“Full of inconsistencies?” asked my father.
“Infinitely so! When Pincers was in Malvézie’s sway, he wrote a version of the incident that put all the blame on your sons. But when the seneschal demanded that Malvézie release him, I took Pincers from between his claws and set him back up in his church in Marcuays where he wrote in my presence a testimony that concurs pretty much with what I heard here.”
“So we’re safe!” said Sauveterre.
“I’m afraid not. You see, the minute I left, Pincers became terrified that Malvézie would come for him, so he put himself under the protection of the bishop of Sarlat, and there he wrote a third version of his testimony, which is unfortunately quite close to the first one.”
“Well, that’s testimony that must be disqualified because of its variations!”
“Not at all! The majority of the judges in the Présidial have declared the third version is the valid one since it was delivered in the presence of the bishop and consequently inspired by the Holy Spirit.”
“The Holy Spirit!” cried my father, gnashing his teeth. “Would you listen to these hypocrites who advance their worldly affairs under the mantle of religion!”
“Monsieur,” said Monsieur de La Porte—though I couldn’t tell whether he was kidding or in earnest, “I am a Catholic and I respect my bishop.”
“Monsieur,” countered my father, “Huguenot though I be, I also respect your bishop, but not in his worldly dealings. The Holy Spirit blows where it wills, as John writes in chapter three, verse eight, but why would this wind not turn this weathercock around again? What does the latest wind say?”
“In a word: that your sons surprised the baron on the les Beunes road and fell upon him and killed him.”
“That’s a huge and shameful lie!” I cried.
“So I believe,” said Monsieur de La Porte, “but I have only provided the evidence for the matter and cannot serve as judge in it. And all that stands between my arresting you and your brother and bringing you to the parliament in Bordeaux is a majority decision by the Présidial judges, who disagree with me.”
“Can this really be?” gasped my father.
“It can,” answered Monsieur de La Porte gravely.
At this, we four paled and fell silent and sat there trying not to let our distress and indignant anger explode in front of our visitor.
“Monsieur,” said Jean de Siorac finally, “I thank God that you’ve come here in your own person to warn us. But may I push your goodness and indulgence a bit further and ask what you would decide to do if you were thrown into the predicament we are facing?”
“I’ll wager,” said Monsieur de La Porte, “that the king has invited you, Monsieur, along with all the other noblemen of Périgord of both the papist and the reformed persuasions, to come to the capital to attend the marriage of his sister Margot to Prince Henri de Navarre, which will be celebrated in August.”
“Indeed, I have received the king’s invitation.”
“Well then, instead of going there yourself,” suggested Monsieur de La Porte, rising and speaking very quietly as if he wanted to be only half heard, “send your two sons to Paris to represent you. Once there, they can use their visit to beseech the king’s pardon in this matter.” And he added, speaking in the same soft voice and out of one side of his mouth, his face turned away from us: “They must be gone by dawn tomorrow. I would be devastated to find them here at noon.”
“At noon!” cried my father, leaping to his feet. “What? So soon?”
“Ah, did I say noon?” replied Monsieur de La Porte. “It must have escaped me! Oh, and also,” he added, as if a detail of no importance had suddenly occurred to him, “they should not go through Périgueux, where I might pursue them, but through Bordeaux, making a most useful detour to the chateau of Michel de Montaigne, whom they should ask to compose their petition to the king, which Montaigne will assuredly do. He is a man of substance, who cannot abide partisan iniquity, and who has a very good opinion of you since you were such a faithful friend of Monsieur de La Boétie, whom he continues to mourn, and always will.”
“Ah, Monsieur,” cried my father, “How can I tell you—”
“Don’t say anything,” interrupted Monsieur de La Porte with a smile, “since I’ve said nothing to you, but came here just to chat about my haying, because with all my troubles, I’m probably not going to have enough for the winter.”
And having said this, he bowed to Sauveterre, who, always crippled by his old wound, couldn’t stand up to see him out, then embraced my father warmly and took his leave.
When Miroul came to wake me the next morning, well before daybreak, I was sleeping peacefully, my arms around Little Sissy, my nose buried in her long black hair, which always smelt so clean since she washed it every day and dried it in the sun whose rays, she hoped, would give it a slight shade of copper. I don’t know which of the wenches in Mespech would have taught her this recipe, but it didn’t really show, her hair remaining as deep and shadowy as before. As for me, loving the bluish darkness of her locks, I was always amazed at our sweet minxes’ ways. God gave them a face and they want to make another one, either by make-up or by colouring their hair. They just seem to want to be different from what nature made them.
But don’t mistake me. I don’t blame them. I do the same with these memoirs when I cross out a word that seems too dry and put two words in its place that I find more to my liking. Am I any different in this than those Parisian ladies who, believing they’re too bony in a certain place, will wear false rumps and fluffy petticoats to make them look bigger? The coquetry of our sweetlings—this dear and delicious half of humanity—is but art added to nature. We should admire them (quite the opposite of what the ministers preach to them) for the infinite care they take to look in the mirror. Otherwise we wouldn’t love women for their femininity but for some stupid criteria imposed on them by monks and preachers.
By the light of the oil lamp that Miroul had brought, I arose, sprinkled my face and body with water and, wetting a corner of my
towel, washed and scrubbed my teeth, which were naturally in excellent shape, and I wanted to keep them that way as long as I lived. Meanwhile, Miroul was waiting, shoes in hand, ready to give them to me, and, out of the corner of his eye, watching my Little Sissy, who, sitting naked on the bed without any sense of shame whatsoever, was caressing her firm, apple-shaped breasts; and then, pulling up her knees and resting her elbows on them, she placed her delicate hands on her temples and stretched her dark liquid eyes sideways to make them more almond-shaped, which she knew I liked. This done, she began to complain about my leaving:
“Ah, Pierre! You’re scarcely here a week and now you’re off again! And when will you return? What good is it being Pierre de Siorac’s wench if I never get to see him? Poor, poor me! Did you ever see a pretty girl who got less loving than me?”
“Come off it, Little Sissy!” I scolded. “I should be the one to complain! I kill a felon in a duel and now I have to go into exile to keep my neck from the gibbet!”
“Ah, Monsieur!” said Miroul, handing me my shoes, his brown eye shining. “Our exile won’t be so terrible. Monsieur your father has furnished us with plenty of money. Paris is the most beautiful city in the kingdom. And what’s more, Madame Angelina will be living there.”
“What?” shrieked Little Sissy. “Madame Angelina is in Paris? Oh, Pierre, I’m done for! You’ll never come back again!”
“Go easy, there, silly girl!” I frowned. “Don’t deafen me with your screams when I’m not even awake yet, still groggy and dreamy, hungry only for my bed—and for you!” (Hearing this she softened a bit.) “And now I’ve got so many leagues to go before I find a bed for the night. Of course I’ll come back here, silly bewitched girl, as soon as I’ve obtained the king’s pardon! My father’s money won’t last for ever. And isn’t Mespech the nest where I was born?”