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 orphan devoted 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 summary examination 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 respected; their complaints obtained a hearing, and little by little it came to be believed that all the victims whom the king’s silversmith had sent to the scaffold were innocent.  Some persons declared that the cruel miser imitated the king, and sought to put terror and gibbets between himself and his fellow-men; others said that he had never been robbed at all,—­that these melancholy executions were the result of cool calculations, and that their real object was to relieve him of all fear for his treasure.