The Brethren (20 page)

Despite her grand airs, querulousness and the frequent blows of her cane, Isabelle knew how to win over her chambermaids, and Franchou, after Cathau, had rapidly developed an almost devotional affection for her. This explains why the Brethren and the Reverend Duroy, expecting an easy conversion of the servants after the mistress, were dismayed to encounter a stone wall. From the outset, crossing her big red arms over her large breasts, Franchou flatly swore by the Virgin and by all the saints that she wanted none of the wickedness that had caused her mistress such tears; that she loved Madame, and she intended to live and die in her mistress’s religion. Neither carrot nor stick could dislodge her from this position.

My father was most distressed to discover the poor chambermaid so hardheaded, but in his heart he was secretly moved by the great love she bore her mistress, and once Franchou had left the room, Sauveterre’s rough proposal to get rid of her at once ended up by rubbing him the wrong way. In a haughty and abrupt tone, he replied that it would be cruel to deprive Isabelle of her chambermaid at a moment when she felt so isolated at Mespech, and, moreover, the matter of Isabelle’s servants fell solely under his own jurisdiction. Having said this, he turned and left the room, leaving Sauveterre deeply hurt by his tone, his look and his words.

And so it was that onto the larger quarrel was grafted a smaller one between the two brothers, as thorny for one as for the other, and which lasted a full month. Seconded by the Reverend Duroy, Sauveterre redoubled his attack. They argued that Franchou was a deplorable example to all the other servants, particularly Barberine and la Maligou, still much attached to the papist superstitions and likely to be inspired by their mistress’s rebellion. This bad apple would spoil the entire basketful, and create a female clan at Mespech more or less openly supportive of Isabelle, one which would not be without influence on the children and the male servants. What’s more, if they had to rely on Isabelle’s discernment and discretion in her dealings with Pincers, the latter would be in an excellent position to pump all kinds of information out of the naive Franchou and pass it on to the bishop of Sarlat who would thus be weekly informed about everything that was going on at Mespech.

This reasoning finally persuaded my father, but lacking the heart to throw Franchou out (all the more so since, innocently enough in his own mind, he had a weakness for her), he found her a position with a Huguenot lady in Sarlat who treated her very well, won her over and within a month had converted her. My father was so happy with this outcome that he never went to Sarlat without paying a visit
to our former chambermaid, bringing her some little gift and, in his playful way, patting her large red arms and giving her two big kisses on her fresh cheeks. All of this he did innocently and publicly, often in my presence, yet it surprised me for he never would have acted this way at Mespech.

My mother, however, seeing Franchou depart so quickly after Cathau, was plunged into black despair and was filled with bitter resentment towards my father. She kept after him from dawn to dusk, and often late into the night, with such biting recriminations that my father avoided her altogether, fleeing from room to room as though ten devils were at his heels.

“You were right, Jean,” he confided to Sauveterre in his
Book of Reason
, “her breast blinded me to her cross, and now I have my own cross to bear for it.”

Things got even worse when the Brethren decided to replace Franchou with Toinon, a girl from Taniès whom Duroy had converted. Scarcely had my mother learnt that a heretic had been placed in her service than she conceived a hatred for her and began to persecute her, showering her with insults, calling her “wench”, “stupid hen”, “lazy fool”, “bitch”, “whore”, “bawd”, “little turd”, and worse yet. I even witnessed with my own eyes once, when Toinon was holding up her mirror for her preening, that my mother pricked her arm with a pin deep enough to draw blood simply because she moved the glass. After a month of such treatment, of being whipped, beaten, insulted and pricked, poor Toinon packed her bags in tears and left us.

“Madame,” scolded my father, “if you insist on playing the child, instead of a chambermaid I shall hire a governess.”

And so Mespech witnessed the arrival of a mountain of a woman, Huguenot to the core, with a moustache and broad shoulders, severe and tight-lipped, two heads taller than my mother, who received insults with a calm indifference. For two weeks my mother hesitated
to slap her, so far did her broad face seem beyond her reach. But finally, one fine summer morning, in my mother’s chambers the battle was engaged.

“Alazaïs,” ordered Isabelle, “put this table over there.”

Without a word, Alazaïs lifted the heavy piece and placed it where my mother had told her to.

“On second thoughts,” said Isabelle, “that’s not the right place. Put it over here.”

Alazaïs obeyed.

“No, that’s not right either. Put it over in this corner.”

Alazaïs complied, but when my mother immediately ordered another move, she said in her rude voice: “Madame, that’s enough wickedness. A fig for your games. The table will stay where it is.”

“You riff-raff!” cried my mother beside herself. “How dare you speak to me like that!” And grabbing hold of her cane, she raised it to strike her. But Alazaïs, without budging an inch, seized the cane, tore it from Isabelle’s hands, broke it in two over her knee and threw the pieces out a window overlooking the moat. For more than a month, the servants would secretly enjoy the sight of the two sticks floating in the water.

Isabelle gave such a roar that my father came running. When he opened the door of her chambers, he saw her, pale and dishevelled, eyes ablaze, rushing at Alazaïs with a small knife in her hand. But the robust chambermaid, without retreating one step, seized her wrist on the fly and twisted it, causing the weapon to fall and embed itself in the floorboards, from which my father immediately pulled it.

“Monsieur,” howled my mother, “if this horrible bawd is not out of here within the hour, ’tis I who will be gone.”

“Sit down, Madame,” said my father in a tone that brooked no response, “and cease this shouting. If you’ve come to the point of assassinating our servants then perhaps you should leave. For you
may be certain that, had you had the misfortune to kill your chambermaid, I would hand you over to the judges in Sarlat to spend the rest of your days languishing in jail.”

“Oh, my lord, I can see well enough that you don’t love me any more!” sobbed Isabelle, tears streaming from her eyes and wringing her hands with despair.

“Unfortunately, I do!” confessed my father slipping into a chair with such a tired and chagrined air that it caused Isabelle more trouble than any amount of reproaches could have. He added with a sigh, “Alas, if I did not love you so much I would not tolerate your antics one minute longer.”

“Am I so mad, then, my poor Jean?” said my mother, throwing herself at his knees.

“Mad enough to tie up,” sighed my father, who had never been able to resist my mother’s beauty, her tears or her conniving ways. And on this occasion, he was so touched to see her kneeling thus submissive at his feet that he clutched her to him and kissed her on the lips.

Seeing this, Alazaïs raised her eyebrows, left the room and, with her heavy musketeer’s gait, went searching for Sauveterre in his tower. “Monsieur,” she said in her rough voice, “I think I must leave Mespech.”

“And wherefore, my poor creature?” asked Sauveterre.

“I can see that the baron is bewitched by his papist. She just tried to kill me and three minutes later he coddles her and licks her face.”

Alazaïs did not leave Mespech, and the spell cast on my father lasted only long enough for Isabelle to conceive. Whereupon, Barberine had to depart to get herself another child from her husband, and little Hélix again became mistress of the tower and the children, which made our secret nocturnal delights all the easier.

The episode of the dagger and the subsequent reconciliation were but a calm in the long quarrel between Isabelle and my father, after which the storm raged again day and night. For Isabelle was scarcely pregnant before she declared openly and brazenly that the child would be baptized according to the rites of her Church, as my father had promised her before their marriage. It was oil on the fire, which flamed up again right to heaven, not without great chagrin on each side. My father, given his great love for Isabelle, despaired at the thought that in persevering in her papist idolatry, she was consigning herself and his future son to eternal damnation.

I confess that in my tenderest youth and no less so now that I am grown, I do not see things this way. Raised as I was between two religions, and forced to choose between them by no little amount of pressure, I cannot hate the one I abandoned, cannot abominate its “errors” as much as my father did, nor can I believe that those who follow them in good faith are damned to hell, my poor mother least of all. But few people, men or women, in those times found such tolerance in themselves, as what follows will all too clearly show. For the cruel disagreement which split Mespech was but a feeble and tiny reflection of the disputes that raged at that time throughout the entire kingdom between Catholics and Huguenots, causing such passions, such tumult and, finally, such frightful civil wars that the fortunes of France were all but buried.

A
S A YOUNG MAN
, Étienne de La Boétie, son of the police lieutenant who had helped the Brethren to acquire Mespech, had been named counsellor to the parliament in Bordeaux in recognition of his great talents. Each time he visited Michel de Montaigne, his “intimate brother and immutable friend” at his chateau, he went on to Sarlat to rest for two or three days in the house where he was born, or, if the season permitted, at the little manor house that he owned about a league from the town. On his return he never failed to stop off at Mespech.

I read in my father’s
Book of Reason
that Étienne dined with the Brethren on 16th December 1561. As chance would have it, he encountered Isabelle’s cousin, Geoffroy de Caumont, as confirmed a Huguenot, as I have said, as she was an unswerving Catholic. What is interesting in this chance encounter between the two men is that the regent, knowing the great reputation and wisdom of Étienne de La Boétie, had just named him counsellor to Monsieur de Burie, the lieutenant general of Guyenne (alas not the only person occupying this function). Burie had his hands full in these troubled times, attempting to accommodate or reconcile all the king’s subjects. The meal, taken in the presence of our servants, was civil enough, but after dinner these gentlemen retired, as was the custom, to the privacy of my father’s library, where a great fire was burning and where the conversation took a different turn, Étienne de La Boétie evoking the
troubles that had broken out between Catholics and reformers in the Agenais, Quercy and Périgord regions. This conversation was transcribed verbatim the next day in my father’s
Book of Reason
, so taken was he by La Boétie’s effortless and eloquent wisdom, a grain whose meatiness was equal to the beauty of the wheat field that bore it. What a pity that death has since robbed us of this youth whose genius could have laid claim to the highest offices of the land, and offered so much through his wisdom and moderation.

It soon appeared that La Boétie had serious warnings not only for the Brethren but especially for Geoffroy de Caumont. Étienne’s bright eyes and smile lit up his rather plain features, and his plainness was altogether forgotten the minute he opened his mouth to speak.

“’Tis a misfortune,” he said with a smile, “that men do not easily accept others’ beliefs. As soon as Catherine de’ Medici and Michel de L’Hospital put an end to the persecutions which plagued you, the Reformation gathered strength, especially in the south. But your Huguenot brothers have matched gains in strength with an increase in intolerance. In Agen, as you know, they attacked the church of Sainte-Foy, broke crosses and altarpieces, destroyed relics and icons, burned the holy ornaments and the missals and converted the church into a temple barring entry to any Catholic priest. They did the same at Issigeac and in many other towns.”

“The fact is,” growled Geoffroy de Caumont, frowning, “that we cannot permit the papists’ idolatrous cult of these relics, crosses and statues—a practice entirely contrary, as you know, Monsieur de La Boétie, to the Word of God.”

“Quite the contrary, Monsieur Abbot of Clairac,” replied La Boétie with gentle irony. “You must permit it, for the simple reason that you want the Catholics to accept your denuded temples. The iconoclasm of the reformers, besides their occasional destruction of masterpieces of art, offends the consciences of many good subjects
of the king who rightly consider that they are entitled to the same rights as yourselves in this kingdom.”

“If these same ‘good subjects’, as you say, had the king’s ear,” said Caumont, “they’d send us all right to the stake. We’ve already seen it happen under Henri II and François II.”

“Guise and his followers were in command then,” said La Boétie, “but with the regency of the queen mother, times have changed indeed. And do you believe,” he added with a smile, “I’d burn you, Monsieur de Caumont, if it were in my power?”

“Ah, Monsieur de La Boétie,” laughed my father, “you are an exceptional Catholic, and, like your good friend Michel de Montaigne, unusually tolerant and open to many things. You are a faithful servant of the king and yet when you were younger, you wrote a powerful declaration against absolute power. And you are a very particular kind of papist. You may go to Mass, but you are anti-Roman in spirit, hostile to icons, to relics, to indulgences, and a friend of the profound reforms within the Church. It was your insistence on the spirit of conciliation at Agen and Issigeac that convinced Monsieur de Burie to share the churches part-time between Catholics and reformers. No mean feat!”

“But, alas, one that had little lasting effect,” said Caumont. “Despite your own moderation, Monsieur de La Boétie, and even your sympathies for our cause, you were not able to prevent the massacre of thirty of our people scarcely a month ago at the Orioles temple in Cahors. And is not the death of a man infinitely more deplorable than the destruction of statues, relics and crosses?”

“Indeed,” agreed La Boétie, “but don’t forget that an investigation is under way in Cahors. The queen mother has sent two commissioners for this purpose. And was it not a mortal sin, Monsieur de Caumont, that your own people committed in killing the old Baron de Fumel in his chateau?”

“But I was not there and had nothing to do with it!” snapped Caumont, flushing with anger. “And surely you are aware that the Baron de Fumel provoked his Protestant subjects by outlawing reformed services in his domains.”

“There are so many rumours!” exclaimed La Boétie. “Why, Monsieur de Montluc, who as you know shares with Monsieur de Burie the supervision of Guyenne, even claims that you yourself, Caumont, secretly support the Huguenot sedition in the Agenais and Périgord regions.”

Geoffroy de Caumont leapt to his feet, knocking his chair over backwards. “And who is this Montluc?” he cried, instinctively grasping the handle of his sword. “A creature of François de Guise! A man who believes in neither God nor the Devil, and who serves only his own interests while claiming to serve the king. And isn’t it true, Monsieur de La Boétie, that he is about to welcome Felipe II’s Spanish infantry?”

“’Tis so, alas,” confirmed La Boétie, “all the more reason for prudence on your part.”

“I beseech you, Caumont,” said my father, “pick up your chair and pray be seated. La Boétie is our friend and seeks only to give you good and timely advice.”

There was a long silence. Caumont sat down again, sombre and tight-lipped. La Boétie looked solemnly at him, shook his head and said after some thought: “Monsieur de Caumont, please do not take what I am about to tell you badly, but your family goes too far. Your brother-in-law, the Baron de Biron, is said to have given asylum to seditious Huguenots. Your elder brother François has transformed the church in Milandes into a reformed temple and thereby deprived his Catholic subjects of their place of worship. Montluc has reported all this to Catherine de’ Medici, who was much displeased by this usurpation, as she was by the death of Fumel, whom she will publicly
mourn. Since the regent is already much alarmed by these tumultuous events, it would be unwise, Caumont, to give her the impression that our Huguenots of Guyenne are a seditious lot and dream of rebelling against the king’s laws.”

Caumont, obviously irritated, opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it, and as he persisted in his silence, La Boétie said amicably but firmly: “Alas, My Lord, I know all too well that the Roman Church is horribly corrupted by infinite abuses. I do not doubt your sincere desire for reform. But what can you hope to gain through force? Repression. Montluc has the means to do it. By nature he is inclined to bloodshed. And Monsieur de Burie will not be able to restrain him for ever. What’s worse, the Protestants’ position in Guyenne is morally weak: they demand from the king freedom for their cult, while, in areas under their control, they themselves offer none to those who share the king’s beliefs.” La Boétie paused, and then added in the most pressing tone, “I beseech you, Caumont, do not fall into such extremism. Be not so harsh or so violent. Make your peace with the Catholics. Don’t go off on your own. You can see the extreme desolation and the dismemberment of the state such a spirit of partisanship has brought to the kingdom. If these disastrous tumults to continue, I fear the worst.”

To this urgent speech, Caumont made no response, but instead sat stiffly in his chair, his eyes fixed angrily on the floor, maintaining a sullen silence. La Boétie changed the subject, complimenting the Brethren on the evident prosperity of Mespech, and after several minutes of such banter traded disconsolate looks with Siorac and Sauveterre and took his leave.

Here I must say a few words about the massacre of the Protestants at the Orioles temple in Cahors. Although there were more victims
than at the massacre of Vassy, the latter is better known to the French for reasons that we shall see later on. But the tumultuous events at Cahors set the tone for what was to happen several months later at Vassy, and in so many other places where the murder of Protestants in the first months of 1562 served as a prelude to the frightful civil wars which ravaged the kingdom of France right up until the crowning of Henri IV.

In the year 1561, on 16th November, the Calvinists of Cahors were assembled for religious services in the Orioles temple, belonging to Raymond de Gontaut, lord of Cabrerets. It was a particularly mild day for that time of year, and the windows of the temple were wide open. As the reformers were singing the Psalms of David, a great crowd of people in a burial procession, led by Soubirou, the curate of Notre-Dame, passed under the windows, loudly chanting the funeral service.

Although the Psalms of David and the priests’ canticles celebrated the same God, Catholics and Protestants alike felt insulted by this juxtaposition. The reformers, not to be outdone, sang louder. The Catholics did likewise. From street and windows, insults were soon exchanged; insults gave way to threats and threats to blows. The populace, rushing en masse to the scene, and goaded by some of the more fanatical Catholics, broke down the doors to the Orioles temple, and rushing on the “heretics” assembled there to “hear the word of the Devil” massacred thirty of their number.

As for the murder of the Baron de Fumel, it was a revolt conceived by his subjects under the guise of religion. So great was their hatred of their old master that, having stormed the chateau, they tore off his clothes and whipped him to death—and not content with his death, they filled his inert body with a rain of bullets and dagger wounds, everyone seeking a share of this savagery until the butcher of Libos went so far as to cut off his head with his knife.

The wise counsel offered to Geoffroy de Caumont by Étienne de La Boétie on the subject of such tumultuous bloodletting was not lost on the Brethren. But then it is also true that this counsel was in keeping with their own inclinations. My father was then fifty-six years old, Sauveterre sixty-one, and being both of a mind to preserve the wealth they had so arduously acquired, neither sought to jeopardize it through any excess. And so they never touched the church at Marcuays, nor even the chapel at Mespech, but left intact its crosses and statue of the Virgin (much admired by my father, for it was of painted wood and quite naively sculpted). Better yet, not wishing to run the risk of having my mother escorted on Sundays to the church in Marcuays by two Huguenot soldiers, which undoubtedly would have provoked some reaction by the more fanatical Catholics, they continued to pay five sols a month to Pincers to come and say Mass at the chateau for the sole benefit of my mother, who, dressed to the hilt in all her Sunday finery, went alone to the chapel, standing stiffly in proud meditation, holding in her hand as an emblem her Roman missal, without ever opening it.

After Mass, the Brethren invited Pincers to have a drink in my father’s study and made pleasant conversation about the weather and the crops. Pincers, whose great nose protruded with a violent red glow, miser, thief and drunkard that he was, nevertheless was not entirely lacking in finesse. He appreciated the weighty advantage, in these troubled times so full of danger for priests, of maintaining good relations with the Huguenot lords of the domain, and downplayed the question of heresy in his sermons, never permitting the slightest attack, public or private, direct or veiled, against Mespech. And so, in this ocean of tumults that the kingdom had become, peace reigned in Taniès, Sireil and Marcuays. And when later the Huguenots gained control of Montignac and tried to force their iconoclastic beliefs on the church at Taniès, Siorac, his soldiers at
his heels, nearly killed his horse getting to the church in order to dissuade them.

But there was danger in this very moderation, as we shall see—moderates in both camps being despised by extremists on either side.

Throughout this period, an underground papist idolatry continued to flourish at Mespech, especially among the women, under the cover of lip-service Huguenotry. I discovered all this through strange circumstances, bedded as I was with little Hélix in Barberine’s enormous bed, now that she had gone off home for reasons I’ve already explained. In the middle of one very dark night, little Hélix began shivering so much she nearly shook the bed.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, half-asleep. “Are you trembling?”

“Yes,” she confessed, “I can’t help it.”

“Why not?” No answer. “Are you feverish?” I gasped, pulling away.

“No,” she answered in a voice suffocated with fear. “But I think it’s a great sin we are committing. Every night the Devil comes over us, and it’s all your fault.”

“My fault, silly!” I said, fully awake now. “How so? And who started it?”

“I did,” she admitted ruefully, “but you make me sink into temptation, being such a cute little rascal.”

“You should have resisted.”

“And how could I, a poor peasant girl and you the son of the baron?”

“You must be joking, you vixen!” I said, irritated. “Son of a baron I may be, but it wasn’t long ago that you were pinching my backside black and blue. And as for you know what, you taught me everything I know.”