1---
 2date: 2017-04-10T11:00:59-04:00
 3description: "Pierre Gringoire"
 4featured_image: ""
 5tags: []
 6title: "Chapter II: Pierre Gringoire"
 7---
 8
 9Nevertheless, as be harangued them, the satisfaction and admiration
10unanimously excited by his costume were dissipated by his words; and when
11he reached that untoward conclusion: “As soon as his illustrious eminence,
12the cardinal, arrives, we will begin,” his voice was drowned in a thunder
13of hooting.
14
15“Begin instantly! The mystery! the mystery immediately!” shrieked the
16people. And above all the voices, that of Johannes de Molendino was
17audible, piercing the uproar like the fife’s derisive serenade: “Commence
18instantly!” yelped the scholar.
19
20“Down with Jupiter and the Cardinal de Bourbon!” vociferated Robin
21Poussepain and the other clerks perched in the window.
22
23“The morality this very instant!” repeated the crowd; “this very instant!
24the sack and the rope for the comedians, and the cardinal!”
25
26Poor Jupiter, haggard, frightened, pale beneath his rouge, dropped his
27thunderbolt, took his cap in his hand; then he bowed and trembled and
28stammered: “His eminence—the ambassadors—Madame Marguerite of
29Flanders—.” He did not know what to say. In truth, he was afraid of
30being hung.
31
32Hung by the populace for waiting, hung by the cardinal for not having
33waited, he saw between the two dilemmas only an abyss; that is to say, a
34gallows.
35
36Luckily, some one came to rescue him from his embarrassment, and assume
37the responsibility.
38
39An individual who was standing beyond the railing, in the free space
40around the marble table, and whom no one had yet caught sight of, since
41his long, thin body was completely sheltered from every visual ray by the
42diameter of the pillar against which he was leaning; this individual, we
43say, tall, gaunt, pallid, blond, still young, although already wrinkled
44about the brow and cheeks, with brilliant eyes and a smiling mouth, clad
45in garments of black serge, worn and shining with age, approached the
46marble table, and made a sign to the poor sufferer. But the other was so
47confused that he did not see him. The new comer advanced another step.
48
49“Jupiter,” said he, “my dear Jupiter!”
50
51The other did not hear.
52
53At last, the tall blond, driven out of patience, shrieked almost in his
54face,—
55
56“Michel Giborne!”
57
58“Who calls me?” said Jupiter, as though awakened with a start.
59
60“I,” replied the person clad in black.
61
62“Ah!” said Jupiter.
63
64“Begin at once,” went on the other. “Satisfy the populace; I undertake to
65appease the bailiff, who will appease monsieur the cardinal.”
66
67Jupiter breathed once more.
68
69“Messeigneurs the bourgeois,” he cried, at the top of his lungs to the
70crowd, which continued to hoot him, “we are going to begin at once.”
71
72“_Evoe Jupiter! Plaudite cives_! All hail, Jupiter! Applaud,
73citizens!” shouted the scholars.
74
75“Noel! Noel! good, good,” shouted the people.
76
77The hand clapping was deafening, and Jupiter had already withdrawn under
78his tapestry, while the hall still trembled with acclamations.
79
80In the meanwhile, the personage who had so magically turned the tempest
81into dead calm, as our old and dear Corneille puts it, had modestly
82retreated to the half-shadow of his pillar, and would, no doubt, have
83remained invisible there, motionless, and mute as before, had he not been
84plucked by the sleeve by two young women, who, standing in the front row
85of the spectators, had noticed his colloquy with Michel Giborne-Jupiter.
86
87“Master,” said one of them, making him a sign to approach. “Hold your
88tongue, my dear Liénarde,” said her neighbor, pretty, fresh, and very
89brave, in consequence of being dressed up in her best attire. “He is not a
90clerk, he is a layman; you must not say master to him, but messire.”