“We will send,” said the King with simulated earnestness. “Good! we will certainly send. Monsieur the Provost is our friend. Six thousand! These are determined rogues! Their boldness is extraordinary, and we are highly incensed thereat. But we have few men about us to-night. It will be time enough to-morrow morning.”
Coictier gave a cry. “This moment, Sire! They would have time to sack the court-house twenty times over, storm the manor, and hang the provost himself. For God’s sake, Sire, send before to-morrow morning!”
The King looked him full in the face. “I said to-morrow morning.” It was one of those looks to which there is no reply.
After a pause, Louis again raised his voice. “My good Jacques, you should know that—What did—” he corrected himself—“what does the feudal jurisdiction of the provost comprise?”
“Sire, the Rue de la Calandre as far as the Rue de l’Herberie, the Place Saint-Michel and places commonly called Les Mureaux situated near the Church of Notre-Dame des Champs,” —here the King lifted the brim of his hat—“which mansions are thirteen in number; further the Court of Miracles, further the Lazaretto called the Banlieue, further the whole of the high-road beginning at the Lazaretto and ending at the Porte Saint-Jacques. Of these several places he is reeve of the ways, chief, mean, and inferior justiciary, full and absolute lord.”
“So, ho!” said the King, scratching his left ear with his right hand, “that comprises a good slice of my town! Ah, Monsieur the Provost was king of all this!”
This time he did not correct himself. He continued cogitating and as if talking to himself: “Softly, Monsieur the Provost, you had a very pretty piece of our Paris!”
Suddenly he burst out: “Pasque-Dieu! what are all these people that claim to be highway-reeves, justiciaries, lords and masters along with us! that have their toll-gates at the corner of every field, their gibbet and their executioner at every cross-way among our people, so that, as the Greek thought he had as many gods as he had springs of water, the Persian as many as the stars he saw, the Frenchman reckons as many kings as he sees gibbets. Pardieu! this thing is evil, and the confusion of it incenses me! I would know if it be God’s pleasure that there should be in Paris any keepers of the highways but the King, any justiciary but our Parliament, any emperor but ourself in this empire? By my soul, but the day must come when there shall be in France but one king, one lord, one judge, one headsman, just as in paradise there is but one God!”
He lifted his cap again and went on, still deep in his own thoughts, with the look and tone of a huntsman uncoupling and cheering on his pack:
“Good, my people! Well done! Pull down these false lords! Do your work! At them! At them! Pillage, hang, sack them! Ah, you would be kings, my lords! At them! my people, at them!”
He stopped himself abruptly, bit his lips as if to regain possession of his escaping thoughts, bent his piercing eye in turn on each of the five persons around him, and suddenly taking his hat in both hands and regarding it steadfastly, he exclaimed: “Oh, I would burn thee, didst thou know what I have in my head!”
Then casting around him the alert and suspicious glance of a fox stealing back to his hole—“No matter,” he said, “we will send help to Monsieur the Provost. Most unfortunately we have very few troops here at this moment to send against such a mob. We must wait till to-morrow. Order shall then be restored in the city, and all who are taken shall be promptly hanged.”
“That reminds me, Sire,” said Coictier, “I forgot in my first perturbation, the watch have seized two stragglers of the band. If your Majesty pleases to see these men, they are here.”
“If it be my pleasure!” cried the King. “What! Pasque-Dieu! canst thou forget such a thing? Run quick. Olivier, do thou go and bring them here.”
Ma?tre Olivier went out and returned immediately with the two prisoners, surrounded by archers of the body-guard. The first of the two had a wild, imbecile face, drunken and wonder-struck. He was clad in rags and walked with one knee bent and dragging his foot. The other presented a pale and smiling countenance, with which the reader is already acquainted.
The King scrutinized them a moment without speaking, then abruptly addressed the first prisoner:
“What is thy name?”
“Gieffroy Pincebourde.”
“Thy trade?”
“Truand.”
“What wast thou doing in that damnable riot?”
The truand gazed at the King, swinging his arms the while with an air of sottish stupidity. His was one of those uncouth heads in which the intellect is about as much at its ease as a light under an extinguisher.
“Were you not going to outrageously attack and plunder your lord the Provost of the Palais?”
“I know they were going to take something from somebody, but that’s all.”
A soldier showed the King a pruning-hook which had been found on the truand.
“Dost thou recognise this weapon?” demanded the King.
“Yes, ’tis my pruning-hook. I am a vine-dresser.”
“And dost thou know this man for thy companion?” added Louis, pointing to the other prisoner.
“No, I do not know him.”
“That will do,” said the King; and motioning to the silent figure standing impassively at the door, whom we have already pointed out to the reader: “Compére Tristan,” he said, “here’s a man for you.”
Tristan l’Hermite bowed, then whispered an order to a couple of archers, who carried off the unlucky truand.
Meanwhile the King had addressed himself to the other prisoner, who was perspiring profusely: “Thy name?”
“Pierre Gringoire, Sire.”
“Thy trade?”
“Philosopher, Sire.”
“How comes it, rascal, that thou hast the presumption to go and beset our friend Monsieur the Provost of the Palais, and what hast thou to say with regard to this rising of the populace?”
“Sire, I was not in it.”
“Go to, ribald; wast thou not taken by the watch in that bad company?”
“No, Sire, there is a misapprehension; ’tis an unlucky mischance. I am a maker of tragedies, Sire. I beseech your Majesty to hear me. I am a poet. It is the craze of men of my profession to go about the streets at night. It was passing by, this evening; ’twas a mere chance. They took me without reason. I am innocent of this civil disturbance. Your Majesty sees that the truand did not know me. I conjure your Majesty—”
“Hold thy tongue!” said the King, between two sips of his tisane; “thou wilt split our head.”
Tristan l’Hermite approached, and pointing to Gringoire: “Sire, shall we hang this one at the same time?”
It was the first word he had spoken. “Bah!” returned the King carelessly, “I see no objection.”
“But I do—a great many,” said Gringoire.
Our philosopher’s countenance at this moment rivalled the hue of the olive. He saw by the cold and indifferent air of the King that he had no resource but in something, excessively pathetic. He therefore threw himself at the feet of Louis XI, and, with gestures of despair, cried:
“Sire, will your Majesty deign to listen to me? Sire, break not forth in thunders against so poor a thing as I— the bolts of God strike not the lowly lettuce. Sire, you are an august and mighty monarch; have pity on a poor honest man who would be more incapable of inflaming a revolt than an icicle of producing a spark. Most gracious Sire, magnanimity is the virtue of the lion and of the King. Alas! severity does but exasperate the spirit; the fierce blast of the north wind will not make the traveller lay aside his mantle, but the sun’s gentle rays, warming him little by little, cause him at last to strip himself gladly to his shirt. Sire, you are the sun. I protest to you, my sovereign lord and master, that I am no disorderly companion of truands and thieves. Revolt and brigandage go not in the train of Apollo. I am no man to throw myself headlong into those clouds that burst in thunders of sedition. I am a faithful vassal of your Majesty. The same jealousy which the husband has for his wife’s honour, the affection with which the son should requite his father’s love, a good vassal should feel for the glory of his King, should wear himself out for the upholding of his house, for the furtherance of his service. All other passions that might possess him were mere frenzy. These, Sire, are my maxims of state. Therefore judge me not as sedition-monger and pillager because my coat is out at elbows. Show me mercy, Sire, and I will wear out my knees in praying God for you day and night. Alas! I am not extremely rich, it is true—rather, I am somewhat poor; but for all that, I am not vicious. It is not my fault. Every one knows that great wealth is not to be acquired from belles-lettres, and that the most accomplished writers have not always a great fire to warm them in winter. The advocates alone take all the grain, and leave nothing but the chaff for the other learned professions. There are forty very excellent proverbs upon the philosopher’s threadbare coat. Oh, Sire, clemency is the only light that can illumine the interior of a great soul. Clemency bears the torch before all the other virtues. Without her they are blind, groping for God in the darkness. Mercy, which is the same as clemency, produces loving subjects—the most powerful body-guard that can surround a prince. What can it signify to your Majesty, by whom all faces are dazzled, that there should be one more poor man upon earth—a poor, innocent philosopher crawling about in the slough of calamity, his empty purse flapping upon his empty stomach? Besides, Sire, I am a man of letters. Great kings add a jewel to their crown by patronizing learning. Hercules did not disdain the title of Musagetes—leader of the Muses. Mathias Corvinus showed favour to Jean de Monroyal, the ornament of mathematics. Now ’tis an ill way of patronizing letters to hang the lettered. What a stain on Alexander had he hanged Aristotle! The act would not have been a beauty-spot upon the cheek of his reputation to embellish it, but a virulent ulcer disfiguring it. Sire, I wrote a very appropriate epithalamium for Mademoiselle of Flanders and Monsieur the most august Dauphin. That was not like a fire-brand of rebellion. Your Majesty can see that I am no dunce; that I have studied excellently, and that I have much natural eloquence. Grant me mercy, Sire! By so doing, you will perform an action agreeable to Our Lady, and I do assure you, Sire, that I am greatly frightened at the thought of being hanged!”
So saying, the desperate Gringoire kissed the King’s shoe, whereat Guillaume Rym murmured low to Coppenole: “He does well to crawl upon the floor. Kings are like the Cretan Jupiter—they have ears on their feet only.” And Coppenole, unmoved by the peculiar attributes of the Cretan Jupiter, answered with a slow smile and his eye fixed on Gringoire: “Ah, that’s good! I could fancy I hear the Chancellor Hugonet begging mercy of me!”
When Gringoire stopped at length, out of breath, he raised his head tremulously to the King, who was engaged in scratching off a spot on his breeches’ knee with his finger-nail, after which his Majesty took another mouthful from the goblet. But he said never a word, and this silence kept Gringoire on the rack. At last the King looked at him.
“Here’s a terrible babbler!” said he. Then turning to Tristan l’Hermite: “Bah! let him go!”
Gringoire, giddy with joy, suddenly sat flat on the floor.
“Free?” growled Tristan. “Your Majesty will not even have him caged for a while?”
“Compére,” returned Louis XI, “dost thou think it is for birds like this we have cages made at three hundred and seventy-seven livres, eight sols, three deniers apiece? Set him at liberty, the rascal, and send him off with a drubbing.”
“Ouf!” cried Gringoire; “here indeed is a great King!”
And, fearing a counter-order, he hurried to the door, which Tristan opened for him with a very bad grace. The soldiers went out with him, driving him before them with great blows of their fists, which Gringoire bore like a true Stoic.
The good humour of the King, since the revolt against the provost had been announced to him, manifested itself at every point, and this unusual clemency was no insignificant sign of it. Tristan l’Hermite in his corner looked as surly as a dog that has seen much but got nothing.
Meanwhile the King was gaily drumming the Pont Audemer march on the arms of his chair. He was a dissembling prince, but he was much better able to conceal his sorrow than his joys. These outward and visible signs of rejoicing at good news sometimes carried him great lengths—thus, at the death of Charles the Bold, to vowing balustrades of silver to Saint-Martin of Tours; on his accession to the throne, of forgetting to give orders for his father’s obsequies.
“Hah, Sire!” suddenly exclaimed Jacques Coictier, “what of the sharp attack of illness for which your Majesty sent for me?”
“Oh,” said the King, “truly I suffer greatly, Gossip Jacques. I have singings in the ear, and teeth of fire that rake my chest.”
Coictier took the King’s hand and felt his pulse with a professional air.
“Look at him now, Coppenole,” said Rym in a low voice. “There he is between Coictier and Tristan. That is his whole court—a physician for himself, a hangman for the others.”
As he felt the King’s pulse, Coictier assumed a look of great alarm. Louis regarded him with some anxiety, while the physician’s countenance waxed gloomier every instant. The good man had no other means of subsistence but the King’s bad health; he accordingly made the most of it.
“Oh, oh!” he muttered at last, “this is indeed serious.”
“Yes, is it not?” said the King anxiously.
“Pulsus creber, anhelans, crepitans, irregularis,” 2 continued the physician.
“Pasque-Dieu!” exclaimed his Majesty.
“This might carry off a man in less than three days.”
“Notre-Dame!” cried the King. “And the remedy, Gossip?”
“I am thinking of one, Sire.”
He made Louis put out his tongue; then shook his head, pulled a long face, and in the midst of these antics—“Pardieu! Sire,” he remarked suddenly, “I must inform you that there is a receivership of episcopal revenues vacant, and that I have a nephew.”
“I give the receivership to thy nephew, Gossip Jacques; but take this fire from my breast.”
“Since your Majesty is so gracious,” the physician went on, “you will not refuse to assist me a little towards the building of my house in the Rue Saint-Andry des Arcs?”
“H’m!” said the King.
“I am at the end of my money,” continued the doctor, “and it would indeed be a pity that the house should be left without a roof—not for the sake of the house itself, which is plain and homely, but for the paintings of Jehan Fourbault which adorn the wainscotting. There is a Diana among them, flying in the air; but so excellently limned, so tender, so delicate, the attitude so artless, the hair so admirably arranged and crowned by a crescent, the flesh so white, that she leads those into temptation who regard her too closely. Then there is also another, a Ceres—another most admirable divinity— seated on sheaves of corn, and crowned with a garland of wheat-ears intertwined with salsify and other flowers. Never were more amorous eyes, or shapelier limbs, or a nobler mien, or more graceful folds of drapery. It is one of the most innocent and perfect beauties that ever brush produced.”
