“If it please me to see them!” cried the king. “Now, by the Rood! do you forget such things! Run quickly, you, Olivier! go and fetch them.”
Master Olivier went out, and returned a moment after with the two prisoners, surrounded by archers of the ordnance. The first had a fat, stupid face, with a drunken and astonished stare. He was dressed in rags, and bent his knee and dragged his foot as he walked. The second was a pale, smiling fellow, whom the reader already knows.
The king studied them for an instant without speaking, then abruptly addressed the first:— “Your name?”
“Gieffroy Pincebourde.”
“Your business?”
“A Vagabond.”
“What part did you mean to play in this damnable revolt?”
The Vagabond looked at the king, swinging his arms with a dull look. His was one of those misshapen heads, where the understanding flourishes as ill as the flame beneath an extinguisher.
“I don’t know,” he said. “The others went, so I went too.”
“Did you not intend outrageously to attack and plunder your lord the Provost of the Palace?”
“I know that they were going to take something from some one. That’s all I know.”
A soldier showed the king a pruning-hook, which had been found upon the fellow.
“Do you recognize this weapon?” asked the king.
“Yes, it is my pruning-hook; I am a vine-dresser.”
“And do you acknowledge this man as your companion?” added Louis XI, pointing to the other prisoner.
“No. I do not know him.”
“Enough,” said the king. And beckoning to the silent, motionless person at the door, whom we have already pointed out to our readers: — “Friend Tristan, here is a man for you.”
Tristan l‘Hermite bowed. He gave an order in a low voice to two archers, who led away the poor Vagrant.
Meantime, the king approached the second prisoner, who was in a profuse perspiration. “Your name?”
“Sire, Pierre Gringoire.”
“Your trade?”
“A philosopher, Sire!”
“How dared you, varlet, go and beset our friend the Provost of the Palace, and what have you to say about this uprising of the people?”
“Sire, I had naught to do with it.”
“Come, come, rascal! were you not taken by the watch in this evil company?”
“No, Sire; there is a mistake. It was an accident. I write tragedies. Sire, I entreat your Majesty to hear me. I am a poet. It is the melancholy whim of people of my profession to roam the streets after dark. I passed this way tonight. It was a mere chance. I was wrongfully arrested; I am innocent of this civil storm. Your Majesty sees that the Vagabond did not recognize me. I conjure your Majesty—”
“Silence!” said the king, betwixt two gulps of his tisane. “You stun me.”
Tristan l‘Hermite stepped forward, and pointing at Gringoire, said,— “Sire, may we hang this one too?”
It was the first time that he had spoken.
“Pooh!” negligently answered the king. “I see no reason to the contrary.”
“But I see a great many!” said Gringoire.
Our philosopher was at this moment greener than any olive. He saw by the king’s cold and indifferent manner that his only resource was in something very pathetic, and he threw himself at the feet of Louis XI, exclaiming with frantic gestures,— “Sire, your Majesty will deign to hear me. Sire, let not your thunders fall upon so small a thing as I! The thunderbolts of God never strike a lettuce. Sire, you are an august and very mighty monarch; have pity on a poor honest man, who would find it harder to kindle a revolt than an icicle to emit a spark. Most gracious lord, magnanimity is a virtue of kings and of royal beasts. Alas! rigor does but anger the minds of men; the fierce blasts of winter could not make the traveler doff his cloak, while the sun shining down, little by little warmed him to such a degree that he stripped to his shirt. Sire, you are the sun. I protest to you, my sovereign lord and master, that I am not of the company of the Vagrants. I am neither disorderly nor a thief. Rebellion and brigandage arc not of Apollo’s train. I am not one to rush into those clouds which burst in thunders of sedition. I am a faithful vassal of your Majesty. A good subject should feel the same jealousy for the glory of his king that the husband feels for the honor of his wife, the same affection with which the son responds to his father’s love; he should burn with zeal for his house, for the increase of his service. Any other passion which possessed him would be mere madness. Such, Sire, are my political maxims. Do not, therefore, judge me to be a rebel and a plunderer, by my ragged dress. If you will but pardon me, Sire, I will wear it threadbare at the knees in praying to God for you night and morning! Alas! I am not exceeding rich, ‘tis true. I am indeed rather poor; but not vicious, for all that. It is not my fault. Every one knows that great wealth is not to be derived from literature, and that the most accomplished writers have not always much fire in winter. Lawyers get all the grain, and leave nothing but the chaff for the rest of the learned professions. There are forty most excellent proverbs about the tattered cloak of the philosopher. Oh, Sire, clemency is the only light which can illumine the interior of a great soul! Clemency bears the torch for all the other virtues. Without her, they are but blind, and gropers after God. Mercy, which is the same thing as clemency, produces those loving subjects who are the most potent body-guard of princes. What matters it to you,—to you whose majesty dazzles all who behold it,—if there be one poor man the more upon the earth, a poor innocent philosopher floundering in the darkness of calamity, with an empty stomach and an empty purse? Besides, Sire, I am a scholar. Great kings add a pearl to their crown when they encourage letters. Hercules did not disdain the title of Musagetes. Matthias Corvinus favored Jean of Monroyal, the ornament of mathematics. Now, it is a poor way of protecting letters, to hang the learned. What a blot upon Alexander’s fame if he had hanged Aristotle! The deed would not have been a tiny patch upon the visage of his reputation to enhance its beauty, but a malignant ulcer to disfigure it. Sire, I wrote a most fitting epithalamium for the Lady of Flanders, and my lord the most august Dauphin. That is no fire-brand of rebellion. Your Majesty sees that I am no mere scribbler, that I have studied deeply, and that I have much natural eloquence. Pardon me, Sire. By so doing, you will perform an act of gallantry to Our Lady; and I vow that I am mightily frightened at the very idea of being hanged!”