"When I think," said Durtal to himself the next morning, "that in bed,
at the moment when the most pertinacious will succumbs, I held firm and
refused to yield to the instances of Hyacinthe wishing to establish a
footing here, and that after the carnal decline, at that instant when
annihilated man recovers--alas!--his reason, I supplicated her, myself,
to continue her visits, why, I simply cannot understand myself. Deep
down, I have not got over my firm resolution of breaking with her, but I
could not dismiss her like a cocotte. And," to justify his
inconsistency, "I hoped to get some information about the canon. Oh, on
that subject I am not through with her. She's got to make up her mind to
speak out and quit answering me by monosyllables and guarded phrases as
she did yesterday.
"Indeed, what can she have been up to with that abbé who was her
confessor and who, by her own admission, launched her into incubacy? She
has been his mistress, that is certain. And how many other of these
priests she has gone around with have been her lovers also? For she
confessed, in a cry, that those are the men she loves. Ah, if one went
about much in the clerical world one would doubtless learn remarkable
things concerning her and her husband. It is strange, all the same that
Chantelouve, who plays a singular rôle in that household, has acquired a
deplorable reputation, and she hasn't. Never have I heard anybody speak
of her dodges--but, oh, what a fool I am! It isn't strange. Her husband
doesn't confine himself to religious and polite circles. He hobnobs with
men of letters, and in consequence exposes himself to every sort of
slander, while she, if she takes a lover, chooses him out of a pious
society in which not one of us would ever be received. And then, abbés
are discreet. But how explain her infatuation with me? By the simple
fact that she is surfeited of priests and a layman serves as a change of
diet.
"Just the same, she is quite singular, and the more I see her the less I
understand her. There are in her three distinct beings.
"First the woman seated or standing up, whom I knew in her drawing-room,
reserved, almost haughty, who becomes a good companion in private,
affectionate and even tender.
"Then the woman in bed, completely changed in voice and bearing, a
harlot spitting mud, losing all shame.
"Third and last, the pitiless vixen, the thorough Satanist, whom I
perceived yesterday.
"What is the binding-alloy that amalgamates all these beings of hers? I
can't say. Hypocrisy, no doubt. No. I don't think so, for she is often
of a disconcerting frankness--in moments, it is true, of forgetfulness
and unguardedness. Seriously, what is the use of trying to understand
the character of this pious harlot? And to be candid with myself, what I
wish ideally will never be realized; she does not ask me to take her to
swell places, does not force me to dine with her, exacts no revenue: she
isn't trying to compromise and blackmail me. I shan't find a
better--but, oh, Lord! I now prefer to find no one at all. It suits me
perfectly to entrust my carnal business to mercenary agents. For my
twenty francs I shall receive more considerate treatment. There is no
getting around it, only professionals know how to cook up a delicious
sensual dish.
"Odd," he said to himself after a reflective silence, "but, all
proportions duly observed, Gilles de Rais divides himself like her, into
three different persons.
"First, the brave and honest fighting man.
"Then the refined and artistic criminal.
"Finally the repentant sinner, the mystic.
"He is a mass of contradictions and excesses. Viewing his life as a
whole one finds each of his vices compensated by a contradictory virtue,
but there is no key characteristic which reconciles them.
"He is of an overweening arrogance, but when contrition takes possession
of him, he falls on his knees in front of the people of low estate, and
has the tears, the humility of a saint.
"His ferocity passes the limits of the human scale, and yet he is
generous and sincerely devoted to his friends, whom he cares for like a
brother when the Demon has mauled them.
"Impetuous in his desires, and nevertheless patient; brave in battle, a
coward confronting eternity; he is despotic and violent, yet he is putty
in the hands of his flatterers. He is now in the clouds, now in the
abyss, never on the trodden plain, the lowlands of the soul. His
confessions do not throw any light on his invariable tendency to
extremes. When asked who suggested to him the idea of such crimes, he
answers, 'No one. The thought came to me only from myself, from my
reveries, my daily pleasures, my taste for debauchery.' And he arraigns
his indolence and constantly asserts that delicate repasts and strong
drink have helped uncage the wild animal in him.
"Unresponsive to mediocre passions, he is carried away alternately by
good as well as evil, and he bounds from spiritual pole to spiritual
pole. He dies at the age of thirty-six, but he has completely exhausted
the possibilities of joy and grief. He has adored death, loved as a
vampire, kissed inimitable expressions of suffering and terror, and has,
himself, been racked by implacable remorse, insatiable fear. He has
nothing more to try, nothing more to learn, here below.
"Let's see," said Durtal, running over his notes. "I left him at the
moment when the expiation begins. As I had written in one of my
preceding chapters, the inhabitants of the region dominated by the
châteaux of the Marshal know now who the inconceivable monster is who
carries children off and cuts their throats. But no one dare speak.
When, at a turn in the road, the tall figure of the butcher is seen
approaching, all flee, huddle behind the hedges, or shut themselves up
in the cottages.
"And Gilles passes, haughty and sombre, in the solitude of villages
where no one dares venture abroad. Impunity seems assured him, for what
peasant would be mad enough to attack a master who could have him
gibbeted at a word?
"Again, if the humble give up the idea of bringing Gilles de Rais to
justice, his peers have no intention of combating him for the benefit of
peasants whom they disdain, and his liege, the duke of Brittany, Jean V,
burdens him with favours and blandishments in order to extort his lands
from him at a low price.
"A single power can rise and, above feudal complicities, above earthly
interest, avenge the oppressed and the weak. The Church. And it is the
Church in fact, in the person of Jean de Malestroit, which rises up
before the monster and fells him.
"Jean de Malestroit, Bishop of Nantes, belongs to an illustrious line.
He is a near kinsman of Jean V, and his incomparable piety, his
infallible Christian wisdom, and his enthusiastic charity, make him
venerated, even by the duke.
"The wailing of Gilles's decimated flock reaches his ears. In silence he
begins an investigation and, setting spies upon the Marshal, waits only
for an opportune moment to begin the combat. And Gilles suddenly commits
an inexplicable crime which permits the Bishop to march forthwith upon
him and smite him.
"To recuperate his shattered fortune, Gilles has sold his signorie of
Saint Etienne de Mer Morte to a subject of Jean V, Guillaume le Ferron,
who delegates his brother, Jean le Ferron, to take possession of the
domain.
"Some days later the Marshal gathers the two hundred men of his military
household and at their head marches on Saint Etienne. There, the day of
Pentecost, when the assembled people are hearing mass, he precipitates
himself, sword in hand, into the church, sweeps aside the faithful,
throwing them into tumult, and, before the dumbfounded priest, threatens
to cleave Jean le Ferron, who is praying. The ceremony is broken off,
the congregation take flight. Gilles drags le Ferron, pleading for
mercy, to the château, orders that the drawbridge be let down, and by
force occupies the place, while his prisoner is carried away to
Tiffauges and thrown into an underground dungeon.
"Gilles has, at one and the same time, violated the unwritten law of
Brittany forbidding any baron to raise troops without the consent of the
duke, and committed double sacrilege in profaning a chapel and seizing
Jean le Ferron, who is a tonsured clerk of the Church.
"The Bishop learns of this outrage and prevails upon the reluctant Jean
V to march against the rebel. Then, while one army advances on Saint
Etienne, which Gilles abandons to take refuge with his little band in
the fortified manor of Mâchecoul, another army lays siege to Tiffauges.
"During this time the priest hastens his redoubled investigations. He
delegates commissioners and procurators in all the villages where
children have disappeared. He himself quits his palace at Nantes,
travels about the countryside, and takes the depositions of the bereft.
The people at last speak, and on their knees beseech the Bishop to
protect them. Enraged by the atrocities which they reveal, he swears
that justice shall be done.
"It takes a month to hear all the reports. By letters-patent Jean de
Malestroit establishes publicly the '_infamatio_' of Gilles, then, when
all the forms of canonic procedure have been gone through with, he
launches the mandate of arrest.
"In this writ of warrant, given at Nantes the 13th day of September in
the year of Our Lord 1440, the Bishop notes all the crimes imputed to
the Marshal, then, in an energetic style, he commands his diocese to
march against the assassin and dislodge him. 'Thus we do enjoin you,
each and all, individually, by these presents, that ye cite immediately
and peremptorily, without counting any man upon his neighbor, without
discharging the burden any man upon his neighbour, that ye cite before
us or before the Official of our cathedral church, for Monday of the
feast of Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the 19th of September, Gilles,
noble baron de Rais, subject to our puissance and to our jurisdiction;
and we do ourselves cite him by these presents to appear before our bar
to answer for the crimes which weigh upon him. Execute these orders, and
do each of you cause them to be executed.'
"And the next day the captain-at-arms, Jean Labbé, acting in the name of
the duke, and Robin Guillaumet, notary, acting in the name of the
Bishop, present themselves, escorted by a small troop, before the
château of Mâchecoul.
"What sudden change of heart does the Marshal now experience? Too feeble
to hold his own in the open field, he can nevertheless defend himself
behind the sheltering ramparts--yet he surrenders.
"Roger de Bricqueville and Gilles de Sillé, his trusted councillors,
have taken flight. He remains alone with Prelati, who also attempts, in
vain, to escape. He, like Gilles, is loaded with chains. Robin
Guillaumet searches the fortress from top to bottom. He discovers bloody
clothes, imperfectly calcinated ashes which Prelati has not had time to
throw into the latrines. Amid universal maledictions and cries of horror
Gilles and his servitors are conducted to Nîmes and incarcerated in the
château de la Tour Neuve.
"Now this part is not very clear," said Durtal to himself. "Remembering
what a daredevil the Marshal had been, how can we reconcile ourselves to
the idea that he could give himself up to certain death and torture
without striking a blow?
"'Was he softened, weakened by his nights of debauchery, terrified by
the audacity of his own sacrileges, ravaged and torn by remorse? Was he
tired of living as he did, and did he give himself up, as so many
murderers do, because he was irresistibly attracted to punishment?
Nobody knows. Did he think himself above the law because of his lofty
rank? Or did he hope to disarm the duke by playing upon his venality,
offering him a ransom of manors and farm land?
"One answer is as plausible as another. He may also have known how
hesitant Jean V had been, for fear of rousing the wrath of the nobility
of his duchy, about yielding to the objurgations of the Bishop and
raising troops for the pursuit and arrest.
"Well, there is no document which answers these questions. An author can
take some liberties here and set down his own conjectures. But that
curious trial is going to give me some trouble.
"As soon as Gilles and his accomplices are incarcerated, two tribunals
are organized, one ecclesiastical to judge the crimes coming under the
jurisdiction of the Church, the other civil to judge those on which the
state must pass.
"To tell the truth, the civil tribunal, which is present at the
ecclesiastical hearings, effaces itself completely. As a matter of form
it makes a brief cross-examination--but it pronounces the sentence of
death, which the Church cannot permit itself to utter, according to the
old adage, '_Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine_.'
"The ecclesiastical trial lasts five weeks, the civil, forty-eight
hours. It seems that, to hide behind the robes of the Bishop, the duke
of Brittany has voluntarily subordinated the rôle of civil justice,
which ordinarily stands up for its rights against the encroachments of
the ecclesiastical court.
"Jean de Malestroit presides over the hearings. He chooses for
assistants the Bishops of Mans, of Saint Brieuc, and of Saint Lô, then
in addition he surrounds himself with a troop of jurists who work in
relays in the interminable sessions of the trial. Some of the more
important are Guillaume de Montigné, advocate of the secular court;
Jean Blanchet, bachelor of laws; Guillaume Groyguet and Robert de la
Rivière, licentiates _in utroque jure_, and Hervé Lévi, senescal of
Quimper. Pierre de l'Hospital, chancellor of Brittany, who is to preside
over the civil hearings after the canonic judgment, assists Jean de
Malestroit.
"The public prosecutor is Guillaume Chapeiron, curate of Saint Nicolas,
an eloquent and subtile man. Adjunct to him, to relieve him of the
fatigue of the readings, are Geoffroy Pipraire, dean of Sainte Marie,
and Jacques de Pentcoetdic, Official of the Church of Nantes.
"In connection with the episcopal jurisdiction, the Church has called in
the assistance of the extraordinary tribunal of the Inquisition, for the
repression of the crime of heresy, then comprehending perjury,
blasphemy, sacrilege, all the crimes of magic.
"It sits at the side of Jean de Malestroit in the redoubtable and
learned person of Jean Blouyn of the order of Saint Dominic, delegated
by the Grand Inquisitor of France, Guillaume Merici, to the functions of
Vice Inquisitor of the city and diocese of Nantes.
"The tribunal constituted, the trial opens the first thing in the
morning, because judges and witnesses, in accordance with the custom of
the times, must proceed fasting to the giving and hearing of evidence.
The testimony of the parents of the victims is heard, and Robin
Guillaumet, acting sergeant-at-arms, the man who arrested the Marshal at
Mâchecoul, reads the citation bidding Gilles de Rais appear. He is
brought in and declares disdainfully that he does not recognize the
competence of the Tribunal, but, as canonic procedure demands, the
Prosecutor at once 'in order that by this means the correction of
sorcery be not prevented,' petitions for and obtains from the tribunal a
ruling that this objection be quashed as being null in law and
'frivolous.' He begins to read to the accused the counts on which he is
to be tried. Gilles cries out that the Prosecutor is a liar and a
traitor. Then Guillaume Chapeiron extends his hand toward the crucifix,
swears that he is telling the truth, and challenges the Marshal to take
the same oath. But this man, who has recoiled from no sacrilege, is
troubled. He refuses to perjure himself before God, and the session ends
with Gilles still vociferating outrageous denunciations of the
Prosecutor.
"The preliminaries completed, a few days later, the public hearings
begin. The act of indictment is read aloud to the accused, in front of
an audience who shudder when Chapeiron indefatigably enumerates the
crimes one by one, and formally accuses the Marshal of having practised
sorcery and magic, of having polluted and slain little children, of
having violated the immunities of Holy Church at Saint Etienne de Mer
Morte.
"Then after a silence he resumes his discourse, and making no account of
the murders, but dwelling only on the crimes of which the punishment,
foreseen by canonic law, can be fixed by the Church, he demands that
Gilles be smitten with double excommunication, first as an evoker of
demons, a heretic, apostate and renegade, second as a sodomist and
perpetrator of sacrilege.
"Gilles, who has listened to this incisive and scathing indictment,
completely loses control of himself. He insults the judges, calls them
simonists and ribalds, and refuses to answer the questions put to him.
The Prosecutor and advocates are unmoved; they invite him to present his
defence.
"Again he denounces them, insults them, but when called upon to refute
them he remains silent.
"The Bishop and Vice Inquisitor declare him in contempt and pronounce
against him the sentence of excommunication, which is soon made public.
They decide in addition that the hearing shall be continued next day--"
A ring of the doorbell interrupted Durtal's perusal of his notes. Des
Hermies entered.
"I have just seen Carhaix. He is ill," he said.
"That so? What seems to be the matter?"
"Nothing very serious. A slight attack of bronchitis. He'll be up in a
few days if he will consent to keep quiet."
"I must go see him tomorrow," said Durtal.
"And what are you doing?" enquired Des Hermies. "Working hard?"
"Why, yes. I am digging into the trial of the noble baron de Rais. It
will be as tedious to read as to write!"
"And you don't know yet when you will finish your volume?"
"No," answered Durtal, stretching. "As a matter of fact I wish it might
never be finished. What will become of me when it is? I'll have to look
around for another subject, and, when I find one, do all the drudgery of
planning and then getting the introductory chapter written--the mean
part of any literary work is getting started. I shall pass mortal hours
doing nothing. Really, when I think it over, literature has only one
excuse for existing; it saves the person who makes it from the
disgustingness of life."
"And, charitably, it lessens the distress of us few who still love art."
"Few indeed!"
"And the number keeps diminishing. The new generation no longer
interests itself in anything except gambling and jockeys."
"Yes, you're quite right. The men can't spare from gambling the time to
read, so it is only the society women who buy books and pass judgment on
them. It is to The Lady, as Schopenhauer called her, to the little
goose, as I should characterize her, that we are indebted for these
shoals of lukewarm and mucilaginous novels which nowadays get puffed."
"You think, then, that we are in for a pretty literature. Naturally you
can't please women by enunciating vigorous ideas in a crisp style."
"But," Durtal went on, after a silence, "it is perhaps best that the
case should be as it is. The rare artists who remain have no business to
be thinking about the public. The artist lives and works far from the
drawing-room, far from the clamour of the little fellows who fix up the
custom-made literature. The only legitimate source of vexation to an
author is to see his work, when printed, exposed to the contaminating
curiosity of the crowd."
"That is," said Des Hermies, "a veritable prostitution. To advertise a
thing for sale is to accept the degrading familiarities of the first
comer."
"But our impenitent pride--and also our need of the miserable sous--make
it impossible for us to keep our manuscripts sheltered from the asses.
Art ought to be--like one's beloved--out of reach, out of the world. Art
and prayer are the only decent ejaculations of the soul. So when one of
my books appears, I let go of it with horror. I get as far as possible
from the environment in which it may be supposed to circulate. I care
very little about a book of mine until years afterward, when it has
disappeared from all the shop windows and is out of print. Briefly, I am
in no hurry to finish the history of Gilles de Rais, which,
unfortunately, is getting finished in spite of me. I don't give a damn
how it is received."
"Are you doing anything this evening?"
"No. Why?"
"Shall we dine together?"
"Certainly."
And while Durtal was putting on his shoes, Des Hermies remarked, "To me
the striking thing about the so-called literary world of this epoch is
its cheap hypocrisy. What a lot of laziness, for instance, that word
dilettante has served to cover."
"Yes, it's a great old alibi. But it is confounding to see that the
critic who today decrees himself the title of dilettante accepts it as a
term of praise and does not even suspect that he is slapping himself.
The whole thing can be resolved into syllogism:
"The dilettante has no personal temperament, since he objects to nothing
and likes everything.
"Whoever has no personal temperament has no talent."
"Then," rejoined Des Hermies, putting on his hat, "an author who boasts
of being a dilettante, confesses by that very thing that he is no
author?"
"Exactly."