Angelique - Part 5. The Court of Miracles Chapter 11 - Read online

TOWARDS MIDNIGHT ANGELIQUE, together with some ten women and wenches, two of whom belonged to Calembredaincs gang, was thrown into one of the low jails of the Chatelet. When the heavy door slammed upon her, she still seemed to hear the clamour of the frenzied crowd, the shouts of the beggars and bandits caught in the implacable net of the archers and policemen and brought in cart-loads from the Fair of Saint-Germain to the common jail.
“Nice mess we’re in,** a bawd said. “Isn’t that just my luck! For once I take a stroll away from Glatigny, and of course I get myself nabbed. I wouldn’t put it past them to give me a taste of the rack for not having remained in the reserved district.’*
“Does it hurt to be put on the rack?*’ a chit of a girl asked.
“Oh God! I’ve still got my veins and nerves strung out like marsh¬mallow from it. Ah, when the executioner put me on it I shouted: ‘Sweet Jesus! Virgin Mary have pity on me!’ ”
“Me,” said anodier, “I had a hollow horn pushed right down my gullet and they poured in nearly six kettles full of cold water. If only it had been wine! I thought I’d burst like a pig’s bladder. Afterwards, they carried me before a good fire, in the kitchen of the Chatelet, to make me come round.”
Angelique listened to the voices coming from the foul-smelling dark¬ness. The idea that she too would doubtless be tortured in the course of the preliminary questioning—which was obligatory for all the accused— did not even enter her head. One thought alone was uppermost in her mind: ‘My little ones—what will become of them? . . . Who will look after them? Maybe they’ll be forgotten in the Tower. And the rats will eat them. . . .’
Although it was icy and damp in the dungeon, sweat oozed from her brow. Squatting on some straw strewn on the ground, she leaned against the wall, her arms clasped around her knees, trying not to tremble and to find arguments to put her mind at rest. *
‘One of the women will surely look after them. They are a careless, incapable lot, but they do remember to give bread to their children. . . . They’ll give some to mine. Anyhow, if Polack is there they’ll be all right. And Nicholas will watch over diem. . .
But hadn’t Nicholas been arrested, too? Angelique thought* back to those moments of panic when, running from lane to lane to escape from the bloody brawls, she had been stopped everywhere by a wall of archers and sergeants.
Angelique tried to remember if Polack had been able to leave the fair-ground before the clash. When she last saw her, Polack was dragging along a young provincial, who seemed at once alarmed and thrilled, towards the banks of the Seine. But they might have stopped on the way at all sorts of shops, or had a drink at a tavern.
Summoning all her will-power, Angelique managed to convince her¬self that Polack had not been caught, and this thought calmed her a little. From the depth of her anguish, an imploring appeal rose to her lips and forgotten words of prayer came back mechanically:
‘Take pity on them! Protect them, Virgin Mary. ... I swear to you,’ she repeated to herself, ‘that if my children are saved, I shall tear myself out of this degrading quagmire. I. shall run away from this gang of thieves and criminals. I shall try to earn my living by the work of my hands. . . .’
She thought of the flower-seller and drew some plans. The hours that passed seemed less long to her.
In the morning there was a great rattling of locks and keys, and the door was opened. A constable of the watch directed the light of a torch towards them. The daylight that came through the loop-hole beyond the six-foot- thick wall was so dim that one could not see much in the dungeon.
“Here are the marquises, lads,” a constable cried hilariously. “Step forward, girls. It looks like a fine harvest.”
Three more soldiers of the watch came in and stuck the torch into a ring on the wall.
“Come on, pretty ones, you won’t give us trouble, will you?”
And one of the men pulled a pair of scissors from under his tunic.
“Take off your cap,” he said to the woman who was near the door. “Bah! grey hairs. Never mind, we’ll make a few sous on them, anyway.
I know a barber over at the Place Saint-Michel who uses them for cheap wigs for elderly clerks.”
He cut off the grey hair, tied it with a piece of string and flung it into a basket. His companions inspected the heads of the other prisoners.
“It isn’t worth while cropping mine,” one of them said. “You sheared me only a short while ago.”
“Why, that’s true,” said the jovial constable, “I remember you, little mother. Hi! Hi! It looks as if you’ve taken a fancy to this lodging- house !”
A soldier approached Angelique. She felt a coarse hand groping for her hair.
“Hi! pals,” he called out, “we’ve got a tasty bit here! Bring the torch a little closer so we can take a good look.”
The resinous flame lit the fine sheath of curly auburn hair, which fell free as the soldier untied Angelique’s bonnet. There was an admiring whistle.
“Why, that’s a peach, that is! Not fair hair, of course, but it’s got a sheen. We’ll be able to sell that to Maitre Binct in the rue Saint-Honore. That fellow isn’t particular about the price, but he is particular about quality. ‘Take those parcels of vermin away,’ he says to me, whenever I bring him the hair of jail-birds. T don’t make wigs out of worm-eaten hair!’ But this time he won’t be able to turn up his nose.”
Angelique raised her two hands to her head. They were not going to cut her hair; it was inconceivable!
“Oh no, don’t do that!” she begged. But a hard fist slapped her wrists down.
“Now then, my pretty one, you shouldn’t have come to the Chatelet if you wanted to keep your thatch on your head. We’ve got to make our little profit, don’t you see?”
And with much clicking of steel, the scissors cropped the shiny curls which Barbe had brushed so reverently but a short while ago. When the soldiers had left, Angelique passed a trembling hand over her bare nape. Her head seemed to have become quite small and light.
“Don’t blubber,” one of the women said, “it’ll grow again. Provided, that is, you take care not to be nabbed again. Because the men of the watch are the devil’s own reapers. Hair is fetching a good price in Paris,
what with all those bumpkins up from the country who want to wear
• »»
wigs.
The young woman tied her bonnet up again, without answering. Her companions thought she was crying, because she was shaken by nervous shudders. But the incident was already forgotten. It was unimportant, after all. The only thing that mattered to her was the fate of her children.
The hours crept on with unbearable slowness. The cell in which they were crowded was so small that they could hardly breathe. One of the women said that it was a good sign that they had been put into this small cell. It was the cell called ‘the in-between’. It was used for locking up those whom they were uncertain whether or not to consider in a state of arrest.
“After all, we weren’t doing anything wrong when they picked us up,” she said. “We were at the fair, like everyone else. And that everybody went there is proved by the fact that they didn’t search us, for the women- warders of the Chatelet were also there, to have a bit of fun.”
“So were the police,” remarked another prostitute sourly.
Angelique touched Rodogone the Egyptian’s dagger below her clothes.
“A piece of luck they didn’t search us,” the first woman repeated.
“They will, don’t you worry,” her companion retorted.
Most of the women displayed scant optimism about their prospects. They told stories of prisoners who had remained locked up for ten years before anyone remembered them. And those among them who were familiar with the Chatelet described the prisons contained in the sinister fortress. There was the dungeon ‘End of Comfort*, full of filth and reptiles, where the air was so foul that one could not keep a candle lit in it; the ‘Slaughter-house’, thus called because it was filled with the nauseous smells from the big butcher’s shop near-by; the ‘Chains’, a big hall where the prisoners were shackled to one another; ‘Barbary’, ‘Balsam’, which meant ‘grotto’, and still others: the ‘Well’, the ‘Bottle-Dungeon*, which was in the form of an inverted cone. Here the prisoners stood with their feet in the water and could neither hold themselves upright nor lie down. Generally, they would die after a fortnight’s detention. Finally, the women lowered their voices to talk of the ‘oubliettes*, the underground dungeon from which no one ever returned.
A grey light seeped through the small barred window. It was impossible to guess what time it was. An old woman removed her down-at-heel shoes, tore the nails from the sole and stuck them in the other way, with their points outwards. She showed this odd weapon to her companions and advised them to do likewise in order to be able to kill the rats that would appear at night.
Towards midday, however, the door was opened noisily and halber¬diers made the prisoners come out and led them through endless corridors to a large hall covered with blue tapestries adorned with yellow flcurs-dc- lis.
At the back of the room, on a semicircular platform, there stood a kind of pulpit of carved wood, surmounted by a painting representing Christ on the Cross and by a small needlework canopy. A man in a black robe with a small neck-band trimmed with white, and wearing a white wig, sat there. Another, holding a bundle of parchments, was at his side. They were the Provost of Paris and his lieutenant.
Court ushers, tipstaffs and soldiers of the Royal Watch surrounded the group of women and girls. They were pushed to the foot of the platform and had to pass before a table where a court clerk took down their names.
Angflique was at a loss when she was asked her name: she no longer had a name. . . . Finally she said she was called Anne Sauvert, taking the name of a village in the neighbourhood of Monteloup.
Sentence was quickly passed. There was pressure of work at the Chatelet that day. They had to sift fast. After putting a few questions to each one of the detained women, the Provost’s lieutenant read out the list that had been handed to him and declared that “all the above-mentioned persons were sentenced to be publicly whipped, and would then be taken to the General Hospital, where devout women would teach them to sew as well as to pray to God”.
“We’re let off cheaply,” one of the prostitutes whispered to Angelique. “The General Hospital isn’t like a prison. It’s the work-house. You get put there by force but no watch is kept. It won’t be hard to run away.”
Then a group of some twenty women was taken into a vast hall on the ground floor, and the sergeants made them line up along the wall. The door opened and a very tall and corpulent soldier walked in. He wore a handsome brown wig over a flushed face cut in two by a black moustache. With his blue tunic lightly stretched over his fat-pillowed shoulders, his wide belt over his bulging midriff, his enormous cuffs covered with braid, his sword and his outsize neck-band tied with thick, golden tassels, he looked rather like Big Matthieu, but without the latter’s good-natured joviality. His deep-set eyes under the bushy brows were small and hard.
He was shod in high-heeled boots, which further increased his im¬pressive height.
“That’s the officer of the watch,” whispered Angelique’s neighbour. “Oh! he’s terrible; he’s called the Ogre.”
The Ogre passed along the line, making his spurs click on the stone- flags. ^
“Ho! Ho! sluts, you’ll get a good tanning! Come on, off with the jackets. And those who scream too loud had better look out: there’ll be an extra stroke for them.”
Those women who already had experience of the ordeal of the whip obediently removed their bodices. Those who wore a shift let it slip down over their arms and hang over their petticoats. The archers went to the others who showed some hesitation and brutally stripped them to the waist. One of them half tore Angelique’s bodice as he pulled it off. She hastened to bare her torso herself, fearing they might notice her dagger.
The captain of the watch walked up and down, inspecting the women lined up before him. He stopped among the younger ones and a glint flashed in his small, pig-like eyes. Finally, with a peremptory gesture, he indicated Angdique.
With a chuckle of connivance, one of the archers made her step forward.
“Come on, take all this rabble away,” the officer ordered, “and let it sting! How many are there?”
A score, sir.
“It’s four o’clock in the afternoon. Finish with it before sundown.”
“Yes, sir.”
The archers shepherded the women out. In the courtyard Angelique saw a tumbrel piled with switches, which was to follow the wretched procession to the place reserved for public beatings, near the Church of Saint-Denis-de-la-Chatre.
The door was closed again. Angelique remained alone with the officer of the watch. She cast a surprised, anxious glance at him. Why wasn’t she sharing the fate of her companions? Would she be taken back to prison?
It was icy cold in the low, domed hall, whose medieval walls oozed with moisture. Although there was still daylight outside, darkness was faffing and a torch had already been lit. Shivering, Angelique crossed her arms and clasped her shoulders with her hands, not so much, perhaps, to defend herself against the cold as to conceal her breasts from the Ogre’s weighty gaze.
He advanced with a heavy tread and coughed.
“Well, my little chicken, do you really feel like getting your pretty white back skinned?”
As she did not answer, he insisted:
“Answer me! Do you really feel like it?”
Angelique evidently could not say that she did. So she decided to shake her head.
“Well, then, we may be able to do something about it,” the soldier said in a sugary tone. “It would be a pity to damage such a pretty chicken. We two might come to an understanding, perhaps?”
He slipped a finger under her chin to force her to raise her head. He whistled with admiration.
“Phew! What beautiful peepers! Your mother must have drunk buckets of absinthe while she was carrying you! Come on, give me a smile.”
His fat fingers slyly caressed the fragile neck, stroked the round shoulders. She recoiled, unable to check a shudder of revulsion. His belly heaved with laughter. Her green eyes stared at him fixedly. At last, though he towered over her, he was the first to give signs of embarrassment.
“It’s a deal, isn't it?” he went on. “You 11 come with me into my apartment. And afterwards you’ll go back to the others, but the archers will leave you alone. You won t get a whipping. . . . Are you pleased, my baby?”
He burst into hearty laughter, then pulled her towards him with a vigorous arm and began to plant fat, resounding, greedy kisses on her face.
The touch of that moist mouth, with its smell of tobacco and red wine, revolted Angelique, who writhed like an eel to slip out of his embrace. The belt and the braid of his uniform were chafing her breasts. She finally managed to free herself and hastened to slip her torn jacket on as best she could.
“Hey, what’s this?” said the astonished giant. “What's come over you? Didn’t you understand that I want to spare you a whipping?”
“Thank you very much,” said Angelique firmly, “but I prefer the whipping.”
The Ogre's mouth dropped wide open, his moustache quivered and he turned crimson, as if the strings of his neck-band were suddenly choking him.
“Wha-at . • . what are you saying? . . .”
“I prefer to be whipped,” Angelique repeated. “His Honour the Provost of Paris sentenced me, I must not evade the verdict.”
And she stalked resolutely towards the door. With a single stride he caught up with her and gripped her by the neck.
‘Oh, good God!’ thought Angelique. ‘Never again will I seize a chicken by its neck; it's a most horrid feeling!’
The captain scrutinised her attentively.
“You seem an odd sort of wench to me,” he said, panting a little. “For
what you’ve just said I could trounce you with the flat side of my sabre
and leave you for dead on the floor. But I don’t want to hurt you. You
are pretty, and well set up. The more I look at you, the more I take a fancy
to you. It would be silly if we two couldn't make a deal. I can do you a
favour. Listen, don’t sulk! Be nice to me, and when you arc back with the
others, well . . . maybe the warder who escorts you will look the other >»
way. . . .
In a flash Angelique saw a chance to escape. Florimond’s and Cantor’s little faces danced before her eyes.
Distraught, she looked at the brutal, red face which was bending over her. It was impossible! She could never do it! Besides, there were ways of getting out of the General Hospital. . . . And even on the* way there she might have a try. . . .
“I prefer the General Hospital!” she shouted, beside herself. “I pre¬fer ...” ‘
The rest was lost in a tornado. Shaken so hard that she lost her breath she heard a shower of thundering abuse coming down upon her. An open door gaped bright before her and she was flung through it like a ball.
“I want this strumpet drubbed till her skin hangs in shreds!” roared the captain.
And the door slammed like a thunder-clap.
Angelique had landed sprawling amid a group of the civilian watch who had just arrived to stand guard for the night. Most of these were peaceful craftsmen and shopkeepers who only grumblingly assumed this charge, which was imposed on the guilds alternately. They constituted the ‘sitting’ or ‘sleeping’ watch.
They had only just started to pull out their playing cards and their pipes when this half-naked girl was flung into their midst. The captain’s order had been yelled at such a pitch that nobody had grasped a word of it.
“Another one whom our valiant captain has abused,” said one of them. “One can’t say love makes him tender.”
“He has plenty of success, though, his nights are never lonely.”
“What the hell, he picks them out of the prisoners’ lot and lets them choose between the jail and his bed.”
“If the Provost knew about it, he’d give him hell.”
Angelique had struggled to her feet, badly bruised. The men of the watch gazed at her good-humouredly. They were filling their pipes and shuffling their cards. Hesitantly, she walked to the door of the guard¬room. Nobody stopped her. She found herself outside in the vaulted passage of the rue Saint-Leufroy, which led, by way of the fortress of the Chatelet, from the rue Saint-Denis to the Pont-au-Change.
People were coming and going. Angelique realised that she was free. She began to run, madly.