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By Root 578 0

in the seats upon the platform, he made himself quite comfortable, and coolly crossed his legs upon the architrave. Such insolence was unusual, and no one noted it at the moment, attention being fixed elsewhere. He for his part saw nothing in the hall; he swayed his head to and fro with the careless ease of a Neapolitan, repeating ever and anon amid the din, as if mechanically, “Charity, kind people!” and certainly he was the only one in the entire audience who did not deign to turn his head to listen to the altercation between Coppenole and the usher. Now, as chance would have it, the master hosier of Ghent, with whom the people already sympathized strongly, and upon whom all eyes were fixed, seated himself in the front row upon the platform, just above the beggar; and they were not a little amazed to see the Flemish ambassador, after glancing at the rascal beneath him, give him a friendly slap upon his tattered shoulder. The beggar turned; surprise, recognition, delight, were visible in both faces, then, without paying the slightest heed to the throng of spectators, the hosier and the scurvy knave fell to talking in low tones, clasping each other’s hands; while the rags of Clopin Trouillefou, displayed against the cloth of gold of the dais, produced the effect of a caterpillar upon an orange.

The novelty of this strange scene excited such an outburst of mirth in the hall that the Cardinal quickly perceived it; he bent forward, and, unable from his position to catch more than a glimpse of Trouillefou’s disgraceful garments, he quite naturally supposed that the beggar was asking alms, and, indignant at his audacity, he exclaimed, “Sir Bailiff of the Palace, throw that rascal into the river!”

“By God’s cross! Sir Cardinal,” said Coppenole, without releasing Clopin’s hand, “he is my friend.”

“Noël! Noël” cried the mob. From that instant Master Coppenole was “in high favor with the people,” in Paris as in Ghent; “for men of his cut always are,” says Philippe de Comines, “when they are thus disorderly.”

The Cardinal bit his lip. He bent towards his neighbor, the Abbot of St. Geneviève, and said in an undertone:—

“Pleasant ambassadors are these sent us by the arch-duke to announce the coming of Lady Margaret!”

“Your Eminence,” replied the abbot, “wastes his courtesies upon these Flemish grunters,—Margaritas ante porcos.”u

“Say rather,” replied the Cardinal with a smile, “Porcos ante Margaritam.”v

All the little court in priestly robes went into ecstasies over the joke. The Cardinal felt slightly comforted: he was quits with Coppenole; his pun also had been applauded.

Now, let those of our readers who have the power of generalizing an image and an idea, as it is the pleasant fashion to express it, allow us to ask them if they have a distinct conception of the spectacle afforded, at the moment that we claim their attention, by the vast parallelogram of the great hall of the Palace: In the center of the hall, against the western wall, a broad and magnificent platform covered with gold brocade, upon which stepped in procession, through a small arched doorway, a number of grave and reverend personages successively announced by the nasal voice of an usher; on the foremost benches, already seated, various venerable figures wrapped in ermine, velvet, and scarlet; around the dais, where all was dignity and silence, below, in front, everywhere, a great crowd and a great uproar; a thousand eyes from the crowd fixed upon every face on the platform, a thousand murmurs upon the announcement of every name. Certainly the sight is a strange one, and well worthy the attention of the spectators. But below there, at the extreme end, what is that kind of trestle-work with four motley puppets above and four more below? Who is that pale-faced man in a black coat beside the boards? Alas! dear reader, that is Pierre Gringoire and his prologue.

We had all entirely forgotten him.

This was precisely what he feared.

From the instant that the Cardinal entered, Gringoire had never ceased working for the salvation of his prologue. He at first en-joined