The Dedalus Book of French Horror: The 19th Century (6 page)

‘They would not dare,’ Diana answered bitterly.

‘It is I then who will do so!’ the knight exclaimed, and at once he advanced towards Diana, seized her by the arm and tried to drag her out of the room; but she, in turn, took Jean’s hand and gripped it with a convulsive fury, crushing it between her own two hands, seeming to cling to him. Jean was nonetheless on the point of driving her from the room when she suddenly gave way.

‘Very well! I shall depart,’ she said, ‘I shall depart; but grant me one favour: allow me to see your fiancée again; for all the ill you have done me, one final boon! You can hold me by the hand; I swear upon my soul that I shall not go near to her. Only let me see her one last time.’

At once Diana and Jean moved towards Rasselinde, who, trembling, had taken refuge in the arms of the lady of Lille-Jourdain. The young girl looked at Diana with a terror she could not overcome; Jean himself, while brutally restraining her by the hand, obeyed her out of some obscure remorse. At this moment, as a deep silence had settled between all of these protagonists, Diana, now face to face with Rasselinde, lifted her veil and pushed Jean towards the young woman as she cried:

‘Rasselinde de la Baume, this is Jean de Lille-Jourdain, your fiancée, presented to you by Diana Marrechi!’

With these words and these gestures, a lightning bolt seemed to have burst above their hapless heads. In an involuntary movement, Jean loosened hold of the hand in his, Rasselinde fell to her knees and the lady of Lille-Jourdain was transfixed and frozen. Diana began to laugh.

‘Well now! Lord of Lille-Jourdain,’ she exclaimed, ‘where are your ramparts and your sword against the vengeance of one poor woman? Wretch! You look at me with doltish eyes! Yes, it is true, I am plague-ridden, and you bear upon you the seeds of your death. Yes! Now look at how beautiful your fiancée is! No, Joëz was not so beautiful, I pledge my soul!’

Rasselinde, out of her wits, tried to throw herself into Jean’s arms, but, stepping away from her in terror, he cried out:

‘No! Do not come near me! … I am no longer your fiancée! … Go away! Go away!’

‘He is my fiancée, mine!’ said Diana, as she rushed upon him; ‘See Rasselinde, how I love him!’

Whereupon she clung to him like a serpent, entwined him in her arms and covered his brow and his lips with ghastly kisses, screaming like a hyena as it tears its prey apart; and throughout this horrible struggle neither Jean’s mother nor his mistress dared to give him aid. They watched him fight against these horrible embraces and their only recourse was to weep and scream. Servants came running but when they saw Diana they remained motionless at the doors, not daring to come closer to their wretched master. Jean at last put an end to this dreadful combat. With a dagger he stabbed Diana directly in the heart.

Throughout the struggle, the Lady of Lille-Jourdain made a vow to light a lamp to the blessed Saint Just should her son escape from this danger. The gift of six casks of wine made to the canons of the church for the upkeep of this lamp tells us that Jean was indeed saved by the intercession of that saint, but we are also told that he lost the use of his left hand, which Diana had bitten in her rage. It is doubtless this circumstance which earned the lord his name as lord of the Dead Hand, a name by which he is mentioned at several points in the history of the wars between the people of Langue d’Oc and the English.

It was 13 May – 1789.

Towards the middle of the rue Saint-Honoré there used to be an obscure six-storied house, on the top floor of this house there was an attic room, in this attic room there was a narrow window, and at this narrow window there stood an unattractive young man of medium height. This young man was Claude Belissan, who was clerk to the public prosecutor and mildly infected by the philosophical epidemic which reigned at that time.

A torrential rain was beating down from the dark skies, and strong gusts of wind whipped the water running down the roof against the window panes.

For the first time in his life, because until that moment he had been conscientiously raised by his mother according to the holy precepts of the Catholic church, Claude Belissan uttered a dreadful blasphemy against God.

‘Bloody rain!’ he said. ‘Bloody, bloody rain! The streets are like rivers, the squares are like lakes, the plains are like oceans … It’s the Great Flood all over again! And on a Sunday too! Always on a Sunday! After we’ve been working hard all week, it rains on Sunday! Bah! The philosophers are right: there can’t be a God. Everything is a matter of luck and destiny!’

And, like the good Catholic he was, Belissan became utterly sceptical and fatalistic.

And the rain redoubled in intensity, rebounding off the window panes; and Belissan danced up and down, swearing to himself, as he looked sorrowfully at his shiny britches made of Indian silk, his white cotton socks, and his frilly shirt.

And Belissan uttered yet more imprecations as he caught sight of his patterned dimity waist-coat and his blue ratteen frock-coat carefully spread out on his virginal bed … One would have said Signor Campanona at the zenith of his musical exaltation.

‘Damn and blast it!’ he shouted. ‘What about Catherine, Catherine who is waiting for me, Catherine whom I am taking for a stroll today! It’s all been planned for five weeks! If it goes wrong now, I shall go mad! Mad! What do you think you’re playing at, God?’

And after shaking his fist at the sky, in the manner of Ajax, Belissan buried his head in his hands.

After a few minutes in which he was lost in unhappy reverie, and in which he saw only streams bursting their banks, overflowing gutters, mud and umbrellas, the young clerk held his breath, then his beating heart jumped for joy. He raised his head and, without opening his eyes, for he still feared the worst, he pricked up his ears. The disappointed young man imagined he could no longer hear the rain falling on the roof.

This was not an illusion.

The day began to brighten, a gentle breeze from the northeast sprang up, stiffened, and, at the end of an inexpressibly tense half-an-hour, the clouds had been driven back beyond the horizon, the sun glittered over the rooftops, the sky turned blue and the air became warm; in short, never had such a glorious spring day started out so ominously.

Belissan, who instead of offering his thanks to God could only think of his shiny silk britches and his ratteen frock-coat, tucked his hat under his arm, combed his hair one last time, and in seven minutes flat was at the foot of the stairs, dressed to the nines, not a hair out of place, a veritable picture of resplendence.

Alas! What a terrible sight greeted his eyes! The pavements were like a mire, everywhere gutters were overflowing, and the streets were jammed with carriages and horses scurrying hither and thither.

Belissan resolutely decided to undertake the perilous journey which would reunite him with Catherine on tip-toe. He was no more than a few paces from where his idol lived when he was caught up in a sudden press of people caused by a groom in a green and orange livery who preceded a magnificent carriage drawn by no less than four bay horses – and what horses they were, the first two were Danish thorough-breds, a matter that can hardly have escaped Belissan’s attention since the unfortunate clerk, as if it had been preordained by fate, was towards the outside of the crowd of pedestrians such that the two mettlesome horses covered him a shower of the darkest, thickest and slimiest mud, entirely ruining his ratteen frock-coat and shiny silk britches.

The seigneur who happened to be passing was the Marquis de Beaumont; he was returning from Versailles and was on his way to visit the Duc de Luynes.

Belissan, who was striped like a tiger with mud, was speechless; but like the tiger he also turned red with anger and shook his fist at the magnificent carriage as he had shaken his fist earlier in the day at God, but he shook his fist mostly at the insolent footman bedecked in gold and silk perched on the rear of the vehicle, who almost split his sides with laughter.

From this moment, from this minute, from this second, Belissan swore an eternal hatred of God, the Marquis, carriages, footmen, and Danish horses, and proclaimed himself the equal of all men, grand seigneurs, lackeys and Danish horses.

He was perhaps about to give vent to a long and lively disquisition on the issue of social inequality when he remembered Catherine; postponing his anger until later, he inspected his stained clothes and sighed to himself:

‘When all is said and done, perhaps it is better to let the mud dry rather than risk rubbing it into the fabric; in any case, this will make Catherine feel sorry for me …’

And he continued on his way, his head throbbing with various notions about love and equality, happiness and hatred. Indeed, the head of Claude Belissan was a veritable cauldron; and when he entered the street on which his mistress lived it must have been smoking, so hot and effervescent were his ideas.

You can’t help feeling sorry for Claude Belissan – just imagine what he must have felt, all the emotions which must have run through him, when on turning the corner he saw the diabolical carriage which had plastered him with mud stationed outside Catherine’s door.

In fact, Catherine’s father was a perfumier-glover, at the sign of the
Bonne-Foi
, and his shop was almost next door to the residence of the Duc de Luynes.

Belissan let out a sigh of relief when he failed to see the insolent footman. He approached the door of the shop, cast a final look of despair over his soiled clothes, and went in.

But as he crossed the threshold he experienced every shade of the chromatic scale from white to violet; his eyes clouded over, blue flames flashed before him, his head began to spin, all he could do was slump convulsively against the counter, trapping the hand of the glover beneath him. The latter exclaimed:

‘Monsieur Belissan! Kindly watch what you are doing!’

But Belissan was incapable of watching what he was doing. On entering the shop, Belissan had caught sight of the glover’s pretty daughter helping the insolent footman, who really was a fine figure of a man, try on a pair of gloves. Worse still, Belissan had seen the footman squeeze Catherine’s hands, and she had smiled at him through her blushes.

And that was all he had seen.

But his mind was racing.

The clerk’s muscles contracted involuntarily, as if a red hot needle had been thrust into his brain, and he smashed his hand down on the counter.

At this sound, Catherine raised her head.

The handsome footman raised his head.

And both of them in unison, on seeing Belissan so besplattered with mud, so dishevelled, so angry, so pale, so peculiar, so ferocious, burst out into a prolonged peal of laughter in which Catherine’s clear timbre mingled with the masculine, sonorous bass of the footman.

Belissan scowled furiously and gesticulated like a madman.

And the duet of laughter broke out again, louder than ever; only the dry, croaking laugh of the glover himself spoiled the harmony.

Belissan, no longer in control of himself, picked up a ruler and approached the footman menacingly; his wrist was seized in an instant by the large hand of the footman, and he heard the worthy glover exclaim: ‘Monsieur Belissan! What do you think you are doing? How dare you raise your fist to a member of the Marquis de Beaumont’s retinue, whose custom we hope to win. Is this how you seek to demonstrate your friendship?’

And Catherine added bitterly:

‘Just what do you mean by calling on people dressed like that!’

And the handsome footman added:

‘If it wasn’t for the fact that a young lady is present, I would throw you out into the street head first, as truly as my name is Almanzor, as truly as I am in the employment of his lordship the Marquis de Beaumont.’

‘Please forgive him this time, Monsieur Almanzor!’ pleaded Catherine with a sidelong glance at the handsome footman.

‘Kindly go and change your clothes, Monsieur Belissan. You will frighten our customers away,’ said the glover, hardly able to suppress his laughter.

‘There is a bath-house just along the street at No. 15,’ said Almanzor as he escorted Belissan to the door of the shop with exaggerated politeness.

The clerk, who felt as if he was in the grip of a terrible nightmare, did not say a word in reply, heard and saw nothing, made a bolt for it, and did not stop until he was in the Champs-Elysées.

And even then he only stopped because he bumped into a man who exclaimed:

‘Why, it’s Belissan!’

Belissan gathered his thoughts.

‘Who are you? Where am I? What do you want?’ he sighed.

‘It’s me, Lucien. You’re in the Champs-Elysées, you’ve got mud all over you. I want to say good-bye because I am on my way to Le Havre.’

‘You’re on your way to Le Havre? I shall go with you.’

‘But I leave today, this very instant!’

‘I shall leave today as well, this very instant!’

‘I take the coach, I go by ship!’

‘I too shall take the coach, the ship, whatever it takes to get out of Paris! But I must leave this beastly place; I shall go and live in the desert or on an island, anywhere where all men are equal and I am the equal of all men! Do you understand me, Lucien?’

‘No, but time is short. Are you really coming with me? What about clothes and underwear?’

‘I shall borrow yours, Lucien,’ replied Belissan with a touching sadness. ‘You will give me yours; all men are brothers.’

‘What will you do for money?’

‘I shall share yours, Lucien; all men are equal.’

‘You must be joking!’

‘He must be either mad or very ill,’ thought Lucien. ‘Either way, this little trip will do him good. I’ll take him with me.’

‘Adieu, Paris! Foul sewer!’ said the clerk contemptuously as he thrust himself into the coach.

And that was how Claude Belissan came to leave Paris.