Оноре де Бальзак
Catherine De Medici
“Can this be true?” cried the king, springing once more from his chair.
“Why not?” said the grand-master of the new Templars. “Tradidit mundum disputationibus! God has given us the earth. Hear this once more: man is master here below; matter is his; all forces, all means are at his disposal. Who created us? Motion. What power maintains life in us? Motion. Why cannot science seize the secret of that motion? Nothing is lost here below; nothing escapes from our planet to go elsewhere, – otherwise the stars would stumble over each other; the waters of the deluge are still with us in their principle, and not a drop is lost. Around us, above us, beneath us, are to be found the elements from which have come innumerable hosts of men who have crowded the earth before and since the deluge. What is the secret of our struggle? To discover the force that disunites, and then, then we shall discover that which binds. We are the product of a visible manufacture. When the waters covered the globe men issued from them who found the elements of their life in the crust of the earth, in the air, and in the nourishment derived from them. Earth and air possess, therefore, the principle of human transformations; those transformations take place under our eyes, by means of that which is also under our eyes. We are able, therefore, to discover that secret, – not limiting the effort of the search to one man or to one age, but devoting humanity in its duration to it. We are engaged, hand to hand, in a struggle with Matter, into whose secret, I, the grand-master of our order, seek to penetrate. Christophe Columbus gave a world to the King of Spain; I seek an ever-living people for the King of France. Standing on the confines which separate us from a knowledge of material things, a patient observer of atoms, I destroy forms, I dissolve the bonds of combinations; I imitate death that I may learn how to imitate life. I strike incessantly at the door of creation, and I shall continue so to strike until the day of my death. When I am dead the knocker will pass into other hands equally persistent with those of the mighty men who handed it to me. Fabulous and uncomprehended beings, like Prometheus, Ixion, Adonis, Pan, and others, who have entered into the religious beliefs of all countries and all ages, prove to the world that the hopes we now embody were born with the human races. Chaldea, India, Persia, Egypt, Greece, the Moors, have transmitted from one to another Magic, the highest of all the occult sciences, which holds within it, as a precious deposit the fruits of the studies of each generation. In it lay the tie that bound the grand and majestic institution of the Templars. Sire, when one of your predecessors burned the Templars, he burned men only, – their Secret lived. The reconstruction of the Temple is a vow of an unknown nation, a race of daring seekers, whose faces are turned to the Orient of life, – all brothers, all inseparable, all united by one idea, and stamped with the mark of toil. I am the sovereign leader of that people, sovereign by election, not by birth. I guide them onward to a knowledge of the essence of life. Grand-master, Red-Cross-bearers, companions, adepts, we forever follow the imperceptible molecule which still escapes our eyes. But soon we shall make ourselves eyes more powerful than those which Nature has given us; we shall attain to a sight of the primitive atom, the corpuscular element so persistently sought by the wise and learned of all ages who have preceded us in the glorious search. Sire, when a man is astride of that abyss, when he commands bold divers like my disciples, all other human interests are as nothing. Therefore we are not dangerous. Religious disputes and political struggles are far away from us; we have passed beyond and above them. No man takes others by the throat when his whole strength is given to a struggle with Nature. Besides, in our science results are perceivable; we can measure effects and predict them; whereas all things are uncertain and vacillating in the struggles of men and their selfish interests. We decompose the diamond in our crucibles, and we shall make diamonds, we shall make gold! We shall impel vessels (as they have at Barcelona) with fire and a little water! We test the wind, and we shall make wind; we shall make light; we shall renew the face of empires with new industries! But we shall never debase ourselves to mount a throne to be crucified by the peoples!”
In spite of his strong determination not to be taken in by Italian wiles, the king, together with his gentle mistress, was already caught and snared by the ambiguous phrases and doublings of this pompous and humbugging loquacity. The eyes of the two lovers showed how their minds were dazzled by the mysterious riches of power thus displayed; they saw, as it were, a series of subterranean caverns filled with gnomes at their toil. The impatience of their curiosity put to flight all suspicion.
“But,” cried the king, “if this be so, you are great statesmen who can enlighten us.”
“No, sire,” said Lorenzo, naively.
“Why not?” asked the king.
“Sire, it is not given to any man to foresee what will happen when thousands of men are gathered together. We can tell what one man will do, how long he will live, whether he will be happy or unhappy; but we cannot tell what a collection of wills may do; and to calculate the oscillations of their selfish interests is more difficult still, for interests are men plus things. We can, in solitude, see the future as a whole, and that is all. The Protestantism that now torments you will be destroyed in turn by its material consequences, which will turn to theories in due time. Europe is at the present moment getting the better of religion; to-morrow it will attack royalty.”
“Then the Saint-Bartholomew was a great conception?”
“Yes, sire; for if the people triumph it will have a Saint-Bartholomew of its own. When religion and royalty are destroyed the people will attack the nobles; after the nobles, the rich. When Europe has become a mere troop of men without consistence or stability, because without leaders, it will fall a prey to brutal conquerors. Twenty times already has the world seen that sight, and Europe is now preparing to renew it. Ideas consume the ages as passions consume men. When man is cured, humanity may possibly cure itself. Science is the essence of humanity, and we are its pontiffs; whoso concerns himself about the essence cares little about the individual life.”
“To what have you attained, so far?” asked the king.
“We advance slowly; but we lose nothing that we have won.”
“Then you are the king of sorcerers?” retorted the king, piqued at being of no account in the presence of this man.
The majestic grand-master of the Rosicrucians cast a look on Charles IX. which withered him.
“You are the king of men,” he said; “I am the king of ideas. If we were sorcerers, you would already have burned us. We have had our martyrs.”
“But by what means are you able to cast nativities?” persisted the king. “How did you know that the man who came to your window last night was King of France? What power authorized one of you to tell my mother the fate of her three sons? Can you, grand-master of an art which claims to mould the world, can you tell me what my mother is planning at this moment?”
“Yes, sire.”
This answer was given before Cosmo could pull his brother’s robe to enjoin silence.
“Do you know why my brother, the King of Poland, has returned?”
“Yes, sire.”
“Why?”
“To take your place.”
“Our most cruel enemies are our nearest in blood!” exclaimed the king, violently, rising and walking about the room with hasty steps. “Kings have neither brothers, nor sons, nor mothers. Coligny was right; my murderers are not among the Huguenots, but in the Louvre. You are either imposters or regicides! – Jacob, call Solern.”
“Sire,” said Marie Touchet, “the Ruggieri have your word as a gentleman. You wanted to taste of the fruit of the tree of knowledge; do not complain of its bitterness.”
The king smiled, with an expression of bitter self-contempt; he thought his material royalty petty in presence of the august intellectual royalty of Lorenzo Ruggiero. Charles IX. knew that he could scarcely govern France, but this grand-master of Rosicrucians ruled a submissive and intelligent world.
“Answer me truthfully; I pledge my word as a gentleman that your answer, in case it confesses dreadful crimes, shall be as if it were never uttered,” resumed the king. “Do you deal with poisons?”
“To discover that which gives life, we must also have full knowledge of that which kills.”
“Do you possess the secret of many poisons?”
“Yes, sire, – in theory, but not in practice. We understand all poisons, but do not use them.”
“Has my mother asked you for any?” said the king, breathlessly.
“Sire,” replied Lorenzo, “Queen Catherine is too able a woman to employ such means. She knows that the sovereign who poisons dies by poison. The Borgias, also Bianca Capello, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, are noted examples of the dangers of that miserable resource. All things are known at courts; there can be no concealment. It may be possible to kill a poor devil – and what is the good of that? – but to aim at great men cannot be done secretly. Who shot Coligny? It could only be you, or the queen-mother, or the Guises. Not a soul is doubtful of that. Believe me, poison cannot be twice used with impunity in statecraft. Princes have successors. As for other men, if, like Luther, they are sovereigns through the power of ideas, their doctrines are not killed by killing them. The queen is from Florence; she knows that poison should never be used except as a weapon of personal revenge. My brother, who has not been parted from her since her arrival in France, knows the grief that Madame Diane caused your mother. But she never thought of poisoning her, though she might easily have done so. What could your father have said? Never had a woman a better right to do it; and she could have done it with impunity; but Madame de Valentinois still lives.”
“But what of those waxen images?” asked the king.
“Sire,” said Cosmo, “these things are so absolutely harmless that we lend ourselves to the practice to satisfy blind passions, just as physicians give bread pills to imaginary invalids. A disappointed woman fancies that by stabbing the heart of a wax-figure she has brought misfortunes upon the head of the man who has been unfaithful to her. What harm in that? Besides, it is our revenue.”
“The Pope sells indulgences,” said Lorenzo Ruggiero, smiling.
“Has my mother practised these spells with waxen images?”
“What good would such harmless means be to one who has the actual power to do all things?”
“Has Queen Catherine the power to save you at this moment?” inquired the king, in a threatening manner.
“Sire, we are not in any danger,” replied Lorenzo, tranquilly. “I knew before I came into this house that I should leave it safely, just as I know that the king will be evilly disposed to my brother Cosmo a few weeks hence. My brother may run some danger then, but he will escape it. If the king reigns by the sword, he also reigns by justice,” added the old man, alluding to the famous motto on a medal struck for Charles IX.
“You know all, and you know that I shall die soon, which is very well,” said the king, hiding his anger under nervous impatience; “but how will my brother die, – he whom you say is to be Henri III.?”
“By a violent death.”
“And the Duc d’Alencon?”
“He will not reign.”
“Then Henri de Bourbon will be king of France?”
“Yes, sire.”
“How will he die?”
“By a violent death.”
“When I am dead what will become of madame?” asked the king, motioning to Marie Touchet.
“Madame de Belleville will marry, sire.”
“You are imposters!” cried Marie Touchet. “Send them away, sire.”
“Dearest, the Ruggieri have my word as a gentleman,” replied the king, smiling. “Will madame have children?” he continued.
“Yes, sire; and madame will live to be more than eighty years old.”
“Shall I order them to be hanged?” said the king to his mistress. “But about my son, the Comte d’Auvergne?” he continued, going into the next room to fetch the child.
“Why did you tell him I should marry?” said Marie to the two brothers, the moment they were alone.
“Madame,” replied Lorenzo, with dignity, “the king bound us to tell the truth, and we have told it.”
“Is that true?” she exclaimed.
“As true as it is that the governor of the city of Orleans is madly in love with you.”
“But I do not love him,” she cried.
“That is true, madame,” replied Lorenzo; “but your horoscope declares that you will marry the man who is in love with you at the present time.”
“Can you not lie a little for my sake?” she said smiling; “for if the king believes your predictions – ”
“Is it not also necessary that he should believe our innocence?” interrupted Cosmo, with a wily glance at the young favorite. “The precautions taken against us by the king have made us think during the time we have spent in your charming jail that the occult sciences have been traduced to him.”
“Do not feel uneasy,” replied Marie. “I know him; his suspicions are at an end.”
“We are innocent,” said the grand-master of the Rosicrucians, proudly.
“So much the better for you,” said Marie, “for your laboratory, and your retorts and phials are now being searched by order of the king.”
The brothers looked at each other smiling. Marie Touchet took that smile for one of innocence, though it really signified: “Poor fools! can they suppose that if we brew poisons, we do not hide them?”
“Where are the king’s searchers?”
“In Rene’s laboratory,” replied Marie.
Again the brothers glanced at each other with a look which said: “The hotel de Soissons is inviolable.”
The king had so completely forgotten his suspicions that when, as he took his boy in his arms, Jacob gave him a note from Chapelain, he opened it with the certainty of finding in his physician’s report that nothing had been discovered in the laboratory but what related exclusively to alchemy.
“Will he live a happy man?” asked the king, presenting his son to the two alchemists.
“That is a question which concerns Cosmo,” replied Lorenzo, signing his brother.
Cosmo took the tiny hand of the child, and examined it carefully.
“Monsieur,” said Charles IX. to the old man, “if you find it necessary to deny the existence of the soul in order to believe in the possibility of your enterprise, will you explain to my why you should doubt what your power does? Thought, which you seek to nullify, is the certainty, the torch which lights your researches. Ha! ha! is not that the motion of a spirit within you, while you deny such motion?” cried the king, pleased with his argument, and looking triumphantly at his mistress.
“Thought,” replied Lorenzo Ruggiero, “is the exercise of an inward sense; just as the faculty of seeing several objects and noticing their size and color is an effect of sight. It has no connection with what people choose to call another life. Thought is a faculty which ceases, with the forces which produced it, when we cease to breathe.”
“You are logical,” said the king, surprised. “But alchemy must therefore be an atheistical science.’
“A materialist science, sire, which is a very different thing. Materialism is the outcome of Indian doctrines, transmitted through the mysteries of Isis to Chaldea and Egypt, and brought to Greece by Pythagoras, one of the demigods of humanity. His doctrine of re-incarnation is the mathematics of materialism, the vital law of its phases. To each of the different creations which form the terrestrial creation belongs the power of retarding the movement which sweeps on the rest.”
“Alchemy is the science of sciences!” cried Charles IX., enthusiastically. “I want to see you at work.”
“Whenever it pleases you, sire; you cannot be more interested than Madame the Queen-mother.”
“Ah! so this is why she cares for you?” exclaimed the king.
“The house of Medici has secretly protected our Search for more than a century.”
“Sire,” said Cosmo, “this child will live nearly a hundred years; he will have trials; nevertheless, he will be happy and honored, because he has in his veins the blood of the Valois.”
“I will go and see you in your laboratory, messieurs,” said the king, his good-humor quite restored. “You may now go.”
The brothers bowed to Marie and to the king and then withdrew. They went down the steps of the portico gravely, without looking or speaking to each other; neither did they turn their faces to the windows as they crossed the courtyard, feeling sure that the king’s eye watched them. But as they passed sideways out of the gate into the street they looked back and saw Charles IX. gazing after them from a window. When the alchemist and the astrologer were safely in the rue de l’Autruche, they cast their eyes before and behind them, to see if they were followed or overheard; then they continued their way to the moat of the Louvre without uttering a word. Once there, however, feeling themselves securely alone, Lorenzo said to Cosmo, in the Tuscan Italian of that day: —
“Affe d’Iddio! how we have fooled him!”
“Much good may it do him; let him make what he can of it!” said Cosmo. “We have given him a helping hand, – whether the queen pays it back to us or not.”
Some days after this scene, which struck the king’s mistress as forcibly as it did the king, Marie suddenly exclaimed, in one of those moments when the soul seems, as it were, disengaged from the body in the plenitude of happiness: —
“Charles, I understand Lorenzo Ruggiero; but did you observe that Cosmo said nothing?”
“True,” said the king, struck by that sudden light. “After all, there was as much falsehood as truth in what they said. Those Italians are as supple as the silk they weave.”
This suspicion explains the rancor which the king showed against Cosmo when the trial of La Mole and Coconnas took place a few weeks later. Finding him one of the agents of that conspiracy, he thought the Italians had tricked him; for it was proved that his mother’s astrologer was not exclusively concerned with stars, the powder of projection, and the primitive atom. Lorenzo had by that time left the kingdom.
In spite of the incredulity which most persons show in these matters, the events which followed the scene we have narrated confirmed the predictions of the Ruggieri.
The king died within three months.
Charles de Gondi followed Charles IX. to the grave, as had been foretold to him jestingly by his brother the Marechal de Retz, a friend of the Ruggieri, who believed in their predictions.
Marie Touchet married Charles de Balzac, Marquis d’Entragues, the governor of Orleans, by whom she had two daughters. The most celebrated of these daughters, the half-sister of the Comte d’Auvergne, was the mistress of Henri IV., and it was she who endeavored, at the time of Biron’s conspiracy, to put her brother on the throne of France by driving out the Bourbons.
The Comte d’Auvergne, who became the Duc d’Angouleme, lived into the reign of Louis XIV. He coined money on his estates and altered the inscriptions; but Louis XIV. let him do as he pleased, out of respect for the blood of the Valois.
Cosmo Ruggiero lived till the middle of the reign of Louis XIII.; he witnessed the fall of the house of the Medici in France, also that of the Concini. History has taken pains to record that he died an atheist, that is, a materialist.
The Marquise d’Entragues was over eighty when she died.
The famous Comte de Saint-Germain, who made so much noise under Louis XIV., was a pupil of Lorenzo and Cosmo Ruggiero. This celebrated alchemist lived to be one hundred and thirty years old, – an age which some biographers give to Marion de Lorme. He must have heard from the Ruggieri the various incidents of the Saint-Bartholomew and of the reigns of the Valois kings, which he afterwards recounted in the first person singular, as though he had played a part in them. The Comte de Saint-Germain was the last of the alchemists who knew how to clearly explain their science; but he left no writings. The cabalistic doctrine presented in this Study is that taught by this mysterious personage.
And here, behold a strange thing! Three lives, that of the old man from whom I have obtained these facts, that of the Comte de Saint-Germain, and that of Cosmo Ruggiero, suffice to cover the whole of European history from Francois I. to Napoleon! Only fifty such lives are needed to reach back to the first known period of the world. “What are fifty generations for the study of the mysteries of life?” said the Comte de Saint-Germain.