Notre-Dame de Paris. Виктор Мари Гюго

Master Thibaut, the rector.”

      It was, in fact, the rector and all the dignitaries of the university, who were marching in procession in front of the embassy, and at that moment traversing the Place. The students crowded into the window, saluted them as they passed with sarcasms and ironical applause. The rector, who was walking at the head of his company, had to support the first broadside; it was severe.

      “Good day, monsieur le recteur! Holà hé! good day there!”

      “How does he manage to be here, the old gambler? Has he abandoned his dice?”

      “How he trots along on his mule! her ears are not so long as his!”

      “Holà hé! good day, monsieur le recteur Thibaut! Tybalde aleator! Old fool! old gambler!”

      “God preserve you! Did you throw double six often last night?”

      “Oh! what a decrepit face, livid and haggard and drawn with the love of gambling and of dice!”

      “Where are you bound for in that fashion, Thibaut, Tybalde ad dados, with your back turned to the university, and trotting towards the town?”

      “He is on his way, no doubt, to seek a lodging in the Rue Thibautodé?”[3] cried Jehan du M. Moulin.

      The entire band repeated this quip in a voice of thunder, clapping their hands furiously.

      “You are going to seek a lodging in the Rue Thibautodé, are you not, monsieur le recteur, gamester on the side of the devil?”

      Then came the turns of the other dignitaries.

      “Down with the beadles! down with the mace-bearers!”

      “Tell me, Robin Pouissepain, who is that yonder?”

      “He is Gilbert de Suilly, Gilbertus de Soliaco, the chancellor of the College of Autun.”

      “Hold on, here’s my shoe; you are better placed than I, fling it in his face.”

      “Saturnalitias mittimus ecce nuces.”

      “Down with the six theologians, with their white surplices!”

      “Are those the theologians? I thought they were the white geese given by Sainte-Geneviève to the city, for the fief of Roogny.”

      “Down with the doctors!”

      “Down with the cardinal disputations, and quibblers!”

      “My cap to you, Chancellor of Sainte-Geneviève! You have done me a wrong. ’Tis true; he gave my place in the nation of Normandy to little Ascanio Falzapada, who comes from the province of Bourges, since he is an Italian.”

      “That is an injustice,” said all the scholars. “Down with the Chancellor of Sainte-Geneviève!”

      “Ho hé! Master Joachim de Ladehors! Ho hé! Louis Dahuille! Ho hé Lambert Hoctement!”

      “May the devil stifle the procurator of the German nation!”

      “And the chaplains of the Sainte-Chapelle, with their gray amices; cum tunices grisis!”

      “Seu de pellibus grisis fourratis!”

      “Holà hé! Masters of Arts! All the beautiful black copes! all the fine red copes!”

      “They make a fine tail for the rector.”

      “One would say that he was a Doge of Venice on his way to his bridal with the sea.”

      “Say, Jehan! here are the canons of Sainte-Geneviève!”

      “To the deuce with the whole set of canons!”

      “Abbé Claude Choart! Doctor Claude Choart! Are you in search of Marie la Giffarde?”

      “She is in the Rue de Glatigny.”

      “She is making the bed of the king of the debauchees.”

      “She is paying her four deniers[4] quatuor denarios.”

      “Aut unum bombum.”

      “Would you like to have her pay you in the face?”

      “Comrades! Master Simon Sanguin, the Elector of Picardy, with his wife on the crupper!”

      “Post equitem sedet atra cura—behind the horseman sits black care.”

      “Courage, Master Simon!”

      “Good day, Mister Elector!”

      “Good night, Madame Electress!”

      “How happy they are to see all that!” sighed Joannes de Molendino, still perched in the foliage of his capital.

      Meanwhile, the sworn bookseller of the university, Master Andry Musnier, was inclining his ear to the furrier of the king’s robes, Master Gilles Lecornu.

      “I tell you, sir, that the end of the world has come. No one has ever beheld such outbreaks among the students! It is the accursed inventions of this century that are ruining everything—artilleries, bombards, and, above all, printing, that other German pest. No more manuscripts, no more books! printing will kill bookselling. It is the end of the world that is drawing nigh.”

      “I see that plainly, from the progress of velvet stuffs,” said the fur-merchant.

      At this moment, midday sounded.

      “Ha!” exclaimed the entire crowd, in one voice.

      The scholars held their peace. Then a great hurly-burly ensued; a vast movement of feet, hands, and heads; a general outbreak of coughs and handkerchiefs; each one arranged himself, assumed his post, raised himself up, and grouped himself. Then came a great silence; all necks remained outstretched, all mouths remained open, all glances were directed towards the marble table. Nothing made its appearance there. The bailiff’s four sergeants were still there, stiff, motionless, as painted statues. All eyes turned to the estrade reserved for the Flemish envoys. The door remained closed, the platform empty. This crowd had been waiting since daybreak for three things: noonday, the embassy from Flanders, the mystery play. Noonday alone had arrived on time.

      On this occasion, it was too much.

      They waited one, two, three, five minutes, a quarter of an hour; nothing came. The dais remained empty, the theatre dumb. In the meantime, wrath had succeeded to impatience. Irritated words circulated in a low tone, still, it is true. “The mystery! the mystery!” they murmured, in hollow voices. Heads began to ferment. A tempest, which was only rumbling in the distance as yet, was floating on the surface of this crowd. It was Jehan du Moulin who struck the first spark from it.

      “The mystery, and to the devil with the Flemings!” he exclaimed at the full force of his lungs, twining like a serpent around his pillar.

      The crowd clapped their hands.

      “The mystery!” it repeated, “and may all the devils take Flanders!”

      “We must have the mystery instantly,” resumed the student; “or else, my advice is that we should hang the bailiff of the courts, by way of a morality and a comedy.”

      “Well said,” cried the people, “and let us begin the hanging with his sergeants.”

      A grand acclamation followed. The four poor fellows began to turn pale, and to exchange glances. The crowd hurled itself towards them, and they already beheld the frail wooden railing, which separated them from it, giving way and bending before the pressure of the throng.

      It was a critical moment.

      “To the sack, to the sack!” rose the cry on all sides.

      At that moment, the tapestry of the dressing-room, which we have described above, was raised, and afforded passage to a personage, the mere sight of whom suddenly stopped the crowd, and changed its wrath into curiosity as by enchantment.

      “Silence!