"That may all be," answered the man of the furred cap; "but any other councilman would have done as much; and Master John Maillart—"
"John Maillart!" exclaimed Rufin. "By the bowels of the Pope! Had he or any other, the King himself, dared to encroach upon the franchises of the University, the students, rising en masse, would have poured, arms in hands, out of their quarter of St. Germain and there would have been a battle in Paris. But what is allowed to Marcel, the idol of Paris, is not allowed to any other."
"The student is right!" went up from the crowd. "Marcel is our idol because he is just, because he protects the interests of the bourgeois against the court people, of the weak against the strong. Long live Etienne Marcel!"
"Without the activity of Marcel, his courage and his foresight, Paris would have been burned down and deluged in blood by the English."
"Did not Marcel also keep our town from starvation, when he went himself at the head of the militia as far as Corbeil to protect a cargo of grain that the Navarrais meant to pillage?"
"I don't deny that," calmly observed the man of the furred cap with envious insistence. "All I maintain is that, put in the place of Marcel, Maillart would have done as well."
"Surely, provided the councilman had the genius of Marcel. If he had, he surely would have done as well as Marcel!" rejoined the Tankard-smasher. "If my sweetheart wore a beard, she would be the lover and somebody else the sweetheart!"
This sally of the student was received with a universal laughter of approval. The immense majority of the Parisians entertained for Marcel as much attachment as admiration.
Wrapt in his somber silence, William Caillet had listened attentively to the altercation, and he saw confirmed that which Jocelyn the Champion had stated to him a short time ago at Nointel concerning the influence of Marcel upon the Parisian people. By that time, the roll of drums, the notes of the clarions and the din of a large multitude had drawn nearer. The procession turned into Mauconseil in order to cross St. Denis street. A company of the town's cross-bowmen, commanded by a captain, marched at the head and opened the way, preceded by the drummers and clarion blowers, who alternately struck up funeral bars. Behind the cross-bowmen came the town's heralds, dressed in the town colors, half red and half blue. From time to time the heralds recited solemnly the following mournful psalmody:
"Pray for the soul of Perrin Macé, a bourgeois of Paris, unjustly executed!