Notre-Dame de Paris
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.
CHAPTER II. PIERRE GRINGOIRE.
Nevertheless, as he harangued them, the satisfaction and
admiration unanimously excited by his costume were dissipated by
his words; and when he reached that untoward conclusion: “As soon
as his illustrious eminence, the cardinal, arrives, we will
begin,” his voice was drowned in a thunder of hooting.
“Begin instantly! The mystery! the mystery immediately!” shrieked
the people. And above all the voices, that of Johannes de
Molendino was audible, piercing the uproar like the fife’s
derisive serenade: “Commence instantly!” yelped the scholar.
“Down with Jupiter and the Cardinal de Bourbon!” vociferated
Robin Poussepain and the other clerks perched in the window.
“The morality this very instant!” repeated the crowd; “this very
instant! the sack and the rope for the comedians, and the
cardinal!”
Poor Jupiter, haggard, frightened, pale beneath his rouge,
dropped his thunderbolt, took his cap in his hand; then he bowed
and trembled and stammered: “His eminence—the ambassadors—Madame
Marguerite of Flanders—.” He did not know what to say. In truth,
he was afraid of being hung.
Hung by the populace for waiting, hung by the cardinal for not
having waited, he saw between the two dilemmas only an abyss;
that is to say, a gallows.
Luckily, some one came to rescue him from his embarrassment, and
assume the responsibility.
An individual who was standing beyond the railing, in the free
space around the marble table, and whom no one had yet caught
sight of, since his long, thin body was completely sheltered from
every visual ray by the diameter of the pillar against which he
was leaning; this individual, we say, tall, gaunt, pallid, blond,
still young, although already wrinkled about the brow and cheeks,
with brilliant eyes and a smiling mouth, clad in garments of
black serge, worn and shining with age, approached the marble
table, and made a sign to the poor sufferer. But the other was so
confused that he did not see him. The new comer advanced another
step.
“Jupiter,” said he, “my dear Jupiter!”
The other did not hear.
At last, the tall blond, driven out of patience, shrieked almost
in his face,—
“Michel Giborne!”
“Who calls me?” said Jupiter, as though awakened with a start.
“I,” replied the person clad in black.
“Ah!” said Jupiter.
“Begin at once,” went on the other. “Satisfy the populace; I
undertake to appease the bailiff, who will appease monsieur the
cardinal.”
Jupiter breathed once more.
“Messeigneurs the _bourgeois_,” he cried, at the top of his lungs
to the crowd, which continued to hoot him, “we are going to begin
at once.”
“_Evoe Jupiter! Plaudite cives_! All hail, Jupiter! Applaud,
citizens!” shouted the scholars.
“Noël! Noël! good, good,” shouted the people.
The hand clapping was deafening, and Jupiter had already
withdrawn under his tapestry, while the hall still trembled with
acclamations.
In the meanwhile, the personage who had so magically turned the
tempest into dead calm, as our old and dear Corneille puts it,
had modestly retreated to the half-shadow of his pillar, and
would, no doubt, have remained invisible there, motionless, and
mute as before, had he not been plucked by the sleeve by two
young women, who, standing in the front row of the spectators,
had noticed his colloquy with Michel Giborne-Jupiter.
“Master,” said one of them, making him a sign to approach.
“Hold your tongue, my dear Liénarde,” said her neighbor, pretty,
fresh, and very brave, in consequence of being dressed up in her
best attire. “He is not a clerk, he is a layman; you must not say
master to him, but messire.”
“Messire,” said Liénarde.
The stranger approached the railing.
“What would you have of me, damsels?” he asked, with alacrity.
“Oh! nothing,” replied Liénarde, in great confusion; “it is my
neighbor, Gisquette la Gencienne, who wishes to speak with you.”
“Not so,” replied Gisquette, blushing; “it was Liénarde who
called you master; I only told her to say messire.”
The two young girls dropped their eyes. The man, who asked
nothing better than to enter into conversation, looked at them
with a smile.
“So you have nothing to say to me, damsels?”
“Oh! nothing at all,” replied Gisquette.
“Nothing,” said Liénarde.
The tall, light-haired young man retreated a step; but the two
curious maidens had no mind to let slip their prize.
“Messire,” said Gisquette, with the impetuosity of an open
sluice, or of a woman who has made up her mind, “do you know that
soldier who is to play the part of Madame the Virgin in the
mystery?”
“You mean the part of Jupiter?” replied the stranger.
“Hé! yes,” said Liénarde, “isn’t she stupid? So you know
Jupiter?”
“Michel Giborne?” replied the unknown; “yes, madam.”
“He has a fine beard!” said Liénarde.
“Will what they are about to say here be fine?” inquired
Gisquette, timidly.
“Very fine, mademoiselle,” replied the unknown, without the
slightest hesitation.
“What is it to be?” said Liénarde.
“‘The Good Judgment of Madame the Virgin,’—a morality, if you
please, damsel.”
“Ah! that makes a difference,” responded Liénarde.
A brief silence ensued—broken by the stranger.
“It is a perfectly new morality, and one which has never yet been
played.”
“Then it is not the same one,” said Gisquette, “that was given
two years ago, on the day of the entrance of monsieur the legate,
and where three handsome maids played the parts—”
“Of sirens,” said Liénarde.
“And all naked,” added the young man.
Liénarde lowered her eyes modestly. Gisquette glanced at her and
did the same. He continued, with a smile,—
“It was a very pleasant thing to see. To-day it is a morality
made expressly for Madame the Demoiselle of Flanders.”
“Will they sing shepherd songs?” inquired Gisquette.
“Fie!” said the stranger, “in a morality? you must not confound
styles. If it were a farce, well and good.”
“That is a pity,” resumed Gisquette. “That day, at the Ponceau
Fountain, there were wild men and women, who fought and assumed
many aspects, as they sang little motets and bergerettes.”
“That which is suitable for a legate,” returned the stranger,
with a good deal of dryness, “is not suitable for a princess.”
“And beside them,” resumed Liénarde, “played many brass
instruments, making great melodies.”
“And for the refreshment of the passers-by,” continued Gisquette,
“the fountain spouted through three mouths, wine, milk, and
hippocrass, of which every one drank who wished.”
“And a little below the Ponceau, at the Trinity,” pursued
Liénarde, “there was a passion performed, and without any
speaking.”
“How well I remember that!” exclaimed Gisquette; “God on the