The Dedalus Book of French Horror: The 19th Century (5 page)

14
   A fascinating account of how this story was appropriated by the Italian writer I. U. Tarchetti is given by Lawrence Venuti in his introduction to the former’s
Fantastic Tales
(San Francisco: Mercury House, 1992).

15
   A translation by Francis Amery of
Monsieur de Phocas
was published by Dedalus in 1994.

16
   Mario Praz, p. 354.

No more than a century ago, in the church of Saint Just at Narbonne, in the centre of the chapel situated to the right of the tomb of Philip the Bold, there burned night and day a magnificent silver lamp. This lamp was perpetually fuelled with aromatic oil, which must have been of pure olive. The care of this lamp was not entrusted to the coarse hands of the vergers and their servants; a young abbot was usually appointed to the task of keeping it clean and bright. This magnificent lamp was stolen about the year 1734, and was replaced by a candle that had similarly to be kept continuously lit; but the candle did not compel the adoration of the faithful as did the precious lamp, and it disappeared completely about the year 1750. There are however still some old men who recall having seen it, and who have spoken to me of it. This is what I have been able to ascertain about the origin and the establishment of this lamp.

On 12 February 1347, around midnight, a young knight of no more than nineteen, escorted by four men at arms on horseback bearing broadswords, stopped at the door of Lubiano Marrechi, a Lombardy Italian who was a merchant trading in the town of Narbonne. Since the door did not open at the first knock, the men at arms made ready to break it down, but without further ado the key turned in the lock, and the knight and his men entered a dimly-lit room. The door had been opened to them by a little old man of a not unusual aspect, having, like all those of his profession, a pair of keen, mistrustful eyes. It was as if he wanted to study at one and the same time every face and every hand in order to see deep into the former and keep check on the latter. Just as the men at arms came in through the street door, a young girl
en déshabille
rushed out of the door opposite and ran up to the knight, throwing herself upon his neck with a cry of joy as she said:

‘It is you, then, my Joëz! Oh! I was waiting for you, and I recognised from far off the sound of your horse and of your mules.’

She had scarcely uttered these words when she stepped back in fright, for the burnished steel of the knight’s breastplate had chilled her warm young breast, bruising her delicate white skin. She regarded the stranger then let herself fall onto a narrow seat of black leather, saying with astonishment:

‘What! It is not Joëz!’

‘No,’ answered the knight. ‘I am not Joëz de Cordoue, the handsome merchant of purple-dyed wools, and I bring no magnificent gifts to my fiancée Diana Marrechi. I am Jean de Lille-Jourdain, and I come to carry out the orders of the King of France.’

‘It is well!’ the old merchant intervened. ‘Return to your chamber, Diana; I can manage by myself to make our house welcome to the lord of Lille-Jourdain.’

‘There is no need,’ the former interjected, ‘for from this moment neither you nor any of your family possess either house or chamber. All those of your household are seized and all of your goods are confiscated.’

‘You are mad,’ Marrechi exclaimed, bringing his lamp close to Jean’s face, ‘or else you are only a child playing some vile game. Take care, we are under the protection of the consuls of the town, and their sergeants at arms have punished more than one knight-banneret for having failed to acknowledge their seal. It stands here at the foot of the licence which, for payment of ten gold écus, is granted to me to buy and sell all manner of objects as I will. So get thee hence, unless you wish me to call the burghers and you will come off the worse.’

‘Take him, lads,’ said the young man to his soldiers, ‘make this Lombard understand that it is King Philip’s pleasure to take possession of all his goods as indemnity for the help refused him by the states of Langue d’Oc.’ The soldiers obeyed and held the old man down. He could not conceive that what was happening was a reality, so secretly had this action been prepared, coming unannounced like a lightning bolt. Diana, as unmoving as her father, her body scarcely covered with a flimsy linen shift, felt neither the biting wind that whipped this garment against the pure, slim contours of her body, nor the chill of the flagstones cold beneath her feet. She did not think of how she was exposed, almost naked, to the eyes of a stranger; she looked at Jean with a gaze so piercing it was almost wild, and as she did, her father cried out in despair:

Oh! God have mercy! What is to become of us?’

‘I shall tell you,’ answered the knight; ‘you yourself, as head of the family, will be locked up with all the Lombards in the district, in a very deep dungeon, where you will rot until it shall please my lord the King to let you out.’

‘And what of my house!’ said the old man, ‘What will become of my house? My treasures, my merchandise, left untended by me what will become of them?’

‘We shall take the keys to your house!’ retorted the knight; ‘we shall lock it up, and I can assure you that the King’s stewards will allow nothing to be lost of what is here.’

‘Heavens above!’ exclaimed the old man, for whom these disasters followed so rapidly one upon the other that he did not have the time to take the measure of their awfulness. ‘And what of my daughter! My child!’

‘Your daughter will be driven out from the town with the rest.’

‘Driven out!’ echoed the old man, straining at his bonds.

‘Driven out without delay,’ retorted Jean without the least emotion.

Wrenched from her immobility by these terrible words, Diana rose abruptly to her feet, in an uncontrollable movement seized the knight’s arm, looked him directly in the face and said:

‘And where then would you have Joëz find me if you drive me out of here?’

Jean de Lille-Jourdain could not stop himself from looking at Diana with a certain interest. Indeed, she was beautiful with all the beauty of Italian blood; her black hair flowed over her shoulders; her breast heaved; her eyes exuded superb determination.

‘Well, Joëz will find her where he can,’ said one of the men at arms, ‘but do not forget, my lord Jean, that we have thirteen expeditions such as this one to carry out tonight, and we shall never have done if we are halted by the tears of all the Lombards it is our duty to drive out.’

‘You are right,’ said the knight, thoughtfully. ‘Come now young woman, make yourself ready. You are to be taken to the city gate.’

‘In the cold and dark!’ said Lubiano ‘It would kill this child. Have pity on her! Have pity on her, my lord! Do not cast her out of the town!’

‘Oh! Do not drive me out!’ exclaimed Diana on her knees; ‘Allow me this night in Narbonne. I shall spend it on the stone of our threshold, mute and prone like a dead woman, saying not a word. I pledge my soul, I shall wait for Joëz, nothing more; I shall wait for him all night, and if he has not come by daybreak, since I shall certainly be dead from cold and grief, no one will be able to accuse you, when they see my corpse, of not having done your duty by taking pity on me.’

Jean was on the point of softening. Suddenly the sound of horses’ hooves was heard. Diana rushed to the door, but the glimmering of the torches brought her back inside. Then the insolent voice of Le Galois de la Baume cast these words from the street to the young knight:

‘Ah! It is plain that we are in the quarter of his lordship of Lille-Jourdain. He makes no haste in obeying the call of duty, for he follows the example of his father in carrying out the orders of the King. May God have pity on traitors!’

And he rode off again at a trot.

Jean realised that Le Galois de la Baume, who had denounced his father in order to rob him of his office as lieutenant general of the comté of Narbonne, would not fail to add this accusation to all the rest he had fabricated. He therefore turned his eyes away from the young girl and called to his men at arms to be done with the job. Diana clung to him, sobbing violently, and on her knees asked him to kill her rather than to drive her out thus. But roughly he pushed her away. She fell upon the ground almost in a swoon. The soldiers carried her out of the house, as they did old Lubiano.

‘Farewell, daughter! Farewell!’ the old man called out; ‘If you must die before I do!’

At this word, the young girl rose up, and cast a steady look of contempt upon Jean. She answered her father, her voice calm and assured:

‘Father, I no longer wish to die!’

Jean did not understand the meaning of these words, and the old merchant saw no more in them than futile threat. The two were separated.

Fifteen months from this day, Jean de Lille-Jourdain was sitting on a cushion at the feet of the lovely Rasselinde de la Baume. With a loving ear she was listening to the stories he narrated of adventurous forays in earlier days; and Jean’s mother, the superb Isabelle de Levis, was smiling as she watched them. They made a charming picture: the young girl, blonde and delicate, reclining in a broad armchair of ebony, against which her white and flowing gown set her in soft relief, and the handsome young man, almost on his knees before her, as if before a holy image; she, with her eyes bent upon him and he, with his eyes raised to her; Rasselinde, smiling and happy to be loved, listening because he spoke, and not for the sake of what he said; listening for the sake of his voice, and not for the sake of his words; Jean, happy to have his gaze upon her, his eyes looking further than the present hour, for they were to be married the following day; and beside them, like a guardian angel, the lady of Lille-Jourdain looking upon her handiwork, for with this union brought about by her, the ancient feud between the knights of Lille-Jourdain and the lords of La Baume was now ending.

The light was beginning to fade. It was the time of day when flowers give out their perfumes, when the dull spring heat can be seen on the horizon in pale bands of quivering light, it was the time when nature’s intoxications are so abundant, when for fear of disturbing it one chooses tranquility and silence. And so Jean and Rasselinde had become silent. Jean with his head resting on Rasselinde’s knees; she with her hand in Jean’s hair; both of them drunk from the meeting of their souls, the same air, the same light: both of them forgetful of any other life but their own, no longer even giving a thought to the raging devastation of the plague which for months now, like a fiery reaper, had mowed down the people of Langue d’Oc, who now lived in fear and trembling. This was one of those inexpressible moments which make of youth, however impoverished, a better time than old age however rich and providential it may be.

Just then, the door of the gothic chamber was opened and a veiled woman made her appearance. Jean rose promptly to his feet; his untrammelled thoughts now rudely interrupted, in peremptory tones he asked the unknown woman what she wanted.

‘Jean de Lille-Jourdain,’ she said, in a tone almost ceremonial, ‘is not this lovely child Rasselinde, your fiancée?’

On hearing this voice, the young girl gave a start, and her eyes anxiously searched Jean’s troubled face. Anticipating some baleful revelation of abandoned love, she took fright for her own happiness and tears came to her eyes. Jean answered curtly:

‘Yes, she is my fiancée!’

‘Good,’ said the veiled woman with an air of something accomplished. Then she returned at once to the door, and after closing it carefully, came back and stood before Rasselinde. She seemed to scrutinise the latter through her veil; then, uttering her words one by one, as if she were thinking aloud, she said:

‘Yes, indeed! She is beautiful, more beautiful than I had expected.’

‘What is it to you?’ exclaimed the impatient young man.

‘What is it to me?’ the unknown woman replied with a faint shudder. ‘It is that I am assured by seeing her so beautiful, that the love she inspires is not one of those frivolous affections which are cut short without heartbreak. What is it to me?’ the woman went on, raising her voice as she turned towards Jean, ‘it is that it will be an appalling suffering for you to think of leaving her.’

‘Leaving her!’ the lord of Lille-Jourdain exclaimed violently. ‘What does this woman want of us, and who has allowed her to enter the château?’

‘What do I want of you?’ she replied; ‘I want to warn you of a danger which threatens you, both you and your lovely fiancée, of a plan to part you from one another, conceived by an implacable enemy.’

‘There are no enemies who can strike at me or whom I fear,’ the knight answered proudly, ‘under the protection of my ramparts and my sword; be it the count of Foix, be it Armagnac, be it the King of France himself.’

‘This enemy,’ the unknown woman replied, ‘is however but a poor woman, and for all your ramparts and your sword, she holds in her hands a vengeance as inexorable and as sure as that of God.’

As she uttered these words, she advanced towards Rasselinde, and Jean de Lille-Jourdain threw himself between them, his hand on his dagger. A strange dread crept into his heart; and, although it did not seem reasonable to fear a woman who was alone and probably out of her senses, yet a baleful foreboding troubled him, and his voice shook when he cried out:

‘Enough, who are you? What do you want?’

‘Who am I?’ she answered gravely, ‘I am Diana Marrechi. What do I want? I want your life.’

At these words, Rasselinde let out a frightened scream, while Jean, now quite reassured and ashamed of the stirrings of fear that had troubled him, contemplated Diana with a scornful smile. But she continued to speak, exclaiming with bitter ardour:

‘Yes, I am Diana Marrechi, who crawled on her knees asking you to let her wait for her fiancée, and was left naked beneath the wind and the rain, naked upon stone: I am Diana Marrechi whom you pushed away with a kick.’

‘Enough of this, enough!’ answered the lord of Lille-Jourdain. ‘Depart, or I shall have you thrown out of this castle by my servants.’