"By following me to the convent of the Cordeliers where he is to address the people after the funeral of Perrin Macé. Come with me."
"Go ahead," said Caillet; "I shall follow you."
"Come, we shall go out by the Coquiller gate; that's the shortest route."
The old peasant walked in silence by the side of Rufin who sought to draw from him some words on the subject of his trip. But the serf remained impenetrable. Going out by the gate of St. Denis and following the streets of the suburbs, that were much less crowded than those of the city, Caillet and his guide had just left Traversine to enter Montmartre street when they heard the distant funeral chant of priests interspersed from time to time with plaintive clarion notes. The peasant noticed with surprise that as the chant drew nearer the residents along the streets closed and bolted their doors.
"By the bowels of the Pope!" exclaimed the student. "Accident is serving us well. You have seen honors paid to the remains of Perrin Macé by the officials and the people; you will now see the honors paid to John Baillet, the cause of the iniquity that Paris is feeling indignant about. Yes, Baillet's remains are honored by the Regent and his court. Come quick; the procession is probably going to the convent of the Augustian monks." Hastening his steps and followed by the peasant, the student reached the corner of Montmartre and Quoque-Heron streets, opposite which stood the convent, whose doors opened to receive the coffin. "Look," said the student turning to Caillet. "How significant is not the contrast presented by these two funerals. At Perrin Macé's a large concourse of people were present, serious and moved with just indignation; at John Baillet's nobody assists but the Regent, the princes, his brothers, the courtiers and the officers of the royal household—not one representative of the people! The townsmen leave a deep void around this royal demonstration which is indulged in as a sort of challenge to the popular one. Tell me, friend, does not the very aspect of the two processions appeal to the eye. At the funeral of Perrin Macé we saw a great mass composed of bourgeois and artisans plainly or even poorly dressed; at the funeral of John Baillet we see only a handful of courtiers and officers brilliantly attired in gold and silk and velvet, and decked in magnificent uniforms."
William Caillet listened to the student, seeking to bore through him with his eyes, and shaking his head answered pensively: "Jocelyn did not deceive me," and after a pause he proceeded: "But what are the Parisians still waiting for? We are ready, and have long been!"
"What do you mean?" asked Rufin.
Immediately relapsing into his former close-mouthedness, the peasant made no answer. The procession just turned into the street. The coffin of John Baillet, heavily inlaid with gold and preceded by royal heralds and sergeants-at-arms was borne by twelve menials of the Regent in costly livery. The young prince and his brothers, accompanied by the seigneurs of the court, alone followed the coffin. Charles, the Duke of Normandy and now Regent of the French, as the eldest son of King John, at the time an English prisoner, had, like his brothers and the French nobility, fled ignominiously from the battlefield of Poitiers. The young man who now governed Gaul was barely twenty years of age. He was of frail physique and pale complexion. His sickly face concealed under a kind and timid mien a large fund of obstinacy, of perfidy, of wile and of wickedness—odious vices usually rare in youths, except of royal lineage. Magnificently dressed in gold-embroidered green velvet, a black head-gear ornamented with a chain and brooch of costly stones on his head, the mean-spirited and languishing Regent marched slowly leaning on a cane. At a short distance behind him advanced his brothers, and then came the seigneurs of the court, among them the marshal of Normandy, who, ordered by the young prince, had superintended the mutilation and subsequent execution of Perrin Macé. The marshal, who was the Sire of Conflans, one of the Regent's favorites, superb and arrogant, cast upon the few and straggling spectators disdainful and threatening looks, and exchanged a few words with the Sire of Charny, a courtier no less loved by the prince than he was detested by the people. Suddenly Rufin the Tankard-smasher felt his arm rudely seized by the vigorous hand of Caillet, who with distended and flaming eyes, and his breast heaving with pain, gasped out:
"Look!... There they are!... There are the two! The Sire of Nointel and that other, the knight of Chaumontel!... Oh, do you see them both with their scarlet hats, down there with the tall man in an ermine cloak?" cried out Caillet despite himself.
"Yes, yes; I see the two seigneurs," answered the student, astonished at the emotion manifested by the peasant. "But what makes you tremble so?"