"When he is not tiresome," answered the monarch. "On, gentlemen!" And the cavalcade swept down the road toward the castle. Far behind, with cracking of whip, followed the mules and their drivers.
CHAPTER VII
THE COURT OF LOVE
The rough Norman banqueting hall, with its massive rafters, frayed tapestries and rude adornment of bristling heads of savage boars, wide-spreading antlers and other trophies of the chase, had long since been replaced under the king's directions by an apartment more to the satisfaction of a monarch who was a zealous and lavish patron of the brilliant Italian school of painting, sculpture and architecture. Those barbarous decorations, celebrating the hunt, had been relegated to subterranean regions, the walls dismantled, and the room turned over to a corps of artists of such renown as Da Vinci, François Clouet, Jean Cousin and the half-mad Benvenuto Cellini.
Where formerly wild boars had snarled with wicked display of yellow tusks from the blackened plaster, now Cleopatra, in the full bloom of her mature charms, reclined with her stalwart Roman hero in tender dalliance. Where once the proud and stately head of the majestic stag had hung over door and panel, now classic nymphs bathed in a pellucid pool, and the only horns were those which adorned the head of him who, according to the story, dared gaze through the foliage, and was rewarded for his too curious interest by—that then common form of punishment—metamorphosis.
Overhead, vast transformation from the great ribbed beams of oak and barren interspaces, graceful Peri floated on snow-white clouds and roguish Cupids swam through the azure depths, to the edification of nondescript prodigies, who constituted the massive molding, or frame, to the decorative scene. The ancient fireplace, broad and deep, had given way to an ornate mantel of marble; the capacious tankard and rotund pewter pot of olden times, suggestive of mighty butts of honest beer, had been supplanted by goblets of silver and gold, covered with scroll work, arabesques or chiseled figures.
In this spacious hall, begilt, bemirrored, assembled, on the evening of the duke's arrival, Francis, his court and the guest of the occasion. From wide-spreading chandeliers, with their pendent, pear-shaped crystals, a thousand candles threw a flood of light upon the scene, as 'mid trumpet blast and softer strains of harmony, King Francis and good Queen Eleanor led the way to the royal table; and thereat, shortly after, at a signal from the monarch, the company seated themselves.
At the head of the board was the king; on his right, his lawful consort, pale, composed, saintly; on his left, the Countess d'Etampes, rosy, animated, free. Next to the favorite sat the "fairest among the learned and most learned among the fair," Marguerite, beloved sister of Francis, and her second husband, Henry d'Albret, King of Navarre; opposite, Henry the dauphin and his spouse, Catharine de Medici; not far removed, Diane de Poitiers, whose dark eyes Henry ever openly sought, while Catharine complacently talked affairs of state with the chancellor.
In the midst of this illustrious company, and further surrounded by a plentiful sprinkling of ruddy cardinals, fat bishops, constables, governors, marshals and ladies, more or less distinguished through birth or beauty, the Duke of Friedwald and the Princess Louise were a center of attraction for the wits whose somewhat free jests the license of the times permitted. At the foot of the royal table places had been provided for Marot, Caillette, Triboulet, Jacqueline and the duke's fool.