The Court Jester

Everybody laughed, Le Glorieux loudest of all. "No matter how wise a fool may appear, his cap and bells will always betray him," he said. "Yes, my friends, as you no doubt have suspected, I am a court jester. I belonged to Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy, and now I am being sent as a present to her Grace, the young Duchess of Brittany."

"I have suspected your identity all along," said a fat friar seated at the other end of the table. "I was at Beauvais during the siege and I heard of you there. You are Le Glorieux."

The jester rose and made an extravagant bow. "At your service," said he. "Yes," he continued, taking his place again, "I was at the siege of Beauvais. I saw the young maid Jeanne Fourquet, in imitation of the Maid of Orleans, fight like a witch with her little ax, for which she was named Jeanne Hachette, and when a tall Burgundian was scaling the walls and was planting his banner, she pushed him over into the ditch and waving her flag shouted, 'Victory!' I am not boring anybody by talking about the past, am I?" asked the fool suddenly.

"On the contrary," said the host, "it is more interesting than a tale of gnomes and pixies."

"You see," explained Le Glorieux, "I have lived so long at court, where the past is raked out and talked over and over, that I am afraid to relate anything that happened longer ago than the day before yesterday."

"If it please you, continue," said one of the company. "We are humble folk living in a quiet village, and we know but little of what happens in the great world outside."

So Le Glorieux continued, keeping the company chilled with awe or shaking with laughter, according to the nature of the incident he happened to be relating. It may be that some of the incidents he related never occurred outside of his own brain, but one at least of his anecdotes may be found in history.

"It was after the siege of Beauvais," said he, "that Cousin Charles came nearer to giving me a cuff on the jaw than ever happened before or afterward. He was quite boastful, was Charles, and with considerable pomp he was conducting some ambassadors through the arsenal. He stopped short in one of the rooms and swelling himself up said, 'This room contains the keys of all the cities of France.' Then I began to fumble in my pockets and to search all over the room. 'Now, donkey, for what are you looking so anxiously?' asked he. I replied, 'I am looking for the key of Beauvais,' and that made him turn as red as your doublet, mine host, for we had not been victorious at Beauvais."

"But you were very brave there, although a mere youth," remarked the friar, "and I should advise our young friend here to think twice before he meets you out, as you have invited him to do."

"Oh, we will let that pass, if he is willing," said Le Glorieux good-naturedly, an arrangement with which the young man, who was not especially brave, was very glad to agree.

"And now," said the jester, "I am reminded that there is one thing that I have forgotten, and that is to ask the name that you have given to that blessed baby."

"That you will be glad to hear," said the host, rubbing his hands delightedly. "The good wife too is a Burgundian, and nothing would do but that we should name the little one for the Duchess Mary. Heaven rest her soul!" he continued reverently.

It happened that this was the one theme that could render Le Glorieux sad. He had worshiped the young Duchess Mary, who had ruled the province after the death of her father, Charles the Bold – worshiped her as a faithful dog loves his kind mistress. He had seen her betrothed at Ghent to the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, also styled King of the Romans, and when a few years later news had come of her death, caused by a fall from her horse, the jester had known the first real grief of his life.

"Yes," said the mother of the baby. "Her name is Mary, and may she be as good and beautiful as the poor young duchess, cut off in the bloom of her life."

The jester rose, and going to the cradle took in his own the little baby hand curled like a crumpled rose-leaf. "Mary, namesake of an angel, I salute you," said he, pressing the tiny fingers to his lips.

"No matter how well the children of the poor young duchess are cared for, they will miss the love of their mother, for there is nothing like it," said the innkeeper's wife. "One of them, the Lady Marguerite of Hapsburg, is to be Queen of France," she added proudly.

"I was so fortunate as to witness that betrothal," said the friar, helping himself to another piece of the pasty.

"You did!" cried Le Glorieux. "I would give a year of my life to see Mary's little child. Tell us about it, good friar."

The child in the window, who had at first sat carelessly swinging her little feet, had now drawn them up to the sill, and turning sidewise and with her hands clasped about her knees, was listening intently.

"It was eight years ago that the betrothal took place, if you will remember," began the friar in the satisfied tone of one who feels that what he is about to tell will be vastly interesting to his audience. "I was riding my mule to the city of Amboise on business for my order.

"At Herdin, which is near that city, I saw a great concourse of people, and being under a vow of silence for that day, I could ask no questions, but drew up with the crowd to see what was going on. The air was wild with the acclamations of the people, and gens d'armes were stalking about to make the crowd stand back so that the road might be left unobstructed.

"Then from the city came a glittering procession of ladies and gentlemen and archers. At the head of it rode a boy, whom from his dress and the deference paid him, I immediately recognized as the Dauphin of France, so soon to be king. He was about twelve at the time, but he looked younger, being undersized. He wore a robe of crimson satin lined with black velvet, and his black horse was richly caparisoned. Crossing the bridge the boy paused, for, slowly advancing from the opposite direction, was another procession equally imposing, headed by a litter, silk-curtained and surmounted by a crown. And then I knew that I was to witness an event which was to go down in history, for I knew this was the expected ceremonial of the betrothal of the little Lady Marguerite of Hapsburg, daughter of the Archduke of Austria, to the Dauphin of France.

"The young dauphin saluted the ladies and changed his robe for one of cloth of gold. Then from the litter was lifted a tiny girl between three and four years of age, the little archduchess, whose hair glistened like gold in the sunlight. A tall and elegantly-dressed lady accompanied her to the boy's side, and the prothonotary asked in a loud voice if Charles of France would take Marguerite of Austria for his bride. The boy answered 'Yes' in a loud, clear voice, and a similar question was put to the little archduchess, who, after a whispered word from the lady at her side, uttered a faint 'Yes.'

"And when I rode on to Amboise I found the city gay with festoons of brilliantly-colored cloth, and in the market place there was a fountain which gave forth both white and red wine."

"The dear little princess!" said the innkeeper's wife. "Though she is to be Queen of France, I pity her, thus to be betrothed without a word of choice in the matter."

"The good God has not divided happiness so unevenly as some might suppose," observed the friar, "for in some things the peasant woman enjoys more liberty than the queen."

"The dear little Lady Marguerite was taken from her own country and all her kin that she might grow up in a foreign court and be a true French woman," said one of the women. "And she was beautiful, did you say, Brother Sebastian?"

"I did not have a good view of her face, but I should say that she was very fair to look upon," he replied.

"Pretty she had a right to be," said Le Glorieux. "Her mother was as beautiful as the morning, and her father, when I saw him, looked like a glorious knight descended from the clouds. He was mounted on a chestnut horse; he was clad in silver armor and his head was bound by a circlet of precious stones. His smile was so kind and his face so handsome that he won all hearts."

"Look! That child is about to fall out of the window!" cried the friar, for the little one was gazing at the speaker with her soul in her eyes, and the better to see him, was sitting on the very edge of the window-sill in a way that indeed suggested a possible fall. Seeing all eyes turned upon her she drew herself back and clasped her hands about her knees as before.

"And now," said the innkeeper, "I notice that a young gentleman of the company has a lute, and I am sure we should all enjoy a song." He looked at Antoine, who, though silent, had been very much engaged with the good things set before him.

"You are right, mine host," said Le Glorieux. "My comrade sings in such a way that I am sure the nightingales outside will cease to trill from pure envy."

Musicians, and indeed all people who are capable of entertaining others, have fits of diffidence at the most unexpected moments, and although he was in the habit of singing for the ladies of the Burgundian court, who knew far more about music than these people could possibly understand, it seemed to Antoine that if he could unseen escape by the door, and run away into the woods, or sink through the floor, it would be the greatest boon that could happen to him. Not being able to efface himself in any way, he resorted to a fib, and said that he would be most happy to oblige them, but that a string of his lute was broken, and that he had no other with which to replace it.

Le Glorieux strode to the corner of the room and took up the lute where the boy had placed it before supper. It was an instrument resembling a modern mandolin with a crooked neck, as if it had once been strangled, and becoming convulsed in the effort to breathe, had remained petrified in that position.

The jester held the instrument out at arm's length, saying, "It is strange, but even a lute can not remain disabled in the neighborhood of the good Saint Roch. Here are all the strings in a perfectly sound condition, and fairly quivering with anxiety to be played on."

A fib, like a murder, will "out" sooner or later, and realizing this fact, Antoine said nothing more, but striking a few chords began to sing, though in a quavering voice.

"See here, Antoine," said his friend, stopping him, "I have praised your voice and I am not going to have you sing like a frog that is choking to death in a pond. Open your mouth and let your words out instead of keeping them prisoners behind your teeth."

The boy was very angry at being thus derided, and his voice rang loud and flute-like in an old chanson of Burgundy, to which his audience listened with great pleasure, the innkeeper's wife remarking at its close that it was one she often had sung in her childhood.

"Let him sing some more songs of Burgundy," said the child in the window, speaking for the first time since she had made the remark about the hawk.

Antoine complied, and in the middle of the second song the company was surprised by the entrance of a large woman clad in a loose robe and a nightcap, who, without a word of apology, crossed the room to the window and waving her arms with their wide, flowing sleeves, which in this position gave her the appearance of a large bird that is about to fly, poured out a torrent of words in a strange language, then, swooping upon the little girl, swept her from the window and held her imprisoned in her wing-like arms.

The child replied in the same language and in a voice of indignation, but the woman was about to carry her from the room, when the little one struggled to the floor, and taking a piece of money from a small purse at her girdle, she crossed the floor and laid it on baby Mary's breast. Then turning with a brief "Good night" to the others, she followed her grotesque attendant from the room.

"Now I wonder," said Le Glorieux, "if that woman is kidnapping the child?"

"I think not," said the innkeeper. "That was the woman who came with her to the inn, though she did not look like herself in that garb."

"To come before a large company in her nightcap like that was disgraceful," said one of the women.

"She was too agitated to think of her appearance," said the friar. "I think she was very much annoyed at the little one for coming down here alone."

"As if we were ogres to swallow her!" cried the innkeeper's mother indignantly.

"She has given our little one a fine present," said the baby's mother, examining the coin by the rush light. "Husband, it is gold!"

"That child is not an ordinary person; I have said so all along," said the host, with conviction.

Then a lively discussion followed, some of the women, and indeed some of the men also, declaring that the authorities should be notified and the matter investigated in order to find if the child were being carried off and away from her home in an unlawful manner.

"My friends," said Le Glorieux, "perhaps the advice of a fool is worth nothing, but such as it is you are welcome to it. I always have found that when in doubt as to what course to pursue, you will be convinced that the best plan is to go ahead and attend strictly to your own affairs. That beautiful child knows just why she is here, and it is not against her will, for she had ample time to tell us her troubles and to ask our aid if she cared to do so before that old bird of prey swooped down upon her. So let us go to bed and to sleep, for some of us, at least this boy and myself, must be up bright and early and away before the dew is off the grass."