or 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.

The first effect of these rumors was to isolate Maitre Cornelius. The
Touraineans treated him like a leper, called him the "tortionnaire," and
named his house Malemaison. If the Fleming had found strangers to the
town bold enough to enter it, the inhabitants would have warned them
against doing so. The most favorable opinion of Maitre Cornelius was
that of persons who thought him merely baneful. Some he inspired with
instinctive terror; others he impressed with the deep respect that most
men feel for limitless power and money, while to a few he certainly
possessed the attraction of mystery. His way of life, his countenance,
and the favor of the king, justified all the tales of which he had now
become the subject.

Cornelius travelled much in foreign lands after the death of his
persecutor, the Duke of Burgundy; and during his absence the king caused
his premises to be guarded by a detachment of his own Scottish guard.
Such royal solicitude made the courtiers believe that the old miser had
bequeathed his property to Louis XI. When at home, the torconnier went
out but little; but the lords of the court paid him frequent visits.
He lent them money rather liberally, though capricious in his manner of
doing so. On certain days he refused to give them a penny; the next day
he would offer them large sums,--always at high interest and on good
security. A good Catholic, he went regularly to the services, always
attending the earliest mass at Saint-Martin; and as he had purchased
there, as elsewhere, a chapel in perpetuity, he was separated even
in church from other Christians. A popular proverb of that day, long
remembered in Tours, was the saying: "You passed in front of the
Fleming; ill-luck will happen to you." Passing in front of the Fleming
e