Thus initiated into the mysteries of the Druses, Nerval prepares to wed the blonde Salema with a view to fusing Occident and Orient, North and South into a mystical union on the order of Goethe’s Faust and Helena or Shelley’s Prometheus and Asia. But like his demonic Doppelgänger Hakim, who dreams of a similar hierogamy with his sister, he would not consummate this apocalyptic marriage. Mysteriously struck down by ‘Syrian fever’ on the eve of his nuptials, Nerval – or rather his fictional alter ego – suddenly flees Beirut for Constantinople, vanishing into the further adventures of his shadow selves.

THE KING OF BEDLAM RAOUL SPIFAME

I

The Image

Let us tell you the story of a most singular madman who lived towards the middle of the sixteenth century. Raoul Spifame, seigneur Des Granges, was a lord without a manor, one of the many thus dispossessed in an age whose wars and ruins had afflicted all the great houses of France. His father had left but a modest inheritance to him and to his two brothers, Paul and Jean (both of whom would later become famous on different accounts); as a result, Raoul was sent to Paris at a young age, where he studied law and was eventually called to the bar. When King Henri II1 succeeded his glorious father François, he paid a royal visit to the chambers of Parliament, now reconvened after the recess in honour of his accession to the throne. Raoul Spifame occupied a modest place at the back of the assembly among the throng of lesser legists; only his waistcoat indicated his rank of Doctor of Laws. The king, wearing his mantle of royal blue sown with fleurs-de-lis, was seated higher than the first president, and everybody admired the nobility and handsomeness of his features, despite the sickly pallor that distinguished all the princes of his race. The Latin oration of the venerable chancellor droned on and on. The king’s absent-minded gaze, tired of scanning the bowed heads of the assembly and the sculpted beams of the ceiling, finally came to rest on a figure who was sitting at the far end of the hall and whose striking features were illuminated by a ray of sun falling directly on his face. Noticing the intentness of the king’s gaze, everybody turned their eyes towards what appeared to be the focus of his attention. The object of examination was none other than Raoul Spifame.

To Henri II it seemed that he had come face to face with a portrait that reproduced his entire person, the sole difference being that his splendid raiments had been rendered in black. Everyone concurred that the young barrister bore an uncanny resemblance to the monarch; and since, according to superstition, the sight of one’s own image dressed in mourning is a harbinger of imminent death, the king appeared quite troubled for the rest of the session. As he made his way out, he had inquiries made about Raoul Spifame; it was only upon learning the name, title and origins of his phantom that he became reassured. In any event, he expressed no desire to make the latter’s acquaintance and, his attentions taken up by the resumption of the Italian Wars, this singular impression soon passed from his mind.

As for Raoul, from that day onward his fellow barristers insisted on addressing him as Your Majesty or Your Royal Highness. As often happens among young colleagues eager for any occasion to have a bit of fun, this joke spun itself out so mercilessly and in so many variations that, according to some accounts, it was probably one of the prime causes behind the mental disarray that would lead Raoul Spifame to engage in various bizarre actions. For example, one day he had the audacity to remonstrate with the presiding judge about a decision involving an inheritance which, in his opinion, had been falsely adjudicated. He was, as a result, summarily suspended from the bar for a certain period and fined. On other occasions, in the course of his speeches for the defence, he went so far as to attack the laws of the kingdom as well as the most respected judicial opinions; often, he would stray completely from the case at hand to venture extremely daring remarks about the government, which were often disrespectful of the authority of the king. He pushed things so far that the superintending magistrates thought they were letting him off rather lightly when they finally forbade him to practise law altogether. But Raoul Spifame none the less continued to show up at the halls of justice every day, buttonholing passers-by in order to put before them his various ideas for reforms and to lodge complaints against the judges. In the end, his brothers, as well as his own daughter, were forced to request that he be placed under a restraining order, and it was as a defendant in these legal proceedings that he once again appeared before the court.

With this his personality underwent a complete revolution, for up to that point his madness had more or less been an extension of logic and common sense; the oddity of his behaviour could largely be imputed to recklessness. But if the man who had been summoned to appear before the judge was merely a visionary by the name of Raoul Spifame, the character who later left the courtroom was a true lunatic, one of the most wayward minds ever to require a padded cell. Given that he was, after all, a barrister, Raoul had planned to harangue the judges at length and, in order to buttress his passionate defence, had gathered together such precedents as Sophocles and other figures of Antiquity accused by their children. But, as chance would have it, things took a rather different course. As he was crossing the outer vestibule that led to the courtroom, he heard a hundred voices murmuring: ‘The king! There goes the king! Make way for the king!’ Unaware that this honorific was merely meant in jest, Spifame’s enfeebled mind reacted to the shock like a delicate spring gone haywire. His wits suddenly deserted him and flew off in a twitter, and it was a true madman, purely and simply touched in the pate (as was said of Triboulet),2 who made his entrance into the courtroom, biretta perched on his head, arms akimbo, easing himself into his seat with a dignity worthy of a king.

He addressed the members of the court as our loyal subjects and honoured the chief justice Noël Brûlot with a most affable God be with thee. As for himself, Spifame, he scanned the courtroom to see if he was there, lamented his absence, inquired after his health, and continued to refer to himself in the third person as ‘Our loyal Raoul Spifame of whom no one should speak ill’. Hoots and catcalls erupted on all sides, while a number of jokesters seated behind the defendant deliberately egged him on in his delusions, despite the magistrates’ efforts to call the court back to order. The verdict was swift and obvious: the poor fellow was to be remanded to the care and skill of the medical profession.