with an air conscious of deserving, and thereby seeming desirous to extort acknowledgment and recompense for their services; and Louis, the most jealous monarch that ever lived, was peculiarly averse and inaccessible to any one who seemed either to presume upon service rendered, or to pry into his secrets.
Yet, hurried away, as the most cautious sometimes are, by the self-satisfied humour of the moment, the Cardinal continued to ride on the King's right hand, turning the discourse, whenever it was possible, upon Crevecoeur and his embassy; which, although it might be the matter at that moment most in the King's thoughts, was nevertheless precisely that which he was least willing to converse on. At length Louis, who had listened to him with attention, yet without having returned any answer which could tend to prolong the conversation, signed to Dunois, who rode at no great distance, to come up on the other side of his horse.
'We came hither for sport and exercise,' said he, 'but the reverend Father here would have us hold a council of state.'
'I hope your Highness will excuse my assistance,' said Dunois; 'I am born to fight the battles of France, and have heart and hand for that, but I have no head for her councils.'
'My Lord Cardinal hath a head turned for nothing else, Dunois,' answered Louis; 'he hath confessed Crevecoeur at the Castle-gate, and he hath communicated to us his whole shrift – Said you not the whole?' he continued, with an emphasis on the word, and a glance at the Cardinal, which shot from betwixt his long dark eyelashes, as a dagger gleams when it leaves the scabbard.
The Cardinal trembled, as, endeavouring to reply to the King's jest, he said, 'That though his order were obliged to conceal the secrets of their penitents in general, there was no sigillum confessionis, which could not be melted at his Majesty's breath.'
'And as his Eminence,' said the King, 'is ready to communicate the secrets of others to us, he naturally expects that we should be equally communicative to him; and, in order to get upon this reciprocal footing, he is very reasonably desirous to know if these two ladies of Croye be actually in our territories. We are sorry we cannot indulge his curiosity, not ourselves knowing in what precise place errant damsels, disguised princesses, distressed countesses, may lie leaguer within our dominions, which are, we thank God and our Lady of Embrun, rather too extensive for us to answer easily his Eminence's most reasonable enquiries. But supposing they were with us, what say you, Dunois, to our cousin's peremptory demand?'
'I will answer you, my Liege, if you will tell me in sincerity, whether you want war or peace,' replied Dunois, with a frankness which, while it arose out of his own native openness and intrepidity of character, made him from time to time a considerable favourite with Louis, who, like all astucious persons, was as desirous of looking into the hearts of others, as of concealing his own.
'By my halidome,' said he, 'I should be as well contented as thyself, Dunois, to tell thee my purpose, did I myself but know it exactly. But say I declared for war, what should I do with this beautiful and wealthy young heiress, supposing her to be in my dominions?'
'Bestow her in marriage on one of your own gallant followers, who has a heart to love and an arm to protect her,' said Dunois.
'Upon thyself, ha!' said the King. 'Pasquesdieu! thou art more politic than I took thee for, with all thy bluntness.'
'Nay, Sire,' answered Dunois, 'I am aught except politic. By our Lady of Orleans, I come to the point at once, as I ride my horse at the ring. Your Majesty owes the house of Orleans at least one happy marriage.'
'And I will pay it, Count. Pasques-dieu, I will pay it! – See you not yonder fair couple?'
The King pointed to the unhappy Duke of Orleans and the Princess, who, neither daring to remain at a greater distance from the King, nor in his sight appear separate from each other, were riding side by side, yet with an interval of two or three yards betwixt them, a space which timidity on the one side, and aversion on the other, prevented them from diminishing, while neither dared to increase it.
Dunois looked in the direction of the King's signal, and as the situation of his unfortunate relative and the destined bride reminded him of nothing so much as of two dogs, which, forcibly linked together, remain nevertheless as widely separated as the length of their collars will permit, he could not help shaking his head, though he ventured not on any other reply to the hypocritical tyrant. Louis seemed to guess his thoughts.
'It will be a peaceful and quiet household they will keep – not much disturbed with children, I should augur[21]. But these are not always a blessing.'
It was, perhaps, the recollection of his own filial ingratitude that made the King pause as he uttered the last reflection, and which converted the sneer that trembled on his lip into something resembling an expression of contrition. But he instantly proceeded in another tone.
'Frankly, my Dunois, much as I revere the holy sacrament of matrimony,' (here he crossed himself,) 'I would rather the house of Orleans raised for me such gallant soldiers as thy father and thyself, who share the blood-royal of France without claiming its rights, than that the country should be torn to pieces, like to England, by wars arising from the rivalry of legitimate candidates for the crown. The lion should never have more than one cub.'
Dunois sighed and was silent, conscious that contradicting his arbitrary Sovereign might well hurt his kinsman's interests, but could do him no service; yet he could not forbear adding, in the next moment, 'Since your Majesty has alluded to the birth of my father, I must needs own, that, setting the frailty of his parents on one side, he might be termed happier, and more fortunate, as the son of lawless love, than of conjugal hatred.'
'Thou art a scandalous fellow, Dunois, to speak thus of holy wedlock,' answered Louis, jestingly. 'But to the devil with the discourse, for the boar is unharboured. – Lay on the dogs, in the name of the holy Saint Hubert! – Ha! ha! tra-la-la-lira-la!' – And the King's horn rung merrily through the woods as he pushed forward on the chase, followed by two or three of his guards, amongst whom was our friend Quentin Durward. And here it was remarkable, that, even in the keen prosecution of his favourite sport, the King, in indulgence of his caustic disposition, found leisure to amuse himself by tormenting Cardinal Balue.
It was one of that able statesman's weaknesses, as we have elsewhere hinted, to suppose himself, though of low rank and limited education, qualified to play the courtier and the man of gallantry. He did not, indeed, actually enter the lists of chivalrous combat, like Becket, or levy soldiers like Wolsey. But gallantry, in which they also were proficients, was his professed pursuit; and he likewise affected great fondness for the martial amusement of the chase. Yet, however well he might succeed with certain ladies, to whom his power, his wealth, and his influence as a statesman, might atone for deficiencies in appearance and manners, the gallant horses, which he purchased at almost any price, were totally insensible to the dignity of carrying a Cardinal, and paid no more respect to him than they would have done to his father, the carter, miller, or tailor, whom he rivalled in horsemanship. The King knew this, and, by alternately exciting and checking his own horse, he brought that of the Cardinal, whom he kept close by his side, into such a state of mutiny against his rider, that it became apparent they must soon part company; and then, in the midst of its starting, bolting, rearing, and lashing out, alternately, the royal tormentor rendered the rider miserable, by questioning him upon many affairs of importance, and hinting his purpose to take that opportunity of communicating to him some of those secrets of state, which the Cardinal had but a little while before seemed so anxious to learn[22].
A more awkward situation could hardly be imagined, than that of a privy-counsellor forced to listen to and reply to his sovereign, while each fresh gambade of his unmanageable horse placed him in a new and more precarious attitude – his violet robe flying loose in every direction, and nothing securing him from an instant and perilous fall, save the depth of the saddle, and its height before and behind. Dunois laughed without restraint; while the King, who had a private mode of enjoying his jest inwardly, without laughing aloud, mildly rebuked his minister on his eager passion for the chase, which would not permit him to dedicate a few moments to business. 'I will no longer be your hinderance to a course,' continued he, addressing the terrified Cardinal, and giving his own horse the rein at the same time.
Before Balue could utter a word by way of answer or apology, his horse, seizing the bit with his teeth, went forth at an uncontrollable gallop, soon leaving behind the King and Dunois, who followed at a more regulated pace, enjoying the statesman's distressed predicament. If any of our readers has chanced to be run away with in his time, (as we ourselves have in ours,) he will have a full sense at once of the pain, peril, and absurdity of the situation. Those four limbs of the quadruped, which, noway under the rider's control, nor sometimes under that of the creature they more properly belong to, fly at such a rate as if the hindermost meant to overtake the foremost – those clinging legs of the biped which we so often wish safely planted on the green sward, but which now only augment our distress by pressing the animal's sides – the hands which have forsaken the bridle for the mane – the
