“Tormentor!” growled Louis, “to what does all this tend?”
“I require a roof over these paintings, Sire, and, although it be but a trifle, I have no money left.”
“What will it cost, this roof of thine?”
“Oh, well; a roof of copper-gilt and with mythological figures, two thousand livres at most.”
“Ha! the assassin!” screamed the King. “He never draws me a tooth but he makes a diamond out of it!”
“Am I to have my roof?” said Coictier.
“Yes!—and go to the devil; but cure me first.”
Jacques Coictier made a profound obeisance and said: “Sire, it is a repellent that will save you. We shall apply to your loins the great deterrent composed of cerade, clay of Armenia, white of egg, oil, and vinegar. You will continue the tisane, and we will answer for your Majesty’s safety.”
A lighted candle never attracts one gnat only. Master Olivier, seeing the King in so liberal a mood, and judging the moment propitious, approached in his turn.
“Sire—”
“What do you want now?” asked Louis.
“Sire, your Majesty is aware that Simon Radin is dead.”
“Well?”
“He was King’s Councillor to the Court of Treasury.”
“Well?”
“Sire, his post is vacant.”
As he spoke, Ma?tre Olivier’s overbearing countenance changed its arrogance for cringing—the only alternation on the face of a courtier. The King looked him very straight in the face and answered dryly, “I understand.”
“Ma?tre Olivier,” he went on, “the Marshal de Boucicaut says: ‘There is no good gift but from the King; there is no good fishing but in the sea.’ I see you share Monsieur de Boucicaut’s opinion. Now harken to this—we have a good memory. In ’68 we made you a groom of the chamber; in ’69, warder of the fort on the bridge of Saint-Cloud, with a salary of a hundred livres tournois (you wanted it parisis). In November, ’73, by letters patent given at Gergeole, we appointed you ranger of the forest of Vincennes in place of Gilbert Acle, squire; in ’75, warden of the forest of Rouvray-lez-Saint-Cloud, in place of Jacques le Maire; in ’78, we graciously settled upon you, by letters patent sealed with a double seal of green wax, an annuity of ten livres parisis, for yourself and your spouse, chargeable on the Place aux Marchands, near the School of Saint-Germain; in ’79, we made you warden of the forest of Senard, in the place of poor Jehan Diaz; then captain of the Castle of Loches; then Governor of Saint-Quentin; then captain of the Bridge of Meulan, of which you had yourself called count. Of the five sols fine paid by every barber who shaves on a holiday, you get three—and we get what you leave. We were pleased to change your surname of Le Mauvais as being too expressive of your mien. In ’74, we granted you, to the great umbrage of our nobility, armorial bearings of many colours, which enables you to display a peacock breast. Pasque-Dieu! are you not surfeited? Is not the draught of fishes abundant and miraculous enough? Are you not afraid that one salmon more will sink your boat? Pride will be your ruin, my Gossip. Ruin and shame tread ever close upon the heels of pride. Remember that, and keep still.”
These words, pronounced with severity, brought back the insolence to Olivier’s face.
“Good!” he muttered almost aloud; “’tis evident the King is sick to-day, for he gives all to the physician.”
Far from taking offence at this piece of effrontery, Louis resumed in a milder tone: “Stay, I had forgotten too that I made you my ambassador at Ghent to Mme. Marie. Yes, gentlemen,” he added, addressing himself to the Flemings, “this man has been an ambassador. There, there, Gossip,” turning to Olivier, “let us not fall out—we are old friends. It is getting late. We have finished our business—shave me.”
The reader has doubtless already recognised in Ma?tre Olivier the terrible Figaro whose part Providence—that master playwright—wove so skilfully into the long and sanguinary drama of Louis XI. We shall not attempt here to describe that baleful character. This barber to the King had three names. At Court they addressed him politely as Olivier le Daim; among the people he was Olivier le Diable. His real name was Olivier le Mauvais—the Miscreant.
Olivier le Mauvais stood unmoved, sulking at the King, scowling at Jacques Coictier.
“Yes, yes! the physician!” he muttered between his teeth.
“Quite so; the physician!” repeated Louis with unwonted affability; “the physician has yet more influence than thyself. The reason is not far to seek—he has hold over our entire body; thou only of our chin. Come, come, my poor barber, all will be well. Now, Gossip, perform thy office, and shave me; go fetch what is needful.”
Olivier, seeing that the King was determined to take the matter as a jest, and that it was useless even to try to provoke him, went out grumbling to execute his orders.
The King rose and went to the window. Suddenly he threw it open with extraordinary excitement:
“Oh, yes!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands, “there’s a glare in the sky over the city. It is the Provost of the Palais burning; it can be nothing else. Ha! my good people, so ye aid me at last in the overthrow of the feudal lords! Gentlemen,” and he turned to the Flemings, “come and look at this. Is that not the red glare of a conflagration?”
The two Flemings approached.
“A great fire,” said Guillaume Rym.
“Oh!” added Coppenole, his face lighting up suddenly,
“that reminds me of the burning of the Seigneur d’Hymber-court’s house. There must be a big revolt over there.”
“Think you so, Ma?tre Coppenole?” and Louis’s face beamed even brighter than the hosier’s. “Do you not think it will be difficult to check?”
“Croix-Dieu! Sire, it may cost your Majesty many a company of soldiers!”
“Ah—cost me—that’s different,” rejoined the King. “If I choose—”
“If this revolt be what I suppose,” continued the hosier boldly, “you will have no choice in the matter, Sire.”
“My friend,” said Louis XI, “two companies of my bodyguard, and the discharge of a serpentine, are amply sufficient to put a mob of common people to the rout.”
Regardless of the signs Guillaume Rym was making to him, the hosier seemed bent upon contesting the matter with the King. “Sire,” said he, “the Swiss were common people too. Monsieur the Duke of Burgundy was a great seigneur, and held the canaille of no account. At the battle of Granson, Sire, he shouted: ‘Cannoneers, fire upon these churls!’ and he swore by Saint-George. But the syndic Scharnachtal rushed upon the fine duke with his clubs and his men, and at the shock of the peasants with their bull-hides, the glittering Burgundian army was shattered like a pane of glass by a stone. There was many a knight killed there by the base-born churls, and Monsieur de Chateau-Guyon, the greatest lord in Burgundy, was found dead, with his great gray charger, in a little boggy field.”
“Friend,” returned the King, “you are speaking of a battle. This is but a riot, and I can put an end to it the moment I choose to lift a finger.”
To which the other replied unconcernedly, “That may be, Sire; but in that case, the hour of the people has not yet come.”
Guillaume Rym thought it time to interfere. “Ma?tre Coppenole, you are talking to a great King.”
“I know it,” answered the hosier gravely.
“Let him speak his mind, friend Rym,” said the King. “I like this plain speaking. My father, Charles VII, used to say that truth was sick. For my part, I thought she was dead and had found no confessor. Ma?tre Coppenole shows me I am mistaken.” Then, laying his hand on Ma?tre Coppenole’s shoulder: “You were saying, Ma?tre Jacques—”
“I said, Sire, that may-be you were right; that the people’s hour is not yet come with you.”
Louis XI looked at him with his penetrating gaze. “And when will that hour come, Ma?tre?”
“You will hear it strike.”
“By what clock, prithee?”
Coppenole, with his quiet and homely self-possession, signed to the King to approach the window. “Listen, Sire! There is here a donjon-keep, a bell-tower, cannon, townsfolk, soldiers. When the tocsin sounds, when the cannons roar, when, with great clamour, the fortress walls are shattered, when citizens and soldiers shout and kill each other—then the hour will strike.”
Louis’s face clouded and he seemed to muse. He was silent for a moment, then, clapping his hand gently against the thick wall of the keep, as one pats the flank of a charger:
“Ah, surely not,” said he; “thou wilt not be so easily shattered, eh, my good Bastille?”
And turning abruptly to the undaunted Fleming: “Have you ever seen a revolt, Ma?tre Jacques?”
“Sire, I have made one,” answered the hosier.
“How do you set about it,” said the King, “to make a revolt?”
“Oh,” answered Coppenole, “it is no very difficult matter. There are a hundred ways. First of all, there must be dissatisfaction in the town—that’s nothing uncommon. And next, there is the character of the inhabitants. Those of Ghent are prone to revolt. They ever love the son of the prince, but never the prince himself. Well, one fine morning, we will suppose, some one enters my shop and says to me: ‘Father Coppenole, it is thus and thus—the Lady of Flanders wants to save her favourites, the chief provost has doubled the toll on green food, or something of the kind—what you will.’ I throw down my work, run out of my shop into the street, and cry, ‘á sac!’ There is sure to be some empty cask about. I get upon it, and say in a loud voice the first thing that comes into my head—what’s uppermost in my heart—and when one is of the people, Sire, one has always something in one’s heart. Then a crowd gets together; they shout, they ring the tocsin, the people arm themselves by disarming the soldiers, the market people join the rest, and off they march. And so it will always be, so long as there are lords in the manors, citizens in the cities, and peasants in the country.”
“And against whom do you rise thus?” asked the King; “against your provosts? against your lords?”
“Sometimes; it all depends. Against the duke too, on occasion.”
Louis returned to his chair. “Ah! here,” he said with a smile, “they have not got further than the provosts!”
At the same instant Olivier le Daim entered the apartment. He was followed by two pages bearing the toilet necessaries of the King; but what struck Louis was to see him also accompanied by the Provost of Paris and the commander of the watch, who both appeared full of consternation. There was consternation, too, in the manner of the rancorous barber, but with an underlying satisfaction.
He was the first to speak. “Sire, I crave pardon of your Majesty for the calamitous news I bring.”
The King turned sharply round, tearing the mat under the feet of his chair. “What’s that?”
“Sire,” replied Olivier, with the malevolent look of one who rejoices that he has to deal a violent blow, “it is not against the Provost of the Palais that this rising is directed.”
“Against whom, then?”
“Against you, Sire.”
The aged King sprang to his feet, erect as a young man.
“Explain thyself, Olivier! explain thyself! And look well to thy head, my Gossip; for I swear to thee by the cross of Saint-L?, that if thou speakest false in this matter, the sword that cut the throat of M. de Luxembourg is not so notched but it will manage to saw thine too.”
It was a formidable oath. Never but twice in his life had Louis sworn by the cross of Saint-L?.
Olivier opened his mouth to answer. “Sire—”
“Down on thy knees!” interrupted the King vehemently. “Tristan, stand guard over this man!”
Olivier went down on his knees. “Sire,” he said composedly, “a witch was condemned to death by your Court of Parliament. She took sanctuary in Notre-Dame. The people want to take her thence by main force. Monsieur the Provost and Monsieur the Commander of the Watch are here to contradict me if I speak not the truth. It is Notre-Dame the people are besieging.”
“Ah! ah!” murmured the King, pale and shaking with passion. “Notre-Dame they besiege! Our Lady, my good mistress, in her own Cathedral! Rise, Olivier. Thou art right. I give thee Simon Radin’s office. Thou art right; it is me they attack. The witch is under the safeguard of the Church, the Church is under my safeguard. And I—who thought all the while that it was only the provost—and ’tis against myself!”
Rejuvenated by passion, he began to pace the room with great strides. He laughed no more; he was terrible to look upon as he went to and fro—the fox was become a hyena. He seemed choking with rage, his lips moved, but no word came, his fleshless hands were clenched. Suddenly he raised his head, his sunken eyes blazed full of light, his voice range like a clarion: “Seize them, Tristan! Cut down the knaves! Away, Tristan, my friend! Kill! Kill!”
This outburst over, he returned to his seat, and went on in a voice of cold and concentrated rage: “Hither, Tristan. We have with us in this Bastille fifty lances of the Vicomte de Gif, which makes three hundred horses; you will take them. There is also a company of the archers of our bodyguard, under Monsieur de Chateaupers; you will take them. You are provost-marshal, and have the men of your provostry; you will take them. At the H?tel Saint-Pol you will find forty archers of the new guard of Monsieur the Dauphin; take them, and with all these you will speed to Notre-Dame. Ah, messieurs, the commons of Paris, do you fly thus in the face of the crown of France, of the sanctity of Notre-Dame, and the peace of this commonwealth! Exterminate, Tristan! exterminate! and let not one escape for Montfaucon!”
Tristan bowed. “Very good, Sire! And what am I to do with the witch?” he added after a moment’s pause.
This question gave the King food for reflection. “Ah, to be sure,” said he, “the witch? M. d’Estouteville, what did the people want to do with her?”
“Sire,” answered the Provost of Paris, “I imagine, that as the people were come to drag her out of sanctuary in Notre-Dame, it is her impunity that offends them, and that they desire to hang her.”
The King appeared to reflect profoundly; then, addressing himself to Tristan l’Hermite:
“Very well, Compére; exterminate the people and hang the witch.”
“In other words,” whispered Rym to Coppenole, “punish the people for wanting to do a thing, and then do it yourself!”
“Very good, Sire,” returned Tristan. “And if the witch is still inside the Cathedral, are we to disregard the sanctuary and take her away?”
“Pasque-Dieu! the sanctuary,” said the King, scratching his ear; “and yet the woman must be hanged.”
Then, as if an idea had suddenly occurred to him, he fell on his knees before his chair, took off his hat, laid it on the seat, and gazing devoutly at one of the little lead images with which it was encircled: “Oh!” he cried, clasping his hands, “Our Lady of Paris, my gracious patroness, give me pardon, I will do it only this once. This criminal must be punished. I do assure you, Madame the Virgin, my good mistress, that it is a sorceress, unworthy of your kind protection. You know, Madame, that many very devout princes have trespassed on the privileges of the Church for the glory of God and the necessity of the state. Saint-Hugh, Bishop of England, permitted King Edward to seize a magician in his church. My master, Saint-Louis of France, transgressed for the like purpose in the Church of Saint-Paul, and Monsieur Alphonse, son of the King of Jerusalem, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre itself. Pardon me, then, for this once, Our Lady of Paris! I will never again transgress in this manner, and I will give you a fair statue of silver, like that I gave last year to Our Lady of ècouys. So be it!”
