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- Author: Walter Scott
Book online «Quentin Durward by Walter Scott (good romance books to read TXT) 📖». Author Walter Scott
“Nor will a man of the Scottish Guard,” exclaimed Crawford, “lay down his arms, save at the command of the King of France, or his High Constable.”
“Brave Dunois,” said Louis, “and you, my trusty Crawford, your zeal will do me injury instead of benefit.—I trust,” he added with dignity, “in my rightful cause, more than in a vain resistance, which would but cost the lives of my best and bravest. Give up your swords.—The noble Burgundians, who accept such honourable pledges, will be more able than you are to protect both you and me.—Give up your swords.—It is I who command you.”
It was thus that, in this dreadful emergency, Louis showed the promptitude of decision and clearness of judgment which alone could have saved his life. He was aware that, until actual blows were exchanged, he should have the assistance of most of the nobles present to moderate the fury of their Prince; but that, were a melee once commenced, he himself and his few adherents must be instantly murdered. At the same time, his worst enemies confessed that his demeanour had in it nothing either of meanness or cowardice. He shunned to aggravate into frenzy the wrath of the Duke; but he neither deprecated nor seemed to fear it, and continued to look on him with the calm and fixed attention with which a brave man eyes the menacing gestures of a lunatic, whilst conscious that his own steadiness and composure operate as an insensible and powerful check on the rage even of insanity.
Crawford, at the King's command, threw his sword to Crevecoeur, saying, “Take it! and the devil give you joy of it.—It is no dishonour to the rightful owner who yields it, for we have had no fair play.”
“Hold, gentlemen,” said the Duke in a broken voice, as one whom passion had almost deprived of utterance, “retain your swords; it is sufficient you promise not to use them. And you, Louis of Valois, must regard yourself as my prisoner, until you are cleared of having abetted sacrilege and murder. Have him to the Castle.—Have him to Earl Herbert's Tower. Let him have six gentlemen of his train to attend him, such as he shall choose.—My Lord of Crawford, your guard must leave the Castle, and shall be honourably quartered elsewhere. Up with every drawbridge, and down with every portcullis.—Let the gates of the town be trebly guarded.—Draw the floating bridge to the right hand side of the river.—Bring round the Castle my band of Black Walloons [regiments of Dutch troops, wearing black armour], and treble the sentinels on every post!—You, D'Hymbercourt, look that patrols of horse and foot make the round of the town every half hour during the night and every hour during the next day—if indeed such ward shall be necessary after daybreak, for it is like we may be sudden in this matter.—Look to the person of Louis, as you love your life.”
He started from the table in fierce and moody haste, darted a glance of mortal enmity at the King, and rushed out of the apartment.
“Sirs,” said the King, looking with dignity around him, “grief for the death of his ally hath made your Prince frantic. I trust you know better your duty, as knights and noblemen, than to abet him in his treasonable violence against the person of his liege Lord.”
At this moment was heard in the streets the sound of drums beating, and horns blowing, to call out the soldiery in every direction.
“We are,” said Crevecoeur, who acted as the Marshal of the Duke's household, “subjects of Burgundy, and must do our duty as such. Our hopes and prayers, and our efforts, will not be wanting to bring about peace and union between your Majesty and our liege Lord. Meantime, we must obey his commands. These other lords and knights will be proud to contribute to the convenience of the illustrious Duke of Orleans, of the brave Dunois, and the stout Lord Crawford. I myself must be your Majesty's chamberlain, and bring you to your apartments in other guise than would be my desire, remembering the hospitality of Plessis. You have only to choose your attendants, whom the Duke's commands limit to six.”
“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 Balafre, who may be unarmed if you will—of Tristan l'Hermite, with two of his people—and my right royal and trusty philosopher, Martius Galeotti.”
“Your Majesty's will shall be complied with in all points,” said the Count de Crevecoeur. “Galeotti,” he added, after a moment's inquiry, “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 Crevecoeur 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, Crevecoeur, 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.
[The historical facts attending this celebrated interview are expounded and enlarged upon in this 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.—S.]
CHAPTER XXVIII: UNCERTAINTY Then happy low, lie down; Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. SECOND PART OF KING HENRY IV.
Forty men at arms, carrying alternately naked swords and blazing torches, served as the escort, or rather the guard, of King Louis, from the town hall 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.”
[The Florentine (1265-1321): Dante Alighieri, the greatest of Italian poets. The Divine Comedy, his chief work, describes his passage through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven; the inscription here referred to Dante places at the entrance of Hell.]
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 courtyard, one or two bodies, over each of which had been hastily flung a military cloak. He was not long in discerning that they were corpses of slain Archers of the Scottish Guard, who having disputed, as the Count Crevecoeur 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 Balafre, who attended close behind the King, “Maistery mows the meadow [maist, a Scotch form of most. That is, there is strength in numbers]—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 not 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 Crevecoeur'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, 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
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