Observing the outline of the houses occupied respectively by Maitre

Cornelius and by the Comte de Poitiers, it was easy to believe that
the same architect had built them both and destined them for the use

of tyrants. Each was sinister in aspect, resembling a small fortress,
and both could be well defended against an angry populace. Their

corners were upheld by towers like those which lovers of antiquities
remark in towns where the hammer of the iconoclast has not yet

prevailed. The bays, which had little depth, gave a great power of
resistance to the iron shutters of the windows and doors. The riots

and the civil wars so frequent in those tumultuous times were ample
justification for these precautions.

As six o'clock was striking from the great tower of the Abbey Saint-
Martin, the lover of the haplesscountess passed in front of the hotel

de Poitiers and paused for a moment to listen to the sounds made in
the lower hall by the servants of the count, who were supping. Casting

a glance at the window of the room where he supposed his love to be,
he continued his way to the adjoining house. All along his way, the

young man had heard the joyousuproar of many feasts given throughout
the town in honor of the day. The ill-joined shutters sent out streaks

of light, the chimneys smoked, and the comforting odor of roasted
meats pervaded the town. After the conclusion of the church services,

the inhabitants were regaling themselves, with murmurs of satisfaction
which fancy can picture better than words can paint. But at this

particular spot a deep silence reigned, because in these two houses
lived two passions which never rejoiced. Beyond them stretched the

silent country. Beneath the shadow of the steeples of Saint-Martin,
these two mute dwellings, separated from the others in the same street

and standing at the crooked end of it, seemed afflicted with leprosy.
The building opposite to them, the home of the criminals of the State,

was also under a ban. A young man would be readily impressed by this
sudden contrast. About to fling himself into an enterprise that was

horribly hazardous, it is no wonder that the daring young seigneur
stopped short before the house of the silversmith, and called to mind

the many tales furnished by the life of Maitre Cornelius,--tales which
caused such singularhorror to the countess. At this period a man of

war, and even a lover, trembled at the mere word "magic." Few indeed
were the minds and the imaginations which disbelieved in occult facts

and tales of the marvellous. The lover of the Comtesse de Saint-
Vallier, one of the daughters whom Louis XI. had in Dauphine by Madame

de Sassenage, however bold he might be in other respects, was likely
to think twice before he finally entered the house of a so-called

sorcerer.
The history of Maitre Cornelius Hoogworst will fully explain the

security which the silversmith inspired in the Comte de Saint-Vallier,
the terror of the countess, and the hesitation that now took

possession of the lover. But, in order to make the readers of this
nineteenth century understand how such commonplace events could be

turned into anything supernatural, and to make them share the alarms
of that olden time, it is necessary to interrupt the course of this

narrative and cast a rapid glance on the preceding life and adventures
of Maitre Cornelius.

CHAPTER II
THE TORCONNIER

Cornelius Hoogworst, one of the richest merchants in Ghent, having
drawn upon himself the enmity of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, found

refuge and protection at the court of Louis XI. The king was conscious
of the advantages he could gain from a man connected with all the

principal commercial houses of Flanders, Venice, and the Levant; he
naturalized, ennobled, and flattered Maitre Cornelius; all of which

was rarely done by Louis XI. The monarch pleased the Fleming as much
as the Fleming pleased the monarch. Wily, distrustful, and miserly;

equallypolitic, equallylearned; superior, both of them, to their
epoch; understanding each other marvellously; they discarded and

resumed with equal facility, the one his conscience, the other his
religion; they loved the same Virgin, one by conviction, the other by

policy; in short, if we may believe the jealous tales of Olivier de
Daim and Tristan, the king went to the house of the Fleming for those

diversions with which King Louis XI. diverted himself. History has
taken care to transmit to our knowledge the licentious tastes of a

monarch who was not averse to debauchery. The old Fleming found, no
doubt, both pleasure and profit in lending himself to the capricious

pleasures of his royal client.
Cornelius had now lived nine years in the city of Tours. During those

years extraordinary events had happened in his house, which had made
him the object of general execration. On his first arrival, he had

spent considerable sums in order to put the treasures he brought with
him in safety. The strange inventions made for him secretly by the

locksmiths of the town, the curious precautions taken in bringing
those locksmiths to his house in a way to compel their silence, were

long the subject of countless tales which enlivened the evening
gatherings of the city. These singular artifices on the part of the

old man made every one suppose him the possessor of Oriental riches.
Consequently the NARRATORS of that region--the home of the tale in

France--built rooms full of gold and precious tones in the Fleming's
house, not omitting to attribute all this fabulouswealth to compacts

with Magic.
Maitre Cornelius had brought with him from Ghent two Flemish valets,

an old woman, and a young apprentice; the latter, a youth with a
gentle, pleasing face, served him as secretary, cashier, factotum, and

courier. During the first year of his settlement in Tours, a robbery
of considerableamount took place in his house, and judicial inquiry

showed that the crime must have been committed by one of its inmates.
The old miser had his two valets and the secretary put in prison. The

young man was feeble and he died under the sufferings of the
"question" protesting his innocence. The valets confessed the crime to

escape torture; but when the judge required them to say where the
stolen property could be found, they kept silence, were again put to

the torture, judged, condemned, and hanged. On their way to the
scaffold they declared themselves innocent, according to the custom

of all persons about to be executed.
The city of Tours talked much of this singular affair; but the

criminals were Flemish, and the interest felt in their unhappy fate
soon evaporated. In those days wars and seditions furnished endless

excitements, and the drama of each day eclipsed that of the night
before. More grieved by the loss he had met with than by the death of

his three servants, Maitre Cornelius lived alone in his house with the
old Flemish woman, his sister. He obtained permission from the king to

use state couriers for his private affairs, sold his mules to a
muleteer of the neighborhood, and lived from that moment in the

deepest solitude, seeing no one but the king, doing his business by
means of Jews, who, shrewd calculators, served him well in order to

gain his all-powerful protection.
Some time after this affair, the king himself procured for his old

"torconnier" a young orphan in whom he took an interest. Louis XI.
called Maitre Cornelius familiarly by that obsolete term, which, under

the reign of Saint-Louis, meant a usurer, a collector of imposts, a
man who pressed others by violent means. The epithet, "tortionnaire,"

which remains to this day in our legal phraseology, explains the old
word torconnier, which we often find spelt "tortionneur." The poor

young orphandevoted himself carefully to the affairs of the old
Fleming, pleased him much, and was soon high in his good graces.

During a winter's night, certain diamonds deposited with Maitre
Cornelius by the King of England as security for a sum of a hundred

thousand crowns were stolen, and suspicion, of course, fell on the
orphan. Louis XI. was all the more severe because he had answered for

the youth's fidelity. After a very brief and summaryexamination by
the grand provost, the unfortunate secretary was hanged. After that no

one dared for a long time to learn the arts of banking and exchange
from Maitre Cornelius.

In course of time, however, two young men of the town, Touraineans,--
men of honor, and eager to make their fortunes,--took service with the

silversmith. Robberies coincided with the admission of the two young
men into the house. The circumstances of these crimes, the manner in

which they were perpetrated, showed plainly that the robbers had
secret communication with its inmates. Become by this time more than

ever suspicious and vindictive, the old Fleming laid the matter before
Louis XI., who placed it in the hands of his grand provost. A trial

was promptly had and promptly ended. The inhabitants of Tours blamed
Tristan l'Hermite secretly for unseemly haste. Guilty or not guilty,

the young Touraineans were looked upon as victims, and Cornelius as an
executioner. The two families thus thrown into mourning were much