Angelique - Part 4. The Doomed Man of Notre Dame Chapter 6 - Read online

WITH ITS THIN COAT OF SHINING SNOW, the huge fortress of the Bastille looked even blacker and more sinister than usual. Beneath the low sky, one could see slender wisps of grey smoke rising from the plat¬forms of the towers. Some fires had probably been lit in the Governor’s and guards’ rooms, but Angelique could easily imagine the icy dampness of the dungeons where the ‘forgotten’ prisoners were cowering on their dank straw-pallets.
Desgrez had made her comfortable, until his return, in a little tavern in the Faubourg Saint-Antoinc, with whose landlord, and the latter’s daughter in particular, he seemed to be on friendly terms.
From her vantage-point by the window Angelique could watch every¬thing without being observed. She could clearly see the soldiers on the projecting bastion, who were blowing into their hands as they stamped their feet around the cannons. Occasionally one of their comrades would call out to them from the top of the battlements, and their ringing voices echoed in the frosty air.
At last Angflique saw Desgrez coming towards her after having crossed the drawbridge. Her heart began to thump with Ш-defmed appre¬hension. She noticed that the lawyer had a curious bearing and an odd look about him. He tried to smile, then talked very fast and in a manner that seemed to Angelique falsely cheerful. He said that he had managed to see Monsieur de Peyrac without too much difficulty and that the Governor had left them alone for a few moments. They had reached an agreement about Desgrez assuring the defence of the prisoner.
The Comte at first did not want to have a lawyer, claiming that by accepting counsel he implicitly accepted the decision to be tried by an ordinary court and not by a parliamentary court, as he had demanded. He wanted to defend himself alone, but after some moments’ conver¬sation he had accepted the assistance that he was being offered.
“I am surprised that so hot-tempered a man should have yielded so easily,” Angelique marvelled. “I had expected that you would have a real battle. For when it conics to finding logical arguments to support his views, you can always count on him, you know!”
The lawyer wrinkled his forehead as if he were suffering from a violent headache, and he called out to the innkeeper’s daughter to bring him a pint of beer.
He finally said in a strange tone of voice:
“Your husband gave in at the mere sight of your handwriting.”
“He read my letter? Did it make him happy?”
“I read it to him.”
“Why? He ”
She broke off and murmured in a toneless voice:
“You mean he wasn’t in a state to read it himself? Why? Is he ill? Speak up! I have a right to know.”
She had unconsciously gripped the young man’s wrist and was digging her nails into his flesh. He waited until the girl who had brought the beer went away.
“Be brave,” he said with unfeigned compassion. “You might as well know everything. The Governor of the Bastille did not conceal from me the fact that the Comte de Peyrac had been subjected to the preliminary question.”
Angelique went ghastly pale.
“What have they done to him? Have they broken his poor limbs?” “No. But it is a fact that the torture of the boot and the rack has much weakened him and that he is obliged to remain lying down. That's not the worst, though. During the Governor's absence your husband was able to give me some details of the exorcism to which he was subjected by Friar Becher. He said that the probe which the latter used for one of the trials was a contraption that actually, at certain moments, thrust a long needle into his flesh. In the grip of a sudden excruciating pain, he could not prevent himself from screaming several times, and this was very un¬favourably interpreted by the witnesses. As for the possessed nun, he did not fully recognise her, for he had already half fainted.''
“Is he in pain? Is he in desperation?”
“He has great courage, although his body is exhausted and he has had to submit to almost thirty interrogations.”
After remaining thoughtful for a moment, Desgrez added:
“Shall I confess? His appearance gave me a shock. I could not fathom that you were that man's wife. And then, as soon as we had exchanged a few words, when his glowing eyes gazed into mine, I understood. . . . Oh! I forgot! The Comte de Peyrac has given me a message for his son Florimond. He wants him to know that, on his return, he’ll bring his son two little spiders which he has taught to dance.”
“Ugh! I hope Florimond won't touch them,” said Angelique, fighting hard to suppress a sob.
“We now see more clearly,” declared Father de Sance, when he had listened to the lawyer's report of the latest events. “Do you think, Maitre, that the prosecution will confine itself to the acts of alleged witchcraft and use the minutes drawn up by Friar Becher as evidence?”
“I am convinced of it, for the rumours they tried to spread about the Comte de Peyrac’s so-called treason against the King had to be dropped as baseless. So, for want of a better charge, they’ve come back to the first accusation: he is a sorcerer whom this secular law-court presumes to try.
“Good. So we have to convince the judges, on the one hand, that there is nothing supernatural about the mining research in which my brother-in¬law engaged, and for this you must obtain the testimony of the workmen with whom he operated. On the other hand, it is essential to expose as
valueless the exorcism on which the prosecution believes it can base its и
case.
“The case would be won if the judges, who are all devout believers, could be convinced that the exorcism was in fact a sham.”
“We shall help you to prove it.”
Raymond de Sanc£ struck the parlour table with the palm of his hand and turned his fine-featured, sallow face towards the lawyer.
“For there is something you don’t know, Mr. Advocate,” said the Jesuit in a firm, trenchant voice, “even as many princes of the Church of France do not know it. Their religious education, it is true, is often less advanced than that of a poor, country parson. It is this: there is only one man in France authorised by the Pope to try cases of possession and manifestations of Satan. That man is a member of the Society of Jesus. Only after a long prudent life and deep and arduous studies did he receive from His Holiness the Pope the redoubtable privilege of conversing face to face with the Prince of Darkness. I am convinced, Maitre Desgrez, that you will dumbfound the judges when you inform them that only a deposition of an exorcism signed by the Reverend Father Kircher, Grand Exorcist of France, is valid in the eyes of the Church.”
“Indeed,” exclaimed Desgrez, greatly excited, “I admit I suspected something of the sort, but this Friar Becher acted with infernal cleverness and managed to get himself accredited by Cardinal de Gondi, the Arch¬bishop of Paris. I shall challenge this violation of religious procedure!” cried the lawyer. “I shall challenge the unauthorised priests who, by a blasphemous mockery, cast ridicule on the Church.”
“Be good enough to wait for me a few moments,” said Father de Sance, getting up.
He returned soon after, accompanied by another Jesuit, whom he intro-duced as Father Kircher. Angelique was much impressed at meeting the Grand Exorcist of France. She did not quite know what she had expected, but she certainly had not thought she would find before her a man of such modest appearance. Without the black cassock, set off only by a copper cross on his chest, this taciturn Jesuit would easily have been taken for a peaceful peasant rather than for an ecclesiastic accustomed to conversing with the devil.
Angelique felt that Desgrez too, despite his fundamental scepticism, could not fail to be drawn by the newcomer’s appearance. Raymond said that he had already apprised Father Kircher of the case and he now informed him of the latest events. The Grand Exorcist was listening with a kind, reassuring smile.
“It seems a simple matter,” he said at last. “I in turn shall have to per¬form a regular exorcism. The report of it, which you will read at the trial and which I shall support with my own testimony, should^ put those gentlemen’s consciences in a ticklish position.”
“It’s not quite so simple,” said Desgrez, energetically scratching his head. “To get you into the Bastille, even as a chaplain, to see this strictly watched prisoner, seems to me quite a problem . .
“All the more so, since there must be three of us.”
“Why?”
“The devil is too clever for a single man, even though armed with prayers, to provoke him without peril. To approach a man who is trafficking with the devil, I have to be assisted by at least two of my acolytes.”
“But my husband doesn’t traffic with the devil!” Angelique protested.
She quickly buried her face in her hands to hide a sudden attack of giggling. She couldn’t help imagining Joffrey standing before a shop- counter and conversing with a homed and smiling devil. Oh! when they were at last back again in Toulouse, how they would laugh at all this rubbish! She imagined herself sitting on Joffrey*s lap, burying her lips in his thick, violet-scented shock of hair, while his wonderful hands found again, with ardent caresses, the body he loved.
Her untimely laughter ended in a brief sob.
“Take courage, my dear sister,” Raymond said gently. “The birth of Christ brings us a message of hope: peace to men of good will.”
But these alternatives of hope .and despair were sapping the young woman’s strength. When her thoughts carried her back to the last festive Christmas she had spent at Toulouse, she felt filled with horror at the long way she had come since then. Could she have imagined, a year ago, that she would find herself on this Christmas Eve, while the bells of Paris were pealing under the grey sky, with no shelter other than Widow Cordeau’s hearth? Next to the old woman spinning her yam and the apprentice hangman who was innocently playing with little Florimond, she barely felt the strength to hold out her palms to the fire. Sitting by her side on the same bench, Madame Scarron, as young and beautiful, as wretched and friendless, as herself, now and then slipped her arm softly around her companion’s waist and nestled against her.
The old linen-draper, also huddling by the only fire in the dismal dwelling, was drowsing in the tapestry arm-chair which he had moved down from his bedroom. He was muttering in his sleep and counting figures in an obstinate quest for the causes of his bankruptcy. When a crackling log woke him, he smiled and said with effort:
“Let us not forget that Jesus will be born. All the world is rejoicing. Why don’t we sing a little hymn?”
And, to Florimond’s delight, he sang quaveringly but with fervour:
“We were three little shepherd-lasses By a little brook, oh!
Looking after our lambkins,
Hey nonny no!
Which were grazing in the meadow.,,
There was a knock at the door. A black figure could be seen saying a few words to Ropc-round-the-neck.
“It’s for Madame Angeliquc,” said the boy.
Angelique rose, thinking she would find Desgrcz. In the entrance, she saw a booted cavalier, wrapped in a greatcoat and his lowered felt-hat hid his face.
“I have come to say good-bye, my dear sister.”
It was Raymond.
“Where are you going?” she asked in surprise.
“To Rome ... I cannot give you any particulars of the mission I am entrusted with, but tomorrow everybody will know that relations between the French embassy and the Vatican have taken a turn for the worse. The ambassador has refused to comply with the orders of the Holy Father, who demanded that only diplomatic personnel be admitted within the precincts of the embassy. Louis XIV replied that any attempt to impose decisions other than his own would be answered by force. We are on the eve of a break between the Church of France and the Papacy. It’s a catastrophe that we must avoid at all costs. I must ride post-haste to Rome to try and negotiate an understanding.”
“You are leaving!” she repeated, aghast. “You too arc deserting me? And the letter for Joffrey?”
“Alas, my poor little sister, I am much afraid that under the present circumstances any plea from the Sovereign Pontiff would have a bad reception from our monarch. But you can rely on me to attend to this affair during my stay in Rome. Look, here’s a little money. And now listen: I saw Dcsgrez less than an hour ago. Your husband has been transferred to the prison of the law-courts.”
“What does that mean?”
“That he will be tried soon. That’s not all. At the law-courts, Dcsgrez is confident that he will be able to get Father Kircher and his acolytes admitted. This very night they hope to be with the prisoner. I have no doubt that the test will be decisive. Be confident!”
She was listening to him with a frozen heart, unable to kindle a glow of hopefulness. The priest, taking her by her slender shoulders, ,drew her towards him and placed a brotherly kiss on her cold cheeks.
“Be confident, my dear sister,” he repeated.
She heard the receding steps of the two hones, muffled by the snowy carpet as, trotting through the postern-gate of the enclosure, they moved away into Paris.
Desgrez lived on the Pctit-Pont, which links the Cite with the Uni¬versity district, in one of those narrow old houses with pointed gables whose foundations had been soaking in the Seine for centuries undisturbed by floods.
Crazed with waiting, Angelique finally went to see him. She had obtained his address from the innkeeper of The Trois Mafflets. When she reached the appointed place, she hesitated a little. The house really resembled Desgrez: poor, gawky, and just a trifle arrogant. Angelique climbed up the winding stairs, whose banisters of rotting timber were decorated with weird, grimacing sculptures.
On the top floor there was only one door. She heard die dog Sorbonnc snuffle at floor-level. She knocked. The door was opened by a big wench with a painted face, whose neckerchief opened on a generous bosom. Angelique shrank back. She hadn’t thought of that.
“What do you want?” asked the other.
“Does Maitre Desgrez live here?”
Someone stirred inside the room, and the lawyer appeared, a goose- quill in his hand.
“Come in, Madame,” he said in a very natural tone of voice.
Then he shoved the girl outside and closed the door.
“So you haven’t even two-sous9 worth of patience?” he said reproach¬fully. “You must come and seek me in my lair, at the risk of your life ”
“I have been without news since ”
“Only six days.”
“What was the outcome of the exorcism?”
“Sit down,” said Desgrez, without the least pity, “and let me finish what I am about to write. Then we’ll talk.”
Angelique sat down on the seat he had indicated, which was nothing more than a wooden box. She glanced around, thinking to herself that she had never seen such a squalid place. The light seeped into it only through small, greenish panes of lead-framed glass. A meagre fire in the hearth did not dispel the dampness that rose from the river, which could be heard flowing below between the piles of the Petit-Pont. Books were stacked up on the floor in a comer. Desgrez himself had no table. Seated on a stool, he was writing on a plank placed on his knees. His inkstand stood on the floor beside him.
The only substantial piece of furniture was the bed, but its blue twill curtains and blankets gaped with holes. However, there were white sheets on it, worn but clean. Despite herself, Angelique’s eyes constantly re¬turned to the ruffled bed, whose disarray openly betrayed the scene which, a few moments ago, must have taken place there between the lawyer and the girl whom he had so unceremoniously shown out. The young woman felt the blood rise to her cheeks.
She felt an intense desire to nestle against a masculine shoulder and forget everything in a demanding, perhaps brutal embrace. She gazed at him. She felt a little ashamed and, to conceal her confusion, she mechanically fondled the big head which the Great Dane had devotedly put on her knees.
“Phew!” exclaimed Desgrez, rising and stretching himself. “Never in my life have I talked so much about God and the Church. Do you know what these sheets represent that you see scattered over the floor?”
“No, I don’t.”
“The speech of Maitre Desgrez, defending counsel, which he will make at the trial of Monsieur de Peyrac, accused of witchcraft, which will come up for hearing at the law court assizes on the 20th January 1661.”
“The date’s been fixed?” cried Angelique, who felt herself go pale. “Oh! I absolutely must be there. Disguise me as a robed man of law or as a monk. I am pregnant, it’s true,” she said, looking down at herself with annoyance, “but it hardly shows. Madame Cordcau assures me that I’ll have a girl, because I am carrying the baby so high. At a pinch, I could be taken for a clerk with a tendency for guzzling. . . .”
Desgrez started to laugh.
“I am not sure the deception wouldn’t be a little too conspicuous. I’ve thought of something better. There’ll be a few nuns admitted to the court-room. You can disguise yourself with a wimple and rosary.”
“But then I wonder if the nuns’ good reputation would not be com-promised by my bulging midriff!”
“Pah! under an ample gown and a good cloak it won’t show. But look: can I count on your composure?”
“I promise you that I shall be as quiet as a mouse.”
“It’ll be hard work,” said Desgrez. “I can’t tell how things will turn out. There’s this to be said in favour of all law-courts: they react to sensational evidence brought before them. I therefore hold in reserve the scientific demonstration of the manufacture of gold to squash the charge of alchemy, and, above all, the deposition drawn up by Father Kircher, only accredited representative of the Church, who declares that уоцг husband does not show any sign of possession.”
“Thank God!” Angelique sighed. “We will win, won't we?"
He made a dubious gesture.
“I saw that Fritz Hauer," he said after a moment's pause. “He has arrived with all his pans and alembics. Impressive fellow, he is! A pity. Never mind! I am hiding him at the Carthusian convent in the Faubourg Saint-Jacques. As for the Moor, with whom I was able to have a talk by slipping into the Tuileries in the guise of a vinegar-merchant, we are assured of his help. Don’t, above all, mention my plan to anyone. The life of these poor people may be at stake. And success may depend on these few demonstrations.”
This advice seemed superfluous to the unfortunate Angelique, who felt her mouth go dry under the impact of alternate fears and hopes.
“I shall accompany you home,” said the lawyer. “Paris is not a healthy place for you. Don't leave the Temple any more until the morning of the trial. A nun will come and fetch yon, bring your clothes and accompany you to the Palace of Justice. I might as well tell you that this respectable nun is rather gruff. In fact, she is my elder sister. She brought me up and retired to convent life when she realised that her energetic thrashings had not prevented me from straying from the path of virtue. She prays for the remission of my sms. In short, she’d do anything for me. You can trust her implicitly."
In the street, Desgrez took Angelique's arm. As they reached the end of the Petit-Pont, Sorbonne stopped short and cocked his cars.
A few steps away, a tall, ragged athletic figure seemed to be waiting for the two strollers. Under his faded hat adorned with a feather, one could half make out a face marked with a violet wen and masked with a black bandage that hid one eye. The man was smiling almost insolently.
Sorbonne pounced upon him. The rogue jumped aside with an acrobat’s nimblcness and dashed into the doorway of one of the houses on the Petit-Pont. The dog streaked after him. There was a resounding splash.
“Damn Calembredaine!” grumbled Desgrez. “He's jumped into the Seine despite the ice. I wager that at this moment he’s dodging among the piles. He has real rat-holes under all the bridges of Paris. He’s one of the boldest bandits in town."
Sorbonne came slinking back, his tail between his legs.
Angelique tried to control her fright, but she could not rid herself of a fearful apprehension. It seemed to her that this wretch suddenly looming in their path was a symbol of a dreadful destiny.