Chapter II: Pierre Gringoire

Nevertheless, as he harangued them, the satisfaction and
admiration unanimously excited by his costume were dissipated by
his words; and when he reached that untoward conclusion: “As soon
as his illustrious eminence, the cardinal, arrives, we will
begin,” his voice was drowned in a thunder of hooting.

“Begin instantly! The mystery! the mystery immediately!” shrieked
the people. And above all the voices, that of Johannes de
Molendino was audible, piercing the uproar like the fife’s
derisive serenade: “Commence instantly!” yelped the scholar.

“Down with Jupiter and the Cardinal de Bourbon!” vociferated
Robin Poussepain and the other clerks perched in the window.

“The morality this very instant!” repeated the crowd; “this very
instant! the sack and the rope for the comedians, and the
cardinal!”

Poor Jupiter, haggard, frightened, pale beneath his rouge,
dropped his thunderbolt, took his cap in his hand; then he bowed
and trembled and stammered: “His eminence—the ambassadors—Madame
Marguerite of Flanders—.” He did not know what to say. In truth,
he was afraid of being hung.

Hung by the populace for waiting, hung by the cardinal for not
having waited, he saw between the two dilemmas only an abyss;
that is to say, a gallows.

Luckily, some one came to rescue him from his embarrassment, and
assume the responsibility.

An individual who was standing beyond the railing, in the free
space around the marble table, and whom no one had yet caught
sight of, since his long, thin body was completely sheltered from
every visual ray by the diameter of the pillar against which he
was leaning; this individual, we say, tall, gaunt, pallid, blond,
still young, although already wrinkled about the brow and cheeks,
with brilliant eyes and a smiling mouth, clad in garments of
black serge, worn and shining with age, approached the marble
table, and made a sign to the poor sufferer. But the other was so
confused that he did not see him. The new comer advanced another
step.

“Jupiter,” said he, “my dear Jupiter!”

The other did not hear.

At last, the tall blond, driven out of patience, shrieked almost
in his face,—

“Michel Giborne!”

“Who calls me?” said Jupiter, as though awakened with a start.

“I,” replied the person clad in black.

“Ah!” said Jupiter.

“Begin at once,” went on the other. “Satisfy the populace; I
undertake to appease the bailiff, who will appease monsieur the
cardinal.”

Jupiter breathed once more.

“Messeigneurs the _bourgeois_,” he cried, at the top of his lungs
to the crowd, which continued to hoot him, “we are going to begin
at once.”

“_Evoe Jupiter! Plaudite cives_! All hail, Jupiter! Applaud,
citizens!” shouted the scholars.

“Noël! Noël! good, good,” shouted the people.

The hand clapping was deafening, and Jupiter had already
withdrawn under his tapestry, while the hall still trembled with
acclamations.

In the meanwhile, the personage who had so magically turned the
tempest into dead calm, as our old and dear Corneille puts it,
had modestly retreated to the half-shadow of his pillar, and
would, no doubt, have remained invisible there, motionless, and
mute as before, had he not been plucked by the sleeve by two
young women, who, standing in the front row of the spectators,
had noticed his colloquy with Michel Giborne-Jupiter.

“Master,” said one of them, making him a sign to approach.

“Hold your tongue, my dear Liénarde,” said her neighbor, pretty,
fresh, and very brave, in consequence of being dressed up in her
best attire. “He is not a clerk, he is a layman; you must not say
master to him, but messire.”

“Messire,” said Liénarde.

The stranger approached the railing.

“What would you have of me, damsels?” he asked, with alacrity.

“Oh! nothing,” replied Liénarde, in great confusion; “it is my
neighbor, Gisquette la Gencienne, who wishes to speak with you.”

“Not so,” replied Gisquette, blushing; “it was Liénarde who
called you master; I only told her to say messire.”

The two young girls dropped their eyes. The man, who asked
nothing better than to enter into conversation, looked at them
with a smile.

“So you have nothing to say to me, damsels?”

“Oh! nothing at all,” replied Gisquette.

“Nothing,” said Liénarde.

The tall, light-haired young man retreated a step; but the two
curious maidens had no mind to let slip their prize.

“Messire,” said Gisquette, with the impetuosity of an open
sluice, or of a woman who has made up her mind, “do you know that
soldier who is to play the part of Madame the Virgin in the
mystery?”

“You mean the part of Jupiter?” replied the stranger.

“Hé! yes,” said Liénarde, “isn’t she stupid? So you know
Jupiter?”

“Michel Giborne?” replied the unknown; “yes, madam.”

“He has a fine beard!” said Liénarde.

“Will what they are about to say here be fine?” inquired
Gisquette, timidly.

“Very fine, mademoiselle,” replied the unknown, without the
slightest hesitation.

“What is it to be?” said Liénarde.

“‘The Good Judgment of Madame the Virgin,’—a morality, if you
please, damsel.”

“Ah! that makes a difference,” responded Liénarde.

A brief silence ensued—broken by the stranger.

“It is a perfectly new morality, and one which has never yet been
played.”

“Then it is not the same one,” said Gisquette, “that was given
two years ago, on the day of the entrance of monsieur the legate,
and where three handsome maids played the parts—”

“Of sirens,” said Liénarde.

“And all naked,” added the young man.

Liénarde lowered her eyes modestly. Gisquette glanced at her and
did the same. He continued, with a smile,—

“It was a very pleasant thing to see. To-day it is a morality
made expressly for Madame the Demoiselle of Flanders.”

“Will they sing shepherd songs?” inquired Gisquette.

“Fie!” said the stranger, “in a morality? you must not confound
styles. If it were a farce, well and good.”

“That is a pity,” resumed Gisquette. “That day, at the Ponceau
Fountain, there were wild men and women, who fought and assumed
many aspects, as they sang little motets and bergerettes.”

“That which is suitable for a legate,” returned the stranger,
with a good deal of dryness, “is not suitable for a princess.”

“And beside them,” resumed Liénarde, “played many brass
instruments, making great melodies.”

“And for the refreshment of the passers-by,” continued Gisquette,
“the fountain spouted through three mouths, wine, milk, and
hippocrass, of which every one drank who wished.”

“And a little below the Ponceau, at the Trinity,” pursued
Liénarde, “there was a passion performed, and without any
speaking.”

“How well I remember that!” exclaimed Gisquette; “God on the
cross, and the two thieves on the right and the left.” Here the
young gossips, growing warm at the memory of the entrance of
monsieur the legate, both began to talk at once.

“And, further on, at the Painters’ Gate, there were other
personages, very richly clad.”

“And at the fountain of Saint-Innocent, that huntsman, who was
chasing a hind with great clamor of dogs and hunting-horns.”

“And, at the Paris slaughter-houses, stages, representing the
fortress of Dieppe!”

“And when the legate passed, you remember, Gisquette? they made
the assault, and the English all had their throats cut.”

“And against the gate of the Châtelet, there were very fine
personages!”

“And on the Port au Change, which was all draped above!”

“And when the legate passed, they let fly on the bridge more than
two hundred sorts of birds; wasn’t it beautiful, Liénarde?”

“It will be better to-day,” finally resumed their interlocutor,
who seemed to listen to them with impatience.

“Do you promise us that this mystery will be fine?” said
Gisquette.

“Without doubt,” he replied; then he added, with a certain
emphasis,—“I am the author of it, damsels.”

“Truly?” said the young girls, quite taken aback.

“Truly!” replied the poet, bridling a little; “that is, to say,
there are two of us; Jehan Marchand, who has sawed the planks and
erected the framework of the theatre and the woodwork; and I, who
have made the piece. My name is Pierre Gringoire.”

The author of the “Cid” could not have said “Pierre Corneille”
with more pride.

Our readers have been able to observe, that a certain amount of
time must have already elapsed from the moment when Jupiter had
retired beneath the tapestry to the instant when the author of
the new morality had thus abruptly revealed himself to the
innocent admiration of Gisquette and Liénarde. Remarkable fact:
that whole crowd, so tumultuous but a few moments before, now
waited amiably on the word of the comedian; which proves the
eternal truth, still experienced every day in our theatres, that
the best means of making the public wait patiently is to assure
them that one is about to begin instantly.

However, scholar Johannes had not fallen asleep.

“Holà hé!” he shouted suddenly, in the midst of the peaceable
waiting which had followed the tumult. “Jupiter, Madame the
Virgin, buffoons of the devil! are you jeering at us? The piece!
the piece! commence or we will commence again!”

This was all that was needed.

The music of high and low instruments immediately became audible
from the interior of the stage; the tapestry was raised; four
personages, in motley attire and painted faces, emerged from it,
climbed the steep ladder of the theatre, and, arrived upon the
upper platform, arranged themselves in a line before the public,
whom they saluted with profound reverences; then the symphony
ceased.

The mystery was about to begin.

The four personages, after having reaped a rich reward of
applause for their reverences, began, in the midst of profound
silence, a prologue, which we gladly spare the reader. Moreover,
as happens in our own day, the public was more occupied with the
costumes that the actors wore than with the roles that they were
enacting; and, in truth, they were right. All four were dressed
in parti-colored robes of yellow and white, which were
distinguished from each other only by the nature of the stuff;
the first was of gold and silver brocade; the second, of silk;
the third, of wool; the fourth, of linen. The first of these
personages carried in his right hand a sword; the second, two
golden keys; the third, a pair of scales; the fourth, a spade:
and, in order to aid sluggish minds which would not have seen
clearly through the transparency of these attributes, there was
to be read, in large, black letters, on the hem of the robe of
brocade, MY NAME IS NOBILITY; on the hem of the silken robe, MY
NAME IS CLERGY; on the hem of the woolen robe, MY NAME IS
MERCHANDISE; on the hem of the linen robe, MY NAME IS LABOR. The
sex of the two male characters was briefly indicated to every
judicious spectator, by their shorter robes, and by the cap which
they wore on their heads; while the two female characters, less
briefly clad, were covered with hoods.

Much ill-will would also have been required, not to comprehend,
through the medium of the poetry of the prologue, that Labor was
wedded to Merchandise, and Clergy to Nobility, and that the two
happy couples possessed in common a magnificent golden dolphin,
which they desired to adjudge to the fairest only. So they were
roaming about the world seeking and searching for this beauty,
and, after having successively rejected the Queen of Golconda,
the Princess of Trebizonde, the daughter of the Grand Khan of
Tartary, etc., Labor and Clergy, Nobility and Merchandise, had
come to rest upon the marble table of the Palais de Justice, and
to utter, in the presence of the honest audience, as many
sentences and maxims as could then be dispensed at the Faculty of
Arts, at examinations, sophisms, determinances, figures, and
acts, where the masters took their degrees.

All this was, in fact, very fine.

Nevertheless, in that throng, upon which the four allegories vied
with each other in pouring out floods of metaphors, there was no
ear more attentive, no heart that palpitated more, not an eye was
more haggard, no neck more outstretched, than the eye, the ear,
the neck, and the heart of the author, of the poet, of that brave
Pierre Gringoire, who had not been able to resist, a moment
before, the joy of telling his name to two pretty girls. He had
retreated a few paces from them, behind his pillar, and there he
listened, looked, enjoyed. The amiable applause which had greeted
the beginning of his prologue was still echoing in his bosom, and
he was completely absorbed in that species of ecstatic
contemplation with which an author beholds his ideas fall, one by
one, from the mouth of the actor into the vast silence of the
audience. Worthy Pierre Gringoire!

It pains us to say it, but this first ecstasy was speedily
disturbed. Hardly had Gringoire raised this intoxicating cup of
joy and triumph to his lips, when a drop of bitterness was
mingled with it.

A tattered mendicant, who could not collect any coins, lost as he
was in the midst of the crowd, and who had not probably found
sufficient indemnity in the pockets of his neighbors, had hit
upon the idea of perching himself upon some conspicuous point, in
order to attract looks and alms. He had, accordingly, hoisted
himself, during the first verses of the prologue, with the aid of
the pillars of the reserve gallery, to the cornice which ran
round the balustrade at its lower edge; and there he had seated
himself, soliciting the attention and the pity of the multitude,
with his rags and a hideous sore which covered his right arm.
However, he uttered not a word.

The silence which he preserved allowed the prologue to proceed
without hindrance, and no perceptible disorder would have ensued,
if ill-luck had not willed that the scholar Joannes should catch
sight, from the heights of his pillar, of the mendicant and his
grimaces. A wild fit of laughter took possession of the young
scamp, who, without caring that he was interrupting the
spectacle, and disturbing the universal composure, shouted
boldly,—

“Look! see that sickly creature asking alms!”

Any one who has thrown a stone into a frog pond, or fired a shot
into a covey of birds, can form an idea of the effect produced by
these incongruous words, in the midst of the general attention.
It made Gringoire shudder as though it had been an electric
shock. The prologue stopped short, and all heads turned
tumultuously towards the beggar, who, far from being disconcerted
by this, saw, in this incident, a good opportunity for reaping
his harvest, and who began to whine in a doleful way, half
closing his eyes the while,—“Charity, please!”

“Well—upon my soul,” resumed Joannes, “it’s Clopin Trouillefou!
Holà hé, my friend, did your sore bother you on the leg, that you
have transferred it to your arm?” So saying, with the dexterity
of a monkey, he flung a bit of silver into the gray felt hat
which the beggar held in his ailing arm. The mendicant received
both the alms and the sarcasm without wincing, and continued, in
lamentable tones,—

“Charity, please!”

This episode considerably distracted the attention of the
audience; and a goodly number of spectators, among them Robin
Poussepain, and all the clerks at their head, gayly applauded
this eccentric duet, which the scholar, with his shrill voice,
and the mendicant had just improvised in the middle of the
prologue.

Gringoire was highly displeased. On recovering from his first
stupefaction, he bestirred himself to shout, to the four
personages on the stage, “Go on! What the devil!—go on!”—without
even deigning to cast a glance of disdain upon the two
interrupters.

At that moment, he felt some one pluck at the hem of his surtout;
he turned round, and not without ill-humor, and found
considerable difficulty in smiling; but he was obliged to do so,
nevertheless. It was the pretty arm of Gisquette la Gencienne,
which, passed through the railing, was soliciting his attention
in this manner.

“Monsieur,” said the young girl, “are they going to continue?”

“Of course,” replied Gringoire, a good deal shocked by the
question.

“In that case, messire,” she resumed, “would you have the
courtesy to explain to me—”

“What they are about to say?” interrupted Gringoire. “Well,
listen.”

“No,” said Gisquette, “but what they have said so far.”

Gringoire started, like a man whose wound has been probed to the
quick.

“A plague on the stupid and dull-witted little girl!” he
muttered, between his teeth.

From that moment forth, Gisquette was nothing to him.

In the meantime, the actors had obeyed his injunction, and the
public, seeing that they were beginning to speak again, began
once more to listen, not without having lost many beauties in the
sort of soldered joint which was formed between the two portions
of the piece thus abruptly cut short. Gringoire commented on it
bitterly to himself. Nevertheless, tranquillity was gradually
restored, the scholar held his peace, the mendicant counted over
some coins in his hat, and the piece resumed the upper hand.

It was, in fact, a very fine work, and one which, as it seems to
us, might be put to use to-day, by the aid of a little
rearrangement. The exposition, rather long and rather empty, that
is to say, according to the rules, was simple; and Gringoire, in
the candid sanctuary of his own conscience, admired its
clearness. As the reader may surmise, the four allegorical
personages were somewhat weary with having traversed the three
sections of the world, without having found suitable opportunity
for getting rid of their golden dolphin. Thereupon a eulogy of
the marvellous fish, with a thousand delicate allusions to the
young betrothed of Marguerite of Flanders, then sadly cloistered
in at Amboise, and without a suspicion that Labor and Clergy,
Nobility and Merchandise had just made the circuit of the world
in his behalf. The said dauphin was then young, was handsome, was
stout, and, above all (magnificent origin of all royal virtues),
he was the son of the Lion of France. I declare that this bold
metaphor is admirable, and that the natural history of the
theatre, on a day of allegory and royal marriage songs, is not in
the least startled by a dolphin who is the son of a lion. It is
precisely these rare and Pindaric mixtures which prove the poet’s
enthusiasm. Nevertheless, in order to play the part of critic
also, the poet might have developed this beautiful idea in
something less than two hundred lines. It is true that the
mystery was to last from noon until four o’clock, in accordance
with the orders of monsieur the provost, and that it was
necessary to say something. Besides, the people listened
patiently.

All at once, in the very middle of a quarrel between Mademoiselle
Merchandise and Madame Nobility, at the moment when Monsieur
Labor was giving utterance to this wonderful line,—

In forest ne’er was seen a more triumphant beast;

the door of the reserved gallery which had hitherto remained so
inopportunely closed, opened still more inopportunely; and the
ringing voice of the usher announced abruptly, “His eminence,
Monseigneur the Cardinal de Bourbon.”