After they had spoken together for some while, one of these gentlemen directed Sir Richard Pendragon’s attention to the fact that although ten thousand was the number of soldiers that he asked for, according to the tenor of madam’s petition the number was no more than four thousand. Thereupon Sir Richard Pendragon produced a large pair of horn spectacles, adjusted them gravely, and after scrutinizing the parchment very carefully, although there is reason to believe that madam’s ambassador was able to read little of the Spanish tongue, he gave it as his opinion that the four thousand was an undoubted error of the scrivener’s, inasmuch—and he spoke very truly in this particular—that the author of the proposal was himself.
This assurance being given, the King and his ministers again conferred; and presently the audience was terminated by his Majesty saying that this affair was of such moment that he desired twenty-four hours in which to sit in council with his advisers. The King then took leave of us, yet with a courteous request that the envoys of his respected aunt—who, according to Sir Richard Pendragon, was a learned and devout lady of mature years—should be lodged in the palace during their stay at Paris, and further, that they should engage themselves to dine with him that evening.
CHAPTER XXVIII
OF FURTHER PASSAGES IN THE LOUVRE AT PARIS
When madam’s three envoys came to find themselves in the private apartments that had been given to them by the King of France, I had no words in which to express my amazement at Sir Richard Pendragon’s audacity. When I remembered that the Countess Sylvia was scarcely more than a child, with a beggarly retinue of three hundred men-at-arms, who would be wholly incapable of holding the castle of Montesina against the Castilian host; and when beside this dismal truth I set the dazzling story by which Sir Richard Pendragon had cozened one of the first princes of his age, I did not know whether it was not the bounden duty of a caballero of Spain to repair to King Louis and confess the fact.
All the rest of that day this problem afflicted me sorely. In these circumstances my natural guide was the Count of Nullepart, who was an older head and a wiser; and one who, to judge by his conversation, was not unacquainted with the things that concern man’s higher nature. But when I mentioned to him my perplexity, his only reply was to break out into laughter.
Finally, in my concern, I spoke of this matter to its author. He, with his court gravity still upon him, heard me out very patiently, and made answer with great solemnity.
“Most noble marquis,” said he, “you must forgive the personal opinion of a good man, of a chief ornament of a shining age; but I do not think you would use these questions, marquis, had you a nicer familiarity with courts. Believe me, marquis, it is not the rule in such elevated places to observe that slavishness to the sober verities which at once betrays the mind of the provincial. I ask you, noble marquis, what kind of a figure should we have cut before the King’s majesty had we merely acquainted him with the sober and common aspect of the case? Do you suppose the first prince of his age would have lodged madam’s envoys in his palace—she who so recently has been whipped and put to bed by her old nurse? Do you think he would have had his ministers attend him in privy council? Do you think that this evening we should have been bidden to attend an entertainment? Not so, noble marquis. Had it come to the ear of the King’s majesty that the might of the neat little doxey was measured by three hundred men-at-arms and an old boarhound, in less than an hour we should have been sent packing out of the city. And, most noble marquis, let me perpend: one who hath the blood of kings under his doublet would be the last to hold this virtuous prince to contumely, for English Dickon and his friend the Sophy would, in these circumstances, have done the same.”
“But, good Sir Richard Pendragon,” said I, “my illustrious father has assured me that truth is always truth; that sober verity is sober verity equally in the king’s palace, in the marts of the middling, or in the pestilent hovels of the poor.”
“If this was your father’s opinion, noble marquis,” said the Englishman, “it is wonderful that he was able to make you a gift of even ten crowns at his burial. Where can you and he have dwelt, noble marquis, not to be aware that the truth hath more than one countenance? To the vulgar truth hath one aspect, to the learned it hath an hundred aspects. That which a private person such as yourself might consider an army, a veritable potentate might deride as unworthy of his regard. Permit me, noble marquis, to speak a word in your ear. Do not, I pray you, ever mention three hundred men-at-arms to the King of France.”
However, during the remainder of that day this matter continued to run much in my thoughts. And this was in despite of Sir Richard’s mode of reasoning, which I lacked the subtlety of mind to seize. Yet I do not want for parts, I think. Philosophy has been current in my mother’s family for at least an hundred years, and as I have said already in this history, her brother Nicholas was a clerk of Salamanca, and wore a purple gown. In the depth of my perplexity I turned again to the Count of Nullepart, who, I am sure, nature had designed to be my guide. But when I mentioned this subject to him for the second time, he sat down on a settle, placed both hands on his knees, and laughed in such an immoderate fashion that the tears rolled down his cheeks.