My God, what ugly old fellows we have become, thought Charles. What a life we have led, he and I, since we embraced at Blois, so filled with noble, heroic sentiments, when he offered himself as a hostage. He must often have bitterly regretted his willingness to do that.
But in the days following the meeting, Charles had ample opportunity to perceive that in his brother’s heart there were no feelings of regret or reproach. During his captivity, Jean d’Angoulême had become a pious, gentle, philosophic man; he had meditated a great deal, studied a great deal and read extensively. The world and all its turbulence seemed strange to him. He looked on at court life with somewhat childish wonder; to Charles’ surprise he announced that he would like to take part in one of the round dances which were held after the evening meal. “I have never danced,” he said apologetically. “I should like to try it once.”
With a grave expression on his face, he performed the steps he was shown. But he did not let himself be lured into a second attempt. From that time on he was satisfied to remain an onlooker at the amusements of the young people.
At court the carefree stimulation of spring weather brought new excitement and new discontent. Everything seemed as dashing and festive as before, but under the surface streams and counter-streams were beginning to flow. The King had not let the pleasant summer, the period of peace and happiness after so many reverses, go idly by. While his guests amused themselves he, accompanied by Agnes Sorel, had attended the meetings of his Council; the new decrees, so long in preparation, were adopted, the plan for reforming and improving the army had now taken definite shape.
Charles prepared to set forth; his reasons for travel were not the same as those of his equals in rank. He was heartily sick of his stay at court. And more important than that, he thought he had better take Marie away before she inflicted damage on herself and her good name. Marie protested against leaving with tears and entreaties, but Charles remained adamant. They would go to Paris, accompanied by Jean d’Angoulême, to have a full discussion of the affairs of Orléans and the paternal inheritance with Charles’ sister. The prospect of the journey and the stay in Paris could not rouse Marie from her state of dejection. She sat silently beside her husband in the coach, staring listlessly at the landscape bathed in summer sunshine. Charles would have liked to have been able to console her; he tried incessantly to think of ways to express his sympathy for her unhappiness, but he could not find the propitious moment for so intimate a conversation. He was afraid that any attempt on his part would only cause further estrangement between him and his young wife.
In Paris they took up residence in the somewhat dilapidated Hôtel des Tournelles, but they spent most of their time with Charles’ sister Marguerite, Countess d’Etampes, who received them hospitably and with great joy. The problems of the inheritance and administration of the domain were settled amicably. Angoulême wanted to stay in Paris for a while, but Charles, grateful that his labors had ended, decided to leave at once for Blois. However, before he left Paris he wanted to visit the chapel of Orléans in the Celestine monastery; he had never been there before. For a long time he knelt in prayer at the gloomy stone slab beneath which rested his father’s body and his mother’s heart. A few steps away he saw the tiles with the family coat of arms set above the graves of his three brothers, whom he had never known.
He knelt unmoving, lost in thought. Perfect silence reigned in the chapel; a singular odor of incense and faded flowers hung in the air; sparkling motes of dust swirled in the rays of light which entered through the stained glass windows. At last he rose, sighing with the effort. In his prayers he had received no answer to the question which troubled him: whether those who slept here had found peace, whether they knew tranquillity, whether at long last their desires were stilled.
Charles joined his retinue where they waited outside the choir gates, in the church. Accompanied by des Saveuses and Cailleau, his court physician, he walked slowly past the altars and tombs on his way out. At this hour of the day the church was deserted; only one woman knelt praying before the image of the Mother of God, her face concealed by the folds of her headdress. While Charles lingered in the vestibule of the church near the statues of his grandparents — Charles the Wise holding a building on his open palm, Queen Jeanne with her tapering fingers folded in prayer — there was a loud commotion outside the church where the grooms were waiting with the horses.
Charles followed the gentlemen of his retinue who had rushed out together. A youth had tried to cut the purse of one of the squires; he had been caught immediately. Charles looked at the boy who was being held firmly between a pair of soldiers; a thin lad with a dark face and hostile eyes. He was nearly suspended between the two men; his sinewy bare feet were tensed, his eyes roamed uneasily. It was clear that he was looking for the first opportunity to escape. Charles, who knew what fate awaited a thief who was caught in the act, shook his head in annoyance — he did not know how to proceed with this boy. He had no desire to deliver the apprentice cutpurse over to the Provost.
“This means branding,” he said curtly. “At least if it is the first time you have tried to steal.”
“Anyway it is the first time I was caught,” the boy said in the rough, bold tone of one who had grown up in the streets.
Charles stared at him, not without surprise. “If that is proven, then you go to the gallows. Do you know that?”
A spark of mockery glimmered in the youth’s dark eyes. “What do you think? We live on the road to Montfaucon!”
“At any rate, you have a ready tongue,” Charles said drily. “What is your name?”
The thin dark face tightened. “François,” he muttered in a surly voice.
“What are you doing here near the Celestines? I should think you and your companions would be wise to stay in the Halles quarter or on the other side of the Seine.”
François stared sullenly at the ground. But when des Saveuses remarked with irritation that Monseigneur surely did not need to give this boor the chance to defend himself, the youth said quickly, “I am waiting for my mother; she is in the church.”
Charles asked one of the pages to fetch the woman whom he had seen in the church.
“If it turns out that you are lying, I will hand you over myself,” he said sternly, while he drew on his gloves. The youth smirked, but he abandoned his fierce watchfulness; his body relaxed. When the woman was brought before Charles, she burst into tears.
Yes, that was her son, the nail in her coffin, the thorn in her flesh, she acknowledged, weeping, a youth like a devil, whom she could not keep at home, a youth full of tricks and caprices, as slippery as an eel and as cunning as a fox.
Charles gave the woman some money and then turned to François who had listened to his mother’s words with downcast eyes but with his mouth twisted into an expression of contempt. “Do you know who I am?” Charles asked. The youth shrugged indifferently while he cast a quick glance at the banner held by the riders, and the trappings on Charles’ horse.
“The King’s family,” he said gruffly. He looked again and added somewhat hesitantly, despite his show of insolence, “Orléans, I think.”
Charles beckoned to the gentlemen of his retinue and prepared to mount. As he was about to set his foot in the stirrup he said, with a glance over his shoulder, “Let him go.”