His dress emphasized the ideas suggested by the peculiarities of his mien

and face. Soul, body, and garb were in harmony, and calculated to impress

the coldest imagination. He wore a sort of sleeveless gown of black cloth,

fastened in front, and falling to the calf, leaving the neck bare with no

collar. His doublet and boots were likewise black. On his head was a black

velvet cap like a priest's, sitting in a close circle above his forehead,

and not showing a single hair. It was the strictest mourning, the

gloomiest habit a man could wear. But for a long sword that hung by his

side from a leather belt which could be seen where his surcoat hung open, a

priest would have hailed him as a brother. Though of no more than middle

height, he appeared tall; and, looking him in the face, he seemed a giant.

"The clock has struck, the boat is waiting; will you not come?"

At these words, spoken in bad French, but distinctly audible in the

silence, a little noise was heard in the other top room, and the young man

came down as lightly as a bird.

When Godefroid appeared, the lady's face turned crimson; she trembled,

started, and covered her face with her white hands.

Any woman might have shared her agitation at the sight of this youth of

about twenty, of a form and stature so slender that at a first glance he

might have been taken for a mere boy, or a young girl in disguise. His

black cap--like the _beret_ worn by the Basque people--showed a brow as

white as snow, where grace and innocence shone with an expression of divine

sweetness--the light of a soul full of faith. A poet's fancy would have

seen there the star which, in some old tale, a mother entreats the fairy

godmother to set on the forehead of an infant abandoned, like Moses, to the

waves. Love lurked in the thousand fair curls that fell over his shoulders.

His throat, truly a swan's throat, was white and exquisitely round. His

blue eyes, bright and liquid, mirrored the sky. His features and the mould

of his brow were refined and delicate enough to enchant a painter. The

bloom of beauty, which in a woman's face causes men such indescribable

delight, the exquisite purity of outline, the halo of light that bathes the

features we love, were here combined with a masculine complexion, and with

strength as yet but half developed, in the most enchanting contrast. His

was one of those melodious countenances which even when silent speak and

attract us. And yet, on marking it attentively, the incipient blight might

have been detected which comes of a great thought or a passion, the faint

yellow tinge that made him seem like a young leaf opening to the sun.

No contrast could be greater or more startling than that seen in the

companionship of these two men. It was like seeing a frail and graceful

shrub that has grown from the hollow trunk of some gnarled willow, withered

by age, blasted by lightning, standing decrepit; one of those majestic

trees that painters love; the trembling sapling takes shelter there from

storms. One was a god, the other was an angel; one the poet that feels, the

other the poet that expresses--a prophet in sorrow, a levite in prayer.

They went out together without speaking.

"Did you mark how he called him to him?" cried the sergeant of the watch

when the footsteps of the couple were no longer audible on the strand. "Are

not they a demon and his familiar?"

"Phooh!" puffed Jacqueline. "I felt smothered! I never marked our two

lodgers so carefully. 'Tis a bad thing for us women that the Devil can wear

so fair a mien!"

"Ay, cast some holy water on him," said Tirechair, "and you will see him

turn into a toad.--I am off to tell the office all about them."

On hearing this speech, the lady roused herself from the reverie into which

she had sunk, and looked at the constable, who was donning his red-and-blue

jacket.

"Whither are you off to?" she asked.

"To tell the justices that wizards are lodging in our house very much

against our will."

The lady smiled.

"I," said she, "am the Comtesse de Mahaut," and she rose with a dignity

that took the man's breath away. "Beware of bringing the smallest trouble

on your guests. Above all, respect the old man; I have seen him in the

company of your Lord the King, who entreated him courteously; you will be

ill advised to trouble him in any way. As to my having been here--never

breathe a word of it, as you value your life."

She said no more, but relapsed into thought.

Presently she looked up, signed to Jacqueline, and together they went up

into Godefroid's room. The fair Countess looked at the bed, the carved

chairs, the chest, the tapestry, the table, with a joy like that of the

exile who sees on his return the crowded roofs of his native town nestling

at the foot of a hill.

"If you have not deceived me," she said to Jacqueline, "I promise you a

hundred crowns in gold."

"Behold, madame," said the woman, "the poor angel is confiding--here is all

his treasure."

As she spoke, Jacqueline opened a drawer in the table and showed some

parchments.

"God of mercy!" cried the Countess, snatching up a document that caught her

eye, on which she read, _Gothofredus Comes Gantiacus_ (Godefroid, Count of

Ghent).

She dropped the parchment, and passed her hand over her brow; then,

feeling, no doubt, that she had compromised herself by showing so much

emotion, she recovered her cold demeanor.

"I am satisfied," said she.

She went downstairs and out of the house. The constable and his wife stood

in their doorway, and saw her take the path to the landing-place.

A boat was moored hard by. When the rustle of the Countess' approach was

audible, a boatman suddenly stood up, helped the fair laundress to take her

seat in it, and rowed with such strength as to make the boat fly like a

swallow down the stream.

"You are a sorry fellow," said Jacqueline, giving the officer's shoulder a

familiar slap. "We have earned a hundred gold crowns this morning."

"I like harboring lords no better than harboring wizards. And I know not,

of the two, which is the more like to bring us to the gallows," replied

Tirechair, taking up his halbert. "I will go my rounds over by Champfleuri;

God protect us, and send me to meet some pert jade out in her bravery of

gold rings to glitter in the shade like a glow-worm!"

Jacqueline, alone in the house, hastily went up to the unknown lord's room

to discover, if she could, some clue to this mysterious business. Like some

learned men who give themselves infinite pains to complicate the clear and

simple laws of nature, she had already invented a chaotic romance to

account for the meeting of these three persons under her humble roof. She

hunted through the chest, examined everything, but could find nothing

extraordinary. She saw nothing on the table but a writing-case and some

sheets of parchment; and as she could not read, this discovery told her

nothing. A woman's instinct then took her into the young man's room, and

from thence she descried her two lodgers crossing the river in the ferry

boat.

"They stand like two statues," said she to herself. "Ah, ha! They are

landing at the Rue du Fouarre. How nimble he is, the sweet youth! He jumped

out like a bird. By him the old man looks like some stone saint in the

Cathedral.--They are going to the old School of the Four Nations. Presto!

they are out of sight.--And this is where he lives, poor cherub!" she went

on, looking about the room. "How smart and winning he is! Ah! your fine

gentry are made of other stuff than we are."

And Jacqueline went down again after smoothing down the bed-coverlet,

dusting the chest, and wondering for the hundredth time in six months:

"What in the world does he do all the blessed day? He cannot always be

staring at the blue sky and the stars that God has hung up there like

lanterns. That dear boy has known trouble. But why do he and the old man

hardly ever speak to each other?"

Then she lost herself in wonderment and in thoughts which, in her woman's

brain, were tangled like a skein of thread.

The old man and his young companion had gone into one of the schools for

which the Rue du Fouarre was at that time famous throughout Europe. At the

moment when Jacqueline's two lodgers arrived at the old School des Quatre

Nations, the celebrated Sigier, the most noted Doctor of Mystical Theology

of the University of Paris, was mounting his pulpit in a spacious low room

on a level with the street. The cold stones were strewn with clean straw,

on which several of his disciples knelt on one knee, writing on the other,

to enable them to take notes from the Master's improvised discourse, in the

shorthand abbreviations which are the despair of modern decipherers.

The hall was full, not of students only, but of the most distinguished men

belonging to the clergy, the court, and the legal faculty. There were some

learned foreigners, too--soldiers and rich citizens. The broad faces were

there, with prominent brows and venerable beards, which fill us with a sort

of pious respect for our ancestors when we see their portraits from the

Middle Ages. Lean faces, too, with burning, sunken eyes, under bald heads

yellow from the labors of futile scholasticism, contrasted with young and

eager countenances, grave faces, warlike faces, and the ruddy cheeks of the

financial class.

These lectures, dissertations, theses, sustained by the brightest geniuses

of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, roused our forefathers to

enthusiasm. They were to them their bull-fights, their Italian opera, their

tragedy, their dancers; in short, all their drama. The performance of

Mysteries was a later thing than these spiritual disputations, to which,

perhaps, we owe the French stage. Inspired eloquence, combining the

attractions of the human voice skilfully used, with daring inquisition into

the secrets of God, sufficed to satisfy every form of curiosity, appealed

to the soul, and constituted the fashionable entertainment of the time. Not

only did Theology include the other sciences, it was science itself, as

grammar was science to the Ancient Greeks; and those who distinguished

themselves in these duels, in which the orators, like Jacob, wrestled with

the Spirit of God, had a promising future before them. Embassies,

arbitrations between sovereigns, chancellorships, and ecclesiastical

dignities were the meed of men whose rhetoric had been schooled in

theological controversy. The professor's chair was the tribune of the

period.

This system lasted till the day when Rabelais gibbeted dialectics by his

merciless satire, as Cervantes demolished chivalry by a narrative comedy.

To understand this amazing period and the spirit which dictated its

voluminous, though now forgotten, masterpieces, to analyze it, even to its

barbarisms, we need only examine the Constitutions of the University of

Paris and the extraordinary scheme of instruction that then obtained.

Theology was taught under two faculties--that of Theology properly so

called, and that of Canon Law. The faculty of Theology, again, had three

sections--Scholastic, Canonical, and Mystic. It would be wearisome to give

an account of the attributes of each section of the science, since one

only, namely, Mystic, is the subject of this _Etude_.

Mystical Theology included the whole of Divine Revelation and the

elucidation of the Mysteries. And this branch of ancient theology has been

secretly preserved with reverence even to our own day; Jacob Boehm,

Swedenborg, Martinez Pasqualis, Saint-Martin, Molinos, Madame Guyon, Madame

Bourignon, and Madame Krudener, the extensive sect of the Ecstatics, and

that of the Illuminati, have at different periods duly treasured the

doctrines of this science, of which the aim is indeed truly startling and

portentous. In Doctor Sigier's day, as in our own, man has striven to gain

wings to fly into the sanctuary where God hides from our gaze.

This digression was necessary to give a clue to the scene at which the old

man and the youth from the island under Notre-Dame had come to be audience;

it will also protect this narrative from all blame on the score of

falsehood and hyperbole, of which certain persons of hasty judgment might

perhaps suspect me.

Doctor Sigier was a tall man in the prime of life. His face, rescued from

oblivion by the archives of the University, had singular analogies with

that of Mirabeau. It was stamped with the seal of fierce, swift, and

terrible eloquence. But the Doctor bore on his brow the expression of

religious faith that his modern double had not. His voice, too, was of

persuasive sweetness, with a clear and pleasing ring in it.

At this moment the daylight, that was stintingly diffused through the

small, heavily-leaded window-panes, tinted the assembly with capricious

tones and powerful contrasts from the chequered light and shade. Here, in a

dark corner, eyes shone brightly, their dark heads under the sunbeams

gleamed light above faces in shadow, and various bald heads, with only a

circlet of white hair, were distinguished among the crowd like battlements

silvered by moonlight. Every face was turned towards the Doctor, mute but

impatient. The drowsy voices of other lecturers in the adjoining schools

were audible in the silent street like the murmuring of the sea; and the

steps of the two strangers, as they now came in, attracted general

attention. Doctor Sigier, ready to begin, saw the stately senior standing,

looked round for a seat for him, and then finding none, as the place was

full, came down from his place, went to the newcomer, and with great

respect, led him to the platform of his professor's chair, and there gave

him his stool to sit upon. The assembly hailed this mark of deference with

a murmur of approval, recognizing the old man as the orator of a fine

thesis admirably argued not long since at the Sorbonne.

The stranger looked down from his raised position on the crowd below with

that deep glance that held a whole poem of sorrow, and those who met his

eye felt an indescribable thrill. The lad, following the old man, sat down

on one of the steps, leaning against the pulpit in a graceful and

melancholy attitude. The silence was now profound, and the doorway and even

the street were blocked by scholars who had deserted the other classes.

Doctor Sigier was to-day to recapitulate, in the last of a series of

discourses, the views he had set forth in the former lectures on the

Resurrection, Heaven, and Hell. His strange doctrine responded to the

sympathies of the time, and gratified the immoderate love of the

marvelous, which haunts the mind of man in every age. This effort of man to

clutch the infinite, which for ever slips through his ineffectual grasp,

this last tourney of thought against thought, was a task worthy of an

assembly where the brightest luminaries of the age had met, and where the

most stupendous human imagination ever known, perhaps, at that moment

shone.

The Doctor began by summing up in a mild and even tone the principal points

he had so far established:

"No intellect was the exact counterpart of another. Had

man any right to require an account of his Creator for

the inequality of powers bestowed on each? Without

attempting to penetrate rashly into the designs of God,

ought we not to recognize the fact that by reason of

their general diversity intelligences could be classed

in spheres? From the sphere where the least degree of

intelligence gleamed, to the most translucent souls who

could see the road by which to ascend to God, was there

not an ascending scale of spiritual gift? And did not

spirits of the same sphere understand each other like

brothers in soul, in flesh, in mind, and in feeling?"

From this the Doctor went on to unfold the most wonderful theories of

sympathy. He set forth in Biblical language the phenomena of love, of

instinctive repulsion, of strong affinities which transcend the laws of

space, of the sudden mingling of souls which seem to recognize each other.

With regard to the different degrees of strength of which our affections

are capable, he accounted for them by the place, more or less near the

centre, occupied by beings in their respective circles.

He gave mathematical expression to God's grand idea in the co-ordination of

the various human spheres. "Through man," he said, "these spheres

constituted a world intermediate between the intelligence of the brute and

the intelligence of the angels." As he stated it, the divine Word nourishes

the spiritual Word, the spiritual Word nourishes the living Word, the

living Word nourishes the animal Word, the animal Word nourishes the

vegetable Word, and the vegetable Word is the expression of the life of the

barren Word. These successive evolutions, as of a chrysalis, which God thus

wrought in our souls, this infusorial life, so to speak, communicated from

each zone to the next, more vivid, more spiritual, more perceptive in its

ascent, represented, rather dimly no doubt, but marvelously enough to his

inexperienced hearers, the impulse given to Nature by the Almighty.

Supported by many texts from the Sacred Scriptures, which he used as a

commentary on his own statements to express by concrete images the abstract

arguments he felt to be wanting, he flourished the Spirit of God like a

torch over the deep secrets of creation, with an eloquence peculiar to

himself, and accents that urged conviction on his audience. As he unfolded

his mysterious system and all its consequences, he gave a key to every

symbol and justified the vocation, the special gifts, the genius, the

talent of each human being.

Then, instinctively becoming physiological, he remarked on the resemblance

to certain animals stamped on some human faces, accounting for them by

primordial analogies and the upward tendency of all creation. He showed his

audience the workings of Nature, and assigned a mission and a future to

minerals, plants, and animals. Bible in hand, after thus spiritualizing

Matter and materializing Spirit, after pointing to the Will of God in all

things, and enjoining respect for His smallest works, he suggested the

possibility of rising by faith from sphere to sphere.

This was the first portion of his discourse, and by adroit digressions he

applied the doctrine of his system to feudalism. The poetry--religious and

profane--and the abrupt eloquence of that period had a grand opening in

this vast theory, wherein the Doctor had amalgamated all the philosophical

systems of the ancients, and from which he brought them out again

classified, transfigured, purified. The false dogmas of two adverse

principles and of Pantheism were demolished at his word, which proclaimed

the Divine Unity, while ascribing to God and His angels the knowledge, the

ends to which the means shone resplendent to the eyes of man. Fortified by

the demonstrations that proved the existence of the world of Matter, Doctor

Sigier constructed the scheme of a spiritual world dividing us from God by

an ascending scale of spheres, just as the plant is divided from man by an

infinite number of grades. He peopled the heavens, the stars, the planets,

the sun.

Quoting Saint Paul, he invested man with a new power; he might rise, from

globe to globe, to the very Fount of eternal life. Jacob's mystical ladder

was both the religious formula and the traditional proof of the fact. He

soared through space, carrying with him the passionate souls of his hearers

on the wings of his word, making them feel the infinite, and bathing them

in the heavenly sea. Then the Doctor accounted logically for hell by

circles placed in inverse order to the shining spheres that lead to God, in

which torments and darkness take the place of the Spirit and of light. Pain

was as intelligible as rapture. The terms of the comparison were present in

the conditions of human life and its various atmospheres of suffering and

of intellect. Thus the most extraordinary traditions of hell and purgatory

were quite naturally conceivable.

He gave the fundamental _rationale_ of virtue with admirable clearness. A

pious man, toiling onward in poverty, proud of his good conscience, at

peace with himself, and steadfastly true to himself in his heart in spite

of the spectacle of exultant vice, was a fallen angel doing penance, who

remembered his origin, foresaw his guerdon, accomplished his task, and

obeyed his glorious mission. The sublime resignation of Christians was then

seen in all its glory. He depicted martyrs at the burning stake, and almost

stripped them of their merit by stripping them of their sufferings. He

showed their inner angel as dwelling in the heavens, while the outer man

was tortured by the executioner's sword. He described angels dwelling among

men, and gave tokens by which to recognize them.

He next strove to drag from the very depths of man's understanding the real

sense of the word fall, which occurs in every language. He appealed to the

most widely-spread traditions in evidence of this one true origin,

explaining, with much lucidity, the passion all men have for rising,

mounting--an instinctive ambition, the perennial revelation of our destiny.

He displayed the whole universe at a glance, and described the nature of

God Himself circulating in a full tide from the centre to the extremities,

and from the extremities to the centre again. Nature was one and

homogeneous. In the most seemingly trivial, as in the most stupendous work,

everything obeyed that law; each created object reproduced in little an

exact image of that nature--the sap in the plant, the blood in man, the

orbits of the planets. He piled proof on proof, always completing his idea

by a picture musical with poetry.

And he boldly anticipated every objection. He thundered forth an eloquent

challenge to the monumental works of science and human excrescences of

knowledge, such as those which societies use the elements of the earthly

globe to produce. He asked whether our wars, our disasters, our depravity

could hinder the great movement given by God to all the globes; and he

laughed human impotence to scorn by pointing to their efforts everywhere in

ruins. He cried upon the manes of Tyre, Carthage, and Babylon; he called

upon Babel and Jerusalem to appear; and sought, without finding them, the

transient furrows made by the ploughshare of civilization. Humanity floated

on the surface of the earth as a ship whose wake is lost in the calm level

of ocean.

These were the fundamental notions set forth in Doctor Sigier's address,

all wrapped in the mystical language and strange school Latin of the time.

He had made a special study of the Scriptures, and they supplied him with

the weapons with which he came before his contemporaries to hasten their

progress. He hid his boldness under his immense learning, as with a cloak,

and his philosophical bent under a saintly life. At this moment, after

bringing his hearers face to face with God, after packing the universe into

an idea, and almost unveiling the idea of the world, he gazed down on the

silent, throbbing mass, and scrutinized the stranger with a look. Then,

spurred on, no doubt, by the presence of this remarkable personage, he

added these words, from which I have eliminated the corrupt Latinity of the

Middle Ages:--

"Where, think you, may a man find these fruitful truths if not in the heart

of God Himself?--What am I?--The humble interpreter of a single line left

to us by the greatest of the Apostles--a single line out of thousands all

equally full of light. Before us, Saint Paul said, '_In Deo vivimus movemur

et sumus_.' In our day, less believing and more learned, or better

instructed and more sceptical, we should ask the Apostle, 'To what end this

perpetual motion? Whither leads this life divided into zones? Wherefore an

intelligence that begins with the obscure perfection of marble and proceeds

from sphere to sphere up to man, up to the angel, up to God? Where is the

Fount, where is the ocean, if life, attaining to God across worlds and

stars, through Matter and Spirit, has to come down again to some other

goal?'

"You desire to see both aspects of the universe at once. You would adore

the Sovereign on condition of being suffered to sit for an instant on His

throne. Mad fools that we are! We will not admit that the most intelligent

animals are able to understand our ideas and the object of our actions; we

are merciless to the creatures of the inferior spheres, and exile them from

our own; we deny them the faculty of divining human thoughts, and yet we

ourselves would fain master the highest of all ideas--the Idea of the Idea!

"Well, go then, start! Fly by faith up from globe to globe, soar through

space! Thought, love, and faith are its mystical keys. Traverse the

circles, reach the throne! God is more merciful than you are; He opens His

temple to all His creatures. Only, do not forget the pattern of Moses; put

your shoes from off your feet cast off all filth, leave your body far

behind; otherwise you shall be consumed; for God--God is Light!"

Just as Doctor Sigier spoke these grand words, his face radiant, his hand

uplifted, a sunbeam pierced through an open window, like a magic jet from a

fount of splendor, a long triangular shaft of gold that lay like a scarf

over the whole assembly. They all clapped their hands, for the audience

accepted this effect of the sinking sun as a miracle. There was a universal

cry of:

"_Vivat! Vivat!_"

The very sky seemed to shed approval. Godefroid, struck with reverence,

looked from the old man to Doctor Sigier; they were talking together in an

undertone.

"All honor to the Master!" said the stranger.

"What is such transient honor?" replied Sigier.

"I would I could perpetuate my gratitude," said the older man.

"A line written by you is enough!" said the Doctor. "It would give me

immortality, humanly speaking."

"Can I give what I have not?" cried the elder.

Escorted by the crowd, which followed in their footsteps, like courtiers

round a king, at a respectful distance, Godefroid, with the old man and the

Doctor, made their way to the oozy shore, where as yet there were no

houses, and where the ferryman was waiting for them. The Doctor and the

stranger were talking together, not in Latin nor in any Gallic tongue, but

in an unknown language, and very gravely. They pointed with their hands now

to heaven and now to the earth. Sigier, to whom the paths by the river were

familiar, guided the venerable stranger with particular care to the narrow

planks which here and there bridged the mud; the following watched them

inquisitively; and some of the students envied the privileged boy who might

walk with these two great masters of speech. Finally, the Doctor took leave

of the stranger, and the ferry-boat pushed off.

At the moment when the boat was afloat on the wide river, communicating its

motion to the soul, the sun pierced the clouds like a conflagration blazing

up on the horizon, and poured forth a flood of light, coloring slate

roof-tops and humbler thatch with a ruddy glow and tawny reflections,

fringed Philippe Auguste's towers with fire, flooded the sky, dyed the

waters, gilded the plants, and aroused the half-sleeping insects. The

immense shaft of light set the clouds on fire. It was like the last verse

of the daily hymn. Every heart was thrilled; nature in such a moment is

sublime.

As he gazed at the spectacle, the stranger's eyes moistened with the

tenderest of human tears: Godefroid too was weeping; his trembling hand

touched that of the elder man, who, looking round, confessed his emotion.

But thinking his dignity as a man compromised, no doubt, to redeem it, he

said in a deep voice:

"I weep for my native land. I am an exile! Young man, in such an hour as

this I left my home. There, at this hour, the fireflies are coming out of

their fragile dwellings and clinging like diamond sparks to the leaves of

the iris. At this hour the breeze, as sweet as the sweetest poetry, rises

up from a valley bathed in light, bearing on its wings the richest

fragrance. On the horizon I could see a golden city like the Heavenly

Jerusalem--a city whose name I may not speak. There, too, a river winds.

But that city and its buildings, that river of which the lovely vistas, and

the pools of blue water, mingled, crossed, and embraced each other, which

gladdened my sight and filled me with love--where are they?

"At that hour the waters assumed fantastic hues under the sunset sky, and

seemed to be painted pictures; the stars dropped tender streaks of light,

the moon spread its pleasing snares; it gave another life to the trees, to

the color and form of things, and a new aspect to the sparkling water, the

silent hills, the eloquent buildings. The city spoke, it glittered, it

called to me to return!

"Columns of smoke rose up by the side of the ancient pillars, whose marble

sheen gleamed white through the night; the lines of the horizon were still

visible through the mists of evening; all was harmony and mystery. Nature

would not say farewell; she desired to keep me there. Ah! It was all in all

to me; my mother and my child, my wife and my glory! The very bells

bewailed my condemnation. Oh, land of marvels! It is as beautiful as

heaven. From that hour the wide world has been my dungeon. Beloved land,

why hast thou rejected me?

"But I shall triumph there yet!" he cried, speaking with an accent of such

intense conviction and such a ringing tone, that the boatman started as at

a trumpet call.

The stranger was standing in a prophetic attitude and gazing southwards

into the blue, pointing to his native home across the skyey regions. The

ascetic pallor of his face had given place to a glow of triumph, his eyes

flashed, he was as grand as a lion shaking his mane.

"But you, poor child," he went on, looking at Godefroid, whose cheeks were

beaded with glittering tears, "have you, like me, studied life from

blood-stained pages? What can you have to weep for, at your age?"

"Alas!" said Godefroid, "I regret a land more beautiful than any land on

earth--a land I never saw and yet remember. Oh, if I could but cleave the

air on beating wings, I would fly----"

"Whither?" asked the exile.

"Up there," replied the boy.

On hearing this answer, the stranger seemed surprised; he looked darkly at

the youth, who remained silent. They seemed to communicate by an

unspeakable effusion of the spirit, hearing each other's yearnings in the

teeming silence, and going forth side by side, like two doves sweeping the

air on equal wing, till the boat, touching the strand of the island, roused

them from their deep reverie.

Then, each lost in thought, they went together to the sergeant's house.

"And so the boy believes that he is an angel exiled from heaven!" thought

the tall stranger. "Which of us all has a right to undeceive him? Not I--I,

who am so often lifted by some magic spell so far above the earth; I who am

dedicate to God; I who am a mystery to myself. Have I not already seen the

fairest of the angels dwelling in this mire? Is this child more or less

crazed than I am? Has he taken a bolder step in the way of faith? He

believes, and his belief no doubt will lead him into some path of light

like that in which I walk. But though he is as beautiful as an angel, is he

not too feeble to stand fast in such a struggle?"

Abashed by the presence of his companion, whose voice of thunder expressed

to him his own thoughts, as lightning expresses the will of Heaven, the boy

was satisfied to gaze at the stars with a lover's eyes. Overwhelmed by a

luxury of sentiment, which weighed on his heart, he stood there timid and

weak--a midge in the sunbeams. Sigier's discourse had proved to them the

mysteries of the spiritual world; the tall, old man was to invest them with

glory; the lad felt them in himself, though he could in no way express

them. The three represented in living embodiment Science, Poetry, and

Feeling.

* * * * *

On going into the house, the Exile shut himself into his room, lighted the

inspiring lamp, and gave himself over to the ruthless demon of Work,

seeking words of the silence and ideas of the night. Godefroid sat down in

his window sill, by turns gazing at the moon reflected in the water, and

studying the mysteries of the sky. Lost in one of the trances that were

frequent with him, he traveled from sphere to sphere, from vision to

vision, listening for obscure rustlings and the voices of angels, and

believing that he heard them; seeing, or fancying that he saw, a divine

radiance in which he lost himself; striving to attain the far-away goal,

the source of all light, the fount of all harmony.

Presently the vast clamor of Paris, brought down on the current, was

hushed; lights were extinguished one by one in the houses; silence spread

over all; and the huge city slept like a tired giant.

Midnight struck. The least noise, the fall of a leaf, or the flight of a

jackdaw changing its perching-place among the pinnacles of Notre-Dame,

would have been enough to bring the stranger's mind to earth again, to have

made the youth drop from the celestial heights to which his soul had soared

on the wings of rapture.

And then the old man heard with dismay a groan mingling with the sound of a

heavy fall--the fall, as his experienced ear assured him, of a dead body.

He hastened into Godefroid's room, and saw him lying in a heap with a long

rope tight round his neck, the end meandering over the floor.

When he had untied it, the poor lad opened his eyes.

"Where am I?" he asked, with a hopeful gleam.

"In your own room," said the elder man, looking with surprise at

Godefroid's neck, and at the nail to which the cord had been tied, and

which was still in the knot.

"In heaven?" said the boy, in a voice of music.

"No; on earth!"

Godefroid rose and walked along the path of light traced on the floor by

the moon through the window, which stood open; he saw the rippling Seine,

the willows and plants on the island. A misty atmosphere hung over the

waters like a smoky floor.

On seeing the view, to him so heartbreaking, he folded his hands over his

bosom, and stood in an attitude of despair; the Exile came up to him with

astonishment on his face.

"You meant to kill yourself?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Godefroid, while the stranger passed his hand about his neck

again and again to feel the place where the rope had tightened on it.

But for some slight bruises, the young man had been but little hurt. His

friend supposed that the nail had given way at once under the weight of the

body, and the terrible attempt had ended in a fall without injury.

"And why, dear lad, did you try to kill yourself?"

"Alas!" said Godefroid, no longer restraining the tears that rolled down

his cheeks, "I heard the Voice from on high; it called me by name! It had

never named me before, but this time it bade me to Heaven! Oh, how sweet is

that voice!--As I could not fly to Heaven," he added artlessly, "I took the

only way we know of going to God."

"My child! oh, sublime boy!" cried the old man, throwing his arms round

Godefroid, and clasping him to his heart. "You are a poet; you can boldly

ride the whirlwind! Your poetry does not proceed from your heart; your

living, burning thoughts, your creations, move and grow in your soul.--Go,

never reveal your ideas to the vulgar! Be at once the altar, the priest,

and the victim!

"You know Heaven, do you not? You have seen those myriads of angels,

white-winged, and holding golden sistrums, all soaring with equal flight

towards the Throne, and you have often seen their pinions moving at the

breath of God as the trees of the forest bow with one consent before the

storm. Ah, how glorious is unlimited space! Tell me."

The stranger clasped Godefroid's hand convulsively, and they both gazed at

the firmament, whence the stars seemed to shed gentle poetry which they

could bear.

"Oh, to see God!" murmured Godefroid.

"Child!" said the old man suddenly, in a sterner voice, "have you so soon

forgotten the holy teaching of our good master, Doctor Sigier? In order to

return, you to your heavenly home, and I to my native land on earth, must

we not obey the voice of God? We must walk on resignedly in the stony paths

where His almighty finger points the way. Do not you quail at the thought

of the danger to which you exposed yourself? Arriving there without being

bidden, and saying, 'Here I am!' before your time, would you not have been

cast back into a world beneath that where your soul now hovers? Poor

outcast cherub! Should you not rather bless God for having suffered you to

live in a sphere where you may hear none but heavenly harmonies? Are you

not as pure as a diamond, as lovely as a flower?

"Think what it is to know, like me, only the City of Sorrows!--Dwelling

there I have worn out my heart.--To search the tombs for their horrible

secrets; to wipe hands steeped in blood, counting them over night after

night, seeing them rise up before me imploring forgiveness which I may not

grant; to mark the writhing of the assassin and the last shriek of his

victim; to listen to appalling noises and fearful silence, the silence of a

father devouring his dead sons; to wonder at the laughter of the damned; to

look for some human form among the livid heaps wrung and trampled by crime;

to learn words such as living men may not hear without dying; to call

perpetually on the dead, and always to accuse and condemn!--Is that

living?"

"Cease!" cried Godefroid; "I cannot see you or hear you any further! My

reason wanders, my eyes are dim. You light a fire within me which consumes

me."

"And yet I must go on!" said the senior, waving his hand with a strange

gesture that worked on the youth like a spell.

For a moment the old man fixed Godefroid with his large, weary, lightless

eyes; then he pointed with one finger to the ground. A gulf seemed to open

at his bidding. He remained standing in the doubtful light of the moon; it

lent a glory to his brow which reflected an almost solar gleam. Though at

first a somewhat disdainful expression lurked in the wrinkles of his face,

his look presently assumed the fixity which seems to gaze on an object

invisible to the ordinary organs of sight. His eyes, no doubt, were seeing

then the remoter images which the grave has in store for us.

Never, perhaps, had this man presented so grand an aspect. A terrible

struggle was going on in his soul, and reacted on his outer frame; strong

man as he seemed to be, he bent as a reed bows under the breeze that comes

before a storm. Godefroid stood motionless, speechless, spellbound; some

inexplicable force nailed him to the floor; and, as happens when our

attention takes us out of ourselves while watching a fire or a battle, he

was wholly unconscious of his body.

"Shall I tell you the fate to which you were hastening, poor angel of love?

Listen! It has been given to me to see immeasurable space, bottomless

gulfs in which, all human creations are swallowed up, the shoreless sea

whither flows the vast stream of men and of angels. As I made my way

through the realms of eternal torment, I was sheltered under the cloak of

an immortal--the robe of glory due to genius, and which the ages hand

on--I, a frail mortal! When I wandered through the fields of light where

the happy souls play, I was borne up by the love of a woman, the wings of

an angel; resting on her heart, I could taste the ineffable pleasures whose

touch is more perilous to us mortals than are the torments of the worser

world.

"As I achieved my pilgrimage through the dark regions below I had mounted

from torture to torture, from crime to crime, from punishment to

punishment, from awful silence to heartrending cries, till I reached the

uppermost circle of Hell. Already, from afar, I could see the glory of

Paradise shining at a vast distance; I was still in darkness, but on the

borders of day. I flew, upheld by my Guide, borne along by a power akin to

that which, during our dreams, wafts us to spheres invisible to the eye of

the body. The halo that crowned our heads scared away the shades as we

passed, like impalpable dust. Far above us the suns of all the worlds shone

with scarce so much light as the twinkling fireflies of my native land. I

was soaring towards the fields of air where, round about Paradise, the

bodies of light are in closer array, where the azure is easy to pass

through, where worlds innumerable spring like flowers in a meadow.

"There, on the last level of the circles where those phantoms dwell that I

had left behind me, like sorrows one would fain forget, I saw a vast shade.

Standing in an attitude of aspiration, that soul looked eagerly into space;

his feet were riveted by the will of God to the topmost point of the

margin, and he remained for ever in the painful strain by which we project

our purpose when we long to soar, as birds about to take wing. I saw the

man; he neither looked at us nor heard us; every muscle quivered and

throbbed; at each separate instant he seemed to feel, though he did not

move, all the fatigue of traversing the infinite that divided him from

Paradise where, as he gazed steadfastly, he believed he had glimpses of a

beloved image. At this last gate of Hell, as at the first, I saw the stamp

of despair even in hope. The hapless creature was so fearfully held by some

unseen force, that his anguish entered into my bones and froze my blood. I

shrank closer to my Guide, whose protection restored me to peace and

silence.

"Suddenly the Shade gave a cry of joy--a cry as shrill as that of the

mother bird that sees a hawk in the air, or suspects its presence. We

looked where he was looking, and saw, as it were, a sapphire, floating high

up in the abysses of light. The glowing star fell with the swiftness of a

sunbeam when it flashes over the horizon in the morning and its first rays

shoot across the world. The Splendor became clearer and grew larger;

presently I beheld the cloud of glory in which the angels move--a shining

vapor that emanates from their divine substance, and that glitters here and

there like tongues of flame. A noble face, whose glory none may endure that

have not won the mantle, the laurel, and the palm--the attribute of the

Powers--rose above this cloud as white and pure as snow. It was Light

within light. His wings as they waved shed dazzling ripples in the spheres

through which he descended, as the glance of God pierces through the

universe. At last I saw the archangel in all his glory. The flower of

eternal beauty that belongs to the angels of the Spirit shone in him. In

one hand he held a green palm branch, in the other a sword of flame: the

palm to bestow on the pardoned soul, the sword to drive back all the hosts

of Hell with one sweep. As he approached, the perfumes of Heaven fell upon

us as dew. In the region where the archangel paused, the air took the hues

of opal, and moved in eddies of which he was the centre. He paused, looked

at the Shade, and said:

"'To-morrow.'

"Then he turned heavenwards once more, spread his wings, and clove through

space as a vessel cuts through the waves, hardly showing her white sails

to the exiles left on some deserted shore.

"The Shade uttered appalling cries, to which the damned responded from the

lowest circle, the deepest in the immensity of suffering, to the more

peaceful zone near the surface on which we were standing. This worst

torment of all had appealed to all the rest. The turmoil was swelled by the

roar of a sea of fire which formed a bass to the terrific harmony of

endless millions of suffering souls.

"Then suddenly the Shade took flight through the doleful city, and down to

its place at the very bottom of Hell; but as suddenly it came up again,

turned, soared through the endless circles in every direction, as a

vulture, confined for the first time in a cage, exhausts itself in vain

efforts. The Shade was free to do this; he could wander through the zones

of Hell icy, fetid, or scorching without enduring their pangs; he glided

into that vastness as a sunbeam makes its way into the deepest dark.

"'God has not condemned him to any torment,' said the Master; 'but not one

of the souls you have seen suffering their various punishments would

exchange his anguish for the hope that is consuming this soul.'

"And just then the Shade came back to us, brought thither by an

irresistible force which condemned him to parch on the verge of Hell. My

divine Guide, guessing my curiosity, touched the unhappy Shade with his

palm-branch. He, who was perhaps trying to measure the age of sorrow that

divided him from that ever-vanishing 'To-morrow,' started and gave a look

full of all the tears he had already shed.

"'You would know my woe?' said he sadly. 'Oh, I love to tell it. I am here,

Teresa is above; that is all. On earth we were happy, we were always

together. When I saw my loved Teresa Donati for the first time, she was ten

years old. We loved each other even then, not knowing what love meant. Our

lives were one; I turned pale if she were pale, I was happy in her joy; we

gave ourselves up to the pleasure of thinking and feeling together; and we

learned what love was, each through the other. We were wedded at Cremona;

we never saw each other's lips but decked with the pearls of a smile; our

eyes always shone; our hair, like our desires, flowed together; our heads

were always bent over one book when we read, our feet walked in equal step.

Life was one long kiss, our home was a nest.

"'One day, for the first time, Teresa turned pale and said, "I am in

pain!"--And I was not in pain!

"'She never rose again. I saw her sweet face change, her golden hair

fade--and I did not die! She smiled to hide her sufferings, but I could

read them in her blue eyes, of which I could interpret the slightest

trembling. "Honorino, I love you!" said she, at the very moment when her

lips turned white, and she was clasping my hand still in hers when death

chilled them. So I killed myself that she might not lie alone in her

sepulchral bed, under her marble sheet. Teresa is above, and I am here. I

could not bear to leave her, but God has divided us. Why, then, did He

unite us on earth? He is jealous! Paradise was no doubt so much the fairer

on the day when Teresa entered in.

"'Do you see her? She is sad in her bliss; she is parted from me! Paradise

must be a desert to her.'

"'Master,' said I with tears, for I thought of my love, 'when this one

shall desire Paradise for God's sake alone, shall he not be delivered?' And

the Father of Poets mildly bowed his head in sign of assent.

"We departed, cleaving the air, and making no more noise than the birds

that pass overhead sometimes when we lie in the shade of a tree. It would

have been vain to try to check the hapless shade in his blasphemy. It is

one of the griefs of the angels of darkness that they can never see the

light even when they are surrounded by it. He would not have understood

us."

* * * * *

At this moment the swift approach of many horses rang through the

stillness, the dog barked, the constable's deep growl replied; the

horsemen dismounted, knocked at the door; the noise was so unexpected that

it seemed like some sudden explosion.

The two exiles, the two poets, fell to earth through all the space that

divides us from the skies. The painful shock of this fall rushed through

their veins like strange blood, hissing as it seemed, and full of scorching

sparks. Their pain was like an electric discharge. The loud, heavy step of

a man-at-arms sounded on the stairs with the iron clank of his sword, his

cuirass, and spurs; a soldier presently stood before the astonished

stranger.

"We can return to Florence," said the man, whose bass voice sounded soft as

he spoke in Italian.

"What is that you say?" asked the old man.

"The _Bianchi_ are triumphant."

"Are you not mistaken?" asked the poet.

"No, dear Dante!" replied the soldier, whose warlike tones rang with the

thrill of battle and the exultation of victory.

"To Florence! To Florence! Ah, my Florence!" cried Dante Alighieri, drawing

himself up, and gazing into the distance. In fancy he saw Italy; he was

gigantic.

"But I--when shall I be in Heaven?" said Godefroid, kneeling on one knee

before the immortal poet, like an angel before the sanctuary.

"Come to Florence," said Dante in compassionate tones. "Come! when you see

its lovely landscape from the heights of Fiesole you will fancy yourself in

Paradise."

The soldier smiled. For the first time, perhaps for the only time in his

life, Dante's gloomy and solemn features wore a look of joy; his eyes and

brow expressed the happiness he has depicted so lavishly in his vision of

Paradise. He thought perhaps that he heard the voice of Beatrice.

A light step, and the rustle of a woman's gown, were audible in the

silence. Dawn was now showing its first streaks of light. The fair Comtesse

de Mahaut came in and flew to Godefroid.

"Come, my child, my son! I may at last acknowledge you. Your birth is

recognized, your rights are under the protection of the King of France, and

you will find Paradise in your mother's heart."

"I hear, I know, the voice of Heaven!" cried the youth in rapture.

The exclamation roused Dante, who saw the young man folded in the Countess'

arms. He took leave of them with a look, and left his young companion on

his mother's bosom.

"Come away!" he cried in a voice of thunder. "Death to the Guelphs!"

PARIS, _October 1831_.

MAITRE CORNELIUS

_To Monsieur Le Comte Georges Mniszech._

Some envious persons, when they see one of the oldest

and most illustrious of Sarmatian names adorning this

page, may imagine that I am endeavoring, as goldsmiths

do, to enhance a piece of modern work by the addition

of an ancient gem,--a fashion of the day. But you, my

dear Count, and a few others, will know that I aim at

paying my debt to talent, old memories, and friendship.

In 1479, on All Saints' day, at the moment when this tale opens, vespers

were just over in the cathedral of Tours. The Archbishop Helie de

Bourdeilles rose from his throne, himself to pronounce the blessing on the

worshipers. The sermon had been lengthy, dusk had fallen before the service

was ended, and utter darkness prevailed in many parts of the great church,

of which the towers, at that time, were not finished.

However, a considerable number of tapers were burning in honor of the

saints, on the triangular frames constructed for the display of these pious

offerings, of which the virtue and meaning have never been fully

understood. The candles on every altar and the candelabra in the choir were

all flaming. These masses of light, irregularly occurring among the forest

of pillars and arches that sustain the three aisles of the cathedral,

scarcely illuminated the vast body of the church; for, by throwing the deep

shadows of the piers across the upper portions of the building, they gave

rise to a thousand fantastic effects which added to the gloom in which

arches, vaulting, and chapels were now wrapped,--dark enough as they were

even in broad daylight.

The congregation presented effects that were not less picturesque. Some

figures were so dimly visible in the doubtful light that they might have

been taken for phantoms; others, hit by some side-light, caught the eye

like the principal heads in a picture. Statues seemed to live, and men

seemed turned to stone. Here and there eyes sparkled in the recess of a

pillar; the stone had sight, the marble spoke, the vault reechoed sighs,

the whole structure was endowed with life.

The life of a people can show no more solemn scene, no more majestic

moment. Men, in masses, always need action to produce a poetical effect;

still, in these homes of religious thought, where human wealth is wedded to

celestial splendor, there is an incredible sublimity in silence; there is

awe in these bended knees and hope in these uplifted hands. The concord of

feeling with which all the assembled souls fly heavenward, produces an

indescribably spiritual effect. The mystical exaltation of the united

believers reacts on each individual; the feeble are no doubt borne upwards

on the full tide of this ocean of love and faith.

Prayer, an electrical force, thus snatches our nature upwards. This

involuntary union of so many wills, all equally humbled to earth, all

equally lifted to heaven, contains, no doubt, the secret of the magical

influences exerted by the chanting of the priests and the music of the

organ, the perfume and pomp of the altar, the voice of the crowd and its

meditations in silence.

Hence we need not be surprised when we see, in the middle ages, that so

many love affairs had their beginnings in church, after long hours of

ecstasy--passions which often had no saintly ending and for which the

woman, as she always must, ended by doing penance. Religious emotion had

certainly, at that time, some affinity with love; it was either the element

or the end of it. Love was still a second religion; it still had its fine

frenzies, its artless superstitions, its sublime emotion in harmony with

those of Christianity.

The manners of the time also help to explain the alliance between religion

and love. In the first place, society never mingled but in front of the

altar. Lords and vassals, men and women, were nowhere equal but in church.

There alone could lovers meet and exchange their vows. Then Church

Festivals were the only spectacles; a woman's soul was more deeply stirred

within the walls of a cathedral than it now is at a ball or an opera. And

does not every strong emotion bring a woman round to love? Thus, by dint of

forming part of life, and identifying itself with every act, religion had

become the moving principle of virtue and vice alike. Religion was mixed up

with science, with politics, with eloquence, with crime; on the throne or

in the skin of the poor and suffering; it was all-pervading.

These semi-learned reflections will perhaps certify to the truth of this

_Etude_, though some of its details may scandalize the improved propriety

of our age--a little too strait-laced perhaps, as we all know.

At the instant when the priests ceased their chanting, the last notes of

the organ mingling with the throbbing _Amen_ sent out from the deep-chested

choir-men, while a faint murmur still lingered under the remoter vaults and

the devout assembly awaited the prelate's benedictory words, a citizen, in

a hurry to get home, or fearing to lose his purse in the crowd going out,

gently stole away, at the risk of being regarded as a bad Catholic. A

gentleman, who had lurked till now close to one of the enormous pillars of

the choir, where he was shrouded in the shadow, hastened to take the place

left vacant by the worthy burgess. As soon as he reached it, he hid his

face in the feathers that adorned his tall gray cap, and knelt down on a

chair in a contrite attitude that might have deceived an inquisitor.

His neighbors, having stared curiously at the youth, appeared to recognize

him and turned to their devotions once more with a significant shrug, by

which they all expressed the same idea--a sarcastic mocking thought, an

unspoken scandal. Two old women nodded their heads and exchanged glances

which seemed to read the future.

The chair taken by the young man was close to a chapel built in between two

pillars, and closed by an iron railing. At that time the Chapter was wont

to let out at a high figure the use of the side chapels situated outside

the ambulatory, to certain lordly families, who thus had a right to occupy

them exclusively, with their people, during divine service. This form of

simony is practised even now. A lady had her chapel in church, as in our

day she has a box at the opera. The lessees of these privileged nooks were,

however, expected to decorate and keep up the altars in them. Thus each one

made it a point of honor to make his chapel as sumptuous as possible, a

form of vanity very acceptable to the Church.

In this chapel, close to the railing, knelt a young lady, on a handsome

square of red velvet with gold tassels, close to the spot but just now

occupied by the worthy citizen. A silver-gilt lamp, hanging from the roof

of the chapel in front of a magnificent altar, shed a dim light on the Book

of Hours that the lady held. This book shook violently in her hand as the

young gentleman came towards her.

"_Amen!_" and to this response, chanted in a sweet voice with terrible

agitation, happily drowned in the general noise, she added in a low tone:

"You will ruin me!"

The words were spoken with an innocence to which any man of delicate

feeling could not fail to submit; it went piercingly to the heart; but the

stranger, carried away no doubt by a tumult of passion that stifled his

conscience, remained in his seat, and slightly raised his head to look

hastily into the chapel.

"He is asleep," he replied in a voice so carefully modulated that the words

could only be heard by the lady as a sound is heard in its echo.

The young woman turned pale, her eyes were furtively raised for an instant

from the vellum page to glance at an old man whom the youth was studying.

What a terrible understanding was conveyed by that look! When the lady had

examined the old man, she drew a deep breath and raised her beautiful

brow, adorned with a precious jewel, to a picture representing the Virgin;

this simple gesture and attitude, with her glistening eye, revealed her

life with imprudent candor; if she had been wicked, she would have

dissimulated her feelings.

The person who inspired such terror in these lovers was a little old

hunchback, almost bald, with a fierce expression of face, and a large

dingy-gray beard cut square into a broad fan. The Cross of Saint-Michael

glittered on his breast; his hands, which were coarse, strong, and rough,

with gray hairs, had no doubt been clasped, but had fallen a little apart

in the sleep he had so imprudently allowed to overtake him. His right hand

seemed about to drop on to the handle of his dagger, of which the hilt was

guarded by a large shell of pierced iron; from the way he had arranged the

weapon, the handle was just below his hand; if by ill chance he should

touch it, beyond a doubt he would wake and look at his wife. His sardonic

mouth and the sharp turn of his chin were characteristic signs of a

malignant wit, of a coldly cruel shrewdness, which would enable him to

guess everything, because he could imagine anything. His yellow forehead

was wrinkled like that of a man accustomed to believe nothing, to weigh

everything, to test the exact meaning and value of every human action as a

miser rings every gold piece. His frame was large-boned and strongly knit,

he might be nervous and consequently irritable--in short, an ogre spoiled

in the making.

When her terrible lord would wake, the young lady evidently would be in

danger. This jealous husband would not fail to note the difference between

the old burgess, whose presence had given him no umbrage, and the newcomer,

a young courtier, smart and genteel.

"_Libera nos a malo!_" said she, trying to convey her fears to the young

man.

He, on his part, raised his head and gazed at her. There were tears in his

eyes, tears of love or despair. Seeing this, the lady started, and lost her

head. They had both, no doubt, held out for a long time, and perhaps could

no longer resist a passion encouraged day after day by invincible

obstacles, brooded by fears, and emboldened by youth. The lady was not

perfectly beautiful, but her pale complexion betrayed a secret grief which

made her interesting. She was elegant and had the most magnificent hair

imaginable. Watched over by a tiger, she was risking her life perhaps by

uttering a word, by allowing her hand to be taken, by meeting his look. If

ever love had been more deeply buried in two hearts, or more rapturously

confessed, no passion could ever have been more dangerous.

It may easily be understood that to these two beings, the air, the sounds

about them, the noise of steps on the pavement,--things utterly indifferent

to other men,--had some peculiarities, some perceptible properties which

they alone detected. Love enabled them, perhaps, to find a faithful

messenger even in the icy cold hands of the old priests to whom they

confessed their sins, or from whom they received the Host, kneeling at the

altar. It was a deep love, love graven on the soul like a scar on the body

which remains for life. As the two young people looked at each other, the

woman seemed to say to her lover: "Let us perish, but be one!" and the

gentleman seemed to reply: "We will be one, but we will not perish!"

But then, with a melancholy jerk of the head, she pointed out to him an

elderly duenna and a couple of pages. The duenna was asleep. The pages were

but boys, and seemed perfectly reckless of any good or ill that might

befall their master.

"Do not be frightened as you go out, but go just where you are led."

The young man had scarcely murmured these words, when the old gentleman's

hand slipped down on to the handle of his weapon. At the touch of the cold

iron he woke with a start, and his tawny eyes at once turned to his wife.

By a peculiarity rarely bestowed, even on men of genius, he awoke with a

brain as alert, and ideas as clear, as if he had never slept. He was

jealous.

Though the young man kept one eye on his mistress, he watched her husband

out of the other; he rose at once, and vanished behind a pillar, just as

the old fellow's hands began to move; then he went off as lightly as a

bird. The lady's eyes were fixed on her book. She pretended to be reading,

and tried to seem calm; but she could not hinder herself from reddening,

nor her heart from beating with unwonted violence.

The old man heard the vehement throbs that were audible in the chapel, and

observed the extraordinary flush that had mounted to his wife's cheeks,

brow, and eyelids; he looked cautiously about him, but seeing no one whom

he could suspect, he said:

"What is troubling you, _ma mie_?"

"The smell of the incense makes me squeamish," said she.

"Then is it not good to-day?" said he.

In spite of this comment, the wily old man affected to believe in this

excuse; still, he suspected some secret treason, and resolved to watch more

carefully over his treasure.

The Benediction was pronounced. The crowd, without waiting for the end of

_in secula seculorum_, hurried to the church door like a torrent. The old

lord, as was his custom, waited quietly till the general rush was

moderated, and then went forth, sending the duenna in front with the

youngest page, who carried a lantern on a pole; he gave his arm to his wife

and the other page followed. Just as the old gentleman had reached the side

door opening into the eastern part of the cloisters, by which he usually

went out, a crowd of people turned back from the mass that was blocking the

front porch, surging in towards the aisle where he and his people were

standing, and this compact body prevented his retracing his steps. The

gentleman and his wife were, in fact, pushed out by the tremendous pressure

of the crowd. The husband tried to get through first, dragging the lady by

the arm; but at this juncture he was violently pulled into the street, and

his wife was snatched from him by a stranger.

The sinister hunchback at once understood that this was a deep-laid plot

into which he had fallen. Repenting now of his long nap, he collected all

his strength; with one hand he clutched at his wife's gown, and with the

other he tried to cling to the door-post. But the frenzy of love won the

day from the fury of jealousy. The young man took his mistress round the

waist, and snatched her away with such strength of despair that the tissue

of silk and gold, the brocade, and whalebone gave way, and split with a

crash. The sleeve was left in her husband's hand.

A roar like a lion's rose above the shouts of the multitude, and an awful

voice was heard bellowing these words:

"Help! Poitiers! Here, to the door! The Comte de Saint-Vallier's people!

Help, this way, help!"

And the Comte Aymar de Poitiers, Sire de Saint-Vallier, tried to draw his

sword, and get a way cleared for him to pass; but he found himself closely

surrounded by thirty or forty gentlemen whom it would have been dangerous

to wound. Several of these, men of the highest rank, answered him with

gibes, as they hauled him out to the cloister.

The ravisher, with the swiftness of lightning, had led the Countess to an

open chapel, where he found her a seat on a wooden bench behind a

confessional. By the light of the tapers burning before the image of the

saint to whom the chapel was dedicated, they looked at each other for a

moment in silence, clasping hands, and mutually amazed at their daring. The

Countess had not the heart to blame the young man for the audacity to which

she owed this first and only instant of happiness.

"Will you fly with me into the adjacent territory?" he asked her eagerly.

"I have at hand a pair of English jennets which will carry us thirty

leagues without drawing rein."

"Oh," cried she sweetly, "where in the world can you find asylum for a

daughter of Louis XI.?"

"To be sure," replied the gentleman, bewildered by this difficulty, which

he had overlooked.

"Why, then, did you tear me from my husband?" she asked in some terror.

"Alas!" replied he, "I had not thought of the agitation I should feel on

finding myself by your side, on hearing you speak to me. I had conceived of

two or three plans, and now that I see you, I feel as if everything were

achieved."

"But I am lost," said the Countess.

"We are saved," replied the gentleman, with the blind enthusiasm of love.

"Listen to me----"

"It will cost me my life," she went on, letting the tears flow which had

gathered in her eyes. "The Count will kill me,--this evening, perhaps. But

go to the King, tell him of all the torments his daughter has endured for

five years past. He loved me well when I was a child. He was wont to laugh

and call me Mary-full-of-grace because I was so ugly. Oh, if he could know

to what a man he gave me, he would be in a terrible rage! I have never

dared to complain, out of pity for the Count. And, besides, how should my

voice reach the King's ears? My confessor even is a spy for Saint-Vallier.

I therefore lent myself to this criminal escape, in the hope of enlisting a

champion. But--dare I trust----Oh!" she cried, breaking off and turning

pale; "here is the page."

The unhappy Countess tried to make a veil of her hands to hide her face.

"Fear nothing," said the young man; "he is on our side. You may make use of

him in all security; he is mine. When the Count comes in search of you, he

will warn us in time. In that confessional," he went on in an undertone,

"is a canon who is a friend of mine. He will say that he has rescued you

from the fray and led you, under his protection, to this chapel. Thus

everything is prepared for deceiving Saint-Vallier."

On hearing this, the Countess dried away her tears, but her brow was

clouded with alarm.

"There is no deceiving him," said she. "He will know everything this

evening. Beware of his revenge. Go to Le Plessis, see the King, tell him

that----"

She hesitated, but something gave her courage to tell the secrets of her

married life, and she went on.

"Yes, tell him that to secure his mastery over me the Count has me bled in

both arms and exhausts me. Tell him he has dragged me by my hair--tell him

I am a prisoner--say that----"

Her heart was bursting, sobs choked her throat, a few tears fell again, and

in her agitation she allowed the young man to kiss her hand while he

uttered incoherent phrases.

"No one may speak to the King, poor child! Though I am the nephew of the

grand captain of the crossbowmen, I cannot get into Le Plessis this night.

My beloved lady, my beautiful queen!----Good God! how she has suffered!

Marie, let me say two words to you or we are lost!"

"What is to become of us?" said she.

The Countess discerned on the blackened wall a picture of the Virgin on

which the light fell, and she cried out:

"Holy Mother of God, give us counsel."

"To-night," the gentleman went on, "I will be in your house."

"How?" she asked, very simply.

They were in such great peril that their fondest words seemed bereft of

tenderness.

"I am going this evening to propose myself as an apprentice to Maitre

Cornelius, the King's treasurer. I have succeeded in obtaining a letter of

introduction which will secure his receiving me. His house is close to

yours. Once under that old rascal's roof, by the help of a silken ladder I

can find my way to your rooms."

"Oh!" cried she, petrified with dismay, "if you love me, do not go to

Maitre Cornelius."

"Why!" cried he, clasping her to his heart with all the strength of his

youth. "Then you love me?"

"Yes," said she. "Are you not my only hope? You are a gentleman; I place

my honor in your hands. And indeed," she went on with dignified confidence,

"I am too unfortunate for you co betray my trust. But to what end is all

this? Go, leave me to die rather than take up your abode with Cornelius. Do

you not know that all his apprentices----"

"Have been hanged?" said the gentleman, laughing. "Do you suppose that his

treasure tempts me?"

"Nay, nay, do not go there; you will be the victim of some sorcery."

"I cannot pay too dearly for the honor of serving you," replied he, giving

her a look of such ardor as made her lower her eyes.

"And my husband?" said she.

"Here is something to send him to sleep," replied the young man, taking a

small phial out of his belt.

"Not for ever?" said the Countess, trembling.

The young man's reply was a gesture of horror.

"I would have challenged him to single combat, if he were not so old," he

said. "But God forbid I should rescue you from him by giving him a

philter."

"Forgive me," said the Countess, blushing. "I am cruelly punished for my

sins. In a moment of despair I did wish to kill the Count; I feared lest

you might wish the same. My grief is great that I have not yet had an

opportunity of confessing that wicked thought, but I feared that he would

be told of it and he would be revenged. You are ashamed of me?" she added,

hurt by the young man's silence. "I deserve your blame!"

She flung the phial violently to the ground, and it broke.

"Do not come," she went on; "the Count sleeps lightly. It is my duty to

await the aid of Heaven. And that is what I will do."

She rose to go.

"Ah!" cried the young man, "bid me kill him, and I will do it, madame. You

will see me this evening."

"I was wise to waste that drug," she replied, her voice husky with the joy

of finding herself so ardently beloved. "The dread of awaking my husband

will save us from ourselves."

"I plight my life to you," said the youth as he held her hand.

"If the King desires it, the Pope may annul my marriage; then we may be

united," said she, giving him a look full of rapturous hope.

"Here comes Monseigneur," cried the page, hurrying up.

Instantly the gentleman, amazed at the shortness of the time he had spent

with his mistress, and at the Count's swift movements, snatched a kiss

which the lady could not refuse.

"This evening!" he repeated, as he slipped out of the chapel.

Favored by the darkness, the lover made his way to the great entrance,

creeping from pillar to pillar along the shaft of shadow cast across the

church by each great column.

An old canon suddenly stepped out of the confessional and seated himself by

the Countess, after gently closing the gate, while the page marched gravely

up and down outside, with the composure of an assassin.

A glare of light heralded the Count; escorted by a party of friends and

retainers carrying torches, he himself held his drawn sword. His gloomy

gaze seemed to pierce the darkness, and search the deepest corners of the

cathedral.

"Monseigneur, madame is here," said the page, going to meet him.

The Lord of Saint-Vallier found his wife kneeling in front of the altar,

and the canon standing by her, reading his breviary. At this sight he shook

the gate furiously as if to give vent to his rage.

"What are you doing with a naked sword in hand in this church?" asked the

priest.

"Father, this gentleman is my husband," said the Countess.

The priest took the key out of his sleeve and opened the chapel gate. The

Count almost involuntarily glanced round the confessional, and then went

into it; then he stood listening to the silence of the place.

"Monsieur," said his wife, "you owe your thanks to this venerable canon who

gave me shelter here."

The Sire de Saint-Vallier turned pale with anger, and dared not look at his

friends, who had come to laugh at him rather than to help him. He sharply

replied:

"Thank the Lord, Father. I will find some way to repay you."

He took his wife by the arm, and without giving her time to make her

courtesy to the canon, he signed to his people and went away, without a

word to those who had given him their company. There was something ominous

in his silence.

Impatient to be at home, and puzzling his brain for some means of

discovering the truth, he made his way along the winding streets which at

that time led from the cathedral to the porch of the Chancery office, where

stood the noble mansion then recently built by the Chancellor Juvenal des

Ursins, on the site of an old fortress given by Charles VII. to that

faithful servant as a reward for his splendid services. There began a

street which has since been named Rue de la Scellerie, in memory of the

office of the Great Seal which long stood there. It connected old Tours

with the borough of Chateauneuf, where stood the famous Abbey of

Saint-Martin, of which many kings were content to be canons. For about a

hundred years, and after long discussions, this borough had been

incorporated with the city.

Many of the streets adjacent to the Rue de la Scellerie, in the heart now

of modern Tours, were already built; but the finest houses, and more

particularly that of the Treasurer Xancoings, still standing in the Rue du

Commerce, were actually situated in the commune of Chateauneuf.

It was past this that the Sire de Saint-Vallier's torch-bearers led the

way, to that part of the town which lay by the river Loire; he mechanically

followed, casting a dark glance now and again at his wife and at the page,

hoping to detect a look of mutual understanding between them which might

throw some light on this most puzzling adventure.

At last the Count found himself in the Rue du Murier, where his house was.

When the whole party had gone in, and the ponderous gate was shut, profound

silence reigned in the narrow street where a few magnates at that time

resided; for this side of the town was near to Le Plessis, the King's usual

residence, enabling the courtiers to attend him at a moment's notice. The

last house in this street was the last house in the town, and belonged to

Maitre Cornelius Hoogworst, an old merchant from Brabant, whom the King

Louis XI. honored with his confidence in such financial transactions as his

astute policy required outside his realm. For reasons favoring the tyranny

he exerted over his wife, the Comte de Saint-Vallier had settled in a

mansion adjoining Maitre Cornelius' house.

The topography of the buildings will explain the advantages they offered to

a jealous husband. The Count's house, known as the Hotel de Poitiers, had a

garden, shut in on the north by the wall and moat that had been the

boundary of the ancient borough of Chateauneuf skirted by the embankment

then lately constructed by Louis XI. between Tours and Le Plessis. On that

side dogs defended the entrance to the premises, which, on the east, were

divided from the neighboring houses by a large courtyard, and on the west

backed on to the house occupied by Maitre Cornelius. The street front faced

south. Thus isolated on three sides, the suspicious and wily old Count was

safe against all intruders but the inhabitants of the Brabant house, of

which the roofs and chimneys were undistinguishable from those of the Hotel

de Poitiers. The windows to the street were narrow, cut in the stone walls,

and barred with iron; the door, low and arched like the entrance to our

ancient prisons, was strong enough to resist any attack. A stone bench for

mounting on horseback was close to the porch.

On seeing the side view of the houses occupied by Maitre Cornelius and the

Comte de Poitiers, it could easily be supposed that they had both been

built by the same architect, and constructed for tyrants. Both, with their

sinister appearance, resembled little strongholds, and would have stood a

siege for some time against a furious mob. They were protected by turrets

at the corners, such as lovers of antiquities may yet see in some towns

where the hammer of the destroyer has not found employment. The openings,

which were everywhere narrow, allowed of the shutters and doors being

constructed of extraordinary strength and clamped with iron. The riots and

civil wars which were so frequent in those quarrelsome times amply

justified these precautions.

As six o'clock struck by the clock of the Abbey of Saint-Martin, the

Countess' lover walked past the Hotel de Poitiers, pausing a moment to hear

the noise made by the Count's retainers over their supper. After glancing

up at the room he might suppose to be that of his lady-love, he went on to

the door of the next house. Everywhere on his way the young man had heard

sounds of mirth from the feasters in every house doing honor to the

holyday. From every window ineffectually shuttered came beams of light;

chimneys were smoking, and the savor of roast meats gave cheer to the

streets. Religious service being over, the whole town was reveling, and

giving out confused sounds which the imagination can fancy better than

words can describe them.

But here there was total silence; for in these two houses dwelt passions

which never rejoice. Beyond them the open country was still; and here,

under the shadow of the abbey towers of Saint-Martin, the two dumb houses,

apart from the rest and standing in the darkest part of the tortuous

street, looked like a leper's home. The building opposite to them belonged

to certain state criminals, and was under sequestration. Any young man

could not fail to be easily impressed by so sudden a contrast. And, indeed,

on the verge of embarking in a horribly perilous enterprise, the gentleman

stood pensive in front of the goldsmith's house, recalling the various

tales he had heard of Maitre Cornelius and his proceedings, which had

inspired the Countess with such lively fears.

At that period a warrior, a lover even, every man quaked at the word

"magic." There were few imaginations that could be incredulous of

extraordinary facts, or indifferent to tales of wonder. And this lover of

Madame de Saint-Vallier (one of Louis XI.'s daughters by Madame de

Sassenage, in Dauphine), brave as he might be, could not but think twice

before venturing into a house that was full of sorceries.

The history of Maitre Cornelius Hoogworst will fully account for the

confidence he had inspired in the Comte de Saint-Vallier, for the lady's

terror, and for the hesitancy that gave pause to the lover. But to enable

the nineteenth century reader to understand clearly how events apparently

commonplace had been deemed supernatural, to make him enter into the

terrors of that olden time, it is necessary to interrupt the narrative and

glance at the previous career of Maitre Cornelius.

Cornelius Hoogworst, one of the wealthiest merchants of Ghent, having

incurred the displeasure of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, had found a refuge

and protection at the Court of Louis XI. The King was quite alive to the

advantages he might derive from a man in communication with the principal

houses of Flanders, Venice, and Brabant; he granted to Maitre Cornelius

letters of nobility and naturalization; nay, he flattered him,--a rare

thing with Louis XI. And, indeed the Fleming liked the King as well as the

King liked the Fleming. Crafty, suspicious, avaricious; equally astute,

equally well-informed, equally superior to their time, they understood each

other to perfection; they dropped and took up again with equal readiness,

the one his conscience and the other his religion; they worshiped the same

Virgin--one from conviction, the other from flattery; finally, if we may

believe the jealous statements of Olivier le Daim and Tristan, the King

resorted to the goldsmith's house to take his pleasure--as Louis XI. took

it. History has taken care to preserve the memory of this monarch's

licentious tastes, for he was not averse to a debauch. The old Fleming, no

doubt, found it pleasant and profitable to lend himself to his royal

patron's caprices and indulgences.

Cornelius had now lived in Tours for nine years. During these nine years

incidents had occurred under his roof which made him the object of general

execration. On arriving he had spent large sums on the house, with a view

to securing his treasures. The ingenuity secretly exerted on his behalf by

the locksmiths of the town, the singular precautions he had taken to get

them into his house, in such a way as to feel sure of their compulsory

secrecy, were for a long time the subject of a thousand wonderful tales

which furnished the evening gossip of Touraine. The old man's extraordinary

devices led to the idea that he was possessed of Oriental wealth. The

story-tellers of the province which was the birth-place of romance in

France built chambers of gold and precious stones in the Fleming's

dwelling, never failing to ascribe his immense riches to unholy compacts.

Cornelius had brought with him originally a couple of Flemish varlets, an

old woman, and a young apprentice of mild and attractive appearance; this

youth served him as secretary, cashier, factotum, and messenger.

In the course of the first year of his residence at Tours, a considerable

robbery was effected from his premises. Judicial investigation proved that

the theft had been committed by someone living in the house. The old miser

had his two men and his apprentice put in prison. The young lad was weakly;

he died under torture, still protesting his innocence. The two men

confessed, to escape torture; but on being asked by the judge where the

stolen money was hidden, they were silent; so, after fresh tortures, they

were tried, condemned, and hanged. On their way to the gallows they still

declared that they were guiltless, after the manner of all men to be

hanged.

The town of Tours talked over the strange business for many a day. But the

criminals were Flemings, so the interest excited in the unfortunate men and

the youthful clerk soon died out. In those days war and sedition supplied

perpetual excitement, and to-day's drama extinguished yesterday's tragedy.

Maitre Cornelius, more affected by the loss of so large a sum than by the

death of his three retainers, now lived alone with the old woman who was

his sister. He obtained from the King the privilege of using the state

couriers for his private business, put up his mules with a muleteer in the

neighborhood, and thenceforth lived in perfect solitude, seeing scarce

anyone but the King, and transacting his business through the medium of the

Jews--crafty arithmeticians, who served him faithfully for the sake of his

omnipotent interest.

Some time after this event, the King himself placed with his old

_torconnier_ a young orphan in whom he took a great interest. Louis XI.

commonly called Maitre Cornelius by the old name of _torconnier_, which, in

the reign of Saint-Louis, had meant an usurer, a tax-collector, a man who

squeezed money out of folks by extortionate means. The word _tortionnaire_,

a legal term still in use, in fact, explains the word _torconnier_, which

was often written _tortionneur_. This poor lad devoted himself to the

goldsmith's interest, succeeded in satisfying his master and winning his

favor. One winter's night the diamonds placed in Cornelius' keeping by the

King of England were stolen, and suspicion fell on the orphan lad. Louis

XI. was all the more severe with him because he had answered for his

honesty. So, after a summary inquiry, the hapless boy was hanged before the

Provost Marshal.

Nobody dared go to learn the arts of banking and exchange from Maitre

Cornelius. Nevertheless two young men of the town, youths of honor and

anxious to win a fortune, one after the other entered his service. Large

robberies from the treasurer's house at once ensued; the circumstances of

the crimes, and the way in which they were carried out, pointed clearly to

some collusion between the thieves and the inmates of the house; it was

impossible that the newcomers should escape accusation. The Fleming, more

and more vindictive and suspicious, at once laid the matter before the

King, who placed the cases in his Provost's hands. Each was promptly tried,

and more promptly punished.

But the patriotism of the citizens was opposed to Tristan's swift

proceedings. Guilty or no, the two young men were regarded as victims, and

Cornelius as a ruffian. The two families thrown into mourning were persons

in high esteem, their complaints met with sympathy, and step by step they

succeeded in persuading everyone to believe in the innocence of all the men

that the King's treasurer had sent to the gallows. Some declared that this

cruel miser was imitating the King and trying to set terror and the gibbet

between himself and the world; that he had never been robbed at all; that

these horrible executions were brought about by cold self-interest; and

that he only wanted to be quit of all alarms about his treasure.

The immediate result of these popular rumors was to isolate Cornelius. The

good folks of Tours treated him as one plague-stricken, spoke of him as the

extortioner, and called his house La Malemaison (the House of Ill). Even if

the usurer could have found a youth bold enough to take service with him,

the inhabitants of the town would have hindered it by their sayings. The

most favorable opinions about Maitre Cornelius were those expressed by men

who regarded him only as a sinister personage. In some he inspired

involuntary terrors, in others, the deep respect that is always paid to

unlimited power or great wealth; to some he had the attraction of mystery.

His mode of life, his countenance, and the King's favor justified every

rumor of which he was the subject.

Since the death of his persecutor, the Duke of Burgundy, Cornelius

frequently traveled in foreign parts, and during his absence the King had

his house guarded by a company of his Scottish guard. This royal care led

the courtiers to suppose that the old man had left his fortune to Louis XI.

The Fleming rarely went out; the gentlemen about the Court visited him

frequently; he was ready enough to lend them money, but he was whimsical.

On certain days he would not give them a sou _Parisis_; on the morrow he

would offer them enormous sums, always at a high rate of interest and on

good security. He was, however, a good Catholic, and attended the services

regularly; but he went to Saint-Martin at a very early hour, and as he had

purchased a chapel in perpetuity, there, as elsewhere, he was divided from

other Christians.

A proverb which became popular at this period and survived at Tours for a

long time was the saying: "You have crossed the usurer's path; woe will

befall you." "You have crossed the usurer's path" accounted for sudden

ailments, involuntary depression, and the evil turns of fortune. Even at

Court Cornelius was credited with the fatal influence which, in Italy,

Spain, and the East, superstition has named the Evil Eye.

But for the terrible power of Louis XI., which was extended like a shield

over his house, the populace would, on the slenderest pretext, have

demolished the Malemaison of the Rue du Murier. And yet it was by Cornelius

that the first mulberry trees in Tours had been planted, and at that time

the inhabitants had regarded him as a good genius. Who then may trust to

popular favor?

Certain gentlemen who had met Maitre Cornelius in foreign lands had been

amazed by his good humor. At Tours he was constantly gloomy and

absent-minded; but he always came back there. Some inexplicable attraction

always brought him home to his dismal house in the Rue du Murier. Like the

snail whose life is inseparable from that of his shell, he confessed to the

King that he never felt so happy as behind the time-eaten stones, the bolts

of his little bastille, albeit he knew that in the event of Louis' death it

would be the most dangerous spot on earth to him.

"The devil is amusing himself at the expense of our friend the

_torconnier_," said Louis XI. to his barber, a few days before the festival

of All Saints. "He complains of having been robbed again! But there is

nobody this time for him to hang--unless he hangs himself. If the old

vagabond did not come to ask me whether I had carried off by mistake a

chain of rubies he had been meaning to sell me? By the Mass! I do not steal

what I have only to take, said I."

"And was he frightened?" asked the barber.

"Misers are afraid but of one thing," replied the King. "My gossip the

usurer knows full well that I should not flay him for nothing; otherwise I

should be unjust, and I have never done anything that was not just and

necessary."

"And yet the old hulk cheats you," replied the barber.

"You only wish that were true, heh?" said the King, with a cunning leer at

the barber.

"Nay, Sire," replied the man, with an oath; "but there would be a snug

fortune to divide between you and the devil."

"That will do," said the King. "Do not put mischief into my head. My gossip

is a more faithful friend than all the men whose fortunes I have

made--possibly because he owes me nothing."

Thus, for two years past, Cornelius lived alone with his sister, who was

believed to be a witch. A tailor who lived hard by declared that he had

often seen her at night waiting on the roof to fly off to her Sabbath. This

statement was all the more extraordinary because the old miser shut his

sister up in a room of which the windows were barred with iron.

Cornelius in his old age, fearing more and more that men should rob him,

had conceived a hatred for all the world excepting the King, whom he

esteemed highly. He had sunk into deep misanthropy; but, in his passion for

gold, the assimilation of the metal with his very substance had become more

and more complete, and, as is commonly the case with misers, his avarice

increased with age. He was suspicious even of his sister, though she was

perhaps more avaricious and thrifty than himself, and outdid him in sordid

inventiveness. There was something mysterious and questionable in their way

of life. The old woman so rarely took bread from the baker, and was so

seldom seen at market, that the least credulous observers had at last

attributed to these strange beings the knowledge of some occult means of

sustaining life. Some, who meddled in alchemy, said that Maitre Cornelius

could make gold. The learned declared that he had discovered the universal

panacea. And to most of the country folk, when the townspeople spoke of

him, he was a chimerical creature, so that they would come out of curiosity

to stare at his house.

* * * * *

The young gentleman, sitting on a bench by the house facing that of Maitre

Cornelius, looked at the Malemaison and the Hotel de Poitiers by turns. The

moon shed high lights on the salient parts, lending color by the contrast

of light and shade on the sculpture in relief. The play of this capricious

pale light gave a somewhat sinister expression to both houses. Nature

seemed to lend herself to the superstitious notions that hung about the

place.

The gentleman recalled all the many traditions which made Cornelius an

object at once of curiosity and dread. Though the vehemence of his passion

confirmed him in his determination to get into the house and to stay there

as long as might be necessary to carry out his projects, he hesitated

before taking this final step, though well aware that he should do so. But

who, in the critical hours of life, does not love to listen to

presentiments and play see-saw, as it were, over the abyss of futurity? As

a lover worthy of his love, the youth feared lest he should perish before

the Countess' love should grace his life.

This secret hesitancy was so painfully absorbing that he did not feel the

cold wind that blew round his legs and against the projecting masses of the

houses. If he entered the goldsmith's service, he must renounce his name,

as he had already doffed his handsome garb as a nobleman. In the event of

disaster, he could make no appeal to the privileges of his birth or the

protection of his friends but at the cost of destroying the Comtesse de

Saint-Vallier beyond all rescue. If the old lord suspected her of having a

lover, he was capable of roasting her in an iron cage by a slow fire, of

torturing her to death day by day in the depths of some dungeon.

As he looked down on the wretched clothes in which he was disguised, the

gentleman was ashamed of his own appearance. To behold his black leather

belt, his clumsy shoes, his wrinkled hose, his frieze breeches, and his

gray cloth jerkin, he might be the follower of some mean sergeant of the

law. To a nobleman of the fifteenth century it was as bad as death to play

the part of pauper townsman and renounce the privileges of his rank. Still,

to climb the roof of the mansion where his mistress sat weeping; to creep

down the chimney or run along the parapet, crawling from gutter to gutter

till he reached her window; to risk his life, if only he might sit by her

side on a silken cushion, in front of a good fire, during the slumbers of

that sinister husband, whose snore would enhance their rapture; to defy

heaven and earth; to exchange the most audacious embrace; to speak words

which would inevitably be punished by death, or at least by a bloody

struggle,--all these enchanting visions, with the romantic perils of the

adventure brought him to a decision. The smaller the prize of his

endeavor,--were it only to be that he should once more kiss his lady's

hand,--the more determined was he to dare everything, prompted by the

chivalrous and impassioned spirit of the time. Then he did not really

suppose that the Countess would dare to refuse him the sweetest reward of

love, in the midst of such mortal dangers. The adventure was too perilous,

too impossible, not to be carried through to the end.

At this juncture every bell in the town rang the curfew. The law had

fallen into disuse, but in the provinces the hour was still tolled, for

customs die slowly in the country. Though the lights were not put out, the

captains of the watch stretched chains across the streets. Many doors were

bolted and barred; the steps of a few belated citizens were heard in the

distance as they made their way, surrounded by their followers, armed to

the teeth and carrying lanterns; and then, ere long, the town, gagged as it

were, seemed to fall asleep, fearing no attack from malefactors, unless by

way of the roof.

And at that time the house-tops were a recognized highway during the night.

The streets were so narrow in country towns, and even in Paris, that

robbers could jump from one side to the other. This dangerous game was a

constant amusement to King Charles IX. in his youth, if we may believe the

memoirs of the time.

Fearing to be too late in presenting himself to Maitre Cornelius, the young

gentleman was on the point of rising to knock at the door of the House of

Evil, when, on looking at it, his attention was riveted by a sort of

vision, such as the writers of the day would have called diabolical. He

rubbed his eyes as if to clear them, and a thousand different emotions

flashed through his brain. On each side of the door he beheld a face framed

between the bars of a sort of loophole. At first he supposed these faces to

be grotesque masks carved in stone, so wrinkled were they, so angular,

twisted, exaggerated, and motionless; they were tanned,--that is to say,

brown; but the cold and the moonlight enabled him to detect the slight

white cloud of thin breath coming out of the two blue noses, and at last he

could make out in each haggard face, under shaggy eyebrows, a pair of

china-blue eyes that sparkled with a pale light, like those of a wolf

crouching in a thicket when he hears the hounds in full cry. The uneasy

gleam of those eyes rested so fixedly on him, that, after meeting it during

the moment when he was studying these singular objects, he felt like a bird

put up by a sporting dog; a fevered spasm clutched at his heart, but was

at once controlled. These two faces were beyond a doubt those of Cornelius

and his sister.

The gentleman at once affected to be examining the street and to be in

search of a dwelling of which the address was written on a card that he

took out of his pocket, trying to read it by the moonlight; he then went

straight up to the extortioner's door and gave three knocks, which echoed

within the house as if this were the portal of a cellar. A small light

became visible, and an eye was applied to a small and strongly barred

wicket.

"Who is there?"

"A friend, sent by Oosterlinck of Bruges."

"What do you want?"

"To be let in."

"Your name?"

"Philippe Goulenoire."

"Have you letters of introduction?"

"Here they are."

"Put them in through the box."

"Where is it?"

"To the left."

Philippe Goulenoire put the letter into a slit in an iron chest below a

loophole window.

"The devil!" thought he. "It is evident that the King comes here, for as

many precautions are observed as he takes at Le Plessis."

He waited in the street about a quarter of an hour longer. At the end of

that time he heard the old man say to his sister:

"Shut the traps inside the door."

Then a clatter of chains and iron echoed through the porch. Philippe heard

bolts drawn and locks creak; finally a small, low door, sheathed with iron,

opened so as to afford the smallest chink through which a man might

squeeze. At the risk of tearing his clothes, Philippe crept rather than

walked into the Malemaison. A toothless old woman with a face like a

fiddle, and eyebrows like the handles of a caldron, who could not have put

a nut between the tip of her nose and her chin, colorless, sallow, with

hollow temples and an appearance of being constructed of nothing but bone

and sinew, silently led the stranger into a low sitting-room, while

Cornelius prudently kept in the rear.

"Be seated there," said she to Philippe, pointing to a three-legged stool

that stood in the corner of a huge chimney-place of carved stone, though

there was no fire on the hearth.

On the opposite side of this fireplace was a walnut-wood table with twisted

legs, on which there were an egg in a plate and ten or twelve hard strips

of dry bread cut with parsimonious exactitude. Two stools, on one of which

the old woman seated herself, showed that the good folks were in the act of

supping.

Cornelius went to close two iron shutters, protecting the peepholes, no

doubt, through which they had so long been gazing into the street; then he

came back to his place. Philippe, as he called himself, now saw the brother

and sister take it in turns, with perfect gravity, to dip a strip of bread

into the egg, with the same precision as soldiers use in dipping their

spoon into the tin pot; but they scarcely colored them, in order that the

egg might last out the full allowance of strips of bread. This was

performed in perfect silence.

While he ate, Cornelius studied the sham apprentice with as much care and

shrewdness as if he had been made of gold bezants. Philippe, feeling an icy

cloak fall on his shoulders, was tempted to look about him; but, with the

prudence born of a love-adventure, he took care not to cast even a furtive

glance at the walls, for he was well aware that if Cornelius saw him in the

act he would not keep an inquisitive man in the house. So he restricted

himself to fixing a modest eye now on the egg, now on the old maid, and

anon he contemplated his future master.

Louis' treasurer resembled that monarch; he had even caught some of his

tricks, as not unfrequently happens when people live together in intimacy.

The Fleming's thick eyebrows almost hid his eyes; but when he raised them

a little his glance was bright, penetrating, and full of energy,--the look

of men who are used to be silent, and to whom concentration of mind is a

familiar habit. His thin lips, finely puckered with upright lines, gave him

a keenly subtle expression. The lower part of his face, indeed, vaguely

suggested a fox's muzzle; still, a lofty and prominent brow, deeply

furrowed, seemed to reveal some great and fine qualities,--a noble soul

whose flights had been checked by experience, while the bitter lessons of

life had quenched it and thrust it down into the deepest secret places of

this strange being. He was certainly no ordinary miser, and his passion no

doubt covered intense joys and secret conceptions.

"At what rate are Venetian sequins doings?" he suddenly asked his intending

apprentice.

"At three-quarters, at Bruges; at one, at Ghent."

"What is the freight on the Scheldt?"

"Three sous _Parisis_."

"Nothing new in Ghent?"

"Lieven d'Herde's brother is ruined."

"Indeed!"

After allowing this exclamation to escape him, the old man covered his

knees with the skirt of his dalmatic, a sort of robe of black velvet in

front, with wide sleeves and no collar. The magnificent material was shiny

with wear. This relic of the handsome dress he had been wont to wear as

president of the tribunal of _Parchons_--a position which had brought upon

him the Duke of Burgundy's enmity--was no more than a rag.

Philippe was not cold; he was bathed in sweat, trembling lest he should be

required to answer any further questions. So far the brief information he

had extracted the day before from a Jew, whose life he had once saved, had

proved sufficient, thanks to his good memory, and to the Jew's thorough

knowledge of the money-lender's manners and habits. But the young gentleman

who, in the first flush of enterprise, had been full of confidence, now

began to perceive the many difficulties of the business. The terrible

Fleming's solemn gravity and perfect coolness were telling on him. And

besides, he felt himself under lock and key, and could picture all the

Provost's cords at Maitre Cornelius' command.

"Have you supped?" said the miser, in a tone which plainly meant "Do not

sup."

In spite of her brother's tone the old woman was startled; she looked at

their young inmate as if to gauge the capacity of the stomach she would be

expected to fill, and then said with a false smile:

"You have not got your name for nothing, for your hair and moustache are

blacker than the devil's tail."

"I have supped," replied he.

"Very well," said the miser; "then come to see me again to-morrow. I have

long been accustomed to dispense with the services of an apprentice.

Besides, the night brings good counsel."

"Nay, by Saint-Bavon! monsieur, I am from Flanders. I know nobody here, the

chains are up. I shall be cast into prison. However," he added, frightened

at the eagerness with which he had spoken, "of course, if it suits your

convenience, I will go."

The oath had a strange effect on the old Fleming.

"Well, well. By Saint-Bavon! you shall sleep here."

"But----" his sister began in dismay.

"Silence," said Cornelius. "Oosterlinck, in his letter, answers for this

youth. Have we not a hundred thousand livres in hand belonging to

Oosterlinck?" he whispered in her ear; "and is not that good security?"

"And supposing he were to steal the Bavarian jewels? He looks far more like

a thief than a Fleming."

"Hark!" exclaimed the old man, listening.

The two misers listened. Vaguely, an instant after the hush, a noise of

men's steps was heard, far away on the further side of the city moat.

"It is the round of the watch at Le Plessis," said the sister.

"Come, give me the key of the apprentice's room," Cornelius went on.

The old maid was about to take up the lamp.

"What, are you going to leave us together without a light?" cried

Cornelius, with evident meaning. "Cannot you move about in the dark at your

age? Is it so difficult to find that key?"

The old woman understood the meaning behind these words, and went away.

As he looked after this extraordinary creature, just as she reached the

door, Philippe Goulenoire could cast a furtive glance round the room

unobserved by his master. It was wainscoted with oak half-way up, and the

walls were hung with yellow leather, patterned with black; but what most

struck him was a firelock musket with its long spring dagger attached. This

new and terrible weapon lay close by Cornelius.

"How do you propose to earn your living?" asked the usurer.

"I have but little money," replied Goulenoire, "but I know some good trade

recipes. If you will give me no more than a sou on every mark I earn for

you, I shall be content."

"A sou! a sou!" cried the miser; "but that is a great deal."

Hereupon the old hag came in again.

"Come," said Cornelius to Philippe.

They went out into the entrance, and mounted a newel stair that ran up a

turret close by the side of the living-room. On the first floor the young

man paused.

"Nay, nay," said Cornelius. "The devil! why, these are the premises where

the King takes his pleasure."

The architect had constructed the lodging for the apprentice under the

conical roof of the staircase tower. It was a small circular room, with

stone walls, cold and devoid of ornament. This tower stood in the middle of

the front to the courtyard, which, as usual in provincial towns, was narrow

and dark. Beyond and through the iron gratings of an arcade, there was a

meagre garden, or rather a mulberry orchard, tended no doubt by Cornelius

himself.

All this the youth could see through the loopholes in the turret, by the

light of the moon, which happily shone brightly. A truckle-bed, a stool, a

stone pitcher, and a rickety chest formed the furniture of this cage. The

light was admitted through tiny square slits at regular intervals below the

outer cornice of the structure, forming its ornamentation, no doubt, in

character with this pleasing style of architecture.

"Here is your room. It is simple and strong. There is everything needed for

sleep. Good-night. Do not leave it as the others did."

After giving his new apprentice a parting glance fraught with many

meanings, Cornelius locked and double-locked the door, and carried away the

key. He went downstairs again, leaving his man as much at his wit's end as

a bell-founder who finds his mould empty. Alone, without a light, sitting

on a stool in this little garret, which his four precursors had quitted

only for the gallows, the young fellow felt like a wild animal caught in a

sack. He sprang on to the stool, and stood on tiptoe to look out of the

little loopholes through which the white light came in. He could thence see

the Loire, the beautiful hills of Saint-Cyr, and the gloomy splendor of Le

Plessis, where a few lights twinkled from the deep-set windows. Further

away lay the fair fields of Touraine and the silvery reaches of the great

river. Every detail of the pleasing landscape had at this moment an

unwonted charm. Window-panes, water-pools, the roofs of the houses,

glittered like gems in the tremulous moonbeams.

The young man could not altogether suppress some sweet but painful feeling.

"If it should be for the last time," thought he.

And he stood there, already tasting the terrible emotion his adventure had

promised, and abandoning himself to the fears of a prisoner who still has a

gleam of hope. Every difficulty added to his mistress' beauty. She was to

him no longer a woman, but a supernatural being, seen through the hot

vapors of desire.

A faint cry, which he fancied proceeded from the Hotel de Poitiers,

brought him to himself and to a sense of his situation. As he sat down on

the bed to meditate on the matter, he heard a soft rustle on the winding

stair. He listened with all his ears; and presently the words, "He is in

bed," spoken by the old woman, reached his ear.

By an accident of which the architect was unaware, the least sound below

was echoed in the turret room, so that the sham apprentice did not lose one

of the movements of the miser and his sister, who were spying on him. He

undressed, got into bed, and pretended to sleep, spending the time during

which his two hosts remained on the watch on the turret steps, in devising

the means for getting out of his prison and into the Hotel de Poitiers. By

about ten o'clock Cornelius and his sister, convinced that their apprentice

was asleep, went to their own rooms.

The young man listened keenly to the dull remote sounds made by the

Flemings, and fancied he could guess where they slept; they must, he

thought, occupy the whole of the second floor.

As in all houses of that date, that floor was in the roof, with dormer

windows richly ornamented with carved stone pediments. The roof was also

edged by a sort of parapet, concealing the gutters for conducting the

rain-water to the spouts, mimicking crocodiles' heads, which shed it into

the street. The youth, who had studied his bearings as cunningly as a cat

could have done, expected to find a means of getting from the tower on to

the roof, and climbing along the gutter as far as Madame de Saint-Vallier's

window, by the help of the water-spouts; but he had not known that the

windows of the turret would be so small that it was impossible to pass

through them. So he resolved to get out on the roof by the window that

lighted the second-floor landing of the turret stair.

To execute this bold scheme, he must get out of his room, and Cornelius had

the key. The young gentleman had taken the precaution of arming himself

with one of the daggers, which were at this time in use for dealing the

death-blow, the _coup de grace_, in single combat, when the adversary

prayed that it might end. This horrible weapon had one edge as sharp as a

razor, and the other toothed like a saw, with the teeth turned in a

contrary sense to the thrust as it entered the body. The youth now proposed

to use this dagger as a saw to cut the lock out from the wooden door.

Happily for him, the staple proved to be attached to the inner side of the

lintel by four large screws. By the help of his poniard he succeeded, not

without difficulty, in unscrewing the staple which kept him a prisoner, and

he carefully laid the screws on the chest.

By midnight he was free, and crept downstairs without his shoes to

reconnoitre the ground. He was not a little surprised to find an open door

to a passage leading to several rooms, and he saw at the end of it a window

opening on to the V-shaped space between the roofs of the Hotel de Poitiers

and that of the Malemaison, which met here. Nothing could express his joy,

unless it were the vow he forthwith made to the Holy Virgin to found a mass

in her honor, at the famous parish church of Escrignoles. After studying

from thence the tall and vast chimneys of the Hotel de Poitiers, he went

back again to fetch his weapon; but he now saw with a terrified shudder

that there was a bright light on the stairs, and perceived Cornelius in his

old dalmatic, carrying his lamp, his eyes wide open and fixed on the

corridor, while he stood like a spectre at the entrance.

"If I open the window and leap out on the roof, he will hear me," thought

the young man.

But the terrible Fleming was coming on--coming as the hour of death steals

on the criminal. In this extremity, Goulenoire, his wits quickened by love,

recovered his presence of mind; he shrank into the recess of a door,

squeezing himself into the corner, and waited for the usurer to pass him.

As soon as Cornelius, holding his lamp before him, was just at the angle

where the youth could make a draught by blowing, he puffed out the light.

[Illustration: He now saw with a terrified shudder that there was a bright

light on the stairs, and perceived Cornelius, in his old dalmatic, carrying

his lamp.]

Cornelius muttered a Dutch oath and some incoherent words; but he turned

back. The gentleman then flew up to his room, seized his weapon, ran back

to the thrice-blessed window, opened it cautiously, and sprang out on to

the roof.

Once free and under the sky, he almost fainted with joy. The excitement of

danger or the audacity of his enterprise perhaps caused his agitation;

victory is often as full of risk as the battle. He leaned against a

parapet, trembling with satisfaction, and asked himself:

"Now, by which of those chimneys can I get into her room?"

He looked at them all. With the instinct of a lover, he touched them by

turns to feel in which there had been a fire. When he had made up his mind,

the gallant youth fixed his dagger firmly in the joint between two stones,

attached his rope-ladder, and threw it down the chimney; and then, without

a qualm, trusting to his good blade, climbed down to his mistress. He knew

not whether the Comte de Saint-Vallier were asleep or awake, but he was

fully bent on clasping the Countess in his arms even if it should cost two

men their life. He gently set foot on the still warm ashes; he yet more

gently stooped down and saw the Countess seated in an armchair.

By the light of the lamp, pale and trembling with joy, the timid woman

pointed to Saint-Vallier in bed, a few yards off. You may suppose that

their burning and silent kiss found no echo but in their hearts.

* * * * *

By nine next morning, just as Louis XI. was coming out of chapel, after

attending mass, he found Maitre Cornelius in his path.

"Good luck, gossip," said he, curtly, as he pulled his cap straight.

"Sire, I will gladly pay a thousand gold crowns for a moment's speech of

your Majesty, seeing that I have discovered the thief who stole the ruby

chain and all the jewels."

"Let us hear this," said Louis XI., coming out into the courtyard of Le

Plessis, followed by his treasurer, by Coyctier his physician, by Olivier

le Daim, and the captain of the Scottish Guard. "Tell me your business. We

are to have another man hanged for you, then? Here, Tristan!"

The Provost Marshal, who was marching up and down the courtyard, came up

slowly, like a dog proud of his fidelity. The group paused under a tree.

The King sat down on a bench; the courtiers formed a circle round him.

"Sire, I have been fairly trapped by a pretended Fleming," said Cornelius.

"He must be a wily knave indeed, then," said the King, shaking his head.

"Ay, truly," replied the goldsmith. "But I am not sure that he might not

have beguiled you even. How was I to suspect a poor wight recommended to me

by Oosterlinck, a man for whom I hold a hundred thousand livres? Nay, but I

will wager that the Jew's seal is a forgery. In short, Sire, this morning I

found myself robbed of the jewels you admired for their beauty. They have

been stolen from me, Sire! The Elector of Bavaria's jewels stolen! The

villains respect no man. They would rob you of your kingdom if you were not

on the alert. Forthwith I went up to the room where I had bestowed this

apprentice, who is certainly a past master of thieving. This time proofs

are not lacking. He had unscrewed the staple of the lock; but on his

return, the moon having set, he could not lay hands on all the screws.

Thus, by good hap, as I went in, I trod on a screw. He was asleep, the

varlet, for he was tired out. Fancy this, gentlemen; he had descended into

my room by the chimney. To-morrow, or rather this evening, I will have it

hot for him. We always learn something from these villains. He had about

him a silken ladder, and his clothes bear the traces of his traveling over

the roofs and through the chimney. He thought to live with me and bring me

to ruin, the bold varlet! Now, where has he buried the jewels? The

country-folk saw him early in the morning coming back across the roofs. He

had accomplices waiting for him on the dyke you made. Ah, my lord, you are

yourself the accomplice of thieves who come in boats; and, snap! they

carry away what they will, and no traces left! However, we have the leader,

a daring scapegrace, a rascal who would do credit to a gentleman's mother.

Ay, he will look well hanging on a gibbet, and with a screw of the

torture-chamber he will confess all. And is not this a matter for the honor

of your rule? There should be no robbers under so great a King!"