Читать книгу Agnes Sorel - G. P. R. James - Страница 15

I know few things more pleasant than a stroll through Paris, as I remember it, in a fine early winter's morning. There was an originality about the people whom one saw out and abroad at that period of the day--a gay, cheerful, pleasant originality--which is not met with in any other nation. Granted that this laughing semblance was but the striped skin of the tiger, and that underneath there was a world of untamable ferocity, which made the cat-like creature dangerous to play with; yet still the sight was an agreeable one, one that the mind's eye rested upon with sensations of pleasure. The sights, too, had generally something to interest or to amuse--very often something that moved the feelings; but more generally something having a touch of the burlesque in it, exciting a smile, though seldom driving one into a laugh.

Doubtless the same was the case on the morning when the Duke of Orleans and his household set out from his brother's capital; for the Parisians have always been Parisians, and that word, as far as history shows us, has always meant one thing. It was very early in the morning, too. The sun hardly tipped the towers of Nôtre Dame, or gilded the darker and more sombre masses of the Châtelet. The most matutinal classes--the gatherers of rags: the unhappy beings who pilfered daily from unfastened doors and open entries: the peasants coming into market: the laborers going out with ax or shovel: even the roasters of chestnuts (coffee was then unknown) were all astir, and many a merry cry to wake slumbering cooks and purveyors was heard along the streets of the metropolis. Always cheerful except when ferocious, the population of Paris was that day in gayer mood than usual, for the news that a reconciliation had taken place between the Dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, whose feuds had become wearisome as well as detrimental, had spread far and wide during the preceding evening, and men anticipated prosperous and peaceful times, after a long period of turbulence and disaster. Seldom had the Duke of Orleans gone forth from the metropolis in such peaceful array. Sometimes he had galloped out in haste with a small body of attendants, hardly enough in number to protect his person; sometimes he had marched forward in warlike guise, to do battle with the enemy. But now he proceeded quietly in a horse-litter, feeling himself neither very well nor very ill. His saddle-horse, some pages, squires, and a few men-at-arms followed close, and the rest of the attendants, who had been selected to go with him, came after in little groups as they mounted, two or three at a time. The whole cavalcade did not amount to more than fifty persons--no great retinue for a prince of those days; but yet, in its straggling disorder, it made a pretty long line through the streets, and excited a good deal of attention in the multitude as it passed. But the distance to the gates was not great, and the whole party soon issued forth through the very narrow suburbs which then surrounded the city, into the open country beyond. To tell the truth, though the whole land was covered with the white garmenture of winter, it was a great relief to Jean Charost to find his sight no longer bounded by stone walls, and his chest no longer oppressed by the heavy air of a great city. The sun sparkling on the snow, the branches of the trees incrusted with frost, the clear blue sky without a cloud, the river bridged with its own congealed waters, all reminded him of early days and happy hours, and filled his mind with the memory of rejoicing.

One or two of the elder and superior officers of the duke's household had mounted at the same time with himself, and were riding along close by him. But there was no sympathetic tie between them; they were old, and he was young; they were hackneyed in courts, and he was inexperienced; they were accustomed to all the doings of the household in which he dwelt, and to him every thing was fresh and new. Thus they soon gathered apart, as it were, though they were perfectly courteous and polite to the duke's new secretary; for by this time he was known to all the attendants in that capacity, and the more politic heads shrewdly calculated upon his acquiring, sooner or later, considerable influence with their princely master. But they talked among themselves of things they knew and understood, and of which he was utterly ignorant; so that he was suffered to ride on with uninterrupted thoughts, enjoying the wintery beauty of the landscape, while they conversed of what had happened at St. Denis, or of the skirmish at Toul, or of the march into Aquitaine, or gossiped a little scandal of Madame De * * * * and Monsieur De * * * *.

Insensibly the young man dropped behind, and might be said to be riding alone, when an elderly man, in the habit of a priest, ambled up to his side on a sleek, well-fed mule. His hair was very white, and his countenance calm and benignant; but there was no very intellectual expression in his face, and one might have felt inclined to pronounce him, at the first glance, a very simple, good man, with more rectitude than wit, more piety than learning. There would have been some mistake in this, for Jean Charost soon found that he had read much, and studied earnestly, supplying by perseverance and labor all that was wanting in acuteness.

"Good morning, my son," said the old man, in a frank and familiar tone. "I believe I am speaking to Monsieur De Brecy, am I not? his highness's secretary."

"The same, sir," replied Jean Charost; "though I have not been long in that office."

"I know, I know," replied the good priest. "You were commended to his favor by my good friend Jacques Cœur. I was absent from the palace till last night, or I would have seen you before. I am his highness's chaplain and director--would to Heaven I could direct him right; but these great men--"

There he stopped, as if feeling himself treading upon dangerous ground, and a pause ensued; for Jean Charost gave him no encouragement to go on in any discussion of the duke's doings, of which probably he knew as much as his confessor, without any great amount of information either.

The priest continued to jog on by his side, however, turning his head very frequently, as if afraid of being pursued by something. Once he muttered to himself, "I do believe he is coming on;" and then added, a moment after, in a relieved tone, "No, it is Lomelini."

They had not ridden far, after this exclamation, when they were joined by the maître d'hôtel, who seemed on exceedingly good terms with the chaplain, and rather in a merry mood. "Ah, Father Peter!" he exclaimed; "you passed me in such haste, you would neither see nor hear me. What was it lent wings to your mule?"

"Oh, that fool, that fool!" cried the good father. "He has got on a black cloak like yours, signor--stolen it from some one, I dare say--and he declares he is a doctor of the university, and must needs chop logic with me."

"What was his thesis?" asked Lomelini, laughing heartily. "He is grand at an argument, I know; and I have often heard him declare that he likes to spoil a doctor of divinity."

"It was no thesis at all," answered Father Peter. "He propounded a question for debate, and asked me which of the seven capital sins was the most capital. I told him they were all equally heinous; but he contended that could not be, and said he would prove it by a proposition divided into three parts and three members, each part divided into six points--"

"Let us hear," cried Lomelini. "Doubtless his parts and points were very amusing. Let us hear them, by all means."

"Why, I did not stay to hear them myself," replied Father Peter. "He began by explaining and defining the seven capital sins; and fearing some greater scandal--for all the boys were roaring with laughter--I rode on and left him."

"Ah, father, father! He will say that he has defeated you in argument," replied Lomelini; and then added, with a sly glance at Jean Charost, "the sharpest weapon in combat with a grave man is a jest."

The good father looked quite distressed, as if to be defeated in argument by a fool were really a serious disgrace. With the natural kindliness of youth, Jean Charost felt for him, and, turning the conversation, proceeded to inquire of the maître d'hôtel who and what was the person who had driven the good chaplain so rapidly from the field.

"Oh, you will become well acquainted with him by-and-by, my son," answered Lomelini, who still assumed a sort of paternal and patronizing air toward the young secretary. "They call him the Seigneur André in the household, and his lordship makes himself known to every body--sometimes not very pleasantly. He is merely the duke's fool, however, kept more for amusement than for service, and more for fashion even than amusement; for at bottom he is a dull fellow; but he contrives occasionally to stir up the choler of the old gentlemen, and, when the duke is in a gay humor, makes him laugh with their anger."

"To be angry with a fool is to show one's self little better than a fool, methinks," answered Jean Charost; but Lomelini shook his head, with his usual quiet smile, saying, "Do not be too sure that he will not provoke you, Monsieur De Brecy. He has a vast fund of malice, though no great fund of wit, and, as you may see, can contrive to torment very grave and reverend personages. I promised you a hint from time to time, and one may not be thrown away in regard to Seigneur André. There are two or three ways of dealing with him which are sure to put him down. First, the way which Monsieur Blaize takes: never to speak to him at all. When he addresses any of his witticisms to our good friend, Monsieur Blaize stares quietly in his face, as if he spoke to him in an unknown tongue, and takes care not to give him a single word as a peg to hang a rejoinder upon. Another way is to break his head, if he be over saucy, for he is mighty careful of his person, and has never attacked young Juvenel de Royans since he cuffed him one morning to his heart's content. He has no reverence for any thing, indeed, but punishment and fisticuffs. He ventured at first to break his jests on me, for whom, though a very humble personage, his highness's officers generally have some respect."

"May I ask how you put a stop to this practice?" asked Jean Charost.

"Oh, very easily," replied the maître d'hôtel. "I listened to all he had to say quietly, answered him as best I might, a little to the amusement of the by-standers, and did not fare altogether ill in the encounter; but Seigneur André found his levrée; for supper somewhat scanty and poor that night. He had a small loaf of brown bread, a pickled herring, and some very sour wine. Though it was all in order, and he had wine, fish, and bread, according to the regulations of the household for evening levrées, he thought fit to complain to the master-cook. The cook told him that all his orders were taken from me. He did not know what to make of this, but was very peaceable for a day or two afterward. Then he forgot his lesson, and began his impertinence again. He had another dose that night of brown bread, salt herring, and vinegar, and it made so deep an impression on his mind that he has not forgotten it yet."

"Well, I do think it is impious," said Father Peter, in a tone of melancholy gravity. "I do, indeed."

"What, to give a fool a pickled herring as a sort of corrective of bad humors?" asked Lomelini.

"No, no," replied the chaplain, peevishly "But to keep such poor, benighted creatures in great houses for the purpose of extracting merriment from their infirmities. It is making a mockery of the chastisement of God."

"Pooh, pooh," said Lomelini. "What can you do with them? If you do not keep them in great houses, you would be obliged to shut them up in little ones; and, I will answer for it, Seigneur André would rather be kept as a fool in the palace of the Duke of Orleans than pent up as a madman in the hospitals. But here he comes to answer for himself."

"Then I won't stay to hear him," cried the chaplain, putting his mule into a quicker pace, and riding on after the litter of the Duke of Orleans, which was not above two hundred yards in advance.

"There he goes," cried Signor Lomelini. "Poor man! this fool is a complete bugbear to him. To Father Peter he is like a gnat, or a great fly, which keeps buzzing about our ears all night, and gives us neither peace nor rest."

As he spoke, the personage who had been so long the subject of their conversation rode up, presenting to the eyes of Jean Charost a very different sort of man from that which he had expected to see, and, in truth, a very different personage altogether from the poetical idea of the jester which has been furnished to us by Shakspeare and others. Seigneur André, indeed, was not one of the most famous of his class, and he has neither been embalmed in fiction nor enrolled in history. The exceptions I believe, in truth have been taken generally for the types, and if we could trace the sayings and doings of all the jesters downward from the days of Charlemagne, we should find that nine out of ten were very dull people indeed. His lordship was a fat, gross-looking man of the middle age, with a countenance expressive of a good deal of sensuality--dull and heavy-looking, with a nose glowing with wine; bushy, overhanging eyebrows, and a fat, liquorish under lip. His stomach was large and protuberant, and his legs short; but still he rode his horse with a good, firm seat, though with what seemed to the eyes of Jean Charost a good deal of affected awkwardness of manner. There was an expression of fun and joviality about his face, it is true, which was a very good precursor to a joke, and, like the sauce of a French cook's composing, which often gives zest to a very insipid morsel, it made many a dull jest pass for wit. His eye, indeed, had an occasional fire in it, wild, wandering, mysterious, lighted up and going out on a sudden, which to a physician might probably have indicated the existence of some degree of mental derangement, but which, with ordinary persons, served at once to excite and puzzle curiosity.

"Ah, reverend signor," he exclaimed, as he pulled up his horse by Lomelini's side, "I am glad to find you so far in advance. It betokens that all good things of life will be provided for--that we shall not have to wait three hours at Juvisy for dinner, nor be treated with goat's flesh and rye bread, sour wine and stale salad."

"That depends upon circumstances, Seigneur André," replied Lomelini. "That his highness shall have a good dinner, I have provided for; but, good faith, the household must look out for themselves. In any other weather you would find eggs enough, and the water is generally excellent, but now it is frozen. But let me introduce you to Monsieur De Brecy, his highness's secretary."

"Ha! I kiss his fingers," cried the jester. "I asked for him all yesterday, hearing of his advent, but was not blessed with his presence. They told me he was in the nursery, and verily he seems a blessed babe. May I inquire how old you are, Signor De Brecy?"

"Like yourself, Seigneur André," replied Jean Charost, with a smile; "old enough to be wiser."

"Marvelous well answered!" exclaimed the jester. "The dear infant is a prodigy! Did you ever see any thing like that?" he continued, throwing back his black cloak, and exhibiting his large stomach, dressed in his party-colored garments, almost resting on the saddle-bow.

"Yes, often," answered Jean Charost. "I have seen it in men too lazy to keep down the flesh, too fond of good things to refrain from what is killing them, and too dull in the brain to let the wit ever wear the body."

A sort of wild, angry fire came up in the jester's face, and he answered, "Let me tell you there is more wit in that stomach than ever you can digest."

"Perhaps so," answered Jean Charost. "I doubt not in the least you have more brain under your belt than under your cap; but it is somewhat soft, I should think, in both places."

Signor Lomelini laughed, but at the same time made a sign to his young companion to forbear, saying, in a low tone, "He won't forgive you easily, already. Don't provoke him farther. Here we are coming to that accursed hill of Juvisy, Seigneur André. Don't you see the town lying down there, like an egg in the nest of a long-tailed titmouse?"

"Or like a bit of sugar left at the bottom of a bowl of mulled wine," replied the jester. "But, be it egg or be it sugar, the horses of his highness seem inclined to get at it very fast."

His words first called the attention of both Lomelini and Jean Charost to what was going on before them, and the latter perceived with dismay that the horses in the litter--a curious and ill-contrived sort of vehicle--which had been going very slowly till they reached the top of the high hill of Juvisy, had begun to trot, and then to canter, and were now in high course toward a full gallop. The man who drove them, usually walking at the side, was now running after them as fast as he could go, and apparently shouting to them to stop, though his words were as unheeded by the horses as unheard by Jean Charost.

"Had we not better ride on and help?" asked the young gentleman, eagerly.

Lomelini shrugged his shoulders, replying, with a sort of fatalism hardly less ordinary in Italians than in Turks, "What will be, will be;" and the jester answered, "Good faith! though they call me fool, yet I have as much regard for my skin as any of them; so I shall not trot down the hill."

Jean Charost hardly heard the end of the sentence, for he saw that the horses of the litter were accelerating their pace at every instant, and he feared that some serious accident would happen. The duke was seen at the same moment to put forth his head, calling sharply to the driver, and the young secretary, without more ado, urged his horse on at the risk of his own neck, and, taking a little circuit which the broadness of the road permitted, tried to reach the front horse of the litter without scaring him into greater speed. He passed two groups of the duke's attendants before he came near the vehicle, but all seemed to take as much or as little interest in their master's safety as Lomelini and the jester, uttering, as the young man passed, some wild exclamations of alarm at the duke's peril, but taking no means on earth to avert it.

Jean Charost did not pause or stop to inquire, however, but dashed on, passed the litter, and got in front of the horses just at the moment that one of them stumbled and fell.

There was a steep, precipitous descent over the hillside, as the old road ran, down which there was the greatest possible risk of the vehicle being thrown; but, luckily, one of the shafts broke, and Jean Charost was in time to prevent the horse from doing any further damage, as he sprang up from his bleeding knees.

While the young man, jumping from the saddle, held the horses tight by the bridle, the driver and half a dozen attendants hurried up and assisted the prince to alight. Their faces were now pale and anxious enough; but the countenance of the duke himself was as calm and tranquil as if he had encountered no danger. Lomelini and the jester were soon upon the spot; and the latter thought fit to remark, with a sagacious air, that haste spoiled speed. "Your highness went too fast," he said; "and this young gentleman went faster still. You were likely to be at the bottom of the hill of Juvisy before you desired it, and he had nearly sent you thither sooner still in trying to stop you."

"You are mistaken, Seigneur André," said the duke, gravely. "The horse fell before he touched it; and even had it not been so, I would always rather see too much zeal than too little. He came in time, however, to prevent the litter going over."

Two of the squires instantly led forward horses for the prince to ride, as the litter, in its damaged state, was no longer serviceable. But the duke replied, "No, I will walk. Give me your arm, De Brecy; it is but a step now."

The little accident which had occurred undoubtedly served to confirm Jean Charost in the favor of the Duke of Orleans; but, at the same time, it made him a host of enemies. The tenants of a wasp's nest are probably not half as malicious as the household of a great man. The words of the jester had given them their cue, and the report ran through all the little cavalcade that Jean Charost had thrown the horse down in attempting to stop it.