Quentin Durward

“Only for this occasion!” acknowledged the detected official.

“Now, by Saint George!” said the Duke, eyeing Louis askance, “we know no king – no gentleman – save one, who would have so prostituted the noble science on which royalty and gentry rest, save that King who sent to Edward of England a serving man disguised as a herald.”

[The heralds of the middle ages were regarded almost as sacred characters. It was treasonable to strike a herald, or to counterfeit the character of one. Yet Louis “did not hesitate to practise such an imposition when he wished to enter into communication with Edward IV of England… He selected, as an agentfit for his purpose, a simple valet. This man… he disguised as a herald, with all the insignia of his office, and sent him in that capacity to open a communication with the English army. The stratagem, though of so fraudulent a nature, does not seem to have been necessarily called for, since all that King Louis could gain by it would be that he did not commit himself by sending a more responsible messenger. … Ferne… imputes this intrusion on their rights in some degree to necessity. ‘I have heard some,’ he says, ‘… allow of the action of Louis XI who had so unknightly a regard both of his own honour, and also of armes, that he seldom had about his court any officer at armes. And therefore, at such time as Edward IV, King of England… lay before the town of Saint Quentin, the same French King, for want of a herald to carry his mind to the English King, was constrained to suborn a vadelict, or common serving man, with a trumpet banner, having a hole made through the middest for this preposterous herauld to put his head through, and to cast it over his shoulders instead of a better coat armour of France. And thus came this hastily arrayed courier as a counterfeit officer at armes, with instructions from his sovereign’s mouth to offer peace to our King.’ Ferne’s Blazen of Gentry, 1586, p. 161. – S.]

“Such a stratagem,” said Louis, laughing, or affecting to laugh, “could only be justified at a Court where no herald were at the time, and when the emergency was urgent. But, though it might have passed on the blunt and thick witted islander, no one with brains a whit better than those of a wild boar would have thought of passing such a trick upon the accomplished Court of Burgundy.”

“Send him who will,” said the Duke fiercely, “he shall return on their hands in poor case. – Here! – drag him to the market place! – slash him with bridle reins and dog whips until the tabard hang about him in tatters! – Upon the Rouge Sanglier! – ca, ca! – Haloo, haloo!”

Four or five large hounds, such as are painted in the hunting pieces upon which Rubens and Schneiders laboured in conjunction, caught the well known notes with which the Duke concluded, and began to yell and bay as if the boar were just roused from his lair.

[Rubens (1577-1640): a great Flemish artist whose works were sought by kings and princes. He painted the history of Marie de Medicis in the series of colossal pictures now in the Louvre. He was knighted by Philip IV of Spain and Charles I of England.]

[Schneiders, or Snyders: a Flemish painter of the seventeenth century.]

“By the rood!” said King Louis, observant to catch the vein of his dangerous cousin, “since the ass has put on the boar’s hide, I would set the dogs on him to bait him out of it!”

“Right! right!” exclaimed Duke Charles, the fancy exactly chiming in with his humour at the moment – “it shall be done! – Uncouple the hounds! – Hyke a Talbot! [a hunter’s cry to his dog. See Dame Berner’s Boke of Hawking and Hunting.] hyke a Beaumont! – We will course him from the door of the Castle to the east gate!”

“I trust your Grace will treat me as a beast of chase,” said the fellow, putting the best face he could upon the matter, “and allow me fair law?”

“Thou art but vermin,” said the Duke, “and entitled to no law, by the letter of the book of hunting; nevertheless, thou shalt have sixty yards in advance, were it but for the sake of thy unparalleled impudence. – Away, away, sirs! – we will see this sport.”

And the council breaking up tumultuously, all hurried, none faster than the two Princes, to enjoy the humane pastime which King Louis had suggested.

The Rouge Sanglier showed excellent sport; for, winged with terror, and having half a score of fierce boar hounds hard at his haunches, encouraged by the blowing of horns and the woodland cheer of the hunters, he flew like the very wind, and had he not been encumbered with his herald’s coat (the worst possible habit for a runner), he might fairly have escaped dog free; he also doubled once or twice, in a manner much approved of by the spectators. None of these, nay, not even Charles himself, was so delighted with the sport as King Louis, who, partly from political considerations, and partly as being naturally pleased with the sight of human suffering when ludicrously exhibited, laughed till the tears ran from his eyes, and in his ecstasies of rapture caught hold of the Duke’s ermine cloak, as if to support himself; whilst the Duke, no less delighted, flung his arm around the King’s shoulder, making thus an exhibition of confidential sympathy and familiarity, very much at variance with the terms on which they had so lately stood together. At length the speed of the pseudo herald could save him no longer from the fangs of his pursuers; they seized him, pulled him down, and would probably soon have throttled him, had not the Duke called out, “Stave and tail! – stave and tail! [to strike the bear with a staff, and pull off the dogs by the tail, to separate them.] – Take them off him! – He hath shown so good a course, that, though he has made no sport at bay, we will not have him dispatched.”

Several officers accordingly busied themselves in taking off the dogs; and they were soon seen coupling some up, and pursuing others which ran through the streets, shaking in sport and triumph the tattered fragments of painted cloth and embroidery rent from the tabard, which the unfortunate wearer had put on in an unlucky hour.

At this moment, and while the Duke was too much engaged with what passed before him to mind what was said behind him, Oliver le Dain, gliding behind King Louis, whispered into his ear, “It is the Bohemian, Hayraddin Maugrabin. – It were not well he should come to speech of the Duke.”

“He must die,” answered Louis in the same tone, “dead men tell no tales.”

One instant afterwards, Tristan l’Hermite, to whom Oliver had given the hint, stepped forward before the King and the Duke, and said, in his blunt manner, “So please your Majesty and your Grace, this piece of game is mine, and I claim him – he is marked with my stamp – the fleur de lis is branded on his shoulder, as all men may see. – He is a known villain, and hath slain the King’s subjects, robbed churches, deflowered virgins, slain deer in the royal parks – ”

“Enough, enough,” said Duke Charles, “he is my royal cousin’s property by many a good title. What will your Majesty do with him?”

“If he is left to my disposal,” said the King, “I will at least give him one lesson in the science of heraldry, in which he is so ignorant – only explain to him practically the meaning of a cross potence, with a noose dangling proper.”

“Not as to be by him borne, but as to bear him. – Let him take the degrees under your gossip Tristan – he is a deep professor in such mysteries.”

Thus answered the Duke, with a burst of discordant laughter at his own wit, which was so cordially chorused by Louis that his rival could not help looking kindly at him, while he said, “Ah, Louis, Louis! would to God thou wert as faithful a monarch as thou art a merry companion! – I cannot but think often on the jovial time we used to spend together.”

“You may bring it back when you will,” said Louis; “I will grant you as fair terms as for very shame’s sake you ought to ask in my present condition, without making yourself the fable of Christendom; and I will swear to observe them upon the holy relique which I have ever the grace to bear about my person, being a fragment of the true cross.”

Here he took a small golden reliquary, which was suspended from his neck next to his shirt by a chain of the same metal, and having kissed it devoutly, continued – “Never was false oath sworn on this most sacred relique, but it was avenged within the year.”

“Yet,” said the Duke, “it was the same on which you swore amity to me when you left Burgundy, and shortly after sent the Bastard of Rubempre to murder or kidnap me.”

“Nay, gracious cousin, now you are ripping up ancient grievances,” said the King. “I promise you, that you were deceived in that matter. – Moreover, it was not upon this relique which I then swore, but upon another fragment of the true cross which I got from the Grand Seignior, weakened in virtue, doubtless, by sojourning with infidels. Besides, did not the war of the Public Good break out within the year; and was not a Burgundian army encamped at Saint Denis, backed by all the great feudatories of France; and was I not obliged to yield up Normandy to my brother? – O God, shield us from perjury on such a warrant as this!”

“Well, cousin,” answered the Duke, “I do believe thou hadst a lesson to keep faith another time. – And now for once, without finesse and doubling, will you make good your promise, and go with me to punish this murdering La Marck and the Liegeois?”

“I will march against them,” said Louis, “with the Ban and Arriere Ban of France [the military force called out by the sovereign in early feudal times, together with their vassals, equipment, and three months’ provision], and the Oriflamme displayed.”

“Nay, nay,” said the Duke, “that is more than is needful, or may be advisable. The presence of your Scottish Guard, and two hundred choice lances, will serve to show that you are a free agent. A large army might – ”

“Make me so in effect, you would say, my fair cousin?” said the King. “Well, you shall dictate the number of my attendants.”

“And to put this fair cause of mischief out of the way, you will agree to the Countess Isabelle of Croye’s wedding with the Duke of Orleans?”

“Fair cousin,” said the King, “you drive my courtesy to extremity. The Duke is the betrothed bridegroom of my daughter Joan. Be generous – yield up this matter, and let us speak rather of the towns on the Somme.”

“My council will talk to your Majesty of these,” said Charles, “I myself have less at heart the acquisition of territory than the redress of injuries. You have tampered with my vassals, and your royal pleasure must needs dispose of the hand of a ward of Burgundy. Your Majesty must bestow it within the pale of your own royal family, since you have meddled with it – otherwise our conference breaks off.”

“Were I to say I did this willingly,” said the King, “no one would believe me, therefore do you, my fair cousin, judge of the extent of my wish to oblige you, when I say most reluctantly, that the parties consenting, and a dispensation from the Pope being obtained, my own objections shall be no bar to this match which you purpose.”

“All besides can be easily settled by our ministers,” said the Duke, “and we are once more cousins and friends.”

“May Heaven be praised!” said Louis, “who, holding in his hand the hearts of princes, doth mercifully incline them to peace and clemency, and prevent the effusion of human blood.

“Oliver,” he added apart to that favourite, who ever waited around him like the familiar beside a sorcerer, “hark thee – tell Tristan to be speedy in dealing with yonder runagate Bohemian.”

CHAPTER XXXIV: THE EXECUTION

I’ll take thee to the good green wood,
And make thine own hand choose the tree.

    OLD BALLAD

“Now God be praised, that gave us the power of laughing, and making others laugh, and shame to the dull cur who scorns the office of a jester! Here is a joke, and that none of the brightest (though it might pass, since it has amused two Princes), which hath gone farther than a thousand reasons of state to prevent a war between France and Burgundy.”

Such was the inference of Le Glorieux, when, in consequence of the reconciliation of which we gave the particulars in the last chapter, the Burgundian guards were withdrawn from the Castle of Peronne, the abode of the King removed from the ominous Tower of Count Herbert, and, to the great joy both of French and Burgundians, an outward show at least of confidence and friendship seemed so established between Duke Charles and his liege lord. Yet still the latter, though treated with ceremonial observance, was sufficiently aware that he continued to be the object of suspicion, though he prudently affected to overlook it, and appeared to consider himself as entirely at his ease.

Meanwhile, as frequently happens in such cases, whilst the principal parties concerned had so far made up their differences, one of the subaltern agents concerned in their intrigues was bitterly experiencing the truth of the political maxim that if the great have frequent need of base tools, they make amends to society by abandoning them to their fate, so soon as they find them no longer useful.

Thus was Hayraddin Maugrabin, who, surrendered by the Duke’s officers to the King’s Provost Marshal, was by him placed in the hands of his two trusty aides de camp, Trois Eschelles and Petit Andre, to be dispatched without loss of time. One on either side of him, and followed by a few guards and a multitude of rabble – this playing the Allegro, that the Penseroso, [the mirthful and the serious. Cf. Milton’s poems by these names.] – he was marched off (to use a modern comparison, like Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy) to the neighbouring forest; where, to save all farther trouble and ceremonial of a gibbet, and so forth, the disposers of his fate proposed to knit him up to the first sufficient tree.

They were not long in finding an oak, as Petit Andre facetiously expressed it, fit to bear such an acorn; and placing the wretched criminal on a bank, under a sufficient guard, they began their extemporaneous preparations for the final catastrophe. At that moment, Hayraddin, gazing on the crowd, encountered the eyes of Quentin Durward, who, thinking he recognized the countenance of his faithless guide in that of the detected impostor, had followed with the crowd to witness the execution, and assure himself of the identity.

When the executioners informed him that all was ready, Hayraddin, with much calmness, asked a single boon at their hands.

“Anything, my son, consistent with our office,” said Trois Eschelles.

“That is,” said Hayraddin, “anything but my life.”

“Even so,” said Trois Eschelles, “and something more, for you seem resolved to do credit to our mystery, and die like a man, without making wry mouths – why, though our orders are to be prompt, I care not if I indulge you ten minutes longer.”