As he grew older, Cornelius, constantly robbed, and always fearful of being duped by men, came to hate mankind, with the one exception of the king, whom he greatly respected. He fell into extreme misanthropy, but, like most misers, his passion for gold, the assimilation, as it were, of that metal with his own substance, became closer and closer, and age intensified it. His sister herself excited his suspicions, though she was perhaps more miserly, more rapacious than her brother whom she actually surpassed in penurious inventions. Their daily existence had something mysterious and problematical about it. The old woman rarely took bread from the baker; she appeared so seldom in the market, that the least credulous of the townspeople ended by attributing to these strange beings the knowledge of some secret for the maintenance of life. Those who dabbled in alchemy declared that Maitre Cornelius had the power of making gold. Men of science averred that he had found the Universal Panacea. According to many of the country-people to whom the townsfolk talked of him, Cornelius was a chimerical being, and many of them came into the town to look at his house out of mere curiosity.
The young seigneur whom we left in front of that house looked about him, first at the hotel de Poitiers, the home of his mistress, and then at the evil house. The moonbeams were creeping round their angles, and tinting with a mixture of light and shade the hollows and reliefs of the carvings. The caprices of this white light gave a sinister expression to both edifices; it seemed as if Nature herself encouraged the superstitions that hung about the miser's dwelling. The young man called to mind the many traditions which made Cornelius a personage both curious and formidable. Though quite decided through the violence of his love to enter that house, and stay there long enough to accomplish his design, he hesitated to take the final step, all the while aware that he should certainly take it. But where is the man who, in a crisis of his life, does not willingly listen to presentiments as he hangs above the precipice? A lover worthy of being loved, the young man feared to die before he had been received for love's sake by the countess.
This mental deliberation was so painfully interesting that he did not feel the cold wind as it whistled round the corner of the building, and chilled his legs. On entering that house, he must lay aside his name, as already he had laid aside the handsome garments of nobility.
In case of mishap, he could not claim the privileges of his rank nor the protection of his friends without bringing hopeless ruin on the Comtesse de Saint-Vallier. If her husband suspected the nocturnal visit of a lover, he was capable of roasting her alive in an iron cage, or of killing her by degrees in the dungeons of a fortified castle. Looking down at the shabby clothing in which he had disguised himself, the young nobleman felt ashamed. His black leather belt, his stout shoes, his ribbed socks, his linsey-woolsey breeches, and his gray woollen doublet made him look like the clerk of some poverty- stricken justice. To a noble of the fifteenth century it was like death itself to play the part of a beggarly burgher, and renounce the privileges of his rank. But--to climb the roof of the house where his mistress wept; to descend the chimney, or creep along from gutter to gutter to the window of her room; to risk his life to kneel beside her on a silken cushion before a glowing fire, during the sleep of a dangerous husband, whose snores would double their joy; to defy both heaven and earth in snatching the boldest of all kisses; to say no word that would not lead to death or at least to sanguinary combat if overheard,--all these voluptuous images and romantic dangers decided the young man. However slight might be the guerdon of his enterprise, could he only kiss once more the hand of his lady, he still resolved to venture all, impelled by the chivalrous and passionate spirit of those days. He never supposed for a moment that the countess would refuse him the soft happiness of love in the midst of such mortal danger. The adventure was too perilous, too impossible not to be attempted and carried out.
Suddenly all the bells in the town rang out the curfew,--a custom fallen elsewhere into desuetude, but still observed in the provinces, where venerable habits are abolished slowly. Though the lights were not put out, the watchmen of each quarter stretched the chains across the streets. Many doors were locked; the steps of a few belated burghers, attended by their servants, armed to the teeth and bearing lanterns, echoed in the distance. Soon the town, garroted as it were, seemed to be asleep, and safe from robbers and evil-doers, except through the roofs. In those days the roofs of houses were much frequented after dark. The streets were so narrow in the provincial towns, and even in Paris, that robbers could jump from the roofs on one side to those on the other. This perilous occupation was long the amusement of King Charles IX. in his youth, if we may believe the memoirs of his day.
