A flush came into the cheek of Count Thibalt; and De Coucy started and turned round in his saddle, to see who spoke. No one, however, was near, but a man engaged in that ancient and honourable occupation of selling hot pies, and a woman chaffering for a pair of doves with another of her own sex.
"By all the saints of France!" cried De Coucy, "some one named us. What meant the fool by checking at the eagle? I see him not, or I would check at him!"
Count Thibalt d'Auvergne asked no explanation of the quaint proverb that had been addressed to him; but only inquired of De Coucy, whether 'twas not like the voice of his villain--Gallon the fool.
"No!" replied the knight.--"No! 'twas not so shrill. Besides, he is gone, as he said, to inspect the lists some half-hour ago."
In truth, no sooner did they approach the booths, which had been erected by various hucksters and jugglers, at the end of the cemetery of the Innocents, a short distance from the lists, than they beheld Gallon the fool, with his jerkin turned inside out, amusing a crowd of men, women, and children, with various tricks of his old trade.
"Come to me!--come to me!" cried he, "all that want to learn philosophy! I am the king of cats, and the patron of cock-sparrows. Have any of you a dog that wants gloves, or a goat that lacks a bonnet? Bring him me!--bring him me! and I will fit him to a hair.--Haw, haw! haw, haw!"
His strange laugh, his still stranger face, and his great dexterity, were giving much delight and astonishment to the people, when the appearance of De Coucy, who, he well knew, would be angry at the public exhibition of his powers, put a stop to his farther feats; and shouting, "Haw, haw! haw, haw!" he scampered off, and was safely at home before them.
The day of the tournament broke clear and bright; and long before the hour appointed, the galleries were full, and the knights armed in their tents. Nothing was waited for but the presence of the king; and many was the impatient look of lady and of page, towards the street which led to the side of the river.
At length the sound of trumpets announced his approach; and, winding up towards Champeaux, were seen the leaders of his body-guard--that first small seed from which sprung and branched out in a thousand directions the great body of a standing army. The first institution of these serjeants of arms, as they were called, took place during Philip's crusade in the Holy Land, where, feigning, or believing, his life to be in danger from the poniards of the assassins, he attached to his own person a guard of twelve hundred men, whose sole duty was to watch around the king's dwelling. In France, though the same excuse no longer existed, Philip was too wise to dismiss the corps which he had once established, and which not only offered a nucleus for larger bodies in time of need, but which added that pomp and majesty to the name of king, that neither the extent of the royal domains, nor the prerogatives of sovereignty, limited as they were in those days, could alone either require or enforce.
Slowly winding up through the streets towards the Champeaux, the cavalcade of royalty seemed to delight in exhibiting itself to the gaze of the people, who crowded the houses to the very tops; for, well understanding the barbarous taste of the age in which he lived, no one ever more feasted the public eye with splendour than Philip Augustus.