ARDINAL.

Poor Gringoire! the din of all the great double petards of the
Saint-Jean, the discharge of twenty arquebuses on supports, the
detonation of that famous serpentine of the Tower of Billy, which,
during the siege of Paris, on Sunday, the twenty-sixth of September,
1465, killed seven Burgundians at one blow, the explosion of all the
powder stored at the gate of the Temple, would have rent his ears less
rudely at that solemn and dramatic moment, than these few words, which
fell from the lips of the usher, "His eminence, Monseigneur the Cardinal
de Bourbon."

It is not that Pierre Gringoire either feared or disdained monsieur the
cardinal. He had neither the weakness nor the audacity for that. A true
eclectic, as it would be expressed nowadays, Gringoire was one of those
firm and lofty, moderate and calm spirits, which always know how to bear
themselves amid all circumstances (_stare in dimidio rerum_), and who
are full of reason and of liberal philosophy, while still setting
store by cardinals. A rare, precious, and never interrupted race of
philosophers to whom wisdom, like another Ariadne, seems to have given
a clew of thread which they have been walking along unwinding since
the beginning of the world, through the labyrinth of human affairs. One
finds them in all ages, ever the same; that is to say, always according
to all times. And, without reckoning our Pierre Gringoire, who may
represent them in the fifteenth century if we succeed in bestowing upon
him the distinction which he deserves, it certainly was their spirit
which animated Father du Breul, when he wrote, in the sixteenth, these
naively sublime words, worthy of all centuries: "I am a Parisian by
nation, and a Parrhisian in language, for _parrhisia_ in Greek signifies
liberty of speech; of which I have made use even towards messeigneurs
the cardinals, uncle and brother to Monsieur the Prince de Conty, always
with respect to their greatness, and without offending any one of their
suite, which is much to say."

There was then neither hatred for the cardinal, nor disdain for his
presence, in the disagreeable impression produced upon Pierre Gringoire.
Quite the contrary; our poet had too much good sense and too threadbare
a coat, not to attach particular importance to having the numerous
allusions in his prologue, and, in particular, the glorification of the
dauphin, son of the Lion of France, fall upon the most eminent ear. But
it is not interest