G THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME. All these circumstances, which we here reveal for the edification of the reader, were so smoth- ered by the general tumult as to pass unnoticed by the reverend party on the platform: bad it, in- deed, been otherwise, the Cardinal would not have heeded them, so deeply were the liberties of that day engrafted on the manners of the age. He was, moreover, wholly pre-occupied — and his countenance showed it—by another solicitude, which closely pursued him, and, indeed, entered the platform almost at the same time with him, namely, the Flanders embassy. Not that he was a profound politician, and was calculating the possible consequences of the mar- riage of his cousin Margaret of Burgundy with Ins cousin Charles, Dauphin of Venice; or how long the good understanding patched up between the Duke of Austria and the King of France was likely to last; or how the King of England would take the slight offered to his daughter; these matters gave him no uneasiness, and he enjoyed himself every evening over the royal growth of Chaillot, without ever dreaming that a few bottles of the same wine—first doctored a little, it is true, by Coictier the physician — cordially presented to Edward IV by Louis XI would one day rid Louis XI of Edward IV. The most honorable the em- bassy of Monsieur the Duke of Austria brought upon the Cardinal none of these cares; but it vexed him in another way. It was in truth rather hard, as we have already observed at the begin- ning of this book, that he, Charles of Bourbon, Bhould be obliged to give hearty welcome and good entertainment to paltry citizens; he, a car- dinal, to burgomasters; he, a Frenchman, a boon companion, to Flemings fond of beer—and that too in public. This was certainly one of the most disagreeable tasks be had ever undertaken to please the King. , He turned, therefore toward the door, and with the best grace in the world —so well had he studied his part—when the usher, with his sonor- ous voice, announced Messieurs the Envoys of Monsieur the Duke of Austria. It is scarcely neces- sary to remark that all the spectators did the same The forty-eight ambassadors of Maximilian of Austria headed by the reverend father in God, Jehan, Abbot of St. Bertin, Chancellor of the Golden Fleece, and Jacques de Goy, Sieur Dauby, High-bailiff of Ghent, then entered two and two, with a gravity which formed a remarkable con- trast amid the volatile ecclesiastical retinue of Charles of Bourbon. Deep silence pervaded the assembly, broken only by stifled laughter at the mention of the uncouth names and all the petty titles which each of these personages repeated with imperturbable solemnity to the usher, who then flung them, names and qualities pell-mell and cruelly mangled, among the crowd. There was Master Loys Boelof, echevin of the city of Lou- vain; Messire Clays d'Etuelde, echevin of Brus- sels'; Messire Paul de Baeust, Sieur de Vormizelle, President of Flanders; Master Jehan Coleghens, burgomaster of the city of Antwerp; Master George de la Moera, and Master Gheldolf van der Hage, echevins of the city of Ghent; and the Sieur de Bierbecque, Jehan Pinnock, Jehan Dy- maerzelle, &c. &c bailiffs, echevins,burgomasters; burgomasters, echevins, bailiffs; all stiff, starched, formal, tricked out in velvets and damasks, and ensconced in caps of black velvet with prodigious tassels of Cyprus gold thread; fine Flemish heads after all, with austere but goodly faces, of the same family as those which Bembrandt has brought out, so grave and so expressive, from the dark ground of his night-piece; personages who all had it written on their brows that Maximilian of Austria had good reason " tô place full confi- dence," as his manifesto declared, "in their dis- cretion, firmness, experience, loyalty, and rare qualities." There was, however, one exception. This was a sharp, intelligent, crafty-looking face, a physi- ognomy compounded of that of the monkey and the diplomatist, toward the owner of which the Cardinal advanced three steps with a low bow, and whose name, nevertheless, was plain Guill- aume Bym, councilor and pensionary of the city Of Ghent. Few persons there knew who this Guillaume Bym was. He was a man of rare genius, who in times of revolution would have raised himself to distinction, but was forced in the fifteenth cen- tury to resort to the hollow ways of intrigue, and to live in the saps, as saith the Duke of St. Simon. For the rest, he was duly appreciated by the first sapper in Europe; he wrought in familiar concert ¦with Louis XI, and frequently lent a helping hand to the King in his secret necessities—circum- stances absolutely unknown to the crowd, who marveled at the respect paid by the Cardinal to so insignificant a person as tlie Flemish bailiff. Chapter IV.—Master Jacques Coppenole. While the pensionary of Ghent and his Emi- nence were exchanging a low obeisance and a few words in a still lower tone, a man of lofty stature, with jolly face and broad shoulders, stepped forward for tbe purpose of entering abreast with Guillaume Bym; they looked for all the world like a bull-dog beside a fox. His felt cap and leathern vest were conspicuous amid the velvets and silks which surrounded him. Pre- suming that he was some groom who had mis- taken the way, the usher stopped him. "No admittance here, my friend," said he. The man in the leathern vest pushed him back. "What means the fellow ?" cried he in a voice which drew the attention of the whole hall to this strange colloquy. " Dost not see that I belong to them?" " Your name ? " asked the usher. " Jacques Coppenole." "Your quality ?" "Hosier; at the sign of the Three Chains m Ghent." The usher was staggered. To have to announce bailiffs, and burgomasters, and echevins, was bad enough; but a hosier !—no—he could not make up his mind to that. The Cardinal was upon thorns. The whole assembly was all eye and ear. For two days his Eminence had been taking pains to lick these Flemish bears, in order to make them a little more producible in public, and his failure was galling. Meanwhile, Guillaume Bym, with his sly smile, stepped up to the usher, and said in a very low whisper: "Announce Master Jacques Coppenole, clerk to the echevins of the city of Ghent." "Usher," said the Cadinal in a loud tone, "an- nounce Master Jacques Coppenole, clerk to the echevins ot the most noble city of Ghent." Now it is very certain that Guillaume Bym, had he been left to himself, would liave shuffled off the difficulty, but Coppenole had heard the Cardi- nal. " No, by the rood ! " cried he, with his voice of thunder, "Jacques Coppenole, hosier. Hark ye, usher, neither more nor less. By the rood ! hosier —that's quite fine enougli ! Monsieur the Arch- duke has more than once sought his gloves among my nose." A burst of laughter and applause ensued. A witticism or a pun is instantly comprehended at Paris, and consequently sure to be applauded. Coppenole, be it moreover observed, was one of the people, and the assembly by which he was sur- rounded belonged to the same class. The com- munication between them was in consequence prompt, electric, and hearty. The lofty bravado of the Flemish hosier, at the same time that it humbled the courtiers, awakened in all those ple- beian minds a sense of dignity, still but vague and indistinct in the fifteenth century. This hosier, who had just held Monsieur the Cardinal at defi- ance, was their equal—a soothing reflection to poor devils accustomed to pay obedience and re- spect to the servants of the very sergeants of the bailiff of the abbot of St. Genevieve, the train- bearer of the Cardinal. Coppenole bowed haughtily to the Cardinal, who returned the obeisance of the high and mighty burgher, dreaded by Louis XL Then, while Guillaume Bym, a "cunning man and spite- ful," as saith Philip de Confines, looked after both with a smile of conscious superiority, they pro- ceeded to their places—the Cardinal mortified and disconcerted; Coppenole, calm and proud, think- ing, no doubt, that his title of hosier was as good as any other, and that Mary of Burgundy, the mother of that Margaret whose'marriage Coppenole had come to negotiate, would have felt less dread of him as a cardinal than as a hosier : for it was not a cardinal who would have raised the people of Ghent against the favorites of the daughter of Charles the Bold; it was not a cardinal who would have steeled the multitude by a word against her tears and her entreaties, when the Princess of Flanders proceeded to the very foot of the scaffold to beg their lives of her subjects; while the hosier had but lift his finger and off went your heads, ye most illustrious gentlemen, Guy d'Hymbercourt, and Chancellor William Hugonet ! The poor Cardinal's probation, however, was not yet over : he was doomed to drink to the very dregs the cup of penance for being in such com- pany. The reader has, perhaps, not forgotten the impudent beggar, who at the commencement of the prologue perched himself beneath the fringe of the Cardinal's gallery. The arrival of the illus- trious guests had not dislodged him from his roost, and while the prelates and ambassadors were packing themselves, like real Flemish herrings, in the boxes of the gallery, he had placed himself at his ease, and carelessly crossed his legs over the architrave. Nobody, however, had at first noticed this extraordinary piece of insolence, the universal attention being directed to another quarter. Neither was he, on his part, aware of what was going forward in the Hall; there.he sat, rocking to and fro with the utmost unconcern, repeating, as from a mechanical habit, the ditty of " Charity, if you please ! " To a certainty he was the only one in the whole assembly who had not deigned to turn his head at the altercation between Cop- penole and the usher. Now, as luck would have it, the hosier of Ghent, with whom the people already sympathized so strongly, and on whom all eyes were fixed, took his seat in tlie first row in the gallery, just above the mendicant. Great was, nevertheless, their astonishment, at seeing the Flemish ambassador, after taking a survey of the fellow nestled under his nose, slap him famil- iarly on his shoulder covered with tatters. The mendicant turned sharply round : surprise, recog- nition, pleasure, were expressed in both faces'; and then, without caring a pinch of snuff for the spectators, the hosier and the scurvy rogue shook hands ami began to talk in a low tone, while the rags of Clopiii Trouillefou, clapped against the cloth of gold with which the gallery was hang, produced the effect of a caterpillar upon an orange. The novelty of this singular scene excited such a burst of merriment in the hall, that the Cardinal could not help noticing it; he leaned forward and as, from the place where he sat, he had but à very imperfect view of the squalid figure of Trouillefou, he naturally supposed that he was soliciting alms : incensed at this audacity, he cried " Mr. Bailiff of the Palace, throw me that varlet into the river." "By the mass! Monseigneur the Cardinal!" exclaimed Coppenole, " that varlet is a friend of mine." "Huzza! huzza!" shouted the crowd. From that moment, Master Coppenole had " great in- fiuence over the populace at Paris, as well as at Ghent: for," adds Philip de Comines, "men of that kidney are sure to have it, when they are so beyond measure disorderly." The Cardinal bit his lips. Turning to his neigh- bor, the Abbot of St. Genevieve, he said in an un- der-tone, "Bight pleasant ambassadors these sent to us by Monsieur the Archduke to announce Madame Margaret ! " " Your Eminence," replied the abbot, " is throw- ing away your civilities upon these Flemish hogs : margaritas ante porcos." "Say rather," answered the Cardimal with a smile, 'iporcos ante Margaritam." The whole petty cassocked court was in rap. tures at this sally. The Cardinal felt somewhat relieved; he was now quits with Coppenole; he too had gained applause for his pun. Now, let such of our readers as are capable of generalizing an image and an idea, to adopt the phraseology of the present day, permit us to ask if they have formedaclear conception of the spectacle presented, at the moment to which we are calling their attention, by the vast parallelogram of the great hall of Paris. In the middle of the hall, backed agafnst the western wall, a wide and mag- nificent gallery hung with gold brocade, info which, through a small doorway with pointed arch, advance in procession a number of grave personages, successively announced by a bawling usher. On the front seats already many venerable figures, muffled in ermine, velvet, and scarlet. On the floor of tlie hall, in front and on either side of the gallery, which maintains a dignified silence, a great crowd and a great uproar. A thousand vulgar eyes fixed on every face in the gallery; a thousand whispers at every name. The scene, forsooth, is a curious one, and well deserving the attention of the spectators. But what is that kind of scaffold yonder at the farther end, on which are seen four parti-colored figures ? and who is that pale-faced man in a black frock at the foot of it ? Why, courteous reader, that is poor Pierre Gringoire and his prologue. We had all quite and clean forgotten him; and this was precisely what he was afraid of. From the moment that the Cardinal entered, Gringoire had not ceased to bestir himself for the salvation of his prologue. At first he enjoined the actors, who were m a state of suspense, to proceed and to raise their voices; then, perceiving that nobody listened to them, he ordered them to stop; and for the quarter of an hour that the in- terruption had lasted he had been incessantly bustling about calling upon Gisquette and Lienarde to encourage their neighbors to call for the con- tinuation of the prologue—but all in vain. Not a creature would turn away from the Cardinal, tin» embassy, and the gallery, the sole center of that vast circle of visual rays. There is also reason to believe, and we record it with regret, that the audience was beginning to be somewhat tired of the prologue, at the moment when his Eminence arrived and made such a terrible diversion. After all, the gallery exhibited precisely the same spec- tacle as the marble table—the conflict between Labor and Clergy, Nobility and Trade. And many people liked much better to see them without disguise, living, breathing, acting, elbowing one another, in that Flemish embassy, in that episcopal court, under the Cardinal's robe, under the vest oi Coppenole, than talking in verse, painted tncitea out, resembling effigies of straw stuffed into tne yellow and white tunics in which Gringoire naa inwrapped them. . . ... „„„,. When, however, our 'poet perceived that some degree of tranquillity was restored, he devised