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 H?tel 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
Gr¨¨ve, 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 Chateau 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* fa?ade 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 ~mar¨¦chauss¨¦e~, the
~mar¨¦chauss¨¦e~ to our ~gendarmeri~ of Paris.
* The word Gothic, in the sense in which it is generally employed,
is wholly unsuitable, but wholly consecrated. Hence we accept it
and we adopt it, like all the rest of the world, to characterize
the architecture of the second half of the Middle Ages, where the
ogive is the principle which succeeds the architecture of the first
period, of which the semi-circle is the father.
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, Th¨¦ophile'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 Proven?al
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.
"Hol¨¤ h¨¦! 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."*
* ~Faire le diable a quatre~.
"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! Hol¨¤ h¨¦! 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!"
"Hol¨¤ h¨¦! 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
Thibautod¨¦?"* cried Jehan du M. Moulin.
* ~Thibaut au des~,--Thibaut of the dice.
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 Thibautod¨¦,
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-Genevi¨¨ve 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-Genevi¨¨ve! 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-Genevi¨¨ve!"
"Ho h¨¦! Master Joachim de Ladehors! Ho h¨¦! Louis
Dahuille! Ho he 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~!"
"Hol¨¤ h¨¦! 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-Genevi¨¨ve!"
"To the deuce with the whole set of canons!"
"Abb¨¦ 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* ~quatuor denarios~."
* An old French coin, equal to the two hundred and
fortieth part of a pound.
"~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 seclet atra eura~--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.
A1l 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.
CHAPTER II.