CHAPTER V

The Retreat Where Louis of France Says His Prayers

The reader may remember that a moment before he caught sight of the nocturnal band of Vagrants, Quasimodo, while inspecting Paris from the top of his belfry, saw but one light still burning, and that gleamed from a window in the highest story of a tall dark structure close beside the Porte Saint-Antoine. This building was the Bastille; that starry light was the candle of Louis XI.

King Louis XI had actually been in Paris for two days. He was to set out again two days later for his fortress of Montilz-les-Tours. His visits to his good city of Paris were rare and brief; for he never felt that he had enough trapdoors, gibbets, and Scotch archers about him there.

He had that day come to sleep at the Bastille. The great chamber, five fathoms square, which he had at the Louvre, with its huge chimney-piece adorned with twelve great beasts and thirteen great prophets, and his great bed eleven feet by twelve, were not to his taste. He was lost amid all these grandeurs. This good, homely king preferred the Bastille, with a tiny chamber and a simple bed. And then, the Bastille was stronger than the Louvre.

This tiny room, which the king reserved to his own use in the famous state-prison, was spacious enough, after all, and occupied the topmost floor of a turret adjoining the keep. It was a circular chamber, carpeted with mats of lustrous straw, ceiled with beams enriched with fleurs-de-lis of gilded metal, with colored interjoists wainscotted with rich woods studded with rosettes of white metal painted a fine bright green, compounded of orpiment and wood.

There was but one window,—a long arched opening latticed with brass wire and iron bars, and still further darkened by beautiful stained glass emblazoned with the arms of the king and queen, each pane of which was worth twenty-two pence.

There was but one entrance,—a modern door, with surbased arch, hung with tapestry on the inside, and on the outside decorated with a porch of bogwood, a frail structure of curiously wrought cabinet-work, such as was very common in old houses some hundred and fifty years ago. “Although they are disfiguring and cumbersome,” says Sauval, in despair, “still, our old folk will not do away with them, and retain them in spite of everything.”

The room contained none of the furniture ordinarily found in such an apartment,—neither benches, nor trestles, nor common box stools, nor more elegant stools mounted on posts and counter-posts, at four pence each. There was only one chair,—a folding-chair with arms,—and a very superb one it was: the wood was painted with roses on a red ground, the seat was of scarlet Spanish leather, trimmed with heavy silk fringe and studded with countless golden nails. The solitary chair showed that but one person had a right to be seated in that room. Besides the chair, and very near the window there was a table covered with a cloth embroidered with figures of birds.

Upon this table were a standish spotted with ink, sundry parchments, a few pens, and a chased silver goblet. Farther away stood a stove, and a prayer-desk of crimson velvet embossed with gold. Lastly, at the back of the room there was a simple bed of yellow and carnation-colored damask, without tinsel or lace,—merely a plain fringe. This bed, famous for having borne the sleep,—or sleeplessness,—of Louis XI, might still be seen two hundred years ago, at the house of a councillor of state, where it was viewed by old Madame Pilou, celebrated in “Cyrus,” under the name of “Ar ricidia” and of “Morality Embodied.”

Such was the room known as “the retreat where Louis of France says his prayers.”

At the moment when we introduce our reader to it, this retreat was very dark. The curfew had rung an hour before; it was night, and there was but one flickering wax candle placed on the table to light five persons grouped about the room.

The first upon whom the direct rays of the candle fell was a nobleman, magnificently dressed in scarlet breeches and jerkin striped with silver, and a loose coat with padded shoulders, made of cloth of gold brocaded in black. This splendid costume, upon which the light played, seemed to be frosted with flame at every fold. The man who wore it had his armorial bearings embroidered on his breast in gay colors,—a chevron with a deer passant at the base of the shield. The escutcheon was supported by an olive-branch dexter and a buck’s horn sinister. This man wore at his belt a rich dagger, the silver-gilt handle of which was wrought in the shape of a crest, and surmounted by a count’s coronet. He had an evil expression, a haughty mien, and a proud bearing. At the first glance his face revealed arrogance, at the second craft.

He stood bare-headed, a long scroll in his hand, behind the arm-chair in which sat, his body awkwardly bent, his knees crossed, his elbow on the table, a most ill-attired person. Imagine, indeed, upon the luxurious Spanish leather seat, a pair of knock knees, a couple of slender shanks meagerly arrayed in black woollen knitted stuff, a body wrapped in a fustian coat edged with fur, which had far more skin than hair; finally, to crown the whole, a greasy old hat, of the poorest quality of black cloth, stuck round with a circlet of small leaden images. This, with a dirty skull-cap, which showed scarce a single hair, was all that could be seen of the seated personage. His head was bent so low upon his breast that nothing could be distinguished of his face, which was wholly in shadow, unless it might be the tip of his nose, upon which a ray of light fell, and which was clearly a long one. By the thinness of his wrinkled hand, he was evidently an old man. This was Louis XI.

Some distance behind them, two men clad in Flemish fashion chatted together in low tones. They were not so entirely in the shadow but that any one who had been present at the performance of Gringoire’s play could recognize them as two of the chief Flemish envoys, Guillaume Rym, the wise pensionary of Ghent, and Jacques Coppenole, the popular hosier. It will be remembered that these two men were connected with Louis XI’s secret policy.

Lastly, at the farther end of the room, near the door, stood in the gloom, motionless as a statue, a sturdy man with thickset limbs, in military trappings, his doublet embroidered with armorial bearings, whose square face, with its goggle eyes, immense mouth, and ears hidden under two broad pent-houses of straight, lank hair, partook at once of the character of the dog and the tiger.

All were uncovered save the king.

The gentleman nearest to the king was reading a lengthy document, to which his Majesty seemed listening most attentively. The two Flemings whispered together.

“Zounds!” grumbled Coppenole, “I am weary with standing; is there no chair here?”

Rym replied by a shake of the head, accompanied by a prudent smile.

“Zounds!” resumed Coppenole, utterly miserable at being obliged to lower his voice; “I long to sit down on the floor with my legs crossed, in true hosier style, as I do in my own shop at home.”

“Beware how you do so, Master Jacques.”

“Bless me! Master Guillaume! must we be on our feet forever here?”

“Or on our knees,” said Rym.

At this moment the king spoke. They were silent.

“Fifty pence for the coats of our lackeys, and twelve pounds for the cloaks of the clerks of our crown. That’s it! Pour out gold by the ton! Are you mad, Olivier?”

So saying, the old man lifted his head. The golden shells of the collar of Saint Michel glistened about his neck. The light of the candle fell full upon his thin, peevish profile. He snatched the paper from his companion’s hands.

“You will ruin us!” he cried, running his hollow eye over the scroll. “What is all this? What need have we for so vast an establishment? Two chaplains at ten pounds a month each, and an assistant at one hundred pence! A valet at ninety pounds a year! Four head cooks at six-score pounds a year each; a roaster, a soup-maker, a sauce-maker, an under cook, a keeper of the stores, two stewards’ assistants, at ten pounds a month each! Two scullions at eight pounds! A groom and his two helpers at twenty-four pounds a month! A porter, a pastry-cook, a baker, two wagoners, each sixty pounds a year! And the farrier, six-score pounds! And the master of our exchequer chamber, twelve hundred pounds! And the comptroller five hundred! And I know not how many more! ‘Tis sheer madness! Our servants’ wages plunder France! All the treasures of the Louvre will melt away before such a wasting fire of expense! We will sell our plate! And next year, if God and Our Lady [here he raised his hat] grant us life, we will take our tisanes from a pewter pot!”

With these words he cast a glance at the silver goblet which sparkled on the table. He coughed, and continued,—

“Master Olivier, princes who reign over great domains, such as kings and emperors, should never suffer extravagant living in their houses; for thence the fire spreads to the provinces. Therefore, Master Olivier, forget this not. Our expenses increase yearly. The thing displeases us. What, by the Rood! until ‘79 they never exceeded thirty-six thousand pounds; in ’80 they amounted to forty-three thousand six hundred and nineteen pounds,—I have the figures in my head; in ‘81 they were sixty-six thousand six hundred and eighty pounds; and this year, by my faith! they will come to eighty thousand pounds! Doubled in four years! monstrous!”

He paused for lack of breath; then he went on angrily,—

“I see around me none but people fattening on my leanness! You suck crowns from me at every pore!”

All were silent. His rage must be allowed free vent. He continued: —

“It is like that petition in Latin from the nobles of France, that we would re-establish what they call the charges on the crown! Charges, indeed! crushing charges! Ah, gentlemen! you say that we are not a king to reign dapifero nullo,^dv buticulario nullo! We will show you, by the Rood! whether we be a king or no!”

Here he smiled with a sense of his power; his bad humor moderated, and he turned towards the Flemings:

“Mark you, gossip Guillaume, the head baker, the chief cellarer, the lord chamberlain, the lord seneschal, are not worth so much as the meanest lackey; remember that, gossip Coppenole. They are good for nothing. As they thus hang uselessly around the king, they remind me of the four Evangelists about the dial of the great clock on the Palace, which Philippe Brille has just done up as good as new. They are gilded over, but they do not mark the hour, and the hands go on as well without them.”

For a moment he seemed lost in thought, and added, shaking his aged head:—

“Ho! ho! by Notre-Dame, I am no Philippe Brille, and I will not re-gild my lordly vassals! Go on, Olivier!”

The person thus addressed took the scroll from his royal master’s hands, and began to read again in a loud voice:—

“To Adam Tenon, clerk to the keeper of the seals of the provosty of Paris, for the silver, fashioning, and engraving of said seals, which have been new made by reason of the others preceding being old and worn out, and no longer fit for use, twelve Paris pounds.

“To Guillaume Frère, the sum of four pounds four Paris pence for his labor and cost in nourishing and feeding the pigeons in the two dovecots of the Hotel des Tournelles, for the months of January, February, and March of this present year; for the which he hath expended seven sextaries of barley.

“To a Grey Friar, for confessing a criminal, four Paris pence.”

The king listened in silence. From time to time he coughed; then he raised the goblet to his lips, and swallowed a mouthful with a wry face.

“In this year have been made by order of the courts and by sound of trumpet, in the public places of Paris, fifty-six proclamations; the account yet to be made up.

“For quest and search in sundry places, both in Paris and elsewhere, for funds said to be concealed there, but nothing found, forty-five Paris pounds.”

“A crown buried to unearth a penny!” said the king.

“For setting six panes of white glass at the Hotel des Tournelles, in the place where the iron cage is, thirteen pence; for making and delivering, by the king’s command, on muster-day, four escutcheons with the arms of our said lord wreathed all around with roses, six pounds; for two new sleeves to the king’s old doublet, twenty pence; for a box of grease to grease the king’s boots, fifteen farthings; for rebuilding a sty to lodge the king’s black swine, thirty Paris pounds; sundry partitions, planks, and gratings made for the safe-keeping of the lions at the Hotel Saint-Pol, twenty-two pounds.”

“Here be costly beasts,” said Louis XI. “Never mind, ’t is a luxury which befits a king. There is one big tawny lion that I love for his pretty tricks. Have you seen him, Master Guillaume? Princes needs to keep these rare wild beasts. We kings should have lions for lapdogs, and tigers instead of cats. Grandeur beseems a crown. In the time of Jupiter’s pagans, when the people offered an hundred sheep and an hundred oxen to the gods, emperors gave an hundred lions and an hundred eagles. That was fierce and very fine. The kings of France have ever had these roarings round their throne; nevertheless, my subjects must do me the justice to say that I spend far less money in that way than my predecessors, and that I am much more moderate as regards lions, bears, elephants, and leopards. Go on, Master Olivier. We merely wished to say this much to our Flemish friends.”

Guillaume Rym bowed low, while Coppenole, with his sullen air, looked like one of those bears to which his Majesty referred.

The king did not notice him. He wet his lips with the liquid in the goblet, and spat the brew out again, saying, “Faugh! what a disagreeable tisane!” The reader continued:—

“For feeding a rascally tramp, kept under lock and key in the little cell at the shambles for six months, until it should be decided what to do with him, six pounds and four pence.”

“What’s that?” interrupted the king; “feed what should be hanged! By the Rood! I will not pay one penny for his keep! Olivier, settle the matter with Master d‘Estouteville, and this very night make me preparations for this gallant’s wedding with the gallows. Go on.”

Olivier made a mark with his thumb-nail against the item of the rascally tramp, and resumed:—

“To Henriet Cousin, chief executioner of Paris, the sum of sixty Paris pence, to him adjudged and ordered by the lord provost of Paris, for having bought, by order of the said provost, a broadsword for the execution and decapitation of all persons condemned by the courts for their demerits, and having it furnished with a scabbard and all thereunto appertaining; and likewise for having the old sword sharpened and repaired, it having been broken and notched in doing justice upon my lord Louis of Luxembourg, as herein more fully set down—”

The king interrupted. “Enough; I cheerfully order the sum to be paid. These are expenses which I never regard; I have never regretted such moneys. Continue.”

“For repairing a great cage—”

“Ah!” said the king, grasping the arms of his chair with both hands, “I knew that I came here to the Bastille for a purpose. Stay, Master Olivier; I desire to see this cage for myself. You may read the costs while I examine it. Gentlemen of Flanders, come and look at it; it is a curious sight.”

Then he rose, leaned upon his reader’s arm, signed to the mute who stood at the door to go before him, to the two Flemings to follow him, and left the room.

The royal party was increased at the door of the retreat by men-at-arms weighed down with steel, and slender pages bearing torches. It proceeded for some time through the interior of the gloomy keep, perforated with staircases and corridors in the thickness of the walls. The captain of the Bastille walked at the head of the procession, and ordered the gates to be thrown open before the bent and feeble old king, who coughed as he moved along.

At every wicket gate all heads were forced to stoop, except that of the old man bowed by age. “Hum!” he mumbled, for he had lost all his teeth, “we are all ready for the door of the tomb. A low door needs a stooping passenger.”

At last, after passing through a final gate so encumbered with locks that it took a quarter of an hour to open it, they entered a lofty, spacious, vaulted hall, in the middle of which they saw, by the light of the torches, a huge and massive cube of masonry, iron, and wood. The interior was hollow. It was one of those famous cages meant for prisoners of state, which were known by the name of “the king’s daughters.” In its sides were two or three small windows, so closely grated with heavy iron bars that the glass was entirely hidden. The door was a great flat stone slab, such as are used for tombs,—one of those doors used for entrance only. But here, the dead man was a living being.

The king walked slowly around the little structure, carefully examining it, while Master Olivier, who followed him, read aloud:—

“For repairing a great cage of heavy wooden joists, girders, and timbers, being nine feet long by eight in breadth, and seven feet high between the planks, planed, and clamped with strong iron clamps, which has been placed in a room in one of the towers of the Bastille Saint-Antoine, in which cage is put and kept, by command of our lord the king, a prisoner formerly dwelling in a worn-out and crazy old cage. There were used for the said new cage ninety-six horizontal beams and fifty-two uprights, ten girders eighteen feet long. Nineteen carpenters were employed for twenty days, in the court of the Bastille, to square, cut, and fit all the said wood.”

“Quite fine heart of oak,” said the king, rapping on the timber with his knuckles.

“... There were used in this cage,” continued the other, “two hundred and twenty large iron clamps, of eight and nine feet, the rest of medium length, with the screws, roller-bolts, and counter-bands requisite for said clamps, all the aforesaid iron weighing three thousand seven hundred and thirty-five pounds; besides eight large iron bolts serving to fasten the said cage, with the nails and clamp-irons, weighing all together two hundred and eighteen pounds; not to mention the iron gratings for the windows of the room wherein the cage was placed, the iron bars on the door, and other items—”

“Here’s a mighty deal of iron,” said the king, “to restrain the lightness of one mind!”

“... The whole amounts to three hundred and seventeen pounds five pence and seven farthings.”

“By the Rood!” exclaimed the king.

At this oath, which was Louis XI’s favorite imprecation, some one seemed to waken within the cage: chains rattled loudly against the wood-work, and a faint voice, which appeared to issue from the tomb, cried: “Sire! Sire! Pardon!” But no one could see the person uttering these words.

“Three hundred and seventeen pounds five pence and seven farthings!” repeated Louis XI.

The piteous voice which issued from the cage had chilled the blood of all present, even that of Master Olivier himself. The king alone appeared as if he had not heard it. At his command Master Olivier resumed his reading, and his Majesty calmly continued his inspection of the cage.

“Moreover, there has been paid to a mason who made the holes to receive the window-bars, and the floor of the room in which the cage stands, forasmuch as the floor could not have borne this cage by reason of its weight, twenty-seven pounds and fourteen Paris pence—”

The voice again began its moan:—

“Mercy, Sire! I swear that it was my lord Cardinal of Angers, and not I, who plotted the treason.”

“The mason charges well!” said the king. “Go on, Olivier!”

Olivier continued:—

“To a joiner, for window-frames, bedstead, close stool, and other items, twenty pounds two Paris pence—”

The voice continued likewise:—

“Alas! Sire! will you not hear me? I protest that it was not I who wrote that thing to my lord of Guyenne, but his highness Cardinal Balue!”

“The joiner is dear,” observed the king. “Is that all?”

“No, Sire. To a glazier, for the window-panes in said chamber, forty-six pence eight Paris farthings.”

“Have mercy, Sire! Is it not enough that all my worldly goods were given to my judges, my silver plate to M. de Torcy, my books to Master Pierre Doriolle, my tapestries to the Governor of Roussil lon? I am innocent. For fourteen years I have shivered in an iron cage. Have mercy, Sire! You will find your reward in heaven.”

“Master Olivier,” said the king, “what is the sum total?”

“Three hundred and sixty-seven pounds eight pence three Paris farthings.”

“By‘r Lady!” cried the king. “What an extravagant cage!”

He snatched the scroll from Master Olivier’s hands, and began to reckon up the items himself upon his fingers, looking by turns at the paper and the cage. Meantime, the prisoner’s sobs were plainly to be heard. It was a doleful sound in the darkness, and the by-standers paled as they gazed into one another’s faces.

“Fourteen years, Sire! full fourteen years! ever since the month of April, 1469. In the name of the Blessed Mother of God, Sire, hear me! You have enjoyed the warmth of the sun all these years. Shall I, poor wretch, never again behold the light of day? Pity me, Sire! Be merciful. Clemency is a goodly and a royal virtue, which turns aside the stream of wrath. Does your Majesty believe that it will greatly content a king in the hour of his death, to reflect that he has never let any offence go unpunished? Moreover, Sire, I never did betray your Majesty; it was my lord of Angers. And I wear about my leg a very heavy chain, and a great ball of iron at the end of it, far heavier than is reasonable. Ah, Sire, have pity upon me!”

“Olivier,” said the king, shaking his head, “I observe that these fellows charge me twenty pence the hogshead for plaster, which is worth only twelve. Have this account corrected.”

He turned his back on the cage, and prepared to leave the room. The miserable prisoner guessed by the receding torches and noise that the king was departing.

“Sire! Sire!” he cried in tones of despair.

The door closed. He saw nothing more, he heard nothing save the harsh voice of the jailor singing in his ears the song:—

“Master Jean Balue,

Has quite lost view

Of his bishoprics cherished.

My lord of Verdun

Has not a single one;

Every one hath perished.”

The king silently reascended to his retreat, and his train followed him, terrified by the prisoner’s last groans. All at once his Majesty turned to the governor of the Bastille.

“By the way,” said he, “was there not some one in that cage?”

“Zounds, Sire, yes!” replied the governor, lost in amaze at such a question.

“Who, then?”

“The Bishop of Verdun.”

The king was better aware of this than any one else; but this was his way.

“Ah!” said he, with an innocent semblance of thinking of it for the first time, “Guillaume de Harancourt, the friend of Cardinal Balue,—a merry devil of a bishop!”

A few moments later the door of the retreat was reopened, then closed again upon the five persons whom we saw there at the beginning of this chapter, and who resumed their places, their low-voiced conversation, and their former attitudes.

During the king’s absence a number of dispatches had been laid on the table, and he now broke the seals. Then he rapidly read them one after the other, motioned to Master Olivier, who seemed to perform the office of his minister, to take a pen, and without imparting the contents of the dispatches to him, began to dictate answers in an undertone, the latter writing them down, kneeling uncomfortably at the table.

Guillaume Rym watched him.

The king spoke so low that the Flemings caught but a few detached and scarcely intelligible fragments, such as:—

“... keep up fertile places by commerce and sterile ones by manufacturers. Show the English lords our four bombards, the London, Brabant, Bourg-en-Bresse, and Saint-Omer.... Artillery occasions war to be more wisely waged at the present time.... To Monsieur de Bressuire, our friend.... Armies cannot be maintained without tribute,” etc.

Once he raised his voice:—

“By the Rood! the King of Sicily seals his letters with yellow wax, like a king of France. We may be wrong to allow him this privilege. My fair cousin of Burgundy gave no armorial bearings upon a field gules. The greatness of a house is ensured by holding its prerogatives intact. Note that, gossip Olivier.”

Again:—

“Oho!” said he, “an important message this! What would our brother the emperor have?” And running his eye over the missive, he interrupted his reading with constant exclamations: “Surely the Germans are so great and powerful that ’t is scarcely credible. But we are not unmindful of the old proverb: The finest county is Flanders; the fairest duchy, Milan; the most beauteous kingdom, France. Is it not so, Sir Flemings?”

This time Coppenole bowed with Guillaume Rym. The hosier’s patriotism was tickled.

The last dispatch made Louis XI frown.

“What’s this?” he exclaimed. “Complaints and requisitions against our garrisons in Picardy! Olivier, write with speed to Marshal de Rouault: That discipline is relaxed. That the men-at-arms of the ordnance, the nobles of the ban, the free-archers, and the Swiss guards do infinite injury to the peasants. That the soldiers, not content with the goods which they find in the houses of the tillers of the soil, constrain them, by heavy blows of bludgeons and sticks, to seek throughout the town for wine, fish, spices, and other articles of luxury. That the king is well aware of all this. That we intend to preserve our people from all unseemly acts, larceny, and pillage. That this is our sovereign will, by Our Lady! That, moreover, it likes us not that any minstrel, barber, or serving man at arms should go arrayed like a prince, in velvet, silken cloth, and rings of gold. That these vanities are hateful in the sight of God. That we content ourselves—we who are a gentleman of high degree—with one cloth doublet at sixteen pence the Paris ell. That soldiers’ servants may well come down to that also. We command and order these things. To Monsieur de Rouault, our friend. Good!”

He dictated this letter in a loud voice, in a firm tone, and by fits and starts. Just as he ended it, the door opened and admitted a new personage, who rushed into the room in extreme alarm, shouting,—

“Sire! Sire! the people of Paris have risen in revolt!”

The grave face of Louis XI was convulsed; but every visible sign of emotion passed away like a flash of lightning. He restrained himself, and said with calm severity,—

“Compere Jacques, you enter somewhat abruptly!”

“Sire! Sire! there is a revolt!” replied the breathless Jacques.

The king, who had risen, took him roughly by the arm, and whispered in his ear in a manner to be heard by him alone, with concentrated rage, and a sidelong glance at the Flemings,—

“Hold your tongue, or speak low!”

The new-comer understood, and began to tell him in a low voice a very incoherent tale, to which the king listened with perfect composure, while Guillaume Rym drew Coppenole’s attention to the new-comer’s face and dress, his furred hood (caputia fourrata), his short cloak (epitogia curta), and his black velvet gown, which bespoke a president of the Court of Accounts.

This person had no sooner given the king a few details, than Louis XI cried with a burst of laughter,—

“Indeed! Speak up boldly, Compere Coictier! Why do you talk so low? Our Lady knows that we hide nothing from our good Flemish friends.”

“But, Sire—”

“Speak up boldly!”

Compere Coictier was dumb with surprise.

“So,” resumed the king,—“speak, sir,—there is a commotion among the common people in our good city of Paris?”

“Yes, Sire.”

“And it is directed, you say, against the Provost of the Palace of Justice?”

“It looks that way,” said the compere, who still stammered and hesitated, utterly astounded by the sudden and inexplicable change which had been wrought in the king’s sentiments.

Louis XI added: “Where did the watch encounter the mob?”

“Moving from the chief haunt of the beggars and vagrants towards the Pont-aux-Changeurs. I met them myself on my way hither to execute your Majesty’s orders. I heard certain of the number shouting, ‘Down with the Provost of the Palace!’”

“And what is their grievance against the provost?”

“Ah!” said Jacques, “that he is their lord.”

“Really!”

“Yes, Sire. They are rascals from the Court of Miracles. They have long complained of the provost, whose vassals they are. They refuse to recognize him either as justiciary or road-surveyor.”

“Ay, say you so!” returned the king, with a smile of satisfaction which he vainly strove to disguise.

“In all their petitions to Parliament,” added Jacques, “they claim that they have but two masters,—your Majesty and their God, who is, I believe, the devil.”

“Hah!” said the king.

He rubbed his hands; he laughed that inward laugh which makes the face radiant; he could not disguise his joy, although he tried at times to compose himself. No one understood his mood, not even Master Olivier. He was silent for a moment, with a pensive but contented air.

“Are they strong in numbers?” he asked suddenly.

“Indeed they are, Sire,” replied Compere Jacques.

“How many?”

“At least six thousand.”

The king could not help exclaiming, “Good!” He added, “Are they armed?”

“With scythes, pikes, hackbuts, mattocks, and all sorts of danger ous weapons.

The king seemed by no means alarmed at this account. Compere Jacques felt obliged to add,—

“If your Majesty send not promptly to the provost’s aid, he is lost.”

“We will send,” said the king, with an assumed expression of seriousness. “It is well. Certainly we will send. The provost is our friend. Six thousand! They are determined knaves. Their boldness is marvelous, and we are greatly wroth at it; but we have few people about us tonight. It will be time enough in the morning.”

Compere Jacques exclaimed, “Straightway, Sire! The provost’s house may be sacked twenty times over, the seigniory profaned, and the provost hanged, by then. For the love of God, Sire, send before tomorrow morning!”

The king looked him in the face. “I said tomorrow.” It was one of those looks which admit of no reply. After a pause, Louis XI again raised his voice. “Compère Jacques, you must know—What was—” He corrected himself. “What is the Provost’s feudal jurisdiction?”

“Sire, the Provost of the Palace has jurisdiction from the Rue de la Calandre to the Rue de l‘Herberie, the Place Saint-Michel, and the places commonly called the Mureaux, situated near the church of Notre-Dame des Champs [here the king lifted the brim of his hat], which residences are thirteen in number; besides the Court of Miracles, the lazaretto known as the Banlieue, and all the highway beginning at this lazar-house and ending at the Porte Saint-Jacques. Of these divers places he is road-surveyor, high, low, and middle justiciary, and lord paramount.”

“Hey-day!” said the king, scratching his left ear with his right hand; “that is a goodly slice of my city. And so the provost was king of all that?”

This time he did not correct himself. He continued to muse, and as if speaking to himself, said,—

“Have a care, Sir Provost! You had a very pretty piece of our Paris in your grasp. ”

All at once he burst forth. “By the Rood! Who are all these people who claim to be commissioners of highways, justiciaries, lords, and masters in our midst; who have their toll-gate in every bit of field, their gibbet and their hangman at every cross-road among our people, in such fashion that, as the Greek believed in as many gods as there were fountains, and the Persian in as many as he saw stars, the Frenchman now counts as many kings as he sees gallows? By the Lord! this thing is evil, and the confusion likes me not. I would fain know whether it be by the grace of God that there are other inspectors of highways in Paris than the king, other justice than that administered by our Parliament, and other emperor than ourselves in this realm! By the faith of my soul! the day must come when France shall know but one king, one lord, one judge, one heads-man, even as there is but one God in paradise!”

He again raised his cap, and went on, still meditating, with the look and tone of a hunter loosing and urging on his pack of dogs: “Good! my people! bravely done! destroy these false lords! do your work. At them, boys! at them! Plunder them, capture them, strip them! Ah, you would fain be kings, gentlemen? On, my people, on!”

Here he stopped abruptly, bit his lip, as if to recall a thought which had half escaped him, bent his piercing eye in turn upon each of the five persons who stood around him, and all at once, seizing his hat in both hands, and staring steadily at it, he thus addressed it: “Oh, I would burn you if you knew my secret thoughts!”

Then again casting about him the attentive, anxious glance of a fox returning by stealth to his earth, he added,—

“It matters not; we will succor the provost. Unfortunately, we have but few troops here to send forth at this moment against so large a populace. We must needs wait until tomorrow. Order shall be restored in the City, and all who are taken shall be strung up on the spot.”

“By-the-bye, Sire!” said Compere Coictier, “I forgot it in my first dismay,—the watch has caught two stragglers of the band. If it please your Majesty to see these men, they are here.”

“If it please me to see them!” cried the king. “Now, by the Rood! do you forget such things! Run quickly, you, Olivier! go and fetch them.”

Master Olivier went out, and returned a moment after with the two prisoners, surrounded by archers of the ordnance. The first had a fat, stupid face, with a drunken and astonished stare. He was dressed in rags, and bent his knee and dragged his foot as he walked. The second was a pale, smiling fellow, whom the reader already knows.

The king studied them for an instant without speaking, then abruptly addressed the first:—

“Your name?”

“Gieffroy Pincebourde.”

“Your business?”

“A Vagabond.”

“What part did you mean to play in this damnable revolt?”

The Vagabond looked at the king, swinging his arms with a dull look. His was one of those misshapen heads, where the understanding flourishes as ill as the flame beneath an extinguisher.

“I don’t know,” he said. “The others went, so I went too.”

“Did you not intend outrageously to attack and plunder your lord the Provost of the Palace?”

“I know that they were going to take something from some one. That’s all I know.”

A soldier showed the king a pruning-hook, which had been found upon the fellow.

“Do you recognize this weapon?” asked the king.

“Yes, it is my pruning-hook; I am a vine-dresser.”

“And do you acknowledge this man as your companion?” added Louis XI, pointing to the other prisoner.

“No. I do not know him.”

“Enough,” said the king. And beckoning to the silent, motionless person at the door, whom we have already pointed out to our readers: —

“Friend Tristan, here is a man for you.”

Tristan l‘Hermite bowed. He gave an order in a low voice to two archers, who led away the poor Vagrant.

Meantime, the king approached the second prisoner, who was in a profuse perspiration. “Your name?”

“Sire, Pierre Gringoire.”

“Your trade?”

“A philosopher, Sire!”

“How dared you, varlet, go and beset our friend the Provost of the Palace, and what have you to say about this uprising of the people?”

“Sire, I had naught to do with it.”

“Come, come, rascal! were you not taken by the watch in this evil company?”

“No, Sire; there is a mistake. It was an accident. I write tragedies. Sire, I entreat your Majesty to hear me. I am a poet. It is the melancholy whim of people of my profession to roam the streets after dark. I passed this way tonight. It was a mere chance. I was wrongfully arrested; I am innocent of this civil storm. Your Majesty sees that the Vagabond did not recognize me. I conjure your Majesty—”

“Silence!” said the king, betwixt two gulps of his tisane. “You stun me.”

Tristan l‘Hermite stepped forward, and pointing at Gringoire, said,—

“Sire, may we hang this one too?”

It was the first time that he had spoken.

“Pooh!” negligently answered the king. “I see no reason to the contrary.”

“But I see a great many!” said Gringoire.

Our philosopher was at this moment greener than any olive. He saw by the king’s cold and indifferent manner that his only resource was in something very pathetic, and he threw himself at the feet of Louis XI, exclaiming with frantic gestures,—

“Sire, your Majesty will deign to hear me. Sire, let not your thunders fall upon so small a thing as I! The thunderbolts of God never strike a lettuce. Sire, you are an august and very mighty monarch; have pity on a poor honest man, who would find it harder to kindle a revolt than an icicle to emit a spark. Most gracious lord, magnanimity is a virtue of kings and of royal beasts. Alas! rigor does but anger the minds of men; the fierce blasts of winter could not make the traveler doff his cloak, while the sun shining down, little by little warmed him to such a degree that he stripped to his shirt. Sire, you are the sun. I protest to you, my sovereign lord and master, that I am not of the company of the Vagrants. I am neither disorderly nor a thief. Rebellion and brigandage arc not of Apollo’s train. I am not one to rush into those clouds which burst in thunders of sedition. I am a faithful vassal of your Majesty. A good subject should feel the same jealousy for the glory of his king that the husband feels for the honor of his wife, the same affection with which the son responds to his father’s love; he should burn with zeal for his house, for the increase of his service. Any other passion which possessed him would be mere madness. Such, Sire, are my political maxims. Do not, therefore, judge me to be a rebel and a plunderer, by my ragged dress. If you will but pardon me, Sire, I will wear it threadbare at the knees in praying to God for you night and morning! Alas! I am not exceeding rich, ‘tis true. I am indeed rather poor; but not vicious, for all that. It is not my fault. Every one knows that great wealth is not to be derived from literature, and that the most accomplished writers have not always much fire in winter. Lawyers get all the grain, and leave nothing but the chaff for the rest of the learned professions. There are forty most excellent proverbs about the tattered cloak of the philosopher. Oh, Sire, clemency is the only light which can illumine the interior of a great soul! Clemency bears the torch for all the other virtues. Without her, they are but blind, and gropers after God. Mercy, which is the same thing as clemency, produces those loving subjects who are the most potent body-guard of princes. What matters it to you,—to you whose majesty dazzles all who behold it,—if there be one poor man the more upon the earth, a poor innocent philosopher floundering in the darkness of calamity, with an empty stomach and an empty purse? Besides, Sire, I am a scholar. Great kings add a pearl to their crown when they encourage letters. Hercules did not disdain the title of Musagetes. Matthias Corvinus favored Jean of Monroyal, the ornament of mathematics. Now, it is a poor way of protecting letters, to hang the learned. What a blot upon Alexander’s fame if he had hanged Aristotle! The deed would not have been a tiny patch upon the visage of his reputation to enhance its beauty, but a malignant ulcer to disfigure it. Sire, I wrote a most fitting epithalamium for the Lady of Flanders, and my lord the most august Dauphin. That is no fire-brand of rebellion. Your Majesty sees that I am no mere scribbler, that I have studied deeply, and that I have much natural eloquence. Pardon me, Sire. By so doing, you will perform an act of gallantry to Our Lady; and I vow that I am mightily frightened at the very idea of being hanged!”

So saying, the much distressed Gringoire kissed the king’s slippers, and Guillaume Rym whispered to Coppenole, “He does well to crawl upon the floor. Kings are like Jupiter of Crete,—they have no ears but in their feet.” And, regardless of the Cretan Jove, the hosier responded, with a grave smile, his eye fixed on Gringoire: “Oh, ‘tis well done! I fancy I hear Councillor Hugonet begging me for mercy.”

When Gringoire paused at last for lack of breath, he raised his head, trembling, to the king, who was scratching with his nail a spot on the knee of his breeches; then his Majesty drank from the goblet of tisane. He spoke not a word, however, and the silence tortured Gringoire. At last the king looked at him. “What a dreadful bawler!” said he. Then, turning towards Tristan l‘Hermite: “Bah! let him go!”

Gringoire fell backwards, overcome with joy.

“Scot-free!” grumbled Tristan. “Don’t your Majesty want me to cage him for a while?”

“Friend,” rejoined Louis XI, “do you think it is for such birds as these that we have cages made at an expense of three hundred and sixty-seven pounds eight pence three farthings? Let this wanton rascal depart incontinently, and dismiss him with a beating.”

“Oh,” cried Gringoire, “what a noble king!”

And for fear of a contrary order, he hastened towards the door, which Tristan opened for him with a very bad grace. The soldiers followed, driving him before them with sturdy blows, which Gringoire bore like the true Stoic philosopher that he was.

The king’s good humor, since the revolt against the Provost was announced to him, appeared in everything he did. This unusual clemency was no small proof of it. Tristan l‘Hermite, in his corner, wore the surly look of a dog who has seen a bone, but had none.

The king, meantime, merrily drummed the march of Pont-Audemer with his fingers on the arm of his chair. He was a dissembling prince, but more skilled in hiding his troubles than his joy. These outward manifestations of delight at any good news sometimes went to extraordinary lengths,—as on the death of Charles the Bold, when he vowed a silver balustrade to Saint-Martin of Tours; and on his accession to the throne, when he forgot to order his father’s obsequies.

“Ha, Sire!” suddenly exclaimed Jacques Coictier, “what has become of that sharp fit of illness for which your Majesty summoned me?”

“Oh,” said the king, “indeed, I suffer greatly, good compere. I have a ringing in my ears, and cruel pains in my chest.”

Coictier took the king’s hand, and began to feel his pulse with a knowing air.

“See, Coppenole,” said Rym in a low voice; “there he is, between Coictier and Tristan. They make up his entire court,—a doctor for himself, a hangman for the rest of the world!”

As he felt the king’s pulse, Coictier assumed a look of more and more alarm. Louis XI watched him with some anxiety. Coictier’s face darkened visibly. The king’s feeble health was the worthy man’s only source of income, and he made the most of it.

“Oh, oh!” he muttered at last. “This is serious enough.”

“Is it not?” said the frightened king.

“Pulsus creber, anhelans, crepitans, irregularis,”^dw added the physician.

“By the Rood!”

“This might take a man off in less than three days.”

“By‘r Lady!” cried the king. “And the remedy, good compère?”

“I must reflect, Sire.”

He examined the king’s tongue, shook his head, made a wry face, and in the midst of these affectations said suddenly,—

“Zounds, Sire, I must tell you that there is a receivership of episcopal revenues vacant, and that I have a nephew.”

“I give my receivership to your nephew, Compere Jacques,” replied the king; “but cool this fire in my breast.”

“Since your Majesty is so graciously inclined,” rejoined the doctor, “you will not refuse me a little help towards building my house in the Rue Saint-André des Arcs.”

“Hey!” said the king.

“I have come to the end of my means,” continued the doctor, “and it would really be a pity that my house should have no roof; not for the sake of the house, which is very plain and ordinary, but for the paintings by Jehan Fourbault, which enliven the walls. There is a Diana flying in the air, so excellently done, so delicate, so dainty, so natural in action, the head so nicely coifed and crowned with a crescent, the flesh so white, that she leads into temptation all those who study her too curiously. There is also a Ceres. She, too, is a very lovely divinity. She is seated upon sheaves of grain, and crowned with a gay garland of wheat-ears intertwined with purple goat‘s-beard and other flowers. Nothing was ever seen more amorous than her eyes, rounder than her legs, nobler than her mien or more graceful than her draperies. She is one of the most innocent and perfect beauties ever produced by mortal brush.”

“Wretch!” groaned Louis XI; “what are you driving at?”

“I must have a roof over these paintings, Sire; and although it will cost but a trifle, I have no more money.”

“How much will your roof cost?”

“Why, a roof of copper, embellished and gilded, two thousand pounds, at the utmost.”

“Ah, the assassin!” cried the king; “he never draws me a tooth that is not priceless.”

“Am I to have my roof?” said Coictier.

“Yes; and go to the devil! but cure me first.”

Jacques Coictier bowed low and said,—

“Sire, a repellant alone can save you. We will apply to your loins the great specific, composed of cerate, Armenian bole, white of egg, vinegar, and oil. You will continue your tisane, and we will answer for your Majesty.”

A lighted candle attracts more than one moth. Master Olivier, seeing the king so liberally inclined, and thinking the moment opportune, advanced in his turn: “Sire!”

“What is it now?” said Louis XI.

“Sire, your Majesty knows that Master Simon Radin is dead?”

“Well?”

“He was King’s Councillor for the Treasury.”

“Well?”

“Sire, his post is vacant.”

As he said this, the haughty face of Master Olivier lost its arrogant look, and assumed a mean and groveling expression. This is the only change of which a courtier’s features are capable. The king looked him full in the face, and said dryly, “I understand.”

He added,—

“Master Olivier, Marshal Boucicaut once said, ‘There are no good gifts save those from the king, no good fishing save in the sea.’ I see that you are quite of his opinion. Now, hear this; we have an excellent memory. In ‘68, we made you groom of our chamber; in ’69, keeper of the castle of the Pont Saint-Cloud, at a salary of one hundred pounds Tours (you wished them to be Paris pounds); in November, ‘73, by letters given at Gergeole, we appointed you keeper of the woods at Vincennes, in place of Gilbert Acle, esquire; in ’75, warden of the forest of Rouvray-lez-Saint-Cloud, in the place of Jacques le Maire; in ‘78, we graciously settled upon you, by letters-patent sealed with green wax, a rental of ten Paris pounds, for yourself and your wife, to be derived from the Place-aux-Marchands, situated in the Saint-Germain School; in ’79, warden of the forest of Senart, in place of that poor Jehan Daiz; then, captain of the Château de Loches; then, governor of Saint-Quentin; then, captain of the Pont de Meulan, of which you style yourself count; of the five pence fine paid by every barber who shall shave a customer upon a holiday, three pence go to you, and we take the remainder. We were pleased to change your name of Le Mauvais,^dx which too strongly resembled your face. In ‘74, we granted you, to the great displeasure of our nobles, armorial bearings of countless hues, which make your breast shimmer like that of a peacock. By the Rood! are you not sated yet? Is not the draught of fishes fine enough, and miraculous enough; and do you not fear lest another salmon should sink your boat? Pride will be your ruin, my friend. Pride is always hard pressed by ruin and shame. Consider this, and be silent.”

These words, uttered in a severe tone, restored its former insolence to Master Olivier’s face.

“Good!” he muttered almost audibly; “it is plain that the king is ailing today; he gives the doctor everything.”

Louis XI, far from being irritated by this offense, replied with much gentleness. “Stay; I forgot that I had also made you my ambassador to Mistress Marie at Ghent. Yes, gentlemen,” added the king, turning to the Flemings, “this fellow has been an ambassador. There, my compère,” he continued, addressing Master Olivier, “let us not quarrel; we are old friends. It is very late; we have finished our work. Shave me.”

Our readers have doubtless ere now recognized in Master Olivier the terrible Figaro whom Providence, the greatest of all dramatists, so artistically added to the long and bloody comedy of Louis XI’s reign. This is not the place for us to attempt any portrait of this strange figure. The royal barber went by three names. At court he was politely termed Olivier Ie Daim; by the people, Olivier le Diable: his real name was Olivier le Mauvais.

Olivier le Mauvais, then, stood motionless, casting sulky glances at the king, and scowling at Jacques Coictier.

“Yes, yes; the doctor!” he muttered.

“Well, yes, the doctor!” rejoined Louis XI, with rare good-nature; “the doctor has more influence than you. That is natural enough; he has a hold upon our whole body, while you only take us by the chin. There, my poor barber, cheer up. Why, what would you say, and what would become of your office, if I were such a king as King Chilpêric, whose favorite trick it was to pull his beard through his hand? Come, gossip, look to your work; shave me! Go, fetch the necessary tools.”

Olivier, seeing that the king was in a jesting mood, and that it was impossible to put him out of temper, left the room to obey his orders, grumbling as he went.

The king rose, stepped to the window, and suddenly opening it with strange agitation, clapped his hands, exclaiming,—

“Oh, yes, there is a red glow in the sky over the City! The provost is burning; it can be nothing else. Ah, my good people! ‘tis thus at last you help me to crush their lordships!”

Then turning to the Flemings: “Gentlemen, come and look. Is not that a fire which flares so high?”

The two men of Ghent approached.

“A great fire,” said Guillaume Rym.

“Oh,” added Coppenole, whose eyes flashed, “that reminds me of the burning of the lord of Hymbercourt’s house! There must be a fine riot yonder!”

“Do you think so, Master Coppenole?” And the face of Louis XI was almost as full of joy as that of the hosier. “’T will be hard to suppress it, eh?”

“By the Mass, Sire! your Majesty will make great gaps in many a company of troops in doing it.”

“Oh, I! that’s quite another thing,” rejoined the king. “If I chose—”

The hosier answered boldly,—

“If this rebellion be what I suppose, you may choose to no purpose, Sire.”

“Friend,” said Louis XI, “two companies of my ordnance and the discharge of a serpentine would win an easy victory over the groundlings.”

The hosier, in spite of the signs made to him by Guillaume Rym, seemed determined to oppose the king.

“Sire, the Swiss were groundlings too. My lord duke of Burgundy was a great gentleman, and he despised that vulgar mob. At the battle of Grandson he cried, ‘Gunners, fire upon those low-lived villains!’ and he swore by Saint George. But magistrate Schar nachtal fell upon the proud duke with his club and his people, and at the onslaught of the peasants with their bull-hides, the brilliant Burgundian army was broken like a pane of glass by a stone. Many knights were killed that day by base clowns; and my lord of Château-Guyon, the grandest noble in Burgundy, was found dead beside his great grey charger in a small marshy meadow.”

“Friend,” replied the king, “you talk of battles. This is only a mutiny; and I will quell it with a single frown whenever it pleases me.”

The other answered indifferently,—

“That may be, Sire. In that case it will merely be because the people’s hour has not yet come.”

Guillaume Rym felt obliged to interfere:—

“Master Coppenole, you are speaking to a powerful king.”

“I know it,” gravely answered the hosier.

“Let him talk, friend Rym,” said the king. “I like such frankness. My father, Charles VII, said that Truth was sick. I, for my part, thought she had died, without a confessor. Master Coppenole has undeceived me.”

Then, laying his hand familiarly upon Coppenole’s shoulder, he added,—

“You were saying, Master Jacques—”

“I was saying, Sire, that perhaps you were right,—that the people’s hour had not yet come in this land.”

Louis XI looked searchingly at him:—

“And when will that hour come, sirrah?”

“You will hear it strike.”

“By what o‘clock, pray?”

Coppenole, with his homely, peaceful face, drew the king to the window.

“Listen, Sire! Here you have a donjon, a bell-tower, cannon, burghers, soldiers. When the bell rings, when the cannon growl, when the donjon falls with a crash, when burghers and soldiers shout and slay one another, then the hour will strike.”

The king’s face became dark and thoughtful. For an instant he stood silent; then he gently patted the thick donjon wall, as he might have caressed the flank of his favorite horse.

“Oh, no!” he said; “you will not crumble so easily, will you, my good Bastille?”¹⁸

Then, turning with an abrupt gesture to the daring Fleming,—

“Did you ever see a revolt, Master Jacques?”

“I made one,” said the hosier.

“And how,” said the king, “do you set to work to make a revolt?”

“Ah!” replied Coppenole, “it is not very difficult. There are a hundred ways of doing it. In the first place, discontent must be rife in the town; that is not an uncommon occurrence. And then you must consider the character of the inhabitants. The men of Ghent are always ready to rebel; they always love the prince’s son, never the prince. Well, I will suppose that one morning somebody comes into my shop and says: Friend Coppenole, this thing or that thing has happened,—the Lady of Flanders is resolved to maintain the Cabinet; the high provost has doubled the tax on vegetables or something else; whatever you please. I drop my work on the spot; I leave my shop, and I run out into the street, crying, ‘Storm and sack!’ There is always some empty hogshead lying about. I mount upon it, and I proclaim aloud, in the first words that come to me; all that distresses me; and when you belong to the people, Sire, there is always something to distress you. Then there is a gathering of the clans; there are shouts; the alarm bell rings; the people disarm the troops and arm themselves; the market-men join in; and so it goes on. And it will always be so, so long as there are nobles in the seigniories, burghers in the towns, and peasants in the country.”

“And against whom do you rebel in this way?” asked the king. “Against your provosts; against your liege-lords?”

“Sometimes; that depends on circumstances. Against the duke, too, at times.”

Louis XI reseated himself, and said with a smile,—

“Ah! here they have got no farther than the provosts.”

At this instant Olivier le Daim returned. He was followed by two pages carrying various articles of the king’s toilet; but what struck Louis XI was the fact that he was also accompanied by the provost of Paris and the captain of the watch, who seemed dismayed. The spiteful barber also looked dismayed, but was inwardly pleased. He was the first to speak:—

“Sire, I crave your pardon for the disastrous news I bring!”

The king turned so quickly that he tore the matting on the floor with the legs of his chair.

“What do you mean?”

“Sire,” replied Olivier le Daim, with the malicious look of a man who rejoices to strike a severe blow, “this rising of the people is not directed against the Provost of the Palace.”

“And against whom, then?”

“Against you, Sire.”

The old king rose to his feet as erect as a young man.

“Explain yourself, Olivier! And look to your head, my friend; for I swear by the cross of Saint-Lô that if you lie to us at this hour, the same sword which cut off the head of my lord Luxembourg is not too dull to chop off yours!”

The oath was a tremendous one; Louis XI had never but twice in his life sworn by the cross of Saint-Lô.

Olivier opened his lips to answer.

“On your knees!” fiercely interrupted the king. “Tristan, watch this man!”

Olivier knelt, and said coldly,—

“Sire, a witch was condemned to death by your parliamentary court. She took refuge in Notre-Dame. The people desire to take her thence by force. The provost and the captain of the watch, who have just come from the scene of the insurrection, are here to contradict me if I speak not truly. The people are besieging Notre-Dame.”

“Indeed!” said the king in a low voice, pale and trembling with rage. “Notre-Dame! So they lay siege to my good mistress, Our Lady, in her own cathedral! Rise, Olivier; you are right. I give you Simon Radin’s office. You are right; it is I whom they attack. The witch is in the safe-keeping of the church; the church is in my safe-keeping; and I was foolish enough to believe that they were assault ing the provost. It is myself!”¹⁹

Then, made young by fury, he began to pace the floor with hasty strides. He laughed no longer; he was terrible to behold; he came and went; the fox was turned to a hyæna. He seemed to have lost all power of speech; his lips moved, and his fleshless hands were clinched. All at once he raised his head, his hollow eye seemed filled with light, and his voice flashed forth like a clarion:—

“Do your work well, Tristan! Do your work well with these scoundrels! Go, Tristan my friend; kill! kill!”

This outburst over, he sat down again, and said with cold and concentrated wrath,—

“Here, Tristan! There are with us in this Bastille Viscount de Cifs fifty lances, making three hundred horse: take them. There is also M. de Chateaupers’ company of archers of our ordnance: take them. You are provost-marshal; you have your own men: take them. At the Hotel Saint-Pol you will find forty archers of the Dauphin’s new guard: take them. And with all these soldiers you will hasten to Notre-Dame. Ah, you commoners of Paris, so you would attack the Crown of France, the sanctity of Notre-Dame, and the peace of this republic! Exterminate them, Tristan! exterminate them! and let not one escape but for Montfaucon.”

Tristan bowed. “It is well, Sire.”

After a pause he added, “And what shall I do with the witch?”

This question gave the king food for thought.

“Ah,” said he, “the witch! D‘Estouteville, what was the people’s pleasure in regard to her?”

“Sire,” replied the provost of Paris, “I fancy that as the people desire to wrest her from her shelter in Notre-Dame, it is her lack of punishment that offends them, and they propose to hang her.”

The king seemed to muse deeply; then, addressing Tristan l‘Hermite: “Very well, compere; exterminate the people, and hang the witch!”

“That’s it,” whispered Rym to Coppenole, “punish the people for their purpose, and then fulfil that purpose.”

“It is well, Sire,” answered Tristan. “If the witch be still in Notre-Dame, shall we disregard the sanctuary, and take her thence?”

“By the Rood! Sanctuary!” said the king, scratching his ear. “And yet this woman must be hanged.”

Here, as if struck by a sudden thought, he fell upon his knees before his chair, doffed his hat, put it on the seat, and gazing devoutly at one of the leaden images with which it was loaded, he exclaimed, with clasped hands: “Oh, Our Lady of Paris, my gracious patroness, pardon me! I will only do it this once. This criminal must be punished. I assure you, Holy Virgin, my good mistress, that she is a witch, and unworthy of your generous protection. You know, madame, that many very pious princes have infringed upon the privileges of the Church for the glory of God and the needs of the State. Saint Hugh, Bishop of England, allowed King Edward to capture a magician in his church. Saint Louis of France, my master, for the same purpose violated the church of St. Paul; and Alphonso, son of the King of Jerusalem, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre itself. Forgive me this once, Our Lady of Paris! I will never do so again, and I will give you a fine new silver statue, like the one I gave Our Lady of Ecouys last year. Amen.”

He. made the sign of the cross, rose, put on his hat, and said to Tristan,—

“Make haste, friend; take Châteaupers with you. Ring the alarm! Quell the mob! Hang the witch! That is all. And I expect you to pay the costs of hanging. You will render me an account thereof. Come, Olivier, I shall not go to bed tonight; shave me.”

Tristan l‘Hermite bowed, and left the room. Then the king dismissed Rym and Coppenole with a gesture, and the words,—

“God keep you, my good Flemish friends. Go, take a little rest; the night is passing, and we are nearer morn than evening.”

Both retired, and on reaching their apartments under the escort of the captain of the Bastille, Coppenole said to Guillaume Rym,—

“Ahem! I have had enough of this coughing king. I have seen Charles of Burgundy drunk, and he was not so bad as Louis XI sick.”

“Master Jacques,” replied Rym, “‘tis because the wine of kings is less cruel than their tisane.”