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By Root 647 0

Lady Margaret of Burgundy, with his cousin Charles, Dauphin of Vienna ; he cared very little about the duration of the friendship patched up between the Duke of Austria and the King of France, or about the King of England’s opinion of the slight put upon his daughter! and he tested the royal vintage of Chaillot every evening, without suspecting that a few flasks of that same wine (slightly doctored and improved by Doctor Coictier, to be sure), cordially presented to Edward IV by Louis XI would one fine day rid Louis XI of Edward IV. The very honorable embassy of the Duke of Austria brought none of these cares to the Cardinal’s mind, but it troubled him in another way. It was indeed rather hard, and we have already spoken a word in regard to it in an earlier page of this book, to be forced to welcome and entertain—he, Charles of Bourbon—these nondescript citizens; he, a cardinal, to condescend to aldermen; he, a Frenchman and a bon-viveur, to befriend Flemish beer-drinkers, and in public too! This was assuredly one of the most painful farces he had ever been compelled to play for the King’s pleasure.

Still, he turned to the door with the best grace in the world (so well had he trained himself) when the usher announced in ringing tones, “The envoys from the Duke of Austria!” Needless to say, the entire audience did the same.

Then entered, two by two, with a gravity in vivid contrast to the lively ecclesiastical escort of the Cardinal, the forty-eight ambassadors of Maximilian of Austria, headed by the reverend father in God, Jehan, Abbot of Saint-Bertin, Chancellor of the Golden Fleece, and Jacques de Goy, Lord of Dauby, high bailiff of Ghent. A profound silence fell upon the assembly, followed by stifled laughter at all the absurd names and all the commonplace titles which each of these personages calmly transmitted to the usher, who instantly hurled names and titles pell-mell, and horribly mangled, at the heads of the crowd. There were Master Loys Roelof, alderman of the city of Louvain; Master Clays d‘Etuelde, alderman of Brussels; Master Paul de Baeurst, Lord of Voirmizelle, president of Flanders; Master Jehan Coleghens, burgomaster of the city of Antwerp; Master George de la Moere, head sheriff of the Court of Law of the town of Ghent; Master Gheldolf van der Hage, head sheriff of the court of equity of the same town; and the Lord of Bier becque, and Jehan Pinnock, and Jehan Dymaerzelle, etc., etc., etc.: bailiffs, aldermen, burgomasters; burgomasters, aldermen, bailiffs; all stiff, starched, and strait-laced, dressed in their Sunday best of velvet and damask, wearing flat black velvet caps on their heads, with large tassels of gold thread from Cyprus; honest Flemish figures after all, severe and dignified faces, of the race of those whom Rembrandt portrayed so gravely and forcibly against the dark background of his “Night Watch,”—personages every one of whom bore it written upon his brow that Maximilian of Austria was right in “confiding fully,” as his proclamation had it, “in their good sense, valor, experience, loyalty, and good qualities.”

But there was one exception. This was a man with a cunning, intelligent, crafty face, the face of a monkey combined with that of a diplomatist, to meet whom the Cardinal stepped forward three paces, bowing low, and yet who bore a name no more high sounding than “Guillaume Rym, councillor and pensionary of the town of Ghent.”

Few persons there knew what Guillaume Rym was,—a rare genius, who in time of revolution would have appeared with renown in the foremost rank, but who in the fifteenth century was reduced to the lowest intrigues, and to “living by sapping and mining,” as the Duke of St. Simon expresses it. However, he was appreciated by the greatest “sapper” in Europe; he planned and plotted with Louis XI on familiar terms, and often laid his hand on the king’s secret necessities.

All these things were utterly unknown to this throng, who marvelled at the politeness shown by the Cardinal to this scurvy Flemish bailiff.

CHAPTER IV

Master Jacques Coppenole

As the pensionary