FullReads

She wheeled, a lithe flame (he thought) of splendid fury. “And in the gutter Jehane dares say what Queen Jehane upon the throne might never say. Had I reigned all these years as mistress not of England but of Europe–had nations wheedled me in the place of barons–young Riczi had been avenged, no less. Bah! what do these so-little persons matter? Take now your petty vengeance! drink deep of it! and know that always within my heart the Navarrese has lived to shame me! Know that to-day you despise Jehane, the purchased woman! and that Jehane loves you! and that the love of proud Jehane creeps like a beaten cur toward your feet, and in the sight of common men! and know that Riczi is avenged,–you milliner!”

“Into England I came desiring vengeance–Apples of Sodom! O bitter fruit!” the Vicomte thought; “O fitting harvest of a fool’s assiduous husbandry!”

They took her from him: and that afternoon, after long meditation, the Vicomte de Montbrison entreated a fresh and private audience of King Henry, and readily obtained it. “Unhardy is unseely,” the Vicomte said at its conclusion. Then the tale tells that the Vicomte returned to France and within this realm assembled all such lords as the abuses of the Queen-Regent Isabeau had more notoriously dissatified.

The Vicomte had upon occasion an invaluable power of speech; and now, so great was the devotion of love’s dupe, so heartily, so hastily, did he design to remove the discomforts of Queen Jehane, that now his eloquence was twin to Belial’s.

Then presently these lords had sided with King Henry, as had the Vicomte de Montbrison, in open field. Latterly Jehan Sans-Peur was slain at Montereau; and a little later the new Duke of Burgundy, who loved the Vicomte as he loved no other man, had shifted his coat. Afterward fell the poised scale of circumstance, and with an aweful clangor; and now in France clean-hearted persons spoke of the Vicomte de Montbrison as they would of Ganelon or of Iscariot, and in every market-place was King Henry proclaimed as governor of the realm.

Meantime was Queen Jehane conveyed to prison and lodged therein for five years’ space. She had the liberty of a tiny garden, high-walled, and of two scantily furnished chambers. The brace of hard-featured females Pelham had provided for the Queen’s attendance might speak to her of nothing that occurred without the gates of Pevensey, and she saw no other persons save her confessor, a triple-chinned Dominican; and in fine, had they already lain Jehane within the massive and gilded coffin of a queen the outer world would have made as great a turbulence in her ears.

But in the year of grace 1422, upon the feast of Saint Bartholomew, and about vespers–for thus it wonderfully fell out–one of those grim attendants brought to her the first man, save the fat confessor, whom the Queen had seen within five years. The proud, frail woman looked and what she saw was the common inhabitant of all her dreams.

Said Jehane: “This is ill done. The years have avenged you. Be contented with that knowledge, and, for Heaven’s sake, do not endeavor to moralize over the ruin Heaven has made, and justly made, of Queen Jehane, as I perceive you mean to do.” She leaned backward in the chair, very coarsely clad in brown, but knowing her countenance to be that of the anemone which naughtily dances above wet earth.

“Friend,” the lean-faced man now said, “I do not come with such intent, as my mission will readily attest, nor to any ruin, as your mirror will attest. Nay, madame, I come as the emissary of King Henry, now dying at Vincennes, and with letters to the lords and bishops of his council. Dying, the man restores to you your liberty and your dower-lands, your bed and all your movables, and six gowns of such fashion and such color as you may elect.”