salus ducum;" and in England, over the principal entrance of the hospitable mansion of the Earls Cowper, "Tuum est." Every edifice was then, as it were, a thought.

As there was no door to the walled-up cell of the Tour-Roland, there had been engraven, in great Roman capitals, over the window, these two words of invitation to prayer:

"TU, ORA."

Whence it was that the people, whose straightforward good sense sees not so many subtleties in things, but readily translates Ludovico Magno into Porte Saint-Denis, had given to this dark, damp, dismal cavity the name of Trou-aux-Rats; 1 an explanation less sublime, perhaps, than the other, but on the other hand more picturesque.

1 Signifying rat-hole; a possible vulgarization of the French mode of pronouncing the Latin, "Tu, ora."

CHAPTER III.

CONCERNING THE HISTORY OF A LEAVENED
MAIZE-CAKE.

Ar the period at which the principal events of this history occurred, the cell of the Tour-Roland was occupied. If the reader desires to know by whom, he has only to listen to the conversation of three fair gossips, who, at the moment that we have called his attention to the Trou-aux-Rats, were directing their steps precisely to the same spot, going up the riverside from the Châtelet towards the Grève.

Two of these women were attired after the manner of the good bourgeoises of Paris. The fine white gorget; the petticoat of tiretaine, with red and blue stripes; the white knitted stockings, worked in colors at the ankles, and drawn tight upon the leg; the square-toed shoes, of brown leather with black soles; and especially their head-dress, that sort of tinselcovered horn, loaded with ribbons and lace, which is still worn by the women of Champagne in common with the grenadiers of the Russian imperial guard, announced that they belonged to that class of rich tradeswomen who hold the medium between what Parisian lackeys call a woman and what they call a lady. They wore neither rings nor golden crosses ; but it was easy to perceive that this was owing, not to their poverty, but simply to their apprehension of the fine incurred by so doing. Their companion was decked out nearly in the same manner; but there were, in the arrangement of her dress and in her carriage, that certain something which indicates the wife of a country attorney. It was evident, from the shortness of her waist, that she had not been long at Paris. Add to this description that she wore a plaited ruff, knots of ribbon upon her shoes, her skirt striped across instead of downwards, and fifty other enormities revolting to good taste.

The first two walked with the step peculiar to Parisian women showing Paris to ladies from the country; and the provincial one held by the hand a big chubby boy, who carried in his hand a large thin cake. We are sorry to be obliged to add that, owing to the severity of the season, his tongue was performing the office of his pocket-handkerchief. The boy made his mother drag him along, "non passibus æquis," as Virgil says, and stumbling every moment, to her great outcrying. It is true that he looked more at the cake than upon the ground. Some grave reason, no doubt, prevented him from setting his teeth in it (in the cake), for ne contented himself with looking at it affectionately. But the mother ought surely to have taken charge of the cake herself; it was cruel thus to make a Tantalus of the lad.

Meanwhile the three damoiselles (for the epithet of lady was then reserved for women of the noblesse) were all talking at once.

"Let us make haste, Damoiselle Mahiette," said the youngest of the three, who was also the fattest,

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to the provincial. "I'm very much afraid we shall get there too late; they told us at the Châtelet that they were going to carry him to the pillory directly."

"Ah, bah! what are you talking about, Damoiselle Oudarde Musnier?" interrupted the other Parisian lady. "He'll be two hours on the pillory. We've time enough. My dear Mahiette, did you ever see anybody pilloried?"

"Yes," said the provincial ; "I have at Reims." "Ah, bah! what's that? What's your pillory at Reims! A paltry cage, where they turn nothing but clowns. That's a great thing, to be sure!"

"What clowns!" said Mahiette. "Clowns in the Cloth-market at Reims! We've had very fine criminals there, I can tell you, that had killed both father and mother. Clowns indeed! What do you take us for, Gervaise?"

It is certain that the country dame was on the point of being in a passion for the honor of her pillory. Fortunately, the discreet Damoiselle Oudarde Musnier gave a timely turn to the conversation.

"By the bye, Damoiselle Mahiette, what say you to our Flemish ambassadors? Have you any so fine at Reims?”

" I must acknowledge," answered Mahiette, "that it's only at Paris one can see such Flemings as those." "Did you see among the embassy that great ambassador that's a hosier?" asked Oudarde.

"Yes," said Mahiette; "he looks like a very Saturn."

"And that fat one, with a face looking like a naked paunch? And that little one with little eyes, and red eyelids all jagged and bearded like the head of a thistle?"

"It's their horses that are fine to see," said Oudarde, "all dressed as they are, after their country fashion."

"Ah, my dear," interrupted the provincial Mahiette, assuming in her turn an air of superiority, "what would you say, then, if you'd seen, in '61, at the coronation at Reims, one-and-twenty years ago, the horses of the princes and all the king's company ! There were housings and caparisons of all sorts: some of Damascus cloth, fine cloth of gold, trimmed with sables; some of velvet, trimmed with ermine; some all loaded with gold-work and great gold and silver fringe. And then, the money that it all cost, - and the beautiful boys, the pages, that were upon them!"

"But, for all that," replied Damoiselle Oudarde, dryly, "the Flemings have very fine horses, and yesterday they 'd a splendid supper given them by monsieur the provost-merchant, at the Hôtel-deVille, where they served up sweetmeats, hippocras, spices, and such like singularities."

"What are you talking of, my dear neighbor ?" said Gervaise; "it was at the lord cardinal's, at the Petit-Bourbon, that the Flemings supped." "No, no; it was at the Hôtel-de-Ville." "Yes, yes, I tell you; it was at the PetitBourbon."

"So surely was it at the Hôtel-de-Ville," returned Oudarde, sharply, "that Dr. Scourable made them a Latin speech, and they were very well pleased with