In March 1705, he was precisely two years shy of death. He knew the end was not far off. A privileged few had gone before me, and I would be the final student. The only way I can put it is sometimes, a few times, I felt like the piece of parchment upon which the castaway writes his last message before inserting it into the bottle.
Naturally, I did not see Vauban each and every day. He was often away traveling, in Paris or elsewhere. Let’s say he concerned himself with my progress as he did the majority of his fortification works: in the capacity of supervisor general.
They allocated me a room in a tower at the top of a winding staircase. It was small but light, neat and tidy, and smelled of lavender. The next day I breakfasted in a corner of the kitchens, which were larger than my whole house in Barcelona. I ate alone, the servants all busy with other tasks. I expected I’d see Jeanne afterward — or at least I hoped to. Instead of her, a venerable old man appeared, beaming and delicate-looking.
“So, you’re the new pupil?”
He introduced himself as Armand Ducroix. “Have you managed to get your bearings at Bazoches?” he asked before answering his own question. “No, of course not, if he only arrived yesterday. All in good time, hmm, yes.”
I was yet to learn that this was Armand’s habitual way of speaking. He thought out loud, as if he believed it the most normal thing in the world that his thoughts should flow freely, without hiding in silences and conventions.
“Good lad,” he went on, “spirited-looking, built like a greyhound. Yes, he could go far, who knows? But let’s not fool ourselves. All is in the hands of le Mystère. That sharp nose indicates liveliness of spirit, hmm, yes, and those shoulders look made to bear great burdens. Now to see about fortifying his muscles and his spirit.”
He took me to the library. Seeing the rows and rows of shelves overflowing with books, I was astonished.
“Wow!” I exclaimed. “But if each one has fifty books and more? Can any one person possibly have read so much?”
Laughing, Armand pulled up a chair. “Dear cadet,” he said. “You will have to read far more before you become a Maganon.”
“A Maganon?”
“That was what the ancient Greeks called their military engineers.”
As Armand bowed his head to write, I was afforded a view of his cranium, bare and magnificent, in all its glory. A curiously spherical head. With most bald people, their cranium is freckled or has blue or pinkish veins on it, or ridges adorning it, like on a nut. Not Armand. His skin, a healthy pinkish color, was tight as a drum. What hair he still had formed a white halo around the base of his skull, like a crown of laurels that then joined in a beard tapering down to a goatee. Everything about him was slight, concentrated, and compact. The apparent fragility of his bones in reality hid the vivaciousness of a squirrel. His thinness was not a reflection of old age consuming him but a rare vital tension. I never once saw him in bad humor, and he never needed an excuse to laugh. Yet with all that, this bonhomie never obscured his gray eyes, his wolf eyes, constantly watching you. Even out of the back of his head.
He had sat down to write a note. Finishing it, he bade me come closer. “This will be your program of study,” he announced. “Read it back to me, if you would.”
I no longer have this note — nor do I need it. I remember it down to the last letter:
6: 30–7: Wash. Chapel. Breakfast.
7–8: Drafting.
8– 9: Mathematics. Geometry. Lemon juice.
9–10: Spherical Room.
10–12: Metrics of Fortifications. Topography.
12–12:30: Lunch. Lemon juice.
12:30–14: Fieldwork.
14–15: Obey and Command. Tactics and Strategy.
15–16: History. Physics.
16–17: Surveying. Ballistics. Lemon juice.
17–19: Mineralogy. Fieldwork.
19:00: Dinner.
19:30–21: Architecture.
21–23: Fieldwork. Chapel.
This was my study schedule, although in reality I was never required to pray, and I never set foot in chapel.
“Sundays you’ll have for yourself,” Armand said with that perpetual smile of his. “Are you in agreement with the general plan?”
Was I really in a position to refuse?
“Perfect, then,” he said, pleased. “We’ll make a start. Go next door, if you would, and bring me La nouvelle fortification by Nicolaus Goldmann. And De Secretis Secretorum by Walter de Milemete.”
The library continued in an adjoining room. I could not believe that anyone could be so eccentric as to store such quantities of printed paper. I entered through a doorless recess — and there was Armand once more! At the top of a stairwell, organizing books, with his splendid bald pate and white goatee. The same black breeches, the same white shirt. He looked over at me. Those same gray wolf eyes, and that same kind but shrewd smile. “Can I help you with anything, young man?”
“You. . you yourself know very well,” I said, dumbfounded. “I’m looking for La nouvelle fortification by Nicolaus Goldmann and De Secretis Secretorum by Walter de Milemete.”
Descending the stairs, he handed me the books.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“Using the index. This library is governed by a principle known as ‘order.’ ”
I was utterly baffled. I retraced my steps, coming back through into the larger room, the books under my arm. And I found Armand sitting at his desk!
The mystery was solved only when my librarian came in and joined us. They were identical twins, as difficult to tell apart as crabs. Even the wrinkles on their cheeks were the same. They began to laugh. Later on I found that confusing the servants at Bazoches was a pastime they greatly enjoyed. They found the range of jokes permitted by that particular corporeal fusion endlessly amusing.
“But you’re so alike!” I exclaimed, a little disturbed.
“I can assure you that it won’t be long before you can tell us apart.”
At that moment the only difference I could see was that one was called Armand and the other Zeno — or vice versa, so impossible did I find it to distinguish them. The first made me sit at a table. He placed Goldmann and Milemete in front of me and, now deeply serious, gave me an order: “Read. And if you understand any of it, let me know.”
A strange directive. They left me to read uninterrupted for a while. I did so with the best will. Milemete was my chosen starting point; the title seemed promising. Secrets upon secrets — I was hoping for dragons, founts of eternal life, carnivorous ox-eating plants, that sort of thing. Not in the slightest; it was dry as could be. The only thing that appealed were the prints of some kind of Roman amphora that had four legs and vomited fire. As for Goldmann, again, the pictures were the most interesting thing. They looked to my eye like the illegible scrawls of a person so hopelessly bored that he had resorted to filling page after page with maniacal geometric shapes. After a little while, the twins said: “Et alors?”
I looked up. Better to be honest.”Not a word,” I admitted.
“Perfect. Herein lies today’s lesson,” said Armand. “Now, at least, you know that you know nothing at all.”
The next day the Ducroix brothers continued to indulge me. They limited themselves to assessing my knowledge so they could establish where to begin. I was not very focused — my thoughts were all of Jeanne.
“Something bothering you?” asked Zeno.