Собор Парижской богоматери / Notre-Dame de Paris

Nothing made its appearance there. All eyes turned to the places reserved for the Flemish envoys. The door remained closed, the platform empty. No one had arrived on time.

On this occasion, it was too much.

They waited one, two, three, five minutes, a quarter of an hour; nothing came. The impatience turned to wrath. “The mystery! The mystery!” they murmured, in hollow voices. Just when the crowd’s impatience was about to turn violent, the tapestry of the dressing-room was raised, and a person stepped in.

The mere sight of him suddenly stopped the crowd, and changed its wrath into curiosity.

“Silence! silence!”

The person advanced to the edge of the marble table with a vast amount of bows.

Tranquillity had gradually been restored.

“Messieurs and Mesdemoiselles, we shall have the honor of declaiming and representing, before his eminence, the cardinal, a very beautiful morality which has for its title, ‘The Good Judgment of Madame the Virgin Mary.’ I am to play Jupiter.

His eminence is, at this moment, escorting the very honorable embassy of the Duke of Austria; which is detained, at present, listening to the rector of the university, at the gate Baudets. As soon as the cardinal arrives, we will begin.”

Chapter II

Pierre Gringoire

The satisfaction and admiration unanimously excited by his appearance were dissipated by his words.

“Begin instantly! The mystery! The mystery immediately!” shrieked the people.

Poor Jupiter, frightened, bowed and trembled and stammered: “His eminence—the ambassadors—Madame Marguerite of Flanders—” He did not know what to say.

Luckily, some one came to rescue him from his embarrassment, and assume the responsibility.

An individual who was standing beyond the railing, in the free space around the marble table, tall, gaunt, blond, still young, with brilliant eyes and a smiling mouth, clad in garments of black serge, made a sign to the poor sufferer.

“Jupiter,” said he, “my dear Jupiter!”

“Who calls me?” said Jupiter, as though awakened with a start.

“I,” replied the person clad in black. “Begin at once. Satisfy the populace; I will take care of the cardinal.”

Jupiter breathed once more.

“Messeigneurs the bourgeois,” he cried, at the top of his lungs, “we are going to begin at once.”

“Good, good,” shouted the people.

The hand clapping was deafening, and Jupiter had withdrawn.