He flung back his bald head and laughed now, tittering over that calamitous, shabby secret between all- seeing God and Francois Villon. She had drawn a little away from him. This well-reared girl saw him exultant in infamy, steeped to the eyes in infamy. But still the nearness of her, the faint perfume of her, shook in his veins, and still he must play the miserable comedy to the end, since the prize he played for was to him peculiarly desirable.
'A thief—a common thief!' But again her hands fluttered back. 'I drove you to it. Mine is the shame.'
'Holy Macaire! what is a theft or two? Hunger that causes the wolf to sally from the wood, may well make a man do worse than steal. I could tell you—For example, you might ask in Hell of one Thevenin Pensete, who knifed him in the cemetery of Saint John.'
He hinted a lie, for it was Montigny who killed Thevenin Pensete. Villon played without scruple now.
Catherine's face was white. 'Stop,' she pleaded; 'no more, Francois,—ah, Holy Virgin! do not tell me any more.'
But after a little she came to him, touching him almost as if with unwillingness. 'Mine is the shame. It was my jealousy, my vanity, Francois, that thrust you back into temptation. And we are told by those in holy orders that the compassion of God is infinite. If you still care for me, I will be your wife.'
Yet she shuddered.
He saw it. His face, too, was paper, and Francois laughed horribly.
'If I still love you! Go, ask of Denise, of Jacqueline, or of Pierrette, of Marion the Statue, of Jehanne of Brittany, of Blanche Slippermaker, of Fat Peg,—ask of any trollop in all Paris how Francois Villon loves. You thought me faithful! You thought that I especially preferred you to any other bed-fellow! Eh, I perceive that the credo of the Rue Saint Jacques is somewhat narrow-minded. For my part I find one woman much the same as another.' And his voice shook, for he saw how pretty she was, saw how she suffered. But he managed a laugh.
'I do not believe you,' Catherine said, in muffled tones. 'Francois! You loved me, Francois. Ah, boy, boy!' she cried, with a pitiable wail; 'come back to me, boy that I loved!'
It was a difficult business. But he grinned in her face.
'He is dead. Let Francois de Montcorbier rest in his grave. Your voice is very sweet, Catherine, and—and he could refuse you nothing, could he, lass? Ah, God, God, God!' he cried, in his agony; 'why can you not believe me? I tell you Necessity pounds us in her mortar to what shape she will. I tell you that Montcorbier loved you, but Francois Villon prefers Fat Peg. An ill cat seeks an ill rat.' And with this, tranquillity fell upon his soul, for he knew that he had won.
Her face told him that. Loathing was what he saw there.
'I am sorry,' Catherine said, dully. 'I am sorry. Oh, for high God's sake! go, go! Do you want money? I will give you anything if you will only go. Oh, beast! Oh, swine, swine, swine!'
He turned and went, staggering like a drunken person.
Once in the garden he fell prone upon his face in the wet grass. About him the mingled odor of roses and mignonette was sweet and heavy; the fountain plashed interminably in the night, and above him the chestnuts and acacias rustled and lisped as they had done seven years ago. Only he was changed.
'O Mother of God,' the thief prayed, 'grant that Noel may be kind to her! Mother of God, grant that she may be happy! Mother of God, grant that I may not live long!'
And straightway he perceived that triple invocation could be, rather neatly, worked out in ballade form. Yes, with a separate prayer to each verse. So, dismissing for the while his misery, he fell to considering, with undried cheeks, what rhymes he needed.
JULY 17, 1484
'
Noel d'Arnaye and Catherine de Vaucelles were married in the September of 1462, and afterward withdrew to Noel's fief in Picardy. There Noel built him a new Chateau d'Arnaye, and through the influence of Nicole Beaupertuys, the King's mistress, (who was rumored in court by-ways to have a tenderness for the handsome Noel), obtained large grants for its maintenance. Madame d'Arnaye, also, it is gratifying to record, appears to have lived in tolerable amity with Sieur Noel, and neither of them pried too closely into the other's friendships.
Catherine died in 1470, and Noel outlived her but by three years. Of the six acknowledged children surviving him, only one was legitimate—a daughter called Matthiette. The estate and title thus reverted to Raymond d'Arnaye, Noel's younger brother, from whom the present family of Arnaye is descended.
Raymond was a far shrewder man than his predecessor. For ten years' space, while Louis XI, that royal fox of France, was destroying feudalism piecemeal,—trimming its power day by day as you might pare an onion,—the new Sieur d'Arnaye steered his shifty course between France and Burgundy, always to the betterment of his chances in this world however he may have modified them in the next. At Arras he fought beneath the orifiamme; at Guinegate you could not have found a more staunch Burgundian: though he was no warrior, victory followed him like a lap-dog. So that presently the Sieur d'Arnaye and the Vicomte de Puysange—with which family we have previously concerned ourselves—were the great lords of Northern France.
But after the old King's death came gusty times for Sieur Raymond. It is with them we have here to do.
CHAPTER VI
The Episode Called The Conspiracy of Arnaye
1.
'And so,' said the Sieur d'Arnaye, as he laid down the letter, 'we may look for the coming of Monsieur de Puysange to-morrow.'
The Demoiselle Matthiette contorted her features in an expression of disapproval. 'So soon!' said she. 'I had thought—'
'Ouais, my dear niece, Love rides by ordinary with a dripping spur, and is still as arbitrary as in the day when Mars was taken with a net and amorous Jove bellowed in Europa's kail-yard. My faith! if Love distemper thus the spectral ichor of the gods, is it remarkable that the warmer blood of man pulses rather vehemently at his bidding? It were the least of Cupid's miracles that a lusty bridegroom of some twenty-and-odd should be pricked to outstrip the dial by a scant week. For love—I might tell you such tales—'
Sieur Raymond crossed his white, dimpled hands over a well-rounded paunch and chuckled reminiscently; had he spoken doubtless he would have left Master Jehan de Troyes very little to reveal in his Scandalous Chronicle: but now, as if now recalling with whom Sieur Raymond conversed, d'Arnaye's lean face assumed an expression of placid sanctity, and the somewhat unholy flame died out of his green eyes. He was like no other thing than a plethoric cat purring over the follies of kittenhood. You would have taken oath that a cultured taste for good living was the chief of his offences, and that this benevolent gentleman had some sixty well-spent years to his credit. True, his late Majesty, King Louis XI, had sworn Pacque Dieu! that d'Arnaye loved underhanded work so heartily that he conspired with his gardener concerning the planting of cabbages, and within a week after his death would be heading some treachery against Lucifer; but kings are not always infallible, as his Majesty himself had proven at Peronne.
'—For,' said the Sieur d'Arnaye, 'man's flesh is frail, and the devil is very cunning to avail himself of the weaknesses of lovers.'
'Love!' Matthiette cried. 'Ah, do not mock me, my uncle! There can be no pretence of love between Monsieur de Puysange and me. A man that I have never seen, that is to wed me of pure policy, may look for no Alcestis in his wife.'
