M. de Brosse, the clumsy architect of the great door of Saint-

Gervais— so much for art; and as regards history, we have the gossipy memoirs of the Great Pillar, which still resounds with the old wives’ tales of such men as Patru.
Well, that is not much to boast of. Let us return to the real great Hall of the real old Palais.
The two extremities of this huge parallelogram were occu¬ pied, the one by the famous marble table, so long, so broad, and so thick that, say the old territorial records in a style that would whet the appetite of a Gargantua, “Never was such a slab of marble seen in the world” ; the other by the chapel in which Louis XI caused his statue to be sculptured kneeling in front of the Virgin, and to which he had trans¬ ferred — indifferent to the fact that thereby two niches were empty in the line of royal statues — those of Charlemagne and Saint-Louis : two saints who, as Kings of France, he sup* posed to be high in favour in heaven. This chapel, which was still quite new, having been built scarcely six years, was-' carried out entirely in that charming style of delicate archi¬ tecture, with its marvellous stone-work, its bold and exquisite tracery, which marks in France the end of the Gothic period, and lasts on into the middle of the sixteenth century in the ethereal fantasies of the Renaissance. The little fretted
NOTRE DAME DE PARIS
7
stone rose-window above the door was in particular a master¬ piece of grace and lightness — a star of lace.
In the centre of the Hall, opposite the great entrance, they had erected for the convenience of the Flemish envoys and other great personages invited to witness the performance of the Mystery, a raised platform covered with gold brocade and fixed against the wall, to which a special entrance had been contrived by utilizing a window into the passage from the Gilded Chamber.
According to custom, the performance was to take place upon the marble table, which had been prepared for that purpose since the morning. On the magnificent slab, all scored by the heels of the law-clerks, stood a high wooden erection, the upper floor of which, visible from every part of the Hall, was to serve as the stage, while its interior, hung round with draperies, furnished a dressing-room for the actors. A ladder, frankly placed in full view of the audience, formed the connecting link between stage and dressing- room, and served the double office of entrance and exit. There was no character however unexpected, no change of scene, no stage effect, but was obliged to clamber up this ladder. Dear and guileless infancy of art and of stage machinery !
Four sergeants of the provost of the Palais — the appointed superintendents of all popular holidays, whether festivals or executions — stood on duty at the four corners of the marble table.
The piece was not to commence till the last stroke of noon of the great clock of the Palais. To be sure, this was very late for a theatrical performance; but they had been obliged to suit the convenience of the ambassadors.
Now, all this multitude had been waiting since the early morning; indeed, a considerable number of these worthy spectators had stood shivering and chattering their teeth with cold since break of day before the grand stair-case of the Palais; some even declared that they had spent the night in front of the great entrance to make sure of being the first to get in. The crowd became denser every moment, and like water that overflows its boundaries, began to mount the walls, to surge round the pillars, to rise up and cover
8
VICTOR HUGO
the cornices, the window-sills, every projection and every coign of vantage in architecture or sculpture. The all- prevailing impatience, discomfort, and weariness, the license of a holiday approvedly dedicated to folly, the quarrels in¬ cessantly arising out of a sharp elbow or an iron-shod heel, the fatigue of long waiting — all conduced to give a tone ! of bitterness and acerbity to the clamour of this closely packed, squeezed, hustled, stifled throng long before the hour at which the ambassadors were expected. Nothing was to be heard but grumbling and imprecations against the Flemings, the Cardinal de Bourbon, the Chief Magistrate, Madame Marguerite of Austria, the beadles, the cold, the heat, the bad weather, the Bishop of Paris, the Fools’ Pope, the pillars, the statues, this closed door, yonder open window — to the huge diversion of the bands of scholars and lackeys distributed through the crowd, who mingled their gibes and pranks with this seething mass of dissatisfaction, aggravating the general ill-humour by perpetual pin-pricks.
There was one group in particular of these joyous young demons who, after knocking out the glass of a window, had boldly seated themselves in the frame, from whence they could cast their gaze and their banter by turns at the crowd inside the Hall and that outside in the Place. By their aping gestures, their yells of laughter, by their loud inter¬ change of opprobrious epithets with comrades at the other side of the Hall, it was very evident that these budding literati by no means shared the boredom and fatigue of the rest of the gathering, and that they knew very well how to extract out of the scene actually before them sufficient entertainment of their own to enable them to wait patiently for the other.
“Why, by my soul, ’tis Joannes Frollo de Molendino !” cried one of them to a little fair-haired imp with a hand¬ some mischievous face, who had swarmed up the pillar and was clinging to the foliage of its capital ; “well are you named Jehan of the Mill, for your two arms and legs are just like the sails of a wind-mill. How long have you been here?”
“By the grace of the devil,” returned Joannes Frollo, “over four hours, and I sincerely trust they may be deducted
i— L
NOTRE DAME DE PARIS
S
from my time in purgatory. I heard the eight chanters of the King of Sicily start High Mass at seven in the Sainte- Chapelle.”
“Fine chanters forsooth !” exclaimed the other, “their voices are sharper than the peaks of their caps ! The King had done better, before founding a Mass in honour of M. Saint-John, to inquire if M. Saint-John was fond of hearing Latin droned with a Provençal accent.”
“And was it just for the sake of employing these rascally chanters of the King of Sicily that he did that?” cried an old woman bitterly in the crowd beneath the window. “I ask you — a thousand livres parisis1 for a Mass, and that too to be charged on the license for selling salt-water fish in the fish-market of Paris.”
“Peace ! old woman,” replied a portly and solemn per¬ sonage, who was holding his nose as he stood beside the fish¬ wife ; “a Mass had to be founded. Would you have the King fall sick again?”
“Bravely said, Sir Gilles Lecornu,2 master furrier to the royal wardrobe !” cried the little scholar clinging to the capital.
A burst of laughter from the whole band of scholars greeted the unfortunate name of the hapless Court furrier.
“Lecornu ! Gilles Lecornu !” shouted some.
“Cornitus et liirsutus !” 3 responded another.
“Why, of course,” continued the little wretch on the capital. “But what is there to laugh about? A worthy man is Gilles Lecornu, brother to Master Jehan Lecornu, pro¬ vost of the Royal Palais, son of Master Mahiet Lecornu, head keeper of the Forest of Vincennes, all good citizens of Paris, married every one of them from father to son !”
The mirth redoubled. The portly furrier answered never a word, but did his best to escape the attention directed to him from all sides ; but he puffed and panted in vain. Like a wedge being driven into wood, his struggles only served to fix his broad apoplectic face, purple with anger and
1 Old French money was reckoned according to two standards, that of Paris (parisis) and Tours (tournois) ; the livre parisis, the old franc, having twenty-five sols or sous, and the livre tournois twenty sols. Translator s note. 2 Cuckold. 8 Horned and hairy.
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10
VICTOR HUGO
vexation, more firmly between the shoulders of his neighbours.
At last one of these neighbours, fat, pursy, and worthy as himself, came to his aid.
“Out upon these graceless scholars who dare to address a burgher in such a manner ! In my day they would have first been beaten with sticks, and then burnt on them.”
This set the whole band agog.
“Holà! hé! what tune’s this? Who’s that old bird of ill omen?”
“Oh, I know him !” exclaimed one ; “it’s Maître Andry Musnier.”
“Yes, he’s one of the four booksellers by appointment to the University,” said another.
“Everything goes by fours in that shop !” cried a third. “Four nations, four faculties, four holidays, four procu¬ rators, four electors, four booksellers.”
“Very good,” returned Jehan Frollo, “we’ll quadruple the devil for them.”
“Musnier, we’ll burn thy books.”
“Musnier, we’ll beat thy servants.”
“Musnier, we’ll tickle thy wife.”
“The good, plump Mile. Oudarde.”
“Who is as buxom and merry as if she were already a widow.”
“The devil fly away with you all,” growled Maître Andry Musnier.
“Maître Andry,” said Jehan, still hanging fast to his capital, “hold thy tongue, or I fall plump on thy head.”
Maître Andry looked up, appeared to calculate for a moment the height of the pillar and the weight of the little rascal, mentally multiplied that weight by the square of the velocity— and held his peace. Whereupon Jehan, left master of the field, added triumphantly, “And I’d do it too, though I am the brother of an archdeacon.”
“A fine set of gentlemen those of ours at the University, not even on a day like this do they see that we get our rights. There’s a may-pole and a bonfire in the town, a Fools’ Pope and Flemish ambassadors in the city, but at the University, nothing !”
NOTRE DAME DE PARIS
11
“And yet the Place Maubert is large enough,” observed one of the youngsters, ensconced in a corner of the window- ledge.
“Down with the Rector, the electors, and the procura¬ tors!” yelled Jehan.
“We’ll make a bonfire to-night in the Champs-Gaillard with Maître Andry’s books !” added another.
“And the desks of the scribes !” cried his neighbour.
“And the wands of the beadles !”
“And the spittoons of the deans !”
“And the muniment chests of the procurators !”
“And the tubs of the doctors !”
“And the stools of the Rector !”
“Down!” bellowed little Jehan in a roaring bass; “down with Maître Andry, the beadles and the scribes ; down with the theologians, the physicians, and the priests; down with the procurators, the electors, and the Rector ! !”
“ ’Tis the end of the world !” muttered Maître Andry, stopping his ears.
“Talk of the Rector — there he goes down the square !” cried one of those in the window. And they all strained to catch a glimpse.
“Is it in truth our venerable Rector, Maître Thibaut?” in¬ quired Jehan Frollo du Moulin, who from his pillar in the interior of the Hall could see nothing of what went on outside.
“Yes, yes,” responded the others in chorus, “it is Maître Thibaut, the Rector himself.”
It was in fact the Rector, accompanied by all the digni¬ taries of the University going in procession to receive the ambassadors, and in the act of crossing the Place du Palais.
The scholars crowding at the window greeted them as they passed with gibes and ironical plaudits. The Rector march¬ ing at the head of his band received the first volley — it was a heavy one.
“Good-day, Monsieur the Rector — Holà there ! Good- day to you !”
“How comes it that the old gambler has managed to be here? Has he then actually left his dice?”
IS
VICTOR HUGO
“Look at him jogging alone on his mule — its ears are not as long as his own !”
“Holà, good-day to you Monsieur the Rector Thibaut! Tybalde aleator!1 old numskull! old gamester!”
“God save you ! How often did you throw double six last night?”
“Oh, just look at the lantern- jawed old face of him — all livid and drawn and battered from his love of dice and gaming !”
“Where are you off to like that, Thibaut, Tybalde aid- dados / turning your back on the University and trotting towards the town?”
“Doubtless he is going to geek a lodging in the Rue Thibautodé !” 8 cried Jehan Frollo.
The whole ribald crew repeated the pun in a voice of thunder and with furious clapping of hands.
“You are off to seek a lodging in the Rue Thibautodé, aren’t you, Monsieur the Rector, own partner to the devil !”
Now came the turn of the other dignitaries.
“Down with the beadles ! Down with the mace-bearers !”
“Tell me, Robin Poussepain, who is that one over there?”
“It is Gilbert de Suilly, Gilbertus de Soliaco, the Chan¬ cellor of the College of Autun.”
“Here, take my shoe — you have a better place than I have — throw it in his face !”
“Saturnalitias mittimus ecce nuces !” 4
“Down with the six theologians in their white surplices !”
“Are those the theologians? I took them for the six white geese Sainte-Geneviève pays to the Town as tribute for the fief of Roogny.”
“Down with the physicians !”
“Down with all the pompous and squabbling disputations !”
“Here goes my cap at thy head, Chancellor of Sainte- Geneviève; I owe thee a grudge. He gave my place in the Nation of Normandy to little Ascaino Falzaspada, who as an Italian, belongs of right to the Province of Bourges.”
“ ’Tis an injustice !” cried the scholars in chorus. “Down with the Chancellor of Sainte-Geneviève !”
1 Thibaut, thou gamester. 3 Thibaut towards losses.
'A pun. Thibaut aux dès; i. e., Thibaut with the dice.
i Freely translated: There’ll be rotten apples thrown at heads to-day.
NOTRE DAME DE PARIS
13
“Ho, there, Maître Joachim de Ladehors ! Ho, Louis Dahuille ! Ho, Lambert Hoctement !”
“The devil choke the Procurator of the Nation of Germany !”
“And the chaplains of the Sainte-Chapelle in their gray amices ; cum tunicis grists !”
“Seu de pellibus grists fourratis !”
“There go the Masters of Art ! Oh, the fine red copes ! and oh, the fine black ones !”
“That makes a fine tail for the Rector !”
“He might be the Doge of Venice going to espouse the sea.”
“Look, Jehan, the canons of Sainte-Geneviève!”
“The foul fiend take the whole lot of them !”
“Abbé Claude Choart ! Doctor Claude Choart, do you seek Marie la Giffarde?”
“You’ll find her in the Rue Glatigny.”
“Bed-making for the King of the Bawdies!”
“She pays her fourpence — quatuor denarios.”
“Aut unum bombum.”
“Would you have her pay you with one on the nose?”
“Comrades ! Maître Simon Sanguin, the elector of the Nation of Picardy, with his wife on the saddle behind him.”
“Post equitem sedet atra cura.”1
“Good-day to you, Monsieur the Elector !”
“Good-night to you, Madame the Electress !”
“Lucky dogs to be able to see all that!” sighed Joannes de Molendino, still perched among the acanthus leaves of his capital.
Meanwhile the bookseller of the University, Maître Andry Musnier, leaned over and whispered to the Court furrier, Maître Gilles Lecornu:
“I tell you, monsieur, ’tis the end of the world. Never has there been such unbridled license among the scholars. It all comes of these accursed inventions — they ruin every¬ thing — the artillery, the culverine, the blunderbuss, and above all, printing, that second pestilence brought us from Ger¬ many. No more manuscripts — no more books! Printing
1 Behind the rider sits black care.
14
VICTOR HUGO
gives the death-blow to bookselling. It is the beginning of the end.”
“I, too, am well aware of it by the increasing preference for velvet stuffs,” said the furrier.
At that moment it struck twelve.
A long-drawn “Ah !” went up from the crowd.
The scholars held their peace. There ensued a general stir and upheaval, a great shuffling of feet and movement of heads, much coughing and blowing of noses; everyone re¬ settled himself, rose on tip-toe, placed himself in the most favourable position obtainable. Then deep silence, every neck outstretched, every mouth agape, every eye fixed on the marble table. Nothing appeared; only the four sergeants were still at their posts, stiff and motionless as four painted statues. Next, all eyes turned towards the platform reserved for the Flemish envoys. The door remained closed and the platform empty. Since daybreak the multitude had been waiting for three things — the hour of noon, the Flemish ambassadors, and the Mystery-Play. Noon alone had kept the appointment. It was too bad. They waited one, two, three, five minutes — a quarter of an hour — nothing hap¬ pened, Then anger followed on the heels of impatience ; in¬ dignant words flew hither and thither, though in suppressed tones as yet. “The Mystery, the Mystery !” they murmured sullenly. The temper of the crowd began to rise rapidly. The warning growls of the gathering storm rumbled over* head. It was Jehan du Moulin who struck out the first flash.
“Let’s have the Mystery, and the devil take the Flem* ings !” he cried at the pitch of his voice, coiling himself about his pillar like a serpent.
The multitude clapped its approval.
“The Mystery, the Mystery !” they repeated, “and to the devil with all Flanders !”
“Give us the Mystery at once,” continued the scholar, “or it’s my advice we hang the provost of the Palais by way of both Comedy and Morality.”
“Well said !” shouted the crowd, “and let’s begin the hang¬ ing by stringing up his sergeants.”
A great roar of applause followed. The four poor devils grew pale and glanced apprehensively at one another. The
NOTRE DAME DE PARIS
15
multitude surged towards them, and they already saw the frail wooden balustrade that formed the only barrier be¬ tween them and the crowd bulge and give way under the pressure from without.
The moment was critical.
“At them ! At them !” came from all sides.
At that instant the curtain of the dressing-room we have described was raised to give passage to a personage, the mere sight of whom suddenly arrested the crowd, and, as if by magic, transformed its anger into curiosity.
“Silence ! Silence !”
But slightly reassured and trembling in every limb, the person in question advanced to the edge of the marble table with a profusion of bows, which, the nearer he approached, assumed more and more the character of genuflections.
By this time quiet had been gradually restored, and there only remained that faint hum which always rises -out of the silence of a great crowd.
“Messieurs the bourgeois,” he began, “and Mesdemoi¬ selles the bourgeoises, we shall have the honour of declaim¬ ing and performing before his Eminence Monsieur the Car¬ dinal a very fine Morality entitled ‘The Good Judgment of Our Lady the Virgin Mary.’ I play Jupiter. His Eminence accompanies at this moment the most honourable Embassy of the Duke of Austria, just now engaged in listening to the harangue of Monsieur the Rector of the University at the Porte Baudets. As soon as the Most Reverend the Cardinal arrives we will commence.”
Certainly nothing less than the direct intervention of Jupiter could have saved the four unhappy sergeants of the provost of the Palais from destruction. Were we so fortu¬ nate as to have invented this most veracious history and were therefore liable to be called to task for it by Our Lady of Criticism, not against us could the classical rule be cited, Nec deus intersit.
For the rest, the costume of Seigneur Jupiter was very fine, and had contributed not a little towards soothing the crowd by occupying its whole attention. Jupiter was arrayed in a “brigandine” or shirt of mail of black velvet thickly studded with gilt nails, on his head was a helmet emhAlished
16
VICTOR HUGO
with silver-gilt buttons, and but for the rouge and the great beard which covered respectively the upper and lower half of his face, but for the roll of gilded pasteboard in his hand studded with iron spikes and bristling with jagged strips of tinsel, which experienced eyes at once recognised as the dread thunder-bolt, and were it not for his flesh-coloured feet, sandalled and beribboned à la Grecque, you would have been very apt to mistake him for one of M. de Berry’s com¬ pany of Breton archers.