You might fear any one but me."
"Ah, sire!" cried Cornelius, flinging himself at the king's feet, "you

are the only man in the kingdom whom I would trust for such a service;
and I will try to prove my gratitude for your goodness, by doing my

utmost to promote the marriage of the Burgundian heiress with
Monseigneur. She will bring you a noble treasure, not of money, but of

lands, which will round out the glory of your crown."
"There, there, Dutchman, you are trying to hoodwink me," said the

king, with frowning brows, "or else you have already done so."
"Sire! can you doubt my devotion? you, who are the only man I love!"

"All that is talk," returned the king, looking the other in the eyes.
"You need not have waited till this moment to do me that service. You

are selling me your influence--Pasques-Dieu! to me, Louis XI.! Are you
the master, and am I your servant?"

"Ah, sire," said the old man, "I was waiting to surprise you agreeably
with news of the arrangements I had made for you in Ghent; I was

awaitingconfirmation from Oosterlinck through that apprentice. What
has become of that young man?"

"Enough!" said the king; "this is only one more blunder you have
committed. I do not like persons to meddle in my affairs without my

knowledge. Enough! leave me; I wish to reflect upon all this."
Maitre Cornelius found the agility of youth to run downstairs to the

lower rooms where he was certain to find his sister.
"Ah! Jeanne, my dearest soul, a hoard is hidden in this house; I have

put thirteen hundred thousand crowns and all the jewels somewhere. I,
I, I am the robber!"

Jeanne Hoogworst rose from her stool and stood erect as if the seat
she quitted were of red-hot iron. This shock was so violent for an old

maid accustomed for years to reduce herself by voluntary fasts, that
she trembled in every limb, and horrible pains were in her back. She

turned pale by degrees, and her face,--the changes in which were
difficult to decipher among its wrinkles,--became distorted while her

brother explained to her the malady of which he was the victim, and
the extraordinary situation in which he found himself.

"Louis XI. and I," he said in conclusion, "have just been lying to
each other like two pedlers of coconuts. You understand, my girl, that

if he follows me, he will get the secret of the hiding-place. The king
alone can watch my wanderings at night. I don't feel sure that his

conscience, near as he is to death, can resist thirteen hundred
thousand crowns. We MUST be beforehand with him; we must find the

hidden treasure and send it to Ghent, and you alone--"
Cornelius stopped suddenly, and seemed to be weighing the heart of the

sovereign who had had thoughts of parricide at twenty-two years of
age. When his judgment of Louis XI. was concluded, he rose abruptly

like a man in haste to escape a pressing danger. At this instant, his
sister, too feeble or too strong for such a crisis, fell stark; she

was dead. Maitre Cornelius seized her, and shook her violently, crying
out:

"You cannot die now. There is time enough later--Oh! it is all over.
The old hag never could do anything at the right time."

He closed her eyes and laid her on the floor. Then the good and noble
feelings which lay at the bottom of his soul came back to him, and,

half forgetting his hidden treasure, he cried out mournfully:--
"Oh! my poor companion, have I lost you?--you who understood me so

well! Oh! you were my real treasure. There it lies, my treasure! With
you, my peace of mind, my affections, all, are gone. If you had only

known what good it would have done me to live two nights longer, you
would have lived, solely to please me, my poor sister! Ah, Jeanne!

thirteen hundred thousand crowns! Won't that wake you?--No, she is
dead!"

Thereupon, he sat down, and said no more; but two great tears issued
from his eyes and rolled down his hollow cheeks; then, with strange

exclamations of grief, he locked up the room and returned to the king.
Louis XI. was struck with the expression of sorrow on the moistened

features of his old friend.
"What is the matter?" he asked.

"Ah! sire, misfortunes never come singly. My sister is dead. She
precedes me there below," he said, pointing to the floor with a

dreadful gesture.
"Enough!" cried Louis XI., who did not like to hear of death.

"I make you my heir. I care for nothing now. Here are my keys. Hang
me, if that's your good pleasure. Take all, ransack the house; it is

full of gold. I give up all to you--"
"Come, come, crony," replied Louis XI., who was partly touched by the

sight of this strange suffering, "we shall find your treasure some
fine night, and the sight of such riches will give you heart to live.

I will come back in the course of this week--"
"As you please, sire."

At that answer the king, who had made a few steps toward the door of
the chamber, turned round abruptly. The two men looked at each other

with an expression that neither pen nor pencil can reproduce.
"Adieu, my crony," said Louis XI. at last in a curt voice, pushing up

his cap.
"May God and the Virgin keep you in their good graces!" replied the

silversmith humbly, conducting the king to the door of the house.
After so long a friendship, the two men found a barrier raised between

them by suspicion and gold; though they had always been like one man
on the two points of gold and suspicion. But they knew each other so

well, they had so completely the habit, one may say, of each other,
that the king could divine, from the tone in which Cornelius uttered

the words, "As you please, sire," the repugnance that his visits would
henceforth cause to the silversmith, just as the latter recognized a

declaration of war in the "Adieu, my crony," of the king.
Thus Louis XI. and his torconnier parted much in doubt as to the

conduct they ought in future to hold to each other. The monarch
possessed the secret of the Fleming; but on the other hand, the latter

could, by his connections, bring about one of the finest acquisitions
that any king of France had ever made; namely, that of the domains of

the house of Burgundy, which the sovereigns of Europe were then
coveting. The marriage of the celebrated Marguerite depended on the

people of Ghent and the Flemings who surrounded her. The gold and the
influence of Cornelius could powerfully support the negotiations now

begun by Desquerdes, the general to whom Louis XI. had given the
command of the army encamped on the frontiers of Belgium. These two

master-foxes were, therefore, like two duellists, whose arms are
paralyzed by chance.

So, whether it were that from that day the king's health failed and
went from bad to worse, or that Cornelius did assist in bringing into

France Marguerite of Burgundy--who arrived at Ambroise in July, 1438,
to marry the Dauphin to whom she was betrothed in the chapel of the

castle--certain it is that the king took no steps in the matter of the
hidden treasure; he levied no tribute from his silversmith, and the

pair remained in the cautious condition of an armed friendship.
Happily for Cornelius a rumor was spread about Tours that his sister

was the actualrobber, and that she had been secretly put to death by
Tristan. Otherwise, if the true history had been known, the whole town

would have risen as one man to destroy the Malemaison before the king
could have taken measures to protect it.

But, although these historical conjectures have some foundation so far
as the inaction of Louis XI. is concerned, it is not so as regards

Cornelius Hoogworst. There was no inaction there. The silversmith
spent the first days which succeeded that fatal night in ceaseless

occupation. Like carnivorous animals confined in cages, he went and
came, smelling for gold in every corner of his house; he studied the

cracks and crevices, he sounded the walls, he besought the trees of
the garden, the foundations of the house, the roofs of the turrets,

the earth and the heavens, to give him back his treasure. Often he
stood motionless for hours, casting his eyes on all sides, plunging