of the western wall is the magnificent and spacious platform draped with cloth of gold, entered by a small Gothic doorway, through which files a procession of grave and reverend personages whose names are announced in succession by the strident voice of the usher. The first benches are already occupied by a crowd of venerable figures muffled in robes of ermine, velvet, and scarlet cloth. Around this platform—on which reigns decorous silence—below, opposite, everywhere, the seething multitude, the continuous hum of voices, all eyes fixed on every face on the platform, a thousand muttered repetitions of each name. In truth, a curious spectacle and worthy of the attention of the spectators. But stay, what is that kind of erection at the opposite end of the Hall, having four party-coloured puppets on it and four others underneath; and who is that pale figure standing beside it clad in sombre black? Alas! dear reader, it is none other than Pierre Gringoire and his Prologue, both of which we had utterly forgotten.

And that is exactly what he had feared.

From the moment when the Cardinal entered, Gringoire had never ceased to exert himself to keep his Prologue above water. First he had vehemently urged the actors, who had faltered, and stopped short, to proceed and raise their voices; then, perceiving that nobody was listening to them, he stopped them again, and during the quarter of an hour the interruption had lasted had never ceased tapping his foot impatiently, fuming, calling upon Gisquette and Liènarde, urging those near him to insist on the continuation of the Prologue—in vain. Not one of them would transfer his attention from the Cardinal, the Embassy, the platform—the one centre of this vast radius of vision. It must also be admitted, and we say it with regret, that by the time his Eminence appeared on the scene and caused so marked a diversion, the audience was beginning to find the Prologue just a little tedious. After all, whether you looked at the platform or the marble table, the play was the same—the conflict between Labour and Clergy, Aristocracy and Commerce. And most of them preferred to watch these personages as they lived and breathed, elbowing each other in actual flesh and blood on the platform, in the Flemish Embassy, under the Cardinal’s robe or Coppenole’s leathern jerkin, than painted, tricked out, speaking in stilted verse, mere dummies stuffed into yellow and white tunics, as Gringoire represented them.

Nevertheless, seeing tranquility somewhat restored, our poet bethought him of a stratagem which might have been the saving of the whole thing.

“Monsieur,” said he, addressing a man near him, a stout, worthy person with a long-suffering countenance, “now, how would it be if they were to begin it again?”

“What?” asked the man.

“Why, the Mystery,” said Gringoire.

“Just as you please,” returned the other.

This half consent was enough for Gringoire, and taking the business into his own hands, he began calling out, making himself as much one of the crowd as possible: “Begin the Mystery again! Begin again!”

“What the devil’s all the hubbub about down there?” said Joannes de Molendino (for Gringoire was making noise enough for half a dozen). “What, comrades, is the Mystery not finished and done with? They are going to begin again; that’s not fair!”

“No! no!” shouted the scholars in chorus. “Down with the Mystery—down with it!”

But Gringoire only multiplied himself and shouted the louder, “Begin again! begin again!”

These conflicting shouts at last attracted the attention of the Cardinal.

“Monsieur the Provost of the Palais,” said he to a tall man in black standing a few paces from him, “have these folk gone demented that they are making such an infernal noise?”