Notre-Dame de Paris
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