Monsieur Bergeret was in his study chatting with his pupil, Monsieur Goubin.

“I found to-day,” he said, “in a friend’s library, a little book which is extremely rare and perhaps unique. Whether he is ignorant of its existence, or thinks it of little value, Brunet does not mention it in his Manual. It is a little duodecimo entitled: Les charactÈres et pourtraictures tracÉs d’aprÈs les modelles anticques. It was printed in the year 1538 in the learned Rue Saint-Jacques.”

“Do you know the author?” inquired Monsieur Goubin.

“The author is a certain Master Nicole Langelier, a Parisian,” replied Monsieur Bergeret. “His style is not so pleasant as that of Amyot, but it is clear and full of meaning. I enjoyed reading his book, and copied out a chapter that struck me as very curious. Would you care to hear it?”

“Very much,” replied Monsieur Goubin. Monsieur Bergeret took some papers from the table and read the heading:

“Concerning the Trublions which arose in the time of the Republick.”

Monsieur Goubin inquired who these Trublions were. Monsieur Bergeret replied that he would no doubt discover that from what followed, and that it was a good plan to read a text before commenting on it. And he read as follows:

“In those days there appeared in the city folk that uttered loud cries and were named Trublions, inasmuch as they served a chief named Trublion, who was of high lineage but small understanding and full of the arrogance of youth. And the Trublions also had another chief named Tintinnabule who made excellent speeches and marvellous songs and had been cast forth from the republick by the law and usage of ostracism. In truth the said Tintinnabule was adverse to Trublion; when the one pulled up stream the other pulled down. But the Trublions cared nothing for that, being so crazy that they did not know whither they were steering.

“At that time there lived in the mountains a villager named Robin Honeyman, who had already a hoary head, like a shock of hay or straw; a person full of guile and subtlety, and very expert in the art of feigning, who believed that he could govern the State by means of these Trublions, and he flattered them to draw them about him, whistling to them as sweetly as a flute, after the guise of the fowler piping to little birds. And the good Tintinnabule fell into great amazement and affliction by reason of this piping and had a great fear lest Robin Honeyman should entice his goslings.

“Under Trublion, Tintinnabule and Robin Honeyman there held command over the Trublion troops:

“Four palmers of exceeding sourness.

“Twenty-one baptized Jews.

“Twenty-five worthy begging friars.

“Eight makers of almanacks.

“Forty demagogues, misoxenes, xenophobes, xenoctones and xenophages; and six bushels of noblemen professing devotion to the beauteous lady of Bourdes in Navarre.

“In this fashion did sundry and contrary chiefs govern the Trublions. They were a right unmannerly race, and even as the Harpies, as Virgil reports, sat upon trees and shrieked horribly, and spoiled all that lay beneath them, in like fashion these froward Trublions climbed upon the cornices and pinnacles of the churches and houses, thence to do despite to the courteous citizens, to drop filth upon them and to piss upon them.

“And they diligently chose an old colonel named Gelgopole, who was the most inept in war that could be found, an enemy of justice and a disdainer of the laws, and made of him their idol and paragon, and went about the city crying, ‘Long life to the old Colonel!’ And the little school-urchins likewise squealed at their heels, ‘Long life to the old Colonel!’ Then the aforesaid Trublions gathered together in many assemblies and conventicles in which they cried: ‘Health to the old Colonel’ with such loudness of voice that the elements themselves were astounded and the birds flying above their heads fell to earth benumbed and dead. In sooth this was a very base madness and a most horrible frenzy.

“Then the said Trublions proclaimed that he who would faithfully serve the city and merit the civic crown, which was fashioned of the leaves of the oak-tree bound with a fillet of wool and naught besides, and honourable among all crowns, should utter furious cries and insane discourses, likewise those that guided the plough, and those that reaped and gathered the harvest, and led their flocks to the pasture and grafted their pear-trees in this fair land of vine and corn, of green meadows and fruitful gardens, did not serve the State. Neither did their fellows that hewed the stone and builded in the cities and villages houses with roofs of red tiles and fine slate, nor the weavers, nor the glass-workers, nor the stone-cutters that laboured within the bowels of Cybele. Nor the wise men who laboured in their closed studies and spacious libraries knowing many wondrous secrets of Nature: nor the mothers giving milk unto their babes, nor the good old wives spinning with their distaffs in the chimney-corner, telling tales to the little children. But, said they, the Trublions served the State by braying like asses at a fair. And be it said for justice’ sake that in so doing they thought to do well, for they had naught but the clouds of their brains and the breath of their mouths for their own, and they expended their breath with great force for the public weal and common profit.

“And they cried not only ‘Long life to the old Colonel!’ but they also cried without respite that they loved the State. In which they grievously offended the other citizens, for thus they gave men to understand that those folk who shouted not did not love their mother the State nor the fair land of their birth, which was a manifest imposture and an injury not to be suffered, for men drink with their mother’s milk this natural love and it is sweet to breathe one’s natal air.

“Now there were living at this time in the city and country many wise and prudent men, who loved their city and republick with a dearer and purer love than ever the Trublions bare them.

“For the said wise men desired that their city should remain wise and virtuous as themselves, blooming with graces and virtues, bearing fitly in her right hand the golden rod of justice, and that their city should be glad, careful and free, and not (as the Trublions contrary-wise desired) bearing in her hands a great club wherewith to belabour the good citizens and a blessed chaplet to mutter Aves, and filthily and miserably subject to the old Colonel Gelgopole and the said Tintinnabule. For in sooth these latter wished her subject to monks, hypocrites, bigots, canting rogues and impostors; lousy, filthy, frocked and hooded, shaven and barefoot; for devourers of crucifixes, bleaters of requiems, beggars, defrauders and cozeners of testaments swarmed in those days and had already by secret means acquired in houses and woods, fields and meadows well-nigh one third part of the land of France. And they diligently laboured (these Trublions) to render the city yet more rude and uncomely. For they conceived a great aversion to meditation and philosophy and all arguments deduced from upright feeling and shrewd reasoning, and all subtle thoughts, and condemned everything save force, only esteeming this latter because it was wholly brutish. Thus did the Trublions love their State and the country of their birth.”

As he read this old French text, Monsieur Bergeret was careful not to sound all the letters with which it was bristling after the fashion of the Renaissance. He had a feeling for the beauty of his native language. He paid no attention to orthography, considering it a negligible thing: but he had, on the other hand, the greatest respect for the old pronunciation, so light and fluent, which in our days, unfortunately, is becoming heavier and more clumsy. Monsieur Bergeret read his text according to the traditional pronunciation, and in so doing restored their youth and novelty to the old words. Their meaning emerged clear and limpid, causing Monsieur Goubin to remark:

“What I like about that passage is the style; it is so naÏve.”

“Do you think so?” said Monsieur Bergeret.

And he continued:

“And the Trublions said that they would defend the colonels and soldiers of the State and republick, which was mockery and derision, for the colonels and soldiers, who are armed with guns, muskets, artillery and other very terrible engines, are employed to defend and not to be defended by the unarmed citizens, and it did not seem possible that there were in the city folk fond enough to attack their own defenders, and the prudent men opposed to the Trublions asked only that the colonels should be honourably subject to the august and holy laws of the State and republick. But the said Trublions continued to shout and would hear nothing for that niggardly nature had deprived them of understanding.

“And the Trublions nourished a great hatred of foreign nations. The names alone of the said nations and peoples made their eyes stand out of their heads like those of cray-fish, very horrible to behold; they waved their arms like the sails of windmills, so that there was not among them a notary’s clerk nor a butcher’s ’prentice but wished to send a challenge to a king or queen or emperor of some great country, and the least hatmaker or taverner made as though he were ready at any moment to go to the wars, but in the end he remained in his chamber.

“And as it is true that fools, who are ever greater in number than the wise, march to the sound of vain cymbals, so people of little knowledge and understanding (and there are many such among rich folk as well as among the poor) joined the company of the Trublions and were Trublions with them. And there was a horrible uproar in the State, so that the wise maiden Minerva, sitting in her temple, that she might not have her ear-drums broken by such bangers of saucepans and infuriated popinjays, filled her ears with the wax brought her by her well-beloved bees, thus giving her faithful ones, wise men, philosophers and good law-givers of the State, to understand that it were waste of time to enter into wise dispute and learned argument with these trublioning and tintinnabulating Trublions. And some persons in the realm, and not the least important, being astounded by this hurly-burly, perceived that these crazy loons were on the point of over-throwing the republick and over-turning the noble and glorious State, which would have been a most lamentable happening. But a day came when the Trublions burst asunder, for they were full of wind.”

His reading finished, Monsieur Bergeret replaced the pamphlet upon the table.

“These old books,” he said, “amuse and divert our minds, they make us forget the present day.”

“That is true,” replied Monsieur Goubin.

But he smiled; a thing he seldom did.