Kitabı oku: «Maitre Cornelius», sayfa 4

CHAPTER III. THE ROBBERY OF THE JEWELS OF THE DUKE OF BAVARIA

The next day, about nine in the morning, as Louis XI. was leaving his chapel after hearing mass, he found Maitre Cornelius on his path.

“Good luck to you, crony,” he said, shoving up his cap in his hasty way.

“Sire, I would willingly pay a thousand gold crowns if I could have a moment’s talk with you; I have found the thief who stole the rubies and all the jewels of the Duke of – ”

“Let us hear about that,” said Louis XI., going out into the courtyard of Plessis, followed by his silversmith, Coyctier his physician, Olivier de Daim, and the captain of his Scottish guard. “Tell me about it. Another man to hang for you! Hola, Tristan!”

The grand provost, who was walking up and down the courtyard, came with slow steps, like a dog who exhibits his fidelity. The group paused under a tree. The king sat down on a bench and the courtiers made a circle about him.

“Sire, a man who pretended to be a Fleming has got the better of me – ” began Cornelius.

“He must be crafty indeed, that fellow!” exclaimed Louis, wagging his head.

“Oh, yes!” replied the silversmith, bitterly. “But methinks he’d have snared you yourself. How could I distrust a beggar recommended to me by Oosterlinck, one hundred thousand francs of whose money I hold in my hands. I will wager the Jew’s letter and seal were forged! In short, sire, I found myself this morning robbed of those jewels you admired so much. They have been ravished from me, sire! To steal the jewels of the Elector of Bavaria! those scoundrels respect nothing! they’ll steal your kingdom if you don’t take care. As soon as I missed the jewels I went up to the room of that apprentice, who is, assuredly, a past-master in thieving. This time we don’t lack proof. He had forced the lock of his door. But when he got back to his room, the moon was down and he couldn’t find all the screws. Happily, I felt one under my feet when I entered the room. He was sound asleep, the beggar, tired out. Just fancy, gentlemen, he got down into my strong-room by the chimney. To-morrow, or to-night, rather, I’ll roast him alive. He had a silk ladder, and his clothes were covered with marks of his clambering over the roof and down the chimney. He meant to stay with me, and ruin me, night after night, the bold wretch! But where are the jewels? The country-folks coming into town early saw him on the roof. He must have had accomplices, who waited for him by that embankment you have been making. Ah, sire, you are the accomplice of fellows who come in boats; crack! they get off with everything, and leave no traces! But we hold this fellow as a key, the bold scoundrel! ah! a fine morsel he’ll be for the gallows. With a little bit of questioning beforehand, we shall know all. Why, the glory of your reign is concerned in it! there ought not to be robbers in the land under so great a king.”

The king was not listening. He had fallen into one of those gloomy meditations which became so frequent during the last years of his life. A deep silence reigned.

“This is your business,” he said at length to Tristan; “take you hold of it.”

He rose, walked a few steps away, and the courtiers left him alone. Presently he saw Cornelius, mounted on his mule, riding away in company with the grand provost.

“Where are those thousand gold crowns?” he called to him.

“Ah! sire, you are too great a king! there is no sum that can pay for your justice.”

Louis XI. smiled. The courtiers envied the frank speech and privileges of the old silversmith, who promptly disappeared down the avenue of young mulberries which led from Tours to Plessis.

Exhausted with fatigue, the young seigneur had indeed fallen soundly asleep. Returning from his gallant adventure, he no longer felt the same ardor and courage to defend himself against distant or imaginary dangers with which he had rushed into the perils of the night. He had even postponed till the morrow the cleaning of his soiled garments; a great blunder, in which all else conspired. It was true that, lacking the moonlight, he had missed finding all the screws of that cursed lock; he had no patience to look for them. With the “laisser-aller” of a tired man, he trusted to his luck, which had so far served him well. He did, however, make a sort of compact with himself to awake at daybreak, but the events of the day and the agitations of the night did not allow him to keep faith with himself. Happiness is forgetful. Cornelius no longer seemed formidable to the young man when he threw himself on the pallet where so many poor wretches had wakened to their doom; and this light-hearted heedlessness proved his ruin. While the king’s silversmith rode back from Plessis, accompanied by the grand provost and his redoubtable archers. The false Goulenoire was being watched by the old sister, seated on the corkscrew staircase oblivious of the cold, and knitting socks for Cornelius.

The young man continued to dream of the secret delights of that charming night, ignorant of the danger that was galloping towards him. He saw himself on a cushion at the feet of the countess, his head on her knees in the ardor of his love; he listened to the story of her persecutions and the details of the count’s tyranny; he grew pitiful over the poor lady, who was, in truth, the best-loved natural daughter of Louis XI. He promised her to go on the morrow and reveal her wrongs to that terrible father; everything, he assured her, should be settled as they wished, the marriage broken off, the husband banished, – and all this within reach of that husband’s sword, of which they might both be the victims if the slightest noise awakened him. But in the young man’s dream the gleam of the lamp, the flame of their eyes, the colors of the stuffs and the tapestries were more vivid, more of love was in the air, more fire about them, than there had been in the actual scene. The Marie of his sleep resisted far less than the living Marie those adoring looks, those tender entreaties, those adroit silences, those voluptuous solicitations, those false generosities, which render the first moments of a passion so completely ardent, and shed into the soul a fresh delirium at each new step in love.

Following the amorous jurisprudence of the period, Marie de Saint-Vallier granted to her lover all the superficial rights of the tender passion. She willingly allowed him to kiss her foot, her robe, her hands, her throat; she avowed her love, she accepted the devotion and life of her lover; she permitted him to die for her; she yielded to an intoxication which the sternness of her semi-chastity increased; but farther than that she would not go; and she made her deliverance the price of the highest rewards of his love. In those days, in order to dissolve a marriage it was necessary to go to Rome; to obtain the help of certain cardinals, and to appear before the sovereign pontiff in person armed with the approval of the king. Marie was firm in maintaining her liberty to love, that she might sacrifice it to him later. Nearly every woman in those days had sufficient power to establish her empire over the heart of a man in a way to make that passion the history of his whole life, the spring and principle of his highest resolutions. Women were a power in France; they were so many sovereigns; they had forms of noble pride; their lovers belonged to them far more than they gave themselves to their lovers; often their love cost blood, and to be their lover it was necessary to incur great dangers. But the Marie of his dream made small defence against the young seigneur’s ardent entreaties. Which of the two was the reality? Did the false apprentice in his dream see the true woman? Had he seen in the hotel de Poitiers a lady masked in virtue? The question is difficult to decide; and the honor of women demands that it be left, as it were, in litigation.

At the moment when the Marie of the dream may have been about to forget her high dignity as mistress, the lover felt himself seized by an iron hand, and the sour voice of the grand provost said to him: —

“Come, midnight Christian, who seeks God on the roofs, wake up!”

The young man saw the black face of Tristan l’Hermite above him, and recognized his sardonic smile; then, on the steps of the corkscrew staircase, he saw Cornelius, his sister, and behind them the provost guard. At that sight, and observing the diabolical faces expressing either hatred or curiosity of persons whose business it was to hang others, the so-called Philippe Goulenoire sat up on his pallet and rubbed his eyes.

“Mort-Dieu!” he cried, seizing his dagger, which was under the pillow. “Now is the time to play our knives.”

“Ho, ho!” cried Tristan, “that’s the speech of a noble. Methinks I see Georges d’Estouteville, the nephew of the grand master of the archers.”

Hearing his real name uttered by Tristan, young d’Estouteville thought less of himself than of the dangers his recognition would bring upon his unfortunate mistress. To avert suspicion he cried out: —

“Ventre-Mahom! help, help to me, comrades!”

After that outcry, made by a man who was really in despair, the young courtier gave a bound, dagger in hand, and reached the landing. But the myrmidons of the grand provost were accustomed to such proceedings. When Georges d’Estouteville reached the stairs they seized him dexterously, not surprised by the vigorous thrust he made at them with his dagger, the blade of which fortunately slipped on the corselet of a guard; then, having disarmed him, they bound his hands, and threw him on the pallet before their leader, who stood motionless and thoughtful.

Tristan looked silently at the prisoner’s hands, then he said to Cornelius, pointing to them: —

“Those are not the hands of a beggar, nor of an apprentice. He is a noble.”

“Say a thief!” cried the torconnier. “My good Tristan, noble or serf, he has ruined me, the villain! I want to see his feet warmed in your pretty boots. He is, I don’t doubt it, the leader of that gang of devils, visible and invisible, who know all my secrets, open my locks, rob me, murder me! They have grown rich out of me, Tristan. Ha! this time we shall get back the treasure, for the fellow has the face of the king of Egypt. I shall recover my dear rubies, and all the sums I have lost; and our worthy king shall have his share in the harvest.”

“Oh, our hiding-places are much more secure than yours!” said Georges, smiling.

“Ha! the damned thief, he confesses!” cried the miser.

The grand provost was engaged in attentively examining Georges d’Estouteville’s clothes and the lock of the door.

“How did you get out those screws?”

Georges kept silence.

“Oh, very good, be silent if you choose. You will soon confess on the holy rack,” said Tristan.

“That’s what I call business!” cried Cornelius.

“Take him off,” said the grand provost to the guards.

Georges d’Estouteville asked permission to dress himself. On a sign from their chief, the men put on his clothing with the clever rapidity of a nurse who profits by the momentary tranquillity of her nursling.

An immense crowd cumbered the rue du Murier. The growls of the populace kept increasing, and seemed the precursors of a riot. From early morning the news of the robbery had spread through the town. On all sides the “apprentice,” said to be young and handsome, had awakened public sympathy, and revived the hatred felt against Cornelius; so that there was not a young man in the town, nor a young woman with a fresh face and pretty feet to exhibit, who was not determined to see the victim. When Georges issued from the house, led by one of the provost’s guard, who, after he had mounted his horse, kept the strong leathern thong that bound the prisoner tightly twisted round his arm, a horrible uproar arose. Whether the populace merely wished to see this new victim, or whether it intended to rescue him, certain it is that those behind pressed those in front upon the little squad of cavalry posted around the Malemaison. At this moment, Cornelius, aided by his sister, closed the door, and slammed the iron shutters with the violence of panic terror. Tristan, who was not accustomed to respect the populace of those days (inasmuch as they were not yet the sovereign people), cared little for a probable riot.

“Push on! push on!” he said to his men.

At the voice of their leader the archers spurred their horses towards the end of the street. The crowd, seeing one or two of their number knocked down by the horses and trampled on, and some others pressed against the sides of the horses and nearly suffocated, took the wiser course of retreating to their homes.

“Make room for the king’s justice!” cried Tristan. “What are you doing here? Do you want to be hanged too? Go home, my friends, go home; your dinner is getting burnt. Hey! my good woman, go and darn your husband’s stockings; get back to your needles.”

Though such speeches showed that the grand provost was in good humor, they made the most obstreperous fly as if he were flinging the plague upon them.

At the moment when the first movement of the crowd took place, Georges d’Estouteville was stupefied at seeing, at one of the windows of the hotel de Poitiers, his dear Marie de Saint-Vallier, laughing with the count. She was mocking at him, poor devoted lover, who was going to his death for her. But perhaps she was only amused at seeing the caps of the populace carried off on the spears of the archers. We must be twenty-three years old, rich in illusions, able to believe in a woman’s love, loving ourselves with all the forces of our being, risking our life with delight on the faith of a kiss, and then betrayed, to understand the fury of hatred and despair which took possession of Georges d’Estouteville’s heart at the sight of his laughing mistress, from whom he received a cold and indifferent glance. No doubt she had been there some time; she was leaning from the window with her arms on a cushion; she was at her ease, and her old man seemed content. He, too, was laughing, the cursed hunchback! A few tears escaped the eyes of the young man; but when Marie de Saint-Vallier saw them she turned hastily away. Those tears were suddenly dried, however, when Georges beheld the red and white plumes of the page who was devoted to his interests. The count took no notice of this servitor, who advanced to his mistress on tiptoe. After the page had said a few words in her ear, Marie returned to the window. Escaping for a moment the perpetual watchfulness of her tyrant, she cast one glance upon Georges that was brilliant with the fires of love and hope, seeming to say: —

“I am watching over you.”

Had she cried the words aloud, she could not have expressed their meaning more plainly than in that glance, full of a thousand thoughts, in which terror, hope, pleasure, the dangers of their mutual situation all took part. He had passed, in that one moment, from heaven to martyrdom and from martyrdom back to heaven! So then, the brave young seigneur, light-hearted and content, walked gaily to his doom; thinking that the horrors of the “question” were not sufficient payment for the delights of his love.

As Tristan was about leaving the rue du Murier, his people stopped him, seeing an officer of the Scottish guard riding towards them at full speed.

“What is it?” asked the provost.

“Nothing that concerns you,” replied the officer, disdainfully. “The king has sent me to fetch the Comte and Comtesse de Saint-Vallier, whom he invites to dinner.”

The grand provost had scarcely reached the embankment leading to Plessis, when the count and his wife, both mounted, she on her white mule, he on his horse, and followed by two pages, joined the archers, in order to enter Plessis-lez-Tours in company. All were moving slowly. Georges was on foot, between two guards on horseback, one of whom held him still by the leathern thong. Tristan, the count, and his wife were naturally in advance; the criminal followed them. Mingling with the archers, the young page questioned them, speaking sometimes to the prisoner, so that he adroitly managed to say to him in a low voice: —

“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.