Notre-Dame de Paris | Page 9

front of the embassy, and at that
moment traversing the Place. The students crowded into the window,
saluted them as they passed with sarcasms and ironical applause. The
rector, who was walking at the head of his company, had to support the
first broadside; it was severe.
"Good day, monsieur le recteur! Holà hé! good day there!"
"How does he manage to be here, the old gambler? Has he abandoned
his dice?"
"How he trots along on his mule! her ears are not so long as his!"

"Holà hé! good day, monsieur le recteur Thibaut! Tybalde aleator! Old
fool! old gambler!"
"God preserve you! Did you throw double six often last night?"
"Oh! what a decrepit face, livid and haggard and drawn with the love of
gambling and of dice!"
"Where are you bound for in that fashion, Thibaut, Tybalde ad dados,
with your back turned to the university, and trotting towards the town?"
"He is on his way, no doubt, to seek a lodging in the Rue
Thibautodé?"* cried Jehan du M. Moulin.
* Thibaut au des,--Thibaut of the dice.
The entire band repeated this quip in a voice of thunder, clapping their
hands furiously.
"You are going to seek a lodging in the Rue Thibautodé, are you not,
monsieur le recteur, gamester on the side of the devil?"
Then came the turns of the other dignitaries.
"Down with the beadles! down with the mace-bearers!"
"Tell me, Robin Pouissepain, who is that yonder?"
"He is Gilbert de Suilly, Gilbertus de Soliaco, the chancellor of the
College of Autun."
"Hold on, here's my shoe; you are better placed than I, fling it in his
face."
"Saturnalitias mittimus ecce nuces."
"Down with the six theologians, with their white surplices!"
"Are those the theologians? I thought they were the white geese given
by Sainte-Geneviève to the city, for the fief of Roogny."
"Down with the doctors!"
"Down with the cardinal disputations, and quibblers!"
"My cap to you, Chancellor of Sainte-Geneviève! You have done me a
wrong. 'Tis true; he gave my place in the nation of Normandy to little
Ascanio Falzapada, who comes from the province of Bourges, since he
is an Italian."
"That is an injustice," said all the scholars. "Down with the Chancellor
of Sainte-Geneviève!"
"Ho hé! Master Joachim de Ladehors! Ho hé! Louis Dahuille! Ho he
Lambert Hoctement!"
"May the devil stifle the procurator of the German nation!"
"And the chaplains of the Sainte-Chapelle, with their gray ~amices;

cum tunices grisis~!"
"Seu de pellibus grisis fourratis!"
"Holà hé! Masters of Arts! All the beautiful black copes! all the fine
red copes!"
"They make a fine tail for the rector."
"One would say that he was a Doge of Venice on his way to his bridal
with the sea."
"Say, Jehan! here are the canons of Sainte-Geneviève!"
"To the deuce with the whole set of canons!"
"Abbé Claude Choart! Doctor Claude Choart! Are you in search of
Marie la Giffarde?"
"She is in the Rue de Glatigny."
"She is making the bed of the king of the debauchees." She is paying
her four deniers* quatuor denarios."
* An old French coin, equal to the two hundred and fortieth part of a
pound.
"Aut unum bombum."
"Would you like to have her pay you in the face?"
"Comrades! Master Simon Sanguin, the Elector of Picardy, with his
wife on the crupper!"
"~Post equitem seclet atra eura~--behind the horseman sits black care."
"Courage, Master Simon!"
"Good day, Mister Elector!"
"Good night, Madame Electress!"
"How happy they are to see all that!" sighed Joannes de Molendino,
still perched in the foliage of his capital.
Meanwhile, the sworn bookseller of the university, Master Andry
Musnier, was inclining his ear to the furrier of the king's robes, Master
Gilles Lecornu.
"I tell you, sir, that the end of the world has come. No one has ever
beheld such outbreaks among the students! It is the accursed inventions
of this century that are ruining everything,--artilleries, bombards, and,
above all, printing, that other German pest. No more manuscripts, no
more books! printing will kill bookselling. It is the end of the world
that is drawing nigh."
"I see that plainly, from the progress of velvet stuffs," said the
fur-merchant.

At this moment, midday sounded.
"Ha!" exclaimed the entire crowd, in one voice.
The scholars held their peace. Then a great hurly-burly ensued; a vast
movement of feet, hands, and heads; a general outbreak of coughs and
handkerchiefs; each one arranged himself, assumed his post, raised
himself up, and grouped himself. Then came a great silence; all necks
remained outstretched, all mouths remained open, all glances were
directed towards the marble table. Nothing made its appearance there.
The bailiff's four sergeants were still there, stiff, motionless, as painted
statues. All eyes turned to the estrade reserved for the Flemish envoys.
The