Poor Gringoire! the din of all the great double petards of theSaint-Jean, the discharge of twenty arquebuses on supports, thedetonation of that famous serpentine of the Tower of Billy, which,during the siege of Paris, on Sunday, the twenty-sixth of September,1465, killed seven Burgundians at one blow, the explosion of all thepowder stored at the gate of the Temple, would have rent his ears lessrudely at that solemn and dramatic moment, than these few words, whichfell from the lips of the usher, "His eminence, Monseigneur the Cardinalde Bourbon."
It is not that Pierre Gringoire either feared or disdained monsieur thecardinal. He had neither the weakness nor the audacity for that. A trueeclectic, as it would be expressed nowadays, Gringoire was one of thosefirm and lofty, moderate and calm spirits, which always know how to bearthemselves amid all circumstances (_stare in dimidio rerum_), and whoare full of reason and of liberal philosophy, while still settingstore by cardinals. A rare, precious, and never interrupted race ofphilosophers to whom wisdom, like another Ariadne, seems to have givena clew of thread which they have been walking along unwinding sincethe beginning of the world, through the labyrinth of human affairs. Onefinds them in all ages, ever the same; that is to say, always accordingto all times. And, without reckoning our Pierre Gringoire, who mayrepresent them in the fifteenth century if we succeed in bestowing uponhim the distinction which he deserves, it certainly was their spiritwhich animated Father du Breul, when he wrote, in the sixteenth, thesenaively sublime words, worthy of all centuries: "I am a Parisian bynation, and a Parrhisian in language, for _parrhisia_ in Greek signifiesliberty of speech; of which I have made use even towards messeigneursthe cardinals, uncle and brother to Monsieur the Prince de Conty, alwayswith respect to their greatness, and without offending any one of theirsuite, which is much to say."
There was then neither hatred for the cardinal, nor disdain for hispresence, in the disagreeable impression produced upon Pierre Gringoire.Quite the contrary; our poet had too much good sense and too threadbarea coat, not to attach particular importance to having the numerousallusions in his prologue, and, in particular, the glorification of thedauphin, son of the Lion of France, fall upon the most eminent ear. Butit is not interest which predominates in the noble nature of poets. Isuppose that the entity of the poet may be represented by the numberten; it is certain that a chemist on analyzing and pharmacopolizing it,as Rabelais says, would find it composed of one part interest to nineparts of self-esteem.
Now, at the moment when the door had opened to admit the cardinal, thenine parts of self-esteem in Gringoire, swollen and expanded bythe breath of popular admiration, were in a state of prodigiousaugmentation, beneath which disappeared, as though stifled, thatimperceptible molecule of which we have just remarked upon in theconstitution of poets; a precious ingredient, by the way, a ballastof reality and humanity, without which they would not touch the earth.Gringoire enjoyed seeing, feeling, fingering, so to speak an entireassembly (of knaves, it is true, but what matters that?) stupefied,petrified, and as though asphyxiated in the presence of theincommensurable tirades which welled up every instant from all partsof his bridal song. I affirm that he shared the general beatitude, andthat, quite the reverse of La Fontaine, who, at the presentation of hiscomedy of the "Florentine," asked, "Who is the ill-bred lout who madethat rhapsody?" Gringoire would gladly have inquired of his neighbor,"Whose masterpiece is this?"
The reader can now judge of the effect produced upon him by the abruptand unseasonable arrival of the cardinal.
That which he had to fear was only too fully realized. The entrance ofhis eminence upset the audience. All heads turned towards the gallery.It was no longer possible to hear one's self. "The cardinal! Thecardinal!" repeated all mouths. The unhappy prologue stopped short forthe second time.
The cardinal halted for a moment on the threshold of the estrade. Whilehe was sending a rather indifferent glance around the audience, thetumult redoubled. Each person wished to get a better view of him.Each man vied with the other in thrusting his head over his neighbor'sshoulder.
He was, in fact, an exalted personage, the sight of whom was well worthany other comedy. Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon, Archbishop and Comte ofLyon, Primate of the Gauls, was allied both to Louis XI., through hisbrother, Pierre, Seigneur de Beaujeu, who had married the king's eldestdaughter, and to Charles the Bold through his mother, Agnes of Burgundy.Now, the dominating trait, the peculiar and distinctive trait of thecharacter of the Primate of the Gauls, was the spirit of the courtier,and devotion to the powers that be. The reader can form an idea of thenumberless embarrassments which this double relationship had caused him,and of all the temporal reefs among which his spiritual bark had beenforced to tack, in order not to suffer shipwreck on either Louis orCharles, that Scylla and that Charybdis which had devoured the Duc deNemours and the Constable de Saint-Pol. Thanks to Heaven's mercy, he hadmade the voyage successfully, and had reached home without hindrance.But although he was in port, and precisely because he was in port, henever recalled without disquiet the varied haps of his political career,so long uneasy and laborious. Thus, he was in the habit of saying thatthe year 1476 had been "white and black" for him--meaning thereby, thatin the course of that year he had lost his mother, the Duchesse de laBourbonnais, and his cousin, the Duke of Burgundy, and that one griefhad consoled him for the other.
Nevertheless, he was a fine man; he led a joyous cardinal's life, likedto enliven himself with the royal vintage of Challuau, did not hateRicharde la Garmoise and Thomasse la Saillarde, bestowed alms on prettygirls rather than on old women,--and for all these reasons was veryagreeable to the populace of Paris. He never went about otherwisethan surrounded by a small court of bishops and abbes of high lineage,gallant, jovial, and given to carousing on occasion; and more than oncethe good and devout women of Saint Germain d' Auxerre, when passingat night beneath the brightly illuminated windows of Bourbon, had beenscandalized to hear the same voices which had intoned vespers forthem during the day carolling, to the clinking of glasses, the bacchicproverb of Benedict XII., that pope who had added a third crown to theTiara--_Bibamus papaliter_.
It was this justly acquired popularity, no doubt, which preserved him onhis entrance from any bad reception at the hands of the mob, which hadbeen so displeased but a moment before, and very little disposed torespect a cardinal on the very day when it was to elect a pope. But theParisians cherish little rancor; and then, having forced the beginningof the play by their authority, the good bourgeois had got the upperhand of the cardinal, and this triumph was sufficient for them.Moreover, the Cardinal de Bourbon was a handsome man,--he wore a finescarlet robe, which he carried off very well,--that is to say, he hadall the women on his side, and, consequently, the best half of theaudience. Assuredly, it would be injustice and bad taste to hoot acardinal for having come late to the spectacle, when he is a handsomeman, and when he wears his scarlet robe well.
He entered, then, bowed to those present with the hereditary smile ofthe great for the people, and directed his course slowly towards hisscarlet velvet arm-chair, with the air of thinking of something quitedifferent. His cortege--what we should nowadays call his staff--ofbishops and abbes invaded the estrade in his train, not without causingredoubled tumult and curiosity among the audience. Each man vied withhis neighbor in pointing them out and naming them, in seeing who shouldrecognize at least one of them: this one, the Bishop of Marseilles(Alaudet, if my memory serves me right);--this one, the primicier ofSaint-Denis;--this one, Robert de Lespinasse, Abbe of Saint-Germain desPres, that libertine brother of a mistress of Louis XI.; all with manyerrors and absurdities. As for the scholars, they swore. This was theirday, their feast of fools, their saturnalia, the annual orgy of thecorporation of Law clerks and of the school. There was no turpitudewhich was not sacred on that day. And then there were gay gossips in thecrowd--Simone Quatrelivres, Agnes la Gadine, and Rabine Piedebou. Wasit not the least that one could do to swear at one's ease and revilethe name of God a little, on so fine a day, in such good comp
any asdignitaries of the church and loose women? So they did not abstain; and,in the midst of the uproar, there was a frightful concert of blasphemiesand enormities of all the unbridled tongues, the tongues of clerks andstudents restrained during the rest of the year, by the fear of the hotiron of Saint Louis. Poor Saint Louis! how they set him at defiance inhis own court of law! Each one of them selected from the new-comers onthe platform, a black, gray, white, or violet cassock as his target.Joannes Frollo de Molendin, in his quality of brother to an archdeacon,boldly attacked the scarlet; he sang in deafening tones, with hisimpudent eyes fastened on the cardinal, "_Cappa repleta mero_!"
All these details which we here lay bare for the edification of thereader, were so covered by the general uproar, that they were lost in itbefore reaching the reserved platforms; moreover, they would havemoved the cardinal but little, so much a part of the customs were theliberties of that day. Moreover, he had another cause for solicitude,and his mien as wholly preoccupied with it, which entered the estradethe same time as himself; this was the embassy from Flanders.
Not that he was a profound politician, nor was he borrowing troubleabout the possible consequences of the marriage of his cousin Margueritede Bourgoyne to his cousin Charles, Dauphin de Vienne; nor as to howlong the good understanding which had been patched up between theDuke of Austria and the King of France would last; nor how the King ofEngland would take this disdain of his daughter. All that troubled himbut little; and he gave a warm reception every evening to the wine ofthe royal vintage of Chaillot, without a suspicion that several flasksof that same wine (somewhat revised and corrected, it is true, by DoctorCoictier), cordially offered to Edward IV. by Louis XI., would, somefine morning, rid Louis XI. of Edward IV. "The much honored embassy ofMonsieur the Duke of Austria," brought the cardinal none of these cares,but it troubled him in another direction. It was, in fact, somewhathard, and we have already hinted at it on the second page of thisbook,--for him, Charles de Bourbon, to be obliged to feast and receivecordially no one knows what bourgeois;--for him, a cardinal, to receivealdermen;--for him, a Frenchman, and a jolly companion, to receiveFlemish beer-drinkers,--and that in public! This was, certainly, oneof the most irksome grimaces that he had ever executed for the goodpleasure of the king.
So he turned toward the door, and with the best grace in the world(so well had he trained himself to it), when the usher announced, in asonorous voice, "Messieurs the Envoys of Monsieur the Duke of Austria."It is useless to add that the whole hall did the same.
Then arrived, two by two, with a gravity which made a contrast in themidst of the frisky ecclesiastical escort of Charles de Bourbon, theeight and forty ambassadors of Maximilian of Austria, having attheir head the reverend Father in God, Jehan, Abbot of Saint-Bertin,Chancellor of the Golden Fleece, and Jacques de Goy, Sieur Dauby, GrandBailiff of Ghent. A deep silence settled over the assembly, accompaniedby stifled laughter at the preposterous names and all the bourgeoisdesignations which each of these personages transmitted withimperturbable gravity to the usher, who then tossed names and titlespell-mell and mutilated to the crowd below. There were Master LoysRoelof, alderman of the city of Louvain; Messire Clays d'Etuelde,alderman of Brussels; Messire Paul de Baeust, Sieur de Voirmizelle,President of Flanders; Master Jehan Coleghens, burgomaster of the cityof Antwerp; Master George de la Moere, first alderman of the kuere ofthe city of Ghent; Master Gheldolf van der Hage, first alderman of the_parchous_ of the said town; and the Sieur de Bierbecque, and JehanPinnock, and Jehan Dymaerzelle, etc., etc., etc.; bailiffs, aldermen,burgomasters; burgomasters, aldermen, bailiffs--all stiff, affectedlygrave, formal, dressed out in velvet and damask, hooded with caps ofblack velvet, with great tufts of Cyprus gold thread; good Flemishheads, after all, severe and worthy faces, of the family which Rembrandtmakes to stand out so strong and grave from the black background of his"Night Patrol "; personages all of whom bore, written on their brows,that Maximilian of Austria had done well in "trusting implicitly," asthe manifest ran, "in their sense, valor, experience, loyalty, and goodwisdom."
There was one exception, however. It was a subtle, intelligent,crafty-looking face, a sort of combined monkey and diplomat phiz, beforewhom the cardinal made three steps and a profound bow, and whose name,nevertheless, was only, "Guillaume Rym, counsellor and pensioner of theCity of Ghent."
Few persons were then aware who Guillaume Rym was. A rare genius whoin a time of revolution would have made a brilliant appearance on thesurface of events, but who in the fifteenth century was reduced tocavernous intrigues, and to "living in mines," as the Duc de Saint-Simonexpresses it. Nevertheless, he was appreciated by the "miner" of Europe;he plotted familiarly with Louis XI., and often lent a hand to theking's secret jobs. All which things were quite unknown to that throng,who were amazed at the cardinal's politeness to that frail figure of aFlemish bailiff.
CHAPTER IV. MASTER JACQUES COPPENOLE.