"He is dreaming," whispered Coyctier.
"Pasques Dieu!" cried the King. "Do you take me for a fool? Somebody is coming across the bridge. To be sure, I am sitting by the chimney, and of course can hear the sound more clearly than you can. That natural effect might be utilized——"
"What a man!" said Olivier le Daim.
Louis XI. rose and went to the window, whence he could look out on the town; then he saw the High Provost, and exclaimed:
"Ah ha! Here is my old gossip with his thief. And there, too, comes my little Marie de Saint-Vallier. I had forgotten that little matter. Olivier," he went on, addressing the barber, "go and tell Monsieur de Montbazon to put us some fine Burgundy on the table; and see that the cook gives us lampreys. Madame la Comtesse dearly likes them both. May I eat lampreys?" he added after a pause, with an uneasy look at Coyctier.
His attendant's only reply was to examine his master's face. The two men made a picture.
History and romance have consecrated the brown camlet overcoat, and trunks of the same material worn by Louis XI. His cap, garnished with pewter medals, and his collar of the Order of Saint-Michael, are no less famous; but no writer, no painter, has ever shown us the terrible King's face in his later days: a sickly face, hollow, yellow, and tawny, every feature expressive of bitter cunning and icy irony. There was, indeed, a noble brow to this mask, a brow furrowed with lines and seamed with lofty thought, but on his cheeks and lips a singularly vulgar and common stamp. Certain details of that countenance would have led to the conclusion that it belonged to some debauched old vine-grower, some miserly tradesman; but then, through these vague suggestions and the decrepitude of a dying old man, the King flashed out, the man of power and action. His eyes, pale and yellow, looked extinct; but a spark lurked within of courage and wrath, which at the least touch would flame up into consuming fires.
The physician was a sturdy citizen, dressed in black, with a florid, keen, and greedy face, giving himself airs of importance.
The setting of these two figures was a room paneled with walnut wood, and hung with fine Flemish tapestry above the wainscot; the ceiling, supported on carved beams, was already blackened by smoke. The furniture and bedstead, inlaid with arabesques in white metal, would seem more valuable now than they really were at that time, when the arts were beginning to produce so many masterpieces.
"Lamprey is very bad for you," replied the physician.[G]