In forest ne'er was seen a more triumphant beast;

the door of the reserved gallery which had hitherto remained
so inopportunely closed, opened still more inopportunely; and
the ringing voice of the usher announced abruptly, "His
eminence, Monseigneur the Cardinal de Bourbon."




CHAPTER III.

MONSIEUR THE CARDINAL.



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