En medio de luchas internas por el poder, los Cuarenta y Cinco, The forty-five guards, que realmente
existieron, brindaron seguridad al rey Enrique
III y fueron inmortalizados por la pluma del escritor francés Alejandro Dumas. Así comienza la
historia en inglés que pueden leer en castellano, como el libro que está en mis
manos, Los Cuarenta y Cinco, edición
de 1944, comprado en una librería de
la calle España, en Salta, que ya no
existe, y que no llegué a conocer. Según la historia Enrique III empleó a “los Cuarenta
y Cinco para matar a Enrique I”.
Ellos eran de “la nobleza menor (muchos de ellos de Gascuña), con poco más que
un caballo, una espada y unos pocos acres de tierra”.
Aparte de leer una buena historia aprendimos nuevo vocabulario: hillock
Pildoritas
Los
Cuarenta y Cinco guardias fueron reclutados por el duque de Épernon, Jean Louis de
Nogaret de La Valette, para proporcionar a Enrique III de Francia una protección confiable en medio de la Guerra de los Tres Enrique (entre Enrique III de Francia, Enrique de Navarra, y Enrique de Lorraine).
Los
Cuarenta y Cinco pertenecían a la nobleza menor
(muchos de ellos de Gascuña), con
poco más que un caballo, una espada y unos pocos acres de tierra
para vivir. Al servicio del rey, se les pagaba un salario elevado. A cambio, 15
de ellos debían estar de servicio, de día o de noche, listos para la llamada
del rey.
Después de la revuelta de la Liga Católica en París,
el rey Enrique III se vio obligado a
huir a Blois. Allí, organizó un golpe
de estado, recuperando el control de los Estados
Generales al emplear a los Cuarenta y Cinco para matar a Enrique I, duque de Guise, cuando se reunió con el rey en el Château de Blois el 23 de diciembre de
1588 y con su hermano, Luis II, cardenal de Guise, al día siguiente.
Después
de que el rey fue asesinado por Jacques Clément, la corona de Francia pasó a
Enrique IV de Navarra. Los Cuarenta y Cinco también pasaron a él y le sirvieron fielmente
hasta su muerte, que también fue por asesinato, irónicamente en una
conspiración en la que Épernon parece
haber estado involucrado.
Las hazañas de Enrique
III y los Cuarenta y Cinco son el tema de Los Cuarenta y Cinco de Alejandro
Dumas.
 |
| Alejandro Dumas |
The Forty-Five Guardsmen
On the 26th of October, 1585, the barriers of the Porte St. Antoine
were, contrary to custom, still closed at half-past ten in the morning. A
quarter of an hour after, a guard of twenty Swiss, the favorite troops of Henri
III., then king, passed through these barriers, which were again closed behind
them. Once through, they arranged themselves along the hedges, which, outside
the barrier, bordered each side of the road.
There was a great crowd collected there, for numbers of peasants and
other people had been stopped at the gates on their way into Paris. They were
arriving by three different roads—from Montreuil, from Vincennes, and from St.
Maur; and the crowd was growing more dense every moment. Monks from the convent
in the neighborhood, women seated on pack-saddles, and peasants in their carts,
and all, by their questions more or less pressing, formed a continual murmur,
while some voices were raised above the others in shriller tones of anger or
complaint.
There were, besides this mass of arrivals, some groups who seemed to
have come from the city. These, instead of looking at the gate, fastened their
gaze on the horizon, bounded by the Convent of the Jacobins, the Priory of
Vincennes, and the Croix Faubin, as though they were expecting to see someone
arrive. These groups consisted chiefly of bourgeois, warmly wrapped up, for the
weather was cold, and the piercing northeast wind seemed trying to tear from
the trees all the few remaining leaves which clung sadly to them.
Three of these bourgeois were talking together—that is to say, two talked
and one listened, or rather seemed to listen, so occupied was he in looking
toward Vincennes. Let us turn our attention to this last. He was a man, who
must be tall when he stood upright, but at this moment his long legs were bent
under him, and his arms, not less long in proportion, were crossed over his
breast. He was leaning against the hedge, which almost hid his face, before
which he also held up his hand as if for further concealment. By his side a
little man, mounted on a hillock,
was talking to another tall man who was constantly slipping off the summit of
the same hillock, and at each slip catching at the button of his neighbor's
doublet.
"Yes, Maitre Miton," said the little man to the tall one,
"yes, I tell you that there will be 100,000 people around the scaffold of
Salcede—100,000 at least. See, without counting those already on the Place de
Greve, or who came there from different parts of Paris, the number of people
here; and this is but one gate out of sixteen."
"One hundred thousand! that is much, Friard," replied M.
Miton. "Be sure many people will follow my example, and not go to see this
unlucky man quartered, for fear of an uproar."
"M. Miton, there will be none, I answer for it. Do you not think
so, monsieur?" continued he, turning to the long-armed
man.—"What?" said the other, as though he had not heard.
"They say there will be nothing on the Place de Greve to-day."
"I think you are wrong, and that there will be the execution of
Salcede."
"Yes, doubtless: but I mean that there will be no noise about
it."
"There will be the noise of the blows of the whip, which they will
give to the horses."
"You do not understand: by noise I mean tumult. If there were
likely to be any, the king would not have had a stand prepared for him and the
two queens at the Hotel de Ville."
"Do kings ever know when a tumult will take place?" replied
the other, shrugging his shoulders with an air of pity.
"Oh, oh!" said M. Miton; "this man talks in a singular
way. Do you know who he is, compere?"… (The
Forty-Five Guardsmen, The Porte St. Antoine, chapter 1, Alexander Dumas)
Vocabulario
Hillock: montículo. (mound, barrow, monticule.)
Para
saber
Los Valois pertenecieron a la casa real de Francia entre 1328 y 1589, por lo que
varios de los romances de Dumas
tienen lugar en ese reino. Los llamados “romances Valois” son los tres que retratan
el reino de Margarita, la
última de los Valois:
La reina Margot (1845)
La dama de Monsoreau (1846)
Los Cuarenta y
Cinco (1847)
Artículos
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limitaciones psicológicas del europeo que hacen tan difícil la paz en Europa?...
Amor e
Ironía, de Lin Yutang
En septiembre de
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"imágenes obscenas y lascivas"… National Police Gazette
Fuentes
The
forty-five guards, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The forty-five
guardsmen, Gutenberg
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