men. Is it
not a fire which gloweth yonder?"

The two men of Ghent drew near.

"A great fire," said Guillaume Rym.

"Oh!" exclaimed Coppenole, whose eyes suddenly flashed, "that reminds me
of the burning of the house of the Seigneur d'Hymbercourt. There must be
a goodly revolt yonder."

"You think so, Master Coppenole?" And Louis XI.'s glance was almost as
joyous as that of the hosier. "Will it not be difficult to resist?"

"Cross of God! Sire! Your majesty will damage many companies of men of
war thereon."

"Ah! I! 'tis different," returned the king. "If I willed." The hosier
replied hardily,--

"If this revolt be what I suppose, sire, you might will in vain."

"Gossip," said Louis XI., "with the two companies of my unattached
troops and one discharge of a serpentine, short work is made of a
populace of louts."

The hosier, in spite of the signs made to him by Guillaume Rym, appeared
determined to hold his own against the king.

"Sire, the Swiss were also louts. Monsieur the Duke of Burgundy was a
great gentleman, and he turned up his nose at that rabble rout. At the
battle of Grandson, sire, he cried: 'Men of the cannon! Fire on the
villains!' and he swore by Saint-George. But Advoyer Scharnachtal hurled
himself on the handsome duke with his battle-club and his people, and
when the glittering Burgundian army came in contact with these peasants
in bull hides, it flew in pieces like a pane of glass at the blow of a
pebble. Many lords were then slain by low-born knaves; and Monsieur de
Chateau-Guyon, the greatest seigneur in Burgundy, was found dead, with
his gray horse, in a little marsh meadow."

"Friend," returned the king, "you are speaking of a battle. The question
here is of a mutiny. And I will gain the upper hand of it as soon as it
shall please me to frown."

The other replied indifferently,--

"That may be, sire; in that case, 'tis because the people's hour hath
not yet come."

Guillaume Rym considered it incumbent on him to intervene,--

"Master Coppenole, you are speaking to a puissant king."

"I know it," replied the hosier, gravely.

"Let him speak, Monsieur Rym, my friend," said the king; "I love this
frankness of speech. My father, Charles the Seventh, was accustomed
to say that the truth was ailing; I thought her dead, and that she had
found no confessor. Master Coppenole undeceiveth me."

Then, laying his hand familiarly on Coppenole's shoulder,--

"You were saying, Master Jacqu