“I jumped the garden wall and took a letter to Plessis from madame to the king. She came near dying when she heard of the accusation against you. Take courage. She is going now to speak to the king about you.”
Love had already given strength and wiliness to the countess. Her laughter was part of the heroism which women display in the great crises of life.
In spite of the singular fancy which possessed the author of “Quentin Durward” to place the royal castle of Plessis-lez-Tours upon a height, we must content ourselves by leaving it where it really was, namely on low land, protected on either side by the Cher and the Loire; also by the canal Sainte-Anne, so named by Louis XI. in honor of his beloved daughter, Madame de Beaujeu. By uniting the two rivers between the city of Tours and Plessis this canal not only served as a formidable protection to the castle, but it offered a most precious road to commerce. On the side towards Brehemont, a vast and fertile plain, the park was defended by a moat, the remains of which still show its enormous breadth and depth. At a period when the power of artillery was still in embryo, the position of Plessis, long since chosen by Louis XI. for his favorite retreat, might be considered impregnable. The castle, built of brick and stone, had nothing remarkable about it; but it was surrounded by noble trees, and from its windows could be seen, through vistas cut in the park (plexitium), the finest points of view in the world. No rival mansion rose near this solitary castle, standing in the very centre of the little plain reserved for the king and guarded by four streams of water.
If we may believe tradition, Louis XI. occupied the west wing, and from his chamber he could see, at a glance the course of the Loire, the opposite bank of the river, the pretty valley which the Croisille waters, and part of the slopes of Saint-Cyr. Also, from the windows that opened on the courtyard, he saw the entrance to his fortress and the embankment by which he had connected his favorite residence with the city of Tours. If Louis XI. had bestowed upon the building of his castle the luxury of architecture which Francois I. displayed afterwards at Chambord, the dwelling of the kings of France would ever have remained in Touraine. It is enough to see this splendid position and its magical effects to be convinced of its superiority over the sites of all other royal residences.
Louis XI., now in the fifty-seventh year of his age, had scarcely more than three years longer to live; already he felt the coming on of death in the attacks of his mortal malady. Delivered from his enemies; on the point of increasing the territory of France by the possessions of the Dukes of Burgundy through the marriage of the Dauphin with Marguerite, heiress of Burgundy (brought about by means of Desquerdes, commander of his troops in Flanders); having established his authority everywhere, and now meditating ameliorations in his kingdom of all kinds, he saw time slipping past him rapidly with no further troubles than those of old age. Deceived by every one, even by the minions about him, experience had intensified his natural distrust. The desire to live became in him the egotism of a king who has incarnated himself in his people; he wished to prolong his life in order to carry out his vast designs.
All that the common-sense of publicists and the genius of revolutions has since introduced of change in the character of monarchy, Louis XI. had thought of and devised. Unity of taxation, equality of subjects before the law (the prince being then the law) were the objects of his bold endeavors. On All-Saints’ eve he had gathered together the learned goldsmiths of his kingdom for the purpose of establishing in France a unity of weights and measures, as he had already established the unity of power. Thus, his vast spirit hovered like an eagle over his empire, joining in a singular manner the prudence of a king to the natural idiosyncracies of a man of lofty aims. At no period in our history has the great figure of Monarchy been finer or more poetic. Amazing assemblages of contrasts! a great power in a feeble body; a spirit unbelieving as to all things here below, devoutly believing in the practices of religion; a man struggling with two powers greater than his own — the present and the future; the future in which he feared eternal punishment, a fear which led him to make so many sacrifices to the Church; the present, namely his life itself, for the saving of which he blindly obeyed Coyctier. This king, who crushed down all about him, was himself crushed down by remorse, and by disease in the midst of the great poem of defiant monarchy in which all power was concentrated. It was once more the gigantic and ever magnificent combat of Man in the highest manifestation of his forces tilting against Nature.
While awaiting his dinner, a repast which was taken in those days between eleven o’clock and mid-day, Louis XI., returning from a short promenade, sat down in a huge tapestried chair near the fireplace in his chamber. Olivier de Daim, and his doctor, Coyctier, looked at each other without a word, standing in the recess of a window and watching their master, who presently seemed asleep. The only sound that was heard were the steps of the two chamberlains on service, the Sire de Montresor, and Jean Dufou, Sire de Montbazon, who were walking up and down the adjoining hall. These two Tourainean seigneurs looked at the captain of the Scottish guard, who was sleeping in his chair, according to his usual custom. The king himself appeared to be dozing. His head had drooped upon his breast; his cap, pulled forward on his forehead, hid his eyes. Thus seated in his high chair, surmounted by the royal crown, he seemed crouched together like a man who had fallen asleep in the midst of some deep meditation.
At this moment Tristan and his cortege crossed the canal by the bridge of Sainte-Anne, about two hundred feet from the entrance to Plessis.
“Who is that?” said the king.
The two courtiers questioned each other with a look of surprise.
“He is dreaming,” said Coyctier, in a low voice.
“Pasques-Dieu!” cried Louis XI., “do you think me mad? People are crossing the bridge. It is true I am near the chimney, and I may hear sounds more easily than you. That effect of nature might be utilized,” he added thoughtfully.
“What a man!” said de Daim.
Louis XI. rose and went toward one of the windows that looked on the town. He saw the grand provost, and exclaimed: —
“Ha, ha! here’s my crony and his thief. And here comes my little Marie de Saint-Vallier; I’d forgotten all about it. Olivier,” he said, addressing the barber, “go and tell Monsieur de Montbazon to serve some good Bourgeuil wine at dinner, and see that the cook doesn’t forget the lampreys; Madame le comtesse likes both those things. Can I eat lampreys?” he added, after a pause, looking anxiously at Coyctier.
For all answer the physician began to examine his master’s face. The two men were a picture in themselves.
History and romance-writers have consecrated the brown camlet coat, and the breeches of the same stuff, worn by Louis XI. His cap, decorated with leaden medallions, and his collar of the order of Saint-Michel, are not less celebrated; but no writer, no painter has represented the face of that terrible monarch in his last years, — a sickly, hollow, yellow and brown face, all the features of which expressed a sour craftiness, a cold sarcasm. In that mask was the forehead of a great man, a brow furrowed with wrinkles, and weighty with high thoughts; but in his cheeks and on his lips there was something indescribably vulgar and common. Looking at certain details of that countenance you would have thought him a debauched husbandman, or a miserly peddler; and yet, above these vague resemblances and the decrepitude of a dying old man, the king, the man of power, rose supreme. His eyes, of a light yellow, seemed at first sight extinct; but a spark of courage and of anger lurked there, and at the slightest touch it could burst into flames and cast fire about him. The doctor was a stout burgher, with a florid face, dressed in black, peremptory, greedy of gain, and self-important. These two personages were framed, as it were, in that panelled chamber, hung with high-warped tapestries of Flanders, the ceiling of which, made of carved beams, was blackened by smoke. The furniture, the bed, all inlaid with arabesques in pewter, would seem to-day more precious than they were at that period when the arts were beginning to produce their choicest masterpieces.
“Lampreys are not good for you,” replied the physician.
That title, recently substituted for the former term of “myrrh-master,” is still applied to the faculty in England. The name was at this period given to doctors everywhere.
“Then what may I eat?” asked the king, humbly.
“Salt mackerel. Otherwise, you have so much bile in motion that you may die on All-Souls’ Day.”
“To-day!” cried the king in terror.
“Compose yourself, sire,” replied Coyctier. “I am here. Try not to fret your mind; find some way to amuse yourself.”
“Ah!” said the king, “my daughter Marie used to succeed in that difficult business.”
As he spoke, Imbert de Bastarnay, sire of Montresor and Bridore, rapped softly on the royal door. On receiving the king’s permission he entered and announced the Comte and Comtesse de Saint-Vallier. Louis XI. made a sign. Marie appeared, followed by her old husband, who allowed her to pass in first.
“Good-day, my children,” said the king.
“Sire,” replied his daughter in a low voice, as she embraced him, “I want to speak to you in secret.”
Louis XI. appeared not to have heard her. He turned to the door and called out in a hollow voice, “Hola, Dufou!”
Dufou, seigneur of Montbazon and grand cup-bearer of France, entered in haste.
“Go to the maitre d’hotel, and tell him I must have salt mackerel for dinner. And go to Madame de Beaujeu, and let her know that I wish to dine alone to-day. Do you know, madame,” continued the king, pretending to be slightly angry, “that you neglect me? It is almost three years since I have seen you. Come, come here, my pretty,” he added, sitting down and holding out his arms to her. “How thin you have grown! Why have you let her grow so thin?” said the king, roughly, addressing the Comte de Poitiers.
The jealous husband cast so frightened a look at his wife that she almost pitied him.
“Happiness, sire!” he stammered.
“Ah! you love each other too much, — is that it?” said the king, holding his daughter between his knees. “I did right to call you Mary-full-of-grace. Coyctier, leave us! Now, then, what do you want of me?” he said to his daughter the moment the doctor had gone. “After sending me your — ”
In this danger, Marie boldly put her hand on the king’s lips and said in his ear, —
“I always thought you cautious and penetrating.”
“Saint-Vallier,” said the king, laughing, “I think that Bridore has something to say to you.”
The count left the room; but he made a gesture with his shoulders well known to his wife, who could guess the thoughts of the jealous man, and knew she must forestall his cruel designs.
“Tell me, my child, how do you think I am, — hey? Do I seem changed to you?”
“Sire, do you want me to tell you the real truth, or would you rather I deceived you?”
“No,” he said, in a low voice, “I want to know truly what to expect.”
“In that case, I think you look very ill to-day; but you will not let my truthfulness injure the success of my cause, will you?”
“What is your cause?” asked the king, frowning and passing a hand across his forehead.
“Ah, sire,” she replied, “the young man you have had arrested for robbing your silversmith Cornelius, and who is now in the hands of the grand provost, is innocent of the robbery.”
“How do you know that?” asked the king. Marie lowered her head and blushed.
“I need not ask if there is love in this business,” said the king, raising his daughter’s head gently and stroking her chin. “If you don’t confess every morning, my daughter, you will go to hell.”
“Cannot you oblige me without forcing me to tell my secret thoughts?”
“Where would be the pleasure?” cried the king, seeing only an amusement in this affair.
“Ah! do you want your pleasure to cost me grief?”
“Oh! you sly little girl, haven’t you any confidence in me?”
“Then, sire, set the young nobleman at liberty.”
“So! he is a nobleman, is he?” cried the king. “Then he is not an apprentice?”
“He is certainly innocent,” she said.
“I don’t see it so,” said the king, coldly. “I am the law and justice of my kingdom, and I must punish evil-doers.”
“Come, don’t put on that solemn face of yours! Give me the life of that young man.”
“Is it yours already?”
“Sire,” she said, “I am pure and virtuous. You are jesting at — ”
“Then,” said Louis XI., interrupting her, “as I am not to know the truth, I think Tristan had better clear it up.”
Marie turned pale, but she made a violent effort and cried out: —
“Sire, I assure you, you will regret all this. The so-called thief stole nothing. If you will grant me his pardon, I will tell you everything, even though you may punish me.”
“Ho, ho! this is getting serious,” cried the king, shoving up his cap. “Speak out, my daughter.”
“Well,” she said, in a low voice, putting her lips to her father’s ear, “he was in my room all night.”
“He could be there, and yet rob Cornelius. Two robberies!”
“I have your blood in my veins, and I was not born to love a scoundrel. That young seigneur is the nephew of the captain-general of your archers.”
“Well, well!” cried the king; “you are hard to confess.”
With the words the king pushed his daughter from his knee, and hurried to the door of the room, but softly on tiptoe, making no noise. For the last moment or two, the light from a window in the adjoining hall, shining through a space below the door, had shown him the shadow of a listener’s foot projected on the floor of his chamber. He opened the door abruptly, and surprised the Comte de Saint-Vallier eavesdropping.
“Pasques-Dieu!” he cried; “here’s an audacity that deserves the axe.”
“Sire,” replied Saint-Vallier, haughtily, “I would prefer an axe at my throat to the ornament of marriage on my head.”
“You may have both,” said Louis XI. “None of you are safe from such infirmities, messieurs. Go into the farther hall. Conyngham,” continued the king, addressing the captain of the guard, “you are asleep! Where is Monsieur de Bridore? Why do you let me be approached in this way? Pasques-Dieu! the lowest burgher in Tours is better served than I am.”
After scolding thus, Louis re-entered his room; but he took care to draw the tapestried curtain, which made a second door, intended more to stifle the words of the king than the whistling of the harsh north wind.
“So, my daughter,” he said, liking to play with her as a cat plays with a mouse, “Georges d’Estouteville was your lover last night?”
“Oh, no, sire!”
“No! Ah! by Saint-Carpion, he deserves to die. Did the scamp not think my daughter beautiful?”
“Oh! that is not it,” she said. “He kissed my feet and hands with an ardor that might have touched the most virtuous of women. He loves me truly in all honor.”
“Do you take me for Saint-Louis, and suppose I should believe such nonsense? A young fellow, made like him, to have risked his life just to kiss your little slippers or your sleeves! Tell that to others.”
“But, sire, it is true. And he came for another purpose.”
Having said these words, Marie felt that she had risked the life of her husband, for Louis instantly demanded:
“What purpose?”
The adventure amused him immensely. But he did not expect the strange confidences his daughter now made to him after stipulating for the pardon of her husband.
“Ho, ho, Monsieur de Saint-Vallier! So you dare to shed the royal blood!” cried the king, his eyes lighting with anger.
At this moment the bell of Plessis sounded the hour of the king’s dinner. Leaning on the arm of his daughter, Louis XI. appeared with contracted brows on the threshold of his chamber, and found
all his servitors in waiting. He cast an ambiguous look on the Comte de Saint-Vallier, thinking of the sentence he meant to pronounce upon him. The deep silence which reigned was presently broken by the steps of Tristan l’Hermite as he mounted the grand staircase. The grand provost entered the hall, and, advancing toward the king, said: —
“Sire, the affair is settled.”
“What! is it all over?” said the king.
“Our man is in the hands of the monks. He confessed the theft after a touch of the ‘question.’”
The countess gave a sign, and turned pale; she could not speak, but looked at the king. That look was observed by Saint-Vallier, who muttered in a low tone: “I am betrayed; that thief is an acquaintance of my wife.”
“Silence!” cried the king. “Some one is here who will wear out my patience. Go at once and put a stop to the execution,” he continued, addressing the grand provost. “You will answer with your own body for that of the criminal, my friend. This affair must be better sifted, and I reserve to myself the doing of it. Set the prisoner at liberty provisionally; I can always recover him; these robbers have retreats they frequent, lairs where they lurk. Let Cornelius know that I shall be at his house to-night to begin the inquiry myself. Monsieur de Saint-Vallier,” said the king, looking fixedly at the count, “I know about you. All your blood could not pay for one drop of mine; do you hear me? By our Lady of Clery! you have committed crimes of lese-majesty. Did I give you such a pretty wife to make her pale and weakly? Go back to your own house, and make your preparations for a long journey.”
The king stopped at these words from a habit of cruelty; then he added: —
“You will leave to-night to attend to my affairs with the government of Venice. You need be under no anxiety about your wife; I shall take charge of her at Plessis; she will certainly be safe here. Henceforth I shall watch over her with greater care than I have done since I married her to you.”
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 1204