Part 3 — MAÎTRE CORNÉLIUS (continued 2)

Just then Imbert de Bastarnay, Sire de Montrésor and de Bridoré, gently knocked at the royal door. By the King's leave he came in, announcing the Comte and Comtesse de Saint-Vallier. Louis nodded. Marie entered the room, followed by her old husband, who allowed her to precede him.

"Good-day, my children," said the King.

"Sire," said the lady in a whisper, as she embraced him, "I would fain speak with you in private."

Louis XI. made as though he had not heard her.

"Dufou, hola!" cried he, in a hollow voice. Dufou, Lord of Montbazon and high cupbearer of France, hastened in.

"Go to the steward; I must have a widgeon for dinner. Then go to Madame de Beaujeu and tell her that I dine alone to-day. Do you know, madame," the King went on, affecting some little anger, "that you neglect me? It is nearly three years since I saw you last. Come, come hither, pretty one," he added, sitting down and holding out his arms to her. "How thin you are! What do you do to make her so thin? Heh?" he suddenly asked, turning to the Count.

The jealous wretch gave his wife such a pathetic look that she was almost sorry for him.

"It is happiness, Sire," he replied.

"Oh, ho! You are too fond of each other," said the King, holding his daughter upright on his knees. "Well, well, I see I was right, then, when I called you Marie-pleine-de-Grace. Coyctier, leave us! Now, what do you want of me?" he added, to his daughter, as the leech disappeared. "When you sent me your——"

In such peril Marie audaciously laid her hand on the King's mouth, and said in his ear:

"I always thought you secret and keen-witted——"

"Saint-Vallier," said the King, laughing, "I believe that Bridoré has something to say to you."

The Count left the room; but he shrugged one shoulder in a way his wife knew only too well; she could guess the jealous monster's thoughts, and concluded that she must be on her guard against his malignancy.

"Now tell me, child, how do you think I am looking? Am I much altered?"

"Gramercy, my lord, do you want the truth? Or shall I speak you fair?"

"No," said he, in a husky voice, "I want to know where I stand."

"In that case, you look but ill to-day. But I trust my truthfulness may not mar the success of my business."

"What is it?" asked the King, passing one of his hands over his knitted brows.

"Well, Sire," said she, "the young man who has been arrested in the house of your treasurer Cornélius, and who is at this present in the hands of your Provost Marshal, is innocent of stealing the jewels of Bavaria."

"How do you know?" asked the King.

Marie hung her head, and blushed.

"I need not ask if there is a love-affair at the bottom of this," said Louis XI., gently raising his daughter's face, and stroking her chin. "If you do not confess every morning, child, you will go to hell."

"And cannot you oblige me without violating my secret thoughts?"

"What would be the pleasure of that?" exclaimed the King, seeing that there might be some amusement in the matter.

"Oh, but you would not wish your pleasure to cost me sorrow?"

"Heh! sly puss, do not you trust me?"

"Well, then, my lord, set this young gentleman free."

"Oh, ho! So he is a gentleman!" cried the King. "Then he is not an apprentice?"

"He is most certainly innocent," said she.

"I do not see it in that light," said the King, coldly. "I am the supreme judge in my kingdom, and it is my duty to punish malefactors."

"Fay, come, do not put on your considering face. Grant me the young man's life!"

"Would not that be giving you back what is your own?"

"Sire," said she, "I am honest and virtuous. You are mocking me."

"Well, then," said the King, "as I cannot see my way in this business, let Tristan throw some light upon it."

Marie de Sassenage turned pale. With a violent effort she said:

"Sire, I assure you that you will be in despair if you do.The so-called thief has stolen nothing. If you will promise me his pardon, I will tell you everything, even if you should visit it on me."

"Oh, ho! This looks serious," said Louis XI., setting his cap aside. "Speak, my child."

"Well," said she, in a low voice, and speaking with her lips close to her father's ear, "the gentleman spent the night in my room."

"He may have gone to see you, and yet have robbed Cornélius—a double larceny."

"Sire, I have your blood in my veins, and I am not the woman to love a vagabond. This gentleman is the nephew of the captain-general of your crossbowmen."

"Go on," said the King. "It is very hard to get anything out of you."

As he spoke, Louis flung his daughter off to some distance; and she stood trembling while he ran to the door into the next room, but on tiptoe, and without making a sound. A moment since the light from a window in the outer room, shining beneath the door, had shown him the shadow of a pair of feet close to the entrance. He suddenly opened the iron-bound door, and surprised the Comte de Saint-Vallier, who was listening.

"Pasques Dieu!" cried he, "this is such insolence as deserves the axe."

"My liege," said Saint-Vallier, boldly, "I would rather have the axe at my neck than the ornament of the married on my forehead."

"You may live to have both," said the King. "Not a man of you all is secure against those two misfortunes, my lords. Go into the farther ante-room. Conyngham," he went on, addressing the Scottish captain, "were you asleep? And where is Monsieur Bridoré? Do you allow me to be thus invaded? Pasques Dieu! the plainest citizen in Tours is better served than I am."

Having thus vented his anger, Louis came back into his room; but he took care to draw the tapestry curtains which covered the door on the inner side, less for the purpose of moderating the cold draught than of smothering the King's words.

"And so, daughter," said he, amusing himself by teasing her, as a cat plays with a mouse it has caught, "Georges d'Estouteville was your gallant yesterday?"

"Oh, no, Sire!"

"No? Then by Saint-Carpion! he deserves to die. The villain did not think my daughter fair enough perhaps."

"Oh, if that is all," said she, "I assure you he kissed my feet and hands with such ardor as might have melted the most virtuous wife. He loves me, but honestly, as a gentleman should."

"And do you take me for Saint-Louis that you foist such a tale on me? A youngster of that pattern would have risked his life to kiss your slippers or your sleeve! Nay, nay——"

"Ay, my lord, but it is true. Still he came for another reason."

As she spoke, it struck Marie that she had imperiled her husband's life, for Louis at once eagerly inquired:

"For what?"

The adventure was amusing him hugely. He certainly did not expect the strange revelations now made by his daughter, after stipulating for her husband's pardon.

"Oh, ho! Monsieur de Saint-Vallier, so this is the way you draw the blood royal!" cried the King, his eyes blazing with wrath.

At this moment the bell of Le Plessis rang to call the King's escort to arms. Leaning on his daughter's arm, Louis XI. appeared on the threshold and found his guard in attendance. He first glanced dubiously at the Comte de Saint-Vallier, considering the sentence he was about to pronounce on him.

The deep silence was broken by Tristan's footsteps coming up the grand stairs. He came into the room, and advancing to the King said:

"Sire, the matter is settled!"

"What, all over?" said the King.

"Our man is in the priest's hands. He confessed to the theft after a screw of the rack."

The Countess sighed and turned pale; she could not even command her voice as she looked at the King. This glance was not lost on Saint-Vallier, who said in an undertone:

"I am undone. The thief is known to my wife!"

"Silence!" cried the King. "There is some one here of whom I am tired. Go quickly and stop the execution," he added, turning to the Provost. "You will answer to me for the criminal; your life for his, my friend! This affair must be thoroughly searched out, and I reserve the judgment. Provisionally, set the prisoner at large. I shall know where to find him; these robbers have hiding-places that they love, dens where they lurk. Make it known to Cornélius that I purpose going to his house this very evening to conduct the inquiry. Monsieur de Saint-Vallier," the King went on, fixing his eyes on the Count, "I have heard of all your doings. All the blood in your body cannot pay for one drop of mine; do you know that? By our Lady of Clery, you have been guilty of high treason. Did I give you so sweet a wife that you might make her pale and haggard? Marry, my lord! You go to your own house at this moment, and make you ready there for a long journey."

The mere habit of cruelty made the King pause on these words, but he presently added:

"You will set forth this night to treat of my business with the Signors of Venice. Do not be uneasy; I will bring your wife home with me this evening to my château of Le Plessis; there, at least, she will be safe. Henceforth I shall take better care of her than I have done since you wedded her."

Marie, as she heard these words, silently pressed her father's arm to thank him for his clemency and good grace. As to Louis, he was laughing in his sleeve.

Louis XI. dearly loved to interfere in his subjects' concerns, and was ever ready to mingle in his own royal person in scenes of middle-class life. This fancy, severely blamed by some historians, was no more than the passion for the incognito which is one of the chief amusements of princes, a sort of temporary abdication which enables them to bring a breath of work-a-day life into an existence which is insipid for lack of opposition; but then Louis XI. played at an incognito without any disguise. In this sort of adventures, too, he was always good-humored, and did his utmost to be pleasant to the citizen class, of whom he had made friends and allies against the feudal lords.

It was now some little time since he had an opportunity of thus making himself popular, or taking up the defence of a man enmeshed in some actionable offence, so he was ready to enter vehemently into Maître Cornélius' alarms and the Countess' secret griefs.

Several times during dinner he said to his daughter:

"But who can have robbed my old gossip? He has lost more than twelve hundred thousand crowns' worth of jewels, stolen within the last eight years. Twelve hundred thousand crowns, my lords," he repeated, looking round on the gentlemen in attendance. "By our Lady, for such a sum of money a great many absolutions may be bought of the Court of Rome. I could have embanked the Loire for the money, or, better still, have conquered Piedmont—a fine bulwark, ready made, for our kingdom."

When dinner was ended, Louis XI. led away his daughter, his physician, and the Provost Marshal, and made his way with an escort of his guard to the Hôtel de Poitiers, where, as he had expected, he found the Comte de Saint-Vallier, who was awaiting his wife, perhaps to get rid of her.

"Monsieur," said the King, "I had instructed you to depart as soon as possible. Take leave of your wife and get across the frontier; you will be granted an escort of honor. As to your instructions and letters of credit, they will be at Venice sooner than you."

Louis gave his orders, adding certain secret instructions, to a lieutenant of the Scottish Guard, who was to take a company and attend his envoy to Venice. Saint-Vallier went off in great haste, after giving his wife a cold kiss, which he would gladly have rendered fatal.

As soon as the Countess had retired to her room, Louis proceeded to the Malemaison, very anxious to see the end of the dismal farce that was going on under his gossip the usurer's roof, and flattering himself that, being the King, he would have keen wit enough to detect the robbers' secrets.

It was not without apprehension that Cornélius saw his master's company.

"And are all these folks part of the ceremony?" he asked in a low voice. Louis could not help smiling at the terrors of the old miser and his sister.

"No, gossip," replied he, "be quite easy. They will sup with us at my house; we shall go into the matter alone. I am such a good justiciary that I wager ten thousand crowns I find the criminal."

"Let us find him, my lord, and never mind the wager."

They went into the closet where the Fleming stored his treasures. Here King Louis, having first examined the case which had contained the Elector of Bavaria's jewels, and then the chimney down which the thief was supposed to have come, easily proved to the goldsmith that his suspicions were unfounded, inasmuch as there was no soot on the hearth—where, indeed, a fire was rarely kindled—and no trace of any kind in the chimney. Moreover, the chimney opened to a part of the roof that was practically inaccessible. Finally, after two hours spent in investigations characterized by the sagacity which distinguished the King's distrustful temper, it was proved to a demonstration that no one could have got into the miser's treasury. There was no mark of violence on any of the locks, inside or out, nor on the iron coffers containing his gold and silver and the costly jewels pledged by wealthy borrowers.

"If the robber opened this board," said Louis XI., "why did he take only the Bavarian jewels? Why should he have left this pearl necklace? A strange thief, indeed!"

At this reflection the hapless miser turned pale; the King and he eyed each other for a moment.

"Well, then, my liege, what was the robber doing whom you have taken under your protection, and who certainly was out during the night?"

"If you have not guessed, master, I desire that you never will; it is one of my secrets."

"Then the devil haunts me!" said the goldsmith, lamentably.

Under any other circumstances the King would have laughed at his treasurer's exclamation; but he stood thinking and gazing at Maître Cornélius with the scrutiny familiar to men of genius and authority, as if he could see into the man's brain. The Fleming, in fact, was terrified, thinking he had offended his formidable master.

"Angel or devil, I will have the malefactor!" the King suddenly exclaimed. "If you are robbed this night, I will know by whom to-morrow. Call up that old ape, your sister," he added.

Cornélius almost hesitated to leave the King alone in the room that contained his treasure; however, he went, coerced by the strength of the bitter smile that curled Louis' faded lips. And in spite of his confidence, he soon returned, followed by the old woman.

"Have you any flour?" asked the King.

"To be sure! we have laid in our store for the winter," said she.

"Well, then, bring it here," said the King.

"And what would you be doing with our flour, Sire?" cried she in alarm, and not in the least awed by the presence of majesty, like all persons possessed by a ruling passion.

"You old fool, will you do as our gracious liege bids you?" cried Cornélius. "Does the King want your flour?"

"This is what I buy fine flour for," muttered she, on the stairs. "Oh, my good flour!"

She turned back to say to the King:

"Is it your royal whim, my lord, to examine my flour?"

But at last she returned with one of the linen bags, which from time immemorial have been used in Touraine for carrying provisions to or from market—walnuts, fruit, or corn. This sack was half full of flour. The housewife opened it, and timidly showed it to the King, looking at him with the swift stolen glances by which old maids, as it would seem, hope to cast venom on a man.

"It is worth six sous the measure," said she.

"What matter!" replied the King. "Sprinkle it on the floor, and above all strew it very evenly, as if there had been a light fall of snow."

The old woman did not understand. The order dismayed her more than the end of the world could have done.

"My flour, my liege—on the floor—why——"

Maître Cornélius, who had an inkling, though a vague one, of the King's idea, snatched the bag, and sprinkled the flour gently on the boards. The old woman shuddered, and held out her hand for the bag; as soon as her brother restored it to her, she vanished with a deep sigh.

Cornélius took a feather broom and began spreading the flour with it over the floor till it lay like a sheet of snow, walking backwards towards the door, followed by the King, who seemed greatly amused by the proceedings. When they were at the threshold, Louis XI. said to his gossip:

"Are there two keys to the lock?"

"No, Sire."

The King examined the structure of the door, which was strengthened by large iron plates and bars. All the parts of this armor centered round a lock with a secret, of which Cornélius alone had the key. After investigating it thoroughly, Louis sent for Tristan, and bid him to set a watch with the utmost secrecy that night, some in the mulberry-trees on the quay, and on the parapets of the neighboring houses; but first to collect all his men to escort him back to Le Plessis, so as to make it appear that he, the King, was not supping with Maître Cornélius. Then he desired the miser to be so particular in closing every window, that not a glimmer of light could pierce through, and to order a light meal, so as not to give a hint that His Majesty was sleeping there that night.

The King set out in state by the dyke road and returned privily, with only two attendants, by the rampart gate to the house of his friend the miser. Everything was so well arranged that all the townsfolk and courtiers supposed that the King had chosen to go back to the château, and would sup with the treasurer on the morrow. The miser's sister confirmed this notion by buying some green sauce from the best maker, whose shop was close to the quarroir aux herbes, since called the carroir de Beaune, in honor of a splendid white marble fountain which the unfortunate Semblançay (Jacques de Beaune) sent for from Italy to adorn the capital of his province.

At about eight in the evening, when the King was at supper with his leech, Cornélius and the captain of the Scottish Guard, talking gayly and forgetting that he was Louis XI. and ill, and almost dying, perfect silence reigned outside, and the passers-by, nay, even a thief, might have supposed the dwelling to be uninhabited.

"I hope," said the King, laughing, "that my gossip may be robbed this night, to satisfy my curiosity. And see to it, gentlemen, that no one leaves his chamber to-morrow morning without my orders, under pain of serious punishment."

Thereupon they all went to bed.

Next morning Louis XI. was the first to leave his room, and he made his way towards Cornélius' treasure-room. He was not a little surprised to detect the prints of a large foot on the stairs and in the passages of the house. Carefully avoiding these precious marks, he went to the door of the miser's closet and found it locked, with no traces of violence. He examined the direction of the footprints, but as they gradually grew fainter and at last left no mark, it was impossible to discover how the robber had escaped.

"Ah ha! gossip," cried the King to Cornélius, "you have been robbed, that is very certain!"

At these words the old Fleming came out, a prey to evident horror. Louis XI. led him to look at the footprints on the boards, and while examining them once more, the King, having by chance observed the miser's slippers, recognized the shape of the sole of which so many copies were stamped on the flooring. He said not a word, and suppressed a laugh, remembering how many innocent men had been hanged.

Cornélius hurried into his strong room. The King, bidding him make a fresh footprint by the side of those already visible, convinced him that the thief was none other than himself.

"The pearl necklace is missing!" cried Cornélius. "There is witchcraft in this. I have not left my room."

"We will find out about that at once," said the King, puzzled by the goldsmith's evident good faith.

He called the men of the watch into his room and asked them:

"Marry now, what did you see in the night?"

"Ah, Sire! a magical sight!" replied the lieutenant. "Your Majesty's treasurer stealing downstairs close to the wall, and so nimbly that at first we took him for a spectre."

"I!" cried Cornélius, who then stood silent and motionless as a paralyzed creature.

"You may go, all of you," said Louis, addressing the bowmen, "and tell Monsieur Conyngham, Coyctier, Bridoré, and Tristan that they may get out of bed and come here. You have incurred pain of death," said Louis, coldly, to the miser, who, happily, did not hear him, "for you have at least ten on your soul!"

The King laughed, a grim, noiseless laugh, and paused.

"But be easy," he went on, as he noticed the strange pallor that overspread the old man's face; "you are better to bleed than to kill. And in consideration of a handsome fine, paid into my coffers, you may escape the clutches of justice; but if you do not build at least a chapel to the Virgin, you are in jeopardy of finding warm and anxious work before you for all eternity."

"Twelve hundred and thirty and eighty-eight thousand crowns make thirteen hundred and seventeen thousand crowns," replied Cornélius, mechanically, absorbed in calculations. "Thirteen hundred and seventeen thousand crowns misappropriated!"

"He must have buried them in some hidden spot," said the King, who was beginning to think the sum a royal prize. "This is the lodestone that has always attracted him hither—he smelt his gold."

Hereupon Coyctier came in. Noticing the treasurer's attitude, he watched him keenly while the King was relating the adventure.

"My lord," replied the physician, "there is nothing supernatural in the business. Our friend here has the peculiarity of walking in his sleep. This is the third case I have met with of this singular malady. If you should be pleased to witness its effects, you might see this old man walking without danger on the parapet of the roof any night when he should be seized by it. In the two men I have already studied, I discovered a curious connection between the instincts of this nocturnal vitality and their business or occupations by day."

"Ah, Maître Coyctier, you are indeed most learned!"

"Am I not your physician?" retorted the leech, insolently.

On this reply Louis XI. made a little movement which was a familiar trick with him when he had hit on a good idea—a gesture of hastily pushing his cap up.

"In such cases," Coyctier went on, "men transact their business in their sleep. As our friend here is not averse to hoarding, he has quietly yielded to his favorite habit. Indeed, he probably has an attack whenever, during the day, he has been in alarm for his treasure."

"Pasques Dieu! and what a treasure!" cried the King.

"Where is it?" asked Cornélius, who, by a singular peculiarity of our nature, heard all that the King and his leech were saying, though almost stunned by his reflections and his misfortune.

"Oh!" replied Coyctier, with a coarse, diabolical laugh, "somnambulists have no recollection of their acts and deeds when they awake."

"Leave us!" said the King.

When Louis XI. was alone with his gossip, he looked at him with a cold chuckle.

"Worshipful Master Hoogworst," said he, bowing low, "all treasure-trove in France belongs to the King."

"Yes, my liege, it is all yours; and our lives and fortunes are in your hands; but hitherto you have been so merciful as to take no more than you found necessary."

"Listen to me, gossip. If I help you to recover this treasure, you may, in all confidence and without fear, divide it with me."

"No, Sire, I will not divide it. It shall be all yours, when I am dead. But what scheme have you for finding it?"

"I have only to watch you, myself, while you are taking your nocturnal walks. Any one but myself would be a danger."

"Ah, Sire," replied Cornélius, falling at the King's feet, "you are the only man in the kingdom whom I would trust with that office, and I shall find means to prove my gratitude for your kindness to your humble servant by doing my utmost to promote the marriage of the Heiress of Bourgogne to Monseigneur the Dauphin. There indeed is a treasure, not, to be sure, in crown-pieces, but in land, which will nobly round out your dominions!"

"Pshaw, Fleming, you are deceiving me!" said the King, knitting his brows, "or you have played me false."

"Nay, Sire, can you doubt my devotion—you, the only man I love?"

"Words, words!" said the King, turning to face the miser. "You ought not to have waited for this to be of use to me. You are selling me your patronage—Pasques Dieu! to me—Louis the Eleventh! Are you the master, I would know, and am I the servant?"

"Ah, my liege," replied the old usurer, "I had hoped to give you an agreeable surprise by news of the communications I had established with the men of Ghent. I expected confirmation of it by the hand of Oosterlinck's apprentice. But what has become of him?"

"Enough," said the King. "Another error. I do not choose that any one should interfere, uncalled for, in my concerns. Enough! I must think all this over."

Maître Cornélius found the agility of youth to fly to the lower room, where his sister was sitting.

"Oh, Jeanne, dear heart, we have somewhere a hoard where I have hidden the thirteen hundred thousand crowns. And I—I am the thief!"

Jeanne Hoogworst rose from her stool, starting to her feet as if the seat were of red-hot iron. The shock was so frightful to an old woman accustomed for many years to exhaust herself by voluntary abstinence, that she quaked in every limb and felt a terrible pain in her back. By degrees her color faded, and her face, in which the wrinkles made any change very difficult to detect, gradually fell, while her brother explained to her the disease to which he was a victim, and the strange situation in which they both stood.

"King Louis and I," said he in conclusion, "have just been telling each other as many lies as two miracle-mongers. You see, child, if he were to watch me, he would be sole master of the secret of the treasure. No one in the world but the King can spy on my nocturnal movements. Now I do not know that the King's conscience, near on death as he is, could stand out against thirteen hundred and seventeen thousand crowns. We must be beforehand with him, find the nest, and send all treasure to Ghent. Now you alone——"

Cornélius suddenly stopped short, as if he were gauging the heart of this King, who, at two and twenty, had dreamed of parricide. When the treasurer had made up his mind as to Louis XI., he hastily rose, as a man in a hurry to escape some danger.

At this sudden movement, his sister, too weak or too strong for such a crisis, fell down flat; she was dead. Cornélius lifted her up and shook her violently, saying:

"This is no time for dying; you will have time enough for that afterwards. Oh! it is all over! Wretched creature, she could never do the right thing——"

He closed her eyes and laid her on the floor. But then the kind and noble feelings that lurked at the bottom of his heart came to the surface, and almost forgetting his undiscovered treasure, he cried out in sorrow:

"My poor companion! what, have I lost you—you who understood me so well? Ah! you were my real treasure. There, there, lies the treasure. With you I have lost all my peace of mind, all my affections. If you had but known how well it would have paid you to live only two nights longer, you would not have died, if only to please me, poor little woman. I say, Jeanne—thirteen hundred and seventeen thousand crowns! No, even that does not rouse you. No, she is dead, quite dead!"

He thereupon sat down and said no more, but two large tears gathered in his eyes and rolled down his hollow cheeks; then with many an "Ah!" and sigh he locked the room up and returned to the King. Louis was startled by the grief he saw written on his old friend's features.

"What is this?" said he.

"Alas, Sire, a misfortune never comes single. My sister is dead. She has gone below before me," and he pointed to the ground with startling emphasis.

"Enough, enough!" said Louis XI., who did not like to hear any mention of death.

"You are my heir. I care for nothing now. Here are my keys. Hang me, if it is your good pleasure. Take everything; search the house; it is full of gold. I give it all to you."

"Come, come, gossip," said the King, half moved by the sight of this strange anguish, "we will discover the hoard some fine night, and the sight of so much riches will revive your taste for life. I will come again this week."

"Whenever Your Majesty pleases."

At these words, the King, who had gone a few steps towards the door, turned sharply round, and the two men looked at each other with an expression that no brush, nor words, could render.

"Good-bye, gossip," said Louis, at last, in a sharp voice, as he put his bonnet straight.

"May God and the Virgin keep you in their good grace!" the usurer replied humbly, as he escorted the King to the street.

After so long a friendship these two men found a barrier raised between them by distrust and money, whereas they had hitherto been quite agreed on matters of money and distrust; but they knew each other so well, they were so much in the habit of intimacy, that the King could guess from the miser's tone as he rashly said, "Whenever Your Majesty pleases," the annoyance his visits would thenceforth be to his treasurer, just as Cornélius had discerned a declaration of war in the way Louis had said "Good-bye, gossip."

So Louis XI. and his banker parted, very uncertain as to what, for the future, their demeanor was to be. The monarch, indeed, knew the Fleming's secret; but the Fleming on his part could, through his connections, secure the grandest conquest any king of France had yet achieved—that of the domains of the House of Burgundy, which were just then the object of envy to every sovereign in Europe.

The famous Margaret's choice would be guided by the good folks of Ghent and the Flemings about her. Hoogworst's gold and influence would tell for a great deal in the negotiations opened by Desquerdes, the captain to whom Louis XI. had given the command of the army on the Belgian frontier. Thus these two master foxes were in the position of duelists whose strength had been neutralized by some stroke of fate.

And whether it was that from that day the King's health had failed visibly, or that Cornélius in part promoted the arrival in France of Marguerite of Burgundy, who came to Amboise in July 1438 to be married to the Dauphin in the chapel of the château, the King claimed no fine from his treasurer and no trial was held; but they remained in the half-cordial terms of an armed friendship.

Happily for the miser, a rumor got about that his sister had committed the thefts, and that she had been privily executed by Tristan. Otherwise, and if the true story had become known, the whole town would have risen in arms to destroy the Malemaison before the King could possibly have defended it.

However, if all this historical guesswork has some foundation with regard to Louis XI.'s inaction, Master Cornélius Hoogworst cannot be accused of supineness. He spent the first days after this fatal morning in a constant hurry. Like a beast of prey shut up in a cage, he came and went, scenting gold in every corner of his dwelling; he examined every cranny; he tapped the walls; he demanded his treasure of the trees in the garden, of the foundations, of the turret roofs, of earth, and of heaven. Often he would stand for hours looking at everything around him, his eyes searching vacancy. He tried the miracles and second-sight of magic powers, endeavoring to see his gold through space and solid obstacles.

He was constantly absorbed in one overwhelming thought, consumed by an idea that gnawed at his vitals, and yet more cruelly racked by the perennial torments of his duel with himself, since his love of gold had turned to rend itself; it was a sort of incomplete suicide comprehending all the pangs of living and of dying. Never had a vice so effectually entrapped itself; for the miser who inadvertently locks himself into the subterranean cell where his wealth is buried, has, like Sardanapalus, the satisfaction of perishing in the midst of it. But Cornélius, at once the robber and the robbed, and in the secret of neither, possessed, and yet did not possess, his treasures—a quite new, quite whimsical form of torture, but perpetually excruciating.

Sometimes, almost oblivious, he would leave the little wicket of his door open, and then the passers-by could see the shriveled old man standing in the middle of his neglected garden, perfectly motionless, and looking at any who stopped to gaze at him, with a fixed stare, a lurid glare, that froze them with terror. If by chance he went out into the streets of the town, you would have thought he was a stranger; he never knew where he was, nor whether it was the sun or the moon that were shining. He would often ask his way of the persons he met, fancying himself at Ghent, and he seemed always to be looking for his lost treasure.

The most irrepressible and most incorporate of all human ideas,—that by which a man identifies himself by creating outside and apart from his person the whole fictitious entity which he calls his property,—this demon idea had its talons constantly clutching at the miser's soul.

Then, in the midst of his torments, Fear would rise up with all the feelings that come in its train. For, in fact, two men knew his secret—the secret which he himself did not know. Louis XI. or Coyctier might post their spies to watch his movements while he was asleep, and discover the unknown gulf into which he had flung his wealth with the blood of so many innocent men; for Remorse kept watch with Fear.

To preserve his lost riches from being snatched from him while he lived, during the early days after his disaster, he took the utmost precaution to avoid sleeping, and his connection with the commercial world enabled him to procure the strongest anti-narcotics. His wakeful nights must have been terrible; he was alone to struggle against the night and silence, against remorse and fear, and all the thoughts that man has most effectually personified—instinctively, no doubt, in obedience to some law of the mind, true, though not yet proved.

In short, this man, strong as he was; this heart, annealed by the life of politics and commerce; this genius, though unknown to history,—was doomed to succumb under the horrors of the torments he himself had created. Crushed by some reflection even more cruel than all that had gone before, he cut his throat with a razor.

His death almost exactly coincided in time with the King's, so that the House of Evil was plundered by the mob. Some of the older inhabitants of the province asserted that a revenue farmer named Bohier had found the extortioner's treasure, and had employed it in building the beginnings of the château of Chenonceaux, that wonderful palace which, in spite of the lavish outlay of several kings and the fine taste of Diane de Poitiers and her rival Catherine de' Medici, is still unfinished.

Happily for Marie de Sassenage, the Comte de Saint-Vallier died, as is well known, as ambassador to Venice. The family did not become extinct. After the Count's departure his wife had a son, whose fortunes were famous in the history of France under the reign of François I. He was saved by his daughter, the famous Diane de Poitiers, Louis XI.'s illegitimate great-granddaughter; and she became the illegal wife, the adored mistress, of Henri II.; for in that noble family bastardy and love were hereditary.

Château de Saché, November and December 1831.

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