Do you recollect visiting the booth of a cutler? In that very booth,
the day after the arrest of Jean Charost, might be seen the
intelligent countenance of the deformed boy, Petit Jean, peering over
the large board on which the wares were exposed, and saluting the
passers-by with an arch smile, to which was generally added an
invitation to buy some of the articles of his father's manufacture.
The race _gamin_ is of very ancient date in the city of Paris, where
witty and mischievous imps are found to have existed in great
abundance as far as recorded history can carry us. It must be owned,
too, that a touch of the _gamin_ was to be found in poor Petit Jean,
although his corporeal infirmities prevented him from displaying his
genius in many of the active quips and cranks in which other boys of
his own age indulged. On the present occasion, when he was eager to
sell the goods committed to his charge, he refrained, as far as
possible, from any of his sharp jests, so long as there was any chance
of gaining the good-will of a passing customer, and the _gamin_ spirit
fumed off in a metaphor: but a surly reply, or cold inattention,
generally drew from him some tingling jest, which might have procured
him a drubbing had not his infirmities proved a safeguard.
"What do you lack, Messire Behue?" he cried, as a good fat currier
rolled past the booth. "Sure, with such custom as you have, your
knives must be all worn out. Here, buy one of these. They are so
sharp, it would save you a crown a day in time, and your customers
would not have to wait like a crowd at a morality."
The good-natured currier paused, and bargained for a knife, for
flattery will sometimes soften even well-tanned hides; and Petit
Jean, contented with his success, assailed a thin, pale,
sanctimonious-looking man who came after, in much the same manner.
But this personage scowled at him, saying, "No, no, boy. No more
knives from your stall. The last I bought bent double before two days
were over."
"That's the fault of your cheese, Peter Guimp," answered the boy,
sharply. "It served Don Joachim, the canon of St. Laurent, worse than
it served our knife, for it broke all the teeth out of his head. Ask
him if it didn't."
"You lie, you little monster!" said the cheesemonger, irritably. "It
was as bad iron as ever was sharpened."
"Not so hard as your heart, perhaps," answered Petit Jean; "but it was
a great deal sharper than your wit; and if your cheese had not been
like a millstone, it would have gone through it."
The monger of cheeses walked on all the faster for two or three women
having come up, all of whom but one, an especial friend of his own,
were laughing at the saucy boy's repartee.
"Ah, dear Dame Mathurine," cried Petit Jean, addressing the grave
lady, "buy a new bodkin for your cloak. It wants one sadly, just to
pin it up with a jaunty air."
"Don't Mathurine me, monkey," cried the old woman, walking on after
the cheesemonger; and the boy, winking his eye to the other women,
exclaimed aloud, "Well, you are wise. A new bodkin would only tear a
hole in the old rag. She wore that cloak at her great-grandmother's
funeral when she was ten years old, and that is sixty years ago; so it
may well fear the touch of younger metal."
"Well, you rogue, what have you to say to me?" said a young and pretty
woman, who had listened, much amused.
"Only that I have nothing good enough for your beautiful eyes,"
answered the boy, promptly; "though you have but to look at the
things, to make them shine as if the sun was beaming on them."
This hit told well, and the pretty _bourgeoise_ very speedily
purchased two or three articles from the stall. She had just paid her
money, when Martin Grille, with a scared and haggard air, entered the
booth, and asked the boy where his father was, without any previous
salutation.
"Why, what is the matter with you, Martin?" asked Petit Jean,
affectionately. "You come in like a stranger, and don't say a word to
me about myself or yourself, and look as wild as the devil in a
mystery. What is it you want with my father in such a hurry?"
"I am vexed and frightened, Petit Jean," replied poor Martin, with a
sigh. "I am quite at my wit's end, who never was at my wit's end
before. Your father may help me; but you can't help at all, my boy."
"Oh, you don't know that," answered the other. "I can help more than
people know. Why, I have sold more things for my father in three
hours, since he went up to the Celestins to see the body of the Duke
of Orleans, than he ever sold in three days before."
"Ah, the poor duke! the poor duke!" cried Martin, with a deep sigh.
"Well, well, come sit down," said Petit Jean. "My father will be in
presently, and in the mean while, I'll play you a tune on my new
violin, and you will see how I can play now."
Martin Grille seated himself with an absent look, leaned his forehead
upon his hands, and seemed totally to forget every thing around him in
the unwonted intensity of his own thoughts. But the boy, creeping
under the board on which the wares were displayed, brought forth an
instrument of no very prepossessing appearance, tried its tune with
his thumb, as if playing on a guitar, and then seating himself at
Martin Grille's knee, put the instrument to his deformed shoulder.
There be some to whom music comes as by inspiration. All other arts
are more or less acquired. But those in whom a fine sensibility to
harmony is implanted by Nature, not unfrequently leap over even
mechanical difficulties, and achieve at once, because they have
conceived already. Music must have started from the heart of Apollo,
as wisdom from the head of Jove, without a childhood. Little had been
the instruction, few, scanty, and from an incompetent teacher, the
lessons which that poor deformed boy had received. But now, when the
bow in his hand touched the strings, it drew from them sounds such as
a De Beriot or a Rhode might have envied him the power of educing;
and, fixing his large, lustrous eyes upon his cousin's face, he seemed
to speak in music from his own spirit to the spirit of his hearer.
Whether he had any design, and, if so, what that design was, I can not
tell; perhaps he did not know himself; but certain it is, that the
wandering, wavering composition that he framed on the moment seemed to
bear a strange reference to Martin's feelings. First came a harsh
crash of the bow across all the strings--a broad, bold discord; then a
deep and gloomy phrase, entirely among the lower notes of the
instrument, simple and melodious, but without any attempt at harmony;
then, enriching itself as it went on, the air deviated into the minor,
with sounds exquisitely plaintive, till Martin Grille almost fancied
he could hear the voices of mourners, and exclaimed, "Don't Jean!
don't! I can not bear it!"
But still the boy went on, as if triumphing in the mastery of music
over the mind, and gradually his instrument gave forth more cheerful
sounds; not light, not exactly gay, for every now and then a flattened
third brought back a touch of melancholy to the air, but still one
could have fancied the ear caught the distant notes of angels singing
hope and peace to man.
The effect on Martin Grille was strange. It cheered him, but he wept;
and the boy, looking earnestly in his face, said, with a strange
confidence, "Do not tell me I have no power, Martin. Mean, deformed,
and miserable as I am, I have found out that I can rule spirits better
than kings, and have a happiness within me over which they have no
sway. You are not the first I have made weep. So now tell me what it
is you want with my father. Perhaps I may help you better than he
can."
"It was not you made me weep, you foolish boy," said Martin Grille;
"but it was the thought of the bloody death of the poor Duke of
Orleans, so good a master, and so kind a man; and then I began to
think how his terrible fate might have expiated, through the goodness
of the blessed Virgin, all his little sins, and how the saints and the
angels would welcome him. I almost thought I could hear them singing,
and it was that made me cry. But as to what I want with your father,
it was in regard to my poor master, Monsieur De Brecy, a kind, good
young man, and a gallant one, too. They have arrested him, and thrown
him into prison--a set of fools!--accusing him of having compassed the
prince's death, when he would have laid down his life for him at any
time. But all the people at the hotel are against him, for he is too
good for them, a great deal; and I want somebody powerful to speak in
his behalf, otherwise they may put him to the torture, and cripple him
for life, just to make him confess a lie, as they did with Paul
Laroche, who never could walk without two sticks after. Now I know,
your father is one of the Duke of Burgundy's men, and that duke will
rule the roast now, I suppose."
"Strong spirits seek strong spirits," said the boy, thoughtfully; "and
perhaps my father might do something with the duke. But Martin," he
continued, after a short and silent pause, "do not you have any thing
to do with the Duke of Burgundy! He will not help you. I do not know
what it is puts such thoughts in my head. But the king's brother had
an enemy; the king's brother is basely murdered; his enemy still lives
heartily; and it is not him I would ask to help a man falsely accused.
Stay a little. They took me, three days ago, to play before the King
of Navarre, and I am to go to-day, with my instrument, to play before
the Queen of Sicily. I think I can help you, Martin, if she will but
hear me. This murder, perhaps, may put it all out, for she was fond of
the duke, they tell me; but I will send her word, through some of her
people, when I go, that I have got a dirge to play for his highness
that is dead. She will hear that, perhaps. Only tell me all about it."
Martin Grille's story was somewhat long; but as the reader already
knows much that he told in a desultory sort of way to his young
cousin, and the rest is not of much importance to this tale, we will
pass over his account, which lasted some twenty minutes, and had not
been finished five when Caboche himself entered the booth in holiday
attire. His first words showed Martin Grille the good sense of Petit
Jean's advice, not to speak to his father in favor of Jean Charost.
"Oh ho! Martin," cried Caboche, in a gruff and almost savage tone, "so
your gay duke has got his brains knocked out at last for his fine
doings."
"For which of his doings has he been so shamefully murdered?" asked
Martin Grille, with as much anger in his tone as he dared to evince.
"What, don't you know?" exclaimed Caboche. "Why, it is in every body's
mouth that he has been killed by Albert de Chauny, whose wife he
carried off and made a harlot of. I say, well done, Albert de Chauny;
and I would have done the same if I had been in his place."
"Then Monsieur De Brecy is proved innocent," said Martin Grille,
eagerly.
"I know nothing about that," answered Caboche. "He may have been an
accomplice, you know; but that's no business of mine. I went up to see
the duke lie at the Celestins. There was a mighty crowd there of men
and women; but they all made way for Caboche. He makes a handsome
corpse, though his head is so knocked about; but he'll not take any
more men's wives away, and now we shall have quiet days, I suppose,
though I don't see what good quiet does: for whether the town is
peaceful or not, men don't buy or sell nowadays half as much as they
used to do."
There was a certain degree of vanity in his tone as he uttered the
words, "All made way for Caboche," which was very significant; and his
description of the appearance of the Duke of Orleans made Martin
Grille shudder. He remained not long with his rough uncle, however;
but, after having asked and answered some questions, he took advantage
of a moment when Caboche himself was busy in rearranging his cutlery
and counting his money, to whisper a few words to Petit Jean regarding
a meeting in the evening, and then parted from him, saying simply,
"Remember!"