Maitre Cornelius Part 7

CHAPTER IV. THE HIDDEN TREASURE

Louis XI. was fond of intervening in the affairs of his subjects, and he was always ready to mingle his royal majesty with the burgher life. This taste, severely blamed by some historians, was really only a pa.s.sion for the "incognito," one of the greatest pleasures of princes,--a sort of momentary abdication, which enables them to put a little real life into their existence, made insipid by the lack of opposition. Louis XI., however, played the incognito openly. On these occasions he was always the good fellow, endeavoring to please the people of the middle cla.s.ses, whom he made his allies against feudality. For some time past he had found no opportunity to "make himself populace" and espouse the domestic interests of some man "engarrie" (an old word still used in Tours, meaning engaged) in litigious affairs, so that he shouldered the anxieties of Maitre Cornelius eagerly, and also the secret sorrows of the Comtesse de Saint-Vallier. Several times during dinner he said to his daughter:--

"Who, think you, could have robbed my silversmith? The robberies now amount to over twelve hundred thousand crowns in eight years. Twelve hundred thousand crowns, messieurs!" he continued, looking at the seigneurs who were serving him. "Notre Dame! with a sum like that what absolutions could be bought in Rome! And I might, Pasques-Dieu! bank the Loire, or, better still, conquer Piedmont, a fine fortification ready-made for this kingdom."

When dinner was over, Louis XI. took his daughter, his doctor, and the grand provost, with an escort of soldiers, and rode to the hotel de Poitiers in Tours, where he found, as he expected, the Comte de Saint-Vallier awaiting his wife, perhaps to make away with her life.

"Monsieur," said the king, "I told you to start at once. Say farewell to your wife now, and go to the frontier; you will be accompanied by an escort of honor. As for your instructions and credentials, they will be in Venice before you get there."

Louis then gave the order--not without adding certain secret instructions--to a lieutenant of the Scottish guard to take a squad of men and accompany the amba.s.sador to Venice. Saint-Vallier departed in haste, after giving his wife a cold kiss which he would fain have made deadly. Louis XI. then crossed over to the Malemaison, eager to begin the unravelling of the melancholy comedy, lasting now for eight years, in the house of his silversmith; flattering himself that, in his quality of king, he had enough penetration to discover the secret of the robberies. Cornelius did not see the arrival of the escort of his royal master without uneasiness.

"Are all those persons to take part in the inquiry?" he said to the king.

Louis XI. could not help smiling as he saw the fright of the miser and his sister.

"No, my old crony," he said; "don't worry yourself. They will sup at Plessis, and you and I alone will make the investigation. I am so good in detecting criminals, that I will wager you ten thousand crowns I shall do so now."

"Find him, sire, and make no wager."

They went at once into the strong room, where the Fleming kept his treasure. There Louis, who asked to see, in the first place, the casket from which the jewels of the Duke of Burgundy had been taken, then the chimney down which the robber was supposed to have descended, easily convinced his silversmith of the falsity of the latter supposition, inasmuch as there was no soot on the hearth,--where, in truth, a fire was seldom made,--and no sign that any one had pa.s.sed down the flue; and moreover that the chimney issued at a part of the roof which was almost inaccessible. At last, after two hours of close investigation, marked with that sagacity which distinguished the suspicious mind of Louis XI., it was clear to him, beyond all doubt, that no one had forced an entrance into the strong-room of his silversmith. No marks of violence were on the locks, nor on the iron coffers which contained the gold, silver, and jewels deposited as securities by wealthy debtors.

"If the robber opened this box," said the king, "why did he take nothing out of it but the jewels of the Duke of Bavaria? What reason had he for leaving that pearl necklace which lay beside them? A queer robber!"

At that remark the unhappy miser turned pale: he and the king looked at each other for a moment.

"Then, sire, what did that robber whom you have taken under your protection come to do here, and why did he prowl about at night?"

"If you have not guessed why, my crony, I order you to remain in ignorance. That is one of my secrets."

"Then the devil is in my house!" cried the miser, piteously.

In any other circ.u.mstances the king would have laughed at his silversmith's cry; but he had suddenly become thoughtful, and was casting on the Fleming those glances peculiar to men of talent and power which seem to penetrate the brain. Cornelius was frightened, thinking he had in some way offended his dangerous master.

"Devil or angel, I have him, the guilty man!" cried Louis XI. abruptly.

"If you are robbed again to-night, I shall know to-morrow who did it.

Make that old hag you call your sister come here," he added.

Cornelius almost hesitated to leave the king alone in the room with his h.o.a.rds; but the bitter smile on Louis's withered lips determined him.

Nevertheless he hurried back, followed by the old woman.

"Have you any flour?" demanded the king.

"Oh yes; we have laid in our stock for the winter," she answered.

"Well, go and fetch some," said the king.

"What do you want to do with our flour, sire?" she cried, not the least impressed by his royal majesty.

"Old fool!" said Cornelius, "go and execute the orders of our gracious master. Shall the king lack flour?"

"Our good flour!" she grumbled, as she went downstairs. "Ah! my flour!"

Then she returned, and said to the king:--

"Sire, is it only a royal notion to examine my flour?"

At last she reappeared, bearing one of those stout linen bags which, from time immemorial, have been used in Touraine to carry or bring, to and from market, nuts, fruits, or wheat. The bag was half full of flour.

The housekeeper opened it and showed it to the king, on whom she cast the rapid, savage look with which old maids appear to squirt venom upon men.

"It costs six sous the 'septeree,'" she said.

"What does that matter?" said the king. "Spread it on the floor; but be careful to make an even layer of it--as if it had fallen like snow."

The old maid did not comprehend. This proposal astonished her as though the end of the world had come.

"My flour, sire! on the ground! But--"

Maitre Cornelius, who was beginning to understand, though vaguely, the intentions of the king, seized the bag and gently poured its contents on the floor. The old woman quivered, but she held out her hand for the empty bag, and when her brother gave it back to her she disappeared with a heavy sigh.

Cornelius then took a feather broom and gently smoothed the flour till it looked like a fall of snow, retreating step by step as he did so, followed by the king, who seemed much amused by the operation. When they reached the door Louis XI. said to his silversmith, "Are there two keys to the lock?"

"No, sire."

The king then examined the structure of the door, which was braced with large plates and bars of iron, all of which converged to a secret lock, the key of which was kept by Cornelius.

After examining everything, the king sent for Tristan, and ordered him to post several of his men for the night, and with the greatest secrecy, in the mulberry trees on the embankment and on the roofs of the adjoining houses, and to a.s.semble at once the rest of his men and escort him back to Plessis, so as to give the idea in the town that he himself would not sup with Cornelius. Next, he told the miser to close his windows with the utmost care, that no single ray of light should escape from the house, and then he departed with much pomp for Plessis along the embankment; but there he secretly left his escort, and returned by a door in the ramparts to the house of the torconnier. All these precautions were so well taken that the people of Tours really thought the king had returned to Plessis, and would sup on the morrow with Cornelius.

Towards eight o'clock that evening, as the king was supping with his physician, Cornelius, and the captain of his guard, and holding much jovial converse, forgetting for the time being that he was ill and in danger of death, the deepest silence reigned without, and all pa.s.sers, even the wariest robber, would have believed that the Malemaison was occupied as usual.

"I hope," said the king, laughing, "that my silversmith shall be robbed to-night, so that my curiosity may be satisfied. Therefore, messieurs, no one is to leave his chamber to-morrow morning without my order, under pain of grievous punishment."

Thereupon, all went to bed. The next morning, Louis XI. was the first to leave his apartment, and he went at once to the door of the strong-room.

He was not a little astonished to see, as he went along, the marks of a large foot along the stairways and corridors of the house. Carefully avoiding those precious footprints, he followed them to the door of the treasure-room, which he found locked without a sign of fracture or defacement. Then he studied the direction of the steps; but as they grew gradually fainter, they finally left not the slightest trace, and it was impossible for him to discover where the robber had fled.

"Ho, crony!" called out the king, "you have been finely robbed this time."

At these words the old Fleming hurried out of his chamber, visibly terrified. Louis XI. made him look at the foot-prints on the stairs and corridors, and while examining them himself for the second time, the king chanced to observe the miser's slippers and recognized the type of sole that was printed in flour on the corridors. He said not a word, and checked his laughter, remembering the innocent men who had been hanged for the crime. The miser now hurried to his treasure. Once in the room the king ordered him to make a new mark with his foot beside those already existing, and easily convinced him that the robber of his treasure was no other than himself.

"The pearl necklace is gone!" cried Cornelius. "There is sorcery in this. I never left my room."

"We'll know all about it now," said the king; the evident truthfulness of his silversmith making him still more thoughtful.

He immediately sent for the men he had stationed on the watch and asked:--

"What did you see during the night?"

"Oh, sire!" said the lieutenant, "an amazing sight! Your silversmith crept down the side of the wall like a cat; so lightly that he seemed to be a shadow."