Judith Rock: The Rhetoric of Death

“Nevertheless, I am here to give you notice, monsieur, that if the dragonnades continue, I will force all that on the king. The next dragonnade is planned for Metz, I understand.”

Louvois’s eyes bulged. “You are insane. You are a rogue Jesuit. Do you expect me to believe that Jesuit policy toward heretics has changed?”

“I expect you to believe that I will do what I have said.”

Louvois surged to his feet and bellowed for his servants. Charles ran. Halfway down the stairs, he straight-armed a man over the banister and into the path of more men coming behind him. Charles gained the front door, covered the courtyard in a few long strides, and was through the gate, just opened for a carriage coming in. He took a twisting path away from the rue de Richelieu and when he passed the open door of a tiny church, he ducked inside.

Hidden in a corner’s shadows, he gasped for breath, sweating with fear and holding on to the wall because his legs threatened to collapse under him. What in God’s name had he just done? Had he truly gone insane? A priest came out of the sacristy and started toward him, and Charles went back outside, wary and watchful, but no one paid him any attention. He walked toward the river, gulping rain-washed air, still asking himself what he’d done. As he crossed the Petit Pont, the utterly simple answer came: He had done what he could.

He had also guaranteed that he would be looking over his shoulder for as long as he lived. As long as Louvois lived, anyway. Rogue Jesuit, Louvois had called Charles. In a way, he supposed he was. Yesterday he had helped Louis le Grand to a public triumph. But this morning he had kissed his lover good-bye. Just now, he had struck a blow against what many Jesuits applauded. And before any of that, he’d already had penance coming. For the lies that had bought him time to solve the murders, for acting as La Reynie’s spy, for breaking his vow of chastity. But not for loving. Never for loving. If that made him a rogue, then rogue he was.

Dodging the rivulets of mud sliding down the rue St. Jacques, he climbed toward the college. When he reached it, he stopped in the street and looked up at the words carved over the double doors. Collegium Magni Ludo. The College of Louis the Great, the king’s college. But not only the king’s. It was also Le Picart’s, Jouvancy’s, Dainville’s, Fabre’s, God’s…

“God’s thorn bonnet, mon pere!” A cart driver pulled his horse nearly onto its haunches to keep from hitting Charles. “Are you going in or out? Make up your mind!”

“In,” Charles said. “I’m going in.”

The last dragonnade in France took place in August 1686 in Metz.

In 1688, when the Catholic King James II fled England, rumors that French dragoons were poised to invade and dragonnade the Anglicans helped to bring about his fall. The English throne went to his Protestant daughter Mary and her husband, William of Orange.

Marie, Duchesse of Guise, died without heirs in 1688. In 1700, the Hotel de Guise passed to the Prince of Soubise, in token of Louis XIV’s gratitude for the illicit favors of the Prince’s wife.

According to St. Simone, orders for the Minister of War Francois Michel Le Tellier de Louvois’s arrest and permanent imprisonment in the Bastille were issued on July 16, 1691. On that day, before he could be arrested, Louvois died suddenly at court, of apoplexy.