The Brethren (25 page)

In any case, Fontenac consented to everything, including the stipulation that a copy of the correspondence exchanged with my father on this occasion be copied by a court scribe and entrusted to the archives of the magistrate in Sarlat.

No one at Mespech, not even Escorgol, who lived downstairs from her in the gatehouse, was allowed to see Diane, who was described by my father as being fourteen years old and quite beautiful, with long black hair, large green eyes and very sweet and well behaved in the bargain, resembling in everything her mother and not at all the tiger she had for a father, a description which inflamed the imaginations of the three of us rascals of Mespech.

On the other hand, what Jean de Siorac kept from us was that he had recognized on Diane the marks of bubonic plague. Although the month of September was very mild that year, he ordered a great fire to be kept going night and day in the sickroom: he thought that the contagion of the plague could be spread by air and he wanted the air in the room purified by fire. For the same reason, he wore a mask over his mouth and nose when he approached Diane and, before leaving, he threw it in the flames of the hearth. Going directly to his library and avoiding all contact en route, he had two huge basins of hot water brought in, in which he bathed his entire body, believing in the virtue of heat against the contagion. He prescribed the same precautions for Toinette, Diane’s chambermaid, and even for Escorgol, since he approached Toinette to bring her firewood and victuals. Never did poor Escorgol bathe so much in his entire life, and he complained bitterly about it, fearing that his skin would be worn out by it, or go soft on contact with the water.

My eminent professors of medicine at Montpellier made much mockery of this, when I later recounted these events, arguing that
water, even hot water, could have no effect on airborne contagion since water and air are, by their very essences, incompatible. This was doubtless infallibly reasoned. And yet no one at Mespech contracted the plague, not Toinette, or Escorgol, or my father. Perhaps there was some good after all in all these “odd ways”.

Diane was suffering from a raging fever and was very thin and weak as her nurse at Fontenac had believed that a strict diet would be good for her. My father, noticing that she urinated infrequently and little, ordered milk to be given her whenever she asked for it, and she drank up to two litres a day, spending all day shivering and devoured by a prodigious thirst. On the sixth day, my father noticed that a large bubo in her armpit was beginning to drain. He wrote to Fontenac that his daughter was improving, since the sickness seemed to be leaving her body, and that if the draining continued, a complete recovery could be expected.

Two days after this letter, Mespech received a visit from a great doctor in Sarlat, Anthoine de Lascaux, who, claiming he was sent by the Baron de Fontenac, demanded to see the patient. And truly he “saw” her and nothing more, for he never crossed the threshold of her room. From this vantage point he pronounced that she looked well enough, but that, to hasten her recovery, two pints of blood must be drawn from her body every day.

“Bleed her!” exclaimed my father. “But why?”

Anthoine de Lascaux, who was a very handsome man, quite portly and enormously sure of himself, smiled at the naivety of this medical neophyte and hastened to enlighten him on the most recent advances in medical science. “I see that frequent bleeding, as a cure, hasn’t reached these backwaters yet, My Lord. It is, however, the sovereign cure for all ills, and the remedy of preference ever since Leonardo Botallo, Charles IX’s famous Italian physician, introduced it to the French court.”

“And what does this bleeding accomplish?”

“It releases the corrupted blood from the body of the patient. You are surely not unaware that the more bad water is skimmed out of a well the more good water will fill it. The same is true of blood and bleeding.”

“Metaphor is not logic,” replied my father after a moment of thought. “The well water is renewed by the spring that feeds it. But we do not know how blood is replenished.”

“Blood engenders blood,” said Lascaux with gravity.

“Perhaps, but not as fast. I witnessed during my military campaigns thousands of wounded who were greatly weakened by loss of blood, even though the wound was clean. And even when the wound was healed and closed, these same men remained greatly enfeebled for weeks afterwards.”

Lascaux raised a magisterial hand: “Precisely because of the corrupted part of their blood. Their recovery would have been greatly hastened by drawing it out of their bodies.”

My father reflected for a moment and answered: “If you believe that there is some ‘corrupted’ part, as you say, then you must also believe that there is some healthy part. Yet how do you know, when you are bleeding a person, that it is the corrupted part you are drawing out and not the healthy part?”

This seemed to embarrass Lascaux. But since he was sharp-witted enough, despite his bombast, he decided to turn the matter into a great joke: “Ah, My Lord, the authority of the greatest doctors in the kingdom is apparently nothing in your eyes! You’re a great sceptic! You don’t believe in bleeding any more than you do in the Virgin Mary, so you’re a heretic in medicine as well as in religion…”

My father agreed to laugh at this flash of wit, and invited Lascaux to dinner and treated him hospitably. And Lascaux, on his return to Sarlat, wrote to Fontenac that the Baron de Mespech seemed
well intentioned enough, but had a very odd conception of things. All in all, however, Lascaux confessed, the patient, whom he had been able to observe closely, gave every indication of an early cure. I found this letter from Lascaux among the archives of the Château de Fontenac, along with a note on the reverse side, from the baron, that he had sent fifty écus to the great doctor from Sarlat as a fee for his consultation.

As for other “consultations”, there were none, for Jean de Siorac sent a firm but courteous letter to Fontenac reminding him of their agreement. Thus entrusted solely to the care of my father, Diane continued her long convalescence at Mespech, occasionally appearing at the windows of the gatehouse while we worked away below putting the finishing touches on the new bulwarks.

That September was sunny and so mild that occasionally, wrapped in a white fur cape, Diane would open the window and sit on the stone sill for hours watching our work with her large green eyes, the shadow of a smile playing at the corners of her still pale lips. I noticed that these appearances had a great effect on my eldest brother, to the point of riveting him to the spot, his eyes fixed and his hands hanging empty, not moving so much as an inch for minutes at a time. Who would have thought that this big dolt had so much blood in his veins, such a lively imagination and a heart capable of such tenderness? Diane certainly looked at all of us, and at no one in particular, but out of the corner of her green eye she couldn’t have helped noticing François’s confusion. And as he lowered his eyes and returned to his work, she would throw him, quick as a wink, a look, just one, and so rapid and quickly withdrawn that François was at great pains to see any encouragement in it. Such is the way of young women, it is said, when they are well bred.

But little Hélix, during our nights, displayed a more rustic style. “You’re wicked, Pierre,” she scolded as soon as the lamp was blown
out, Barberine herself extinguished as well, deep in sleep. “You’re always looking at that fancy floozy from the chateau. Your elder brother is already smitten and trapped, the poor fool! And does this tall skinny thing appeal to you too?”

“She’s got a very pretty face,” I said, to tease her.

“That’s enough!” she retorted vehemently. “She’s as pale as a turnip and her breasts are as small as my hands.” So saying she jumped on me and, leaning forward, pushed her breasts in my eyes, “to stop them up”, as she said.

Gossip was not lacking among our servants, especially in the kitchen and scullery where tongues wagged feverishly between la Maligou and Barberine. But in the library, between brother and brother, there was not a word, nor trace of a reference in the
Book of Reason
, nor the least allusion to François, who, taking his cue from this silence, looked the very image of despair.

On 1st October, the Brethren received an emissary sent by Monsieur de Duras, who was gathering the Huguenot troops from the south at Gourdon to lead them to Orleans to reinforce the Prince de Condé’s army. This meeting took place in the Mespech library, and François, Samson and I were again present, since Jean de Siorac believed that it wasn’t enough to have his rascals learn ancient history from Sauveterre: he felt we should learn the history of the kingdom as it was happening daily right before our eyes.

This emissary was named Verbelay, and he was far from possessing the self-assurance of the courtier, Monsieur de L. He seemed part soldier and part priest and as it happened he had left the latter profession for the former, having served as a novice at Cluny upon the recommendation of his brother, the bishop of le Puy. But when his habit produced a terrible rash on his young skin, he threw it in
the nettles and, becoming a Huguenot, was overcome by a terrible itch to fight. He wore a rapier, a dagger, a pistol stuck in his belt and, above all this weaponry, two glowing black eyes, flattened hair and a large nose to smell out enemy blood. He was, moreover, truly courageous, as we were to learn later.

Verbelay began by thanking the Brethren for the thousand écus they had given to L., which L. had passed on to Duras. The gift had served to strengthen Duras’s artillery, which at the time included but a set of culverins, by the addition of a huge cannon whose appearance gave renewed courage to the Huguenot soldiers at Gourdon. In keeping with their popular southern humour, they had giddily nicknamed it “Mass-chaser”, baptizing it within the hour not with water but with Cahors wine, a few drops on the new bronze and the greater part in their gullets.

Mass-chaser was to have taken its first shots against the walls of Sarlat, which Duras wanted to take since it was directly on his way to Orleans, and he wanted the advice of the Baron de Mespech, who was renowned for having distinguished himself in a famous siege.

“At Calais,” said my father, “it was a matter of chasing the English from the city. Our duty was clear. But here things are, in essence, more complex. For if it is true that it was a great crime to declare our reformers outlaws, it is likewise a crime to rise up against one’s own sovereign and to take a city within his jurisdiction.”

“I did not come, My Lord,” said Verbelay, growing impatient, “to beg you to reconsider your decision. We are not seeking your armed intervention, but your counsel.”

“Well, then, here’s my counsel, since Monsieur de Duras does me the honour of requesting it thus,” replied Jean de Siorac, somewhat piqued by his guest’s tone. “If Duras’s most direct route to Orleans is through Sarlat, I suggest that Duras make a detour and leave the city behind him.”

“What?” gasped Verbelay, his black eyes shooting sparks. “Abandon this rich bishopric, when money is so lacking for our cause? And a city without a fortress, without a chateau, protected only by a simple wall, a few small towers and a tiny moat?! Why, from the surrounding hills we can look right down into the main square and see everyone’s head and backside!”

Jean de Siorac made no reply, signifying that he had said everything he was going to say. And as the silence grew, Sauveterre, perhaps finding my father’s response a bit too abrupt, continued: “Besides Mass-chaser, how many culverins do you have, Monsieur Verbelay?”

“Six.”

“That’s not many for a siege.”

“But we are 12,000 strong. There are but 300 of them.”

“Three hundred ensconced behind their walls,” remarked Sauveterre, “and who will fight like tigers to defend their wives, their gold and their faith—whatever that faith,” he added with a vague gesture. “Moreover Sarlat has learnt that Duras will attack. The consuls have abundantly stocked the city with provisions and munitions, and many good Catholic noblemen of the region have responded to their appeal: Fontanilles, Puymartin, Périgord, Claude des Martres, La Raymondie, all of these men have organized their forces into four companies which maintain a watch on the walls, bristling with blunderbusses, and, what’s more, they are equipped with artillery which they’ve set up in the large tower of peace.”

“Nevertheless, we’ll take Sarlat!” said Verbelay resolutely.

“In ten days,” replied my father. “Or rather you’ll be able to take it in ten days if—and only if—before the ten days are out Burie, who is now in the Château des Milandes, and Montluc, at Agenais, don’t fall on you from the rear. Monsieur Verbelay, I urge you to repeat what I have said to Duras. He might have taken Sarlat in twenty-four hours in a surprise attack. But your people have talked too much.
Sarlat is expecting you, and Burie and Montluc are forewarned and are preparing to throw up some obstacles in your path. Believe me the straightest, the surest and the fastest road to join forces with Condé at Orleans does not pass through Sarlat.”

“I shall faithfully repeat these words, My Lord, and yours as well, Monsieur de Sauveterre,” said Verbelay rising and taking his leave with as much brevity as politeness would allow. But his fiery eyes were ablaze and it was evident he was much displeased with the opinion he had to transmit.

From the window of our tower, Siorac and Sauveterre watched him mount his horse and speed away with his small escort. Sauveterre shook his head: “There’s one excellent piece of advice that will go unheeded.”

“I fear as much,” replied my father, his fists on his hips and his head cocked. “If only Condé had offered me the command of the Gourdon army…”

“But it was yours for the asking…”

“No it wasn’t!” said Siorac impatiently pacing back and forth. “They offered me what? To be Duras’s lieutenant! But Duras is at best a good colonel of the infantry, wedded to routine, and short-sighted. He wants to claim an easy victory for his army by taking Sarlat. But he failed to pretend that he wouldn’t attack, which is what Guise did so cleverly at Calais. He’s lost any advantage surprise might have given him. He’s not going to take Sarlat easily. He’ll probably lose enough time under Sarlat’s walls to be caught and cut to pieces by Montluc and his terrible Spanish infantrymen.