"Here is a
terrible bawler!" said, he. Then, turning to Tristan l'Hermite, "Bali!
let him go!"

Gringoire fell backwards, quite thunderstruck with joy.

"At liberty!" growled Tristan "Doth not your majesty wish to have him
detained a little while in a cage?"

"Gossip," retorted Louis XI., "think you that 'tis for birds of this
feather that we cause to be made cages at three hundred and sixty-seven
livres, eight sous, three deniers apiece? Release him at once,
the wanton (Louis XI. was fond of this word which formed, with
_Pasque-Dieu_, the foundation of his joviality), and put him out with a
buffet."

"Ugh!" cried Gringoire, "what a great king is here!"

And for fear of a counter order, he rushed towards the door, which
Tristan opened for him with a very bad grace. The soldiers left the room
with him, pushing him before them with stout thwacks, which Gringoire
bore like a true stoical philosopher.

The king's good humor since the revolt against the bailiff had been
announced to him, made itself apparent in every way. This unwonted
clemency was no small sign of it. Tristan l'Hermite in his corner wore
the surly look of a dog who has had a bone snatched away from him.

Meanwhile, the king thrummed gayly with his fingers on the arm of his
chair, the March of Pont-Audemer. He was a dissembling prince, but one
who understood far better how to hide his troubles than his joys. These
external manifestations of joy at any good news sometimes proceeded to
very great lengths thus, on the death, of Charles the Bold, to the point
of vowing silver balustrades to Saint Martin of Tours; on his advent to
the throne, so far as forgetting to order his father's obsequies.

"He! sire!" suddenly exclaimed Jacques Coictier, "what has become of the
acute attack of illness for which your majesty had me summoned?"

"Oh!" said the king, "I really suffer greatly, my gossip. There is a
hissing in my ear and fiery rakes rack my chest."

Coictier took the king's hand, and begun to feel of his pulse with a
knowing air.

"Look, Coppenole," said Rym, in a low voice. "Behold him between
Coictier and Tristan. They are his whole court. A physician for himself,
a headsman for others."

As he felt the king's pulse, Coictier assumed an air of greater and
greater alarm. Louis XI. watched him with some anxiety. Coictier grew
visibly more gloomy. The brave man had no other farm than the king's bad
health. He speculated on it to the best of his ab