Master Jacques Coppenole

Then a man entered who resembled none of the others.

Broad-shouldered, with a round, frank face and a lively eye. His leather jacket cut through the silks and velvets. He came from Ghent with the ambassadors, and the usher asked his name so as to announce him.

— Jacques Coppenole.

— Your title, master?

— Craftsman.

The usher went pale. Announce a craftsman between a bishop and an alderman? Impossible. He tried to fix things:

— I could say… counsellor to the aldermen?

— No, Coppenole replied, in a voice that carried to the back of the hall. Craftsman. It is my trade. It is what I am.

He raised his broad hands, marked by work.

— They have never been ashamed of anything.

There was a second of silence.

Then the hall exploded.

Applause, shouts, cries of joy. The people of Paris had just recognised one of their own — a man who worked with his hands and said so proudly, under the noses of the powerful.

— Bravo, craftsman!

— There stands a man!

Coppenole saluted the crowd like an old friend, and the crowd gave it back a hundredfold. Even the cardinal had to smile, thinly.

One man in the whole hall was not smiling.

Pierre Gringoire.

On the stage, the actors had stopped on their own. Nobody remembered there was a play. His great work, his months of labour, his hopes — all of it had just vanished behind the calloused hands of a craftsman from Ghent.

Coppenole, meanwhile, was looking over the joyful crowd. And an idea lit up in his eyes.

— Say, he called out, I hear you elect a Pope of Fools. We have that kind of feast at home too. Shall we show you how it is played in Ghent?

The crowd roared with delight.

Gringoire closed his eyes.

His day of glory was only beginning — but it already belonged to others.