"Let the petitioners come in," answered Charles to the chamberlain, who immediately left the room. Addressing the young clerk, now bishop, with a jovial yet impressive air, Charles pointed to the curtain of the door, near which his usual seat was located, and said: "Hide yourself behind that curtain, young man; you are about to learn the number of rivals that the death of a bishop raises. It will aid your education." The young clerk had barely vanished behind the curtain, before the chamber was invaded by a large number of the palace familiars, officers and seigneurs at court. Urging their own claims, or the claims of the clients whom they recommended, the mob deafened the Emperor's ears with their clamor. Among these was a bishop magnificently robed, and of haughty, imperious mien. He elbowed himself forward into Charles' presence as fast as he could. "This is the bishop of the rat," Eginhard whispered to the Emperor. "The price he paid the Jew was ten thousand silver sous. The Jew scrupulously reported the amount to me, as you ordered." "Bishop of Bergues, have you not enough with one bishopric?" Charles cried out to the haughty prelate. "Do you come to solicit a second?" "August Prince--I have come to pray you that you grant me the bishopric of Limburg, just vacant, in exchange for that of Bergues." "Because the former is richer?" "Yes, seigneur; and if I obtain it, the share of the poor will only be all the larger." "Now, all of you, listen to me attentively," the Emperor cried, pointing his finger at the bishop and in a tone of severity: "Knowing the passionate love of this prelate for frivolous and ruinous curiosities, which he purchases at prodigious prices, I ordered the Jew Solomon to catch a rat in his house, the vilest looking rat ever caught in a rat-trap, to embalm the beast in precious aromatics, to wrap it up in oriental materials embroidered in gold, to offer it to the Bishop of Bergues as a most rare rat imported from Judea upon a Venetian vessel, and to sell it to the prelate as the most prodigious and miraculous of rats." A loud outburst of laughter broke from the throats of all the dignitaries in the audience, except the Bishop of Bergues, who shamefacedly cast down his eyes. "Now, then," proceeded Charles, "do you know what price the Bishop of Bergues paid for that prodigious rat? _Ten thousand silver sous!_ The Jew reported to me the amount--which will be distributed among the poor!" Charles stopped for a moment, and presently resumed with heightened severity: "Ye bishops, have a care! It should be your duty to be the fathers, the purveyors of the poor, and not to show yourselves greedy of vain frivolities. Yet here you are, doing exactly the opposite. More than all other mortals are you given to avarice and idle cupidity! By the King of the Heavens, take a care! The Emperor's hand raised you, it may also pull you down. Keep that in mind."