Escorted by guards, he was led off to the madhouse even as he continued to dispense greetings to his loyal Parisian subjects along the way.

News of the trial reached the court. The king, who had not forgotten his double, asked to be informed of Raoul’s asseverations and, upon learning that this impromptu monarch had managed an excellent imitation of His Royal Majesty, he said: ‘So much the better; since he has the honour of being our very image, let him not dishonour the likeness.’ And he gave word that the poor madman be treated kindly, though he displayed no desire to see him again.

II

The Reflection

For over a month, fever took hold of Raoul’s reason, which was still unruly and occasionally gave his golden illusions a good jolt. Although he remained seated in his chair during the day, mulling over his sorry identity, managing to recognize himself, to understand himself, to seize who in fact he was, at night he was robbed of his real existence by extraordinary dreams which propelled him into an utterly different, utterly absurd and hyperbolic life – somewhat like that Burgundian peasant who was transported into his duke’s palace in the course of sleep and who woke up there, lavished with honours and attentions as if he were the very duke himself. Every night Spifame was the true King Henri II; he held court at the Louvre, he reviewed his troops on horseback, he officiated over councils of state, or presided over sumptuous banquets. Occasionally, he would even remember a certain barrister by the name of seigneur Des Granges, who was very close to his heart. Dawn would never break without this barrister’s having obtained some conspicuous sign of the king’s friendship and esteem: sometimes it would be the ceremonial mortier worn by chief justices, sometimes the seal of the Crown or the ribbon of one of its orders. Spifame was fully convinced that his dreams were his life and that his prison was merely a dream; in the evening he was often heard to explain, ‘We slept poorly this past night; such dreadful dreams!’

Those who have since gathered the details of this singular existence have always been of the opinion that this unfortunate fellow was the victim of one of those magnetic fascinations which science is in a position to understand far better today. Identical in appearance to the king, a reflection of his other self, and confounded by this similarity which everyone agreed was astonishing, Spifame had directed his gaze deep into the monarch’s eyes and thereby suddenly acquired consciousness of a second personality. Having thus assimilated himself by his gaze, he then identified with the king in his mind: from that moment on, he imagined himself to be the very figure who, on the sixteenth of June 1549, had made his triumphal entrance into Paris beneath the gorgeous tapestries bedecking the gate of Saint-Denis, accompanied by such thunderous artillery that all the houses trembled at his passage. Nor was he displeased to have removed from office Messrs Liget, François de Saint-André and Antoine Ménard, chief justices of the Parliament of Paris. It was merely a small debt Henri was repaying to his dear friend Spifame.

It is with considerable interest that we have tried to retrace the various phases of this madness. This material will no doubt prove invaluable to the scientific study of the phenomena of the soul, a study which has been arduously undertaken by philosophers, but which, alas, has so far only managed to gather the effects and consequences of madness, while continuing to speculate vainly as to its causes – which the good Lord continues to conceal from us. Here is a bizarre scene which was related by one of the attendants who worked for the chief doctor of the madhouse. This attendant, who was the recipient of the royal largesses that Spifame eked out of the small sums allocated to him from his sequestered income, took amusement in decorating the cell of his prisoner as best he could. One day he installed an ancient mirror of polished steel – other sorts of mirrors being prohibited in the establishment for fear the patients would hurt themselves by breaking them. Initially, Spifame paid little attention to the object; but towards evening, as he was pacing his room, lost in melancholy thoughts, he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of his face reflected in the mirror. Forced during this brief moment of wakefulness to confront the reality of who he was (which the walls of his prison only confirmed all too clearly), he suddenly thought he saw the king coming in his direction down a distant hall, then stopping to speak with him through a grille as if to commiserate in his grief – at which point he gave the monarch a deep bow. As he drew himself upright again and cast his eyes upon the supposed king, he distinctly noticed the image doing the same, a sure sign that the monarch had also bowed to him, which honoured Spifame no end and caused him considerable joy. He then proceeded to launch into an endless recrimination against the various traitors who had placed him in his present predicament and who had no doubt blackened his name in the eyes of His Majesty. As he protested his innocence and demanded that his enemies be confounded, the poor gentleman burst into tears – which seemed to move the king no end, for a tear glistened as it slipped down his royal nose. At the sight of this, Spifame’s entire face lit up with joy; the king was already smiling most affably; he offered his hand; Spifame reached out his; the impact caused the mirror to fall from the wall and crash to the floor, sending the attendants scurrying into the room.

The following night in the course of his dreams the poor madman gave orders that Spifame be immediately set free, seeing as how he had been wrongfully placed in detention and falsely accused of having wanted to encroach upon the rights and prerogatives of the king, his friend and master. He also issued an edict creating an executive position for the aforesaid Spifame as Director of the Royal Seal, henceforth responsible for putting the affairs of the realm back into order. Several days of fever ensued in the wake of the profound shock that these grave events had produced in his mind. The delirium proved to be so extreme that the doctor grew worried and had the patient transferred to a more spacious establishment, where it was thought that the company of other prisoners might now and then distract him from his habitual meditations.

III

The Court Poet

Spifame’s story perfectly bears out the veracity of the portrait of that character, so well known in Spain, who was mad as far as one aspect of his mind was concerned, but remained quite sane when it came to his other logical faculties.3 Spifame clearly retained a consciousness of himself, unlike those common lunatics who forget themselves altogether and remain forever convinced they are characters of their own invention. Spifame could recognize himself in a mirror or in a dream; he could take stock of himself even as he changed roles or personalities; his being was at once double and distinct, as is often the case when one feels oneself living a dream. Moreover, as we noted above, his adventure with the mirror had been followed by an extremely severe crisis, which had left him in melancholy, pensive spirits. It was decided he might profit from companionship.

They brought to his room a short, balding fellow with green eyes who believed himself to be the King of Poets and whose particular form of madness consisted in tearing up every piece of paper or parchment not written by his own hand, for he considered these to be rival compositions by inferior poets of his age who had usurped him in the good graces of King Henri and his court. It was thought that it might be amusing to bring these two rather original forms of folly together and to see what their encounter might produce. The name of this character was Claude Vignet, and he went by the title of Royal Poet. He was in fact a very gentle individual whose poetry was quite well crafted and probably merited the recognition he imagined it deserved.

Upon entering Spifame’s room, Claude Vignet was dumbstruck: hair standing on end, eyes transfixed, no sooner had he taken a step forward than he fell to his knees.

‘Your Majesty! …’ he exclaimed.

‘Rise, my friend,’ said Spifame, wrapping the free sleeve of his pourpoint around himself.