CHAPTER XXVIIOF OUR AUDIENCE OF THE MOST CHRISTIAN KING
I thinkthe Marquis de Contreville-Lancy—that, as we afterwards learned, was the name of this gentleman—had some little surprise when he saw in what fashion we were disposed for our audience of the King, his master. Yet, if surprised he was, and I think, good reader, in this instance a little of such an eminently natural feeling is to be pardoned, he was far too grave and serious a nobleman to display it unduly. Yet I feel sure he viewed our appearance not without displeasure, and I believe it gave as high a relief to his feelings as it did to my own, when Sir Richard Pendragon coming to stand up, exclaimed, “This French marble is plaguy cold to the feet. Upon my good soul! it is a kind of distemper to buy a pair of shoes tricked with silver and then to walk barefoot before the king’s majesty.”
“All the same, good Sir Richard,” said the Count of Nullepart, “it is well known that the etiquette of the French court is very nice.”
In consequence of Sir Richard Pendragon’s new qualms, the Marquis de Contreville-Lancy was taken into our counsels. And I feel bound to state that the reference to this dignified nobleman proved highly fortunate. He persuaded Sir Richard Pendragon not onlyto don his shoes, but also to doff his bonnet. For he declared that any other proceeding would gravely imperil our embassy.
This piece of whimsicality being thus happily adjusted, we repaired in a wholly civilized mode to the presence of the first prince of the age. I cannot tell you, reader, what were my feelings when for the first time in my life, and at a period when I had barely attained to the estate of manhood, I found myself within a few paces of so august a personage.
Upon first coming into the presence of King Louis I could observe very little, for a most singular haze rose before my eyes. When afterwards I came to mention this phenomenon to the learned Count of Nullepart, he said that all who entered the presence of majesty were thus afflicted. It was a kind of exhalation, he said, which embodied their divinity. At the time, however, I was not aware of this interesting fact in natural philosophy. I only knew that there was nothing in the apartment that I could descry at all clearly, yet, understanding by a kind of instinct that my two companions were bowing low, I followed their example.
When at last I could see the King more fully he was conversing with Sir Richard Pendragon. The remarkable man who had come to lead our embassy had the seemliness to conduct himself with a most polite civility, of which I had scarcely suspected him to be capable. After humbly saluting the hand of the monarch, he paid King Louis some highly flattering addresses, and sinking to one knee—an act of courtly homage that was so well performed that it must have been the fruit oflong practice—presented to the King the cartel of our mistress.
While one of his ministers read the terms of the reference aloud to the King, who, of course, was too great a personage to read it himself, I was able to muster my wits sufficiently to mark the most Christian prince. And, good reader, you will doubtless call in question the veracity of my two eyes when I assert that the French King Louis was a small, wizened, pock-marked man, with a face, as became the embodiment of his nation, that was not unlike a frog’s. His hair was red in colour; there was a marked cast in his right eye; the lids were twisted and puckered in a most curious manner; his insignificant person and particularly his puny hands were twitching constantly; his voice was not agreeable; and I could not decide whether the colour of his eyes was brown or grey or dark green—the Count of Nullepart inclined to the latter opinion, Sir Richard Pendragon to the former—yet, good reader, I assure you solemnly that, notwithstanding all these disabilities, the French sovereign was every inch a prince.
There were three or four of the King’s ministers present in the room, with ruffs about their necks and short pointed beards. When they had read madam’s communication, the King seemed puzzled to know who his correspondent might be. It appeared that he had not the faintest recollection of his aunt. And, as I conceived, somewhat singularly, the ruler of France showed a livelier concern for this relationship than for the demand that we had come to make upon his friendship.
At the command of the King an enormous genealogical chart was brought into the room. Being laid uponthe table, it provoked the greatest curiosity. One and all scrutinized it with diligence, King Louis with an even shrewder regard than the rest. And presently he was able to convince himself that in Spain there dwelt an aunt of his of whom he had neither seen nor heard.
The King having duly established their kinship, proceeded to ply Sir Richard Pendragon with some pertinent questions, which the Englishman answered in the grave manner of a true ambassador.
“A proud and royal lady, good your majesty,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, “every inch a queen. She hath loyal and shrewd advisers, good your majesty, among them these famous gentlemen and one who shall be nameless.”
The King desired that the Count of Nullepart and myself should be presented to him. Sir Richard Pendragon undertook this office. With an air of magnificence that nought could surpass he recited our titles and our merit; and had we discovered anything to be lacking in the character he gave us we must have been ambitious men. It seemed that the most noble the Marquis of Fulano was the most accomplished minister in Spain; while I was a great lord, and, in spite of my tender years, by no means the least of its captains.
“And may I assure you, sire,” said this extraordinary envoy, “the most excellent queen’s majesty hath a standing army of not less than forty thousand men-at-arms.”
This revelation of the puissance of our mistress was not without its effect upon the King and his ministers. At first they seemed to extend only a languid interest to our business, but the manner in which Sir RichardPendragon conducted it began to stimulate their attention.
Indeed, it must have taken very cold-blooded statesmen not to derive interest from Sir Richard Pendragon’s presentment of the case. Taking the genealogical chart as a kind of map of Spain, with one finger he indicated the stronghold of the King of Castile, at fifty leagues’ distance from Toledo, and with another traced his broad dominion upon which our mistress was already marching with forty thousand men-at-arms. He declared that it was the Countess Sylvia’s plan to draw the King of Castile out of his stronghold by falling upon and laying waste his unprotected lands; and then, while the Castilian was fully engaged in defending his own, she proposed that an army of her royal nephew’s should come up in the rear—quite unexpectedly, for the nature of this present mission was known to none—enter the unprotected stronghold of the former enemy of King Louis, and seize it for France.
With such conviction and enthusiasm did Sir Richard Pendragon expound a plan of war that was entirely of his own invention, that King Louis, who at first had not listened very closely to a proposal that was outside the sphere of his politics, began to nod his head in approval. And finally the King of France was moved to hold animated converse with his ministers.
After they had spoken together for some while, one of these gentlemen directed Sir Richard Pendragon’s attention to the fact that although ten thousand was the number of soldiers that he asked for, according to the tenor of madam’s petition the number was no more than four thousand. Thereupon Sir RichardPendragon produced a large pair of horn spectacles, adjusted them gravely, and after scrutinizing the parchment very carefully, although there is reason to believe that madam’s ambassador was able to read little of the Spanish tongue, he gave it as his opinion that the four thousand was an undoubted error of the scrivener’s, inasmuch—and he spoke very truly in this particular—that the author of the proposal was himself.
This assurance being given, the King and his ministers again conferred; and presently the audience was terminated by his Majesty saying that this affair was of such moment that he desired twenty-four hours in which to sit in council with his advisers. The King then took leave of us, yet with a courteous request that the envoys of his respected aunt—who, according to Sir Richard Pendragon, was a learned and devout lady of mature years—should be lodged in the palace during their stay at Paris, and further, that they should engage themselves to dine with him that evening.