“And yet that’s where the pain is,” observed my father.
“The pain,” corrected Monsieur de Lascaux, obviously irritated at this interruption, “comes from the vitriolic vapours and exhalations which are ascending to the brain from all parts of the body.”
After a moment my father said, “It is thus your opinion, Monsieur, that it’s a case of epilepsy. And yet the patient has never fallen.”
“She will,” opined Monsieur de Lascaux.
“She displays neither stiffening nor convulsions nor any shortness of breath.”
“She will,” said Monsieur de Lascaux. There was a long and awkward silence.
“And what cure do you recommend?” Jean de Siorac asked.
“Frequent bleeding,” replied Monsieur de Lascaux, rising and making a deep bow to my father, for he knew all too well how opposed my father was to this sovereign remedy. But my father did not say a word and, rising in his turn, he politely walked Monsieur de Lascaux out to his carriage, the two aides following at a distance, their arms drooped at their sides, their minds blank and mute as portraits.
“Well,” Sauveterre said, limping into the courtyard after my father and keeping his voice low so the servants would not hear, “what did you get from this consultation?”
“Lots of straw and little grain. A nice speech. A fallacious diagnosis. And an imbecilic cure.”
“Good money thrown away…”
“True enough! But I had to!” replied my father irritably, and, with me at his heels, he walked brusquely away towards the library.
“Father,” I said, my throat in a knot, “what is your view of this sickness?”
My father looked at me, astonished at my emotion, but careful not to say anything about it, whatever he may have thought. “My son,” he said, “the only remedy for ignorance is knowledge, not talk. Pedants, like the ravens on our tower, love to crow about things they know nothing about. But what is such vain crowing to us? We hunger for truth. If I could only open her skull without the poor thing dying, I could learn the cause of her suffering. What I do know is that the sickness is inside her head and only in her head, for the rest of her body is healthy and her vital functions still unimpaired.”
“Father, is it possible it’s the nerve alone that’s disturbed?”
I asked this question in such a strangled voice that my father stared at me, then after he’d considered me for a moment, he said, unable to hide his feelings, “In truth, I fear it is some terrible damage to the meninges. Possibly an abscess.”
“An abscess!” I cried. “But how could it ever drain since it’s covered by the skull?”
“There’s the rub,” my father said. “You’ve put your finger on it.”
“Is there no cure?” I asked, my voice trembling. My father shook his head.
“If it is what I think it is, then there is no remedy. All I will be able to do, when the poor girl’s suffering gets unbearable, is to give her some opium.”
I pretended that Cabusse was waiting for me in the fencing room, and, with a brief bow, I left as quickly as I could so that he wouldn’t see my tears. In the corridor leading to the fencing room I ran into François, who was returning from his lesson and who, as he passed me, raised his head haughtily and, without looking at me or appearing to address me, uttered between his teeth: “What a lot of trouble for that little slut.”
He was already past me, so I ran after him and, seizing his arm roughly, pulled him around to face me and, my eyes still brimming with tears, yet furious, I screamed: “What did you say, knave?”
“N-nothing,” he replied, turning pale and casting an anxious look about him, for we were alone and entirely out of earshot in a long, dark and damp vaulted passageway, lit only by small barred windows overlooking the moat.
I repeated my question, shaking him with both hands, gnashing my teeth and burning with an overwhelming desire to strike him like iron on an anvil.
“I was merely talking to myself,” he stammered, quite undone, realizing that in this lonely spot he could expect no help. I suddenly realized that, though we were the same size, and though he was not a weakling and was a good rider and swordsman, he’d never been able to get over the fear I had aroused in him when I’d beaten him up at the age of six. Fear and hatred existed side by side in him, one feeding on the other, both stewed to boiling point from such long resentment. It was clear I wouldn’t be a frequent guest at Mespech when he was baron!
“My brother,” I said with a menacing politeness, “did you not just now pronounce the word ‘slut’?”
“No indeed!” he lied, his upper lip trembling.
“Well then, be very sure not to pronounce the word, lest you incur my wrath. And now, be on your way, Monsieur!” And as he set off without a word, I followed him silently for a few paces and then administered him a sudden kick in the arse. He spun around.
“But you’ve struck me!” he sputtered in indignation.
“No indeed!” I replied. “You didn’t pronounce the word ‘slut’, and I didn’t strike you. Let us leave it at this double mistake.”
Camped in front of him, my chin raised and my hands on my hips, I glowered at him. He gave me a nasty look and I thought for a second that he was going to light into me, but his excessive prudence (a virtue he’d inherited neither from my father nor from Isabelle) kept him at bay. He preferred to bottle up his complaint and to store it carefully away in his great chest of bitterness rather than suddenly purge it in an explosion of rage. Without a word, ashen with barely contained fury, he turned on his heels, leaving me the shreds of his honour.
I realized how wise my father had been to forbid us to wear sword or dagger within the walls of Mespech, for François’s vile insult had me beside myself with wrath and, had I possessed a weapon, I surely would have unsheathed it. After François had left, I thought about it a great deal. Master of the field, having vanquished and humiliated him, I was still uncontrollably angry, and I dreamt of blood and wounds to purge the insult he’d directed at my poor Hélix.
I leant against the wall of the arched passageway, and, when my mad fury had finally passed, I felt weak and unhappy, a knot gripping my throat, breath coming so short that I could hardly stand. And yet I did not cry, but contemplated my solitude stretching out before me as long and sad as this dark passageway and damp walls. For I was now sure that little Hélix would die slowly but surely right before my eyes over an unbearably long time.
The day after Monsieur de Lascaux’s visit, as if to give the lie to this terrible unhappiness and to my father’s hopeless diagnosis, little Hélix suddenly recovered her usual strength and gaiety, if not her colour. Though still of pallid and unhealthy complexion, her terrible headache seemed to have subsided along with the dizzy spells and troubled vision. Barberine, rejoicing in this improvement, broadcast throughout Mespech what a great and marvellous physician Monsieur de Lascaux was, since he’d completely cured her without administering any remedy other than touching various parts of her body with his black-gloved hands.
And seeing her health returning, I pardoned my elder brother François. Meeting him alone in the vaulted passageway that led to the fencing room, I stopped and presented him with a confused apology for having struck him. He listened coldly, and just as icily told me that he regretted the language he’d used, but that I must excuse him for his worry that I was stooping too low in my attachments. The apology was, of course, almost worse than the insult, but I accepted it without raising an eyebrow, saluted my brother and went on my way. I understood that François both despised and envied me for having preferred a close and vulgar affection to his noble and inaccessible love.
On 14th June, the very day Lascaux, followed by his two attendants, had made his grandiose consultation at Mespech, Catherine de’ Medici and the king convened with their daughter and sister, Élisabeth de Valois, queen of Spain. At this meeting in Bayonne, arranged well in advance, Élisabeth was accompanied by the Duque de Alba, Felipe II’s most trusted
advisor.
Huguenots throughout the kingdom reacted tumultuously to the awful and threatening news of the Bayonne meeting, all the more so since it took place in secret, without a single Huguenot among the French, who were represented by the constable, Henri de Guise (the son of the assassinated duc), the Cardinal de Bourbon, Montpensier and Bourdillon, all zealous Catholics little inclined to conciliation.
Thus was the reason—or at least the ultimate goal—of the royal cavalcade across the entire length of France finally revealed: a meeting on the Spanish frontier between the French king and the avowed enemy of our faith.
This meeting had been requested, nay insistently beseeched, of Felipe II by Catherine de’ Medici. A woman whose great energy vastly exceeded her wisdom, Catherine remained entirely wedded to her family interests, preferring them, when necessary, to the needs of the kingdom. Now it seemed that the “shop lady”, as her enemies called her, was obsessed with the desire to make princely marriages for her children. She was ready to unite her most cherished son, Henri d’Orléans (the future Henri III) to Felipe II’s recently widowed sister, Doña Juana, on condition that Felipe cede to his sister some part of his extensive empire as dowry. As for Catherine’s daughter, Marguerite de Valois, then twelve years old, the queen mother sought the hand of Felipe’s son, Don Carlos, though he was known throughout Spain as a “half-man”, unable as yet “to prove his virility”.
On 2nd August, a month after the Bayonne meetings, the principal Protestant lords of the Sarlat region, still greatly alarmed, met at Mespech. Armand de Gontaut Saint-Geniès, Foucaud de Saint-Astier, Geoffroy de Baynac, Jean de Foucauld and Geoffroy de Caumont arrived separately, under the cover of darkness and in the greatest secrecy. Our entire household had been sent off to bed and Escorgol had even been sent to the le Breuil farm on some business or other and replaced in the gatehouse by the utterly loyal Alazaïs.
François, Samson and I were permitted to attend this meeting, which took place in the library. I was deeply impressed by the sombre faces of these men who were normally so self-assured and confident of their fortunes, yet now seemed quite uneasy, wondering aloud if their fellow religionaries weren’t going to pay dearly for the secret transactions between Felipe II and the Florentine. It was well known that Catherine had no heart and less conscience, and that Felipe had already drowned the Reformation in blood in his own kingdom and aspired only to exterminate it among his neighbours.
Of the five Protestant lords present (not counting the Brethren), Caumont and Saint-Geniès appeared to be the best informed, perhaps because they had spent the most time with the royal cavalcade and had successfully gleaned some information there. I noticed as well that everyone spoke with infinite circumspection, as if our very walls had ears, and used biblical code names which it took me a while to master: Catherine de’ Medici became Jezebel; the Duque de Alba Holofernes; Henri de Navarre David; and Admiral de Coligny Elijah.
“I have it on good authority,” Caumont began, “that David heard Holofernes telling some French lords in the conference room one day that they would have to ‘get rid of five or six leaders’ of our party.”
“Did he name them?” asked my father.
“Yes. They included Elijah and his two brothers, d’Andelot and Odet de Châtillon as well as the prince himself. One of the Frenchmen pointed out to Holofernes that the mass of reformers should all be punished. To which Holofernes replied, clearly indicating Elijah: ‘A good salmon is worth a hundred frogs.’”
“Have you any idea,” my father asked, “what Holofernes wanted from Jezebel?”
“I think so,” replied Saint-Geniès. “First of all, France’s acceptance of the Council of Trent.”
“But this doesn’t depend entirely on Jezebel or even on her son,” Geoffroy de Baynac argued, “but rather on parliament and also on the French Church, which is quite hostile, as everyone knows, to this council which has given the Pope extensive powers he’d never previously enjoyed over the French Church and the French king.”
“And in the second place,” continued Saint-Geniès, “Holofernes wants the revocation of the Edict of Amboise.”
“Or what’s left of it,” mused Sauveterre bitterly, Jezebel having eaten away at it already for some time.
“And thirdly,” said Saint-Geniès, “what Caumont just said: the death of the salmon and all other fish of the same size. After these assassinations, the frogs would be given three options: convert, go into exile or risk the stake. Either of the second choices would entail confiscation of all their property.”
A lugubrious silence followed this announcement, during which each doubtless imagined the worst: being forced to leave for ever his beautiful chateau, his lands, his servants, his tenant farmers and his villages.
“And what was Jezebel’s answer to all this?” asked my father.
“The shop lady was ready to do business,” Saint-Geniès spat out bitterly. “In short: ‘Give your sister and your son to my children and we’ll give the knife to the Protestants.”’
“She’d sell us all!” cried my father. “And what did Holofernes say?”
“‘This is not an honourable trade, Madame.’”
“As indeed it is not!” said Sauveterre.
“‘The Catholic king,’ Holofernes is said to have added with his Spanish arrogance, ‘wants to know whether or not you are ready to remedy this problem of religion.’”
“I admire his way of expressing himself!” said my father. “Exterminating half of the population is called, in this bloody diplomacy, ‘remedying this problem of religion’. And how did Jezebel respond when presented with this rebuff and this ultimatum?”
“With vague and uncertain promises, coupled with protests, caresses and infinite respects for Holofernes’s master, whom she called ‘my son’, and who couldn’t even be bothered to meet her in Bayonne.”
“She’s a snake grovelling in the dust at her Spanish master’s feet,” snarled Caumont, “and yet there’s no question of any marriage between her dear little son and Doña Juana, nor between Marguerite and Don Carlos. I’m told on good authority that Holofernes sent Jezebel a categorical refusal of any such union.”
Another long silence followed these words as the gentlemen breathed a modest sigh of relief through their anger and worry. This new mood did not escape my father’s notice, for he said, a little hastily I thought: “And yet we must be on our guard and not reassure ourselves too easily. If Holofernes’s refusal of these marriage proposals gives us some respite, this respite doesn’t remove the sword hanging over our heads. It’s still there, and can be swayed by any breeze that blows through the mind of this woman. It will hang there day and night, winter and summer and only Jezebel’s whim will determine whether the thread will be cut or no.”
He paused, and then continued gravely: “My friends, it is time to decide firmly and forthrightly to arm our allies throughout the province, to fortify our positions and to create a union among them strong enough so that no one can be attacked without the others coming to his defence.”
I was greatly troubled by my father’s words, for, as long as I’d had any understanding of these matters, I knew him to be a Huguenot loyalist, who had refused during the civil wars to join Condé’s camp. Now he was proposing to his peers to “arm and fortify themselves” against royal power. And thinking more about it as I lay in bed that night beside the sleeping Samson, I realized with trepidation that the danger threatening our people must be immense and quite imminent for my father to have changed his position to such a degree.
On the fifteenth day of March 1566, a few days before my fifteenth birthday, little Hélix’s suffering became unbearable, just as my father had predicted, and he administered small doses of opium to her. Still, her moans and cries increased in intensity and frequency, and we installed her in a small room on the ground floor. We also put in a bed for Barberine, but in fact I was the one to occupy it, justifying my presence there by my future profession and by the fact that since
Barberine slept so soundly that a cannon blast wouldn’t wake her, her presence at night was of but little help.
My poor Hélix had grown excessively thin and had fallen into such an extreme state of cachexia that she weighed no more than a shadow. I felt this especially when I took her in my arms to carry her into the common room when her sickness gave her some respite. It seemed that everything was going at once, her flesh, her musculature, her nerves and the vital elements that circulated in them. For she grew weaker as she grew thinner, and daily seemed more detached from life, requesting less and less frequently to be carried in to be with the others. This came almost as a relief, since every time I picked her up I was devastated by how much lighter she felt in my arms and I could scarcely hide my anguish in her presence. Worse still, when she was settled in a chair, covered to her neck (her emaciation and running fever having made her quite susceptible to cold), I noticed, in contrast to the ruddy faces, loud voices and vigorous gestures of those around her, how pale and angular her face had become, how weak her voice and how languid her poor skeletal arms.
I spent as much time with her as I could. Until the fateful day that death shall take me, I shall never forget the marvellous love that would suddenly illuminate her mournful eye when I would appear in the doorway. But it was but a flash, for she was too weakened to maintain this light. She seemed comfortable in this little room, especially when she was first moved there and still spoke of getting well and cared about her body. “Oh Pierre, when I shall be on my feet again, you won’t care about me any more. I’ll be too ugly. I’ll have a neck like a chicken, hollow shoulders and breasts as flat as my hand.”
“You’ll fatten up, Hélix. As soon as your pain stops, flesh will grow back under your skin, all beautiful and firm again, just like Franchou, whom you envy so.”
“But when, when, when?” she said so plaintively that my heart was like to break. “I’m so tired by this long and painful convalescence. It’s nearly two years since I’ve run about the courtyard in Mespech. And I think that if I ever get well, it’ll be too late and you’ll have already left to become a doctor in Montpellier.”