Authors: Robert Merle
“He’s done better than that,” I said. “Bend over and lend him your strong back, Fröhlich, so he can get past the corbel, and by the time you stand up straight, he’ll be through the window.”
Miroul managed this feat with his incredible agility and the grace of a cat—and, like a cat, without appearing to be in any hurry but, with total calm, choosing each step. I watched him from below, illuminated in the moonlight, while, in the shadows, I agonized, my heart beating frantically with his every step, anxious and uncertain about the success of his mission. But I needn’t have been. Scarcely two minutes passed before the door was unbolted and thrown open and my Alizon fell into my arms, sighing and planting a thousand kisses on my face and neck.
“Who’s that?” she whispered, seeing the great mountain of a man behind me.
“A good Swiss from Berne.”
“May God keep him!” she murmured. (But which God, I wondered, the God of the assassins or the God of the assassinated?) “Come up to my room,” she continued, “but don’t make a sound! The men of our lodgings have all gone out, but the women are here and I’m not sure they’re sleeping since the sound of the arquebuses is so near. Monsieur,” she said over her shoulder to Fröhlich, “the stairs are creaking, make yourself light!”
This can’t have been very easy for him, but at last we reached her room and closed the door, and each of us found a place to sit down. I told Alizon in hushed tones what I hoped she could do for us.
“They’re not brassards,” she said without hesitating, “but shirtsleeves cut and sewn into the shoulder of one’s doublet. I have the needle and thread, but I don’t have the sleeves, and certainly not enough for three.”
“Four,” corrected Miroul, quietly, “since
maestro
Giacomi is waiting for us on the place de Grève.”
His words pricked me with shame, because I’d completely forgotten, in the heat of our escape, our rendezvous.
“Here’s my shirt,” I said, removing my doublet. “Cut away, Alizon! A shirt without sleeves is perfectly adequate in the August heat.”
“And here’s mine,” said Miroul. “With two sleeves a shirt, we’ve got four.”
Without a word, Alizon set to work by candlelight, cutting and sewing, beginning with my shirt—not without a tear in her eye, however, for I had no doubt that, by helping, nay, saving us, she was risking her life, and not just hers, but that of her little Henriot, who was so prettily asleep in his cradle, his fist under his tiny cheek.
I would have liked to take the pretty little child in my arms, so comforted would I have felt by that tiny warm body of one who knew nothing of the cruelty of this world, since he was not yet a man, but still so close to heaven. But I didn’t pick him up. Not only did I fear waking him from his starry dreams, I felt too blood-soaked and sweaty after my two battles to dare to touch him with my finger. I shall never forget to my dying day, however, the silence of that little room as Alizon went about her sewing by candlelight, her eyes misty with tears, her breath coming short, and, in his cradle, little Henriot smiling angelically, as if he were gambolling about in the garden of Eden.
Since none of us was wearing a hat that we could attach a cross to, we had to be content with the armbands. Miroul slipped into his doublet the armband Alizon had made for Giacomi, with pins to attach it to his shoulder, should Fortune be kind enough to favour our meeting at the place de Grève. We then went—or rather slid—downstairs, as silent as weasels in a meadow, and, after Alizon had unbolted the door, she dared, as she threw herself into my arms, to whisper in my ear, since the noise in the street was so loud:
“Oh, Pierre! This is hell in all its fury! In the lodgings you see there, they slashed the throats of an entire family—father, mother and a
child who was Henriot’s age! Then these pitiless monsters tore their clothes off and dragged their bodies out into the street and through the filth down to the Seine, some still groaning, and then the lot was thrown on a cart. Oh, Pierre! Between the promising of what they were going to do and the doing of it, what an abyss! I cannot believe the Blessed Virgin, who is so sweet, could ever have called for so much bloodshed!”
There was nothing I could say, since my heart was so heavy, but I kissed her dearly, and held her so close to me that our bodies were as one. Finally, recovering my voice, I whispered my thanks and promised to come back to see her if we escaped this terrible night. Then she pulled me to her and wrapped her arms around my neck with a strange force, as if to offer me her breast like her infant. Her fear for my life led this good wench to engulf her lover with as much maternal care as if he were her child. But ultimately I had to force myself to leave her, my eyes so blinded with tears I could scarcely see my way back into the evil world of men.
Luckily, Miroul was able to guide me through a labyrinth of muddy streets to the Hôtel de Ville, and from there to the place de Grève, where we encountered a huge crowd of people carrying torches and very excited by the spectacle that the pillory offered: it was a sort of octagonal wooden cage painted blood-red, which was turning slowly on a pivot, exposing as it did its collection of unfortunates, whose heads were visible through holes in the wood and thus exposed to the harangues, mud, filth and stones of the good-for-nothings who surrounded them. An onlooker whom I dared ask the identity of the Devil’s fiends who were thus exposed, shamed, mocked and tortured, laughed and happily explained that they were three ministers of the reformed religion who had just been captured and who were going to provide the crowd some amusement before being stabbed and thrown in the river.
My heart ached with sorrow and pity as I watched the slow revolution of this cage—a remarkable example of man’s ingenuity when he’s looking to torment his brothers—and, examining these martyrs carefully, I was afraid I’d see Monsieur Merlin among them, but I doubted I’d now be able to recognize him, since the faces of these poor victims were so swollen and covered with blood, mud and excrement, and their eyes were mere empty sockets from the stoning.
“Well,” laughed the fellow I’d just been talking to, “what a dirty and nasty look these heretic dogs have! We can already guess what they’ll look like when they reach hell!”
I turned on my heel and walked away, with Miroul on my left and Fröhlich behind me, our swords unsheathed and tucked under our arms in case we needed suddenly to use them, but not held at the ready, since we didn’t want anyone to get ideas about us and start a ruckus, given how bloodthirsty and murderous the night’s business had made the people.
I walked around the outside of the square, past the houses, hoping to catch sight of Giacomi, knowing he’d prefer to meet in the shadows of some doorway, rather than in the full light of the moon and the torches. We made it around the entire square without any trouble other than the appearance of a thief, who nearly stole my purse, and who nearly lost his fingers when Miroul crossed knives with him and sent him scuttling into the crowd like a snake in a bush—all of this happening so quickly that I wondered whether I’d dreamt it. But thank God I wasn’t dreaming when I saw Giacomi emerge from a doorway, and then felt him embrace me fondly and plaster a hundred kisses on my cheeks—a greeting I generously answered. I was overwhelmed by his incredible fidelity in this valley of death in which we found ourselves, stranger as he was to our civil discord, being Italian—not to mention a papist.
“Well, my brother!” he exclaimed with his charming lisp and in the elegant language he always used even in the face of such mortal
danger. “I ran here at the firtht thound of the church bellth, and I’ve been waiting for you ever thinth, hoping againtht hope!”
“Giacomi, my brother,” I whispered, “I’ll tell you of our adventures later, but first step into this doorway so Miroul can pin a white brassard on your sleeve to identity you as one of their party. When that’s done, we’ll try to cross the river and get beyond the city walls.”
There was no need to ask which way the river was! People were heading there from all directions, talking about the “beautiful spectacle” of all the bodies—dead and alive—of the Huguenots that were floating in it, some dragged there, naked, by ropes under their armpits, others escorted there, then beaten, undressed and thrown in the water.
From the place de Grève to the part of the bank of the Seine called the Port-au-Foin (a dilapidated quay for boats bringing hay for the 100,000 horses stabled in the capital) there’s a very slight slope, but the way is very muddy, since the paving stones give way to earthworks, now slippery with the blood of all the martyrs dragged there by there assailants to defile them further, since the custom in Paris is to bring condemned prisoners here for their execution (by water, in this case, rather than by fire) and drown them the way one would drown puppies. And since some of our people were only wounded and had been thrown in the water without being finished off, so hurried were their assailants in their dastardly work, they would try to swim or call for help; in response, some of these monstrous assassins unchained the boats that were there and, floating along with the current, amused themselves by ending the lives of those who were still moving with blows of their oars.
It wasn’t easy to get near the Port-au-Foin, so great was the press of men and wenches, who, I’m ashamed to say, were screaming and shouting like hell’s Furies. We were so chilled by this horrific spectacle, despite the sweat that was running down our bodies in the insufferable heat of this August night, that we had no appetite for watching
it—or for listening to it, for the hoots, howls and whistles of the populace made us wonder if they might not be wolves or vipers. So we headed downriver in the hope of reaching one of the two bridges that remained, the Pont Notre-Dame being closed for repairs. Below the Port-au-Foin, the riverbank was more grassy and open, and so we were able to move along more quickly, but a little farther on we saw a large number of naked bodies, which the current had pushed into the bank, where the river grass had entangled them and held them fast.
As horrible as this sight was, we were to witness something much worse a few yards farther still, where we encountered a large group of people shouting obscenities, in whose direction we headed, driven by a kind of morbid curiosity. I told Fröhlich to push through the crowd, which he did effortlessly, simply by ploughing forward, using his bulk to separate the mob as easily as a knife cutting through butter, with me behind him like a rowing boat in tow, and Giacomi and Miroul in our wake. And there we saw a large semicircle, kept open by the king’s guards, who held off the crowd with their halberds while three of them pulled from the water a corpse that, as far as I could tell, when they’d brought it up to the bank, had been decapitated, and had its genitalia mutilated.
The guard who came up to me had more than he could manage with the noisy rascals pushing up against him, despite the weapon that he brandished, so I told Fröhlich to create a little space for him, which this great hulk from the mountains did simply by turning away from them and backing up, the pygmies behind him falling like dominoes in his path. The guard, much relieved, laughed and thanked me, saying to Fröhlich:
“Haven’t I seen you around the Louvre?”
“Guard,” I said, stepping between them, “my valet is a deaf mute and can’t answer you, but perhaps you can answer me something: whose body is that they’ve just taken such pains to pull out of the river?”
“That’s the brigand Coligny!” said the guard, and, hearing his name, the populace began to shout and whistle like all the devils in hell.
“Well,” I managed to say through the knot in my throat, and as casually as I could manage, “and who ordered him to be beheaded?”
“Guise, so he could send his head to the Pope.”
“And who mutilated him?”
“This stupid crowd here. They dragged him here and threw him in the Seine.”
“But why pull him out now?” I said frowning.
“King’s orders. We’re going to hang him at Montfaucon.”
“Guard, how are you going to hang him without a head?”
“By the feet.”
“And we’re going to set a fire underneath the gibbet!” shouted a knave, who from his habit looked like a sort of mendicant friar, but with a low and mean look about him. “So,” he shouted over the noise of the crowd, “we’ll have killed this demon by the four elements God gave us: the earth we dragged him on, the water we threw him in, the air where he’ll dangle and the fire that’ll roast him!”
These mean-spirited and barbarous words were cheered by those within earshot, and then repeated from mouth to mouth by the multitude. But our guard only shrugged and said:
“Who’s dead is dead. Don’t matter much the manner nor the means of it.”
As for me, I’d heard more than enough, and we fought our way back out of this angry mob and headed to the Grand Châtelet in the hope of crossing the Pont au Change and reaching the Île de la Cité, and from there the Pont Saint-Michel, which would take us to l’Université. Once there, we hoped to be able to get through one of the drawbridges and to safety outside the walls. So we still had two bridges and a gate, and all three guarded by the bourgeois militias or the guards of the Louvre! And everywhere we went we were
surrounded by hordes of assassins, by any one of whom I might suddenly be recognized. How many incredible obstacles had we to negotiate before we’d be out of this enormous trap where we were thrown together with our enemies, without any lodgings in which we might seek shelter, nor friends we could trust?
In order to reach the Pont au Change, we walked along the quai de la Mégisserie, which Parisians call “the Valley of Misery”, since the Seine floods the area frequently, but which now was earning its name from the hundreds of drowned or dying bodies that the moon and the dawn’s early light revealed floating along, while on both banks you could see the torches and hear the cries of the victims, which mingled with the bloodthirsty howls of their assailants and the sound of firearms coming from every direction, along with the dull thuds of battering rams against oak doors, and an occasional church bell that recommenced its tolling, as if to reawaken, if it needed any encouragement, this enormous appetite for killing.