Notre-Dame de Paris - Victor Hugo (diy ebook reader .txt) 📗

the doors, drag out the beautiful girl, save her from the judges, save her from the priests, dismantle the cloister, burn the bishop in his palace⁠—all this we will do in less time than it takes for a burgomaster to eat a spoonful of soup. Our cause is just, we will plunder Notre-Dame and that will be the end of it. We will hang Quasimodo. Do you know Quasimodo, ladies? Have you seen him make himself breathless on the big bell on a grand Pentecost festival! Corne du Père! ’tis very fine! One would say he was a devil mounted on a man. Listen to me, my friends; I am a vagabond to the bottom of my heart, I am a member of the slang thief gang in my soul, I was born an independent thief. I have been rich, and I have devoured all my property. My mother wanted to make an officer of me; my father, a subdeacon; my aunt, a councillor of inquests; my grandmother, prothonotary to the king; my great aunt, a treasurer of the short robe⁠—and I have made myself an outcast. I said this to my father, who spit his curse in my face; to my mother, who set to weeping and chattering, poor old lady, like yonder fagot on the andirons. Long live mirth! I am a real Bicêtre. Waitress, my dear, more wine. I have still the wherewithal to pay. I want no more Surène wine. It distresses my throat. I’d as lief, corboeuf! gargle my throat with a basket.”

Meanwhile, the rabble applauded with shouts of laughter; and seeing that the tumult was increasing around him, the scholar cried⁠—.

“Oh! what a fine noise! Populi debacchantis populosa debacchatio!” Then he began to sing, his eye swimming in ecstasy, in the tone of a canon intoning vespers, Quae cantica! quae organa! quae cantilenae! quae melodiae hic sine fine decantantur! Sonant melliflua hymnorum organa, suavissima angelorum melodia, cantica canticorum mira! He broke off: “Tavern-keeper of the devil, give me some supper!”

There was a moment of partial silence, during which the sharp voice of the Duke of Egypt rose, as he gave instructions to his Bohemians.

“The weasel is called Adrune; the fox, Blue-foot, or the Racer of the Woods; the wolf, Gray-foot, or Gold-foot; the bear the Old Man, or Grandfather. The cap of a gnome confers invisibility, and causes one to behold invisible things. Every toad that is baptized must be clad in red or black velvet, a bell on its neck, a bell on its feet. The godfather holds its head, the godmother its hinder parts. ’Tis the demon Sidragasum who hath the power to make wenches dance stark naked.”

“By the mass!” interrupted Jehan, “I should like to be the demon Sidragasum.”

Meanwhile, the vagabonds continued to arm themselves and whisper at the other end of the dram-shop.

“That poor Esmeralda!” said a Bohemian. “She is our sister. She must be taken away from there.”

“Is she still at Notre-Dame?” went on a merchant with the appearance of a Jew.

“Yes, pardieu!”

“Well! comrades!” exclaimed the merchant, “to Notre-Dame! So much the better, since there are in the chapel of Saints Féréol and Ferrution two statues, the one of John the Baptist, the other of Saint-Antoine, of solid gold, weighing together seven marks of gold and fifteen estellins; and the pedestals are of silver-gilt, of seventeen marks, five ounces. I know that; I am a goldsmith.”

Here they served Jehan with his supper. As he threw himself back on the bosom of the wench beside him, he exclaimed⁠—

“By Saint Voult-de-Lucques, whom people call Saint Goguelu, I am perfectly happy. I have before me a fool who gazes at me with the smooth face of an archduke. Here is one on my left whose teeth are so long that they hide his chin. And then, I am like the Marshal de Gié at the siege of Pontoise, I have my right resting on a hillock. Ventre-Mahom! Comrade! you have the air of a merchant of tennis-balls; and you come and sit yourself beside me! I am a nobleman, my friend! Trade is incompatible with nobility. Get out of that! Holà hé! You others, don’t fight! What, Baptiste Croque-Oison, you who have such a fine nose are going to risk it against the big fists of that lout! Fool! Non cuiquam datum est habere nasum⁠—not everyone is favored with a nose. You are really divine, Jacqueline Ronge-Oreille! ’tis a pity that you have no hair! Holà! my name is Jehan Frollo, and my brother is an archdeacon. May the devil fly off with him! All that I tell you is the truth. In turning vagabond, I have gladly renounced the half of a house situated in paradise, which my brother had promised me. Dimidiam domum in paradiso. I quote the text. I have a fief in the Rue Tirechappe, and all the women are in love with me, as true as Saint Éloy was an excellent goldsmith, and that the five trades of the good city of Paris are the tanners, the tawers, the makers of cross-belts, the purse-makers, and the sweaters, and that Saint Laurent was burnt with eggshells. I swear to you, comrades.

“Que je ne beuvrai de piment,
Devant un an, si je cy ment!57

“ ’Tis moonlight, my charmer; see yonder through the window how the wind is tearing the clouds to tatters! Even thus will I do to your gorget.⁠—Wenches, wipe the children’s noses and snuff the candles.⁠—Christ and Mahom! What am I eating here, Jupiter? Ohé! innkeeper! the hair which is not on the heads of your hussies one finds in your omelettes. Old woman! I like bald omelettes. May the devil confound you!⁠—A fine hostelry of Beelzebub, where the hussies comb their heads with the forks!

“Et je n’ai moi,
Par la sang-Dieu!
Ni foi, ni loi,
Ni feu, ni lieu,
Ni