Galley-Man

By Dasck E. Defin

Galley- Man is the story of a love torn asunder by politics and religion in the 17th century France.

Ezékiel chained in the king's galleys and Isabeau imprisoned in Aigues Mortes because they were Huguenots, live their tragic separation.

This is the story of their courage and determination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Legend Press
• Release date: Jun 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781785077401

Book preview

ancestor.

Chapters

Prologue

1.  Ezekiel’s youth

2.  The beginning of the end

3.  Cadet Molle

4.  Decision. The Assemblées du Desert.

5.  At sea for the first time

6.  Winter

7.  Marseille

8.  If!

9.  The company of men

10.  La Tour de constance

11.  Vicious entertainment. Storm

12.  A day in Aigues-Mortes

13.  Slaves

14.  Rotten Apple

15.  The other side of the coin

16.  The Tower

17.  Too close to death

18.  One day…

19.  Despair!

20.  At last!

21.  The facts

22.  History

***

Characters

Armand Molle= Ezekiel’s father.

Ester Molle= Ezekiel’s mother.

Robert Molle= Ezekiel’s brother.

Cadet Molle= brother of Armand Molle.

Francois= A friend of Ezekiel.

Berthe= Maid.

Father Anselme= an Old Catholic priest from le Chambon.

Father Hippolyte= an Old Catholic priest from Tence.

Father Bertrand= a young catholic priest in le Chambon.

Fourette= a friend of Armand Molle.

Big Desaille= a thug from Tence.

Simon= works for Armand Molle.

Louis= a mad parishioner.

Perrot= a Catholic neighbour.

Astiere= a Protestant neighbour.

Gérard Molle= a catholic cousin.

Barrau= locksmith.

Famille Benoit= friends of Isabeau’s and her mother Isabeau.

Mme Saubeyre= Isabeau’s mother

Georges Bonnet= a friend of Ezekiel on the galley.

Chaplain Froment= a friend of Ezekiel.

Albert= steward on the galley.

***

Women in the Tower

Five Maries, thirteen women and a child.

1.    Marie Old= the oldest.

2.    Catherine Roux= silent and strong= dispenses medication.

3.    Jeanne= best friend.

4.    Gabrielle=riche, outspoken.

5.    Marguerite or Margot= a child=9 years old.

6.    Suzanne Bleue= nasty, cunning and dangerous.

7.    Madeleine= the victim, quiet and sad.

8.    Marie Sad= tragic background= mad.

9.    Marie Aux Grands Pieds= extra pious.

10.  Marie Sourire= the idealist and peace maker.

11.  Anne Blanche= the writer.

12.  Francoise= the best knitter.

13.  Isabeau= the baker.

14.  Anne du Puy = petite, quiet, friendly, learns to lace.

15.  Marie New= the new prisoner.

16.  Suzanne Jolie= the lace maker.

17.  Anne Bonjour= the cook.

***

Dates

1483-1546= Luther.

1509-1564 = Calvin.

1519- 1589 = Catherine de Medici.

1550= First named Huguenots in Geneva.

1572= Massacre of St Bartholomew.

1598= Edit de Nantes.

1667= Birth of Ezekiel.

1684= Death of Cadet Molle.

1685= Repeal of Edit de Nantes.

1685 = August -Arrest of Ezekiel; he is 18.

1638-1715 = Louis XIV, le Roi Soleil.

1635- 1719= Mme de Maintenon.

1738= the last women are released from the Tour de Constance.

***

Prologue

St Bartholomew Massacre

A sound marks the beginning of the massacre, a splash…

Fifteen bodies are thrown into the Seine. In the early morning the carts carrying the bloody corpses rattle on the cobblestones near the Royal Palace of the Louvres-Tuileries in Paris.

The festivities for the royal wedding of the previous days are over; as usual the coming and going around the gates are closely watched by the people of Paris as there is always something to glean from the left-over and the carts going out on this fresh morning are observed and their content noted.

It is August 1572; the Queen Catherine de Medici has given one last sumptuous feast for the wedding of her Catholic daughter Margot to Protestant Henri.

The wedding is a political triumph for Catherine: a marriage between the two faiths in a country where the warring parties have been uneasy or in open conflict about each others for a long time.

The lavish festivities have gone well and are finally over; the Protestant leaders invited for the wedding are preparing to leave and the alliance of Margot and Henri to reconcile old enemies is well established.

The queen rests peacefully.

She does not know that in the night Coligny: her first Minister who was staying at the Palace has been murdered with fourteen other Protestants from all over France.

In the dawn on the 24th the splashes of the corpses and the noises made by the killers are heard in the clear air. The butchery is discovered and marks the beginning of what becomes known as the St Bartholomew Massacre. The body of Protestant Coligny is recognised and soon the realisation that the other murdered men are the most important Protestant leaders of France starts a frenzy of killing.

These fifteen assassinations are momentous because they are the trigger for the Massacre to follow. It is a time of resentment and fear of the new faith brought to France by Calvin in the 1530ies; the country is divided. The animosity between the Catholics and the Protestants has been bubbling continuously for many years; in that August the situation is a powder keg ready to explode.

The Palace in being guilty of these crimes and in callously discarding the bodies in full view has officially given the population of Paris the unwritten authorization of killing Protestants. It does not take long for the populace to realise that the macabre permission let them, in some cases, take care of personal grudges and the Protestants are easy targets. It is now officially acceptable to dispose of these unwanted miscreants. The people of Paris show the way to the rest of the population.

The Massacre on the day of St Bartholomew starts around the Tuileries then spreads to the adjacent streets in a rage of slaughter. Victims still in bed and unarmed are dragged into the streets and killed. Bodies are thrown in the streets from high windows; the river is red with blood. The killings last five days in Paris.

The hysteria takes hold of the population and envelopes the whole of France. The Massacre spreads to the provinces.

When it finally stops thousands of Protestants have died. Margot’s husband: Protestant Henri de Navarre escapes the slaughter by momentarily renouncing his faith.

The killings in the Palace and the indiscreet throwing of the bodies in plain sight of the town were advert to the crimes and the seal of its approval. Catherine de Medici probably knew nothing before the beginning of the day as her policy of balance between the powerful catholic faction and the protestant minority had been completed by her appointment of Protestant Coligny as her prime Minister and by marrying her catholic daughter to a Protestant king.

The massacre is a popular surge of anger and hysteria: Catholics against Protestants; neighbours and friends against neighbours and friends. There has been no plan; it is just an eruption of pent-up revulsion which makes the inhabitants of Paris kill and kill, an action repeated in the rest of the country.

Five thousand to thirty thousands dead are the estimate: an approximation difficult to make precise now but if the latest number is correct it means that in a country of four to five million people as much as 15% of the population was killed!

In comparison with today’s population in the UK, roughly estimated at 70 million, the number of killed would be ten and a half million.

The land is in shock.

The Edict of Nantes.

It takes twenty-six years after the Massacre of St Bartholomew for the Edict of Nantes to become law. In 1598 Henri IV (Henri de Navarre), in a sort of atonement, establishes this act of redress.

Inherently the Edict de Nantes tries to lessen the animosity between Protestants and Catholics. For the first time it gives an official right of existence to the Protestants. This act of tolerance allows the Protestants freedom of worship, the right to hold professional positions and to own properties.

In a resolutely catholic France the Edict of Nantes is controversial from the beginning: the Catholics are furious that so much has been granted to the Protestants and the Protestants do not understand why they haven’t exactly the same rights as the Catholics.

Henri IV is a wise and popular king and the country flourishes but he is assassinated in 1610 and from then on the tension between the two sides grows till the hostility between the two religions erupt in the war of the Camisards in 1700 to 1703-04 .

The animosity against the Protestants has increased to such an extent that violent insurrections and daily confrontations are happening continuously. Soldiers, whose number has doubled, are the instrument of the very Catholic king. A second wave of religious violence plagues the 17th century of France.

By the end of 1683 the disturbances are brutal; the Protestants churches are destroyed or closed, the worship forbidden and the Ministers hunted down. The Huguenots are in dire peril; some are hiding and many have left. The situation is unbearable.

France is a catholic country but many had adhered to the Calvin creed. They retreated to the Cevennes, a place of refuge as the laws given them freedom were slowly eradicated.

The Molle family is a Huguenot family. The word Huguenot comes from Protestant Geneva where the companions of Hugues or Hugues Genossen" take the name of Huguenots. Hugues was the leader of a band of rebellious Christians who contested the catholic authority in 1550. The word Huguenot comes to mean Protestant from France.

Chapter 1

Ezekiel’s youth

By the time Ezekiel is born the Edict d of Nantes is nullified; the pendulum of history has swung back to a time of turmoil. The country is deeply divided again.

The unrest has yet not reached the two villages: Le Chambon Sur Lignon and Tence when Esther is expecting another baby. The boy named Ezekiel, a name seen as a good omen in periods of disorder since Hezekiah or Ezekiel, a king of long ago, had been granted extended life, had been requested by a beloved uncle and endorsed with eagerness.

Esther has little time and secretly less inclination to play with the new baby; he will be of more interest to her when he is old enough to talk. Practical and not given to strong passions she enjoys seeing him spend time with his two sisters, aged six and eight who are delighted to have a living doll to play with. Berthe takes care of feeding and cleaning the baby so the three children are often together. When Robert is announced, two years later, Esther is better able to cope.

Ezekiel is lucky and he thrives; his father’s mill is prosperous and though Ezekiel is a demanding baby and sleeps in short bunches of minutes which leave everybody exhausted the endless splashing of water on the paddles keeps him quiet. The turning stones inside the mill, where he watches the grains of wheat jumping in the air, send him to sleep.

No taller than the top of the table he is, on his own, an army of little sprites come to conquer the house. Impatient, restless, curious he does not leave anything unturned: he collects the eggs and out of a dozen brings three back to the kitchen; he gathers the pegs on the line and sends the washing over the garden; all are thankful that he did not break his neck. He dances through the days but one morning he scrubs out the markings on the slate which tallied the amount of grain and flour passing through the farmers’ hands; the records for the month have vanished!

Nothing is said; Ezekiel’s deep blue eyes full of apprehension are too beguiling but having seen the anxiety in his father’s eyes Ezekiel never does it again. Esther concentrates on the reading and writing lessons she gives the household; like his siblings Ezekiel will have to read the bible as any good Huguenot must do.

There are worrying problems with the increasing hostility outside the circle of the near-by villages. The joyous evenings, with stories around the fire while the men whittle sticks and the women spin, are now filled with horrifying tales of besieged Protestants.

Ezekiel is too young to be troubled; his father, Armand Molle, strict but fair, is known for his non-violence and so far the mill and its inhabitants have not been attacked.

It does not stop Ezekiel from fighting.

I will put arnica on these bruises. You will not be able to open your eye for several days. Let’s wash this blood first. Ezekiel is silent when his mother cleans him up and makes him drink the mixture of willow-bark that she has always ready. Exceptionally Ezekiel goes to bed without eating: a sign that he is not feeling well. He is used to getting these beatings when he attacks the big boys in the village but this time they did a good job on him. The punches will make no difference; Ezekiel will go after the bullies whatever their size.

At eleven he looks fourteen, a strapping boy with the strength of a man. Difficult to ignore he is an attractive youth. His size startles; everything about him is over the top: his laugh, his smile, his temper, the colour of his eyes, everything is exaggerated in a way that distorts the natural. He is in the auspicious situation of being the son of the miller: he can eat as much as he wants and he is always hungry. He attracts the girls with his brown curls in disarray around his ears, the dark eyebrows framing the outstanding blue eyes shocking in their intense light, turquoise on sunny days deep and dark in stormy mornings.

He lives outside tanned by the sun and wind; he runs in the forest or swims in the stream. The river in front of the house, fast water which gives the family their livelihood, threatens with its shocking floods. Ezekiel is awed by this fearsome water needing to be watched: a god of nature at the bottom of the garden. He has heard of people dying trying to cross the torrent. It does not stop him from jumping in the water at every occasion.

The mill is busy; the paths around the mill are filled with farmers, donkeys and carts full of flour or grain. Neighbours and friends join in to bring dough or collect bread from Esther’s ovens: the best for leagues around. She is liked and well known. The Molle mill is the place to meet and chat and Ezekiel knows everybody.

Later in the evenings the voices have gone and the silence is hushed but never total, the wind in the pines and the constant clattering of the paddles are steady songs.

The water-mill is doing well but one morning a loud stillness wakes them up. The rush for clothes takes seconds and the men inspect the damage. The storm has moved away abandoning sticks and branches on the ground and the huge wheel is smashed in places. Inside the sturdy mill the important trunk in the middle, too large to be circled by a man’s arms, has supported the axle and nothing is broken. With a sigh of relief the men start the repairs immediately.

A great adventure for Ezekiel who climbs on the slimy structure and thumps the hammer with enthusiasm; he sings at the top of his voice.

Stop it! shouts his father with a smile in his voice; We can’t hear ourselves think! and his mother: You are high, don’t swing your legs or you will fall.

"Legs you will fall! Simon repeats. Rescued by Esther Simon aged six, abandoned and half-starved now helps at the mill. He never says a word of his own but repeats the last words he hears or nods his head.

Ezekiel laughs and banters in the sunshine as if this life would last for ever while the men working are busy and fast; their livelihood depends on the golden grains and the turning wheels. They have enough problems with the rising unrest in the country and shrug their shoulders: they have no time to be bothered with Ezekiel’s antics.

It is 1679 on the Plateau in the Cevennes and France is on the brink of a religious war but in the sunny meadows around the mill the problems are still far away.

Soon the stones grind the grain among the dust floating lazily in the small room and Ezekiel carries the heavy bags of grain across the river jumping from boulder to boulder with his toes grasping the slippery stones without hesitation. Being naturally lazy he finds the quickest way across. The danger of the river attracts him; he challenges himself to more daring leaps and longer swims. Like a healthy puppy he grows and adds a few inches and more muscles to his young body extending his physical limits everyday with his coordinated and precise movements but he is an athlete without a cause.

The Molles are known for their probity and generosity. Many customers walk longer miles to bring their grain to the mill in the knowledge that they will be dealt with honestly.

Problems can be solved without violence; there is always a peaceful solution, Armand Molle constantly repeats; the phrase becomes a family motto; patient and determined he lives with his beliefs and manages to diffuse most violent situations. Ezekiel is in awe of his father and full of admiration. Built like a pugilist, like most Molle men, those who think Armand weak are hesitant to tackle him. The Molles are popular. The sturdy mill with its massive walls of blue granite always full of dust has been built to last.

Ezekiel is growing up. His spectacular rages have abated when with darkened eyes and tight mouth he exploded with indignation. Injustices are his problems but like everybody he learns to deal with them. The wilder world outside does not intrude in his self-centred life.

He thinks when he hears about the trouble:

This upset in the region, this nastiness is not going to last. People are not so silly. Anyway Father Anselme is here. He will cope with it.

Ezekiel persuades himself that the problems are small and have nothing to do with him; anyway they are for the adults to deal with.

He escapes.

He runs.

He runs in the forest, an arrow of energy on its way to a target, he runs. To be alone in the woods and hear the wind like the whisper of a friend; to remember the paths and to see the sun …to run is exhilarating. Life is exciting, running is to live.

He runs. In the long days of summer he runs with the easy rhythm of the coureurs des bois and when he stops he hears the scuttling of animals and the songs of unwary birds. He pauses often to notice the trees and the sky; he knows all the clearings, the fallen trees, the places where to cross the river; he knows the squirrels’ nests, where the heron has settled in the tall tree and where the badger has dug his tunnels. The fruits of the forest are his rewards; the many offerings confirm his sense of belonging and possession; the forest is his companion, it feeds him and is the source of his interest and pleasure; he runs.

He fills his haversack and seldom comes back home empty-handed.

One day in spring he dances across a field of daffodils after a storm and the yellow and green flowers glistening with silver drops are so perfect that he bursts out laughing. He sees the path he has made through the field, a sign of his passing, a marking of his kingdom and he sighs with satisfaction. He is the wind in the tall pines, the beetle scouting under his feet, the jay shouting his warning in the thicket; he is the forest. His arms around a tree-trunk, the rough bark on his hand and the warm resin on his cheek, the flight of a bird, the sound of water… the touch, smell, sight and sound of the forests surround him. He hums and twirls in an ecstasy of belonging and enjoyment.

Father, did you know that the big tree near Salette has fallen on top of the shepherd hut? And the old farm of Enoch Debras is empty. No animals are left there.

He roams the country and inspects damage of frost and wind and visits isolated farms. He likes people. He looks for means to use his great strength and lift a cart or push a tree out of the way.

He brings stories back home to amuse the household.

Don’t thump your bag on my table when I am making bread! warms Berthe with a smile. His bag full of blueberries, raspberries or mushrooms in the autumn and always the brown trout from the river are expectations always fulfilled. In the large kitchen a large piece of bread and a chunk of cheese are his reward.

***

The light is subdued but persistent as if trying to do its best. Armand stands by the door; the light of autumn always affects him; the satisfaction of the finished harvest, the yearning for rest of men and soil are written in the air and the soft wind The turning colours in the trees, the passing clouds, the flight of cranes high in the sky and hardly visible, leave no doubt to the coming of winter.

He sniffs