The ground floor consisted of a large front room, serving both as kitchen and dining-room; the provisions needed for carrying on the business hung to hooks from the rafters. Behind this room a ladder-stair went up to the first floor; but at the foot of the stairs, was a door opening into a small narrow room, lighted from one of those provincial backyards which are more like a chimney, so narrow, dark, and high are they. This little room, screened by a lean-to, and hidden from all eyes by the surrounding walls, was the hall where the Bad Boys of Issoudun held their full court. Old Cognet ostensibly entertained the country people there on market days; in reality, he played host to the Knights of Idlesse.
This old Cognet, formerly a groom in some rich house, had married la Cognette, originally a cook in a good family. The suburb of Rome still uses a feminine form of the husband name for the wife, in the Latin fashion, as in Italy and Poland. By combining their savings, Cognet and his wife had been able to buy this house and set up as tavern-keepers. La Cognette, a woman of about forty, tall and buxom, with a turn-up nose, an olive skin, hair as black as jet, brown eyes, round and bright, and an intelligent, merry face, had been chosen by Maxence Gilet to be the Léonardo of the Order for the sake of her good humor and her talents as a cook. Cognet himself was about fifty-six, thickset, submissive to his wife, and, to quote the joke she constantly repeated, he could not help seeing straight, for he was blind of one eye.
For seven years, from 1816 to 1823, neither husband nor wife ever let out a word as to what was done or plotted every night on their premises, and they were always very much attached to all the Knights. Their devotion was indeed perfect, but it may seem less admirable when we consider that their interest was a guarantee for their silence and affection. At whatever hour of the night the members of the Order came to la Cognette’s, if they knocked in a particular way, Father Cognet, recognizing the signal, rose, lighted the fire and the candles, opened the door, and went to the cellar for wine laid in expressly for the Order, while his wife cooked them a first-rate supper, either before or after the exploits planned the night before, or during the day.
While Madame Bridau was on her way from Orléans to Issoudun, the Knights of Idlesse were preparing one of their most famous tricks. An old Spaniard, a prisoner of war, who, at the peace, had remained in France, where he carried on a small trade in seeds, had come to market early, and had left his empty cart at the foot of the tower. Maxence was the first to arrive at the meeting-place fixed for the evening under the tower, and was presently asked in a low voice, “What is doing tonight?”
“Old Fario’s cart is out here,” replied he. “I almost broke my nose against it. Let us get it up the knoll to the foot of the tower, and after that we will see.”
When Richard built the tower of Issoudun, he founded it, as has been said, on the remains of a basilica which occupied the site of the Roman temple and the Celtic Dun. These ruins, each representing a long series of centuries, formed a large mound, full of the monuments of three ages. Thus Richard Coeur de Lion’s tower stands on the top of a cone sloping equally steeply on all sides, and to be ascended only by zigzag paths. To represent its position in a few words, the tower may be compared to the Obelisk of Luxor on its base. The base of the tower of Issoudun, concealing so many archaeological treasures as yet unknown, is above eighty feet high on the side next the town. In an hour the cart had been taken to pieces and hoisted bit by bit to the top of the hill at the foot of the tower, by means something like that of the soldiers who carried the guns up the pass of Saint-Bernard. The cart was put together again, and all traces of the operations so carefully effaced that it would seem to have been carried there by the devil, or by a stroke of a fairy’s wand. After this great achievement, the Knights, being hungry and thirsty, made their way to la Cognette’s, and were soon seated round the table in the low narrow room, laughing by anticipation at the face Fario would make when, at about ten o’clock in the morning, he should go to look for his cart.
The Knights, of course, did not play these antics every night. The talents of Sganarelle, Mascarille, and Scapin rolled into one would not have been able to invent three hundred and sixty-five practical jokes a year. In the first place, circumstances were not always favorable; the moon was too bright; or their last prank had been too annoying to sober folks; or one or another would refuse his cooperation when some relation was the chosen victim. But, though the rascals did not
