The blood rushed up to the temples of the young citizen; but he made no reply, and merely bowed low. He then begged the Duke to excuse him for a few moments, while he concluded the business in which he had been engaged. The prince replied that he would detain him no longer; and Albert Maurice, with cold and formal courtesy, suffered him to depart--from that moment either a secret or an avowed enemy. As soon as he was gone, the young citizen took leave of the deputies, besought them to make all speed to meet the king, and directed them to beg him--instead of hastening on to plunge the two nations into long and sanguinary wars--to halt his armies, till such time as the states general could devise and propose to his majesty some fair means of general pacification.
He then gave into the hands of Ganay a letter, fully authorizing the deputation to treat, in the name of the princess, which instrument had been unwillingly wrung from Mary during the morning, notwithstanding the secret powers which she had so lately given to Imbercourt and Hugonet. To this Albert Maurice added a private injunction, to trace and discover all the movements of the two ministers, whose absence from the council of that day he had remarked: and there was a sort of fierce and flashing eagerness in the eye of the young citizen, as he spoke this in a low whisper, which the druggist marked with pleasure and expectation.[[6]]
The results of this deputation to the crafty monarch of France are so well known, that they need but short recapitulation. Louis received the members of the Belgian states with all civility, and treated them individually with distinction; as that wily monarch well knew, that through the intervention of such men alone he could hope to win that extensive territory, which he was striving to add to France. At the same time, he positively refused to treat with them in their official capacity, and affected, at first, a great degree of mystery in regard to his reasons for so doing, assigning a thousand vague and unsatisfactory motives, which he well knew would not be believed for a moment, but which he was aware would induce the deputies--encouraged by his homely and good-humoured manner--to press so strongly for a further explanation, as to afford him some excuse for the base treachery he meditated against their sovereign.
The deputies fell into the trap he laid; made use of every argument to induce him to negotiate with them upon the powers they had received from their several cities; and finally urged, that if he would not acknowledge them as the representatives of the towns of Flanders, Hainault, and Brabant, he must at least consent to receive them as ambassadors from the young Duchess of Burgundy, whose letters of authority they then tendered.
Still, however, Louis refused; and, at length, as if worn out by importunity, he said, "My good friends of Ghent and the other towns of Flanders, you must very well know, from my whole conduct towards you, that I would rather treat with you than with any other persons. I am a plain man, and love to deal with plain citizens; but you are entirely mistaken in supposing that you possess the confidence of my dear god-child Mary, Duchess of Burgundy, or that you are really authorized to treat for her. It is not impossible," he added, with a self-satisfied and yet mysterious air, "it is not at all impossible, that, were I so disposed, I might show you a letter, written partly in her own hand, partly in that of the Duchess Dowager, and partly in that of the good Lord of Ravestein, directing me to place confidence in no persons but my excellent good friends, and faithful servants, the Lord of Imbercourt, and William de Hugonet, Chancellor of Burgundy, who were both with me at Peronne for many hours some nights ago, and are by this time back again in Ghent."
The deputies, confounded and surprised, expressed, in the first heat of their astonishment, a very uncourtly doubt of the truth of the king's statement; and Louis, affecting to consider his honour impugned, committed one of the basest acts of the many that stain his memory, and produced the private letter of the Princess Mary to the eyes of her turbulent and headstrong subjects. Furious with indignation and disappointment, the deputies retired from the presence of the king, without having concluded anything, and journeyed on with all speed towards Ghent, neglecting the great and vital business of the moment, in order to plunge into fresh scenes of anarchy and confusion.
Louis saw them depart with scorn and triumph; and, as proud of his successful villany as ever conqueror was of a final victory, he marched on to new successes in every direction, satisfied that, in the discontented spirit of the people of Ghent, he had a faithful ally that not even self-interest could sever from him.
CHAPTER XXVI.
It is wonderful, though common to a proverb, that days of sunshiny brightness and placid tranquillity should so often precede great convulsions in the natural and the political world; and that although "coming events often cast their shadows before them," yet that the storm, when it does approach, should almost always find the world all smiling, and the birds in song.
The day after the return of the deputation from Arras, the aspect of the city of Ghent was more like that which it had been during the most brilliant days of Philippe the Good and Charles the Bold, than it had appeared for many months. The shops and booths, which projected into the street, and which, being totally unprovided with any means of defence against popular violence, were generally closed in times of tumult and disturbance, were now again all open, and full of the finest wares. Mountebanks of different grades, and those who sold books, and repeated verses, were exercising their usual vocations at the corners of the streets. Burghers and their wives, lords and ladies, artisans and peasantry, all in their gayest dresses--for it was one of the high festivals of the year--moved about in the streets and, to crown all, the foul weather had disappeared, and the sun shone out with a warm and promising beam.