contained in false documents.'
'And what if even those are not available?'
'At that point, and this is the second assumption, it remains only to make suppositions, as I told you at the outset, and then to verify whether one's reasoning holds.'
'If so, one must reason thus in order to understand the secretum pestis.'
'Not yet,' replied Melani. 'First, one must understand the role of each of the actors, and above all the comedy which they are interpreting. And I believe that I have found it.'
I looked at him in silence, with an expression which betrayed my impatience.
'It is a conspiracy against His Most Christian Majesty,' exclaimed Atto solemnly.
'And who would be behind such a plot?'
'Why, that is clear: his wife, the Queen.'
Seeing my incredulity, Atto was obliged to refresh my memory. Louis XIV had imprisoned Fouquet in order to extort from him the secret of the plague. Around Fouquet, however, moved personages who, like the Superintendent, had been humiliated or ruined by the Sovereign. First among these was Lauzun, imprisoned at Pinerol together with Fouquet and used as a spy; then, there was Mademoiselle, His Majesty's wealthy cousin, whom the King had forbidden to marry Lauzun. Moreover, Devize, who had accompanied Fouquet to the Donzello, was faithful to Queen Maria Teresa, who had suffered all manner
of infidelities, vexations and overbearing behaviour on the part of Louis XIV
'But all this is no sufficient basis for holding that all of them plotted against the Most Christian King,' said I, interrupting him to voice my doubts.
'That is true, but I ask you to consider: the King wants the secret of the pestilence. Fouquet refuses to give it to him, probably affirming that he knows nothing of it. When the letter full of Kircher's ravings which we have found on Dulcibeni comes into Colbert's possession, Fouquet can no longer deny all knowledge, on pain of his own life and that of his family. In the end, he reaches an agreement with the King and leaves Pinerol in exchange for the secretum pestis. Thus far, are we in agreement?'
'Yes. Agreed.'
'Well, at this point, the King has triumphed. Do you suppose that, after twenty years of rigorous imprisonment and reduced to indigence, Fouquet will be content?'
'No.'
'Would it have been human for him to gain some small satisfaction at the King's expense, before disappearing?'
'Why, yes.'
'Exactly. Now, imagine: your immensely powerful enemy extorts from you the secret of the pestilence. He wants it at all costs, because he yearns to become even more powerful. However, he does not realise that you are also in possession of the secret of the antidote, the secretum vitae. If you cannot use that yourself, what will you do?'
'I could give it to someone… to a foe of my own enemy.'
'Very good. And Fouquet had any number of such persons at his disposal, all ready to take their revenge on the Sun King: beginning with Lauzun.'
'But why, in your opinion, did Louis XIV not realise that Fouquet also possessed the antidote to the pestilence?'
'This is my theory. As you will recall, in Kircher's letter, I also read secretum vitae arcanae obices celant or, in other words, the secret of life is concealed in mysterious obstacles, while the secret of the transmission of the pestilence is not. Well, I maintain that Fouquet was unable to deny that he knew the secretum morbi but succeeded in keeping to himself the secret of the antidote, adducing as a pretext-thanks to that phrase-that Kircher had hidden it from him too. This must have been quite easy for the Superintendent, seeing that the King's main interest was, if I know him well, how to spread the plague, not how to combat it.'
'That does all seem rather complicated.'
'But, it works. Now, consider this: with the secret of the pestilence in his hands, for whom might Louis XIV have been able to cause a few headaches?'
'Well, above all for the Empire,' said I, thinking of what Brenozzi had told me.
'Very good. And perhaps for Spain too, with whom France has been at war for centuries. Is that not correct?'
'That is possible,' I admitted, without understanding what Atto was getting at.
'But the Empire is in the hands of the Habsburgs, and Spain too. To what royal house does Queen Maria Teresa belong?'
'To the Habsburgs!'
'There we are: if we are to impose some order on the facts, we must therefore assume that Maria Teresa received, and used, the secretum vitae against Louis XIV Fouquet may have given the secretum vitae to Lauzun, who will have passed it on to his beloved Mademoiselle, and she to the Queen.'
'A queen, acting in the shadows against the King her husband,' I reflected aloud, 'why, that is unheard of.'
'There too, you are mistaken,' said Atto, 'for there is a precedent.'
In 1637, said the abbot, a year before the birth of Louis XIV the secret services of the French Crown intercepted a letter from the Spanish ambassador in Brussels. The letter was addressed to Queen Anne of Austria, sister of King Philip IV of Spain and consort of King Louis XIII, in other words, the mother of the Sun King. From the missive, it was clear that Anne of Austria was in secret correspondence with her former country; and that, at a time when France and Spain were in open conflict. The King and Cardinal Richelieu ordered thorough but discreet inquiries. Thus, it was discovered that the Queen visited a certain convent in Paris rather too frequently: officially, to pray; but in reality, to exchange letters with Madrid and with the Spanish ambassadors in England and Flanders.
Anne denied that she had been engaged in espionage. She was then summoned for a private interview with Richelieu: the Queen risked imprisonment, the Cardinal warned icily, but a simple confession would save her. Louis XIII would pardon her only in exchange for a complete account of the news which she had learned in her secret correspondence with the Spaniards. The letters of Anne of Austria did not, indeed, relate solely to the usual complaints about the life of the court of Paris (where Anne was rather unhappy, as Maria Teresa was also to be). The Queen of France was exchanging precious political information with the Spaniards, perhaps in the belief that this could bring about an early end to the war. It was, however, against the interests of her kingdom. Anne confessed in full.
'In 1659, during the negotiations which led up to the Peace of the Pyrenees on the Isle of Pheasants,' continued Atto, 'Anne at last met her brother, King Philip IV of Spain, again. They had not seen each other for forty- five years. They had separated painfully when she, as a young princess barely sixteen years of age, had left for France forever. Anne tenderly embraced and kissed her brother. Philip, however, drew away from his sister's lips, looking her in the eyes. She said: 'Will you pardon me for having been such a good Frenchwoman?' 'You have my esteem,' said he. Ever since Anne had ceased to spy on his account, her brother had ceased to love her.'
'But she was Queen of France, she could not…'
'I know, I know,' said Atto sharply. 'I told you that old story only to help you understand what the Habsburgs are like. Even when they marry a foreign king, they remain Habsburgs.'
'The blackwater is walloping!'
We had been interrupted by Ugonio, who was showing signs of nervousness. After a relatively calm stretch, the little river had become more impetuous. The corpisantaro was using his oars with more vigour, trying in fact to slow us down. Rowing against the current, he had just decapitated one oar against the hard bed of the watercourse.
An awkward moment then arose: a little further on, the river divided into two branches, one twice as wide as the other. The noise and the speed of the waters were distinctly greater.
'Right or left?' I asked the corpisantaro.
'Decreasing the scrupules so as not to increase one's scruples, and to obtain more benefice than malefice, I ignorify comprehension and navigate fittingly,' said Ugonio, while Atto protested.
'Stay on the wider stream, do not branch off,' said the abbot. 'The other branch may lead nowhere.'
