91 lines
3.7 KiB
Markdown
91 lines
3.7 KiB
Markdown
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---
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date: 2017-04-10T11:00:59-04:00
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description: "Pierre Gringoire"
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featured_image: ""
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tags: []
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title: "Chapter II: Pierre Gringoire"
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---
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Nevertheless, as be harangued them, the satisfaction and admiration
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unanimously excited by his costume were dissipated by his words; and when
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he reached that untoward conclusion: “As soon as his illustrious eminence,
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the cardinal, arrives, we will begin,” his voice was drowned in a thunder
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of hooting.
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“Begin instantly! The mystery! the mystery immediately!” shrieked the
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people. And above all the voices, that of Johannes de Molendino was
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audible, piercing the uproar like the fife’s derisive serenade: “Commence
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instantly!” yelped the scholar.
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“Down with Jupiter and the Cardinal de Bourbon!” vociferated Robin
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Poussepain and the other clerks perched in the window.
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“The morality this very instant!” repeated the crowd; “this very instant!
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the sack and the rope for the comedians, and the cardinal!”
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Poor Jupiter, haggard, frightened, pale beneath his rouge, dropped his
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thunderbolt, took his cap in his hand; then he bowed and trembled and
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stammered: “His eminence—the ambassadors—Madame Marguerite of
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Flanders—.” He did not know what to say. In truth, he was afraid of
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being hung.
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Hung by the populace for waiting, hung by the cardinal for not having
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waited, he saw between the two dilemmas only an abyss; that is to say, a
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gallows.
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Luckily, some one came to rescue him from his embarrassment, and assume
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the responsibility.
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An individual who was standing beyond the railing, in the free space
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around the marble table, and whom no one had yet caught sight of, since
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his long, thin body was completely sheltered from every visual ray by the
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diameter of the pillar against which he was leaning; this individual, we
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say, tall, gaunt, pallid, blond, still young, although already wrinkled
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about the brow and cheeks, with brilliant eyes and a smiling mouth, clad
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in garments of black serge, worn and shining with age, approached the
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marble table, and made a sign to the poor sufferer. But the other was so
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confused that he did not see him. The new comer advanced another step.
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“Jupiter,” said he, “my dear Jupiter!”
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The other did not hear.
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At last, the tall blond, driven out of patience, shrieked almost in his
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face,—
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“Michel Giborne!”
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“Who calls me?” said Jupiter, as though awakened with a start.
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“I,” replied the person clad in black.
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“Ah!” said Jupiter.
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“Begin at once,” went on the other. “Satisfy the populace; I undertake to
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appease the bailiff, who will appease monsieur the cardinal.”
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Jupiter breathed once more.
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“Messeigneurs the bourgeois,” he cried, at the top of his lungs to the
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crowd, which continued to hoot him, “we are going to begin at once.”
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“_Evoe Jupiter! Plaudite cives_! All hail, Jupiter! Applaud,
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citizens!” shouted the scholars.
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“Noel! Noel! good, good,” shouted the people.
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The hand clapping was deafening, and Jupiter had already withdrawn under
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his tapestry, while the hall still trembled with acclamations.
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In the meanwhile, the personage who had so magically turned the tempest
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into dead calm, as our old and dear Corneille puts it, had modestly
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retreated to the half-shadow of his pillar, and would, no doubt, have
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remained invisible there, motionless, and mute as before, had he not been
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plucked by the sleeve by two young women, who, standing in the front row
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of the spectators, had noticed his colloquy with Michel Giborne-Jupiter.
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“Master,” said one of them, making him a sign to approach. “Hold your
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tongue, my dear Liénarde,” said her neighbor, pretty, fresh, and very
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brave, in consequence of being dressed up in her best attire. “He is not a
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clerk, he is a layman; you must not say master to him, but messire.”
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