Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus

As I begin to document our horrific experiences at the Barn on the river Gars my hair (of the back, arm, and head variety) becomes rigid with dread.

If Riesling was a proverbial pain in the neck, his incomprehensibility has achieved new heights of manic fervor after our evening in that Mephistophelian harborage. Ives will not talk to me (or anyone for that matter) but seems to have retained at least some semblance of dignity by being the only member of our robust covey not burdened by inexplicably soiled apparel. Rameau keeps remarking that the sun seems an odd shade of yellow today despite repeated warnings that he shall damage his eyes if he insists on staring at the skyward harbinger of day. D'Alsace remains more concerned about the loss of his finger than our spectral visitation, asseverating that there must exist a doctor in the world who can not only return said digit to its rightful locale but do so with such skill as to never warrant any indication that harm was exacted upon it.

As for myself, I remain impervious in demeanor, while my cavernous innards, where my emotions are nestled in a bower of marrow and gristle, are a tempest of perturbation.

The noise in the barn echoed from the rafters; a pitiful sigh, so wrought with longing, anguish, and sorrow, as to be unmistakeably bound to some staunch advocate of woe. The Infantry remained in harmonious dormancy, albeit still absent of our dear Rameau, scouring our surroundings for sustenance. Though I remained awake I decided to opt for the safer path of conformity, and give no heed to the bowel-movement-inducing disembodied voice from the creeks and curls of the barn.

For a moment.

For the briefest of moments, until a book fell into my lap. A musty old book, bound in cordwain. Etched in gold inlay, upon its seasoned shell, the words "Ars Moriendi". Retaining my sense that since no one else seemed concerned by these vaguely disturbing occurrences, and instead resorting to sleep, I felt I should continue to regard this disquieting omen as strangely charming, even affording myself a brief chuckle and the almost fustian exclamation of "Splendid!".

Rameau, at this moment, entered the barn bearing a veritable cornucopia of silverbirch bark and owl pellets. In the grim light of the barn, realizing immediately that his comrades were nestled in the warm arms of sleep, he edged his way closer to the storm lantern that stood beside me.

"Ars Moriendi, Sir? 'The Art of Dying', rather macabre reading material if you don't mind my saying", he remarked with all the infuriating aplomb of a recalcitrant schoolboy.

"Well I do mind, you condescending dreg!" I replied hastily, as to avoid instilling further disorder in my charge by explaining the phantasmal nature of the book's appearance. "I read this book nightly." And, without thought, I began to turn the pages.

Contained within the book were various examples of that unfortunate habit of the past century of photographing one's loved ones in the quiescency of oblivion. Yes, my dear friends, in the near cousin of our brethren's slumber, in the spindly fingers of death. Young and old were contained upon the pages, with countenances as gentle and serene as a lullabied bantling.

"There doesn't seem to be much to read, Sir. Just photos of people sleeping" remarked Rameau.

"Not asleep, Monsieur Rameau. Departed" I replied, "Dead".

"Dead sir?" exclaimed Rameau.

"As a door nail, Rameau" I said with feigned indifference, unfortunately betrayed by a rather indelicate shrillness in my voice.

"Beautiful photographs, don't you think?" I marvelled, landing upon an oddly entrancing image of a young girl. Scrawled in ancient ink in the ornate italics of yesteryear, the name Margaux underlined the photograph, propounding the mademoiselle's calling from beyond her sepulchral boudoir.

"Do you really think so?" urged a fledging voice in my ear; whispered with all the seductive allure of a premature Parisian strumpet.

Risking myself a brief glance at Rameau, his ashen visage, belying any remnant of his former courage, I knew our recent companion was necessarily of an impeccably unpleasant variety. Turning ever so softly to my right to take in our fey and artful visitor, closing my eyes in perhaps preemptive terror . . .

And Oh Horrors . . .

Upon opening my eyes what lay before me, dear brothers, was not of this earth. Her likeness was the photograph, her serenity remained, and yet, with a missing ocular organ, an absent extremity commonly referred to as a nose, and hair worn with all the decay and putrescence of a long abandoned catacomb, her beauty was decidedly vanished. Margaux the deceased.

Awestruck and paralysed with fear, I lost all sense of reason, and foolishly answered her question. "Yes, I do think so," I timidly uttered. She smiled (complete with a lack of discernable lips, and half a jaw) and then, she moved in for the kiss.

"The kiss of death, sir!" screamed Rameau as his leather boot whistled past my cheeks into the purulence of the girl's once impeccable face. You may rail against the thought of an individual of our stature and maturity attacking the meek frame of an adolescent, yet given that Rameau's forceful blow caused nary a variance in Margaux's enthusiasm, nor did she seem even to register the taste of French Legion issue leather upon her tongue, and furthermore given that she was in a decidedly fearsome state of decomposition, you shall forgive our willingness to strike the innocent.

In response to Rameau's vociferation, the Infantry was at arms. The sighs in the rafters grew to unbearable heights of cacophony as a horde of hideous ghouls, a cadaverous mob, a mephitic mass descended upon our scrimpy ranks. Having browsed the catalogue of ghostly daguerrotypes, I recognized various characters that now afflicted our body with whips and scorns, claws and irons, pangs and poisons.

"It's the fucking nuns," screamed Ives, but before I could correct his obvious ignorance, and explain to him that we were dealing with a far more nefarious enemy, a blow struck me around the crown, and I sank into unconscious delirium . . . witnessing, as my cheek hit the spit, blood, and manure ridden barn floor, the Black Madonna being torn from the grubby paws of Riesling . . . the look of abject terror on his face, as Margaux's lips lingered closer to his, preparing themselves for embrace . . .

When I awoke, the barn was nowhere to be seen. I was attired merely in those shabby clothes the All Mighty granted me on the sordid day of my birth. The Infantry was nowhere to be seen.

Resting on my chest, a small inch of papyrus, scrawled upon it in the delicate calligraphy seen only before in the deathly tome:

The Infantry may be infamous my dear Monsieur Jareth;
Your tactics are renowned throughout France.
But there are no better thieves than 'The Grave Robbers'.
Remember us Monsieur.

With love (and death)
Margaux

Hic Manebimus Optime

We arrived in Toulouse this morning reeking of days of layered sweat and fusty provincial grime. Monsieur Rameau decided, and pronounced, that he would indubitably (at present) give up his life for the watery tomb of a warm bath.

"As easily as a puddle decimated by the willful scorn of the scion of Hyperion, my dear friend?", I gently urged, but his bemused countenance betrayed a certain shifting of opinion. I disregarded the potential auditory hallucination I heard of his voice muttering something regarding 'lunacy' to Monsieur D'Alsace as we stepped into the shadow of Toulouse.

The borders of Toulouse: the gingerly etched adumbration of civility and culture, the gilded inference of ensuing somnolent occupations; dreamy pastimes.

Here we should meet Donatien Pierre Arago, Le Vicomte de Auxerre.

One may wonder what adventures stole the hearts and labours of the Infantry over these many moons; as Monsieur Ives has determined that our aching appendages have wintered the pangs of voyage for an entire cycle of that milk-toned mother of the tides. It must be mentioned that Ives presented his findings with none of the poetic panache I have just displayed, but rather uttered nonchalantly while glancing over various scribbled parchments, "Baise moi, quatre semaines!" He is delightfully ignorant of the inherent glory of language, and fails to realize that even the most dire of circumstances deserves an inextricably appropriate turn of phrase. I cuffed him around the nape, with echoed sentiments of my thought, "langue, mon cher ami".

In truth, our delay was caused by our quite unexpected parley with ghosts. True incorporeal beings (true only in regard to existence, as their behaviour and altruism was incomparably false).

As we travelled away from Montauban, we became increasingly delirious with hunger, vexation, and fatigue, and within a short time found ourselves almost irreversibly off course. I say almost, as our bravery and cunning have never yet failed our formidable selves, and as I am writing these words in a clear state of being alive, you can imagine that such was the case once again. Regardless, we found ourselves far closer to the city of Agen, in the southwest, several miles in the wrong direction. The news was passed to me via whisper from Monsieur Rameau. He had approached the river we had traversed numerous times to avoid the blockades of rock (veritable mountains) and undergrowth (veritable jungles) with ladle in hand, and tasted the nectarean waters of the rindle.

He approached my right ear. I felt his tentative tip toes behind me. An infuriating gesture of timidity, a red-handed exegesis towards his possession of inevitable bad news. The gentle syllables danced of his tongue as a mother lulling her child to slumbered repose: "This is the River Gars".

"One more time", I gently urged Rameau, fearing I misheard him, and wishing not to leap to unbridled rage without knowing the true extent of our folly.

"This, Sir, is the River Gars" he spluttered, "we're about a hundred miles off course".

I stopped. Turned slowly to Rameau maintaining my patience with a clutched fist. I said, slowly and deliberately, "Etienne, you have done the right thing. For had you announced this news loudly to the stars, Riesling would inevitably be in a fit of unvanquishable grief. Still, would you mind explaining to me how we have managed to travel so far away from our destined respite?"

Unfortunately, my last inquiry was yelled at rather conspicuous decibels, thus rendering the secret less than safe, and despair ran rampant. What ensued was baffling and inexplicable. Rameau blamed Ives, Ives blamed Riesling, Riesling blamed D'Alsace, D'Alsace lacking the convenience of spoken accusations pointed his stubby index finger at me, his face blanched with an apparent recognition of a neoteric Judas.

I immediately grabbed Monsieur Ives' military knife from his hip sheath, approached Monsieur D'Alsace with imperturbable grace and sliced his accusing finger off with swift adroitness. The cut was so clean, that not a drop of his nescient claret watered the dust. Silence reigned. The Infantry struck to a enraptured quietude as we stared in unabashed awe at D'Alsace's lifeless digit, snuggly, and quite beautifully, resting on the dilapidated remnants of an oak leaf.

My regrets in life are few, and for the order and restraint of the Infantry I would slice off not only D'Alsace's finger again, but all limbs and appendages, of all our men, that might be instrumental in accusing my personage of negligence. After all, order was restored. What I regret in this circumstance was that my actions caused the most pitiable sound ever recorded by human ears to issue forth from D'Alsace's muted mouth. The gutteral cry was not unlike a famished cat. A famished cat somehow simultaneously dying of ennui. It is a sonance that will haunt me for the rest of my days.

D'Alsace fell to his knees clutching his robbed hand. "Now, order shall resume" I firmly explained. "Yes, we are off course, but not so far that we must resort to behaviours worthy of those fabled cities, destroyed by the vengeful wrath of the Supreme". None of the men knew what I was referring too, but a subtle caressing of the knife hilt, still warm with the flesh, muscle, marrow of D'Alsace, silenced their incredulity. "We must be stalwart in our aims, and maintain a firm grip on our senses. Riesling, no more crying. Rameau, no more news, unless it is good. Ives, stop being a miserable bastard, and D'Alsace, if you ever accuse me again of such nonsense I shall end you with the alacrity of a tear drop streaming down the cheek of a new born babe. Does everyone comprehend our new arrangements?" I exclaimed with redoubtable vigor.

We were able to find a nearby barn to rest for a moment, to regroup, and negotiate our plan of action. We were at least another week away from our goal, and already we were falling into almost (that word again) irreversible decay.

The barn was abandoned aside from various vermin and insects, and reeked of flatulence and moss, but in comparison with our usual abodes of riverbanks and boughs of trees, this was Versailles. D'Alsace nursed his wound (I did later apologise for injuring him), Rameau set about foraging for some evening victuals, Riesling murmured to himself in the corner, and Ives simply glared at me with unequivocal distaste.

"Welcome to our palace, Monsieur Ives" I stated with ironic flair.

He scoffed, and rolled against a flat of wood, which immediately collapsed under his weight and the years of rot that wrought its frame. He scoffed again, and fell to sleeping. Within a few hours, before the return of Monsieur Rameau, the Infantry were huddled like children in various positions of slumber. I sat removing the relics of bone and flesh from Ives' knife. A grizzly pastime admittedly, but one must take pride in all aspects of life. I breathed deeply with pleasure in a moment of solitude and quiet, gently cursed my mother and father, as I do every night, and set about sleeping myself.

I heard a noise from the rafters, a labored, muffled sigh.

What transpired was the worst and most fearful night of my brief life . . .

Ad Astra Per Aspera

Noone has said a word to Riesling since dawn, though his demeanor has led one to believe that he is perfectly content to remain silent and shuffling pebbles from their graves with his plodding feet. We wander on to Toulouse, the sour remnants of predicted catastrophe lingering on our stalwart hearts. As we awoke and began our solemn march to sanctuary, Monsieur Riesling, swathed in a colour as pale as oblivion, whispered gently as we all implored him for elucidation, "Je suis desole. Je ne sais pas ce que j'ai fait." And we have all left it at that.

The path to Toulouse is ominous and dreary, admittedly in the eye of the beholder, for I have never been one to place the creative ejaculations of the natura numina in too high an esteem. Though, if one is seduced by the gentle undulations of a cobbled stream, or the high pitched warbles of the Spring robin, then by all means lose yourself in the pastoral beauty of our whimsical stroll. All this untouched serenity merely forebodes the inevitable malevolence veiled behind the cupboard under the stairs, lurking in the dust and grime, choked and ravenous, with its beady yellow eyes gaping through the cracks in the door, waiting. In this case, it entails the unavoidable presence of our French bureaucrats pandering their wares to the unsuspecting patrons of their depravity. I vomit with uncustomary panache upon such pillage of prosperity.

Etienne Rameau has shared a little more with me in confidence about the uncle to whom we are to beg for shelter and solace. Apparently, he is no mere mortal, but a Vicomte, a royal heir (by innumerable, and probably indecipherable degrees). His name, dear friends: Donatien Pierre Arago, Le Vicomte de Auxerre.

This obviously begs the question: if Etienne's uncle is of royal lineage, then why is he not included in this illustrious pedigree? As you will recall, Etienne's father, Beaumont Arago, abandoned his family at a tender age, denouncing the name of his father, one Francois Arago. By doing so, he alienated himself from all connections with his royal heritage, as Francois was a highly regarded physicist and scientific advisor to the world, but more specifically to the French royalty. Etienne, following suit, also abandoned his family and went so far as to remove his surname 'Arago' in disgust to assume the somewhat dishonourable title of his mother's maiden name, 'Rameau'. This of course further alienated himself from the once famed prestige of his grandfather, Francois Arago.

Arago, Le Vicomte de Auxerre, however was the legitimate offspring of the famed Francois Arago, and was bestowed with all honours that should have befallen his father, after the elder died of diabetic complications in a hospice in Paris in 1853. Le Vicomte de Auxerre now in the Autumn of his life, resides in Le Chateau de Poudelay in les Petites Pyrenees, south of Toulouse. Etienne Rameau knows that his uncle will be visiting Toulouse currently, preparing for his summer jaunts with courtesans and racketeers, gamblers and cutthroats; what could be more fitting than the addition of a handful of brigand thieves.

We must maintain our high spirits and wistful attitudes however, as our recent debaucle at Notre Dame and the ensuing madness of Riesling could put a damper on our prestige should we allow it to compromise our ability to be harbingers of fear. The meeting with Le Vicomte is a most important step; money is certainly not our aim, but it quite remarkably aids our cause (in the very least in making our daily menu somewhat more palatable).

Riesling has begun to sing for lengthy stretches of our walk. The lyrics seem to consist of the ingredients of a human being, as he repeatedly references the notion of mixing bone and blood in a bowl with a dash of cynicism.

If this bout of depressive delirium maintains itself for many more days, I might have to put the wretched cur out of his misery.

Exeunt Omnes

We have escaped the fearsome grip and sway of Rocamadour. No longer bound by the alluring sidelong glance of riches, our mission now is sustenance, respite, and mischief.

Our destination: Toulouse. Monsieur Rameau has a wealthy (and nearly expired) uncle who resides within this reliquary of the Place du Capitole. Though not generally recognized as a sacred shrine of modern culture in any official sense, in the tomes of yours truly Toulouse is one of the most exquisite and venerable places on earth. On the topic of veneration (or lack thereof), having never met Rameau's uncle I can only imagine that he ostends similar qualities of goodness, righteouness, and culinary genius as his nephew, and will be worthy of our trust and good humour.

Riesling has been worrying us all a great deal over the past few moons, as his temperament and verbal exchanges have been layered with disturbing insinuations and fearful foreboding. The other night as we consumed with unfortunate haste the chef-d'ouevre of Monsieur Rameau (Pine Cone a la Grass), Riesling neglected his delectable meal for the company of squirrels in a nearby grove of silver birches. When Monsieur Ives approached him he turned and stated quite matter of factly, "In previous times this strange mammal was my mother and this one your niece. Small world, eh?"

On another occasion, as we passed the city of Montauban (still bearing scars of the ravages of Louis XIII) ambling by the Pont Vieux, Riesling exclaimed with sudden horror:

"At Verdun, my friends, this is a sign of great inauspiciousness".

Halted by such irregular spontaneity, we each enquired further into Riesling's sudden outburst, to which he responded in kind with further nebulous divulgences:

"As Phillip the Fair departed for Toulouse, as we gentlemen now venture onwards, he commisioned the building of a bridge, this bridge, Le Pont Vieux".

We stared baffled by the incomprehensible ramblings of Riesling, whose brow now sweat with the anguish and torment akin to the harebrained inmates of Charenton asylum. How horrifying a thought; relinquishing Riesling to rubbing elbows with the likes of the infamous Marquis or the caricaturist Andre Gill (though his portrait of Dickens is fairly amusing), a proposition not once entertained in all previous exchanges with our dear boy, Frayne. He continued:

"1335, the bridge was finished. Do you know who the comissioned builders were my friends? One Etienne de Ferrieres and can you guess his partner in premonitions?"

We paused in trembling anticipation at the prospect of the secondary builder's name. Perhaps we had missed some nagging detail in our efforts in Rocamadour, perhaps Riesling had remembered our connection to prior criminal efforts at the bridge of Montauban, spanning the River Tarn, or perhaps Frayne Riesling was lingering on the precipice of desertion. I fingered at Ives belt to remove the military knife positioned at his hip in anticipation of the coming altercation. Ives unfortunately interpreted my gesture quite differently and slapped my hand away with peremptory disgust.

"The other architect of this glorified gangplank was none other than Mathieu de Verdun, and horrors unimaginable shall transpire in that city for which he is named", and Riesling immediately collapsed on the stony path with the combined weight of grim satisfaction and overwhelming grief.

The utter bewilderment of the Infantry was as palpable as a swift kick in the privates.

"Verdun is hundreds of miles from here Frayne," stated Monsieur Rameau with correct geographical estimations.

The bitter tears of Frayne Riesling filled the night sky as an entourage of torch bearers (natives of Montauban) began to cross the bridge to our dilapidated party, indubitably awoken by the uncustomary late night keening.

"Let us move" grunted Monsieur Ives, raising Riesling to his feet and wandering forward along the dusty path that strolls hand in hand with the city of Montauban, only to part and vanish further into the encroaching embrace of the Pyrenees. Gautier, Etienne, and myself followed with sheepish countenance, struck to silence by the abstruse exclamations of our decorated compatriot. Riesling's sniffles and whines echoed on the dark waters of the Tarn River. I paused to glance back at the Pont Vieux, the torch bearers still lingering on the stony frame, undoubtedly perplexed by the cries of sorrow for architects.

As we wandered further into the dark, Riesling turned and whispered gently:

"At Verdun, Monsieur Jareth, it shall come to this"

Vanish

The true success of a heist, robbery, or burglary is not the mere acquisition of coveted items, but in the grandeur and cunning of the escape. On too many occasions aspiring thieves have attained unparalleled heights of brilliance in the arts of criminality only to be dashed to petty insignificance by the inelegance and ineptitude of their efforts at elusion. Dear friends, the glory of an accomplished thief lies in an intrinsic and superlative eschewal of all entities and instruments associated with the law, but also an inherent aptitude at making oneself invisible to their efforts to mark you for the gallows.

After leaving the Church of Notre Dame (a necropolis of commedia strewn behind our vanishing corps) our escape was performed with the ease of a warm knife through the body of a Mothais sur Feuille fromage, creamy and delicious.

How one wishes to be an insect aviate in the confines of that canvas tent when this cortege of clowns chronicle their decimation at the hands of the Infantry. What adjectives and adverbs will they service to profit the precise elucidation of their dire circumstances? One shall never know. Alas, the bittersweet pangs of artistry: that the reception of your work must be quite profoundly inconsequential to your continuation.

Our escape required little more than venturing back into the throng of the multitudes. The manic crowd salivating their titillated expectorations of exuberance for the puerile array of Le Cirque de L'Athee paid little heed to a filthy collection of legionnaires. The music from the big top still echoing its repugnant melodies through all quarters of Rocamadour, and yet, while the music remains loathsome in composition and structure, I must imagine that it served as a deafening distraction from the sounds of our sacriligious altercation, and thus, blessed be thy name.

I had placed the Black Madonna in the confines of my Legionnaire's anorak, sheltered from the squalid paws of the masses. We sauntered with contumelious bravado through the Plateau de St. Michel, past the adoring wide-eyed gallery, past the ensemble of acrobats and contortionists, past the zoological cornucopia of exotic beasts, and past the Mother Superior who, being fanned profusely by her tumbling entourage, had apparently succumbed to enervation by the sight of the circus strong man's generous protuberance emanating from the shallows of his loin cloth. As we passed by Monsieur Rameau allowed himself a risky but shrewd quip in her direction.

He stated with matter of fact innocence referencing the Strong Man (who was now approaching the Mother Superior with an apologetic demeanor): "Why don't you allow him to be a member in your congregation? Or are you not in the habit of permitting such girth in your nave and quire?"

Brilliant, Etienne, quite simply.

The heavy breathing that had been emerging from the frail body of this abbess suddenly halted with unequivocal recognition, and she turned to face Etienne who bore the smile of a beatific seraph blessed with bearing the burden of the Virgin Mary to the Gates of heaven. I approached Monsieur Rameau's shoulder, echoing the sentiments of his euphoric blitheness, and held up the sculpture of the Black Madonna.

If looks could annihilate families, we'd all be orphans this evening, for the Mother Superior blanched with all the ferocity of that jealous God so indelibly etched in that consecrated opuscule of her hallowed home.

"Only fair Madame, you stole his toes, we steal your feet" I said with expectant anticipation of uncontrollable guffawing from the ranks of the Infantry.

As I turned and glanced at our band of thieves, I was greeted with blank stares and perplexed contemplations. "She blew his foot off you ignorant dullards, and we stole the very ground she stands on, without this [raising the Black Madonna] she has no support for her sanctimonious babble, her foundations shall crumble" I screamed with impetuous wrath.

The previously mentioned ease with which we escaped Rocamadour was in fact, quite unabashedly, once again, a lie. Raising the Black Madonna for all to see and screaming with unbridled passion, would grant one a degree of attention in most circles; in Rocamadour, where said artifact is the most beloved prize of the entire region, I was a veritable matinee idol, although in this case designated for death, rather than adoration.

Not only did we attract the attention of the townspeople, the rest of the nuns, and the authorities, but the entire troupe of Le Cirque de L'Athee. After all their whole purpose for being in this godforsaken region of the world was to acquire the riches accompanied with ownership of the Black Madonna, so they set their sights upon us and charged at our humble few, encouraging the rest of the town to display no semblance of mercy to the frailty of human bone.

So we ran, and kept running. Thibault was burdened with the onus of carrying Etienne after the first few hundred metres, as Monsieur Rameau's maimed foot barely allowed him ordinary walking abilities, let alone fleetness of gait. Monsieur Riesling, being the faster runner, is probably in Paris by now; we'll attempt to find him tomorrow. Monsieur D'Alsace, once we were clear of the immediate threats of the scourge of Rocamadour fell asleep in mid stride into utter comatose unconsciousness, and deemed in slumbering insubordination that we would rest fairly close to our initial woodland asylum tonight. All of this in spite of my screaming in his ear that I'd have him shot for mutiny.

So we rest, for mere moments. For the tears of Rocamadour are swathed in fury and we must vanish far from the hatred and loathing of Rocamadour. To the Pyrenees, my friends, the mountain hideout of all brigands and cutthroats.

Now children, our infamy begins.

Harlequins

If one contemplates too deeply the boon of the arrival of le Cirque de L'Athee, the ensuing bafflement will cause high degrees of anxiety and further confusion. But, imagine dear friends, a banquet held in your honour, or stretch the imagination to entertain the possibility of weddings, funerals, and birthday parties, what is the common bond? The consistent facet of all convivialities is the presence, begrudgingly or not, of the honouree (aside from the few cases of posthumous memorialization). Without further investigation one sees quite clearly why the performance in honour of the nuns of Notre Dame would be a grand benefaction for the Infantry: noone would be in residence to impede our filching of the Black Madonna.

We left our rustic homestead at the appointed hour of commencement for the circus, and entered brazenly through the gates of the town, unhindered by the thought of being recognized by one of the nuns. Firstly, we knew the circus would grant us a miraculous camouflage, and secondly, we're not scared of women (notwithstanding Monsieur Riesling's inexplicable phobia of prostitutes, but we shall address that at an appropriate opportunity).

Rocamadour was ablaze with lights and sound, a rare occurrence for this otherwise sleepy cliffside hamlet. The overabundance of carnival music was offending the night sky with its stentorious cacophony as the grubby faces of children seemed to meander in all directions, besmeared with the sugary remnants of rock sweets and honey. Bathetic families whisked about with great haste, stumbling in mawkish idiocy to behold the wonders of the circus (begging the question: what wonders?)

The Cirque de L'Athee had brought with them in customary fashion a menagerie of exotic creatures: lions from the plains of middle Africa, elephants from the white sands of Raman Reti, and English badgers (less exotic, but mildly entertaining in a pinch), displayed in magnificent gilded cages along the thoroughfares of Rocamadour. And though I confess a certain fascination with the albino Rhinoceros from Madagascar, the nauseating aroma of feculence that permeated the entire municipality left me somewhat underwhelmed and borderline qualmish.

As we passed down lane after claustrophobic lane of Rocamadour proper, having consumed a king's fill of sensory stimuli, we came into sight of the zenith of the Circus' achievements: the big top (a misnomer in almost every degree as it is merely a large canvas tent). Sprawled across the town square in all its brobdingnagian glory (that is the only word befitting such glory, read your Swift), it was attached with whaling ropes at all edges to balconies, street lamps, store fronts, pub signs, and an unfortunate tramp who had mistakenly fallen asleep on a bench the circus deemed worthy of anchoring their artistic coliseum. From inside the tarpaulin montrosity the delighted cheers of spectators witnessing the droll antics of clowns, harlequins, and the impavid displays of the acrobats and trapeze artists emanated in deafening waves.

Etienne Rameau suddenly grabbed my arm and whispered in my ear, "Mon dieu".

The Mother Superior, ghastly and grim, was being escorted into the circus tent by an entourage of tumbling mimes who with each respective somersault showered her path with increasing volumes of bluebell petals. In her floral wake, the conclave of sycophantic canaries, the sisters of Notre Dame (one of them still carrying her broadsword from the other night) followed sheepishly into the den of sin. Etienne shuddered with reminiscent agony and uttered as barely more than a whisper, "Chiennes".

Moving away from the plateau of St. Michel we approached the church of Notre Dame with judicious care, hesistant to repeat our old mistakes of haste and ill-preparedness. Thibault opened the door without a creak to its old hinges and we all heaved a sigh of relief as we rested inside the sanctuary of the church, ridden with darkness, and cold to the world.

We knew that the Black Madonna rested at the head of the church, beside the altar, as a focal point of the congregation. We ambled in the darkness along the knave of the church, clasping at each other's shoulders for guidance. We allowed Thibault Ives to lead our way as he claims he has always been able to see in the dark, and given his adroit blind navigation of the church, we have no reason to doubt him.

"Elle est ici" declared Thibault, as we stopped just short of the stark silhouette of a miniature figure carved quite decidedly into the shape of a woman. As I reached out to retrieve the Madonna from her sanctified rostrum, all horrors descended upon my being and my bodily functions, as an icy hand gripped my extended fingers from the darkness. In dramatic unison, a burst of torches ignited around the church, eight in all, and I found myself staring into the meretricious make-up of a clown; a single painted tear frozen on the snow white facade of his cheek.

"The Madonna is ours, my dear boy" exclaimed the clown still clasping my arm with surprising strength. His entourage of comedic depravity, deceptively menacing in spite of their cheery make up and false noses, narrowed their distance to our coterie of thieves.

"Oh fuck off" shouted Thibault with unmistakeable loathing as he punched my captor in the throat while pinching the Madonna from the dais in one swift (not the previously mentioned embodiment) maneuver. The horde of clowns descended upon our band of merry thieves, torches ablaze, and violence on their jolly faces. But, oh my friends, the Infantry has had enough of the poor life and the downtrodden subservience of defeat, it is our moment for majesty.

We fought with the bravery of hundreds, instead of five against eight, avoiding the formidable blows of oversized shoes and polka dot gloves, and inflicting upon our humourous enemies a beating unseen since Jerubbaal, the feller of trees, vanquished the Midianites in the valley of Jezreel. But, for this evening, in the cliffs of Rocamadour, we the Infantry were the chosen, and we decimated the tribes of humour and commedia with the fury of thousands.

Gautier insisted on headbutting all his foes. Etienne went after his prey with fists of cracked thunder. Frayne, diving off a pew, tackled a retreating clown to the floor, sending himself and escaping comedian flailing into the confines of the confessional. Thibault picked up an iron wrought candelabra, and punished our attackers with merciless vigilance. I, myself, resorted to interrogating the apparent leader of this band, the tear-stroked clown who insolently seized my hands in the cloak of darkness.

With literal tears of mea culpa, the bafoon explained that quite expectedly a circus with the name 'de L'Athee' had no love for the church of Notre Dame, and had visited the town not to honour the nuns, but to coincidentally deprive them of their riches. The performance had been set up as a cunning ruse to lure the holy sisters away from their beloved treasures, while quite unbeknownst to them, the slippery foxes of the travelling troupe would lay their grubby paws upon the Black Madoona. But, we dear friends, beat them to it, and then beat them from it.

Thibault wiped blood and make-up from his firey fists, sighing that we should leave. As I glanced down the length of the church, bathed in celestial light by the kaleidoscope of stained glass that adorned the walls, Etienne, Frayne, and Gautier were already making their galant escape. Thibault handed the Black Madonna to me with proud deference, and I turned to the clowns of Le Cirque de L'Athee to exact one last reminder of our wrath.

"The Infantry have brought this asperity upon you, remember the name of this band, for if you cross us again, our vehement destruction of your very being will be colossal"

A decrepit and beaten clown in silky pink pajamas raised his hand.

"Oui, mon enfant" I said.

"What does asperity mean?" spluttered the clown with every fiber of his body aching with unhinged agony.

"Precisely. What does asperity mean?" I exclaimed, as I vanished into the night.

Circus

This morning Etienne Rameau returned from his morning scouring of the surrounding flora and undergrowth of our newly acquired asylum with the elated mien of a man somehow rewarded by the adventitious benevolence of Canaan. His usually staunch appearance, at this juncture, betrayed a certain mischievous infantine mirth.

"Boys, the circus is in town" he gleefully exclaimed.

Upon hearing such news, Gautier D'Alsace allowed his mouth to drop open to an unnaturally capacious breadth. His predictably present cigarette dangled precariously from his lower lip, and suddenly, with suicidal zeal, plunged itself into the abyss of woodland chapparal. One can only assume that this flagrant disregard for the sanctity of rolled tobacco divulges Monsieur D'Alsace's esteemed regard for the spectacle of the circus arts.

Glancing at Monsieur Riesling and Monsieur Ives who were in similar states of fish-like wonder, staring at Monsieur Rameau's ridiculous visage, coveting the inviolable erudition he now seemed to posess for his providential discovery, I realized for that moment I had completely lost command of the Infantry.

In furious impetuosity I pegged a nearby pebble at Etienne's audacious mug, only to miss entirely. My message however was quite clear and the timorous glances that now settled upon my guilty character were encroaching my command and authority to further inadmissable degrees.

"No circus!" I declared with dictatorial imperiousness.

The collective sigh of the Infantry was acutely pitiful, as though the last refuge of hope for jubilance in this invidious world was purloined from their scant hands. Monsieur D'Alsace lit another cigarette in plenary surrender to his interminable dysphoria. Monsieur Riesling returned to foraging through the moss of the riverbank (an entirely useless activity, I had earlier exclaimed, but with little heed from the decorated bastard). Monsieur Ives simply stared at me with the umbrage of sedition.

Rameau maintained his ridiculous grin, despite the overwhelming melancholy that now plagued our bivouac. Upon further interrogation it became clear that Rameau's vibrancy had very little to do with the mere presence of the circus in Rocamadour; his increasingly disquieting mirth was much more closely related to the potential for mischief.

Rameau reached back into his pocket and removed a slightly moistened parchment, his grin widening with each deliberately contemplative gesture he exacted before our utter befuddlement.

"I found this on a tree not far from this very spot as I was wandering, and I think you might be interested, I know you might be interested, I know you will be interested, I can already tell you're interested, to see the contents of this roll of paper I have in my hand" declared Rameau with the cloying ardency of a street urchin receiving a shiny centime.

As he unrolled the parchment, displaying the anticipated caprioling of crudely drawn acrobats and trapeze artists, swathed in all manners of garish colours and bawdy attire, at first little indication seemed to palliate Rameau's disconcerting fervor. When, all of a sudden, and you shall applaud Oh Sons of Saul, the words leapt forward like the paradisaical effulgence of a thousand exploding suns, and crawled down the length of my spine as the capricious centipede would wander on the delicate folds of flesh that course the length of my back, only to be swept into a maelstrom of pleasure by the concupiscent avarice of a dozen pilfering trollops, to be pampered and honoured in every regard for the rest of eternity. My response was similar to this, not exactly the same, but the only comparison I can muster with the limited elbowroom that language affords a rhapsodist such as myself.

Written in gold lettering resembling the script of the ancient bibles resting in the catacombs of a cathedral:

In honour of the true and gallant service of the Church of Notre Dame of Rocamadour, Le Cirque de L'Athee shall entertain and delight the people of Rocamadour for one evening only.

The date inscribed on the poster is tomorrow night, and the distraction this affords us can only be the gentle gift of the heavens.

The Madonna is ours. (Figuratively)

Glory

We happened upon our revenge in a delightfully serendipitous fashion this morning, and as we return to our riverside hovel in the dank hours of the night with a touch of winsome wistfulness in our spry steps, the amaranthine hue of the sky belies a glory to all of God's creations.

As a curiousity, one can be informed quite definitively that the Madonna is neither ours, nor do we ever want to set eyes upon that notoriously infuriating and oddly pigmented virgin. In our haste we set ourselves upon the robbery of artifacts, but in our retrospective opinions we concluded that thievery only grazes the slippery integument of notoriety, relatively to the efficacy of well-timed insults in guaranteeing paramount infamy.

Insults, my dear friends. Such as, "Your flesh resembles the torrid wastelands of the Sahara, where noone ever dares tread for fear of quietus from the harrowing grip of dehydration".

Or, if one were feeling particuarly festive, "Your intelligence is on par with the underside of a malodorous mammal slowly partnering itself with the elite menagerie of the purulent festering inner sodality of the dead".

There's more in my bag of castigation, but for now I must share the hallowed glories of our triumphs (if not quite hallowed at this point, one or two days, five at most).

As we arose from our perturbed slumber this fine morning, we wandered into Rocamadour proper, resembling the reanimated corpses of Pere Lachaise Cemetery; those poor souls who rest underneath the Mur des Federes. Although there were 147 of those communards and 5 of us, our heroism is homologous with those batards tristes, this is more a comparison relating to their generally decrepit appearance after 40 years of burial.

Rumour has it they buried that Irish playwright of questionable persuasions in Pere Lachaise several years ago.

I was in the midst of fighting people whose names I wish I spent the time to learn before I ran them through with bayonets. I'd either have thought better of my activities or at least spent my life riddled with guilt, rather than ambivalent to the rampant anonymity of it all.

Regardless, due to these circumstances I know of the funerals of Irish homosexuals only through hearsay, which is a goddamned shame.

Chopin is also entombed within this macabre bastille.

I digress, quite sincerely, because our vivacity is pure fabrication, we have yet to think of any possible way to rive the hearts of those repugnant nuns of Notre Dame.

This is not the glory we had anticipated for the first forrays into villainy, but our time will come.

Frayne has managed to acquire some of the famed Rocamadour cheese, this is not so much of a meal for five, but right now we are desperate.

And in regard to the insults, this has mostly been Thibault's effort, as he has spent most of the day cursing the sky with the choicest words. Colourful, is not quite justice to the veritable kaleidoscope of his phrasings.

We have yet to return to Rocamadour. All of this is a lie, admittedly, I am liar, but what did you expect from a thief, said the snake to Eve.

It is true about that Irish fellow in Pere Lachaise; sad really, I thought he was fairly amusing.

Renewal

We are all rested and recovered from the traumatic onslaught of the nuns of Notre Dame. The results of such an inauspicious demoralization have been bittersweet, for though we are at a indisputable disadvantage, given our impecuniosity, our deplorable esurience, and our increasingly nidorous body odour, we have managed to retain our inimitable winsomeness and charming good looks.

In spite of this immediate impasse, our crushing defeat has only determined our resolve to rid the French nation of the malignant brume that cripples and corrupts the quixotic and doe-eyed shavelings of our youth.

We have camped outside of Rocamadour by the banks of L'Alzou, a few miles short of its grand meeting with L'Ouysse. Here we are cradled by sky, witnessed by clouds, and slowly cosseted to sleep by the balmy lullabies of stars. In spite of Monsieur Ives' perpetual swearing our surroundings are somewhat serene and gentle, though I don't trust that bower of trees over there.

Monsieur Rameau's foot has been rendered almost entirely useless, but he insists the pain has subsided. What remains (and this is certainly not for the weak of constitution) is a stub of a foot, as all of his toes have been emancipated from thralldom to the inexorable ordinances of his base appendage. He sleeps now, dreaming of sailing away on the Dordogne or consuming goat cheese with impetuous voracity.

Monsieur Riesling has been nursing his head in the placid waters of L'Alzou, as he comments that there are over a hundred new visitors to his crown, displaying quite proudly the bruises and bumps that now rest upon his flesh, exacted by the cruel lambaste of the Mother Superior.

Monsieur Ives in between intermittent bouts of crude vituperations has been singing La Marseillaise, the sui generis of revolution, la chant de guerre de l'Armee du Rhin. How we long for the day when we march past the Theatre Marigny and the Grand Palais echoing these words in celestial chorus, knowing that our lives are free from the bondage of these gentlemen of malfeasance, excremental maharajas of venality.

Monsieur D'Alsace has composed a poem, he scrawled these fine words upon the bark of a tree with his French legion issued camping knife:

Perhaps my name isn't Gautier at all
It is in fact, dot dot dot
Because noone said happy birthday to me this year
And that's just awful

I'm so tired and hungry
That someone had better feed me soon
Because though I'm sure there are fish in this river
I'm not very good at anything, especially not fishing

Where is the end of this long struggle?
Maybe over there, by that tree with the odd branch
Slightly resembling a rather rude extremity
But probably not as that would be silly

I think I'll go to sleep now
Because I'm bored, and there's nothing else to do
I wish I hadn't fainted in the church
Because I'm not scared

- Gautier D'Alsace, 10th of April, in the year of our Lord, 1913
Rocamadour, by the banks of L'Alzou
- -

Perhaps we are the cullions of the world, but we'll die with honour at the expense of that opinion, and dine on olives and caviar on the divans of empyrean, bathed in celestial light by the gracious effulgence of crystal azure.

Tomorrow we exact our revenge.

Failure

As the rarest of occurrences in the licensed activities of the Infantry, it is with the greatest of shame and with profoundest aching of the ventricles of my blood siphoning chambers, to admit that our brethren has failed, most decidedly, in the efforts of our mission of sacrilegious thievery.

No, the madonna is not ours, nor are we graced with success in our plan to establish ourselves as the most notorious of rebels, the quintessential brigands, insurrectionary paradigms, and thieves to be honoured for our incomparable panache.

We were well met at the hour of our Lord (that being 11 hours past noon) the penultimate point prior to the shadowy approach of the witching hour, well met indeed.

We met at said hour with smiles in our hearts and mischief on our mind. Etienne Rameau commented that "Rascality is the gift of the Gods". We all offered our affirmations with manic vehemence, a chorus of asseveration echoing the sentiments of the heavens (surely), aside from Gautier D'Alsace who as you'll recall has long since been dragooned into silence. Silence being a relative term as he certainly vocalised what we assumed was his alliance with our machination in the form of monosyllabic grunts. The smile on his face betrayed any questionable motive he may have been harboring, leaving no doubt of his infallible loyalty to our cause.

I have met many a man who could discourse on the genius of Voltaire for hours, and still never convince me of their goodness with language, and yet Monsieur D'Alsace denied of such convenience of speech retains dignity and honesty merely with the grace of his actions and the glint of his countenance.

Upon the Plateau de St. Michel we appeared from the shadows of wattle and daub, cloaked in the savage greens of the Black Forest of Baden-Wurttemberg, the church of Notre Dame genuflecting her obeisances to the slightly darkened clouds of the night canopy, pinpricked with stars. Thibault commented "Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?" Honouring the late Francois Villon (our commandant from beyond the grave) and his celebration of those bound and drawn to the gibbet, the sorrowed disciples of the gallows.

"Oui, Thibault" I muttered as we approached the church.

Our plan:
Gautier enters the church and in his inability to express any semblance of human speech one of the mendicant friars of the monastic community will surely assume his need for sanctuary and in his altruistic mood care for the needs of the piteous.

In his distraction Frayne, Etienne, Thibault, and myself club said friar over the head with some blunt object, find the carving of the Black Madonna and vanish, inconspicuously into the dark embrace of the night.

A plan worthy of applause and praise, the true gift of thieves.

Gautier made his entrance as planned. As he opened the doors of the church, we all felt our hearts recollect the rataplan of the drums of Sidi Bel Abbes, the Mecca of the Foreign Legion; our rudimentary rebellion ironically being precipitated by the onslaught of memories from those sordid days.

As we heard Gautier through the door mumbling syllables of eloquent distress and the subsequent saccharine replies of another, we counted to one hundred and burst through the doors of the sacred vestibule of the Black Madonna. Much to our dismay Gautier was not talking to a gentle ascetic of the male persuasion, but in fact the Mother Superior of Notre Dame.

Frayne elbowed me in the ribs, exclaiming "Punch her in the face". I refrained.

Etienne pulled a small wooden club from his cloak and raised it to strike the unsuspecting nun upon the cranial belfry, however she was less unsuspecting than we had imagined and immediately shot Monsieur Rameau in the foot with her as of yet hidden French Navy issue pistol. She proceeded to club Monsieur Riesling on the head with the butt of her pistol for suggesting I punch a woman of the cloth. I decided to take her side, admittedly it would have been wrong to harm such a fine, upstanding servant of God. For some unknown reason Frayne continued to repeat the words "Vous etes une putain!" in my general direction.

Suddenly a horde of nuns came running from the cloisters armed to the teeth with all manners of medieval weaponry, cutlasses, and firearms. Perhaps in the future to avoid such missteps, reeking of an ill-preparedness uncharacteristic of the Infantry, we should stake out the forces of the enemy, or at least bring a gatling gun. Never again shall we undertake such a foible as unflattering as the ill-fated siege of Notre Dame of Rocamadour.

I cried to the heavens, "Retraite!"

Etienne Rameau had long since left the church and was bathing his wounded appendage in the fountain of the Plateau of St. Michel. Thibault Ives dodging the jeopardous slash of a Sister's broadsword, managed to lift Etienne onto his shoulders and proceed away from the church with unbridled promptitude.

I was able to pull Frayne from the perpetual downward blows of the Mother Superior's nocent fists, and we galloped with enviable adroitness as far as the city gates before we rested. Fortunately we were able to meet Monsieur Ives and Monsieur Rameau with relative ease, as the cries of the latter were discernible even to the least auricular of Rocamadour's residents.

As related to us many hours later, Monsieur D'Alsace remained at the church struck to palpable consternation by the admirable aegis of Notre Dame exacted by the 3 score nuns of the monastery (one must point out that he wrote out this account in rather scrawled and frantic fear with a nub of charcoal). Apparently after the dust of the siege had settled the Mother Superior turned to Gautier and simply exclaimed "Will you still be needing sanctuary, Oh child of Adam?"

Monsieur D'Alsace shook his head and fainted. He awoke in the fountain outside the church.

Disaster. But perhaps our intentions should shift as we attempt to salvage what remains of Monsieur Rameau's foot. We shall allow ourselves a few days of recovery as we determine a plan of attack that would befit a suitable revenge upon the nuns of Notre Dame.

Oh God, give us guidance. Or at least some food.