"To the devil with your litanies!" cried Messire d'Estourville. "Say what you have to say simply and without all these jeremiads. This morning?"
"Ah! Monsieur le Prévôt, you can't prevent my weeping until she is found. This morning, messire, being alarmed at not seeing her (she is always so early!) I knocked at her door to wake her, and, as she did not answer, I opened the door. No one. The bed was not even rumpled, messire. With that I called and cried, and lost my head, and you want me not to weep!"
"Dame Perrine," said the provost sternly; "have you admitted any one here during my absence?"
"I admit any one! the idea!" rejoined the governess with every indication of stupefaction, feeling a little conscience-stricken in that regard. "Didn't you forbid me, messire? Since when, pray, have I allowed myself to disobey your orders? Admit some one? Oh yes, of course!"
"This Benvenuto, for instance, who had the assurance to deem my daughter so fair; has he never tried to buy you?"
"Good lack! he would have been more likely to try to fly to the moon. I would have received him prettily, I promise you."
"I am to understand, then, that you have never admitted a man, a young man, to the Petit-Nesle?"
"A young man! Merciful Heaven! a young man! Why not the devil himself?"
"Pray who is the handsome boy," said Pulchérie, "who has knocked at the door at least ten times since I have been here, and in whose face I have shut the door as often?"
"A handsome boy? Your sight must be poor, my dear, unless it was Comte d'Orbec. Ah, bon Dieu! I know: you may mean Ascanio. You know Ascanio, Messire? the young fellow who saved your life. Yes, I did give him my shoe-buckles to repair. But he, that apprentice! Wear glasses, my love! May these walls and pavements speak, if they ever saw him here!"
"Enough," interposed the provost severely. "If you have betrayed my confidence, Dame Perrine, I swear that you shall pay me for it! I am going now to this Benvenuto; God knows how the clown will receive me, but go I must."
Contrary to his expectation Benvenuto received the provost with perfect civility. In the face of his cool and easy manner and his good humor, Messire d'Estourville did not dare mention his suspicions. But he said that his daughter, having been unnecessarily alarmed the evening before, had fled in her panic terror like a mad girl; that it was possible that she might have taken refuge in the Grand-Nesle without Benvenuto's knowledge,—or else that she might have fainted somewhere in the grounds as she was passing through. In short, he lied in the most bungling way imaginable.
But Cellini courteously accepted all his fables and all his excuses; indeed, he was so obliging as to appear to notice nothing out of the way. He did more, he sympathized with the provost with all his heart, declaring that he would be happy to assist in restoring his daughter to a father who had always hedged her around with such touching affection. To hear him, one might suppose the fugitive was very much in the wrong, and could not too soon return to so pleasant a home and so loving a parent. Moreover, to prove the sincerity of his interest in Messire d'Estourville's affliction, he placed himself at his disposal to assist him in his search in the Grand-Nesle and elsewhere.
The provost, half convinced, and the more deeply affected by these eulogiums, in that he knew in his heart that he did not deserve them, began a careful search of his former property, of which he knew all the ins and outs. There was not a door that he did not open, not a wardrobe nor a chest into which he did not peer, as if by inadvertence. Having inspected every nook and corner of the hotel itself, he went into the garden, and searched the arsenal, foundry, stables and cellar, scrutinizing everything most rigorously. Benvenuto, faithful to his first offer, accompanied him throughout his investigations, and assisted him to the utmost of his ability, offering him all the keys, and calling his attention to this or that corridor or closet which the provost overlooked. He advised him to leave one of his people on guard in each spot as he left it, lest the fugitive should evade him by stealing from place to place.
Having continued his perquisitions for two hours to no purpose, Messire d'Estourville, feeling sure that he had omitted nothing, and overwhelmed by his host's politeness, left the Grand-Nesle, with profuse thanks and apologies to its master.
"Whenever it suits your pleasure to return," said the goldsmith, "and if you desire to renew your investigations here, my house is open to you at all times, as when it was your own. Indeed it is your right, messire; did we not sign a treaty whereby we agreed to live on neighborly terms?"
The provost thanked Benvenuto, and as he knew not how to return his courtesy, he loudly praised, as he went away, the colossal statue of Mars, which the artist was at work upon, as we have said. Benvenuto led him around it, and complacently called his attention to its amazing proportions; it was more than sixty feet high and nearly twenty in circumference at its base.
Messire d'Estourville withdrew much dejected. As he had failed to find his daughter in the precincts of the Grand-Nesle, he was convinced that she had found shelter somewhere in the city. But even at that time the city was sufficiently large to make his own task as chief officer of the police an embarrassing one. Then, too, there was this question to be solved. Had she been kidnapped, or had she fled? Was she the victim of some other person's violence, or had she yielded to her own impulse? There was nothing to set at rest his uncertainty upon this point. He hoped that in the first event she would succeed in escaping, and in the second would return of her own volition. He therefore waited with what patience he could muster, none the less questioning Dame Perrine twenty times a day, who passed her time calling upon the saints in paradise, and swearing by all the gods that she had admitted no one; and indeed she was no more suspicious than Messire d'Estourville himself of Ascanio.
That day and the next passed without news. The provost thereupon put all his agents in the field: a thing he had hitherto omitted to do, in order that the unfortunate occurrence, in which his reputation was so deeply interested, might not be noised abroad. To be sure he simply gave them Colombe's description, without giving them her name, and their investigations were made upon an entirely different pretext from the real one. But although he resorted to all his secret sources of information, all their searching was without result.
Surely he had never been an affectionate or gentle father, but if he was not in despair, he was in a bad temper, and his pride suffered if his heart did not. He thought indignantly of the fine match which the little fool would perhaps miss by reason of this escapade, and with furious rage of the witticisms and sarcasms with which his misadventure would be greeted at court.
He had to make up his mind at last to confide his woful tale to Comte d'Orbec. Colombe'sfiancéwas grieved by the news, in the same way as a merchant is grieved who learns that part of his cargo has been jettisoned, and not otherwise. He was a philosopher, was the dear count, and promised his worthy friend that, if the affair did not make too much noise, the marriage should come off none the less; and, as he was a man who knew how to strike when the iron was hot, he seized the opportunity to whisper to the provost a few words as to the plans of Madame d'Etampes regarding Colombe.
The provost was dazzled at the honor which might be in store for him: his anger redoubled, and he cursed the ungrateful girl who was ruining her own chances of such a noble destiny. We spare our readers the details of the conversation between the two old courtiers to which this avowal of Comte d'Orbec led; we will say simply that grief and hope were combined therein in a curiously touching way. As misfortune brings men together, the prospective father-in-law and son-in-law parted more closely united than ever, and without making up their minds to renounce the brilliant prospects of which they had caught a glimpse.
They agreed to keep the occurrence secret from everybody; but the Duchesse d'Etampes was too intimate a friend, and too deeply interested as an accomplice, not to be let into their confidence. It was a wise move on their part, for she took the thing much more to heart than the father and husband had done, and, as we know, she was better qualified than any other to give the provost information and direct his search.
She knew of Ascanio's love for Colombe, and she had herself forced him, so to speak, to listen to the whole conspiracy. The young man, realizing that a blow was to be aimed at the honor of his beloved, had perhaps resolved upon some desperate act. But Ascanio had himself told her that Colombe did not love him, and not loving him she would be unlikely to lend herself to such a design. Now the Duchesse d'Etampes knew him upon whom her suspicion first fell sufficiently well to be sure that he would never have the courage to defy his mistress's scorn and her resistance; and yet, despite all her reasoning, and although in her eyes all the probabilities pointed to Ascanio's innocence, her jealous instinct told her that Colombe must be sought at the Hôtel de Nesle, and that they must make sure of Ascanio before everything.
But, on the other hand, Madame d'Etampes could not tell her friends the source of that conviction, for she must in that case confess her love for Ascanio, and that, in the imprudence of her passion, she had made known to him all her designs upon Colombe. She simply said to them that she would be very much mistaken if Benvenuto were not the culprit, Ascanio his accomplice, and the Grand-Nesle the place of concealment. To no purpose did the provost argue with her, and swear that he had inspected and searched every corner, she would not yield her point, saying that she had her reasons for the faith that was in her, and she was so obstinate in her opinion that she ended by arousing suspicion in the mind of Messire d'Estourville, who was certain nevertheless that he had made a thorough search.
"However," said the duchess, "I will send for Ascanio, I will see him and question him myself, never fear."
"O madame! you are too kind," said the provost.
"And you too stupid," muttered the duchess between her teeth. She dismissed them, and set about reflecting upon the method she should adopt to induce the young man to come to her; but before she had decided upon any, Ascanio was announced; it was as if he had anticipated her wish.
He was cold and calm. The gaze with which Madame d'Etampes received him was so piercing that you would have said she wished to read to the very bottom of his heart; but Ascanio did not seem to notice it.
"Madame," said he, as he saluted her, "I have come to show you your lily, which is almost finished; almost nothing is lacking to complete it save the two hundred thousand crown dewdrop you promised to furnish me."
"Very well! and your Colombe?" was the only reply vouchsafed by Madame d'Etampes.
"If you mean Mademoiselle d'Estourville, madame," rejoined Ascanio gravely, "I will beg you on my knees not to pronounce her name again before me. Yes, madame, I most humbly and earnestly implore you that this subject may never be mentioned between us, in pity's name!"
"Aha! spite!" said the duchess, who did not remove her penetrating gaze from Ascanio's face for an instant.
"Whatever the feeling which influences me, madame, and though I were to be disgraced in your eyes, I shall venture to decline hereafter to talk with you upon this subject. I have sworn a solemn oath that everything connected with that memory shall be dead and buried in my heart."
"Am I mistaken?" thought the duchess; "and has Ascanio no part in this transaction? Can it be that the child has followed some other adorer, voluntarily or perforce, and, although lost to my ambitious schemes, has served the interests of my passion by her flight?"
Having indulged in these reflections beneath her breath, she continued, aloud:—
"Ascanio, you beg me not to speak of her again, but you will at least allow me to speak of yourself. You see that in obedience to your entreaty I do not insist, but who knows if this second subject will not be even more disagreeable to you than the first? Who knows—"
"Forgive me for interrupting you, madame," said the young man, "but your kindness in granting me the favor I ask emboldens me to ask another. Although of noble birth, I am simply a poor, obscure youth, reared in the gloom of a goldsmith's workshop, and from that artistic cloister I am suddenly transported to a brilliant sphere, involved in the destiny of empires, and, weak creature that I am, having powerful noblemen for enemies, and a king for rival. And such a king, madame! François I., one of the most powerful princes in Christendom! I have suddenly found myself elbow to elbow with the most illustrious names of the age. I have loved hopelessly, I have been honored with a love I could not return! And with whose love? Great God! yours, madame, one of the loveliest and noblest women on earth! All this has sown confusion within me and without; it has bewildered and crushed me, madame.
"I am as terrified as a dwarf awaking to find himself among giants: I haven't an idea in its place, not a feeling which I can explain. I feel lost among all these terrible animosities, all these implacable passions, all these soaring ambitions. Madame, give me time to breathe, I conjure you; permit the poor shipwrecked wretch to collect his thoughts, the convalescent to recover his strength. Time, I hope, will restore order in my mind and my life. Time, madame, give me time, and in pity's name see in me to-day only the artist who comes to ask if his lily is to your taste."
The duchess stared at Ascanio in doubt and amazement; she had not supposed that this young man, this child, was capable of speaking in this grave, stern, poetic fashion; she felt morally constrained to obey him, and confined her conversation to the lily, praising and advising Ascanio, and promising to do her utmost to send him very soon the large diamond to complete his work. Ascanio thanked her, and took his leave with every mark of gratitude and respect.
"Can that be Ascanio?" said Madame d'Etampes to herself, when he had gone; "he seems ten years older. What gives him this almost imposing gravity? Is it suffering? is it happiness? Is he sincere, in short, or acting under the influence of that accursed Benvenuto? Is he playing a part with the talent of a consummate artist, or is he simply following his own nature?"
Anne was perplexed. The strange vertigo which gradually overpowered all those who contended with Benvenuto Cellini began to steal over her, despite her strength of mind. She set spies upon Ascanio, who followed him on the rare occasions when he left the studio, but that step led to no result. At last she sent for the provost and Comte d'Orbec, and advised them, as another would have ordered, to make a second and unexpected domiciliary visit to the Grand-Nesle.
They followed her advice; but although surprised at his work, Benvenuto received them even more cordially than he received the provost alone on the former occasion. One would have said, so courteous and expansive was he, that their presence implied no suspicions that were insulting to him. He told Comte d'Orbec good-humoredly of the ambush that he fell into as he left his house with his golden burden a few days before,—on the same day, he observed, on which Mademoiselle d'Estourville disappeared. This time as before he offered to accompany his visitors through the château, and to assist the provost in recovering his authority as a father, whose sacred duties he understood so well. He was very happy that he happened to be at home to do honor to his guests, for he was to start that same day within two hours for Romorantin, having been named by François I., in his condescension, as one of the artists who were to go to meet the Emperor.
For events in the world of politics had moved on as rapidly as those of our humble narrative. Charles V., emboldened by his rival's public promise, and by the secret undertaking of Madame d'Etampes, was within a few day's journey of Paris. A deputation had been selected to go out to receive him, and D'Orbec and the provost found Cellini in travelling costume.
"If he leaves Paris with the rest of the escort," D'Orbec whispered to the provost, "in all probability he didn't carry off Colombe, and we have no business here."
"I told you so before we came," retorted the provost.
However, they decided to go through with their perquisition, and set about it with painstaking minuteness. Benvenuto accompanied them at first, but as he saw that their investigations were likely to be very prolonged, he asked their permission to leave them, and return to the studio to give some orders to his workmen, as he was to take his leave very soon, and desired to find the preparations for casting his Jupiter finished at his return.
He did in fact return to the studio, and distributed the work among his men, bidding them obey Ascanio as if he were himself. He then said a few words in Italian in Ascanio's ear, bade them all adieu, and prepared to take his departure. A horse all saddled, and held by little Jehan, awaited him in the outer courtyard.
At that moment Scozzone went up to Benvenuto and took him aside.
"Do you know, master," she said with a sober face, "that your departure leaves me in a very difficult position?"
"How so, my child?"
"Pagolo is becoming fonder of me all the time."
"Ah! is it so?"
"And he is forever talking to me about his love."
"What do you reply?"
"Dame! as you bade me, master. I say that I will see, and that perhaps it may be arranged."
"Very well."
"How is it very well? You don't understand, Benvenuto, that he takes everything that I say to him most seriously, and that I may be entering into a real engagement with him. It's a fortnight since you laid down a rule of conduct for me to adopt, is it not?"
"Yes, I think so; I hardly remember."
"But I have a better memory than you. During the first five days I replied by reasoning gently with him: I told him he must try to conquer his passion, and love me no more. The next five days I listened in silence, and that was a very compromising kind of an answer; but you bade me do it, so I did it. Since then I have been driven to talk of my duty to you, and yesterday, master, I reached a point where I besought him to be generous, while he pressed me to confess my love for him."
"If that is so, it puts a different face on the matter," said Benvenuto.
"Ah, at last!" said Scozzone.
"Yes, now listen, little one. During the first three days of my absence, you will let him think that you love him; during the next three, you will confess your love."
"What, you bid me do that, Benvenuto!" cried Scozzone, deeply wounded at the master's too great confidence in her.
"Never you fear. What have you to reproach yourself for when I authorize you to do it?"
"Mon Dieu! nothing, I know," said Scozzone; "but being placed as I am between your indifference and his love, I may end by falling in love with him outright."
"Nonsense! in six days? Aren't you strong enough to remain indifferent to him six days?"
"Yes, indeed! I give you six days; but don't remain away seven, I beg you."
"No fear, my child, I will return in time. Adieu, Scozzone."
"Adieu, master," returned Scozzone, sulking, smiling, and weeping all at once.
While Cellini was giving Catherine these instructions, the provost and D'Orbec returned to the studio.
When they were left to themselves, with unrestricted freedom of movement, they went about their search in a sort of frenzy; they explored the garrets and cellars, sounded all the walls, moved all the furniture; they detained all the servants they met, and displayed the ardor of creditors with the patience of hunters. A hundred times they retraced their steps, examining the same thing again and again, like a sheriff's officer with a writ to serve, and when they had finished they were flushed and excited, but had discovered nothing.
"Well, messieurs," said Benvenuto, preparing to mount his horse, "you found nothing, eh? So much the worse! so much the worse! I understand what a painful thing it must be for turn sensitive hearts like yours, but notwithstanding my sympathy with your suffering and my desire to assist in your search I must begone. If you feel called upon to visit the Grand-Nesle in my absence, do not hesitate, but make yourself perfectly at home here. I have given orders that the house be open to you at all times. My only consolation for leaving you in so anxious a frame of mind is the hope that I shall learn upon my return that you have found your daughter, Monsieur le Prévôt, and you your fairfiancée, Monsieur d'Orbec. Adieu, messieurs."
Thereupon he turned to his companions, who were standing in a group at the door, all save Ascanio, who doubtless did not care to stand faee to face with his rival.
"Adieu, my children," he said. "If during my absence Monsieur le Prévôt desires to inspect my house a third time, do not forget to receive him as its former master."
With that little Jehan threw open the door, and Benvenuto galloped away.
"You see that we are idiots, my dear fellow," said Comte d'Orbec to the provost. "When a man has kidnapped a girl, he doesn't go off to Romorantin with the court."
It was not without grave doubts and a terrible sinking at the heart that Charles V. stepped foot upon French territory, where earth and air were, so to speak, his enemies, whose king he had treated unworthily when he was a prisoner in his hands, and whose Dauphin he had perhaps poisoned,—he was at least accused of it. Europe anticipated terrible reprisals on the part of François I. from the moment that his rival placed himself in his power. But Charles's audacity, great gambler in empires that he was, would not permit him to draw back; and as soon as he had skilfully felt the ground and paved the way, he boldly crossed the Pyrenees.
He counted upon finding devoted friends at the French court, and thought that he could safely trust to three guaranties: the ambition of Madame d'Etampes, the overweening conceit of the Connétable Anne de Montmorency, and the king's chivalrous nature.
We have seen how and for what reason the duchess chose to serve his interests. With the constable it was a different matter. The great stumbling-block in the way of statesmen of all lands and all periods is the question of alliances. Politics, which, in this matter and many others, is perforce conjectural only, is often mistaken, alas! like the science of medicine, in studying the symptoms of affinities between peoples, and in risking remedies for their animosities. Now the constable was a monomaniac on the subject of the Spanish alliance. He had got it into his head that France's salvation lay in that direction, and provided that he could satisfy Charles V., who had been at war with his master twenty years out of twenty-five, he cared but little how much he displeased his other allies, the Turks and the Protestants, or let slip the most magnificent opportunities, like that which gave Flanders to François I.
The king had blind confidence in Montmorency. In truth the constable had in the last war against the Emperor displayed a hitherto unheard of resolution, and had checked the enemy's advance. To be sure he did it at the cost of the ruin of a province, by laying the country waste before him, by devastating a tenth part of France. But what especially impressed the king was his minister's haughty roughness of manner, his inflexible obstinacy, which to a superficial mind might seem cleverness and unswerving firmness of resolution. The result was that François listened to the "great suborner of men," as Brantôme calls him, with a deference equal to the fear inspired in his inferiors by this terrible reciter ofpaternosters, who alternated his prayers with hangings.
Charles V. could therefore safely rely upon the persevering friendship of the constable.
He placed even more reliance upon his rival's generosity. Indeed, François I. carried magnanimity to an absurd point.
"My kingdom," he said, "has no toll-house, like a bridge, and I do not sell my hospitality." The astute Charles knew that he could trust the word of the "knightly king."
Nevertheless, when the Emperor was fairly' upon French territory, he could not overcome his apprehension and his doubts. He found the king's two sons awaiting him at the frontier, and throughout his journey they overwhelmed him with attentions and honors. But the crafty monarch shuddered as he thought that all this appearance of cordiality might conceal some deep-laid snare.
"I must say that I sleep very ill," he said, "in a foreign country."
He brought an anxious preoccupied face to the fêtes which were given him, and, as he advanced farther and farther toward the heart of the country, he became more and more sad and gloomy.
Whenever he rode into a city, he would ask himself, amid all the haranguing, as he passed beneath the triumphal arches, if that was the city where he was to be imprisoned; then he would murmur beneath his breath, "Not this or any other city, but all France, is my dungeon; all these assiduous courtiers are my jailers." And each hour as it passed added something to the apprehension of this tiger, who believed himself to be in a cage, and saw bars on all sides.
One day, as they were riding along, Charles d'Orléans, a fascinating, frolicsome child,—who was in great haste to be amiable and gallant, as a son of France, before dying of the plague like any peasant,—leaped lightly to the saddle behind the Emperor and threw his arms about his waist, crying gleefully, "Now you are my prisoner!" Charles became pale as death, and nearly fainted.
At Châtellerault, the poor imaginary captive was met by François, who welcomed him fraternally, and on the following day presented the whole court to him,—the valorous, magnificent nobility, the glory of the country, and the artists and men of letters, the glory of the king. The fêtes and merry-makings began in good earnest. The Emperor wore a brave face everywhere, but in his heart he was afraid, and constantly reproached himself for his imprudence. From time to time, as if to test his liberty, he would go out at daybreak from the château where he had lain at night, and he was delighted to see that his movements were not interfered with outside of the honors paid him. But could he be sure that he was not watched from a distance? Sometimes, as if from mere caprice, he changed the itinerary arranged for his journey, to the despair of François I., because part of the ceremonial prescribed by him went for naught as a consequence.
When he was within two day's ride of Paris he remembered with terror the French king's sojourn at Madrid. For an emperor the capital would seem to be the most honorable place of detention, and at the same time the surest. He therefore begged the king to escort him at once to Fontainebleau, of which he had heard so much. This overturned all of François's plans, but he was too hospitable to allow his disappointment to appear, and at once sent word to the queen and all the ladies to repair to Fontainebleau.
The presence of his sister Eleanora, and her confidence in her husband's good faith, allayed the Emperor's anxiety to some extent. But, although reassured for the moment, Charles V. was never able to feel at his ease while he was within the dominions of the King of France. François was the mirror of the past, Charles the type of the future. The sovereign of modern times never rightly understood the hero of the Middle Ages; it was impossible that there should be any real sympathy between the last of the chevaliers and the first of the diplomatists.
It is true Louis XI. might, strictly speaking, lay claim to this latter title, but in our opinion Louis XI. was not so much the scheming diplomatist as the grasping miser.
On the day of the Emperor's arrival there was a hunting party in the forest of Fontainebleau. Hunting was a favorite pastime of François I. It was not much better than a terrible bore to Charles V. Nevertheless he seized with avidity this further opportunity to see if he was not a prisoner; he let the hunt pass, took a by-road, and rode about at random until he was lost. But when he found that he was entirely alone in the middle of the forest, as free as the air that blew through the branches, or as the birds that flew through the air, he was almost wholly reassured, and began to recover his good humor in some measure. And yet the anxious expression returned to his faee when, upon his making his appearance at the rendezvous, François came to him, flushed with the excitement of the chase, and still holding in his hand the bleeding boar-spear. The warrior of Marignano and Pavia was much in evidence in the king's pleasures.
"Come, my dear brother, let us enjoy ourselves!" said François, passing his arm through Charles's in a friendly way, when they had both alighted at the palace gate, and, leading him to the Galerie de Diane, resplendent with the paintings of Rosso and Primaticcio. "Vrai Dieu! you are as thoughtful as I was at Madrid. But you will agree, my dear brother, that I had some reason for being so, for I was your prisoner, while you are my guest; you are free, you are on the eve of a triumph. Rejoice therefore with us, if not because of the fêtes, which are doubtless beneath the notice of a great politician like yourself, at least in the thought that you are on your way to humble all those beer-drinking Flemings, who presume to talk of renewing the Communes. Or, better still, forget the rebels, and think only of enjoying yourself with friends. Does not my court impress you pleasantly?"
"It is superb, my brother," said Charles, "and I envy you. I too have a court—you have seen it—but a stern, joyless court, a gloomy assemblage of statesmen and generals like Lannoy, Peschiara, and Antonio de Leyra. But you have, beside your warriors and statesmen, beside your Montmorencys and Dubellays, beside your scholars, beside Budée, Duchâtel, and Lascaris,—beside all these you have your poets and your artists, Marot, Jean Goujon, Primaticcio, Benvenuto; and, above all, your adorable women,—Marguerite de Navarre, Diane de Poitiers, Catherine de Medicis, and so many others; and verily I begin to believe, my dear brother, that I would willingly exchange my gold mines for your flower-strewn fields."
"Ah! but you have not yet seen the fairest of all these lovely flowers," said François naïvely to Eleanora's brother.
"No, and I am dying with longing to see that marvellous pearl of loveliness," said the Emperor, who understood that the king alluded to Madame d'Etampes; "but even now I think that it is well said that yours is the fairest realm on earth, my brother."
"But you have the fairest countship, Flanders; the fairest duchy, Milan."
"You refused the first last month," said the Emperor, smiling, "and I thank you for so doing; but you covet the other, do you not?" he added with a sigh.
"Ah! let us not talk of serious matters to-day, my cousin, I beg you," said François; "after the pleasures of war there is nothing, I confess, which I like less to disturb than the pleasures of a festal occasion like the present."
"It is the truth," rejoined Charles, with the grimace of a miser, who realizes that he must pay a debt, "it is the truth that the Milanese is very dear to my heart, and that it would be like tearing my heart out to give it to you."
"Say rather to return it to me, my brother; that word would be more accurate, and would perhaps soften your disappointment. But that is not the matter in hand now; we must enjoy ourselves. We will talk of the Milanese later."
"Gift or restitution, given or returned," said the Emperor, "you will none the less possess one of the finest lordships in the world; for you shall have it, my brother; it is decided, and I will keep my engagements with you as faithfully as you keep yours with me."
"Mon Dieu!" cried François, beginning to be vexed at this everlasting recurrence to serious matters; "what do you regret, my brother? Are you not King of the Spains, Emperor of Germany, Count of Flanders, and lord, either by influence or by right of your sword, of all Italy, from the foot of the Alps to the farthest point of Calabria?"
"But you have France!" rejoined Charles with a sigh.
"You have the Indies and their golden treasures; you have Peru and the mines!"
"But you have France!"
"You reign over an empire so vast that the sun never sets upon it."
"But you have France! What would your Majesty say, if I should cast an eye on this diamond among kingdoms, as fondly and gloatingly as you gaze upon that pearl of duchies, Milan?"
"Look, you, my brother," said François gravely, "I have instincts rather than ideas upon these momentous questions; but, as they say in your country, 'Do not touch the queen!' so I say to you, 'Do not touch France!'"
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Charles; "are we not cousins and allies?"
"Most certainly," was François's reply, "and I most earnestly hope that nothing will happen henceforth to embitter our relationship or disturb our alliance."
"I too hope so," said the Emperor. "But," he continued, with his cunning smile and hypocritical expression, "can I answer for the future, and prevent my son Philip, for instance, from falling out with your son Henri?"
"Such a quarrel would not be dangerous for France, if Augustus is succeeded by Tiberius."
"What matter who the master is?" said Charles, waxing warm; "the Empire will still be the Empire, and the Rome of the Cæsars was still Rome when the Cæsars had ceased to be Cæsars in everything save name."
"True, but the Empire of Charles V. is not the Empire of Octavius, my brother," said François, a little piqued. "Pavia was a glorious battle, but it was no Actium; then, too, Octavius was very wealthy, while, notwithstanding your Indian treasures and your Peruvian mines, you are well known to be in straitened circumstances financially; your unpaid troops were driven to sack Rome to procure means of subsistence, and now that Rome is sacked they are in revolt."
"And you, my brother," said Charles, "have alienated the royal domains, as I am informed, and are driven to treat Luther very tenderly, so that the German princes may consent to loan you money."
"Not to mention the fact," retorted François, "that your Cortes is very far from being so manageable as the Senate, while I can boast that I have freed the Kings of France from their dependence forever."
"Beware that your parliaments don't put you back into leading-strings some fine day."
The discussion was growing warm, both monarchs were getting excited, and the long standing antipathy which had kept them apart so long, was beginning to glow afresh. François was on the point of forgetting the duties of hospitality, and Charles the dictates of prudence, when the former suddenly remembered that he was beneath his own roof.
"On my word, my good brother," he exclaimed abruptly, laughing aloud, "I believe, by Mahomet's belly! that we were near losing our tempers. I told you that we must not talk of serious matters, but must leave such discussions to our ministers, and keep for ourselves only our good friendship. Come, let us agree, once for all, that you are to have the world, less France, and drop the subject."
"And less the Milanese, my brother," said Charles, realizing the imprudence he had been guilty of, and seeking at once to avoid its effects, "for the Milanese is yours. I have promised it to you, and I renew my promise."
As they exchanged these mutual assurances of continuing good will, the door of the gallery opened, and Madame d'Etampes appeared. The king walked quickly to meet her, took her hand, and led her to where the Emperor stood, who, seeing her then for the first time, and, being fully informed as to what had taken place between her and Monsieur de Medina, fixed his most penetrating gaze upon her as she approached.
"My brother," said the king smiling, "do you see this fair dame?"
"Not only do I see her," replied Charles, "but I admire her."
"Very well! you do not know what she wants?"
"Is it one of my Spains? I will give it her."
"No, no, brother, not that."
"What then?"
"She wants me to detain you at Paris until you have destroyed the treaty of Madrid, and confirmed by acts the promise you have given me."
"If the advice is good, you should follow it," rejoined the Emperor, bowing low before the duchess, as much to hide the sudden pallor which these words caused to overspread his face, as to perform an act of courtesy.
He had no time to say more, nor could François see the effect produced by the words he had laughingly let fall, and which Charles was quite ready to take seriously, for the door opened again and the whole court poured into the gallery.
During the half-hour preceding dinner, when this clever, cultivated, corrupt throng was assembled in the salons of the palace, the scene we described apropos of the reception at the Louvre was re-enacted in all its essential details. There were the same men and the same women, the same courtiers and the same valets. Loving and malevolent glances were exchanged as usual, and sarcastic remarks and gallant speeches were indulged in with the customary freedom.
Charles V., spying Anne de Montmorency, whom he with good reason deemed to be his surest ally, went to him, and talked in a corner with him and the Duke of Medina, his ambassador.
"I will sign whatever you choose, constable," said the Emperor, who knew the old campaigner's loyalty; "prepare a deed of cession of the Duchy of Milan, and by Saint James, though it be one of the brightest jewels of my crown, I will sign an absolute surrender of it to you."
"A deed!" cried the constable, hotly putting aside the suggestion of a precaution which implied distrust. "A deed, Sire! what is your Majesty's meaning? No deed, Sire, no deed; your word, nothing more. Does your Majesty think that we shall have less confidence in you than you had in us, when you came to France with no written document to rely upon?"
"You will do as you should do, Monsieur de Montmorency," rejoined the Emperor, giving him his hand, "you will do what you should do."
The constable walked away.
"Poor dupe!" exclaimed the Emperor; "he plays at politics, Medina, as moles dig their holes, blindly."
"But the king, Sire?" queried Medina.
"The king is too proud of his own grandeur of soul not to be sure of ours. He will foolishly let us go, Medina, and we will prudently let him wait. To make him wait, my lord, is not to break my promise, but to postpone its fulfilment, that is all."
"But Madame d'Etampes?" suggested Medina.
"As to her we shall see," said the Emperor, moving up and down a magnificent ring with a superb diamond, which he wore on his left thumb. "Ah! I must have a long interview with her."
While these words were rapidly exchanged in low tones between the Emperor and his minister, the duchess was mercilessly making sport of Marmagne, apropos of his nocturnal exploits, all in presence of Messire d'Estourville.
"Can it be of your people, Monsieur de Marmagne," she was saying, "that Benvenuto tells every comer this extraordinary story? Attacked by four bandits, and with but one arm free to defend himself, he simply made these gentry escort him home. Were you one of these gentlemanly bravos, viscount?"
"Madame," replied poor Marmagne, in confusion, "it did not take place precisely in that way, and Benvenuto tells the story too favorably for himself."
"Yes, yes, I doubt not that he embroiders it a little, and adds a few details by way of ornament, but the main fact is true, viscount, the main fact is true; and in such matters the main fact is everything."
"Madame," returned Marmagne, "I promise you that I will have my revenge, and I shall be more fortunate next time."
"Pardon, viscount, pardon! it's not a question of revenge, but of beginning another game. Cellini, I should say, has won the first two bouts."
"Yes, thanks to my absence," muttered Marmagne, with increasing embarrassment; "because my men took advantage of my not being there to run away, the miserable villains!"
"Oh!" said the provost, "I advise you, Marmagne, to admit that you are beaten in that direction; you have no luck with Cellini."
"In that case it seems to me that we may console each other, my dear provost," retorted Marmagne, "for if we add known facts to the mysterious rumors which are in circulation,—the capture of the Grand-Nesle to the reported disappearance of one of its fair inmates,—Cellini would seem not to have brought you luck either, Messire d'Estourville. To be sure, he is said to be actively interested in the fortunes of your family, if not in your own, my dear provost."
"Monsieur de Marmagne," cried the provost fiercely, in a furious rage to learn that his paternal infelicity was beginning to be noised abroad,—"Monsieur de Marmagne, you will explain to me later what you mean by your words."
"Ah messieurs, messieurs!" exclaimed the duchess, "do not forget, I beg you, that I am here. You are both in the wrong. Monsieur le Prévôt, it is not for those who know so little about seeking to ridicule those who know so little about finding. Monsieur de Marmagne, in the hour of defeat we must unite against the common enemy, and not afford him the additional satisfaction of seeing the vanquished slashing at one another's throats. They are going to thesalle-à-manger; your hand, Monsieur de Marmagne. Ah, well! since it seems that men, for all their strength, avail nothing against Cellini, we will see if a woman's wiles will find him equally invincible. I have always thought that allies were simply in the way, and have always loved to make war alone. The risk is greater, I know, but at least the honors of victory are not to be shared with any one."
"The impertinent varlet!" exclaimed Marmagne; "see how familiarly he is talking to our great king. Would not one say he was nobly born, whereas he is naught but a mere stone-cutter."
"What's that you say, viscount? Why, he is a nobleman, and of the most venerable nobility!" said the duchess, with a laugh. "Do you know of many among our oldest families who descend from a lieutenant of Julius Cæsar, and who have the threefleurs-de-lisand thelambelof the house of Anjou in their crest? 'T is not the king who honors the sculptor by speaking to him, messieurs, as you see; the sculptor, on the other hand, confers honor upon the king by condescending to address him."
"François I. and Cellini were in fact conversing at that moment with the familiarity to which the great ones of earth had accustomed the chosen artist of Heaven.
"Well, Benvenuto," the king was saying, "how do we come on with our Jupiter?"
"I am preparing to cast it, Sire."
"And when will that great work be performed?"
"Immediately upon my return to Paris, Sire."
"Take our best foundrymen, Cellini, and omit nothing to make the operation successful. If you need money, you know that I am ready."
"I know that you are the greatest, the noblest, and the most generous king on earth, Sire," replied Benvenuto; "but thanks to the salary which your Majesty orders paid to me, I am rich. As to the operation concerning which you are somewhat anxious, Sire, I will, with your gracious permission, rely upon my own resources to prepare and execute it. I distrust all your French foundrymen, not that they are unskilful, but because I am afraid that their national pride will make them disinclined to place their skill at the service of an artist from beyond the Alps. And I confess, Sire, that I attach too much importance to the success of my Jupiter to allow any other than myself to lay hand to it."
"Bravo, Cellini, bravo!" cried the king; "spoken like a true artist."
"Moreover," added Benvenuto, "I wish to be entitled to remind your Majesty of the promise you made me."
"That is right, my trusty friend. If we are content with it, we are to grant you a boon. We have not forgotten. Indeed, if we should forget, we bound ourselves in the presence of witnesses. Is it not so, Montmorency? and Poyet? Our constable and our chancellor will remind us of our plighted word."
"Ah! your Majesty cannot conceive how precious that word has become to me since the day it was given."
"Very well! it shall be kept, Monsieur. But the doors are open. To table, messieurs, to table!"
François thereupon joined the Emperor, and the two together walked at the head of the procession formed by the illustrious guests. Both wings of the folding doors being thrown open, the two sovereigns entered side by side and took places facing each other, Charles between Eleanora and Madame d'Etampes, François between Catherine de Medicis and Marguerite de Navarre.
The banquet was exquisite and the guests in the best of spirits. François was in his element, and enjoyed himself in kingly fashion, but laughed like a serf at all the tales told him by Marguerite de Navarre. Charles overwhelmed Madame d'Etampes with compliments and attentions. The others talked of art and politics, and so the time passed.