Well in Time Page 6

  “One war was waged against unbelievers in Eastern Europe, the Prussians. In the West, there was a Crusade against the Saracens in Spain. But of the three, the Crusade against the Cathari, called the Albigensian Crusade, was the most terrible and unjust.

  “The spirit of the times was such that the church, and the church alone, could decree one’s beliefs. The Cathari, who despised marriage and sex because it perpetuated life on earth, were viewed, therefore, as a cult of madmen. They committed the ultimate heresy, as well, in believing that an individual might commune directly with God, without the intermediary of a priesthood.

  “Now nothing could be more an anathema to a bureaucrat—and the church is the most pernicious sort of bureaucracy—than the notion that someone is trying to do away with his job. The purpose of any bureaucracy is, after all, self-perpetuation and maintenance of the status quo. To Pope Innocent, this Albigensian madness seemed so dangerous that he decided it must be suppressed by force. He therefore ordered a Crusade against Raymond, Comte de Toulouse, who had the temerity to attempt to protect those among his subjects who insisted on rejecting the yoke of Rome.

  “The Count’s realm was, at that time, the fairest and richest district in Europe, and so the prospect of plundering it soon raised an army of great size. A coarse and brutal man, Simon de Montfort, became their leader. He was called by the misnomer The General of the Holy Ghost. In the name of God, this man, who for all his brutality was a skillful general, began a reign of terror and persecution that is ghastly to consider.

  “In battle after battle, he was victorious. After each of these, all captives were put to death. No one was spared. Women, children, and the elderly were equally murdered along with their defeated soldiers. It was a bloodbath. This was at the command of Pope Innocent, who, when asked how to tell a Catholic from a heretic, replied, ‘Slay all; the Lord will know his own!’”

  §

  The Count’s voice broke with emotion, as if the intervening eight hundred years had done nothing to dim the horror he recounted. To break the spell, he said lightly, “I hope I don’t make you feel as if you were plunged back into some dreary grade school history class. I simply am setting the stage, because it is during this time that the first coherent history of my family emerges.

  “You see, we did not always have our lands here in the Loire valley. This castle is part of a property that was acquired much later. Originally, we came from Languedoc and it was there that the dark stain of fate seeped into the warp and weft of our family.

  “We were not then, you see, MontMarans, because this, this chateau, sits on Mount Maran. We were then of the town of Muret. My ancestor was called simply Richard de Muret. He was a vassal under the Comte de Toulouse and so was under duty to his liege to raise an army to fight the oncoming Crusade. It was a terrible decision not only for him, I am sure, but for men like him who were both staunch defenders of the True Church but also loyal vassals to the Count. Richard chose to support the cause of the Count and paid, in the end, a high price for his loyalty.

  “But there was more to it than that. There was a secret that influenced his decision, I am sure—his wife, Eleanore, came from a Cathari family. Not only that, but despite her decision to marry and bear children, she practiced, in secret, the heretical forms of worship in the family chapel and her husband, while not completely won over, had great sympathy for her pure and simple ways.

  “These two had two children, a son named Godfrey and a daughter, Blanche. As the army of the Crusade advanced, burning, looting, and murdering as it came, Richard and Eleanore made a desperate decision. Sensing that their cause was already lost before it was truly undertaken, they arranged to have the children removed from the south to St. Denys, near Paris, where his brother was a member of the bishop’s staff.

  “The children, both under the age of twelve, were mounted on swift horses and given into the responsible hands of Richard’s closest lieutenant. They left Muret in the middle of the night, leaving behind heartsick parents whom they would never see again.

  “That was in 1212, and one year later, you see, the Battle of Muret put an end to all organized resistance on the part of the Cathari. The banner of the Cross waved in victory over a devastated land; the armies of the General of the Holy Ghost performed unspeakable atrocities and orgies, surrounded by their booty; and Pope Innocent was informed that false religion and immorality had been extirpated. Isn’t it ironic how inextricably mixed are tragedy and comedy?”

  §

  The Count paused in thoughtful silence. Outside, the night wind was rising sharply as the leading edge of the storm advanced. Despite the warmth of their fire-lit circle, the peaceful crackling of the hearth fire and the slow, lambent flame of the candles, the wind’s incessant violence created a background of eerie tension.

  The long French doors and windows rattled in their casements. Waves of air rolled against the castle walls, crashing like the sea. As the night wore on into the early hours of the next morning, its bass voice rose to a shrieking wail that was a Greek chorus of woe, underscoring the tale of terror and loss related by the Count.

  Maria-Elena had worried at first that with a fine, rich dinner and two glasses of Cointreau behind her, she might fall into a stupor of relaxation and fatigue. But the Count was a fine raconteur. His deep voice was nuanced and compelling, rising and falling contrapuntally with the wind.

  She leaned back in her chair and its deep and brocaded wings sheltered her like guardians standing watch. Her imagination was electrified and she could almost see the terrible doings of 1213 enacted amidst the fierce embers on the hearth.

  Saladin wheezed in his sleep and turned, groaning, onto his side. A log shifted on the grate and collapsed in a wave of lava-red coals. Shadows reached out of the corners of the room as the fire burned low and the candles guttered in an errant draft.

  It was a timeless scene. She felt it might actually be 1213. It would not truly surprise her to hear music of lutes from the hall or laughter of a banqueting crowd. Time had a limen here, she sensed, a flexible portal where the centuries could mix and pass one another, like celebrants at a masked ball.

  §

  The Count cleared his throat and recommenced his tale: “Because they were members of the nobility, Richard and Eleanore were given more important deaths than the run-of-the-mill citizen, who was simply put to the sword. Eleanore was burned at the stake in what was left of the town square. And Richard was drawn and quartered before her, as she stood awaiting her fate. These are terrible matters and I don’t wish to distress you, but this is how it was at that time of unbelievable barbarism.

  “The children, however, arrived safely in St. Denys and were welcomed kindly into their uncle’s home, only to fall into a still more curious fate. It is, in fact, one of the strangest occurrences of that strange time, in which those two children were full participants.

  “It is hard to imagine now just what it was that motivated the Crusades. Pilgrimage was an important part of Christian worship then, and to go to the sacred shrines of the East and to the Holy Sepulcher itself was, of course, the ultimate such journey.

  “Since the First Crusade of 1094, the Holy Land had gradually fallen again into the hands of the Infidel and Christian pilgrims, while still allowed access to the sacred sites, now returned home with reports that the shrines were being desecrated by the Musalman and that by virtue of being under their rule, these sacred places were in jeopardy.

  “We of this century, who hold nothing sacred but our bank accounts, are hard put to imagine the furor this caused and the fighting spirit it aroused. Wave after wave of English, French, and German armies embarked on the futile mission of reclaiming holy soil.

  “It was an age of faith, not reason. Yet, religion was at a low ebb and while men fought under the banner of the Cross, few knew the true teachings of that emblem. The instruction they received from the church of the time was a system of absurd superstitions, laced with the questionable deeds of the saints and ma
rtyrs.”

  The Count stopped to poke the fire and to add another log. Glancing to make sure Maria-Elena was still conscious, he smiled encouragingly and sank back within the wings of his chair. He cleared his throat briefly and began again to speak.

  §

  “Consider for example, if I may digress, the Feast of the Fools observed each year in all the cathedral cities of France. On that day, the priests and clerks met and elected from among themselves an archbishop and a bishop. They were arrayed in great pomp and taken by procession through the streets to the cathedral.

  “Once inside, these solemn men of the cloth began orgies of the most sacrilegious nature. They wore masks and dressed in the skins of animals or as women or buffoons, and then cavorted about, screaming blasphemies and singing obscene songs. They ate, drank, and played dice, using the altar as their table.

  “They vied with one another, exerting their ingenuity to devise desecrations of the place, such as burning their sandals for incense. They sometimes dressed a donkey as the pope. The debauch was not suitably ended until drunkenness, nakedness, and lewdness of all sorts had taken the day. This was the state of the church in those times—and great must have been the credulity of a people who would follow such leaders!

  §

  “The whole idea of the Crusades and the reconquest of Jerusalem was really a kind of collective myth and a mass delusion. And no event of that time was more deluded than the mass movement into which Godfrey and Blanche de Muret were about to be swept.

  “It seems that in that same spring of their flight to safety in 1212, a young shepherd named Stephen from the village of Cloyes, just west of Orleans, heard the call. That is, he claimed to have had a divine vision that he was to lead a great crusade to retake the Holy Land.

  “What was unique in this was that Stephen was only twelve years old, and the army he intended to lead was to be made up not of soldiers but of unarmed children, who would not conquer the Infidel by force but convert him through the strength and sweetness of their faith. He claimed as well to have met Jesus, face to face, while idling in the fields with his flocks. Jesus had brought him a letter proclaiming the validity of this mission, which Stephen was to show to the King.

  “No one knows for sure where it came from, but the child did have in his possession a well-written letter on fine parchment, to that effect. Since neither he nor anyone else of his acquaintance in the miserable hamlet of Cloyes could either read or write, his claim was taken, locally at least, for truth.

  “There are two interesting theories about how he came to be in possession of that letter and of the grandiose ideas to which it pertained. Neither, I might add, have to do with divine intervention!

  “One is that emissaries of the pope, seeking to stir up still another crusade to liberate the Levant—that being the prime foreign policy of Rome at the time—duped this simple shepherd into believing he had been divinely visited and provided him with a letter to prove it.

  “A second, even less plausible tale held that The Old Man of the Mountain, the mysterious Chief of the Assassins who lived in an impregnable castle in Syria, had sent two released Crusader hostages to France. The price of their liberty was to send an entire army of children to him for his use as slaves and future assassins.

  “Both of these explanations seem impossibly far-fetched. The fact remains, however, that this Stephen, a lad with no education and no background or training, became, following this supposed incident, a highly skilled orator.

  “He began locally, stirring up the children with his ideas. Then moving into a larger arena, he went to the great cathedral town of Chartres and preached there, challenging the children to go with him and to take, through saintliness, what adults had not been able to gain through force.

  “He passed from Chartres to Paris, stopping briefly to preach there, and then moved on to the greatest pilgrimage site of the time, St. Denys. There, as you may know, the martyr Dionysius, one of the seven founders of the Church in Gaul, was buried. In his behalf, since the time of Dagobert, all the kings and many of the royal family have been buried there. Additionally, this is the city where the sacred Oriflamme, the holy standard of the realm, was kept. All these attractions made it a much-visited pilgrimage spot.

  “In St. Denys, Stephen proclaimed his holy mission and was heard by pilgrims from many parts of the country, who returned home fired with his zeal. Minor prophets arose among children everywhere, who claimed also to have had visions and instructions regarding the crusade of the children. The news ran through the cities and villages of the country like a flash flood.

  “Suddenly, without warning, children were deserting their homes, collecting into bands, and heading off toward St. Denys. All attempts to stop them were futile. Today, I suppose, it would be called mass hysteria. Then, it could be explained only as a holy calling. Children who were detained from joining their fellows often fell ill and the only remedy was to allow them to go.

  “By early summer of 1212, thirty-thousand children had gathered under the banner of Stephen of Cloyes in the city of Vendôme. Finally, near the end of July, the army of unarmed Christian soldiers took to the road, moving southward. The amazing thing about this phenomenon was, the vast majority of these souls were under twelve years of age! And among them, as you already may have guessed, were Blanche and Godfrey de Muret.

  “I cannot say I am proud that members of my own family were involved in such mass delusion. I have puzzled over it all my life and can find no corresponding urge in myself that might help me to understand it. Perhaps it’s a little like those young women in America who tear their blouses open and scream like lunatics when they see that popular singer of theirs, Sinatra. I don’t know.

  “But, that they were in this train there can be no doubt. The children went striding out, singing songs, southward toward Marseilles. There, they had been informed by Stephen, the Mediterranean Sea would part and they all would walk to Palestine on the dry ocean floor. There was a terrible drought that summer, which was burning the crops and drying up the streams, and this he took as confirmation that God had already undertaken the great work of drying up the Sea so that the task would be complete by the time they arrived.

  The Count reached for a log and tossed it on the fire, saying, “That this sort of thing could happen is unimaginable to us, in this age, when we have all manner of protective agencies to both monitor and defend children. But it is a fact of history that these thirty thousand children walked the entire three hundred miles to Marseilles in the space of about a month, begging and foraging as they went.

  “The shepherd Stephen was now elevated to new estate and rode in a carriage decked in colored flags, surrounded by the minor prophets on horseback. The children of the nobility were mounted, as well, some with retainers to guard them and carry their belongings. But the vast majority, including my two forebears, were afoot.

  “It was sometime in August when their army, greatly thinned through discouragement, malnutrition, kidnap, and death, arrived in Marseilles, still singing songs, carrying their crosses high and waving their cross-embroidered banners. And still, according to contemporary accounts, at least twenty thousand strong.

  “The city of Marseilles was in amazement and granted the children only one night’s stay there, fearing they might riot or cause some other untoward civil disturbance. But this fitted perfectly with Stephen’s plans as, he explained, they needed but a night’s rest before the sea parted and they began their walk to Jerusalem.

  “And so they slept that night at their jumping-off point, in the streets, in monasteries, or in the private homes of friends, depending on their social status, and the money they could afford to spend. Blanche and Godfrey, we are told, spent that night in a church, though which one I do not know. Nor, I imagine, did they. These children had absolutely no understanding of the simplest geography. Many of them, in fact, while en route, would ask as each new town was approached, “Is this Jerusalem?”

  “In the morning, t
hese innocents assembled on the shore in the patient expectation that the sea was about to open before them. They waited the entire day and when their spirits flagged, they were exhorted to further faith by Stephen and the minor prophets, Dieu le vaut! God wills it!

  “As night fell and the sea still had not parted, a great disgruntlement befell the assembly. Many of the children, weary as they were from the long and arduous trek, left the company never to return. Many thousands, however, stayed on to return to the shore the next day. And the next. And the next.

  “It was into this atmosphere of patient faith and growing dissatisfaction that news of a miracle came, and the troops who remained revived. It seems that two good Christian men of Marseilles, wealthy merchants named Hugh Ferreus and William Porcus, had taken pity on these faithful children and announced that they were willing to supply passage for the entire army across the Mediterranean Sea to Palestine!

  “In their sympathy for the children and their interest in the defiled Sepulchre, they intended to ask no money of the passengers. This deed was, they said, causa Dei, absque pretio, for the cause of God, and without price.

  “As you can imagine, the rejoicing among the ranks was great and Stephen and his lieutenant prophets went about in triumph, proclaiming that this was the miracle that was intended all along and that God had indeed opened a way through the sea for them.

  “Being the stubborn stock that we are, Blanche and Godfrey were among this remaining throng, still holding out for the miracle. So within days they were put aboard a ship in preparation for embarkation.

  “Accounts from the time say that there were about seven hundred souls per ship and that ten ships in all set out for the Holy Land. There was great waving of banners and voices were raised so loudly in singing that they could be heard even after the ships had disappeared over the horizon.