The Accursed Kings Series Books 1-3 by Maurice Druon

Author:Maurice Druon [Druon, Maurice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bundle, Fiction, Historical, Retail
ISBN: 9780008117559
Google: dNl9BAAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Published: 2015-01-08T05:00:00+00:00

3

Charles of Valois

IF THE ATMOSPHERE WERE stormy on the left bank at Monseigneur de Marigny’s, the contrary was true on the right bank at the Count of Valois’s house.

A conscious sense of pride lay over the whole household. The most junior equerry felt that he had ministerial authority for rebuking the footmen, the women ordered people about more tyrannically than before, and the children screamed more loudly.

Everyone knew, or wished to show that he knew; everyone was sharing in advance in the events that were taking place, and in his own way; there were widespread boasting, backstairs whisperings, much importunate flattery and general running to and fro; the baronial party was triumphant.

Seeing the number of people who, on the very first morning after the dramatic Council, crowded into the rooms to show that they were faithful supporters of the winning party, one might have thought that the real Court was not at the Palace of the Cité, but at the Hôtel de Valois.

Moreover, it was a kingly residence! There was no beam in the ceilings that was not carved, nor a hearth whose monumental chimney-piece was not decorated with the escutcheons of France and Constantinople. The stone floors were covered with oriental rugs, and the walls with Cyprian tapestries embroidered with gold. On tables and sideboards silver and carved silver-gilt stood side by side with enamels and precious stones.

Chamberlains, newly important, gravely passed each other instructions, and there was no one down to the last writing-clerk who did not endeavour to assume a dignified air.

The ladies-in-waiting to the Countess of Valois gossiped in a group about Canon Etienne de Mornay who, after Monseigneur of Valois, was the man of the hour. A whole following, effervescent, busy, flattering, came and went, stood in the window embrasures and discussed public affairs. Everyone was there, making pretence of having been summoned, for Monseigneur of Valois was, in fact, holding consultations in his study.

Even the fabulous Sire de Joinville had been seen to arrive supported by a white-bearded equerry. A phantom from another age, the years had turned him into a tottering skeleton. The ancient Seneschal of Champagne, who had accompanied Saint Louis upon the crusade of 1248, had been the principal witness at the proceedings which had led to his canonization, and had recently dictated his memoirs though his memory was now beginning to fail, was ninety-one years old. Half-blind, his eyes watery, his limbs trembling, and his understanding not very clear, though still flattered that he should be remembered, he brought to the Count of Valois, by his presence alone, the moral support of the ancient chivalry and of the old feudal world.

The smell of power was abroad in Paris and it seemed that everyone wished to sniff it.

But behind this façade of prestige there was a canker hidden: money, its hideous lack, its pursuit, which for years now Charles of Valois had ceaselessly maintained. Remorselessly led on by his temperament to wish to take first place, he had lived above his resources, accumulating debts till he was scarcely able to pay the interest upon them.

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