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[Illustration: Book Cover]
THE COURT JESTER
[Illustration: "I am Marguerite of Hapsburg!"--_Page 51_]
THE COURT JESTER
_By_
CORNELIA BAKER
_Author of_
The Queen's Page
Young People in Old Places, etc.
_With Illustrations by_
MARGARET ELY WEBB
_and_
MARGARET H. DEVENEAU
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1906
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
DEDICATED TO MY
DEAR EUGENIA F. F.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I LE GLORIEUX HEARS GOOD NEWS 1
II A FESTIVAL AT THE INN 13
III AN EXCITING DAY AND EVENING 33
IV BROKEN PROMISES 61
V THE WONDERFUL WISDOM OF PITTACUS 76
VI LADY CLOTILDE'S MOONSTONE PENDANT 98
VII A PLEASANT SURPRISE FOR THE PRINCESS 124
VIII A ROYAL ALCHEMIST 153
IX PHILIBERT IN DANGER 167
X A MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE 194
XI THE LADY MARGUERITE IS VERY BRAVE 214
XII AN AUSTRIAN PRINCESS AT THE SPANISH COURT 230
XIII TRIPPING THE MEASURES OF THE EGG-DANCE 249
THE COURT JESTER
CHAPTER I
LE GLORIEUX HEARS GOOD NEWS
The old duchess was talking of the past, while behind her chair Le
Glorieux was silently and joyously turning handsprings. I wish I might
give him another name, for that one is certainly a mouthful, but as he
really lived, and that was what he was called, we must manage it as best
we can.
You may think, and with reason, that turning handsprings was not a
respectful thing to do when a lady, and above all a duchess, was
talking. But Le Glorieux was the court jester, the fool, who when
Charles the Bold, son of the duchess, was living, was wont to make his
master laugh. Therefore his conduct and conversation as a rule were not
what one could expect of a sedate and dignified member of society.
In the presence of his late master, Le Glorieux could have turned
handsprings in plain view, but the dowager duchess was old and querulous
and resented such performances. She was the widow of Philip the Good,
Duke of Burgundy, and she looked very much like a fairy godmother in
her quaint costume of the time of Charles the Seventh. She had been
lady in waiting at the court of the French king, and she still clung to
the high headdress, towering some twenty inches above her brow, and its
long veil, which seemed to be boiling in filmy folds, like foam, from
its pointed top. By her side was an ebony crutch, not for the purpose of
turning pumpkins into coaches for the convenience of neglected
Cinderellas, but to support the weight of the owner when she cared to
move about; for rheumatism, which was up and doing even so long ago as
the fifteenth century, had no more respect for a duchess than for a
scullery maid, and had spitefully attacked her Grace of Burgundy.
The windows were veiled by heavy curtains that excluded the sunshine,
and the only light in the long dim room came from the brazier at the
feet of the duchess, who required artificial heat even in this warm
autumn weather. Outside--Le Glorieux knew--the birds were singing and
the butterflies were dipping in and out among the roses nodding in the
soft breeze; but to-day the beauties of nature did not attract him so
strongly as did the unusual degree of excitement going on in the castle.
The Lady Clotilde had been sent for by her cousin, the young Duchess
Anne of Brittany, and so, bag and baggage and servants, she was to set
out on the following morning. Throughout the castle was felt the buzz
and bustle of preparation, maids running in and out, and pages spinning
up and down the staircases, for the Lady Clotilde liked to keep
everybody busy. Le Glorieux longed to see what was going on, for, though
a grown man, he possessed the heart of a rollicking boy and was highly
entertained by a hubbub.
There had been plenty of diversion while Charles the Bold was living, a
fact of which you will be convinced when you read your history of
France, and he had once taken Le Glorieux with him to the wars, where
the latter had shown himself to be brave and fearless, and when Charles
was not planning campaigns against the neighboring countries, or engaged
in carrying out his plans, he liked, while sipping the red or the white
wine of his province, to listen to the drolleries of his jester. In
those days, you see, there were no newspapers, no printed jokes, and it
was necessary for even a fierce and warlike duke to laugh at times. But
after the duke's death nobody cared much for the jester's jokes, and his
principal duty seemed to be to listen to the dowager duchess talk, and
as she was in the habit of repeating the same story a good many times a
day, her conversation was usually extremely wearisome.
[Illustration: "I remember it well"]
"Yes," said she, holding her wax-like hands out to the brazier and
rubbing them thoughtfully, "I remember it as well as if it had happened
yesterday. I do not know whether I ever mentioned to you, Le Glorieux,
that I was lady in waiting to her Highness, Marguerite of Scotland, then
Dauphiness of France?"
With the agility of a cat the jester, who at this moment was standing on
his head, regained his feet and stood respectfully before her Grace.
"Never, Cousin," replied he gravely; "or at least not more than five
thousand times."
"I thought not," she returned, for being somewhat deaf she had not
caught the latter part of the sentence. "Yes, I was in the train of that
dear and beauteous lady whom I loved so much that I still wear the
costume chosen by her, this cap and veil and these shoes."
The old lady thrust out a foot shod in a shoe having a sharp point as
long again as her foot, remarking contentedly, "This is a fine style of
a shoe, do you not think so, Le Glorieux?"
"Yes, Cousin, and one calculated to encourage an ambitious great toe
that is anxious to keep on growing," replied the fool, whose own shoes
were pointed, but in a style far less exaggerated than those of her
Grace.
"As I was saying," she went on, "I remember it as well as if it had
happened yesterday. The dauphiness was fond of learning, and she
composed verses of no small merit. I too caught the contagion and
composed verses. I wish that I could remember some of them to repeat to
you."
"Do not trouble yourself, Cousin," said the jester hastily; "I am
nothing but a fool, you know, and I must deny myself many pleasures."
"At the court," she resumed, "lived at the time the great poet Alain
Chartier, who was a wonderfully gifted man, though very plain. One day
when the dauphiness and her ladies--I was among them, Le Glorieux--were
crossing the courtyard we found Alain Chartier asleep on a bench. Much
to our surprise her Highness gathered up her long train so that its
rustle would not awaken him, and tripping softly toward the sleeping
poet she kissed him on the lips. Yes, Le Glorieux, that great princess
consort of the dauphin--afterward Louis the Eleventh--deigned to kiss a
humble poet with her own lips! Was it not wonderful?"
"Not so wonderful as if she had tried to kiss him with somebody else's
lips," replied the fool, adding, "but it was unfair to Chartier."
"Why unfair?"
"Because she had no right to take him unawares and unarmed."
Her Grace frowned darkly as she replied, "Le Glorieux, you are nothing
but a fool and you can not understand what an honor it was for a humble
poet to be kissed by a great princess. But one of the courtiers said,
'Madame, why did you kiss that extremely unprepossessing man?' The
dauphiness replied, 'I did not kiss the man----'"
"How could she say that," broke in the jester, "when you all saw her do
it?"
"Do not interrupt me, Fool. The dauphiness said, 'I did not kiss the
man----'"
"That is what you said before," interrupted the fool again, "and I say
she must have been a very silly little woman."
"Fool, do you not know that you are daring to criticise a princess of
Scotland, daughter of James the Second of that country?"
"I do not care if she was the daughter of his present Majesty, Henry the
Seventh of England; it was foolish of her to try to make people doubt
the evidence of their own eyes."
"Will you let me finish, you great gawk?" Then raising her voice and
speaking very rapidly the duchess went on, "The dauphiness said, 'I did
not kiss the man, but that precious mouth from which has come so many
noble and virtuous words.'"
"I call that a very slipshod way to get out of it," replied the fool.
"Let us take an example. Suppose I had gone to the court of France and
had cut off the late king's head. The soldiers arrest me and I say, 'I
did not kill the man, I simply sliced off that head which has hatched up
so many horrible schemes.' Would they apologize and let me go? Not a bit
of it!"
"But this, you see, was figurative."
"I do not care what you call it. She kissed his lips, did she not?"
"Yes."
"And was not the man behind them at the time?"
"Of course, but you see----"
"Then there is nothing more to say about it," went on the fool.
The duchess reflected seriously for a moment and then seemed to arrive
at the conclusion that it would not pay her to continue the argument.
Besides, she was somewhat muddled herself. She continued, "Was it a
wonder that so gracious a lady should have been misunderstood at such a
court? And she died mysteriously, Le Glorieux, when she was but
one-and-twenty, and in her illness she said, 'Fie upon this life; let no
one talk more of it to me!'"
"I am not surprised that she felt that way," said the jester. "Now that
Louis is dead, they say that he was not cruel, but firm. For my part, I
do not like the kind of firmness that wants to hang or drown half the
people in the kingdom, though it may be that I am too particular."
"Yes, I remember that day as well as if it had been yesterday," went on
the duchess, with her dull eyes fixed dreamily upon the red coals of the
brazier, and the fool again glided behind her chair and resumed the
handsprings.
At last, attracted in the midst of her recollections by the incessant
ringing of the little bells on the jester's cap, which his lively
motions kept a-tinkle, the old lady craned her neck and glancing behind
her chair caught him in the very act of standing on his head!
Indignant at his inattention and forgetting the license accorded court
fools, she seized her crutch and hit him a swift rap across the calves
of the legs which caused him to reverse himself with a howl.
"How dare you treat me with such disrespect, and not only me, but the
gracious princess of whom I was talking!" she cried angrily. "You shall
leave the court. I have no need of a fool!" Then a sudden and pleasant
thought seemed to come into her mind, for she said, "I know what I will
do. I feel that I should send Anne of Brittany a present, and I was
going to send her an emerald. I will not part with the gem; I will send
you, Le Glorieux, instead, with a letter saying that I am presenting her
with the most precious possession of the late Duke of Burgundy, to cheer
her in the various trials brought about by the reign of one so young.
Yes, that will be fine, and I shall keep the emerald. You may leave me,
Fool, and prepare for your departure while I think over the wording of
my letter."
Le Glorieux was so overcome with joy at this sudden and unexpected turn
of affairs that he forgot his abused calves, and his feet scarce touched
the steps as he mounted to his little tower chamber, for you must know
that a fool was a kind of slave, and although having many privileges
within the palace, was not allowed to leave it even for a night without
special permission.
On the landing of the staircase stood a boy of eleven or twelve years of
age, looking sadly out of the mullioned window. He was a pretty youth
and he wore a fine suit, to say nothing of a cap with a curling plume,
but he did not look happy.
"Cheer up, Antoine," said the jester, slapping him on the back; "better
days are in store for me."
"What will your better days avail me?" asked the boy, with a shrug.
"Well answered," said the jester reflectively. "Yet when things are
going well with us we are surprised that the world does not smile with
us, while we expect it to boohoo when we are sad. But I have been given
permission to go to Brittany. Think of that! Try to overcome your
indifference, and think what a joy it will be to me to live where I
shall no longer hear the story of the princess who kissed the poet. And
she has just hit me a blow on the legs that has raised lumps as big as
plovers' eggs. Did it with her crutch, too!"
"She struck me across the shoulders with it because I could not find her
needle, and she held the needle in her fingers all the time," said the
page mournfully.
"Knowing her little ways, you should have looked in her fingers first,"
said the fool, adding blithely, "but she will never strike me again,
because I am going away."
"You need not continually flaunt that in my face," returned the boy, in
an injured tone, continuing with the mournful pleasure that many of us
take in predicting misfortune for people whom we envy; "there may be
worse things in store for you than to be struck by an ill-natured woman.
I heard of a youth who went to a strange court with great glee and the
very next day both of his ears were cut off."
"I do not think I should like a thing of that kind to happen to me,"
said the fool gravely. "Of course, the loss of my ears would never be
noticed, because my cap covers them, but at the same time I think I
should miss them myself, having always had them, you know. But I do not
think you quite understand just why I am going away. Our mistress is
sending me as a present, a pretty, dainty present, to the young Duchess
of Brittany, and you know it would not be good taste to ill-treat a
present."
"You are a strange present to send to a young lady," remarked the page
sourly. "I warrant she will not be overjoyed with her packet when it
meets her gaze."
"Oh, yes she will," returned Le Glorieux easily. "You see it is
necessary for her to be cheered, for not only have there been frequent
turmoils in her duchy, but there has been a perfect fever of excitement
about her matrimonial arrangements from the day she was born. First they
wanted her to marry one of the little princes of England afterward
smothered by his affectionate Uncle Richard; then it was the Infante of
Spain, and though it now seems settled that she is to marry Maximilian
of Austria, still she must be nervous and unsettled. At any rate, our
mistress wants to do something gracious, and being more than a trifle
close, and not wishing to send a valuable jewel, she sends me in the
care of the Lady Clotilde as the most valuable jewel of her possession."
"Oh, Le Glorieux, take me with you!" pleaded Antoine, forgetting his
sarcasm in his anxiety to share his friend's good fortune. "If you only
will I shall be your debtor for life."
"That would be impossible, my lad. You must remain here to find her
Grace's needle when she drops it, and to lead the life of a nice, tame
pussy-cat."
"I will not!" cried the boy, dashing the tears from his bright eyes. "My
father, who, as you know, died in battle, never intended that I should
grow up thus tamely. Take me with you, oh, Le Glorieux, do!"
"I should like to," replied the jester thoughtfully. "You could ride
beside me and you should fetch your lute and you could sing to me along
the way to make the birds ashamed of themselves. But even if you should
run away, the Lady Clotilde would not let you go with us, for you know
what she is. If she were a peasant woman she would be called sour and
disagreeable, but being a great lady she is simply dignified and firm."
But there are times when we are enabled to get that for which we very
much wish, and it so happened that the Lady Clotilde wanted the boy in
her suite and begged him of the duchess, who willingly acquiesced, for
caring not at all for his musical talent and his handsome face, he was
no more to her than any other page.
So there were not two lighter hearts in the good duchy of Burgundy than
were those of the page and the jester as they set about making their
preparations for departure. They were pleased to leave the court where
life had grown so monotonous, and they were delighted that they were to
go in each other's company, for though there was a difference of some
fifteen years in their respective ages, Le Glorieux and Antoine were
very fond of each other.