Michael Zévaco's the Pardaillan: Vol. Iii Aqua Toffana

By Acqua Tofana

In this third exciting installment of Michael Zvacos novels The Pardaillan is filled with more treacheries, palace intrigues, murder plots, which culminate eventually with the greatest tragedy in the history of the world as of that time with the St. Bartholomew Massacre. A permanent peace between the Roman Catholics and French Protestants, or Huguenots, invites the later ones to come to Paris. However, it was a ruse and shortly after the marriage of Princess Margot with Henri of Navarre the battle begins, which turned the streets of Paris literary in rivers of blood. But, where are our heroes the Pardaillan?

The knight of Pardaillan continues to court (in his imaginings) the daughter of Francis of Montmorency, Louise, who is seeking to marry her with the Count of Margency. While the old Pardaillan finds himself in the Temple awaiting the most horrific tortures imaginable. Learn about this intriguing denouement in the third volume Aqua Toffana. And learn what happened to the rest of our personages.

The Queens swarm of female assassins goes to work under the nave of the church in an orgy of blood, fulfilling Catherine of Medici grand plans of power to retain the crown of France for her predilect son the duke of Anjou. The Lady in Mourning finally meets her lover Francis of Montmorency in a surprising reunion.

Lets travel together to a romantic epoch of swashbuckling with Michael Zvaco at the helm and our itinerary The Pardaillan - Aqua Toffana

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781449040697

Acqua Tofana

The author of The Pardaillan, Michael Zvaco, was actually a French anarchist in the 19th Century once jailed for inciting the masses to kill the middle class. After serving his sentence, he quit politics and became a journalist and as such took to writing novels. He created the character of The Pardaillan to expose his humanistic thesis as well as his antimonarchy and anticlerical opinions. It is quite possible that these were the reasons why his novels have not been available in English until now, over one hundred years later. Michael Zvaco (1860-1918) was born in Ajaccio, France. He was a journalist and French writer, and the author of popular novels, in particular the series of The Pardaillan. Zvaco wrote more than 1,400 serials (including in 1903 the 262nd novel of Fausta, which put in the scene the knight of Pardaillan) for the newspaper of Jaures, until December 1905. Between 1906 and 1918, the Morning published in serials nine novels. He died in Eaubonne in August 1918, undoubtedly of a cancer.

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© 2011 Eduardo Berdugo, Editor and Translator. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 01/24/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4490-4069-7 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4490-4068-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4490-4067-3 (sc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2008911278

Printed in the United States of America

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Seventeen Years of Pain and a Minute of Joy

The Astrologer

By Order of the King

The Tempest Cometh

The Tempest Follows

The First Lightning

Gilito

Panigarola

he Whole World is Happy

Interview of Damville and Pardaillan

The Convent of the Miracle

Maurevert’s Important Role

In Liberty

The Temple

Queen Margot

The Secrets of the Queen

The Flying Swarm of the Queen

The Monk

The Bride and Groom

The Harlots

The Last Jest

God Will It

The Cemetery of the Innocent Saints

Pipeau’s Lovers

The Admiral Coligny

The Nightmarish Night

The Chamber of Torture

The Messiah of the Holy Inquisition

Ambivalent Trilogy

I

Seventeen Years of Pain and a Minute of Joy

At the end of seventeen years the marshal of Montmorency found his woman, Joan of Piennes, after they had been separated by the felony of his younger brother, the marshal of Damville.

He went back to relive, as in dreams, the scene when Damville had lied to him upon confessing that he had been Joan’s lover…; his duel with him, when he thought to have killed him…, and the desperation of the countess of Piennes, first duchess of Montmorency.

He remembered his divorce, and his marriage to another woman whom he had never loved since the image of the first one filled his heart completely. Then his somber character kept him away from the court where, to the contrary, his execrated brother enjoyed every day of more favors.

The years went by and suddenly a young man, a hero, the knight of Pardaillan, delivered him a letter from that one to whom Montmorency had believed missing forever.

By such a document, Francis learned with ineffable happiness that Joan of Piennes was alive and that she never had betrayed him.

In her letter, the poor woman appealed to her former lord and master and cried out against Damville’s felony, asking for pardon and help for her daughter.

A new existence began then for the duke. He appealed futilely to the king’s justice against his brother and provoked him in vain knowing that he had in his power Joan and Louise. In addition, he searched all over Paris for his wife and daughter without results, and when all hopes had faded of finding them, he was going to relapse newly in sadness, when the knight of Pardaillan presented himself before him.

That young man, that hero of remote ages, had taken him by the hand to the mysterious house where everything that he had loved in the world was hiding and had brought him to the presence of Joan of Piennes first duchess of Montmorency.

Finally, the so awaited hour arrived after seventeen years of tears. At last he found anew the persons that had constituted his loves, but, alas, thus as the too abundant sap cracks the tree, thus happiness cracked the brain of his beloved one!

***

During her last days of her matrimony, when she felt mortally wounded, Joan of Piennes had only one thought I want to live until I’ve assured my daughter’s happiness. Besides that she may be happy while lacking the protection of her father? Yes, I must go in search of Francis, and even though I may believe myself guilty leave my daughter in his arms; then, I can die.

Upon interrogating the knight of Pardaillan and when he said that he could not give an account of what the marshal was thinking about the letter, Joan had the intimate conviction that Francis had read the letter, and that he knew the truth. Thus then, she waited.

For this reason when the old Pardaillan announced that the marshal of Montmorency was in the neighboring house, she did not become surprised or emotional either, but she said Now I’m going to die.

Such an idea did not abandon her. We can say that she did not wish it or was she afraid of death. It was as the peons in the field to whom the hard toil makes them stooping from dawn to dusk and that at night they think of nothing else but to sleep in order to relax.

She grasped her daughter convulsively by her arms and murmured some words to her ear that produced a great impression in the young woman, then she was forced to give an answer, but it was in vain and made a useless effort to follow her mother.

She remained as nailed in her place, fainted and held by the old Pardaillan.

Joan’s lassitude was as immense as the morbid firmness of her thought that she became blind to Louise’s fainting. Instead she kept thinking "At last I’ll see my daughter reunited with my husband and could die in his arms, because I die, I’m sure that I die.

She opened the door indicated by Pardaillan and saw Francis of Montmorency.

At the same instant, she wanted to throw herself into his arms, but she could not say anything and lost the notion of herself right away.

Her thought became annulled in her madness.

That woman, who had endured so much pain, resisted so many catastrophes and lived her entire life only with the desire to save her daughter, abandoned herself and lost her moral energy when seeing her daughter saved at last, and the madness, which doubtless had stalked her for so many years, finally seized her.

Seventeen years of disgraces had not been able to destroy her but one minute of happiness had snatched her reason away.

By one consoling mercy of the fatality embodied in her, Joan’s madness transported her to the first years of her radiant youth, of her pure love, to her dearest sceneries of Margency, where she loved so much.

***

When the marshal of Montmorency regained his senses, he leaned over one knee, and directing through the living room the surprised look of a man believing to be awakening from a dream, he saw Joan seated on a couch, smiling and happy, but with her look lost, alas!

A young woman knelt besides her sobbing silently, and Joan with a mechanical motion caressed the golden hair of the young woman.

Francis got up and approached with hesitation the gracious and melancholic group. Leaning over the young woman, he touched her lightly.

Louise raised her head and the marshal taking her hand brought her on her feet without her mother trying to impede it.

He recognized her immediately, and even though Louise’s pain had not demonstrated that she was his daughter, he had picked her among a crowd of a thousand, since she was the vivid portrait of her mother.

My daughter! He exclaimed.

Louise shaken by the sobs dropped in the marshal’s arms and for the first time in her life, she pronounced two words which her lips were not accustomed to My father!

Then their tears mingled.

The marshal lied down near Joan, taking one of her hands and seating his daughter on his lap, as if she had been a little girl, said to her My daughter, you don’t have a mother but upon losing her, you’ve found your father.

That is how those three beings were reunited.

When the marshal and his daughter had calmed down a little by force of repeating to themselves that they had to save Joan’s reasoning, when their tears had appeased them, they began to ask all kinds of questions to each other.

And that’s how Francis learned, by the mouth of his daughter, the kind of existence the one bearing his name had lived. In turn he told her his life story beginning from Margency, and once these confessions had ended, they realized with surprise that it was almost midnight, and that they had engaged in such a tender and sad conversation for more than fifteen hours from the marshal’s arrival.

II

The Astrologer

We leave the marshal of Damville searching for some means to torture to the death the two Pardaillan, to take possession of Joan and hide her until the day, which he believed it near, when the House of Lorena would build its fortune over the ruins of the House of Valois. Or Charles IX would fall wounded by a bullet while his brother, the duke of Anjou, and then Henry of Guisa would crown themselves kings of France respectably. Likewise, we leave Francis of Montmorency, Joan and Louise in the house of the wise Ramus where we should not take long to return.

Three days after the events which had developed, three days after the triumphal entrance of the king to the city, at ten o’clock at night in Saint-Germain-l’ Auxerrois, two shadows slowly walked bordering the gardens of the new hotel of the queen.

It is known already that queen Catherine of Medici had ordered built a palace while she kept busy building another one bigger, greater and more majestic, at the site of the ancient Tullerías.

Catherine of Medici had a passion for real estate. The possession of land was a pleasure for that disquieted spirit, which devised in combining plans of construction.

The queen had bought the vast gardens and the land around them after the destruction of the Soissons Hotel and right there, a regiment of plumbers brought out from the ground, as if obeying the conjuring of a magic wand, a new hotel, brilliant, of elegant magnificence, around which, also as by magical art, began to grow plants, shrubs and flowers.

Those gardens that all her life she had missed from Italy were transplanted at a great cost; oranges, lemons, flowers of violent perfume which were found only under the ardent sun of Lombardía and Piamonte.

At one end of the garden and at the corner of a sort of patio which led in the direction to the Louvre a little tower of Doric style raised, destined especially for the queen’s astrologer.

Two shadows that we had just pointed out headed toward that tower. It was Ruggieri and Catherine dressed in black and walking silently appearing as ghosts to avoid being sighted by the guards posted at each door.

Catherine of Medici and Ruggieri stopped at the foot of the tower, and then the astrologer took out a key from his jerkin and opened a lower door; they went inside and found themselves at the foot of spiral stairs, which went all the way to the top of the tower.

At the bottom floor, there was a small room where Ruggieri kept his instruments of work, such as eyeglasses, compasses, etc. The furniture was composed of a table loaded with books and two chairs.

A narrow loophole which faced the street of the Aitch let the air into such a small room.

It was by that loophole from where the old woman Laura, the spy of a spy, communicated with Ruggieri.

Also through that loophole Alice of Lux deposited her reports destined for the queen.

On that day Catherine had received a report from Laura, written in these words Tonight toward ten, ‘she’ will receive an important visit, of which I will give you an account tomorrow.

Does your majesty wish me to light up a torch? Ruggieri asked at this point when he closed the door.

Instead of answering, Catherine took one the astrologer’s hand and squeezed it to recommend him silence.

In effect, she had just heard the sound of steps on the street which were advancing toward the tower, and Catherine of Medici, who could have been a police woman of the first order, said to herself by intuition that those steps were doubtless of the person who was making an important call to Alice of Lux.

She went to the loophole and tried to see what was happening, but because the fog was so thick she could not see anything; she prepared to listen and concentrate all her attention in her ear.

The steps were getting closer.

Pedestrians, said Ruggieri, shrinking his shoulders. Believe me, majesty…

And he elevated his voice, as if he wanted the people outside to hear him.

Silence! Catherine said with severity.

The people that were walking on the street could not suspect one single moment that they were the object of such surveillance; they stopped near the tower, not far from the loophole, and the queen heard a voice of a man that made her shake.

Wait here for your majesty. A voice said. From this vantage point I can see both streets of Traversine and the Aitch. Nobody could get to the green door without me obstructing the way. Thus, your majesty will be perfectly secured.

I fear nothing, count. The voice of a woman responded.

Déodat! Ruggieri said, turning pale.

Jeanne of Albret! Catherine said from her part. Shut up and let’s listen.

The door is here, madame, continued the voice of Marillac. Look, through the garden a light appears. Without a doubt, she’s received your messenger, and now she’s waiting for you.

Are you disquieted, my son?

Never in my life have I felt emotion so great, even though there were many reasons. Think, madame, that my life will be decided at this instant. Happen what you want; I bless you, madame, for the interest that you deign to demonstrate to me.

Déodat, you know that I love you as if you were my son.

Yes, my queen, I know it. Another woman should be in your place. When I think, madame, that my mother recognized me, without any doubt, during our interview at the house of the Wooden Bridge, and that despite everything, she didn’t let escape the minor word of affection…

Catherine, when she heard those words, felt a flare of hate invading her brain.

Be patient, my son. Jeanne of Albret said. I hope that within an hour I could call at the house of the green door.

Immediately, the door opened and Jeanne of Albret could enter the house of Alice of Lux.

Meanwhile, the count of Marillac, with his arms crossed, leaned against the tower. His head was almost touching the loophole.

Father, mother and son were then separated only by the thickness of the wall.

Ruggieri very slowly interposed himself between the loophole and the queen, fearing that she could pass her arm through it. What a horrible suspicion had crossed his spirit?

Catherine was always armed with a steely dagger, a Florentine arm, whose blade was adorned with admirable Arabesques and the handle made of silver, chiseled by Benvenuto Cellini; it was by itself a marvel, and the conjunct jewel was terrible in the hands of the queen.

Ruggieri shook of fear, because he, himself, had dipped the tip of that dagger in subtle poisons and a single jab was mortal.

Who knows if the queen had then the idea to strike?

Even so, she remained immobile and the other two personages kept themselves in equal immobility.

Thus, an hour went by and, at last, when the last bell tolled at twelve, the queen of Navarra left the house of Alice of Lux.

The count, extremely disquieted, saw her coming back, feeling incapable of taking a step forward.

Catherine prepared to listen, and then Jeanne of Albret, getting closer to the count of Marillac, said to him simply Come, my dear son, we’ve to talk without delay.

And they went away immediately. When they had disappeared, Catherine of Medici murmured Now you can light up the torch.

The astrologer obeyed and appeared then livid, although his hand did not shake and his appearance was tranquil. Catherine, taking notice of him, shrank her shoulders and said You figured that I was going to kill him?

Yes. The astrologer answered.

And were you scared?

In effect, madame.

Didn’t I tell you that I don’t want his death because he can be useful to me? You see, then, that I don’t think in killing him, since he’s still alive after what we heard. Don’t you know? He knows very well that I’m his mother.

The astrologer kept silent.

Until now I wanted to doubt, but it’s no longer possible for me. Have you seen how he knows everything, Renato?

For another person who was not the astrologer these words of Catherine would not have awakened the lesser concern, but because the astrologer knew her well, he did not dare to look at his terrible lover, because he recognized in her accent the irritation that dominated her.

In effect, the queen with her eyes fixed in the direction where the count had disappeared, continued Calm me down, Renato.

The alluded one shook, turning paler still.

I can’t be tranquil, madame, he answered in low voice, because I know that my son will die and that nothing in the world can save him.

Explain this to me. Catherine said while sitting down and playing mechanically with the chain of gold linked to the dagger.

Ruggieri got up. His face lacked neither beauty nor certain natural majesty.

Ruggieri was no charlatan. He was a complex character, weak up to the point of accepting without rebelling against the most dreadful tasks, and implacable in the execution of crimes, which he would never have conceived by himself.

He was, nonetheless, deigned of pity when he would see himself devoted, but very terrible when becoming an instrument of the queen.

Without doubt he had passed his life consecrated in his studies becoming a gentle wise man if in his path, he had not found that odious woman for her crimes but in which force is to recognize an exceptional firmness of character.

Ruggieri liked to get lost in scientific fantasies and as astrologer he sought in the sky the Absolute and on the earth he tried to find poisons.

The art to divine by the stars was in him intermediate since his investigations were not limited to that.

To know the future he used to say it’s to dominate it. What power so immense will be of the man who gets to know today what will happen tomorrow? And how much he’d increase his power by making gold at his whim? Who is God, if not the one who can raise the veils of time and extract from nature the ultimate secret?"

Disillusioned incessantly in his calculations many times after having spent the night awake calculating the declination and conjunction of the stars, he would drop the pen discouraged, but very soon new courage would propel him to follow the task and with unheard perseverance, he would bottle up in the solution of the irresolvable. Why was it odd then that that fatigued brain had hallucinations?

Madame, he answered, do you want to know why my son has to die and why nothing can save him? I’ll tell you. When I recognized my son in that inn where you sent me, suddenly I thought of nothing but you. Who was my son to me? He was a stranger, whereas you were the adoration of my life. Then, little by little, sadness entered my heart and with it other very strong feelings to make me suffer but not sufficiently enough to tell me to tell you ‘To this one you won’t hurt.’ And after comprehending that you had not condemned him, I satisfied myself with crying, because you had acquired a strange ancestor over me. You aren’t to me the lover or the queen; you’re more still. You’re an idea that has filled my brain and that propels me to act. I know of various examples of this phenomenon. I don’t believe to surprise you when I tell you that I got rid of them. These past times, above all, after having consulted with the stars without receiving but one doubtful answer, I decided to wait, it’s to say, placing me between you and him to prevent the death of my son. Moreover, right now, madame, if you had tried to hurt him, you hadn’t been able to do it, because then I thought that he should live… Now I know that he must die.

You’re superstitious. The queen said with great tranquility. I’ve diverse visions, madame. If you have one, then you’d call it a ghost, and if it appears to me, I’ll call it a celestial body.

I believe you Renato. Queen Catherine said, looking with inquietude around her surroundings because that woman so strong and who dominated so completely the astrologer was at the same time dominated by him as he addressed the problems of the occult.

A strange change had affected the face of the astrologer. His physiognomy acquired some color; however, it appeared to have been petrified.

Yes the astrologer continued slowly, "when the sky negates to answer me and when the problems that I formulate according to the sidereal data get to be irresolvable, sometimes I get from other sources the answers to the questions asked to the invisible powers, and this is precisely what just happened. This is what I’ve seen, Catherine: You were near the loophole, and I was at the same place where I am now. My entire attention was concentrated in your arms. The ringlet that you’ve on your index finger shone lightly and I couldn’t take my eyes away because if I could keep an eye on your hand and if this one had come closer to the dagger, I had stopped it. Suddenly, my vision became blurred, and I stopped seeing the ringlet and the hand. At the same instant, I felt a light commotion in my brain, and then I turned to the loophole. It was impossible for me not to know by those signs that I was in communication with an invisible force. My look, then, slid down through the loophole. I observed that from the place where I was, I couldn’t see my son, but nonetheless, I saw him clearly. He was about twenty feet from the loophole and suspended in the air some seven or eight feet from the ground. He floated, for saying like that, in a brilliant atmosphere which contrasted violently with the fog that surrounded it; his body also shone with strange resplendence. He pressed the hand over his right chest, and then he dropped it slowly. At the place where it had settled, I saw a great wound from which it escaped in gushes a great quantity of clear blood like crystal, and in no way it appeared the red blood of men. My son floated toward me, maybe by a space of two minutes, and we saw each other eye to eye. I don’t know the horrors which mine could express, but his were very sad. Then, slowly, his surroundings were less precise, the form became confused until it turned into a tiny puff of smoke, the resplendence shut off, and with the apparition vanished, I saw nothing.

Catherine damned of extraordinary terror got up as if to abscond, but recovering instantly she shrank her shoulders as to unload the bale of useless terrors, and her countenance took newly its accustomed expression of audacity.

My husband she said between her teeth, swore that I saw the death. Even so, it doesn’t disgust me to go through life leaving a trail of cadavers. Marillac must die. That dies! Charles too must be annihilated. The way I can sit on the throne the son of my heart, my beloved Henry.

And addressing directly to the astrologer, she told him Renato, you see that the sky itself condemns this man. Let’s leave him, then, to fulfill his destiny. We won’t try to interfere in the sentences pronounced by Providence. He knows that I’m his mother and because of this doubtless he sees himself condemned. He was condemned when I dreamed for him a royal future. Let’s not talk about it anymore. Even so, the other one, that woman who also knows it, Jeanne of Albret; I condemn her, myself; I’ve her in my power. The insensate woman has been trapped in the web which she’s patiently woven. Get closer Renato. I want to explain my thought. I dream of cleaning the kingdom destined for my son Henry with one strike. I dream in restoring the authority of Rome to consolidate the one for my son. I’ve probed Coligny and the Bearnés. I’ve studied all the seigneurs that fill the court and the city with their frown. And all of them, from the first to the last, have the germ of rebellion. It isn’t just about rebelling against the Church, but also against the authority of the king; there, in their mountains, they’ve acquired habits of independence and more than one of them titles himself Huguenot is, in reality, a rebel. I assure you, Renato, that if I fail to destroy the Reform, the Monarchy will be reformed one day. Let’s begin, then, to hurt the head of the Protestantism, which is to say Jeanne of Albret. This one knows my secrets, and upon suppressing her, I save myself, the Church and the State. Come, then, with me, Renato; your paternal pain will find some consolation in preparing the death of this woman, since she gives herself the title of being Marillac’s mother and calls him her son, it is just that death doesn’t separate them.

And then Catherine of Medici dragged Renato out of the tower.

Don’t you want to consult the stars? He asked her.

It’s useless; I already know what I wanted to know.

They crossed diagonally the part of the garden of the small palace and got to a small house of elegant construction which was about one hundred feet from the tower.

It composed of a ground floor and a flat.

Catherine had made it built to serve as lodging for the astrologer.

It was a gracious house of brick and white stone with a balcony of wrought iron and the style was of the likings of the epoch and to the last fashion.

A beautiful swayed door of oak adorned with heavy nails, delicately stained glass windows, a facade by which rosebushes were grown, they had just given to that house a coquette appearance; it could have been said that it was the bridal suite for two recently wedded couple.

The queen and Renato went inside and after the vestibule entered a very vast room located to the right of the ground floor.

Over a table were unfolded celestial maps drawn by Ruggieri; the walls were hidden behind great bookcases of oak filled with books some bound with wooden covers and others with skin and iron adornments. The whole library of the astrologer was housed there.

The queen and Ruggieri stopped at the room where he had rushed to enter as trying to avoid being dragged to another part of the house.

Let’s go to your laboratory. The queen said.

They went through the antechamber again and Ruggieri after working three complicated locks managed to open a heavy door reinforced with iron bars.

The room where they had gone now occupied the right wing of the ground floor. The air came in through two windows, but behind the beautiful stained glass windows, of which we have made mention before, enormous iron bars impeded the entrance to that sanctuary and besides thick leather curtains carefully drawn protected against all indiscrete peeping.

Then Ruggieri lit up two wax candles leaving the large room dimly illuminated.

The back of the large room was occupied by the mantelpiece of a big chimney, beneath which there were two stoves each of which was equipped with its corresponding forge bellow.

They were filled with crucibles of different sizes. Five or six tables placed around the large room were supporting a great number of test tubes, retorts, and alembics. In an armoire, it could be seen more than one hundred jugs and jars filled with powders and liquids and over an instrument panel a collection of masks of glass or woven wire.

At a corner a certain number of objects of diverse nature were inside the glass cabinet.

Obeying to a sign from Catherine, Ruggieri opened it with a key that he carried hanging from his neck and hidden under the jerkin.

Let’s see; let’s choose. Catherine said. What’s this beautiful pin of gold, Renato?

He had leant over also and both their heads almost collided with each other. Catherine’s was a goddess at that moment because of her laughter. At that moment, the face of the queen had