by Hugo, Victor
This ‘little bedroom’ which the King had kept for himself in the famous State prison was still spacious enough, and occupied the top floor of a turret set into the keep. It was a redoubt, circular in shape, carpeted with mats of gleaming straw, the ceiling beams embellished with fleurs-de-lys of gilded tin and the space in between painted, panelled with ornate woodwork sprinkled with rosettes of white tin, and painted a beautiful bright green, made of orpiment and fine indigo.
There was only one window, a long lancet latticed with brass wire and iron bars, further obscured by fine glass painted with the arms of the King and Queen, each pane costing 22 sols.
There was only one entrance, a modern door, set in a surbased arch, furnished on the inside with a tapestry, and on the outside with one of those Irish wood porches, frail structures of curiously worked joinery, which one could still see a hundred and fifty years ago in many old houses. ‘Although they disfigure and clutter up the place,’ says Sauval in despair, ‘our old men will not get rid of them and keep them in spite of everyone.’
None of the furniture of an ordinary apartment was to be found in this room, no benches, no trestles, no forms, no common box stools, no fine stools supported on pillars and counter-pillars at 4 sols each. All that was to be seen was a very splendid folding armchair: the wood was painted with roses on a red background, the seat was of scarlet Cordovan leather, decorated with long silver fringes and studded with countless gold nails. The isolation of this chair showed that one person only had the right to be seated in the room. Next to the chair, right by the window, stood a table covered by a cloth with a pattern of birds; on the table an inkhorn stained with ink, a few parchments, a few quills, and a goblet of chased silver. A little further away there was a food-warmer, and a prie-dieu in crimson velvet, set off with small gold studs; finally, at the far end, a simple bed of pink and yellow damask, with no tinsel or braid; the fringes quite plain. This was the bed, famous for having borne Louis XI sleeping or sleepless, on which one could still gaze two hundred years ago in the home of a State counsellor, where it was seen by Madame Pilou, celebrated in Cyrus* under the name of ‘Arricidie’ and ‘Living morality.’
Such was the room known as: ‘the private retreat where Monsieur Louis of France says his hours’.
At the moment when we introduced the reader to it, this little room was very dark. Curfew had sounded an hour before, night had fallen, and there was only a flickering wax candle on the table to provide light for five individuals variously grouped around the room.
The first on whom the light fell was a nobleman superbly dressed in doublet and hose of scarlet striped with silver, and a cloak with padded shoulders in cloth of gold with patterns in black. This spendid costume, where the light played on it, seemed glazed with flame in every fold. The man wearing it bore his coat of arms embroidered on his chest in bright colours: a chevron accompanied in point by a deer passant. The escutcheon was supported on the right by an olive branch, on the left by a deer’s horn. On his belt this man wore a costly dagger, with a silver-gilt handle chased in the shape of a helmet crest, surmounted by a count’s coronet. He looked evil, haughty, and stiff-necked. At first glance one saw arrogance in his face, at the second, cunning.
He stood bare-headed, holding a long scroll, behind the armchair on which sat, inelegantly doubled up, knees crossed, elbow on the table, a very meanly turned-out individual. Picture to yourself in fact, on this seat of rich Cordovan leather, two knock-knees, two skinny thighs shabbily dressed in black woollen knitted hose, a torso wrapped in a fustian cloak with a fur trimming showing more hide than hair; finally, to crown it all, a greasy old hat of the meanest black cloth with a circular band of lead figurines running round it. That, with a grimy skullcap which barely let a single hair show, was all that could be made out of the person seated. He kept his head bent so low on his chest that there was nothing to be seen of his face, covered in shadow, but for the tip of his nose, on which a ray of light fell and which must have been a long one. From his skinny, wrinkled hand one could guess that he was an old man. It was Louis Xl.
Some distance behind them two men dressed in the Flemish cut conversed in low tones, and they were not so hidden in the shadows that anyone who had been present at the performance of Gringoire’s mystery play could have failed to recognize in them two of the principal Flemish envoys, Guillaume Rym, the shrewd pensionary from Ghent, and Jacques Coppenole, the popular hosier. It will be remembered that these two men were involved in Louis XI’s secret policies.
Finally, right at the back, near the door, there stood in the dark, still as a statue, a sturdy, thick-set man, in military equipment, and an emblazoned tunic, whose square face, with eyes sticking out from his head, split by a huge mouth, ears concealed beneath two wide screens of flattened hair, with no forehead, took after both dog and tiger.
All, except the King, had their heads uncovered.
The nobleman standing by the King was reading out to him some kind of lengthy memorandum to which His Majesty seemed to be listening attentively. The two Flemings were whispering.
‘By the Rood!’ Coppenole grumbled, ‘I am tired of standing. Isn’t there a chair here?’
Rym answered with a negative gesture, accompanied by an anxious smile.
‘By the Rood!’ Coppenole went on, most unhappy at being thus obliged to lower his voice, ‘I feel a great itch to sit on the floor, legs crossed like a hosier, as I do in my own shop.’
‘Mind you don’t, Maître Jacques!’
‘Huh! Maître Guillaume! So you can only stay on your feet here?’
‘Or on your knees,’ said Rym.
At that moment the King raised his voice. They fell silent.
‘Fifty sols for our servants’ robes, and 12 livres for the clerks of our crown for their cloaks!* That’s right! Pour out gold by the ton! Are you crazy, Olivier?’
As he spoke, the old man had raised his head. Round his neck could be seen gleaming the golden cockleshells of the collar of Saint-Michel. The candle lit up fully his morose and emaciated profile. He snatched the papers from the other man’s hands.
‘You are ruining us!’ he cried, running his sunken eyes over the register. ‘What’s all this? Why do we need such a prodigious household? Two chaplains at 10 livres each a month, and a chapel clerk at 100 sols! A groom of the bedchamber at 90 livres a year! Four kitchen clerks at 120 livres a year each! A roaster, a pottinger, a sauce-maker, a chief cook, an armoury-keeper, two sumptermen at 10 livres a month each! Two scullions at 8 livres! A groom and two assistants at 80 livres a month! A porter, a pastrycook, a baker, two carters, each at 60 livres a year! And the head farrier 120 livres! And the master of our exchequer, 1200 livres, and the comptroller 500! And what more, I ask you!—it’s madness! The wages of our servants are plundering France! All the hidden treasures in the Louvre will melt away in such a blaze of expense! We’ll be selling off our plate! And next year, if God and Our Lady (here he raised his hat) grant us life, we’ll be drinking our tisane out of a pewter mug!’
As he said that he glanced at the silver goblet sparkling on the table. He coughed and continued:
‘Maître Olivier, princes who rule over great lordships, like kings and emperors, must not allow extravagance to breed in their households, because from there the fire spreads through their provinces. So, Maître Olivier, take this as said. Our expenses increase every year. This displeases us. Why, Pasque-Dieu! until ‘79 the sum did not exceed 36,000 livres. In ‘80 it reached 43,619 livres—I have the figures in my head—in ‘81 66,680 livres; and this year, by the faith of my body! it will reach 80,000 livres! Doubled in four years! Monstrous!’
He stopped, out of breath, then went on, beside himself: ‘All I see around me are people getting fat from my leanness! You suck gold pieces out of me from every pore!’
They all stayed silent. It was one of those tempers that are best left alone. He continued:
‘It is like this Latin petition from the nobility of France, asking us t
o restore what they call the great offices or charges of the Crown. Charges indeed! Crushing charges! Ah! gentlemen! you say that we are not a king for reigning dapifero nullo, buticulario nullo [without carver or butler]. We’ll show you, Pasque-Dieu, whether we are a king or not!’
At this he smiled with the sense of his power, his ill-humour abated, and he turned to the Flemings:
‘Do you see, Compère Guillaume? The great pantler, the great butler, the great chamberlain, the great seneschal are not worth the lowliest servant,—remember this. Compère Coppenole—they serve no purpose. Standing around the King uselessly like that they put me in mind of the four evangelists round the dial of the great clock in the Palais, which Philippe Brille has just renovated. They are gilded and they don’t show the time; and the hands can do without them.’
He remained pensive for as moment, and added, nodding his old head: ‘Ho! ho! ho! by Our Lady, I’m not Philippe Brille, and I’m not going to regild the great vassals. I agree with King Edward:* save the people and kill the lords—go on, Olivier.’
The person whom he designated by that name took back the register from his hands and began again reading aloud:
‘To Adam Tenon, clerk to the keeper of the seals of the Provostry of Paris, for the silver, working, and engraving of the said seals, because the previous ones, on account of being so old and worn, could no longer properly be used—12 livres parisis.
‘To Guillaume Frère, the sum of 4 livres 4 sols parisis for his pains and wages in looking after and feeding the doves in the two dovecotes of the Hôtel des Tournelles, during the months of January, February, and March of this year; and for this provided 7 setiers of barley.
‘To a Cordelier friar for hearing a criminal’s confession, 4 sols parisis.’
The King listened in silence. From time to time he would cough. Then he would bring the goblet to his lips, and pull a face as he swallowed from it.
‘In this year fifty-six cries to the sound of a trumpet have been made by judicial order at the crossroads in Paris—account to be settled.
‘For digging and searching in certain places, both in Paris and elsewhere, for treasure said to be hidden, but without finding anything—45 livres parisis.’
‘Burying a gold piece to unearth a sol!’ said the King.
‘For fitting six panes of white glass at the Hôtel des Tournelles in the place where the iron cage is—13 sols. For making and delivering, by the King’s command, on the day of the musters four escutcheons with the arms of the said lord, enchased with garlands of roses all the way round—6 livres. For two new sleeves on the King’s old doublet—20 sols. For a box of grease for greasing the King’s boots—15 deniers. A new sty for keeping the King’s black swine—30 livres parisis. Several partitions, planks, and trapdoors made for the lions’ enclosure near Saint-Paul—22 livres.’
‘They are expensive animals,’ said Louis XI. ‘No matter! It’s a fine way for a king to be lavish. There is one big tawny lion I really like for his tricks—have you seen him, Maître Guillaume?—princes need to have some of these wonderful animals. For us kings, our dogs must be lions and our cats tigers. Greatness goes with the crown. In the days of Jupiter’s pagans, when the people offered up in the churches a hundred oxen and a hundred ewes, the emperors would give a hundred lions and a hundred eagles. That was something very fine and savage. The kings of France have always had wild beasts roaring round their thrones. All the same it must be admitted, to do me justice, that I spend even less money on that than they did, and have a more modest collection of lions, bears, elephants, and leopards—go on now, Maître Olivier. We wanted to tell our friends the Flemings about it.’
Guillaume Rym made a deep bow, while Coppenole, with his surly expression, looked like one of those bears His Majesty had been speaking about. The King did not notice. He had just wet his lips at the goblet, and spat the liquid out again, saying: ‘Ugh! horrible tisane!’ The man reading continued:
‘For feeding a rogue and vagabond shut up for the past six months in the cell at the flayers’ yard, while waiting to learn what to do with him—6 livres 4 sols.’
‘What’s that?’ the King interrupted. ‘Feed what should be hanged! Pasque-Dieu! I won’t give another sol for his food. Olivier, settle the matter with Monsieur d’Estouteville, and this very evening make the preparations for marrying this rascal to a gallows. Go on.’
Olivier made a thumbmark at the article on ‘the rogue and vagabond’ and proceeded.
‘To Henriet Cousin, master executioner of the justice of Paris, the sum of 60 sols parisis, taxed and ordered to him by my lord the Provost of Paris, for purchasing, on the orders of the said Monsieur the Provost, one large broadsword to be used for executing and beheading those persons condemned by justice for their misdeeds, and providing it with a scabbard and all appurtenances; and likewise refurbishing and renovating the old sword, which had been splintered and chipped in carrying out sentence on Messire Louis de Luxembourg,* as may appear more fully …’
The King interrupted: ‘That’s enough. I gladly authorize the sum. Those are expenses I don’t examine. I have never regretted the money. Next.’
‘For making a great new cage …’
‘Ah!’ said the King, gripping the arms of his chair with both hands, ‘I knew I had come here to the Bastille for something. Wait, Maître Olivier. I want to see the cage for myself. You can read out to me what it cost while I examine it. Messieurs the Flemings, come and see this. It’s quite curious.’
Then he rose, leaned on his interlocutor’s arm, signed to the sort of mute standing in front of the door to precede him, to the two Flemings to follow, and left the room.
At the door of the room the royal party recruited men-at-arms weighed down with iron, and slim pages carrying torches. It wended its way for some while through the inside of the sombre keep, riddled with stairways and corridors running even in the thickness of the walls. The captain of the Bastille walked at their head and had the wickets opened to the sickly, stooping old King, who coughed as he walked.
At each wicket, they all had to bow their heads, except the old man, bent with age. ‘Hm!’ he said between his gums, for he had no teeth left, ‘we are quite prepared now for the door of the sepulchre. To pass through a low door you must needs stoop.’
Finally, having passed through a last wicket with such a complexity of locks that it took quarter of an hour to open it, they came into a high, spacious, vaulted room, in the centre of which could be made out by the glow of the torches a huge, massive cube of masonry, iron, and timber. It was one of those famous cages for prisoners of State known as ‘the King’s little girls’. There were two or three little windows in its walls, so densely latticed with thick iron bars that the glass could not be seen. The door was a great flat slab of stone, as in a tomb. Such doors are only ever used for entrance. Only, here, the corpse was alive.
The King began walking slowly round the little structure, carefully examining it, while Maître Olivier, who was following him, read out the memorandum aloud:
‘For making a great new wooden cage with big joists, ribs and string-pieces, 9 feet long by 8 feet broad, 7 feet high between the boards, smoothed and bolted with large iron bolts, which has been installed in a room, belonging to one of the towers of the fortress of Saint-Antoine, in the which cage is kept and detained, by command of our lord the King, a prisoner who lived previously in an old, worn-out and decrepit cage—in the making of the said new cage there have been used 96 horizontal joists and 52 upright ones, 10 string pieces 3 wises long; and 19 carpenters have been employed in squaring, working, and shaping all the aforesaid wood in the yard of the Bastille for twenty days …’
‘Pretty fine heart of oak,’ said the King, thumping the frame work with his fist.
‘… into this cage,’ went on the other, ‘have gone 220 large iron bolts, of 9 feet and 8 feet, the rest of medium length, with the rowels, pommels, and counterbands serving the said bolts. The said iron weighing in all 3,735 l
ivres; besides 8 large iron braces serving to fasten the said cage, with clamps and nails weighing together 218 livres of iron, not counting the iron lattice over the window of the room where the cage has been placed, the iron bolts of the door to the room, and various other items …’
‘That’s a lot of iron,’ said the King, ‘to contain the lightness of a spirit!’
‘The total comes to 317 livres 5 sols 7 deniers.’
‘Pasque-Dieu!’ exclaimed the King.
At this oath, Louis XI’s favourite one, someone seemed to be waking up inside the cage, chains scraped noisily across the floor, and a feeble voice was raised, which seemed to come from the grave: ‘Sire! sire! mercy!’ The speaker could not be seen.
‘317 livres 5 sols 7 deniers!’ Louis XI went on.
The lamentable voice issuing from the cage had chilled all those present, even Maître Olivier himself. Only the King appeared not to have heard it. At his order Olivier resumed his reading, and His Majesty coldly continued his inspection of the cage.
‘… beside which, to a mason who made the holes for setting in the grills over the windows, and the floor of the room where the cage is, because the floor would not have been strong enough to bear the cage because of its weight, 27 livres 14 sols parisis …’
The voice began groaning again:
‘Mercy! Sire! I swear it was the Cardinal of Angers who committed the treason, not I.’
‘The mason’s a rough one!’ went on the King. ‘Go on, Olivier.’
Olivier went on: ‘To a joiner, for windows, bed, close-stool, and other items, 20 livres 2 sols parisis.’
The voice went on too: ‘Alas! Sire! will you not hear me? I protest that it was not I who wrote that to my lord of Guyenne, but Monsieur the Cardinal Balue!’*
