"How he trots along on his mule! her ears are not so long as his!"

"Hola he! good day, monsieur le recteur Thibaut! _Tybalde aleator_! Old fool! old gambler!"

"G.o.d preserve you! Did you throw double six often last night?"

"Oh! what a decrepit face, livid and haggard and drawn with the love of gambling and of dice!"

"Where are you bound for in that fashion, Thibaut, _Tybalde ad dados_, with your back turned to the university, and trotting towards the town?"

"He is on his way, no doubt, to seek a lodging in the Rue Thibautode?"*

cried Jehan du M. Moulin.

* _Thibaut au des_,--Thibaut of the dice.

The entire band repeated this quip in a voice of thunder, clapping their hands furiously.

"You are going to seek a lodging in the Rue Thibautode, are you not, monsieur le recteur, gamester on the side of the devil?"

Then came the turns of the other dignitaries.

"Down with the beadles! down with the mace-bearers!"

"Tell me, Robin Pouissepain, who is that yonder?"

"He is Gilbert de Suilly, _Gilbertus de Soliaco_, the chancellor of the College of Autun."

"Hold on, here's my shoe; you are better placed than I, fling it in his face."

"_Saturnalitias mittimus ecce nuces_."

"Down with the six theologians, with their white surplices!"

"Are those the theologians? I thought they were the white geese given by Sainte-Genevieve to the city, for the fief of Roogny."

"Down with the doctors!"

"Down with the cardinal disputations, and quibblers!"

"My cap to you, Chancellor of Sainte-Genevieve! You have done me a wrong. 'Tis true; he gave my place in the nation of Normandy to little Ascanio Falzapada, who comes from the province of Bourges, since he is an Italian."

"That is an injustice," said all the scholars. "Down with the Chancellor of Sainte-Genevieve!"

"Ho he! Master Joachim de Ladehors! Ho he! Louis Dahuille! Ho he Lambert Hoctement!"

"May the devil stifle the procurator of the German nation!"

"And the chaplains of the Sainte-Chapelle, with their gray _amices; c.u.m tunices grisis_!"

"_Seu de pellibus grisis fourratis_!"

"Hola he! Masters of Arts! All the beautiful black copes! all the fine red copes!"

"They make a fine tail for the rector."

"One would say that he was a Doge of Venice on his way to his bridal with the sea."

"Say, Jehan! here are the canons of Sainte-Genevieve!"

"To the deuce with the whole set of canons!"

"Abbe Claude Ch.o.a.rt! Doctor Claude Ch.o.a.rt! Are you in search of Marie la Giffarde?"

"She is in the Rue de Glatigny."

"She is making the bed of the king of the debauchees. She is paying her four deniers* _quatuor denarios_."

* An old French coin, equal to the two hundred and fortieth part of a pound.

"_Aut unum bomb.u.m_."

"Would you like to have her pay you in the face?"

"Comrades! Master Simon Sanguin, the Elector of Picardy, with his wife on the crupper!"

"_Post equitem seclet atra eura_--behind the horseman sits black care."

"Courage, Master Simon!"

"Good day, Mister Elector!"

"Good night, Madame Electress!"

"How happy they are to see all that!" sighed Joannes de Molendino, still perched in the foliage of his capital.

Meanwhile, the sworn bookseller of the university, Master Andry Musnier, was inclining his ear to the furrier of the king's robes, Master Gilles Lecornu.

"I tell you, sir, that the end of the world has come. No one has ever beheld such outbreaks among the students! It is the accursed inventions of this century that are ruining everything,--artilleries, bombards, and, above all, printing, that other German pest. No more ma.n.u.scripts, no more books! printing will kill bookselling. It is the end of the world that is drawing nigh."

"I see that plainly, from the progress of velvet stuffs," said the fur-merchant.

At this moment, midday sounded.

"Ha!" exclaimed the entire crowd, in one voice.

The scholars held their peace. Then a great hurly-burly ensued; a vast movement of feet, hands, and heads; a general outbreak of coughs and handkerchiefs; each one arranged himself, a.s.sumed his post, raised himself up, and grouped himself. Then came a great silence; all necks remained outstretched, all mouths remained open, all glances were directed towards the marble table. Nothing made its appearance there.