"Excuse me," interposed the young artist, "but before I know who you are, I would be very glad to know where I am."
"Porte de Nesle, my dear friend; this is the Hôtel de Nesle," said the student, with a glance at the great door from which the stranger had not once removed his eyes.
"Very good; and to reach Rue Saint-Martin, where I live, which direction must I take?" said our lovelorn youth, for the sake of saying something, and hoping thus to be rid of his companion.
"Rue Saint-Martin, do you say? Come with me, I'm going that way, and at Pont Saint-Michel I'll show you how you must go. As I was saying, I am a student, I am returning from the Pré-aux-Clercs, and my name is—"
"Do you know to whom the Hôtel de Nesle belongs?" asked the young stranger.
"Marry! I rather think I know my University! The Hôtel de Nesle, young man, belongs to our lord, the king, and is at this moment in the hands of Robert d'Estourville, Provost of Paris."
"How say you! that the Provost of Paris lives there?"
"By no means did I tell you that the Provost of Paris lives there, my son: the Provost of Paris lives at the Grand Châtelet."
"Ah, yes! at the Grand Châtelet! Then that's the explanation. But how happens it that the provost lives at the Grand Châtelet, and yet the king leaves the Hôtel de Nesle in his possession?"
"'T is thus. The king, you see, had given the Hôtel de Nesle to our bailli, a most venerable man, who stood guard over the privileges of the University, and tried all suits against it in most paternal fashion: superb functions his! Unhappily our excellent bailli was so just—so just—to us, that his office was abolished two years since, upon the pretext that he used to sleep when hearing causes, as if bailli were not derived from bâiller (to yawn). His office being thus suppressed, the duty of protecting the interests of the University was intrusted to the Provost of Paris. A fine protector, on my word! as if we could not quite as well protect ourselves! How, our said provost—dost thou follow me, my child?—our said provost, who is most rapacious, opined that, since he succeeded to the bailli's office, he ought at the same time to inherit his possessions, and so he quietly laid hold of the Grand and Petit-Nesle, thanks to the patronage of Madame d'Etampes."