Wednesday's Excellent Reading: “A grande alternativa de nosso tempo – dead? or red? – na perspectiva da mensagem de Fátima” by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira (in Portuguese)

This text was written as a preface to the North American edition of the work "The Apparitions and the Message of Fatima According to the Manuscripts of Sister Lucia" by Antonio Augusto Borelli Machado.

 O livro As aparições e a mensagem de Fátima conforme os manuscritos da Irmã Lúcia sai agora em edição norte-americana. Publicado no ano de 1967 no Brasil, onde alcançou 19 edições, a obra circulou também em Portugal (em edição local), bem como no mundo hispânico (através de 14 edições em idioma castelhano) e na Itália (quatro edições). Transpôs ele igualmente os umbrais do mundo anglo-saxônico, onde foi transcrito nas revistas Crusade for a Christian Civilization de Nova York e “TFP Newsletter” de Johannesburg. Auguro acolhida também excelente para a presente edição.

Com efeito, a obra do eng. Antonio Augusto Borelli Machado está baseada em uma investigação muito ampla de fontes, e em uma análise penetrante das mesmas. Com os dados assim obtidos e selecionados, ela constitui uma compilação inteligente, ágil e vitoriosa de tudo quanto integra realmente a Mensagem de Fátima. E, a par disso, apresenta uma interpretação a um tempo arguta e prudente, de vários aspectos dela.

Quiseram o autor e a Editora que eu precedesse de um prefácio a presente edição.

Acedendo ao amável convite, pareceu-me que nada poderia interessar tanto ao homem contemporâneo — e notadamente ao leitor norte-americano — quanto relacionar o conteúdo da Mensagem com os problemas da paz e da guerra considerados do ponto de vista da cruel alternativa: — Better red than dead? – Better dead than red?

É o que experimentarei fazer a seguir.

*     *    *

Para uma grande maioria de nossos contemporâneos, é inteiramente claro que essa é a alternativa fundamental ante a qual todos nos encontramos.

A Mensagem de Fátima nos proporciona conhecer com clareza sobrenatural a solução da Providência para essas perguntas angustiantes.

Em 1917, meses antes de o comunismo ascender ao poder na Rússia, e 28 anos antes de a primeira bomba atômica explodir em Hiroshima, a Mensagem de Nossa Senhora transmitida ao mundo por meio dos três pastorezinhos da Cova da Iria contém os elementos de uma resposta cristalina a essas graves interrogações.

De um lado, a Mensagem fala a respeito dos "erros da Rússia" — o comunismo — e indica o meio pelo qual a expansão deste pode ser evitada. Com efeito, o comunismo, ela o aponta como o grande castigo ao qual a humanidade está exposta em razão do declínio religioso e moral dos povos. Ele aparece, portanto, claramente, como um flagelo da Providência para castigar os povos, e especialmente os do Ocidente. E tal flagelo os homens podem evitá-lo se se emendarem da irreligião e da imoralidade em que se acham atolados, e voltarem à profissão da verdadeira Fé, e retornarem à prática efetiva da Moral cristã.

Em termos mais precisos, para que fosse cumprida a vontade de Nossa Senhora, não bastaria — segundo a Mensagem — um grande número de conversões pessoais. Era necessário que as várias nações, cada qual como um todo, notadamente as do Ocidente — a seu modo ele também tão devastado pela irreligião e pela imoralidade — voltassem à profissão da verdadeira Fé e à prática dos preceitos morais perenes do Evangelho.

A Mensagem não se limita, pois, a apontar o perigo, mas indica o modo de obviá-lo. Este modo não é morrer, muito menos aceitar de ficar comunista. Ele consiste em seguir a vontade de Deus, em atender a Mensagem da Mãe d’Ele e de todos nós.

Entre essas condições — é preciso não esquecer — está a Consagração da Rússia ao Imaculado Coração de Maria, nos termos em que Nossa Senhora a pediu.

Porém a Mensagem ainda vai mais longe. Ela adverte de que se isto não for feito, a Justiça de Deus não mais reterá o castigo iminente: “Se atenderem a meus pedidos, a Rússia se converterá e terão paz; se não, espalhará seus erros pelo mundo, promovendo guerras e perseguições à Igreja; os bons serão martirizados, o Santo Padre terá muito que sofrer, várias nações serão aniquiladas; por fim, o meu Imaculado Coração triunfará.”

Importa notar que a Mensagem não afirma que, cumprido quanto a Rainha do Céu e da Terra deseja para aplacar a cólera de Deus, o flagelo do comunismo será afastado do mundo sem luta, pelo menos incruenta. Ela deixa ver, isto sim, intervenções admiráveis da Providência nos acontecimentos humanos que assegurem a vitória sobre o flagelo comunista.

Mas, ao mesmo tempo, deixa aberta a porta para a hipótese de que os homens tenham que dar seu contributo nessa luta, participando eles mesmos, heroicamente, dos grandes prélios nos quais a ajuda soberana e decisiva da Virgem alcançará a vitória.

Com efeito, a Mensagem exclui a hipótese de uma vitória definitiva do comunismo: se os homens atenderem ao apelo da Virgem, o comunismo será vencido sem castigo para eles; se não atenderem a esse apelo, o comunismo flagelará os homens, mas também acabará vencido.

Em uma ou outra hipótese, a vitória será da Mãe de Deus.

Qual a relação entre esta autêntica conversão da Rússia e a extinção do flagelo comunista? — É evidente. Está no Kremlin o principal foco de propaganda comunista no mundo. A conversão da Rússia traria consigo a paralisação dessa força.

Convém notar que, na perspectiva de Fátima, não são principalmente os armamentos, por mais poderosos que sejam, que evitarão o castigo. A dissuasão eventualmente alcançada pelo armamentismo das nações do Ocidente pode ser um meio legítimo e necessário para prevenir a guerra e, portanto, para alcançar o prolongamento da paz.

Contudo, a expansão do comunismo é descrita por Nossa Senhora como uma punição que resulta dos pecados dos homens. E esta punição não será evitada se os homens não se converterem.

Pode ocorrer — isto sim — que um dos meios pelos quais o castigo desabe sobre os homens impenitentes venha a ser um anti-armamentismo incondicional, de caráter puramente emocional, e, portanto, imprevidente, que estimule toda sorte de agressões e de ataques de um adversário cada vez mais armado.

Entretanto — note-se bem — o modo preferido pela Providência para fazer cessar o flagelo comunista, de nenhum modo é uma guerra. Esse modo consiste na emenda dos homens, no cumprimento do que a Mensagem pede e na conversão da Rússia.

Pode ser que a Providência queira servir-se de uma guerra para preparar as condições para uma conversão da Rússia. Porém, isto não está declarado na Mensagem. Em todo caso, a simples vitória militar sobre a Rússia não resolverá o problema, nem afastará os homens da alternativa “red” – “dead”. A Providência quer ir mais longe. Ela quer converter a Rússia.

Nem a Providência precisa de uma guerra para a conversão da Rússia. Na hipótese de uma conversão do Ocidente, parece mais provável que a Providência prefira levar isto a cabo por meios pacíficos, persuasivos, religiosos. Evidentemente, o que a Mensagem promete é a conversão da Rússia à Religião Católica, com a consequente posição firmemente anticomunista que a Hierarquia católica tomava compactamente ao tempo em que a Mensagem de Fátima foi dada aos homens.

*     *    *

Qual a relação entre esta autêntica conversão da Rússia e a extinção do flagelo comunista? — É evidente. Está no Kremlin o principal foco de propaganda comunista no mundo. A conversão da Rússia traria consigo a paralisação dessa força.

Ademais, uma Rússia convertida se abriria pronta e inteiramente para o Ocidente. Seria então possível a todos os homens conhecer muito mais objetiva e profundamente do que agora o abismo de males, de natureza espiritual e temporal, em que estas muitas e longas décadas de aplicação do regime comunista lançaram a infeliz Rússia e seus satélites. O que abriria muito mais os olhos dos povos do Ocidente para o que há de falso na propaganda comunista, imunizando-os contra ela.

Por fim, e mais uma vez, insisto em que, na perspectiva de Fátima, a conversão da Rússia tem como condição prévia uma conversão do Ocidente. Dessa conversão sincera e profunda, como obviamente a Santíssima Virgem a deseja, resultará que o Ocidente será, já de si, totalmente refratário ao comunismo.

Fátima não nos fala da China, do Vietnã, do Cambodge, nem da desdita dos demais povos sob jugo comunista. Mas é óbvio que Nossa Senhora, a qual tão admiravelmente terá protegido sem guerra um Ocidente convertido, não permitirá que essas grandes e desditosas nações fiquem à margem da efusão de graças que converterão o Ocidente e a Rússia com seus satélites (pois estes não terão condições de se manterem em regime comunista dentro de uma Europa convertida).

Também para os demais povos, para as nações não mencionadas nas revelações de Fátima, a virtude da esperança cristã nos proporciona — eu diria que nos impõe — a certeza de que lhes propiciará os meios de romperem seus grilhões, bem como de conhecerem e praticarem a verdadeira Fé.

*     *    *

É bem de ver que essas várias considerações despertarão em certos espíritos uma atitude de ceticismo e de desdém.

Os homens sem Fé — e seus irmãos, isto é, os que têm pouca Fé — sorrirão diante do que lhes parecerá uma simplificação desconcertante, e até infantil, dos problemas hodiernos, que empurram o Ocidente para o comunismo e eventualmente para a guerra. Procurar a solução deles na cândida Mensagem anunciada por três pastorezinhos analfabetos, lhes parecerá ridículo. Mais talvez do que isso, demencial.

Não nego a complexidade inextricável dos problemas contemporâneos. Penso, pelo contrário, que essa complexidade é tal, que eles me parecem insolúveis por mão humana.

E isso tanto mais quanto a intervenção dos homens sem Fé, ou de pouca Fé, nas pesquisas e debates destinados a resolver tais problemas, os complica ainda mais.

Superficialidade? — Ela me parece presente. Não, porém, em nosso campo, mas precisamente no dos céticos.

Com efeito, vejo-os engajados em uma concepção o mais das vezes profundamente ignorante, e sempre apriorística e superficial, do que seja a religião, do papel dela na vida das sociedades, dos homens e dos indivíduos, e na avaliação das potencialidades e virtualidades dela, fortíssimas e insubstituíveis, para a solução dos problemas que os céticos procuram em vão resolver.

Não está aqui a ocasião adequada para explanar ainda mais este amplíssimo assunto.

Não resisto, porém, ao desejo de fazer ver a eventuais leitores céticos algo dessas insubstituíveis possibilidades da religião, de pôr ao alcance deles como que um buraco de fechadura através do qual divisem algo desse vastíssimo horizonte.

    Santo Agostinho traça o perfil da sociedade verdadeiramente cristã — a Cidade de Deus — e dos benefícios que daí resultam para o Estado: imagine-se — escreve ele — “um exército constituído de soldados como os forma a doutrina de Jesus Cristo, governadores, maridos, esposos, pais, filhos, mestres, servos, reis, juízes, contribuintes, cobradores de impostos como os quer a doutrina cristã! E ousem ainda [os pagãos] dizer que essa doutrina é oposta aos interesses do Estado! Pelo contrário, cumpre-lhes reconhecer sem hesitação que ela é uma grande salvaguarda para o Estado quando fielmente observada” (Epist. 138 al. 5 ad Marcellinum, cap. II, n.º 15).

A doutrina católica mostra que, pelo infeliz dinamismo da natureza humana decaída em consequência do pecado original, como da operação do demônio e de seus agentes terrenos na medida em que o homem se afasta da Fé, tende a um modo de ser e de agir oposto ao que a Fé ensina. Quanto maior a distância, tanto maiores as transgressões. Algo como a lei de Newton. A experiência aliás o confirma. E de modo muito particular em nossos dias.

Qual a escola política, social ou econômica que poderia evitar, sem o auxílio da Religião, a explosão final de uma sociedade que, impelida pelo próprio dinamismo da descrença e da corrupção, chegasse à transgressão total dos princípios em que se funda a Cidade de Deus descrita por Santo Agostinho?

Sem que os homens voltem a esses princípios salvíficos, não há como evitar — para os indivíduos e para as sociedades — uma deterioração global, de natureza e proporções indefiníveis, mas tanto mais temíveis quanto maior duração e profundidade tenha o processo de degenerescência.

Que os homens ou as nações menos afetadas por essa deterioração queiram defender-se contra os cometimentos dos homens e das nações mais afetadas, que para isso se armem em uma atitude vigilante, suasória, amiga da paz, mas em atitude também pronta à legítima defesa vigorosa e vitoriosa: nada mais justo.

Porém, tais homens, tais nações não conseguirão estancar só por isso os fermentos de destruição postos em suas entranhas pelo neopaganismo moderno que ingeriram.

Esta é uma afirmação implícita em toda a Mensagem de Fátima.

Diante desta consideração, percebe-se melhor um aspecto dos castigos: é seu caráter saneador, regenerador e reordenativo. Intervindo ao longo de um infindável processo de degradação tanto individual quanto coletivo, o qual expõe aos maiores riscos a salvação de incontáveis almas, o castigo altera a situação, abre os olhos dos homens para a gravidade de seus pecados, os eleva até as altas paragens da contrição e da emenda. E, por fim, lhes dá a verdadeira paz.

Quantos perecerão, infelizmente. Mas terão melhores condições para morrer na graça de Deus, como escreveu São Pedro sobre os que morreram durante o dilúvio (cfr 1 Pt. III, 20).

Morrer: oh! dor. Mas as almas nobres sabem que a morte não é necessariamente o mal maior. Disse-o Judas Macabeu: “Melhor é para nós morrer na guerra do que ver os males do nosso povo e das nossas coisas santas” (1 Mac. III, 59).

Em termos atuais, é preferível morrer a ficar vermelho.

Mas melhor ainda é viver. Sim, viver da vida sobrenatural da graça nesta Terra, para depois viver eternamente na glória de Deus.

A conversão da Rússia depende da conversão sincera e profunda do Ocidente

 

Essas últimas são considerações de bom senso, facilmente acessíveis aos espíritos desprevenidos e equitativos.

Encontrarão elas algum fundamento na Mensagem? — Não me parece.

Esta narra o que fará Deus para punir os pecados de uma humanidade tenazmente impenitente ao longo das décadas em que a Mensagem reboou pelo mundo sem converter os homens. Mais especificamente, sem converter os católicos, pois é com as orações deles, suas penitências e sua emenda de vida que a Virgem Santíssima conta de modo todo especial para obter do Divino Filho a suspensão dos efeitos de sua cólera, e o advento do Reino d’Ela. A mensagem nada diz do que a Providência fará em favor dos justos — dos que optaram pela fidelidade às promessas de Nossa Senhora — durante os dias terríveis da punição, nem o que nessa ocasião deseja deles.

Bem entendido, não aludo aqui senão à parte pública da Mensagem. Nenhuma conjectura conheço absolutamente inquestionável sobre o que realmente contém a parte secreta da Mensagem, a qual só a Santa Sé conhece... [N.B.: Lembrando que este prefácio foi redigido em 1985].

Seja-me lícito externar aqui quanto deixa tristes e perplexos incontáveis fiéis, dos mais devotos dentre os “fatimitas”, em vista da eventualidade de que os homens possam não conhecer esta parte ainda não revelada, mesmo quando ela poderia presumivelmente dar alento aos justos e contrição aos extraviados.

Com efeito, não é fácil compreender como a Mãe de Misericórdia, tão empenhada em ajudar por meio da Mensagem a todos os homens, não tenha tido uma particular palavra de afeto, de estímulo e de esperança para aqueles a quem Ela reservou a árdua e gloriosa missão de se Lhe conservarem fiéis nesta terrível conjuntura.

Nada impede admitir que essas palavras se encontrem na parte ainda não revelada do Segredo de Fátima.

 

Essa consideração final me desviou do curso da exposição que vinha seguindo. Pouco resta a dizer sobre ela.

Continuando a aprofundar a hipótese da impenitência dos homens e do castigo, o contexto da Mensagem nos induz a pensar que, se tal se der, os castigos serão pelo menos de duas ordens: guerras — e pensamos que entre essas se devem incluir não só os conflitos entre os povos, mas também as guerras civis de facção contra facção dentro de um mesmo povo — e cataclismos ocorridos na própria natureza.

Essas guerras internas terão caráter ideológico? Constituirão uma luta entre fiéis e infiéis de todo gênero: hereges ou cismáticos, larvados ou declarados, grupos ou correntes de profissão não cristã, ateus etc.? Ou serão guerras sem conotação ideológica pelo menos oficial (como o conflito franco-prussiano de 1870, ou a I Guerra Mundial)?

A distinção entre guerras e cataclismos parecia muito clara em 1917, quando a Mensagem foi comunicada aos homens. Pois se afigurava então impossível que os homens provocassem cataclismos, os quais pareciam claramente destinados a resultar de meros atos da Providência, atuando de modo justiceiro sobre os vários elementos da natureza.

Na realidade, essa distinção continua válida, mas desde que se lhe faça a ressalva de que, com a dissociação do átomo, o homem adquiriu a possibilidade de provocar cataclismos de proporções incalculáveis. Sem que, ao mesmo tempo, tenha adquirido o poder de frear esses cataclismos.

Em consequência, a catástrofe atômica, provocada eventualmente por uma guerra filha do pecado, produziria só por si os castigos cósmicos que a Mensagem deixa entrever. Mas é possível também que aos efeitos da hecatombe atômica se juntem outras perturbações naturais ordenadas por Deus.

Uma observação final ainda está por ser apresentada.

Dentro da perspectiva fatimita, a verdadeira garantia contra catástrofes que assolem a humanidade está muito menos (e, em certa perspectiva, de todo não está...) em medidas de desarmamento, tratados de paz etc., do que na conversão dos homens.

Ou seja, se estes não se converterem, os castigos virão, por mais que os homens se esforcem por evitá-los com meios outros que não essa conversão.

Pelo contrário, se se emendarem, não só Deus afastará deles a plenitude de sua cólera vingadora, como haverá entre eles todas as condições próprias a promover uma paz verdadeira e durável. A paz de Cristo no Reino de Cristo. Especificamente a paz de Maria no Reino de Maria.

Dentro da perspectiva fatimita, a verdadeira garantia contra catástrofes que assolem a humanidade está muito menos (e, em certa perspectiva, de todo não está...) em medidas de desarmamento, tratados de paz etc., do que na conversão dos homens.

 

Espero que essas várias reflexões, relacionando com a Mensagem de Fátima problemas de atualidade suprema, ajudem o leitor a tirar todo o proveito da compilação fatimita, da mais flagrante oportunidade, que o eng. Antonio Augusto Borelli Machado nos apresenta em seu estudo, já tão conhecido no Brasil e no mundo ibero-americano, e que merece sê-lo também no mundo inteiro.

Tuesday's Serial: "St. Martin’s Summer" by Rafael Sabatini (in English) - VIII.

 

CHAPTER IX. THE SENESCHAL’S ADVICE

Straight across to the Palais Seneschal went Garnache. And sorely though his temper might already have been tried that day, tempestuously though it had been vented, there were fresh trials in store for him, fresh storms for Tressan.

“May I ask, Monsieur le Seneschal,” he demanded arrogantly, “to what end it was that you permitted yourself to order from its post the escort you had placed under my command?”

“To what end?” returned the Seneschal, between sorrow and indignation. “Why, to the end that it might succour you if still in time. I had heard that if not dead already, you were in danger of your life.”

The answer was one that disarmed Garnache, in spite of his mistrust of Tressan, and followed as it now was by the Seneschal’s profuse expressions of joy at seeing Garnache safe and well, it left him clearly unable to pursue the subject of his grievance in this particular connection. Instead, he passed on to entertain Tressan with the recital of the thing that had been done; and in reciting it his anger revived again, nor did the outward signs of sympathetic perturbation which the Seneschal thought it judicious to display do aught to mollify his feelings.

“And now, monsieur,” he concluded, “there remains but one course to be pursued—to return in force, and compel them at the sword-point to surrender me mademoiselle. That accomplished, I shall arrest the Dowager and her son and every jackanapes within that castle. Her men can lie in Grenoble gaol to be dealt with by yourself for supporting her in an attempt to resist the Queen’s authority. Madame and her son shall go with me to Paris to answer there for their offence.”

The Seneschal looked grave. He thoughtfully combed his beard with his forefinger, and his little eyes peered a shade fearfully at Garnache through his horn-rimmed spectacles—Garnache had found him at his never-failing pretence of work.

“Why, yes,” he agreed, speaking slowly, “that way lies your duty.”

“I rejoice, monsieur, to hear you say so. For I shall need your aid.”

“My aid?” The Seneschal’s face assumed a startled look.

“I shall require of you the necessary force to reduce that garrison.”

The Seneschal blew out his cheeks almost to bursting point, then wagged his head and smiled wistfully.

“And where,” he asked, “am I to find such a force?”

“You have upwards of ten score men in quarters at Grenoble.”

“If I had those men—which I have not—what, think you, could they do against a fortress such as Condillac? Monsieur deludes himself. If they resist, you’ll need ten times that number to bring them to their senses. They are well victualled; they have an excellent water-supply. My friend, they would just draw up the bridge, and laugh at you and your soldiers from the ramparts.”

Garnache looked at him from under lowering brows. But for all his mistrust of the man—a mistrust most excellently founded—he was forced to confess that there was wisdom in what Tressan said.

“I’ll sit down and besiege them if need be,” he announced.

Again the Seneschal wagged his head. “You would have to be prepared to spend your winter there in that case, and it can be cold in the valley of Isere. Their garrison is small—some twenty men at most; but it is sufficient for their defence, and not too many mouths to feed. No, no, monsieur, if you would win your way by force you must count upon more than ten score men.”

And now a flash of inspiration helped Tressan. It was his aim, as we know, to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Break with Madame de Condillac his foolish hopeful heart would not permit him. Break with this man, who personified authority and the King, he dared not. He had sought—and it had given him much to do—to steer a middle course, serving the Dowager and appearing not to withstand the Parisian. Now it almost seemed to him as if he were come to an impasse beyond which he could no longer pursue that course, but must halt and declare his side. But the notion that now occurred to him helped him to win through this difficulty. For Madame de Condillac’s schemes he cared not a jot; whether they came safe to harbour or suffered shipwreck on the way was all one to him; whether Valerie de La Vauvraye married Marius de Condillac or the meanest cobbler in Grenoble was, similarly, a matter that never disturbed his mind. He would not even be concerned if he, himself, were to help the Dowager’s schemes to frustration, so long as she were to remain in ignorance of his defection, so long as outwardly he were to appear faithful to her interests.

“Monsieur,” said he gravely, “the only course that promises you success is to return to Paris, and, raising sufficient men, with guns and other modern siege appliances such as we possess not here, come back and batter down the walls of Condillac.”

There the Seneschal spoke good sense. Garnache realized it, so much so that he almost began to doubt whether he had not done the man an injustice in believing him allied to the other party. But, however fully he might perceive the wisdom of the advice, such a step was one that must wound his pride, must be an acknowledgment that his own resources, upon which the Queen had relied when she sent him single-handed to deal with this situation, had proved insufficient.

He took a turn in the apartment without answering, tugging at his mustachios and pondering the situation what time the Seneschal furtively watched him in the candle-light. At last he came abruptly to a standstill by the Seneschal’s writing-table, immediately opposite Tressan. His hand fell to his side, his eyes took on a look of determination.

“As a last resource your good advice may guide me, Monsieur le Seneschal,” said he. “But first I’ll see what can be done with such men as you have here.”

“But I have no men,” answered Tressan, dismayed to see the failure of his effort.

Garnache stared at him in an unbelief that was fast growing to suspicion. “No men?” he echoed dully. “No men?”

“I might muster a score—no more than that.”

“But, monsieur, it is within my knowledge that you have at least two hundred. I saw at least some fifty drawn up in the courtyard below here yesterday morning.”

“I had them, monsieur,” the Seneschal made haste to cry, his hands upheld, his body leaning forward over his table. “I had them. But, unfortunately, certain disturbances in the neighbourhood of Montelimar have forced me to part with them. They were on the point of setting out when you saw them.”

Garnache looked at him a moment without speaking. Then, sharply:

“They must be recalled, monsieur,” said he.

And now the Seneschal took refuge in a fine pretence of indignation.

“Recalled?” he cried, and besides indignation there was some horror in his voice. “Recalled? And for what? That they may assist you in obtaining charge of a wretched girl who is so headstrong as to wish to marry other than her guardians have determined. A pretty affair that, as God’s my life! And for the adjustment of such a family dispute as this, a whole province is to go to ruin, a conflagration of rebellion is to spread unquenched? On my soul, sir, I begin to think that this mission of yours has served to turn your head. You begin to see it out of all proportion to its size.”

“Monsieur, it may have turned my head, or it may not; but I shall not be amazed if in the end it be the means of losing you yours. Tell me now: What is the disturbance you speak of in Montelimar?” That was a question all Tressan’s ingenuity could not answer.

“What affair is it of yours?” he demanded. “Are you Seneschal of Dauphiny, or am I? If I tell you that there is a disturbance, let that suffice. In quelling it I do but attend to my own business. Do you attend to yours—which seems to be that of meddling in women’s matters.”

This was too much. There was such odious truth in it that the iron sank deep into Garnache’s soul. The very reflection that such a business should indeed be his, was of itself enough to put him in a rage, without having it cast in his teeth as Tressan had none too delicately done.

He stormed and raged; he waved his arms and thumped the table, and talked of cutting men to ribbons—among which men no doubt he counted my Lord the Seneschal of Dauphiny. But from the storm of fierce invective, of threats and promises with which he filled the air, the Seneschal gathered with satisfaction the one clear statement that he would take his advice.

“I’ll do as you say,” Garnache had ended. “I’ll get me back to Paris as fast as horse can carry me. When I return woe betide Condillac! And I shall send my emissaries into the district of Montelimar to inquire into these disturbances you tell of. Woe betide you if they find the country quiet. You shall pay a heavy price for having dispatched your soldiers thither to the end that they might not be here to further the Queen’s business.”

With that he caught up his rain-sodden hat, flung it on his head, and stalked out of the room, and, so, out of the Palace.

He left Grenoble next morning, and it was a very tame and crestfallen Garnache who quitted the Auberge du Veau qui Tete and rode out of the town to take the road to Paris. How they would laugh at him at the Luxembourg! Not even an affair of this kind was he fit to carry through; not even as a meddler in women’s matters as Tressan had called him—could he achieve success. Rabecque, reflecting his master’s mood—as becomes a good lackey—rode silent and gloomy a pace or two in the rear.

By noon they had reached Voiron, and here, at a quiet hostelry, they descended to pause awhile for rest and refreshment. It was a chill, blustering day, and although the rain held off, the heavens were black with the promise of more to come. There was a fire burning in the general-room of the hostelry, and Garnache went to warm him at its cheerful blaze. Moodily he stood there, one hand on the high mantel shelf, one foot upon an andiron, his eyes upon the flames.

He was disconsolately considering his position; considering how utterly, how irrevocably he had failed; pondering the gibes he would have to stomach on his return to Paris, the ridicule it would incumb him to live down. It had been a fine thing to breathe fire and blood and vengeance to Tressan yesterday, to tell him of the great deeds he would perform on his return. It was odds he never would return. They would send another in his place, if indeed they sent at all. For, after all, before he could reach Paris and the force required be in Dauphiny, a fortnight must elapse, let them travel never so quickly. By that time they must be singularly sluggish at Condillac if they did not so contrive that no aid that came should come in time for mademoiselle, now that they were warned that the Queen was stirring in the matter.

Oh! he had blundered it all most cursedly. Had he but kept his temper yesterday at Grenoble; had he but had the wit to thwart their plans, by preserving an unruffled front to insult, he might have won through and carried mademoiselle out of their hands. As it was—! he let his arms fall to his sides in his miserable despair.

“Your wine, monsieur,” said Rabecque at his elbow. He turned, and took the cup of mulled drink from his servant. The beverage warmed him in body; but it would need a butt of it to thaw the misery from his soul.

“Rabecque,” he said with a pathetic grimness, “I think I am the most cursed blunderer that ever was entrusted with an errand.”

The thing so obsessed his mind that he must speak of it, if it be only to his lackey. Rabecque’s sharp face assumed a chastened look. He sighed most dutifully. He sought for words of consolation. At last:

“At least, monsieur has made them fear him up there at Condillac,” said he.

“Fear me?” laughed Garnache. “Pish! Deride me, you would say.”

“Fear you, I repeat, monsieur. Else why are they at such pains to strengthen the garrison?”

“Eh?” he questioned. But his tone was not greatly interested. “Are they doing that? Are they strengthening it? How know you?”

“I had it from the ostler at the Veau qui Tete that a certain Captain Fortunio—an Italian soldier of fortune who commands the men at Condillac—was at the Auberge de France last night, offering wine to whomsoever would drink with him, and paying for it out of Madame la Marquise’s purse. To such as accepted his hospitality he talked of the glory of a military career, particularly a free-lance’s; and to those who showed interest in what he said he offered a pike in his company.”

“Enrolled he many, did you learn?”

“Not one, monsieur, the ostler told me; and it seems he spent the evening watching him weave his spider’s web. But the flies were over-wary. They knew whence he came; they knew the business for which he desired to enrol them—for a rumour had gone round that Condillac was in rebellion against the Queen’s commands—and there were none so desperate at the Auberge de France as to risk their necks by enlisting, no matter what the wage he offered.”

Garnache shrugged his shoulders. “No matter,” said he. “Get me another cup of wine.” But as Rabecque turned away to obey him there came a sudden gleam into the eye of Monsieur de Garnache which lightened the depression of his countenance.

 

 

CHAPTER X. THE RECRUIT

In the great hall of the Chateau de Condillac sat the Dowager, her son, and the Lord Seneschal, in conference.

It was early in the afternoon of the last Thursday in October, exactly a week since Monsieur de Garnache all but broken-hearted at the failure of his mission—had departed from Grenoble. They had dined, and the table was still strewn with vessels and the fragments of their meal, for the cloth had not yet been raised. But the three of them had left the board—the Seneschal with all that reluctance with which he was wont to part company with the table, no matter how perturbed in spirit he might be—and they had come to group themselves about the great open fireplace.

A shaft of pale October sunshine entering through the gules of an escutcheon on the mullioned windows struck a scarlet light into silver and glass upon the forsaken board.

Madame was speaking. She was repeating words that she had uttered at least twenty times a day during the past week.

“It was a madness to let that fellow go. Had we but put him and his servant out of the way, we should be able now to sleep tranquil in our beds. I know their ways at Court. They might have marvelled a little at first that he should tarry so long upon his errand, that he should send them no word of its progress; but presently, seeing him no more, he would little by little have been forgotten, and with him the affair in which the Queen has been so cursedly ready to meddle.

“As it is, the fellow will go back hot with the outrage put upon him; there will be some fine talk of it in Paris; it will be spoken of as treason, as defiance of the King’s Majesty, as rebellion. The Parliament may be moved to make outlaws of us, and the end of it all—who shall foresee?”

“It is a long distance from Condillac to Paris, madame,” said her son, with a shrug.

“And you will find them none so ready to send soldiers all this way, Marquise,” the Seneschal comforted her.

“Bah! You make too sure of your security. You make too sure of what they will do, what leave undone. Time will show, my friends; and, mor-dieu! I am much at fault if you come not both to echo my regret that we did not dispose of Monsieur de Garnache and his lackey when we had them in our power.”

Her eye fell with sinister promise upon Tressan, who shivered slightly and spread his hands to the blaze, as though his shiver had been of cold. But Marius did not so readily grow afraid.

“Madame,” he said, “at the worst we can shut our gates and fling defiance at them. We are well-manned, and Fortunio is seeking fresh recruits.”

“Seeking them, yes,” she sneered. “For a week has the fellow been spending money like water, addling the brains of half Grenoble with the best wine at the Auberge de France, yet not a single recruit has come in, so far.”

Marius laughed. “Your pessimism leads you into rash conclusions,” he cried. “You are wrong. One recruit has come in.”

“One!” she echoed. “A thousand devils! A brave number that! A fine return for the river of wine with which we have washed the stomachs of Grenoble.”

“Still, it is a beginning,” ventured the Seneschal.

“Aye, and, no doubt, an ending,” she flashed back at him. “And what manner of fool may this one be, whose fortunes were so desperate that he could throw them in with ours?”

“He is an Italian—a Piedmontese who has tramped across Savoy and was on his way to Paris to make his fortune, when Fortunio caught him and made it clear to him that his fortune was made for him at Condillac. He is a lusty, stalwart fellow, speaking no word of French, who was drawn to Fortunio by discovering in him a fellow-countryman.”

Mockery flashed from the Dowager’s beautiful eyes.

“In that you have the reason of his enrolling himself. He knew no word of French, poor devil, so could not learn how rash his venture was. Could we find more such men as this one it might be well. But where shall we find them? Pish! my dear Marius, matters are little mended, nor ever will be, for the mistake we made in allowing Garnache to go his ways.”

“Madame;” again ventured Tressan, “I think that you want for hopefulness.”

“At least, I do not want for courage, Monsieur le Comte,” she answered him; “and I promise you that while I live—to handle a sword if need be—no Paris men shall set foot in Condillac.”

“Aye,” grumbled Marius, “you can contemplate that, and it is all you do contemplate. You will not see, madame that our position is far from desperate; that, after all, there may be no need to resist the King. It is three months since we had news of Florimond. Much may happen in three months when a man is warring. It may well be that he is dead.”

“I wish I knew he was—and damned,” she snapped, with a tightening of her scarlet lips.

“Yes,” agreed Marius, with a sigh, “that were an end to all our troubles.”

“I’m none so sure. There is still mademoiselle, with her new-formed friends in Paris—may a pestilence blight them all! There are still the lands of La Vauvraye to lose. The only true end to our troubles as they stand at present lies in your marrying this headstrong baggage.”

“That the step should be rendered impossible, you can but blame yourself,” Marius reminded her.

“How so?” she cried, turning sharply upon him.

“Had you kept friends with the Church, had you paid tithes and saved us from this cursed Interdict, we should have no difficulty in getting hither a priest, and settling the matter out of hand, be Valerie willing or not.”

She looked at him, scorn kindling in her glance. Then she swung round to appeal to Tressan.

“You hear him, Count,” said she. “There is a lover for you! He would wed his mistress whether she love him or not—and he has sworn to me that he loves the girl.”

“How else should the thing be done since she opposes it?” asked Marius, sulkily.

“How else? Do you ask me how else? God! Were I a man, and had I your shape and face, there is no woman in the world should withstand me if I set my heart on her. It is address you lack. You are clumsy as a lout where a woman is concerned. Were I in your place, I had taken her by storm three months ago, when first she came to us. I had carried her out of Condillac, out of France, over the border into Savoy, where there are no Interdicts to plague you, and there I would have married her.”

Marius frowned darkly, but before he could speak, Tressan was insinuating a compliment to the Marquise.

“True, Marius,” he said, with pursed lips. “Nature has been very good to you in that she has made you the very counterpart of your lady mother. You are as comely a gentleman as is to be found in France—or out of it.”

“Pish!” snapped Marius, too angered by the reflection cast upon his address, to be flattered by their praises of his beauty. “It is an easy thing to talk; an easy thing to set up arguments when we consider but the half of a question. You forget, madame, that Valerie is betrothed to Florimond and that she clings faithfully to her betrothal.”

“Vertudieu!” swore the Marquise, “and what is this betrothal, what this faithfulness? She has not seen her betrothed for three years. She was a child at the time of their fiancailles. Think you her faithfulness to him is the constancy of a woman to her lover? Go your ways, you foolish boy. It is but the constancy to a word, to the wishes of her father. Think you constancy that has no other base than that would stand between her and any man who—as you might do, had you the address—could make her love him?”

“I do say so,” answered Marius firmly.

She smiled the pitying smile of one equipped with superior knowledge when confronted with an obstinate, uninformed mind.

“There is a droll arrogance about you, Marius,” she told him, quietly. “You, a fledgling, would teach me, a woman, the ways of a woman’s heart! It is a thing you may live to regret.”

“As how?” he asked.

“Once already has mademoiselle contrived to corrupt one of our men, and send him to Paris with a letter. Out of that has sprung our present trouble. Another time she may do better. When she shall have bribed another to assist her to escape; when she, herself, shall have made off to the shelter of the Queen-mother, perhaps you will regret that my counsel should have fallen upon barren ground.”

“It is to prevent any such attempt that we have placed her under guard,” said he. “You are forgetting that.”

“Forgetting it? Not I. But what assurance have you that she will not bribe her guard?”

Marius laughed, rose, and pushed back his chair.

“Madame,” said he, “you are back at your contemplation of the worst side of this affair; you are persisting in considering only how we may be thwarted. But set your mind at rest. Gilles is her sentinel. Every night he sleeps in her anteroom. He is Fortunio’s most trusted man. She will not corrupt him.”

The Dowager smiled pensively, her eyes upon the fire. Suddenly she raised them to his face. “Berthaud was none the less trusted. Yet, with no more than a promise of reward at some future time should she succeed in escaping from us, did she bribe him to carry her letter to the Queen. What happened to Berthaud that may not happen to Gilles?”

“You might change her sentry nightly,” put in the Seneschal.

“Yes, if we knew whom we could trust; who would be above corruption. As it is”—she shrugged her shoulders “that would be but to afford her opportunities to bribe them one by one until they were all ready to act in concert.”

“Why need she any sentinel at all?” asked Tressan, with some show of sense.

“To ward off possible traitors,” she told him, and Marius smiled and wagged his head.

“Madame is never done foreseeing the worst, monsieur.”

“Which shows my wisdom. The men in our garrison are mercenaries, all attached to us only because we pay them. They all know who she is and what her wealth.”

“Pity you have not a man who is deaf and dumb,” said Tressan, half in jest. But Marius looked up suddenly, his eyes serious.

“We have as good,” said he. “There is the Italian knave Fortunio enrolled yesterday, as I have told you. He knows neither her wealth nor her identity; nor if he did could he enter into traffic with her, for he knows no French, and she no Italian.”

The Dowager clapped her hands. “The very man!” she cried.

But Marius, either from sheer perverseness, or because he did not share her enthusiasm, made answer: “I have faith in Gilles.”

“Yes,” she mocked him, “and you had faith in Berthaud. Oh, if you have faith in Gilles, let him remain; let no more be said.”

The obstinate boy took her advice, and shifted the subject, speaking to Tressan of some trivial business connected with the Seneschalship.

But madame, woman-like, returned to the matter whose abandoning she had herself suggested. Marius, for all his affected disdain of it, viewed it with a certain respect. And so in the end they sent for the recruit.

Fortunio—who was no other than the man Garnache had known as “Sanguinetti”—brought him, still clad in the clothes in which he had come. He was a tall, limber fellow, with a very swarthy skin and black, oily-looking hair that fell in short ringlets about his ears and neck, and a black, drooping mustache which gave him a rather hang-dog look. There was a thick stubble of beard of several days’ growth about his chin and face; his eyes were furtive in their glances, but of a deep blue that contrasted oddly with his blackness when he momentarily raised them.

He wore a tattered jerkin, and his legs, in default of stockings, were swathed in soiled bandages and cross-gartered from ankle to knee. He stood in a pair of wooden shoes, from one of which peeped forth some wisps of straw, introduced, no doubt, to make the footgear fit. He slouched and shuffled in his walk, and he was unspeakably dirty. Nevertheless, he was girt with a sword in a ragged scabbard hanging from a frayed and shabby belt of leather.

Madame scanned him with interest. The fastidious Marius eyed him with disgust. The Seneschal peered at him curiously through shortsighted eyes.

“I do not think I have ever seen a dirtier ruffian,” said he.

“I like his nose,” said madame quietly. “It is the nose of an intrepid man.”

“It reminds me of Garnache’s,” laughed the Seneschal.

“You flatter the Parisian,” commented Marius.

The mercenary, meanwhile, stood blandly smiling at the party, showing at least a fine array of teeth, and wearing the patient, attentive air of one who realizes himself to be under discussion, yet does not understand what is being said.

“A countryman of yours, Fortunio?” sneered Marius.

The captain, whose open, ingenuous countenance dissembled as villainous a heart as ever beat in the breast of any man, disowned the compatriotism with a smile.

“Hardly, monsieur,” said he. “‘Battista’ is a Piedmontese.” Fortunio himself was a Venetian.

“Is he to be relied upon, think you?” asked madame. Fortunio shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands. It was not his habit to trust any man inordinately.

“He is an old soldier,” said he. “He has trailed a pike in the Neapolitan wars. I have cross-questioned him, and found his answers bore out the truth of what he said.”

“And what brings him to France?” asked Tressan. The captain smiled again, and there came again that expressive shrug of his. “A little over-ready with the steel,” said he.

They told Fortunio that they proposed to place him sentry over mademoiselle instead of Gilles, as the Italian’s absolute lack of French would ensure against corruption. The captain readily agreed with them. It would be a wise step. The Italian fingered his tattered hat, his eyes on the ground.

Suddenly madame spoke to him. She asked him for some account of himself and whence he came, using the Italian tongue, of which she had a passing knowledge. He followed her questions very attentively, at times with apparent difficulty, his eyes on her face, his head craned a little forward.

Now and then Fortunio had to intervene, to make plainer to this ignorant Piedmontese mind the Marquise’s questions. His answers came in a deep, hoarse voice, slurred by the accent of Piedmont, and madame—her knowledge of Italian being imperfect—had frequently to have recourse to Fortunio to discover the meaning of what he said.

At last she dismissed the pair of them, bidding the captain see that he was washed and more fittingly clothed.

An hour later, after the Seneschal had taken his departure to ride home to Grenoble, it was madame herself, accompanied by Marius and Fortunio, who conducted Battista—such was the name the Italian had given—to the apartments above, where mademoiselle was now confined practically a prisoner.

Monday's Illustrated Word: "The Legion of Space" by unknown writer (in English)

  art by Harry Harrison - Captain Science #7 - Youthful, December 1951.