Maitre Cornelius | Page 7

into an enterprise that was
horribly hazardous, it is no wonder that the daring young seigneur
stopped short before the house of the silversmith, and called to mind
the many tales furnished by the life of Maitre Cornelius,--tales which
caused such singular horror to the countess. At this period a man of war,
and even a lover, trembled at the mere word "magic." Few indeed were
the minds and the imaginations which disbelieved in occult facts and
tales of the marvellous. The lover of the Comtesse de Saint-Vallier, one
of the daughters whom Louis XI. had in Dauphine by Madame de
Sassenage, however bold he might be in other respects, was likely to
think twice before he finally entered the house of a so-called sorcerer.
The history of Maitre Cornelius Hoogworst will fully explain the
security which the silversmith inspired in the Comte de Saint-Vallier,
the terror of the countess, and the hesitation that now took possession
of the lover. But, in order to make the readers of this nineteenth century
understand how such commonplace events could be turned into
anything supernatural, and to make them share the alarms of that olden
time, it is necessary to interrupt the course of this narrative and cast a
rapid glance on the preceding life and adventures of Maitre Cornelius.


CHAPTER II

THE TORCONNIER
Cornelius Hoogworst, one of the richest merchants in Ghent, having
drawn upon himself the enmity of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, found
refuge and protection at the court of Louis XI. The king was conscious
of the advantages he could gain from a man connected with all the
principal commercial houses of Flanders, Venice, and the Levant; he
naturalized, ennobled, and flattered Maitre Cornelius; all of which was
rarely done by Louis XI. The monarch pleased the Fleming as much as
the Fleming pleased the monarch. Wily, distrustful, and miserly;
equally politic, equally learned; superior, both of them, to their epoch;
understanding each other marvellously; they discarded and resumed
with equal facility, the one his conscience, the other his religion; they
loved the same Virgin, one by conviction, the other by policy; in short,
if we may believe the jealous tales of Olivier de Daim and Tristan, the
king went to the house of the Fleming for those diversions with which
King Louis XI. diverted himself. History has taken care to transmit to
our knowledge the licentious tastes of a monarch who was not averse to
debauchery. The old Fleming found, no doubt, both pleasure and profit
in lending himself to the capricious pleasures of his royal client.
Cornelius had now lived nine years in the city of Tours. During those
years extraordinary events had happened in his house, which had made
him the object of general execration. On his first arrival, he had spent
considerable sums in order to put the treasures he brought with him in
safety. The strange inventions made for him secretly by the locksmiths
of the town, the curious precautions taken in bringing those locksmiths
to his house in a way to compel their silence, were long the subject of
countless tales which enlivened the evening gatherings of the city.
These singular artifices on the part of the old man made every one
suppose him the possessor of Oriental riches. Consequently the
narrators of that region--the home of the tale in France--built rooms
full of gold and precious tones in the Fleming's house, not omitting to
attribute all this fabulous wealth to compacts with Magic.
Maitre Cornelius had brought with him from Ghent two Flemish valets,
an old woman, and a young apprentice; the latter, a youth with a gentle,

pleasing face, served him as secretary, cashier, factotum, and courier.
During the first year of his settlement in Tours, a robbery of
considerable amount took place in his house, and judicial inquiry
showed that the crime must have been committed by one of its inmates.
The old miser had his two valets and the secretary put in prison. The
young man was feeble and he died under the sufferings of the
"question" protesting his innocence. The valets confessed the crime to
escape torture; but when the judge required them to say where the
stolen property could be found, they kept silence, were again put to the
torture, judged, condemned, and hanged. On their way to the scaffold
they declared themselves innocent, according to the custom of all
persons about to be executed.
The city of Tours talked much of this singular affair; but the criminals
were Flemish, and the interest felt in their unhappy fate soon
evaporated. In those days wars and seditions furnished endless
excitements, and the drama of each day eclipsed that of the night before.
More grieved by the loss he had met with than by the death of his three
servants,