Honoré de Balzac

“ But perhaps she was only amused at seeing the caps of the populace carried off on the spears of the archers. We must be twenty-three years old, rich in illusions, able to believe in a woman’s love, loving ourselves with all the forces of our being, risking our life with delight on the faith of a kiss, and then betrayed, to understand the fury of hatred and despair which took possession of Georges d’Estouteville’s heart at the sight of his laughing mistress, from whom he received a cold and indifferent glance. ”

“ Lords and vassals, men and women were equals nowhere else. There alone could lovers see each other and communicate. The festivals of the Church were the theatre of former times; the soul of woman was more keenly stirred in a cathedral than it is at a ball or the opera in our day; and do not strong emotions invariably bring women back to love? By dint of mingling with life and grasping it in all its acts and interests, religion had made itself a sharer of all virtues, the accomplice of all vices. ”

“ The lady turned pale; her furtive glance left for a moment the vellum page of the prayer-book and turned to the old man whom the young man had designated. What terrible complicity was in that glance? When the young woman had cautiously examined the old seigneur, she drew a long breath and raised her forehead, adorned with a precious jewel, toward a picture of the Virgin; that simple movement, that attitude, the moistened glance, revealed her life with imprudent naivete; had she been wicked, she would certainly have dissimulated. ”

“ Never was a Vice more punished by itself. A miser, locked by accident into the subterranean strong-room that contains his treasures, has, like Sardanapalus, the happiness of dying in the midst of his wealth. But Cornelius, the robber and the robbed, knowing the secret of neither the one nor the other, possessed and did not possess his treasure,—a novel, fantastic, but continually terrible torture. ”

“ It was easy to divine that to these two beings air, sound, foot-falls, etc., things indifferent to other men, presented hidden qualities, peculiar properties which they distinguished. Perhaps their love made them find faithful interpreters in the icy hands of the old priest to whom they confessed their sins, and from whom they received the Host at the holy table. Love profound! love gashed into the soul like a scar upon the body which we carry through life! When these two young people looked at each other, the woman seemed to say to her lover, “Let us love each other and die!” ”

“ Happiness is forgetful. Cornelius no longer seemed formidable to the young man when he threw himself on the pallet where so many poor wretches had wakened to their doom; and this light-hearted heedlessness proved his ruin. While the king’s silversmith rode back from Plessis, accompanied by the grand provost and his redoubtable archers. The false Goulenoire was being watched by the old sister, seated on the corkscrew staircase oblivious of the cold, and knitting socks for Cornelius. ”

“ This fact seemed the more extraordinary because it was known to be the miser’s custom to lock up his sister at night in a bedroom with iron-barred windows.
As he grew older, Cornelius, constantly robbed, and always fearful of being duped by men, came to hate mankind, with the one exception of the king, whom he greatly respected. He fell into extreme misanthropy, but, like most misers, his passion for gold, the assimilation, as it were, of that metal with his own substance, became closer and closer, and age intensified it. ”

“ At this moment Tristan and his cortege crossed the canal by the bridge of Sainte-Anne, about two hundred feet from the entrance to Plessis.
“Who is that?” said the king.
The two courtiers questioned each other with a look of surprise.
“He is dreaming,” said Coyctier, in a low voice.
“Pasques-Dieu!” cried Louis XI., “do you think me mad? People are crossing the bridge. It is true I am near the chimney, and I may hear sounds more easily than you. That effect of nature might be utilized,” he added thoughtfully.
“What a man!” ”

“ Thence he saw the Loire, the beautiful slopes of Saint-Cyr, the gloomy marvels of Plessis, where lights were gleaming in the deep recesses of a few windows. Far in the distance lay the beautiful meadows of Touraine and the silvery stream of her river. Every point of this lovely nature had, at that moment, a mysterious grace; the windows, the waters, the roofs of the houses shone like diamonds in the trembling light of the moon. ”

“ The most perennial and the best materialized of human ideas, the idea by which man reproduces himself by creating outside of himself the fictitious being called Property, that mental demon, drove its steel claws perpetually into his heart. Then, in the midst of this torture, Fear arose, with all its accompanying sentiments. Two men had his secret, the secret he did not know himself. Louis XI. or Coyctier could post men to watch him during his sleep and discover the unknown gulf into which he had cast his riches,—those riches he had watered with the blood of so many innocent men. ”

“ Thus, his vast spirit hovered like an eagle over his empire, joining in a singular manner the prudence of a king to the natural idiosyncracies of a man of lofty aims. At no period in our history has the great figure of Monarchy been finer or more poetic. Amazing assemblages of contrasts! a great power in a feeble body; a spirit unbelieving as to all things here below, devoutly believing in the practices of religion; a man struggling with two powers greater than his own—the present and the future ”

“ The solemn gravity of the terrible Fleming reacted upon him. He felt himself under lock and key, and remembered how the grand provost Tristan and his rope were at the orders of Maitre Cornelius.
“Have you supped?” asked the silversmith, in a tone which signified, “You are not to sup.”
The old maid trembled in spite of her brother’s tone; she looked at the new inmate as if to gauge the capacity of the stomach she might have to fill, and said with a specious smile:—
“You have not stolen your name; your hair and moustache are as black as the devil’s tail.” ”

“ The tower stood in the middle of the facade on the courtyard, which, like the courtyards of all provincial houses, was narrow and dark. At the farther end, through an iron railing, could be seen a wretched garden in which nothing grew but the mulberries which Cornelius had introduced. The young nobleman took note of all this through the loopholes on the spiral staircase, the moon casting, fortunately, a brilliant light. A cot, a stool, a mismatched pitcher and basin formed the entire furniture of the room. ”

“ The old woman made a gesture as if to take the lamp.
“Do you mean to leave us alone, without light?” cried Cornelius, in a meaning tone of voice. “At your age can’t you see in the dark? It isn’t difficult to find a key.”
The sister understood the meaning hidden beneath these words and left the room. Looking at this singular creature as she walked towards the door, Philippe Goulenoire was able to hide from Cornelius the glance which he hastily cast about the room. ”

“ Louis XI.‘s silversmith resembled that monarch. He had even acquired the same gestures, as often happens where persons dwell together in a sort of intimacy. The thick eyebrows of the Fleming almost covered his eyes; but by raising them a little he could flash out a lucid, penetrating, powerful glance, the glance of men habituated to silence, and to whom the phenomenon of the concentration of inward forces has become familiar. ”

“ A few seigneurs having met Maitre Cornelius on his journeys out of France were surprised at his friendliness and good-humor. At Tours he was gloomy and absorbed, yet always he returned there. Some inexplicable power brought him back to his dismal house in the rue du Murier. Like a snail, whose life is so firmly attached to its shell, he admitted to the king that he was never at ease except under the bolts and behind the vermiculated stones of his little bastille; yet he knew very well that whenever Louis XI. died, the place would be the most dangerous spot on earth for him. ”

“ Another man to hang for you! Hola, Tristan!”
The grand provost, who was walking up and down the courtyard, came with slow steps, like a dog who exhibits his fidelity. The group paused under a tree. The king sat down on a bench and the courtiers made a circle about him.
“Sire, a man who pretended to be a Fleming has got the better of me—” began Cornelius. ”

“ He was constantly absorbed in one overwhelming thought, consumed with a single desire that burned his entrails, gnawed more cruelly still by the ever-increasing agony of the duel he was fighting with himself since his passion for gold had turned to his own injury,—a species of uncompleted suicide which kept him at once in the miseries of life and in those of death. ”

“ When Louis XI. was alone with his silversmith, he looked at him and chuckled coldly.
“Messire Hoogworst,” he said, with a nod, “all treasures buried in France belong to the king.”
“Yes, sire, all is yours; you are the absolute master of our lives and fortunes; but, up to this moment, you have only taken what you need.”
“Listen to me, old crony; if I help you to recover this treasure, you can surely, and without fear, agree to divide it with me.” ”

“ The husband tried to pass out first, dragging the lady by the arm, but at that instant he was pulled vigorously into the street, and his wife was torn from him by a stranger. The terrible hunchback saw at once that he had fallen into a trap that was cleverly prepared. Repenting himself for having slept, he collected his whole strength, seized his wife once more by the sleeve of her gown, and strove with his other hand to cling to the gate of the church; but the ardor of love carried the day against jealous fury. ”

“ If the Fleming had found strangers to the town bold enough to enter it, the inhabitants would have warned them against doing so. The most favorable opinion of Maitre Cornelius was that of persons who thought him merely baneful. Some he inspired with instinctive terror; others he impressed with the deep respect that most men feel for limitless power and money, while to a few he certainly possessed the attraction of mystery. His way of life, his countenance, and the favor of the king, justified all the tales of which he had now become the subject. ”

“ Looking down at the shabby clothing in which he had disguised himself, the young nobleman felt ashamed. His black leather belt, his stout shoes, his ribbed socks, his linsey-woolsey breeches, and his gray woollen doublet made him look like the clerk of some poverty-stricken justice. To a noble of the fifteenth century it was like death itself to play the part of a beggarly burgher, and renounce the privileges of his rank. But—to climb the roof of the house where his mistress wept; to descend the chimney, or creep along from gutter to gutter to the window of her room ”

“ 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 passers, even the wariest robber, would have believed that the Malemaison was occupied as usual. ”

“ But in the young man’s dream the gleam of the lamp, the flame of their eyes, the colors of the stuffs and the tapestries were more vivid, more of love was in the air, more fire about them, than there had been in the actual scene. ”

“ But the myrmidons of the grand provost were accustomed to such proceedings. When Georges d’Estouteville reached the stairs they seized him dexterously, not surprised by the vigorous thrust he made at them with his dagger, the blade of which fortunately slipped on the corselet of a guard; then, having disarmed him, they bound his hands, and threw him on the pallet before their leader, who stood motionless and thoughtful.
Tristan looked silently at the prisoner’s hands, then he said to Cornelius, pointing to them:—
“Those are not the hands of a beggar, nor of an apprentice. He is a noble.” ”

“ The country-folks coming into town early saw him on the roof. He must have had accomplices, who waited for him by that embankment you have been making. Ah, sire, you are the accomplice of fellows who come in boats; crack! they get off with everything, and leave no traces! But we hold this fellow as a key, the bold scoundrel! ah! a fine morsel he’ll be for the gallows. With a little bit of questioning beforehand, we shall know all. Why, the glory of your reign is concerned in it! there ought not to be robbers in the land under so great a king. ”

“ Guarded by a tiger, she risked her life in whispering a word, accepting a look, and permitting a mere pressure of the hand. Love may never have been more deeply felt than in those hearts, never more delightfully enjoyed, but certainly no passion was ever more perilous. ”

“ The concert of feelings in which all souls are rising heavenward produces an inexplicable phenomenon of spirituality. The mystical exaltation of the faithful reacts upon each of them; the feebler are no doubt borne upward by the waves of this ocean of faith and love. Prayer, a power electrical, draws our nature above itself. ”

“ His yellow forehead was wrinkled like those of men whose habit it is to believe nothing, to weigh all things, and who, like misers chinking their gold, search out the meaning and the value of human actions. ”

“ Two old women shook their heads, and gave each other a glance that seemed to dive into futurity.
The chair into which the young man had slipped was close to a chapel placed between two columns and closed by an iron railing. It was customary for the chapter to lease at a handsome price to seignorial families, and even to rich burghers, the right to be present at the services, themselves and their servants exclusively, in the various lateral chapels of the long side-aisles of the cathedral. This simony is in practice to the present day. A woman had her chapel as she now has her opera-box. ”