by Victor Hugo
“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.