"True; and he gave my place in the nation of Normandy to little Ascanio Falzaspada, belonging to the province of Bourges, because he's an Italian.” "It's an injustice!" exclaimed all the scholars. "Down with the chancellor of Sainte Geneviève!" "Ho, there! Maître Joachim de Ladehors! Ho! Louis Dalmille! Ho! Lambert Hoctement!"

"The devil smother the attorney of the nation of Germany!"

"And the chaplains of the Sainte Chapelle, with their gray amices, - cum tunicis grisis?" "Seu de pellibus grisis fourratis."

"Hollo! the masters of arts! All the fine black copes; all the fine red copes!"

"That makes the rector a fine tail!”

"It might be a doge of Venice going to marry the sea."

"Now, again, Jehan! the canons of Saint Geneviève!"

"The devil take all the canons together!"

"Abbé Claude Choart! Doctor Claude Choart, are you seeking Marie-la-Giffarde?"

"She's in the Rue de Glatigny."

"She's making the bed for the king of the ribalds."

"She's paying her four deniers, - quatuor de narios."

"Aut unum bombum."

"Would you have her pay you in the nose?"

"Comrades, there goes Maître Simon Sanguin, elector of Picardy, with his wife mounted behind him."

"Post equitem sedet atra cura."
"Courage, Maître Simon!"
"Good-day to you, monsieur l'électeur."
"Good-night, madame l'électrice."

"Now, aren't they happy, to be seeing all that?" said Joannes de Molendino, with a sigh, from his perch on the capital.

Meanwhile the sworn bookseller to the University, Maître Andry Musnier, whispered in the ear of the king's furrier, Maître Gilles Lecornu,

"I tell you, monsieur, the world's at an end. Never were there seen such breakings-out of the scholars! It's the accursed inventions of the age that are ruining everything, - the artillery, the serpentines, the bombards, and, above all, the printingpress, that German pest! No more manuscripts ; no more books! Printing puts an end to bookselling: the end of the world is coming!"

"I believe you. See how velvet's coming into fashion!" sighed the furrier.

At that moment it struck twelve.

"Ha!" exclaimed the whole crowd, with one voice.

The scholars held their peace.

Then there was a great shuffling about, a great movement of feet and heads, a general detonation of coughing and blowing of noses, each one striving to place himself to the best advantage for the spectacle. Then there was a deep silence, every neck remaining outstretched, every mouth open, every eye turned towards the marble table; but nothing appeared. The bailiff's four sergeants still kept their posts, as stiff and motionless as if they had been four painted statues. All eyes then turned towards the gallery reserved for the Flemish envoys. The door remained shut, and the gallery empty. The multitude had been waiting since the early morning for three things, that is to say, for the hour of noon, for the French embassy, and for the mystery; but only the first of the three had kept its time.

This was rather too bad.

They waited one - two- three - five minutes a quarter of an hour; but nothing came. The estrade remained solitary; the stage, mute. Meanwhile impatience was succeeded by displeasure. Angry words circulated about, though as yet only in whispers. "The mystery! the mystery!" was uttered in an undertone. The heads of the multitude began to ferment. A storm, which as yet only growled, was agitating the surface of that human sea. It was our friend Jehan du Moulin that elicited the first explosion.

"The mystery! and the devil take the Flemings!" cried he with the whole force of his lungs, twisting bimself like a serpent about his pillar.

The multitude clapped their hands. "The mystery!" they all shouted; "and let Flanders go to all the devils!"

66

"The mystery on the spot!" immediately resumed the scholar; or up with the bailiff of the Palais and hang him by way of play and morality."

"Well said!" exclaimed the people; "and let us begin the hanging with his sergeants!"

A great acclamation followed. The four poor devils of sergeants began to turn pale and look anxiously at each other. The multitude pressed towards them, and they already saw the slight wooden balustrade which separated them from the crowd bending inwards under the pressure.

The moment was critical.

"Bag them! bag them!" was shouted from all sides.

At that instant the hangings of the dressing-room which we have described above were lifted up to make way for the advance of a personage the first sight of whom sufficed to stop the eager multitude, and changed their anger into curiosity as if by enchantment.

"Silence! silence!" was now the cry.

This personage, but little reassured, and trembling in every limb, came forward to the edge of the marble table, making a profusion of bows, which the nearer he approached approximated more and more to genuflections.

Tranquillity, however, was almost restored. Only that slight murmur was heard which is always exhaled from the silence of a great crowd.

"Messieurs les bourgeois," said he, "and mesdemoiselles les bourgeoises, we shall have the honor of declaiming and performing before his eminence monsieur le cardinal a very fine morality, entitled 'The Good Award of our Lady the Virgin Mary.' I play Jupiter. His eminence is at this moment accompanying the most honorable embassy from monsieur the Duke of Austria, which is just now detained by nearing the harangue of monsieur the rector of the University, at the Bandets gate. As soon as the most eminent cardinal is arrived we shall begin."

It is certain that nothing less than the intervention of Jupiter was necessary to save the four unhappy sergeants of the bailiff of the Palais. If we had had the happiness of inventing this very true and veritable history, and had consequently been responsible for it before Our Lady of Criticism, it is not in this place, at all events, that we should have incurred any citation against us of the classical precept, nec Deus intersit, etc. Besides, the costume of Seigneur Jupiter was a very fine one, and had contributed not a little to calm the irritated assemblage by attracting all their attention. Jupiter was clad in a brigandine covered with black velvet and gilt nails; his headdress was a bicoquet decorated with silver-gilt buttons; and but for the rouge and the great beard which covered each one half of his face, but for the scroll of gilt pasteboard strewed with passequilles and stuck all over with shreds of tinsel which he carried in his hand, and in which experienced eyes easily recognized his thunderbolts, and but for his flesh-colored feet, sandal-bound with ribbons à la Grecque, he might have borne a comparison, for the severity of his aspect, with a Breton archer of that day, of Monsieur de Berry's corps.