Читать книгу Собор Парижской богоматери / Notre-Dame de Paris - Виктор Мари Гюго, Clara Inés Bravo Villarreal - Страница 4

Volume I
Book First
Chapter III
Monsieur еhe Cardinal

Оглавление

The entrance of his eminence upset the audience. All heads turned towards the gallery. “The cardinal! The cardinal!” repeated all mouths. The unhappy prologue stopped short for the second time.

The cardinal halted for a moment. Each person wished to get a better view of him.

He was, in fact, an exalted personage. Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon, Archbishop and Comte of Lyon, Primate of the Gauls, was allied both to Louis XI, through his brother, and to Charles the Bold through his mother. He was a fine man; he led a joyous cardinal’s life, and was very agreeable to the populace of Paris.

It was this popularity, no doubt, which preserved him from any bad reception at the hands of the mob.

He entered, and bowed with a smile, and and then slowly made his way towards his scarlet velvet arm-chair. His cortege—what we should nowadays call his staff—of bishops and abbés went in after him.

Then arrived, with gravity, the eight and forty ambassadors of Maximilian of Austria, with the reverend Father in God, Jehan, Abbot of Saint-Bertin, at the head, and Jacques de Goy, Sieur Dauby, Grand Bailiff of Ghent. A deep silence settled over the assembly, accompanied by stifled laughter at the preposterous names. There were bailiffs, aldermen, burgomasters;—all stiff, formal, dressed out in velvet and damask.

There was one exception, however. It was a subtle, intelligent man, before whom the cardinal made three steps and a profound bow. His name was only “Guillaume Rym, counsellor and pensioner of the City of Ghent.”

Few persons were then aware who Guillaume Rym was. A rare genius who in a time of revolution would have made a brilliant appearance on the surface of events, but who in the fifteenth century was reduced to cavernous intrigues, and to “living in mines,” as the Duc de Saint-Simon expresses it.

Собор Парижской богоматери / Notre-Dame de Paris

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