Michael Zévaco's the Pardaillan: Volume Iv: Quietus

Michael Zévaco’s

The Pardaillan

Volume IV:

Quietus

Edited and Translated by

Ed Berdugo

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© 2012 Ed 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.

Published by AuthorHouse 1/25/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4685-4336-0 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-4337-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-4338-4 (sc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2008911278

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Contents

I

Sinister Preparatives

II

The Mysteries of the Reincarnation

III

The Mechanic

IV

Two Faces in the Darkness

V

The King Laughs

VI

Entrance of Catho in the Glory

VII

Unchained Lions

VIII

Here We Kill

IX

To The Gallows

X

Bemia’s Memorable Words

XI

Sunday

August 24, 1572

Saint Bartholomew Day

XII

Profiles of Gargoyles

XIII

Tragic Visions

XIV

The Dogs of Prey Fight Each Other

XV

Between The Sky and the Earth

XVI

As In Thérouanne

XVII

The Titans

XVIII

The Last Stage

XIX

The Departed

XX

Sweat of Blood

XXI

The Spring in Montmorency

XXII

The Hall Of The Executions

Prologue

XXIII

Violet

XXIV

The Plaza of the Strike

About the Editor and Translator

About the Author

REQUIESCAT IN PACE

TO MY BELOVED TWIN BROTHER

Mauricio A. Berdugo, Sr. (1952-2011)

dedicatorius

US Army SP4 Gabriel Berdugo

For the Grace of Our Almighty God, I dedicate: these translated books of Michael Zévaco’s The Pardaillan to my son, Specialist Four Gabriel Berdugo; now a United States Army Veteran, who served honorably two full tours of duty in areas of imminent danger, a total of 26 months, in Iraq. He fought for the security and defense of his country, promoting world democracy and the freedom of his fellow citizens, and with all the love of his very proud father and on behalf of the eternal gratitude of the thankful nation of the United States of America …

Eduardo Berdugo

Editor, Translator & Publisher

With my heartfelt gratitude

To my dearest nephew

Mauricio A. Berdugo Jr. MD

For his positive comment

And

Helping in editing corrections

***

An Additional Honor of Gallantry

Dr. Mauricio A. Berdugo Jr. is a member of a medical/surgical team in Salt Lake City, UT, who has researched remarkable biologics[1] capable of fusing vertebrae and minimizing nerve damage in the cervical and lumbar regions of the spine. His research has been presented and published nationally and internationally, and these biologics have helped people return to their normal daily lives.

I

Sinister Preparatives

The night was clear, which is to say that the sky, filled with stars from zenith to horizon, was illuminated by that suave and undecided clarity of the last hours of the night, but the Aurora was far still. There was in the firmament such a profusion of celestial bodies that in spite of the absence of the moon, the black ocean of Paris’ tile roofs were vaguely illuminated. But under those tile roofs, which touched each other almost from one end of the street to the other, the streets were full of darkness.

The heat was not as great as in the tempestuous summer nights, but a vaporous temperature maintained the trees in the numerous gardens immovably exhaling aromas of roses.

Catho was amazed at that majestic serenity and despite her uneducated and rude spirit, she was little apt to see face-to-face unfathomable beauties. At times raising the head toward the zenith filled with diamonds and then, maybe not understanding entirely the emotion that originated that harmony of beauty and serenity, lowering the head, thinking: What a beautiful night!

And while such a thought crossed her mind, Catho’s amazement of not finding a pair of lovers seeking beautiful nights, as if love felt the necessity of taking the sky as a witness, she remembered the time when she was beautiful.

Suddenly, she saw how the door of a beautiful house was being opened, doubtless of a noble or rich bourgeois. Some fifteen men left armed with harquebuses, pistols, partizans[2], halberds, and, at the end, of all the arms that they had been possible to obtain. One of them carried a magic lantern, another one paper and all wore a white armband, and yet some, to greater abundance, a white cross in the jerkin.

That small troop of men started up, riding at the head were the two men carrying the lantern and paper. They were not making the least noise and kept their weapons carefully held in such a way that they would not clash with one against the other.

Where are they going? Catho asked herself continuing on her way.

The patrol stopped suddenly and the man riding at the head consulted the paper and nearing a house traced a sign on the door. Then they went away, and Catho, arriving at the door of the house where they had stopped, observed that the mark was a white cross-traced with chalk.

They stopped then at two other houses where the same man marked equally as before and after that they followed their way by another street, while Catho continued on her walk.

But then, at the distance of twenty steps, another detachment appeared and in all the streets that she was crossing equally saw armed groups that were marking doors with white crosses. All walked silently. When two of those troops met with each other, they exchanged in low voice the watchword, and then each one continued their run without haste.

Catho counted first those small magic lanterns that were going from place to place; then the marked doors that she found on her way, but she quit doing it because they were too many.

And since it rang two o’clock at the distance, in the solemn silence of the night, she hastened her step saying to herself, what kind of things distracts me! The time has come, and they are waiting for me.

***

The bell had just rung two o’clock, and it was heard by the entire city a deaf rumor similar to a gust of wind that suddenly cuts down bushes in the forest. It appeared that behind every closed door, leafs had agitated, but leafs of steel. Then the silence became more profound.

The duke of Guisa was on his horse in the patio of his palace, crowded with armed men.

The duke of Aumale had posted himself with one hundred of harquebuses not far from the palace of Coligny, under a shed.

The marquis chancellor of Birague found himself before Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois and gave orders to a captain of the barrio in command of fifty men.

The marshal of Damville waited outside his house filled with impatience. He was mounted on a horse and accompanied by three-hundred-riders lifelike equestrian statues.

Crucé was placed to ambush the duke of La Force near his palace. The duke was an old Hugonote, who, as a result of the death of his wife, lived consecrated to the education of his son. Crucé had under his command a score of men, if such a name can be given to the horrifying beings that accompanied him.

Thirty butchers with unsheathed swords and knives at hand surrounded Pezou, which had been hiding in the patio of the house of a Catholic and from which it could easily jump over the palace of the duke of the Rochefaucauld, notable Protestant and a rich man, according to a presumed connoisseur.

The librarian Kervier, accompanied by the so-called Charpentier [carpenter], commanded a band of rogues already imbibed with wine, waiting to get drunk with blood. This Charpentier was a doctor more or less a wise man, but also the incarnate rival of the old man Ramus, and because he had always refused to imprint his books in the house of Kervier, the librarian, the doctor and his rogues were waiting for him in front of the Presles College, where Ramus would spend some nights, since he had a prepared room there.

The marshal of Tavannes, posted next to the Great Bridge, listened over the neck of his horse. Two-hundred infantrymen, goads in hand, had their gaze fixed in his tall black silhouette.

At each bridge, there was also a company of infantry. By the side of the university, some chains had been deployed so that the troops could not be attacked from the rear.

At each crossroad of the city, there was a captain of the barrio accompanied by fifty armed bourgeois.

Behind the closed doors of all Catholic homes, there were people disposed to come out as soon as the word was given.

In great silence and swiftness, orders from some emissaries were transmitted from one group to another. All were impatient because the given word had waited too long.

The silence was enormous; each one was in his place, and the shadow of the Catholic inquisition extended over Paris.

II

The Mysteries of the Reincarnation

At those moments, which is to say, between the two and three hours of the dawn, it developed at the Temple a gruesome scene, having as the only personages, the old Pardaillan and his son.

But in order to present this scene with the extraordinary horror to the reader, let’s pay attention for a moment to the deeds and gestures of one personage over which it will not be necessary to concentrate all our attention.

This personage was Ruggieri, the queen’s astrologer.

Ruggieri was without a doubt the most convinced man in the court of France. He had faith. He believed profoundly and sincerely in the possibility of the Absolute. Was he crazy? It is possible, but not, as a matter of fact. What man, on the other hand, has not been tempted by the idea of the Absolute? In our days, Ruggieri had been one of those serene wise men who are excited by the discoveries of natural sciences. Ruggieri carried with him the mystery of The Middle Ages that agonized. Born in Florence, he was perhaps the son of a Syrian or Egyptian sorceress who had transmitted the love toward the esoteric studies.

Alchemy and astrology were the double and incessant preoccupation of that man. Looking for the philosopher’s stone[3] and philandering and combining chemical components, Ruggieri would find terrible venoms, delicious perfumes and marvelous cosmetics. But such discoveries were insignificant to him.

By astrology, he looked for in the stars, which the night of the times hid with its veils. But it is necessary to take notice that to Ruggieri, the philosophical stone and the knowledge of the future by mediation with the stars had but two-forms of the Absolute. His esoteric studies comprised another form, and it was the discovery of man’s immortality.

So that the fabulous dream which obsessed the brain of this man was the omnipotence of the infinite wealth, the absolute science for the knowledge of the future and the perfect enjoyment of the life by the immortality.

When he was fatigued of looking at the sky, he dedicated newly to the chemistry, and if, at the end, he would get fatigued of looking at the crucible, he would deal with the Death.

And inclined over the cadaver that he had bought from the executioner of some person killed to settle a score, he sought the means to resuscitate him.

What’s the heart? He would think, A pendulum. What’s the blood? It’s the one that takes the life from one place to another. Here’s a body. The blood is in it, which is to say, the vehicle of life, thus the heart is the necessary regulator of the movements of life. Nerves, muscles, flesh, brain, all is equal. This body, such as it is today, used to live this morning. It’s been enough for a rope to oppress the neck to convert it in cadaver. For the rest is in the same state before being hanged. What matter is missing in this body? Evidently, the astral body, which used to put in motion the pendulum and transported the life through the veins. What I call death it’s nothing more than the separation of the astral body from the material body. Here’s the inert material of a body and almost ready to be decomposed. But the astral body that has abandoned it lives in some place near here doubtless. What’s this about, then? It’s to oblige this astral body to reincarnate in this material body. That’s it. If I could find the right conjure or the enchantment that would force the astral body to enter newly to this wrapping, this man will be resuscitated. And once this is done, won’t I find equally, at the same time, the means to oblige the astral body never to abandon the material body? And this would be the immortality.

Dreaming thus Ruggieri was modeling a wax statuette which represented to his eyes the astral body of the cadaver and over that simulacrum, he rehearsed his conjures.

Sometimes it appeared to him to have seen the cadaver twitched as if trying to wake up, but the illusion disappeared right away. It compelled him to examine the problem in all its phase. One day, he hit his forehead exclaiming: What an error! I say that the blood is in the cadaver, and it is, in effect, not liquid but coagulated and therefore, life cannot be distributed anymore. It will be necessary then that the first cadaver that I buy to transfuse it with the blood of a living body before beginning any conjure.

Now that we have completed Ruggieri’s portrait, we will beg the reader to go back five days to the moment when the group of men, which we have indicated at its opportune time, went inside the Church of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois and removed the cadaver.

Catherine had shown to be generous. She left to Panigarola Alice’s cadaver and to Ruggieri, her son’s. Ruggieri waited, in effect, outside the church, and when he saw the men carrying Marillac’s dead body, approached them to say something. Then he made a signal, and they began to follow him.

Once they had arrived at the street of the Aitch, Ruggieri stopped not far from the house where Alice of Lux used to live, and having placed the cadaver on the ground, ordered those who were carrying it to leave. Comfortable that those men had left and were not spying on him to know where he was, he went to open a small door lower in the tower and made exclusively for him. With this done, he went back to the cadaver and with difficulty picked it up and transported it, or better said, dragged it to the gardens. He closed then the door, carried the lugubrious bundle over his shoulders and arrived at last to the little house that we have described already where his laboratories were located.

After the body had been sprawled over a big marble table, Ruggieri denuded and washed it carefully, his first care was to inject some liquids destined to impede all decomposition, for at least a few days, an easy thing to do for that creator of venoms. Once these manipulations were concluded, he noticed that it was daytime already, but did not turn off the lights, which he had turned on, but, to the contrary, he hermitically closed the curtains in order