Angelique - Part 4. The Doomed Man of Notre Dame Chapter 4 - Read online

THE BUSINESS OF SELLING KOUASSI-BA had distracted Angelique from her more immediate worries about her husband. Now that the latter’s fate no longer depended on her efforts alone, she was filled with a kind of fatalism which was not unrelated to her condition. Her pregnancy, however, took its normal course, whatever she might have feared to the contrary. The child she carried was well and alive.
One morning, she was returning with Florimond from a stroll near the big keep. She was approaching the house when she heard shouting. She saw her landlady’s son running home while trying to protect his head from a shower of pebbles with which he was being pelted by a crowd of boys in hot pursuit.
“Cordeau! Corde-ctu-cou! Go to it! Pull the tongue, Rope-round-the- neck!”
Without even trying to face them, the boy dived into the house.
A little later, at lunch-time, Angelique found him in the kitchen, peacefully gulping down his portion of peas and dripping. Widow Cordcau’s son did not interest Angelique particularly. He was a husky boy of fifteen, square and taciturn, whose low forehead did not indicate a superior intelligence. But he was obliging towards his mother and the lodgers. His only distraction on Sundays seemed to be to play with Florimond, whose every whim he obeyed.
“What happened this morning, my poor Cordeau?” inquired the young woman, as she sat down before the rough bowl into which the landlady was about to pour peas and blubber. “Why didn’t you give a hiding to those louts who were stoning you?”
The youngster shrugged his shoulders, and his mother explained:
“Oh, he’s used to it after all this time, you know. Even I sometimes call him Rope-round-the-neck unthinkingly. And he’s had stones thrown at him ever since he was quite small. He doesn’t mind. What matters is that he should become a master. Later, he’ll be respected all right. That I’m sure of.”
And the old woman gave a smirk which made her look even more like a witch. Angelique stared at them with amazement.
“It’s true, then? You don’t know?” said Madame Cordeau, putting the pan back on the fire in the hearth. “Well, no need to hide it, the fact is my boy works with Maitre Aubin.”
And as Angelique still looked blank, she explained:
“Maitre Aubin, you know, the hangman!”
The young woman felt a shudder seize her at the nape of her neck and run all the way down her spine. Silendy, she began to eat the coarse food. It was the time of fasting before Christmas, and every day die same stewed whale and peas appeared, the poor man’s dish of penance.
“Yes, he’s an apprentice hangman,” said the old woman, sitting down to table. “Ah well, it takes all sorts to make a world. Maitre Aubin was my husband’s brother, and he has nothing but daughters. So when my husband died, Maitre Aubin wrote to me in the litde hamlet where we lived, telling me he’d take care of my son and teach him his trade, and later he’d leave him this important office. For, you know, to be the Executioner of high and low justice in Paris, that’s something! I’d like to live long enough to see my son wear the red hose and singlet.”
Her eyes rested almost tenderly on the thick head of her horrible off¬spring, who went on gulping down his stew.
‘And to think that perhaps this very morning he put the rope round the neck of a doomed man,’ mused Angelique, horrified. ‘The street- urchins weren’t so wrong: you can’t have a name like that when you ply such a trade!’
The widow, who took her silence for attentive sympathy, continued to talk:
“My husband was a hangman, too. But it’s not quite the same thing in the country, for capital executions are performed in the county capitals. Actually, apart from sometimes putting a thief to the question, he was rather what’s called a ‘riffler’, that is, an animal-flayer and burier of carrion. . . .”
She went on, delighted for once not to be interrupted by outcries of horror.
One would be wrong to think that a hangman’s office was a simple one. The variety of methods employed to wrest confessions from patients had turned it into a difficult trade. There was no lack of work for young Rope-round-the-neck, no fear! He had to learn to sever a head with a single stroke of the sword or the axe, to handle the hot iron, pierce the tongue, hang, drown, break on the wheel, and know how to apply the tortures of quartering, water, the boot and the strappado. . . .
That day, Angelique left her plate full and went upstairs rather quickly.
Had Raymond been aware of the trade plied by Mother Cordeau’s son when he had sent his sister to live with her? Surely not. Still, Angelique did not dare imagine for a moment that her husband, though a prisoner, might one day come in contact with the hangman. Joffrey de Peyrac was a nobleman! There surely was some law or privilege that forbade the torturing of gentlemen. She’d have to ask Desgrez about it. . . . The hangman was for poor people, for those who were exposed in the pillory on the market-square or whipped naked at the cross-roads, or for those who were taken to be hanged in the Place de Greve, ‘gallows-birds’ who provided the best entertainment for the populace. It had nothing to do with Joffrey de Peyrac, last descendant of the Comtes de Toulouse.
From then on, Angelique was a less frequent visitor in Madame Cordeau’s kitchen.
She struck up a closer friendship with Fran^oise Scarron and, as she had a little money from the sale of Kouassi-Ba, she bought wood to make a good fire and would often invite the young widow to her room. Madame Scarron was still hoping that the King might read her petitions some day. Hopefully she would set out for the Louvre on certain chilly mornings and would come back with her hopes dashed, but with a full stock of Court anecdotes which amused her for the rest of the day.
She left the Temple for some ten days, having found a post as house¬keeper to some great lady, then returned without giving any explanation and resumed her cold, hidden life in the shadow of the enclosure. She sometimes received visits from highly-placed people who had known her when the satirical writer Scarron reigned over a little coterie of wits and wags.
One day, Angelique recognised the blaring voice of Athenais de Tonnay-Charente through the wall partition. She knew that the lovely Poitevin girl was having a rather hectic career in Parisian society but had not yet hooked a handsomely titled and pensioned husband.
Another time there was a vivacious blonde who was still beautiful despite the fact that she was approaching her forties. As she was leaving, Angelique heard her say :
“Ah well, my dear, we must gather roses while we may. You pain me by living in this unheated room, with your worn-out dresses. Such poverty just isn’t permissible when one has such lovely eyes.”
Fran^oise murmured something that Angelique could not hear.
“That I grant you," replied the gay, melodious voice, “but it is for us to sec to it that a servitude which is no more humiliating than soliciting pensions does not become slavery. Thus the ‘paying gentleman* who at the moment enables me to ride in a carriage has resigned himself quite easily to two short visits per month. ‘For five hundred livres,' I told him, ‘it’s impossible for me to give more.’ He bows to it, for he knows quite well that if he doesn’t he’ll get nothing. Oh, he’s a good fellow; his only quality is that he is an admirable connoisseur of meat, for his grandfather was a butcher. He gives me his advice when I am entertaining. I warned him, too, that he would be ungracious to show jealousy, for I like to have my little fancies. You look shocked, my dear! I see it by the way you curl your pretty lips. Look, it’s a fact, though, that there is nothing so varied in nature as the pleasures of love, even though they are always the same.”
When she saw her friend again, Angelique could not refrain from asking her who the person was.
“Don’t think it is to my taste to receive women of that type,” answered Fran5oise, with embarrassment. “But one really must admit that Ninon de Lenclos is the most delightful and wittiest of women. She has helped me a great deal and does her best to find me sponsors. However, I am wondering whether her recommendation may not be less of a help than a hindrance.”
“I should have loved to meet and talk to her,” said Angelique. “Ninon de Lenclos . . .” she repeated dreamily, for the name of the famous courtesan was not unfamiliar to her. “When I knew that I was going to Paris, I thought: ‘If I could only get myself invited to the drawing-room of Ninon de Lenclos!’ ”
“May an angel carry me off if I lie!” cried the young widow, with eyes shining with enthusiasm. “There’s not a place in Paris where one feels more at ease. The tone is quite divine, the decency is remarkable, and you’re never bored there. Ninon de Lenclos’s salon is really the devil’s own snare, for nobody could believe that it is being managed by a person of such reprehensible morals. You know the saying about her: ‘Ninon de Lenclos went to bed with Louis XIII’s reign and is getting ready to do likewise with Louis XIV’s’. Which, incidentally, would not surprise me, for she seems to have eternal youth.”
That day, as she was entering the Jesuits' little parlour for the second time, Angelique expected to find her brother, who had sent fof her, and Desgrez, whom she had not seen for some time. But the only person
there was a middle-aged little man in black clothes, wearing one of those ‘clerk’s wigs’ made of horsehair, to which was sewn a small black leather cap. He rose and greeted her gauchely in an old-fashionfed way, then introduced himself as the clerk of the court, at present engaged by Maitre Desgrcz for Monsieur de Peyrac’s case.
“I have been attending to this case for only three days, but I’ve already had long talks with Maitre Desgrez and Maitre Fallot, who have briefed me and instructed me to attend to the ordinary documents and the filing of your suit.”
Angclique gave a sigh of relief.
“The trial at last!” she exclaimed.
The little man gazed with a scandalised look at this client who obviously did not know the first thing about legal procedure.
“If Maitre Desgrez has done me the signal honour of asking me to assist him, it’s because that young man realised that, notwithstanding all the parchment awards that his great intelligence obtained for him, he needed someone who was intimately acquainted with the ins and outs of pro¬cedure. That expert on procedure, Madame, is myself.”
Angelique saw him close his eyes, swallow his saliva and then watch the flecks of dust that were dancing in a ray of light. She was a little put out. “But you gave me to understand that the plea was presented?”
“Softly, softly, beautiful lady. I merely said that I was working on the
filing of the said suit and that ”
They were interrupted by the lawyer’s and the Jesuit’s entrance. “What’s this odd bird you brought along?” Angclique whispered to Desgrez.
“Don’t be afraid, he isn’t dangerous. He is a little insect that feeds on detail, but he is a minor god in his own right.”
“He talks of letting my husband rot in prison!”
“Monsieur Clopot, your tongue is too long and you’ve annoyed Madame,” said the lawyer.
The little man made himself even smaller and went to cower in a corner, where he began to look like a cockroach. Angclique almost burst out laughing.
“You treat him rather harshly, your minor god of detail.”
“It’s the only advantage I have over him. Actually, he’s a hundred times richer than I am. Now let us sit down and examine the situation.”
‘ ‘The trial is decided upon?” .
“It is.”
The young woman looked at the faces of her brother and her lawyer, which displayed some reticence.
“Monsieur Clopot’s presence must already have told you so,” said Raymond at last, “but we have been unsuccessful in our efforts to have your husband appear before an ecclesiastical court.”
“Yet . . . since the charge is one of witchcraft?”
“We have put forward all possible arguments and used all our in¬fluence, you may believe me. But the King, I think, desires to show him¬self more Catholic than the Pope. In actual fact, the nearer Monsieur de Mazarin leans towards the grave, the more insistent the young monarch becomes on taking all the affairs of the kingdom into his own hands, including religious matters. Isn’t it bad enough that the appointment of bishops depends on his choice, and not on a religious authority? Anyhow, all we’ve been able to accomplish is to set a civil court trial in motion.” “Tliis decision is preferable to oblivion, isn’t it?” said Angelique, seek¬ing encouragement from Desgrez’s eyes.
But Desgrez remained marble-like'.
“It is always preferable to know one’s fate once for all, rather than to entertain doubts for long years,” he said.
“Let us not dwell needlessly on this failure,” Raymond broke in. “The question now is to know how to exert an influence on the management of the trial. The King will name the sworn judges himself. It is our task to make him understand that he owes it to himself to act with impartiality and justice. It’s a delicate task to enlighten the conscience of a King!” These words reminded Angelique of an expression she had heard the Marquis du Plessis-Belliere use a long time ago about Monsieur Vincent de Paul. He had said of him: “He is the conscience of the kingdom.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, “why haven’t I thought of it before? If Monsieur Vincent could speak to the Queen or the King about Joffrey, I am sure he would shake them.”
“Alas, Monsieur Vincent died last month, in his house of Saint-Lazare.” “Oh God!” sighed Angelique, whose eyes had filled with tears of dis-appointment. “Oh! why didn’t I think of him when he was still alive! He would have known how to talk to them. He would have obtained religious jurisdiction . . .”
“Don’t you believe, then, that we tried every possible means to obtain this decision?” asked the Jesuit somewhat acidly.
Angelique’s eyes shone.
“I do,” she murmured, “but Monsieur Vincent was a saint.”
There was a pause, then Father de Sance sighed.
“You are right. Actually a saint alone could bend the King’s pride. Even his most intimate courtiers don’t really know the true soul of that young man, who, under an apparent attitude of reserve, is devoured by a
terrible urge for power. I have no doubt that he will be a great King, but . . .” ’
He broke off, considering perhaps that it was not without danger to utter such views.
“We learned,” he went on, “that certain scientists who live in Rome, and two of whom are members of our congregation, were perturbed by the arrest of Comte Joffrey de Peyrac and had protested against it— surreptitiously of course, since the case has been kept secret so far. It would be possible to collect their testimonies and to ask the Pope to intervene by writing to the King. That august voice, confronting him with his responsibilities and beseeching him to examine closely the case of an accused man whom all the greatest minds consider innocent of the crime of witchcraft, might shake him.”
“Do you think we could obtain such a letter?” asked Angelique, with¬out much hope. “The Church does not like scientists.”
“I consider that it is not for a woman of your conduct to judge the mistakes or shortcomings of the Church,” Raymond suggested mildly.
Angelique was not deceived by the blandness of his tone. She remained silent.
“I had the feeling that something was amiss between Raymond and me
today,” she said, while accompanying the lawyer back to the postern-gate
a little later. “Why does he speak so sharply of my conduct? I think I am
leading at least as exemplary a life as the hangman’s wife who’s lodging >>
me.
Dcsgrez smiled.
“I suppose your brother must already have picked up some of those leaflets that are making the round of Paris this morning. Claude Le Petit, the notorious poet of the Pont-Neuf who, for almost six years now, has been troubling the digestion of the mighty, has got wind of your husband’s trial and grasped the opportunity to dip his pen into vitriol.”
“What can he have said? Did you see the pamphlets?”
The lawyer beckoned to Monsieur Clopot, who was walking behind them, to come closer and to hand him the bag he was holding. He pulled from it a bundle of poorly printed leaflets. They were little songs in verse. With a verve that seemed to gush spontaneously but which visibly sought the most infamous slights and the most vulgar terms, the journalist presented Joffrey de Peyrac as “the great Lame Man, the hairy one, the Grand Cuckold of Languedoc. ...”
It was easy for him to mock the accused’s physical appearance. He ended one of his lampoons with this couplet:
And the beautiful Madame de Peyrac,
Praying that the Bastille will open nevermore And he remain in his cul-de-sac,
Goes to the Louvre and plays the whore.
Angelique thought she was going to blush, but, on the contrary, she went quite pale.
“Oh! that horrid Gutter-Poet!” she cried, flinging the sheets into the mud. “It’s true that the filthy gutter is still too clean for him!”
“Hush! Madame, you mustn’t swear,” protested Desgrez, affecting a scandalised air while the clerk crossed himself. “Monsieur Clopot, will you please pick up that filth and put it back into the bag.”
“fd like to know why they don’t throw these cursed gazetteers into prison instead of putting honest people there,” Angelique went on, trembling with rage. “I heard that gazetteers are locked up in the Bastille, as if they were worthy of respect. Why not at the Chatclet, like the bandits they are?”
“It isn’t easy to collar a gazetteer. They are the most slippery race alive. They are everywhere and nowhere. Claude Le Petit has been almost hanged ten times, and yet he always reappears and hurls his arrows at the least expected moments. He is the eye of Paris. He secs everything, knows everything and nobody ever meets him. I have never seen him myself, but I suppose his ears must be bigger than a barber’s basin, for all the gossip of the capital finds room in them. He ought to be paid as a spy instead of being prosecuted.”
“He ought to be hanged, once for all!”
“It is true that our dear and inefficient police classes journalist-gazetteers among the ill-intentioned persons. But they’ll never catch the Little Poet of the Pont-Neuf, if we don’t take a hand in it, my dog and I.”
“Do that, I beg of you!” cried Angelique, gripping Desgrez with both her hands. “I want to see Sorbonne bring him to me in his jaws, dead or alive.”
“I’d rather go and offer him to Monsieur de Mazarin, for, believe me, even more than you, he’s certainly the Cardinal’s worst enemy.”
“How does it happen that a liar has been allowed to swagger for so long with impunity?”
“Alas! Claude Le Petit’s formidable strength lies in the fact that he never lies and is rarely mistaken.”
Ang61ique opened her mouth to protest, then remembered the Marquis de Vardes and fell silent, swallowing her rage and her shame.