"Part one way, part another, my noble lord," replied Martin Grille. "Principally, however, I learned the facts from a young cousin of mine, who is now chief violin player to the queen. When she found her husband so dull that night, she sent for Petit Jean to solace him, because she could not very well have sent for the person who would have solaced him best. He heard all, and marked all, and told me all; for you are a great favorite of his. However, I had something to do with it afterward myself; for the king, knowing that I was in the house, sent for me, and made me tell him whether, when you were last in Berri, you signed your name St. Florent. I was frightened out of my wits, and said I believed you did. The next minute the king said, looking sharply at the sergeant, who was standing near, 'Bring him at once from Briare. Lose no time.' Then he turned to me, with a face quite savage, and said, 'You may go.' I thought he was going to add, 'to the devil;' but he did not, and I slunk out of the room. The sergeant went out at the same time; but he laughed, and said, 'Sleep wasted no time, and he was not going to set off for Briare at midnight, not he.' So I did, instead of him; for as I feared I had done some mischief, I thought I might as well do some good."
Jean Charost smiled with a less embarrassed look than he had worn during the ride; but he made no reply, and during the next half hour he seemed to hear nothing that Martin Grille said, although it must not be affirmed that Martin Grille said nothing. It were hardly fair to look into his thoughts, to inquire whether the injustice he had met with, the wrong which was meditated against him, and the ingratitude for services performed and suffering endured in the royal cause had shaken his love toward the king. Suffice it, they had not shaken his loyalty toward his country, and that although he might contemplate flying with his Agnes beyond the reach of an arm that oppressed him, he never dreamed of drawing his sword against his native land, or of doing aught to undermine the throne of a prince to whom he had sworn allegiance.
At length, however, Martin Grille pulled him by the sleeve, saying, "I can not help thinking, my good lord, that you are taking a wrong course. You are going on right toward Bourges, and at any point of the road you may meet with the sergeant and his men. Indeed, I saw just now a party of horsemen on the hill there. They have come down into the valley; but that is the high road to Bourges they were upon."
"My good friend, I am going to Bourges," replied Jean Charost; "but as I do not intend to go as a prisoner, if I can help it, we will turn aside a little here, and go round Les Barres, that hamlet you see there. We can then follow the by-roads for eight or ten miles further, and cross the river at Cosne. I know this country well; for, during the last twelvemonth, I have had nothing to do but to think, and to explore it."
CHAPTER LII.
It gives one a curious sensation to stand on the spot where great deeds have been enacted: to tread the halls where true tragedies have been performed: to fancy one sees the bloody stains upon the floor: to fill the air with the grim faces of the actors: to imagine one's self surrounded with the fierce passions of other days, like midnight ghosts emitted from the grave. I have stood in the small chamber where the most brutal murder that ever stained the name of a great nation was devised and ordered by the counselors of John of Bedford. I have stood where an act of justice took the form of assassination against Henry of Guise. I have beheld the prison of the guilty and the unhappy Mary, and the lingering death-chamber of the innocent and luckless Arabella Stuart. But, although these sights were full of deep interest, and even awe, the effect was not so strange as that produced by passing through ancient places of more domestic interest, where courts and kings, the brave, the fair, the good, the wise, or their opposite, had lived and loved, enjoyed and suffered, reveled and wept, in times long, long gone by. Often, when I have read some glowing description of mask or pageant, or scene of courtly splendor, and have visited the place where it occurred, I have asked myself, with wonder, "Could it have been here, in this mean and poor-looking place?" and have been led from an actual comparison of the scene with that described in the past, to conclude that in those earlier days men were satisfied with much less, and that the splendor of those times would be no splendor to ourselves.
The great hall of Jacques Cœur, the wealthiest merchant in France, now holding high office at the court, and, in fact, the royal treasurer--a hall celebrated throughout all Berri--was indeed a large and well-shaped apartment, but still very simple in all its decorations. It was, perhaps, more than forty feet in length, and four or five and twenty feet in width: was vaulted above with a semicircular arch, ceiled with long planks, finely jointed together, of some dark, unpolished wood. The same material lined the whole hall; but on the walls the wood was polished and paneled, and four pilasters, in the Italian fashion, ornamented each corner of the wall, and seemed, but only seemed, to support the roof.
Many candles were required to give light to that large dark room; but it was very insufficiently illuminated. What little light there was fell principally upon the figure of the young king, as, seated at a small table in the midst, he leaned his head upon his hand in a somewhat melancholy attitude, and bent his eyes down toward the floor.
"Will she come?" he said to himself; "will she come? And if she will not, how must I act? This good merchant says she will? but I doubt it--I doubt it much. Hers is a determined spirit; and once she has chosen her part, she abides by it obstinately. Well, it is no use asking myself if she will come, or thinking what I must do if she refuse. Kings were made to command men, I suppose, and women to command them;" and a faint smile came upon his lips at the conceit.
While it still hung there, a door opened hard by--not the great door of the hall, but a smaller one on the right--and a sweet voice said, "Your majesty sent for me."