CHAPTER III.

THE CARDINAL.

POOR Gringoire! The noise of all the great double petards let off on Saint John's day, the discharge of a score of cracking arquebusses, the report of that famous serpentine of the Tour de Billy, which, at the time of the siege of Paris, on Sunday, the 29th of September, 1465, killed seven Burgundians at a shot, the explosion of all the gunpowder stored up at the Temple gate, would have split his ears less violently, at that solemn and dramatic moment, than those few words from the lips of an usher, "His Eminence Monseigneur le Cardinal de Bourbon."

Not that Pierre Gringoire either feared the cardinal or despised him; he was neither weak enough to do the one, nor self-sufficient enough to do the other. A true eclectic, as he would nowadays be called, Gringoire was one of those firm and elevated spirits, calm and temperate, who can preserve their composure under all circumstances, stare in dimidio rerum, - and who are full of reason and of a liberal philosophy even while making some account of cardinals. Invaluable and uninterrupted line of philosophers, to whom wisdom, like another Ariadne, seems to have given a clew, which they have gone

on unwinding from the beginning of the world through the labyrinth of human affairs. They are to be found in all times; and ever the same, that is to say, ever conforming themselves to the time. And, not to mention our Pierre Gringoire, who would be their representative of the fifteenth century if we could succeed in obtaining for him the distinction which he deserves, it was certainly their spirit which animated Père du Breul in the sixteenth, when writing these words of sublime simplicity, worthy of any age: "I am a Parisian by my birthplace, and a parrhisian by my speech; for parrhisia in Greek signifies liberty of speech, which liberty I have used even to messeigneurs the cardinals, uncle and brother to monseigneur the Prince of Conti, albeit with respect for their greatness, and without offending any one of their train; and that is a great deal to say."

So there was neither hatred for the cardinal, nor contempt of his presence, in the disagreeable impression which it made upon Pierre Gringoire. On the contrary, our poet had too much good sense and too threadbare a frock not to attach a particular value to the circumstance, that many an allusion in his prologue, and in particular the glorification of the dolphin, son of the lion of France, would fall upon the ear of an éminentissime. But interest is not the ruling motive in the noble nature of poets. Supposing the entity of a poet to be represented by the number ten, it is certain that a chemist, on analyzing and pharmacopolizing it, as Rabelais says, would find it to be composed of one part of self-interest with nine parts of self-esteem. Now, at the moment that the door opened for the entrance of his eminence, Gringoire's nine parts of self-esteem, inflated and expanded by the breath of popular admiration, were in a state of prodigious enlargement, quite overwhelming and smothering that imperceptible particle of self-interest which we just now discriminated in the constitution of poets, - an invaluable ingredient, by the way, a ballast of reality and humanity, without which they would never touch the earth. It was enjoyment for Gringoire to see and feel that an entire assemblage (of poor creatures, it is true, but what then?) were stupefied, petrified, and asphyxiated by the immeasurable tirades which burst from every part of his epithalamium. We affirm that he himself shared the general beatitude; and that, quite the reverse of La Fontaine, who, at the performance of his play of "The Florentine," asked, "What poor wretch has written that rhapsody?" Gringoire would willingly have asked the person nearest to him, "Whose masterpiece is this?" Hence it may be supposed what sort of effect was produced upon him by the sudden and untimely arrival of the cardinal.

All his fears were but too fully realized. His eminence's entrance threw the whole auditory into motion. All eyes were turned towards the estrade, and there was a general buzz. "The cardinal! the cardinal!" repeated every tongue. The unfortunate prologue was cut short a second time.

The cardinal stopped a moment upon the threshold of the gallery, and while casting his eyes with great indifference over the assemblage, the tumult redoubled. Everybody wanted to obtain a better view of him, each one stretching his neck over his neighbor's shoulder.

He was in truth an exalted personage, the sight of whom was worth almost any other spectacle. Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon, Archbishop and Count of Lyons, and Primate of Gaul, was allied both to Louis XI., through his brother Pierre, Seigneur of Beaujeu, who had espoused the king's eldest daughter, and at the same time to the Burgundian duke Charlesle-Téméraire, through his mother, Agnes of Burgundy. Now, the ruling, the characteristic, the distinctive feature in the character of the Primate of Gaul was his courtier-like spirit and his devotedness to power. Hence, it may well be supposed in what numberless perplexities this double relationship had involved him, and among how many temporal shoals his spiritual bark must have tacked about, to have escaped foundering, either upon Louis or upon Charles, the Charybdis and the Scylla which had swallowed up the Duke of Nemours and the Constable of Saint-Pol. However, Heaven be praised! he had got happily through his voyage, and had reached Rome without any cross accident. But although he was now in port --and, indeed, precisely because he was in port - he never recollected, without a feeling of uneasiness, the various chances of his political life, which had so long been perilous and laborious. So, also, he used to say that the year 1476 had been to him both a black and white year; meaning thereby that he had lost in that one year his mother, the Duchess of Bourbonnais, and his cousin, the Duke of Burgundy, and that one mourning had consoled him for the other.

Yet he was an excellent man; he led a joyous cardinal's life; was wont to make merry with wine of the royal vintage of Challuau; had no dislike to Richarde-la-Gamoise and Thomasse-la-Saillarde; gave alms to pretty girls in preference to old women; and for all these reasons was in great favor with the good people of Paris. He always went surrounded by a little court of bishops and abbots of high lineage, gallant, jovial, and fond of good eating; and more than once had the good devotees of Saint-Germain d'Auxerre, in passing at night under the windows of the Hôtel de Bourbon, all blazing with light, been scandalized by hearing the same voices which had been singing vespers to them in the daytime, striking up, to the sound of glasses, the bacchanalian sentiment of Benedict XII., the pope who had added a third crown to the tiara - Bibamus papaliter.

No doubt it was this popularity, so justly acquired, which preserved him at his entrance from anything like ill reception on the part of the crowd, who, a few moments before had been so dissatisfied, and so little disposed to pay respect to a cardinal, even on the day when they were going to elect a pope. But the Parisians bear little malice; and besides, by making the performance begin of their own authority, the good citizens had had the better of the cardinal, and this triumph satisfied them. Moreover, Monsieur le Cardinal de Bourbon was a handsome man; he had on a very handsome scarlet gown, which he wore in excellent style, which is as much as to say that he had in his favor all the women, and, consequently, the better part of the audience. Certainly, it would be