The Dream Maker (19 page)

I had given Marc leave during my stay in Bourges, and now I found him in a cheerful mood. He had made numerous conquests among serving women and streetwalkers. It was as if he were describing another town to me, one I had never had the leisure to explore, a town of sleazy taverns and bordellos, of drinking bouts and promiscuity.

We arrived in Tours in the middle of August, just after the Feast of the Assumption. The city was baking in the heat. I had some difficulty finding the Argenterie. It was a small, windowless building located behind the cathedral. Two soldiers were on guard, dozing in a spot of shade, their shirts open. They sullenly informed me that the Argentier was out of town. In spite of the letter appointing me as steward to the Argenterie, they refused to open it for me.

I took a room in an inn on the banks of the Loire and waited. I was beginning to wonder what the king intended to do. Why had he appointed me to this strange position, which seem to be completely dormant? After gathering some information in town, I learned that this Argenterie served as a warehouse used to store items that were necessary to the court—cloth and draperies, furniture, domestic tools—a royal intendancy of sorts. Having said that, the reality was far less brilliant. Several burghers to whom I had introduced myself and who knew my family told me in confidence what the institution actually represented: the Argenterie was poorly managed, poorly supplied, and rare were those at court who deemed it useful to avail themselves of its supplies. Most of them preferred to buy what was needed—not to mention what was superfluous—directly from merchants. I knew all about this, having been so often solicited for loans.

For lack of anything else to do, I dispatched letters to Jean and Guillaume to ask them to meet me in Tours. It was time to take stock of our situation. I now felt ready to invest wholeheartedly in our business.

While I was waiting for them, the Argentier returned. He was an amiable lord from Tours with a red face. I learned that he had a property near Vouvray and was more interested in his vineyards than the Argenterie. He was not pleased to see me there. He did not want someone coming to nose around in his business. The office to which the king had appointed him was certainly very lucrative. In any case, he had obviously opted to promote his own interests rather than those of the Argenterie's putative clients. When he gave me a tour of the warehouses, I was able to judge for myself how low in stock the place was, and how poorly managed. He was initially unwilling to let me inspect the books. While accountancy has never been my profession, I knew enough about it to realize that there were some serious irregularities. Messire Armand, for that was his name, explained unconvincingly that the war had ruined the Argenterie and made it impossible to renew supplies. When an item was available, one must purchase it no matter the price. This was how he justified buying everything at such a high cost.

He told me all this with a smile and a sidelong glance. Visibly he was trying to explain his system to me and to make me go along with it—that way we would share out the profits from his little arrangements. He did not like the idea, but he preferred it to the prospect of losing everything if I were to reveal his misdeeds.

I observed all this with more pity than covetousness.

The weeks that followed were very calm. During the August heat activity had slowed everywhere and at the Argenterie more than anywhere else. Nothing happened in September, either. Messire Armand tended to his vineyards, and then he enjoyed the prime hunting days. The king and his court were far away, and nothing indicated that they would be coming anywhere near Tours anytime soon. Thus, winter would not be very active either. I spent my time going for long walks along the river. Now I knew that all this water led to the sea, and the sea led to the East. Standing by this liquid expanse, I felt a communion with the entire world. It was a welcome pause after the turmoil of the previous months. I spent many hours in the warehouse, most of the time alone. Under the pretext of doing an inventory, while I went through moth-eaten bolts of cloth or dried-out leather hides, I pondered what might be done to gain something from this Argenterie. It must have been useful at one time, in an era of greater splendor. Could it not be so once again? Perhaps that was the king's secret intention. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that something might be possible. At the very least, supposing I were to become the Argentier, the Argenterie could be a client of prime importance for the trading house we were still in the process of building. And I felt it must surely be possible to go even further.

 

*

 

Guillaume arrived in early autumn and Jean joined us a week later. I rented a house for the three of us on a hillside among the vineyards. The Touraine, with its clear skies and legendary rolling landscape, was conducive to long strolls, interminable meals, and evenings spent chatting with our feet stretched toward the fire made with vine branches that Marc lit for us.

I quickly realized that my companions took a different view of the situation. They only knew the commercial aspect of our endeavor, and were unaware of the more extensive plans I had conceived. They could not understand exactly why I had approached the king, and they interpreted it as a desire to found our monetary capacity on a solid basis of coin-making. Whatever the case may be, I did not enlighten them, but informed them that I had acquired an exchange bureau on the Pont-Neuf. It was the truth, but it would take years before it actually became operational. I insisted on the present difficulties of life in the capital, and my intention to regain my liberty with regard to the king. They saw this as good news. For as far as they were concerned they had not known any of the hardship that had been my lot in Paris. That was why they were optimistic, and even content. Guillaume had established a very solid commercial base in the Languedoc. He was trading overland with Catholic Catalonia and Spain, with Savoy, and with Geneva. By sea, he was shipping cargo to the Levant and, more regularly, trading with Genoa and Florence. He gave us a detailed account of our assets in the Mediterranean. The merchants in Montpellier and the entire region had grown to know this hardworking, audacious little man from the Berry. Everything was ready, henceforth, for us to start building our own ship. Guillaume had been counting on our meeting to gain our approval for this important decision.

As for Jean, he arrived in the oddest style. The brigands who composed his guard had tied him to his saddle so that he could stay on without having to move his legs. He had received a bad blow to his thigh during an ambush, and his wound was still oozing pus. This incident had not slowed him down; on the contrary, he drank and ate slightly more than usual. His meals would have made any other man gain weight. But he burned it up with his incessant activity. Even in his sleep, when he was resting in the room next to mine, I could hear him move around and call out. The results he obtained were in keeping with his efforts. On every road there were carts transporting the goods he had picked out. He now had correspondents and suppliers in all the major production centers.

Since the Treaty of Arras, the atmosphere of freedom and enthusiasm that reigned in France facilitated commerce. The war had lasted so long that each region had set about manufacturing what it needed. Wherever you went—taking the good years with the bad—you could find food, clothing, and drink. But there was an immense desire for things that came from far away. Women were weary of seeing everyone clothed in the same locally manufactured fabrics, and dreamt of something different. When an item of food or clothing came from somewhere else it was immediately in demand.

France, particularly in the north and the center, was still a war-ravaged country. It was still swarming with armed gangs who looted the countryside and held the towns for ransom. The situation had not returned to normal, far from it. And the populace, in truth, had almost forgotten what the word “normal” meant. War had gone on for so long that it was part of everyday life. All it took was for the conflict to die down for a while and even the slightest improvement was experienced as well-being, almost mistaken for happiness.

Many of the merchants had understood that the situation was now much improved. However, most of them were still discouraged by persistent difficulties. In general they were content to deal with one product or another, but very few had decided, as we had, to exchange everything that could be bought or sold. I was fairly proud of my intuition. It was clear to me that what mattered was to create a network, with relays and roads, and through this network to transport everything that might find a buyer. Jean had shown insight in relying on armed force to ensure the safety of our shipments. Guillaume's contribution had been to link the north to the south of the realm, and to prepare an opening for the future throughout the Mediterranean and the Levant. As for me, I had put at their disposal the network of moneychangers with whom my name would open every door. The first stage of our project was a success.

During those September days, we made some vital decisions. I convinced my partners that we must concentrate our efforts in the Levant. Guillaume had prepared the conditions for our presence in the eastern Mediterranean. Yet the region remained dangerous. Safety was the final obstacle to overcome. We agreed that Jean should go to Montpellier and arrange for his soldiers to protect the cargo. In an initial phase, we would send our ships no further than Italy, but then gradually we would extend their navigational range to include the ports of the Levant.

Meanwhile, during this time Guillaume would head north to organize the network of convoys that Jean had made possible, thanks to the contacts he had established and the escorts who now ensured the safety of the roads. I intended to join them soon, and to devote all my time to our enterprise. But first of all I must approach the king one last time to ask him to release me and assure him of my fealty.

Jean and Guillaume went their way. I addressed a request for an audience to the court and began to wait. It was a pleasant winter, the last one which I would spend if not in idleness at least in anonymity. Much of the time I was in nature. Almost every day I went for long, solitary walks through the forests and vineyards. I had never before had the opportunity to live like this in the country. By observing nature, I understood what had hitherto been a mystery to me. Why did I like luxury? For what deeper reason had I been fascinated for so long by the decoration of fine homes, the shimmering of cloth, the harmonious arrangement of palaces? These attachments were not the result of necessity. I did not care where I lived, and I felt at home in the humblest house. The moment I no longer had to put on airs, I removed my luxurious clothing and dressed in a simple homespun tunic. So if I liked luxury and admired the skill of craftsmen, architects, and goldsmiths, it must be for a more subtle and less visible reason. In truth, I like and admire everything the human mind creates to allow our dwellings to resemble nature. The gold of autumn leaves, the blackish brown colors of plowed fields, the whiteness of snow, the infinitely varied blues of the sky are taken away from us by walls; we are deprived of them by the covering of our roofs, the barrier of our wooden shutters, the curtains that hem us in. Art is the only way we can restore to our confined decor these riches that nature gives for free, and from which we have become detached.

This was what I discovered, and I felt reassured. In short, I believed in humankind, in its capacity to provide us with new creations that paid tribute to those originally given to us by nature. The talent of artists, the art of architects, the skill of craftsmen all find their highest expression in luxury, and their potential for growth in wealth. These are not, for all that, futile passions. On the contrary, they constitute mankind's highest achievements, the ones which make us equal to gods, by making us masters, creators of new worlds. After so much suffering and destruction, the time had come to favor this other aspect of humankind, which can be as creative as it is destructive. Without realizing it, I had imposed this very orientation on our enterprise, and my partners now considered it to be self-evident: we might be merchants, but we were not dealing in everyday products. You would never see us transporting flour or selling cattle or cheese. The only foodstuff that might interest us—and we had talked about it—was salt, and we had to view it as symbolic. We were interested in those additional little things that give taste to what is bland, anything that would differentiate a human feast from an animal one. The salt of the earth . . .

Everything else we transported across the surface of the globe would be the best human creativity had to offer. Silks from Italy, wool from Flanders, amber from the Baltic, gemstones from Le Puy, fur from cold forests, spices from the Orient, porcelain from Cathay: we would be the priests in charge of a new form of worship celebrating the genius of humankind.

As I walked along the rough trails on the chalky hillsides overlooking the Loire, I was absorbed more than ever by my dream. That dream, however, now took on the vivid hues of real objects, as though, through our endeavor, they might stride right out into the world.

 

*

 

The signal I was waiting for came at the end of winter. The king summoned me to Orléans, where his States-General were being held. No one would miss me in Tours. While I had been staying there, my somewhat vague identity had not enabled me to find my place among the various clans in the town. The noblemen still looked on me as a burgher, and the burghers were wary of those who held royal office, no matter how humble. Had I been more powerful, no one would have taken these differences into consideration. I would have ample opportunity to realize this at a later point. But my private wealth and my duties at the Argenterie were not in harmony. My wealth was already considerable, though not very visible. My royal office was quite obvious, but showed that I was subordinate. I did not mind the mistrustful quarantine imposed on me by the nobles; it allowed me to mingle with the peasants whenever my strolls outside the town led me past farms or hamlets. I occasionally spent entire afternoons in the company of bevies of young girls as they washed the laundry, their bare feet in the cool waters of a brook. I watched as they wielded the wooden carpet beater. I liked to see their strong teeth, the pink glow of their youthful flesh. No matter how high I would rise later on, I always knew I belonged to the common folk, that I shared their thoughts and suffering, but also their health and life force. God knows how many palaces I have seen in my life, how many sovereigns I have visited. These were mere polite calls, like those one pays a stranger when one is eager to go home. And for me, home meant the people, the herd of simple folk.