The holy man of the Sahara took the union of Henri and Serena with far more equanimity than a holy man of France, Monseigneur Murat, the bishop of Boulogne-Billancourt.
At the time of his father’s death, Marius Murat was too young to understand the events that led up to it. His father was a merchant of modest means. The family had a little money and a littler house. One day a visitor came, an arrogant man with a top hat and silk cloak and shiny black boots. He arrived in a closed calèche that had a driver and was drawn by two matched chestnut horses. Carriages like that did not come often to their quartier. Murat stared at the beautiful horses and the rich carriage in wonder. Then he heard his mother crying hysterically.
The stranger brought terrible news. Murat had vivid memories of huddling in the corner of a room with his mother and his sister while the man and Murat’s father argued. The details were hazy: investments and property and bad luck. His father had gambled on a land deal. Not only was the original investment lost but the house and all the family’s possessions as well. Men would be coming to take everything – the meager furnishings, the wardrobes and dressers and the oak table in the kitchen and the carved maple washstand that had belonged to Murat’s grandmother. Murat flushed with shame as his father dropped to his knees to plead, and the stranger laughed with scorn. His father clenched his fists and shouted things about frauds and swindlers. There was violent pushing and the man threw Murat’s sobbing father to the floor. Murat saw a look on the stranger’s face that he never forgot. It was not a look of pity or anger. It was a look of smug superiority.
That night Murat’s father went out and was gone a long time. When he came back he was raging drunk and carried a pistol in his belt. His eyes were blood-red and wild. Murat felt his spittle as he talked and swore and whimpered his rage. His anger built, until Murat and his mother and sister had to cower again in the corner. They listened in terror while his father waved the pistol and said frightful things – that he ought to kill the man, kill himself, kill them all. Sobbing, he took another drink of rum. He wiped his defeated eyes and wandered into the kitchen. A terrible loud bang shook the house and left a smell of powder and blood. Long minutes passed when the only sound was a haunted noise coming from Murat’s mother. The boy was the first to brave the kitchen, to see what his father had done.
The stranger returned even before the funeral, accompanied by the prefect of police. There were other officials, sullen-looking men with rifles and mustaches and papers with wax seals. The family was allowed to gather its clothing, nothing more, and leave.
At the time, Murat understood nothing of what had happened. As he grew from child to boy, from boy to youth, he began to distill the lessons he had learned. He drew them from memories of his father. He drew them from his passage through the slums of Paris, where the rats lived better than the cats and the cats lived better than the children, and where he had to stand aside while nobles passed in their carriages and splashed him with the filth of the streets. He drew them from his job carrying heavy bales of cloth and sweeping the floors of the little hat factory where he worked twenty hours a day for thirty sous. He drew them from cynical adolescence.
It is better to be the man evicting than the man vanquished.
It is better to wear the black boot of power than to die beneath it.
Only fools have no money and live like dogs.
Murat did not grieve for his father, for he was a boy who did not feel things as others did. There had always been an empty place inside him. He puzzled at other children who cried when possessions were broken or lost, or who disintegrated in tears when classmates called them names. Murat could call the names, or be called them, and it didn’t matter. Pets died; Murat was indifferent. He did not make friends easily. His appearance was forbidding. His eyes were penetrating, wolf gray and cold. His manner was aloof. When he did make friends they soon tired of his brooding and sullen nature, of his authoritarianism, and they left him. Murat didn’t care. He didn’t need friends, not their approval or their confidence. Intimacy was trivial, unimportant. He found his own company entirely satisfying and kept to himself.
Time strengthened his resolve that no man would ever come and take away his possessions. He would not live as his father had lived, in a futile pursuit of meager means, all acquired under rules made by someone else. I will not be my father, he told himself. I will have influence and wealth. He swore it to himself at every meal, when his stomach growled in hunger before his near-empty plate. He swore it to himself at night when he went to sleep. He swore it to himself every morning when he woke up. He swore it to himself when his mother made him sit next to her while she cried; and he despised her for her sniveling and her weakness. He hated having to sit that way, hated having to pretend to comfort her. He stared off into some distant place while she cried herself to sleep.
I will not be my father. I will be my father’s master.
Murat had a coldly practical personality, given to detailed planning of everything he did. He looked for ways to make his resolution a reality. There were precious few means open to him. In most areas of French life, merit was of far less importance than birth. As he was not noble born, whatever he might achieve would have to come from his own effort. Commerce was not practical. He was quite clever enough for it but lacked capital, and disdained a life fighting for scraps somewhere in a pathetic netherworld between poverty and success as his father had done. The military might bring him power but no wealth, and even the power would be limited without a birthright with which to secure the highest ranks. Besides, he had no desire to risk his life in the pursuit of his goals. The trades? Only bare sustenance. The professions were just a shade better, and quite costly to study. He had no talent for the arts, in which no money or power was to be found anyway. He racked his brains and bided his time in the wretched apartment and pushed his broom in the factory.
And then one day when he was seventeen it came to him.
It was an epiphany.
It was the Church.
His uncle had come to visit. He was a religious man, and Murat’s mother had insisted the family accompany him to a Christmas mass. Murat had not been to church since he was baptized. They went to Notre Dame on a cold, crisp morning. The streets of Paris were busy, but nowhere so much as near the church, where there was an excitement, an energy in the air. The sanctuary was crowded to overflowing. Murat and his family were jostled about rudely and had to content themselves with standing behind a pillar to the rear of the railing of the nave. Murat could see nothing. He held on to the pillar and climbed onto the railing, and there he saw things that made his spirit soar as high as the magnificent vaulted ceiling.
The archbishop of Paris himself was conducting the service. He stood in the chancel before the high altar. The church was so big he looked to Murat as though he were a mile away, and all heads were turned reverently toward him. Even from a distance, Murat could see the flowing robes and brilliant sashes, and perceive the majesty. The archbishop was flanked by priests and servers, and his voice rang out above the crowd of worshipers, who sang their hymns and bowed their heads and looked up to that man standing above them all, a man whose open arms promised glory for those who would accept his truths. Murat couldn’t understand the words.
They were Latin, unintelligible to his unpracticed ear, but they had the certain ring of omnipotence, settling over the hushed congregation, the word of God Himself. The prelate’s voice boomed off ornate columns and echoed in the alcoves. The sun shone through glorious windows of stained glass and fell upon the gold miter on his head and upon his white and purple robes.
Murat saw the plush red carpets behind the altar and the precious stones gleaming in the chalice that a priest held to the archbishop’s lips. He saw the parishioners, even the poor ones who had only rags to cover the holes in their rags, slipping their alms into the collection plates, and he saw that the plates were made of silver. He watched the throngs of faithful who stood as the bishop beckoned, and sang as he sang, and prayed as he prayed. Everything was perfect, everything divine: the geometry, the light and the space, all the energy and life and worship focused on the archbishop and the altar behind him – the stone arches soaring overhead, massive and powerful; the mighty chandelier, hanging, it seemed, all the way from heaven. The choir sang and golden bells pealed the glory of God and, for Murat at least, the even greater glory of His church and His ministers.
That Christmas morning Murat came closer than ever before in his life to feeling something deeply. It was a glorious sensation that filled him up and brought a smile to his face. Had his mother seen him at that moment it would have frightened her, for it was the same smile another man had worn in her kitchen years before – a smile of smug superiority, a smile of chilling certainty. Murat had found his way, a path to power that even a poor child could follow, and the door to it was wide open. The Church had suffered from a severe shortage of priests since the Revolution, when those not deported were executed. Their ranks had never again been completely filled. Vacancy meant opportunity. Less competition meant more room to advance. Murat knew at last where he was going, and where he was going had nothing to do with God.
He entered the Seminary of St. Michel in his eighteenth year. He had no difficulty with seminary life, adapting quickly to its requirements and dedicating himself to its conventions. He developed a perfect understanding of what it took to become a priest, coolly calculating the expectations of the Church hierarchy and the parishioners themselves, and took great pains that every word and deed might make him appear to be that priest. Religious thought rarely entered his mind. When it did, it was as rote, not as belief. He hadn’t the slightest belief in God. When he prayed it was to nothing, empty words to fill a void. God was never expected to answer his prayers. God never did. He never looked for God in his surroundings, never wondered whether He was there. It wasn’t important. The priesthood was a commerce of sorts, a commerce that trafficked in men’s souls rather than goods, and no more required a belief in the underlying premise of God than a broker required a belief in the underlying premise of the Bourse. All that mattered was whether it worked. If others believed, he granted them their faith. If he himself did not, who was to judge him harshly so long as the conventions were kept? He was a clever chameleon who did not suffer the inconvenience of a moral base.
It was in the confessional that his talent for adaptation reached its greatest height. There he feigned agony and invited the most severe acts of contrition. There he admitted those things that he knew his confessor on the other side of the screen needed to hear. He conceded at least some of the sins of his life; and where he thought they might be lacking, he burnished them for effect. He sought a realistic balance. He admitted greed, but left out ambition. He admitted the empty place inside, but left out his failure of faith. He admitted anger at the man who had brought death to his father, but left out his envy of that man. He said all the things a penitent his age would be expected to say. And he knew where to stop. A certain amount of candor in the service of his aims was one thing; candor in the service of plain truth was another, and further than he cared to go. So he did not acknowledge the women he still had on his occasional trips outside the seminary. Nor did he confess the man. Each Monday after final prayers had been said and the seminary had fallen silent for the night, a priest slipped quietly into Murat’s small room and stayed until just before dawn. Such revelations would have been too much for the priest behind the screen, so Murat kept them to himself.
Murat was convincing in his demeanor. He struck a pose of pure humility as he knelt. His prayer voice resonated with conviction. He took the conventions of his apprenticeship seriously, applying himself diligently to the study of the Scriptures, Church history and doctrine, and the decorum of the Church. Latin came easily to him, as did the ritual ceremonies. Whether Murat stood before a parishioner or a peer, a bishop or a king, he struck exactly the right note; and over time, his brilliant act of deception took on the reality of repetition. Hours of practice brought the Holy Spirit to his voice and the wrath of God to his gestures and made righteousness run fast in his veins. He delivered the charade so convincingly that he himself began to believe it; and his message grew real to his audiences, which in turn reinforced him. At last one could not tell, standing in front of Murat and a man whose soul was pure and whose existence was truly devoted to religious thoughts and good works, which was the believer, and which the pretender.
Murat went from the seminary to the diocese of Boulogne-Billancourt which had two other priests, with whom he worked out a comfortable if unspoken arrangement. They worked on the souls of the parishioners, while Murat worked on their pocketbooks. He was a more effective fund-raiser behind closed doors than in a chapel, dispensing blessings with one hand while accepting thanks with the other. But he was effective in the chapel as well. Where some priests preached hope and salvation, Murat found that a well-developed fear of God and eternal damnation was a more direct route to loosening men’s wallets. He pounded the pulpit and his eyes bulged with almighty fervor. His voice was deep and mellifluous and full of the sound and fury of the Lord, and that voice fell upon vulnerable consciences like the golden hammer of God. The francs poured into his coffers.
Yet his great strength lay not in the gospel of fear. He quickly demonstrated to his elders that he was a gifted administrator and organizer, talents the Church desperately needed. In France, the Church and its bishops were quite independent and received no help from Rome, and little enough from the state. Murat found ways to make the diocese money, and ways to save the diocese money. He straightened out muddled accounts and established his own procedures for keeping the ledgers. He began dealing directly with bankers and brokers and vendors, and soon his offices bore a steady stream of visitors. Gradually, he gained direct access to the accounts of the Church. At first his access fell under the close scrutiny of the bishop. But as time passed his freedom increased. It was then that he began to demonstrate what was perhaps his greatest gift, the one most highly prized by his elders. He was a genius at finance. He speculated on the Bourse, somehow knowing when to buy and when to sell. It was all very small at first, for the bishop was a man whose nerves were easily frayed and whose appetite for a gamble was well under control. But each success brought Murat more liberty, until at last he stopped asking altogether. Murat showed similar genius at acquiring and selling property. As with stocks, he always seemed to know just what to do with property, and when to do it. He could bring more money into the Church with a single land transaction than he could in twenty years behind a pulpit.
If Father Murat was shrewd, even ruthless in his dealings, no specific complaints ever reached the ear of the bishop. There were rumors, it was true, rumors of dark dealings and transactions on the slippery edge of the appropriate, but the bishop showed little interest in the ledgers so long as things ran well. If Murat was disliked by the other priests, well, it was of little consequence. If the bishop himself did not like Father Murat, if he found his stares cold and empty and devoid of Christ inside, if he felt a certain chill when the priest talked, he dismissed the notion and turned his attention to more pressing matters of the diocese, for the bishop was a man who understood performance and could judge ambition. Above all, he was a man who could count. His diocese had always possessed a surplus of debt, never a surplus of cash; yet within two years of Father Murat’s arrival, the first renovations to the cathedral in two hundred years were made, and improvements and repairs followed, even to the bishop’s own castle. There had even been enough money for contributions to the workingman’s fund and to the orphanage. The bishop was well pleased.
There was also money for accounts that even the bishop didn’t know about. These accounts were private, established by and known only to Murat. In the beginning, they contained modest amounts, but each success made him bolder and the amounts grew. Murat needed the money to make things work in ways that sometimes troubled the squeamish. Difficult bargains had to be sealed, and bureaucrats purchased: matters that his less practical superiors might not approve. It was all perfectly justified, he reasoned. Without him the Church would not have the money anyway, and as he used it to further his ends in the name of the Church it was all quite appropriate. Over time, the line between the interests of the Church and the interests of Murat began to blur. He began using the money for his own personal needs, needs that grew steadily in number and were quite insatiable.
For years Father Murat worked that way, developing contacts among government functionaries, civic officials, lords and ladies of the realm. He gave tips and received them. He granted favors and asked them, storing up obligations for later use. He learned secrets and remembered them. He learned others and divulged them. Along the way, he thundered at the moral infirmities of his flock, exhorting them to saintliness and damning the sins of flesh that crept through the night streets of Paris. He did it even as he slept with whores, even as he slept with men. He threatened hell and sold maps to paradise, and found his parish brimming with souls eager to buy the maps. France was a nation of realists and doubters and skeptics, but Murat was not deterred, for he knew something of men’s nature – that in crops of doubters could be found a rich harvest of souls.
He dealt and he damned. And he ate. Upon entry to the seminary he had been scrawny, the product of long years of near starvation. At the seminary the food was plentiful if not fancy, and he gained a little weight. At the parish he took charge of the matter personally, and soon the food was as fancy as the wine, and both were abundant. He filled out and ordered new robes, and filled out some more. Within a few years, he grew corpulent and sprouted an extra chin. The bulk added timbre to his voice and his voice added funds to the coffers.
Father Murat had come far from the kitchen where his father’s life had ended. People paid him homage and asked for his blessings and showed him deference and respect. His life was bountiful and he lived well. But he was neither content nor finished. He had only begun. The first step on the road he had chosen had been taken with his eyes fixed firmly upon the robes of the archbishop. He would not stop until he wore them, and after that the red robes of a cardinal.
Murat advanced along his path by ingratiating himself with ministers and bureaucrats of the government – men who needed the money he could give them, men who in turn gave him the information he required to make the money. The president was Louis Napoléon, nephew of Bonaparte. Murat had supported Louis Napoléon from the first. Each time the man sought more power, Murat was there to help. Finally, a coup led to Louis Napoléon’s installation as emperor. The development suited Murat well, for it was the emperor, not the pope in Rome, who named bishops in France. Murat already knew most of the emperor’s staff and had made several of them rich. Beyond that, Murat had tailored his own political views of matters concerning Church and State to suit the emperor’s needs. That the emperor required the loyalty of bishops above any they might feel to Rome was perfectly logical to Murat. Rome did nothing for him.
It was simply a matter of time until he could exchange black robes for purple. He would have to be patient, however, as there were no vacancies among the ranks of the bishops except in the provinces. Murat disdained such posts, which were hopelessly poor and consumed with spiritual drudgery. He preferred the opportunities and connections of Paris and bided his time. Then a new bishop was transferred to the see. He was a kindly man who avoided politics and whose courtliness and simple devotion to the teachings of Christ had won him deep love and respect among the parishioners of his diocese. The bishop was healthy, a relatively young man of fifty-four, and Murat knew he was likely to be bishop for many years to come. Murat chafed under the gentle hand of the new bishop, who would not let him use his talents the way he had done before. He was diverted from finance to the priestly tasks of visiting the sick and tending to the salvation of the parish.
“Yes, my son,” the bishop agreed when Murat protested, “it is true our temporal needs are pressing. But the good Lord will provide for those. It is your task to do His work among men’s souls.” No amount of argument made a difference; and at least on the surface Murat was forced to comply, but he was growing impatient.
His opportunity, when at last it came, was quite unexpected, as near to an act of God as he had ever seen.
Terrible springtime floods had swollen the Marne and Seine Rivers to overflowing, and parish houses had been destroyed across the river. The bishop asked Father Murat to accompany him as he looked after the needs of his flock, and to lend assistance where possible. Murat was not given to fanciful acts of goodwill on his own. He detested the thought of spending hours in a downpour in a futile quest to save men’s dwellings or comfort their souls. It was his preference to send money and other priests, better-suited than he to provide this kind of help. But the bishop asked, and Murat assented.
The storm raged furiously around them as they boarded the little ferry for the short trip across the river. The wind whipped their robes about them and they had to hold on to their hats. The surface of the water was angry with whitecaps. It was dusk, the coming of night hastened by the thick dark clouds overhead. The ferry was not much more than a raft, a low wooden craft that had been built before the Revolution and rendered faithful service in the decades since. Now it strained against the flood waters as its operator pulled on the ropes that were suspended across the water to guide them to the opposite shore. They were nearly halfway across when a large tree floating downstream caught the ferry on its corner and turned it partway around. The tree broke free and continued floating, but the raft did not immediately straighten itself in the roiling water. A wave caught a corner of the port side, which dipped slightly under the water. That was enough to brew disaster. The load of crates on the ferry shifted. A mule lost its footing and slipped toward the side, which sank the endangered corner even more. Pandemonium erupted. Amid the shouts of the ferry operator and the braying of the mule and the noise of the storm, the edge of the craft dipped completely under, tilting the boat and hurling its occupants into the water. The ferry was held tight by the overhead rope and dragged against the current at an impossible angle. One of the passengers disappeared downstream, holding on to the back of the frantically braying mule.
Murat went under, swallowing great gulps of icy black water as he flailed about looking for the edge of the ferry. He caught a rail beneath the surface and was able to pull himself partway up to where he could hold on. Gasping, he used his free arm to work the raging current and keep himself upright. Water had gotten in his nose and mouth and he coughed violently. The lower half of his body was still submerged. At that moment he saw the bishop’s arm break the surface of the water, and then his head. The brave father struggled furiously, but his robes were heavy and prevented him from moving freely.
“I cannot swim!” he half-cried, half-spluttered as he saw Murat. “Help me!” A brilliant burst of lightning illuminated the scene, freezing it in a brief eerie glow. The bishop had lost his hat. His head was gashed and bleeding.
At that instant Murat realized a decision was at hand. He could reach out, and the bishop would be rescued. Or he could just watch, and trust in the Lord to save His faithful servant.
“Help me!” cried the bishop again, and the heavy clouds poured and the lightning flashed once more over the terrified face and its river of blood. To Murat he looked grotesque, a pathetic old fool who could not swim. He was choking, and when he opened his mouth he took in more water. Murat looked around. There was no sign of the ferryman or the other passenger. There was no one at all. Murat’s heart raced as fast as his thoughts. Then his brain took control, and he calmed himself.
He knew what to do.
“Hail, holy queen, mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, our hope. To you do we cry, poor banished children of Eve…”
The bishop went under, his outstretched hand inches from Murat, who could have reached out to him easily. He came up once more, a desperate, beseeching look on his face. Murat caught hold of a piece of wood floating on the surface. It was sodden and heavy. He raised it up over his head. A terrible flicker of recognition dawned in the bishop’s eyes as he realized what was happening. With all his strength Murat brought the club down. He felt a dull thunk. He raised the club again, and again he struck. The bishop went limp and sank.
“…to you do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears…”
Murat felt something bump against his legs underwater. It frightened him. He kicked viciously, to push it down and away toward the bottom. It was soft and yielded to his blows. For a long moment of dread he waited for it to bump him again. But it didn’t. It was gone, swallowed by the current.
The storm raged and rain ran down his face and Father Murat clung to the side of the ferry. On the shore he could see men waving lanterns and shouting for other boats, and he knew help was on the way. As he waited the automatic litany took over. He repeated the words, and the words became the truth: It was the hand of God that tipped the ferry. It was the will of God that he struck his head when he fell.
God’s will be done. God rest his soul.
The body of the old bishop was never found. Within a fortnight word came directly from the Tuileries Palace: by the grace of the Emperor Napoléon III, the see of Boulogne-Billancourt had a new bishop. Marius Murat, the son of a poor merchant, humble servant of God, loyal friend of the empire, had arrived at last at the threshold of his dream. The first time someone kissed his ring a delicious shock ran down his spine, and he savored it, like a sexual sensation. Later, in the privacy of his palace – his palace! – he was giddy, it was grand! – the smile he permitted himself was a real one. He was overlord of thirty parishes, forty-one curacies, and two hundred eighty-five subcuracies. The trappings of office were exquisite. He had private apartments and reception rooms with crystal chandeliers, and a vast courtyard with a garden that had a fountain in the center. A greenhouse made of cast iron was stocked with exotic plants from all over the world. There were velvet cushions and quilted cloaks and violet robes and coachmen to transport him in eight different carriages. Cooks prepared pheasant shot by his own huntsmen. His wine cellar was superb. Legions of curés and sous-curés surrounded him and busied themselves doing his bidding. He no longer had to hide the transactions he made on behalf of the diocese, for after all, the bishop was the diocese, and the diocese was the bishop. For Marius Murat, the arrangement was splendid.
He had been bishop nearly a year when word came to his palace that Count Henri deVries had returned from Africa with a heathen woman at his side. The bishop had solidified his hold over many aspects of his diocese, taking a direct interest in its more notable people and their affairs. He sought influence and control at every level. Count deVries was a prominent resident of the diocese, if an independent and not particularly religious one. His landholdings were vast, his estate among the largest in France. Both his father and grandfather had been deeply religious men and quite generous to the Church. They had given land and money for the construction of schools and chapels. Henri might be expected to do the same, and now he had chosen a wife. It was, therefore, natural that the bishop came to call, and perhaps inevitable that a woman of Serena’s strong will and independence would arouse the bishop’s ire.
The first time she did so it was over a matter of conscience and form, something of less import to the bishop than his daily menu, but something to which he must attend. It was her position concerning baptism and conversion to Catholicism, requirements for a Church-sanctioned wedding. Henri himself was not particularly helpful.
“She must convert, Count. Of course you will insist.”
“It is not for me to insist, Monseigneur. It is not a thing I will force. She is a free woman of another culture.”
“It is not I who wish it, Count. It is the command of the Lord God that the sacrament of marriage be kept holy. She is a pagan. Without baptism there is no conversion. Without conversion she is lost, and your marriage will lack the sanction of the Church. In the eyes of God, you will be unwedded sinners. It is not for you to question. She must do this thing.”
“Whatever she chooses, she will be my wife. And she will make this decision herself.”
“And then what of children? You would forfeit their souls for the sake of a woman’s choice? You would let her condemn souls yet unborn?”
“Nothing is forfeit, Bishop. But she will help make that decision when there are children.”
“I find your attitude careless, Count deVries. It is not fitting for a man of your station.”
“My station has nothing to do with it. It is my belief.”
“The Church will not countenance this!”
Henri sighed and shrugged. “You have my permission to speak with Serena. There will be no coercion. If it is her desire not to convert, Monseigneur, then so be it. In that event we will have a civil ceremony.” His tone was final and clear.
The bishop had no desire to alienate the count and accepted his requirements. It was a time of great spiritual independence in France, and of hypocrisy. Many were anti-religious, but followed the forms: They had their children baptized, and married in the Church, and were desperate to receive the last rites from a priest. It was spiritual insurance they sought – the comfort of tradition without restraints on their behavior. It was the sort of transaction the bishop understood perfectly and exploited for his treasury. If the count wanted to keep a pagan woman but remain in the Church and give it money, then the bishop would certainly not deny him his wish. But he must try for the woman’s conversion. It was the proper form.
The first meeting did not go well. Serena disliked the bishop immediately. “God has sent me for your soul,” he announced imperiously. He extended his hand for her to kiss the ring, but she did not. It was plain to her that his mouth said one thing, his eyes another. He spoke polite words, yet regarded her with a look of scorn that fairly shouted “heathen.” He uttered pieties while staring openly at her breasts, at her body.
She found him repulsive, but she put up with it. She had come to live in Henri’s society. He had told her that they could isolate themselves in the château for a year or two until she felt more comfortable, and thus keep her contact with outsiders to a minimum. But that was not her way. “If I live here it must be with your people, not apart from them,” she said. She was determined to deal with the traditions and customs of France, and that included its marabouts. She was nervous and uncertain, but kept the feelings to herself, determined to be strong; yet she was overwhelmed by the new sights and sounds of Paris, everything coming so fast, the world moving so swiftly after the gentle rhythms of her desert. Paris was so light and bright, the only real city she’d ever seen. Algiers was a mere shadow next to this city with its gaslights and cancan and the carriages and the noise. She wanted desperately to do well for Henri, to fit in, and her first real test was with this fat pompous man who reeked of wine and told her she must obey or face the wrath of his God.
She was not intimidated by the bishop or his God, and determined not to let her dislike of him interfere with a hearing of his position. So she tolerated him, and listened. Like many Tuareg, she was not Muslim and had an uncomplicated belief in God. Had it been anyone other than the bishop who tried to convert her, he might have succeeded, for she wanted to make things as easy as possible on the difficult path she had chosen. But she would not be bullied. There had never been about Serena any soft compliant edges, and she was not about to start with Marius Murat.
The bishop’s sessions with Serena went off and on for days. He talked for hours of the religion, but in his words she heard only darkness and fear. He offered visions that were terrible, visions that frightened, visions that left her with a sense of dread rather than comfort. Nothing he said felt right.
In her darkest moments of doubt she wondered if she was making a mistake. Maybe her uncle had been right, and the gulf between European and African was too great. Maybe they shouldn’t have children at all. But at the end of each meeting, when the bishop had finished, her head was still high and there was Henri, gentle and solicitous, and he kissed the back of her hand. She loved him to distraction and knew it would be all right.
The bishop tried to wear her down, to let fatigue or resignation forge the victory he could not win with threats. But she was stubborn. He had never reckoned with such a strong woman. She was insolent and impertinent, and he told her that her soul suffered from the mortal illness of sin and that the only cure lay in conversion.
“You must do it for the sake of your soul.”
“My soul is not chattel for your Church.”
“Then you must do it to preserve the holy sacrament of marriage.”
“My marriage does not require your sacrament.”
“The count’s marriage does. You must do it for him.”
“The count expects nothing of me in this matter. It is for me to decide.”
“Then you must do it for your children.”
“Why must I? They will do it for themselves, when they are ready.”
“You must do it because otherwise you will burn in hell, and they will follow you there.”
“But I have done nothing to earn entry to your hell and the children are unborn.” Serena shook her head. “I knew a White Father in the desert. He spoke without threats. He spoke of beauty. You speak of terror, yet you both profess the same religion. How can this be?”
“God has many faces.”
“As does his priest, I think.”
“Insulting me will not change the point. You must do it because it is the law of God.”
“You say it is. I say it is your own law, and I will not follow you. The God I know is within me. I do not require your blessing to keep Him there.”
“He is a false God!”
“He is mine.”
He led her in circles for days, through every conceivable argument. She gave him no satisfaction, and their dislike for one another deepened. Their final session was acrimonious.
“The difference between you and a scorpion, Priest, is that a scorpion has no artifice. You see the tail, and you have seen the scorpion. I see the cross around your neck, yet I have not seen you. Your tail is well hidden.”
Had anyone else been in the room to hear the insult, the bishop would have reacted differently. Now, he simply gave up. He needed the count. “I wash my hands of you, woman,” he said darkly. “You have turned from Christ in your descent toward hell. May God have mercy on your soul.”
Henri and Serena were married in a civil ceremony.
The bishop told himself she was but a mosquito to his thick skin: irritating, perhaps, and she drew a little blood, but she was more an annoyance than anything else. Underneath, however, he was seething. The bitch had mocked and insulted him. By refusing to keep the forms she had committed a sin against his authority. If she was a mosquito, one day he would swat her.
It was Serena’s second sin against the bishop that aroused his permanent ire, for it was no mere spiritual matter. It was a matter of property.
The city of Paris had undergone a metamorphosis under Louis Napoléon. The emperor had commissioned Baron Eugène Haussmann to transform the city, and transform it he did. Like a great couturier, Haussmann ripped off the city’s medieval cloak of dust and neglect, and exchanged it for a magnificent gown of brilliance and glamour and gloss. Massive public works projects turned the city upside down.
Haussmann began with the slums. From the Middle Ages they had festered all over Paris, insidious cancers that grew everywhere without proper regard for her dignity, from the doors of the Hôtel de Ville to the shadow of Montmartre, slums that troubled the emperor and blemished the empire. So Haussmann tore them down and swept them away, until the old ones were memories and the new ones were concealed. In their place rose a grand geometry of circles and squares and triangles, drawn with new boulevards and bridges and parks and public places, and dotted with public buildings and private mansions protected by wrought-iron gates. Glorious places, fitting jewels to outshine Vienna and Berlin and Prague, adornments to which the emperor could point with pride.
If it was all simply a facade, it was a damned fine one, for the unpleasantness was now out of sight. The four-fifths of the city living in misery now had to be miserable somewhere other than the city’s center. Paris could not look truly great while children competed with dogs for the garbage on the main thoroughfares.
Nothing stood in the way of progress. If the poor suffered in the process, if their meager possessions were ripped from them without compensation, if their mud-colored hovels were knocked down around them, it was a price the city would tolerate. This was Paris, and Baron Haussmann’s broom was progress.
Paris needed everything, and in an affirmation of self-regard, Paris got everything. For the living, new churches. For the dead, new cemeteries. For the hungry, new markets. For the bored, new theaters and an opera and a racetrack at Longchamps. For the traveler, new railway stations and roads to link Paris with the rest of France, and France with the world. It was change on a monumental scale. Aqueducts brought fresh water from the provinces; sewers carried the effluent back. Notre Dame was renovated, and after seven centuries, the Louvre was finally completed. Thousands of trees were planted, hundreds of fountains added. Five streets converging on the Arc de Triomphe were not enough, so more houses were torn down and the five became the twelve streets of the Place de l’Étoile. Thousands of new gas lamps lit dozens of new parks and thoroughfares until at night the city glowed like a field of diamonds.
The bishop was everywhere in the transformation. Information about neighborhoods to be demolished and new buildings to come was traded secretly and carefully. It was information that made men wealthy. The bishop and the baron knew each other well. Where there was the baron, there was the bishop. Where there was the bishop, there was the baron. Never in public, of course, and never in ways that might later prove troublesome. But throughout it all the bishop was engaged in an orgy of buying and selling and trading.
Through his normal channels on the baron’s staff he learned one day of an immense opportunity, the creation of an outer boulevard in the southeastern quarter that would join others encircling the city. It would be a massive undertaking, underwritten with a separate bond issue, so large that he confirmed the location and timing with the baron himself. Yes, the baron agreed, this was what the emperor had conceived, and this is what the emperor would have. The new boulevard would be imposing and wide, with parks and shops and housing. The bishop immediately set his cures to the business of acquiring land: a parcel here, a section there, a row of houses, a farm, a factory. The scope of the project was overwhelming, the largest scheme the diocese had ever attempted. It required the investment of huge resources, resources that first emptied the accounts of the see and then tapped the bishop’s private reserves. Still it was not enough. He borrowed money from friends at the Crédit Foncier, where funds were supposed to be restricted to departments and communes, but where his influence ran deep. He persuaded investors to join him as minority partners. He drained money from the parishes of the diocese and demanded more. He was obsessed with the project. He would make a fortune the instant the new route was announced.
Then the unexpected happened; He received an urgent summons from Monsieur Portier, his liaison on the baron’s staff: he must come at once. Monsieur Portier was a mousy little man with a pince-nez. He was highly agitated when the bishop entered his bureau.
“The project has changed, Eminence! The boulevard has been moved!”
“Moved!” roared the bishop. “How can it be? The baron himself assured me!”
“Oui, and so he intended, Your Grace! And so it was to be until three days ago. It was the emperor himself who changed the route! He took a ride in his carriage and decided he did not like the lines of the boulevard! They were not straight enough! When the baron heard of it he was granted an audience with the emperor. He even argued the point. Argued! But it was no use. The emperor’s mind was made up.”
Portier was frantic. He had put his own pension into the project. He saw everything crumbling because of an emperor’s whim. Voilà: a sweep of the hand, a turn of the great mustache; and suddenly instead of here, the new rue would be there, and fortunes would be lost. Sudden, unbelievable. The lines, indeed!
“You fool!” said the bishop.
“Alas, I cannot read the mind of the emperor, Your Grace!”
“Merde,” the bishop said, forgetting himself.
“Your Grace?” Even in his panic the clerk was startled to hear such an utterance from the bishop. Portier hadn’t known whether to cry or to throw himself off a bridge before he summoned him. He was afraid of the man, of his bulk, his temper, his power and vengeance. He was ruined, he was sure. But the bishop said nothing more. He was pacing, lost in thought.
Portier turned to a large wooden bunk of drawers in which detailed maps of each arrondissement of Paris were kept. He drew out a map and spread it on a table. As the bishop was preoccupied, Portier studied. He raised his eyebrows when he saw it. It was just the slimmest possibility, but he called out.
“Eminence, look! Perhaps all is not lost. This is where the route will now be placed.” He traced a line on the map with his finger. “If Your Grace can somehow acquire the land here” – he pointed to a large tract – “and here, and here, then your earlier acquisitions will retain their value.” The bishop looked carefully at the map. It was true, he saw. The land Portier indicated would join his holdings to the new route.
“Who owns the land?”
Lit with new enthusiasm, Portier hurried to the land records section of the bureau. He climbed a ladder and pulled a massive book off the shelf. He pored through it page by page, squinting where the writing was old and faded, nodding and mumbling to himself, until he arrived at the proper section.
“Voilà!” he fairly shouted, pointing eagerly. “C’est ça!”
There was but one owner for all the land: the count Henri deVries. DeVries! The bishop cursed himself for the weakness of his position.
“We must have the land condemned,” he said.
Portier shook his head. “Alas, it is not possible, Your Grace.”
“And why not? Land is condemned regularly by the baron for public works!”
“Bien sûr, Eminence, what you say is true – except for land belonging to the nobility. The emperor has no wish to alienate them. His orders have been explicit from the beginning: If it cannot be purchased, it will not be condemned. Besides, a condemnation would never work. The count’s land is not essential to the new route. It is only essential to preserve your… should I say… our investment.”
The bishop resigned himself to approaching the count. There was at least one thing in his favor, he thought, congratulating himself that he had kept his temper when dealing with the count’s woman. Henri deVries surely valued his immortal soul, like any other man. A donation of the land to the Church – or even its sale – would ease the pain he must have felt at entering into marriage without the blessing of the Church.
So it was that he came to call on Henri. “The project is important for the vitality of the new city,” the bishop told him. “Your family has been more than generous to the Church and served France with distinction for generations. It is fitting that this tradition should continue now, when so much progress has been made. The diocese considers this project good for the city, and good for the diocese. As you see, there will be a park here.” He pointed to the map. “And here, a school. The emperor intends that a wide boulevard be—”
“Who owns this land?” Henri interrupted. He pointed to a part of the bishop’s new holdings. The bishop hesitated. He thought about lying, but saw no harm in the truth. “It is owned by the Church.”
“By your diocese, perhaps?”
“Oui, Count.”
“And when did the diocese acquire it?”
“I do not see where that should concern you.”
“So that I may know your intentions, Monseigneur. I wish to understand why you are here.”
“Very well. The diocese has owned the land but a short time.”
A tight smile crossed Henri’s face. “Then I understand, Monseigneur. This is an investment for you. Without my land yours is worthless.”
“This is not a question of worth, Count deVries. The diocese is engaged in the Lord’s work. It is a matter of the highest use for the land. The emperor has transformed the city. The Church supports him in his efforts when it can. If it is not advantageous for you to donate the land to the city, the Church will of course consider a purchase, and the Church itself will donate it to the city.”
“Then will you be donating this other property as well, or holding it for sale?”
The bishop thought quickly. Damn the man! So quick to the point, so direct. Well, if he had to, he would disclose the Church’s business intentions. It was certainly not unheard of for the Church to engage in commercial transactions. He decided it would be good form to admit to certain commercial aspects of the transaction and to donate a portion of the land to the city at the same time. But before the bishop had a chance to answer, Serena walked in. Her eyes fell upon the visitor. A look of distaste crossed her face but quickly passed. The bishop rose but made no attempt to proffer his ring. She greeted Henri brightly and saw the map they were studying.
“We were just discussing a gift of our land in Montparnasse for the new outer boulevard,” he explained. She looked at the map.
“Is that near Vaugirard?”
“Oui,” he replied, smiling. She was still new to the huge city of Paris, yet already knew her way around. She had always been clever with maps.
“I have just been to Ramiza’s shop.” Ramiza Hamad was an Algerian woman who had opened a dry goods shop in Montparnasse. Serena had met her soon after arriving in Paris and bought material for clothing there. Ramiza knew the oasis of El Gassi, where Serena had broken her leg as a girl. She and her family were regular guests at the Château deVries.
“It is horrible what is happening there! She is losing everything. Her family paid rent for three years in advance and lost it all. She said they lost it to the Church! I was going to ask you if there was anything to be done, Henri.” She looked innocently at Murat. “But now perhaps the priest can help them.”
“Is this true, Monseigneur?” Henri asked.
This time, Murat knew he had to lie. “No. The Church has had nothing to do with any such difficulty, and would not be party to it.”
“Do you say my friends are mistaken? It is they who live there! It is they who know!”
“I say only that they have made an error, that is all. I am certain they are well intentioned,” the bishop replied with ice in his voice. “If you will permit me to say so, perhaps the countess should mind matters of her household and leave matters of property to the count.”
“Perhaps the priest should mind matters of religion rather than matters of property,” she shot back.
Henri stood up. Serena’s enmity for the bishop had been clear since the prelate’s unsuccessful efforts at conversion. He saw no hope for an amicable reconciliation. The best he could try for was a strained peace between them. “Thank you for coming, Your Grace. I will consider the matter of a gift directly to the city.”
“It is all I could ask,” the bishop replied.
“Are you going to give him the land?” Serena asked after he left.
“Probably. The boulevard is a good project. But first I will see about Ramiza.”
The next day Henri went to Vaugirard. He talked with the Hamad family, and then with others who had shops in the same area. The picture they drew was disturbing. They had paid heavy advance rents, only to find their homes and shops later condemned for use in the construction of a new street or park. They had not been able to get their money back. They never dealt with the landlord, only with agents. They weren’t even certain who the landlord was. Some said the Church, some said not. The agents told them nothing and said they should raise the matter with the city. The city refused to help and would not permit them to examine the property records, which were confidential. They had lost their money and their property and weren’t even sure to whom.
If powerless tenants could not obtain access to the records of the city, Count Henri deVries had no such difficulty. He was soon poring over the records and discovered that the landowner, once having collected money from the tenants, had then been paid by the city for the property. The landlord had in fact been paid twice: first by the tenants, then by the city. It was a clever scheme inflicted upon the helpless, repeated hundreds of times.
There were other papers to see at a different bureau. Henri examined them himself, to be certain there was no mistake. One landlord was dominant, not the owner of every property, but of scores of them. Leafing through the heavy book, Henri saw the name on document after document.
Msgr. M. Murat, évêque de Boulogne-Billancourt.
There could be no mistake.
Henri was furious. He rode to the bishop’s palace and went directly to his private apartments over the strident objections of the housekeeper. The bishop was occupied with a tradesman who was installing new Cordovan leather walls in his private dining room. The emperor had installed imitation leather walls at Fontainebleau. Not to be outdone, the bishop had ordered real ones. He looked up in surprise as Henri entered.
“Count! An unexpected pleasure.”
Henri’s countenance was grim, his voice a whip. “No pleasure, Bishop. You lied to me.”
The bishop motioned to the workman. “Leave us,” he said. The man dropped his tools and hurried from the room. The bishop turned to Henri. He spoke in a low voice. “Do not forget yourself, Count! I will not be addressed in this manner!”
“What Serena said was true. Your diocese has stolen money from families. From shopkeepers. It is fraud!”
“You are talking to God’s servant in this diocese, Count. I do not lie.”
“I have been to the city offices. I have seen the papers for the rents. I have seen the papers for the purchases. They bear your signature.”
The bishop nodded his head and gave him his most understanding smile. “My signature is on many things. A hundred papers are presented to me every day.” He picked up a folder from his writing desk. The folder was tied with a ribbon and bulged with documents. “The diocese owns a great many properties. Much is left to the discretion of the curés who attend to these matters for the Church. I trust them when they present me with something. I confess that I do not read them all. If what you say is true it is possible one of the curés may be responsible. If so I will find out. I assure you I will get to the bottom of it.”
Henri looked at him scornfully. “Are you telling me you don’t know what is happening in your diocese? Once or twice I might understand. But a hundred times and more? Over two years? And then you would place the blame on a curé?” Henri shook his head, and looked the bishop straight in the eye. “I said it before. I don’t believe you. You are a liar.”
The bishop reacted in the only way he knew how. He took the offensive. A thousand times before he had done it with those who challenged him; a thousand times before they had backed down. He raised himself to his full height. His face was flushed with anger, his gray eyes savage. His hand trembled with rage as he shook his fist in Henri’s face. “You speak this way in peril of your immortal soul, Henri deVries! Until now I have treated you with some leniency in deference to your station. I have been reasonable about your marriage—”
“You dare to threaten me over my marriage?” Henri was incredulous. “This has nothing to do with my marriage!”
“I only remind you of the pain of excommunication! I remind you of your precarious position! I remind you that I have shown more tolerance in this matter than the holy Church requires I show! What has been done can be undone! Your title and your money and all your self-righteousness will not protect you from the wrath of almighty God!”
Henri stared at the bishop and felt ashamed. What a fool he had been! He had never seen the man behind the robes. He had never felt the need to look. He had only humored Serena when she criticized Murat. Now what he saw filled him with revulsion. He spoke quietly, the anger gone from him. “I will have no part of your project. For that and for my marriage, do as you will, priest. Do as you will.” He turned and strode from the room, his boots echoing down the hall. The bishop listened until the noise was gone.
That night the bishop sat in his darkened bedchamber, hunched over in a chair. The palace was hushed, his passion spent. Two bottles of wine lay empty at his feet. His eyes were red and his tongue was thick. His head was pounding; the wine would not make it stop. The storms of his fury had thundered throughout the afternoon. Word of his mood passed rapidly among the secular and clerical staffs at the palace. Curés quickly found business in other parishes. The servants moved silently through the back halls, trying to remain invisible. All dreaded a chance meeting or a summons. His vengeance could be swift and horrible.
Some had not moved quickly enough. He saw to it that Monsieur Portier was fired that afternoon, filling a note to Baron Haussmann with enough threats to guarantee it. He summoned the clerk of the diocese, a meek but capable priest who had dutifully carried out every instruction of the bishop’s without fail. The man was summarily transferred to Vanves, the poorest parish in the diocese. He fired the housekeeper who had let Henri into his apartments. Yet the anger continued to build inside him, a great bilious anger that consumed him with hatred and spite, and in its fires he found the only other person he could hold accountable for the disaster.
“Serena said…” Over and over he heard the count’s accusation. “Serena said…”
The she-devil. Serena deVries. The pagan whore.
It was her fault.
When he knew it was true he lay exhausted in his stuporous fog and the voice came to him as it always did, soothing and sure.
God will punish her for thwarting His works. And I will be His instrument.
He rose to his feet and staggered. A boy of eleven peered out at the great bulk of the bishop from beneath the silk comforter on the bed. The boy was terrified. The bishop could hurt him so when he was like this. He had lain there for more than an hour, afraid to say anything, afraid even to move. He wondered whether the bishop had forgotten him as he drank and drank. He saw the old man’s head nodding and heard him talking to himself. He wondered whether to run. But then the bishop saw him. The bishop had forgotten it was Friday. There was a boy every Friday. Such a sweet young body, this one had. His favorite. But now he could not focus on the child through his rage. He wanted only to be left alone.
“Get out!” the bishop swore. “Get out of my sight!” The bottle he threw broke just behind the bare feet of the boy as he fled through the door.