The Dream Maker (42 page)

Macé was waiting for the event with painful impatience. She had dreamt of it for so long, had desired it and worked so hard that it had become in her life a horizon beyond which there was nothing left to aspire for, only peace.

The great event was set for the fifth day of September. This time I was entrusted with the organization of the grandiose ceremonies for Macé and our son, something I had hitherto reserved for the king. The entire town gathered in and around the cathedral to honor the event. Jean was handsome in his purple robe, walking down the flower-strewn nave while the choir sang a psalm beneath the high vault, which the September sun illuminated with the dazzling blue of the stained-glass windows.

Our palace was finished, with the exception of a few details, which were not visible. Macé had thought up an ill-advised motto, that ran all around the walls: “For a valiant heart, nothing is impossible.” For the occasion I had arranged entertainment worthy of a prince. Foolhardy as it was, it was the last thing I should have done. The king would certainly be informed of the unbelievable expense. Given the circumstances at the time, his jealousy would surely be aroused. But I paid no attention. I wanted to please Macé, and perhaps, through the plenitude of this last worldly event, to atone for all my years of absence, for abandoning her as the years passed, and for the hundreds of betrayals which were without consequence but which prepared the final one, with Agnès—far graver, unforgivable.

I was also doing it for Jean. I had never understood the boy, perhaps never loved him, and he had always taken Macé's side. The only thing he had inherited from me was my ambition, and yet even that was something I did not possess fully; he had placed his ambition at the service of a God next to whom he now stood, and with whom he would soon welcome his mother.

As for the festivities themselves, they brought me nothing but boredom, for in their wake came processions of solicitors. They assumed, quite rightly, that I would find it difficult to refuse them anything on such a day. Fortunately, once the celebrations were over, I was able to stay for a week or more at our new palace. I sincerely loved that house. Of all the dwellings I have built or acquired it is the only one with which I have truly felt in harmony, as if somehow my life and my personality had materialized in the house—the way it was divided into two worlds, the ancient on the one hand, which made it like a seigniorial residence, and the new on the other, with its flavor of Italy and oriental refinement. There were reminders of my journeys everywhere: the door sculpted with palm trees, the ships depicted on the stained glass, and the stone statues of my steward and my oldest serving woman waiting for me, leaning from the window . . .

However, not once during that entire week did the absolute certainty that I would never live there abandon me. Come what may, I had made my decision to leave. My palace was an offering to the future, not in the vain hope that it would remember me, but as a witness to the power of dreams. What the little son of a furrier had once imagined, living two streets away from that site, had become this bubble of stone set in the corner of the former oppidum; those who will go on seeing it when I have disappeared will know how great the strength of one's mind can be, and they will, I hope, take their own dreams seriously. All these things exist outside us. Stones have no need of man to be stones. The only thing that belongs to us is that which does not exist, and which we have the power to bring into the world.

Winter came, and with it, as always, a feeling of numbness and enervation. When I think back on those months, I can see clearly where I went wrong. I wasted precious time. There was not a great deal of business at that time of year. Guillaume de Varye was managing the trade efficiently. Jean had expanded his territory. When he came back from the Sultan, he set off for the extremes of Tartary. And yet the winter went by, day after day, without any impulse that might have aroused me from my torpor.

In the spring, the king revived his plans for reconquering Guyenne. Or, rather, for letting others make plans for him, which he then approved. His character was changing once again. The awakening of his senses, his conversion to pleasure and his delight in the world, in Agnès's time, had assumed a fairly noble form. The king's frivolity seemed to be a tribute he was paying to his long confinement, like the reverse side of a shyness against which he had now decided to struggle. But with Agnès's death he had lost the balance between pleasure and majesty that she had helped him to keep. Charles was now completely given over to debauchery. His new mistress, that same Antoinette who had gone to join him in Normandy, had adopted a strategy that was the opposite of Agnès's, and which was despicably base. She was the one who provided the king with girls who were for sale, in order to assuage his considerable appetite. She need have no fear, as Agnès once had with Charles of Anjou, of the misdeeds of a procurer, since she was the one who assumed that function herself.

I have never been a good companion for drinking or lust. The king, who knew this, did not associate me with his turpitudes. He did, however, continue to solicit me to finance the war and, as before, I consented.

Spring came late. When it did, I gradually emerged from my torpor. However, I had not yet resolved to leave. Perhaps it was because I saw the king less often. The distance gave me the illusion that the danger had receded.

But the reality was something else. I would eventually learn that at the end of the previous year the king had received a visit from several informants who had made grave accusations against me. To jealousy he would now add suspicion and mistrust. The thunder was not far off but I could not hear it. I misinterpreted the few signs that made me think I was still well considered at court. A long voyage to the south to settle some business in Provence further delayed my decision. At the beginning of summer I was still there. And it is generally during this season that lightning strikes.

 

*

 

While I continued on my way to the ultimate tragedy, I saw Agnès twice more. The emotion caused by these encounters may have had something to do with the nonchalance I displayed in the face of danger.

The first encounter was in the month of May. The artist Jean Fouquet had sent me a message several weeks earlier to ask me to come and visit him when I was next in Touraine. I was acquainted with him well enough to know that this surely had nothing to do with money. Fouquet had never asked me for any, and if he had been in need he would have chosen poverty over debt. I arranged to go and see him as soon as I could, and at the beginning of May I was in Tours. Marc went ahead to inform the painter that I had arrived, but found no one in his studio, although it was late in the morning. Finally, shortly before noon, the man came walking up the street, dragging his heels. Marc came back to tell me he was waiting for me. The spring sun had come out, breaking through the clouds that on the previous days had brought rain. When I entered the studio, I was overcome by the smells of putty and oil that lay heavy on the air. Simmering on the stove was a mixture of litharge where a black onion was floating. Fouquet came up to greet me and put his arms around me.

All the way at the back of the studio, on an easel, was a rough oak panel. Initially I saw it from the back and noticed only the seams and gnarls of light wood. But when I followed Fouquet and saw the other side, I was filled with emotion. The wooden panel had been carefully prepared and its surface was smooth as a mirror. Already three quarters of it had been painted and while the figures around the perimeter still lacked precision, the one in the center was already complete: it was Agnès. He had drawn her face from the sketches he had shown me, where we had already seen hints of death at work. And now that Agnès had passed away, her features were those of life itself. They revived an expression we had often seen on her face, a sort of thoughtful absence, her high forehead covered with powder, her lips closed, her eyelids lowered and, probably, quivering.

Fouquet had placed her face at the heart of a strange setting. She was wearing an emerald green gown covered with a fine ermine cape. The laces used to close the bodice of her gown were now loosened, and one side of the bodice was pulled down, completely revealing her pale-nippled breast. On her knees the Christ child was looking into the distance and seemed already to be contemplating his sacrificial destiny. On Agnès's head was a crown of pearls and rubies that designated her as queen of the heavens, proof that Fouquet had represented her as the Virgin Mary.

This divine reference, however, as well as the jewelled throne where she was seated, failed to conceal the portrait's other significance: for those of us who had known Agnès, the painting must be a vision of her in her eternal dwelling place. This hypothesis made the picture seen even more ambiguous and disturbing, because this heavenly sojourn evoked hell as easily as paradise. The cherubs surrounding Agnès, who also had their eyes lowered, resembled seraphs and seemed to imply blissfulness. However, Fouquet had painted them in red, the color of demons. My feeling with regard to this vision was that Agnès, in keeping with her sinful life, was truly in hell, but her piety, her gentleness, her charm, and the sincerity she had displayed during her time on earth, disarming even the most hostile people, had enabled her to win the hearts of the Luciferian creatures whom Satan had appointed to guard her, so that in the end she had made them into red angels, as tender as the Christ child, surrounding her in a circle not to torment her, but to protect her from the flames of Gehenna.

I believe this painting is now part of an altarpiece, and there must not be many viewers who would associate it with Agnès. Over time, there will be fewer still, and someday no one will remember her. She will be transfigured forever. I understood Fouquet better now, his despair, and his efforts to drown it in drunkenness. His art gives him a strange power: that of communicating with the realm of the dead, and of leading the living there. He can have no illusions about life. The feeling of eternity, which we all need, is something he cannot enjoy: he knows that our survival can only come from art.

The other time, the last one that I was able to see Agnès, was during the summer of the year following her death. I had already been living for eighteen months in the sorrowful languor in which her passing had immersed me. Rumors as to my possible disgrace had spread beyond the court, to such a degree that even Macé, who had very little to do with royal matters, had heard of it. She sent a letter full of questions, which made her anxiety only too apparent. Using the same messenger, I replied that I had never been in greater favor with the king. A few recent gestures on Charles's part certainly seemed to imply as much. But I did not trust these gestures. The July heat had revived my energy and I had secretly made the decision to leave for Italy at the beginning of August.

In order not to arouse any suspicions, I decided to accompany the king on a visit to the château at Taillebourg, where the Coëtivy family lived, to see his daughters. Agnès's firstborn had been placed with this family, where the number of children was of little consequence. Madame de Coëtivy liked to hear their little voices echoing down the corridors of the old château. I understood her. Here I was, who had bought so many seigniorial estates, but I despaired when I found them empty and heard nothing but the sinister cawing of crows.

We were due to arrive the next day, but the king was in a fine mood and insisted we depart earlier, so in fact we were in sight of the château a day early. The children had not yet been prepared to receive us. They were running around the garden in a band, playing games suited to their age. There were boys who were already quite grown, and a bevy of little girls. When they saw us from a distance, they came running to meet us in no particular order. We formed a small vanguard around the king, and our servants and baggage followed far behind. Charles dismounted amidst the children. A little girl of the age of ten or so threw her arms around his neck. This was one of the daughters he had had with Queen Marie and who was spending her lovely days at Taillebourg. We began walking toward the château, surrounded by the chattering children. The eldest led the horses by the bridle, others quarreled over who could hold our hands. To reach the moat, we had to go through a small copse, then down an avenue of alder trees. When I reached the last tree I noticed that one of the children was hiding behind the tree trunk. The little rascals around me had also noticed her and I heard them cry, “Marie, Marie!”

The child scurried around the tree to hide. We didn't insist, and continued on our way. The king was already far ahead with most of the little ones, because the older ones had left us to walk over to the stables. I do not know what came over me. Perhaps it was her name, Marie, which set off a secret alarm. Perhaps I had received an invisible signal from much farther away. In any case, I decided to walk back the way I had come. I motioned to the children who were with me to go ahead and join the group around the king, and I went on my own up to the tree where now and again I could see a little girl furtively peeking out. A simple trick enabled me to go around the trunk and catch her. She hid her face in her hands and protested, laughing.

“What's your name?” I asked, although I knew the answer.

“Marie.”

She was not frightened and did not try to run away. Her shyness was a game and it served above all to make others interested in her, not as part of a group, but one-on-one, as if she were a proper grown-up.

“How old are you?”

“Four.”

My heart began beating faster. I tried to see her face but she kept stubbornly turning aside.

“What is your mama's name?”

Did she notice that my voice was shaky? Or had she been waiting for my question to open her heart? She didn't answer. But silently, pushing aside a blonde strand that had fallen before her eyes, she turned her head and stared at me, her eyes wide open.