Notre-Dame de Paris, Victor Hugo [i like reading TXT] 📗

an income of ten livres parisis, for you and your wife, on the Place of the Merchants, situated at the School Saint-Germain; in ’79, we made you gruyer of the forest of Senart, in place of that poor Jehan Daiz; then captain of the Château of Loches; then governor of Saint-Quentin; then captain of the bridge of Meulan, of which you cause yourself to be called comte. Out of the five sols fine paid by every barber who shaves on a festival day, there are three sols for you and we have the rest. We have been good enough to change your name of Le Mauvais (The Evil), which resembled your face too closely. In ’76, we granted you, to the great displeasure of our nobility, armorial bearings of a thousand colors, which give you the breast of a peacock. Pasque-Dieu! Are not you surfeited? Is not the draught of fishes sufficiently fine and miraculous? Are you not afraid that one salmon more will make your boat sink? Pride will be your ruin, gossip. Ruin and disgrace always press hard on the heels of pride. Consider this and hold your tongue.”

These words, uttered with severity, made Master Olivier’s face revert to its insolence.

“Good!” he muttered, almost aloud, “ ’tis easy to see that the king is ill today; he giveth all to the leech.”

Louis XI far from being irritated by this petulant insult, resumed with some gentleness, “Stay, I was forgetting that I made you my ambassador to Madame Marie, at Ghent. Yes, gentlemen,” added the king turning to the Flemings, “this man hath been an ambassador. There, my gossip,” he pursued, addressing Master Olivier, “let us not get angry; we are old friends. ’Tis very late. We have terminated our labors. Shave me.”

Our readers have not, without doubt, waited until the present moment to recognize in Master Olivier that terrible Figaro whom Providence, the great maker of dramas, mingled so artistically in the long and bloody comedy of the reign of Louis XI. We will not here undertake to develop that singular figure. This barber of the king had three names. At court he was politely called Olivier le Daim (the Deer); among the people Olivier the Devil. His real name was Olivier le Mauvais.

Accordingly, Olivier le Mauvais remained motionless, sulking at the king, and glancing askance at Jacques Coictier.

“Yes, yes, the physician!” he said between his teeth.

“Ah, yes, the physician!” retorted Louis XI, with singular good humor; “the physician has more credit than you. ’Tis very simple; he has taken hold upon us by the whole body, and you hold us only by the chin. Come, my poor barber, all will come right. What would you say and what would become of your office if I were a king like Chilperic, whose gesture consisted in holding his beard in one hand? Come, gossip mine, fulfil your office, shave me. Go get what you need therefor.”

Olivier perceiving that the king had made up his mind to laugh, and that there was no way of even annoying him, went off grumbling to execute his orders.

The king rose, approached the window, and suddenly opening it with extraordinary agitation⁠—

“Oh! yes!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands, “yonder is a redness in the sky over the City. ’Tis the bailiff burning. It can be nothing else but that. Ah! my good people! here you are aiding me at last in tearing down the rights of lordship!”

Then turning towards the Flemings: “Come, look at this, gentlemen. Is it not a fire which gloweth yonder?”

The two men of Ghent drew near.

“A great fire,” said Guillaume Rym.

“Oh!” exclaimed Coppenole, whose eyes suddenly flashed, “that reminds me of the burning of the house of the Seigneur d’Hymbercourt. There must be a goodly revolt yonder.”

“You think so, Master Coppenole?” And Louis XI’s glance was almost as joyous as that of the hosier. “Will it not be difficult to resist?”

“Cross of God! Sire! Your majesty will damage many companies of men of war thereon.”

“Ah! I! ’tis different,” returned the king. “If I willed.”

The hosier replied hardily⁠—

“If this revolt be what I suppose, sire, you might will in vain.”

“Gossip,” said Louis XI, “with the two companies of my unattached troops and one discharge of a serpentine, short work is made of a populace of louts.”

The hosier, in spite of the signs made to him by Guillaume Rym, appeared determined to hold his own against the king.

“Sire, the Swiss were also louts. Monsieur the Duke of Burgundy was a great gentleman, and he turned up his nose at that rabble rout. At the battle of Grandson, sire, he cried: ‘Men of the cannon! Fire on the villains!’ and he swore by Saint-George. But Advoyer Scharnachtal hurled himself on the handsome duke with his battle-club and his people, and when the glittering Burgundian army came in contact with these peasants in bull hides, it flew in pieces like a pane of glass at the blow of a pebble. Many lords were then slain by lowborn knaves; and Monsieur de Château-Guyon, the greatest seigneur in Burgundy, was found dead, with his gray horse, in a little marsh meadow.”

“Friend,” returned the king, “you are speaking of a battle. The question here is of a mutiny. And I will gain the upper hand of it as soon as it shall please me to frown.”

The other replied indifferently⁠—

“That may be, sire; in that case, ’tis because the people’s hour hath not yet come.”

Guillaume Rym considered it incumbent on him to intervene⁠—

“Master Coppenole, you are speaking to a puissant king.”

“I know it,” replied the hosier, gravely.

“Let him speak, Monsieur Rym, my friend,” said the king; “I love this frankness of speech. My father, Charles the Seventh, was accustomed to say that the truth was ailing; I thought her dead, and that she had found no confessor. Master Coppenole undeceiveth me.”

Then, laying his hand familiarly on Coppenole’s shoulder⁠—

“You were saying, Master Jacques?”

“I say, sire, that you may possibly be in the