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“Good!” he muttered, almost aloud, “‘tis easy to see that the king is ill to-day; he giveth all to the leech.”

Louis XI. far from being irritated by this petulant insult, resumed with some gentleness, “Stay, I was forgetting that I made you my ambassador to Madame Marie, at Ghent. Yes, gentlemen,” added the king turning to the Flemings, “this man hath been an ambassador. There, my gossip,” he pursued, addressing Master Olivier, “let us not get angry; we are old friends. ‘Tis very late. We have terminated our labors. Shave me.”

Our readers have not, without doubt, waited until the present moment to recognize in Master Olivier that terrible Figaro whom Providence, the great maker of dramas, mingled so artistically in the long and bloody comedy of the reign of Louis XI. We will not here undertake to develop that singular figure. This barber of the king had three names. At court he was politely called Olivier le Daim (the Deer); among the people Olivier the Devil. His real name was Olivier le Mauvais.

Accordingly, Olivier le Mauvais remained motionless, sulking at the king, and glancing askance at Jacques Coictier.

“Yes, yes, the physician!” he said between his teeth.

“Ah, yes, the physician!” retorted Louis XI., with singular good humor; “the physician has more credit than you. ‘Tis very simple; he has taken hold upon us by the whole body, and you hold us only by the chin. Come, my poor barber, all will come right. What would you say and what would become of your office if I were a king like Chilperic, whose gesture consisted in holding his beard in one hand? Come, gossip mine, fulfil your office, shave me. Go get what you need therefor.”

Olivier perceiving that the king had made up his mind to laugh, and that there was no way of even annoying him, went off grumbling to execute his orders.

The king rose, approached the window, and suddenly opening it with extraordinary agitation, —

“Oh! yes!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands, “yonder is a redness in the sky over the City. ‘Tis the bailiff burning. It can be nothing else but that. Ah! my good people! here you are aiding me at last in tearing down the rights of lordship!”

Then turning towards the Flemings: “Come, look at this, gentlemen. Is it not a fire which gloweth yonder?”

The two men of Ghent drew near.

“A great fire,” said Guillaume Rym.

“Oh!” exclaimed Coppenole, whose eyes suddenly flashed, “that reminds me of the burning of the house of the Seigneur d’Hymbercourt. There must be a goodly revolt yonder.”

“You think so, Master Coppenole?” And Louis XI.‘s glance was almost as joyous as that of the hosier. “Will it not be difficult to resist?”

“Cross of God! Sire! Your majesty will damage many companies of men of war thereon.”

“Ah! I! ‘tis different,” returned the king. “If I willed.” The hosier replied hardily, —

“If this revolt be what I suppose, sire, you might will in vain.”

“Gossip,” said Louis XI., “with the two companies of my unattached troops and one discharge of a serpentine, short work is made of a populace of louts.”

The hosier, in spite of the signs made to him by Guillaume Rym, appeared determined to hold his own against the king.

“Sire, the Swiss were also louts. Monsieur the Duke of Burgundy was a great gentleman, and he turned up his nose at that rabble rout. At the battle of Grandson, sire, he cried: ‘Men of the cannon! Fire on the villains!’ and he swore by Saint-George. But Advoyer Scharnachtal hurled himself on the handsome duke with his battle-club and his people, and when the glittering Burgundian army came in contact with these peasants in bull hides, it flew in pieces like a pane of glass at the blow of a pebble. Many lords were then slain by low-born knaves; and Monsieur de Château-Guyon, the greatest seigneur in Burgundy, was found dead, with his gray horse, in a little marsh meadow.”

“Friend,” returned the king, “you are speaking of a battle. The question here is of a mutiny. And I will gain the upper hand of it as soon as it shall please me to frown.”

The other replied indifferently, —

“That may be, sire; in that case, ‘tis because the people’s hour hath not yet come.”

Guillaume Rym considered it incumbent on him to intervene, —

“Master Coppenole, you are speaking to a puissant king.”

“I know it,” replied the hosier, gravely.

“Let him speak, Monsieur Rym, my friend,” said the king; “I love this frankness of speech. My father, Charles the Seventh, was accustomed to say that the truth was ailing; I thought her dead, and that she had found no confessor. Master Coppenole undeceiveth me.”

Then, laying his hand familiarly on Coppenole’s shoulder, —

“You were saying, Master Jacques?”

“I say, sire, that you may possibly be in the right, that the hour of the people may not yet have come with you.”

Louis XI. gazed at him with his penetrating eye, —

“And when will that hour come, master?”

“You will hear it strike.”

“On what clock, if you please?”

Coppenole, with his tranquil and rustic countenance, made the king approach the window.

“Listen, sire! There is here a donjon keep, a belfry, cannons, bourgeois, soldiers; when the belfry shall hum, when the cannons shall roar, when the donjon shall fall in ruins amid great noise, when bourgeois and soldiers shall howl and slay each other, the hour will strike.”

Louis’s face grew sombre and dreamy. He remained silent for a moment, then he gently patted with his hand the thick wall of the donjon, as one strokes the haunches of a steed.

“Oh! no!” said he. “You will not crumble so easily, will you, my good Bastille?”

And turning with an abrupt gesture towards the sturdy Fleming, —

“Have you never seen a revolt, Master Jacques?”

“I have made them,” said the hosier.

“How do you set to work to make a revolt?” said the king.

“Ah!” replied Coppenole, “‘tis not very difficult. There are a hundred ways. In the first place, there must be discontent in the city. The thing is not uncommon. And then, the character of the inhabitants. Those of Ghent are easy to stir into revolt. They always love the prince’s son; the prince, never. Well! One morning, I will suppose, some one enters my shop, and says to me: ‘Father Coppenole, there is this and there is that, the Demoiselle of Flanders wishes to save her ministers, the grand bailiff is doubling the impost on shagreen, or something else,’ – what you will. I leave my work as it stands, I come out of my hosier’s stall, and I shout: ‘To the sack?’ There is always some smashed cask at hand. I mount it, and I say aloud, in the first words that occur to me, what I have on my heart; and when one is of the people, sire, one always has something on the heart: Then people troop up, they shout, they ring the alarm bell, they arm the louts with what they take from the soldiers, the market people join in, and they set out. And it will always be thus, so long as there are lords in the seignories, bourgeois in the bourgs, and peasants in the country.”

“And against whom do you thus rebel?” inquired the king; “against your bailiffs? against your lords?”

“Sometimes; that depends. Against the duke, also, sometimes.”

Louis XI. returned and seated himself, saying, with a smile, —

“Ah! here they have only got as far as the bailiffs.”

At that instant Olivier le Daim returned. He was followed by two pages, who bore the king’s toilet articles; but what struck Louis XI. was that he was also accompanied by the provost of Paris and the chevalier of the watch, who appeared to be in consternation. The spiteful barber also wore an air of consternation, which was one of contentment beneath, however. It was he who spoke first.

“Sire, I ask your majesty’s pardon for the calamitous news which I bring.”

The king turned quickly and grazed the mat on the floor with the feet of his chair, —

“What does this mean?”

“Sire,” resumed Olivier le Daim, with the malicious air of a man who rejoices that he is about to deal a violent blow, “‘tis not against the bailiff of the courts that this popular sedition is directed.”

“Against whom, then?”

“Against you, sire?’

The aged king rose erect and straight as a young man, —

“Explain yourself, Olivier! And guard your head well, gossip; for I swear to you by the cross of Saint-Lô that, if you lie to us at this hour, the sword which severed the head of Monsieur de Luxembourg is not so notched that it cannot yet sever yours!”

The oath was formidable; Louis XI. had only sworn twice in the course of his life by the cross of Saint-Lô.

Olivier opened his mouth to reply.

“Sire – ”

“On your knees!” interrupted the king violently. “Tristan, have an eye to this man.”

Olivier knelt down and said coldly, —

“Sire, a sorceress was condemned to death by your court of parliament. She took refuge in Notre-Dame. The people are trying to take her from thence by main force. Monsieur the provost and monsieur the chevalier of the watch, who have just come from the riot, are here to give me the lie if this is not the truth. The populace is besieging Notre-Dame.”

“Yes, indeed!” said the king in a low voice, all pale and trembling with wrath. “Notre-Dame! They lay siege to our Lady, my good mistress in her cathedral! – Rise, Olivier. You are right. I give you Simon Radin’s charge. You are right. ‘Tis I whom they are attacking. The witch is under the protection of this church, the church is under my protection. And I thought that they were acting against the bailiff! ‘Tis against myself!”

Then, rendered young by fury, he began to walk up and down with long strides. He no longer laughed, he was terrible, he went and came; the fox was changed into a hyaena. He seemed suffocated to such a degree that he could not speak; his lips moved, and his fleshless fists were clenched. All at once he raised his head, his hollow eye appeared full of light, and his voice burst forth like a clarion: “Down with them, Tristan! A heavy hand for these rascals! Go, Tristan, my friend! slay! slay!”

This eruption having passed, he returned to his seat, and said with cold and concentrated wrath, —

“Here, Tristan! There are here with us in the Bastille the fifty lances of the Vicomte de Gif, which makes three hundred horse: you will take them. There is also the company of our unattached archers of Monsieur de Châteaupers: you will take it. You are provost of the marshals; you have the men of your provostship: you will take them. At the Hôtel Saint-Pol you will find forty archers of monsieur the dauphin’s new guard: you will take them. And, with all these, you will hasten to Notre-Dame. Ah! messieurs, louts of Paris, do you fling yourselves thus against the crown of France, the sanctity of Notre-Dame, and the peace of this commonwealth! Exterminate, Tristan! exterminate! and let not a single one escape, except it be for Montfauçon.”

Tristan bowed. “‘Tis well, sire.”

He added, after a silence, “And what shall I do with the sorceress?”

This question caused the king to meditate.

“Ah!” said he, “the sorceress! Monsieur d’Estouteville, what did the people wish to do with her?”

“Sire,” replied the provost of Paris, “I imagine that since the populace has come to tear her from her asylum in Notre-Dame, ‘tis because that impunity wounds them, and they desire to hang her.”

The king appeared to reflect deeply: then, addressing Tristan l’Hermite, “Well! gossip, exterminate the people and hang the sorceress.”

“That’s it,” said Rym in a low tone to Coppenole, “punish the people for willing a thing, and then do what they wish.”

“Enough, sire,” replied Tristan. “If the sorceress is still in Notre-Dame, must she be seized in spite of the sanctuary?”

“Pasque-Dieu! the sanctuary!” said the king, scratching his ear. “But the woman must be hung, nevertheless.”

Here, as though seized with a sudden idea, he flung himself on his knees before his chair, took off his hat, placed it on the seat, and gazing devoutly at one of the leaden amulets which loaded it down, “Oh!” said he, with clasped hands, “our Lady of Paris, my gracious patroness, pardon me. I will only do it this once. This criminal must be punished. I assure you, madame the virgin, my good mistress, that she is a sorceress who is not worthy of your amiable protection. You know, madame, that many very pious princes have overstepped the privileges of the churches for the glory of God and the necessities of the State. Saint Hugues, bishop of England, permitted King Edward to hang a witch in his church. Saint-Louis of France, my master, transgressed, with the same object, the church of Monsieur Saint-Paul; and Monsieur Alphonse, son of the king of Jerusalem, the very church of the Holy Sepulchre. Pardon me, then, for this once. Our Lady of Paris, I will never do so again, and I will give you a fine statue of silver, like the one which I gave last year to Our Lady of Ecouys. So be it.”

He made the sign of the cross, rose, donned his hat once more, and said to Tristan, —

“Be diligent, gossip. Take Monsieur Châteaupers with you. You will cause the tocsin to be sounded. You will crush the populace. You will seize the witch. ‘Tis said. And I mean the business of the execution to be done by you. You will render me an account of it. Come, Olivier, I shall not go to bed this night. Shave me.”

Tristan l’Hermite bowed and departed. Then the king, dismissing Rym and Coppenole with a gesture, —

“God guard you, messieurs, my good friends the Flemings. Go, take a little repose. The night advances, and we are nearer the morning than the evening.”

Both retired and gained their apartments under the guidance of the captain of the Bastille. Coppenole said to Guillaume Rym, —

“Hum! I have had enough of that coughing king! I have seen Charles of Burgundy drunk, and he was less malignant than Louis XI. when ailing.”

“Master Jacques,” replied Rym, “‘tis because wine renders kings less cruel than does barley water.”

CHAPTER VI. LITTLE SWORD IN POCKET

On emerging from the Bastille, Gringoire descended the Rue Saint-Antoine with the swiftness of a runaway horse. On arriving at the Baudoyer gate, he walked straight to the stone cross which rose in the middle of that place, as though he were able to distinguish in the darkness the figure of a man clad and cloaked in black, who was seated on the steps of the cross.

“Is it you, master?” said Gringoire.

The personage in black rose.

“Death and passion! You make me boil, Gringoire. The man on the tower of Saint-Gervais has just cried half-past one o’clock in the morning.”

“Oh,” retorted Gringoire, “‘tis no fault of mine, but of the watch and the king. I have just had a narrow escape. I always just miss being hung. ‘Tis my predestination.”

“You lack everything,” said the other. “But come quickly. Have you the password?”

“Fancy, master, I have seen the king. I come from him. He wears fustian breeches. ‘Tis an adventure.”

“Oh! distaff of words! what is your adventure to me! Have you the password of the outcasts?”

“I have it. Be at ease. ‘Little sword in pocket.’”

“Good. Otherwise, we could not make our way as far as the church. The outcasts bar the streets. Fortunately, it appears that they have encountered resistance. We may still arrive in time.”

“Yes, master, but how are we to get into Notre-Dame?”

“I have the key to the tower.”

“And how are we to get out again?”

“Behind the cloister there is a little door which opens on the Terrain and the water. I have taken the key to it, and I moored a boat there this morning.”

“I have had a beautiful escape from being hung!” Gringoire repeated.

“Eh, quick! come!” said the other.

Both descended towards the city with long strides.

CHAPTER VII. CHATEAUPERS TO THE RESCUE

The reader will, perhaps, recall the critical situation in which we left Quasimodo. The brave deaf man, assailed on all sides, had lost, if not all courage, at least all hope of saving, not himself (he was not thinking of himself), but the gypsy. He ran distractedly along the gallery. Notre-Dame was on the point of being taken by storm by the outcasts. All at once, a great galloping of horses filled the neighboring streets, and, with a long file of torches and a thick column of cavaliers, with free reins and lances in rest, these furious sounds debouched on the Place like a hurricane, —

“France! France! cut down the louts! Châteaupers to the rescue! Provostship! Provostship!”

The frightened vagabonds wheeled round.

Quasimodo who did not hear, saw the naked swords, the torches, the irons of the pikes, all that cavalry, at the head of which he recognized Captain Phoebus; he beheld the confusion of the outcasts, the terror of some, the disturbance among the bravest of them, and from this unexpected succor he recovered so much strength, that he hurled from the church the first assailants who were already climbing into the gallery.

It was, in fact, the king’s troops who had arrived. The vagabonds behaved bravely. They defended themselves like desperate men. Caught on the flank, by the Rue Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs, and in the rear through the Rue du Parvis, driven to bay against Notre-Dame, which they still assailed and Quasimodo defended, at the same time besiegers and besieged, they were in the singular situation in which Comte Henri Harcourt, Taurinum obsessor idem et obsessus, as his epitaph says, found himself later on, at the famous siege of Turin, in 1640, between Prince Thomas of Savoy, whom he was besieging, and the Marquis de Leganez, who was blockading him.

The battle was frightful. There was a dog’s tooth for wolf’s flesh, as P. Mathieu says. The king’s cavaliers, in whose midst Phoebus de Châteaupers bore himself valiantly, gave no quarter, and the slash of the sword disposed of those who escaped the thrust of the lance. The outcasts, badly armed foamed and bit with rage. Men, women, children, hurled themselves on the cruppers and the breasts of the horses, and hung there like cats, with teeth, finger nails and toe nails. Others struck the archers’ in the face with their torches. Others thrust iron hooks into the necks of the cavaliers and dragged them down. They slashed in pieces those who fell.

One was noticed who had a large, glittering scythe, and who, for a long time, mowed the legs of the horses. He was frightful. He was singing a ditty, with a nasal intonation, he swung and drew back his scythe incessantly. At every blow he traced around him a great circle of severed limbs. He advanced thus into the very thickest of the cavalry, with the tranquil slowness, the lolling of the head and the regular breathing of a harvester attacking a field of wheat. It was Chopin Trouillefou. A shot from an arquebus laid him low.

In the meantime, windows had been opened again. The neighbors hearing the war cries of the king’s troops, had mingled in the affray, and bullets rained upon the outcasts from every story. The Parvis was filled with a thick smoke, which the musketry streaked with flame. Through it one could confusedly distinguish the front of Notre-Dame, and the decrepit Hôtel-Dieu with some wan invalids gazing down from the heights of its roof all checkered with dormer windows.

At length the vagabonds gave way. Weariness, the lack of good weapons, the fright of this surprise, the musketry from the windows, the valiant attack of the king’s troops, all overwhelmed them. They forced the line of assailants, and fled in every direction, leaving the Parvis encumbered with dead.

When Quasimodo, who had not ceased to fight for a moment, beheld this rout, he fell on his knees and raised his hands to heaven; then, intoxicated with joy, he ran, he ascended with the swiftness of a bird to that cell, the approaches to which he had so intrepidly defended. He had but one thought now; it was to kneel before her whom he had just saved for the second time.

When he entered the cell, he found it empty.

BOOK ELEVENTH

CHAPTER I. THE LITTLE SHOE

La Esmeralda was sleeping at the moment when the outcasts assailed the church.

Soon the ever-increasing uproar around the edifice, and the uneasy bleating of her goat which had been awakened, had roused her from her slumbers. She had sat up, she had listened, she had looked; then, terrified by the light and noise, she had rushed from her cell to see. The aspect of the Place, the vision which was moving in it, the disorder of that nocturnal assault, that hideous crowd, leaping like a cloud of frogs, half seen in the gloom, the croaking of that hoarse multitude, those few red torches running and crossing each other in the darkness like the meteors which streak the misty surfaces of marshes, this whole scene produced upon her the effect of a mysterious battle between the phantoms of the witches’ sabbath and the stone monsters of the church. Imbued from her very infancy with the superstitions of the Bohemian tribe, her first thought was that she had caught the strange beings peculiar to the night, in their deeds of witchcraft. Then she ran in terror to cower in her cell, asking of her pallet some less terrible nightmare.

But little by little the first vapors of terror had been dissipated; from the constantly increasing noise, and from many other signs of reality, she felt herself besieged not by spectres, but by human beings. Then her fear, though it did not increase, changed its character. She had dreamed of the possibility of a popular mutiny to tear her from her asylum. The idea of once more recovering life, hope, Phoebus, who was ever present in her future, the extreme helplessness of her condition, flight cut off, no support, her abandonment, her isolation, – these thoughts and a thousand others overwhelmed her. She fell upon her knees, with her head on her bed, her hands clasped over her head, full of anxiety and tremors, and, although a gypsy, an idolater, and a pagan, she began to entreat with sobs, mercy from the good Christian God, and to pray to our Lady, her hostess. For even if one believes in nothing, there are moments in life when one is always of the religion of the temple which is nearest at hand.

She remained thus prostrate for a very long time, trembling in truth, more than praying, chilled by the ever-closer breath of that furious multitude, understanding nothing of this outburst, ignorant of what was being plotted, what was being done, what they wanted, but foreseeing a terrible issue.

In the midst of this anguish, she heard some one walking near her. She turned round. Two men, one of whom carried a lantern, had just entered her cell. She uttered a feeble cry.

“Fear nothing,” said a voice which was not unknown to her, “it is I.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Pierre Gringoire.”

This name reassured her. She raised her eyes once more, and recognized the poet in very fact. But there stood beside him a black figure veiled from head to foot, which struck her by its silence.

“Oh!” continued Gringoire in a tone of reproach, “Djali recognized me before you!”

The little goat had not, in fact, waited for Gringoire to announce his name. No sooner had he entered than it rubbed itself gently against his knees, covering the poet with caresses and with white hairs, for it was shedding its hair. Gringoire returned the caresses.

“Who is this with you?” said the gypsy, in a low voice.

“Be at ease,” replied Gringoire. “‘Tis one of my friends.” Then the philosopher setting his lantern on the ground, crouched upon the stones, and exclaimed enthusiastically, as he pressed Djali in his arms, —

“Oh! ‘tis a graceful beast, more considerable no doubt, for it’s neatness than for its size, but ingenious, subtle, and lettered as a grammarian! Let us see, my Djali, hast thou forgotten any of thy pretty tricks? How does Master Jacques Charmolue?..”

The man in black did not allow him to finish. He approached Gringoire and shook him roughly by the shoulder.

Gringoire rose.

“‘Tis true,” said he: “I forgot that we are in haste. But that is no reason master, for getting furious with people in this manner. My dear and lovely child, your life is in danger, and Djali’s also. They want to hang you again. We are your friends, and we have come to save you. Follow us.”

“Is it true?” she exclaimed in dismay.

“Yes, perfectly true. Come quickly!”

“I am willing,” she stammered. “But why does not your friend speak?”

“Ah!” said Gringoire, “‘tis because his father and mother were fantastic people who made him of a taciturn temperament.”

She was obliged to content herself with this explanation. Gringoire took her by the hand; his companion picked up the lantern and walked on in front. Fear stunned the young girl. She allowed herself to be led away. The goat followed them, frisking, so joyous at seeing Gringoire again that it made him stumble every moment by thrusting its horns between his legs.

“Such is life,” said the philosopher, every time that he came near falling down; “‘tis often our best friends who cause us to be overthrown.”

They rapidly descended the staircase of the towers, crossed the church, full of shadows and solitude, and all reverberating with uproar, which formed a frightful contrast, and emerged into the courtyard of the cloister by the red door. The cloister was deserted; the canons had fled to the bishop’s palace in order to pray together; the courtyard was empty, a few frightened lackeys were crouching in dark corners. They directed their steps towards the door which opened from this court upon the Terrain. The man in black opened it with a key which he had about him. Our readers are aware that the Terrain was a tongue of land enclosed by walls on the side of the City and belonging to the chapter of Notre-Dame, which terminated the island on the east, behind the church. They found this enclosure perfectly deserted. There was here less tumult in the air. The roar of the outcasts’ assault reached them more confusedly and less clamorously. The fresh breeze which follows the current of a stream, rustled the leaves of the only tree planted on the point of the Terrain, with a noise that was already perceptible. But they were still very close to danger. The nearest edifices to them were the bishop’s palace and the church. It was plainly evident that there was great internal commotion in the bishop’s palace. Its shadowy mass was all furrowed with lights which flitted from window to window; as, when one has just burned paper, there remains a sombre edifice of ashes in which bright sparks run a thousand eccentric courses. Beside them, the enormous towers of Notre-Dame, thus viewed from behind, with the long nave above which they rise cut out in black against the red and vast light which filled the Parvis, resembled two gigantic andirons of some cyclopean fire-grate.

What was to be seen of Paris on all sides wavered before the eye in a gloom mingled with light. Rembrandt has such backgrounds to his pictures.

The man with the lantern walked straight to the point of the Terrain. There, at the very brink of the water, stood the wormeaten remains of a fence of posts latticed with laths, whereon a low vine spread out a few thin branches like the fingers of an outspread hand. Behind, in the shadow cast by this trellis, a little boat lay concealed. The man made a sign to Gringoire and his companion to enter. The goat followed them. The man was the last to step in. Then he cut the boat’s moorings, pushed it from the shore with a long boat-hook, and, seizing two oars, seated himself in the bow, rowing with all his might towards midstream. The Seine is very rapid at this point, and he had a good deal of trouble in leaving the point of the island.

Gringoire’s first care on entering the boat was to place the goat on his knees. He took a position in the stern; and the young girl, whom the stranger inspired with an indefinable uneasiness, seated herself close to the poet.

When our philosopher felt the boat sway, he clapped his hands and kissed Djali between the horns.

“Oh!” said he, “now we are safe, all four of us.”

He added with the air of a profound thinker, “One is indebted sometimes to fortune, sometimes to ruse, for the happy issue of great enterprises.”

The boat made its way slowly towards the right shore. The young girl watched the unknown man with secret terror. He had carefully turned off the light of his dark lantern. A glimpse could be caught of him in the obscurity, in the bow of the boat, like a spectre. His cowl, which was still lowered, formed a sort of mask; and every time that he spread his arms, upon which hung large black sleeves, as he rowed, one would have said they were two huge bat’s wings. Moreover, he had not yet uttered a word or breathed a syllable. No other noise was heard in the boat than the splashing of the oars, mingled with the rippling of the water along her sides.

“On my soul!” exclaimed Gringoire suddenly, “we are as cheerful and joyous as young owls! We preserve the silence of Pythagoreans or fishes! Pasque-Dieu! my friends, I should greatly like to have some one speak to me. The human voice is music to the human ear. ‘Tis not I who say that, but Didymus of Alexandria, and they are illustrious words. Assuredly, Didymus of Alexandria is no mediocre philosopher. – One word, my lovely child! say but one word to me, I entreat you. By the way, you had a droll and peculiar little pout; do you still make it? Do you know, my dear, that parliament hath full jurisdiction over all places of asylum, and that you were running a great risk in your little chamber at Notre-Dame? Alas! the little bird trochylus maketh its nest in the jaws of the crocodile. – Master, here is the moon re-appearing. If only they do not perceive us. We are doing a laudable thing in saving mademoiselle, and yet we should be hung by order of the king if we were caught. Alas! human actions are taken by two handles. That is branded with disgrace in one which is crowned in another. He admires Cicero who blames Catiline. Is it not so, master? What say you to this philosophy? I possess philosophy by instinct, by nature, ut apes geometriam. – Come! no one answers me. What unpleasant moods you two are in! I must do all the talking alone. That is what we call a monologue in tragedy. —Pasque-Dieu! I must inform you that I have just seen the king, Louis XI., and that I have caught this oath from him, —Pasque-Dieu! They are still making a hearty howl in the city. – ‘Tis a villanous, malicious old king. He is all swathed in furs. He still owes me the money for my epithalamium, and he came within a nick of hanging me this evening, which would have been very inconvenient to me. – He is niggardly towards men of merit. He ought to read the four books of Salvien of Cologne, Adversits Avaritiam. In truth! ‘Tis a paltry king in his ways with men of letters, and one who commits very barbarous cruelties. He is a sponge, to soak money raised from the people. His saving is like the spleen which swelleth with the leanness of all the other members. Hence complaints against the hardness of the times become murmurs against the prince. Under this gentle and pious sire, the gallows crack with the hung, the blocks rot with blood, the prisons burst like over full bellies. This king hath one hand which grasps, and one which hangs. He is the procurator of Dame Tax and Monsieur Gibbet. The great are despoiled of their dignities, and the little incessantly overwhelmed with fresh oppressions. He is an exorbitant prince. I love not this monarch. And you, master?”