The Strangled Queen. Морис Дрюон

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      As he listened, Abbot Egidius watched the young King who, once again, was shaken by his cough, and he thought, ‘Of course, every preparation must be made; but will he last till then?’

      When the meal was over, Hugues de Bouville, First Chamberlain to Philip the Fair, rose to break his carved wand before Louis X, signifying that he had accomplished his ultimate office. Fat Bouville’s eyes filled with tears, his hands trembled and he tried three times before he succeeded in breaking the wooden wand, the delegated counterpart of the great sceptre of gold. Then he sat down again next to young Mathieu de Trye, First Chamberlain to Louis who was to succeed him. He murmured, ‘It’s up to you now, Messire.’

      Everyone went out, mounted their horses, and the procession re-formed for the last lap. Outside there was but a thin crowd to cry, ‘Long live the King!’ The populace had got cold enough the day before, watching the great procession whose head had already reached Saint-Denis when its tail had not yet passed the Porte de Paris; today’s procession had nothing exciting to offer. Sleet was falling, soaking through everyone’s clothes to the skin; only the most ardent spectators remained, or those who could shout from their own doorsteps without getting wet.

      From the time when he had first known that he would one day be King, Louis had dreamed of entering his capital in glorious sunshine. And when the Iron King, rebuking him, said harshly, ‘Louis, don’t be so stubborn!’ how often had he not wished that his father might die, thinking, ‘When I can command, everything will be different, and people will see what kind of a man I am.’

      But now he had been proclaimed King, and yet there seemed to be nothing to mark the fact that he had been suddenly transformed into a sovereign. If anything had altered, it was only that he felt himself weaker than yesterday, ill-assured in his new-found majesty, and thinking at every turn of his father whom he had so little loved.

      With lowered head and shaking shoulders, he pressed his horse on between empty fields where the stubbles showed above a carpet of snow; he seemed to be leading the survivors of a conquered army.

      Thus they arrived at the outskirts and entered the gates. The people of the capital seemed no more enthusiastic than those of Saint-Denis. Besides, what reasons had they to demonstrate happiness? The early winter hindered communications and increased the death-rate. The last harvest had been extremely bad; food was scarce and its price continually increasing. Famine was in the air. And the little that was known about the new King contained nothing to awaken hope.

      He was considered stubborn and self-opinionated, from whence derived his nickname of ‘The Hutin’, which from the Court had spread across the town. No one knew of a single great or generous action he had ever performed. He had only the sad reputation of a prince deceived by his wife, and who, once the scandal was discovered, had taken delight in torturing and then drowning in the Seine those of his household servants whom he had believed to be accomplices of his misfortune.

      ‘That’s why they feel contempt for me,’ Louis X said to himself. ‘Because of that bitch who tricked me and made me a laughing-stock before the world. But they will be made to love me, and if they won’t, I shall act so as to make them tremble at sight of me and hail me, when they see me, as if they loved me very much indeed. But the first thing I need is to take another wife, to have a queen beside me, so that my dishonour may be effaced.’

      Alas, the report his cousin of Artois had given him the day before, upon his return from Château-Gaillard, appeared to make this no easy matter. ‘The bitch will give way; I shall bully her, torture her into yielding.’

      Night had fallen and the archers of the escort held lighted torches. As it had been rumoured among the lower orders that pieces of silver would be thrown them, groups of the poor, their naked flesh showing through their rags, had gathered at street corners. But no coins fell.

      Thus the melancholy torchlight procession, passing by the Châtelet and the Pont au Change, reached the Palace of the Cité.

      With the support of an equerry’s shoulder, Louis X dismounted, and the procession at once broke up. The Countess Mahaut gave the signal for dispersal, declaring that everyone needed warmth and rest, and that she was going to the Hôtel d’Artois.

      The prelates and lords took advantage of this to go off to their own houses. Even the brothers of the new King departed. So, upon entering his Palace, Louis X found himself abandoned by everyone but his escort of equerries and servants, his two uncles, Valois and Evreux, Robert of Artois and Enguerrand de Marigny. They passed through the Mercers’ Hall, immense and almost deserted at this hour. A few merchants,⁸ padlocking their baskets after a bad day’s business, removed their hats and gathered in a group to cry ‘Long live the King!’ Their voices sounded weak, lost among the vaults of the two enormous naves.

      The Hutin moved slowly forward, his legs stiff in his too-heavy boots, his body hot with fever. He looked to right and left where, against the walls, were arranged awe-inspiring statues of the forty kings who, since Mérovée, had reigned over France. Philip the Fair had erected them at the entrance to the royal abode, so that the living sovereign might appear in a spectator’s eye to be the continuation of a sacred race, designed by God for the exercise of power.

      This colossal heritage in stone, white-eyed under the glow of the torches, dismayed still further the poor Prince of flesh and blood upon whom the succession had descended.

      A merchant said to his wife, ‘Our new King doesn’t look much of a chap.’ The merchant’s wife, as she stopped blowing upon her fingers, replied with that peculiar sneer women so often adopt towards the victims of misfortune that can come from no one but themselves, ‘He certainly looks a proper cuckold.’

      She did not speak over-loud, but her shrill voice resounded in the silence. The Hutin turned about with a start, his face suddenly aglow, vainly trying to see who had dared pronounce that word as he passed. Everyone about him looked away, pretending not to have heard.

      They reached the foot of the Grand Staircase. Dominating, framing the monumental doorway, rose the two statues of Philip the Fair and Enguerrand de Marigny, for the Rector-General of the kingdom had received the supreme honour of seeing his likeness placed in the gallery of history in his lifetime, a pair to his master’s.

      If there was anyone who hated the sight of that statue, it was Monseigneur of Valois. Whenever he had to pass by it, he raged with fury that a man of such mean birth should have been raised up so high. ‘Cunning and intrigue have lent him such effrontery that he assumes all the airs of being of our blood,’ thought Valois. ‘But it’s all very fine, Messire; we’ll bring you down from that pedestal, I promise you. We’ll show you pretty quick that the period of your meretricious greatness is over.’

      ‘Messire Enguerrand,’ he said, turning haughtily towards his enemy, ‘I think the King desires only the company of his family.’

      By the word ‘family’, he meant only Monseigneur of Evreux, Robert of Artois and himself.

      Marigny pretended not to have understood and, addressing himself to the King, in order to avoid a scene and at the same time to signify clearly that he proposed taking no orders but his, said, ‘Sire, there are many matters pending which require my attention. May I be permitted to withdraw?’

      Louis was thinking of something else; the word uttered by the merchant’s wife was still ringing in his head. He would have been incapable of repeating what Marigny had just said.

      ‘Certainly, Messire, certainly,’ he replied impatiently. And he mounted the stairs which led to his apartments.

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