Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris (26 page)

As the vast city acquired a shape in his mind, Tannhauser felt less at its mercy.

‘Good.’ Remembering that every artist craved undiluted praise, he added, ‘Superb.’

La Fosse warmed to his performance. He exchanged the quill for a finer one.

‘Here are the six gates of the north, which I will mark thus by letters. Porte Sainte-Honoré. Montmartre. Saint-Denis. Saint-Martin. The Temple. Saint-Antoine, which I will mark B, for the Bastille, which guards it. Now, here, we find Les Halles, west of the great tower of Saint-Jacques, which the butchers paid for. And they talk of the wealth of the Church. Here is the most feared building in France, the fortress of the Châtelet, where the police are quartered. If it’s justice you seek, my brother, go elsewhere. And here is the Cemetery of the Innocents.’ As if starved for acclaim he said, ‘I hope this crude sketch is helpful.’

‘It’s a masterpiece of cartography.’

‘As for the other churches of the Ville, where do I begin –?’

Tannhauser aimed a forefinger at the western edge of the map. ‘The Louvre?’ Then again, to the east of the Pont Notre-Dame. ‘The Place de Grève and the Hôtel de Ville?’

‘Correct. Very good. We are here, approximately.’ He marked the map.

‘And the Left Bank?’

‘Personally, I avoid it. The students fill one with despair. Here is the Tour de Nesle. And the six gates.’ He sketched. ‘The gallows in Place Maubert. Ah, the abbeys. Outside the wall we have Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and within we have, my word, Cluny, Sainte-Geneviève, the Augustinians, the Bernardines –’

‘Excuse me, Father.’ Tannhauser tugged the map away before it became congested. ‘I’m in your debt.’ He blew on the ink. ‘Tell me more about Symonne D’Aubray.’

La Fosse repressed his discomfort so expertly that Tannhauser wasn’t sure he’d seen it. La Fosse indicated the papers scattered on his desk.

‘The D’Aubrays are Protestants. Her late husband was a radical but Symonne devoted herself to her family and her business.’ He shrugged. ‘She’s on the list.’

‘A list of Protestants.’

‘An ensign sent by the Bureau de Ville dragged me from my bed to make sure it was complete. Their list is drawn from tax rolls and therefore wholly deficient. I know every household in the parish, even those who aren’t Catholic. The Bureau is in a state of panic. Is it true a Huguenot army is at the gates?’

‘No. Coligny and all his captains are dead.’

‘Praise God.’

‘Why does the Bureau need such a list?’ asked Tannhauser.

‘The city is ruled by the legal and financial grandees, ‘
Les Messieurs
’, who have been infiltrated by the Protestants. Marriage, kinship, conversion. Heresy is no longer even a crime. Money matters more than love of God –’

‘Why does the Bureau need the list?’

‘I’m told it’s for their own protection.’

‘The Huguenots?’

‘Parisians are weary. Famine, high prices, plague. Taxes to pay for wars declared but not won. Taxes to bribe the mercenaries hired by the Huguenots to leave. Taxes to pay our own foreign hirelings. Taxes to raise grand buildings we can’t afford to finish. Taxes to pay for this abomination of a wedding. Who believes in the match? Not the bride and groom. And now they want us to fight the Spanish? Parisians want these problems to go away, which means they want the Huguenots to go away, that’s all. But some factions – the militant confraternities – are not weary at all. Hatred of the Huguenots is the principal enthusiasm of their lives.’

‘Who will provide this protection?’

La Fosse said, ‘I don’t know.’

‘Who polices the city? Who’s in charge of order?’

‘A dozen magistrates would give you a dozen different answers and none would swear an oath on his opinion.’

‘Nor need you. Explain.’

‘The King and the Bureau share, and compete for, the power to govern the city. The
sergents à verge
are some two hundred constables and bailiffs commanded from the Châtelet by two
Lieutenants – Civil
and
Criminel
– and their superintendents and inspectors – the
commissaires
and
examinateurs
. They investigate primarily by means of the rack, and spend most of their energies collecting the fines and fees that pay their wages. However, and I assure you I am not inventing this, they take no responsibility for the prevention of crime in the streets. That is the province of the Lieutenant of the Robe, who patrols the city by day with twenty archers.’

‘A villain’s paradise.’

‘Well put, chevalier. Paris also has a military governor entrusted with the defence of the city walls. The Royal Watch is another company, of thirty men, which patrols by night, or when they can be dragged from the taverns. All these offices – civil, criminal and military – along with others whose names and functions escape me, overlap with each other at every point in authority, responsibility and jurisdiction.’

‘So there’s always someone else to blame.’

La Fosse frowned as if this had never occurred to him. ‘Of course. Of course.’

‘Who are the clowns roaming the streets with banner and drum?’

‘The civic militia, or
bourgeois guet
. Each company of a hundred men is drawn from one of the city’s sixteen
quartiers
. During the last war their captains proclaimed themselves Soldiers of Christ. They were, shall we say, very active during the Gastines riots, in which Roger D’Aubray died. The King alone can call them up. Beyond that, and legally speaking, no one is sure who controls them, or who defines the limits of their duties, or even what those duties might be. In practice, they are under the sway of the confraternities – groups of devout and, shall we say, militant Catholics.’

Tannhauser recalled the confraternities in Sicily. Foot soldiers of the Inquisition.

‘So the militia is run by fanatics.’

La Fosse hesitated, uncertain of Tannhauser’s leanings.

Tannhauser said, ‘I was called a fanatic myself only yesterday.’

‘I will put it this way. The people at large have no great affection for the city fathers, but when the civic militia hold a parade they come out in droves to cheer.’

Tannhauser took the nose-glasses from the table. Two convex lenses in silver frames connected by a C-shaped bridge. His own eyes were not what they used to be.

‘May I?’

He put them on. The fit was too snug. He noticed the priest wince as he bent the C-bridge wider. Vanity had prevented him testing such glasses before. He was startled by their power. Various blurred details on the map sprang into focus. The ink was dry. He folded the map in four, wrapped the glasses in the map, and slipped both into his pocket. He wondered if he should leave Juste and Grégoire here, for safety. Some instinct rebelled against it. He glanced at the portrait of the cardinal. He scooped up the sheets of paper covered with names and rolled them and shoved them into his boot top.

He walked to the door.

‘I’ll be back to make further arrangements and approve the coffin.’

‘Brother Mattias, you haven’t received my blessing.’

‘Just make sure the coffin will please me.’

‘And my nose-glasses?’

The two boys had fashioned a collar of gold braid for the half-bald dog and were pleased with themselves. The dog trotted between Clementine’s forehooves like a little jinn, an arrangement with which both animals seemed content. When the sentinel jumped to lower the chain he gawped at the dog as if its bizarre appearance among the entourage were further evidence that Tannhauser was of unsound mind. In the gallows square beyond the chain, the number of armed men had swollen. More limp flags were brandished in the humid morning air. A bagpiper played a jaunty air.

‘Greetings, good sire! Do you know there is a cur hiding under your horse?’

Tannhauser flipped a sou at him. The sentinel snatched at the coin and knocked it into the street. He set to scouring the ground with his head below his knees, his concentration compromised by frequent glances at the dog.

‘That cur has something of the devil, sire. It’s giving me the evil eye.’

Grégoire spotted the coin and picked it up. He handed it to Hervé, who began to smile but grimaced when he saw Grégoire’s lip. He took the coin without thanking him and backed away. Grégoire was unmoved.

‘What was this oaf’s name?’ Tannhauser asked Juste.

‘Hervé the plasterer,’ whispered Juste.

‘Hervé,’ said Tannhauser, ‘Father La Fosse tells me the militia are in charge of maintaining the peace and tranquillity of the city.’

‘Thus charged we are, sire. Peace and tranquillity will be maintained at all costs. Rebels will be punished with the harshest legalities.’

‘He says the Bureau has ordered you to protect all Huguenot civilians.’

Hervé polished his coin. ‘The militia takes its orders from the King.’

‘I saw His Majesty not three hours ago, at the Louvre, during the harsh legalities we inflicted on the rebels with the edges of our swords.’

‘God bless His Majesty for finally seeing the light! And God bless you too, sire.’

‘Is the priest misinformed?’

‘Their eminences in the Bureau de Ville like to think they run everything in Paris, by which they mean stuffing their pockets with gold. Whose gold? Why, Huguenot gold. Huguenot bribes. Huguenot taxes and tolls. That’s why the Bureau protects them. Of course it’s really our gold, squeezed, swindled and stolen from honest artisans such as myself, for when it comes to extorting money the Huguenots are second only to the Jews. But to answer your question, sire – and this is a strict legality – only the King himself can call up the militia, in matters of dire circumstance to the public good,
ipso facto,
whereby we assume with all due courage and honour, and while risking our lives, though seeing not a sol in payment, our civic duty.’

Hervé took a breath and jerked a thumb at the mob in the Place de Grève.

‘And as you can see, the King has indeed called us up, has he not? We trust him and he trusts us. In respect of which sacred duties thereunto – and in so far as we are told – His Majesty’s wishes could not be any plainer.’

Tannhauser recalled the words Guise had shouted in the Rue Béthizy.

‘It is the King’s command.’

‘Right you are, sire,’ agreed Hervé. ‘Kill them all.’

Tannhauser further recalled his own words to Retz.

‘Kill them all,’ repeated Hervé with relish, mimicking what he imagined was a kingly tone. ‘And leave not one of them alive to spit on my mother’s grave, or rape our wives and cut the throats of our children.’ He grinned toothlessly.

Tannhauser mastered an urge to kick him in the throat.

‘I quote his very words, sire. As you know better than me.’

‘Coligny and his captains are dead.’

‘I’m surprised you didn’t hear the cheer we raised when we got the news, sire. Coligny and the provincials were a very good beginning, but as Captain Crucé said: “Lads? The rest of them are up to us.”’

‘The rest of them?’

‘The rest of the Huguenots, sire. I can see you’re not a local man, sire, so let me tell you, there are more than you might think. Thousands and thousands of ’em. No man sleeps more than six feet from a prostitute or three feet from a rat, and such is the sorry state of Paris that Huguenots outnumber the whores.’

‘You believe the King wants to kill all the Huguenots of Paris.’

‘All is all, isn’t it, sire?’ asked Hervé. ‘Anything less than all isn’t all at all.’

Tannhauser rode on with Grégoire and Juste at his stirrups.

‘You can count on us, sire! And gramercy for the contribution!’

The Place de Grève was so congested that Tannhauser was obliged to ride around the edge. Charcoal cook fires flourished, into one of which he tossed La Fosse’s list. Hawkers did a brisk trade in food and wine. The number of whores had increased. As a military force the militiamen were a joke. They milled around their district pennants in ill-disciplined clusters. They made a lot of noise. Apart from the white armbands and crosses, no two men wore the same gear or bore the same weapons, which latter they tended to carry as if they were brooms. Fifty Swiss could have driven them into the Seine.

Tannhauser surveyed their faces. He doubted there were two score men among the lot who had ever deliberately taken a life. Hervé the plasterer may have dropped a pallet of bricks on a workmate’s head, but he’d never shoved cold steel into someone’s gut. The militia looked like what they were – five hundred cobblers and candlestick-makers, gossiping in the square about the injustices of life and the particular evils inflicted by the Huguenots. It was Sunday morning, they’d been up half the night, they missed their wives and their beds, and they had no orders. They stank of fear, anger and hatred. They stank of stupidity and bad leadership. Like everything else in the city, they stank of shit.

Despite La Fosse’s list and Hervé’s enthusiasm, he found it hard to believe that a serious attempt could be made to kill the Protestants of Paris. Nothing he had heard from Retz or Arnauld suggested that the King had any such intention, or that any such order would have been conceived, let alone issued. The King had been squeamish enough about killing Coligny. Tannhauser was certain that no such notion had entered the mind of anyone else at the Louvre, any more than it had entered his own, for the simple reason that it would serve no useful purpose and would create a political and financial catastrophe. Retz and Catherine were as amoral as circumstance demanded, but their political guile was not in doubt. For a decade they had outfoxed the best diplomats of half a dozen countries and two empires. The idea of exterminating a large portion of the city’s best educated and most productive citizens – for what? Something as stupid as a spite they didn’t even feel? – would strike them and anyone around them, including even Guise and Anjou, as worse than madness.

Beyond that, the project, in practical terms, was unrealistic. It could be done, but to identify, arrest and execute so many would take days, even weeks. It would need real troops, not this self-glorified rabble. It would require the consent of the governor, Montmorency, a moderate Catholic, along with that of numerous lesser officers, military, civic and legal, who would be no keener than he to stain their reputations with the blood of thousands of decent citizens and their families. It would require that the rule of law be utterly abandoned, with the complicity of
Parlement
, the magistrates and the lawyers who outnumbered the soldiery. It would require the absolute corruption of an entire society. It would require the most civilised city in the world to embrace an extreme of savagery and shame that, for all the quotidian cruelty of its streets, had to be far beyond its ken. Such insane violence stood at the limit of even Tannhauser’s imagination. And he doubted anyone in Paris had witnessed near as much bloodletting as he; though such ignorance had a double edge.