The Lady and the Unicorn Cassette

Nicolas des Innocents

The messenger said I was to come at once. That’s how Jean Le Viste is—he expects everyone to do what he says immediately.

And I did. I followed the messenger, stopping just briefly to clean my brushes. Commissions from Jean Le Viste can mean food on the table for weeks. Only the King says no to Jean Le Viste, and I am certainly no king.

On the other hand, how many times have I rushed across the Seine to the rue du Four, only to come back again with no commission? It’s not that Jean Le Viste is a fickle man—on the contrary, he is as sober and hard as his beloved Louis XI once was. Humorless too. I never jest with him. It’s a relief to escape his house to the nearest tavern for a drink and a laugh and a grope to restore my spirits.

He knows what he wants. But sometimes when I come to discuss yet another coat of arms to decorate the chimney, or to paint on his wife’s carriage door, or to work into a bit of stained glass for the chapel— people say the Le Viste arms are as common as horse dung—he’ll stop suddenly, shake his head, and say with a frown, “This is not needed. I should not be thinking about such commonplace matters. Go.” And I do, feeling guilty, as if I am to blame for bringing a carriage’s decoration to his attention, when it was he who called for me.

I’d been to the rue du Four house half a dozen times before. It is not a place that impresses. Even with all the fields around it, it is built as if it were in the middle of the city, with the rooms long and narrow, the walls too dark, the stables too close—the house always smells of horses. It is the sort of house a family that has bought its way into the Court would live in—grand enough but poorly placed. Jean Le Viste probably thinks he has done well to be given such a place to live, while the Court laughs behind his back. He should be living close to the King and Notre Dame, not outside the city walls in the swampy fields around Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

When I arrived the steward took me not to Jean Le Viste’s private chamber, a map-lined room where he performs duties for Court and King alongside family matters, but to the Grande Salle, where the Le Vistes receive visitors and entertain. I had never been there. It was a long room with a large hearth at the opposite end from the door and an oak table down the center. Apart from a stone coat of arms that hung on the chimney breast and another painted over the door, it was unadorned—though the ceiling was paneled with handsome carved wood.

Not so grand, I thought as I looked around. Although shutters were open, the fire hadn’t been lit and the room was chilly with its bare walls.

“Wait here for my master,” the steward said, glaring at me. In this house people either respected artists or showed their contempt.

I turned my back on him and gazed out of a narrow window where there was a clear view of the towers of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Some say Jean Le Viste took this house so that his pious wife could step across to the church easily and often.

The door opened behind me and I turned, prepared to bow. It was only a servant girl, who smirked as she caught me half-bent. I straightened and watched as she moved across the room, banging a pail against her leg. She knelt and began to clear the fireplace of ashes.

Was she the one? I tried to remember—it had been dark that night behind the stables. She was fatter than I recalled, and sullen with her heavy brow, but her face was sweet enough. It was worth a word.

“Stay a moment,” I said when she had pulled herself up clumsily and made her way to the door. “Sit and rest your feet. I’ll tell you a story.”

The girl stopped with a jolt. “You mean the story of the unicorn?”

She was the one. I opened my mouth to answer, but the girl jumped in before me. “Does the story go on to say that the woman grows big with child and may lose her place? Is that what happens?”

So that was why she was fat. I turned back to the window. “You should have taken more care.”

“I shouldn’t have listened to you, is what I should have done. I should have shoved your tongue right up your arse.”

“Out you go now, there’s a good girl. Here.” I dug into my pocket, pulled out a few coins, and threw them onto the table. “To help with the baby.”

The girl stepped across the room and spat in my face. By the time I’d wiped the spittle from my eyes she was gone. So were the coins.

Jean Le Viste came in soon after, followed by Léon Le Vieux. Most patrons use a merchant like Léon to act as middleman, haggling over terms, drawing up the contract, providing initial money and materials, making sure the work gets done. I’d already had dealings with the old merchant over coats of arms painted for a chimney breast, an Annunciation for the chamber of Jean Le Viste’s wife, and some stained glass for the chapel in their château near Lyons.

Léon is much favored by the Le Vistes. I have respect for him but I cannot like him. He is from a family that were once Jews. He makes no secret of it, but has used it to his advantage, for Jean Le Viste is also from a family much changed over time. That is why he prefers Léon—they are both outsiders who have made their way in. Of course Léon is careful to attend mass two or three times a week at Notre Dame, where many will see him, just as Jean Le Viste takes care to act the true noble, commissioning works for his house, entertaining lavishly, bowing and scraping to his King.

Léon was looking at me, smiling through his beard as if he had spotted a monkey on my back. I turned to Jean Le Viste. “Bonjour, Monseigneur. You wished to see me.” I bowed so low my head throbbed. It never hurt to bow low.

Jean Le Viste’s jaw is like a hatchet, his eyes like knife blades. They flicked around the room now, then rested on the window over my shoulder. “I want to discuss a commission with you, Nicolas des Innocents,” he said, pulling at the sleeves of his robe, which was trimmed with rabbit fur and dyed the deep red lawyers wear. “For this room.”

I glanced around the room, keeping my face clear of thoughts. It was best to be so with Jean Le Viste. “What did you have in mind, Monseigneur?”

“Tapestries.”

I noted the plural. “Perhaps a set of your coat of arms to hang either side of the door?”

Jean Le Viste grimaced. I wished I hadn’t spoken.

“I want tapestries to cover all of the walls.”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

I looked around the room once again, more carefully this time. The Grande Salle was at least ten paces long and five wide. Its walls were very thick, the local stone rough and gray. Three windows were cut into one of the long walls, and the hearth took up half of one of the end walls. Tapestries to line the room could take a weaver several years.

“What would you have as the subject, Monseigneur?” I had designed one tapestry for Jean Le Viste—a coat of arms, of course. It had been simple enough, scaling up the coat of arms to tapestry size and designing a bit of background greenery around it.

Jean Le Viste folded his arms over his chest. “Last year I was made president of the Cour des Aides.”

The position meant nothing to me but I knew what I should say. “Yes, Monseigneur. That is a great honor to you and your family.”

Léon rolled his eyes to the carved ceiling, while Jean Le Viste waved his hand as if he were ridding the room of smoke. Everything I said seemed to annoy him.

“I want to celebrate the achievement with a set of tapestries. I’ve been saving this room for a special occasion.”

This time I waited.

“Of course it is essential that the family coat of arms be displayed.”

“Of course, Monseigneur.”

Then Jean Le Viste surprised me. “But not on its own. There are already many examples of the coat of arms alone, here as well as in the rest of the house.” He gestured at the arms over the door and hearth, and to some carved in the ceiling beams that I hadn’t noticed before. “No, I want it to be part of a larger scene, to reflect my place at the heart of the Court.”

“A procession, perhaps?”

“A battle.”

“A battle?”

“Yes. The Battle of Nancy.”

I kept my face thoughtful. I even smiled a little. But in truth I knew little of battles, and nothing of this one at Nancy, of who had been there, who had been killed, and who had won. I’d seen paintings of battles but never done one myself. Horses, I thought. I would need to paint at least twenty horses to cover these walls, tangled with men’s arms and legs and armor. I wondered then what had made Jean Le Viste—or Léon, more likely—choose me for this work. My reputation at the Court is as a miniaturist, painter of tiny portraits of ladies that they give men to carry. Praised for their delicacy, the miniatures are much in demand. I paint shields and ladies’ carriage doors for drink money, but my true skill is in making a face the size of my thumb, using a few boar bristles and color mixed with egg white. It needs a steady hand, and that I have, even after a long night of drinking at Le Coq d’Or. But the thought of painting twenty huge horses—I began to sweat, though the room was chilly.

“You are sure that you want the Battle of Nancy, Monseigneur,” I said. It was not quite a question.

Jean Le Viste frowned. “Why would I not be sure?”

“No reason, Monseigneur,” I answered quickly. “But they will be important works and you must be sure you have chosen what you want.” I cursed myself for my clumsy words.

Jean Le Viste snorted. “I always know what I want. I wonder at you, though—you don’t seem so keen on this work. Perhaps I should find another artist who is happier to do it.”

I bowed low again. “Oh no, Monseigneur, of course I am most honored and grateful to be asked to design such a glorious work. I am sure I am not worthy of your kindness in thinking of me. You may have no fear that I’ll put my heart and blood into these tapestries.”

Jean Le Viste nodded, as if such groveling were his due. “I’ll leave you here with Léon to discuss details and to measure the walls,” he said as he turned to go. “I will expect to see preliminary drawings just before Easter—by Maundy Thursday, with paintings by the Ascension.”

When we were alone Léon Le Vieux chuckled. “What a fool you are.”

With Léon it’s best to come straight to the point and ignore his gibes. “My fee is ten livres tournois— four now, three when I finish the drawings, and three when the paintings are done.”

“Four livres parisis,” he responded quickly. “Half when you finish the drawings, the rest when you deliver the paintings and they’re to Monseigneur’s satisfaction.”

“Absolutely not. I can’t work with no pay at the start. And my terms are in livres tournois.” It was just like Léon to try to confuse me by using Paris livres.

Léon shrugged, his eyes merry. “We are in Paris, n’est-ce pas? Shouldn’t we use livres parisis? That is what I prefer.”

“Eight livres tournois, with three now, then three and two.”

“Seven. I will give you two tomorrow, then two and three at the end.”

I changed the subject—it is always best to let the merchant wait a little. “Where will the tapestries be made?”

“North. Probably Brussels. They do the best work there.”

North? I shuddered. I once had business in Tournai and hated the flat light and suspicious people so much I vowed never to go north of Paris again. At least I wouldn’t have to do more than paint designs, and that I could do in Paris. Once they were done I would have no more to do with the making of the tapestries.

“So, what do you know about the battle at Nancy?” Léon asked.

I shrugged. “What does it matter? All battles are the same, non?”

“That’s like saying that all women are the same.”

I smiled. “I repeat—all battles are the same.”

Léon shook his head. “I pity your wife one day. Now tell me, what will you have in your tapestries?”

“Horses, men in armor, standards, pikes, swords, shields, blood.”

“What will Louis XI be wearing?”

“Armor, of course. Perhaps a special plume in his helmet. I don’t know, in truth, but I know people who can tell me that sort of thing. Someone will carry the royal standard, I expect.”

“I hope your friends are cleverer than you and will tell you that Louis XI was not at the Battle of Nancy.”

“Oh.” This was Léon Le Vieux’s way—to make a fool of all around him, excepting his patron. You did not make a fool of Jean Le Viste.

“Bon.” Léon took out some papers from his pocket and laid them on the table. “I’ve already discussed the contents of the tapestries with Monseigneur and done some measuring. You’ll need to do them more precisely, of course. Here.” He pointed to six rectangles he had roughly sketched. “There’s space for two long ones here and here, and four smaller. Here is the sequence of the battle.” He explained the battle carefully, suggesting scenes for each of the tapestries—the grouping of the two camps, the initial strike, two scenes of battle chaos, then the death of Charles the Bold, and the triumphant procession of the victors. Though I listened and made sketches of my own on the paper, part of me stood apart and wondered at what I was agreeing to do. There would be no women in these tapestries, nothing miniature and delicate, nothing that would be easy for me to paint. I would earn my fee with sweat and long hours.

“Once you’ve made the paintings,” Léon reminded me, “your work is done. I’ll take them north to the weaver, and his cartoonist will enlarge them to use for the weaving.”

I should have been pleased that I wouldn’t have to paint the horses large. Instead, however, I became protective of my work. “How do I know that this cartoonist is a proper artist? I don’t want him making a mess of my designs.”

“He won’t change what Jean Le Viste has decided on—only changes that will help the design and making of the tapestries. You haven’t done many tapestries, have you, Nicolas? Only a coat of arms, I believe.”

“Which I scaled up myself—I had no need of a cartoonist. Surely I’m capable of doing so on this commission.”

“These tapestries are a very different matter from a coat of arms. They will need a proper cartoonist. Tiens, there’s one thing I forgot to mention. You’ll need to be sure there are Le Viste coats of arms throughout the tapestries. Monseigneur will insist on that.”

“Did Monseigneur actually fight there?”

Léon laughed. “Undoubtedly Jean Le Viste was on the other side of France during the Battle of Nancy, working for the King. That doesn’t matter—just put his coat of arms on flags and shields that others carry. You may want to see some pictures of that battle and others. Go to Gérard the printer on the rue Vieille du Temple—he has a book he can show you of engravings of the Battle of Nancy. I’ll tell him to expect you. Now, I’ll leave you to your measurements. If you have problems, come and see me. And bring the drawings to me by Palm Sunday—if I want changes you’ll need enough time to get them done before Monseigneur sees them.”

Clearly Léon Le Vieux was Jean Le Viste’s eyes. I had to please him, and if he liked what he saw, Jean Le Viste would too.

I couldn’t resist a last question. “Why did you choose me for this commission?”

Léon gathered hi...