The Works of Honore de Balzac Part 92

"Here is your room. It is simple and strong. There is everything needed for sleep. Good-night. Do not leave it as the others did."

After giving his new apprentice a parting glance fraught with many meanings, Cornelius locked and double-locked the door, and carried away the key. He went downstairs again, leaving his man as much at his wit's end as a bell-founder who finds his mould empty. Alone, without a light, sitting on a stool in this little garret, which his four precursors had quitted only for the gallows, the young fellow felt like a wild animal caught in a sack. He sprang on to the stool, and stood on tiptoe to look out of the little loopholes through which the white light came in. He could thence see the Loire, the beautiful hills of Saint-Cyr, and the gloomy splendor of Le Plessis, where a few lights twinkled from the deep-set windows. Further away lay the fair fields of Touraine and the silvery reaches of the great river. Every detail of the pleasing landscape had at this moment an unwonted charm. Window-panes, water-pools, the roofs of the houses, glittered like gems in the tremulous moonbeams.

The young man could not altogether suppress some sweet but painful feeling.

"If it should be for the last time," thought he.

And he stood there, already tasting the terrible emotion his adventure had promised, and abandoning himself to the fears of a prisoner who still has a gleam of hope. Every difficulty added to his mistress' beauty. She was to him no longer a woman, but a supernatural being, seen through the hot vapors of desire.

A faint cry, which he fancied proceeded from the Hotel de Poitiers, brought him to himself and to a sense of his situation. As he sat down on the bed to meditate on the matter, he heard a soft rustle on the winding stair. He listened with all his ears; and presently the words, "He is in bed," spoken by the old woman, reached his ear.

By an accident of which the architect was unaware, the least sound below was echoed in the turret room, so that the sham apprentice did not lose one of the movements of the miser and his sister, who were spying on him. He undressed, got into bed, and pretended to sleep, spending the time during which his two hosts remained on the watch on the turret steps, in devising the means for getting out of his prison and into the Hotel de Poitiers. By about ten o'clock Cornelius and his sister, convinced that their apprentice was asleep, went to their own rooms.

The young man listened keenly to the dull remote sounds made by the Flemings, and fancied he could guess where they slept; they must, he thought, occupy the whole of the second floor.

As in all houses of that date, that floor was in the roof, with dormer windows richly ornamented with carved stone pediments. The roof was also edged by a sort of parapet, concealing the gutters for conducting the rain-water to the spouts, mimicking crocodiles' heads, which shed it into the street. The youth, who had studied his bearings as cunningly as a cat could have done, expected to find a means of getting from the tower on to the roof, and climbing along the gutter as far as Madame de Saint-Vallier's window, by the help of the water-spouts; but he had not known that the windows of the turret would be so small that it was impossible to pa.s.s through them. So he resolved to get out on the roof by the window that lighted the second-floor landing of the turret stair.

To execute this bold scheme, he must get out of his room, and Cornelius had the key. The young gentleman had taken the precaution of arming himself with one of the daggers, which were at this time in use for dealing the death-blow, the _coup de grace_, in single combat, when the adversary prayed that it might end. This horrible weapon had one edge as sharp as a razor, and the other toothed like a saw, with the teeth turned in a contrary sense to the thrust as it entered the body. The youth now proposed to use this dagger as a saw to cut the lock out from the wooden door.

Happily for him, the staple proved to be attached to the inner side of the lintel by four large screws. By the help of his poniard he succeeded, not without difficulty, in uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the staple which kept him a prisoner, and he carefully laid the screws on the chest.

By midnight he was free, and crept downstairs without his shoes to reconnoitre the ground. He was not a little surprised to find an open door to a pa.s.sage leading to several rooms, and he saw at the end of it a window opening on to the V-shaped s.p.a.ce between the roofs of the Hotel de Poitiers and that of the Malemaison, which met here. Nothing could express his joy, unless it were the vow he forthwith made to the Holy Virgin to found a ma.s.s in her honor, at the famous parish church of Escrignoles. After studying from thence the tall and vast chimneys of the Hotel de Poitiers, he went back again to fetch his weapon; but he now saw with a terrified shudder that there was a bright light on the stairs, and perceived Cornelius in his old dalmatic, carrying his lamp, his eyes wide open and fixed on the corridor, while he stood like a spectre at the entrance.

"If I open the window and leap out on the roof, he will hear me," thought the young man.

But the terrible Fleming was coming on--coming as the hour of death steals on the criminal. In this extremity, Goulenoire, his wits quickened by love, recovered his presence of mind; he shrank into the recess of a door, squeezing himself into the corner, and waited for the usurer to pa.s.s him.

As soon as Cornelius, holding his lamp before him, was just at the angle where the youth could make a draught by blowing, he puffed out the light.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He now saw with a terrified shudder that there was a bright light on the stairs, and perceived Cornelius, in his old dalmatic, carrying his lamp.]

Cornelius muttered a Dutch oath and some incoherent words; but he turned back. The gentleman then flew up to his room, seized his weapon, ran back to the thrice-blessed window, opened it cautiously, and sprang out on to the roof.

Once free and under the sky, he almost fainted with joy. The excitement of danger or the audacity of his enterprise perhaps caused his agitation; victory is often as full of risk as the battle. He leaned against a parapet, trembling with satisfaction, and asked himself:

"Now, by which of those chimneys can I get into her room?"

He looked at them all. With the instinct of a lover, he touched them by turns to feel in which there had been a fire. When he had made up his mind, the gallant youth fixed his dagger firmly in the joint between two stones, attached his rope-ladder, and threw it down the chimney; and then, without a qualm, trusting to his good blade, climbed down to his mistress. He knew not whether the Comte de Saint-Vallier were asleep or awake, but he was fully bent on clasping the Countess in his arms even if it should cost two men their life. He gently set foot on the still warm ashes; he yet more gently stooped down and saw the Countess seated in an armchair.

By the light of the lamp, pale and trembling with joy, the timid woman pointed to Saint-Vallier in bed, a few yards off. You may suppose that their burning and silent kiss found no echo but in their hearts.

By nine next morning, just as Louis XI. was coming out of chapel, after attending ma.s.s, he found Maitre Cornelius in his path.

"Good luck, gossip," said he, curtly, as he pulled his cap straight.

"Sire, I will gladly pay a thousand gold crowns for a moment's speech of your Majesty, seeing that I have discovered the thief who stole the ruby chain and all the jewels."

"Let us hear this," said Louis XI., coming out into the courtyard of Le Plessis, followed by his treasurer, by Coyctier his physician, by Olivier le Daim, and the captain of the Scottish Guard. "Tell me your business. We are to have another man hanged for you, then? Here, Tristan!"

The Provost Marshal, who was marching up and down the courtyard, came up slowly, like a dog proud of his fidelity. The group paused under a tree.

The King sat down on a bench; the courtiers formed a circle round him.

"Sire, I have been fairly trapped by a pretended Fleming," said Cornelius.

"He must be a wily knave indeed, then," said the King, shaking his head.

"Ay, truly," replied the goldsmith. "But I am not sure that he might not have beguiled you even. How was I to suspect a poor wight recommended to me by Oosterlinck, a man for whom I hold a hundred thousand livres? Nay, but I will wager that the Jew's seal is a forgery. In short, Sire, this morning I found myself robbed of the jewels you admired for their beauty. They have been stolen from me, Sire! The Elector of Bavaria's jewels stolen! The villains respect no man. They would rob you of your kingdom if you were not on the alert. Forthwith I went up to the room where I had bestowed this apprentice, who is certainly a past master of thieving. This time proofs are not lacking. He had unscrewed the staple of the lock; but on his return, the moon having set, he could not lay hands on all the screws.

Thus, by good hap, as I went in, I trod on a screw. He was asleep, the varlet, for he was tired out. Fancy this, gentlemen; he had descended into my room by the chimney. To-morrow, or rather this evening, I will have it hot for him. We always learn something from these villains. He had about him a silken ladder, and his clothes bear the traces of his traveling over the roofs and through the chimney. He thought to live with me and bring me to ruin, the bold varlet! Now, where has he buried the jewels? The country-folk saw him early in the morning coming back across the roofs. He had accomplices waiting for him on the d.y.k.e you made. Ah, my lord, you are yourself the accomplice of thieves who come in boats; and, snap! they carry away what they will, and no traces left! However, we have the leader, a daring scapegrace, a rascal who would do credit to a gentleman's mother.

Ay, he will look well hanging on a gibbet, and with a screw of the torture-chamber he will confess all. And is not this a matter for the honor of your rule? There should be no robbers under so great a King!"

But the King had long since ceased to listen. He was sunk in one of the gloomy moods that became frequent with him during the later years of his life. Silence reigned.

"This is your business man," said he at length, to Tristan. "Go and search out this matter."

He rose, and went forward a few steps; his courtiers left him to himself.

He then perceived Cornelius, who, mounted on his mule, was going off in company with the Provost.

"And the thousand crowns?" said the King.

"Nay, Sire, you are too great a King! No sum of money could pay for your justice----"

Louis XI. smiled. The courtiers envied the old Fleming his bold tongue and many privileges; he rode off at a good pace, down the avenue of mulberry-trees that led from Le Plessis to Tours.

Exhausted by fatigue, the young gentleman was, in fact, sleeping soundly.

On his return from his adventure of gallantry, he had ceased to feel such spirit and ardor for defending himself against distant and perhaps imaginary dangers, as had inspired him to rush on perilous delights. So he had postponed till morning the task of cleaning his soiled raiment and effacing the traces of his success. It was a great blunder, but one towards which everything tended. When, in the absence of the moon, which had set while he was happy with his love, he failed to find all the screws of the vexatious staple, he lost patience. Then, with the happy recklessness of a man full of contentment, or longing for rest, he trusted to the good luck of his fate, which had so far served him so well. He did, indeed, make a sort of bargain with himself, in virtue of which he was to wake at daybreak; but the events of the day and the excitements of the night hindered him from keeping the promise. Happiness is oblivious. The goldsmith seemed less formidable to the young gentleman as he lay on the hard truckle-bed whence so many of his predecessors had risen only to go to execution, and this recklessness was his undoing.

While the King's treasurer was on his way back from Plessis-les-Tours, escorted by the Provost and his terrible bowmen, the self-styled Goulenoire was being watched by the old sister, who sat knitting stockings for Cornelius on one of the steps of the turret stair, never heeding the cold.

The youth, meanwhile, was prolonging the joys of that enchanting night, ignorant of the disaster which was coming down on him at a gallop. He was dreaming. His dreams, like all the visions of youth, were so vividly colored that he was unconscious of where illusion began and reality ended.

He saw himself on a cushion at the lady's feet; his head on her knees warm with affection; he was listening to the tale of the persecutions and petty tyranny the Count had so long inflicted on his wife; he wept with the Countess, who was, in fact, of all his natural children the daughter Louis XI. loved best; he promised her that he would go on the morrow and reveal all the facts to that terrible father. They had settled everything in their mind, annulling the marriage and imprisoning the husband, while they themselves might at any moment be the victims of his sword if the least sound had roused him. But in his dream the light of the lamp, the flame in their eyes, the hues of stuffs and tapestries, were brighter than in fact; a richer perfume exhaled from their night garments; there was more love in the air, more glow in the atmosphere, than there had been in reality. And the Marie of his dream was far less obdurate than the living Marie had been, to the languishing looks, the insinuating prayers, the magical questioning, the expressive silence, the voluptuous solicitation, the affected generosity which make the first moments of pa.s.sion so fiercely ardent, and rouse lovers' souls to increased intoxication at each step in their love.

In accordance with the jurisprudence of love in those days Marie de Saint-Vallier granted her adorer the superficial privileges of _la pet.i.te oie_; that is to say, she willingly allowed him to kiss her feet, her robe, her hands, and her throat; she confessed her love; she accepted her lover's attentions and vows; she would permit him to die for her; she allowed herself to encourage an intoxication to which this half reserve, severe and often cruel as it was, gave added heat; but she was herself immovable, and would promise the highest reward of love only as the price of her deliverance. To annul a marriage in those days recourse to Rome was necessary. The parties needed the devotion of a few cardinals, and had to appear in the presence of the Sovereign Pontiff armed with the King's protection. Marie wished to owe her liberty to love, that she might resign it into love's hands.

In those days almost every woman had power enough so to establish her empire in the heart of a man as to make his pa.s.sion the history of his whole life, the mainspring of the highest resolve. But then ladies could be numbered in France; they were so many sovereigns; they had a n.o.ble pride; their lovers belonged to them rather than they to the men; their love often cost much bloodshed, and to be accepted by them dangers had to be faced.

But in his dream Marie was merciful, and deeply touched by the devotion of her beloved, and she made little resistance to the handsome youth's vehement pa.s.sion. Which was the real Marie? Did the so-called apprentice see the true woman in his dream? Was the lady he had found in the Hotel de Poitiers merely wearing a mask of virtue? The question is a delicate one, and the honor of the ladies requires that it should remain undecided.

At the very moment when the dream-Marie was about perhaps to forego her high dignity as his mistress, the lover felt himself gripped by an iron hand, and the sharp tones of the Provost thus addressed him:

"Come, you midnight Christian, who go feeling about for heaven. Come, wake up!"

Philippe saw Tristan's swarthy face and recognized his sardonic smile; and then on the steps of the spiral stairs he saw Cornelius and his sister, and behind them the Provost's men-at-arms. At this sight, at the aspect of all those diabolical countenances expressing hatred or else the vile curiosity of men accustomed to the hangman's office, Philippe Goulenoire sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes.

"'Sdeath!" cried he, s.n.a.t.c.hing his dagger from under his pillow. "It is time to be trying knife-play!"

"Oh, ho!" cried Tristan. "I smell the gentleman! It strikes me that we have here Georges d'Estouteville, nephew to the grand captain of the crossbowmen."

On hearing his true name proclaimed by Tristan, young d'Estouteville thought less of himself than of the danger his unhappy mistress would be in if he were recognized. To divert suspicion, he exclaimed: