The Albigensian Treasure by Maurice Magre

Author:Maurice Magre [Magre, Maurice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Coat Press
Published: 2018-08-25T00:00:00+00:00

THE MASQUES OF SAINT-ÉTIENNE

I advanced toward the Place Saint-Étienne, crushed by the weight of my good dead. None of those I had enabled to enter the walls of Toulouse wanted to quit me, and they were all marching behind me.

A large crowd was gathered in the Place Saint-Étienne, but there was a large empty space in the middle, in front of the cathedral. It was into that space that I emerged, pushed by those who were coming behind me, carried away by the confused hope of liberating myself by virtue of walking rapidly.

I was gripped by vertigo. To the right of the cathedral stood the sixty members of the Parlement, whom I scarcely recognized, so enormous and geometrical did their square bonnets seem. To the left, the King’s Seneschal was leaning solemnly on a cane with a gold pommel, with his counselors, his officers, his squires and the eight Capitouls with the strangely bright red sashes designating their rank. A little further away were grouped representatives of all the religious orders and the various monasteries, with their banners, their crosses, reliquaries, caskets containing the bones of saints. I recognized the Chapter of Saint Saturnin, at of La Daurade, the Blue Penitents, and an Order whose name I did not know, whose members bore silver Holy Spirits on their breasts and raised white sticks in their right hands. On all sides, I saw the glint of crosses, reliquaries and golden halberds. Twelve men in violet uniforms were raising enormous trumpets toward the heavens.

And not until I was in the center of the square did I become aware of my imprudence. Too late! An immense clamor resounded. And I saw with amazement the group of members of the Parlement break up, and the majority launch themselves toward me. The King’s Seneschal started a grotesque dance, which the Capitouls imitated. At the same time, the twelve trumpeters launched a resounding fanfare into the sky.

It was only then that I perceived the disproportion of the trumpets, the excessively dazzling character of the reliquaries, and distinguished the comical character of the silver Holy Spirits and death’s-heads on the breasts of the monks. I saw that the President of the Parlement had stilts under his rope in order to appear taller, that the Abbot of Saint Sernin was wearing a false nose that he agitated with a string, and that the Seneschal’s moustache wad made of stuffed snakeskin.

And I also saw in another part of the square, an Emperor Charlemagne with a beard so long that two pages were required to sustain it, and a Chevalier Roland brandishing a cardboard sword as large as him. Alongside him there were allegorical characters, gods of mythology, and the entire dynasty of the Kings of Spain, represented by the fraternity of Spanish students, whose provost I recognized, an ignorant old student celebrated in Toulouse. A few gods and a few kings were running in my direction.

But it was not me who had caused the agitation of the population of masques.

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