The Court Jester

The Court Jester

CHAPTER I

LE GLORIEUX HEARS GOOD NEWS

The old duchess was talking of the past, while behind her chair Le Glorieux was silently and joyously turning handsprings. I wish I might give him another name, for that one is certainly a mouthful, but as he really lived, and that was what he was called, we must manage it as best we can.

You may think, and with reason, that turning handsprings was not a respectful thing to do when a lady, and above all a duchess, was talking. But Le Glorieux was the court jester, the fool, who when Charles the Bold, son of the duchess, was living, was wont to make his master laugh. Therefore his conduct and conversation as a rule were not what one could expect of a sedate and dignified member of society.

In the presence of his late master, Le Glorieux could have turned handsprings in plain view, but the dowager duchess was old and querulous and resented such performances. She was the widow of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, and she looked very much like a fairy godmother in her quaint costume of the time of Charles the Seventh. She had been lady in waiting at the court of the French king, and she still clung to the high headdress, towering some twenty inches above her brow, and its long veil, which seemed to be boiling in filmy folds, like foam, from its pointed top. By her side was an ebony crutch, not for the purpose of turning pumpkins into coaches for the convenience of neglected Cinderellas, but to support the weight of the owner when she cared to move about; for rheumatism, which was up and doing even so long ago as the fifteenth century, had no more respect for a duchess than for a scullery maid, and had spitefully attacked her Grace of Burgundy.

The windows were veiled by heavy curtains that excluded the sunshine, and the only light in the long dim room came from the brazier at the feet of the duchess, who required artificial heat even in this warm autumn weather. Outside – Le Glorieux knew – the birds were singing and the butterflies were dipping in and out among the roses nodding in the soft breeze; but to-day the beauties of nature did not attract him so strongly as did the unusual degree of excitement going on in the castle. The Lady Clotilde had been sent for by her cousin, the young Duchess Anne of Brittany, and so, bag and baggage and servants, she was to set out on the following morning. Throughout the castle was felt the buzz and bustle of preparation, maids running in and out, and pages spinning up and down the staircases, for the Lady Clotilde liked to keep everybody busy. Le Glorieux longed to see what was going on, for, though a grown man, he possessed the heart of a rollicking boy and was highly entertained by a hubbub.

There had been plenty of diversion while Charles the Bold was living, a fact of which you will be convinced when you read your history of France, and he had once taken Le Glorieux with him to the wars, where the latter had shown himself to be brave and fearless, and when Charles was not planning campaigns against the neighboring countries, or engaged in carrying out his plans, he liked, while sipping the red or the white wine of his province, to listen to the drolleries of his jester. In those days, you see, there were no newspapers, no printed jokes, and it was necessary for even a fierce and warlike duke to laugh at times. But after the duke's death nobody cared much for the jester's jokes, and his principal duty seemed to be to listen to the dowager duchess talk, and as she was in the habit of repeating the same story a good many times a day, her conversation was usually extremely wearisome.

"Yes," said she, holding her wax-like hands out to the brazier and rubbing them thoughtfully, "I remember it as well as if it had happened yesterday. I do not know whether I ever mentioned to you, Le Glorieux, that I was lady in waiting to her Highness, Marguerite of Scotland, then Dauphiness of France?"

With the agility of a cat the jester, who at this moment was standing on his head, regained his feet and stood respectfully before her Grace. "Never, Cousin," replied he gravely; "or at least not more than five thousand times."

"I thought not," she returned, for being somewhat deaf she had not caught the latter part of the sentence. "Yes, I was in the train of that dear and beauteous lady whom I loved so much that I still wear the costume chosen by her, this cap and veil and these shoes."

The old lady thrust out a foot shod in a shoe having a sharp point as long again as her foot, remarking contentedly, "This is a fine style of a shoe, do you not think so, Le Glorieux?"

"Yes, Cousin, and one calculated to encourage an ambitious great toe that is anxious to keep on growing," replied the fool, whose own shoes were pointed, but in a style far less exaggerated than those of her Grace.

"As I was saying," she went on, "I remember it as well as if it had happened yesterday. The dauphiness was fond of learning, and she composed verses of no small merit. I too caught the contagion and composed verses. I wish that I could remember some of them to repeat to you."

"Do not trouble yourself, Cousin," said the jester hastily; "I am nothing but a fool, you know, and I must deny myself many pleasures."

"At the court," she resumed, "lived at the time the great poet Alain Chartier, who was a wonderfully gifted man, though very plain. One day when the dauphiness and her ladies – I was among them, Le Glorieux – were crossing the courtyard we found Alain Chartier asleep on a bench. Much to our surprise her Highness gathered up her long train so that its rustle would not awaken him, and tripping softly toward the sleeping poet she kissed him on the lips. Yes, Le Glorieux, that great princess consort of the dauphin – afterward Louis the Eleventh – deigned to kiss a humble poet with her own lips! Was it not wonderful?"

"Not so wonderful as if she had tried to kiss him with somebody else's lips," replied the fool, adding, "but it was unfair to Chartier."

"Why unfair?"

"Because she had no right to take him unawares and unarmed."

Her Grace frowned darkly as she replied, "Le Glorieux, you are nothing but a fool and you can not understand what an honor it was for a humble poet to be kissed by a great princess. But one of the courtiers said, 'Madame, why did you kiss that extremely unprepossessing man?' The dauphiness replied, 'I did not kiss the man – '"

"How could she say that," broke in the jester, "when you all saw her do it?"

"Do not interrupt me, Fool. The dauphiness said, 'I did not kiss the man – '"

"That is what you said before," interrupted the fool again, "and I say she must have been a very silly little woman."

"Fool, do you not know that you are daring to criticise a princess of Scotland, daughter of James the Second of that country?"

"I do not care if she was the daughter of his present Majesty, Henry the Seventh of England; it was foolish of her to try to make people doubt the evidence of their own eyes."

"Will you let me finish, you great gawk?" Then raising her voice and speaking very rapidly the duchess went on, "The dauphiness said, 'I did not kiss the man, but that precious mouth from which has come so many noble and virtuous words.'"

"I call that a very slipshod way to get out of it," replied the fool. "Let us take an example. Suppose I had gone to the court of France and had cut off the late king's head. The soldiers arrest me and I say, 'I did not kill the man, I simply sliced off that head which has hatched up so many horrible schemes.' Would they apologize and let me go? Not a bit of it!"

"But this, you see, was figurative."

"I do not care what you call it. She kissed his lips, did she not?"

"Yes."

"And was not the man behind them at the time?"

"Of course, but you see – "

"Then there is nothing more to say about it," went on the fool.

The duchess reflected seriously for a moment and then seemed to arrive at the conclusion that it would not pay her to continue the argument. Besides, she was somewhat muddled herself. She continued, "Was it a wonder that so gracious a lady should have been misunderstood at such a court? And she died mysteriously, Le Glorieux, when she was but one-and-twenty, and in her illness she said, 'Fie upon this life; let no one talk more of it to me!'"

"I am not surprised that she felt that way," said the jester. "Now that Louis is dead, they say that he was not cruel, but firm. For my part, I do not like the kind of firmness that wants to hang or drown half the people in the kingdom, though it may be that I am too particular."

"Yes, I remember that day as well as if it had been yesterday," went on the duchess, with her dull eyes fixed dreamily upon the red coals of the brazier, and the fool again glided behind her chair and resumed the handsprings.

At last, attracted in the midst of her recollections by the incessant ringing of the little bells on the jester's cap, which his lively motions kept a-tinkle, the old lady craned her neck and glancing behind her chair caught him in the very act of standing on his head!

Indignant at his inattention and forgetting the license accorded court fools, she seized her crutch and hit him a swift rap across the calves of the legs which caused him to reverse himself with a howl.

"How dare you treat me with such disrespect, and not only me, but the gracious princess of whom I was talking!" she cried angrily. "You shall leave the court. I have no need of a fool!" Then a sudden and pleasant thought seemed to come into her mind, for she said, "I know what I will do. I feel that I should send Anne of Brittany a present, and I was going to send her an emerald. I will not part with the gem; I will send you, Le Glorieux, instead, with a letter saying that I am presenting her with the most precious possession of the late Duke of Burgundy, to cheer her in the various trials brought about by the reign of one so young. Yes, that will be fine, and I shall keep the emerald. You may leave me, Fool, and prepare for your departure while I think over the wording of my letter."

Le Glorieux was so overcome with joy at this sudden and unexpected turn of affairs that he forgot his abused calves, and his feet scarce touched the steps as he mounted to his little tower chamber, for you must know that a fool was a kind of slave, and although having many privileges within the palace, was not allowed to leave it even for a night without special permission.

On the landing of the staircase stood a boy of eleven or twelve years of age, looking sadly out of the mullioned window. He was a pretty youth and he wore a fine suit, to say nothing of a cap with a curling plume, but he did not look happy.

"Cheer up, Antoine," said the jester, slapping him on the back; "better days are in store for me."

"What will your better days avail me?" asked the boy, with a shrug.

"Well answered," said the jester reflectively. "Yet when things are going well with us we are surprised that the world does not smile with us, while we expect it to boohoo when we are sad. But I have been given permission to go to Brittany. Think of that! Try to overcome your indifference, and think what a joy it will be to me to live where I shall no longer hear the story of the princess who kissed the poet. And she has just hit me a blow on the legs that has raised lumps as big as plovers' eggs. Did it with her crutch, too!"

"She struck me across the shoulders with it because I could not find her needle, and she held the needle in her fingers all the time," said the page mournfully.

"Knowing her little ways, you should have looked in her fingers first," said the fool, adding blithely, "but she will never strike me again, because I am going away."

"You need not continually flaunt that in my face," returned the boy, in an injured tone, continuing with the mournful pleasure that many of us take in predicting misfortune for people whom we envy; "there may be worse things in store for you than to be struck by an ill-natured woman. I heard of a youth who went to a strange court with great glee and the very next day both of his ears were cut off."

"I do not think I should like a thing of that kind to happen to me," said the fool gravely. "Of course, the loss of my ears would never be noticed, because my cap covers them, but at the same time I think I should miss them myself, having always had them, you know. But I do not think you quite understand just why I am going away. Our mistress is sending me as a present, a pretty, dainty present, to the young Duchess of Brittany, and you know it would not be good taste to ill-treat a present."

"You are a strange present to send to a young lady," remarked the page sourly. "I warrant she will not be overjoyed with her packet when it meets her gaze."

"Oh, yes she will," returned Le Glorieux easily. "You see it is necessary for her to be cheered, for not only have there been frequent turmoils in her duchy, but there has been a perfect fever of excitement about her matrimonial arrangements from the day she was born. First they wanted her to marry one of the little princes of England afterward smothered by his affectionate Uncle Richard; then it was the Infante of Spain, and though it now seems settled that she is to marry Maximilian of Austria, still she must be nervous and unsettled. At any rate, our mistress wants to do something gracious, and being more than a trifle close, and not wishing to send a valuable jewel, she sends me in the care of the Lady Clotilde as the most valuable jewel of her possession."

"Oh, Le Glorieux, take me with you!" pleaded Antoine, forgetting his sarcasm in his anxiety to share his friend's good fortune. "If you only will I shall be your debtor for life."

"That would be impossible, my lad. You must remain here to find her Grace's needle when she drops it, and to lead the life of a nice, tame pussy-cat."

"I will not!" cried the boy, dashing the tears from his bright eyes. "My father, who, as you know, died in battle, never intended that I should grow up thus tamely. Take me with you, oh, Le Glorieux, do!"

"I should like to," replied the jester thoughtfully. "You could ride beside me and you should fetch your lute and you could sing to me along the way to make the birds ashamed of themselves. But even if you should run away, the Lady Clotilde would not let you go with us, for you know what she is. If she were a peasant woman she would be called sour and disagreeable, but being a great lady she is simply dignified and firm."

But there are times when we are enabled to get that for which we very much wish, and it so happened that the Lady Clotilde wanted the boy in her suite and begged him of the duchess, who willingly acquiesced, for caring not at all for his musical talent and his handsome face, he was no more to her than any other page.

So there were not two lighter hearts in the good duchy of Burgundy than were those of the page and the jester as they set about making their preparations for departure. They were pleased to leave the court where life had grown so monotonous, and they were delighted that they were to go in each other's company, for though there was a difference of some fifteen years in their respective ages, Le Glorieux and Antoine were very fond of each other.

CHAPTER II

A FESTIVAL AT THE INN

The following morning bright and early the procession rode briskly out of the castle courtyard. The Lady Clotilde traveled in her litter and was attended by her maids and her men-servants and her guards on mules, the guards being necessary, for it was dangerous for those possessing money and jewels to travel unless they were protected from the outlaws who infested mountain and forest.

At the rear of the company rode Le Glorieux on a steed he always preferred when riding abroad. This was a donkey which the fool had named Pittacus after one of the seven wise men of Greece, for he declared the little animal was very wise, though no one as yet had discovered the fact. On the jester's wrist was perched Pandora, his hawk, for he vowed that no man with a proper degree of self-respect would be seen in public without his hawk, which was true, the fashion of the time having so decreed. Pandora wore a cunning little red leather hood with some bells attached to it, and, to keep her from escaping from him, a cord attached to her leg was fastened to the jester's arm.

Antoine, whose lute was slung to his shoulder by a blue ribband, was mounted upon a small gray mule and rode beside his comrade, the two whistling and singing and making so merry together that more than once the Lady Clotilde put her head out between the curtains of her litter and, with a very severe face and a harsh voice, bade them be quiet.

History tells us that Edward the Second of England had a jester who amused his royal master simply by riding before him and frequently falling off his horse, so it is no wonder that a boy of the age of Antoine should have been kept in a continuous state of merriment caused by the antics of his friend. You doubtless have been to the circus, and you know what a very funny fellow a clown can be, and how the boys and girls in the audience are inclined to laugh every time he opens his mouth, and how even the grown people are not ashamed to smile at his drolleries. Then imagine the bliss experienced by Antoine in riding with a real clown who performed, not because he was expected to do so and was paid for it, but because he was anxious to have a good time.

Sometimes the jester rode with his face toward the donkey's tail, at others he lay flat on the animal's back, to the intense indignation of Pittacus and Pandora, neither of whom could appreciate that sort of thing. Then sometimes the boy and the fool broke into song together, and if the birds were not exactly "ashamed of themselves," as Le Glorieux had predicted they would be, they must have been very much astonished, to say the least.

This mode of travel was not so swift as one may find in France to-day, but it had its advantages, for the scenery could be more thoroughly enjoyed when every bird and every flower could be leisurely surveyed instead of passing the car window like a flash, leaving upon the mind no impression whatever.

After a journey of some days they entered Brittany, and stopped at nightfall at an old inn situated on a cliff above the Loire, which smoothly ripples its way to the Bay of Biscay.

The arrival of the Lady Clotilde and her party created a certain degree of agitation throughout the inn, for an empress could not have been more exacting in her demands than this lady, who always seemed to think that she was created first and the rest of the world added as an afterthought.

Soon afterward there came a middle-aged woman and a little girl apparently of about twelve years of age, who caused no commotion whatever, for they were unattended and plainly clad. The Lady Clotilde, looking out of her window, pronounced the woman to be an ordinary person, and, supposing the little girl to be the woman's child, did not waste even a glance upon her, but began to give quick, sharp commands regarding her own supper, which was brought to her hot and fragrant with appetizing odors, and with which, strange to say, she found no fault.

But in the great kitchen of the inn that night there was a joyful celebration. The innkeeper's baby daughter had been christened that day and this was the feast which followed it. Mine host had invited Le Glorieux and Antoine to join him and his friends in the celebration of the occasion, and, after the guests of the house had been served, a long table, uncovered and made of rough unplaned wood, was spread with all the good things the hostelry afforded. There was roast pig stuffed with chopped meat and aromatic herbs, and there were meat pasties and ragouts, to say nothing of sugared cakes and various other dainties. There was no coffee, for that was about a hundred and fifty years before that now popular beverage was used in Europe, but there was the wine of the country, which, being pure and honestly made, was less dangerous than the wine of to-day. Another feature was lacking which now is so familiar; the air at the close of the meal was not contaminated with the odor of pipes and cigars, for Sir Walter Raleigh, who brought tobacco from savagery to civilization, was not even born, and the mainland of the New World was still waiting for Columbus.

Le Glorieux in his fantastic costume of striped yellow and green, and his queer cap with its points sticking out on either side and adorned with bells, was an object of much interest, for it was the first time these people had ever seen such a costume. To-day the portraits of the celebrated people of the world are familiar to all who have pennies to invest in newspapers, and had there been at that time the same facilities for spreading the news that there are to-day, Le Glorieux, with his sayings and doings, particularly in the campaign with his late master, would have been written up again and again, and the public, you may be sure, would have known his face as well as those of its own father and mother.

The innkeeper, his family, and friends all wore what to us would seem like comic opera costumes: mine host, fat and rosy, wore his holiday suit of a gorgeous color, and all the men were similarly attired, while the women wore pink, or blue, or green bodices with short skirts of a different color. On their heads they wore flat white linen caps fitting close, and with tails to them like mantles floating down their backs, the costume being completed by a high collar flaring out from the shoulders.

The fairest of the women was the pale, pretty young mother, who cast many proud glances at the rude wooden cradle in the corner where lay the real heroine of the occasion, and, to her, the most important person in the company.

Considered the most distinguished of the guests, Le Glorieux was given a seat at the head of the table, where he immediately began to make himself at home, not only with the viands, but with the company, keeping up a continuous chatter and convulsing his audience with his merry jokes.

"I should like to know the name of the woman who came shortly after our arrival," he said after a while, turning to his host, who replied, "I do not know her name; her garb is plain, yet she seems to be one who is accustomed to the best of everything, for she insisted upon having two of my largest rooms for herself and the child, showing that she had the means to pay for them. She is on her way to the shrine of Saint Roch in the forest beyond, to be relieved of a migraine that torments her morning, noon, and night."

"And the blessed Saint Roch will cure her," said the innkeeper's mother confidently; "no one goes in pain from his shrine."

Le Glorieux had noticed the shrine as they came along. The good saint, who is supposed to lend a kindly hearing to those who are suffering from physical ailments, was carved in rock above a clear spring. He was represented as a young man with his robe lifted to show a plague spot on his leg, and by his side was the dog which brought bread to him when he was starving. When the readers of this story travel abroad they will see pictures of Saint Roch painted by Rubens, Guido, Tintoretto, and other great masters.

"I have heard my mother say that when the plague was in many parts of Europe it never came near Brittany because of Saint Roch," remarked a young woman.

"I should think not," observed Le Glorieux; "curing the plague is what he prides himself upon, and it is not reasonable to suppose that he would allow it to rage under his very nose."

"From the tinkle of your bells," said a foppish young man at the jester's left, a youth who had grown a little envious of the attention paid to Le Glorieux, "I should say that you are a fool."

"And from the tinkle of your tongue, I have been suspecting the same thing of you," retorted the other quickly.

"No man may say that of me!" said the foppish youth, springing to his feet and drawing his dagger from its sheath, while the jester drew his sword.

"Shame upon you, Nicole, to begin a brawl upon such an occasion," said the innkeeper, rising and putting his hand upon his friend's arm, while some of the women gave little shrieks of fear, though at this period the clash of swords and daggers was not an unusual sound, and such a scene was liable to happen in almost any company.