The Line of Love; Dizain des Mariages

by James Branch Cabell

  CHAPTER V

  _The Episode Called In Necessity's Mortar_

  1. "Bon Bec de Paris"

  There went about the Rue Saint Jacques a notable shaking of heads on theday that Catherine de Vaucelles was betrothed to Francois de Montcorbier.

  "Holy Virgin!" said the Rue Saint Jacques; "the girl is a fool. Why hasshe not taken Noel d'Arnaye,--Noel the Handsome? I grant you Noel is anass, but, then, look you, he is of the nobility. He has the Dauphin'sfavor. Noel will be a great man when our exiled Dauphin comes back fromGeneppe to be King of France. Then, too, she might have had PhilippeSermaise. Sermaise is a priest, of course, and one may not marry apriest, but Sermaise has money, and Sermaise is mad for love of her. Shemight have done worse. But Francois! Ho, death of my life, what isFrancois? Perhaps--he, he!--perhaps Ysabeau de Montigny might inform us,you say? Doubtless Ysabeau knows more of him than she would care toconfess, but I measure the lad by other standards. Francois isinoffensive enough, I dare assert, but what does Catherine see in him? Heis a scholar?--well, the College of Navarre has furnished food for thegallows before this. A poet?--rhyming will not fill the pot. Rhymes are athin diet for two lusty young folk like these. And who knows if Guillaumede Villon, his foster-father, has one sou to rub against another? He iscanon at Saint Benoit-le-Betourne yonder, but canons are not Midases. Thegirl will have a hard life of it, neighbor, a hard life, I tell you,if--but, yes!--if Ysabeau de Montigny does not knife her some day. Oh,beyond doubt, Catherine has played the fool."

  Thus far the Rue Saint Jacques.

  This was on the day of the Fete-Dieu. It was on this day that Noeld'Arnaye blasphemed for a matter of a half-hour and then went to theCrowned Ox, where he drank himself into a contented insensibility; thatYsabeau de Montigny, having wept a little, sent for Gilles Raguyer, apriest and aforetime a rival of Francois de Montcorbier for her favors;and that Philippe Sermaise grinned and said nothing. But afterwardSermaise gnawed at his under lip like a madman as he went about seekingfor Francois de Montcorbier.

  2. "_Deux estions, et n'avions qu'ung Cueur_"

  It verged upon nine in the evening--a late hour in those days--whenFrancois climbed the wall of Jehan de Vaucelles' garden.

  A wall!--and what is a wall to your true lover? What bones, pray, did theSieur Pyramus, that ill-starred Babylonish knight, make of a wall? didnot his protestations slip through a chink, mocking at implacable graniteand more implacable fathers? Most assuredly they did; and Pyramus was apattern to all lovers. Thus ran the meditations of Master Francois as heleapt down into the garden.

  He had not, you must understand, seen Catherine for three hours. Threehours! three eternities rather, and each one of them spent in Malebolge.Coming to a patch of moonlight, Francois paused there and cut an agilecaper, as he thought of that approaching time when he might see Catherineevery day.

  "Madame Francois de Montcorbier," he said, tasting each syllable withgusto. "Catherine de Montcorbier. Was there ever a sweeter juxtapositionof sounds? It is a name for an angel. And an angel shall bear it,--eh,yes, an angel, no less. O saints in Paradise, envy me! Envy me," hecried, with a heroical gesture toward the stars, "for Francois wouldchange places with none of you."

  He crept through ordered rows of chestnuts and acacias to a windowwherein burned a dim light. He unslung a lute from his shoulder andbegan to sing, secure in the knowledge that deaf old Jehan de Vaucelleswas not likely to be disturbed by sound of any nature till that timewhen it should please high God that the last trump be noised about thetumbling heavens.

  It was good to breathe the mingled odor of roses and mignonette that wasthick about him. It was good to sing to her a wailing song of unrequitedlove and know that she loved him. Francois dallied with his bliss,parodied his bliss, and--as he complacently reflected,--lamented in themoonlight with as tuneful a dolor as Messire Orpheus may have evincedwhen he carolled in Hades.

  Sang Francois:

  _"O Beauty of her, whereby I am undone! O Grace of her, that hath no grace for me! O Love of her, the bit that guides me on To sorrow and to grievous misery! O felon Charms, my poor heart's enemy! O furtive murderous Pride! O pitiless, great Cold Eyes of her! have done with cruelty! Have pity upon me ere it be too late!

  "Happier for me if elsewhere I had gone For pity--ah, far happier for me, Since never of her may any grace be won, And lest dishonor slay me, I must flee. 'Haro!' I cry, (and cry how uselessly!) 'Haro!' I cry to folk of all estate,

  "For I must die unless it chance that she Have pity upon me ere it be too late.

  "M'amye, that day in whose disastrous sun Your beauty's flower must fade and wane and be No longer beautiful, draws near,--whereon I will nor plead nor mock;--not I, for we Shall both be old and vigorless! M'amye, Drink deep of love, drink deep, nor hesitate Until the spring run dry, but speedily Have pity upon me--ere it be too late!

  "Lord Love, that all love's lordship hast in fee, Lighten, ah, lighten thy displeasure's weight, For all true hearts should, of Christ's charity, Have pity upon me ere it be too late."_

  Then from above a delicate and cool voice was audible. "You have mistakenthe window, Monsieur de Montcorbier. Ysabeau de Montigny dwells in theRue du Fouarre."

  "Ah, cruel!" sighed Francois. "Will you never let that kite hang uponthe wall?"

  "It is all very well to groan like a bellows. Guillemette Moreau did notsup here for nothing. I know of the verses you made her,--and the glovesyou gave her at Candlemas, too. Saint Anne!" observed the voice, somewhatsharply; "she needed gloves. Her hands are so much raw beef. And thehead-dress at Easter,--she looks like the steeple of Saint Benoit in it.But every man to his taste, Monsieur de Montcorbier. Good-night, Monsieurde Montcorbier." But, for all that, the window did not close.

  "Catherine--!" he pleaded; and under his breath he expressed uncharitableaspirations as to the future of Guillemette Moreau.

  "You have made me very unhappy," said the voice, with a little sniff.

  "It was before I knew you, Catherine. The stars are beautiful, m'amye,and a man may reasonably admire them; but the stars vanish and areforgotten when the sun appears."

  "Ysabeau is not a star," the voice pointed out; "she is simply a lank,good-for-nothing, slovenly trollop."

  "Ah, Catherine--!"

  "You are still in love with her."

  "Catherine--!"

  "Otherwise, you will promise me for the future to avoid her as you wouldthe Black Death."

  "Catherine, her brother is my friend--!"

  "Rene de Montigny is, to the knowledge of the entire Rue Saint Jacques, agambler and a drunkard and, in all likelihood, a thief. But you prefer,it appears, the Montignys to me. An ill cat seeks an ill rat. Veryheartily do I wish you joy of them. You will not promise? Good-night,then, Monsieur de Montcorbier."

  "Mother of God! I promise, Catherine."

  From above Mademoiselle de Vaucelles gave a luxurious sigh. "DearFrancois!" said she.

  "You are a tyrant," he complained. "Madame Penthesilea was not morecruel. Madame Herodias was less implacable, I think. And I think thatneither was so beautiful."

  "I love you," said Mademoiselle de Vaucelles, promptly.

  "But there was never any one so many fathoms deep in love as I. Lovebandies me from the postern to the frying-pan, from hot to cold. Ah,Catherine, Catherine, have pity upon my folly! Bid me fetch you PresterJohn's beard, and I will do it; bid me believe the sky is made ofcalf-skin, that morning is evening, that a fat sow is a windmill, and Iwill do it. Only love me a little, dear."

  "My king, my king of lads!" she murmured.

  "My queen, my tyrant of unreason! Ah, yes, you are all that is ruthlessand abominable, but then what eyes you have! Oh, very pitiless, large,lovely eyes--huge sapphires that in the old days might have ransomedevery monarch in Tamerlane's stable! Even in the night I see them,Catherine."

  "Yet Ysabeau's eyes are brown."

  "Then are her eyes the gutter's color. But Catherine's eyes are twinfirmaments."
r />   And about them the acacias rustled lazily, and the air was sweetwith the odors of growing things, and the world, drenched inmoonlight, slumbered. Without was Paris, but old Jehan's garden-wallcloistered Paradise.

  "Has the world, think you, known lovers, long dead now, that were once ashappy as we?"

  "Love was not known till we discovered it."

  "I am so happy, Francois, that I fear death."

  "We have our day. Let us drink deep of love, not waiting until the springrun dry. Catherine, death comes to all, and yonder in the church-yard thepoor dead lie together, huggermugger, and a man may not tell anarchbishop from a rag-picker. Yet they have exulted in their youth, andhave laughed in the sun with some lass or another lass. We have our day,Catherine."

  "Our day wherein I love you!"

  "And wherein I love you precisely seven times as much!"

  So they prattled in the moonlight. Their discourse was no moreoverburdened with wisdom than has been the ordinary communing of loverssince Adam first awakened ribless. Yet they were content, who, were youngin the world's recaptured youth.

  Fate grinned and went on with her weaving.

  3. "Et Ysabeau, Qui Dit: Enne!"

  Somewhat later Francois came down the deserted street, treading on air.It was a bland summer night, windless, moon-washed, odorous withgarden-scents; the moon, nearing its full, was a silver egg set onend--("Leda-hatched," he termed it; "one may look for the advent of QueenHeleine ere dawn"); and the sky he likened to blue velvet studded withthe gilt nail-heads of a seraphic upholsterer. Francois was a poet, but acivic poet; then, as always, he pilfered his similes from shop-windows.

  But the heart of Francois was pure magnanimity, the heels of Francoiswere mercury, as he tripped past the church of Saint Benoit-le-Betourne,stark snow and ink in the moonlight. Then with a jerk Francois paused.

  On a stone bench before the church sat Ysabeau de Montigny and GillesRaguyer. The priest was fuddled, hiccuping in his amorous dithyrambics ashe paddled with the girl's hand. "You tempt me to murder," he was saying."It is a deadly sin, my soul, and I have no mind to fry in Hell while mybody swings on the Saint Denis road, a crow's dinner. Let Francois live,my soul! My soul, he would stick little Gilles like a pig."

  Raguyer began to blubber at the thought.

  "Holy Macaire!" said Francois; "here is a pretty plot a-brewing." Yetbecause his heart was filled just now with loving-kindness, he forgavethe girl. _"Tantaene irae?"_ said Francois; and aloud, "Ysabeau, it istime you were abed."

  She wheeled upon him in apprehension; then, with recognition, her rageflamed. "Now, Gilles!" cried Ysabeau de Montigny; "now, coward! He isunarmed, Gilles. Look, Gilles! Kill for me this betrayer of women!"

  Under his mantle Francois loosened the short sword he carried. But thepriest plainly had no mind to the business. He rose, tipsily fumbling aknife, and snarling like a cur at sight of a strange mastiff. "Vilerascal!" said Gilles Raguyer, as he strove to lash himself into a rage."O coward! O parricide! O Tarquin!"

  Francois began to laugh. "Let us have done with this farce," said he."Your man has no stomach for battle, Ysabeau. And you do me wrong, mylass, to call me a betrayer of women. Doubtless, that tale seemed themost apt to kindle in poor Gilles some homicidal virtue: but you and Iand God know that naught has passed between us save a few kisses and atrinket or so. It is no knifing matter. Yet for the sake of old time,come home, Ysabeau; your brother is my friend, and the hour is somewhatlate for honest women to be abroad."

  "Enne?" shrilled Ysabeau; "and yet, if I cannot strike a spark of couragefrom this clod here, there come those who may help me, Francois deMontcorbier. 'Ware Sermaise, Master Francois!"

  Francois wheeled. Down the Rue Saint Jacques came Philippe Sermaise, likea questing hound, with drunken Jehan le Merdi at his heels. "HolyVirgin!" thought Francois; "this is likely to be a nasty affair. I wouldgive a deal for a glimpse of the patrol lanterns just now."

  He edged his way toward the cloister, to get a wall at his back. ButGilles Raguyer followed him, knife in hand. "O hideous Tarquin! OAbsalom!" growled Gilles; "have you, then, no respect for churchmen?"

  With an oath, Sermaise ran up. "Now, may God die twice," he panted, "if Ihave not found the skulker at last! There is a crow needs picking betweenus two, Montcorbier."

  Hemmed in by his enemies, Francois temporized. "Why do you accost me thusangrily, Master Philippe?" he babbled. "What harm have I done you? Whatis your will of me?"

  But his fingers tore feverishly at the strap by which the lute was swungover his shoulder, and now the lute fell at their feet, leaving Francoisunhampered and his sword-arm free.

  This was fuel to the priest's wrath. "Sacred bones of Benoit!" hesnarled; "I could make a near guess as to what window you have beencaterwauling under."

  From beneath his gown he suddenly hauled out a rapier and struck at theboy while Francois was yet tugging at his sword.

  Full in the mouth Sermaise struck him, splitting the lower lip through.Francois felt the piercing cold of the steel, the tingling of it againsthis teeth, then the warm grateful spurt of blood; through a red mist, hesaw Gilles and Ysabeau run screaming down the Rue Saint Jacques.

  He drew and made at Sermaise, forgetful of le Merdi. It was shrewd work.Presently they were fighting in the moonlight, hammer-and-tongs, as thesaying is, and presently Sermaise was cursing like a madman, for Francoishad wounded him in the groin. Window after window rattled open as the RueSaint Jacques ran nightcapped to peer at the brawl. Then as Francoishurled back his sword to slash at the priest's shaven head--Frenchmen hadnot yet learned to thrust with the point in the Italian manner--Jehan leMerdi leapt from behind, nimble as a snake, and wrested away the boy'sweapon. Sermaise closed with a glad shout.

  "Heart of God!" cried Sermaise. "Pray, bridegroom, pray!"

  But Francois jumped backward, tumbling over le Merdi, and with apishcelerity caught up a great stone and flung it full in the priest'scountenance.

  The rest was hideous. For a breathing space Sermaise kept his feet, hisoutspread arms making a tottering cross. It was curious to see him peerabout irresolutely now that he had no face. Francois, staring at theblack featureless horror before him, began to choke. Standing thus, withoutstretched arms, the priest first let fall his hands, so that they hunglimp from the wrists; his finger-nails gleamed in the moonlight. Hisrapier tinkled on the flagstones with the sound of shattering glass, andPhilippe Sermaise slid down, all a-jumble, crumpling like a broken toy.Afterward you might have heard a long, awed sibilance go about thewindows overhead as the watching Rue Saint Jacques breathed again.

  Francois de Montcorbier ran. He tore at his breast as he ran, stifling.He wept as he ran through the moon-washed Rue Saint Jacques, makinganimal-like and whistling noises. His split lip was a clammy dead thingthat napped against his chin as he ran.

  "Francois!" a man cried, meeting him; "ah, name of a name, Francois!"

  It was Rene de Montigny, lurching from the Crowned Ox, half-tipsy. Hecaught the boy by the shoulder and hurried Francois, still sobbing, toFouquet the barber-surgeon's, where they sewed up his wound. Inaccordance with the police regulations, they first demanded an account ofhow he had received it. Rene lied up-hill and down-dale, while in acorner of the room Francois monotonously wept.

  Fate grinned and went on with her weaving.

  4. "_Necessite Faict Gens Mesprende_"

  The Rue Saint Jacques had toothsome sauce for its breakfast. The quartersmacked stiff lips over the news, as it pictured Francois de Montcorbierdangling from Montfaucon. "Horrible!" said the Rue Saint Jacques, anddrew a moral of suitably pious flavor.

  Guillemette Moreau had told Catherine of the affair before the day wasaired. The girl's hurt vanity broke tether.

  "Sermaise!" said she. "Bah, what do I care for Sermaise! He killed him infair fight. But within an hour, Guillemette,--within a half-hour afterleaving me, he is junketing on church-porches with that trollop. Theywere not there for holy-water. Midnight, look you! And he swore t
ome--chaff, chaff! His honor is chaff, Guillemette, and his heart abran-bag. Oh, swine, filthy swine! Eh, well, let the swine stick to hissty. Send Noel d'Arnaye to me."

  The Sieur d'Arnaye came, his head tied in a napkin.

  "Foh!" said she; "another swine fresh from the gutter? No, this is abottle, a tun, a walking wine-barrel! Noel, I despise you. I will marryyou if you like."

  He fell to mumbling her hand. An hour later Catherine told Jehan deVaucelles she intended to marry Noel the Handsome when he should comeback from Geneppe with the exiled Dauphin. The old man, having wisdom,lifted his brows, and returned to his reading in _Le Pet au Diable_.

  The patrol had transported Sermaise to the prison of Saint Benoit, wherehe lay all night. That day he was carried to the hospital of the HotelDieu. He died the following Saturday.

  Death exalted the man to some nobility. Before one of the apparitors ofthe Chatelet he exonerated Montcorbier, under oath, and asked that nosteps be taken against him. "I forgive him my death," said Sermaise,manly enough at the last, "by reason of certain causes moving himthereunto." Presently he demanded the peach-colored silk glove they wouldfind in the pocket of his gown. It was Catherine's glove. The priestkissed it, and then began to laugh. Shortly afterward he died, stillgnawing at the glove.

  Francois and Rene had vanished. "Good riddance," said the Rue SaintJacques. But Montcorbier was summoned to answer before the court of theChatelet for the death of Philippe Sermaise, and in default of hisappearance, was subsequently condemned to banishment from the kingdom.

  The two young men were at Saint Pourcain-en-Bourbonnais, where Rene hadkinsmen. Under the name of des Loges, Francois had there secured a placeas tutor, but when he heard that Sermaise in the article of death hadcleared him of all blame, Francois set about procuring a pardon.[Footnote: There is humor in his deposition that Gilles and Ysabeau andhe were loitering before Saint Benoit's in friendly discourse,--"pour soyesbatre." Perhaps Rene prompted this; but in itself, it is characteristicof Montcorbier that he trenched on perjury, blithely, in order to screenYsabeau.] It was January before he succeeded in obtaining it.

  Meanwhile he had learned a deal of Rene's way of living. "You are athief," Francois observed to Montigny the day the pardon came, "but youhave played a kindly part by me. I think you are Dysmas, Rene, notGestas. Heh, I throw no stones. You have stolen, but I have killed. Letus go to Paris, lad, and start afresh."

  Montigny grinned. "I shall certainly go to Paris," he said. "Friends waitfor me there,--Guy Tabary, Petit Jehan and Colin de Cayeux. We areplanning to visit Guillaume Coiffier, a fat priest with some six hundredcrowns in the cupboard. You will make one of the party, Francois."

  "Rene, Rene," said the other, "my heart bleeds for you."

  Again Montigny grinned. "You think a great deal about blood nowadays," hecommented. "People will be mistaking you for such a poet as was crownedNero, who, likewise, gave his time to ballad-making and to murderingfathers of the Church. Eh, dear Ahenabarbus, let us first see what theRue Saint Jacques has to say about your recent gambols. After that, Ithink you will make one of our party."

  5. "_Yeulx sans Pitie!_"

  There was a light crackling frost under foot the day that Francois cameback to the Rue Saint Jacques. Upon this brisk, clear January day it wasgood to be home again, an excellent thing to be alive.

  "Eh, Guillemette, Guillemette," he laughed. "Why, lass--!"

  "Faugh!" said Guillemette Moreau, as she passed him, nose in air. "Amurderer, a priest-killer."

  Then the sun went black for Francois. Such welcoming was a bucket ofcold water, full in the face. He gasped, staring after her; and pursyThomas Tricot, on his way from mass, nudged Martin Blaru in the ribs.

  "Martin," said he, "fruit must be cheap this year. Yonder in the gutteris an apple from the gallows-tree, and no one will pick it up."

  Blaru turned and spat out, "Cain! Judas!"

  This was only a sample. Everywhere Francois found rigid faces, sniffs,and skirts drawn aside. A little girl in a red cap, Robin Troussecaille'sdaughter, flung a stone at Francois as he slunk into the cloister ofSaint Benoit-le-Betourne. In those days a slain priest was God's servantslain, no less; and the Rue Saint Jacques was a respectable God-fearingquarter of Paris.

  "My father!" the boy cried, rapping upon the door of the Hotel de laPorte-Rouge; "O my father, open to me, for I think that my heart isbreaking."

  Shortly his foster-father, Guillaume de Villon, came to the window."Murderer!" said he. "Betrayer of women! Now, by the caldron of John! howdare you show your face here? I gave you my name and you soiled it. Backto your husks, rascal!"

  "O God, O God!" Francois cried, one or two times, as he looked up intothe old man's implacable countenance. "You, too, my father!"

  He burst into a fit of sobbing.

  "Go!" the priest stormed; "go, murderer!"

  It was not good to hear Francois' laughter. "What a world we live in!"he giggled. "You gave me your name and I soiled it? Eh, Master Priest,Master Pharisee, beware! _Villon_ is good French for _vagabond_, anexcellent name for an outcast. And as God lives, I will presently dragthat name through every muckheap in France."

  Yet he went to Jehan de Vaucelles' home. "I will afford God one morechance at my soul," said Francois.

  In the garden he met Catherine and Noel d'Arnaye coming out of the house.They stopped short. Her face, half-muffled in the brown fur of her cloak,flushed to a wonderful rose of happiness, the great eyes glowed, andCatherine reached out her hands toward Francois with a glad cry.

  His heart was hot wax as he fell before her upon his knees. "O heart'sdearest, heart's dearest!" he sobbed; "forgive me that I doubted you!"

  And then for an instant, the balance hung level. But after a while,"Ysabeau de Montigny dwells in the Rue du Fouarre," said Catherine, in acrisp voice,--"having served your purpose, however, I perceive thatYsabeau, too, is to be cast aside as though she were an old glove.Monsieur d'Arnaye, thrash for me this betrayer of women."

  Noel was a big, handsome man, like an obtuse demi-god, a foot tallerthan Francois. Noel lifted the boy by his collar, caught up a stick andset to work. Catherine watched them, her eyes gemlike and cruel.

  Francois did not move a muscle. God had chosen.

  After a little, though, the Sieur d'Arnaye flung Francois upon theground, where he lay quite still for a moment. Then slowly he roseto his feet. He never looked at Noel. For a long time Francoisstared at Catherine de Vaucelles, frost-flushed, defiant, incrediblybeautiful. Afterward the boy went out of the garden, staggering likea drunken person.

  He found Montigny at the Crowned Ox. "Rene," said Francois, "there is nocharity on earth, there is no God in Heaven. But in Hell there is mostassuredly a devil, and I think that he must laugh a great deal. What wasthat you were telling me about the priest with six hundred crowns in hiscupboard?"

  Rene slapped him on the shoulder. "Now," said he, "you talk like a man."He opened the door at the back and cried: "Colin, you and Petit Jehan andthat pig Tabary may come out. I have the honor, messieurs, to offer you anew Companion of the Cockleshell--Master Francois de Montcorbier."

  But the recruit raised a protesting hand. "No," said he,--"FrancoisVillon. The name is triply indisputable, since it has been put upon menot by one priest but by three."

  6. _"Volia l'Estat Divers d'entre Eulx"_

  When the Dauphin came from Geneppe to be crowned King of France, thererode with him Noel d'Arnaye and Noel's brother Raymond. And thelongawaited news that Charles the Well-Served was at last servitor toDeath, brought the exiled Louis post-haste to Paris, where the Rue SaintJacques turned out full force to witness his triumphal entry. Theyexpected, in those days, Saturnian doings of Louis XI, a recrudescence ofthe Golden Age; and when the new king began his reign by granting Noel asnug fief in Picardy, the Rue Saint Jacques applauded.

  "Noel has followed the King's fortunes these ten years," said the RueSaint Jacques; "it is only just. And now, neighbor, we may look to seeNoel the Handsome and Catherin
e de Vaucelles make a match of it. Thegirl has a tidy dowry, they say; old Jehan proved wealthier than thequarter suspected. But death of my life, yes! You may see his tomb inthe Innocents' yonder, with weeping seraphim and a yard of Latin on it.I warrant you that rascal Montcorbier has lain awake in half the prisonsin France thinking of what he flung away. Seven years, no less, since heand Montigny showed their thieves' faces here. La, the world wags,neighbor, and they say there will be a new tax on salt if we go to warwith the English."

  Not quite thus, perhaps, ran the meditations of Catherine de Vaucellesone still August night as she sat at her window, overlooking the acaciasand chestnuts of her garden. Noel, conspicuously prosperous in blue andsilver, had but now gone down the Rue Saint Jacques, singing, clinkingthe fat purse whose plumpness was still a novelty. That evening she hadgiven her promise to marry him at Michaelmas.

  This was a black night, moonless, windless. There were a scant half-dozenstars overhead, and the thick scent of roses and mignonette came up toher in languid waves. Below, the tree-tops conferred, stealthily, and thefountain plashed its eternal remonstrance against the conspiracy theylisped of.

  After a while Catherine rose and stood contemplative before a long mirrorthat was in her room. Catherine de Vaucelles was now, at twenty-three, inthe full flower of her comeliness. Blue eyes the mirror showedher,--luminous and tranquil eyes, set very far apart; honey-colored hairmassed heavily about her face, a mouth all curves, the hue of astrawberry, tender but rather fretful, and beneath it a firm chin; onlyher nose left something to be desired,--for that feature, thoughwell-formed, was diminutive and bent toward the left, by perhaps thethickness of a cobweb. She might reasonably have smiled at what themirror showed her, but, for all that, she sighed.

  "O Beauty of her, whereby I am undone," said Catherine, wistfully. "Ah,God in Heaven, forgive me for my folly! Sweet Christ, intercede for mewho have paid dearly for my folly!"

  Fate grinned in her weaving. Through the open window came the sound of avoice singing.

  Sang the voice:

  _"O Beauty of her, whereby I am undone! O Grace of her, that hath no grace for me! O Love of her, the bit that guides me on To sorrow and to grievous misery! O felon Charms, my poor heart's enemy--"_

  and the singing broke off in a fit of coughing.

  Catherine had remained motionless for a matter of two minutes, her headpoised alertly. She went to the gong and struck it seven or eight times.

  "Macee, there is a man in the garden. Bring him to me, Macee,--ah, loveof God, Macee, make haste!"

  Blinking, he stood upon the threshold. Then, without words, their lipsmet.

  "My king!" said Catherine; "heart's emperor!"

  "O rose of all the world!" he cried.

  There was at first no need of speech.

  But after a moment she drew away and stared at him. Francois, though hewas but thirty, seemed an old man. His bald head shone in thecandle-light. His face was a mesh of tiny wrinkles, wax-white, and hislower lip, puckered by the scar of his wound, protruded in an eternalgrimace. As Catherine steadfastly regarded him, the faded eyes,half-covered with a bluish film, shifted, and with a jerk he glanced overhis shoulder. The movement started a cough tearing at his throat.

  "Holy Macaire!" said he. "I thought that somebody, if not Henri Cousin,the executioner, was at my heels. Why do you stare so, lass? Have youanything to eat? I am famished."

  In silence she brought him meat and wine, and he fell upon it. He atehastily, chewing with his front teeth, like a sheep.

  When he had ended, Catherine came to him and took both his hands in hersand lifted them to her lips. "The years have changed you, Francois," shesaid, curiously meek.

  Francois put her away. Then he strode to the mirror and regarded itintently. With a snarl, he turned about. "The years!" said he. "You aremodest. It was you who killed Francois de Montcorbier, as surely asMontcorbier killed Sermaise. Eh, Sovereign Virgin! that is scant causefor grief. You made Francois Villon. What do you think of him, lass?"

  She echoed the name. It was in many ways a seasoned name, butunaccustomed to mean nothing. Accordingly Francois sneered.

  "Now, by all the fourteen joys and sorrows of Our Lady! I believe thatyou have never heard of Francois Villon! The Rue Saint Jacques has notheard of Francois Villon! The pigs, the gross pigs, that dare not peepout of their sty! Why, I have capped verses with the Duke of Orleans. Thevery street-boys know my Ballad of the Women of Paris. Not a drunkard inthe realm but has ranted my jolly Orison for Master Cotard's Soul whenthe bottle passed. The King himself hauled me out of Meung gaol lastSeptember, swearing that in all France there was not my equal at aballad. And you have never heard of me!"

  Once more a fit of coughing choked him mid-course in his indignantchattering.

  She gave him a woman's answer: "I do not care if you are the greatestlord in the kingdom or the most sunken knave that steals ducks from ParisMoat. I only know that I love you, Francois."

  For a long time he kept silence, blinking, peering quizzically at herlifted face. She did love him; no questioning that. But presently heagain put her aside, and went toward the open window. This was a matterfor consideration.

  The night was black as a pocket. Staring into it, Francois threw back hishead and drew a deep, tremulous breath. The rising odor of roses andmignonette, keen and intolerably sweet, had roused unforgotten pulses inhis blood, had set shame and joy adrum in his breast.

  The woman loved him! Through these years, with a woman's unreasoningfidelity, she had loved him. He knew well enough how matters stoodbetween her and Noel d'Arnaye; the host of the Crowned Ox had beengarrulous that evening. But it was Francois whom she loved. She waswell-to-do. Here for the asking was a competence, love, an ingleside ofhis own. The deuce of it was that Francois feared to ask.

  "--Because I am still past reason in all that touches this ignorant,hot-headed, Pharisaical, rather stupid wench! That is droll. But love isa resistless tyrant, and, Mother of God! has there been in my life a day,an hour, a moment when I have not loved her! To see her once was all thatI had craved,--as a lost soul might covet, ere the Pit take him, onesplendid glimpse of Heaven and the Nine Blessed Orders at their fiddling.And I find that she loves me--me! Fate must have her jest, I perceive,though the firmament crack for it. She would have been content enoughwith Noel, thinking me dead. And with me?" Contemplatively he spat out ofthe window. "Eh, if I dared hope that this last flicker of life left inmy crazy carcass might burn clear! I have but a little while to live; ifI dared hope to live that little cleanly! But the next cup of wine, thenext light woman?--I have answered more difficult riddles. Choose, then,Francois Villon,--choose between the squalid, foul life yonder and herwell-being. It is true that starvation is unpleasant and that hanging isreported to be even less agreeable. But just now these considerations areirrelevant."

  Staring into the darkness he fought the battle out. Squarely he faced theissue; for that instant he saw Francois Villon as the last seven yearshad made him, saw the wine-sodden soul of Francois Villon, rotten andweak and honeycombed with vice. Moments of nobility it had; momentarily,as now, it might be roused to finer issues; but Francois knew that nopower existent could hearten it daily to curb the brutish passions. Itwas no longer possible for Francois Villon to live cleanly. "For what amI?--a hog with a voice. And shall I hazard her life's happiness to get mea more comfortable sty? Ah, but the deuce of it is that I so badly needthat sty!"

  He turned with a quick gesture.

  "Listen," Francois said. "Yonder is Paris,--laughing, tragic Paris, whoonce had need of a singer to proclaim her splendor and all her misery.Fate made the man; in necessity's mortar she pounded his soul into theshape Fate needed. To king's courts she lifted him; to thieves' hovelsshe thrust him down; and past Lutetia's palaces and abbeys and tavernsand lupanars and gutters and prisons and its very gallows--past each inturn the man was dragged, that he might make the Song of Paris. He couldnot have made it here in the smug Rue Saint Jacques. Well! the song
ismade, Catherine. So long as Paris endures, Francois Villon will beremembered. Villon the singer Fate fashioned as was needful: and, in thisfashioning, Villon the man was damned in body and soul. And by God! thesong was worth it!"

  She gave a startled cry and came to him, her hands fluttering toward hisbreast. "Francois!" she breathed.

  It would not be good to kill the love in her face.

  "You loved Francois de Montcorbier. Francois de Montcorbier is dead. ThePharisees of the Rue Saint Jacques killed him seven years ago, and thatday Francois Villon was born. That was the name I swore to drag throughevery muckheap in France. And I have done it, Catherine. The Companionsof the Cockleshell--eh, well, the world knows us. We robbed GuillammeCoiffier, we robbed the College of Navarre, we robbed the Church of SaintMaturin,--I abridge the list of our gambols. Now we harvest. Rene deMontigny's bones swing in the wind yonder at Montfaucon. Colin de Cayeuxthey broke on the wheel. The rest--in effect, I am the only one thatjustice spared,--because I had diverting gifts at rhyming, they said.Pah! if they only knew! I am immortal, lass. _Exegi monumentum_. Villon'sglory and Villon's shame will never die."

  He flung back his bald head and laughed now, tittering over thatcalamitous, shabby secret between all-seeing God and Francois Villon. Shehad drawn a little away from him. This well-reared girl saw him exultantin infamy, steeped to the eyes in infamy. But still the nearness of her,the faint perfume of her, shook in his veins, and still he must play themiserable comedy to the end, since the prize he played for was to himpeculiarly desirable.

  "A thief--a common thief!" But again her hands fluttered back. "I droveyou to it. Mine is the shame."

  "Holy Macaire! what is a theft or two? Hunger that causes the wolf tosally from the wood, may well make a man do worse than steal. I couldtell you--For example, you might ask in Hell of one Thevenin Pensete, whoknifed him in the cemetery of Saint John."

  He hinted a lie, for it was Montigny who killed Thevenin Pensete. Villonplayed without scruple now.

  Catherine's face was white. "Stop," she pleaded; "no more, Francois,--ah,Holy Virgin! do not tell me any more."

  But after a little she came to him, touching him almost as if withunwillingness. "Mine is the shame. It was my jealousy, my vanity,Francois, that thrust you back into temptation. And we are told by thosein holy orders that the compassion of God is infinite. If you still carefor me, I will be your wife."

  Yet she shuddered.

  He saw it. His face, too, was paper, and Francois laughed horribly.

  "If I still love you! Go, ask of Denise, of Jacqueline, or of Pierrette,of Marion the Statue, of Jehanne of Brittany, of Blanche Slippermaker, ofFat Peg,--ask of any trollop in all Paris how Francois Villon loves. Youthought me faithful! You thought that I especially preferred you to anyother bed-fellow! Eh, I perceive that the credo of the Rue Saint Jacquesis somewhat narrow-minded. For my part I find one woman much the same asanother." And his voice shook, for he saw how pretty she was, saw how shesuffered. But he managed a laugh.

  "I do not believe you," Catherine said, in muffled tones. "Francois! Youloved me, Francois. Ah, boy, boy!" she cried, with a pitiable wail; "comeback to me, boy that I loved!"

  It was a difficult business. But he grinned in her face.

  "He is dead. Let Francois de Montcorbier rest in his grave. Your voice isvery sweet, Catherine, and--and he could refuse you nothing, could he,lass? Ah, God, God, God!" he cried, in his agony; "why can you notbelieve me? I tell you Necessity pounds us in her mortar to what shapeshe will. I tell you that Montcorbier loved you, but Francois Villonprefers Fat Peg. An ill cat seeks an ill rat." And with this,tranquillity fell upon his soul, for he knew that he had won.

  Her face told him that. Loathing was what he saw there.

  "I am sorry," Catherine said, dully. "I am sorry. Oh, for high God'ssake! go, go! Do you want money? I will give you anything if you willonly go. Oh, beast! Oh, swine, swine, swine!"

  He turned and went, staggering like a drunken person.

  Once in the garden he fell prone upon his face in the wet grass. Abouthim the mingled odor of roses and mignonette was sweet and heavy; thefountain plashed interminably in the night, and above him the chestnutsand acacias rustled and lisped as they had done seven years ago. Only hewas changed.

  "O Mother of God," the thief prayed, "grant that Noel may be kind toher! Mother of God, grant that she may be happy! Mother of God, grantthat I may not live long!"

  And straightway he perceived that triple invocation could be, ratherneatly, worked out in ballade form. Yes, with a separate prayer to eachverse. So, dismissing for the while his misery, he fell to considering,with undried cheeks, what rhymes he needed.

  * * * * *

  JULY 17, 1484

  "_Et puis il se rencontre icy une avanture merveilleuse, c'est que lefils de Grand Turc ressemble a Cleonte, a peu de chose pres_."

  _Noel d'Arnaye and Catherine de Vaucelles were married in the Septemberof 1462, and afterward withdrew to Noel's fief in Picardy. There Noelbuilt him a new Chateau d'Arnaye, and through the influence of NicoleBeaupertuys, the King's mistress, (who was rumored in court by-ways tohave a tenderness for the handsome Noel), obtained large grants for itsmaintenance. Madame d'Arnaye, also, it is gratifying to record, appearsto have lived in tolerable amity with Sieur Noel, and neither of thempried too closely into the other's friendships.

  Catherine died in 1470, and Noel outlived her but by three years. Of thesix acknowledged children surviving him, only one was legitimate--adaughter called Matthiette. The estate and title thus reverted to Raymondd'Arnaye, Noel's younger brother, from whom the present family of Arnayeis descended.

  Raymond was a far shrewder man than his predecessor. For ten years'space, while Louis XI, that royal fox of France, was destroying feudalismpiecemeal,--trimming its power day by day as you might pare anonion,--the new Sieur d'Arnaye steered his shifty course between Franceand Burgundy, always to the betterment of his chances in this worldhowever he may have modified them in the next. At Arras he fought beneaththe orifiamme; at Guinegate you could not have found a more staunchBurgundian: though he was no warrior, victory followed him like alap-dog. So that presently the Sieur d'Arnaye and the Vicomte dePuysange--with which family we have previously concerned ourselves--werethe great lords of Northern France.

  But after the old King's death came gusty times for Sieur Raymond. It iswith them we have here to do_.