"The King! Oh! Oh! The King!" cried Yvon with a triumphant air, clapping his hands gayly. The bucket being left unsupported on his head, fell and broke open at the feet of the King's servitor whose legs were thereby drenched up to his knees.

"A plague upon the idiot!" cried Marceline despite all her good-heartedness. "There is the bucket broken! My mistress will beat me!"

Furious at the accident that drenched his clothes, the royal servitor hurled imprecations and insults upon Yvon the Calf, who, however, seeming not to notice either the imprecations or the insults, continued to repeat triumphantly: "The King! Oh! Oh! The King!"

CHAPTER III.

LOUIS THE DO-NOTHING.

Like his wife Louis the Do-nothing was barely twenty years of age.

Justly nicknamed the "Do-nothing," he looked as nonchalant as he seemed bored. After having scolded through the window at the serfs, whose noise annoyed him, he stretched himself out again upon his lounge. Several of his familiar attendants stood around him. Yawning fit to dislocate his jaws, he said to them: "What a notion that was of the Queen's to go at sunrise with only one lady of the chamber to pray at the hermitage of St. Eusebius! Once awakened, I could not fall asleep again. So I rose!

Oh, this day will be endless!"

"Seigneur King, would you like to hunt?" suggested one of the attendants. "The day is fine. We would certainly kill some game."

"The hunt fatigues me. It is a rude sport."

"Seigneur King, would you prefer fishing?"

"Fishing tires me; it is a stupid pastime."

"Seigneur King, if you call your flute and lute-players, you might enjoy a dance."

"Music racks my head, and I cannot bear dancing. Let's try something else."

"Seigneur King, shall your chaplain read to you out of some fine work?"

"I hate reading. I think I could amuse myself with the idiot. Where is he?"

"Seigneur King, one of your attendants has gone out to find him.... I hear steps.... It is surely he coming."

The door opened and a servitor bent the knee and let in Yvon. From the moment of his entrance Yvon started to walk on all fours, barking like a dog; after a little while he grew livelier, jumped and cavorted about clapping his hands and shouting with such grotesque contortions that the King and the attendants began to laugh merrily. Encouraged by these signs of approbation and ever cavorting about, Yvon mimicked alternately the crowing of a rooster, the mewing of a cat, the grunting of a hog and the braying of an a.s.s, interspersing his sounds with clownish gestures and ridiculous leaps, that redoubled the hilarity of the King and his courtiers. The merriment was at its height when the door was again thrown open, and one of the chamberlains announced in a loud voice from the threshold where he remained: "Seigneur King, the Queen approaches!"

At these words the attendants of Louis, some of whom had dropped upon stools convulsing with laughter, rose hastily and crowded to the door to salute the Queen at her entrance. Louis, however, who lay stretched on his lounge, continued laughing and cried out to the idiot: "Keep on dancing, Calf! Dance on! You are worth your weight in gold! I never amused myself better!"

"Seigneur King, here is the Queen!" said one of the courtiers, seeing Blanche cross the contiguous chamber and approach the door. The wing of this door, when thrown open almost reached the corner of a large table that was covered with a splendid Oriental piece of tapestry, the folds of which reached to the floor. Yvon the Calf continued his gambols, slowly approaching the table, and concealed from the eyes of the King by the head-piece of the lounge on which the latter remained stretched.

Ranged at the entrance of the door in order to salute the Queen, the prince's attendants had their backs turned to the table under which Yvon quickly blotted himself out at the moment when the seigneurs were bowing low before Blanche. The Queen answered their salute, and preceding them by a few steps moved towards Louis, who had not yet ceased laughing and crying out: "Ho, Calf, where are you? Come over this way that I may see your capers.... Have you suddenly turned mute, you who can bark, mew and crow so well?"

"My beloved Louis is quite merry this morning," observed Blanche caressingly and approaching her husband's lounge. "Whence proceeds the mirth of my dear husband?"

"That idiot could make a dead man laugh with his capers. Ho, there, Calf! Come this way, you scamp, or I'll have your bones broken!"

"Seigneur King," said one of the attendants after glancing around the room for Yvon, "the Calf must have escaped at the moment when the door was opened to admit the Queen. He is not here, nor in the adjoining room."

"Fetch him back, he can not be far!" cried the King impatiently and with rising anger. "Bring him back here immediately!"

One of the seigneurs hurried out to execute the King's orders, while Blanche letting herself down near him, said, smiling tenderly: "I shall try, my beloved seigneur, to enable you to wait patiently for the idiot's return."

"Fetch him back. All of you run after him; the more of you look after him, the quicker will he be found."

Bowing to the King's orders, the courtiers trooped out of the apartment in search of Yvon.

CHAPTER IV.

A ROYAL COUPLE.

Blanche remained alone with her husband, whose face, that for a moment had brightened up, speedily resumed its normal expression of la.s.situde.

The Queen had thrown off her simple vestment of the morning to don a more elaborate costume. Her black hair, braided with pearls, was combed with skill. She wore an orange colored robe of rich material, with wide flowing sleeves, leaving half exposed her breast and shoulders. A collar and gold bracelets studded with precious stones ornamented her neck and arms. Still reclining on his lounge, now shared by his wife who sat down at its edge, Louis did not even bestow a glance upon her. With his head leaning upon one of the pillows, he was mumbling: "You will see the clumsy fellows will turn out more stupid than the idiot; they will not catch him."

"In such a disastrous event," replied Blanche with an insinuating smile, "I shall have to console you, my darling. Why is your face so careworn?

Will you not deign as much as to throw your eyes upon your wife, your humble servant?"

Louis indolently turned his head towards his wife and said: "How dressed up you are!"

"Does this dress please my amiable master?" inquired the Queen caressingly; but noticing that the King suddenly shivered, became gloomy and brusquely turned away his head, she added: "What is the matter, Louis?"

"I do not like the color of that dress!"

"I am sorry I did not know the color of orange displeased you, dear seigneur. I would have guarded against putting it on."

"You were dressed in the same color on the first day of this month last year."

"My memory is not as perfect as yours on the subject, my dear seigneur."

"It was on the second of May of last year that I saw my father die, poisoned by my mother!" answered the King mournfully.

"What a sad souvenir! How I now hate this accursed orange color, seeing it awakens such recollections in your mind!"

The King remained silent; he turned on his cushions and placed his hands over his eyes. The door of the apartment was re-opened and one of the courtiers said: "Seigneur, despite all our search, we have not been able to find Yvon the Calf; he must have hidden in some corner; he shall be severely punished soon as we find him again." Louis made no answer, and Blanche motioned the courtier with an imperious gesture to retire. Left again alone, and seeing her husband more and more mentally troubled, Blanche redoubled her blandishments, seeking to provoke a return of her caresses: "Dear seigneur, your sadness afflicts me."

"Your tenderness is extreme ... this morning. Quite different from usual."

"My tenderness for you increases by reason of the sorrow that I see you steeped in, dear seigneur."

"Oh, I lost everything with my father's death," Louis murmured despondently, and he added with concentrated fury:

"That felonious bishop of Laon! Poisoner and adulterer! Infamous prelate! And my mother! my mother his accomplice! Such crimes portend the end of the world! I shall punish the guilty!"

"Pray, my seigneur, do forget that dark past. What is it you said about the end of the world? It is a fable."

"A fable! What! Do not the holiest bishops a.s.sert that in fourteen years the world must come to an end ... in the year 1000?"