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diff --git a/themes/ananke/exampleSite/content/post/chapter-3.md b/themes/ananke/exampleSite/content/post/chapter-3.md deleted file mode 100644 index cd29cee..0000000 --- a/themes/ananke/exampleSite/content/post/chapter-3.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,100 +0,0 @@ ---- -date: 2017-04-11T11:13:32-04:00 -description: "Monsieur the Cardinal" -featured_image: "" -tags: [] -title: "Chapter III: Monsieur the Cardinal" ---- - -Poor Gringoire! the din of all the great double petards of the Saint-Jean, -the discharge of twenty arquebuses on supports, the detonation of that -famous serpentine of the Tower of Billy, which, during the siege of Paris, -on Sunday, the twenty-sixth of September, 1465, killed seven Burgundians -at one blow, the explosion of all the powder stored at the gate of the -Temple, would have rent his ears less rudely at that solemn and dramatic -moment, than these few words, which fell from the lips of the usher, “His -eminence, Monseigneur the Cardinal de Bourbon.” - -It is not that Pierre Gringoire either feared or disdained monsieur the -cardinal. He had neither the weakness nor the audacity for that. A true -eclectic, as it would be expressed nowadays, Gringoire was one of those -firm and lofty, moderate and calm spirits, which always know how to bear -themselves amid all circumstances (_stare in dimidio rerum_), and who -are full of reason and of liberal philosophy, while still setting store by -cardinals. A rare, precious, and never interrupted race of philosophers to -whom wisdom, like another Ariadne, seems to have given a clew of thread -which they have been walking along unwinding since the beginning of the -world, through the labyrinth of human affairs. One finds them in all ages, -ever the same; that is to say, always according to all times. And, without -reckoning our Pierre Gringoire, who may represent them in the fifteenth -century if we succeed in bestowing upon him the distinction which he -deserves, it certainly was their spirit which animated Father du Breul, -when he wrote, in the sixteenth, these naively sublime words, worthy of -all centuries: “I am a Parisian by nation, and a Parrhisian in language, -for _parrhisia_ in Greek signifies liberty of speech; of which I have -made use even towards messeigneurs the cardinals, uncle and brother to -Monsieur the Prince de Conty, always with respect to their greatness, and -without offending any one of their suite, which is much to say.” - -There was then neither hatred for the cardinal, nor disdain for his -presence, in the disagreeable impression produced upon Pierre Gringoire. -Quite the contrary; our poet had too much good sense and too threadbare a -coat, not to attach particular importance to having the numerous allusions -in his prologue, and, in particular, the glorification of the dauphin, son -of the Lion of France, fall upon the most eminent ear. But it is not -interest which predominates in the noble nature of poets. I suppose that -the entity of the poet may be represented by the number ten; it is certain -that a chemist on analyzing and pharmacopolizing it, as Rabelais says, -would find it composed of one part interest to nine parts of self-esteem. - -Now, at the moment when the door had opened to admit the cardinal, the -nine parts of self-esteem in Gringoire, swollen and expanded by the breath -of popular admiration, were in a state of prodigious augmentation, beneath -which disappeared, as though stifled, that imperceptible molecule of which -we have just remarked upon in the constitution of poets; a precious -ingredient, by the way, a ballast of reality and humanity, without which -they would not touch the earth. Gringoire enjoyed seeing, feeling, -fingering, so to speak an entire assembly (of knaves, it is true, but what -matters that?) stupefied, petrified, and as though asphyxiated in the -presence of the incommensurable tirades which welled up every instant from -all parts of his bridal song. I affirm that he shared the general -beatitude, and that, quite the reverse of La Fontaine, who, at the -presentation of his comedy of the “Florentine,” asked, “Who is the -ill-bred lout who made that rhapsody?” Gringoire would gladly have -inquired of his neighbor, “Whose masterpiece is this?” - -The reader can now judge of the effect produced upon him by the abrupt and -unseasonable arrival of the cardinal. - -That which he had to fear was only too fully realized. The entrance of his -eminence upset the audience. All heads turned towards the gallery. It was -no longer possible to hear one’s self. “The cardinal! The cardinal!” -repeated all mouths. The unhappy prologue stopped short for the second -time. - -The cardinal halted for a moment on the threshold of the estrade. While he -was sending a rather indifferent glance around the audience, the tumult -redoubled. Each person wished to get a better view of him. Each man vied -with the other in thrusting his head over his neighbor’s shoulder. - -He was, in fact, an exalted personage, the sight of whom was well worth -any other comedy. Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon, Archbishop and Comte of -Lyon, Primate of the Gauls, was allied both to Louis XI., through his -brother, Pierre, Seigneur de Beaujeu, who had married the king’s eldest -daughter, and to Charles the Bold through his mother, Agnes of Burgundy. -Now, the dominating trait, the peculiar and distinctive trait of the -character of the Primate of the Gauls, was the spirit of the courtier, and -devotion to the powers that be. The reader can form an idea of the -numberless embarrassments which this double relationship had caused him, -and of all the temporal reefs among which his spiritual bark had been -forced to tack, in order not to suffer shipwreck on either Louis or -Charles, that Scylla and that Charybdis which had devoured the Duc de -Nemours and the Constable de Saint-Pol. Thanks to Heaven’s mercy, he had -made the voyage successfully, and had reached home without hindrance. But -although he was in port, and precisely because he was in port, he never -recalled without disquiet the varied haps of his political career, so long -uneasy and laborious. Thus, he was in the habit of saying that the year -1476 had been “white and black” for him—meaning thereby, that in the -course of that year he had lost his mother, the Duchesse de la -Bourbonnais, and his cousin, the Duke of Burgundy, and that one grief had -consoled him for the other. |