In a Dark Wood Wandering (55 page)

He did not feel at home in this unwonted splendor; he thought he looked like a gilded weathervane, a motley popinjay. The coquettish ladies of the court and the frivolous demoiselles who kept the Dauphin company at his fetes did Charles no service by demonstrating their interest in him. He despised the crown prince who did not seem to be able to get enough of this kind of life, who spent the nights carousing, the days in gambling halls and bathhouses.
Frequently on these occasions Charles attended the Dauphin's retinue. He knew that it was considered to be a great honor to sit with the successor to the throne of France in a tub full of steaming hot water while half-naked bathhouse girls offered them wine and sweetmeats.

When Armagnac told him that Bonne was at Riom, Charles did not hesitate for a moment; on the contrary, he was delighted to have a reason to leave the court. The atmosphere at Saint-Pol was beginning to stifle him; he was amazed that Philippe had no sense of the chill, corrupt air in that hotbed of intrigue, where the Queen, immobile in her corpulence, sat watching play and dance with gleaming shrewd eyes while the mad King wandered mumbling through the halls, followed by insolent, indifferent courtiers—at least when he did not stand knocking on the bolted door of his chamber, screaming hoarsely.

Now that at last diere was peace, the King could turn to his favorite diversion: processions and passion plays. To please their beloved monarch, the people of Paris marched barefoot through the streets with burning candles in their hands. Little children carried small flags and pasteboard lilies; they sang hymns of praise and litanies. The plays were performed in the great marketplace: the Fall of Man and the Expulsion from Paradise, the story of Cain and Abel, the Passion of Our Lord and the Crucifixion. Surrounded by retinue and kinsmen, the King sat on a decorated platform; leaning his head on his hands, weeping, laughing, shouting, he watched the performance. After it was over he spoke to the players, to the indignation of the Queen and her son.

“I am like you, brothers,” he said in a whining voice, while -he shook a handful of gold pieces from his sleeve and distributed them to the players. “Neither more nor less—a poor comedian. Pray for me, brothers, pray for me!” He remained standing, babbling and waving his hands until they dragged him away to his carriage. Since they had taken Odette de Champdivers from him, he had never again been completely lucid. The Queen had sent her home when it appeared she was going to give the King a child; no dangerous bastards were wanted at the court.

No, Charles was not sorry to see Paris vanish behind the horizon: he did not know what awaited him, but after what he had endured he could adjust to anything. So he approached Riom: in the vast woods that surrounded the castle the leaves glinted russet and amber
in the October sunlight. The undergrowth had already lost its leaves, and a brown glow lay over the fields. Autumn appealed to Charles as no other season did; he felt a certain affinity with the world on the verge of winter, when the land seems strewn with red and yellow gold like a page in an illuminated breviary; when the cry of the birds flying south is both sad and ominous.

The castle of Riom loomed amidst the flame-colored forest; from its peaked roofs and towers fluttered the banners of Orléans, Armagnac and Berry. Charles saluted the people who came running from the small homesteads along the road. A drift of smoke hung over the trees; he saw the glimmer of fires. A group of children ran along with the procession part of the way, but when the ramparts of Riom came into view, they vanished, laughing and shouting, into the forest. The ladies of the house were not yet ready to welcome Monseigneur d'Orléans; Charles deduced this from the confused rushing about of stewards and servants. He had arrived earlier than expected. Because the weather promised to be so beautiful he had left his lodgings at dawn.

Charles was secretly amused; he looked up at the windows facing the courtyard. Behind the thick walls, he thought, they were astir, hurriedly adorning the bride. For the first time a feeling of curiosity crept over him, and even a certain uneasiness. He had no desire to enter the castle. He nodded to a page and rode out the gate. He preferred to spend some time in the forest beyond the ramparts, where the beech trees, with their trunks layered with gray-green moss, rose tall and straight. He let his horse move at a snail's pace; the dry leaves crackled under the hooves. The sound of laughter and singing led him to the spot where the children were playing. He watched them, unperceived, from the depths of the forest. The children danced in a circle; they were filthy and dressed in rags, but their eyes shone and their laughter was carefree. They moved hand in hand. In the center of the circle a girl, her head covered with a blue cloth, stood singing. The tune and the words seemed familiar to Charles: in his childhood he had played a similar game—at a certain moment one had to run hard to try to reach a particular spot before being tagged by the child in the center of the circle. The children flew away in all directions; the girl in the blue kerchief kicked off her wooden shoes and began the pursuit. It was a merry and cheerful sight. Charles was so amused that he decided to give something to the children. Undoubtedly they belonged to the houses
and farms of Biom's peasants and servants. The children tumbled over one another, romping and squealing with laughter. The girl had caught someone now; they were beside themselves with delight. They were so absorbed in their game that they noticed the stranger only when he was directly upon them. They stared at him, their mouths open, frightened and confused; the smallest crept behind the girl's skirts.

Charles took a silver ecu from his girdle and gave it to the girl with a few friendly words. She did not thank him but stood gazing at him with eyes as amber as the leaves overhead. This gaze astonished Charles; he was not accustomed to be stared at attentively by peasant girls; this gaze was not without a trace of secret mockery, despite a certain diffidence which was far from meek. They stood together under the October leaves, a hushed group: the shy children, the barefoot maid, and Charles, richly clad in gold and brown, on his horse Perceval. The forest was still as death: only the page who stood at some distance behind the trees coughed slightly. He could not understand what his lord was doing there. The spell seemed suddenly shattered; the maid tucked up her skirt and darted away over the leaves, followed by the frightened, screaming children. In a few moments they had all vanished from sight as swiftly as hares and squirrels. Startled, Charles laughed; he wheeled his horse around and rode slowly back to Riom.

The Countess d'Armagnac and her women received him in a lofty hall with white-plastered walls. Charles spoke briefly to his mother-in-law about events at court, his own plans, the arrangements for Bonne's retinue and future position. Charles was at the point of asking where his wife was, when he heard a soft rustle behind him.

“This is my daughter, Monseigneur,” said the Countess with visible relief. Charles turned toward his bride; he had to bow deeply to raise her from her curtsey.

“Welcome, Monseigneur,” said Madame d'Orléans, offering her cheek to her husband for a greeting kiss. Only when she secretly pressed a silver écu into his hand did Charles recognize her.

For Charles, Bonne was a source of infinite, unprecedented rapture and surprise. No matter what she did, the young man found her continually fresh and captivating; he who had known only sorrow
and worry, of whom until now life had demanded only self-mastery and responsible acts, could now bask for the first time in a bliss which was as radiant as it was unexpected. Charles behaved as reticent and solitary natures usually behave under these circumstances: he gave himself wholly, without reservation. His heart was so full of love for Bonne that he knew he could never express his feelings. What he could not put into words or translate into action oppressed him like a pain that nevertheless did not make him unhappy.

The days came and went, but Charles lost all sense of time. The sand in the hourglass, the shadowy streak on the sundial, showed him only that he had spent time with Bonne; they were together everywhere and always—first at Biom, later at Montargis, one of Charles' castles. The young Duchess of Orléans had a sunny, playful disposition; she was slight, swift and happy as a bird; as light as the leaves in the wind, carefree without being frivolous and changeable without inconstancy. She possessed all the qualities which Charles lacked and which he desired: the ability to live easily, without worry, to act boldly on a whim, to laugh heartily, to enjoy the good things in full measure, to be warm and loving without constraint. Everyone—young and old, adults and children, courtiers and servants—loved her. As for Charles, he had the feeling that he could not do without her for a single moment; when she was not there, he longed so much for her that he knew no rest; when he saw her he could think of nothing else. He perceived, in truth, that in Bonne he had found a good woman, despite her youth; she had been wisely brought up by her mother.

The Countess d'Armagnac, whom a hard life had made into a prudent woman without illusions, had not neglected to take into account the possibility that Orléans might one day be an impoverished exile. Bonne could read, embroider and play the lute as befitted a noblewoman, but she also knew how to bake bread, make soap and wash linens. In Armagnac's ramshackle castle, she had learned how to mend clothing again and again; she knew how to be thrifty and keep a sharp eye on servants. Moreover, she had a strong belief that highly placed persons were responsible for the welfare of their subjects. Armagnac's wife, who had made it her task to try incessantly to alleviate the distress caused in and around the castle by her husband's cruelty, had been unable or had not wished to spare her child the spectacle of sickness and misery. Bonne visited
the poor, tended the sick, played with the children. She continued this custom even in the castles where she stayed with Charles for only a short time. They traveled together from region to region, surveying the damage to the country estates ravaged by war, reviewing the harvest and the produce from the fields. Bonne had good sense; she was a great comfort to Charles.

Every day he felt greater amazement that she could be a daughter of the loathsome Gascon; nothing about her reminded him of his father-in-law, except possibly the color of her eyes. She resembled her mother; she had in fact seldom seen her father; she feared him and was ashamed of his reputation. Eagerly, Charles heaped gifts upon his young wife; for the first time he regretted having sold all his jewels and ornaments. But Bonne, laughing, disputed his rueful ruminations. She threw her arms about his neck and said that she did not need jewels and rich clothing. “Good health and a happy heart—and of course Monseigneur's love—for me these are the most valuable ornaments.”

“You will never lack that last, Bonne,” Charles said. “My own fear is that one day you might get tired of it.”

Bonne looked at him with shining eyes and shook her head. They were in the bedchamber at Montargis. The fire flared up the chimney, the February wind roared behind the shutters. Charles unbuckled his girdle and put his clothes, one by one, on the chest at the foot of the bed, purposely loitering so that he could watch Bonne, who knelt before the fire in an ample white night shirt, holding a kitten which she had found somewhere. Her long, coal-black curly hair hung down to the floor. She disliked wearing nightcaps.

“Bonne,” Charles said abruptly, “I am eager to take you back with me to Blois. I feel most at home there. I think you will like it too.”

“Yes, of course.” Bonne smiled at him over her shoulder. “And there are the two little girls there too. It's time that you looked in on the poor wretches again. But we have to stay here for now, don't we?”

Charles was awaiting a delegation from Asti; in addition the Duchess of Brittany, the wife of his former ally, had announced her intention to pay a visit. The messengers had arrived from Lombardy
to pay homage to the young Duke in the name of the people of his domain; but Madame of Brittany's visit was inspired—Charles knew this from the letters—by less agreeable motives. In the past few months Charles had been only remotely conscious of politics; he did not ask for news. But he could not hide from reality behind the fragile walls of his dream castle. He was forced against his will to hear an account of recent events.

The King of England was dead: the son who succeeded him under the name of Henry V had shown himself, after a rather wild, pleasure-seeking youth, to be a disciplined, faithful, austere and ambitious ruler, firmly resolved to complete the conquest which his father, always thwarted by domestic strife, had been unable to finish. With growing self-confidence, the young King had watched the turbulence in France; he believed that God had singled him out to punish the dissolute crowd; England, he thought, had an ancient right to Guyenne, Poitou, Angiers and Perigord, but he believed it would be better and simpler if England and France could be united under one Crown. The time was ripe for swift, vigorous action.

Henry surveyed the game and marshalled his troops. Jean of Burgundy, after his defeat before Paris, had resumed negotiations with England; it was not very difficult for Henry to persuade him to sign a declaration that he would not intervene in the approaching conflict. This done, Henry sent an emissary to France with unheard-of demands: the hand of the young princess Catherine, a dowry of two million gold francs, a series of important territories. It could not be supposed that he expected these demands to be granted; therefore it was quite clear where the matter would lead. Berry and Armagnac, who ruled the Council at the time, kept negotiations going for as long as possible, while they sent couriers to the princes of the realm requesting that they send more men. Charles had received a similar summons. More and more lately he had been receiving news about the state of military operations; Bourbon, Alencon and Brittany were already busy raising troops.