"Sire! sire!" be cried in despair.
The door closed again. He no longer saw anything, and heard only the hoarse voice of the turnkey, singing in his ears this ditty,-"~Maître Jean Balue, A perdu la vue De ses évêchés. Monsieur de Verdun. N'en a plus pas un; Tous sont dépêchés~."* * Master Jean Balue has lost sight of his bishoprics. Monsieur of Verdun has no longer one; all have been killed off.
The king reascended in silence to his retreat, and his suite followed him, terrified by the last groans of the condemned man. All at once his majesty turned to the Governor of the Bastille,-"By the way," said he, "was there not some one in that cage?"
"Pardieu, yes sire!" replied the governor, astounded by the question.
"And who was it?"
"Monsieur the Bishop of Verdun."
The king knew this better than any one else. But it was a mania of his.
"Ah!" said he, with the innocent air of thinking of it for the first time, "Guillaume de Harancourt, the friend of Monsieur the Cardinal Balue. A good devil of a bishop!"
At the expiration of a few moments, the door of the retreat had opened again, then closed upon the five personages whom the reader has seen at the beginning of this chapter, and who resumed their places, their whispered conversations, and their attitudes.
During the king's absence, several despatches had been placed on his table, and he broke the seals himself. Then he began to read them promptly, one after the other, made a sign to Master Olivier who appeared to exercise the office of minister, to take a pen, and without communicating to him the contents of the despatches, he began to dictate in a low voice, the replies which the latter wrote, on his knees, in an inconvenient attitude before the table.
Guillaume Rym was on the watch.
The king spoke so low that the Flemings heard nothing of his dictation, except some isolated and rather unintelligible scraps, such as,-"To maintain the fertile places by commerce, and the sterile by manufactures....--To show the English lords our four bombards, London, Brabant, Bourg-en-Bresse, Saint- Omer....--Artillery is the cause of war being made more judiciously now....--To Monsieur de Bressuire, our friend....--Armies cannot be maintained without tribute, etc.
Once he raised his voice,-"~Pasque Dieu~! Monsieur the King of Sicily seals his letters with yellow wax, like a king of France. Perhaps we are in the wrong to permit him so to do. My fair cousin of Burgundy granted no armorial bearings with a field of gules. The grandeur of houses is assured by the integrity of prerogatives. Note this, friend Olivier."