see the Flemish ambassador, on
concluding his inspection of the knave thus placed beneath his eyes,
bestow a friendly tap on that ragged shoulder. The beggar turned round;
there was surprise, recognition, a lighting up of the two countenances,
and so forth; then, without paying the slightest heed in the world to
the spectators, the hosier and the wretched being began to converse in a
low tone, holding each other's hands, in the meantime, while the rags
of Clopin Trouillefou, spread out upon the cloth of gold of the dais,
produced the effect of a caterpillar on an orange.

The novelty of this singular scene excited such a murmur of mirth and
gayety in the hall, that the cardinal was not slow to perceive it; he
half bent forward, and, as from the point where he was placed he could
catch only an imperfect view of Trouillerfou's ignominious doublet,
he very naturally imagined that the mendicant was asking alms, and,
disgusted with his audacity, he exclaimed: "Bailiff of the Courts, toss
me that knave into the river!"

"Cross of God! monseigneur the cardinal," said Coppenole, without
quitting Clopin's hand, "he's a friend of mine."

"Good! good!" shouted the populace. From that moment, Master Coppenole
enjoyed in Paris as in Ghent, "great favor with the people; for men of
that sort do enjoy it," says Philippe de Comines, "when they are thus
disorderly." The cardinal bit his lips. He bent towards his neighbor,
the Abbe of Saint Genevieve, and said to him in a low tone,--"Fine
ambassadors monsieur the archduke sends here, to announce to us Madame
Marguerite!"

"Your eminence," replied the abbe, "wastes your politeness on these
Flemish swine. _Margaritas ante porcos_, pearls before swine."

"Say rather," retorted the cardinal, with a smile, "_Porcos ante
Margaritam_, swine before the pearl."

The whole little court in cassocks went into ecstacies over this play
upon words. The cardinal felt a little relieved; he was quits with
Coppenole, he also had had his jest applauded.

Now, will those of our readers who possess the power of generalizing an
image or an idea, as the expression runs in the style of to-day, permit
us to ask them if they have formed a very clear conception of the
spectacle presented at this moment, upon which we have arrested their
attention, by the vast parallelogram of the grand hall of the palace.

In the middle of the hall, backed against the western wall, a large
and magnificent gallery draped wi