Maitre Cornelius | Page 6

a naked sword in hand. His gloomy eyes seemed to pierce the shadows
and to rake even the darkest corners of the cathedral.
"Monseigneur, madame is there," said the page, going forward to meet
him.
The Comte de Saint-Vallier found his wife kneeling on the steps of the
alter, the old priest standing beside her and reading his breviary. At that
sight the count shook the iron railing violently as if to give vent to his
rage.
"What do you want here, with a drawn sword in a church?" asked the
priest.
"Father, that is my husband," said the countess.
The priest took a key from his sleeve, and unlocked the railed door of
the chapel. The count, almost in spite of himself, cast a look into the
confessional, then he entered the chapel, and seemed to be listening
attentively to the sounds in the cathedral.
"Monsieur," said his wife, "you owe many thanks to this venerable
canon, who gave me a refuge here."
The count turned pale with anger; he dared not look at his friends, who
had come there more to laugh at him than to help him. Then he
answered curtly:
"Thank God, father, I shall find some way to repay you."
He took his wife by the arm and, without allowing her to finish her
curtsey to the canon, he signed to his servants and left the church
without a word to the others who had accompanied him. His silence
had something savage and sullen about it. Impatient to reach his home
and preoccupied in searching for means to discover the truth, he took
his way through the tortuous streets which at that time separated the

cathedral from the Chancellerie, a fine building recently erected by the
Chancellor Juvenal des Ursins, on the site of an old fortification given
by Charles VII. to that faithful servant as a reward for his glorious
labors.
The count reached at last the rue du Murier, in which his dwelling,
called the hotel de Poitiers, was situated. When his escort of servants
had entered the courtyard and the heavy gates were closed, a deep
silence fell on the narrow street, where other great seigneurs had their
houses, for this new quarter of the town was near to Plessis, the usual
residence of the king, to whom the courtiers, if sent for, could go in a
moment. The last house in this street was also the last in the town. It
belonged to Maitre Cornelius Hoogworst, an old Brabantian merchant,
to whom King Louis XI. gave his utmost confidence in those financial
transactions which his crafty policy induced him to undertake outside
of his own kingdom.
Observing the outline of the houses occupied respectively by Maitre
Cornelius and by the Comte de Poitiers, it was easy to believe that the
same architect had built them both and destined them for the use of
tyrants. Each was sinister in aspect, resembling a small fortress, and
both could be well defended against an angry populace. Their corners
were upheld by towers like those which lovers of antiquities remark in
towns where the hammer of the iconoclast has not yet prevailed. The
bays, which had little depth, gave a great power of resistance to the iron
shutters of the windows and doors. The riots and the civil wars so
frequent in those tumultuous times were ample justification for these
precautions.
As six o'clock was striking from the great tower of the Abbey
Saint-Martin, the lover of the hapless countess passed in front of the
hotel de Poitiers and paused for a moment to listen to the sounds made
in the lower hall by the servants of the count, who were supping.
Casting a glance at the window of the room where he supposed his love
to be, he continued his way to the adjoining house. All along his way,
the young man had heard the joyous uproar of many feasts given
throughout the town in honor of the day. The ill-joined shutters sent out

streaks of light, the chimneys smoked, and the comforting odor of
roasted meats pervaded the town. After the conclusion of the church
services, the inhabitants were regaling themselves, with murmurs of
satisfaction which fancy can picture better than words can paint. But at
this particular spot a deep silence reigned, because in these two houses
lived two passions which never rejoiced. Beyond them stretched the
silent country. Beneath the shadow of the steeples of Saint-Martin,
these two mute dwellings, separated from the others in the same street
and standing at the crooked end of it, seemed afflicted with leprosy.
The building opposite to them, the home of the criminals of the State,
was also under a ban. A young man would be readily impressed by this
sudden contrast. About to fling himself