"Then," said the King, looking around him, and thinking for a moment, – "I desire the attendance of Oliver le Dain, of a private of my Life-Guard, called Balafré, who may be unarmed if you will – of Tristan l'Hermite, with two of his people – and my right loyal and trusty philosopher, Martius Gpeotti."
"Your Majesty's will shall be complied with in all points," said the Count de Crèvecoeur. "Galeotti," he added, after a moment's enquiry, "is, I understand, at present supping in some buxom company, but he shall instantly be sent for; the others will obey your Majesty's command upon the instant."
"Forward, then, to the new abode, which the hospitality of our cousin provides for us," said the King. "We know it is strong, and have only to hope it may be in a corresponding degree safe."
"Heard you the choice which King Louis has made of his attendants?" said Le Glorieux to Count Crèvecoeur apart, as they followed Louis from the Hall.
"Surely, my merry gossip," replied the Count, – "What hast thou to object to them?"
"Nothing, nothing – only they are a rare election! – A panderly barber – a Scottish hired cutthroat – a chief hangman and his two assistants, and a thieving charlatan. – I will along with you, Crèvecoeur, and take a lesson in the degrees of roguery, from observing your skill in marshalling them. The devil himself could scarce have summoned such a synod, or have been a better president amongst them."
Accordingly, the all-licensed jester, seizing the Count's arm familiarly, began to march along with him, while, under a strong guard, yet forgetting no semblance of respect, he conducted the King towards his new apartment.[48]
CHAPTER XI. UNCERTAINTY.
– Then happy low, lie down;
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Forty men-at-arms, carrying alternately naked swords and blazing torches, served as the escort, or rather the guard, of King Louis, from the townhall of Peronne to the Castle; and as he entered within its darksome and gloomy strength, it seemed as if a voice screamed in his ear that warning which the Florentine has inscribed over the portal of the infernal regions, "Leave all hope behind!"
At that moment, perhaps, some feeling of remorse might have crossed the King's mind, had he thought on the hundreds, nay thousands, whom, without cause, or on light suspicion, he had committed to the abysses of his dungeons, deprived of all hope of liberty, and loathing even the life to which they clung by animal instinct.
The broad glare of the torches outfacing the pale moon, which was more obscured on this than on the former night, and the red smoky light which they dispersed around the ancient buildings, gave a darker shade to that huge donjon, called the Earl Herbert's Tower. It was the same that Louis had viewed with misgiving presentiment on the preceding evening, and of which he was now doomed to become an inhabitant, under the terror of what violence soever the wrathful temper of his overgrown vassal might tempt him to exercise in those secret recesses of despotism.
To aggravate the King's painful feelings, he saw, as he crossed the court-yard, several bodies, over each of which had been hastily flung a military cloak. He was not long of discerning that they were corpses of slain archers of the Scottish Guard, who having disputed, as the Count Crèvecoeur informed him, the command given them to quit the post near the King's apartments, a brawl had ensued between them and the Duke's Walloon bodyguards, and before it could be composed by the officers on either side, several lives had been lost.
"My trusty Scots!" said the King, as he looked upon this melancholy spectacle; "had they brought only man to man, all Flanders, ay, and Burgundy to boot, had not furnished champions to mate you."
"Yes, an it please your Majesty," said Balafré, who attended close behind the King, "Maistery mows the meadow – few men can fight more than two at once. I myself never care to meet three, unless it be in the way of special duty, when one must not stand to count heads."
"Art thou there, old acquaintance?" said the King, looking behind him; "then I have one true subject with me yet."
"And a faithful minister, whether in your councils, or in his offices about your royal person," whispered Oliver le Dain.
"We are all faithful," said Tristan l'Hermite, gruffly; "for should they put to death your Majesty, there is no one of us whom they would suffer to survive you, even if we would."
"Now, that is what I call good corporal bail for fidelity," said Le Glorieux, who, as already mentioned, with the restlessness proper to an infirm brain, had thrust himself into their company.
Meanwhile, the Seneschal, hastily summoned, was turning with laborious effort the ponderous key which opened the reluctant gate of the huge Gothic Keep, and was at last fain to call for the assistance of one of Crèvecoeur's attendants. When they had succeeded, six men entered with torches, and showed the way through a narrow and winding passage, commanded at different points by shot-holes from vaults and casements constructed behind, and in the thickness of the massive walls. At the end of this passage, arose a stair of corresponding rudeness, consisting of huge blocks of stone, roughly dressed with the hammer, and of unequal height. Having mounted this ascent, a strong iron-clenched door admitted them to what had been the great hall of the donjon, lighted but very faintly even during the daytime, (for the apertures, diminished in appearance by the excessive thickness of the walls, resembled slits rather than windows,) and now, but for the blaze of the torches, almost perfectly dark. Two or three bats, and other birds of evil presage, roused by the unusual glare, flew against the lights, and threatened to extinguish them; while the Seneschal formally apologized to the King, that the State-hall had not been put in order, such was the hurry of the notice sent to him; and adding, that, in truth, the apartment had not been in use for twenty years, and rarely before that time, so far as ever he had heard, since the time of King Charles the Simple.
"King Charles the Simple!" echoed Louis; "I know the history of the Tower now. – He was here murdered by his treacherous vassal, Herbert, Earl of Vermandois – So say our annals. I knew there was something concerning the Castle of Peronne which dwelt on my mind, though I could not recall the circumstance. – Here, then, my predecessor was slain?"
"Not here, not exactly here, and please your Majesty," said the old Seneschal, stepping with the eager haste of a cicerone, who shows the curiosities of such a place – "Not here, but in the side-chamber a little onward, which opens from your Majesty's bedchamber."
He hastily opened a wicket at the upper end of the hall, which led into a bedchamber, small, as is usual in such old buildings; but, even for that reason, rather more comfortable than the waste hall through which they had passed. Some hasty preparations had been here made for the King's accommodation. Arras had been tacked up, a fire lighted in the rusty grate, which had been long unused, and a pallet laid down for those gentlemen who were to pass the night in his chamber, as was then usual.
"We will get beds in the hall for the rest of your attendants," said the garrulous old man; "but we have had such brief notice, if it please your Majesty – And if it please your Majesty to look upon this little wicket behind the arras, it opens into the little old cabinet in the thickness of the wall where Charles was slain; and there is a secret passage from below, which admitted the men who were to deal with him. And your Majesty, whose eyesight I hope is better than mine, may see the blood still on the oak-floor, though the thing was done five hundred years ago."
Note 48
The historical facts attending this celebrated interview, are expounded and enlarged upon in the foregoing chapter. Agents sent by Louis had tempted the people of Liege to rebel against their superior, Duke Charles, and persecute and murder their Bishop. But Louis was not prepared for their acting with such promptitude. They flew to arms with the temerity of a fickle rabble, took the Bishop prisoner, menaced and insulted him, and tore to pieces one or two of his canons. This news was sent to the Duke of Burgundy at the moment when Louis had so unguardedly placed himself in his power; and the consequence was, that Charles placed guards on the Castle of Peronne, and, deeply resenting the treachery of the King of France in exciting sedition in his dominions, while he pretended the most intimate friendship, he deliberated whether he should not put Louis to death.
Three days Louis was detained in this very precarious situation; and it was only his profuse liberality amongst Charles's favourites and courtiers which finally ensured him from death or deposition. Comines, who was the Duke of Burgundy's chamberlain at the time, and slept in his apartment, says, Charles neither undressed nor slept, but flung himself from time to time on the bed, and, at other times, wildly traversed the apartment. It was long before his violent temper became in any degree tractable. At length he only agreed to give Louis his liberty, on condition of his accompanying him in person against, and employing his troops in subduing, the mutineers whom his intrigues had instigated to arms.
This was a bitter and degrading alternative. But Louis, seeing no other mode of compounding for the effects of his rashness, not only submitted to this discreditable condition, but swore to it upon a crucifix said to have belonged to Charlemagne. These particulars are from Comines. There is a succinct epitome of them in Sir Nathaniel Wraxall's History of France, vol. i.