Then he rose, leaned upon his reader’s arm, signed to the mute who stood at the door to go before him, to the two Flemings to follow him, and left the room.
The royal party was increased at the door of the retreat by men-at-arms weighed down with steel, and slender pages bearing torches. It proceeded for some time through the interior of the gloomy keep, perforated with staircases and corridors in the thickness of the walls. The captain of the Bastille walked at the head of the procession, and ordered the gates to be thrown open before the bent and feeble old king, who coughed as he moved along.
At every wicket gate all heads were forced to stoop, except that of the old man bowed by age. “Hum!” he mumbled, for he had lost all his teeth, “we are all ready for the door of the tomb. A low door needs a stooping passenger.”
At last, after passing through a final gate so encumbered with locks that it took a quarter of an hour to open it, they entered a lofty, spacious, vaulted hall, in the middle of which they saw, by the light of the torches, a huge and massive cube of masonry, iron, and wood. The interior was hollow. It was one of those famous cages meant for prisoners of state, which were known by the name of “the king’s daughters.” In its sides were two or three small windows, so closely grated with heavy iron bars that the glass was entirely hidden. The door was a great flat stone slab, such as are used for tombs,—one of those doors used for entrance only. But here, the dead man was a living being.
The king walked slowly around the little structure, carefully examining it, while Master Olivier, who followed him, read aloud:— “For repairing a great cage of heavy wooden joists, girders, and timbers, being nine feet long by eight in breadth, and seven feet high between the planks, planed, and clamped with strong iron clamps, which has been placed in a room in one of the towers of the Bastille Saint-Antoine, in which cage is put and kept, by command of our lord the king, a prisoner formerly dwelling in a worn-out and crazy old cage. There were used for the said new cage ninety-six horizontal beams and fifty-two uprights, ten girders eighteen feet long. Nineteen carpenters were employed for twenty days, in the court of the Bastille, to square, cut, and fit all the said wood.”
“Quite fine heart of oak,” said the king, rapping on the timber with his knuckles.
“… There were used in this cage,” continued the other, “two hundred and twenty large iron clamps, of eight and nine feet, the rest of medium length, with the screws, roller-bolts, and counter-bands requisite for said clamps, all the aforesaid iron weighing three thousand seven hundred and thirty-five pounds; besides eight large iron bolts serving to fasten the said cage, with the nails and clamp-irons, weighing all together two hundred and eighteen pounds; not to mention the iron gratings for the windows of the room wherein the cage was placed, the iron bars on the door, and other items—”
“Here’s a mighty deal of iron,” said the king, “to restrain the lightness of one mind!”
“… The whole amounts to three hundred and seventeen pounds five pence and seven farthings.”
“By the Rood!” exclaimed the king.
At this oath, which was Louis XI’s favorite imprecation, some one seemed to waken within the cage: chains rattled loudly against the wood-work, and a faint voice, which appeared to issue from the tomb, cried: “Sire! Sire! Pardon!” But no one could see the person uttering these words.
“Three hundred and seventeen pounds five pence and seven farthings!” repeated Louis XI.
The piteous voice which issued from the cage had chilled the blood of all present, even that of Master Olivier himself. The king alone appeared as if he had not heard it. At his command Master Olivier resumed his reading, and his Majesty calmly continued his inspection of the cage.
“Moreover, there has been paid to a mason who made the holes to receive the window-bars, and the floor of the room in which the cage stands, forasmuch as the floor could not have borne this cage by reason of its weight, twenty-seven pounds and fourteen Paris pence—”
The voice again began its moan:—
“Mercy, Sire! I swear that it was my lord Cardinal of Angers, and not I, who plotted the treason.”
“The mason charges well!” said the king. “Go on, Olivier!”
Olivier continued:—
“To a joiner, for window-frames, bedstead, close stool, and other items, twenty pounds two Paris pence—”
The voice continued likewise:—
“Alas! Sire! will you not hear me? I protest that it was not I who wrote that thing to my lord of Guyenne, but his highness Cardinal Balue!”