Angelique - Part 3. The Corridors of the Louvre Chapter 4 - Read online

ANGELIQUE THOUGHT SHE WAS ALREADY IN PARIS when they were still driving through the suburbs. No sooner had they passed through the Gate of Saint-Нопогё than she felt disappointed by the narrow, muddy streets. The noise did not have the same ringing quality as in Toulouse, it seemed to her shriller and more vociferous. The shopkeepers’ and the coachmen’s cries above all, the shouts of the footmen preceding the carriages and of the sedan-chair bearers rose above a dull background growl which made her think of the distant rumbles before a thunderstorm. The air was sweltering and full of foul smells.
Angelique’s carriage, escorted by Bernard d’Andijos on horseback and followed by the luggage-cart and two mounted lackeys, took more than two hours to reach the Saint-Paul quartier. It finally reached the Rue de Beautreillis and slowed down.
They had come to a stop outside a wide carriage entrance of pale timber with wrought bronze knockers and key-locks. Beyond the white stone wall could be seen the courtyard and the large stone house, in the style of the day, with tall, clear, glass windows, and a roof adorned with dormers and covered with bright new slates that sparkled in the sun.
A lackey came to open the carriage-door.
“Here we are, Madame,” said the Marquis d’Andijos.
He remained on horseback and stared at the porch with a dumbfounded expression.
Angelique alighted and ran to a little house which surely was the Swiss concierge’s lodge. She rang the bell angrily. It was intolerable that nobody had yet come to open the main gate. The bell seemed to be ring¬ing in a desert. The window-panes of the lodge were grimy. Everything seemed lifeless.
Only then did Angelique become aware of the curious aspect of the gate which Andijos kept staring at as if thunderstruck. She went up to it. Interlaced red strings were fastened on it by means of thick, coloured wax seals. A white piece of paper, also fixed with seals, read:
The Kings Chamber of Justice
Paris
1st July, 1660
Open-mouthed with amazement, she stared at it uncomprehendingly. At that moment the door of the lodge opened a slit, and in it appeared the perturbed face of a servant in a crumpled livery. At the sight of the carriage, he hurriedly closed the door again, then, thinking better of it, opened it once more and came out with hesitant steps.
“Are you the concierge of the house?” inquired the young woman.
“Yes . . . yes, Madame, it’s me, Baptiste. And I do recognise the . . . the carriage of . . . of my . . . my . . . my master.”
“Stop stuttering, fool!” she cried, stamping her foot. “And tell me quickly where Monsieur de Peyrac is.”
The domestic looked around with alarm. The absence of any neigh¬bour seemed to reassure him. He came even closer, raised his eyes to Angelique, and suddenly knelt down before her while continuing to throw anxious glances around him.
“Oh! my poor young mistress,” he cried, “my poor master ... oh! what a dreadful misfortune!”
“Speak up! What has happened?”
She was shaking him by the shoulders, frightened out of her wits.
“Get up, idiot! I don’t understand a word you’re saying. Where is my husband? Is he dead?”
The man got up with difficulty and murmured:
“They say he is in the Bastille. The house is under seals. I must answer for it with my life. And you, Madame, do try and flee while there is still time.”
Mention of the famous prison fortress of the Bastille, far from shattering Angelique, almost reassured her after the dreadful anguish she had felt. One can get out of prison. She knew that in Paris the most dreaded prison was that of the Archbishopric, situated below the level of the Seine, where you ran the risk of drowning in winter; and after that came the Chatelet and the General Hospital, which were reserved for commoners. The Bastille was the aristocratic prison. Despite some sinister legends about the strong-rooms of its eight towers, it was generally known that a stay within its walls was not a dishonour.
Angelique heaved a little sigh and tried hard to face the situation.
“I think it’s better not to remain in this neighbourhood,” she said to Andijos.
“Yes, yes, Madame, do leave quickly,” insisted the servant.
“The problem is where to go. As a matter of fact, I have a sister who lives in Paris. I don’t know her address, but her husband is a King’s proctor called Maitre Fallot. I even believe that since his marriage he calls himself Fallot de Sancc.”
“If we go to the Palace of Justice, they’ll certainly be able to direct us.”
The carriage and its suite resumed their drive through Paris. Ang61ique did not think of looking around her. This city, which was welcoming her in such a hostile way, held no attraction for her. Florimond was crying. He was teething and vainly did Margot rub his gums with an ointment made of honey and pounded fennel.
They eventually found the address of the King’s proctor, who, like many magistrates, lived not far from the Palace of Justice, on the island of the Cite, in the parish of Saint-Landry. The street was called the rue de l’Enfer, which, to Angelique, seemed a sinister omen. The houses were still grey and medieval, with pointed gables, sculptures, gargoyles and infrequent apertures.
The one before which the carriage stopped looked hardly less lugu¬brious than the rest, although each storey boasted three fairly high windows. On the ground floor was the of fice, and a brass plate on its door bore the words: ‘Maitre Fallot de Sance. King’s Proctor.’
Two clerks, who had been yawning on the threshold, rushed towards Angelique as soon as she had stepped out of the carriage and promptly surrounded her with a stream of words in an unintelligible jargon. She finally grasped that they were speaking in glowing terms of the merits of Maitre dc Sance’s of fice as the only place in Paris to which people anxious to win a lawsuit could repair in all security.
“I haven’t come for a lawsuit,” said Angelique, “I want to see Madame Fallot.”
Disappointed, they indicated a door on the left which led towards the proctor’s residence.
Angelique raised the bronze knocker and she felt something akin to excitement as she waited for the door to open. A plump servant neatly dressed and in a white bonnet showed her into the vestibule, but almost immediately Hortcnsc appeared at the top of the staircase. She had seen the carriage through the window.
Angelique had the impression that her sister had been on the verge of falling on her neck, but, seemingly changing her mind, she affected a distant air. They kissed without warmth.
Hortense seemed even leaner and taller than in the old days.
“My poor sister!” she said.
“Why do you call me your poor sister?” asked Angelique.
Madame Fallot motioned silently towards the maid and pulled Angelique into her room It was a spacious chamber which also served as a drawing-room, for numerous arm-chairs and stools as well as seats and settees were arranged around the bed with its beautiful curtains and yellow damask counterpane. Ang£lique wondered if her sister was in the habit of receiving her women friends lying in bed as did the pMeuses. It was true that formerly Hortense had the reputation for being witty and prided herself on her conversational talents.
The room was very dark, on account of the stained-glass panes, but in this heat it was not unpleasant. The stone floor was cooled by sheaves of green grass scattered over it here and there. Angelique breathed deeply of their good country smell.
“You have a nice home,” she said to Hortense.
The latter did not lose her frown.
“Don’t trouble to deceive me with feigned sprightliness. I know everything.”
“You are lucky, for I admit that I myself am utterly in the dark as to what is happening to me.”
“How imprudent of you to show yourself ostentatiously in Paris!” said Hortense, raising her eyes to heaven.
“Listen, Hortense, don’t start turning your eyes to the ceiling. I don’t know if your husband is like me, but I remember I could never see you pull that grimace without wanting to box your ears. Now I’ll tell you what I know, and then you’ll tell me what you know.”
She told how, while they were at Saint-Jcan-de-Luz for the King’s wedding, the Comte de Peyrac had disappeared. The suppositions of certain friends led her to believe that he had been kidnapped and taken to Paris, so she too had travelled up to the capital. There she had found their town house under seal and had learned that her husband was probably in the Bastille.
Hortense said severely:
“So you can imagine how compromising your visit in full daylight is for a high of ficial of the King? And yet you came!”
“Yes, that is strange indeed,” replied Angelique, “but my first thought was that my family might be able to help me.”
“It’s the first time you have remembered your family, I believe! I am quite sure you would not have visited me, had you been able to preen yourself in your fine new house in the Saint-Paul quartier. Why didn’t you go and seek help from the brilliant friends of your rich and handsome husband, all those Princes, Dukes and Marquesses, instead of creating trouble for us by your presence?”
Angelique was on the point of getting up and walking out, slamming the door behind her, but she thought she heard Florimond’s cries from the street and she controlled herself. *
“Hortense, I’m not nursing any illusions. As the affectionate and devoted sister you are, you are putting me out of doors. But I have with me a fourteen-months-old baby who needs to be bathed, changed, fed. It is getting late. If I go hunting for a roof now, I may find myself having to sleep at a street-corner. Put me up for this night.”
“It’s one night too many for the safety of my home.”
“You’d think I was bringing a scandalous reputation into your house.”
Madame Fallot compressed her narrow Ups and her lively brown eyes flashed.
“Your reputation is not stainless. As for your husband’s, it is atrocious.” Angelique could not help smiling.
“I can assure you that my husband is the best of men. You’d under¬stand quickly enough if you knew him. . . .”
“God preserve me! I’d die of fright. If what people say is true, I cannot understand how you could live in his house for several years. He must have cast a spell on you.”
She added after a moment’s thought:
“It is a fact that, when still quite young, you already had a marked penchant for all sorts of vices.”
“Your amiability confounds me, my dear! It is true that, when still quite young, you had a marked penchant for backbiting and spitefulness.” “This is too much! Now you come and insult me under my own roof.”
“Why do you refuse to believe me? I’m telling you that my husband is in the Bastille solely because of some misunderstanding.”
“If he’s in the Bastille, it’s because there is such a thing as justice.”
“If there is such a thing as justice, he’ll be released promptly.”
“Allow me to intrude, ladies, since you speak so well of justice,” said a deep voice behind them.
A man had just come into the room. He must have been in his thirties, though he affected a stiff and formal air. His full, clean-shaven face bore a grave, attentive expression under his brown wig. There was something clerical about him. He cocked his head slightly to one side, like someone accustomed to receiving confidences.
Angelique guessed, from his well-tailored black cloth suit with black braid and horn buttons as its only trimming, that she was facing her brother-in-law, the proctor. She dropped a curtsy. He came up to her and very solemnly kissed her on both cheeks.
“Don’t use a conditional phrase, Madame. There «justice. In its name and thanks to its existence I welcome you in my house.”
Hortense reared up like a scalded cat.
“Heavens, Gaston, you are raving mad! Ever since we married, you've kept repeating that your career comes before everything else and that it depends entirely on the King. . . .”
“And on justice, my dear,” interrupted the magistrate, mildly but firmly.
“Nevertheless, for days you have been voicing your apprehension about seeing my sister come and take refuge with us. In view of what you know about her husband's arrest, such an eventuality, you said, would spell certain ruin for us.”
“Be quiet, Madame, or you'll make me regret that I have betrayed a professional secret in informing you of what I learned by chance.” Angelique decided to swallow her pride.
“You have learned something? Oh sir, for mercy's sake, tell me. I have been groping for days in the most complete uncertainty.”
“Alas, Madame, I shall not try to take shelter behind a sham discretion nor expatiate in soothing terms. I'll confess to you straightway that I know very little. From an of ficial piece of information I learned, with amazement I must admit, of Monsieur de Peyrac's arrest. I must therefore ask you, in your own interest as well as in your husband's, not to make use of what I'm going to tell you without my express permission. Anyhow, I repeat, it's only a small scrap of information. Here it is: your husband was arrested by a lettre de cachet of the third category, that is to say a sealed order issued ‘on the King's behalf'. In it the incriminated of ficer or gentle¬man is invited by the King to proceed secretly but freely, though accom¬panied by a royal commissioner, to a certain place. As for your husband, he was first taken to Fort-Leveque, whence he was transferred to the Bastille on an order countersigned: Scguier.”
“I thank you for confirming what is, after all, rather reassuring news. Many people have been sent to the Bastille and have left it again as soon as light was shed on the slanders which had brought them there.”
“I see you are a level-headed woman,” said Maitre Fallot with an approving nod of his chin, “but I would not like to delude you into believing that everything will work itself out easily. For I also learned that the warrant for the arrest, signed by the King, specified that no mention should be made in the prison records of the name of the accused or of the charge brought against him.”
“No doubt the King does not wish to blemish the reputation of one of his faithful subjects before he has himself examined the facts that are held against him. He wants to be able to exonerate him without creating a
fuss ” • •
“Or else forget him.”
“How so, forget him?” repeated Angelique, as a cold shiver went through her.
“Many people are being forgotten in prisons,” said Maitre Fallot, half closing his eyes and staring into the distance, “forgotten as surely as if they were in their grave. It is certainly not dishonourable, as such, to be im-prisoned in the Bastille. Nevertheless I must stress that the state of being an anonymous and secretly held prisoner is an indication that the case is particularly serious.”
Angelique remained silent for a moment. She suddenly felt her tired¬ness, and hunger gripped her stomach. Or was it anguish? . . . She raised her eyes to the magistrate.
“Since you are kind enough to enlighten me, sir, tell me what I should do?” "
“Once again, Madame, it is not a question of kindness but of justice. It is in a spirit of justice that I am receiving you under my roof, and since you ask me for advice, I shall direct you to a lawyer. For I fear any part I might take in this case would be deemed partial and interested, although our familial relations have not amoimted to much in the past.”
Hortense, who was champing at the bit, exclaimed in her shrill, childish voice:
“You may well say that! As long as she had her chateaux and the wealth of her Lame Man, she scarcely bothered about us. Don't you think that the Comte de Peyrac could have obtained some favours for you by a recommendation to some high magistrates in Paris?”
“Joffrey had few connections among the people of the capital.”
“Yes, yes!” said her sister, aping her. “Just some paltry connections with the Governors of Languedoc and Bearn, with Cardinal Mazarin, the Queen Mother and the King!”
“You’re exaggerating. . . .”
“Anyhow, were you invited to the King’s wedding, were you not?”
Angelique did not answer and left the drawing-room. She could see no end to this argument. She might as well go and fetch Florimond. As she was going down the stairs, she caught herself smiling. How quickly Hortense and she had dropped again into the familiar routine of their eternal squabbles! ... So Monteloup wasn’t dead, after all. Better to pull each other’s hair than to feel like strangers.
In the street, she found Francois Binct sitting on the step of the carriage holding the sleeping baby in his arms. The young barber told her that, seeing the child in pain, he had given him a remedy of opium and mint powder of which he had a stock, since he was, like all those of his pro¬fession, something of a surgeon and an apothecary. Angelique thanked him. She inquired after Margot and the little nursemaid. She was told that the maid had not been able to resist the announcement of a steam- bath servant who had gone through the streets chanting:
“At the sign of Sainte Jeanne Go and have a bath.
Well served you will be By valets and chambermaids.
Go there now, the bath is ready. . . .”
Like all Huguenots, Margot had a pronounced liking for water, which Angelique heartily approved of : “I too would gladly pay a visit to this Sainte Jeanne!” she sighed.
The lackeys and the two coachmen were sitting in the shade of the coach, drinking claret wine and eating smoked herrings. Angelique looked at her dusty dress and at Florimond’s face, plastered with dirt and honey to his eyebrows. What a pitiable outfit!
But it apparendy still looked luxurious to a needy proctor's wife, for Hortense, who had followed her out, sneered:
“Well, my dear, for a woman who complains of being reduced to sleeping at street-comers, you’re not too badly of f: a carriage, a wagon, six horses, four or five lackeys, and two maids who go to have baths!"
“I have a bed," Angelique told her. “Would you like me to have it taken upstairs?”
“No need. We have enough bedding to put you up. However, it's impossible for me to take in all your servants.”
“Surely you have a garret for Margot and the girl? As for the men, they can lodge at the inn.”
Hortense was looking with compressed lips and a shocked expression at those southern men, who, feeling that there was no need to trouble about the wife of a proctor, went on eating while staring at her insolendy out of their coal-black eyes.
“The men of your escort look like bandits,” she remarked in a stifled voice.
“You attribute to them qualities they don't possess. All one can hold against them is a marked propensity for sleeping in the sun.”
In the large room that had been allocated to her on the second floor, Angelique relaxed for a moment as she plunged into a tub and sprinkled herself with cold water. She even washed her hair and arranged it as best she could in front of a steel mirror above the mantelpiece. The room was dark, the furniture very ugly but sufficient. In a small bed with clean sheets Florimond slept soundly, thanks to the wigmaker’s medication.
She was at a loss as to what dress to choose. Even the plainest seemed too sumptuous beside poor Hortense, whose grey wool dress had just the merest trimmings of velvet braid and ribbons at her bodice. She eventually decided in favour of a coffee-coloured house gown with fairly modest gold embroideries, and substituted a black satin neckerchief for the dainty lace. She had almost finished dressing when Margot appeared. With an expert hand, the maid gave her mistress’s hair its usual graceful waves and sprayed her with perfume.
“Be careful. I must not look too elegant. I have to inspire my brother- in-law with confidence.”
“Alas! After seeing such fine noblemen at your feet, to have to see you dressing to please a proctor!”
A strident shout coming from the ground-floor interrupted them. They rushed out on to the landing. The terrified cries of a woman rose from the stair-well. Angelique raced downstairs, where she found her flustered servants huddled on the threshold. The screams continued, but were now muffled and seemed to emanate from a tall chest of imitation ebony that decorated the ante-room.
Hortense, who had come at a run too, went to the chest and managed to extricate from it the fat maid who had opened the door to Angelique, as well as two children of eight and four years who were clutching her petticoats. Madame Fallot began by boxing the girl’s ears, then asked what had come over her.
“There! There!” stammered the wretched girl, pointing her finger.
Angelique’s eyes followed the direction she indicated and perceived the good Kouassi-Ba, who was huddling shyly behind the servants. Hortense could not help giving a start, but she controlled herself and said curtly:
“Well, it’s a black man, a Moor, that’s nothing to cry about. Have you never seen a Moor?”
“N . . . no, no, Madame.”
“There’s not a soul in Paris who hasn’t seen a Moor. You are a fool ”
Coming closer to Angelique, she hissed at her:
“Congratulations, my dear! You do know how to upset my house¬hold. You even introduce an island savage! This girl will probably leave me on the spot. And I had such trouble finding her!”
“Kouassi-Ba,” cried Angelique. “These small children and the young girl are afraid of you. Show them how well you can amuse them.”
“Yes, M£deme.”
The negro bounded forward with a leap. The servant-girl let out a scream and pushed against the wall with all her might as if she wanted to burrow into it. But Kouassi-Ba9 after doing a few somersaults, pulled some coloured balls from his pockets and began to juggle them with amazing skill. He seemed not to be bothered at all by his recent wound. At last, as he saw the children smile, he picked up little Giovanni’s guitar and, squatting down on the floor with crossed legs, began to sing in his soft, velvety voice.
Angelique went over to the other servants.
‘Til give you money to lodge and board at the inn,” she said.
The coachman of her carriage stepped forward and nervously twisted his red-plumed felt hat.
“If you please, Madame, we should like to ask you to let us have the rest of our wages, too. We are in Paris now: it's a city where one spends a lot.”
The young woman, after a moment’s hesitation, complied with his request. She asked Margot to bring her money-box and counted out his due to each of them. The men bowed and thanked her. Young Giovanni said he would be back the next day to inquire after her ladyship's orders. The others withdrew in silence. As they stepped out of the door, Margot, who was standing on the stairs, called after them in Languedoc dialect, but they did not answer.
“What did you say to them?” asked Angelique thoughtfully.
“That if they didn’t come for your orders tomorrow, the master would cast a spell over them.”
“You think they won’t come back?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Angelique passed her hand over her brow.
“You mustn't say the master will cast a spell on them, Margot. Such words will do him more harm than good. Here, take the money-box back to my room and see to it that Florimond’s porridge is cooked so that it will be ready when he wakes up.”
“Madame,” said a high-pitched voice beside Angelique, “my father has told me to inform you that dinner is served and that we are waiting for you in the dining-room to say grace.”
It was the little eight-year-old boy whom she had seen in the big chest a moment ago.
“You’re no longer afraid of Kouassi-Ba?” she asked him.
“No, Madame. I’m very glad to know a black man. All my school¬mates will envy me.”
“What is your name?”
“Martin.”
The windows of the dining-room had been opened to let in a little light and save the candles. A clear, rosy dusk was lingering above the roof¬tops. It was the hour when the parish bells were beginning to chime the Angelus. The deep, splendid notes boomed out and seemed to carry the very prayer of the city.
“You have very beautiful bells in your parish,” remarked Angelique, to dispel the awkward silence at the start of the meal.
“They are the bells of Notre Dame,” replied Maitre Fallot. “Our parish is Saint-Landry, but the cathedral is quite close. If you lean out of the window, you can see its two great towers and the spire of its apse.”
At the far end of the table sat an old man, Maitre Fallot’s uncle, a retired magistrate, who was wrapped in pontifical silence. At the beginning of the meal he and his nephew had, with the same casual gesture, dropped a piece of hom of unicorn into their glasses. This reminded Angelique that she had forgotten that morning to take the tablet of poison to which Joffrey de Peyrac wanted her to become accustomed.
The maid served the soup. The starched white table-cloth had been freshly ironed. The silver plate was of fine quality, but the Fallot family did not use forks. Joffrey had taught Angelique how to use these objects, and she remembered that on her wedding-day in Toulouse she had felt quite gauche with that tiny pitchfork in her hand. Several courses of fish, eggs and milk dishes were being served. Angelique suspected that her sister had sent for two or three kinds of prepared food from a rStisserie to supplement the menu.
“You mustn’t let my presence cause any change in your ordinary fare.”
“Do you imagine that a proctor’s family lives on gruel and cabbage soup?” was the acid reply.
That night, in spite of her fatigue, Angelique took a long time falling asleep. She listened to the cries of the unknown city rising from the damp, narrow lanes. A little biscuit-seller passed, shaking his dice in a hom. He was hailed from houses where the evening meal was still in progress, and merry-makers amused themselves playing dice for his entire basketful of pastries.
A little later came the tinkling bell of a corpse-crier:
“Hark, all you who are asleep in bed,
Pray God for the dead. . . .”
Angelique shivered and buried her face in her pillow. She longed for Joffrey’s long, lean, warm body at her side. How she missed his gaiety, his eagerness, his wonderful, pleasing voice, his caressing hands! When would they find each other again? How blissfully happy they’d be! She would nestle in his arms, ask him to kiss her, to hug her tightly! . . . She fell asleep clasping the coarse linen pillow, which smelled of lavender.