CHAPTER IV.

MASTER JACQUES COPPENOLE.

WHILE the pensionary of Ghent and his eminence were exchanging a very low bow and a few words in a tone still lower, a man of lofty stature, largefeatured and broad-shouldered, presented himself to enter abreast with Guillaume Rym, - looking something like a mastiff dog by the side of a fox. His bicoquet of felt and his leathern jerkin were oddly conspicuous amid the velvet and silk that surrounded him. Presuming it to be some groom who knew not whither he was going, the usher stopped him with, "Hold, friend! you can't pass here."

The man of the leathern jerkin shouldered him aside. "What would this fellow with me?" said he, in a thundering voice, which drew the attention of the whole hall to this strange colloquy. "Seest thou not I'm one of them?"

"Your name?" demanded the usher.

"Jacques Coppenole." "Your description?"

"A hosier, at the sign of the Three Chains at Ghent."

The usher shrank back. To announce échevins and burgomasters might indeed be endured; but a hosier! - it was rather too bad. The cardinal was upon thorns. All the people were looking and listening. For two days his eminence had been doing his utmost to lick these Flemish bears into rather more presentable shape, and this freak was too much for him. Meanwhile Guillaume Rym, with his cunning smile, went up to the usher. "Announce Maître Jacques Coppenole, clerk to the échevins of the city of Ghent," said he to the officer in a very low whisper.

"Usher," then said the cardinal aloud, " announce Maître Jacques Coppenole, clerk to the échevins of the illustrious city of Ghent."

This was an error. Guillaume Rym, by himself, would have snatched the difficulty out of the way; but Coppenole had heard the cardinal's direction. "No! Croix-Dieu!" he cried, with his voice of thunder: "Jacques Coppenole, hosier. Dost thou hear, usher? Neither more nor less. Croix-Dieu ! a hosier, - that's fine enough. Monsieur the archduke has more than once looked for his gant in my hose."

This play upon the word gant, a glove, pronounced exactly like Gand, or Ghent, the great manufacturing town in Flanders, occasioned a burst of laughter and applause from the people below.

We must add that Coppenole was one of the people, and that the auditory around him were of the people also; so that the communication between them and him had been quick, electric, and, as it were, on equal footing. This lofty air which the Flemish hosier gave himself, by humbling the

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courtiers, had stirred in the plebeian breasts a certain latent feeling of dignity, which in the fifteenth century was as yet vague and undefined. They beheld one of their equals in this hosier, who had just borne himself so sturdily before the cardinal, a welcome reflection to poor devils accustomed to pay respect and obedience to the servants of the sergeants of the bailiff of the Abbot of Sainte Geneviève, the cardinal's train-bearer.

Coppenole made a stiff bow to his eminence, who returned the salute of the all-powerful burgher, formidable to Louis XI. Then, while Guillaume Rym, sage homme et malicieux, as Philippe de Comines expresses it, followed them both with a smile of raillery and superiority, they moved each to his place, the cardinal thoughtful and out of countenance, Coppenole quite at his ease, thinking, no doubt, that, after all, his title of hosier was as good as any other, and that Mary of Burgundy, mother of that Margaret for whose marriage he was now treating, would have feared him less as a cardinal than as a hosier; for no cardinal would have stirred up the people of Ghent against the favorites of the daughter of Charles the Rash, nor could any cardinal, by a single word, have fortified the multitude against her tears and prayers when the Lady of Flanders came and supplicated her people on their behalf, even to the foot of their scaffold, while the hosier had only had to raise his leathern elbow to cause both your heads to be struck off, most illustrious seigneurs Guy d'Hymbercourt and Chancellor Guillaume Hugonet.

Yet the poor cardinal had not gone through all his penance; he was doomed to drain the cup of being in such bad company, even to the dregs.

The reader has probably not forgotten the audacious mendicant who, at the time of the commencement of the prologue, had climbed up to the fringes of the gallery reserved for the cardinal. The arrival of the illustrious guests had not in the least disturbed him; and while the prelates and the ambassadors were barrelling themselves up like real Flemish herrings within the narrow compass of the gallery, he had put himself quite at his ease, with his legs bravely crossed upon the architrave. This piece of insolence was extraordinary; yet nobody had remarked it at the first moment, every one's attention being fixed elsewhere. He, for his part, took notice of nothing in the hall; he was moving his head backwards and forwards with the unconcern of a Neapolitan, repeating from time to time, amid the general hum, and as if by a mechanical habit, "Charity, if you please!" and indeed, among all present he was probably the only one who would not have deigned to turn his head on hearing the altercation between Coppenole and the usher. Now it so chanced that his hosiership of Ghent, with whom the people already so warmly sympathized, and upon whom all eyes were fixed, went and seated himself in the front line of the gallery, just over the place where the beggar was sitting; and it excited no small astonishment to see the Flemish ambassador, after scrutinizing the fellow beneath him, give him a friendly slap upon his ragged shoulder. The beggar turned round, Surprise, mutual recognition,

and kindly gratulation were visible in both faces; then, without giving themselves the slightest concern about the spectators, the hosier and the leper fell into conversation in a low voice, holding each other by the hand; while the tattered arm of Clopin Trouillefou, displayed at length upon the cloth of gold that decorated the gallery, had somewhat the appearance of a caterpillar upon an orange.

The novelty of this singular scene excited such noisy mirth among the crowd that the cardinal quickly remarked it. He leaned gently aside; and as, from the point where he was situated, he caught only an imperfect glimpse of Trouillefou's ignominious garment, he very naturally imagined that the beggar was asking alms; and indignant at his audacity, he exclaimed, "Monsieur the bailiff of the Palace, throw me that fellow into the river."

"Croix-Dieu! monseigneur le cardinal," said Coppenole, without leaving hold of Clopin's hand, “this is one of my friends."

"Noël! Noël!" cried the mob. And from that moment Maître Coppenole was at Paris, as at Ghent, "in great favor with the people; for men of such stature are so," says Philippe de Comines, “when they are thus disorderly."

The cardinal bit his lip. He leaned towards the Abbot of Sainte Geneviève, who sat next him, and said in a half-whisper: "Pretty ambassadors, truly, monsieur the archduke sends us to announce the Lady Margaret!"

"Your eminence's politeness," returned the abbot,