CHAPTER IV
A few minutes before the hour designated by Roberval, La Pommeraye appeared in front of the house, which had now become a kind of magnet for his feet. As a general thing his careless nature made him unpunctual, and he had not infrequently kept opponents waiting for him when he had a duel on hand. To-night, however, he hoped for a glimpse of Marguerite, and this made him prompt to keep his appointment. He scanned the windows as he passed along the opposite side of the street, but no one appeared to meet his eager gaze. With a heart palpitating like a schoolboy's, on whom some fair girl has smiled or frowned, he slowly retraced his steps to the heavy oaken door. His knock was answered by the same old servant who had admitted him in the morning, and he was shown into a large but very plainly furnished room, where De Roberval sat before a table covered with papers and charts. The walls of the room were hung with pictures of the hunt, of the battle-field, and of religious subjects—the brutality of war strangely ranged side by side with the gentle Madonna and the gentler Christ. In one corner stood a statue of Bacchus, in another was a skull and cross-bones. Trophies of the hunt were scattered here and there; and a pair of crossed swords surmounted an ivory crucifix which hung above a well-worn prie-dieu.
"Vanity and ambition," said La Pommeraye to himself as he glanced round the room.
The words well summed up De Roberval's character. He would have no man in the nation greater than himself. When the famous meeting took place at "The Field of the Cloth of Gold," between Ardres and Guines in Picardy, all the nobles made an effort to rival the splendour of their kings, Henry VIII. and Francis I., and they came to the meeting, as Martin du Bellay has said, "bearing thither their mills, their forests, and their meadows on their backs." Among them all Jean François de la Roque, Sieur de Roberval, was the most resplendent. Small in stature, he was handicapped in the use of the sword; but by patient practice he had made up for this deficiency, and had won for himself the name of the most skilled swordsman in France. This reputation he had maintained against all comers till he met the man now closeted with him. He envied the King his poetic talent, and would fain have outdone him in the art of poesy. But even with Clement Marot's help he had been utterly unable to woo the fickle muse. He had so stored his mind, however, that his sovereign, the brilliant Marguerite de Nevarre, and the master intellect of that age, Rabelais, all delighted in his society; and on account of his ability in so many directions, and his evident ambition, Francis had humorously christened him "The Little King of Vimeu." One thing rankled in his ambitious heart: king he could not be. Let him be as strong, as intellectual, as popular as he might, Francis could always look down on him from the throne.
Cartier, although a blunt seaman, had read the man's nature truly, and in endeavouring to win him to his cause, had pointed out the opportunity the New World would give him of reigning an absolute monarch over not a province, but a continent of unlimited extent and wealth. Roberval, like a fool gudgeon, caught at the bait, and had in his own mind fully decided to try the venture. But to impress them with his importance he had called De Pontbriand and La Pommeraye to this meeting to argue the matter with them, and to convince them of the sacrifice he was about to make for his country, and of his reluctance to leave old France.
Despite the vanity and ambition of the man, the enthusiasm, courage, and will that De Roberval put into anything that he undertook were admirable qualities, and as La Pommeraye stood looking into his steel-grey eyes, and admiring his smooth high forehead and finely-chiselled mouth, he felt that he was in the presence of a born leader of men.
Roberval acknowledged his greeting with a sternness of manner for which Charles was hardly prepared.
"Monsieur is welcome to my house," he said frigidly. "But why need he have taken so long to decide upon entering? I saw you," he added, fixing his keen glance on the young man, "pass twice on the other side of the street."