The Arm and the Darkness by Taylor Caldwell
Slowly, inch by inch, the Cardinal raised himself on his cushions. The two men gazed at each other with sudden grimness and fatality.
Then the Cardinal said, very softly: “A de Tremblant imprisoned, even in a remote spot, is not a de Tremblant silenced. Moreover, there would be a hue and cry.”
“There will be no hue and cry,” whispered de Bouillon, and his smile was dark and wicked.
The Cardinal sighed deeply. He slipped down into his bed. He contemplated the windows through which the early sun was climbing. His expression was inscrutable, ruthless, yet tinged with a sad regret.
“Monseigneur is willing to leave this matter in my hands?” repeated de Bouillon. “And Monseigneur will not, himself, raise a hue and cry?”
“Is Monsieur accusing me of duplicity?” murmured the Cardinal, still contemplating the window.
De Bouillon smiled. He stood near the Cardinal’s head, and the priest was aware of the deadly exhalations which came from this man’s cold and perfumed flesh. The most malignant hatred filled him. But this did not deter him from his ruthlessness.
“I must have Monseigneur’s admission that he is aware of the necessity,” said de Bouillon.
“You have it,” said the Cardinal.
They gazed at each other again, then de Bouillon bowed very low and mockingly.
“As for de Rohan, his Rochellais must be subdued,” said the Cardinal. “A red incandescence can easily become a conflagration which could consume France.” He looked blandly at de Bouillon. “Monsieur has no objection to the subduing of his brother Huguenots?”
De Bouillon’s cold and shining gaze did not shift. He assumed an expression of stern dignity.
“I have no desire to see France plunged again into civil war. Monseigneur must remember that I, too, am a Frenchman. If the Rochellais rebel against the King, and Monseigneur,” and he bowed again, very deeply, “then their treason must be punished.”
“I believe,” said the Cardinal, thoughtfully, after a little silence, “that Monsieur and I understand each other completely. It is unfortunate that Monsieur is not a Catholic.”
They stared at each other steadfastly. Then, without speaking again, the Duc took his leave. The Cardinal gazed at the door through which the Duc had left, and began to laugh silently. After a few moments Louis appeared, and the Cardinal’s laughter became audible.
“There is a contemptible man!” exclaimed Louis, pale with disgust.
He sat down near the Cardinal, and a white shade of trouble passed over his large handsome face. “It is easy to perceive that he intends to murder the Duc de Tremblant. That is a foul thing. I detest de Tremblant, but that does not prevent me from understanding that, according to his own convictions, he is a good man.”
The Cardinal was astonished, and raised himself in the bed. “What! Louis! Is it possible that I have heard these noble and tolerant words from you, with regard to a Huguenot?”
Louis colored, duskily. He rose and with a trembling hand drew the draperies across the window. The Cardinal watched him acutely.
“When necessity arises, nobility, and regret, must be laid aside,” he said. “I shall miss an excellent chess-player. But France is above chess.”
“Can nothing else deter him?” said Louis, in so low a tone that it was barely audible.
“Nothing, Louis. I know this. I know my dear de Tremblant.”
He sighed, over and over, and there was no hypocrisy in those sighs.
At last he said: “Our dear Arsène has arrived? Admit him, Louis. I do not care to see any one else until two o’clock. I am very indisposed this morning.”
Louis turned from the window, and once more his face was glacial and full of hatred. He hesitated.
“Your Eminence is aware of the frivolity of my brother?”
The Cardinal smiled, though his frail lips still retained their bluish appearance.
“May I suggest, Louis, that I am no fool? Go at once and admit Arsène. I have recently heard curious rumors about him. Do not look so alarmed. I have remembered that young men are reckless from their youth, and not from evil. They would conspire against God, Himself, out of pure exuberance of spirit.”
Louis did not answer this, and with amusement, the Cardinal followed him with his eyes as he moved with his stately tread to the massive doors and opened them. A babel of voices invaded the chamber, and the Cardinal winced. “Morbleu!” he muttered, massaging his brow. Louis stepped aside, and Arsène entered. The Cardinal looked at him with pleasure, for the adventurer that lived in his heart recognized a brother. He admired that restless vivid face, with its dark glow, the vital dark eyes which were never still, the black hair which sprang up and back from the nervous brow. Arsène brought into the chamber with him an air of gaiety and zest, of insouciance and daring, of fearlessness and pride, and arrogance and hauteur, which reminded the Cardinal of the youthful officers whom he had loved in the days of Pluvenal’s Academy. “I must have this young scoundrel,” he said to himself, and so determined that Arsène should be his next Captain of the Guards.
The Cardinal experienced a thrill of returning life and interest as Arsène bowed before him, smiling. The Cardinal graciously extended his hand, which Arsène kissed lightly. Then the Cardinal grasped that hand and held it tightly.
“Ah, the bridegroom!” he exclaimed. “Yet I have not yet been importuned to perform the ceremony.”
“Is it possible?” asked Arsène, raising his sharp black brows. “I understood Madame de Tremblant was to ask you, Monseigneur.”
Louis advanced towards the bed, white with jealousy and detestation. He fixed his cold pale eyes upon his brother.
“Monseigneur has many weighty duties on his mind,” he said. “He has, certainly, forgotten such an insignificant matter. But I have recorded Madame de Tremblant’s request, and if his Eminence is not too burdened or too indisposed on that date, he will perform the ceremony.”
“Forgive me,” said the Cardinal to Arsène, who was regarding his brother with a faint smile. “I recall the request at last. It will be an excessive pleasure. When you are finally married, Monsieur, to a devoted daughter of the Church, you will remember your duties and obligations to that Church, which you assumed upon Catholic baptism.” He pressed Arsène’s hand, which he had retained. “You have not forgotten that you are a Catholic, my son?”
A pale convulsion passed over Louis’ lip, but Arsène courteously inclined his head in reply, his dark eyes twinkling.
“Now, sit beside me,” continued the Cardinal, with affectionate animation, “It is so seldom that you deign to visit me, Arsène. I have not forgotten that you defeated me in our last game of chess.”
“Are we to play chess?” asked Arsène, assuming surprise as he seated himself.
“In a way, yes,” said the Cardinal.
If he expected a flash of caution and apprehension to appear on Arsène’s face he was disappointed. Arsène merely waited, with an open and candid air. The Cardinal smiled internally. He was well acquainted with Arsène’s character. He, too, assumed the friendliest of manners, full of paternal affection. His tigerish eyes lingered on Arsène’s countenance with a softness which was partly genuine.
“I see you no longer at the gaming tables,” he observed. “Your father, the Marquis, is a robber. Perhaps you believe that one highwayman is enough for one family?”
Arsène laughed, but did not reply.
The Cardinal delicately fitted the tips of his fingers together, and over the slender framework regarded the young man benignly.
“Nor do we see much of you at the Court,” he added.
Arsène merely smiled. But the corners of his eyelids narrowed.
“One must remember, certes, that a young man on the eve of marriage to a delightful and noble young lady has much to occupy him,” continued the Cardinal. “Nevertheless, your friends regret your absences, Arsène.”
“That is excessively courteous and magnanimous of Monseigneur,” said Arsène.
Again, the Cardinal smiled internally. He liked this adroit by-play.
“May I inquire as to the health of Mademoiselle de Tremblant?” he asked, with a fatherly interest.
Ah, thought Arsène, he knows that I have not seen Clarisse for some days, that I am rarely at the Hôtel de Tremblant. He said aloud: “Mademoiselle sends Monseigneur expressions of her deepest devotion and respect.”
“I saw her at Vespers last night,” observed the Cardinal, in a dreamy voice.
Arsène still smiled, but his teeth clenched behind his lips.
“She complained,” added the Cardinal.
“Women always complain,” said Arsène, carelessly, meeting the Cardinal’s eyes boldly.
“Ah, yes,” sighed the Cardinal. “It is a failure of the sex.”
“If Monseigneur conversed with Mademoiselle de Tremblant last night, then he is well informed as to the condition of her health,” said Arsène, with a sweet look.
“But is Monsieur so well informed?” asked the Cardinal, smiling angelically.
“My heart is at ease with regard to Mademoiselle’s condition,” replied Arsène, tranquilly.
Louis had seated himself on the other side of the Cardinal’s bed. He had not looked away from his brother during all this light conversation, but his face expressed all his irrepressible hatred and suspicion.
The Cardinal reached out and patted Arsène’s hand indulgently.
“I have heard that there is a pretty soubrette near the Rue des Fossojeurs,” he said. “Ah, young blood!”
But Arsène was no longer smiling. He thought of the soubrette, one Mademoiselle Annette Benet, whom he thought he had hidden with excellent discretion. Not even the Marquis, his father, had known of the affair with that young person, though he had remarked on her regretted disappearance from the gayest of the Paris theatres. To no one, not even his friend, Paul, had Arsène confided his connection with his mistress. The Cardinal, it seemed, had eyes everywhere. The remark, then, had dangerous implications, a subtle warning in it that Arsène had concealed nothing from that terrible man. Arsène had a moment of fear, which he hid under a bold smile.
“Monsieur le Duc appears to know everything about me, though he is not my confessor,” he said.
But if he thought to goad the Cardinal into revealing, even obscurely, how much he knew, he failed. The Cardinal only smiled gently.
“I am prostrated with humility before Monseigneur’s interest in my affairs,” continued the young man.
Still smiling, the Cardinal turned to Louis, who had been listening with wrinkled brows. “Louis, will you bring us a bottle of wine?”
Louis, flushing, rose obediently, hating the Cardinal for this humiliation. He brought the wine, and with it, two goblets. The Cardinal arched his brows. “And you, Louis?”
“I thank you, no, Monseigneur,” replied Louis, stiffly. He looked up to discover his brother regarding him with a curious expression. He, unacquainted with compassion, did not recognize that look, and thought it contemptuous.
The Cardinal and Arsène drank with slow amiability. But their thoughts were neither slow nor amiable.
“As your priest, and the friend of your father, Arsène,” said the Cardinal, “it is incumbent upon me to advise you on the eve of holy matrimony. Therefore, with all true concern, I must beg of you to reflect upon your duties and your obligations, which are serious ones.”
“Monseigneur would advise?” said Arsène, delicately.
“I would advise you, Arsène, to engage in nothing which might bring distress to a young demoiselle whose happiness must always be my concern,” replied the Cardinal, in a gentle tone.
“I assure Monseigneur that Mademoiselle will find me a satisfactory huband,” said Arsène. “I am well acquainted with female vagaries, and the delicacies of female nature.”
The Cardinal held out his glass to Arsène, and the young man filled it with great and filial care. As he did so, the Cardinal regarded him piercingly, and once more he smiled.
“I love you, my son,” he said, with engaging frankness. “That is why I must secure you. There are so few whose presence I enjoy.”
Arsène bowed, sipped his wine, and appeared agreeably impressed.
The Cardinal also sipped his wine, leaning back upon his cusions with a relaxed manner and utmost amiability.
“Let me be candid, Arsène. One gains nothing by obscurity. Moreover, I can rely upon your discretion that no word of our conversation will leave this chamber.
“When the Edict of Nantes was promulgated, and full rights granted to the Huguenots, the Protestant nobles were reconciled to the Crown. Many of them have become my most devoted friends. We have the greatest thing in common. France.”
He paused a moment, then continued in a meditative voice: “Wherever Protestantism has become significant, or dominant, in a nation, that nation becomes nationalistic. Catholic culture, by its very nature, cannot be nationalistic. It embraces all men, considering them as one, no matter the artificial boundaries of border, language or race.”
Arsène smiled darkly, and the Cardinal, after a moment, returned that smile. “In theory, at least,” amended the subtle Cardinal, with an arch of his brows, “so far as Catholics are concerned.
“But Protestantism is less—shall we say, universal? Protestantism is the religion of the State. I find myself in peculiar sympathy with that idea. I may make a prophesy now that the Germanies will become powerful in Europe because of their Protestantism—their State idea. England, too, shall be dominant in the world. I have long perceived that a nation, to become powerful, must be embued with a secular religion of State. So, understanding the nationalistic character of Protestantism, I have been tolerant of it. But you are aware of all this?”
Arsène reflected uneasily to himself that the Cardinal would not be so frank with him, so candid, had he not possessed information that would destroy him, Arsène, at a moment’s lift of a hand. However, he nodded gravely.
The Cardinal’s amiability increased. He leaned towards Arsène, and again patted his hand.
“I have been called the Cardinal of the Huguenots, because I have shown sympathy for the Germanies and Sweden, in their founding of nationalism. I must confess that I understand them. I would wish, for France, a birth of the nationalistic idea, lest she perish.”
Again he contemplated the carved ceiling. “But there are those who mistake my inclination to nationalism as a tolerance of heresy. They are seriously mistaken.
“The future, the immortality of the Church, in France, in Europe, must always be my first passion,” he mused.
Louis, who had been listening with the wildest anger, half rose from his chair. The hands that grasped the gilded arms shook violently.
But Arsène merely listened, his head inclined, his dark eyes fastened on the Cardinal’s placid and aristocratic face.
“There are those who misinterpret me,” said the Cardinal, softly.
He suddenly rose upon his pillows and gazed at Arsène with a steadfast but strangely terrible look, but his voice remained soft when he spoke:
“I have been lenient, understanding, with the Huguenots. I will be frank, my Arsène, as I have not been frank with others! To the Huguenot, sincerely convinced of his religion, however it appeared to jeopardize Catholic culture and authority, I have shown tolerance, understanding that nothing can truly injure the Church. But to the Huguenot who would not be reconciled to the, Crown, to the welfare of France, I have been ruthless, and shall continue to be ruthless, to the death. For this kind of Huguenot desires, not the peace and security of France, but a state within a state, operating antagonistically and apart from France, conniving with her enemies, thus endangering her very existence. He does not love France; he merely hates the Catholics. To the Huguenot magnate, who, in his conceit believes that he is king over his own lands, and who will not bow to the mandates of the Crown, I have been merciless. There can be only one power in France, and that is the Throne.”
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The Cardinal’s smile was now demoniacal.
“The Huguenot rebel against the final authority of France, which is the Church and the Throne, shall die wherever he is found. He seeks to destroy this authority; he seeks only blackmail for his own gain. I shall hunt him out, wherever he hides, and nothing shall save him. He conspires with our enemies; he seeks power for himself; he drives a schism between the unity of France, and her peace.”
He fell back upon his cushions, and the baleful light subsided on his face. It was again calm, and very serious.
“Your grandfather, Arsène, was such a gentleman. I do not deny his deep religious convictions. But with them, he nurtured rebellion against the final authority of the State. He professed to believe, and he did not keep his opinion to himself, that Navarre had betrayed France in returning to the bosom of the Church. He sedulously importuned his friends to refuse to be reconciled to what he declared was the ‘treachery’ of the father of His Majesty. But one by one, his friends and rebellious associates were reconciled, and these, in the majority, gave all their strength to the restoration of peace in France, and the establishment of unity. Not so your grandfather, who Was gallant and obdurate, stiff-necked and proud, fanatical and passionate.”
Arsène listened, and deep within his dark eyes a slow spark grew to a flame. He saw again his grandfather’s face, and his own took upon itself the aspect of those vehement yet austere features. The Cardinal had paused, and now he gazed at Arsène, startled and bemused.
Now, if he could only reconcile this fanatic! There was something in himself that was powerful and passionate, and, recognizing the same fire in Arsène, he felt a pang of nostalgia, of paternal affection, and strong determination that he must bind this young man to him.
“The estates which had been confiscated were restored to the Huguenots. Under the Edict of Nantes, generous tolerance was extended to them. They were received, no longer as rebels, but as Frenchmen, devoted to France. But your grandfather refused to be received. He and his son, your estimable and admirable father, retired to the Gascon estates of your mother, where they lived in deep modesty and obscurity. I might even say, in poverty. Though he was foolish, and ill-advised by his own fervid conscience, one could not help but admire him! It was he who nicknamed me ‘the Buffoon,’” and the Cardinal smiled in wry appreciation; “it was he who called me the Priest of the Devils. Nevertheless, I continued to esteem him. Honorable men, rigid men, however mistaken, command our respect.