In a Dark Wood Wandering

by Hella S. Haasse

  On the first of August, Charles appeared before Paris with his armies: he offered the King his help in exchange for the properties which had been taken from him, full restoration of his father’s honor and good name. When the people’s militia saw the cordon of armed men encircling the city, trouble broke out in their ranks. The men flocked to the marketplace to hear Caboche’s response, but before the skinner could open his mouth, here and there among the restless, uneasy mob arose cries for peace. Those who were not part of Caboche’s immediate circle were more than sated with murder and pillage, with this harsh and uncertain life. The workshops remained closed, business was at a standstill, the purveyors of food seemed in a constant muddle. The privilege of roaming the city armed to the teeth and letting blood flow with impunity did not outweigh all these inconveniences.

  “Peace! Peace! Those who want war step to the left; those who want peace to the right!” cried a voice from the mob. This proposal was immediately echoed and chorused; before long the square resounded with shouts from a thousand throats. Caboche’s voice was drowned in the sea of sound; he had to look on helplessly while the men, whom until then he had held in the palm of his hand, crowded to the right side of the marketplace. No one dared to remain standing on the left side. This incident had notable consequences: within twenty-four hours the city had completely changed.

  The gates were flung open and Charles d’Orléans and his princely allies marched into Paris. The inhabitants of the city, wild with joy, did not bother with half-measures: huge bonfires flamed in the marketplaces and on street corners; here was a chance to dance and drink in the open air until long past midnight. Wine and excitement drove the people to another extreme. Even before dawn broke, Caboche, Saint-Yon, Thibert, de Troyes and a number of butchers and butcher’s companions were driven away and their houses looted and put to the torch. In Caboche’s lodgings they found a document signed by Burgundy, which contained a long list of names of citizens of Paris; each name was preceded by a sign: D, P or R. Everyone knew what that meant: death, prison or ransom, Many of the names thus marked belonged to people who had always been confirmed supporters of Burgundy. The discovery of this document spelled the end of Burgundy’s power. All those who had once been willing to follow him blindly now turned against him. When Burgundy heard that the people in the streets were vying with the Armagnacs to shout, “Burgundian dogs, we will cut your throats!”; that they were beginning to arrest the officials appointed by him and to kill his servants, he considered that he was no longer safe, not even in the donjon of the Hotel d’Artois. He fled unceremoniously from Paris, leaving his followers behind in peril of their lives.

  Burgundy had scarcely reached Arras when he learned that his enemies were advancing under the King’s banner to compel him by force of arms to beg forgiveness, and to make amends. So Charles d’Orléans rode into battle beside the Dauphin; before him he saw the silken pavilion covering the carriage where the King sat; over his head fluttered the blue and gold banners of France and the ensigns with the inscriptions “Justice” and “The Right Way”. Nevertheless, there were still moments when he thought that he dreamt; sometimes he closed his eyes expecting, when he opened them again, to see the walls of Blois around him, to encounter the desolate landscape at Gien. But this was reality, he was the confidant and favorite of the royal family; they were concerned about him, they defended his cause. Here he was marching to punish Burgundy, supported by the highest authority; he had almost achieved his purpose.

  But for all that, he knew no peace of mind. He had only to turn his head to see Armagnac riding behind him, a crafty smile forever on his cracked lips.

  The stubborn presence of the Gascon distressed Charles sorely; he could not help thinking of the vultures who often in time of war arch over the advancing armies, knowing instinctively that they need not wait long for the carrion. During the brief time he had spent at the court, Armagnac had already made a number of enemies by his crude and repulsive behavior and unabashed greed. Many saw with trepidation and displeasure that three-fourths of the army with which the King went forth to battle for justice was composed of savage, untrustworthy mercenaries; the memory of their outrages in the outskirts of Paris was still fresh in people’s minds.

  That the King and the Dauphin had allowed themselves to be persuaded to wear the white band of the Armagnacs on their right arms, thoughtful people considered to be an insurmountable scandal—worse still, a great imprudence: the King had to stand above all parties, and should not identify himself with so disreputable a horde of soldiers. Charles was afraid that those who spoke that way would all too quickly be proven right. Indeed, time had taught him that his fears were only too well-founded: the towns which the army had captured on the way to Arras were, in spite of the King’s orders, pillaged and reduced to ashes. Charles saw the city of Soissons after the Gascons and Bretons had rampaged there; as long as he lived the image of the horrors would remain with him: the charred beams and black scorched walls, the mutilated corpses of women and children, the rows of dead hanging on trees and palisades. Over the years he had, indeed, learned to control himself well, but on seeing this senseless destruction, this bestial ferocity, he could contain himself no longer. How could a venture be blessed which owed its success to such behavior?

  Charles was not surprised to see that the King’s army was stranded before Arras; the city seemed impregnable. Moreover, the camp was ravaged by heavy rains; fever broke out among the troops. The end of the campaign was ignominious: peace negotiations were re-opened once more at the request of the Dauphin, who suffered from the damp climate and was becoming weary. For the fifth time in seven years they entreated Charles to reach out his hand to his adversary. Three times Charles refused. He obeyed only when the Dauphin, enraged by his cousin’s persistent refusals, had stalked out of his tent, stamping his foot angrily. But Charles did not look at Burgundy, nor did he speak to him. The King, who had just enough sense to realize that young Orléans was deeply offended, thought that Charles had to be kept satisfied one way or another.

  “Let us, for the sake of my brother whose soul is now in Paradise, hold a service in Notre Dame for the dead, when we return to Paris,” whispered the sick man, gesticulating quickly to the Archbishop of Reims. “With a thousand candles and torches and black curtains, knights and priests and singing boys, as if it were the funeral of a king. I shall be there too in my prayer chair,” he concluded in a mysterious tone, nodding his head like a satisfied child.

  So it happened. Before the high altar, heaped with gold candlesticks and flickering lights, Charles heard his father’s memory praised by no less a personage than the very learned and eloquent Maitre Gerson, who twenty years before, in an equally passionate flow of words, had called Louis d’Orléans a wastrel, a woman chaser and a heretic.

  Toward the end of October Charles set out for the castle of Riom, to meet there with his wife Bonne d’ Armagnac for the first time in four years.

  “I ordered my daughter to come to Riom,” Armagnac told him shortly after they had returned from Arras. “She is now fifteen years old, old enough to bear children. You can take her along now, son-in-law, it is growing too expensive for me to keep on supporting her.”

  Charles realized on this occasion that he had never given thought or word to his young wife. A few years earlier he had dutifully sent her some gifts for the New Year, in honor of her name day—rings, pins, a golden triptych with angels playing the harp. The bride’s mother, Berry’s daughter, had sent him a letter of thanks in the girPs name; from this he learned that Bonne was well, and thought of him with respect and affection. Charles knew that this was nothing more than a courtly phrase; he had never attached any importance to it. When he had lost contact with Armagnac after the failure at Saint-Cloud, he had also stopped sending Bonne letters and gifts, not so much intentionally as from forgetfulness. Bonne was for him hardly more than a name, he did not think of her, or if he ever did, it was with a certain antipathy because she was the daughte
r of a man whom he found frustrating and contemptible. Armagnac’s words reminded him of Bonne’s existence; he realized that she had grown up now and was entitled to the respect due to a Duchess of Orléans, and to husbandly affection and devotion. He could no longer shirk these obligations.

  While he rode over the roads to Riom, accompanied by a large retinue of horsemen and servants, he reflected, with the resignation which had become characteristic of him over the last few years, that he ought to be happy to a certain degree with this solution; he was now at an age when a man ought to be married. Although up to now he had had little time or inclination to involve himself with women, passion and desire were not alien to him; he could easily imagine what he had never experienced. He understood now what it was that Isabelle had found lacking in him. Now that he himself knew the torment of sexual deprivation, he thought of his dead wife with compassion. Restrained by inner scruples Charles had not sought the short-lived pleasure which is easily accessible or can be bought with money. In the army camps around Blois, in the camp before Saint-Denis, in the cities through which he had ridden at the head of his troops, there had been enough women ready to oblige him at the slightest sign. Although no one would have blamed him in the least if he had let himself go—on the contrary, his abstinence provoked ridicule and a certain disdain—he suppressed his mounting desires. He longed for something which he himself could not yet clearly visualize; he knew only that gross sensuality, blind passion without anything else, did not attract him. In his solitude and voluntary chastity, he experienced at least the curious sweet feeling of anticipation which had charmed him so when he was a child. He did not discuss these and similar matters; he realized, to be sure, that men found him odd—even his own brothers found him so. Philippe was proud of the casual adventures he had had during these campaigns; Dunois, young as he was, could romp and banter with his half-brother’s maid-servants.

  At the court of Saint-Pol in Paris, a new world had opened for Charles: a class of women he had never met before lived there. At first he had been deeply impressed with their beauty, the splendor of their finery, their courtly manners and clever conversation, but soon he could not help noticing that in many cases smiling lips and lustrous eyes concealed an inner darkness that he had never imagined. Monseigneur de Guyenne, the Dauphin, already well-schooled in the arts of Our Lady of Love, invited his cousin to attend certain fetes in a private circle. Charles drank and danced like the others—little by little he had come to understand that it is frequently unwise to behave differently from your fellows—but his heart was bleak with bitterness and aversion. At the Dauphin’s request he laid aside his mourning—for the first time since his father’s death he wore colored garments: violet and gold brocade, crimson and silver like his royal cousin.

  He did not feel at home in this unwonted splendor; he thought he looked like a gilded weathervane, a motley popinjay. The coquettish ladies of the court and the frivolous demoiselles who kept the Dauphin company at his fetes did Charles no service by demonstrating their interest in him. He despised the crown prince who did not seem to be able to get enough of this kind of life, who spent the nights carousing, the days in gambling halls and bathhouses. Frequently on these occasions Charles attended the Dauphin’s retinue. He knew that it was considered to be a great honor to sit with the successor to the throne of France in a tub full of steaming hot water while half-naked bathhouse girls offered them wine and sweetmeats.

  When Armagnac told him that Bonne was at Riom, Charles did not hesitate for a moment; on the contrary, he was delighted to have a reason to leave the court. The atmosphere at Saint-Pol was beginning to stifle him; he was amazed that Philippe had no sense of the chill, corrupt air in that hotbed of intrigue, where the Queen, immobile in her corpulence, sat watching play and dance with gleaming shrewd eyes while the mad King wandered mumbling through the halls, followed by insolent, indifferent courtiers—at least when he did not stand knocking on the bolted door of his chamber, screaming hoarsely.

  Now that at last diere was peace, the King could turn to his favorite diversion: processions and passion plays. To please their beloved monarch, the people of Paris marched barefoot through the streets with burning candles in their hands. Little children carried small flags and pasteboard lilies; they sang hymns of praise and litanies. The plays were performed in the great marketplace: the Fall of Man and the Expulsion from Paradise, the story of Cain and Abel, the Passion of Our Lord and the Crucifixion. Surrounded by retinue and kinsmen, the King sat on a decorated platform; leaning his head on his hands, weeping, laughing, shouting, he watched the performance. After it was over he spoke to the players, to the indignation of the Queen and her son.

  “I am like you, brothers,” he said in a whining voice, while -he shook a handful of gold pieces from his sleeve and distributed them to the players. “Neither more nor less—a poor comedian. Pray for me, brothers, pray for me!” He remained standing, babbling and waving his hands until they dragged him away to his carriage. Since they had taken Odette de Champdivers from him, he had never again been completely lucid. The Queen had sent her home when it appeared she was going to give the King a child; no dangerous bastards were wanted at the court.

  No, Charles was not sorry to see Paris vanish behind the horizon: he did not know what awaited him, but after what he had endured he could adjust to anything. So he approached Riom: in the vast woods that surrounded the castle the leaves glinted russet and amber in the October sunlight. The undergrowth had already lost its leaves, and a brown glow lay over the fields. Autumn appealed to Charles as no other season did; he felt a certain affinity with the world on the verge of winter, when the land seems strewn with red and yellow gold like a page in an illuminated breviary; when the cry of the birds flying south is both sad and ominous.

  The castle of Riom loomed amidst the flame-colored forest; from its peaked roofs and towers fluttered the banners of Orléans, Armagnac and Berry. Charles saluted the people who came running from the small homesteads along the road. A drift of smoke hung over the trees; he saw the glimmer of fires. A group of children ran along with the procession part of the way, but when the ramparts of Riom came into view, they vanished, laughing and shouting, into the forest. The ladies of the house were not yet ready to welcome Monseigneur d’Orléans; Charles deduced this from the confused rushing about of stewards and servants. He had arrived earlier than expected. Because the weather promised to be so beautiful he had left his lodgings at dawn.

  Charles was secretly amused; he looked up at the windows facing the courtyard. Behind the thick walls, he thought, they were astir, hurriedly adorning the bride. For the first time a feeling of curiosity crept over him, and even a certain uneasiness. He had no desire to enter the castle. He nodded to a page and rode out the gate. He preferred to spend some time in the forest beyond the ramparts, where the beech trees, with their trunks layered with gray-green moss, rose tall and straight. He let his horse move at a snail’s pace; the dry leaves crackled under the hooves. The sound of laughter and singing led him to the spot where the children were playing. He watched them, unperceived, from the depths of the forest. The children danced in a circle; they were filthy and dressed in rags, but their eyes shone and their laughter was carefree. They moved hand in hand. In the center of the circle a girl, her head covered with a blue cloth, stood singing. The tune and the words seemed familiar to Charles: in his childhood he had played a similar game—at a certain moment one had to run hard to try to reach a particular spot before being tagged by the child in the center of the circle. The children flew away in all directions; the girl in the blue kerchief kicked off her wooden shoes and began the pursuit. It was a merry and cheerful sight. Charles was so amused that he decided to give something to the children. Undoubtedly they belonged to the houses and farms of Biom’s peasants and servants. The children tumbled over one another, romping and squealing with laughter. The girl had caught someone now; they were beside themselves with delight. They were so absorbed in their game t
hat they noticed the stranger only when he was directly upon them. They stared at him, their mouths open, frightened and confused; the smallest crept behind the girl’s skirts.

  Charles took a silver ecu from his girdle and gave it to the girl with a few friendly words. She did not thank him but stood gazing at him with eyes as amber as the leaves overhead. This gaze astonished Charles; he was not accustomed to be stared at attentively by peasant girls; this gaze was not without a trace of secret mockery, despite a certain diffidence which was far from meek. They stood together under the October leaves, a hushed group: the shy children, the barefoot maid, and Charles, richly clad in gold and brown, on his horse Perceval. The forest was still as death: only the page who stood at some distance behind the trees coughed slightly. He could not understand what his lord was doing there. The spell seemed suddenly shattered; the maid tucked up her skirt and darted away over the leaves, followed by the frightened, screaming children. In a few moments they had all vanished from sight as swiftly as hares and squirrels. Startled, Charles laughed; he wheeled his horse around and rode slowly back to Riom.

  The Countess d’Armagnac and her women received him in a lofty hall with white-plastered walls. Charles spoke briefly to his mother-in-law about events at court, his own plans, the arrangements for Bonne’s retinue and future position. Charles was at the point of asking where his wife was, when he heard a soft rustle behind him.