Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

He smiled in the consciousness of his power, his ill-humour was allayed, and he turned to the Flemings:
“Look you, Gossip Guillaume, the grand baker, the grand butler, the grand chamberlain, the seneschal
are not worth the meanest valet. Bear this in mind, Gossip Coppenole, they are of no use whatever.
Standing thus useless about the King, they put me in mind of the four evangelists that surround the face
of the great clock of the palace, and that Philippe Brille has just renovated. They are gilded, but they do
not mark the hour, and the clock hand could do excellently well without them.”
He mused for a moment and added, shaking his old head: “He! ho! by Our Lady, I am not Philippe
Brille, and I will not regild the great vassals of the crown. Proceed, Olivier.”
The person thus addressed received the schedule-book from his hands and went on reading aloud:
“To Adam Tenon, assistant keeper of the seals of the provostry of Paris, for the silver, workmanship,
and engraving of the said seals which have had to be renewed, inasmuch as the former ones, being old
and worn out, could no longer be used, twelve livres parisis.
“To Guillaume Frère, the sum of four livres four sols parisis for his wages and trouble in having fed
and maintained the pigeons of the two pigeon-houses at the Hôtel des Tournelles during the months of
January, February, and March of this year, for the which he has furnished seven setiers of barley.
“To a Franciscan for shriving a criminal, four sols parisis.”
The King listened in silence. From time to time he coughed, and then raised the goblet to his lips and
drank a mouthful with a wry face.
“In this year have been made,” continued the reader, “by order of the law, by sound of trumpet,
through the streets of Paris, fifty-six public proclamations. Account not yet rendered.
“For search made in divers places in Paris and elsewhere after treasure said to be concealed in the
said places, but nothing has been found, forty-five livres parisis.”
“Burying a florin to dig up a sou,” commented the King.
“—For putting in, at the Hôtel des Tournelles, six panes of white glass, at the place where the iron cage
stands, thirteen sols. For making and delivering on the day of the mustering of the troops, four
escutcheons bearing the arms of our said lord, wreathed round with chaplets of roses, six livres. A pair
of new sleeves to the King’s old doublet, twenty sols. A pot of grease to grease the King’s boots, fifteen
deniers. A new sty for lodging the King’s black swine, thirty livres parisis. Several partitions, planks, and
trap-doors, for the safe-keeping of the lions at the Hôtel Saint-Paul, twenty-two livres.”
“Costly beasts, these,” said Louis XI. “But no matter, it is a magnificence befitting a King. There is a
great tawny lion that I love for his engaging ways. Have you seen him, Maître Guillaume? It is fitting
that princes should keep these marvellous animals. For dogs, we kings should have lions; and for cats,
tigers. The great beseems a crown. In the days of the pagan worshippers of Jupiter, when the people
offered a hundred bullocks and a hundred sheep in the churches, the emperors gave a hundred lions and
a hundred eagles. That was very fierce and noble. The kings of France have always had these roarings
around their throne. Nevertheless, to do me justice, it must be admitted that I spend less in that way than
my predecessors, and that I am less ostentatious in the matter of lions, bears, elephants, and
leopards,—Continue, Maître Olivier. This was for the benefit of our friends, the Flemings.”