IX
Nanon, as usual, was surrounded by maps, letters and books. The poor woman was fighting the civil war on the royalist side in her own way. As soon as she saw Canolles, she reached out to him in delight.
‘The king is coming,’ she said. ‘In a week, we shall be out of danger.’
‘He keeps on coming,’ said Canolles, smiling sadly. ‘Unfortunately, he never arrives.’
‘Ah, this time I’m well informed, dear Baron, and he’ll be here within a week.’
‘However much he hurries, Nanon, he’ll still be too late for us.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m telling you that instead of getting excited about those maps and papers, you would do better to think about ways to escape.’
‘Escape? Why?’
‘Because I have bad news, Nanon. They are preparing for a new assault. This time, I might go under.’
‘Very well, my dear: aren’t we agreed that your fate is mine, and your fortune mine?’
‘No, that cannot be. I should be too weak if I had to fear for you. Did they not try to burn you in Agen? Did they not try to throw you in the river? Listen, Nanon, for my sake, don’t insist on staying. If you were here, I might do something cowardly.’
‘Canolles, you are frightening me.’
‘I beg you, Nanon, swear to me that if I am attacked, you will do what I order.’
‘Good Lord! What use would such an oath be?’
‘It would give me the strength to go on living. If you do not promise to obey me blindly, I swear that I shall have myself killed at the first opportunity.’
‘Whatever you want, Canolles, everything, I swear it by our love.’
‘Thank God! Now I can rest easy, Nanon. Collect up your most precious jewels. Where is your gold?’
‘In a tub with an iron band around it.’
‘Get that ready, so that all of it can be taken with you.’
‘Canolles, you know that the real treasure of my heart is not my gold or my jewels. I hope all this is not just to send me away from you?’
‘You know me for a man of honour, Nanon, don’t you? Well, on my honour: everything that I am doing here is from fear of the danger to you.’
‘Do you truly think I am in danger?’
‘I believe that the Ile Saint-Georges will be captured tomorrow.’
‘How?’
‘I have no idea, but I do believe it.’
‘And if I agree to escape?’
‘I shall do everything I can to stay alive, I swear.’
‘You order, my dear, and I shall obey,’ said Nanon, giving Canolles her hand and, in the warmth of his look, forgetting two large tears that were running down her cheeks.
Canolles pressed Nanon’s hand and left the room. If he had stayed a moment longer, he would have picked up these two pearls with his lips, but he put a hand on the viscountess’s letter and, like a talisman, it gave him the strength to leave.
The day was hard. That emphatic threat: ‘Tomorrow, the Ile Saint-Georges will be captured’, constantly rang in Canolles’s ears. How? By what means? What made the viscountess certain enough for her to talk in that way? Would it be attacked from the water? From the ground? From what unknown direction would this invisible, yet certain misfortune strike?
Throughout the day, Canolles burned his eyes against the sun, looking for enemies everywhere. In the evening, he wore his eyes out peering into the depths of the wood, across the plain and around the bends of the river. It was all in vain: he could see nothing.
When night came, a wing of the Château de Cambes was lit up: this was the first time that Canolles had seen any light there since he had come to Saint-Georges. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Those are Nanon’s saviours at their post.’ And he gave a deep sigh.
What a strange, mysterious enigma is that of the human heart! Canolles no longer loved Nanon, Canolles adored Madame de Cambes, and yet at the moment of separating from the woman whom he no longer loved, Canolles felt his heart break… It was only when he was far from her or about to leave her that he realized the true force of what he felt for this delightful woman.
The whole garrison was up and watching on the ramparts. Canolles, weary with looking, listened to the silence of the night. Never had darkness been more empty of noise or seemed more lonely. No sound disturbed a calm which was like that of the desert.
Suddenly, it struck Canolles that it might be through the same underground passage he had recently examined that the enemy would enter the fortress. This was unlikely, since if it were the case, he would not have been warned, but he resolved to guard the tunnel nonetheless. He had a barrel of gunpowder made ready with a fuse, chose the bravest of his sergeants, rolled the barrel to the top step of the tunnel, lit a torch and put it in the sergeant’s hand. Two other men were stationed close by.
‘If more than six men appear in this tunnel,’ he told the sergeant, ‘order them to withdraw, and, if they refuse, light the fuse and set the barrel rolling. Since the tunnel slopes downwards, it will explode among them.’
The sergeant took the torch, while the two soldiers stood motionless behind him, lit by its reddish glow, with the barrel containing the gunpowder at their feet.
Canolles returned, feeling calm, at least where this was concerned. But when he reached his room, he found Nanon, who had seen him come down from the ramparts and return to his room, and had followed him in case there was news. She was staring in terror at this unexpected, gaping hole.
‘My God!’ she asked. ‘What is this door?’
‘The door of the tunnel through which you will escape, Nanon.’
‘You promised me only to insist that I left you if there was an attack.’
‘I still promise that.’
‘Everything around the island seems very quiet, dear.’
‘And everything seems very quiet inside too, doesn’t it? Well, despite that, only twenty yards from us there is a barrel of gunpowder, a man and a torch. If the man put the torch to the barrel, a second later not a stone in the fortress would be left standing on another. That’s how quiet everything is, Nanon!’
The blood drained from the young woman’s face.
‘You’re making me shudder,’ she said.
‘Call your women,’ said Canolles. ‘Tell them to come here with your boxes. Get your valet to bring your money here. I may be wrong: perhaps nothing will happen tonight. No matter, let’s be prepared.’
‘Who goes there?’ shouted the voice of the sergeant in the tunnel.
Another voice replied, but not in a hostile tone.
‘Here,’ said Canolles. ‘Someone has come to fetch you.’
‘We’re not under attack yet, my dear. Everything is calm. Keep me beside you, they are not coming.’
As Nanon was saying this, the shout of ‘Who goes there?’ resounded three times in the inner courtyard, and the third time was followed by the sound of a musket shot.
Canolles ran to the window and opened it.
‘To arms!’ the sentry cried. ‘To arms!’
In a corner of the courtyard, Canolles saw a black, moving mass: it was the enemy, streaming out of a low, arched door, which opened into a cellar that served as a wood store. No doubt, there was some unknown entrance in this cellar as there was at the head of Canolles’s bed.
‘There they are!’ Canolles shouted. ‘Hurry up! There they are!’
At the same moment, some twenty shots replied to the one that the sentry had fired. Two or three musket balls broke the window as Canolles was shutting it. He turned round to see Nanon on her knees, and the women and her manservant running into the room.
‘There’s not a moment to lose,’ Canolles cried. ‘Come! Come!’
He picked the young woman up in his arms, as though he were picking up a feather, and plunged into the tunnel, shouting to Nanon’s servants to follow.
The sergeant was at his post, his torch in hand, while the two soldiers were standing by with their muskets primed,
ready to fire on a group in the midst of which, pale-faced and making many protestations of friendship, was our old friend, Pompée.
‘Ah, Monsieur de Canolles!’ he cried. ‘Tell them that we are the people you were expecting. By all that’s wonderful! These are not the sort of jokes to play on one’s friends.’
‘Pompée,’ said Canolles. ‘Take care of Madame. Someone you know gave me a guarantee on her honour. And you will answer to me for her with your life.’
‘Yes, yes, I promise,’ said Pompée.
‘Canolles, Canolles! I won’t leave you!’ Nanon cried, clasping him around the neck. ‘Canolles, you promised to follow me.’
‘I promised to defend the fortress of Saint-Georges as long as a stone remained standing, and I shall keep that promise.’
And, despite Nanon’s cries, tears and entreaties, Canolles handed her over to Pompée, who, assisted by two or three servants of Madame de Cambes and some of the fugitive’s own people, led her into the depths of the tunnel.
Canolles looked after this sweet, white ghost for a moment as it disappeared, still holding out its hands to him. But suddenly he recalled that he was expected elsewhere and ran to the staircase, calling out to the sergeant and the two soldiers to follow him.
Vibrac was in the room, hatless, pale and holding a sword in his hand. ‘Commander!’ he shouted, seeing Canolles. ‘The enemy… the enemy!’
‘I know.’
‘What can we do?’
‘Huh! That’s a fine question! Get ourselves killed.’
Canolles rushed into the courtyard. As he went, he noticed a miner’s axe and grabbed it.
The courtyard was full of the enemy: sixty soldiers of the garrison, standing together, were trying to defend the door of Canolles’s apartments. From the ramparts, you could hear cries and shots, indicating that the battle was raging everywhere.
‘The commander! The commander!’ the soldiers cried, when they saw Canolles.
‘Yes!’ he replied. ‘The commander, who is going to die with you! Courage! They attacked treacherously, because they could not defeat you.’
‘All’s fair in war,’ said Ravailly’s mocking voice: with his arm in a sling, he was rallying his men to capture Canolles. ‘Give up, Canolles, give up. You’ll be well treated.’
‘Ah, it’s you, Ravailly,’ Canolles shouted. ‘I thought I’d paid my debt of friendship to you. You’re not satisfied? Well, just wait.’
And Canolles, leaping five or six paces forward, threw the axe he was holding at Ravailly with such force that it struck an officer of the townspeople who was standing next to the captain of Navailles, splitting his helmet and his gorget and killing him on the spot.
‘Damn!’ said Ravailly. ‘That’s how you reply to our courtesies. Though I ought to be used to your manners. My friends, he is rabid. Fire at him! fire!’
On this order, a powerful burst of fire came from the enemy ranks, and five or six men fell next to Canolles.
‘Fire!’ he cried in turn. ‘Fire!’
However, barely three or four musket shots replied. Surprised at the moment when they were least expecting it, and disturbed by the dark, Canolles’s men were losing heart.
Canolles saw that there was nothing to be done. ‘Go back,’ he told Vibrac. ‘And take your men inside. We’ll barricade ourselves and only surrender when they have taken us by assault.’
‘Fire!’ repeated two other voices – those of d’Espagnet and La Rochefoucauld. ‘Remember your dead comrades who demand revenge. Fire!’
And the hail of musket balls came whistling again around Canolles, without hitting him, but once more decimating his little troop.
‘Withdraw!’ Vibrac said. ‘Withdraw!’
‘Have at them!’ yelled Ravailly. ‘Forward, my friends, forward!’
The enemy plunged forward. Canolles, with about ten men at the most, withstood the onslaught. He had picked up a gun from a dead soldier and was using it as a club.
His companions went inside, and he was the last to follow them, with Vibrac. Both men braced themselves against the door and managed to close it, despite the efforts of the assailants, before shutting it with a huge iron bar.
There were grilles over the windows.
‘Axes, levers, cannon if necessary!’ cried the voice of the Duke de La Rochefoucauld. ‘We must take them all, dead or alive!’
A frightful burst of gunfire followed these words. Two or three balls got through the door, and one smashed Vibrac’s thigh.
‘Commander,’ he said, ‘I’ve had my day. Now see what you can do for yours. It’s not my business any more.’ And he slumped down beside the wall, unable to stand.
Canolles looked round. A dozen men were still able to defend themselves, among them the sergeant whom he had put in charge of the tunnel.
‘The torch,’ he said. ‘What did you do with the torch?’
‘Why, Commander, I dropped it near the barrel.’
‘Is it still alight?’
‘Probably.’
‘Good. Take these men out through the back doors and windows. Get the best terms you can for them. The rest is up to me.’
‘But, Commander…’
‘Do as I say.’
The sergeant bowed his head and signalled to his men to follow him. They all went out through the back rooms, having understood what Canolles meant to do, and not wishing to be blown up with him.
For a moment, Canolles listened. The door was being broken in with axes, though this did not stop the gunfire which was directed aimlessly at the windows, behind which the besieged men were assumed to be hiding.
Suddenly, a great roar announced that the door had given way, and Canolles heard the crowd rushing into the castle with cries of joy. ‘Very well,’ he thought. ‘In five minutes those cries of joy will be shouts of despair.’ And he hurried into the tunnel.
But there was a young man sitting on the barrel, with the torch at his feet, his head resting in both hands. At the noise, this young man looked up, and Canolles recognized Madame de Cambes.
‘Ah, here he is at last!’ she exclaimed.
‘Claire!’ Canolles said. ‘What do you want here?’
‘To die with you, if you want to die.’
‘I am dishonoured, lost, I must die.’
‘You are saved and glorious! Saved by me!’
‘Lost by you! Can you hear them? They are coming, they are here. Claire, you must escape, through this tunnel. You have five minutes. That’s more than you need.’
‘I am not going to escape. I’m staying here.’
‘But do you know why I have come down here? Do you know what I am going to do?’
Madame de Cambes picked up the torch and took it over to the barrel of gunpowder.
‘I can guess,’ she said.
‘Claire,’ Canolles said in horror. ‘Claire!’
‘Tell me again that you want to die, and we shall die together.’
The viscountess’s pale face showed such resolve that Canolles realized she would keep to her word. He stopped.
‘But what do you want?’ he asked
‘I want you to give up.’
‘Never!’ Canolles exclaimed.
‘We have not got much time,’ the viscountess continued. ‘Give up. I offer you life, I offer you honour, since I give you the excuse of treason.’
‘Let me flee, then. I shall go and lay my sword at the king’s feet and ask him for the opportunity to take my revenge.’
‘You would not flee.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I cannot live in this way… because I cannot live apart from you… because I love you.’
‘I surrender, I surrender!’ Canolles cried, falling at Madame de Cambes’s feet and casting away the torch that she had been holding.
‘Oh,’ said the viscountess to herself. ‘This time I have him, and no one will take him from me again.’
There is a strange phenomenon, which can nonetheless be explained, which means that lo
ve could act in such a different way on these two women.
Madame de Cambes, reserved, soft and shy, had become determined, bold and strong.
Nanon – capricious and wilful – had become shy, soft and reserved.
This is because Madame de Cambes increasingly felt herself loved by Canolles.
And because Nanon realized that every day Canolles’s love for her was fading.
X
The second entry of the princes’ armies into Bordeaux was very different from the first. This time, there were laurels for everyone, even for the defeated.
With tact and delicacy, Madame de Cambes had granted a fair share of them to Canolles, who, as soon as he had broken through the barrier beside his friend, Ravailly, whom he had nearly killed for the second time, was surrounded like a great captain and congratulated like a gallant soldier.
Those defeated two days earlier, especially those who had taken a few knocks in the battle, had conceived a certain measure of resentment against their conqueror, but Canolles was so good, so fine and so simple, he bore his present situation with such good humour and such dignity, he had been supported by a retinue of such eager and considerate friends, and the officers and soldiers of the regiment of Navailles praised him so highly as their captain and as Governor of the Ile Saint-Georges, that the Bordeaux men soon forgot. In any case, they had a lot else to think about.
Monsieur de Bouillon was coming the next day or the one after, and the most reliable news reported that, in a week at the latest, the king would be at Libourne.
Madame de Condé was dying to see Canolles. At her window, hidden behind the curtain, she watched him go by and found that he had an altogether triumphal appearance, which corresponded perfectly to the reputation that both friends and enemies had given him.
Madame de Tourville, differing from the opinion of the princess, claimed that he was lacking in distinction. Lenet stated that he considered him an honourable gentleman, and La Rochefoucauld merely said: ‘Ah, so this is the hero!’
Canolles was given rooms in the great fortress of the town, the Château-Trompette.7 By day, he was quite free to wander around the town, conduct his business or indulge his pleasure. At curfew, he went back indoors: all on his word of honour that he would not try to escape and not correspond with anyone outside.