The Exiles

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The Exiles

By

Honore de Balzac


Translated by Clara Bell and James Waring



ALMAE SORORI



In the year 1308 few houses were yet standing on the Island formed by
the alluvium and sand deposited by the Seine above the Cite, behind
the Church of Notre-Dame. The first man who was so bold as to build on
this strand, then liable to frequent floods, was a constable of the
watch of the City of Paris, who had been able to do some service to
their Reverences the Chapter of the Cathedral; and in return the
Bishop leased him twenty-five perches of land, with exemptions from
all feudal dues or taxes on the buildings he might erect.

Seven years before the beginning of this narrative, Joseph Tirechair,
one of the sternest of Paris constables, as his name (Tear Flesh)
would indicate, had, thanks to his share of the fines collected by him
for delinquencies committed within the precincts of the Cite, had been
able to build a house on the bank of the Seine just at the end of the
Rue du Port-Saint-Landry. To protect the merchandise landed on the
strand, the municipality had constructed a sort of break-water of
masonry, which may still be seen on some old plans of Paris, and which
preserved the piles of the landing-place by meeting the rush of water
and ice at the upper end of the Island. The constable had taken
advantage of this for the foundation of his house, so that there were
several steps up to his door.

Like all the houses of that date, this cottage was crowned by a peaked
roof, forming a gable-end to the front, or half a diamond. To the
great regret of historians, but two or three examples of such roofs
survive in Paris. A round opening gave light to a loft, where the
constable's wife dried the linen of the Chapter, for she had the honor
of washing for the Cathedral--which was certainly not a bad customer.
On the first floor were two rooms, let to lodgers at a rent, one year
with another, of forty sous _Parisis_ each, an exorbitant sum, that
was however justified by the luxury Tirechair had lavished on their
adornment. Flanders tapestry hung on the walls, and a large bed with a
top valance of green serge, like a peasant's bed, was amply furnished
with mattresses, and covered with good sheets of fine linen. Each room
had a stove called a _chauffe-doux_; the floor, carefully polished by
Dame Tirechair's apprentices, shone like the woodwork of a shrine.
Instead of stools, the lodgers had deep chairs of carved walnut, the
spoils probably of some raided castle. Two chests with pewter
mouldings, and tables on twisted legs, completed the fittings, worthy
of the most fastidious knights-banneret whom business might bring to
Paris.

The windows of those two rooms looked out on the river. From one you
could only see the shores of the Seine, and the three barren islands,
of which two were subsequently joined together to form the Ile
Saint-Louis; the third was the Ile de Louviers. From the other could
be seen, down a vista of the Port-Saint-Landry, the buildings on the
Greve, the Bridge of Notre-Dame, with its houses, and the tall towers
of the Louvre, but lately built by Philippe-Auguste to overlook the
then poor and squalid town of Paris, which suggests so many imaginary
marvels to the fancy of modern romancers.

The ground floor of Tirechair's house consisted of a large hall, where
his wife's business was carried on, through which the lodgers were
obliged to pass on their way to their own rooms up a stairway like a
mill-ladder. Behind this were a kitchen and a bedroom, with a view
over the Seine. A tiny garden, reclaimed from the waters, displayed at
the foot of this modest dwelling its beds of cabbages and onions, and
a few rose-bushes, sheltered by palings, forming a sort of hedge. A
little structure of lath and mud served as a kennel for a big dog, the
indispensable guardian of so lonely a dwelling. Beyond this kennel was
a little plot, where the hens cackled whose eggs were sold to the
Canons. Here and there on this patch of earth, muddy or dry according
to the whimsical Parisian weather, a few trees grew, constantly lashed
by the wind, and teased and broken by the passer-by--willows, reeds,
and tall grasses.

The Eyot, the Seine, the landing-place, the house, were all
overshadowed on the west by the huge basilica of Notre-Dame casting
its cold gloom over the whole plot as the sun moved. Then, as now,
there was not in all Paris a more deserted spot, a more solemn or more
melancholy prospect. The noise of waters, the chanting of priests, or
the piping of the wind, were the only sounds that disturbed this
wilderness, where lovers would sometimes meet to discuss their secrets
when the church-folds and clergy were safe in church at the services.



One evening in April in the year 1308, Tirechair came home in a
remarkably bad temper. For three days past everything had been in good
order on the King's highway. Now, as an officer of the peace, nothing
annoyed him so much as to feel himself useless. He flung down his
halbert in a rage, muttered inarticulate words as he pulled off his
doublet, half red and half blue, and slipped on a shabby camlet
jerkin. After helping himself from the bread-box to a hunch of bread,
and spreading it with butter, he seated himself on a bench, looked
round at his four whitewashed walls, counted the beams of the ceiling,
made a mental inventory of the household goods hanging from the nails,
scowled at the neatness which left him nothing to complain of, and
looked at his wife, who said not a word as she ironed the albs and
surplices from the sacristy.

"By my halidom," he said, to open the conversation, "I cannot think,
Jacqueline, where you go to catch your apprenticed maids. Now, here is
one," he went on, pointing to a girl who was folding an altar-cloth,
clumsily enough, it must be owned, "who looks to me more like a damsel
rather free of her person than a sturdy country wench. Her hands are
as white as a fine lady's! By the Mass! and her hair smells of
essences, I verily believe, and her hose are as find as a queen's. By
the two horns of Old Nick, matters please me but ill as I find them
here."

The girl colored, and stole a look at Jacqueline, full of alarm not
unmixed with pride. The mistress answered her glance with a smile,
laid down her work, and turned to her husband.

"Come now," said she, in a sharp tone, "you need not harry me. Are you
going to accuse me next of some underhand tricks? Patrol your roads as
much as you please, but do not meddle here with anything but what
concerns your sleeping in peace, drinking your wine, and eating what I
set before you, or else, I warn you, I will have no more to do with
keeping you healthy and happy. Let any one find me a happier man in
all the town," she went on, with a scolding grimace. "He has silver in
his purse, a gable over the Seine, a stout halbert on one hand, an
honest wife on the other, a house as clean and smart as a new pin! And
he growls like a pilgrim smarting from Saint Anthony's fire!"

"Hey day!" exclaimed the sergeant of the watch, "do you fancy,
Jacqueline, that I have any wish to see my house razed down, my
halbert given to another, and my wife standing in the pillory?"

Jacqueline and the dainty journeywoman turned pale.

"Just tell me what you are driving at," said the washerwoman sharply,
"and make a clean breast of it. For some days, my man, I have observed
that you have some maggot twisting in your poor brain. Come up, then,
and have it all out. You must be a pretty coward indeed if you fear
any harm when you have only to guard the common council and live under
the protection of the Chapter! Their Reverences the Canons would lay
the whole bishopric under an interdict if Jacqueline brought a
complaint of the smallest damage."

As she spoke, she went straight up to her husband and took him by the
arm.

"Come with me," she added, pulling him up and out on to the steps.

When they were down by the water in their little garden, Jacqueline
looked saucily in her husband's face.

"I would have you to know, you old gaby, that when my lady fair goes
out, a piece of gold comes into our savings-box."

"Oh, ho!" said the constable, who stood silent and meditative before
his wife. But he presently said, "Any way, we are done for.--What
brings the dame to our house?"

"She comes to see the well-favored young clerk who lives overhead,"
replied Jacqueline, looking up at the window that opened on to the
vast landscape of the Seine valley.

"The Devil's in it!" cried the man. "For a few base crowns you have
ruined me, Jacqueline. Is that an honest trade for a sergeant's decent
wife to ply? And, be she Countess or Baroness, the lady will not be
able to get us out of the trap in which we shall find ourselves caught
sooner or later. Shall we not have to square accounts with some
puissant and offended husband? for, by the Mass, she is fair to look
upon!"

"But she is a widow, I tell you, gray gander! How dare you accuse your
wife of foul play and folly? And the lady has never spoken a word to
yon gentle clerk, she is content to look on him and think of him. Poor
lad! he would be dead of starvation by now but for her, for she is as
good as a mother to him. And he, the sweet cherub! it is as easy to
cheat him as to rock a new-born babe. He believes his pence will last
for ever, and he has eaten them through twice over in the past six
months."

"Woman," said the sergeant, solemnly pointing to the Place de Greve,
"do you remember seeing, even from this spot, the fire in which they
burnt the Danish woman the other day?"

"What then?" said Jacqueline, in a fright.

"What then?" echoed Tirechair. "Why, the two men who lodge with us
smell of scorching. Neither Chapter nor Countess or Protector can
serve them. Here is Easter come round; the year is ending; we must
turn our company out of doors, and that at once. Do you think you can
teach an old constable how to know a gallows-bird? Our two lodgers
were on terms with la Porette, that heretic jade from Denmark or
Norway, whose last cries you heard from here. She was a brave witch;
she never blenched at the stake, which was proof enough of her compact
with the Devil. I saw her as plain as I see you; she preached to the
throng, and declared she was in heaven and could see God.

"And since that, I tell you, I have never slept quietly in my bed. My
lord, who lodges over us, is of a surety more of a wizard than a
Christian. On my word as an officer, I shiver when that old man passes
near me; he never sleeps of nights; if I wake, his voice is ringing
like a bourdon of bells, and I hear him muttering incantations in the
language of hell. Have you ever seen him eat an honest crust of bread
or a hearth-cake made by a good Catholic baker? His brown skin has
been scorched and tanned by hell-fires. Marry, and I tell you his eyes
hold a spell like that of serpents. Jacqueline, I will have none of
those two men under my roof. I see too much of the law not to know
that it is well to have nothing to do with it.--You must get rid of
our two lodgers; the elder because I suspect him; the youngster,
because he is too pretty. They neither of them seem to me to keep
Christian company. The boy is ever staring at the moon, the stars, and
the clouds, like a wizard watching for the hour when he shall mount
his broomstick; the other old rogue certainly makes some use of the
poor boy for his black art. My house stands too close to the river as
it is, and that risk of ruin is bad enough without bringing down fire
from heaven, or the love affairs of a countess. I have spoken. Do not
rebel."

In spite of her sway in the house, Jacqueline stood stupefied as she
listened to the edict fulminated against his lodgers by the sergeant
of the watch. She mechanically looked up at the window of the room
inhabited by the old man, and shivered with horror as she suddenly
caught sight of the gloomy, melancholy face, and the piercing eye that
so affected her husband, accustomed as he was to dealing with
criminals.

At that period, great and small, priests and laymen, all trembled
before the idea of any supernatural power. The word "magic" was as
powerful as leprosy to root up feelings, break social ties, and freeze
piety in the most generous soul. It suddenly struck the constable's
wife that she had never, in fact, seen either of her lodgers
exercising any human function. Though the younger man's voice was as
sweet and melodious as the tones of a flute, she so rarely heard it
that she was tempted to think his silence the result of a spell. As
she recalled the strange beauty of that pink-and-white face, and saw
in memory the fine hair and moist brilliancy of those eyes, she
believed that they were indeed the artifices of the Devil. She
remembered that for days at a time she had never heard the slightest
sound from either room. Where were the strangers during all those
hours?

Suddenly the most singular circumstances recurred to her mind. She was
completely overmastered by fear, and could even discern witchcraft in
the rich lady's interest in the young Godefroid, a poor orphan who had
come from Flanders to study at the University of Paris. She hastily
put her hand into one of her pockets, pulled out four livres of
Tournay in large silver coinage, and looked at the pieces with an
expression of avarice mingled with terror.

"That, at any rate, is not false coin," said she, showing the silver
to her husband. "Besides," she went on, "how can I turn them out after
taking next year's rent paid in advance?"

"You had better inquire of the Dean of the Chapter," replied
Tirechair. "Is not it his business to tell us how we should deal with
these extraordinary persons?"

"Ay, truly extraordinary," cried Jacqueline. "To think of their
cunning; coming here under the very shadow of Notre-Dame! Still," she
went on, "or ever I ask the Dean, why not warn that fair and noble
lady of the risk she runs?"

As she spoke, Jacqueline went into the house with her husband, who had
not missed a mouthful. Tirechair, as a man grown old in the tricks of
his trade, affected to believe that the strange lady was in fact a
work-girl; still, this assumed indifference could not altogether cloak
the timidity of a courtier who respects a royal incognity. At this
moment six was striking by the clock of Saint-Denis du Pas, a small
church that stood between Notre-Dame and the Port-Saint-Landry--the
first church erected in Paris, on the very spot where Saint-Denis was
laid on the gridiron, as chronicles tell. The hour flew from steeple
to tower all over the city. Then suddenly confused shouts were heard
on the left bank of the Seine, behind Notre-Dame, in the quarter where
the schools of the University harbored their swarms.

At this signal, Jacqueline's elder lodger began to move about his
room. The sergeant, his wife, and the strange lady listened while he
opened and shut his door, and the old man's heavy step was heard on
the steep stair. The constable's suspicions gave such interest to the
advent of this personage, that the lady was startled as she observed
the strange expression of the two countenances before her. Referring
the terrors of this couple to the youth she was protecting--as was
natural in a lover--the young lady awaited, with some uneasiness, the
event thus heralded by the fears of her so-called master and mistress.

The old man paused for a moment on the threshold to scrutinize the
three persons in the room, and seemed to be looking for his young
companion. This glance of inquiry, unsuspicious as it was, agitated
the three. Indeed, nobody, not even the stoutest man, could deny that
Nature had bestowed exceptional powers on this being, who seemed
almost supernatural. Though his eyes were somewhat deeply shaded by
the wide sockets fringed with long eyebrows, they were set, like a
kite's eyes, in eyelids so broad, and bordered by so dark a circle
sharply defined on his cheek, that they seemed rather prominent. These
singular eyes had in them something indescribably domineering and
piercing, which took possession of the soul by a grave and thoughtful
look, a look as bright and lucid as that of a serpent or a bird, but
which held one fascinated and crushed by the swift communication of
some tremendous sorrow, or of some super-human power.

Every feature was in harmony with this eye of lead and of fire, at
once rigid and flashing, stern and calm. While in this eagle eye
earthly emotions seemed in some sort extinct, the lean, parched face
also bore traces of unhappy passions and great deeds done. The nose,
which was narrow and aquiline, was so long that it seemed to hang on
by the nostrils. The bones of the face were strongly marked by the
long, straight wrinkles that furrowed the hollow cheeks. Every line in
the countenance looked dark. It would suggest the bed of a torrent
where the violence of former floods was recorded in the depth of the
water-courses, which testified to some terrible, unceasing turmoil.
Like the ripples left by the oars of a boat on the waters, deep lines,
starting from each side of his nose, marked his face strongly, and
gave an expression of bitter sadness to his mouth, which was firm and
straight-lipped. Above the storm thus stamped on his countenance, his
calm brow rose with what may be called boldness, and crowned it as
with a marble dome.

The stranger preserved that intrepid and dignified manner that is
frequently habitual with men inured to disaster, and fitted by nature
to stand unmoved before a furious mob and to face the greatest
dangers. He seemed to move in a sphere apart, where he poised above
humanity. His gestures, no less than his look, were full of
irresistible power; his lean hands were those of a soldier; and if
your own eyes were forced to fall before his piercing gaze, you were
no less sure to tremble when by word or action he spoke to your soul.
He moved in silent majesty that made him seem a king without his
guard, a god without his rays.

His dress emphasized the ideas suggested by the peculiarities of his
mien and face. Soul, body, and garb were in harmony, and calculated to
impress the coldest imagination. He wore a sort of sleeveless gown of
black cloth, fastened in front, and falling to the calf, leaving the
neck bare with no collar. His doublet and boots were likewise black.
On his head was a black velvet cap like a priest's, sitting in a close
circle above his forehead, and not showing a single hair. It was the
strictest mourning, the gloomiest habit a man could wear. But for a
long sword that hung by his side from a leather belt which could be
seen where his surcoat hung open, a priest would have hailed him as a
brother. Though of no more than middle height, he appeared tall; and,
looking him in the face he seemed a giant.

"The clock has struck, the boat is waiting; will you not come?"

At these words, spoken in bad French, but distinctly audible in the
silence, a little noise was heard in the other top room, and the young
man came down as lightly as a bird.

When Godefroid appeared, the lady's face turned crimson; she trembled,
started, and covered her face with her white hands.

Any woman might have shared her agitation at the sight of this youth
of about twenty, of a form and stature so slender that at a first
glance he might have been taken for a mere boy, or a young girl in
disguise. His black cap--like the _beret_ worn by the Basque people
--showed a brow as white as snow, where grace and innocence shone with
an expression of divine sweetness--the light of a soul full of faith.
A poet's fancy would have seen there the star which, in some old tale,
a mother entreats the fairy godmother to set on the forehead of an
infant abandoned, like Moses, to the waves. Love lurked in the
thousand fair curls that fell over his shoulders. His throat, truly a
swan's throat, was white and exquisitely round. His blue eyes, bright
and liquid, mirrored the sky. His features and the mould of his brow
were refined and delicate enough to enchant a painter. The bloom of
beauty, which in a woman's face causes men such indescribable delight,
the exquisite purity of outline, the halo of light that bathes the
features we love, were here combined with a masculine complexion, and
with strength as yet but half developed, in the most enchanting
contrast. His was one of those melodious countenances which even when
silent speak and attract us. And yet, on marking it attentively, the
incipient blight might have been detected which comes of a great
thought or a passion, the faint yellow tinge that made him seem like a
young leaf opening to the sun.

No contrast could be greater or more startling than that seen in the
companionship of these two men. It was like seeing a frail and
graceful shrub that has grown from the hollow trunk of some gnarled
willow, withered by age, blasted by lightning, standing decrepit; one
of those majestic trees that painters love; the trembling sapling
takes shelter there from storms. One was a god, the other was an
angel; one the poet that feels, the other the poet that expresses--a
prophet in sorrow, a levite in prayer.

They went out together without speaking.

"Did you mark how he called him to him?" cried the sergeant of the
watch when the footsteps of the couple were no longer audible on the
strand. "Are not they a demon and his familiar?"

"Phooh!" puffed Jacqueline. "I felt smothered! I never marked our two
lodgers so carefully. 'Tis a bad thing for us women that the Devil can
wear so fair a mien!"

"Ay, cast some holy water on him," said Tirechair, "and you will see
him turn into a toad.--I am off to tell the office all about them."

On hearing this speech, the lady roused herself from the reverie into
which she had sunk, and looked at the constable, who was donning his
red-and-blue jacket.

"Whither are you off to?" she asked.

"To tell the justices that wizards are lodging in our house very much
against our will."

The lady smiled.

"I," said she, "am the Comtesse de Mahaut," and she rose with a
dignity that took the man's breath away. "Beware of bringing the
smallest trouble on your guests. Above all, respect the old man; I
have seen him in the company of your Lord the King, who entreated him
courteously; you will be ill advised to trouble him in any way. As to
my having been here--never breathe a word of it, as you value your
life."

She said no more, but relapsed into thought.

Presently she looked up, signed to Jacqueline, and together they went
up into Godefroid's room. The fair Countess looked at the bed, the
carved chairs, the chest, the tapestry, the table, with a joy like
that of the exile who sees on his return the crowded roofs of his
native town nestling at the foot of a hill.

"If you have not deceived me," she said to Jacqueline, "I promise you
a hundred crowns in gold."

"Behold, madame," said the woman, "the poor angel is confiding--here
is all his treasure."

As she spoke, Jacqueline opened a drawer in the table and showed some
parchments.

"God of mercy!" cried the Countess, snatching up a document that
caught her eye, on which she read, _Gothofredus Comes Gantiacus_
(Godefroid, Count of Ghent).

She dropped the parchment, and passed her hand over her brow; then,
feeling, no doubt, that she had compromised herself by showing so much
emotion, she recovered her cold demeanor.

"I am satisfied," said she.

She went downstairs and out of the house. The constable and his
wife stood in their doorway, and saw her take the path to the
landing-place.

A boat was moored hard by. When the rustle of the Countess' approach
was audible, a boatman suddenly stood up, helped the fair laundress to
take her seat in it, and rowed with such strength as to make the boat
fly like a swallow down the stream.

"You are a sorry fellow," said Jacqueline, giving the officer's
shoulder a familiar slap. "We have earned a hundred gold crowns this
morning."

"I like harboring lords no better than harboring wizards. And I know
not, of the two, which is the more like to bring us to the gallows,"
replied Tirechair, taking up his halbert. "I will go my rounds over by
Champfleuri; God protect us, and send me to meet some pert jade out in
her bravery of gold rings to glitter in the shade like a glow-worm!"

Jacqueline, alone in the house, hastily went up to the unknown lord's
room to discover, if she could, some clue to this mysterious business.
Like some learned men who give themselves infinite pains to complicate
the clear and simple laws of nature, she had already invented a
chaotic romance to account for the meeting of these three persons
under her humble roof. She hunted through the chest, examined
everything, but could find nothing extraordinary. She saw nothing on
the table but a writing-case and some sheets of parchment; and as she
could not read, this discovery told her nothing. A woman's instinct
then took her into the young man's room, and from thence she descried
her two lodgers crossing the river in the ferry boat.