The Palais-Cardinal lay in a pool of silence, as it slept under the moon. But in the Cardinal’s chamber a light burned near the great red bed. His Eminence was one who loved the silent night, when petty minds and little souls had returned to that blank darkness from which they briefly emerge during the day, like worms creeping to the surface of the ground in the early morning. But at night he could forget his knowledge, of mankind, could even forget his hatred, which was like a virus in his spiritual body, and which was so powerful that it infected his flesh. During the day, in his forced associations with his fellows, he was afflicted with a chronic inner trembling; he was nauseated with his loathing. At night, the tortured cramps left his body and his soul, and he would collapse among his pillows and breathe without that smothering constriction in his lungs. He would have all lights extinguished save that by his bed, and, lying there, he would read, meditate, drowse and muse, health precariously restored for a few blessed hours before the dawn. He would listen to the silence, and imagine, with deep consolation, that all but he were dead in the world, that the afflicting presence of man, by some divine and compassionate dispensation of God, had been forever removed from the miserable earth. No one dared enter his chamber. A new lackey had ventured to do so on one night, and was received with such desperate violence, such ravings, such cursings and hysteria, that the poor wretch had fled, not only from the Palais-Cardinal, but from Paris itself. For days, thereafter, the Cardinal could see no one, by orders of his physician, for he had become truly ill.
A profound stillness like velvet darkness would steal over the Cardinal. The cramps and rigors would leave his spirit. Slowly, throughout his body, would flow a blessedness of peace. Forgetting everything, even Anne of Austria, he would stare at the ceiling, at the shrouded windows, a book in his hand, a gentle smile on his lips. Sometimes he would glance at his bolted doors, and the expression of calm would deepen on his pale and haggard countenance. Now all craft and malice left his eyes, all bitterness his frail small mouth, all pain his tall sloping brow. Sometimes he thought it might be like this in the grave, a peaceful sleeping in a stone and narrow chamber, safe forever from the intrusions of a species he hated with justification and complete knowledge.
He could understand the God, then, that he had forsaken, or from whom the wall of human flesh had shut him. Had he ever truly believed, with simplicity, ardor and orison? If he had, he had forgotten. Now he was wafted towards the dark mystery of God, gently, as a shingle of wood is wafted on great flowing tides, unquestioningly, unresistingly. But he could not understand Jesus. Never, at any time in his life, had he understood the Christ. How was it possible for One who understood mankind to love it, to desire to die for it, to suffer for it? Once he had a faint, swift glimmering, a comprehension that it was mankind’s very viciousness, stupidity, virulence, cruelty and madness which had inspired the pity of Jesus. But it was a comprehension mixed with wonder and contempt. He, the Cardinal, had a much better cure: a new flood, a new universal fire, a fiery comet out of space. He thought that much more sensible: to destroy the obscenity, rather than to pity it.
He thought that he alone was awake in the Palais-Cardinal. But Louis de Richepin was also awake. Where the Cardinal sought sleeplessness, for the healing of his body, Louis could not escape it. He suffered constantly from insomnia. In the night, all the devils of loneliness, sadness, bitterness and hopelessness, assailed him then, in the cold austerity of his chamber at the end of the long corridor. He would listen to the monotonous tramping of the guards, their dull challenges, until almost dawn. He would sit at his table, which was filled with books, his head in his hands, his dim slightless eyes fixed on the burning candelabrum before him. On the empty stone wall opposite him hung a huge wooden crucifix, crudely executed. Under it was the prie dieu, the low candle flickering as if about to die. Behind him was his hard severe cot. The high narrow window was open, admitting the cool night air. The floor was of stone, completely uncovered, and the two benches were innocent of cushions. It was a monk’s room, an ascetic’s room, a lonely and empty room, filled with vague candlelight and chill and dank smell of stone. Even on the coldest day there was no brazier here, no cheerful fire. It was a chamber under the earth. The Cardinal, seeing it once, had shuddered and smiled, and raised his brows. But offers of luxurious furniture, of carpets, were politely refused by the young priest.
During the day, his constant duties enforced a suspension of thought in the mind of Louis. But at night, he had no defense against his melancholy and loneliness. If he meditated, it was a meditation filled with hopelessness and frigid despair. If he prayed, it was as if his lips were covered with choking ice. A great motionless emptiness filled him; all the outlines of a living world were dissolved into nothingness. Sometimes he thought: My body, which was once a cauldron, is now an ancient cracked vessel stained with dried tears whose origin I have forgotten.
So long had he been forced to crush hope, desire and passion in his heart that they had become like unborn children dead in their mother’s womb—a memory of life, a murdered promise of fulfilment and joy, a weight of heaviness and stillness in his soul.
Once, when the dawn could not release him from the nameless agonies of the night before, he had broken down and incoherently confessed to the Cardinal, crying out like a man whose last defenses had gone. And the Cardinal had listened, hearing echoes in himself. But the echoes did not inspire him to compassion, though he understood. For some strange reason the understanding filled him only with anger. But he had said, gently enough:
“Louis, sharp pain and the capacity for suffering are the signs that the spirit is still fiery and eager. But when the ability to feel grief, rage, fear, agony and tumult is gone, the fool says: I have at last attained peace,’ and the wise soul cries: ‘I am dying!’ Be thankful, therefore, that you still live. You suffer, therefore, you are alive.”
But now, the night brought only deadness and emptiness to Louis, and the pain in his heart was muted though monstrous. He could not think; he could only endure. He could desire nothing, not even the death which would release him.
I have wanted love, he would say to himself. But the words were now only echoes, and mechanical. He was on fire, but the burning was like flames of ice, freezing his heart rather than imbuing it with incandescence.
The furies from the frozen pits of hell had him in unusual force tonight. They had a voice, a new voice, but he would not listen. He sat for hours, without moving, his eyes, from being fixed on the candles, having become dazed and almost blind. Therefore, when he heard a quiet knocking on his door, it was some long moments before the sound reached his consciousness. Then he was astonished.
He heard the tolling of the midnight bells of Notre Dame as he forced his cramped cold body to rise from the hard bench. He crept across the flickering floor like an old man, his shoulders stooped, his head thrust forward. He shot the bolt, and the door opened with a loud creaking. Père Joseph stood on the threshold, and the candlelight in the chamber struck on his russet beard and sprang back from his great hysterical blue eyes.
Louis, overcome with astonishment, fell back, and Père Joseph entered swiftly, closing the door behind him. The Capuchin glanced rapidly about the dismal room, then approaching a bench, he sat down upon it. Louis, without speaking, sat on the bench on the other side of the table, and the two regarded each other in a profound and speechless silence.
Uneasiness, awe, fear and suspicion filled Louis’ cold spirit. He waited, while Père Joseph’s rapid eye inspected every article in the chamber, then returned, strange and inscrutable, to the young priest. Evidently his inspection had pleased the Capuchin, for he smiled slightly.
“There is no luxury here, no corruption, no foolishness,” he said, in his low resonant voice. “I was not mistaken in you, Louis.”
Louis inclined his head. His egotism, never far below the surface, caused a warmer flush to infuse his glacial countenance. His weary heart lightened with an inexplicable thrill of conceit.
The bells of Notre Dame were still shaking the midnight air. Père Joseph briefly examined the volumes on the table. What he saw evidently satisfied him, for his great saturnine countenance softened. He laid his hand upon the cover of a book, tenderly. Then his expression changed again, became stern, fierce and inexorable. His eyes were pits of fiery blue, hypnotic and terrible.
He began to speak, so rapidly, and in so low a tone, that Louis had to listen with the greatest intensity in order to understand. The Capuchin’s eyes held him immobile, like a charmer’s eyes, so that he could not look away for an instant.
“When I saw you today, Monseigneur, I knew immediately that God had brought us together. Never have I been mistaken in these flashes of divine intuition. I knew you were the instrument God had placed in my hand. When the call comes, I do not delay. That is why I have come to you tonight. All slept in the palace, but I knew you were awake.”
He paused. He leaned across the table towards Louis, and the young priest saw nothing but those pits of blue flame which were the Capuchin’s eyes.
“I knew, also, that God would put understanding in your heart, and that I had only to speak.
“I need not recount to you the frightful forces which are abroad in the world today, and the ominous threat hanging like a falling wall over the Church. You know these things. You know that only the devotion of the dedicated and the faithful will save the Church. And I know you are one of these.
“The Church, at all costs, must regain spiritual omnipotence in the world as a prelude to the restored temporal omnipotence which must always be her dream, her aim, the purpose of God. Only when the Church has control over the political affairs of men, when she can command kings and emperors and princes and the machinery of all governments and be obeyed implicitly, can the plans of God be fulfilled. It is the duty of all of us to dedicate our lives, our thoughts, our prayers and our desires to the triumph of Christendom, to the extirpation of heretics and infidels by sword and by fire, by ruthlessness and strength. The forces of heresy must be destroyed. While one heretic remains alive in this world, the Church is threatened. While one independent government remains, defying the Church, the Church is unsafe. While one ruler retains power without the authority and the blessing of Rome, his presence is a menace to Catholicism. Wherever men make laws without consulting Rome, and deferring to her commands, there the forces of dissension, heresy and blasphemy are triumphant. The Church, as God intended, must rule all the world, must make all laws, must appoint all rulers, must have the first and the final word, if the divine purposes of God are to be accomplished.
“The Holy Father knows this. All the Popes, from the instant of receiving the Crown and the Keys of Saint Peter, are dedicated to this. In the hearts of all true servants of the Church is the vow that Protestant, Jewish, Mohammedan and Buddhist heresy must die, and their supporters with it. This is the command of God. We can only obey, with joy, pain, service, devotion and martyrdom.”
Slowly, as the Capuchin spoke in a low but vehement voice, filled with passion and fanaticism, a fire had been rising in Louis. The dullness vanished from his eyes. Winds of exaltation, of fury, madness, hysteria and transport flung themselves up in his soul, like flaming coronas. They lifted themselves, roaring, out of the black and fathomless caverns of the hatred that dwelt eternally in him.
The Capuchin saw the sudden leaping of these fiery winds behind the young priest’s face, which became whitely hot. Those glacial eyes glittered like mountain ice struck by wild moonlight. And Père Joseph said to himself: I have not been mistaken in the quality of this savage virgin soul, remorseless and dedicated.
His voice was like urgent hands seizing Louis. The young priest sprang to his feet in a transport, trembling, quivering like a tree struck by lightning. He cried out: “What shall I do? For there is something I must do!”
The Capuchin was too astute and intuitive a man to be deceived that Louis’ transports rose from religious rapture and devotion. The true devotee was as one divinely inspired, glowing and radiant, caught up in ecstasy, almost angelic in aspect. But Father Joseph saw that something evil, something dangerous and uncontrolled flamed behind the face, the words and the gestures of the young priest, something which made his flesh incandescent with an infernal blaze.
Père Joseph said, fixing the shafts of blue fury which were his eyes upon Louis’ face, holding him by his hypnotic power:
“Yes, my son, there is something you can do, something you must do. And, you must listen carefully to me, for the fate of Christendom might depend upon your integrity, your strength and your wisdom.”
Slowly, shaking violently, Louis reseated himself, leaning forward across the table, clutching its edge as though about to spring, his eyes glittering, his teeth bared.
Père Joseph lifted his hand solemnly, and spoke in an even lower voice:
“I am the friend, and the confessor, of Madame the Queen. Nevertheless, she has some distrust for me. I cannot, therefore, impel her to listen to me without suspicion.” He paused. “You are regarded favorably by Madame?”
Louis hesitated. There were beads of moisture on his broad white brow. He touched them with his trembling hand.
“I am his Eminence’s secretary, father, as you are his friend. Therefore, the same distrust had formerly been extended to me by Madame. However, I have thought this distrust has subsided, for I have had many conversations with her, and she has been convinced of my sincerity, and my desire that the Huguenots be destroyed. Though I have sometimes accused myself of disloyalty, I have disagreed, in her presence, with the policies of his Eminence. But that is not secret to Monseigneur!”
Aroused, the Capuchin leaned forward towards Louis.
“This is extremely significant, far better than I hoped! Repeat, if you please, some of your conversations with Madame.”
Flattered by the concentrated attention of the Capuchin, Louis obeyed. The Capuchin listened. He hardly breathed. His extraordinary eyes blazed, welled, glowed. He smiled, gripping the edge of the table. He weighed every word. Occasionally, he nodded, with intense pleasure. Once, he ran his hand through the tangled russet beard, as though unbearably excited.
“That is most excellent!” he cried, when Louis had finished. “Most amazingly excellent! I am certain you have convinced Madame of your sincerity.” He paused, and now his eyes narrowed cunningly and sharply upon Louis. “It has always been a great sadness to me that her Majesty suspected, and disliked, his Eminence. No doubt without reason.”
He waited, wondering how much Louis had heard of the Cardinal’s lust for Anne of Austria. And then he saw that Louis would never have believed anything obscene about his master, for there was no obscenity in that egotistic and glacial soul.
Louis shook his head, frowning and sighing. “I regret that there is a reason, father. Madame has always desired that the Edict of Nantes be revoked, that the Huguenots be exiled and suppressed and destroyed, for the sake of Holy Mother Church. She has pleaded so, with the King. But Madame has very little influence with his Majesty, who listens only to his Eminence. And his Eminence has always believed that the strength of France depended on an inner integrity, and for the sake of that integrity, he has placated and conciliated the murderous and rebellious Huguenots.” He hesitated again, looked at the Capuchin imploringly. “I have not agreed with his Eminence. I have agreed only with Madame.”
The Capuchin nodded. He smiled darkly in his beard.
“Madame has not received his Eminence lately?”
“No. She leaves the room when he enters the chambers of the King. I know that he has sought audiences with her, to no avail.”
“Ah,” murmured the Capuchin, well aware of the reasons for the young queen’s aversion for the Cardinal.
There was a sudden and portentous silence in the room, in which the Capuchin kept his eyes fixed unmovingly on Louis’ face. And Louis waited, his very spirit sweating.
Then Capuchin said, as if meditating aloud: “I have thought that if her Majesty could be induced to receive his Eminence, many things might be accomplished. Once I urged this, before going on my mission to Rome. She refused, with great agitation, suspecting me. Therefore, my pleadings would be of no service. However, if one she trusted, like yourself, pleaded for this interview, it might possibly be granted.”
He paused. Louis’ eyes widened, but a frown wrinkled his forehead. Then he was excited.
“You believe that my pleas might have some effect, father?”
The Capuchin was relieved. He smiled affectionately. “I know this! And that is why I have arranged an interview for you, and you alone, within the hour, with her Majesty!” Louis was astounded. He half rose from his chair, staring.
“Now?” he cried. “At this hour, when all of Paris is asleep, and the Louvre sleeps also, and Madame?”
The Capuchin smiled sadly. “Her Majesty has few friends, and those friends are suspect. The spies of his Majesty, and—er—his Eminence, are ever watchful. Therefore, she receives her friends in secrecy, after midnight.”
Louis, astonished and bewildered, shook his head numbly. The Capuchin reached across the table with a sudden and violent movement, and seized Louis’ cold and rigid hand. He impaled the young priest with the rapier of his eye.
“You must go at once, alone, in secrecy, my son! Wrapped in your cloak, your face hidden. Madame will receive you! I have sent a messenger in your name, seeking this appointment, and it has been granted!”
He waited for some exclamation following this amazing revelation. But Louis only stared, incredulously.
“Now, at once!” cried Père Joseph. “Without an instant’s further delay. Upon this interview, my son, depends the fate of the Church in Europe!”
“But what reason shall I advance to her Majesty in pleading for her to receive his Eminence?” asked Louis, in a hoarse voice.
The Capuchin was silent a moment, while the flame became intensified in his eyes. Then he said:
“You will say to her that you are certain his Eminence can be persuaded to abandon his present policy with regard to the Huguenots upon her pleading.” He paused, then said, very slowly, very portentously:
“And you will say to Madame that the sacrifice of a single woman’s delicacy, aversions, modesty and hesitations are nothing, if the Church is to be saved. You must say to her that it is the command of God that she sacrifice herself.”
He wondered if he had gone too far, if Louis had indeed heard of the Cardinal’s lust for the Queen, for the young priest’s face became very pale, and a cold hauteur spread over it, in spite of the perspiration that gleamed on his brow.
But he was reassured when Louis said: “But that is impertinence, father.”
The Capuchin, in his relief, struck the table with his clenched fist.
“ A priest is never impertinent, in serving his Church and his God! Your words are absurd, worldly, my son! In the name of the Lord, a priest can speak with all frankness, all imperiousness. Have no fear. Her Majesty will listen with all consideration to you, as a true daughter of the Church.” Without another word, Louis rose. He wrapped himself in a voluminous black cloak. He pulled the hood far over his features. Then, he glanced at the wall, upon which hung his sword. He went to it, removed it, buckled it to his waist. Then he turned to the Capuchin.
“I am ready,” he said, simply.
Père Joseph put his arm about him, after blessing him solemnly. They left the Palais-Cardinal through great corridors. They passed the guards, who saluted. They emerged into the dark and gloomy streets. Père Joseph watched Louis until he was swallowed in the midnight darkness.
He shook his head a little. But it was not the first time, he reflected, that a priest had acted as a panderer.