"Villon, Villon, why are you so bitter-tongued?"
"Listen to Monsieur de Commines for five minutes and you will know why.
And it is not I who am bitter, but the truth. Jackals both, I say."
They were, as Villon had said, in the rose garden. Dusk, the dusk of the day on which Hugues had made history to be forgotten, was thickening fast, but the air was still warm with all the sultriness of noon. To that confined space, with the grey walls towering on three sides, coolness came slowly. The solid masonry held the heat like the living rock itself, and no current of the night wind blowing overhead eddied downward in refreshment.
But solid as was the masonry, and mighty the walls in their frowning strength, there is but little of them left, and of the rose garden not a trace. Time, the great iconoclast, has touched them with his finger and they have passed away like the humble maker of history, while Francois Villon's tinkle of rhyme, leavened with human nature, still leaves its imprint on a whole nation. Perhaps the reason is that the makers of history could have been done without. In these generations the world would be little the worse, little changed had they never been born, and have lost nothing of the joy or brightness of life. In his own generation the patriot is more necessary than the poet, but let four centuries pass and the poet will wield a larger influence than the patriot.
But thick as was the dusk, a dusk thicker than the actual degree of night because of the prevailing shadow, La Mothe saw that Commines was disturbed by an unwonted excitement. Not from his face. It was deeply lined and sternly set, the eyes veiled by gathered brows, the mouth harsh. But he breathed heavily, as a man breathes who has outrun his lung power, and his uneasy fingers clenched and unclenched incessantly. Those who knew Philip de Commines understood the signs and grew watchful. But it was upon Villon that the storm fell.
"For an hour I have been searching for you—in the Château, in the
Chien Noir, in every tavern in Amboise——"
"And you find me amongst the roses! How little you know my nature,
Monsieur d'Argenton!"
"I know it better than I like it," answered Commines grimly. "You lodge at the Chien Noir?"
"It has that honour. The cooking is passable, and I can commend to you its wine of '63. Monsieur La Mothe drinks nothing else."
"As with a fool so with a drunkard, one may make many. But I am not here to talk of Monsieur La Mothe's drinking bouts, though they explain much. You are in the King's service?"