Chương Chương 1 · THE GRAND HALL.

. THE GRAND HALL.

Three hundred and forty-eight years, six months, and nineteen

days ago to-day, the Parisians awoke to the sound of all the

bells in the triple circuit of the city, the university, and the

town ringing a full peal.

The sixth of January, 1482, is not, however, a day of which

history has preserved the memory. There was nothing notable in

the event which thus set the bells and the _bourgeois_ of Paris

in a ferment from early morning. It was neither an assault by the

Picards nor the Burgundians, nor a hunt led along in procession,

nor a revolt of scholars in the town of Laas, nor an entry of

“our much dread lord, monsieur the king,” nor even a pretty

hanging of male and female thieves by the courts of Paris.

Neither was it the arrival, so frequent in the fifteenth century,

of some plumed and bedizened embassy. It was barely two days

since the last cavalcade of that nature, that of the Flemish

ambassadors charged with concluding the marriage between the

dauphin and Marguerite of Flanders, had made its entry into

Paris, to the great annoyance of M. le Cardinal de Bourbon, who,

for the sake of pleasing the king, had been obliged to assume an

amiable mien towards this whole rustic rabble of Flemish

burgomasters, and to regale them at his Hôtel de Bourbon, with a

very “pretty morality, allegorical satire, and farce,” while a

driving rain drenched the magnificent tapestries at his door.

What put the “whole population of Paris in commotion,” as Jehan

de Troyes expresses it, on the sixth of January, was the double

solemnity, united from time immemorial, of the Epiphany and the

Feast of Fools.

On that day, there was to be a bonfire on the Place de Grève, a

maypole at the Chapelle de Braque, and a mystery at the Palais de

Justice. It had been cried, to the sound of the trumpet, the

preceding evening at all the cross roads, by the provost’s men,

clad in handsome, short, sleeveless coats of violet camelot, with

large white crosses upon their breasts.

So the crowd of citizens, male and female, having closed their

houses and shops, thronged from every direction, at early morn,

towards some one of the three spots designated.

Each had made his choice; one, the bonfire; another, the maypole;

another, the mystery play. It must be stated, in honor of the

good sense of the loungers of Paris, that the greater part of

this crowd directed their steps towards the bonfire, which was

quite in season, or towards the mystery play, which was to be

presented in the grand hall of the Palais de Justice (the courts

of law), which was well roofed and walled; and that the curious

left the poor, scantily flowered maypole to shiver all alone

beneath the sky of January, in the cemetery of the Chapel of

Braque.

The populace thronged the avenues of the law courts in

particular, because they knew that the Flemish ambassadors, who

had arrived two days previously, intended to be present at the

representation of the mystery, and at the election of the Pope of

the Fools, which was also to take place in the grand hall.

It was no easy matter on that day, to force one’s way into that

grand hall, although it was then reputed to be the largest

covered enclosure in the world (it is true that Sauval had not

yet measured the grand hall of the Château of Montargis). The

palace place, encumbered with people, offered to the curious

gazers at the windows the aspect of a sea; into which five or six

streets, like so many mouths of rivers, discharged every moment

fresh floods of heads. The waves of this crowd, augmented

incessantly, dashed against the angles of the houses which

projected here and there, like so many promontories, into the

irregular basin of the place. In the centre of the lofty

Gothic[1] façade of the palace, the grand staircase, incessantly

ascended and descended by a double current, which, after parting

on the intermediate landing-place, flowed in broad waves along

its lateral slopes,—the grand staircase, I say, trickled

incessantly into the place, like a cascade into a lake. The

cries, the laughter, the trampling of those thousands of feet,

produced a great noise and a great clamor. From time to time,

this noise and clamor redoubled; the current which drove the

crowd towards the grand staircase flowed backwards, became

troubled, formed whirlpools. This was produced by the buffet of

an archer, or the horse of one of the provost’s sergeants, which

kicked to restore order; an admirable tradition which the

provostship has bequeathed to the constablery, the constablery to

the _maréchaussée_, the _maréchaussée_ to our _gendarmeri_ of

Paris.

Thousands of good, calm, _bourgeois_ faces thronged the windows,

the doors, the dormer windows, the roofs, gazing at the palace,

gazing at the populace, and asking nothing more; for many

Parisians content themselves with the spectacle of the

spectators, and a wall behind which something is going on becomes

at once, for us, a very curious thing indeed.

If it could be granted to us, the men of 1830, to mingle in

thought with those Parisians of the fifteenth century, and to

enter with them, jostled, elbowed, pulled about, into that

immense hall of the palace, which was so cramped on that sixth of

January, 1482, the spectacle would not be devoid of either

interest or charm, and we should have about us only things that

were so old that they would seem new.

With the reader’s consent, we will endeavor to retrace in

thought, the impression which he would have experienced in

company with us on crossing the threshold of that grand hall, in

the midst of that tumultuous crowd in surcoats, short, sleeveless

jackets, and doublets.

And, first of all, there is a buzzing in the ears, a dazzlement

in the eyes. Above our heads is a double ogive vault, panelled

with wood carving, painted azure, and sown with golden

fleurs-de-lis; beneath our feet a pavement of black and white

marble, alternating. A few paces distant, an enormous pillar,

then another, then another; seven pillars in all, down the length

of the hall, sustaining the spring of the arches of the double

vault, in the centre of its width. Around four of the pillars,

stalls of merchants, all sparkling with glass and tinsel; around

the last three, benches of oak, worn and polished by the trunk

hose of the litigants, and the robes of the attorneys. Around the

hall, along the lofty wall, between the doors, between the

windows, between the pillars, the interminable row of all the

kings of France, from Pharamond down: the lazy kings, with

pendent arms and downcast eyes; the valiant and combative kings,

with heads and arms raised boldly heavenward. Then in the long,

pointed windows, glass of a thousand hues; at the wide entrances

to the hall, rich doors, finely sculptured; and all, the vaults,

pillars, walls, jambs, panelling, doors, statues, covered from

top to bottom with a splendid blue and gold illumination, which,

a trifle tarnished at the epoch when we behold it, had almost

entirely disappeared beneath dust and spiders in the year of

grace, 1549, when du Breul still admired it from tradition.

Let the reader picture to himself now, this immense, oblong hall,

illuminated by the pallid light of a January day, invaded by a

motley and noisy throng which drifts along the walls, and eddies

round the seven pillars, and he will have a confused idea of the

whole effect of the picture, whose curious details we shall make

an effort to indicate with more precision.

It is certain, that if Ravaillac had not assassinated Henri IV.,

there would have been no documents in the trial of Ravaillac

deposited in the clerk’s office of the Palais de Justice, no

accomplices interested in causing the said documents to

disappear; hence, no incendiaries obliged, for lack of better

means, to burn the clerk’s office in order to burn the documents,

and to burn the Palais de Justice in order to burn the clerk’s

office; consequently, in short, no conflagration in 1618. The old

Palais would be standing still, with its ancient grand hall; I

should be able to say to the reader, “Go and look at it,” and we

should thus both escape the necessity,—I of making, and he of

reading, a description of it, such as it is. Which demonstrates a

new truth: that great events have incalculable results.

It is true that it may be quite possible, in the first place,

that Ravaillac had no accomplices; and in the second, that if he

had any, they were in no way connected with the fire of 1618. Two

other very plausible explanations exist: First, the great flaming

star, a foot broad, and a cubit high, which fell from heaven, as

every one knows, upon the law courts, after midnight on the

seventh of March; second, Théophile’s quatrain,—

“Sure, ’twas but a sorry game

When at Paris, Dame Justice,

Through having eaten too much spice,

Set the palace all aflame.”

Whatever may be thought of this triple explanation, political,

physical, and poetical, of the burning of the law courts in 1618,

the unfortunate fact of the fire is certain. Very little to-day

remains, thanks to this catastrophe,—thanks, above all, to the

successive restorations which have completed what it spared,—very

little remains of that first dwelling of the kings of France,—of

that elder palace of the Louvre, already so old in the time of

Philip the Handsome, that they sought there for the traces of the

magnificent buildings erected by King Robert and described by

Helgaldus. Nearly everything has disappeared. What has become of

the chamber of the chancellery, where Saint Louis consummated his

marriage? the garden where he administered justice, “clad in a

coat of camelot, a surcoat of linsey-woolsey, without sleeves,

and a sur-mantle of black sandal, as he lay upon the carpet with

Joinville?” Where is the chamber of the Emperor Sigismond? and

that of Charles IV.? that of Jean the Landless? Where is the

staircase, from which Charles VI. promulgated his edict of

pardon? the slab where Marcel cut the throats of Robert de

Clermont and the Marshal of Champagne, in the presence of the

dauphin? the wicket where the bulls of Pope Benedict were torn,

and whence those who had brought them departed decked out, in

derision, in copes and mitres, and making an apology through all

Paris? and the grand hall, with its gilding, its azure, its

statues, its pointed arches, its pillars, its immense vault, all

fretted with carvings? and the gilded chamber? and the stone

lion, which stood at the door, with lowered head and tail between

his legs, like the lions on the throne of Solomon, in the

humiliated attitude which befits force in the presence of

justice? and the beautiful doors? and the stained glass? and the

chased ironwork, which drove Biscornette to despair? and the

delicate woodwork of Hancy? What has time, what have men done

with these marvels? What have they given us in return for all

this Gallic history, for all this Gothic art? The heavy flattened

arches of M. de Brosse, that awkward architect of the

Saint-Gervais portal. So much for art; and, as for history, we

have the gossiping reminiscences of the great pillar, still

ringing with the tattle of the Patru.

It is not much. Let us return to the veritable grand hall of the

veritable old palace. The two extremities of this gigantic

parallelogram were occupied, the one by the famous marble table,

so long, so broad, and so thick that, as the ancient land

rolls—in a style that would have given Gargantua an appetite—say,

“such a slice of marble as was never beheld in the world”; the

other by the chapel where Louis XI. had himself sculptured on his

knees before the Virgin, and whither he caused to be brought,

without heeding the two gaps thus made in the row of royal

statues, the statues of Charlemagne and of Saint Louis, two

saints whom he supposed to be great in favor in heaven, as kings

of France. This chapel, quite new, having been built only six

years, was entirely in that charming taste of delicate

architecture, of marvellous sculpture, of fine and deep chasing,

which marks with us the end of the Gothic era, and which is

perpetuated to about the middle of the sixteenth century in the

fairylike fancies of the Renaissance. The little open-work rose

window, pierced above the portal, was, in particular, a

masterpiece of lightness and grace; one would have pronounced it

a star of lace.

In the middle of the hall, opposite the great door, a platform of

gold brocade, placed against the wall, a special entrance to

which had been effected through a window in the corridor of the

gold chamber, had been erected for the Flemish emissaries and the

other great personages invited to the presentation of the mystery

play.

It was upon the marble table that the mystery was to be enacted,

as usual. It had been arranged for the purpose, early in the

morning; its rich slabs of marble, all scratched by the heels of

law clerks, supported a cage of carpenter’s work of considerable

height, the upper surface of which, within view of the whole

hall, was to serve as the theatre, and whose interior, masked by

tapestries, was to take the place of dressing-rooms for the

personages of the piece. A ladder, naively placed on the outside,

was to serve as means of communication between the dressing-room

and the stage, and lend its rude rungs to entrances as well as to

exits. There was no personage, however unexpected, no sudden

change, no theatrical effect, which was not obliged to mount that

ladder. Innocent and venerable infancy of art and contrivances!

Four of the bailiff of the palace’s sergeants, perfunctory

guardians of all the pleasures of the people, on days of festival

as well as on days of execution, stood at the four corners of the

marble table.

The piece was only to begin with the twelfth stroke of the great

palace clock sounding midday. It was very late, no doubt, for a

theatrical representation, but they had been obliged to fix the

hour to suit the convenience of the ambassadors.

Now, this whole multitude had been waiting since morning. A

goodly number of curious, good people had been shivering since

daybreak before the grand staircase of the palace; some even

affirmed that they had passed the night across the threshold of

the great door, in order to make sure that they should be the

first to pass in. The crowd grew more dense every moment, and,

like water, which rises above its normal level, began to mount

along the walls, to swell around the pillars, to spread out on

the entablatures, on the cornices, on the window-sills, on all

the salient points of the architecture, on all the reliefs of the

sculpture. Hence, discomfort, impatience, weariness, the liberty

of a day of cynicism and folly, the quarrels which break forth

for all sorts of causes—a pointed elbow, an iron-shod shoe, the

fatigue of long waiting—had already, long before the hour

appointed for the arrival of the ambassadors, imparted a harsh

and bitter accent to the clamor of these people who were shut in,

fitted into each other, pressed, trampled upon, stifled. Nothing

was to be heard but imprecations on the Flemish, the provost of

the merchants, the Cardinal de Bourbon, the bailiff of the

courts, Madame Marguerite of Austria, the sergeants with their

rods, the cold, the heat, the bad weather, the Bishop of Paris,

the Pope of the Fools, the pillars, the statues, that closed

door, that open window; all to the vast amusement of a band of

scholars and lackeys scattered through the mass, who mingled with

all this discontent their teasing remarks, and their malicious

suggestions, and pricked the general bad temper with a pin, so to

speak.

Among the rest there was a group of those merry imps, who, after

smashing the glass in a window, had seated themselves hardily on

the entablature, and from that point despatched their gaze and

their railleries both within and without, upon the throng in the

hall, and the throng upon the Place. It was easy to see, from

their parodied gestures, their ringing laughter, the bantering

appeals which they exchanged with their comrades, from one end of

the hall to the other, that these young clerks did not share the

weariness and fatigue of the rest of the spectators, and that

they understood very well the art of extracting, for their own

private diversion from that which they had under their eyes, a

spectacle which made them await the other with patience.

“Upon my soul, so it’s you, ‘Joannes Frollo de Molendino!’” cried

one of them, to a sort of little, light-haired imp, with a

well-favored and malign countenance, clinging to the acanthus

leaves of a capital; “you are well named John of the Mill, for

your two arms and your two legs have the air of four wings

fluttering on the breeze. How long have you been here?”

“By the mercy of the devil,” retorted Joannes Frollo, “these four

hours and more; and I hope that they will be reckoned to my

credit in purgatory. I heard the eight singers of the King of

Sicily intone the first verse of seven o’clock mass in the

Sainte-Chapelle.”

“Fine singers!” replied the other, “with voices even more pointed

than their caps! Before founding a mass for Monsieur Saint John,

the king should have inquired whether Monsieur Saint John likes

Latin droned out in a Provençal accent.”

“He did it for the sake of employing those accursed singers of

the King of Sicily!” cried an old woman sharply from among the

crowd beneath the window. “I just put it to you! A thousand

_livres parisi_ for a mass! and out of the tax on sea fish in the

markets of Paris, to boot!”

“Peace, old crone,” said a tall, grave person, stopping up his

nose on the side towards the fishwife; “a mass had to be founded.

Would you wish the king to fall ill again?”

“Bravely spoken, Sire Gilles Lecornu, master furrier of king’s

robes!” cried the little student, clinging to the capital.

A shout of laughter from all the students greeted the unlucky

name of the poor furrier of the king’s robes.

“Lecornu! Gilles Lecornu!” said some.

“_Cornutus et hirsutus_, horned and hairy,” another went on.

“He! of course,” continued the small imp on the capital, “What

are they laughing at? An honorable man is Gilles Lecornu, brother

of Master Jehan Lecornu, provost of the king’s house, son of

Master Mahiet Lecornu, first porter of the Bois de Vincennes,—all

_bourgeois_ of Paris, all married, from father to son.”

The gayety redoubled. The big furrier, without uttering a word in

reply, tried to escape all the eyes riveted upon him from all

sides; but he perspired and panted in vain; like a wedge entering

the wood, his efforts served only to bury still more deeply in

the shoulders of his neighbors, his large, apoplectic face,

purple with spite and rage.

At length one of these, as fat, short, and venerable as himself,

came to his rescue.

“Abomination! scholars addressing a _bourgeois_ in that fashion

in my day would have been flogged with a fagot, which would have

afterwards been used to burn them.”

The whole band burst into laughter.

“Holà hé! who is scolding so? Who is that screech owl of evil

fortune?”

“Hold, I know him” said one of them; “’tis Master Andry Musnier.”

“Because he is one of the four sworn booksellers of the

university!” said the other.

“Everything goes by fours in that shop,” cried a third; “the four

nations, the four faculties, the four feasts, the four

procurators, the four electors, the four booksellers.”

“Well,” began Jean Frollo once more, “we must play the devil with

them.”[2]

“Musnier, we’ll burn your books.”

“Musnier, we’ll beat your lackeys.”

“Musnier, we’ll kiss your wife.”

“That fine, big Mademoiselle Oudarde.”

“Who is as fresh and as gay as though she were a widow.”

“Devil take you!” growled Master Andry Musnier.

“Master Andry,” pursued Jean Jehan, still clinging to his

capital, “hold your tongue, or I’ll drop on your head!”

Master Andry raised his eyes, seemed to measure in an instant the

height of the pillar, the weight of the scamp, mentally

multiplied that weight by the square of the velocity and remained

silent.

Jehan, master of the field of battle, pursued triumphantly:

“That’s what I’ll do, even if I am the brother of an archdeacon!”

“Fine gentry are our people of the university, not to have caused

our privileges to be respected on such a day as this! However,

there is a maypole and a bonfire in the town; a mystery, Pope of

the Fools, and Flemish ambassadors in the city; and, at the

university, nothing!”

“Nevertheless, the Place Maubert is sufficiently large!”

interposed one of the clerks established on the window-sill.

“Down with the rector, the electors, and the procurators!” cried

Joannes.

“We must have a bonfire this evening in the Champ-Gaillard,” went

on the other, “made of Master Andry’s books.”

“And the desks of the scribes!” added his neighbor.

“And the beadles’ wands!”

“And the spittoons of the deans!”

“And the cupboards of the procurators!”

“And the hutches of the electors!”

“And the stools of the rector!”

“Down with them!” put in little Jehan, as counterpoint; “down

with Master Andry, the beadles and the scribes; the theologians,

the doctors and the decretists; the procurators, the electors and

the rector!”

“The end of the world has come!” muttered Master Andry, stopping

up his ears.

“By the way, there’s the rector! see, he is passing through the

Place,” cried one of those in the window.

Each rivalled his neighbor in his haste to turn towards the

Place.

“Is it really our venerable rector, Master Thibaut?” demanded

Jehan Frollo du Moulin, who, as he was clinging to one of the

inner pillars, could not see what was going on outside.

“Yes, yes,” replied all the others, “it is really he, Master

Thibaut, the rector.”

It was, in fact, the rector and all the dignitaries of the

university, who were marching in procession in front of the

embassy, and at that moment traversing the Place. The students

crowded into the window, saluted them as they passed with

sarcasms and ironical applause. The rector, who was walking at

the head of his company, had to support the first broadside; it

was severe.

“Good day, monsieur le recteur! Holà hé! good day there!”

“How does he manage to be here, the old gambler? Has he abandoned

his dice?”

“How he trots along on his mule! her ears are not so long as

his!”

“Holà hé! good day, monsieur le recteur Thibaut! _Tybalde

aleator_! Old fool! old gambler!”

“God preserve you! Did you throw double six often last night?”

“Oh! what a decrepit face, livid and haggard and drawn with the

love of gambling and of dice!”

“Where are you bound for in that fashion, Thibaut, _Tybalde ad

dados_, with your back turned to the university, and trotting

towards the town?”

“He is on his way, no doubt, to seek a lodging in the Rue

Thibautodé?”[3] cried Jehan du M. Moulin.

The entire band repeated this quip in a voice of thunder,

clapping their hands furiously.

“You are going to seek a lodging in the Rue Thibautodé, are you

not, monsieur le recteur, gamester on the side of the devil?”

Then came the turns of the other dignitaries.

“Down with the beadles! down with the mace-bearers!”

“Tell me, Robin Pouissepain, who is that yonder?”

“He is Gilbert de Suilly, _Gilbertus de Soliaco_, the chancellor

of the College of Autun.”

“Hold on, here’s my shoe; you are better placed than I, fling it

in his face.”

“_Saturnalitias mittimus ecce nuces_.”

“Down with the six theologians, with their white surplices!”

“Are those the theologians? I thought they were the white geese

given by Sainte-Geneviève to the city, for the fief of Roogny.”

“Down with the doctors!”

“Down with the cardinal disputations, and quibblers!”

“My cap to you, Chancellor of Sainte-Geneviève! You have done me

a wrong. ’Tis true; he gave my place in the nation of Normandy to

little Ascanio Falzapada, who comes from the province of Bourges,

since he is an Italian.”

“That is an injustice,” said all the scholars. “Down with the

Chancellor of Sainte-Geneviève!”

“Ho hé! Master Joachim de Ladehors! Ho hé! Louis Dahuille! Ho hé

Lambert Hoctement!”

“May the devil stifle the procurator of the German nation!”

“And the chaplains of the Sainte-Chapelle, with their gray

_amices; cum tunices grisis_!”

“_Seu de pellibus grisis fourratis_!”

“Holà hé! Masters of Arts! All the beautiful black copes! all the

fine red copes!”

“They make a fine tail for the rector.”

“One would say that he was a Doge of Venice on his way to his

bridal with the sea.”

“Say, Jehan! here are the canons of Sainte-Geneviève!”

“To the deuce with the whole set of canons!”

“Abbé Claude Choart! Doctor Claude Choart! Are you in search of

Marie la Giffarde?”

“She is in the Rue de Glatigny.”

“She is making the bed of the king of the debauchees.”

“She is paying her four deniers[4] _quatuor denarios_.”

“_Aut unum bombum_.”

“Would you like to have her pay you in the face?”

“Comrades! Master Simon Sanguin, the Elector of Picardy, with his

wife on the crupper!”

“_Post equitem sedet atra cura_—behind the horseman sits black

care.”

“Courage, Master Simon!”

“Good day, Mister Elector!”

“Good night, Madame Electress!”

“How happy they are to see all that!” sighed Joannes de

Molendino, still perched in the foliage of his capital.

Meanwhile, the sworn bookseller of the university, Master Andry

Musnier, was inclining his ear to the furrier of the king’s

robes, Master Gilles Lecornu.

“I tell you, sir, that the end of the world has come. No one has

ever beheld such outbreaks among the students! It is the accursed

inventions of this century that are ruining

everything,—artilleries, bombards, and, above all, printing, that

other German pest. No more manuscripts, no more books! printing

will kill bookselling. It is the end of the world that is drawing

nigh.”

“I see that plainly, from the progress of velvet stuffs,” said

the fur-merchant.

At this moment, midday sounded.

“Ha!” exclaimed the entire crowd, in one voice.

The scholars held their peace. Then a great hurly-burly ensued; a

vast movement of feet, hands, and heads; a general outbreak of

coughs and handkerchiefs; each one arranged himself, assumed his

post, raised himself up, and grouped himself. Then came a great

silence; all necks remained outstretched, all mouths remained

open, all glances were directed towards the marble table. Nothing

made its appearance there. The bailiff’s four sergeants were

still there, stiff, motionless, as painted statues. All eyes

turned to the estrade reserved for the Flemish envoys. The door

remained closed, the platform empty. This crowd had been waiting

since daybreak for three things: noonday, the embassy from

Flanders, the mystery play. Noonday alone had arrived on time.

On this occasion, it was too much.

They waited one, two, three, five minutes, a quarter of an hour;

nothing came. The dais remained empty, the theatre dumb. In the

meantime, wrath had succeeded to impatience. Irritated words

circulated in a low tone, still, it is true. “The mystery! the

mystery!” they murmured, in hollow voices. Heads began to

ferment. A tempest, which was only rumbling in the distance as

yet, was floating on the surface of this crowd. It was Jehan du

Moulin who struck the first spark from it.

“The mystery, and to the devil with the Flemings!” he exclaimed

at the full force of his lungs, twining like a serpent around his

pillar.

The crowd clapped their hands.

“The mystery!” it repeated, “and may all the devils take

Flanders!”

“We must have the mystery instantly,” resumed the student; “or

else, my advice is that we should hang the bailiff of the courts,

by way of a morality and a comedy.”

“Well said,” cried the people, “and let us begin the hanging with

his sergeants.”

A grand acclamation followed. The four poor fellows began to turn

pale, and to exchange glances. The crowd hurled itself towards

them, and they already beheld the frail wooden railing, which

separated them from it, giving way and bending before the

pressure of the throng.

It was a critical moment.

“To the sack, to the sack!” rose the cry on all sides.

At that moment, the tapestry of the dressing-room, which we have

described above, was raised, and afforded passage to a personage,

the mere sight of whom suddenly stopped the crowd, and changed

its wrath into curiosity as by enchantment.

“Silence! silence!”

The personage, but little reassured, and trembling in every limb,

advanced to the edge of the marble table with a vast amount of

bows, which, in proportion as he drew nearer, more and more

resembled genuflections.

In the meanwhile, tranquillity had gradually been restored. All

that remained was that slight murmur which always rises above the

silence of a crowd.

“Messieurs the _bourgeois_,” said he, “and mesdemoiselles the

_bourgeoises_, we shall have the honor of declaiming and

representing, before his eminence, monsieur the cardinal, a very

beautiful morality which has for its title, ‘The Good Judgment of

Madame the Virgin Mary.’ I am to play Jupiter. His eminence is,

at this moment, escorting the very honorable embassy of the Duke

of Austria; which is detained, at present, listening to the

harangue of monsieur the rector of the university, at the gate

Baudets. As soon as his illustrious eminence, the cardinal,

arrives, we will begin.”

It is certain, that nothing less than the intervention of Jupiter

was required to save the four unfortunate sergeants of the

bailiff of the courts. If we had the happiness of having invented

this very veracious tale, and of being, in consequence,

responsible for it before our Lady Criticism, it is not against

us that the classic precept, _Nec deus intersit_, could be

invoked. Moreover, the costume of Seigneur Jupiter, was very

handsome, and contributed not a little towards calming the crowd,

by attracting all its attention. Jupiter was clad in a coat of

mail, covered with black velvet, with gilt nails; and had it not

been for the rouge, and the huge red beard, each of which covered

one-half of his face,—had it not been for the roll of gilded

cardboard, spangled, and all bristling with strips of tinsel,

which he held in his hand, and in which the eyes of the initiated

easily recognized thunderbolts,—had not his feet been

flesh-colored, and banded with ribbons in Greek fashion, he might

have borne comparison, so far as the severity of his mien was

concerned, with a Breton archer from the guard of Monsieur de

Berry.