A LESSON IN OBEDIENCE
Passing his clenched hand through the crook of Commines' arm, and
leaning heavily on the stick in the other hand, Louis turned slowly up
the gallery, and for a time both were silent. They made a strange
contrast. The King was shrunken, bowed, and bent, a veritable walking
skeleton to whom the grave already imperiously beckoned nor would take
long denial. With his bony head, his listless face, his lean, long
neck thrust out from the fur of his upturned collar, he resembled a
giant bird of prey. The skinny hand thrust through the crook of
Commines' arm, and still grasping the crumpled despatch, was the claw
of a vulture. Above him, head and shoulders, towered Commines,
square-set, burly, muscular, and as full of life and vigour as his
master was sapless. Just midway to the threescore years and ten, his
bodily powers were at their highest, and in the ten years he had served
Louis his mind had ripened so that few men were more astute, more
shrewd to see and seize upon advantages, whether for himself or his
master. In the King's service few scruples troubled him, the
questionable act was Louis', his part was to obey.
"Then, sire, the post was not from Paris?"
"From Amboise," answered Louis, with sudden incisive vigour, his voice
rasping harshly. "From Amboise, where the ungrateful son of a
miserable father plots and plots and plots: and you, whose business it
is to know everything, know nothing."
"The Dauphin? and plotting against you? But, sire, it is impossible.
The Dauphin is barely thirteen years of age."
"The pity of it, Argenton, oh! the pity of it." As he spoke one who
did not know him as Commines knew him would have sworn that tears were
very near the dull, dry eyes. "No more than thirteen--no, not
thirteen, and yet--ah! the pity of it."
"Oh, sire, some one has deceived you. The Dauphin is too young to
plot, even if affection and common nature----"
"Too young?" broke in Louis, halting in his slow walk to strike the
pavement angrily with his stick. "At what age does a serpent grow
fangs? Too young? Ill weeds grow apace, and then there may be those
about him who egg him on, who sow wrong ideas in his mind that they may
reap some gain to themselves. All are not as faithful as thou art,
Philip. I have not always been merciful--not always. At times justice
has rejoiced against mercy for the general good; yes, for the general
good. There was Molembrais; men blame me for Molembrais; but if the
King's arm be not strong enough to strike, who shall hold the kingdom
in its place? And because the King's hand pulls down and raises up as
God wills"--he paused, and bowed with a little gesture of his hand to
his cap--"there are those who do not love me. But if they egg on,
those others who should be loyal to their King and are not, if they
suggest, it is my son--my son, Argenton--who is the very heart and
centre; my son, who out of his little twelve years raises his hand
against my threescore."
"If he has done that," began Commines, picking his words slowly (he had
not as yet fathomed Louis' purpose, and feared lest he should commit
himself in too great haste to the wrong policy), "if the Dauphin has
truly so forgotten natural love and duty----"
"If!" With a snarl which showed his gapped and yellow teeth Louis
again straightened himself, and as he raised his head beyond the
reflected glow of the scarlet cloak his face was grey with passion.
"If? If? Head of God, man! do you dare talk to me in 'ifs'? Philip
de Commines, when you were little in your own eyes, when you were the
humble fetcher and carrier to that Bully of Burgundy whom I crushed,
when you were the very hound and cur of his pleasure, fawning on him
for the scraps of life, I took you up, I!--I! Now you are Lord of
Argenton, now you are Seneschal of Poitou, now you are Prince of
Talmont, and I have made you all these, I!--I! and you answer me with
an 'if'! But the hand which raised you up can drag down, you who
answer me with an 'if.' The hand which drew from the mud can fling
into the ditch, you who answer me with an 'if.' And, by God! I'll do
it! An 'if'? We say 'ifs' to fools. Was I a fool to turn the
lickshoe of Charles the Bully into the Prince of Talmont? Was I a fool
to grope in the mud for a Seneschal of Poitou? Am I a fool now--I, who
have held the strings of all Europe in my hand for thirty years, and
loosed or ravelled them as suited the greatness of France? God be my
witness, all has been for the greatness of France! France comes first,
always first. And now, when I say my son plots against me, that
twelve-year boy who is of an age to be king, am I a fool and liar?
Does this lie? Answer me, Argenton, does this lie?" And wrenching his
hand free from Commines he shook the paper passionately above his head.
So sudden and so fierce was the attack, so full of bitter venom and raw
rage, so brutally naked and perilous in its threat, that Commines
fairly quailed. The florid ruddiness of his fleshy face faded to a
pallor more cadaverous than the unhealthy grey of Louis' sunken cheeks
as he remembered Molembrais. At the door stood the guards with crossed
pikes, beyond these were Leslie and Saint-Pierre, watchful and alert.
He was loved little better than his master, and he knew it. Let the
King speak and there would be no hesitancy, little pity. In his rapid
rise he had kicked many rivals from the ladder of Court favour, and
climbed yet higher by trampling them underfoot, caring little what gulf
of disgrace or worse swallowed them. And the King's threat was no idle
boast; the hand which had raised could drag down, not only to
irremediable disaster, but to the very grave itself. A hand? A
beckoning finger to those who waited at the door would be enough, and
Commines trembled.
"Sire, sire," he cried, his arms raised in protest and supplication,
"how have I offended you? In what have I been ungrateful? I meant no
more but that it seemed impossible a son could turn against so good, so
great a father. That--that--staggered me for the moment. It beggared
reason; it--it--but let me read the despatch for myself, sire. Not for
belief, but for comprehension, and that we may meet the blow together,
that we may turn it aside--may turn it back on--on--the hand that
strikes."
"Aye!" said Louis drily, "that is more like the Commines of old, the
Commines who served his master without an 'if.' And that is a good
phrase of yours--turn back the blow on the hand that strikes! When
that is done, and the time comes for reward, I will not forget that it
was your phrase. And it was for that I sent for you: I knew my friend
Commines would find a way to--to--guard his master effectually."
Before Louis ended all the harshness had gone from his voice, and it
became marvellously gentle, marvellously kindly, almost caressing. A
master student of the subtle trifles which unconsciously influence
great events, he played upon men's minds as a skilled musician on his
instrument, and they obeyed the touch. Nor was Philip de Commines,
opportunist, political adventurer, philosopher, soldier of fortune,
diplomatist, exempt from the influence of that skilful mastery. As he
had gloomed so now he gladdened: he squared his shoulders to his
fullest height, filling his lungs with a deeper inspiration, and the
colour ran back to his cheeks in flood. Nor was it all in pride; there
was relief, and the lifting up of a burden which for one terrible
moment had threatened to crush him to the earth itself.
But the life which gave its strength to the hand which lifted and
dragged down was frail almost to extinction, and remembering that one
day the Dauphin must step into Louis' place Commines ventured to
temporize.
"Yes, sire, but to turn back the blow I must know who aims the blow,
whence it comes, where it will strike, and when. To fight in the dark
is to waste strength. Have I your leave to read the despatch from
Amboise?"
"Eh?" With the gesture of a natural impulse Louis held out the paper,
then drew it back. "We will wait a little. I am tired, very tired.
This shock has unnerved me. Let me sit down, Philip, and rest."
Slowly, with an arm on Commines' shoulder, he turned and, sinking into
the chair, leaned forward upon the table in an attitude of utter
weariness, his hand still resting upon the despatch. So there was a
pause for a moment, Commines standing to one side, silent and ill at
ease. Then with a sigh, which was almost a groan, Louis roused
himself. Reaching out his hand he raised to his lips a little silver
image of Saint Denis, one of a group which filled a corner of the
table, some standing upright, some pitched upon their faces without
regard to reverence or respect. Kissing it fervently he again sighed,
his eyes raised to the groined roof, and shook his head sadly. If
Saint Denis did not whisper inspiration he at least spun out the time
for thought. Commines' request was reasonable, and he was at a loss
how plausibly to evade it.
"Have I your leave, sire?"
"Eh?" Down came the King's hand upon the paper, Saint Denis grasped,
baton-fashion, by the feet. "No, Philip, no, I think not. It is in
confidence, and above all things a king must respect confidence, or how
could he be trusted?" A sentence which sounded strange from the lips
of a man who never kept a treaty he could break to his own advantage,
or, to give him his due, to the advantage of France.
"That I can understand," answered Commines, as gravely as if his
master's tortuous road to the consolidation of the kingdom had not been
strewn with ruptured contracts, unscrupulous chicanery, and solemn
pledges brazenly evaded. "But how am I to act? How can I, in the
dark, parry a blow from the dark?"
"Suspect every one," answered Louis, brushing aside Saint Denis as he
turned sharply in his chair. The saint had served his turn. He had
been invoked in a perplexity, and now that the way was clear, no doubt
in answer to the invocation, he was flung aside without ceremony.
"Suspect every one. To suspect all you meet is the first great rule of
prudence, wisdom, success; and to suspect your own self is the second.
Go to Amboise. Remember there is no if, and sift, search, find, but
especially find."
"Find what, sire?"
For answer Louis clutched the paper yet tighter and shook it in the
air, and if Commines could but have guessed it, there was a double
meaning in the action and the words which accompanied it.
"Find this!"
"And having found?" Commines paused, conscious that the ground was
treacherous under his feet. "Sire, remember he is the Dauphin and the
son of France."