The Brethren (7 page)

And yet, despite their prosperity, the Brethren had little reason to rejoice. Henri II’s persecution of the reformers had not abated, quite the contrary. On his orders, many notable people were attacked who had until now been spared. For most of the Périgordians, the king was a distant character whom no one, except perhaps a few noblemen, would ever see, and who counted little in their daily lives, except when royal officers came collecting tithes. But for the reformers, whom he crushed mercilessly, Henri II was as real as the thongs, the gibbet, the stake, the flames that leapt from the pyre or the smoke that choked the cities with the awful smell of their burning flesh.

I see in the
Book of Reason
that the reformers or those who hid their Protestantism wondered much about Henri’s character. But in truth, those who had approached him concluded that there was nothing to understand. As affectionate as a young dog, very attached
to Diane and to Montmorency, to his children and even to his wife, at the age of thirty-eight Henri II was but a bearded and large-jawed boy, whose vacant eyes gaped stupidly at the world around him. He was cruel only through lack of imagination. Ten years of reigning had left him virtually unchanged from the lad who had been pulled in tears from the arms of his dying father. He excelled at tennis, hunting and jousting, but his mind had never been awakened and he depended on others for his ideas—even the simplest ones.

The king considered the Reformation like the “sickness of the plague”. But even this metaphor wasn’t his; he’d had to be prompted. He said as well that he wanted “to see his people cleaned and spared such a dangerous plague and vermin as these heresies”. But this was the language of the priests and preachers he had heard thousands of times and which consequently he believed to be true. Fearing that this “sickness”, or “vermin”, or “plague” might spread throughout the kingdom and endanger the royal power, he sought to root it out by edicts, torture chambers, imprisonment, inquisition and fire. As books coming from abroad might also carry this contagion, they were burnt. The tongues of the most resolute Protestant martyrs had to be cut lest, from atop their funeral pyres, their professions of faith contaminate the populace. The king could not understand how this “sickness”, despite all such remedies, continued to spread and find purchase among the royal officers, the nobles, the great lords and even in the parliaments which were supposed to combat it.

Ten years of persecution had taught the king nothing about those he persecuted. Lacking reflection or dignity, he lived dully in the rut of his habits, between his wife, Catherine de’ Medici, and Diane de Poitiers, now fifty-nine years old. The two women, each fearful of the other, had decided to make their peace and to share the king amicably. When Henri forgot about Catherine on Diane’s lap, dazzled as if for the first time by her sexagenarian breasts, Diane
would firmly remind him of his conjugal duties and push him into bed with his wife.

As for politics, unable to decide anything alone, the king lent one ear to Montmorency and the other to the Duc de Guise. He preferred the constable, probably because he instinctively felt him to be as artless as himself. But Guise often prevailed. The king followed one or the other depending on the season, and since their designs were contradictory, his policies were inevitably confused.

My father notes in his
Book of Reason
that Henri had no real reason to break the Peace of Vaucelles in 1557, since it guaranteed his conquest of the house of Austria. Yet Guise, who had distinguished himself by defending Metz against Charles V, dreamt of refurbishing his honour by undoing Felipe II of Spain. He had defeated the father and now needed to defeat the son. Guise, in his nonchalance, forgot one new element: Felipe II was consort to the queen of England, Mary Tudor—France would have to face two powerful kingdoms and to wage war on all of its frontiers.

Yet the king was inclined to follow Guise because, as a great jouster, he loved war, which his feeble imagination reduced to a superb tourney between two sovereigns in which each must, by a deft stroke of the lance, knock the other out of his stirrups. My father observed that during his previous war against Charles V, the king had no idea how to use his army of 50,000 men, except to line them up and march them in full parade dress with banners and fanfare in front of the emperor’s camp at Valenciennes. Since Charles’s army never broke ranks, the king thought the emperor must consider himself defeated according to the rules of chivalry. Consequently, without having fired a single shot, the king beat a retreat, ravaging the countryside in his path, friend and foe alike.

In this year of 1557, the Brethren feared the worst for the kingdom, and the worst, indeed, occurred when Henri, unprovokedly
tearing up the Treaty of Vaucelles, declared war on Spain on 31st January and when Mary Tudor, in turn, declared war on Henri on 7th June of the same year.

The kingdom was invaded from the north. A powerful army, assembled in the Low Countries, besieged Saint-Quentin, while Guise struggled unsuccessfully against Felipe II’s soldiers in Italy. Saint-Quentin was marvellously defended by Coligny with but a handful of men, but Montmorency, coming to his rescue with the royal army, managed stupidly and disastrously to have it crushed trying to cross the river Somme. The kingdom fell into great peril. The route to Paris was opened and the Parisians began packing their bags.

However, Coligny, at a thousand to one, held out in Saint-Quentin, and his stout resistance gave Henri time to call Guise back from Italy and to conscript an army from among his nobles. Meanwhile, anxious to seek an alliance with the Lutheran princes of Germany, Henri gave in to their request, and moderated (without altogether suspending them) his executions of the reformers. The Huguenots were not fooled by this semi-clemency. They knew that, once the war was over, the executions would start up immediately no matter how great their contributions to the war effort. But their travails had deepened their thinking on the matter, and they were more acutely aware than the majority of their countrymen that there was a difference between king and kingdom. They might hate the king, despise his cruelty and long for his death, yet the kingdom must be defended at all costs against foreign tyranny.

Périgord was fifteen to twenty days’ ride from Paris, and many, even the most noble, loathed the idea of leaving their splendid chateaux—especially given the risks to their possessions engendered by a long absence—to seek, so far away to the north, wounds and suffering. Others, however, younger and poor as beggars in their
dilapidated manor houses, followed their aspirations to adventure, glory, booty and joyful raping in the sacked villages.

Out of resentment against François I, who had banished his father, Bertrand de Fontenac, then twenty-seven years old, let it be known that his health was too delicate to permit him to follow Henri’s call to arms. But few noble Huguenots—including those who barely hid their affiliation—avoided the call. Jean de Siorac, with the support of his beloved brother, and despite their mutual despair at the idea of this first separation in twenty-one years, made up his mind to arm himself for war and to set out with Cabusse, Marsal and Coulondre. Sauveterre, whose old injury kept him at Mespech, agreed in his brother’s absence to take over command of the household, and the defence of their lands.

I
WAS SIX YEARS OLD
when my father left Mespech for the war. On the eve of his departure, as night fell in the courtyard of the chateau, the three soldiers loaded the wagon they would take with them. As long as it was merely oats for the horses, flour, salt, cured pork and nuts that were being stowed, we children could be content just to watch. But when they brought out the arms and cuirasses, our interest was sparked.

“What’s that helmet with blinders?” asked my elder brother François.

“A burgonet,” answered Cabusse.

“And this helmet with raised sides?”

“A morion.”

Of the three soldiers, as I have mentioned, Cabusse was the only talker. But there were two reasons for this: Coulondre Iron-arm was economical in everything, even his words; Cockeyed Marsal stuttered.

“And what’s that?” I demanded.

“Little idiot,” said François, “that’s a coat of chain mail.”

“And that?” asked my half-brother Samson.

“A cuirass,” answered François.

“Not at all,” corrected Cabusse. “It’s a corselet. It only protects the torso and the back.”

“Cabusse,” I said, “will the corselet protect you from being shot at?”

“A… a… a… las,” said Marsal, looking at me sadly through crossed eyes.

“My little men,” said Cabusse, “if I tell you all the names of the firearms, will you then be off to bed?” We all looked at each other, vexed by this manoeuvre; then François, always on his best behaviour, replied with great importance:

“Agreed, Cabusse.”

“Well then,” continued Cabusse, “this…”

“Is an arquebus,” said François.

“Fuse or flint?” asked Cabusse, smoothing his moustache.

“Flint.”

“No, Monsieur,” corrected Cabusse, “fuse. But the fuse is missing. Here’s a pistol. This is a small arquebus. Its advantage is that you can shoot it with one hand. Here’s a pistolette—a small pistol. This is a gun you hold against your chest rather than your shoulder.”

“These are proud weapons!” I exclaimed. “They’ll kill lots of enemies.”

“The enemy’s got the same ones,” replied Coulondre. He seemed, as usual, quite lugubrious, unlike Cabusse, who whistled as he worked, quite cheerful, it appeared, at the thought of leaving home and cutting loose.

Barberine called us all within, soldiers included, and, with Samson and me at the head of the pack, we raced to the great hall, where my father and Sauveterre were standing, backs to the fireplace, looking very serious. My mother sat at the far end of the table, between her chambermaid, Cathau, and Barberine, who held my two-year-old sister in her arms. Between these two groups, the three soldiers took their places and, opposite them, my two cousins from Taniès and the stonecutter Jonas, the three of whom would be staying to man the defence of Mespech during my father’s absence.

To my father’s right stood a little man dressed all in black save for an enormous white ruff that seemed to make his head smaller, like that of a plucked bird, his thin, arched, beak-like nose emphasizing this avian comparison and his jet-black, round eyes fixed on my father. This man stood absolutely silent, and since he gave us no command, we children slipped as best we could into the spaces left by the adults at the table: François on Sauveterre’s right, Samson on Jonas’s left and I on my father’s right.

François and Geoffroy de Caumont finally arrived and, a few minutes later, Faujanet, who had tethered their horses after lowering the drawbridges for them. The Brethren and the new arrivals embraced each other with a gravity that made a deep impression on me. I noticed that Geoffroy de Caumont was content to wave to his cousin Isabelle from across the room rather than going around the table to greet her.

“Maître Ricou,” said Jean de Siorac, addressing the little bird-beaked notary, “since we are dealing with a matter of the utmost importance requiring the presence of François and Geoffroy de Caumont, my wife Isabelle, my children, my cousins and all my servants, I took the liberty of troubling you to come all the way to Mespech, and I promise to have my men accompany you back to Sarlat.” He paused to glance around at the assembled group. “Maître Ricou,” he continued, “will read you the codicil that Sauveterre and I have decided to add to our act of brotherhood. Each of you should pay close attention to this reading, for any one of you may at some future date be required to testify as to its contents. Maître Ricou, please proceed.”

Ricou pulled a scroll from his pocket, unfurled it, and though he read it slowly and distinctly, I couldn’t understand a word of it at the time. As I read it today I remember that the only thing that struck me then was that my father might be killed in the war, a thought that had not yet occurred to me and that overwhelmed me.

If such an event occurred, Maître Ricou informed us, Monsieur de Sauveterre, Écuyer, agreed to consider Isabelle de Siorac as his own sister and to provide her with food and hearth for the rest of her days. He was also to provide for François, Pierre, Samson and Catherine, whom he would consider to be his own children. On coming of age, François de Siorac would join Sauveterre as lords of Mespech although the latter would continue to assume the management and defence of the household until his death. An appropriate sum of money would be given to each of his younger sons, Pierre de Siorac and Samson de Siorac, as they came of age, so that they might carry out their studies at Montpellier: Pierre in medicine and Samson in law. On her wedding day, Catherine was to receive the same fields, woods and quarry which Isabelle de Caumont had brought in dowry to Mespech. If Monsieur de Sauveterre were to die before the four children had reached majority, the Caumont cousins would become co-tutors with Isabelle.

Having finished his reading, Maître Ricou invited all present to pose any questions they might have, and my mother asked in a trembling voice whether the fact of naming Samson in the codicil was sufficient to legitimize his birth. “No,” answered the notary, “in order for Samson to be legitimized, a special request would have to be addressed to the king, and in the present case, the child is merely recognized, which,” he emphasized, “in no way undermines the inheritor of the estate.” My father listened to this explanation without so much as a word, a sign or a look in my mother’s direction.

François de Caumont asked if it might be possible to specify the “appropriate sum of money” which would be allotted to Pierre and Samson for their studies. Sauveterre proposed 3,000 livres for each, to be inflated or deflated according to the current price of grain, a proposal that was immediately accepted by my father and co-signed by Ricou.

Geoffroy de Caumont wished to know why, at the age of six, Pierre de Siorac was already destined to the study of medicine and Samson to the law. My father replied with a smile that, as younger brothers, we would need a serious profession in order to make our way in life; that he had already been struck by the interest I showed in sick people he had attended, and by all the questions I asked on this subject. As for Samson, he had a precise and practical turn of mind, which, my father felt, would lead him to an interest in the law. He added that, of course, he might be mistaken about all of this, but that, in any case, each of his younger sons should receive the prescribed sum whatever subject he wished to pursue in order to gain an honourable situation in life. François de Caumont requested that this consideration be added to the codicil, which was done. The act was then signed by Sauveterre, Siorac, Isabelle de Siorac, François and Geoffroy de Caumont, the two Siorac cousins, and Cabusse as well, who was the only one of our people who could sign his name, which he did with a great flourish.

After many compliments, the notary withdrew. Marsal and Coulondre were to accompany him back to Sarlat, armed to the teeth, for the roads had again become dangerous, and it was rumoured that a large band of Gypsies had been pillaging outlying farms near Belvès and even attacking some of the chateaux. As for François and Geoffroy de Caumont, they were to spend the night at Mespech, and set out the next morning with my father towards Périgueux, where a great assembly of nobles was being gathered for the march to Paris.

Once Ricou had left, my father announced in a sombre and sonorous voice, “My friends, in view of the perils we are going to meet in the north in our defence of the kingdom and of the dangers that those who remain here may have to confront, I ask that we all commend each other to the grace and mercy of God in a short prayer recited together.” Whereupon, with a grave voice but without
the bombast or any of the mechanical quality that our priest always adopts, without mumbling or stumbling over words, but pronouncing each of them in a sincere tone as if each one were new to him, Jean de Siorac recited the Our Father, and we all began to pray along with him, including the children.

Night had fallen and the hall was lit only by the two oil lamps on the table. I was astonished by this Our Father, recited so slowly, with such force and fervour. And believing that my father was going to be killed in battle, just as the horrible notary had said repeatedly while reading his document, a shiver went down my spine and tears streamed down my cheeks. Certainly I loved my mother and adored Barberine, who had suckled me and raised me and Samson—much more than my elder brother—and my little sister Catherine. But no one at Mespech seemed more admirable, stronger, more knowledgeable in all things, wiser, more able and indestructible than Jean de Siorac. I loved everything about him, his clear eyes, his eloquence, and especially the way he stood so straight and tall, head held high, the scar on his cheek adding to his majesty.

As the prayer came to an end, my tears continued to flow unremittingly and I didn’t even try to wipe my eyes. Then an incident occurred which broke the solemnity of the scene and shook me to the core. In the silence following the prayer, Isabelle de Siorac suddenly announced with her usual petulance, “My dear husband, I would like to add to the paternoster a little prayer intended for your special protection.” And she immediately began the Ave Maria.

Had lightning struck the middle of the great hall of Mespech, it could not have produced a more terrifying effect. Sauveterre and Siorac stood silent, still as statues, fists clenched behind their backs, teeth gritted, staring icily at Isabelle. Geoffroy directed an equally furious look at his cousin, and his elder brother, who was also a reformer, though not so passionate as the others, seemed intensely
embarrassed. Cathau, Barberine, little Hélix and I recited the Ave Maria along with Isabelle. Samson, who had never been prey to the influence of my mother and who was consequently ignorant of this prayer, said not a word. As for François, after reciting the opening words, he stopped short as soon as he saw my father’s face. I resented his cowardice and continued reciting to the bitter end, convinced that my mother was wrong to have so antagonized my father, yet little inclined to abandon her, for I could see her chin trembling as she braved the terrible stares from all sides. As for my cousins and the soldiers, all remained immobile, their eyes glued to the floor, utterly silent, looking as if they wished they were a thousand leagues away.

“My friends,” said my father when she had finished, his face pale, his teeth clenched, but his speech calm enough, “you may withdraw into your chambers for the night, I must take leave of my wife.”

He warmly embraced François and Geoffroy de Caumont, who were the first to retire, followed by Sauveterre, who escorted them, limping, to their rooms. My cousins and the soldiers were next, and with them went François, who was no longer treated as a child and had his own room. Cathau and Barberine were slowest to withdraw, gathering the children in their skirts. Once the door to the great hall was closed, I noticed that they lingered in the kitchen, seeming to busy themselves there and imposing the strictest silence on all of us.

Their delay was rewarded, for, after a long silence, we could hear my father say: “Madame, you might have avoided offending me in front of my friends and my children, and this on the eve of my departure for the war unsure that you will ever see me again.”

There was another silence, broken by my mother’s trembling and tearful voice:

“My dear husband, I did not think to brook your anger in reciting a prayer of the Catholic religion in which we were married.”

Here we could hear sobs as my father replied: “My friend, it is too late for tears.” But his tone was considerably softened, and Barberine later told Cathau that if my mother had persevered in her tears and silence, everything might have turned out for the best. Instead, my mother added,

“Truly I did not mean any harm. I only wanted to bring you the protection of the Virgin.”

“Is Christ not enough for you?” cried my father angrily. “Why do you need the intercession of your little gods and goddesses? Have you no sense, woman? There’s nothing but pagan superstition, stinking idolatry and pestiferous ignorance of God’s Word in your worship. I’ve explained this to you a thousand times, Madame, and since you have the good fortune to know how to read, why do you refuse to seek the Word of God as it is given in the Holy Scriptures, rather than relying blindly on the tales of your priests?”

At this point, little Hélix gave my arm a terrible pinch and I responded with an elbow, which missed its mark and hit a kettle, knocking it with a great crash to the kitchen floor. The door of the great hall flew open and my father’s head appeared, flushed crimson, his eyes ablaze, and he thundered, “What are you doing in here? To bed! To bed! Or every last one of you’ll get the whip, boys and girls alike, young and old, no matter what your condition!” Barberine gave a shriek, and, seizing her lamp, disappeared into the stairwell, all of us on her heels, panting with terror.

Cathau, the lithe chambermaid Cabusse had taken such a fancy to, slept in the little room adjoining my mother’s bedroom, and she took a hasty leave of Barberine on the first landing, her eyes and lips full of the commentary they would share the next morning but must now sleep on. Our nurse, lamp in hand, shepherded her little troop into the room in the west tower where she slept in a bed whose great size was commensurate with her own. Catherine’s bed was next to
hers, little Hélix’s on the other side, but shoved against the wall to allow passage between them, while Samson and I shared a bed on the far side of the fireplace. In the frigid winter weather, we lit a great blaze at nightfall against the terrible glacial draughts blowing through the machicolations pierced in the walls, which, during an attack, permitted rocks, hot pitch or boiling water to be hurled on any attackers, but which now allowed the humidity of the moats to infiltrate our beds.