THE COURT OF LOVE
The rough Norman banqueting hall, with its massive rafters, frayed
tapestries and rude adornment of bristling heads of savage boars,
wide-spreading antlers and other trophies of the chase, had long since
been replaced under the king's directions by an apartment more to the
satisfaction of a monarch who was a zealous and lavish patron of the
brilliant Italian school of painting, sculpture and architecture.
Those barbarous decorations, celebrating the hunt, had been relegated
to subterranean regions, the walls dismantled, and the room turned over
to a corps of artists of such renown as Da Vinci, François Clouet, Jean
Cousin and the half-mad Benvenuto Cellini.
Where formerly wild boars had snarled with wicked display of yellow
tusks from the blackened plaster, now Cleopatra, in the full bloom of
her mature charms, reclined with her stalwart Roman hero in tender
dalliance. Where once the proud and stately head of the majestic stag
had hung over door and panel, now classic nymphs bathed in a pellucid
pool, and the only horns were those which adorned the head of him who,
according to the story, dared gaze through the foliage, and was
rewarded for his too curious interest by--that then common form of
punishment--metamorphosis.
Overhead, vast transformation from the great ribbed beams of oak and
barren interspaces, graceful Peri floated on snow-white clouds and
roguish Cupids swam through the azure depths, to the edification of
nondescript prodigies, who constituted the massive molding, or frame,
to the decorative scene. The ancient fireplace, broad and deep, had
given way to an ornate mantel of marble; the capacious tankard and
rotund pewter pot of olden times, suggestive of mighty butts of honest
beer, had been supplanted by goblets of silver and gold, covered with
scroll work, arabesques or chiseled figures.
In this spacious hall, begilt, bemirrored, assembled, on the evening of
the duke's arrival, Francis, his court and the guest of the occasion.
From wide-spreading chandeliers, with their pendent, pear-shaped
crystals, a thousand candles threw a flood of light upon the scene, as
'mid trumpet blast and softer strains of harmony, King Francis and good
Queen Eleanor led the way to the royal table; and thereat, shortly
after, at a signal from the monarch, the company seated themselves.
At the head of the board was the king; on his right, his lawful
consort, pale, composed, saintly; on his left, the Countess d'Etampes,
rosy, animated, free. Next to the favorite sat the "fairest among the
learned and most learned among the fair," Marguerite, beloved sister of
Francis, and her second husband, Henry d'Albret, King of Navarre;
opposite, Henry the dauphin and his spouse, Catharine de Medici; not
far removed, Diane de Poitiers, whose dark eyes Henry ever openly
sought, while Catharine complacently talked affairs of state with the
chancellor.
In the midst of this illustrious company, and further surrounded by a
plentiful sprinkling of ruddy cardinals, fat bishops, constables,
governors, marshals and ladies, more or less distinguished through
birth or beauty, the Duke of Friedwald and the Princess Louise were a
center of attraction for the wits whose somewhat free jests the license
of the times permitted. At the foot of the royal table places had been
provided for Marot, Caillette, Triboulet, Jacqueline and the duke's
fool.
The heads and figures of the ladies of the court were for the most part
fearfully and wonderfully bedecked. In some instances the
horned-shaped head-dress had been followed by yet loftier steeples,
"battlements to combat God with gold, silver and pearls; wherein the
lances were great forked pins, and the arrows the little pins." With
more simplicity, the Princess Louise wore her hair cased in a network
of gold and jewels, and the austere French moralist who assailed the
higher bristling ramparts of vanity would, perhaps, have borne in
silence this more modest bastion of the flesh and the devil.
But the face beneath was a greater danger to those who hold that beauty
is a menace to salvation; on her cheek hung the rosy banner of youth;
in her eyes shone the bright arrows of conquest. And the duke,
discarding his backwardness, as a soldier his cloak before battle,
watched the hue that mantled her face, proffered his open breast to the
shining lances of her gaze, and capitulated unconditionally before the
smile of victory on her blood-red lips. With his great shoulders, his
massive neck and broad, virile face, he seemed a Cyclops among pygmies
in that gathering of slender courtiers and she but a flower by his side.
"I thought, Sire, your duke was timorous, bashful as a boy?" murmured
the Countess d'Etampes to the king.
"He was--on the road!" answered the king thoughtfully.
"Then has he marvelously recovered his assurance."
"In love, Madam, as in battle, the zest grows with the fray," said
Francis with meaning.
"And the duke is reputed a brave soldier. He looks very strong, as
if--almost--he might succeed with any woman he were minded to carry
off."
"To carry off!" laughed the monarch. "'Tis he, Madam, who will be
bound in tethers! At heart he's shame-faced as a callow younker."
She wilfully shook her head. "No woman could keep him in
leading-strings, your Majesty. There is something domineering, savage,
crushing, in his hand. Look at it, on the table there. Is it not
mighty as an iron gauntlet? What other man at the board has such a
brutal hand? The strength in it makes me shudder. Will she not bend
to it; kiss it?"
With amused superiority Francis regarded his fair neighbor on the left.
"Women, Madam, are but hasty judges of men," he said, dryly, "and then
'tis fancy more than reason which governs their verdict. If the duke
should seem over-confident, 'tis to hide a certain modesty, and not to
appear out of confidence in so large a company."
"And yet, Sire, at their first meeting he did not comport himself like
one easily put out," persisted the favorite. "''Tis with a cold hand
you welcome me, Princess,' he said, noticing her insensibility of
manner. Then rising he gazed upon her long and deep, as a soldier
might survey a battlefield. 'And yet,' said he, still holding her
fingers, 'I'll warrant me warm blood could course through this little
hand.' At that the color rose in her cheek; behold! the statue was
touched with life and she looked at him as drawn against her will. 'If
my hand be cold, my Lord,' she answered, courteously, 'it belies the
character of your welcome.' Whereupon he laughed like one who has had
a victory."
"Beshrew me," said the king, modifying his last observation, "if women
are not all eyes and ears! I neither heard nor saw all that. A little
constraint--a natural blush to punctuate their talk--the meeting seemed
conventional enough. 'Tis through your own romantic heart you looked,
Anne!"
Quicker circulated the goblets of silver, gold and crystal; faster
babbled the pretty lips; brighter grew the eyes beneath the stupendous
towers that crowned the heads of the court ladies. All talked at once
without disturbing the king, who now whispered soft nothings in the ear
of the countess. From the other tables in the hall arose a varying
cadence of clatter and laughter, which increased with the noise and din
of the king's own board; a clamor always just subservient to the deeper
chorus of the royal party; an accompaniment, as it were, full yet
unobtrusive, to the hubbub from the more exalted company. But the
princely uproar growing louder, the grand-masters, grand-chamberlain,
gentlemen of the chamber and lesser lights of the church were enabled
to carol and make merry with less restraint. The pungent smell of
roses permeated the hall, arising from a screen of shrubbery at one end
of the room wherein sang a hundred silver-toned birds.
At the king's table Caillette recited a merry roundelay, and Triboulet
roared out tale after tale, each more full-flavored than the one that
went before it, flinging smart sayings at marriage, and drawing a
ludicrous picture of the betrayed husband. Villot, a lily in his hand,
which he regarded ever sentimentally, caroled the boisterous espousals
of a yokel and a cinder-wench, while Marot and a bishop contended in a
heated argument regarding the translation of a certain passage of
Ovid's "Art of Love."
Singularly pale, unusually tranquil, the duke's fool furtively watched
his master and the princess. In contrast to his composure,
Jacqueline's merriment seemed the more unrestrained; she laughed like a
witch; her hands flashed with pretty gestures, and she had so tossed
her head, her hair floated around her, wild and disordered.
"Why are you so quiet?" she whispered to the duke's fool.
"Is there not enough merriment, mistress?" he answered, gravely.
"There can never be any to spare," she said. "And you would do well to
remember your office."
"What do you mean?" he asked, absently.
"That you have many enemies; that you can not live at court with a
jaundiced countenance. Heigh-ho! Alackaday! You should hie yourself
back to the woods and barren wastes of Friedwald, Master Fool."
Her sparkling glance returned to the exhilarating scene. Well had the
assemblage been called a court of love. Now soft eyes invited burning
glances, and graceful heads swayed alluringly toward the handsome
cavaliers who momentarily had found lodgment in hearts which, like
palaces, had many ante-chambers. From hidden recesses, strains of
music filled the room with tinkling passages of sensuous, but illusive,
harmony; a dream of ardor, masked in the daintiness of a minuet.
Upon the back of the princess' chair rested one of the duke's hands;
with the other he lifted his glass--a frail thing in fingers better
adapted for a sword-hilt or massive battle mace.
"Drink, Princess," he said, bending over her, "to--our meeting!"
Her eyelids fluttered before his look; her breast rose a little. The
scar on his brow held her gaze, as one fascinated, but she drew away
slightly and mechanically sought the tiny golden goblet at her elbow.
Dreamily, dreamily, sounded the rhythmical music; heavily, so heavily
hung the perfume in the air! Full of mist seemed the hall; the king,
the queen, the countess, all of the party, unreal, fanciful. The touch
of the goblet chilled her lips and she put it down quickly.
"Is not the wine to your liking?" he asked, his hand tightening on her
chair. "Perhaps it is too sour for your taste?"
"Nay; I thought it rather sweet," she answered. "Oh, I meant not
that--"
"It _is_ sweet wine, Princess," he said, setting down an empty glass.
"Sweeter than our Austrian vintage. Not white and thin and watery, but
red--red as blood--red as your heart's blood--or mine--"
Crash! from the hand of the duke's jester had fallen a goblet to the
floor. The princess started, turned; for a moment their glances
bridged the distance from where she sat, to the fools' end of the
table; then hers slowly fell; slowly, and she passed a hand, whereon
shone the king's ring, across her brow; looked up, as though once more
to span infinity with her gaze, when her eyes fell short and met the
duke's. Deliberately he lifted his filled glass.
"Red as your heart's blood--and mine--my love!" he repeated; and then
stared sharply across the table at his jester.
Triboulet, swaggering in his chair, so high his feet could not touch
the floor, surveyed the broken glass, the duke and the duke's fool.
For some time his vigilant eyes had been covertly studying the
unconscious foreign jester, noting sundry signs and symptoms. Nor had
the princess' look when the goblet had fallen, been lost upon the
misshapen buffoon; alert, wide-awake, his mind, quick to suspect,
reached a sudden conclusion; a conclusion which by rapid process of
reasoning became a conviction. Privileged to speak where others must
need be silent, his profession that of prying subtlety, which spared
neither rank nor power so that it raised a laugh, he felt no hesitation
in publishing the information he had gleaned by his superior mental
nimbleness.
"Ho! ho!" he bellowed, the better to attract attention to himself.
"The duke sent his fool to amuse his betrothed and the fool hath lost
his heart to his mistress."
The king left off his whispering, Catharine turned from the chancellor,
Diane ceased furtively to regard Caillette, while the Queen of Navarre
laughed nervously and murmured:
"Princess and jester! It will make another tale."
But Henry of Navarre looked gravely down. He, and Francis' queen--a
passive spectator at the feast--and a bishop, whose interest lay in a
truffled capon, alone followed not the direction of the duke's eyes.
The fair favorite of the king clapped her hands, but the monarch
frowned, not having forgotten that night in Fools' hall when the jester
had appointed rogues to offices.
"What is this? A fool in love with the princess?" said the king,
ominously.
"Even so, your Majesty," cried Triboulet. "But a moment ago Duke
Robert did whisper to his bride-to-be, and the fool's hand trembled
like a leaf and dropped his glass. Tra! la! la! What a situation!
Holy Saint-Bagpipe! Here's a comedy in high life!"
"A comedy!" repeated the duke, and half-rose from his chair, regarding
his fool with surprise and anger.
Now Triboulet roared. Had he not in the past attained his high
position of favorite jester to the king by his very foolhardihood? And
were not trusting lovers and all too-confiding husbands the legitimate
butt of all jesting?
"Look at the fool," he went on exultantly. "Does any one doubt his
guilt? He is silent; he can not speak!"
And, indeed, the foreign jester seemed momentarily disconcerted,
although he strove to appear indifferent.
"A presumptuous knave!" muttered Francis, darkly. "He saved his neck
once only by a trick."
"Oh, the duke would not mind, now, if you were to hang him, Sire,"
answered Triboulet, blithely.
"True!" smiled the king. "The question of breach of hospitality might
not occur. What have you to say, fool?" he continued, turning to the
object of the buffoon's insidious and malicious attack.
"Laugh!" whispered Jacqueline, furtively pressing the arm of the duke's
fool. "Laugh, or--"
The touch and her words appeared to arouse him from his lethargy and
the jester arose, but not before the princess, with flaming cheeks, but
proud bearing, had cast a quick glance in his direction; a glance
half-appealing, half-resentful. Idly the joculatrix regarded him, her
hands upon the table playing with the glasses, her lips faintly
repeating the words of a roundelay:
"For love is madness;
While madness rules,
Fools in love
Remain but fools!
Sing hoddy-doddy,
Noddy!
Remain but fools!"
With the eyes of the company upon him, the duke's fool impassively
studied the carven figure on his stick. If he felt fear of the king's
anger, the resentment of his master, or the malice of the dwarf, his
countenance now did not betray it. He had seemed about to speak, but
did not.
"Well, rascal, well?" called out the king. "Do you think your wand
will save you, sirrah?" he added impatiently.
"Why not, Sire?" tranquilly answered the jester.
The duke's face grew more and more ominous. Still the fool, looking
up, did not quail, but met his master's glance freely, and those who
observed noted it was the duke who first turned away, although his jaw
was set and his great fist clenched. Swiftly the jester's gaze again
sought the princess, but she had plucked a spray of blossoms from the
table and was holding it to her lips, mindlessly biting the fragrant
leaves; and those who followed the fool's glance saw in her but a
picture of languid unconcern such as became a kinswoman of the king.
Almost imperceptibly the brow of the _plaisant_ clouded, but recovering
himself, he confronted the king with an enigmatic smile.
"Why not?" he repeated. "In the Court of Love is not the fool's wand
greater than a king's miter or the pastoral staff of the Abbé de Lys?
Besides, Sire," he added quickly, "as a fool takes it, in the Court of
Love, not to love--is treason!"
"Good!" murmured the bishop, still eating. "Not to love is treason!"
"Who alone is the culprit? Whose heart alone is filled with umbrage,
hatred, pique?"
"Triboulet! Triboulet, the traitor!" suddenly cried the countess,
sprightly as a child.
"Yes; Triboulet, the traitor!" exclaimed the fool, pointing the wand of
folly at the hunchback.
Even Francis' offended face relaxed. "Positively, I shall never hang
this fellow," he said grimly to Marguerite.
"Before this tribunal of ladies whose beauty and learning he has
outraged by his disaffection and spleen, I summon him for trial,"
continued the duke's jester. "Triboulet, arise! Illustrious ladies of
the Court of Love, the offender is in your hands."
"A little monster!" spoke up Diane with a gesture of aversion, real or
affected.
"He is certainly somewhat reprehensible," added the Queen of Navarre,
whose tender heart ever inclined to the weaker side.
"An unconscionable rogue," murmured the bishop, complacently clasping
his fat fingers before him.
"So he is already tried by the Church and the tribunal," went on the
_plaisant_ of the duke. "The Church hath excommunicated him and the
Court of Love--"
"Will banish him!" exclaimed the countess mirthfully, regarding the
captious monarch with mock defiance.
"Yes, banish him; turn him out," echoed Catharine, carelessly.
"But, your Majesty!" remonstrated the alarmed Triboulet, turning to the
monarch whose favor he had that day enjoyed.
"Appeal not to me!" returned Francis, sternly. "Here Venus rules!"
And he gallantly inclined to the countess.
"Venus at whom he scoffs!" broke in Jacqueline, shrilly, leaning back
in her chair with her hands on her hips.
"You witch!--you sorceress!--it was you who"--he hissed with venomous
glance.
"Hear him!" exclaimed the girl, lightly. "He calls me
witch--sorceress--because, forsooth, I am a woman!"
"A woman--a devil"--muttered Triboulet between his closed teeth.
"And now," she cried, rising, impetuously, "he says that women are
devils! What shall we do with him?"
"Pelt him out!" answered the countess. "Pelt him out!"
With peals of merriment and triumphant shouts, the court, of one
accord, directed a fusillade of fruits, nuts and other viands at the
head and person of the raging and hapless buffoon, the countess
herself, apple in hand--Eve bent upon vengeance--leading in the
assault. The other tables responded with a cross-fire, and heavier
articles succeeded lighter, until after having endured the continuous
attack for a few moments as best he might, the unlucky dwarf raised his
arms above his head and fairly fled from the hall, leaving behind in
his haste a bagpipe and his wooden sword.
"So may all traitors be punished!" said the bishop unctuously, as he
reached for a dish of confections that had escaped the fair hands in
search of ammunition.
"Well," laughed the Countess d'Etampes, "if we have the support of the
Church--"
"I will confess you, myself, Madam," gallantly retorted the bishop.
"And all the Court of Love?" asked Marguerite.
"Ah, your Highness--all?--I am old--in need of rest--but with an
assistant or two--"
"Assistant or two!" interrupted Catharine, imperiously. "Would the
task then be so great?"
"Nay"--with gentle expostulation--"but you--members of the court--are
many; not your sins."
"I suppose," whispered Jacqueline to the duke's fool, when the
attention of the company was thus withdrawn from the jester's end of
the table, "you think yourself in fine favor now?"
"Yes," he answered, absently; "thanks to your suggestion."
"My suggestion!" she repeated, scornfully. "I gave you none."
"Well, then, your crossing Triboulet."
"Oh, that," she replied, picking at a bunch of grapes, "was to defend
my sex, not you."
"But your warning for me to laugh?"
"Why," she returned, demurely, "'twas to see you go more gallantly to
your execution. And"--eating a grape--"that is reasonably certain to
be your fate. You've only made a few more enemies to-night--the
duke--the--"
"Name them not, fair Jacqueline," he retorted, indifferent.
"True; you'll soon learn for yourself," she answered sharply. "I think
I should prefer to be in Triboulet's place to yours at present."
"Why," he said, with a strange laugh, "there's a day for the duke and a
day for the fool."
Deliberately she turned from him and sang very softly:
"For love is madness;
(A dunce on a stool!)
A king in love,
A king and a fool!
Sing hoddy-doddy,
Noddy!
A king and a fool!"
The monarch bent over the countess; Diane and the dauphin exchanged
messages with their eyes; Catharine smiled on Villot; the princess
listened to her betrothed; and the jestress alone of all the ladies
leaned back and sang, heart-free. But suddenly she again broke off and
looked curiously at the duke's _plaisant_.
"Why did you not answer them with what was first in your mind?" she
asked.
"What was that?" he said, starting.
"How can I tell?" she returned, studying him.
"You can tell a great deal," he replied.
"Sing hoddy-doddy,
Noddy!
The duke and the fool"--
she hummed, deigning no further words.