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“I am not confessing to you; I am defending myself.”

“Who is accusing you, then? Your own bad conscience.”

“I have no bad conscience, but I am accused unjustly.”

“Who is accusing you? The starling?”

“My wife and children accuse me, and don’t wish to see me.”

“No; if you have sent them to Amboise, they cannot see you, and, as a matter of fact, they do not wish to.”

“To think that I, the son of King Charles VII, must hear this sort of thing from a quack doctor! I have always liked people of low rank; Olivier the barber was my friend.”

“And the executioner Tristan was your godfather.”

“He was provost-marshal, you dog!”

“The tailor became a herald.”

“And the quack doctor a chancellor! Put that to my account and praise me, ingrate! for having protected you from the nobles, and for only having regard to merit.”

“That is certainly a redeeming feature.”

Just then a man appeared in the doorway with his cap in his hand.

“Who is there?” cried the King. “Is it a murderer?”

“No, it is only the gardener,” the man answered.

“Ha! ha! gardener!–your cow has calved, hasn’t she?”

“I possess no cow, sire, nor have I ever had one.”

The King was beside himself, and flew at Coctier’s throat.

“You have lied to me, scoundrel; it is not medicine you were preparing, but poison.”

The gardener disappeared. “If I wished to do what I should,” said Coctier, “I would treat you like Charles the Bold did when you cheated him.”

“What did he do? What do people say that he did?”

“People say that he beat you with a stick.”

The King was ashamed, went to bed again, and hid his face in the pillow. The Doctor considered this a favourable moment for preferring a long-denied request.

“Will you now liberate the Milanese?” he asked.

“No.”

“But he cannot sit any more in his iron cage!”

“Then let him stand!”

“Don’t you know that when one has to die, one good deed atones for a thousand crimes?”

“I will not die!”

“Yes, sire, you will die soon.”

“After you!”

“No, before me.”

“That is also a lie of yours.”

“All have lied to you, liar. And your four thousand victims whom you have had executed….”

“They were not victims; they were criminals.”

“Those four thousand slaughtered will witness it the judgment seat against you.”

“Lengthen my life; then I will reform myself.”

“Liberate the Milanese.”

“Never!”

“Then go to perdition–and quickly. Your pulse is so feeble that your hours are numbered.”

The King jumped up, fell on his knees before the physician, and prayed, “Lengthen my life.”

“No! I should like to abbreviate it, were you not the anointed of the Lord. You ought to have rat-poison.”

“Mercy! I confess that I have acted from bad motives; that I have only thought of myself; that I have never loved the people, but used them in order to put down the nobles; I grant that I made agreements and treaties with the deliberate purpose of breaking them; that I … Yes, I am a poor sinful man, and my name will be forgotten; all that I have done will be obliterated….”

A stranger now appeared in the open door. It was a young man in the garb of the Minorites.

“Murderer!” screamed the King, and sprang up.

“No,” answered the monk, “I am he whom you called Vincent of Paula.”

“My deliverer! say a word–a single word of comfort.”

“Sire,” answered Vincent, “I have heard your confession, and will give you absolution in virtue of my office.”

“Speak.”

“Very well. Your motives were not pure, as you yourself confess, but your work will not perish, for He who guides the destinies of men and nations uses all and each for His purposes. Not long ago it was a pure virgin who saved France; now it is not quite so blameless a man. But your work, sire, was in its result of greater importance than that of the Maid, for you have completed what the Roman Caesar began. The hundred-year war with England is over, the Armagnacs and Burgundians quarrel no more, the Jacquerie war has ceased, and the peasants have returned to their ploughs. You have united eleven provinces, France has become one land, one people, and will now take the place of Rome, which will disappear and be forgotten for centuries, perhaps some day to rise again. France will guide the destinies of Europe, and be great among the crowned heads, so long as it does not aim at empire like the Rome of the Caesars, for then it will be all over with it. Thank God that you have been able to be of service, though in ignorance of the will and purposes of your Lord, when you thought you were only going your own way!”

“Montjoie Saint Denis!” exclaimed the King. “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.”

“But not here,” broke in the Doctor, who was tired of the whole business. “Travel back to Tours, take the priest with you, and leave me in peace!”

The King returned to Plessis-les-Tours, where he ended his days after severe sufferings. He did not obtain peace, but he did obtain death.

“Now the rod is thrown into the fire,” said Doctor Coctier, “let it burn; the children have grown up, and can look after themselves. Executioners also have their uses, as Tristan L’Ermite and his master Louis XI know. Peace be with them.”