took their degrees.

All this was, in fact, very fine.

Nevertheless, in that throng, upon which the four allegories vied with
each other in pouring out floods of metaphors, there was no ear more
attentive, no heart that palpitated more, not an eye was more haggard,
no neck more outstretched, than the eye, the ear, the neck, and the
heart of the author, of the poet, of that brave Pierre Gringoire, who
had not been able to resist, a moment before, the joy of telling his
name to two pretty girls. He had retreated a few paces from them, behind
his pillar, and there he listened, looked, enjoyed. The amiable applause
which had greeted the beginning of his prologue was still echoing in
his bosom, and he was completely absorbed in that species of ecstatic
contemplation with which an author beholds his ideas fall, one by one,
from the mouth of the actor into the vast silence of the audience.
Worthy Pierre Gringoire!

It pains us to say it, but this first ecstasy was speedily disturbed.
Hardly had Gringoire raised this intoxicating cup of joy and triumph to
his lips, when a drop of bitterness was mingled with it.

A tattered mendicant, who could not collect any coins, lost as he was
in the midst of the crowd, and who had not probably found sufficient
indemnity in the pockets of his neighbors, had hit upon the idea of
perching himself upon some conspicuous point, in order to attract looks
and alms. He had, accordingly, hoisted himself, during the first verses
of the prologue, with the aid of the pillars of the reserve gallery, to
the cornice which ran round the balustrade at its lower edge; and there
he had seated himself, soliciting the attention and the pity of the
multitude, with his rags and a hideous sore which covered his right arm.
However, he uttered not a word.

The silence which he preserved allowed the prologue to proceed without
hindrance, and no perceptible disorder would have ensued, if ill-luck
had not willed that the scholar Joannes should catch sight, from the
heights of his pillar, of the mendicant and his grimaces. A wild fit of
laughter took possession of the young scamp, who, without caring that he
was interrupting the spectacle, and disturbing the universal composure,
shouted boldly,--

"Look! see that sickly creature asking alms!"

Any one who has thrown a stone into a frog pond, or fired a shot into
a covey of birds, can form an idea of the effect produced by these
incongruous words, in the midst o