by Eugène Sue
“Sire, the barrier is closed at nightfall”; and the marshal added sardonically. “Such are the orders of Marcel.”
“After nightfall, no vessel can leave Paris?”
“No, Sire. After nightfall no one can leave Paris either by land or water. Such, again, are the orders of Marcel.”
“In that case,” the Regent replied without looking up and after a moment’s reflection, “you will procure a vessel this morning, have it moored outside of the barrier at a little distance from the postern gate at the foot of the little staircase. You and Robert,” proceeded the Regent pointing to the marshal of Champagne, “will hold yourselves ready to accompany me. Prudence and discretion.”
For a moment the two favorites remained mute with astonishment. The marshal of Normandy broke the silence with the question: “Do you contemplate leaving Paris by night and furtively, Sire? Would you not be leaving the field to that miserable Marcel? Why, by the saints! If that insolent bourgeois annoys you, Sire, follow the advice I have so often given you! Have Marcel and his councilmen hanged as I hanged Perrin Macé! Did his execution cause Paris to riot? No; not one of the good-for-nothings has dared to kick; they contented themselves with attending in mass the funeral of the hanged fellow. Charge me with relieving you of Marcel along with his gang. It is done quickly.”
“Among other scamps that should be hanged high and short,” added the marshal of Champagne, “is one Maillart, who is profuse in violent denunciations of the court!”
“Maillart! Allow not a hair on Maillart’s head to be touched!” said the Regent with lively interest, while bestowing a sinister and false leer upon the courtiers.
“It will be as you say, Sire,” answered the marshal of Normandy, not a little astonished at the prince’s words. “We shall spare Maillart. But by God! Order that the other insolent creatures be put to death, Marcel first of all! Your orders shall be executed.”
“Hugh,” answered the prince, rising on his feet to put on his robe that the seigneur of Norville was pressing upon his master after having shod him, “let the vessel be ready this evening as I ordered. Be punctual. Prudence and discretion.”
“You do not then listen to my advice!” cried the marshal almost angrily. “Your clemency for those vile bourgeois will yet be the undoing of you! Your goodness misleads you!”
“My clemency! My goodness!” repeated the prince, casting a sinister look upon the marshal.
Understanding now the secret thoughts of his master, the courtier answered: “If you have decided to mete out prompt justice to that insolent bourgeoisie, why wait so long, Sire?”
“Oh! Oh! Why!” said the young man shrugging his shoulders. He then relapsed into silence, and presently repeated: “Let the vessel be ready this evening.”
The Regent’s favorites were too well acquainted with the youth’s stubbornness and profound powers of dissimulation to endeavor to obtain from him any further light upon his plans. Nevertheless, the marshal of Normandy was about to return to the charge, when an officer of the palace entered and said: “Sire, the seigneur of Nointel and the knight of Chaumontel request admission to take leave from you, a favor that you have accorded them.”
At a sign of the Regent the officer left walking backward, and returned almost immediately accompanied by Conrad of Nointel and the knight of Chaumontel. The trials of war had no wise affected the health of the two seigneurs. The two had been among the first to turn tail at the battle of Poitiers. The groom of the beautiful Gloriande was not leading back to her feet the ten chained English prisoners that she had demanded as the pledge of her future husband’s valor.
“Well, Conrad of Nointel, you are leaving the court to return to your seigniory?” said the Regent. “We hope to see you again in more prosperous days. We ever love to number a Neroweg among our faithful vassals, seeing that it is said your family is as old as that of the first Frankish kings. Have you not an elder brother?”
“Yes, Sire. The elder branch of my family inhabits Auvergne, where it owns estates that it owes to the sword of my ancestors, Clovis’ companions of war. My father left his castle of Plournel, situated near Nantes, to come to Nointel which reverted to him upon my mother’s death. He preferred the neighborhood of Paris and of the court to that of savage Brittany. I am of my father’s opinion, and I do not expect ever to return to the domains that I own in that region and which are governed by my bailiffs.”
“I rely on your promise. The illustriousness of your house makes me anxious to keep it near my court.”
“Sire, I shall return for a double reason. First of all to please the Regent, and also to please my betrothed, the damosel of Chivry, who much desires to see the court. But I must hasten to leave Paris in order to collect the money for my own and my friend’s ransom. It is a large sum that we have to pay.”
“Then you were both taken by the English?”
“Yes, Sire,” answered the knight of Chaumontel; “but seeing that my casque and sword are my only property, Conrad, as a loyal brother in arms, has taken it upon himself to pay for me—”
“Did the English set you free on parole? They are generous enemies.”
“Yes, Sire,” answered Conrad. “I was taken by the men of the Duke of Norfolk, and he placed our ransom at six thousand florins. But I said to him: ‘If you retain me a prisoner, my bailiff will never be able to raise from my vassals so large a sum; the vigorous hand of their own seigneur is required to seize so much money from those villeins; let me, therefore, return to my domains, and on my faith as a Christian and a knight I shall speedily bring to you the six thousand florins for our ransom.’”
“And the Englishman accepted?”
“Without hesitation, Sire. Moreover, learning that my seigniory was in Beauvoisis, he said to me: ‘You will run in that region across a certain bastard named Captain Griffith, who for some time has been raiding the region of Beauvoisis with his band.’”
“That is so!” exclaimed one of the courtiers. “Fortunately, however, the fortified castles of the seigneurs are protected from the ravages of that chief of adventurers. He falls upon the plebs of the open fields, and his bands put everything to fire and to the sword. He is a savage warrior.”
“Well,” resumed the Regent with a cruel smile, “let the bourgeois who presume to govern in our stead stop these disasters!” And turning to the Sire of Nointel: “But what has that adventurer of a captain to do with your ransom?”
“It is to him I am to deliver our ransom, together with a letter that the Duke of Norfolk gave me for him.”
At this moment the marshal of Normandy, who had inclined his head toward the window, interrupted Conrad, saying: “What noise is that?... I hear near and approaching clamors.”
“Clamors!” cried the seigneur of Norville, “who would be so impudent as to clamor in the vicinity of the King’s palace? Give the order, Sire, to punish the varlets.”
“It is not clamors merely, but threatening cries,” put in the marshal of Champagne running to the door which he opened, and through which a wild outburst of furious imprecations penetrated into the royal chamber. Almost at the same time an officer of the palace ran in from the gallery. He was pale and frightened, and came screaming: “Flee, Sire! The people of Paris are invading the Louvre! They have disarmed your guards!”
“Stand by, my friends!” cried the Regent, livid with terror and taking refuge in his bed, behind the curtains of which he sought to hide himself. “Defend me!... The felons mean to kill me!”
At the first signal of danger, the marshals of Normandy and Champagne, the same as a few other courtiers, resolutely drew their swords. Conrad of Nointel and his friend the knight of Chaumontel, however, guided by a valor that was tempered by extreme prudence, searched with their eyes for some issue of escape, while the seigneur of Norville, jumping upon the bed, tried to hide himself behind the same curtain with the Regent. Suddenly another door, one facing that of the gallery, flew open, and a large number of palace officers, prelates and sei
gneurs, ran in helter-skelter, screaming: “The Louvre is invaded by the people! Marcel is heading a band of murderers.... Save the Regent!”
These cries had hardly been uttered when the courtiers saw Marcel, followed by a compact troop armed with pikes, axes and cutlasses, appear at the other end of the gallery that communicated with the royal apartment. These men, bourgeois and artisans of Paris, uttered not a sound. Only their foot-falls were heard on the stone slabs. The silence of the armed crowd seemed more ominous than its previous clamors. At their head marched the provost, calm, grave and resolute. A few steps behind him came William Caillet armed with a pike, Rufin the Tankard-smasher with a battle mace, and Jocelyn the Champion with drawn sword. During the few seconds that it took Marcel to cross the gallery, the distracted courtiers held a sort of council in broken words. None of the confused and hasty views prevailed. The Regent remained hidden behind the curtains of his bed together with the seigneur of Norville. Trembling and pale but kept from fleeing by a sense of self-respect, the majority of the courtiers crowded back into the furthest corner of the apartment, while the less scrupulous Conrad of Nointel and his friend, having slid themselves near the second door that led to another apartment, prudently took themselves off.
When he presented himself at the threshold of the royal chamber, Marcel met there none to defend it besides the two marshals who stood with drawn swords. Be it, however, that at that supreme moment they felt imposed by the aspect of the provost, or that they realized the uselessness of a struggle that meant inevitable death to themselves, both lowered their swords.
“Where is the Regent?” inquired Marcel in a loud and firm voice. “I wish to speak with him. He has nothing to fear from the people.”
The accent of the provost was so sincere and the loyalty of his word was so generally acknowledged, even by his enemies, that yielding both to a sentiment of royal dignity and to the confidence inspired by Marcel’s words, the Regent came out from behind the curtains, not a little encouraged at the same time by the presence of the court people and the quiet demeanor of the armed crowd that had invaded the Louvre.
“Here I am,” said the Regent taking a few steps toward Marcel yet unable, despite his powers of dissimulation, to wholly conceal the rage that had succeeded his fright. “What do you want of me? The Regent waits to hear you!”
Marcel turned towards the armed men who had followed him and ordered them with a gesture to guard silence and not to cross the threshold of the royal chamber which he now entered alone. On the other hand, after a short and whispered consultation with his courtiers, the Regent gradually regained composure and addressed the provost in these words: “Your audacity is great!... To enter my palace in arms!”
“Sire! I have long been requesting an interview from you by letters, and failed; I have been compelled to force open your doors in order to make you hear, in the name of the country, the language of sincere severity—”
“To the point,” broke in the Regent impatiently. “What do you want? Speak!”
“Sire! The people demand, first of all the loyal enforcement of the reform ordinances which you have signed and promulgated.”
“You are called the King of Paris,” answered the Regent with a caustic smile; “well, then, rule!... Save the country!”
“Sire! The voice of the national assembly has been heard in Paris and in some other large towns. But your partisans and your officers, sovereign in their seigniories or in the domains which they govern in your name, have banded themselves to prevent the execution of the laws upon which the safety of Gaul depends. Such a state of things must promptly cease, Sire!... Aye, very promptly. The people so wills it.”
The Regent turned to the group of prelates and seigneurs at the head of whom stood the Marshal of Normandy; a hurried council was again held by the courtiers who hastened around their chief; and then returning to the provost, the Regent answered haughtily: “Is that your only grievance? Let’s hear the rest!!”
“We have imperative demands.”
“What else do you want?”
“An act of justice and reparation, Sire! Perrin Macé, a bourgeois of Paris, has been mutilated and then put to death in defiance of right and of law by the order of some of your courtiers.... The seigneur who ordered the execution of an innocent man must be sentenced to death! It is the law of retaliation.”
“By the cross of the Saviour!” cried the Regent. “You dare come and demand of me the condemnation and execution of the marshal of Normandy, my best friend!”
“That man is causing your ruin with his detestable advice. He shall expiate his crime.”
“Impudent scamp!” cried out the marshal of Normandy in a fit of rage, threatening Marcel with his sword. “You have the audacity to make charges against me!”
“Not another word!” ordered the Regent interrupting his favorite and beckoning him to lower his sword. “It is for me to answer in this place. I order you, Master Marcel, to leave this place, and upon the spot!”
“Sire!” answered the provost with patronizing commiseration, “you are young, my hairs are grey.... Your age is impetuous, mine is calm.... I therefore have the right and the duty to lecture to you. I beseech you in the name of the country, in the name of your crown, to loyally fulfill your promises, and, however painful it may seem to you, to grant the reparation that I demand in the name of justice. Prove in that manner that, when the law is audaciously violated, you punish the guilty, whatever his rank.... Sire! It is still time for you to listen to the voice of equity!—”
“And I tell you, Master Marcel,” yelled the Regent furiously, “that it is time, high time, to put an end to your insolent requests! Be gone, instantly!”
“Away with this varlet in rebellion against his King,” cried the courtiers, like the Regent re-assured and deceived by the attitude of Marcel’s armed escort, that remained mute and motionless, and turning to them the marshal of Normandy called out: “As to you, good people of Paris, who now regret the criminal errand on which this bedeviled rebel has brought you despite yourselves, join us, the true friends of your King, in punishing the treason of this miserable Marcel.... Let his blood fall upon himself!”
The provost smothered a sigh of regret, stepped back a few paces so as to place himself beyond the reach of the marshal’s sword, turned to his people and said: “Carry out the orders that brought you here.”
These words were hardly uttered when Marcel’s armed men, anxious to make amends for the silence and prolonged restraint imposed upon them by his orders, burst loose in an explosion of cries of indignation and of threats that struck the Regent and his courtiers with stupor and consternation. Rufin the Tankard-smasher bolted upon the marshal of Normandy, seized him by the collar and cried: “You had Perrin Macé mutilated and hanged; now you shall be hanged! The gibbet is ready!”
“And this for you, caitiff,” responded the marshal, quick as lightning transfixing the student’s left arm with a thrust of his sword. “The cord that is to hang me is not yet twisted.”
“No, but the iron that will smash you to death is forged, my noble gentleman,” answered the student dealing with his mace a furious blow upon the marshal’s head. “I have been Rufin the Tankard-smasher; now I am Rufin the Head-smasher!”
The student spoke true. The marshal’s skull was crushed; he fell and expired at the Regent’s feet bestaining with his blood the latter’s robe. During the tumult that ensued, the marshal of Champagne rushed at Marcel dagger in hand. But William Caillet, who had all the while been seeking with burning eyes for the Sire of Nointel from among the brilliant bevy of courtiers, threw himself in front of the provost ahead of Jocelyn, who had darted forward with the same intention, and the old peasant thrust his pike into the bowels of the marshal. The corpse of the courtier rolled upon the floor. Popular vengeance was taken.
The other seigneurs and prelates, who had run to the royal chamber, fled back distracted by the door that had admitted them. When the Regent, who, fainting with terror, had
crouched back upon the bed with his face hidden in his hands, looked up again, he found himself alone with Marcel and not far from the prostrate corpses of his two councilors. Marcel’s armed men had slowly departed through the gallery together with Caillet, while Jocelyn was engaged near a window in bandaging with his handkerchief the wound of the student.
Finally, protruding under the drapery of the bed behind which he had held himself all the while motionless as a mouse, the feet were seen of the seigneur of Norville, who had lacked even the strength to flee.
“Mercy, Master Marcel!” cried the Regent, trembling with fear and throwing himself at Marcel’s feet with arms outstretched in supplication and his face in tears. “Do not kill me; have pity upon me, my good father! Mercy!”
“We have no thought of killing you,” Marcel answered, painfully touched by the suspicion; and stooping down to raise the Regent added: “May my name be accursed if such a crime ever entered my mind! Fear not, Sire! Rise! The people of Paris are good.”
“Oh, my good father! I beg your pardon on my knees for having ignored your wise counsels and listened to bad advisers.” Breaking out into sobs, the young prince added, wringing his hands in despair: “Oh, good God! Alone and so young to be far away from my father, who is held a prisoner, is it any fault of mine if I placed confidence in the men around me?” The Regent’s eyes fell upon the corpses of the two marshals. In heart-rending accents he proceeded: “There they are, the men who misled me! They loved me! They knew me since my cradle! But, like myself, they were blind in their error. Oh, good father! Reproach me not for weeping over the fate of these unfortunate men. It is my last adieu to them,” and still on his knees, the Regent crouched lower, his face in his hands and continued sobbing — with rage, not repentance.
