CHAPTER XXVIIIOF FURTHER PASSAGES IN THE LOUVRE AT PARIS
Whenmadam’s three envoys came to find themselves in the private apartments that had been given to them by the King of France, I had no words in which to express my amazement at Sir Richard Pendragon’s audacity. When I remembered that the Countess Sylvia was scarcely more than a child, with a beggarly retinue of three hundred men-at-arms, who would be wholly incapable of holding the castle of Montesina against the Castilian host; and when beside this dismal truth I set the dazzling story by which Sir Richard Pendragon had cozened one of the first princes of his age, I did not know whether it was not the bounden duty of a caballero of Spain to repair to King Louis and confess the fact.
All the rest of that day this problem afflicted me sorely. In these circumstances my natural guide was the Count of Nullepart, who was an older head and a wiser; and one who, to judge by his conversation, was not unacquainted with the things that concern man’s higher nature. But when I mentioned to him my perplexity, his only reply was to break out into laughter.
Finally, in my concern, I spoke of this matter to itsauthor. He, with his court gravity still upon him, heard me out very patiently, and made answer with great solemnity.
“Most noble marquis,” said he, “you must forgive the personal opinion of a good man, of a chief ornament of a shining age; but I do not think you would use these questions, marquis, had you a nicer familiarity with courts. Believe me, marquis, it is not the rule in such elevated places to observe that slavishness to the sober verities which at once betrays the mind of the provincial. I ask you, noble marquis, what kind of a figure should we have cut before the King’s majesty had we merely acquainted him with the sober and common aspect of the case? Do you suppose the first prince of his age would have lodged madam’s envoys in his palace—she who so recently has been whipped and put to bed by her old nurse? Do you think he would have had his ministers attend him in privy council? Do you think that this evening we should have been bidden to attend an entertainment? Not so, noble marquis. Had it come to the ear of the King’s majesty that the might of the neat little doxey was measured by three hundred men-at-arms and an old boarhound, in less than an hour we should have been sent packing out of the city. And, most noble marquis, let me perpend: one who hath the blood of kings under his doublet would be the last to hold this virtuous prince to contumely, for English Dickon and his friend the Sophy would, in these circumstances, have done the same.”
“But, good Sir Richard Pendragon,” said I, “my illustrious father has assured me that truth is always truth; that sober verity is sober verity equally in theking’s palace, in the marts of the middling, or in the pestilent hovels of the poor.”
“If this was your father’s opinion, noble marquis,” said the Englishman, “it is wonderful that he was able to make you a gift of even ten crowns at his burial. Where can you and he have dwelt, noble marquis, not to be aware that the truth hath more than one countenance? To the vulgar truth hath one aspect, to the learned it hath an hundred aspects. That which a private person such as yourself might consider an army, a veritable potentate might deride as unworthy of his regard. Permit me, noble marquis, to speak a word in your ear. Do not, I pray you, ever mention three hundred men-at-arms to the King of France.”
However, during the remainder of that day this matter continued to run much in my thoughts. And this was in despite of Sir Richard’s mode of reasoning, which I lacked the subtlety of mind to seize. Yet I do not want for parts, I think. Philosophy has been current in my mother’s family for at least an hundred years, and as I have said already in this history, her brother Nicholas was a clerk of Salamanca, and wore a purple gown. In the depth of my perplexity I turned again to the Count of Nullepart, who, I am sure, nature had designed to be my guide. But when I mentioned this subject to him for the second time, he sat down on a settle, placed both hands on his knees, and laughed in such an immoderate fashion that the tears rolled down his cheeks.
Be all this as it may, we were lodged in the palace of the King, and that evening attended a great entertainment. There were ladies royal and beautiful; gallantand noble gentlemen, illustrious in war and the polite arts; also there was a noise of loud music.
In my condition of marquis—I knew not how to disclaim that degree without showing myself deficient in breeding—and honourable envoy to a princess, I was seated at the table of the King of France. Upon either hand were ladies of the blood-royal. If I may venture to be quite candid in this matter—and if I am not my history will have no value, yet I hope such frankness will have no appearance of discourtesy to the household of a king—neither of these ladies was in the blush of youth, nor was she amazingly beautiful. On the score of their wit perhaps I may be excused from speaking; for as they had no Spanish and I had no French, our conversation was not so brilliant as some at the table.
Opposite to me sat the Count of Nullepart, or, as he was now called, the Marquis Fulano, a very singular title for a hidalgo of Spain. His circumstances appeared to be identical with my own. He also was encompassed by two royal princesses, one of whom had not a tooth—Heaven defend me for this candour!—and looked hardly a day less than ninety; while the other had an unfortunate malformation of the shoulders and a pair of eyes which glittered like those of a goshawk. As the Count of Nullepart insisted on speaking a rustic Spanish in a guttural voice that was quite foreign to his natural one, and as these royal ladies confined themselves to their mother tongue, the Count of Nullepart’s intercourse must have ranked next to my own. Yet, if the cheerful mirth of his countenance was a true index to his feelings upon the subject, his disappointment could not have galled him very deeply.
In the course of that evening it was freely rumoured that the Marquis Fulano was none other than a near kinsman—some said the second son—of the King of France. Indeed, the laughter that his appearance and behaviour excited, and yet the high respect that was paid to them on every hand, was such as could never have been extended to the idiosyncrasies of a private person. From that hour to this neither Sir Richard Pendragon nor myself has ever been able to win such an amazing admission from the Count of Nullepart. But as he has never thought well in anywise to deny it, and as the demeanour of all at the French court was such as I have declared it to be, there is every reason to suppose that our comrade’s true degree was of this exalted nature.
Sir Richard Pendragon was also in very singular case. Will you believe me, reader, when I inform you that this swaggerer, this maltreater of the truth, this robber of churches, this uncouth barbarian, had the King of France upon his left hand and the Queen upon his right? And so little was this ready-tongued adventurer abashed by the exalted position in which he found himself, that from the beginning of the meal he held the King in discourse, and handsomely retained the royal interest until it was concluded.
What it was that Sir Richard Pendragon found to say to the Father of his People I know not. But if his conversation was inspired by the same disrespect for the sober verities as had distinguished it earlier in the day, I doubt not that the King’s majesty learned much that the wisest of his ministers had not dreamed that he should know.
Much of this mad Englishman’s discourse was comprised of fantasy and comic tales. By the time he had consumed a liberal quantity of wine, which to a less commodious nature must have been a source of inconvenience, he kept the good King Louis in a perpetual state of laughter. It was the same with his royal consort. Indeed, grievous to relate, the Count of Nullepart subsequently made the accusation against Sir Richard Pendragon that he was the only person of his acquaintancy at the French court who was capable of bringing the blush of modesty to the cheek of the Queen-Mother.
In despite of this, Sir Richard Pendragon had great success on that memorable evening; and I think he was the envy of more than one ambitious courtier who had spent his life in flattering princes. Certainly no man could have been in a situation to admire himself more, and certainly no man could have been better equipped by nature to render to himself that office.
Owing to the manner in which fortune had smiled that evening upon our leader, he awaited the King’s decision with the greatest complacency. He assured the Count of Nullepart “that by the inner light of the mind he saw himself already at the head of those ten thousand Gauls.” And further, having once seen himself in the place of a great captain, by an additional process of the imagination which I believe is a curious quality in which his countrymen are highly gifted, he saw himself as the future king of the Spains.
After his success at the King’s board, Sir Richard invaded my sleeping-chamber that night in the palace, and regaled me until the dawn with the bright futurethat lay before us. Once the King of France gave over ten thousand men to his leadership, he showed in what manner he, Richard Pendragon, knight of England, with the blood of kings under his doublet, would crush the proud Castilian by the virtue of deep strategy and the power of the understanding.
About the hour the golden daylight had begun to stream through the shutters of our royal lodging, the English giant had had himself crowned by the Archbishop of Seville; he had led to the altar the Countess Sylvia, who, he said, after due consideration of the merits of Betty Tucker, his accomplished countrywoman, was in some ways the more fitted to be the royal consort if he were called to the Spanish monarchy; and further, he had conferred great place in his household upon the Count of Nullepart and myself, being good enough to declare that we could be trusted to fill it worthily.
Later in the morning, however, when we repaired to the audience-chamber to receive the King’s decision, these rosy visions did not appear so bright. For we came upon another aspect of the great King Louis. Although not indisposed to lend ten thousand men to his Spanish aunt upon terms thereafter to be mentioned, because it seemed we had come in a season when his cousins of Navarre and Burgundy were behaving reasonably, yet there was a condition to observe; and this was the key to the negotiation. The sum of one hundred thousand crowns in gold must be lodged in the King’s treasure chest ere a single soldier of France found his way across the Pyrenees.
Such a condition had not been foreseen by SirRichard Pendragon’s diplomacy. The blow to him was sore; yet he contrived to dissemble his chagrin skilfully, and with all the cunning imaginable strove to purchase the aid of France upon lighter terms. In despite, however, of Sir Richard Pendragon’s wiles, his flatteries, and the rosy hues in which he painted the future, King Louis remained obdurate. In fact, in this matter the first prince of his age discovered a side to his character for which only a sour spirit could have been prepared. As Sir Richard Pendragon declared subsequently, “he haggled like a Fleming.” He declined to abate a penny of emolument for the proposed service to his Spanish aunt. And not only this, but in regard to such affairs as leadership, conduct of the troops in the field, and division of the spoil he rendered it clear to us that we were sadly out of our reckoning.
Sir Richard Pendragon spent two hours in council with King Louis and his advisers. He then bade them farewell in no very amiable humour. It was abundantly clear that our embassy had failed completely. Even one of the Englishman’s ingenuity could devise no means of surmounting the heavy demands of this covetous prince.
Straightaway we left the palace. It was then our chief desire to set a goodly number of leagues between us and this unlucky city of Paris. For the period of twenty-four hours I think I have never seen a man in such high dudgeon, so out of humour with all the world save himself, as was our redoubtable leader. So sanguine had been his visions that he had almost come to feel the rim of the Spanish crown upon his forehead. Alas for his dreams! He now abused King Louis for“a poor-blooded French dog that was fitter to be a grocer, a purveyor of hog’s lard and garlic, than a true prince whose emoluments should have been one half of a fair dominion—he would have been agreeable to allow the rascal one half of the kingdom—had he not borne himself like a Fleming.”
As we turned our horses towards the Spanish frontier, seldom have I heard such bitter curses. Yet, even making abatement for Sir Richard’s sanguine temper, I marvelled that one of such wisdom as this Englishman should have built such towering hopes upon such a poor foundation. As I was fain to remark to the Count of Nullepart, “How could we suppose that such as the King of France would give us an easy bargain? And how could one so accomplished in the world as Sir Richard Pendragon deceive himself so sorely upon such a subject?”
To this the Count of Nullepart rejoined, “My dear friend, a high poetic temper puts a continual affront upon its possessor. This wonderful Englishman travels three continents, ordering his ideas not by the light of reason but by the light of fantasy. He takes no heed of those obstacles which pedestrian minds cannot surmount. And although it is true that on occasion he knocks his brains against them with no better reward than a broken pate, yet through the world he goes, assailing them with the winged heels of his imagination, so that, by my faith, he is prone to overleap these barriers altogether. And I conceive, my dear, that you and I, who are his humble followers, who, moving after him at a respectful distance, are yet sworn to serve his whims, will be not a little beguiled—we whoare amateurs of the human heart—to observe into what courses his fantasy will presently be leading him.”
In this the Count of Nullepart spoke correctly. We awaited the further exploits of our remarkable leader with the highest curiosity.