The Royal Succession Read Free Page B

seems to me that he has not really departed. You must understand that it's here that we had ...'
    But Monseigneur of Valois could not understand the claims of memory or the imaginings of sorrow.
    `Your husband, for whom we pray, my dear niece, belongs henceforth to the kingdom's past. But you carry its future. By exposing your life, you expose that of your child. Louis, who sees you from on high, would never forgive you.'
    The shot went home, and Clemence sank back in her chair without another word.
    But Bouville declared that he could decide nothing without the agreement of the Sire de Joinville, and sent someone to look for him. They waited several minutes. Then the door opened, - and they waited again. At last, dressed in a long robe such as had been worn at the time of the Crusade, trembling in every limb, his skin mottled and like the bark of a tree, his eyes with their faded irises watering, Saint Louis' last companion-at-arms entered, dragging his feet, supported by his equerries, who tottered almost as much as he did. He was given a seat with all the respect to which he was entitled, and Valois began to explain his intentions about the Queen. The old man listened, solemnly nodding his head, obviously delighted still to have some part to play. When Valois had finished, the Seneschal fell into a meditation they were careful not to disturb; they waited for the oracle to speak. Suddenly he asked: `But where is the King then?'
    Valois looked crestfallen. So much useless trouble, and when time pressed! Did the Seneschal still understand what was said to him?
    `But the King is dead, Messire de Joinville,' he replied, `And we buried him this morning. degYou know that you have been appointed Curator.'
    The Seneschal frowned and seemed to be making a great effort to recollect. Indeed, failure of memory was no new thing with him; when he was nearly eighty and dictating his famous Memoirs, he had not realized that towards the end of the second part he was repeating almost word for word what he had already, said in the first.
    `Yes, our young Sire Louis,' he said at last. `He is dead. It was to himself that I presented my great book. Do you know that this is the fourth king I have seen die?'
    He announced this as if it were an exploit in itself.
    `Then, if the King is dead, the Queen is Regent,' he declared.
    Monseigneur of Valois turned purple in the face. He had had appointed as curators a senile idiot and a mediocrity, believing he could manage them as he wished; but he was hoist with his own petard, for it was they who were creating his worst difficulties.
    `The Queen is not Regent, Messire Seneschal; she is pregnant,' he cried. 'She cannot in any circumstances be Regent until it is known whether she will give birth to a king! Look at her condition, see if she is in a fit state to carry out the duties of the kingdom!'
    `You know that I see very little,' replied the old man.
    With her hand to her forehead, Clemence merely thought: `When will they stop? When will they leave me in peace?'
    Joinville began explaining in what circumstances, after the death of King Louis VIII, Queen Blanche of Castille had assumed the Regency, to the satisfaction of all.
    `Madame Blanche of Castille, and this was only whispered, was not as pure as the image that has been created of her. It appears that Count Thibaut of Champagne, who was a good friend of Messire my father's, served her even in her bed...'
    They had to let him talk. Though the Seneschal easily forgot what had happened the day before, he had a precise memory for the things he had been told as a small child. He had found an audience and was making the most of it. His hands, shaking with a senile trembling, clawed unceasingly at the silk of his robe over his knees.
    `And even when our sainted King left for the Crusade, where I was with him. ..'
    `The Queen resided in Paris during that time, did she not? interjected Charles of Valois.
    `Yes, yes. .: said the Seneschal.
    Clemence was the