"One further chance, fellow," said the king. "If the Count of Montcorbier win the heart of Lady Katherine de Vaucelles within the week, he shall escape the gallows and carry his lady love where he pleases."

"On your word of honour, sire?"

"My word is my honour, Master Francois. Well?"

At this very moment it pleased heaven that Katherine, sitting on the terrace and smiling at the adoration in Noel le Jolys' eyes, seemed to find the air she sought and began to sing. The tune was quaint and plaintive, tender as an ancient lullaby, the words were the words of the tortured poet, and as he heard them a new hope seemed to come into his heart.

"Life is unstable, Love may uphold; Fear goes in sable, Courage in gold.

Mystery covers Midnight and noon, Heroes and lovers Cry for the moon."

"Well," said the king; "you cried for the moon; I give it to you."

"And I take it at your hands!" Villon thundered. "Give me my week of wonders though I die a dog's death at the end of it. I will show France and her what lay in the heart of the poor rhymester."

Louis applauded, clapping his thin hands together gleefully.

"Spoken like a man! But remember, a bargain's a bargain. If you fail to win the lady, you must, with heaven's help, keep yourself for the gallows. No self-slaughter, no flinging away your life on some other fool's sword. I give you the moon, but I want my price for it."

Villon's blood now ran warm again in its channels, and he answered stoutly:

"Sire, I will keep my bargain. Give me my week of opportunity, and if I do not make the most of it I shall deserve the death to which you devote me."

Even as he spoke the air was stirred with a cheerful flourish of trumpets and the quiet garden was invaded by Tristan l'Hermite and a company of soldiers, escorting a tall and stately gentleman, whose gorgeous tabard proclaimed him to be Toison d'Or, the herald of the Duke of Burgundy. The news of his coming had run through the palace, and the terrace was suddenly flooded with courtiers and ladies eager to hear what the enemy's envoy had to say and what answer the king would send back to him. Louis seated himself on the marble seat anigh the image of Pan and drew Villon down beside him.

"Listen well to this man's words, my Lord Constable," he whispered, and then turning to the gleaming figure of the herald, he demanded:

"Your message, sir?"

Toison d'Or advanced a few feet nearer to the monarch and spoke in a ringing voice.

"In the name of the Duke of Burgundy and of his allies and brothers-in-arms a.s.sembled in solemn leaguer outside the walls of Paris, I hereby summon you, Louis of France, to surrender this city unconditionally and to yield yourself in confidence to my master's mercy."

The king folded his hands over his knees and inclined his head a little, like an enquiring bird.

"And if we refuse, Sir Herald?"

The herald answered promptly:

"The worst disasters of war, fire and sword and famine, much blood to shed and much gold to pay and for yourself no hope of pardon."

"Great words," the king sneered.

The herald replied proudly:

"The angels of great deeds."

Villon had been sitting listening as a man listens in a dream, almost unconscious of what was taking place. Among the ladies on the terrace Katherine stood conspicuous in her youth and beauty, and to her his eyes were turned in worship. The quarrels of great princes, the destinies of France were for the moment indifferent to him. He forgot his high desires of empire, his swelling belief in his real mission. He was only conscious that a great prize lay temptingly within his grasp, that he might win his heart's desire. Louis interrupted his reverie:

"The Count of Montcorbier, Constable of France, is my counsellor.

His voice delivers my mind. Speak, friend, and give this messenger his answer."

He touched Villon on the arm and Villon turned to him in astonishment. "As I will, sire?"

The king caught him up impatiently.

"Yes, go on, go on. 'If Villon were the king of France.'"

Villon leaped to his feet and advanced toward the herald. A wild exultation filled his veins with fire. He felt as if he were the lord of the world, as if his hands held the scales that decided the destinies of nations. He had always dreamed of the great deeds he would do, and now great deeds were possible to him, and at least he would try to do them. He looked straight into the herald's changeless face, but his heart shrined Katherine as he spoke.

"Herald of Burgundy, in G.o.d's name and the king's, I bid you go back to your master and say this: Kings are great in the eyes of their people, but the people are great in the eyes of G.o.d, and it is the people of France who answer you in the name of this epitome. The people of Paris are not so poor of spirit that they fear the croak of the Burgundian ravens. We are well victualled, we are well armed; we lie snug and warm behind our stout walls; we laugh at your leaguer. But when we who eat are hungry, when we who drink are dry, when we who glow are frozen, when there is neither bite on the board nor sup in the pitcher nor spark upon the hearth, our answer to rebellious Burgundy will be the same. You are knocking at our doors, beware lest we open them and come forth to speak with our enemy at the gate. We give you back defiance for defiance, menace for menace, blow for blow. This is our answer--this and the drawn sword. G.o.d and St. Denis for the King of France!"

As he spoke, he drew his sword and flashed it aloft in the sunlight.

There was contagion in his burning words, and every soldier present bared his blade and pointed it to heaven while Villon's cry was repeated upon a hundred lips. As Toison d'Or turned and left the presence, Katherine came swiftly down the steps and flung herself at Villon's feet.

"My Lord," she said. "With my lips the women of France thank you for your words of flame."

Louis leaned forward, smiling sardonically.

"Mistress, what does this mean?" he questioned.

The girl rose to her feet, looking into Villon's face with eyes that mirrored the admiration shining in his eyes.

"It means, sire, that a man has come to court!"

CHAPTER VIII

A WORD WITH DOM GREGORY

It is a thousand pities that the materials for building up a practical presentment of the real life-story of Master Francois Villon are so slight, that in the historical sense they might almost be said to be non-existent. We know, indeed, a little of Master Francois' early days, partly from some confessions which must at all times be interpreted with a liberal sense of humour and glossed with an infinite deal of good nature, and partly from stray records made by those who do not seem to have held the vagrant poet very warm in their hearts. But of his life in those days of which this chronicle deals, there is little to find where there is much to seek.

The silence of Commines may be explained in a thousand ways, possibly professional jealousy of one minister for another, who in so short a s.p.a.ce of time did so much and so well, possibly ignorance of the real facts of the case, for it is fairly certain that King Louis kept his j.a.pe and its sequel very much to himself, possibly because Commines felt that his cold spirit was scarcely equal to the proper recording of so whimsical and oriental an adventure.

Good Master Clement Marot, when he took it upon himself, generations after our poet was dust and ashes, to edit our poet's writings, said much in praise of the singer but said little, no doubt because he knew little, of the poet's life.

And the great creator of Pantagruel and Gargantua, the immeasurable Alcofribias Nasier, whom the world loves or hates as Rabelais, in what he contributed to our knowledge of Francois Villon has only--to use a weather-worn and moss-grown phrase--made confusion yet worse confounded.

We should be at a deadlock, indeed, if it were not for Poitou and its Abbey of Bonne Aventure, whose library is luckily rich in historical ma.n.u.scripts of the period, and richest of all in that priceless ma.n.u.script of Dom Gregory, which, treating in general of the ecclesiastical history of Poitou in the fifteenth century, dealt so particularly and so liberally with the life of Master Francois Villon, because Master Francois Villon in his old age was so excellent a patron of the church. We say dealt advisedly, for time has treated somewhat scurvily the fair skins of parchment upon which the good Dom Gregory recorded his thoughts and his opinions at considerable length as the rich setting of the facts, too few in number, with which he condescended to enlighten posterity. Many pieces of parchment are missing from the roll of his record, and, unhappily, the greatest gap in the story is precisely at that point where our hero found himself so suddenly and so strangely taken into favour by his king, and so suddenly and so strangely smiled upon by his mistress. We have indeed some admirable homiletics of the worthy friar's in praise of the conduct and carriage of Master Francois Villon at the time of his unexpected exaltation. After a gracious invocation of many saints and angels, the very elect of the company of heaven, Dom Gregory, in a fine spirit of rect.i.tude, proceeds to applaud the Count of Montcorbier for the high example he set to his fellow-men. Here, in effect says the worthy churchman, was a man who, having pa.s.sed the flower of his life in squalor and all manner of ign.o.bilities, still kept in a sense the whiteness of his soul and allowed the brightness of the celestial flame to burn, faintly indeed but unextinguished, on the altar of his heart. How many men, asks Dom Gregory, glowing with a pious gratification, how many men who in humility have dreamed that they might under serener stars and happier auspices do great deeds and win honourable honours, would, if put to the proof, show themselves as splendid in prosperity as they dreamed themselves in adversity? Master Francois Villon, he goes on to say, is the loveliest example known to him of a man, who, having always believed in himself with a great belief, did, on being put to the test, prove that his belief was founded, not on the shifting sands of vanity and vain glory, but on the solid granite of good faith and the inestimable doctrines of the church.

From all this we gather dimly, as one discerns objects in a mist, that Master Francois Villon, as Count of Montcorbier, proved nimself to be little less than equal to the high opinion of himself which he had confided all unwittingly into the ear of his masquerading sovereign. But the pages in which Dom Gregory sets forth at length exactly all that Master Francois Villon did and said and thought during the period of his astonishing probation, are unfortunately lost to the Abbey of Bonne Aventure, and, in consequence, to the world. No less than six folios consecrated by the careful pen of Dom Gregory to this memorable epoch have vanished from the priceless ma.n.u.script. The custodian of the Abbey library will tell you with tears in his eyes that these pages disappeared during the storm and stress of the French Revolution, but travellers in France are too well aware of the readiness of ecclesiastical custodians to attribute all things evil to the time of the great upheaval, to pay any serious attention to this particular allegation. However it happened, the pages are lost, and there, as far as we are concerned, is an end of them.