Собор Парижской богоматери / Notre-Dame de Paris - стр. 3

The actors had obeyed, and the public, seeing that they were beginning to speak again, began once more to listen.

The mystery was, in fact, a very fine work. The exposition was simple. 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. The crowd listened patiently. In the very middle of a quarrel between Merchandise and Nobility, at the moment when Monsieur Labor was saying this wonderful line,—

In forest ne’er was seen a more triumphant beast; the door of the reserved gallery opened; and the voice of the usher announced abruptly, “His eminence, Monseigneur the Cardinal de Bourbon.”

The entrance of his eminence upset the audience. All heads turned towards the gallery. “The cardinal! The cardinal!” repeated all mouths. The unhappy prologue stopped short for the second time.

The cardinal halted for a moment. Each person wished to get a better view of him.

He was, in fact, an exalted personage. Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon, Archbishop and Comte of Lyon, Primate of the Gauls, was allied both to Louis XI, through his brother, and to Charles the Bold through his mother. He was a fine man; he led a joyous cardinal’s life, and was very agreeable to the populace of Paris.

It was this popularity, no doubt, which preserved him from any bad reception at the hands of the mob.

He entered, and bowed with a smile, and and then slowly made his way towards his scarlet velvet arm-chair. His cortege—what we should nowadays call his staff—of bishops and abbés went in after him.

Then arrived, with gravity, the eight and forty ambassadors of Maximilian of Austria, with the reverend Father in God, Jehan, Abbot of Saint-Bertin, at the head, and Jacques de Goy, Sieur Dauby, Grand Bailiff of Ghent. A deep silence settled over the assembly, accompanied by stifled laughter at the preposterous names. There were bailiffs, aldermen, burgomasters;—all stiff, formal, dressed out in velvet and damask.

There was one exception, however. It was a subtle, intelligent man, before whom the cardinal made three steps and a profound bow. His name was only “Guillaume Rym, counsellor and pensioner of the City of Ghent.”

Few persons were then aware who Guillaume Rym was. A rare genius who in a time of revolution would have made a brilliant appearance on the surface of events, but who in the fifteenth century was reduced to cavernous intrigues, and to “living in mines,” as the Duc de Saint-Simon expresses it.