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None of the offences committed against him were forgotten: the 11th of March letter, the fool's-cap, the livery, were reproduced in the most violent colors, and the cabal against the minister was quietly assumed to constitute treason against the monarch.

He is a thorough aristocrat, respecting himself, and therefore respecting all others as they deserve. He respects a Viscount Fitzjocelyn as an appendage nearly as needful as the wyverns on each side of the shield; but as to the individual holding that office, he regards him much as he would one of the wyverns with a fool's-cap on.

In spite of the thrilling interest of the scene, I could not help thinking of Byron's ludicrous but most expressive description: "A mighty mass of brick and smoke and shipping, Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye Can reach; with here and there a sail just skipping In sight, then lost amidst the forestry Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy; A huge dun cupola, like a fool's-cap crown On a fool's head, and there is London town."

The conical head-dress, resembling a fool's-cap or sugar-loaf, measures two or three feet high, and is kept in its place by a coarse cloth, and covered with a finer kerchief. The soleless shoes of ox-hide or sheepskin, made by the women out of a single piece, are strapped to the instep.

To own the truth to you, if I had not so frequently put on the fool's-cap, the freedoms I took in other places with cowls, with Red Hats, and the Triple Crown itself, would have brought me into great danger. Not only my book, but I myself, should, in all probability, have been condemned to the flames; and martyrdom was an honour to which I never aspired.

Egmont was accused generally of plotting with others to expel the King from the provinces, and to divide the territory among themselves. Through a long series of ninety articles, he was accused of conspiring against the character and life of Cardinal Granvelle. He was the inventor, it was charged, of the fool's-cap livery. He had joined in the letters to the King, demanding the prelate's removal.

Especially with regard to Count Egmont, his conduct was somewhat perplexing and, at first sight, almost inscrutable. That nobleman had been most violent in opposition to his course, had drawn a dagger upon him, had frequently covered him with personal abuse, and had crowned his offensive conduct by the invention of the memorable fool's-cap: livery.

None of the offences committed against him were forgotten: the 11th of March letter, the fool's-cap, the livery, were reproduced in the most violent colors, and the cabal against the minister was quietly assumed to constitute treason against the monarch.

You remember the high stool on which culprits used to be elevated with the tall paper fool's-cap on their heads, blushing to the ears; and you think with wonder how you have seen them since as men climbing the world's penance-stools of ambition without a blush, and gladly giving everything for life's caps and bells.

It was only with the noisy and violent upholders of long-grounded error error which they were too feeble to maintain except by mean invective or ignorant declamation that Julian used the keen edge of his sarcasm, or the weighty sword of his moral indignation. He was not the man to bow down before the fool's-cap of tyrannous and blatant ignorance.