The Salt Smugglers (24 page)

It should be added that another reason we interrupted our narrative of these most recent events is because we are not entirely sure that the prison of Soissons from which the salt smugglers tried to engineer the abbé de Bucquoy's escape was located near the church of Saint-Jean. Having just undertaken a trip to Soissons a few days ago to make certain of this, we cannot plead innocent to the unforgivable sin of having forgotten to note down the exact name of the church.

If it now turns out that, not content to have sometimes dramatized the events of our story, — although this has merely involved
touching up
some of the dialogue recorded in documents of the period, — we have also been willing to make a detour in the direction of the
historical novel, nobody could possibly prove to us that, being in possession as we are of a book no other copy of which apparently exists in France, we are deliberately trying to deceive the Stamp Office and the general public.

To return to the facts at hand: — people whose intentions remain unknown attempt to mastermind the abbé de Bucquoy's escape from the prison of Soissons: — they are obviously members of that same band of salt smugglers whom he had met in Burgundy and to whom he had offered his leadership . . . A nobleman this rich and adventurous, this well-connected in France and abroad was precisely what they needed.

— Who was this captain Roland who later appeared disguised as the sergeant of a fake patrol?

— He had previously been a leader of the partisans in the Cévennes who then fled through the provinces of the East after the surrender of Cavalier. While the latter was parading around at Versailles as the chief of a defeated tribe, having sold out his brothers for a royal pardon, Roland, aided by bands of salt smugglers, — which, as is well known, were composed of a hodgepodge of protestants, deserters, and poverty-stricken peasants, — was trying to flee to the North to seek asylum there if necessary. In the meantime, his followers engaged in salt smuggling, secretly aided and abetted by the local populace and by underpaid soldiers of the royal armies. — They would set fire to a house and everybody would rush to the scene. Having created this distraction, the salt smugglers, who were well-armed and quite numerous, would then move sacks of salt into town through one of the poorly guarded ramparts. If necessary, they would wage battle and then beat a quick retreat into the safety of the woods. — If the archives of Soissons were in some sort of catalogued order, we might be able to find out just why these salt smugglers, who were
partisans
for the most, had ransacked the shop of a goldsmith on the rue de l'Intendance. Here, at least, is what we can gather from the historical record.

During the period when Protestants were in such a hurry to flee France that they had no time to put their affairs in order, jewels of considerable value had been deposited in this goldsmith's care; the latter dabbled in usury and had loaned out various sums that were far inferior to the actual value of this collateral. Later on, the refugees sent representatives to reclaim the jewels and to repay the sums that were owed. The goldsmith resorted to an easy ploy: he simply denounced these claimants to the authorities. This then was the background to the expedition in which captain Roland was participating.

What a fine novel all this material could have made! The abbé de Bucquoy and the captain are quite compelling as characters. Let's imagine what would happen if we slightly nudged the story along a different route: the abbé, now fallen into the hands of the salt smugglers, — who are retreating through the woods, loaded down with loot, — is taken to a castle. — The castle of Longueval, the birthplace of his family line, if you will, or the castle of Orbaix, another residence of his great uncle. — There, like some hero out of a Walter Scott novel, his memories take him back into the landscapes of his childhood, the Gothic vaults, the trefoils perforated with stained glass windows, the armory, the royal chamber all hung in white, the room to the rear
where the lovely Angélique received La Corbinière. — All the loves of yesteryear, all the flowers of the days of yore, faded, yet still scented, like those sweet memories slumbering in a grandmother's chest of drawers.

The majestic portraits of figures with moustaches and goatees à la Louis XIII, or the full beards of the reign of Henri IV, or the tapered beards of the Medici plunged him into a state of melancholy reverie, especially when he recognized eyes whose shrewdness now and then simmered with dark fires, or noble brows creased at an early age with the worries of war or the anxieties of adventure, or cheeks pale and hollow with fatigue, or thin lips that only sometimes softened into a dream, — all signs familiar from these images that have been conserved for us, and which he rediscovered within himself.

And then this other series of portraits of figures dressed as Diana or Venus, later all decked out with headdresses made of nets of gold and strands of pearls or large dashing hats and long-waisted gowns with trunk hose . . .

Now imagine a certain portrait of a young girl with locks of ash-blond hair cascading down from beneath her ribbons. Let this be, if you will, the portrait of a cousin of his, — a cousin long lost, be it because of a marriage or because she belonged to a Protestant branch of his family and was forced to follow her parents into exile.
¹¹

Would all of this not serve to explain just why the lovesick abbé, — herein following the example of his superior, the abbé de Rancé, — entered the Trappist monastery? — After all, the motivations behind this decision of his have always remained quite obscure.

Why exactly, as if suddenly struck by a lightning-bolt of illumination, did he cry out: « I adore the God of Saint Paul! » Can this only be attributed to personal convictions? Yet after having left the Carthusians, he subsequently walked away from the Trappists, claiming he could not find sufficient solitude in their midst, — and, in the end, only renounced his saintly vocation because, despite all of his efforts to lead the contemplative life, he was unable to
succeed at making miracles
. — This was obviously the decision of a very clear-sighted individual, for this being the case, why bother to be a saint?

One might object: « But this love, this despair, these changes of station, all this is far too vague for a decent novel; in novels, romantic passion must rule the day. » But what if, in this ancient castle where the salt smugglers are hiding out, frightening all the locals with tales of their ghostly apparitions, — for it was their habit to appear out of nowhere, as the story of Mandrin proves; — what if, in this ancient castle, one arranged to have him meet up again with the young girl whom he had so loved and who, fleeing with her family, pursued from one hiding place to another, now found herself in this very castle, protected by the rebel bands, awaiting the right moment to cross over the border into Germany? What if the abbé's Catholic convictions stood in the way of his love for a Protestant? What if the castle, now surrounded by the archers of Louis XIV, were ordered to surrender? What if we mixed in an element of rivalry? What if we placed the ironic and majestic
figure of the captain Roland at the center of the plot, either in the role of protector or romantic rival? Given all this, how could one possibly doubt we had a novel on our hands?

Alas, this genre is off limits to us. — Let's plunge back into the domain of sober fact.

The salt smugglers, — who had attempted, for reasons known only to themselves, to orchestrate the escape of the abbé de Bucquoy, — found their route blocked beyond the river Aisne. A number of them were captured and then hanged or broken on the wheel, depending on their rank. The historical records no longer mention captain Roland, — and as for the abbé de Bucquoy, under greater suspicion than ever, he was transported to the Bastille.

When he was removed from his coach, he barely had occasion to cast an eye to the right and left, « whether onto the drawbridge or onto the counterscarp . . . they left him no time to dream up an escape», for he was immediately whisked off to the tower known as the Bretignière.

Still, it is quite disheartening for a writer who thought he might try his hand at the novel, — that most lucrative of all literary callings, — to realize that he will have great difficulty finishing a project he had promised for publication some three months ago, before all this Riancey amendment business. The author had not only come up with a corking plot for a novel, — but he had also read a slew of works about the century of Louis XIV; he had imagined descriptions of the festivities given in honor of the Duchess of Burgundy, — this figure whose pallor already indicated her forebodings of her approaching death . . . and yet whose gaiety enlivened the pomp and circumstance of the final years of Louis XIV's reign. To create a contrast to all this, he would have staged the sudden appearance at court of the dowager de Bucquoy, cutting a severe figure (just like her ancestors in the League) as she arrived on the scene of the festivities in order to demand that her nephew be released from prison, given that the due process of the law was not being observed in his case: — we shall later cite the memorable petition that this great lady addressed to the king, whose tone was such that she herself almost risked being thrown into the Bastille.

What a picture might have subsequently emerged of the misfortunes that befell the court? Victories transformed into defeats. All the offspring of the old king dying within a few years, including that brilliant Duke of Burgundy whom everybody wanted to make into a hero and yet who merely displayed the courage befitting a Frenchman or the dignity of his position, — which however did not stop him from losing any number of battles. Of these princes who died in the service of their king, only one survived, the son of the Duke of Burgundy, — the future Louis XV. — One was already hearing the following observation being made back in those days: « My brothers, only God is great! »

We therefore also have to abandon the fruits of a visit we recently made to Baden, where we were able to locate the most attractive figure of the grand margravine Sibylle who, while her son was off waging war against the Turks, had become a second Marguerite de Navarre. Her residence, the château de la Favorite, also summons up memories of the Renaissance: especially to be admired are the one hundred fifty figures
painted in silhouette on the mirrors of her boudoir, — representing her in a dizzying variety of carnival disguises.

What a series of landscapes and dramatic tableaux one could have painted while recounting the welcome that the grand margravine might have extended to the abbé de Bucquoy and his cousin! Following this, one might have caught glimpse of Villars off in the distance, threatening the region, burning castles, bringing the war to the Danube, — and finally escorting the unfortunate count de Bucquoy back to the Bastille, where he was forced to once again become a mere abbé.

But our reader will have to forgo all this. — Can the bare-bones account of a poor prisoner compensate for the absence of dramatic highlights such as these? . . . We have nonetheless thought it would be of interest to disassemble the machine that we were unable to put into motion as a whole, to reveal its inner workings, — its anatomy, if you will. Sometimes one takes great pleasure in visiting the wings of a theater to take a peep behind the scenes at all the wheels and pinions, the tackle for scene-shifting, the step-ladders and demon-traps, in short all the
tricks
of the theatrical trade . . . We have just laid before your eyes all the compositional secrets of an historical novel, — fully mapped out, but alas no longer feasible!

LIVING HELL

There were eight towers to the Bastille, each of which had its own name and each of whose six floors offered light by a single window. A grate on the exterior and interior walls revealed a sort of room hollowed out by the space in between, at the far side of which one could draw breaths of fresh air.

The abbé had been placed in the tower of the
Bretignière
.

The others went by the names of: the tower of the
Bretaudière
, the tower of the
County
, of the
Well
, of the
Treasure
, of the
Corner
, of
Liberty
. The eighth was called the tower of the
Chapel
. As a rule, one left these towers only in order to die, unless one was marched down the dank stairs into one of those legendary
oubliettes
, the remnants of which were rediscovered when the Bastille was finally demolished.

The abbé de Bucquoy spent several days in the lower rooms of the tower of the Bretignière, which was a sign that his case seemed quite serious indeed, for otherwise prisoners were normally better treated upon their arrival. His first interrogation, presided over by d'Argenson,
¹²
allayed suspicions that he had been the willing accomplice of the salt smugglers of Soissons. In addition, he relied on his family's highly placed connections, with the result that governor Bernaville himself graced him with a visit and invited him to lunch, — a common practice upon the arrival of prisoners of a certain rank.