The door closed. He saw nothing more, and heard nothing but the raucous voice of the turnkey singing close by:
Has lost from view
His bishoprics all.
Monsieur de Verdun
Has now not got one;
They’re gone, one and all.”
The King returned in silence to his closet, followed by his train, all horror-struck at the last bitter cry of the prisoner. Suddenly his Majesty turned to the Governor of the Bastille.
“By-the-bye,” said he, “was there not some one in that cage?”
“Pardieu! yes, Sire!” answered the governor, dumfounded by the question.
“And who?”
“Monsieur the Bishop of Verdun.”
The King knew that better than any one, but it was a way he had.
“Ah,” said he blandly, with the air of remembering it for the first time, “Guillaume de Harancourt, the friend of Monsieur the Cardinal Balue. A good fellow of a bishop!”
A few minutes later, the door of the closet had opened and closed again on the five persons whom the reader found there at the beginning of this chapter, and who had severally resumed their places, their attitudes, and their whispered conversation.
During the King’s absence some despatches had been laid upon the table, of which he himself broke the seal. He then began reading them attentively one after another, motioned to Maître Olivier, who seemed to fill the post of minister to him, to take a pen, and without imparting to him the contents of the despatches, began in a low voice to dictate to him the answers, which the latter wrote kneeling uncomfortably at the table.
Guillaume Rym watched them.
The King spoke so low that the Flemings could hear nothing of what he was dictating, except here and there a few isolated and scarcely intelligible fragments, such as: “Maintain the fertile tracts by commerce and the sterile ones by manufactures.—Show my lords the English our four bombards: the Londres, the Brabant, the Bourg-en-Bresse, the Saint-Omer.—It is owing to artillery that war is now more reasonably carried on.—To Monsieur de Bressuire, our friend.—Armies cannot be maintained without contributions,” etc.
Once he raised his voice. Pasque-Dieu! Monsieur the King of Sicily seals his letters with yellow wax like a King of France! Perhaps we do wrong to permit this. My good cousin of Burgundy accorded no arms of a field gules. The greatness of a house is secured by upholding the integrity of its prerogatives. Note that down, friend Olivier.”
Another time: “Oh, oh!” said he, “a big missive! What does our friend the Emperor demand of us now?” Then, running his eye over the despatch and interrupting the perusal now and again with brief interjections: “Certes, Germany is getting so grand and mighty it is scarcely credible. But we do not forget the old proverb: ‘The finest country is Flanders; the finest duchy, Milan; the finest kingdom, France.’ Is that not so, Messieurs the Flemings?”
This time Coppenole bowed as well as Guillaume Rym. The hosier’s patriotism was tickled.
The last of the batch made Louis XI knit his brows. “What have we here?” he exclaimed. “Complaints and petitions against our garrisons in Picardy! Olivier, write with all speed to Monsieur the Marshal de