‘Ah, my dear ladies,’ he cried, ‘what a pity to blow one’s nose in one’s fingers or upon one’s sleeve, when such pretty handkerchiefs as these have been invented for the purpose? Are not such elegant things precisely made for your ladyships’ noses?’
A little farther on, an old gentleman was being pressed to buy a wench some English lace.
Philip the Fair crossed the Hall. The courtiers bowed to the ground. The women curtsied as he passed. Without seeming to do so, the King liked the liveliness of the scene, the laughter, as well as the marks of respect which gave him assurance of his power. Here, because of the tumult of voices, the great bell of Notre-Dame seemed distant, lighter in tone, more benign.
The King caught sight of a group whose youth and magnificence were the cynosure of every eye: it consisted of two quite young women and a tall, fair, good-looking young man. The young women were two of the King’s daughters-in-law, those known as the ‘sisters of Burgundy’, Jeanne, the Countess of Poitiers, married to the King’s second son, and Blanche, her younger sister, married to the youngest son. The young man with them was dressed like an officer of a princely household.
They were whispering together with restrained excitement. Philip the Fair slowed his pace the better to observe his daughters-in-law.
‘My sons have no reason to complain of me,’ thought Philip the Fair. ‘As well as making alliances useful to the Crown, I gave them very pretty wives.’
The two sisters were very little alike. Jeanne, the elder, the wife of Philippe of Poitiers, was twenty-one years old. She was tall and slender, her hair somewhere between blond and chestnut, and something in the way she held herself, something formal about the line of the neck and the slant of the eye, reminded the King of the fine greyhounds in his kennels. She dressed with a simplicity and sobriety that was almost an affectation. This particular day she was wearing a long dress of grey velvet with tight sleeves; over it she wore a surcoat edged with ermine, reaching to the waist.
Her sister Blanche was smaller, rounder, rosier, with greater spontaneity. Though she was only three years younger than Jeanne, she still had childish dimples in her cheeks and, doubtless, they would remain there for some time yet. Her hair was of a bright blond and her eyes, and this is rare, were of a clear and brilliant brown; she had small transluscent teeth. Dress was more to her than a game, it was a passion. She devoted herself to it with an extravagance that was not always in the best of taste. She wore enormous pleated coifs and hung as many jewels as she could upon her collar, sleeves and belt. Her dresses were embroidered with pearls and gold thread. But she was so graceful that everything could be forgiven her, and appeared so pleased with herself that it was a pleasure to see.
The little group was talking of a matter of five days. ‘Is it reasonable to be so concerned about a mere five days?’ said the Countess of Poitiers, at the moment the King emerged from behind a pillar masking his approach.
‘Good morning, my daughters,’ he said.
The three young people fell suddenly silent. The good-looking boy bowed low and moved a pace or two aside with his eyes upon the ground as befitted his rank. The two young women, having made their curtsies, became tongue-tied, blushing and a little embarrassed. They looked as if they had been caught out.
‘Well, my daughters,’ the King went on, ‘one might well think that I had arrived at an inappropriate moment? What were you saying to each other?’
He was not surprised at his reception. He was accustomed to the fact that everyone, even his greatest friends, even his closest relations, were intimidated by his presence. He was often surprised by the wall of ice that fell between him and everyone who came near him – all, that is, except Marigny and Nogaret – and he found it difficult to explain away the terror that seized strangers whom he happened to meet. Indeed, he believed he did everything possible to appear pleasant and amiable. He wanted to be loved and feared at the same time. And it was asking too much.
Blanche was the first to recover her assurance.
‘You must forgive us, Sire,’ she said, ‘but it is not an easy thing to repeat!’
‘Why not?’ asked Philip the Fair.
‘Because … we were saying unkind things about you,’ Blanche replied.
‘Really?’ said Philip, uncertain whether she was teasing, astonished that anyone should dare tease him.
He glanced at the young man, standing a little apart, who seemed very ill at ease. Jerking his chin towards him, he said, ‘Who is he?’
‘Messire Philippe d’Aunay, equerry to our uncle Valois who has lent him to me as escort,’ replied the Countess of Poitiers.
The young man bowed once again.
For an instant the idea crossed the King’s mind that his sons were wrong to permit their wives to go abroad accompanied by such good-looking equerries, and that the old-fashioned custom, which insisted that princesses should be accompanied by ladies-in-waiting, had undoubtedly a good deal of sense to it.
‘Haven’t you a brother?’ he asked the equerry.
‘Yes, Sire, my brother is in the service of Monseigneur of Poitiers,’ answered young Aunay, bearing the King’s gaze with some discomfort.
‘That’s it; I always confuse you,’ said the King.
Then, turning back to Blanche, he said, ‘Well, then, what unkind things were you saying of me, my girl?’
‘Jeanne and I are in complete agreement that we owe you a grudge, Father. For five consecutive nights we have not had our husbands at our service because you keep them in council or send them far away on affairs of state.’
‘My dear daughters, these are not matters to be spoken of out loud,’ said the King.
He was a prude by nature, and it was said had remained chaste for all the nine years that he had been a widower. But he could not be severe with Blanche. Her liveliness, her gaiety, her daring, to say the least, disarmed him. He was at once amused and shocked. He smiled, which was a thing that hardly happened to him once a month.
‘And what does the third one say?’ he added.
By the third one, he meant Marguerite of Burgundy, the cousin of Jeanne and Blanche, who was married to his eldest son, Louis, King of Navarre.
‘Marguerite?’ cried Blanche. ‘She’s shut herself up, she’s sulking, and she says that you’re as wicked as you’re good-looking.’
Once more the King found himself in uncertainty; wondering how he should interpret the last phrase. But Blanche’s expression was so limpid, so candid! She was the only person who dared tease him, the only person who did not tremble in his presence.
‘Well, you can reassure her, and reassure yourself, Blanche; Louis and Charles can keep you company tonight. Today is a good day for the kingdom,’ said Philip the Fair. ‘There will be no Council tonight. As for your husband, Jeanne, I can tell you that he’ll be home tomorrow and that he has forwarded our affairs in Flanders. I am pleased with him.’
‘Then I shall make him doubly welcome,’ said Jeanne, inclining her beautiful neck.
This conversation was a peculiarly long one for King Philip. He turned quickly away without saying good-bye, and went towards the grand staircase which led to his apartments.
‘Ouf!’ said Blanche, her hand on her heart as she watched him disappear. ‘We were lucky to get away with it that time.’
‘I thought I should faint with terror,’ said Jeanne.
Philippe d’Aunay was blushing to the roots of his hair, not from embarassment as a moment ago, but from anger.
‘Thank you,’ he said drily to Blanche. ‘What you’ve just said made nice hearing.’
‘What