CHAPTER II.

PIERRE GRINGOIRE.

HOWEVER, while Jupiter was delivering his speech, the satisfaction, the admiration, unanimously excited by his costume were dissipated by his words; and when he arrived at that unlucky conclusion, " soon as the most eminent cardinal is arrived we shall begin," his voice was lost in a thunder of hooting.

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"Begin at once! The mystery! the mystery at once!" cried the people. And above all the other voices was heard that of Joannes de Molendino, piercing through the general uproar like the sound of the fife in a charivari at Nîmes. “Begin at once!" squeaked the scholar.

"Down with Jupiter and the Cardinal de Bourbon!" vociferated Robin Poussepain and the other young clerks nestling in the window.

"The morality directly!" repeated the crowd immediately; "begin, begin! The sack and the rope for the players and the cardinal!"

Poor Jupiter, all haggard, aghast, pale under his rouge, let fall his thunderbolts, took his bicoquet in his hand; then, bowing and trembling, he stammered out, "His eminence - the ambassadors - the Lady Margaret of Flanders ---" He knew not what to say. But the fact was he was afraid he should be hanged, - hanged by the populace for waiting, or hanged by the cardinal for not having waited; on either hand he beheld an abyss.

Happily, some one came forward to extricate him and take the responsibility on himself.

An individual who stood within the balustrade, in the space which it left clear around the marble table, and whom no one had yet perceived, so completely was his long and slender person sheltered from every visual ray by the diameter of the pillar against which he had set his back, - this individual, we say, tall, thin, pale, light complexioned, still young, though wrinkles were already visible in his forehead and his cheeks, with sparkling eyes and a smiling mouth, clad in a garment of black serge threadbare with age, approached the marble table and made a sign to the poor sufferer. But the other, in his perturbation, did not observe it.

The new-comer advanced another step forward.
"Jupiter," said he, "my dear Jupiter!"
The other did not hear him.

At last the tall, fair man, losing all patience, shouted in his ear, "Michel Giborne!"

"Who calls me?" said Jupiter, as if starting from a trance.

" I do," answered the other personage. "Ah!" exclaimed Jupiter.

"Begin directly," returned the other; "satisfy the people, and I take upon myself to appease monsieur the bailiff, who will appease monsieur the cardinal."

"Messeigneurs les

Jupiter now took breath.

bourgeois," cried he, at the utmost stretch of his lungs, to the multitude who continued to hoot him,

we are going to begin directly."

"Evoe! Jupiter! plaudite, cives!" cried the scholars.

"Noël! Noël!" cried the people; that cry being the burden of a canticle sung in the churches at Christmas, in honor of the Nativity, whence, apparently, it was adopted by the populace as a general mark of approbation and jubilation as long as the season lasted.

Then followed a deafening clapping of hands, and the hall still shook with acclamations when Jupiter had withdrawn behind his tapestry.

Meanwhile, the unknown, who had so magically changed the tempest into a calm, had modestly retired under the penumbra of his pillar, and would no doubt have remained there, invisible and motionless and mute, as before, if he had not been drawn from it by two young women, who, being in the first line of the spectators, had remarked his colloquy with Michel Giborne Jupiter.

"Maître," said one of them, beckoning to him to approach.

"Hush! my dear Liénarde," said her fair neighbor, pretty, blooming, and quite courageous by virtue of her holiday attire; "it is not a clerk, it is a layman. You should not say Maître, but Messire."

"Messire!" then said Liénarde.

The unknown approached the balustrade.

"What is your pleasure with me, mesdemoiselles ?" asked he, with an air of complaisance.

"Oh, nothing,” said Liénarde, all confused. "It's my neighbor here, Gisquette-la-Gencienne, that wants to speak to you."

"No, no," rejoined Gisquette, blushing; "it was Liénarde that said Maître to you; I only taught her that she ought to say Messire."

The two girls cast down their eyes. The gentleman, who felt quite disposed to enter into conversation with them, looked at them, smiling: "You have nothing to say to me, then, mesdemoiselles?" "Oh, no, nothing at all," answered Gisquette. "No, nothing," said Liénarde.

The tall, fair young man now made a step to retire; but the two curious damsels were not inclined to let him go so soon.

"Messire," said Gisquette, with the impetuosity of water escaping through a sluice, or a woman taking a resolution, "then you're acquainted with that soldier that's going to play Our Lady the Virgin in the mystery?"

"You mean the part of Jupiter," returned the unknown.

"Oh, dear, yes," said Liénarde; "is she stupid? You 're acquainted with Jupiter, then?"

"With Michel Giborne," answered the unknown ; "yes, madam."

"He has a fierce-looking beard," answered Liénarde.

"Will it be very fine, what they are all going to say?" asked Gisquette, timidly.

"Very fine, indeed, mademoiselle," answered their

informant without the least hesitation.

"What will it be?" said Liénarde.

"The Good Award of Our Lady the Virgin; a morality, if it please you, mademoiselle."

"Ah! that's different," returned Liénarde.

"A short silence followed, which was broken by the stranger. "It is a morality entirely new," said he, "which has never yet been played."

“Then it's not the same," said Gisquette, " as what was played two years ago on the day of the entry of monsieur the legate, and in which three beautiful girls performed — "

"As-sirens," interrupted Liénarde.

"And quite naked," added the young man.

Liénarde modestly cast down her eyes. Gisquette looked at her, and did likewise. The other continued, smiling, "It was a very pretty thing to see. But to-day it is a morality made on purpose for the Lady of Flanders."

"Will they sing bergerettes?" asked Gisquette. "Oh, fie!" said the unknown. "What! in a morality! We must not confound one kind of pieces with another. In a sottie, indeed, it would be quite right."

"That's a pity," rejoined Gisquette. "That day there were at the fountain du Ponceau savage men and women, fighting and making different motions, singing little motets and bergerettes all the while."

"That which is suitable for a legate," said the stranger, very dryly, "is not suitable for a princess."