‘Yes.’
‘Well, go on then.’
‘Do you pray sometimes?’ Cauvignac asked.
‘Yes,’ Canolles replied.
‘Well, when you pray, say a word for me.’ And turning to the jailer, who seemed increasingly impatient, he said: ‘I am the brother of Nanon de Lartigues. Come, friend…’
The jailer did not wait to be asked twice and quickly led out Cauvignac, who gave a last wave to Canolles at the door of the cell.
Then that door closed, and their footsteps faded along the corridor. Everything returned to a silence that seemed to the remaining prisoner like the silence of death.
Canolles remained deeply sunk in a feeling of sadness that was close to terror. This manner of taking away a man, at night, silently, with no ceremony, with no guards, was more frightening than the preparations for an execution in the full light of day. Yet all Canolles’s fear was for his companion: his confidence in Madame de Cambes was so great that, since seeing her, despite the dreadful news that she had brought, he had no further fear for himself.
So the only thing really on his mind at that moment was the fate of the companion who had just been taken away from him. And then he recalled Cauvignac’s last request. He went down on his knees and prayed. A short while after, feeling consoled and strengthened, he got up, expecting only one thing: the arrival of the help promised by Madame de Cambes, or her own arrival.
Meanwhile, Cauvignac was following the jailer down the dark corridor, saying nothing and thinking as seriously as he could.
At the end of the corridor, the jailer shut the door as carefully as he had that on Canolles’s cell, and, after listening to some vague sounds coming up from the floor below, he turned sharply back to Cauvignac and said: ‘Come on! Off we go, good sir.’
‘I am ready,’ said Cauvignac, quite loftily.
‘Don’t shout so loudly,’ said the jailer. ‘And walk faster.’ He led them down a passage leading to the underground dungeons.
‘Ho, ho!’ thought Cauvignac. ‘Are they going to cut my throat in a dark corner, or throw me into some dungeon? I have heard that they sometimes just displayed the four limbs on the public square, as Cesare Borgia did for Don Ramiro d’Orco.20 Now, this jailer is all alone, with the keys on his belt. Those keys must open some door or other. He’s small, I’m large; he’s weak, and I’m strong. He is in front and I am behind. I could easily strangle him, if I want. Do I want?’
Cauvignac, who had answered himself in the affirmative, was already reaching out with his two bony hands to do as he intended, when the jailer suddenly turned round in a fright.
‘Hush!’ he said. ‘Did you hear something?’
‘There is definitely something I can’t explain in all this,’ Cauvignac continued, still thinking to himself. ‘If all these precautions don’t reassure me, they should alarm me very much.’ So he stopped and said: ‘And where are you taking me then?’
‘Can’t you see?’ said the jailer. ‘To the cellars.’
‘Huh! Are they going to bury me alive?’
The jailer shrugged his shoulders, led the way through a labyrinth of corridors and, reaching a low, damp, arched door, behind which there was a strange noise, he opened it.
‘The river!’ Cauvignac exclaimed, terrified at the sight of water flowing past, as dark as that of the Styx.
‘Yes, of course. The river. Can you swim?’
‘Yes… well, no… yes… I mean… Why do you ask?’
‘Because if you can’t swim, we’ll be forced to wait for the boat, which is moored over there, which means a delay of a quarter of an hour, not to mention the fact that someone might see the signal that I would have to make and so might catch us.’
‘Catch us!’ Cauvignac said. ‘My good fellow, are we escaping then?’
‘Good heavens, of course we are!’
‘Where to?’
‘Wherever we want.’
‘So am I free?’
‘As free as air.’
‘Good Lord!’ Cauvignac cried. And, without adding a word to this eloquent exclamation or looking to right or left, or wondering whether his companion was following him, he ran to the river and dived into it faster than a hunted otter. The jailer followed suit, and both of them, after a quarter of an hour’s silent struggle against the current, came in sight of the boat. At this, the jailer whistled three times as he swam, and the boatmen, hearing the agreed signal, came to meet them, quickly hauled them into the boat and, without a word, plied the oars strongly so that in less than five minutes they were putting both men off on the further bank.
‘Whew!’ said Cauvignac, who had not spoken a word since he had so resolutely thrown himself into the water. ‘Whew! I’m saved, then. Dear jailer of my heart, God will reward you.’
‘And while I wait for His reward,’ said the jailer, ‘I have received some forty thousand livres which will help me to be patient.’
‘Forty thousand livres!’ Cauvignac exclaimed in astonishment. ‘Who the devil can have paid out forty thousand livres for me?’
BOOK IV
THE ABBEY OF PESSAC
I
A word of explanation is required, after which we will pick up the thread of our story.
In any case, it is time to return to Nanon de Lartigues, who, at the sight of poor Richon expiring in the marketplace at Libourne, had cried out and fallen to the ground in a faint.
And yet Nanon, as you must already have seen, was not a woman of fragile temperament. Despite the delicacy of her body and her slender frame, she had borne many disappointments, supported tiredness and braved many dangers. This exceptionally steadfast soul, at once loving and energetic, knew how to bend to circumstances and then return with redoubled strength at every opportunity that fate allowed.
The Duke d’Epernon, who knew her (or, rather, thought that he knew her), was therefore astonished to see her so completely overwhelmed by the spectacle of physical suffering. She, who had almost been burned alive in the fire of her house in Agen without a single cry, because she did not want to give satisfaction to her enemies, who were gasping for this torment that one of them, driven to greater exasperation than the rest, had prepared for the favourite of the hated governor. Yet Nanon, who had seen two of her women perish in the chaos, murdered in mistake for her and in her place, had not blinked an eyelid.
Nanon’s faint lasted for nearly two hours and ended in terrible nervous attacks, in which she was unable to speak, only to emit inarticulate cries. It was so bad that the queen herself, after sending many messages to the patient, came to see her in person, while Monsieur Mazarin, who had recently arrived, insisted on going to her bedside to administer some medicine, since he had great pretensions to skill in this area: medicine for the body under threat, theology for the soul in peril.
But Nanon did not regain consciousness until well into the night. Even then, it took her some time to collect her thoughts, but finally, taking her head in both hands, she cried in piteous tones: ‘I’m lost! They’ve killed him for me.’
Fortunately, these words were odd enough for those around to attribute them to delirium, which they did. However, they did remember them, and when that morning the Duke d’Epernon returned from a mission that had kept him away from Libourne since the previous day, on enquiring about Nanon’s indisposition, he learned what she had said on coming to her senses. The duke knew all the ebullience of this ardent soul and realized that there was more here than just delirium, so he hurried to see Nanon and took advantage of the first moment alone with her that her other visitors allowed.
‘Dear friend,’ he said, ‘I have been told what you suffered at the death of Richon, whom they were foolish enough to hang right outside your window.’
‘Oh, yes!’ Nanon exclaimed. ‘It’s appalling! It’s outrageous!’
‘Next time, don’t worry,’ said the duke. ‘Now that I know how it affects you, I’ll have rebels hanged on the Place du Cours, not in the marketplace. But whom did you mean, when you said that the
y had killed him for you? I assume it could not be Richon, since Richon has never been anything to you, not even a mere acquaintance.’
‘Oh, Duke, is that you?’ Nanon said, rising on to her elbow and taking his arm.
‘Yes, it’s me and I am very pleased that you recognize me: it proves that you’re better. But whom were you talking about?’
‘About him, Duke, about him!’ Nanon said, still slightly delirious. ‘You are the one who has killed him! Oh, the wretch!’
‘Dear heart, you are alarming me! What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying that you’ve killed him. Don’t you understand, Duke?’
‘No, my dear,’ Monsieur d’Epernon replied, trying to get Nanon to speak by picking up the ideas suggested by her delirium. ‘How can I have killed him, since I don’t know who he is?’
‘Don’t you know that he is a prisoner of war, that he was a captain, and a governor, that he had the same position and the same rank as that poor Richon, and that the people of Bordeaux will avenge on him the murder of the man you have just had killed? Because though you put on a show of justice, it is a true murder, Duke!’
The duke, unnerved by this exclamation, the fire of those blazing eyes and the force of her feverish gesture, stepped back, turned pale and struck his brow.
‘Why, that’s right, that’s right!’ he exclaimed. ‘Poor Canolles! I forgot about him!’
‘My brother, my poor brother!’ Nanon cried in her turn, happy at being able to express her feelings, and giving her lover the status under which Monsieur d’Epernon knew him.
‘By Jove, you’re right,’ said the duke. ‘I’m the one who’s out of his mind. How could I have forgotten our poor friend? But there’s no time to lose, though by now they will only just have learned the news in Bordeaux. The time to get together, to judge him… Even then, they will hesitate.’
‘Did the queen hesitate?’ said Nanon.
‘The queen is the queen: she has the power of life and death. They are rebels.’
‘Alas,’ said Nanon. ‘All the more reason for them to have no scruples. But, tell me, what can you do?’
‘I don’t know yet, but trust in me.’
Nanon tried to get up: ‘Even if I have to go to Bordeaux myself and offer myself in his place, he shall not die.’
‘Calm down, my dearest, it’s my business now. I caused the trouble, and I shall make it right, by my faith as a gentleman. The queen still has some friends in the town, so don’t worry.’
The duke made this promise from the depths of his heart. Nanon could read the certainty, sincerity and, above all, determination in his eyes. She felt such a surge of joy that she grasped the duke’s hands and, kissing them with her burning lips, she said: ‘Oh, my lord! If you succeed in this, I shall love you so much!’
The duke was moved to tears. This was the first time that Nanon had spoken to him with such ardour and made him such a promise.
He left the room, again assuring Nanon that she had nothing to fear. Then, calling one of his servants, whom he knew to be intelligent and loyal, he instructed him to go to Bordeaux, to get inside the town even if this meant scaling the ramparts and to give the lawyer Lavie the following message, written entirely in his own hand:
Prevent anything unpleasant from happening to Monsieur de Canolles, captain and fortress commander in the service of His Majesty.
If this officer is arrested, as we suppose he will be, free him by any possible means, buy the warders at whatever price they demand, a million if necessary, and give them the offer of management of a royal chāteau on the word of the Duke d’Epernon.
If corruption fails, try force. Stick at nothing: violence, arson and murder will be accepted.
Description: tall, brown eyes, hooked nose. In case of doubt, ask: ‘Are you Nanon’s brother?’
With all haste. There is not a moment to lose.
The messenger left. Three hours later, he was in Bordeaux. He went into a farmhouse, exchanged his clothes for a peasant’s smock and got inside the town, leading a cart full of flour.
Lavie received the letter a quarter of an hour after the decision of the council of war. He got into the fortress, spoke to the head jailer, offered him twenty thousand livres, which he refused, then thirty thousand, which he also refused, and finally forty thousand, which he accepted.
We already know how, misled by the question that the Duke d’Epernon thought should avoid any misunderstanding (‘Are you the brother of Nanon?’), Cauvignac, who, in perhaps the only generous impulse of his whole life, had replied ‘yes’, so taking Canolles’s place, and found himself, much to his astonishment, a free man.
Cauvignac was taken on a swift horse to the village of Saint-Loubès, which belonged to the Epernonists. There they found a messenger from the duke, who had come to meet the fugitive on the duke’s own horse, a priceless Spanish mare.
‘Have you saved him?’ he shouted to the head of the group escorting Cauvignac.
‘Yes,’ said the man. ‘We’re bringing him with us.’
This is all that the messenger needed to hear. He turned his horse round and sped swift as a meteor towards Libourne. An hour and a half later, the exhausted horse collapsed at the town gate and sent its rider tumbling by the feet of Monsieur d’Epernon, who was gasping with impatience as he waited for the answer: ‘Yes!’ The messenger, almost dead, just managed to say the word ‘Yes’, which had cost so much, and the duke, without wasting a moment, hurried to Nanon’s house. She was still lying on her bed, staring blankly at the servants blocking the door.
‘Yes!’ the duke cried. ‘Yes! He is safe, dear heart, he is coming behind me, and you will see him.’
Nanon leapt up in bed with joy, these few words having removed the weight that had been suffocating her. She raised both hands to heaven, and then, bathed in the tears that this unexpected happiness had brought to eyes parched by despair, she cried in an indescribable voice: ‘Oh, my God, my God! Thank you!’
Then, looking down from heaven to earth, she saw the duke beside her, so pleased with her happiness that you might have thought that he had as much of an interest in the welfare of the prisoner as she had. It was only then a disturbing thought entered her mind: ‘How is the duke to be rewarded for his kindness and consideration, when he sees a stranger in place of my brother and the betrayal of an almost adulterous love instead of the pure emotion of fraternal affection?’
Nanon’s reply to herself was brief and to the point: ‘So what? No matter!’ thought this heart, sublime in both its self-sacrifice and its devotion. ‘I shall not deceive him any longer, I shall tell him everything. He will reject me, he will curse me, and then I shall throw myself at his feet to thank him for all that he has done for me in the past three years. After that, poor, humiliated, but happy, I shall leave here rich in my love and rejoicing in the new life that awaits us.’
It was in the midst of this daydream of self-denial, in which ambition was sacrificed to love, that the crowd of servants parted, and a man ran into the room where Nanon was lying, shouting: ‘Sister! Sister!’
Nanon sat up, opened her eyes wide in horror, went whiter than the embroidered sheet behind her head, and for the second time fell back swooning and muttering: ‘Cauvignac! My God, Cauvignac!’
‘Cauvignac,’ the duke repeated, looking around him in astonishment, clearly looking for the person answering to this name. ‘Cauvignac? Who’s called Cauvignac here?’
Cauvignac resisted any temptation to reply: he was still not safe enough to risk being honest – something that, in any case, was not his custom even in the normal circumstances of life. He realized that, if he did reply, it would be disastrous for his sister and that a disaster for her also spelled his own ruin. So, inventive though he was, he was at a loss, leaving it up to Nanon to reply, while reserving the right to correct what she said.
‘And Monsieur de Canolles?’ she shouted, in tones of furious reproach, her eyes flashing in Cauvignac’s direction.
The d
uke frowned and started to bite his moustache. Everyone else, apart from Finette, who was very pale, and Cauvignac, who was doing his best not to lose colour, had no idea what this unexpected anger meant and exchanged astonished glances.
‘Poor Sister!’ Cauvignac whispered to the duke. ‘She was so frightened for me that she is delirious and unable to recognize me.’
‘Talk to me, wretch!’ Nanon shouted. ‘Talk to me! Where is Monsieur de Canolles? What has happened to him? Answer me!’
Cauvignac took a desperate decision: he had to risk everything and rely on his effrontery to pull him through, because resorting to a confession, revealing to the Duke d’Epernon the double character that he had assumed of this false Canolles and that true Cauvignac who had raised troops against the queen, then sold these very same soldiers to her, was the shortest way to join Richon on the gallows. So he went over to the duke with tears in his eyes and said: ‘Oh, Monsieur! It’s not delirium, but madness, and grief, as you can see, which have addled her brains to the point where she can no longer recognize those closest to her. You will understand that if anyone can return her to her lost wits, I am the person. So I beg you have all these servants leave, except Finette, who will be there to care for her if need be. Because, like me, you would be distressed at seeing indifferent strangers laugh at the plight of my poor sister.’
The duke might not have accepted this explanation – credulous as he was, Cauvignac was starting to arouse suspicions in him – were it not that a messenger from the queen had arrived to say that she was expecting him in the palace where Monsieur de Mazarin had called an extraordinary meeting of the council.
While the queen’s envoy was delivering his message, Cauvignac leant over Nanon and quickly told her: ‘In heaven’s name, calm down, Sister. If we can only exchange a few words in private, everything will be all right.’
Nanon fell back on to her bed, if not calm, at least in control of herself, because, however small the dose in which it is administered, hope is a balm that soothes the suffering heart.