THE FOUNDING OF A DYNASTY.
Day was waning. Darkness began to invade the spacious apartment where
seventy-five years before Francon, archbishop of Rouen, informed Charles
the Simple that he was to give his daughter Ghisele together with the
domains of Neustria to Rolf the Norman pirate, and where now King Louis
and his wife Blanche had spent the day.
Louis the Do-nothing was asleep at full length upon his lounge near to
the table that was still covered with the dishes and vases of gold and
silver. The King's sleep was painful and restless. A cold sweat ran down
his forehead that waxed livid by the second. Presently an overpowering
torpor succeeded his restlessness, and Louis remained plunged in
apparent calmness, although his features were rapidly becoming
cadaverous. Standing behind the lounge with his elbows resting against
its head, Yvon the Calf contemplated the King of the Franks with an
expression of somber and savage triumph. Yvon had dropped his mask of
stupidity. His features now revealed undisguised intelligence, hidden
until then by the semblance of idiocy. The profoundest silence reigned
in the apartment now darkened by the approach of night. Suddenly,
emitting a deep groan, the King awoke with a start. Yvon stooped down
and disappeared behind the lounge while the King muttered to himself:
"There is a strange feeling upon me.... I felt so violent a pain in my
heart that it woke me up...." then looking towards the window: "What! Is
it night!... I must have slept long.... Where is the Queen?... Why was I
left alone?... I feel heavy and my feet are cold.... Halloa, someone!"
he called out turning his face to the door, "Halloa, Gondulf!...
Wilfrid!... Sigefried!" At the third name that he pronounced, Louis'
voice, at first loud, became almost unintelligible, it sunk to a husky
whisper. He sat up. "What is the matter with me? My voice is so feeble
that I can hardly hear myself. My throat seems to close ... then this
icy feeling ... this cold that freezes my feet and is rising to my
legs!" The King of the Franks had barely uttered these words when a
shudder of fear ran through him. He saw before him Yvon the Calf who had
suddenly risen and now stood erect behind the head of the lounge. "What
are you doing there?" asked Louis, and he immediately added with a
sinking voice: "Run quick for some one.... I am in danger....", but
interrupting himself he observed: "Of what use is such an order; the
wretch is an idiot.... Why am I left thus alone?... I shall rouse
myself," and Louis rose painfully; but hardly had he put his feet down
when his limbs gave way under him and he fell in a heap with a dull thud
upon the floor. "Help! Help!... Oh, God, have pity upon me!... Help!"
"Louis, it is too late!" came from Yvon in a solemn voice. "You are
about to die ... barely twenty years old, Oh, King of the Franks!"
"What says that idiot? What is the Calf doing here?"
"You are about to die as died last year your father Lothaire, poisoned
by his wife! You have been poisoned by Queen Blanche!"
Fear drew a long cry from Louis; his hair stood on end over his icy
forehead, his lips, now purple, moved convulsively without producing a
sound; his eyes, fixed upon Yvon, became troubled and glassy, but still
retaining a last glimmer of intelligence, while the rest of his body
remained inert.
"This morning," said Yvon, "the Count of Paris, Hugh the Capet, met your
wife by appointment in the forest. Hugh is a cunning and unscrupulous
man. Last year he caused the poisoning of your father by Queen Imma and
her accomplice the bishop of Laon; to-day he caused you to be poisoned
by Blanche, your wife, and to-morrow the Count of Paris will be King!"
Louis understood what Yvon was saying, although his mind was beclouded
by the approach of death. A smile of hatred contracted his lips. "You
believed yourself safe from danger," Yvon proceeded, "by compelling your
wife to eat of the dishes that she served you. All poison has its
antidote. Blanche could with impunity moisten her lips in the wine she
had poisoned--" Louis seemed hardly to hear these last words of Yvon;
his limbs stiffened, his head dropped and thumped against the floor; his
eyes rolled for a last time in their depths; a slight froth gathered on
his now blackened lips; he uttered a slight moan, and the last crowned
scion of the Carlovingian stock had passed away.
"Thus end the royal races! Thus, sooner or later, do they expiate their
original crime!" thought Yvon contemplating the corpse of the last
Carlovingian king lying at his feet. "My ancestor Amael, the descendant
of Joel and of Genevieve, declined to be the jailor of little Childeric,
in whom the stock of Clovis was extinguished, and now I witness the
crime by which is extinguished, in the person of Louis the Do-nothing,
the stock of Charles the Great--the second dynasty of the conquerers of
Gaul. Perchance some descendant of my own will in the ages to come
witness the punishment of this third dynasty of kings, now raised by
Hugh the Capet through an act of cowardly perfidy!"
Steps were heard outside. Sigefried, one of the courtiers, entered the
apartment saying to the King: "Seigneur, despite the express orders of
the Queen, who commanded us not to disturb your slumber, I come to
announce to you the arrival of the Count of Paris."
So saying, Sigefried drew near, leaving the door open behind him. Yvon
profited by the circumstance and groped his way out of the apartment
under cover of the dark. Receiving no answer from Louis, Sigefried
believed the King was still asleep, when, drawing still nearer he saw
the King's body lying on the floor. He stooped and touched the icy hand.
Struck with terror he ran to the door crying out: "Help!... Help!" and
crossed the next room continuing to call for assistance. Several
servitors soon appeared with torches in their hands, preceding Hugh the
Capet, who now was clad in his brilliant armor and accompanied by
several of his officers. "What?" cried the Count of Paris addressing
Sigefried in an accent of surprise and alarm, "The King cannot be dead!"
"Oh, Sire, I found Louis on the floor where he must have dropped down
from the lounge. I touched his hand. It was icy!" saying which Sigefried
followed Hugh the Capet into the apartment that now was brilliantly
lighted by the torches of the servants. The Count of Paris contemplated
for an instant the corpse of the last Carlovingian king, and cried in a
tone of pity: "Oh! Dead! And only twenty years of age!" and turning
towards Sigefried with his hands to his eyes as if seeking to conceal
his tears: "How can we account for so sudden a death?"
"Seigneur, the King was in perfect health this morning. He sat down at
table with the Queen; after that she left giving us orders not to
disturb her husband's sleep; and--" Sigefried's report was interrupted
by nearing lamentations, and Blanche ran in followed by several of her
women. Her hair was tumbled, her looks distracted. "Is Louis really
dead?" and upon the answer that she received she cried:
"Woe is me! Woe is me! I have lost my beloved husband! For pity's sake,
seigneur Hugh, do not leave me alone! Oh, promise me to join your
efforts to mine to discover the author of his death, if my Louis died by
crime!"
"Oh, worthy spouse, I swear to God and his saints, I shall help you
discover the criminal!" answered Hugh the Capet solemnly; and seeing
Blanche tremble and stagger on her feet like one about to fall he cried:
"Help! Blanche is swooning!" and he received in his arms the seemingly
fainting body of Blanche who whispered in his ear: "I am a widow ...
you are King!"