‘You’ve sworn to keep the secret on the Gospels,’ Madame de Bouville said. ‘But will you be able to keep it from this man? Will you have the face to live with your husband’ – she now agreed that Guccio was indeed graced with this quality – ‘and let him believe that he is the father of a child that does not belong to him? It’s a sin to conceal so grave a matter from one’s husband! And when we are able to make truth triumph and they come to fetch the King to place him on the throne, what will you say to him then? You are too honest a girl, and your blood too noble, to consent to so villainous a thing.’
Marie had been asking herself these questions over and over again every hour of her solitude. She had thought of nothing else; and they were driving her mad. But she knew the answer! She knew that, as soon as she was once more in Guccio’s arms, she would be able to keep nothing from him, not because ‘it was a sin’ as Madame de Bouville said, but because her love forbade her so atrocious a lie.
‘Guccio will understand me; Guccio will absolve me. He will realize that it happened without my willing it; he will help me bear this burden. Guccio will say nothing, Madame; I can swear it for him as for myself!’
‘One can only swear for oneself, my child. And a Lombard, what’s more; you can imagine how quiet he’ll keep about it! He’ll turn it to his advantage.’
‘Madame, you insult him!’
‘No, I’m not insulting him, my good girl. I know the world. You have sworn not to talk, even in the confessional. It’s the King of France you have in your keeping; and you will be relieved of your oath only when the time is ripe.’
‘I pray you, Madame, take the King back and relieve me.’
‘It was not I who gave him to you, it was the will of God. You have a sacred charge! Would you have betrayed our Lord the Christ if He had been given into your charge during the Massacre of the Innocents? That child must live. My husband must have you both under surveillance; you must be able to be found at any moment, and not go off to Avignon as I hear is proposed.’
‘I’ll get Guccio to agree to our living wherever you like; I assure you he won’t talk.’
‘He won’t talk because you will never see him again.’
The battle, interrupted by the little King’s feeding time, lasted the whole afternoon. The two women fought like two wild beasts in a cage. But little Madame de Bouville had the stronger teeth and claws.
‘What are you going to do with me then? Are you going to shut me up here for the rest of my life?’ Marie groaned.
‘I should like that well enough,’ thought Madame de Bouville. ‘But her husband’s due to arrive with a letter from the Pope …’
‘Supposing your family agree to take you back?’ she proposed. ‘I think Messire Hugues might succeed in persuading your brothers.’
To return to Cressay, to a hostile family, accompanied by a child who would be considered the child of sin, when of all the children of France he was the most worthy of honour! To renounce all, to be dumb, grow old, with nothing to hope for but the contemplation of a monstrous fate and the desperate destruction of a love that nothing should have impaired! So many shattered dreams!
Marie rebelled; once more she found the strength which, against law and family, had urged her into the arms of the man of her choice. She refused bluntly.
‘I shall see Guccio again, I shall belong to him, I shall live with him!’ she cried.
Madame de Bouville slowly tapped the arm of her chair.
‘You will never see this Guccio again,’ she replied. ‘For if he were to approach this convent, or any other refuge in which we may place you, if you spoke to him but for a single minute, that minute would be his last. My husband, as you know, is an active and redoubtable man when it is a question of safeguarding the King. If you insist on seeing this man again, you may succeed in doing so, but it will be with a misericord between his shoulders.’
Marie began to give way.
‘The child is enough,’ she murmured; ‘the father must not be killed too.’
‘It rests in your hands,’ said Madame de Bouville.
‘I did not know that at the Court of France people were so little sparing of others’ lives. There’s a fine Court, respected by the kingdom! I must tell you, Madame, that I hate you.’
‘You are unjust, Marie. My task is a heavy one and I am protecting you against yourself. You will write what I shall dictate to you.’
Beaten, helpless, her head aching and her eyes dim with tears, Marie painfully traced phrases she would never have believed herself capable of writing. The letter was to be taken to Tolomei in order that he should give it to his nephew.
She declared in it that she felt great shame and horror for the sin she had committed; that she wished to devote herself to the child who was its fruit and never more succumb to the sins of the flesh; and that she despised him who had urged her to them. She forbade Guccio ever to try to see her again, wherever she might be.
She wanted at least to add a final sentence: ‘I swear to you that I shall have no other man in my life but you, nor pledge my troth to another.’ Madame de Bouville refused to allow it.
‘He must not suppose that you still love him. Go on, sign, and give me the letter.’
Marie did not even see the little woman leave.
‘He’ll hate me, he’ll despise me, and he’ll never know that it was done to save his life!’ she thought, as she heard the convent door slam to.
8
Departures
THE ARRIVAL AT THE Manor of Cressay, the following morning, of a courier wearing the lily on his left sleeve and the royal arms embroidered on his collar created considerable excitement. He was treated with elaborate courtesy and the brothers Cressay, on the basis of a short note demanding their presence urgently at Vincennes, imagined themselves to be on the point of being given a command, a captaincy at least, or perhaps even a seneschalship.
‘It’s not in the least surprising,’ said Dame Eliabel; ‘they will have remembered our deserts and the services we have rendered the kingdom during the last three centuries. This new King gives me the impression that he knows where to find brave men! Go on, my sons; put on your best clothes and set off as soon as possible. There’s clearly some justice in this world, and it will be a consolation for the shame your sister has brought on us.’
She had not altogether recovered from the illness she had suffered in the summer. She was getting heavier, had lost her former activity, and no longer manifested her authority except by pestering her kitchenmaid. She had abandoned to her sons the management of the little estate, which was none the better for it.
The two brothers therefore set out, their heads filled with ambitious hopes. Pierre’s horse was roaring so loudly when they arrived at Vincennes that this seemed likely to be its last journey.
‘I have serious matters to discuss with you, my young sires,’ said Bouville by way of greeting.
And he had them served with spiced wine and sweets.
The two boys sat on the edge of their chairs like country bumpkins and hardly dared raise the silver goblets to their lips.
‘Ah, there’s the Queen going by,’ said Bouville. ‘She’s taking advantage of a rift in the clouds to take a breath of fresh air.’
The two brothers, their hearts beating, craned their necks to get a look at her through the green glass of the windows; they saw a white figure, in a great cloak, walking slowly and accompanied by several servants. They looked at each other and nodded their heads. They had seen the Queen.
‘It’s of your young sister I wish to speak with you,’ went on Bouville. ‘Would you be prepared to take her home? But you must know, in the first place, that she has been feeding the Queen’s child.’
And he explained to them, in as few words as possible, as much as it was necessary for them to know.
‘Oh, I’ve also got a good piece of news for you,’ he went on; ‘she does not wish to see that Italian who put her in the family way ever again. She is now aware of her
sin, and that a girl of noble blood cannot lower herself to become the wife of a Lombard, however good-looking he may be. For he’s a pleasing young man, it must be admitted, and intelligent …’
‘But he’s still only a Lombard,’ interrupted Madame de Bouville, who this time was present at the interview. ‘A man with no feudal links or loyalty, as indeed he has shown.’
Bouville lowered his head.
‘And now I’ve got to betray you too, friend Guccio, my charming travelling companion! Have I got to end my days denying all those who have been my friends?’ he thought. He fell silent, leaving it to his wife to conduct the negotiations.
The brothers were somewhat disappointed, particularly the elder. They had expected a miracle, and it was only a question of their sister. Was every single event in their lives to occur through her? They were almost jealous of her. Wet-nurse to the King! And such important personages as a Grand Chamberlain interested in her fate! Who would have thought it?
Madame de Bouville’s cackling left but little time for reflection.
‘The duty of a Christian’, said Madame de Bouville, ‘is to help a sinner to repentance. You must behave like proper gentlemen. Who knows whether it was not due to the Divine Will that your sister happened to be brought to bed at the right moment, though without great benefit, alas, since the little King is dead; but anyway she came to his rescue.’
Queen Clémence, to show her gratitude, was prepared to allow the wet-nurse’s child an income of five hundred livres a year from her dower. And, over and above, an outright gift of three hundred livres would be paid at once. The money was there, in an embroidered purse.
The two Cressay brothers were unable to conceal their excitement. It was a fortune falling from the skies; the means of rebuilding the curtain wall of their tumbledown manor; the certainty of enough food all the year round; and the prospect of being able at last to buy suits of armour and equip a few of their serfs as valets of arms, so as to make a good showing when the banners were summoned! They would make their names on the field of battle.32
‘Listen to me well,’ went on Madame de Bouville; ‘these gifts have been given to the child. If he were ill-treated or any misfortune should happen to him, the income would of course cease. Being the King’s foster-brother confers a distinction on him you must respect.’
‘Of course, of course I approve, since Marie repents,’ said the bearded brother, his eagerness apparent, ‘and since her repentance is conveyed to us by such high persons as yourselves, Messire, Madame. We must open our arms to her. The Queen’s protection effaces her sin. And let no one, either noble or villain, mock her in my presence, for I shall kill him.’
‘What about our mother?’ asked the younger brother.
‘I’ll convince her all right,’ replied Jean. ‘I’m the head of the family since the death of our father, and don’t let anyone forget it.’
‘And of course you will have to swear on the Gospels,’ went on Madame de Bouville, ‘neither to listen to nor repeat anything your sister may say of the things she has seen here, for these are Crown matters and must remain secret. In any case she has seen nothing; she has fed the child and that’s all! But your sister has a somewhat extravagant imagination, and is inclined to tell stories; she has certainly given you proof of it in the past. Hugues! Go and fetch the Gospels.’
With Holy Writ on one side of them, the purse of gold on the other, and the Queen passing in the garden, the brothers Cressay swore never to reveal anything concerning the death of King Jean I, to watch over, feed and protect their sister’s child, and to close their door to the man who had seduced her.
‘Oh, we swear it with all our hearts! Let him never appear again!’ cried the elder.
The other showed less conviction in his ingratitude. He could not help but think: ‘All the same, without Guccio …’
‘We shall, moreover, keep ourselves informed as to whether you are faithful to your oath,’ said Madame de Bouville.
She offered to go with the two brothers to the Convent of the Clarisses at once.
‘That’s giving you too much trouble, Madame,’ said Jean de Cressay; ‘we can go on our own.’
‘No, no, I must go. Without my orders the Mother Abbess will not let Marie go.’
The bearded brother’s expression turned gloomy. He was thinking.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Madame de Bouville. ‘Do you foresee any difficulty?’
‘The fact is, I should like first to buy a mule for our sister to ride.’
When Marie had been pregnant he had made her travel pillion from Neauphle to Paris; but now that she was making them rich he wanted her return to be more dignified. Besides, Dame Eliabel’s mule had died the previous month.
‘That’s of no importance,’ said Madame de Bouville; ‘we’ll give you one. Hugues! Go and have a mule saddled.’
Bouville accompanied his wife and the two Cressay brothers as far as the drawbridge.
‘I wish I were dead, and no longer had to lie and be afraid,’ thought the unhappy man, now thin and shivering, as he gazed out across the leafless forest.
‘Paris! Paris at last!’ thought Guccio Baglioni as he entered by the Porte Saint-Jacques.
Paris was sullen and cold; life, as always after the New Year festivities, seemed to have stopped, and more so than ever that particular January owing to the departure of the Court.
But the young traveller, returning after an absence of six months, did not notice the fog lying low over the roofs, or the few frozen passers-by; for him the town was sunlit with expectation, for the ‘Paris at last!’ which he repeated to himself over and over again, as if it were the happiest song in the world, meant: ‘At last I shall see Marie again!’
Guccio wore a fur coat and a cape of camel’s hair against the rain; at his belt he could feel the weight of a purse filled with good livres with the Pope’s mark in their corners; he was wearing a gallant hat of red felt turned up at the back and forming a long point above the forehead. It would have been impossible to have been better dressed to please. Nor would it have been possible to feel a greater eagerness for life.
In the courtyard in the Street of the Lombards he leapt from his horse and, throwing his leg which was still stiff from the accident in Marseilles, ran to cast himself into Tolomei’s arms.
‘My dear Uncle, my good Uncle! Have you seen my son, how is he? And Marie, has she come through it all right? What did she say to you? When is she expecting me?’
Without a word Tolomei handed him Marie de Cressay’s letter. Guccio read it twice, and then again. At the words ‘Know that I have a great loathing for my sin, and never wish to see again him who is the cause of my shame. I want to redeem myself from this dishonour …’ he cried: ‘It’s not true, it’s not possible! She cannot have written this herself!’
‘Isn’t it her writing?’ asked Tolomei.
‘Yes.’
The banker placed his hand on his nephew’s shoulder.
‘I would have warned you in time, had I been able,’ he said. ‘But I received this letter only the day before yesterday, after going to see Bouville.’
Guccio, his eyes fixed and determined, his teeth clenched, was not listening. He asked for the address of the convent.
‘The Faubourg Saint-Marcel? I’m going there,’ he said.
He sent for his horse, which had hardly been unsaddled, crossed the town once more, though scarcely seeing it now, and rang the bell at the door of the Clarisses. He was told that the Demoiselle de Cressay had left the day before, in company with two gentlemen of whom one wore a beard. Brandish the Pope’s seal, storm and bluster as he might, he could get no more information.
‘The Abbess! I demand to see the Mother Abbess!’ he cried.
‘Men may not enter the cloister.’
In the end they threatened to send for the sergeants of the watch.
Breathless, grey and drawn, Guccio returned to the Street of the Lombards.
‘It’s her brothers,
her idiot brothers, who have taken her back!’ he told Tolomei. ‘Oh, I’ve been away too long! That was a fine troth she pledged me, not to have lasted six months! These ladies of the nobility, so the romances say, wait ten years for their knight when he has gone on a crusade. But you don’t wait for a Lombard! That’s what it is, Uncle, that and nothing else. Read the letter again! There’s nothing in it but insults and contempt. They might have compelled her not to see me again, but not to give me a slap in the face like this … After all, Uncle, we are rich to the extent of tens of thousands of florins; the greatest barons come and implore us to pay their debts, the Pope himself took me for a counsellor during the whole Conclave, and now these country oafs dare spit on me from the height of their mud castle that could be knocked down with a shove of the shoulder! Those two mangy dogs have only to appear and their sister denies me. How wrong one can be to believe that a girl is different from her family!’ With Guccio sorrow quickly turned to anger and his innate pride helped him to fight despair. He had stopped loving, but not suffering.
‘I don’t understand it at all,’ said Tolomei, distressed. ‘She seemed so much in love, so happy to be yours. I would never have believed it possible. I now see why Bouville seemed so embarrassed the other day. He clearly knew something. But he must have warned the brothers after my visit. And yet, what with the letters she wrote me, I don’t understand it at all. Do you want me to see Bouville again?’
‘I don’t want anything, I don’t want anything any more!’ cried Guccio. ‘I’ve already too much importuned the great ones of the earth on behalf of that deceiving bitch. I even asked the Pope to protect her. In love, did you say? She merely cajoled you when she thought her own people would have no more to do with her and she saw no other recourse but us. And yet, we were really married! For though she was not lacking in impatience to give herself to me, she would not do so without a priest’s blessing. You tell me that she spent five days with Queen Clémence as wet-nurse! Her head must have been turned at filling an office any chambermaid might have held in her place. I too have been close to the Queen, and helped her in another way! During the storm I saved her.’