Angelique - Part 2. Marriage in Toulouse Chapter 12 - Read online

ABOUT TWO MONTHS LATER, a small troop of horsemen followed by a carriage with the coat-of-arms of the Comte de Peyrac clambered up a road along a rocky ledge towards the hamlet of Salsigne in the Aude.
Angelique, whom this journey had at first delighted, was beginning to feel tired. It was very hot and there was a lot of dust. Moreover, the regular motion of her horse had lulled her into a pensive mood; with distaste she had watched Conan Becher astride his mule, with his dangling, skinny legs and sandal-shod feet, and then pondered over the consequences of the Archbishop’s stubborn grudge. Then she had thought of her fathers letter which the Saxon, Fritz Hauer, had brought her when he arrived in Toulouse with his cart, his wife and his three fair children, who, despite the years spent in Poitou, still spoke only a rugged Germanic dialect.
Angelique had wept a great deal when she received this letter, for her father announced in it the death of old Guillaume Liitzen. She had gone and huddled in a dark comer and sobbed for hours. She had not been able to expiain even to Joffrey what she felt and why it broke her heart to recall the bearded old face with its severe pale eyes, which used to shine with so much gentleness on the little Angelique of long ago. The past was the past, but Baron Armand’s letter had brought back to life barefooted little ghosts with their hair full of straw, pattering through the icy corridors of the old castle of Monteloup where the chickens sought the shade in summertime.
Her father was complaining, too. Life continued to be hard, although everyone’s needs were taken care of , thanks to the mule traffic and the Comte de Peyrac’s generosity. But the country had been ravaged by a dreadful famine; this, added to the plaguing of the salt-smugglers by the salt-tax collectors, had led the inhabitants of the marshes to revolt. Emerging from behind their reeds, they had looted several hamlets, refused to pay tax and killed tax-officers and collectors. The King’s soldiers had to be sent for to pursue them as they slipped like eels through the waterways, and many of them had been hanged at the cross-roads.
Angelique now realised what it meant to be one of the wealthiest people in the province. She had forgotten that oppressed world, haunted by the fear of taxes and exactions. Had she not become very selfish in the ecstasy of her happiness and her luxury? Perhaps the Archbishop would have harassed them less if she had known how to win him over by busying herself with his charities?
She heard poor Bemalli sigh. “What a road! Worse than in our Abruzzi! And your lovely carriage on it! There’ll be nothing but fire¬wood left of it. It’s a real crime!”
“I begged you, though, to get into it,” said Angelique. “At least it would have been of some use.”
But the gallant Italian protested, while he rubbed his aching back.
“Fi, Signora, a man worthy of the name would not loll in a carriage while a young lady was travelling on horseback.”
“Your scruples are old-fashioned, my poor Bernalli. Nowadays one stands less on ceremony. However, knowing you as I’m beginning to, I am sure that the mere sight of our hydraulic machinery moving and driving water will be enough to cure you of your aches and pains.”
The scientist’s face beamed.
“So you really remember, Madame, my passion for this science I call hydraulics? Your husband did indeed lure me here by hinting that he had set up in Salsigne a mechanism for raising water from a torrent flowing at the bottom of a gorge. That is all that was needed to make me take to the road again. I am wondering whether he may not have discovered per¬petual motion.”
“You’re mistaken, my dear Bemalli,” said Joflfrey de Peyrac’s voice behind them. “It’s merely a model of the hydraulic rams which I saw in China and which can raise water a hundred and fifty fathoms or more. Ah, have a look down there. We’ve almost arrived.”
They soon found themselves on the bank of a small mountain torrent and could see a sort of tip-tank which would pivot on its axis and toss a fine parabola of water to a very great height. This jet of water dropped into a sort of basin situated on a raised platform, whence it then fell gendy into a series of wooden drains. An artificial rainbow cast an iridescent halo round this machinery, and Angelique found the water-ram very pretty, but Bemalli seemed disappointed and said resentfully:
“You are losing nineteen-twentieths of the torrent’s output. It has absolutely nothing to do with perpetual motion !”
“I don’t care at all if I lose output and power,” remarked the Comte. “For me it means that I get water at the height where I need it and the small output is enough to concentrate my pounded gold-bearing rock.” The visit to the mine was postponed till the morrow. Modest but adequate lodgings had been prepared by the local magistrate. A wagon had brought up trunks and bedding. Peyrac left the dwelling-houses to Bernalli, Friar Becher and to d’Andijos, who, naturally, was one of the party. He himself preferred the shelter of a vast, double-roofed tent which he had brought back from Syria.
“I think I inherited the camping habit from the crusaders. In this heat and in these parts, which are the driest in France, you will see, Angelique, that we’ll be far more comfortable than in a stone-and-mud construction.” When evening came, she did indeed savour the cool air that came down from the mountains. The lifted flaps of the tent revealed a sky reddened by the setting sun; from the banks of the torrent could be heard the sad, solemn songs of the Saxon miners.
Joffiey de Peyrac seemed worried.
“I don’t like that monk!” he exclaimed with violence. “Not only will he understand nothing, but he’ll interpret everything according to his devious mind. I’d even have preferred to explain things to the Archbishop, but he wants a‘scientific witness’. Ha! Ha! What a joke! I’d prefer anyone to this rosary-manufacturer.”
“Still,” protested Angelique, slightly shocked, “I’ve heard that many a distinguished scientist is also a religious man.”
The Comte could ill conceal a gesture of annoyance.
“I don’t deny it, and I’d go even further. I’d say that for centuries the Church preserved the cultural heritage of the world. But in our day she is being desecrated by scholastics. Science is at the mercy of fanatics who, whenever they can’t find some theological angle to attach to phenomena that have but a natural explanation, are ready to deny facts that are self¬evident.”
He fell silent and, pulling his wife towards him, he said to her something that she was to understand only much later:
“I have also chosen you as a witness.”
Next day, Fritz Hauer came to conduct the visitors to the gold-mine. It consisted of a deep excavation which formed a quarry at the bottom of the foothills of Corbieres. An enormous section of ground, about a hundred metres long by thirty metres wide, had been scraped, and its grey mass had been cut up by means of wooden and iron wedges into smaller blocks, which were then loaded on to wagons and transported to the grind¬stones.
Other hydraulic pounding devices particularly attracted Bemalli’s attention. They were made of wooden blocks faced with sheet-iron, which tipped over when a caisson full of water lost its balance.
“What a loss of water-power,” sighed Bemalli, “but what a beautifully simple installation from a labour-saving point of view. Is this another of your inventions, Comte?”
“I merely imitated the Chinese; out there, I was told, such installations have been in existence for three or four thousand years. They use them mainly for hulling rice, which is their staple food.”
“But where does gold come into all this?” remarked Friar Becher judiciously. “I merely see a grey and heavy powder which your workmen extract from this pounded rock.”
“You’ll get a demonstration in the Saxon foundry.”
The small party passed along a lower level where covered Catalan furnaces were set up in an open hangar. Bellows worked by two youngsters each sent out a burning, stifling breath. Livid flames, exhaling a pro¬nounced smell of garlic, spurted at times from the open mouths of the ovens, leaving a sort of heavy, smoky steam which settled all around in the form of white snow.
Angelique took some of this snow and raised it to her mouth on account of the intriguing garlic aroma. Like a gnome emerging from Hell, a human monster in a leather apron violently struck her hand away.
Before she had time to react, the gnome rasped:
“Gift,gnddige Dame (Poison, noble lady).”
Puzzled, Angelique wiped her hand, while Friar Bccher’s eyes bored down on her.
“In our laboratories,” he said softly, “alchemists work with masks.”
Jeffrey too had heard him and broke in:
“In ours, there is no alchemy, although not all these ingredients, of course, are fit to eat or even to touch. Are you distributing milk regularly to all your company, Fritz?” he asked in German.
“Six cows were driven here before we came, Your Highness!”
“Good, and don’t forget it’s to be drunk, not sold.”
“We are not needy people, Highness, so we mean to stay alive as long as possible,” said the hump-backed old foreman.
“May I know, Comte, what is that pasty, molten stuffl can perceive in this oven of Hell?” asked Bechcr, crossing himself.
“It's the same heavy sand, washed and dried, that you saw being extracted from the mine.”
“And according to you this grey powder contains gold? I did not see the slightest spark of gold-dust, not even in the belt when it was rinsed just
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now.
“And yet it’s gold-rock. Bring me a shovelful, Fritz.”
The workman dug his shovel into an enormous pile of greyish-green grainy sand that had a vaguely metallic look. Becher cautiously spread some out in the hollow of his hand, sniffed it, tasted it and, spitting it out, declared:
“Vitriol of arsenic. Violent poison. But nothing to do with gold. Anyway, gold comes from gravel and not from rock. And the quarry we have just seen contains not an atom of gravel.”
“That’s perfectly correct, my distinguished colleague,” confirmed Joffrey de Pcyrac, who then added, addressing himself to his Saxon fore¬man:
“If it’s the right moment, add your lead!”
They had to wait a little longer, however. The mass in the oven grew even redder, melted and bubbled. The heavy white fumes continued to smoke, settling everywhere, as a white, powdery coating. Then, when there was practically no more smoke and the flames had dwindled, two Saxons in leather aprons rolled up several nuggets of lead on a cart, and dipped them into the pasty mass.
The bath liquefied and settled down. The Saxon stirred it with a long stick of green wood. Bubbles escaped from it, then the scum rose. Fritz Hauer skimmed it off repeatedly with enormous sieves and iron hooks. Then he stirred again. Finally, the foreman bent down to an opening which had been cut belcw the shaft of the oven. He pulled out the stone stopper that blocked it, and a silvery trickle started to flow into the pre¬viously prepared ingot moulds.
The monk approached inquisitively, then said :
“All this is still only lead.”
“So far we still agree,” assented Monsieur de Peyrac.
But suddenly the monk uttered a strident cry:
“I see the three colours!”
He gasped and motioned towards the iridescence of the cooling ingot. His hands shook and he stammered:
“The Philosopher’s Stone! I have seen the Philosopher’s Stone!”
“The good monk is going mad,” observed Andijos, no respecter of the Archbishop’s confidential agent.
Joffrey de Peyrac explained with an indulgent smile:
“Alchemists still set their heart on the apparition of the ‘three colours’ in seeking the Philosopher’s Stone and the transmutation of metals. And yet it is only an unimportant phenomenon, comparable to that of a rainbow.”
Suddenly the monk fell on his knees before Angelique’s husband. He thanked him, stuttering, for having allowed him to watch his “life’s work”.
Vexed by this ludicrous demonstration, the Comte said curdy:
“Get up, Father. So far you’ve seen exactly nothing, as you’ll be able to judge for yourself in a minute. There is no Philosopher’s Stone, I am sorry to say.”
Fritz Hauer had followed the scene with an air of repugnance on his dust-stained face.
“Muss ich das Blei durchbrenneti vor alien diesen Herrschaften?”1 he asked.
“Act as if I were the only one present.”
Angelique saw the still lukewarm ingot being gripped with wet rags and shoved into a cart. It was transported to a small oven set up above an already blazing forge. The bricks of the oven’s central chamber, which constituted a sort of open crucible, were very white, light and porous, and were made of animal bones. Their aroma, together with the smell of garlic and sulphur, rendered the atmosphere very unpleasant.
Becher, who had been red with heat and excitement, turned livid at the sight of the pile of bones, and he began to cross himself and mumble exorcising prayers.
The Comte could not refrain from laughing and said to Bcmalli:
“Just look at the effect our work produces on a modern scientist. When I think that assaying over bone-ash was child’s play in the days of the Romans and the Greeks!”
However, Becher did not shun the terrifying spectacle. Very pale and continuing to reel of fhis rosary, he kept his eyes fixed on the preparations that the old Saxon and his assistants were making. One of them was putting more glowing embers into the forge, the other was operating a pair of pedal-worked bellows. All at once the lead seemed to melt in the middle of the round chamber created by the bone-dust brick of the oven. When it had all been smelted, the fire was brought to even greater heat and the lead began to smoke. ,
At a sign from old Fritz a boy appeared, carrying a pair of bellows whose
1 “Must I assay the lead in front of all these lords and ladies!” end was inserted in a piece of fire-proof piping. He placed the tip on the edge of the chamber and began to force a cold draught on to the dark red surface of the cake of molten lead. Suddenly, with a whistling noise, the air blown against the liquid metal ignited. The luminous spot increased in intensity, turned a dazzling white and spread over the whole bulk of the metal.
The young assistant thereupon quickly removed all the incandescent embers below the oven. The big bellows stopped too. The process con¬tinued unaided: the metal was bubbling and dazzling to the eyes. Now and then it was shrouded by a dark veil, then the veil split, forming dark flakes that danced on die surface of the incandescent liquid. Whenever one of these floating islands reached the edge of the bath, it adhered to the bricks, as if by magic, and the surface reappeared purer and more sparkling.
Simultaneously, the disc of metal was visibly dwindling. It finally shrank to the size of a large pancake, became darker, and blazed up with a flash. At this moment Angelique saw clearly that the remaining metal shivered violently, solidified and became very dark.
“This is the lightning-phenomenon described by Berzelius, who did much work on cupellation and onset,” said Bemalli. “But I am very glad to have watched a metallurgical operation that I knew of only from books.”
The alchemist did not say anything. His gaze was vague and distracted.
Meanwhile, Fritz had seized the pancake with a pair of tongs, dipped it into water and presented it to his master, yellow and sparkling.
“Pure gold,” murmured the friar respectfully.
“It is not absolutely pure,” said Peyrac. “Otherwise we should not have seen the lightning phenomenon, which reveals the presence of silver.”
Recovering from his emotion, the monk asked if he could have a small sample of this product to hand to his benefactor, the Archbishop.
“Go and take this nugget of gold drawn from the entrails of our Cor- bieres hills,” said the Comte de Peyrac, “and make it quite clear to him that this gold comes from a rock which contained it already, and that he need only discover some such deposits on his estates to make himself rich.”
Conan Becher carefully wrapped the precious cake, which weighed at least two pounds, in a handkerchief, and did not reply.
One morning after the return from Salsigne, upon entering the palace library together with her husband, Angelique discovered Clement Tonnel, the major-domo, engaged in inscribing on wax tablets the titles of books. He seemed embarrassed and tried to conceal his tablets and his engraving point.
“ByJove, you do seem to take an interest in Latin!” cried the Comte, who was more surprised than angry. ’
“I’ve always been drawn to studies, Your Lordship. My ambition would have been to become a notary’s clerk, and it is a great joy for me to belong to the household not only of a noble lord but of a distinguished scientist.”
“My books on alchemy won’t be able to instruct you on the subject of law,” said Joffrey de Peyrac with a frown, for the man’s obsequious manners had never appealed to him. Tonnel was the only man on his staff whom he did not call by his Christian name.
When he had left the room, Angelique said with annoyance:
“I have no reason to complain of the services of this Clement, but, I don’t know why, his presence irks me more and more. Whenever I look at him, he brings back to my mind something indefinable but unpleasant. Yet I brought him with me from Poitou.”
“Pah!” said Joffrey with a shrug, “he is somewhat lacking in discretion, but so long as his thirst for knowledge does not lead him to forage in my laboratory . . .”
But Angelique remained inexplicably troubled, and several times in the course of the day the pock-marked face of the major-domo came to trouble her thoughts.
Some time later, Clement Tonnel asked for leave to return to Niort in order to deal with a legacy. ‘He never seems to stop inheriting,* thought Angelique. She remembered that he had left a previous post for the same reason. Master Clement promised to be back the following month, but Angelique had the presentiment that she would not see him again so soon. She had been on the point of entrusting him with a letter for her family, but thought better of it.
When he had gone, she was gripped by an unreasonable urge to see Monteloup and its countryside again. Yet she did not miss her father. Though she had become very happy, she bore him a dim grudge for her marriage. Her brothers and sisters were scattered. Old Guillaume was dead and, from the letters she received, she guessed that her aunts were becoming acrimonious and garrulous, and Fantine Lozier more and more domineering. Her thoughts dwelt for a fleeting moment on Nicholas, who had disappeared from the district after her marriage.
Angelique realised finally that she was haunted by the idea of going back in order to pay a visit to the Chateau du Plessis and to find out if the famous poison-casket was still shut up in its hiding-place in the sham turret. There was no reason why it shouldn’t be. No one could discover it without pulling down the chateau. Why was this old business coming back to haras? her all of a sudden? The antagonisms of that period were already remote. Cardinal Mazarin, the King and his young brother were still alive. Monsieur Fouquet had obtained power without resorting to crime. And wasn’t there even talk of the Prince de Conde’s return to favour?
She shook of f those speculations and soon regained her peace of mind.