Chapter V: The Retreat in Which Monsieur Louis of France Says His

PRAYERS.

The reader has not, perhaps, forgotten that one moment before
catching sight of the nocturnal band of vagabonds, Quasimodo, as
he inspected Paris from the heights of his bell tower, perceived
only one light burning, which gleamed like a star from a window
on the topmost story of a lofty edifice beside the Porte
Saint-Antoine. This edifice was the Bastille. That star was the
candle of Louis XI. King Louis XI. had, in fact, been two days in
Paris. He was to take his departure on the next day but one for
his citadel of Montilz-les-Tours. He made but seldom and brief
appearance in his good city of Paris, since there he did not feel
about him enough pitfalls, gibbets, and Scotch archers.

He had come, that day, to sleep at the Bastille. The great
chamber five toises[64] square, which he had at the Louvre, with
its huge chimney-piece loaded with twelve great beasts and
thirteen great prophets, and his grand bed, eleven feet by
twelve, pleased him but little. He felt himself lost amid all
this grandeur. This good _bourgeois_ king preferred the Bastille
with a tiny chamber and couch. And then, the Bastille was
stronger than the Louvre.

This little chamber, which the king reserved for himself in the
famous state prison, was also tolerably spacious and occupied the
topmost story of a turret rising from the donjon keep. It was
circular in form, carpeted with mats of shining straw, ceiled
with beams, enriched with fleurs-de-lis of gilded metal with
interjoists in color; wainscoated with rich woods sown with
rosettes of white metal, and with others painted a fine, bright
green, made of orpiment and fine indigo.

There was only one window, a long pointed casement, latticed with
brass wire and bars of iron, further darkened by fine colored
panes with the arms of the king and of the queen, each pane being
worth two and twenty sols.

There was but one entrance, a modern door, with a flat arch,
garnished with a piece of tapestry on the inside, and on the
outside by one of those porches of Irish wood, frail edifices of
cabinet-work curiously wrought, numbers of which were still to be
seen in old houses a hundred and fifty years ago. “Although they
disfigure and embarrass the places,” says Sauvel in despair, “our
old people are still unwilling to get rid of them, and keep them
in spite of everybody.”

In this chamber, nothing was to be found of what furnishes
ordinary apartments, neither benches, nor trestles, nor forms,
nor common stools in the form of a chest, nor fine stools
sustained by pillars and counter-pillars, at four sols a piece.
Only one easy arm-chair, very magnificent, was to be seen; the
wood was painted with roses on a red ground, the seat was of ruby
Cordovan leather, ornamented with long silken fringes, and
studded with a thousand golden nails. The loneliness of this
chair made it apparent that only one person had a right to sit
down in this apartment. Beside the chair, and quite close to the
window, there was a table covered with a cloth with a pattern of
birds. On this table stood an inkhorn spotted with ink, some
parchments, several pens, and a large goblet of chased silver. A
little further on was a brazier, a praying stool in crimson
velvet, relieved with small bosses of gold. Finally, at the
extreme end of the room, a simple bed of scarlet and yellow
damask, without either tinsel or lace; having only an ordinary
fringe. This bed, famous for having borne the sleep or the
sleeplessness of Louis XI., was still to be seen two hundred
years ago, at the house of a councillor of state, where it was
seen by old Madame Pilou, celebrated in _Cyrus_ under the name
_Arricidie_ and of _la Morale Vivante_.

Such was the chamber which was called “the retreat where Monsieur
Louis de France says his prayers.”

At the moment when we have introduced the reader into it, this
retreat was very dark. The curfew bell had sounded an hour
before; night was come, and there was only one flickering wax
candle set on the table to light five persons variously grouped
in the chamber.

The first on which the light fell was a seigneur superbly clad in
breeches and jerkin of scarlet striped with silver, and a loose
coat with half sleeves of cloth of gold with black figures. This
splendid costume, on which the light played, seemed glazed with
flame on every fold. The man who wore it had his armorial
bearings embroidered on his breast in vivid colors; a chevron
accompanied by a deer passant. The shield was flanked, on the
right by an olive branch, on the left by a deer’s antlers. This
man wore in his girdle a rich dagger whose hilt, of silver gilt,
was chased in the form of a helmet, and surmounted by a count’s
coronet. He had a forbidding air, a proud mien, and a head held
high. At the first glance one read arrogance on his visage; at
the second, craft.

He was standing bareheaded, a long roll of parchment in his hand,
behind the arm-chair in which was seated, his body ungracefully
doubled up, his knees crossed, his elbow on the table, a very
badly accoutred personage. Let the reader imagine in fact, on the
rich seat of Cordova leather, two crooked knees, two thin thighs,
poorly clad in black worsted tricot, a body enveloped in a cloak
of fustian, with fur trimming of which more leather than hair was
visible; lastly, to crown all, a greasy old hat of the worst sort
of black cloth, bordered with a circular string of leaden
figures. This, in company with a dirty skull-cap, which hardly
allowed a hair to escape, was all that distinguished the seated
personage. He held his head so bent upon his breast, that nothing
was to be seen of his face thus thrown into shadow, except the
tip of his nose, upon which fell a ray of light, and which must
have been long. From the thinness of his wrinkled hand, one
divined that he was an old man. It was Louis XI. At some distance
behind them, two men dressed in garments of Flemish style were
conversing, who were not sufficiently lost in the shadow to
prevent any one who had been present at the performance of
Gringoire’s mystery from recognizing in them two of the principal
Flemish envoys, Guillaume Rym, the sagacious pensioner of Ghent,
and Jacques Coppenole, the popular hosier. The reader will
remember that these men were mixed up in the secret politics of
Louis XI. Finally, quite at the end of the room, near the door,
in the dark, stood, motionless as a statue, a vigorous man with
thickset limbs, a military harness, with a surcoat of armorial
bearings, whose square face pierced with staring eyes, slit with
an immense mouth, his ears concealed by two large screens of flat
hair, had something about it both of the dog and the tiger.

All were uncovered except the king.

The gentleman who stood near the king was reading him a sort of
long memorial to which his majesty seemed to be listening
attentively. The two Flemings were whispering together.

“Cross of God!” grumbled Coppenole, “I am tired of standing; is
there no chair here?”

Rym replied by a negative gesture, accompanied by a discreet
smile.

“Croix-Dieu!” resumed Coppenole, thoroughly unhappy at being
obliged to lower his voice thus, “I should like to sit down on
the floor, with my legs crossed, like a hosier, as I do in my
shop.”

“Take good care that you do not, Master Jacques.”

“Ouais! Master Guillaume! can one only remain here on his feet?”

“Or on his knees,” said Rym.

At that moment the king’s voice was uplifted. They held their
peace.

“Fifty sols for the robes of our valets, and twelve livres for
the mantles of the clerks of our crown! That’s it! Pour out gold
by the ton! Are you mad, Olivier?”

As he spoke thus, the old man raised his head. The golden shells
of the collar of Saint-Michael could be seen gleaming on his
neck. The candle fully illuminated his gaunt and morose profile.
He tore the papers from the other’s hand.

“You are ruining us!” he cried, casting his hollow eyes over the
scroll. “What is all this? What need have we of so prodigious a
household? Two chaplains at ten livres a month each, and, a
chapel clerk at one hundred sols! A valet-de-chambre at ninety
livres a year. Four head cooks at six score livres a year each! A
spit-cook, an herb-cook, a sauce-cook, a butler, two
sumpter-horse lackeys, at ten livres a month each! Two scullions
at eight livres! A groom of the stables and his two aids at four
and twenty livres a month! A porter, a pastry-cook, a baker, two
carters, each sixty livres a year! And the farrier six score
livres! And the master of the chamber of our funds, twelve
hundred livres! And the comptroller five hundred. And how do I
know what else? ’Tis ruinous. The wages of our servants are
putting France to the pillage! All the ingots of the Louvre will
melt before such a fire of expenses! We shall have to sell our
plate! And next year, if God and our Lady (here he raised his
hat) lend us life, we shall drink our potions from a pewter pot!”

So saying, he cast a glance at the silver goblet which gleamed
upon the table. He coughed and continued,—

“Master Olivier, the princes who reign over great lordships, like
kings and emperors, should not allow sumptuousness in their
houses; for the fire spreads thence through the province. Hence,
Master Olivier, consider this said once for all. Our expenditure
increases every year. The thing displease us. How, _pasque-Dieu!_
when in ’79 it did not exceed six and thirty thousand livres, did
it attain in ’80, forty-three thousand six hundred and nineteen
livres? I have the figures in my head. In ’81, sixty-six thousand
six hundred and eighty livres, and this year, by the faith of my
body, it will reach eighty thousand livres! Doubled in four
years! Monstrous!”

He paused breathless, then resumed energetically,—

“I behold around me only people who fatten on my leanness! you
suck crowns from me at every pore.”

All remained silent. This was one of those fits of wrath which
are allowed to take their course. He continued,—

“’Tis like that request in Latin from the gentlemen of France,
that we should re-establish what they call the grand charges of
the Crown! Charges in very deed! Charges which crush! Ah!
gentlemen! you say that we are not a king to reign _dapifero
nullo, buticulario nullo!_ We will let you see, _pasque-Dieu!_
whether we are not a king!”

Here he smiled, in the consciousness of his power; this softened
his bad humor, and he turned towards the Flemings,—

“Do you see, Gossip Guillaume? the grand warden of the keys, the
grand butler, the grand chamberlain, the grand seneschal are not
worth the smallest valet. Remember this, Gossip Coppenole. They
serve no purpose, as they stand thus useless round the king; they
produce upon me the effect of the four Evangelists who surround
the face of the big clock of the palace, and which Philippe
Brille has just set in order afresh. They are gilt, but they do
not indicate the hour; and the hands can get on without them.”

He remained in thought for a moment, then added, shaking his aged
head,—

“Ho! ho! by our Lady, I am not Philippe Brille, and I shall not
gild the great vassals anew. Continue, Olivier.”

The person whom he designated by this name, took the papers into
his hands again, and began to read aloud,—

“To Adam Tenon, clerk of the warden of the seals of the
provostship of Paris; for the silver, making, and engraving of
said seals, which have been made new because the others
preceding, by reason of their antiquity and their worn condition,
could no longer be successfully used, twelve livres parisis.

“To Guillaume Frère, the sum of four livres, four sols parisis,
for his trouble and salary, for having nourished and fed the
doves in the two dove-cots of the Hôtel des Tournelles, during
the months of January, February, and March of this year; and for
this he hath given seven sextiers of barley.

“To a gray friar for confessing a criminal, four sols parisis.”

The king listened in silence. From time to time he coughed; then
he raised the goblet to his lips and drank a draught with a
grimace.

“During this year there have been made by the ordinance of
justice, to the sound of the trumpet, through the squares of
Paris, fifty-six proclamations. Account to be regulated.

“For having searched and ransacked in certain places, in Paris as
well as elsewhere, for money said to be there concealed; but
nothing hath been found: forty-five livres parisis.”

“Bury a crown to unearth a sou!” said the king.

“For having set in the Hôtel des Tournelles six panes of white
glass in the place where the iron cage is, thirteen sols; for
having made and delivered by command of the king, on the day of
the musters, four shields with the escutcheons of the said
seigneur, encircled with garlands of roses all about, six livres;
for two new sleeves to the king’s old doublet, twenty sols; for a
box of grease to grease the boots of the king, fifteen deniers; a
stable newly made to lodge the king’s black pigs, thirty livres
parisis; many partitions, planks, and trap-doors, for the
safekeeping of the lions at Saint-Paul, twenty-two livres.”

“These be dear beasts,” said Louis XI. “It matters not; it is a
fine magnificence in a king. There is a great red lion whom I
love for his pleasant ways. Have you seen him, Master Guillaume?
Princes must have these terrific animals; for we kings must have
lions for our dogs and tigers for our cats. The great befits a
crown. In the days of the pagans of Jupiter, when the people
offered the temples a hundred oxen and a hundred sheep, the
emperors gave a hundred lions and a hundred eagles. This was wild
and very fine. The kings of France have always had roarings round
their throne. Nevertheless, people must do me this justice, that
I spend still less money on it than they did, and that I possess
a greater modesty of lions, bears, elephants, and leopards.—Go
on, Master Olivier. We wished to say thus much to our Flemish
friends.”

Guillaume Rym bowed low, while Coppenole, with his surly mien,
had the air of one of the bears of which his majesty was
speaking. The king paid no heed. He had just dipped his lips into
the goblet, and he spat out the beverage, saying: “Foh! what a
disagreeable potion!” The man who was reading continued:—

“For feeding a rascally footpad, locked up these six months in
the little cell of the flayer, until it should be determined what
to do with him, six livres, four sols.”

“What’s that?” interrupted the king; “feed what ought to be
hanged! _Pasque-Dieu!_ I will give not a sou more for that
nourishment. Olivier, come to an understanding about the matter
with Monsieur d’Estouteville, and prepare me this very evening
the wedding of the gallant and the gallows. Resume.”

Olivier made a mark with his thumb against the article of the
“rascally foot soldier,” and passed on.

“To Henriet Cousin, master executor of the high works of justice
in Paris, the sum of sixty sols parisis, to him assessed and
ordained by monseigneur the provost of Paris, for having bought,
by order of the said sieur the provost, a great broad sword,
serving to execute and decapitate persons who are by justice
condemned for their demerits, and he hath caused the same to be
garnished with a sheath and with all things thereto appertaining;
and hath likewise caused to be repointed and set in order the old
sword, which had become broken and notched in executing justice
on Messire Louis de Luxembourg, as will more fully appear....”

The king interrupted: “That suffices. I allow the sum with great
good will. Those are expenses which I do not begrudge. I have
never regretted that money. Continue.”

“For having made over a great cage....”

“Ah!” said the king, grasping the arms of his chair in both
hands, “I knew well that I came hither to this Bastille for some
purpose. Hold, Master Olivier; I desire to see that cage myself.
You shall read me the cost while I am examining it. Messieurs
Flemings, come and see this; ’tis curious.”

Then he rose, leaned on the arm of his interlocutor, made a sign
to the sort of mute who stood before the door to precede him, to
the two Flemings to follow him, and quitted the room.

The royal company was recruited, at the door of the retreat, by
men of arms, all loaded down with iron, and by slender pages
bearing flambeaux. It marched for some time through the interior
of the gloomy donjon, pierced with staircases and corridors even
in the very thickness of the walls. The captain of the Bastille
marched at their head, and caused the wickets to be opened before
the bent and aged king, who coughed as he walked.

At each wicket, all heads were obliged to stoop, except that of
the old man bent double with age. “Hum,” said he between his
gums, for he had no longer any teeth, “we are already quite
prepared for the door of the sepulchre. For a low door, a bent
passer.”

At length, after having passed a final wicket, so loaded with
locks that a quarter of an hour was required to open it, they
entered a vast and lofty vaulted hall, in the centre of which
they could distinguish by the light of the torches, a huge cubic
mass of masonry, iron, and wood. The interior was hollow. It was
one of those famous cages of prisoners of state, which were
called “the little daughters of the king.” In its walls there
were two or three little windows so closely trellised with stout
iron bars; that the glass was not visible. The door was a large
flat slab of stone, as on tombs; the sort of door which serves
for entrance only. Only here, the occupant was alive.

The king began to walk slowly round the little edifice, examining
it carefully, while Master Olivier, who followed him, read aloud
the note.

“For having made a great cage of wood of solid beams, timbers and
wall-plates, measuring nine feet in length by eight in breadth,
and of the height of seven feet between the partitions, smoothed
and clamped with great bolts of iron, which has been placed in a
chamber situated in one of the towers of the Bastille
Saint-Antoine, in which cage is placed and detained, by command
of the king our lord, a prisoner who formerly inhabited an old,
decrepit, and ruined cage. There have been employed in making the
said new cage, ninety-six horizontal beams, and fifty-two upright
joists, ten wall plates three toises long; there have been
occupied nineteen carpenters to hew, work, and fit all the said
wood in the courtyard of the Bastille during twenty days.”

“Very fine heart of oak,” said the king, striking the woodwork
with his fist.

“There have been used in this cage,” continued the other, “two
hundred and twenty great bolts of iron, of nine feet, and of
eight, the rest of medium length, with the rowels, caps and
counterbands appertaining to the said bolts; weighing, the said
iron in all, three thousand, seven hundred and thirty-five
pounds; beside eight great squares of iron, serving to attach the
said cage in place with clamps and nails weighing in all two
hundred and eighteen pounds, not reckoning the iron of the
trellises for the windows of the chamber wherein the cage hath
been placed, the bars of iron for the door of the cage and other
things.”

“’Tis a great deal of iron,” said the king, “to contain the light
of a spirit.”

“The whole amounts to three hundred and seventeen livres, five
sols, seven deniers.”

“_Pasque-Dieu!_” exclaimed the king.

At this oath, which was the favorite of Louis XI., some one
seemed to awaken in the interior of the cage; the sound of chains
was heard, grating on the floor, and a feeble voice, which seemed
to issue from the tomb was uplifted. “Sire! sire! mercy!” The one
who spoke thus could not be seen.

“Three hundred and seventeen livres, five sols, seven deniers,”
repeated Louis XI. The lamentable voice which had proceeded from
the cage had frozen all present, even Master Olivier himself. The
king alone wore the air of not having heard. At his order, Master
Olivier resumed his reading, and his majesty coldly continued his
inspection of the cage.

“In addition to this there hath been paid to a mason who hath
made the holes wherein to place the gratings of the windows, and
the floor of the chamber where the cage is, because that floor
could not support this cage by reason of its weight, twenty-seven
livres fourteen sols parisis.”

The voice began to moan again.

“Mercy, sire! I swear to you that ’twas Monsieur the Cardinal
d’Angers and not I, who was guilty of treason.”

“The mason is bold!” said the king. “Continue, Olivier.”

Olivier continued,—

“To a joiner for window frames, bedstead, hollow stool, and other
things, twenty livres, two sols parisis.”

The voice also continued.

“Alas, sire! will you not listen to me? I protest to you that
’twas not I who wrote the matter to Monseigneur de Guyenne, but
Monsieur le Cardinal Balue.”

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

“No, sire. To a glazier, for the windows of the said chamber,
forty-six sols, eight deniers parisis.”

“Have mercy, sire! Is it not enough to have given all my goods to
my judges, my plate to Monsieur de Torcy, my library to Master
Pierre Doriolle, my tapestry to the governor of the Roussillon? I
am innocent. I have been shivering in an iron cage for fourteen
years. Have mercy, sire! You will find your reward in heaven.”

“Master Olivier,” said the king, “the total?”

“Three hundred sixty-seven livres, eight sols, three deniers
parisis.

“Notre-Dame!” cried the king. “This is an outrageous cage!”

He tore the book from Master Olivier’s hands, and set to
reckoning it himself upon his fingers, examining the paper and
the cage alternately. Meanwhile, the prisoner could be heard
sobbing. This was lugubrious in the darkness, and their faces
turned pale as they looked at each other.

“Fourteen years, sire! Fourteen years now! since the month of
April, 1469. In the name of the Holy Mother of God, sire, listen
to me! During all this time you have enjoyed the heat of the sun.
Shall I, frail creature, never more behold the day? Mercy, sire!
Be pitiful! Clemency is a fine, royal virtue, which turns aside
the currents of wrath. Does your majesty believe that in the hour
of death it will be a great cause of content for a king never to
have left any offence unpunished? Besides, sire, I did not betray
your majesty, ’twas Monsieur d’Angers; and I have on my foot a
very heavy chain, and a great ball of iron at the end, much
heavier than it should be in reason. Eh! sire! Have pity on me!”

“Olivier,” cried the king, throwing back his head, “I observe
that they charge me twenty sols a hogshead for plaster, while it
is worth but twelve. You will refer back this account.”

He turned his back on the cage, and set out to leave the room.
The miserable prisoner divined from the removal of the torches
and the noise, that the king was taking his departure.

“Sire! sire!” he cried in despair.

The door closed again. He no longer saw anything, and heard only
the hoarse voice of the turnkey, singing in his ears this ditty,—

“Maître Jean Balue,
A perdu la vue
De ses évêchés.
Monsieur de Verdun.
N’en a plus pas un;
Tous sont dépêchés.”[65]

The king reascended in silence to his retreat, and his suite
followed him, terrified by the last groans of the condemned man.
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?”

“Pardieu, yes sire!” replied the governor, astounded by the
question.

“And who was it?”

“Monsieur the Bishop of Verdun.”

The king knew this better than any one else. But it was a mania
of his.

“Ah!” said he, with the innocent air of thinking of it for the
first time, “Guillaume de Harancourt, the friend of Monsieur the
Cardinal Balue. A good devil of a bishop!”

At the expiration of a few moments, the door of the retreat had
opened again, then closed upon the five personages whom the
reader has seen at the beginning of this chapter, and who resumed
their places, their whispered conversations, and their attitudes.

During the king’s absence, several despatches had been placed on
his table, and he broke the seals himself. Then he began to read
them promptly, one after the other, made a sign to Master Olivier
who appeared to exercise the office of minister, to take a pen,
and without communicating to him the contents of the despatches,
he began to dictate in a low voice, the replies which the latter
wrote, on his knees, in an inconvenient attitude before the
table.

Guillaume Rym was on the watch.

The king spoke so low that the Flemings heard nothing of his
dictation, except some isolated and rather unintelligible scraps,
such as,—

“To maintain the fertile places by commerce, and the sterile by
manufactures....—To show the English lords our four bombards,
London, Brabant, Bourg-en-Bresse, Saint-Omer....—Artillery is the
cause of war being made more judiciously now....—To Monsieur de
Bressuire, our friend....—Armies cannot be maintained without
tribute, etc.”

Once he raised his voice,—

“_Pasque Dieu!_ Monsieur the King of Sicily seals his letters
with yellow wax, like a king of France. Perhaps we are in the
wrong to permit him so to do. My fair cousin of Burgundy granted
no armorial bearings with a field of gules. The grandeur of
houses is assured by the integrity of prerogatives. Note this,
friend Olivier.”

Again,—

“Oh! oh!” said he, “What a long message! What doth our brother
the emperor claim?” And running his eye over the missive and
breaking his reading with interjection: “Surely! the Germans are
so great and powerful, that it is hardly credible—But let us not
forget the old proverb: ‘The finest county is Flanders; the
finest duchy, Milan; the finest kingdom, France.’ Is it not so,
Messieurs Flemings?”

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

The last despatch made Louis XI. frown.

“What is this?” he said, “Complaints and fault finding against
our garrisons in Picardy! Olivier, write with diligence to M. the
Marshal de Rouault:—That discipline is relaxed. That the
gendarmes of the unattached troops, the feudal nobles, the free
archers, and the Swiss inflict infinite evils on the
rustics.—That the military, not content with what they find in
the houses of the rustics, constrain them with violent blows of
cudgel or of lash to go and get wine, spices, and other
unreasonable things in the town.—That monsieur the king knows
this. That we undertake to guard our people against
inconveniences, larcenies and pillage.—That such is our will, by
our Lady!—That in addition, it suits us not that any fiddler,
barber, or any soldier varlet should be clad like a prince, in
velvet, cloth of silk, and rings of gold.—That these vanities are
hateful to God.—That we, who are gentlemen, content ourselves
with a doublet of cloth at sixteen sols the ell, of Paris.—That
messieurs the camp-followers can very well come down to that,
also.—Command and ordain.—To Monsieur de Rouault, our
friend.—Good.”

He dictated this letter aloud, in a firm tone, and in jerks. At
the moment when he finished it, the door opened and gave passage
to a new personage, who precipitated himself into the chamber,
crying in affright,—

“Sire! sire! there is a sedition of the populace in Paris!” Louis
XI.’s grave face contracted; but all that was visible of his
emotion passed away like a flash of lightning. He controlled
himself and said with tranquil severity,—

“Gossip Jacques, you enter very abruptly!”

“Sire! sire! there is a revolt!” repeated Gossip Jacques
breathlessly.

The king, who had risen, grasped him roughly by the arm, and said
in his ear, in such a manner as 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 in a low tone to give a very
terrified account, to which the king listened calmly, while
Guillaume Rym called Coppenole’s attention to the face and dress
of the new arrival, to his furred cowl, (_caputia fourrata_), his
short cape, (_epitogia curta_), his robe of black velvet, which
bespoke a president of the court of accounts.

Hardly had this personage given the king some explanations, when
Louis XI. exclaimed, bursting into a laugh,—

“In truth? Speak aloud, Gossip Coictier! What call is there for
you to talk so low? Our Lady knoweth that we conceal nothing from
our good friends the Flemings.”

“But sire...”

“Speak loud!”

Gossip Coictier was struck dumb with surprise.

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

“Yes, sire.”

“And which is moving you say, against monsieur the bailiff of the
Palais-de-Justice?”

“So it appears,” said the gossip, who still stammered, utterly
astounded by the abrupt and inexplicable change which had just
taken place in the king’s thoughts.

Louis XI. continued: “Where did the watch meet the rabble?”

“Marching from the Grand Truanderie, towards the
Pont-aux-Changeurs. I met it myself as I was on my way hither to
obey your majesty’s commands. I heard some of them shouting:
‘Down with the bailiff of the palace!’”

“And what complaints have they against the bailiff?”

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

“Really?”

“Yes, sire. They are knaves from the Cour-des-Miracles. They have
been complaining this long while, of the bailiff, whose vassals
they are. They do not wish to recognize him either as judge or as
voyer?”[66]

“Yes, certainly!” retorted the king with a smile of satisfaction
which he strove in vain to disguise.

“In all their petitions to the Parliament, they claim to have but
two masters. Your majesty and their God, who is the devil, I
believe.”

“Eh! eh!” said the king.

He rubbed his hands, he laughed with that inward mirth which
makes the countenance beam; he was unable to dissimulate his joy,
although he endeavored at moments to compose himself. No one
understood it in the least, not even Master Olivier. He remained
silent for a moment, with a thoughtful but contented air.

“Are they in force?” he suddenly inquired.

“Yes, assuredly, sire,” replied Gossip Jacques.

“How many?”

“Six thousand at the least.”

The king could not refrain from saying: “Good!” he went on,—

“Are they armed?”

“With scythes, pikes, hackbuts, pickaxes. All sorts of very
violent weapons.”

The king did not appear in the least disturbed by this list.
Jacques considered it his duty to add,—

“If your majesty does not send prompt succor to the bailiff, he
is lost.”

“We will send,” said the king with an air of false seriousness.
“It is well. Assuredly we will send. Monsieur the bailiff is our
friend. Six thousand! They are desperate scamps! Their audacity
is marvellous, and we are greatly enraged at it. But we have only
a few people about us to-night. To-morrow morning will be time
enough.”

Gossip Jacques exclaimed, “Instantly, sire! there will be time to
sack the bailiwick a score of times, to violate the seignory, to
hang the bailiff. For God’s sake, sire! send before to-morrow
morning.”

The king looked him full in the face. “I have told you to-morrow
morning.”

It was one of those looks to which one does not reply. After a
silence, Louis XI. raised his voice once more,—

“You should know that, Gossip Jacques. What was—”

He corrected himself. “What is the bailiff’s feudal
jurisdiction?”

“Sire, the bailiff of the palace has the Rue Calendre as far as
the Rue de l’Herberie, the Place Saint-Michel, and the localities
vulgarly known as the Mureaux, situated near the church of
Notre-Dame des Champs (here Louis XI. raised the brim of his
hat), which hotels number thirteen, plus the Cour des Miracles,
plus the Maladerie, called the Banlieue, plus the whole highway
which begins at that Maladerie and ends at the Porte
Sainte-Jacques. Of these divers places he is voyer, high, middle,
and low, justiciary, full seigneur.”

“Bless me!” said the king, scratching his left ear with his right
hand, “that makes a goodly bit of my city! Ah! monsieur the
bailiff was king of all that.”

This time he did not correct himself. He continued dreamily, and
as though speaking to himself,—

“Very fine, monsieur the bailiff! You had there between your
teeth a pretty slice of our Paris.”

All at once he broke out explosively, “_Pasque-Dieu!_ What people
are those who claim to be voyers, justiciaries, lords and masters
in our domains? who have their tollgates at the end of every
field? their gallows and their hangman at every cross-road among
our people? So that as the Greek believed that he had as many
gods as there were fountains, and the Persian as many as he
beheld stars, the Frenchman counts as many kings as he sees
gibbets! Pardieu! ’tis an evil thing, and the confusion of it
displeases me. I should greatly like to know whether it be the
mercy of God that there should be in Paris any other lord than
the king, any other judge than our parliament, any other emperor
than ourselves in this empire! By the faith of my soul! the day
must certainly come when there shall exist in France but one
king, one lord, one judge, one headsman, as there is in paradise
but one God!”

He lifted his cap again, and continued, still dreamily, with the
air and accent of a hunter who is cheering on his pack of hounds:
“Good, my people! bravely done! break these false lords! do your
duty! at them! have at them! pillage them! take them! sack
them!... Ah! you want to be kings, messeigneurs? On, my people
on!”

Here he interrupted himself abruptly, bit his lips as though to
take back his thought which had already half escaped, bent his
piercing eyes in turn on each of the five persons who surrounded
him, and suddenly grasping his hat with both hands and staring
full at it, he said to it: “Oh! I would burn you if you knew what
there was in my head.”

Then casting about him once more the cautious and uneasy glance
of the fox re-entering his hole,—

“No matter! we will succor monsieur the bailiff. Unfortunately,
we have but few troops here at the present moment, against so
great a populace. We must wait until to-morrow. The order will be
transmitted to the City and every one who is caught will be
immediately hung.”

“By the way, sire,” said Gossip Coictier, “I had forgotten that
in the first agitation, the watch have seized two laggards of the
band. If your majesty desires to see these men, they are here.”

“If I desire to see them!” cried the king. “What! _Pasque-Dieu!_
You forget a thing like that! Run quick, you, Olivier! Go, seek
them!”

Master Olivier quitted the room and returned a moment later with
the two prisoners, surrounded by archers of the guard. The first
had a coarse, idiotic, drunken and astonished face. He was
clothed in rags, and walked with one knee bent and dragging his
leg. The second had a pallid and smiling countenance, with which
the reader is already acquainted.

The king surveyed them for a moment without uttering a word, then
addressing the first one abruptly,—

“What’s your name?”

“Gieffroy Pincebourde.”

“Your trade.”

“Outcast.”

“What were you going to do in this damnable sedition?”

The outcast stared at the king, and swung his arms with a stupid
air.

He had one of those awkwardly shaped heads where intelligence is
about as much at its ease as a light beneath an extinguisher.

“I know not,” said he. “They went, I went.”

“Were you not going to outrageously attack and pillage your lord,
the bailiff of the palace?”

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

A soldier pointed out to the king a billhook which he had seized
on the person of the vagabond.

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

“Yes; ’tis my billhook; I am a vine-dresser.”

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

“No, I do not know him.”

“That will do,” said the king, making a sign with his finger to
the silent personage who stood motionless beside the door, to
whom we have already called the reader’s attention.

“Gossip 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 vagabond.

In the meantime, the king had approached the second prisoner, who
was perspiring in great drops: “Your name?”

“Sire, Pierre Gringoire.”

“Your trade?”

“Philosopher, sire.”

“How do you permit yourself, knave, to go and besiege our friend,
monsieur the bailiff of the palace, and what have you to say
concerning this popular agitation?”

“Sire, I had nothing to do with it.”

“Come, now! you wanton wretch, were not you apprehended by the
watch in that bad company?”

“No, sire, there is a mistake. ’Tis a fatality. I make tragedies.
Sire, I entreat your majesty to listen to me. I am a poet. ’Tis
the melancholy way of men of my profession to roam the streets by
night. I was passing there. It was mere chance. I was unjustly
arrested; I am innocent of this civil tempest. Your majesty sees
that the vagabond did not recognize me. I conjure your majesty—”

“Hold your tongue!” said the king, between two swallows of his
ptisan. “You split our head!”

Tristan l’Hermite advanced and pointing to Gringoire,—

“Sire, can this one be hanged also?”

This was the first word that he had uttered.

“Phew!” replied the king, “I see no objection.”

“I see a great many!” said Gringoire.

At that moment, our philosopher was greener than an olive. He
perceived from the king’s cold and indifferent mien that there
was no other resource than something very pathetic, and he flung
himself at the feet of Louis XI., exclaiming, with gestures of
despair:—

“Sire! will your majesty deign to hear me. Sire! break not in
thunder over so small a thing as myself. God’s great lightning
doth not bombard a lettuce. Sire, you are an august and, very
puissant monarch; have pity on a poor man who is honest, and who
would find it more difficult to stir up a revolt than a cake of
ice would to give out a spark! Very gracious sire, kindness is
the virtue of a lion and a king. Alas! rigor only frightens
minds; the impetuous gusts of the north wind do not make the
traveller lay aside his cloak; the sun, bestowing his rays little
by little, warms him in such ways that it will make him strip to
his shirt. Sire, you are the sun. I protest to you, my sovereign
lord and master, that I am not an outcast, thief, and disorderly
fellow. Revolt and brigandage belong not to the outfit of Apollo.
I am not the man to fling myself into those clouds which break
out into seditious clamor. I am your majesty’s faithful vassal.
That same jealousy which a husband cherisheth for the honor of
his wife, the resentment which the son hath for the love of his
father, a good vassal should feel for the glory of his king; he
should pine away for the zeal of this house, for the
aggrandizement of his service. Every other passion which should
transport him would be but madness. These, sire, are my maxims of
state: then do not judge me to be a seditious and thieving rascal
because my garment is worn at the elbows. If you will grant me
mercy, sire, I will wear it out on the knees in praying to God
for you night and morning! Alas! I am not extremely rich, ’tis
true. I am even rather poor. But not vicious on that account. It
is not my fault. Every one knoweth that great wealth is not to be
drawn from literature, and that those who are best posted in good
books do not always have a great fire in winter. The advocate’s
trade taketh all the grain, and leaveth only straw to the other
scientific professions. There are forty very excellent proverbs
anent the hole-ridden cloak of the philosopher. Oh, sire!
clemency is the only light which can enlighten the interior of so
great a soul. Clemency beareth the torch before all the other
virtues. Without it they are but blind men groping after God in
the dark. Compassion, which is the same thing as clemency,
causeth the love of subjects, which is the most powerful
bodyguard to a prince. What matters it to your majesty, who
dazzles all faces, if there is one poor man more on earth, a poor
innocent philosopher spluttering amid the shadows of calamity,
with an empty pocket which resounds against his hollow belly?
Moreover, sire, I am a man of letters. Great kings make a pearl
for their crowns by protecting letters. Hercules did not disdain
the title of Musagetes. Mathias Corvin favored Jean de Monroyal,
the ornament of mathematics. Now, ’tis an ill way to protect
letters to hang men of letters. What a stain on Alexander if he
had hung Aristoteles! This act would not be a little patch on the
face of his reputation to embellish it, but a very malignant
ulcer to disfigure it. Sire! I made a very proper epithalamium
for Mademoiselle of Flanders and Monseigneur the very august
Dauphin. That is not a firebrand of rebellion. Your majesty sees
that I am not a scribbler of no reputation, that I have studied
excellently well, and that I possess much natural eloquence. Have
mercy upon me, sire! In so doing you will perform a gallant deed
to our Lady, and I swear to you that I am greatly terrified at
the idea of being hanged!”

So saying, the unhappy Gringoire kissed the king’s slippers, and
Guillaume Rym said to Coppenole in a low tone: “He doth well to
drag himself on the earth. Kings are like the Jupiter of Crete,
they have ears only in their feet.” And without troubling himself
about the Jupiter of Crete, the hosier replied with a heavy
smile, and his eyes fixed on Gringoire: “Oh! that’s it exactly! I
seem to hear Chancellor Hugonet craving mercy of me.”

When Gringoire paused at last, quite out of breath, he raised his
head tremblingly towards the king, who was engaged in scratching
a spot on the knee of his breeches with his finger-nail; then his
majesty began to drink from the goblet of ptisan. But he uttered
not a word, and this silence tortured Gringoire. At last the king
looked at him. “Here is a terrible bawler!” said, he. Then,
turning to Tristan l’Hermite, “Bah! let him go!”

Gringoire fell backwards, quite thunderstruck with joy.

“At liberty!” growled Tristan “Doth not your majesty wish to have
him detained a little while in a cage?”

“Gossip,” retorted Louis XI., “think you that ’tis for birds of
this feather that we cause to be made cages at three hundred and
sixty-seven livres, eight sous, three deniers apiece? Release him
at once, the wanton (Louis XI. was fond of this word which
formed, with _Pasque-Dieu_, the foundation of his joviality), and
put him out with a buffet.”

“Ugh!” cried Gringoire, “what a great king is here!”

And for fear of a counter order, he rushed towards the door,
which Tristan opened for him with a very bad grace. The soldiers
left the room with him, pushing him before them with stout
thwacks, which Gringoire bore like a true stoical philosopher.

The king’s good humor since the revolt against the bailiff had
been announced to him, made itself apparent in every way. This
unwonted clemency was no small sign of it. Tristan l’Hermite in
his corner wore the surly look of a dog who has had a bone
snatched away from him.

Meanwhile, the king thrummed gayly with his fingers on the arm of
his chair, the March of Pont-Audemer. He was a dissembling
prince, but one who understood far better how to hide his
troubles than his joys. These external manifestations of joy at
any good news sometimes proceeded to very great lengths thus, on
the death, of Charles the Bold, to the point of vowing silver
balustrades to Saint Martin of Tours; on his advent to the
throne, so far as forgetting to order his father’s obsequies.

“Hé! sire!” suddenly exclaimed Jacques Coictier, “what has become
of the acute attack of illness for which your majesty had me
summoned?”

“Oh!” said the king, “I really suffer greatly, my gossip. There
is a hissing in my ear and fiery rakes rack my chest.”

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

“Look, Coppenole,” said Rym, in a low voice. “Behold him between
Coictier and Tristan. They are his whole court. A physician for
himself, a headsman for others.”

As he felt the king’s pulse, Coictier assumed an air of greater
and greater alarm. Louis XI. watched him with some anxiety.
Coictier grew visibly more gloomy. The brave man had no other
farm than the king’s bad health. He speculated on it to the best
of his ability.

“Oh! oh!” he murmured at length, “this is serious indeed.”

“Is it not?” said the king, uneasily.

“_Pulsus creber, anhelans, crepitans, irregularis_,” continued
the leech.

“_Pasque-Dieu!_”

“This may carry off its man in less than three days.”

“Our Lady!” exclaimed the king. “And the remedy, gossip?”

“I am meditating upon that, sire.”

He made Louis XI. put out his tongue, shook his head, made a
grimace, and in the very midst of these affectations,—

“Pardieu, sire,” he suddenly said, “I must tell you that there is
a receivership of the royal prerogatives vacant, and that I have
a nephew.”

“I give the receivership to your nephew, Gossip Jacques,” replied
the king; “but draw this fire from my breast.”

“Since your majesty is so clement,” replied the leech, “you will
not refuse to aid me a little in building my house, Rue
Saint-André-des-Arcs.”

“Heugh!” said the king.

“I am at the end of my finances,” pursued the doctor; “and it
would really be a pity that the house should not have a roof; not
on account of the house, which is simple and thoroughly
_bourgeois_, but because of the paintings of Jehan Fourbault,
which adorn its wainscoating. There is a Diana flying in the air,
but so excellent, so tender, so delicate, of so ingenuous an
action, her hair so well coiffed and adorned with a crescent, her
flesh so white, that she leads into temptation those who regard
her too curiously. There is also a Ceres. She is another very
fair divinity. She is seated on sheaves of wheat and crowned with
a gallant garland of wheat ears interlaced with salsify and other
flowers. Never were seen more amorous eyes, more rounded limbs, a
nobler air, or a more gracefully flowing skirt. She is one of the
most innocent and most perfect beauties whom the brush has ever
produced.”

“Executioner!” grumbled Louis XI., “what are you driving at?”

“I must have a roof for these paintings, sire, and, although ’tis
but a small matter, I have no more money.”

“How much doth your roof cost?”

“Why a roof of copper, embellished and gilt, two thousand livres
at the most.”

“Ah, assassin!” cried the king, “He never draws out one of my
teeth which is not a diamond.”

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

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

Jacques Coictier bowed low and said,—

“Sire, it is a repellent which will save you. We will apply to
your loins the great defensive composed of cerate, Armenian bole,
white of egg, oil, and vinegar. You will continue your ptisan and
we will answer for your majesty.”

A burning candle does not attract one gnat alone. Master Olivier,
perceiving the king to be in a liberal mood, and judging the
moment to be propitious, approached in his turn.

“Sire—”

“What is it now?” said Louis XI. “Sire, your majesty knoweth that
Simon Radin is dead?”

“Well?”

“He was councillor to the king in the matter of the courts of the
treasury.”

“Well?”

“Sire, his place is vacant.”

As he spoke thus, Master Olivier’s haughty face quitted its
arrogant expression for a lowly one. It is the only change which
ever takes place in a courtier’s visage. The king looked him well
in the face and said in a dry tone,—“I understand.”

He resumed,—

“Master Olivier, the Marshal de Boucicaut was wont to say,
‘There’s no master save the king, there are no fishes save in the
sea.’ I see that you agree with Monsieur de Boucicaut. Now listen
to this; we have a good memory. In ’68 we made you valet of our
chamber: in ’69, guardian of the fortress of the bridge of
Saint-Cloud, at a hundred livres of Tournay in wages (you wanted
them of Paris). In November, ’73, by letters given to Gergeole,
we instituted you keeper of the Wood of Vincennes, in the place
of Gilbert Acle, equerry; in ’75, gruyer[67] of the forest of
Rouvray-lez-Saint-Cloud, in the place of Jacques le Maire; in
’78, we graciously settled on you, by letters patent sealed
doubly with green wax, an income of ten livres parisis, for you
and your wife, on the Place of the Merchants, situated at the
School Saint-Germain; in ’79, we made you gruyer of the forest of
Senart, in place of that poor Jehan Daiz; then captain of the
Château of Loches; then governor of Saint-Quentin; then captain
of the bridge of Meulan, of which you cause yourself to be called
comte. Out of the five sols fine paid by every barber who shaves
on a festival day, there are three sols for you and we have the
rest. We have been good enough to change your name of Le Mauvais
(The Evil), which resembled your face too closely. In ’76, we
granted you, to the great displeasure of our nobility, armorial
bearings of a thousand colors, which give you the breast of a
peacock. _Pasque-Dieu!_ Are not you surfeited? Is not the draught
of fishes sufficiently fine and miraculous? Are you not afraid
that one salmon more will make your boat sink? Pride will be your
ruin, gossip. Ruin and disgrace always press hard on the heels of
pride. Consider this and hold your tongue.”

These words, uttered with severity, made Master Olivier’s face
revert to its insolence.

“Good!” he muttered, almost aloud, “’tis easy to see that the
king is ill to-day; he giveth all to the leech.”

Louis XI. far from being irritated by this petulant insult,
resumed with some gentleness, “Stay, I was forgetting that I made
you my ambassador to Madame Marie, at Ghent. Yes, gentlemen,”
added the king turning to the Flemings, “this man hath been an
ambassador. There, my gossip,” he pursued, addressing Master
Olivier, “let us not get angry; we are old friends. ’Tis very
late. We have terminated our labors. Shave me.”

Our readers have not, without doubt, waited until the present
moment to recognize in Master Olivier that terrible Figaro whom
Providence, the great maker of dramas, mingled so artistically in
the long and bloody comedy of the reign of Louis XI. We will not
here undertake to develop that singular figure. This barber of
the king had three names. At court he was politely called Olivier
le Daim (the Deer); among the people Olivier the Devil. His real
name was Olivier le Mauvais.

Accordingly, Olivier le Mauvais remained motionless, sulking at
the king, and glancing askance at Jacques Coictier.

“Yes, yes, the physician!” he said between his teeth.

“Ah, yes, the physician!” retorted Louis XI., with singular good
humor; “the physician has more credit than you. ’Tis very simple;
he has taken hold upon us by the whole body, and you hold us only
by the chin. Come, my poor barber, all will come right. What
would you say and what would become of your office if I were a
king like Chilperic, whose gesture consisted in holding his beard
in one hand? Come, gossip mine, fulfil your office, shave me. Go
get what you need therefor.”

Olivier perceiving that the king had made up his mind to laugh,
and that there was no way of even annoying him, went off
grumbling to execute his orders.

The king rose, approached the window, and suddenly opening it
with extraordinary agitation,—

“Oh! yes!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands, “yonder is a redness
in the sky over the City. ’Tis the bailiff burning. It can be
nothing else but that. Ah! my good people! here you are aiding me
at last in tearing down the rights of lordship!”

Then turning towards the Flemings: “Come, look at this,
gentlemen. Is it not a fire which gloweth yonder?”

The two men of Ghent drew near.

“A great fire,” said Guillaume Rym.

“Oh!” exclaimed Coppenole, whose eyes suddenly flashed, “that
reminds me of the burning of the house of the Seigneur
d’Hymbercourt. There must be a goodly revolt yonder.”

“You think so, Master Coppenole?” And Louis XI.’s glance was
almost as joyous as that of the hosier. “Will it not be difficult
to resist?”

“Cross of God! Sire! Your majesty will damage many companies of
men of war thereon.”

“Ah! I! ’tis different,” returned the king. “If I willed.”

The hosier replied hardily,—

“If this revolt be what I suppose, sire, you might will in vain.”

“Gossip,” said Louis XI., “with the two companies of my
unattached troops and one discharge of a serpentine, short work
is made of a populace of louts.”

The hosier, in spite of the signs made to him by Guillaume Rym,
appeared determined to hold his own against the king.

“Sire, the Swiss were also louts. Monsieur the Duke of Burgundy
was a great gentleman, and he turned up his nose at that rabble
rout. At the battle of Grandson, sire, he cried: ‘Men of the
cannon! Fire on the villains!’ and he swore by Saint-George. But
Advoyer Scharnachtal hurled himself on the handsome duke with his
battle-club and his people, and when the glittering Burgundian
army came in contact with these peasants in bull hides, it flew
in pieces like a pane of glass at the blow of a pebble. Many
lords were then slain by low-born knaves; and Monsieur de
Château-Guyon, the greatest seigneur in Burgundy, was found dead,
with his gray horse, in a little marsh meadow.”

“Friend,” returned the king, “you are speaking of a battle. The
question here is of a mutiny. And I will gain the upper hand of
it as soon as it shall please me to frown.”

The other replied indifferently,—

“That may be, sire; in that case, ’tis because the people’s hour
hath not yet come.”

Guillaume Rym considered it incumbent on him to intervene,—

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

“I know it,” replied the hosier, gravely.

“Let him speak, Monsieur Rym, my friend,” said the king; “I love
this frankness of speech. My father, Charles the Seventh, was
accustomed to say that the truth was ailing; I thought her dead,
and that she had found no confessor. Master Coppenole undeceiveth
me.”

Then, laying his hand familiarly on Coppenole’s shoulder,—

“You were saying, Master Jacques?”

“I say, sire, that you may possibly be in the right, that the
hour of the people may not yet have come with you.”

Louis XI. gazed at him with his penetrating eye,—

“And when will that hour come, master?”

“You will hear it strike.”

“On what clock, if you please?”

Coppenole, with his tranquil and rustic countenance, made the
king approach the window.

“Listen, sire! There is here a donjon keep, a belfry, cannons,
_bourgeois_, soldiers; when the belfry shall hum, when the
cannons shall roar, when the donjon shall fall in ruins amid
great noise, when _bourgeois_ and soldiers shall howl and slay
each other, the hour will strike.”

Louis’s face grew sombre and dreamy. He remained silent for a
moment, then he gently patted with his hand the thick wall of the
donjon, as one strokes the haunches of a steed.

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

And turning with an abrupt gesture towards the sturdy Fleming,—

“Have you never seen a revolt, Master Jacques?”

“I have made them,” said the hosier.

“How do you set to work to make a revolt?” said the king.

“Ah!” replied Coppenole, “’tis not very difficult. There are a
hundred ways. In the first place, there must be discontent in the
city. The thing is not uncommon. And then, the character of the
inhabitants. Those of Ghent are easy to stir into revolt. They
always love the prince’s son; the prince, never. Well! One
morning, I will suppose, some one enters my shop, and says to me:
‘Father Coppenole, there is this and there is that, the
Demoiselle of Flanders wishes to save her ministers, the grand
bailiff is doubling the impost on shagreen, or something
else,’—what you will. I leave my work as it stands, I come out of
my hosier’s stall, and I shout: ‘To the sack?’ There is always
some smashed cask at hand. I mount it, and I say aloud, in the
first words that occur to me, what I have on my heart; and when
one is of the people, sire, one always has something on the
heart. Then people troop up, they shout, they ring the alarm
bell, they arm the louts with what they take from the soldiers,
the market people join in, and they set out. And it will always
be thus, so long as there are lords in the seignories,
_bourgeois_ in the bourgs, and peasants in the country.”

“And against whom do you thus rebel?” inquired the king; “against
your bailiffs? against your lords?”

“Sometimes; that depends. Against the duke, also, sometimes.”

Louis XI. returned and seated himself, saying, with a smile,—

“Ah! here they have only got as far as the bailiffs.”

At that instant Olivier le Daim returned. He was followed by two
pages, who bore the king’s toilet articles; but what struck Louis
XI. was that he was also accompanied by the provost of Paris and
the chevalier of the watch, who appeared to be in consternation.
The spiteful barber also wore an air of consternation, which was
one of contentment beneath, however. It was he who spoke first.

“Sire, I ask your majesty’s pardon for the calamitous news which
I bring.”

The king turned quickly and grazed the mat on the floor with the
feet of his chair,—

“What does this mean?”

“Sire,” resumed Olivier le Daim, with the malicious air of a man
who rejoices that he is about to deal a violent blow, “’tis not
against the bailiff of the courts that this popular sedition is
directed.”

“Against whom, then?”

“Against you, sire?’

The aged king rose erect and straight as a young man,—

“Explain yourself, Olivier! And guard your head well, gossip; for
I swear to you by the cross of Saint-Lô that, if you lie to us at
this hour, the sword which severed the head of Monsieur de
Luxembourg is not so notched that it cannot yet sever yours!”

The oath was formidable; Louis XI. had only sworn twice in the
course of his life by the cross of Saint-Lô.

Olivier opened his mouth to reply.

“Sire—”

“On your knees!” interrupted the king violently. “Tristan, have
an eye to this man.”

Olivier knelt down and said coldly,—

“Sire, a sorceress was condemned to death by your court of
parliament. She took refuge in Notre-Dame. The people are trying
to take her from thence by main force. Monsieur the provost and
monsieur the chevalier of the watch, who have just come from the
riot, are here to give me the lie if this is not the truth. The
populace is besieging Notre-Dame.”

“Yes, indeed!” said the king in a low voice, all pale and
trembling with wrath. “Notre-Dame! They lay siege to our Lady, my
good mistress in her cathedral!—Rise, Olivier. You are right. I
give you Simon Radin’s charge. You are right. ’Tis I whom they
are attacking. The witch is under the protection of this church,
the church is under my protection. And I thought that they were
acting against the bailiff! ’Tis against myself!”

Then, rendered young by fury, he began to walk up and down with
long strides. He no longer laughed, he was terrible, he went and
came; the fox was changed into a hyæna. He seemed suffocated to
such a degree that he could not speak; his lips moved, and his
fleshless fists were clenched. All at once he raised his head,
his hollow eye appeared full of light, and his voice burst forth
like a clarion: “Down with them, Tristan! A heavy hand for these
rascals! Go, Tristan, my friend! slay! slay!”

This eruption having passed, he returned to his seat, and said
with cold and concentrated wrath,—

“Here, Tristan! There are here with us in the Bastille the fifty
lances of the Vicomte de Gif, which makes three hundred horse:
you will take them. There is also the company of our unattached
archers of Monsieur de Châteaupers: you will take it. You are
provost of the marshals; you have the men of your provostship:
you will take them. At the Hôtel Saint-Pol you will find forty
archers of monsieur the dauphin’s new guard: you will take them.
And, with all these, you will hasten to Notre-Dame. Ah!
messieurs, louts of Paris, do you fling yourselves thus against
the crown of France, the sanctity of Notre-Dame, and the peace of
this commonwealth! Exterminate, Tristan! exterminate! and let not
a single one escape, except it be for Montfaucon.”

Tristan bowed. “’Tis well, sire.”

He added, after a silence, “And what shall I do with the
sorceress?”

This question caused the king to meditate.

“Ah!” said he, “the sorceress! Monsieur d’Estouteville, what did
the people wish to do with her?”

“Sire,” replied the provost of Paris, “I imagine that since the
populace has come to tear her from her asylum in Notre-Dame, ’tis
because that impunity wounds them, and they desire to hang her.”

The king appeared to reflect deeply: then, addressing Tristan
l’Hermite, “Well! gossip, exterminate the people and hang the
sorceress.”

“That’s it,” said Rym in a low tone to Coppenole, “punish the
people for willing a thing, and then do what they wish.”

“Enough, sire,” replied Tristan. “If the sorceress is still in
Notre-Dame, must she be seized in spite of the sanctuary?”

“_Pasque-Dieu!_ the sanctuary!” said the king, scratching his
ear. “But the woman must be hung, nevertheless.”

Here, as though seized with a sudden idea, he flung himself on
his knees before his chair, took off his hat, placed it on the
seat, and gazing devoutly at one of the leaden amulets which
loaded it down, “Oh!” said he, with clasped hands, “our Lady of
Paris, my gracious patroness, pardon me. I will only do it this
once. This criminal must be punished. I assure you, madame the
virgin, my good mistress, that she is a sorceress who is not
worthy of your amiable protection. You know, madame, that many
very pious princes have overstepped the privileges of the
churches for the glory of God and the necessities of the State.
Saint Hugues, bishop of England, permitted King Edward to hang a
witch in his church. Saint-Louis of France, my master,
transgressed, with the same object, the church of Monsieur
Saint-Paul; and Monsieur Alphonse, son of the king of Jerusalem,
the very church of the Holy Sepulchre. Pardon me, then, for this
once. Our Lady of Paris, I will never do so again, and I will
give you a fine statue of silver, like the one which I gave last
year to Our Lady of Écouys. So be it.”

He made the sign of the cross, rose, donned his hat once more,
and said to Tristan,—

“Be diligent, gossip. Take Monsieur Châteaupers with you. You
will cause the tocsin to be sounded. You will crush the populace.
You will seize the witch. ’Tis said. And I mean the business of
the execution to be done by you. You will render me an account of
it. Come, Olivier, I shall not go to bed this night. Shave me.”

Tristan l’Hermite bowed and departed. Then the king, dismissing
Rym and Coppenole with a gesture,—

“God guard you, messieurs, my good friends the Flemings. Go, take
a little repose. The night advances, and we are nearer the
morning than the evening.”

Both retired and gained their apartments under the guidance of
the captain of the Bastille. Coppenole said to Guillaume Rym,—

“Hum! I have had enough of that coughing king! I have seen
Charles of Burgundy drunk, and he was less malignant than Louis
XI. when ailing.”

“Master Jacques,” replied Rym, “’tis because wine renders kings
less cruel than does barley water.”