A shout of laughter from all the students greeted the
unlucky name of the poor furrier of the king's robes.

"Lecornu! Gilles Lecornu!" said some.

"~Cornutus et hirsutus~, horned and hairy," another went on.

"He! of course," continued the small imp on the capital,
"What are they laughing at? An honorable man is Gilles
Lecornu, brother of Master Jehan Lecornu, provost of the
king's house, son of Master Mahiet Lecornu, first porter of
the Bois de Vincennes,--all bourgeois of Paris, all married,
from father to son."

The gayety redoubled. The big furrier, without uttering a
word in reply, tried to escape all the eyes riveted upon him
from all sides; but he perspired and panted in vain; like a
wedge entering the wood, his efforts served only to bury still
more deeply in the shoulders of his neighbors, his large,
apoplectic face, purple with spite and rage.

At length one of these, as fat, short, and venerable as
himself, came to his rescue.

"Abomination! scholars addressing a bourgeois in that
fashion in my day would have been flogged with a fagot,
which would have afterwards been used to burn them."

The whole band burst into laughter.