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
them into the void. Striving for the miracles of ecstasy and the
powers of sorcery, he tried to see his riches through space and
obstacles. He was constantly absorbed in one overwhelming thought,
consumed with a single desire that burned his entrails, gnawed more
cruelly still by the ever-increasing agony of the duel he was fighting
with himself since his passion for gold had turned to his own injury,
--a species of uncompleted suicide which kept him at once in the
miseries of life and in those of death.
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