“Your priests,” said the Cardinal to Père Joseph, in a tone which had never been addressed to him before, “are guilty of the deaths of the murdered and the murderers. Nevertheless, it is apparently impossible to punish them. Let them be happy, therefore—for it may not be long.”
“I do not know you in this mood,” said Père Joseph, sternly.
The Cardinal lifted his unfathomable and peculiar eyes to the other’s russet face, and they were very calm. “You never knew me, Joseph,” he replied.
He sent his own Captain, Bassompierre, alone, to the gates of La Rochelle, with a message for the Duchesse. “I weep with you, my dear old friend,” he had written. “Hold it not against my soul in the final judgment, that I have approved or ordered this thing.”
The Duchesse, sitting alone that night, held the note in her hand. She had never wept since her early childhood, not even at the deaths of those she dearly loved. She did not weep now, though her heart was like a wound, for she had already wept too much that day.
That day, she had ridden slowly through the desolate streets in her great gilt carriage. At every door where she saw the signs of mourning, she alighted, and without the assistance of footman or friend, she entered each house, her tiny majestic figure erect and quiet. She went in through the door like any humble townwoman, offering no platitudes, no exhortations, no pious consolations, no urgings to courage. She had stood with the mourners and had mingled her tears with theirs, in silence. “I have nothing to give you but my tears,’ she had said, over and over, in the final moments. Had the Cardinal heard this, he would have started, remembering another whom he could not console but with whom he could only weep.
The people received her apathetically at first, instinctively shrinking away from the expected words of noble hypocrisy. But when she merely extended her hands, and her tears ran down her face, they crept about her, knowing that she suffered as they suffered. She saw their pathetic faces. But where she had once seen slyness, fear and stupidity, she now saw the courage that only death can bring, a simple courage so noble that it broke her heart and inspired her soul.
Now she sat with the Cardinal’s note in her cold withered fingers, and looked at her cold fireplace. That haughty and imperial face was old and softened. There was a knock on her door, and her friend, Alphonse Champaigne, entered, a strong short man, once burly, but now completely emaciated. There were furrows on the face from the tears he had been shedding for his adored mistress. He knelt before her, and laid his clasped hands on her knees, imploringly.
“Madame la Duchesse,” he said, in his weak and failing voice, “I beg you to flee, either seaward where small boats may still make their passage, or landward, to the Cardinal who is your friend. He will receive you with kindness. Flee, before it is too late, and you have died with us.”
The Duchesse did not speak. Her expression did not change. In his fear, he began to speak with rising passion:
“Why does Madame remain? Who will be grateful? The canaille who would betray her eagerly, if it would save their cattle-hides? The canaille who would leave her to starve, so long as they had a crust of bread to satisfy their bellies? The canaille, who are the natural enemies of such as Madame? Who bear a natural hatred for her, and would destroy her for a centime? What loyalty does Madame hold to these? She has always despised them, with justification. Surely Madame will not remain with them?”
So weak from hunger and grief was she, that it took almost superhuman strength for her to turn her old stately head and speak to him, very gently, but absently:
“I have changed my mind.”
The man was astonished. He felt that she hardly addressed these words to him, but to herself. He wrinkled his exhausted brow.
“Then Madame has contemplated fleeing? I did not know this! But I rejoice. Let Madame consider again.”
But she only repeated: “I have changed my mind.”
This seemed heroic sacrifice to him. He did not comprehend.
Later, the fat, well-fed and sleek Feuquieres begged admittance to her to offer his condolences. She received him with a rigid but punctilious courtesy, as befitted one aristocrat to another. But strangely, as she looked at him, after he had sought permission to sit near her, her face changed as if with astounded horror and revelation. He, too, after she had listened to his condolences in silence, implored her to flee, to go to the Cardinal.
Then he saw a mysterious thing happen to that imperious countenance. It became the face of an old peasant woman, acquainted with the fields, acquainted with hunger and suffering and long patience. It was no longer the face and the eyes of the Duchesse de Rohan that were turned to him.
“Why should I flee?” she asked, and even the intonations of her voice had changed. “My sisters and my brothers cannot flee.”
After a long embarrassed moment of confusion, he offered to supply her with the rich viands of his own table, which were sent to him by the Cardinal. Now her eye lighted. “Bring me as much as you can spare,” she said. “My people are hungry. They are starving.”
He was not affronted, for he had seen her face. Huge baskets of food were brought three times a day to the Hôtel de Rohan, and the Duchesse took only a morsel. The rest was distributed among the people. The Cardinal remarked to Père Joseph that Feuquières seemed to have developed an enormous appetite lately. “Probably from comparison,” he said, wryly. “He demands enough for ten men.”
But as the summer wheeled towards winter, scores, hundreds, of the Rochellais died of starvation and disease in the streets and houses of the city. The animals of the city, the donkeys, the dogs, the cats, the horses, the doves, had long ago been devoured. The people ate rats when they could catch them. They stripped the trees of their green leaves; they dug up the grass that grew in the gutters, in the squares, between the paving stones. They boiled leather, harnesses and hats and belts. They picked among offal for scraps.
If possible, those of the Duchesse’s household, and her friends, ate less than the people themselves. Their misery was indescribable. But they did not complain, as the simpler people complained. They came to her table, to dine off gilt and silver plate on which reposed stews of grass, leaves, mice and rats, resplendently dressed as always, punctilious in their courtesy, deep in their bows, witty in their jests. Never had Madame’s remarks and epigrams been so dry and devastating, for she was of the old and noble Lusignan blood. The people were brave, but they whimpered. The Duchesse and her friends were brave. And they never whimpered. They might be too weak even for a laugh, and only smiled. Their bodies might be so shrunken and emaciated that their rich and splendid garments hung on them like clothing draped on sticks. Their voices might not be able to rise above a whisper. But they remained gallant and composed, if they had only a twinkle of a sunken eye to answer the Duchesse’s quips and naughty remarks.
Now only half of the Rochellais remained alive. The Duchesse visited them on foot. Her horses had been eaten by the people, the harness boiled. She walked proudly, even if she staggered, and had to support herself by touching the adjacent walls. But she visited constantly. If she had no smiles left for her friends, she had them for her people.
“Though we die,” she said to her household, “the world shall not forget this siege. It will remember. It will remember the enemy, and be fortified against him.”
Now more broadsheets were distributed among the Rochellais by the Catholics, and they had a genuine note of distress in them. “Frenchmen!” they implored. “Surrender. Our hearts are breaking for you. The massacre of your innocents was done by those already punished by our own hands. This shall not happen again. Open your gates to our bread, meat and wine, and your friends. We swear by all that is holy to us that we shall treat you only as brothers, and that nothing shall be taken from you but much given.”
The Duchesse read these broadsheets with darkened eyes and heavy heart. She went among the people. She would have had no blame for them, but only a sigh, if they were wavering, if they desired to s
urrender. But to her amazement, and her broken-hearted tears, she saw only fortitude, only resolution, in those dying and skeleton faces. They touched her garments, these fainting people, and gazed at her humbly. She returned to her hôtel, and broke into a wild storm of weeping. She fell on her knees. She dropped her old white head to the rich rug on her floors. She whispered: “Forgive me!”
But those who heard, in silence and astonishment, did not know for what she implored forgiveness.
CHAPTER LVI
To one of Arsène’s active and ardent temperament, the long slow torture of the besieged city resulted in apathetic despair, and a kind of frozen inertia. Though he was now the acknowledged leader of La Rochelle, he was compelled to force himself to listen with attention to complaints and suggestions. Slowly, he began to acquire a poisonous hatred and aversion even for his friends, and he looked upon their sunken and exhausted faces with a momentarily wild repulsion. He despised their patience, but even this despising had in it a sick weariness and indifference.
Once the Duchesse said to him reprovingly, after he had delivered himself of an incoherent and rebellious tirade: “What would you have us do? Sally forth and attack the Cardinal? We, who are starved and weakened, our defenders decimated? Our hope is from the sea. If it does not come—”
“If it does not come?” repeated Arsène, bitterly.
The Duchesse lifted her little hands in an eloquent gesture. She regarded Arsène in cool silence.
“We die, then, like rats,” continued Arsène, with that dark wrath which was so evident in him these days.
“Not an original remark,” said the Duchesse. She paused, then fixed her eyes sharply and piercingly on the desperate young man. “It did not occur to you, Arsène, to say: ‘We die, then, like men?’”
“It will not be hard for me to die,” Arsène said, after a somber moment, and after a slight flush had receded from his cheek. “But what of Cecile? My father?”
The Duchesse rose, and diminutive though she was, she appeared to tower over the other. She gazed at him with cold but passionate contempt. “Have they complained? It seems to me that they possess more fortitude than you, who profess to love them.” Then she softened, for she understood him so well. “It is action you desire, Monsieur. Take it, then. But it will accomplish nothing.”
She knew she had judged him aright, for his eye suddenly flamed, and the most malignant smile touched his lips. “A dead Catholic is a dead enemy,” he said. “It is true: I wish for revenge, retribution for the death of our innocents. Madame is willing?”
“You are the commander of La Rochelle,” replied the Duchesse, quietly. Her imperial face had paled, become very still. “Have you thought, in the event of your death, who would defend Cecile?”
“I shall not die!” cried Arsène, exultantly. All his inertia had vanished. Life came back to his lips and his eyes. His hand gripped his sword.
In her heart, the Duchesse was pleased. She had perceived Arsène’s wild disappointment at the lack of spirit among the body of the Rochellais. She had seen his disgust, which had dwindled to apathy with the disappointment. She said to herself: Disappointment because of the stupidity, ugliness and bestiality of men is very painful, but it is worse not even to feel the disappointment, and not to endure the pain of it. For such men as Arsène, too vehement, too exuberant and passionate, action was necessary. Waiting and patience were for the calm, for the disingenuous.
He went to the Spaniard, the German and the Italian, and hardly had he spoken hesitatingly, than they grasped his meaning and went mad with enthusiasm. They assured him that their followers would be delighted at the venture. Within less than two hours, five hundred men had kissed their swords, primed their pistols, gathered about Arsène. That night, there would be a foray. Now Arsène had calmer moments. This would not only be a raid of revenge. It would also be a raid on the food stores of the Cardinal’s camp.
He went to Cecile’s apartments the hour before the foray was intended. She lay supine and silent on her bed. He saw that she gazed at him quietly and sternly, as so often she gazed at him these days. He knelt beside her and lifted her hands to his lips. She felt a new vibrancy in him, a new excitement, and her poor aching heart was lifted.
He wondered if he dared tell her of the coming adventure. Cautiously, he began. The people were starving. She, herself, his beloved, was dying for lack of food. That night, he intended to obtain it.
She raised herself on her pillows, and under the pale and bloodless skin a bright color ran. She breathed hurriedly. She stared at him with unspeaking agitation, and her lashes were suddenly wet with tears. He misunderstood her. He exclaimed: “Certes, you do not disagree, ma cherie? You would not have me do nothing?”
“No. Oh, no!” she whispered, and drew his head to her breast. He heard the wild beating of her exhausted heart.
Never had he adored her so much, or loved her so profoundly. He could not embrace or kiss her enough. He thought: It is possible I shall never return. For a moment his courage dwindled. Who would protect her, then?
As if she understood his thought, she said. “You will return. I shall pray.”
He went to his father, but before he could speak the Marquis said: “I have a charm for you.” And from his purse, somewhat sheepishly, he withdrew a tiny ivory figurine which had come from China. It was grotesquely carved, the image of a little fat old man with a round grinning countenance and a smooth jovial belly. There was something more than a little obscene in the nakedness of the image, and its rolling posture, but something also of lusty merriment and ribald cynicism. Arsène, taking it, could not restrain himself from laughing aloud, and he felt much relief, for his spirit had become heavy upon leaving Cecile. The Marquis smiled.
“It is said that he who laughs remains untouched by death,” he said. “That is very subtle. I prefer to think, in this instance, that it has a less clever meaning, and one more practical. This image is very old; it has survived a thousand years, while many prettier and more lofty have been destroyed.”
Then he took Arsène’s face between his hands and kissed him gently on both cheeks. He could not speak again.
After Arsène had gone, the Marquis entered Cecile’s apartments. Calling upon the last morsel of her strength, she had arisen with the help of her women, had arrayed herself in a crimson velvet gown, and had seated herself near the great windows. There she had taken up her vigil. From her bemused and withdrawn expression, from the tears on her white cheeks, the Marquis knew that she had been praying.
He had never prayed in his life. The sight of others praying had made him feel excessively foolish and irritable, as at the sight of childish and meaningless exercises. But now he was touched beyond speech. He approached the girl and sat down beside her. Then he saw that she held a rosary in her hands, and that in her open palm the cross lay, limpid gold and glimmering.
The Popish symbol took the Marquis aback. The girl said, very softly: “It was given to me by the Abbé Mourion. Monsieur le Marquis has heard of him?”
“Yes. Arsène has told me,” replied the Marquis.
They both gazed in silence at the cross.
Then the girl spoke again, in a trembling voice: “He was such a good man. This came from his hands. When I hold it, so, I receive strength, as if he had sent me a message of courage and faith. Only an hour ago, I thought I heard his voice, so gentle and kind.”
After a long moment, the Marquis said in a peculiar tone: “I have always thought that the beloved objects of the good and the resolute partake of their qualities, that some mysterious essence is imparted to them. And, perversely, that the objects of the vicious and the malevolent retain their own poison. I have touched the relics of the wicked, and have sensed the vicious vibration that remains in them even after the centuries. Perhaps, in this rosary of the Abbé Mourion there is some virtue, some indestructible power for good. Perhaps Arsène ought to have carried it—”
At this, the girl began to smile. Her blue eyes lit up
. A faint dimple quivered at her lips. “I offered it to him, and he was aghast. He cried: ‘What if I were taken, and this were found upon me!’”
The Marquis burst out laughing, and Cecile joined him. But the Marquis noticed that her transparent fingers clung to the cross with an involuntary passion, as the fingers of the drowning clutch.
They found comfort in each other’s presence. They spent the night together at the windows, gazing out into the night, seeing the reflection of the candles on the dark glass and their own stained faces.
It was not until almost all the watchfires of the Cardinal’s camp had been extinguished that Arsène led his followers to the foray. They knew the gates were guarded not only from the inside, but the outside, by the Cardinal’s men. They dared not let their own sentinels know, for fear of traitors, or unwarranted excitement. They circled the city, and waited until the guards had moved away. It was a dark night, lit only by the spectral light of the crowding stars.
The wall loomed above them, thick and solid against the teeming sky. Some of the more agile swarmed on the shoulders of their companions, holding knives between their teeth, and fastened knotted ropes at the top. Then, so silently that not even a breath could be heard, the rest of the men swung themselves up the ropes, reached down helping hands, crouched at the top, then dropped the ropes on the other side. Some were delegated to remain at the wall to assist those who returned.
Now the soft thump of feet sounded on the dangerous and open side of the wall. The men lay where they fell for some moments, holding their breath. The watchfires near the marshes flickered and glowed redly in the black night. There was a faint sound of music, of far laughter. The figures of sentinels passed between the watchfires and the raiders. Slowly, now the latter crept on hands and knees to the far side of the watchfires. Once they passed so close to a group of guards that they could plainly hear their yawns, the exchange of an indecent story, and the subsequent hoarse laughter.