The Hunchback of Notre Dame (55 page)

Olivier made a mark with his thumb-nail against the item of the rascally tramp, and resumed:—

“To Henriet Cousin, chief executioner of Paris, the sum of sixty Paris pence, to him adjudged and ordered by the lord provost of Paris, for having bought, by order of the said provost, a broadsword for the execution and decapitation of all persons condemned by the courts for their demerits, and having it furnished with a scabbard and all thereunto appertaining; and likewise for having the old sword sharpened and repaired, it having been broken and notched in doing justice upon my lord Louis of Luxembourg, as herein more fully set down—”

The king interrupted. “Enough; I cheerfully order the sum to be paid. These are expenses which I never regard; I have never regretted such moneys. Continue.”

“For repairing a great cage—”

“Ah!” said the king, grasping the arms of his chair with both hands, “I knew that I came here to the Bastille for a purpose. Stay, Master Olivier; I desire to see this cage for myself. You may read the costs while I examine it. Gentlemen of Flanders, come and look at it; it is a curious sight.”

Then he rose, leaned upon his reader’s arm, signed to the mute who stood at the door to go before him, to the two Flemings to follow him, and left the room.

The royal party was increased at the door of the retreat by men-at-arms weighed down with steel, and slender pages bearing torches. It proceeded for some time through the interior of the gloomy keep, perforated with staircases and corridors in the thickness of the walls. The captain of the Bastille walked at the head of the procession, and ordered the gates to be thrown open before the bent and feeble old king, who coughed as he moved along.

At every wicket gate all heads were forced to stoop, except that of the old man bowed by age. “Hum!” he mumbled, for he had lost all his teeth, “we are all ready for the door of the tomb. A low door needs a stooping passenger.”

At last, after passing through a final gate so encumbered with locks that it took a quarter of an hour to open it, they entered a lofty, spacious, vaulted hall, in the middle of which they saw, by the light of the torches, a huge and massive cube of masonry, iron, and wood. The interior was hollow. It was one of those famous cages meant for prisoners of state, which were known by the name of “the king’s daughters.” In its sides were two or three small windows, so closely grated with heavy iron bars that the glass was entirely hidden. The door was a great flat stone slab, such as are used for tombs,—one of those doors used for entrance only. But here, the dead man was a living being.

The king walked slowly around the little structure, carefully examining it, while Master Olivier, who followed him, read aloud:—

“For repairing a great cage of heavy wooden joists, girders, and timbers, being nine feet long by eight in breadth, and seven feet high between the planks, planed, and clamped with strong iron clamps, which has been placed in a room in one of the towers of the Bastille Saint-Antoine, in which cage is put and kept, by command of our lord the king, a prisoner formerly dwelling in a worn-out and crazy old cage. There were used for the said new cage ninety-six horizontal beams and fifty-two uprights, ten girders eighteen feet long. Nineteen carpenters were employed for twenty days, in the court of the Bastille, to square, cut, and fit all the said wood.”

“Quite fine heart of oak,” said the king, rapping on the timber with his knuckles.

“... There were used in this cage,” continued the other, “two hundred and twenty large iron clamps, of eight and nine feet, the rest of medium length, with the screws, roller-bolts, and counter-bands requisite for said clamps, all the aforesaid iron weighing three thousand seven hundred and thirty-five pounds; besides eight large iron bolts serving to fasten the said cage, with the nails and clamp-irons, weighing all together two hundred and eighteen pounds; not to mention the iron gratings for the windows of the room wherein the cage was placed, the iron bars on the door, and other items—”

“Here’s a mighty deal of iron,” said the king, “to restrain the lightness of one mind!”

“... The whole amounts to three hundred and seventeen pounds five pence and seven farthings.”

“By the Rood!” exclaimed the king.

At this oath, which was Louis XI’s favorite imprecation, some one seemed to waken within the cage: chains rattled loudly against the wood-work, and a faint voice, which appeared to issue from the tomb, cried: “Sire! Sire! Pardon!” But no one could see the person uttering these words.

“Three hundred and seventeen pounds five pence and seven farthings!” repeated Louis XI.

The piteous voice which issued from the cage had chilled the blood of all present, even that of Master Olivier himself. The king alone appeared as if he had not heard it. At his command Master Olivier resumed his reading, and his Majesty calmly continued his inspection of the cage.

“Moreover, there has been paid to a mason who made the holes to receive the window-bars, and the floor of the room in which the cage stands, forasmuch as the floor could not have borne this cage by reason of its weight, twenty-seven pounds and fourteen Paris pence—”

The voice again began its moan:—

“Mercy, Sire! I swear that it was my lord Cardinal of Angers, and not I, who plotted the treason.”

“The mason charges well!” said the king. “Go on, Olivier!”

Olivier continued:—

“To a joiner, for window-frames, bedstead, close stool, and other items, twenty pounds two Paris pence—”

The voice continued likewise:—

“Alas! Sire! will you not hear me? I protest that it was not I who wrote that thing to my lord of Guyenne, but his highness Cardinal Balue!”

“The joiner is dear,” observed the king. “Is that all?”

“No, Sire. To a glazier, for the window-panes in said chamber, forty-six pence eight Paris farthings.”

“Have mercy, Sire! Is it not enough that all my worldly goods were given to my judges, my silver plate to M. de Torcy, my books to Master Pierre Doriolle, my tapestries to the Governor of Roussil lon? I am innocent. For fourteen years I have shivered in an iron cage. Have mercy, Sire! You will find your reward in heaven.”

“Master Olivier,” said the king, “what is the sum total?”

“Three hundred and sixty-seven pounds eight pence three Paris farthings.”

“By‘r Lady!” cried the king. “What an extravagant cage!”

He snatched the scroll from Master Olivier’s hands, and began to reckon up the items himself upon his fingers, looking by turns at the paper and the cage. Meantime, the prisoner’s sobs were plainly to be heard. It was a doleful sound in the darkness, and the by-standers paled as they gazed into one another’s faces.

“Fourteen years, Sire! full fourteen years! ever since the month of April, 1469. In the name of the Blessed Mother of God, Sire, hear me! You have enjoyed the warmth of the sun all these years. Shall I, poor wretch, never again behold the light of day? Pity me, Sire! Be merciful. Clemency is a goodly and a royal virtue, which turns aside the stream of wrath. Does your Majesty believe that it will greatly content a king in the hour of his death, to reflect that he has never let any offence go unpunished? Moreover, Sire, I never did betray your Majesty; it was my lord of Angers. And I wear about my leg a very heavy chain, and a great ball of iron at the end of it, far heavier than is reasonable. Ah, Sire, have pity upon me!”

“Olivier,” said the king, shaking his head, “I observe that these fellows charge me twenty pence the hogshead for plaster, which is worth only twelve. Have this account corrected.”

He turned his back on the cage, and prepared to leave the room. The miserable prisoner guessed by the receding torches and noise that the king was departing.

“Sire! Sire!” he cried in tones of despair.

The door closed. He saw nothing more, he heard nothing save the harsh voice of the jailor singing in his ears the song:—

“Master Jean Balue,
Has quite lost view
Of his bishoprics cherished.
My lord of Verdun
Has not a single one;
Every one hath perished.”

The king silently reascended to his retreat, and his train followed him, terrified by the prisoner’s last groans. 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?”

“Zounds, Sire, yes!” replied the governor, lost in amaze at such a question.

“Who, then?”

“The Bishop of Verdun.”

The king was better aware of this than any one else; but this was his way.

“Ah!” said he, with an innocent semblance of thinking of it for the first time, “Guillaume de Harancourt, the friend of Cardinal Balue,—a merry devil of a bishop!”

A few moments later the door of the retreat was reopened, then closed again upon the five persons whom we saw there at the beginning of this chapter, and who resumed their places, their low-voiced conversation, and their former attitudes.

During the king’s absence a number of dispatches had been laid on the table, and he now broke the seals. Then he rapidly read them one after the other, motioned to Master Olivier, who seemed to perform the office of his minister, to take a pen, and without imparting the contents of the dispatches to him, began to dictate answers in an undertone, the latter writing them down, kneeling uncomfortably at the table.

Guillaume Rym watched him.

The king spoke so low that the Flemings caught but a few detached and scarcely intelligible fragments, such as:—

“... keep up fertile places by commerce and sterile ones by manufacturers. Show the English lords our four bombards, the London, Brabant, Bourg-en-Bresse, and Saint-Omer.... Artillery occasions war to be more wisely waged at the present time.... To Monsieur de Bressuire, our friend.... Armies cannot be maintained without tribute,” etc.

Once he raised his voice:—

“By the Rood! the King of Sicily seals his letters with yellow wax, like a king of France. We may be wrong to allow him this privilege. My fair cousin of Burgundy gave no armorial bearings upon a field gules. The greatness of a house is ensured by holding its prerogatives intact. Note that, gossip Olivier.”

Again:—

“Oho!” said he, “an important message this! What would our brother the emperor have?” And running his eye over the missive, he interrupted his reading with constant exclamations: “Surely the Germans are so great and powerful that ’t is scarcely credible. But we are not unmindful of the old proverb: The finest county is Flanders; the fairest duchy, Milan; the most beauteous kingdom, France. Is it not so, Sir Flemings?”

This time Coppenole bowed with Guillaume Rym. The hosier’s patriotism was tickled.

The last dispatch made Louis XI frown.

“What’s this?” he exclaimed. “Complaints and requisitions against our garrisons in Picardy! Olivier, write with speed to Marshal de Rouault: That discipline is relaxed. That the men-at-arms of the ordnance, the nobles of the ban, the free-archers, and the Swiss guards do infinite injury to the peasants. That the soldiers, not content with the goods which they find in the houses of the tillers of the soil, constrain them, by heavy blows of bludgeons and sticks, to seek throughout the town for wine, fish, spices, and other articles of luxury. That the king is well aware of all this. That we intend to preserve our people from all unseemly acts, larceny, and pillage. That this is our sovereign will, by Our Lady! That, moreover, it likes us not that any minstrel, barber, or serving man at arms should go arrayed like a prince, in velvet, silken cloth, and rings of gold. That these vanities are hateful in the sight of God. That we content ourselves—we who are a gentleman of high degree—with one cloth doublet at sixteen pence the Paris ell. That soldiers’ servants may well come down to that also. We command and order these things. To Monsieur de Rouault, our friend. Good!”

He dictated this letter in a loud voice, in a firm tone, and by fits and starts. Just as he ended it, the door opened and admitted a new personage, who rushed into the room in extreme alarm, shouting,—

“Sire! Sire! the people of Paris have risen in revolt!”

The grave face of Louis XI was convulsed; but every visible sign of emotion passed away like a flash of lightning. He restrained himself, and said with calm severity,—

“Compere Jacques, you enter somewhat abruptly!”

“Sire! Sire! there is a revolt!” replied the breathless Jacques.

The king, who had risen, took him roughly by the arm, and whispered in his ear in a manner 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 to tell him in a low voice a very incoherent tale, to which the king listened with perfect composure, while Guillaume Rym drew Coppenole’s attention to the new-comer’s face and dress, his furred hood
(caputia fourrata),
his short cloak
(epitogia curta),
and his black velvet gown, which bespoke a president of the Court of Accounts.

This person had no sooner given the king a few details, than Louis XI cried with a burst of laughter,—

“Indeed! Speak up boldly, Compere Coictier! Why do you talk so low? Our Lady knows that we hide nothing from our good Flemish friends.”

“But, Sire—”

“Speak up boldly!”

Compere Coictier was dumb with surprise.

“So,” resumed the king,—“speak, sir,—there is a commotion among the common people in our good city of Paris?”

“Yes, Sire.”

“And it is directed, you say, against the Provost of the Palace of Justice?”

“It looks that way,” said the compere, who still stammered and hesitated, utterly astounded by the sudden and inexplicable change which had been wrought in the king’s sentiments.

Louis XI added: “Where did the watch encounter the mob?”

“Moving from the chief haunt of the beggars and vagrants towards the Pont-aux-Changeurs. I met them myself on my way hither to execute your Majesty’s orders. I heard certain of the number shouting, ‘Down with the Provost of the Palace!’”

“And what is their grievance against the provost?”