LOUIS THE DO-NOTHING.
Like his wife Louis the Do-nothing was barely twenty years of age.
Justly nicknamed the "Do-nothing," he looked as nonchalant as he seemed
bored. After having scolded through the window at the serfs, whose noise
annoyed him, he stretched himself out again upon his lounge. Several of
his familiar attendants stood around him. Yawning fit to dislocate his
jaws, he said to them: "What a notion that was of the Queen's to go at
sunrise with only one lady of the chamber to pray at the hermitage of
St. Eusebius! Once awakened, I could not fall asleep again. So I rose!
Oh, this day will be endless!"
"Seigneur King, would you like to hunt?" suggested one of the
attendants. "The day is fine. We would certainly kill some game."
"The hunt fatigues me. It is a rude sport."
"Seigneur King, would you prefer fishing?"
"Fishing tires me; it is a stupid pastime."
"Seigneur King, if you call your flute and lute-players, you might enjoy
a dance."
"Music racks my head, and I cannot bear dancing. Let's try something
else."
"Seigneur King, shall your chaplain read to you out of some fine work?"
"I hate reading. I think I could amuse myself with the idiot. Where is
he?"
"Seigneur King, one of your attendants has gone out to find him.... I
hear steps.... It is surely he coming."
The door opened and a servitor bent the knee and let in Yvon. From the
moment of his entrance Yvon started to walk on all fours, barking like a
dog; after a little while he grew livelier, jumped and cavorted about
clapping his hands and shouting with such grotesque contortions that the
King and the attendants began to laugh merrily. Encouraged by these
signs of approbation and ever cavorting about, Yvon mimicked alternately
the crowing of a rooster, the mewing of a cat, the grunting of a hog and
the braying of an ass, interspersing his sounds with clownish gestures
and ridiculous leaps, that redoubled the hilarity of the King and his
courtiers. The merriment was at its height when the door was again
thrown open, and one of the chamberlains announced in a loud voice from
the threshold where he remained: "Seigneur King, the Queen approaches!"
At these words the attendants of Louis, some of whom had dropped upon
stools convulsing with laughter, rose hastily and crowded to the door to
salute the Queen at her entrance. Louis, however, who lay stretched on
his lounge, continued laughing and cried out to the idiot: "Keep on
dancing, Calf! Dance on! You are worth your weight in gold! I never
amused myself better!"
"Seigneur King, here is the Queen!" said one of the courtiers, seeing
Blanche cross the contiguous chamber and approach the door. The wing of
this door, when thrown open almost reached the corner of a large table
that was covered with a splendid Oriental piece of tapestry, the folds
of which reached to the floor. Yvon the Calf continued his gambols,
slowly approaching the table, and concealed from the eyes of the King by
the head-piece of the lounge on which the latter remained stretched.
Ranged at the entrance of the door in order to salute the Queen, the
prince's attendants had their backs turned to the table under which Yvon
quickly blotted himself out at the moment when the seigneurs were bowing
low before Blanche. The Queen answered their salute, and preceding them
by a few steps moved towards Louis, who had not yet ceased laughing and
crying out: "Ho, Calf, where are you? Come over this way that I may see
your capers.... Have you suddenly turned mute, you who can bark, mew and
crow so well?"
"My beloved Louis is quite merry this morning," observed Blanche
caressingly and approaching her husband's lounge. "Whence proceeds the
mirth of my dear husband?"
"That idiot could make a dead man laugh with his capers. Ho, there,
Calf! Come this way, you scamp, or I'll have your bones broken!"
"Seigneur King," said one of the attendants after glancing around the
room for Yvon, "the Calf must have escaped at the moment when the door
was opened to admit the Queen. He is not here, nor in the adjoining
room."
"Fetch him back, he can not be far!" cried the King impatiently and with
rising anger. "Bring him back here immediately!"
One of the seigneurs hurried out to execute the King's orders, while
Blanche letting herself down near him, said, smiling tenderly: "I shall
try, my beloved seigneur, to enable you to wait patiently for the
idiot's return."
"Fetch him back. All of you run after him; the more of you look after
him, the quicker will he be found."
Bowing to the King's orders, the courtiers trooped out of the apartment
in search of Yvon.