on
the velvet and silk which surrounded him. Presuming that he was some
groom who had stolen in, the usher stopped him.

"Hold, my friend, you cannot pass!"

The man in the leather jerkin shouldered him aside.

"What does this knave want with me?" said he, in stentorian tones, which
rendered the entire hall attentive to this strange colloquy. "Don't you
see that I am one of them?"

"Your name?" demanded the usher.

"Jacques Coppenole."

"Your titles?"

"Hosier at the sign of the 'Three Little Chains,' of Ghent."

The usher recoiled. One might bring one's self to announce aldermen and
burgomasters, but a hosier was too much. The cardinal was on thorns.
All the people were staring and listening. 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.

"Usher," interposed the cardinal, aloud, "announce Master Jacques
Coppenole, clerk of the aldermen of the illustrious city of Ghent."

This was a mistake. Guillaume Rym alone might have conjured away the
difficulty, but Coppenole had heard the cardinal.

"No, cross of God?" he exclaimed, in his voice of thunder, "Jacques
Coppenole, hosier. Do you hear, usher? Nothing more, nothing less. Cross
of God! hosier; that's fine enough. Monsieur the Archduke has more than
once sought his _gant_* in my hose."

* Got the first idea of a timing.

Laughter and applause burst forth. A jest is always understood in Paris,
and, consequently, always applauded.

Let us add that Coppenole was of the people, and that the auditors which
surrounded him were also of the people. Thus the communication between
him and them had been prompt, electric, and, so to speak, on a level.
The haughty air of the Flemish hosier, by humiliating the courtiers,
had touched in all these plebeian souls that latent sentiment of dignity
still vague and indistinct in the fifteenth century.

This hosier was an equal, who had just held his own before monsieur the
cardinal. A very sweet reflection to poor fellows habituated to respect
and obedience towards the underlings of the sergeants of the bailiff of
Sainte-Genevieve, the cardinal's train-bearer.

Coppenole proudly saluted his eminen