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Shave me." Tristan l'Hermite bowed and departed. Then the king, dismissing Rym and Coppenole with a gesture, "God guard you, messieurs, my good friends the Flemings. Go, take a little repose. The night advances, and we are nearer the morning than the evening." Both retired and gained their apartments under the guidance of the captain of the Bastille. Coppenole said to Guillaume Rym, "Hum!
Ah! my good people! here you are aiding me at last in tearing down the rights of lordship!" Then turning towards the Flemings: "Come, look at this, gentlemen. Is it not a fire which gloweth yonder?" The two men of Ghent drew near. "A great fire," said Guillaume Rym. "Oh!" exclaimed Coppenole, whose eyes suddenly flashed, "that reminds me of the burning of the house of the Seigneur d'Hymbercourt.
The king appeared to reflect deeply: then, addressing Tristan l'Hermite, "Well! gossip, exterminate the people and hang the sorceress." "That's it," said Rym in a low tone to Coppenole, "punish the people for willing a thing, and then do what they wish." "Enough, sire," replied Tristan. "If the sorceress is still in Notre-Dame, must she be seized in spite of the sanctuary?"
And as he descended the winding stairs of the courts: "A fine rabble of asses and dolts these Parisians!" he muttered between his teeth; "they come to hear a mystery and don't listen to it at all! They are engrossed by every one, by Chopin Trouillefou, by the cardinal, by Coppenole, by Quasimodo, by the devil! but by Madame the Virgin Mary, not at all.
An old woman explained to Coppenole that Quasimodo was deaf. "Deaf!" said the hosier, with his great Flemish laugh. "Cross of God! He's a perfect pope!" "He! I recognize him," exclaimed Jehan, who had, at last, descended from his capital, in order to see Quasimodo at closer quarters, "he's the bellringer of my brother, the archdeacon. Good-day, Quasimodo!"
"How do you set to work to make a revolt?" said the king. "Ah!" replied Coppenole, "'tis not very difficult. There are a hundred ways. In the first place, there must be discontent in the city. The thing is not uncommon. And then, the character of the inhabitants. Those of Ghent are easy to stir into revolt. They always love the prince's son; the prince, never. Well!
It was Louis XI. At some distance behind them, two men dressed in garments of Flemish style were conversing, who were not sufficiently lost in the shadow to prevent any one who had been present at the performance of Gringoire's mystery from recognizing in them two of the principal Flemish envoys, Guillaume Rym, the sagacious pensioner of Ghent, and Jacques Coppenole, the popular hosier.
Quasimodo contented himself with taking him by the girdle, and hurling him ten paces off amid the crowd; all without uttering a word. Master Coppenole, in amazement, approached him. "Cross of God! Holy Father! you possess the handsomest ugliness that I have ever beheld in my life. You would deserve to be pope at Rome, as well as at Paris." So saying, he placed his hand gayly on his shoulder.
Coppenole proudly saluted his eminence, who returned the salute of the all-powerful bourgeois feared by Louis XI. Then, while Guillaume Rym, a "sage and malicious man," as Philippe de Comines puts it, watched them both with a smile of raillery and superiority, each sought his place, the cardinal quite abashed and troubled, Coppenole tranquil and haughty, and thinking, no doubt, that his title of hosier was as good as any other, after all, and that Marie of Burgundy, mother to that Marguerite whom Coppenole was to-day bestowing in marriage, would have been less afraid of the cardinal than of the hosier; for it is not a cardinal who would have stirred up a revolt among the men of Ghent against the favorites of the daughter of Charles the Bold; it is not a cardinal who could have fortified the populace with a word against her tears and prayers, when the Maid of Flanders came to supplicate her people in their behalf, even at the very foot of the scaffold; while the hosier had only to raise his leather elbow, in order to cause to fall your two heads, most illustrious seigneurs, Guy d'Hymbercourt and Chancellor Guillaume Hugonet.
For two days his eminence had been exerting his utmost efforts to lick these Flemish bears into shape, and to render them a little more presentable to the public, and this freak was startling. But Guillaume Rym, with his polished smile, approached the usher. "Announce Master Jacques Coppenole, clerk of the aldermen of the city of Ghent," he whispered, very low.
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