THE PLOT OF THE FOUR NATIONS
When, out of his experience, the devil formed schools to teach apt
humanity, he set them in the extremes of life, the noisome dens of
packed cities and the courts of kings. Misery forgets God, that by
theft and murder it may live out yet one more unhappy day, and
greatness climbs upon its own shame to yet more dishonoured honour.
Never was there such a place as Plessis for intrigue. From Monsieur de
Beaujeu, the King's son-in-law, down to the kitchen scullions, there
was not a man but mined or countermined to gain some private advantage;
nor, in all the palace, was there a finger-nail--mine among the
rest--but itched to scratch the King's favour. That much I learned in
my seven days of waiting.
Through Monsieur de Commines' influence almost every door was open to
me, and by his instructions I used my liberty freely.
"Who knows to what service you may be put," he added; "Plessis is not
to be turned inside out in a week, but a week may teach you not to show
yourself a fool."
So day by day I went my rounds by the outer, middle and inner walls;
the courtyards, the galleries, the anterooms, the sparrows' nests, the
towers, the donjon, even to the bear-pit and the sheds where were
housed that varied collection of strange beasts His Majesty had
gathered from the four corners of the earth to distract his thoughts,
and show the world how active was his mind. The quarters of the
Scottish archers I avoided as far as possible. Though Monsieur de
Commines did not love these interloping Northmen, nor they him, they
were civil enough to me for his sake, or, rather, for the sake of his
influence. But I could not understand half their guttural jargon.
The King I also avoided, and only saw from a distance until the day he
sent for me; once, far off, his scarlet satin cloak and heavy furs
showing like a giant poppy with the brown capsule half pushed off; once
sunning himself in a narrow court, his elbows on his knees, his chin in
his hands, his shoulders hunched to his ears, decrepit, shrunken, every
muscle in collapse; and once, not an hour later, on the parapet of the
outer wall, bowing a gracious acknowledgment to a group of the good
folk of Tours who saluted him from a discreet and safe distance; the
half-dead man was then very much alive, and so rumour was justified of
her children!
Tied though he was to the King's girdle, it was Monsieur de Commines'
custom to steal an hour nightly, and listen to my rehearsal of the
day's lessons.
"What strikes me most," said I, as my week drew to an end, "is the
confusion of tongues within the walls. There is the liquid music of
Provence, the iron rasp of Normandy, the clipped French of Paris, the
uncouth burr of Gascony; I even heard a Flanders oath or two to-day."
"Eh?" said Monseigneur, looking up at me; "Flanders? Did you say
Flanders?"
"Yes, Jehan Flemalle the bearward. The brute clawed at him as he fed
it, and he drew back swearing; I know a Flanders curse when I hear it,
and so, I think, should you," I added, laughing.
But, so far from breaking up, the gravity on his face deepened, and for
a full minute he sat with pursed mouth and narrowed eyes, staring into
vacancy out of window. When I would have spoken he shook his head and
snarled an incoherence, warning me into silence with a little impatient
twist of his hand. But suddenly his face lit up, and he turned upon
me, his eyes shining.
"Jehan Flemalle--Jan Flemael! By the splendour of God, I begin to
understand!" then he checked himself, and sat watching me, as he had
sat that night in the Louvre, when I knew to my discomfort that the
keenest brain in France was reckoning up not my strength, but my
weakness. "Do you know," he went on at last, his voice suave and
smooth, with all trace of excitement gone from it, "I distrust this
Jehan Flemalle. What if he starves the King's beasts to his own
profit? He is an Angevin, and--Yes, here is your chance to do the King
a service. From time to time these wild creatures have cost immense
sums. I hate them myself, but the King loves them, and visits them
almost daily. Watch this Jehan Flemalle; watch him when alone with the
beasts, note whom he consorts with, and if they meet in secret try and
catch them in talk."
"What, Monseigneur? Play spy upon a butcher?"
"Ay! on a butcher," he said harshly; "the word is a good one, and you
could not better it in a year. As to playing spy, I'd have you
understand, Monsieur, that if I bid you lay your ear to the crack of a
maid's door for the King's service, you must do it, or quit Plessis.
There are two types of useful men in the world; those who think and are
obeyed without question, and those who obey without question, but do
not think. For the present, be content to be the second, that one day
you may perhaps be the first. What! Monsieur Hellewyl, do you, who as
yet are not a little finger in Plessis, presume to call yourself a
brain?" Rising he strode to the door, and turning, shook a monitory if
not a menacing forefinger at me. "Remember," he went on, "in this
thing I am the King and you have your orders. If your dignity is not
supple enough to stoop to a little thing, how can it rise to a great?
And who are you to dare to question whys and wherefores in the King's
business?"
Without waiting for an answer he was gone. And what answer was
possible? Ever since Solignac was burned the whole force of my
schooling had been, None dare cross the King's will! It was written in
the ashes of my father's house, it was taught by the mouth of the
King's friend, it met me at the four gates of the Louvre, the
dangling-rope-ends on Tristan's house called it aloud, and even at the
altar of God Himself, Mademoiselle caught the echo and bowed in an
agony of prayer before its force. Or this order of Monsieur de
Commines might be a test, a trap of the King's own devising. It was
notorious that Louis loved crooked methods. Stoop that you may rise!
Monseigneur's words had hinted as much. Perhaps--but excuses are never
hard to find, even for a meanness, when that meanness serves a personal
gain very near to the heart.
Though I have said little of him, Jan Meert was never long out of my
thoughts. Dead Babette called to me across the smoke, and with both
blood and fire to avenge my weakness of poverty could afford no luxury
of qualms. It must lean where it could, even upon a foul staff. In a
word, what Monsieur de Commines bade me do, I did, nor was the
execution difficult.
A menagerie was as much part of a royal palace as were the kitchens.
Why, I cannot say. Perhaps it tickled a King's pride to know that even
the wild beasts were under his heel. That of Plessis at this time lay
to the south-east; cages, stalls, dens, pits, as were required. These
the King was continually adding to or enlarging, and behind the planks
laid for their repair, slanting against the wall, there was perfect
concealment.
Was I ashamed of the situation into which Monsieur de Commines had
forced me? Frankly yes; but, also frankly, still more ashamed of the
risk of being found out.
The stalls and cages were side by side, bordering both walls of an
angle facing me not ten paces distant; nowhere in Plessis was there
space to spare, and the poor, free-born beasts suffered from the
congestion with their betters. In these were the King's true
favourites. Monsieur de Commines might sleep at his feet, Monsieur de
Beaujeu minister his affairs, the Chancellor, Rochfort, have his ear
and his confidence, but their tenure was no stronger than a loose whim.
These others held his love and his interest, and to such an extent
that, ailing or well, he visited them almost daily; Barbary lions no
larger than great cats, elk-deer, reindeer, a strange medley.
But oftenest of all he would stand opposite the cage that prisoned four
great wolves from Auvergne. These he would bait till the savage
brutes, bigger than month-old calves, flung themselves howling against
the bars, raging but helpless, their fangs bared, their chaps dribbling
foam and slaver. He had even names for them.
"Burgundy," he would say, pointing from one to the other, "Spain, The
Empire, Rome!" Then, tapping his breast, add significantly, "France!
Snarl, my friends, froth, howl, eat your hearts out in hate, France is
unafraid," and they, as if they understood his jeer, would fling
themselves afresh against the side of the cage, tearing and biting the
bars to get at him. So, in jest, this cage came to be known as the
cage of The Four Nations.
Presently, as I waited behind my pile of timber, Jehan Flemalle came.
In Plessis there were no idlers. Even the four hundred archers of the
guard had their duties, and discipline was iron. Jehan Flemalle,
therefore, came alone and with no loiterers at his heels to watch the
feeding of the animals. In either hand was a great basket of kitchen
offal, and at the smell of him a howl arose whose echo rumbled in the
confined space like a winter's thunder.
From cage to cage he went, dealing out the day's rations, here a half
loaf such as few in France set teeth in from January to December, there
a bone such as still fewer in France saw even once a month in their
pots, and little by little the howls died down to a grumbling purr of
brute contentment. If other days were as this, then Monsieur de
Commines need be under no doubt; the King's beasts were not starved,
let happen what might to the King's subjects. Then a curious thing
struck me, spurring my jaded watchfulness; Jehan Flemalle in his
feeding had passed by the cage of the Four Nations, leaving Burgundy
and the rest to howl their hungry lamentations unheeded. He even
goaded them to louder complaint and stronger protest, for, setting down
their dinner in full sight, he gibed them as the King had done.
"Howl, Burgundy, snap your jaws, Spain! Tear at the bars, Rome, tear!
tear! Perhaps one day the way will open, and then--eh, my sons? then
we shall see, shall we not? That is the one thing needed, an open
door, and, Christus! but it is creaking on its hinges if the world but
knew it!" It was good Flemish, and not the mumbling jumble of a
half-baked Angevin clod! "Here's to make it creak louder," he went on.
"Here's to help it open with a crash that will shake all France from
the Nivernais to the three seas."
From under his leathern jerkin he drew an armourer's file such as is
used for cutting rivets, long, flat, and coarse, and through the howls
of the frantic brutes came the steady rasp, rasp, rasp, while the sweat
grew cold upon me at the cunning devilishness of the villian's purpose.
"Your dinner to-day, Burgundy," said he, plying the tool steadily under
cover of the howling din. "Your dinner to-morrow, but the third day
you must go a-hunting. One spring and you're through, my children;
Rome, Burgundy, and the Empire all on France at a leap, and Spain
crawling in behind to claim her share of the spoils. Good!" as one of
the famished brutes, crouching, thundered against the bars, "that is
the trick to play when a man jeers your empty belly. Spring! and
you're through! but not to-day nor to-morrow. When the third day
comes, then, God with us! poof! You're through! you're through!" and
again the rasp, rasp, rasp arose, harsh and strident, his body swinging
in rhythm to the grind of the tool.