The Dream Maker (27 page)

 

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I had only just recovered when the king sent for me. Charles never stayed in the same place. In the old days, it was because of the war. And now he continued to do so because it pleased him. In his message he told me that he would be in Saumur very soon, and he summoned me to join him there to take part in the council.

My arm was less painful now, and the physician authorized my journey, provided I was prudent. A few drops of an elixir I had brought back from the Levant eased what remained of the pain, and brought waking dreams full of sweetness and bliss. I set off on a calm mare that the grooms had provided with a deep pommelled saddle. Marc walked alongside to prevent any mishaps. We made our way slowly through the renascent countryside. The fruit trees were in flower and hawthorn blossoms whitened the hedges. The peasants bent over their labor no longer seemed fearful. The treaty had not yet been signed, but peace was already perceptible in the countryside.

Marc, as always, was well-informed, and knew what to expect in Saumur. He spoke to me at the length about the changes in the king. It was true that because of my long voyage in Italy I had not seen him for several months. The truce with England had been confirmed, and there was great hope of turning it into a lasting peace. It was said that Brézé was negotiating a matrimonial alliance to seal the new understanding. In all probability, it was the daughter of René d'Anjou who would be chosen to marry the king of England. It was hoped that this would erase the sinister episode of the failed marriage between Henry V and the daughter of Charles VI, which had rekindled the war thirty years earlier. Charles had reason to be pleased. Marc, however, did not attribute the transformation in the king solely to this favorable outcome. For him no explanation could be valid unless it was rooted in the king's deepest secrets, and such deep satisfaction in his success must be tied to a carnal passion. While he was not generally forthcoming about the political situation, Marc could talk forever about the king's emotional life. The entire matter, in his view, could be reduced to this: Charles had a new mistress.

One of Marc's favorite subjects was to describe the misfortunes of Queen Marie in detail. The poor woman had been overwhelmed by one pregnancy after another. The way Marc reckoned it, the child she had just given birth to was her twelfth. The king's ardor was remarkable, all the more so in that he seemed to have plenty to spare. While the Queen was pregnant or recovering from childbirth, in other words more or less all the time, he directed his attention to other women, of whom there was always an ample supply. I had already had the opportunity to observe the man's vitality, surprising in someone who the rest of the time seemed so downcast, gloomy, and sickly.

In itself, the rumor that said he had a new mistress would have been neither incredible nor astonishing had there not been profound changes affecting the king's personality over these last months. Charles had not been the same since the end of the English peril, or since victoriously leading the country against the princes, with his reforms to reinforce his power. Those who knew him well felt that the two sides of his personality—dark and light, ardent and lethargic, proud and modest—were in the process of reversing their roles. Now the king emerged from the dark recesses where he usually hid, and showed himself in public. At the head of his armies he was valiant, almost reckless; at his council he was energetic; and with women he was gallant.

Until now his liaisons had been furtive and purely carnal. The fact that he had a mistress and that everyone knew it seemed to indicate that in this aspect as well he had decided to bring out into the open something he ordinarily kept hidden. Or, at least, this was my conclusion, on hearing Marc's gossip. I could scarcely have imagined how the king would surprise us.

I arrived in Saumur early on a Monday morning. The castle was asleep, and we met no one in the hallways. A few sleepy valets were limply employed at clearing huge long tables of the remains of a banquet from the night before. As I wandered through the empty rooms, I thought about this king's destiny, and how far he had come since I had first met him at the château in Chinon, alone and fearful. The chair where he had been sitting during the meal was tipped over backwards. Cutlery, napkins, and dirty glasses were strewn everywhere; scraps of food littered the table and the floor around it. I could imagine Charles staying up late, laughing, perhaps singing, complimenting the women and jeering at his companions. Where was the man we used to see who hardly ate, who was so afraid of his fellows that he only entertained a few at a time and at a distance? What had become of the voracious, inconsiderate lover who, according to a few of the women subjected to his assaults, used all his energy to satisfy his desires without a single word of kindness to them?

And yet I could not believe that the king's shadow side had completely disappeared. The evil instincts, which until now had been easy to uncover because they were fully visible on his face and in his behavior, had given way to more complacent virtues. But I suspected those evil instincts were still there, hidden, and that one should be more careful than ever.

I came back at the beginning of the afternoon. The king was up and about. He was standing in a workroom with three young men from the court, whom I knew vaguely by sight, and who were responsible for organizing feasts and banquets. The casements were open. I could hear the wind rustling in the poplar trees and faraway cries rising from the village. The room was filled with sunlight. Charles was holding his face toward the rays of sun, blinking slightly, as if succumbing to the warmth of a caress. He started when he saw me come in.

“Jacques, what a joy to see you at last!”

The others arranged their features in an expression of cheerful contentment, just like the one on the king's face.

He bade me sit down next to him and called for something to drink. Each of his gestures triggered something like an echo of the supposedly joyful agitation in the others around us. Valets came and went, wearing broad smiles. The general atmosphere was good-humored, but the effort everyone was making to conform was clear proof that they were obeying an order.

Charles had summoned me to prepare the upcoming celebrations. The most important, though still some time in the future, was the wedding of his vanquished rival, the king of England, to the daughter of René d'Anjou. But first there were other festivities to plan. I had drawn up a statement of the Argenterie's reserves, in order to be ready for any pertinent questions he might ask. The king seemed pleased with my replies. I added, although he had not asked, that I was at his disposal to contribute financially to the celebrations if need be. Charles shook my hand and let out a laugh, which the others echoed.

I, too, feigned gaiety but remained watchful. Once he had finished with the subject of the celebrations, Charles banished his table companions from the room with a wave of his hand. They left, noisily, jostling each other with jokes and peals of laughter. The king acted as if he shared their good mood. But no sooner had the door closed behind them than his features fell and his expression was doleful once again.

He went over to the window, closed it, and drew the heavy curtain partway, so that the room no longer had the direct light of the sun. Then he dragged his chair over to the wall in the darkest corner and motioned to me to sit down opposite him. This brutal return to our former manners should have alarmed me, but strange as it might seem, it reassured me. On seeing the king revert to the self I had always known, I felt I was treading on firmer ground. At the same time, I knew I should be doubly vigilant. In the old days, when he showed his worst side in public—indecisiveness, weakness, envy—it was to hide his best side deep within: his energy, his firmness, and through all the ordeals, what one must call his optimism. When he displayed cheerfulness, majesty, and gallantry, it meant he was concealing his worst side, and once the door had closed on these spectators, I should expect grave danger.

After a long silence he gave me a sidelong glance and said, “I need a great deal of money for the war.”

I shuddered. Ever since the financial reforms the council had been instigating over recent years, the king had employed a permanent personal income to ensure the country's defense. This was one of his principal victories over the princes, the fact that he was no longer obliged to solicit them before starting a campaign. In the new order of the realm, wealth belonged as much to the burghers as to the nobles, and they contributed generously through taxes to their sovereign's expenses. If, in spite of that, he still needed money, this meant that the revenue he received from the treasury did not suffice. Thus there was something more, something of a threat to the king's words.

This revenue depended greatly on the loyalty of those who collected taxes in his name. The king had gratified me with the taxation of the states of the Languedoc, and various levies, in particular on salt. With the same men who represented my company in these regions, I had implemented a very efficient system of collection. Regarding the salt, Guillaume advised us to take charge of transportation and sales all along the Rhone valley. As I was a person both paying the taxes in my capacity as a merchant and collecting them in the name of the king, I could make a considerable profit. I was not stealing from the king. In those territories and activities where I collected taxes on his behalf, the yield was excellent, far superior to what it had been when he was represented in these parts by local noblemen, who tended to keep everything, or almost everything, for their own profit. But, obviously, once I had paid what was owed to the king there was still a great deal left over. I wondered if I should see in his allusion a criticism of my newfound wealth. In any case, if the king felt that the sums amassed were not sufficient, he would certainly ask me to contribute more.

Nor could he ignore the fact that my other activities were extremely lucrative. I had the distinct feeling that, either of his own accord, or under the influence of the many people who envied me my fortune, the king now begrudged me my wealth. His words in that semidarkness, with his sidelong glance, evil, insistent, and the sudden reemergence of his familiar and basic meanness and envy, made it clear that an era had just come to an end.

“The immense consideration which your Majesty has shown leave me eternally in his debt. May I ask your Majesty what exactly is required?”

As I uttered these words, I suddenly found myself again with my father, in the presence of his rich customers in Bourges. Once again I saw him at their mercy, trembling, subjected in advance to their iniquitous decisions. And at the same time, as always, a vision of Eustache the butcher's apprentice flashed through my mind, declaring war against the arbitrary behavior of those in power.

“I want to lay siege to Metz.”

“Metz?” I said.

“You know that my brother-in-law, King René, is Duke of Lorraine through his wife,” answered Charles grumpily, avoiding my gaze. “His subjects have rebelled, and I am obliged to come to his assistance.”

The king's obvious reticence to reply confirmed that this campaign in Lorraine was not strictly necessary, and he knew it. It was merely another concession granted to the house of Anjou. The king had never before seemed so subservient to the influence of his in-laws. Yolande, the mother of Queen Marie, had had him under her thumb for years. Some had even seen her hand behind the providential visit of Joan of Arc, who had been born in Lorraine on lands belonging to Anjou. Yolande's death two years earlier had not released the king from the Angevin influence, far from it. His brother-in-law René lived in his kingdom in grand style, and it was his daughter who had been chosen to marry the king of England. René's brother Charles reigned over the king's council ever since La Trémoille had been eliminated. As for the king's new mistress, people said she was lady-in-waiting to René's wife . . . Thus, behind the king's new strength was the same old weakness that left him dependent on a clan. And he was as subservient to Anjou as he had been to other clans before. In this respect, nothing had changed.

I was suddenly made aware of the limits of my method. I had decided to ally myself with the king in order to eliminate the arbitrary power of princes. I had thought I would be able to establish a relationship of mutual interest. Yet I had managed no such thing. I had merely positioned myself, along with all those who, like me, produced and traded, in absolute submission to a single man.

Our exchange on the issue was very brief, and everything I have just described went through my mind in a flash. We added a few words, to determine the amount of my contribution, and that was all there was to say on the matter. Then the king seemed to relax, and he kept me on for a long while to speak about Italy.

I gave him a detailed description of Florence. But caution had returned and I refrained from telling him that I planned to register there as a silk manufacturer. He would surely have seen it as another attempt to shelter a part of my business from his authority. And he would not have been mistaken.

From the other questions he asked about Italy I understood that he had not abandoned the idea of expanding his influence in that direction. I again mentioned Genoa. But his immediate concern was the pope.

We sat like that for a good hour, and in all that time he never shed his grave demeanor. He was as I had always known him to be: impenetrable, with his twisted mind, enlivened by an evil curiosity that betrayed his envy and vengefulness. For the first time I thought that if he had liberated his country and practically vanquished the English in spite of the constraints of his initial situation, perhaps it was not out of a concern for his kingdom, but rather to assuage the more base desires of revenge that childhood humiliation had nurtured in him, as invasively and painfully as a forest of brambles.

Suddenly the shrill chiming of a church bell rang out in the garden. The sound seemed to wake him up and distract him from his malicious political dreams. He wiped his face and looked all around him like a man who has suddenly regained consciousness. He stood up and opened the curtains wide. The sun had moved. The clear air had a slight chill to it. He pulled his shirt closer, taking a deep breath. Then he came back over to me and sat sideways on the corner of the table.