 Book 10 Chapter 2 of the Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo. On re-entering the cloister the Archdeacon found at the door of his cell his brother Jean de Molin, who was waiting for him and who had beguiled the tedium of waiting by drawing on the wall with a bit of charcoal, a profile of his elder brother enriched with a monstrous nose. Dom Claude hardly looked at his brother. His thoughts were elsewhere. That Mary Scamp's face, whose beaming had so often restored serenity to the priest's sombre physiognomy, was now powerless to melt the gloom which grew more dense every day over that corrupted, mephitic and stagnant soul. "'Brother,' said Jehan timidly, "'I am come to see you.' The Archdeacon did not even raise his eyes. "'What then?' "'Brother,' resumed the hypocrite, "'you are so good to me, and you have given me such wise counsels that I always return to you.' "'What next?' "'Alas, brother! You were perfectly right when you said to me, Jehan, Jehan,' said Sat Doctorum Doctorina, Disapolorum Disapilina. "'Jehan be wise, Jehan be learned, Jehan pass not the night outside of the college without lawful occasion and do leave of the Master. "'Judgel not the Piccards,' Noly Jehanes, Verbarare Picardos, wrought not like an unlettered ass, quasi assinos ilateratus, on the straw seats of the school. "'Jehan, allow yourself to be punished at the discretion of the Master. Jehan, go every evening to chapel, and sing there an anthem with verse and horizon to Madame the glorious Virgin Mary. Alas, what excellent advice was that!' "'And then?' "'Brother, you behold a culprit, a criminal, a wretch, a libertine, a man of enormities. My dear brother, Jehan hath made of your counsel straw and dung to trample under foot. I have been well chastised for it, and God is extraordinarily just. As long as I had money, I feasted. I led a mad and joyous life. Oh, how ugly and crabbed behind is debauch, which is so charming in front. Now I have no longer a blank. I have sold my napery, my shirt, and my towels. No more merry life. The beautiful candle is extinguished, and I have henceforth only a wretched tallow dip which smokes in my nose. The winches jeer at me. I drink water. I am overwhelmed with remorse and with creditors.' "'The rest?' said the Archdeacon. "'Alas, my very dear brother, I should like to settle down to a better life. I come to you full of contrition. I am penitent. I make my confession. I beat my breast violently. You are quite right in wishing that I should some day become a licentiate and sub-monitor in the College of Turkey. At the present moment I feel a magnificent vocation for that profession. But I have no more ink, and I must buy some. I have no more paper. I have no more books, and I must buy some. For this purpose I am greatly in need of a little money, and I come to you, brother, with my heart full of contrition. "'Is that all?' "'Yes,' said the scholar. "'A little money. I have none.' "'Then,' the scholar said, with an air which was both grave and resolute. "'Well, brother, I am sorry to be obliged to tell you that very fine offers and propositions are being made to me in another quarter. You will not give me any money? No. In that case I shall become a professional vagabond.' As he uttered these monstrous words he assumed the mean of Ajax, expecting to see the lightnings descend upon his head. The archdeacon said coldly to him, "'Become a vagabond.' Shahan made a deep bow and descended the cloisterer stairs, whistling. At the moment when he was passing through the courtyard of the cloister, beneath his brother's window, he heard that window open, raised his eyes, and beheld the archdeacon severe head emerge. "'Go to the devil,' said Dom-Claude. "'Here is the last money which you will get from me.' At the same time the priest flung Shahan a purse, which gave the scholar a big bump on the forehead, and with which Shahan retreated, both vexed and content, like a dog who had been stoned with marrow-bones. End of Book X, Chapter 2 Book X, Chapter 3 of the Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Book X, Chapter 3. Long Live Murth. The reader has probably not forgotten that a part of the core de-miracles was enclosed by the ancient wall which surrounded the city, a goodly number of whose towers had begun, at that epoch, to fall to ruin. One of these towers had been converted into a pleasure resort by the vagabonds. There was a drain-shop in the underground story, and the rest in the upper stories. This was the most lively, and consequently the most hideous, point of the whole outcast den. It was a sort of monstrous hive which buzzed there night and day. At night, when the remainder of the beggar horde slept, when there was no longer a window lighted in the dingy facades of the plos, when not a cry was any longer to be heard proceeding from those innumerable families, those ant-hills of thieves, of wenches and stolen or bastard children, the merry tower was still recognizable by the noise which had made, by the scarlet light which, flashing simultaneously from the air-holes, the windows, the fissures and the cracked walls, escaped, so to speak, from its very poor. The cellar, then, was the dram-shop. The descent to it was through a low door and by a staircase as steep as a classic Alexandrine. Over the door, by way of a sign, there hung a marvellous daub, representing new sons and dead chickens, with this pun below. Au soigneuse pour d'être passé, the ringers for the dead. One evening, when the curfew was sounding from all the belfries in Paris, the sergeants of the watch might have observed, had it been granted to them to enter the formidable court of miracles, that more tumult than usual was in progress in the vagabond's tavern, that more drinking was being done and louder swearing. Outside in the plos there were many groups conversing in low tones, as when some great plan is being formed, and here and there a nave crouching down, engaged in sharpening a villainous iron blade on a paving stone. Meanwhile, in the tavern itself, wine and gaming offered such a powerful diversion to the ideas which occupied the vagabond's lair that evening, that it would have been difficult to divine from the remarks of the drinkers what was the matter in hand. They merely wore a gayer air than was their want, and some weapon could be seen glittering between the legs of each of them, a sickle, an axe, a big two-edged sword, or the hook of an old hack-butt. The room, circular in form, was very spacious, but the tables were so thickly set, and the drinkers so numerous, that all that the tavern contained, men, women, benches, beer-jugs, all that were drinking, all that were sleeping, all that were playing, the well, the lame, piled up pel-mel, with as much order and harmony as a heap of oyster-shells. There were a few tallow-dips lighted on the tables, but the real luminary of this tavern, that which played the part in this dram-shop of the chandelier of an opera-house, was the fire. This cellar was so damp that the fire was never allowed to go out, even in mint summer. An immense chimney with a sculptured mantle, all bristling with heavy iron and cooking utensils, with one of those huge fires of mixed wood and peat, which at night, in the village streets, make the reflection of forge-window stand out so red on the opposite walls. A big dog gravely seated in the ashes was turning a spit loaded with meat before the coals. Great as was the confusion, after the first glance one could distinguish in that multitude three principal groups which thronged around three personages already known to the reader. One of these personages, fantastically accoutered in many an oriental reg, was Matias Hungadi of Spakali, Duke of Egypt and Bohemia. The nave was seated on a table with his legs crossed, and in a loud voice was bestowing his knowledge of magic, both black and white, on many a gaping face which surrounded him. The rabble pressed close around our old friend, the valiant king of Tunei, armed to the teeth, clopane trifot, with a very serious air and in a low voice, was regulating the distribution of an enormous cask of arms, which stood wide open in front of him, and from whence poured out in profusion, axes, swords, bassinets, coats of mail, broadswords, lanceheads, arrows and viratans, like apples and grapes from a horn of plenty. Everyone took something from the cask, one Amorian, another along straightsword, another a dagger with a cross-shaped hilt. The very children were arming themselves, and there were even cripples in bowls, who in armor and cuirass made their way between the legs of the drinkers like great beetles. Finally a third audience, the most noisy, the most jovial, and the most numerous, encumbered benches and tables in the midst of which harangued and swore a flute-like voice, which escaped from beneath a heavy armor, complete from cask to spurs. The individual who had thus screwed a whole outfit upon his body was so hidden by his warlike accoutrements that nothing was to be seen of his person save an impertinent, red snub nose, a rosy mouth, and bold eyes. His belt was full of daggers and poignards, a huge sword on his hip, a rusted crossbow at his left, and a vast jug of wine in front of him, without reckoning on his right, a fat wench with their bosom uncovered. All mouths around him were laughing, cursing, and drinking. The twenty secondary groups, the waiters, male and female, running with jugs on their heads, gamblers squatting over taws, morels, dice, vachettes, the ardent game of tringlet, quarrels in one corner, kisses in another, and the reader will have some idea of this whole picture, over which flickered the light of a great flaming fire, which made a thousand huge and grotesque shadows dance over the walls of the drinking shop. As for the noise, it was like the inside of a bell at full peel. The dripping pan, where crackled a rain of grease, filled with its continual sputtering the intervals of these thousand dialogues, which intermingled from one end of the apartment to the other. In the midst of this uproar, at the extremity of the tavern, on the bench inside the chimney sat a philosopher meditating with his feet in the ashes and his eyes on the brands. It was Pierre Gringois. Be quick! Make haste! Arm yourselves! We set out on the march in an hour," said Clopan Trifot to his thieves. A winch was humming. Bonsoir mon paire et ma mère, l'eau donnée corvante la feu. Two card-players were disputing. Nave cried the reddest face of the two, shaking his fist at the other. I'll mark you at the club. You can take the place of misdigree in the pack of cards of Montseer the King. Agh! roared a Norman, recognizable by his nasal accent. We are packed in here like the saints of Caillouvie. My sons! the Duke of Egypt was saying to his audience in a falsetto voice, Suissresses in France go to the witches' sabbath without broomsticks, or grease, or steed, merely by means of some magic words. The witches of Italy always have a buck waiting for them at their door. All are bound to go out through the chimney. The voice of a young scamp armed from head to foot dominated the uproar. Hurrah! hurrah! he was shouting! My first day in armour! Outcast! I am an outcast! Give me something to drink! My friends, my name is Jean Frollo Dumoulin, and I am a gentleman. My opinion is that, if God were a gendarm, he would turn robber. Brothers, we are about to set out on a fine expedition. Lay siege to the church, burst in the doors, bring 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 burgamaster 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 great Pentecost festival? Cornet du Père, tears 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 sub-deacon. My aunt a counselor of inquests. My grandmother brought the notary to the king. My great aunt a treasure 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 said to weeping and chattering, poor old lady, like yonder faggot on the and irons, long live mirth. I am a real besetra. Waitress, my dear, more wine. I have still the wherewithal to pay. I want no more serene wine. It distresses my throat. I'd as leaf garbouf 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! Populai dupicantis populoso depicatio! Then he began to sing, his eyes swimming in ecstasy, in the tone of a cannon in toning vespers. Coe cantica, coe organa, coe cantilanoe, coe melecloe hixine fine decantantur, nonant meleflua himnoram igona, suavisima angeloram melodia, cantica canticoram mira. He broke off. Tavernkeeper 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 bluefoot, or the racer of the woods, the wolf, greyfoot, or goldfoot, the bear, old man, or grandfather. The cap of a gnome confers invisibility, and causes one to behold invisible things. Every toe that is baptised 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 hearts, tis the demon Sidra-Gasum, who has the power to make winches dance stark naked. By the mass, interrupted Jehan, I should like to be the demon Sidra-Gasum. Meanwhile the vagabonds continue 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 Saint-Ferriol and Ferruthion two statues, the one of John the Baptist, the other of Saint-Antoine, of solid gold, weighing together seven marks of gold and fifteen estalan, and the pedestals are of silver guilt, of seventeen marks, five ounces. I know that, I am a gold-smith." Here they serve Jehan with his supper. As he threw himself back on the bosom of the wench beside him, he exclaimed, By Saint Vaudeluc, whom people call Saint-Gougalou, I am perfectly happy. I have before me a fool who gazes at me with the smooth face of an arch-duke. Here is one on my left, whose teeth are so long, that they hide his chin. And then I am like the Marsha de Guy, at the siege of Pantois. I have my right resting on a hillock. Ventre-Mayome, 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. Olae, you others, don't fight? What, Baptiste Croque-Wasson, you who have such a fine nose, are going to risk it against the big fists of that lout. Fool, non qui comme datum est hibert et nasum, not everyone is favoured with a nose. You are really divine, Jacqueline Rangeauré, t'es a pity that you have no hair. Ola, my name is Jehan Frollo, and my brother is an arch-deacon. 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. Die Medium Domum Imperadiso. I quote the text. I have a thief in the roue de Chape, and all the women are in love with me, as true as Saint-Elois was an excellent goldsmith, and that the five trades of the good city of Paris are the tanners, the towers, 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 n'abovrerai d'opimante devant au nom si je sais ment, that I will drink no spiced and honey-wine for a year if I am lying now. Tis the moonlight, my charmer, see yonder through the window how the wind is tearing the clouds to tatters. Even thus will I do to your gorge, wenches, wipe the children's noses and snuff the candles. Christ and ma home! What am I eating here, Jupiter? Oh, hey, 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 hostery of beelzebub, where the hussies comb their heads with the forks. Oh, je n'ai moi, pour la singe d'eux, ni foie, ni oie, ni feu, ni l'eux, ni oie, ni d'eux. And by the blood of God I have neither faith nor law nor fire nor dwelling place nor king nor God. In the meantime, Cleopantry Faux had finished the distribution of arms. He approached Gringoire, who appeared to be plunged in a profound reverie, with his feet on an and iron. Friend Pierre, said the king of Tenae, what the devil are you thinking about? Gringoire turned to him with a melancholy smile. I love the fire, my dear lord, not for the trivial reason that fire warms the feet or cooks our soup, but because it has sparks. Sometimes I pass whole hours in watching the sparks. I discover a thousand things in those stars which are sprinkled over the black background of the hearth. Those stars are also worlds. Thunder, if I understand you, said the outcast, do you know what a clock it is? I do not know, replied Gringoire. Cleopan approached the Duke of Egypt. Comrade Mathias, the time we have chosen is not a good one. King Louis XI is said to be in Paris. Another reason for snatching our sister from his cause, replied the old Bohemian. You speak like a man, Mathias, said the king of Tenae. Moreover, we will act promptly. No resistance is to be feared in the church. The cannons are hairs, and we are in force. The people of the parliament will be well-bocked tomorrow when they come to see her. Guts of the pope, I don't want them to hang the pretty girl. Cleopan quitted the dram-shop. Meanwhile, Shahan was shouting in a hoarse voice. I eat! I drink! I am drunk! I am Jupiter! Hey, Pierre, the slaughterer! If you look at me like that again, I'll fill up the dust off your nose for you! Gringoire, torn from his meditations, began to watch the wild and noisy scene which surrounded him, muttering between his teeth. Luxurioso, res vinum et tumultuoso, eprietas. Alas! What good reason I have not to drink! And how excellently spoke Saint Benoit! Vinum apostatari, facit etium sapientes. At that moment, Cleopan returned and shouted in a voice of thunder, Midnight! At this word, which produced the effect of the call to boot and saddle on a regiment at a halt, all the outcasts, men, women, children, rushed in a mass from the tavern, with great noise of arms and old iron implements, the moon was obscured. The court of miracles was entirely dark. There was not a single light. One could make out there a throng of men and women conversing in low tones. They could be heard buzzing, and a gleam of all sorts of weapons was visible in the darkness. Cleopan mounted a large stone. To your ranks, Argot! he cried. Fall into line, Egypt! Form ranks, Galilee! A movement began in the darkness. The immense multitude appeared to form in a column. After a few minutes, the King of Tunae raised his voice once more. Now, silence to march through Paris! The pass where it is, little sword in pocket. The torches will not be lighted till we reach Notre-Dame. Forward, march! Ten minutes later, the cavaliers of the watch fled in terror before a long procession of black and silent men, which was descending towards the Panteauchage, through the tortuous streets which pierced the close-built neighborhood of the markets in every direction. And of Book Ten, Chapter 3 Book Ten, Chapter 4 of the Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Book Ten, Chapter 4. An Awkward Friend That night Quasimodo did not sleep. He had just made his last round of the church. He had not noticed that at the moment when he was closing the doors the Archdeacon had passed close to him and betrayed some displeasure on seeing him bolting and barring with care the enormous iron locks which gave to their large leaves the solidity of a wall. Dom Claude's air was even more preoccupied than usual. Moreover, since the nocturnal adventure in the cell he had constantly abused Quasimodo, but in vain did he ill-treat and even beat him occasionally, nothing disturbed the submission, patience, the devoted resignation of the faithful bell-ringer. He endured everything on the part of the Archdeacon, insults, threats, blows, without murmuring a complaint. At the most he gazed uneasily after Dom Claude when the latter ascended the staircase of the tower, but the Archdeacon had abstained from presenting himself again before the gypsy's eyes. On that night, accordingly, Quasimodo, after having cast a glance at his poor bells which he so neglected now, Jacqueline, Marie, and Thibault, mounted to the summit of the Northern Tower and there setting his dark lantern well closed upon the leads, he began to gaze at Paris. The night, as we have already said, was very dark. Paris, which so to speak was not lighted at that epoch, presented to the eye a confused collection of black masses, cut here and there by the whitish curve of the Seine. Quasimodo no longer saw any light with the exception of one window in a distant edifice, whose vague and sombre profile was outlined well above the roofs in the direction of the port St. Antoine. There also there was someone awake. As the only eye of the bell-ringer peered into that horizon of mist and night, he felt within him an inexpressible uneasiness. For several days he had been upon his guard. He had perceived men of sinister mean who never took their eyes from the young girl's asylum, prowling constantly about the church. He fancied that some plot might be in process of formation against the unhappy refugee. He imagined that there existed a popular hatred against her, as against himself, and that it was very possible that something might happen soon. Hence he remained upon his tower on the watch, dreaming in his dream-place as Ramele says, with his eye directed alternately on the cell and on Paris, keeping faithful guard like a good dog with a thousand suspicions in his mind. All at once, while he was scrutinizing the great city with that eye, which nature, by a sort of compensation, had made so piercing that it could almost supply the other organs which Quasimodo lacked, it seemed to him that there was something singular about the Quix de la Vie Pelleterie, that there was a movement at that point, that the line of the parapet, standing out blackly against the whiteness of the water, was not straight and tranquil, like that of the other Quix, but that it undulated to the eye, like the waves of a river, or like the heads of a crowd in motion. This struck him as strange. He redoubled his attention. The movement seemed to be advancing towards the city. There was no light. It lasted for some time on the key, then it gradually ceased, as though that which was passing were entering the interior of the island, then it stopped altogether, and the line of the key became straight and motionless again. At the moment when Quasimodo was lost in conjectures, it seemed to him that the movement had reappeared in the rue du Parvis, which is prolonged into the city perpendicularly to the façade of Notre-Dame. At length, dense as was the darkness, he beheld the head of a column debouch from that street, and in an instant a crowd, of which nothing could be distinguished in the gloom except that it was a crowd, spread over the plaza. This spectacle had a terror of its own. It is probable that this singular procession, which seemed so desirous of concealing itself under profound darkness, maintained a silence no less profound. Nevertheless, some noise must have escaped it, were it only a trampling. But this noise did not even reach our deaf man, and this great multitude of which he saw hardly anything, and of which he heard nothing, though it was marching and moving so near him, produced upon him the effect of a rabble of dead men, mute, impalpable, lost in a smoke. It seemed to him that he beheld advancing towards him a fog of men, and that he saw shadows moving in the shadow. Then his fears returned to him, the idea of an attempt against the gypsy presented itself once more to his mind. He was conscious, in a confused way, that a violent crisis was approaching. At that critical moment he took counsel with himself, with better and prompter reasoning than one would have expected from so badly organized a brain. Aught he to awaken the gypsy, to make her escape? Wither. The streets were invested, the church backed on the river. No boat, no issue. There was but one thing to be done, to allow himself to be killed on the threshold of Notre-Dame, to resist at least until succor arrived if it should arrive, but not to trouble La Esmeralda's sleep. This resolution once taken he set to examining the enemy with more tranquility. The throngs seemed to increase every moment in the church square. Only he presumed that it must be making very little noise, since the windows on the plaza remained closed. All at once a flame flashed up, and in an instant seven or eight lighted torches passed over the heads of the crowd, shaking their tufts of flame in the deep shade. Quasimodo then beheld distinctly surging in the parvée a frightful herd of men and women in rags, armed with scythes, pikes, billhooks, and partisans, whose thousand points glittered. Here and there black pitchforks formed horns to the hideous faces. He vaguely recalled this populace, and thought that he recognized all the heads who had saluted him as pope of the fools some months previously. One man, who held a torch in one hand and a club in the other, mounted a stone post and seemed to be haranguing them. At the same time the strange army executed several evolutions as though it were taking up its post round the church. Quasimodo picked up his lantern and descended to the platform between the towers, in order to get a nearer view and to spy out a means of defense. Clopantry Faux, on arriving in front of the lofty portal of Notre-Dame, had in fact arranged his troops in order of battle. Although he expected no resistance, he wished, like a prudent general, to preserve an order which would permit him to face, at need, a sudden attack of the watch or the police. He had, accordingly, stationed his brigade in such a manner that, viewed from above and from a distance, one would have pronounced it the Roman Triangle of the Battle of Ecnomus, the boar's head of Alexander, or the famous wedge of Gustavus Adolphus. The base of this triangle rested on the back of the plaza in such a manner as to bar the entrance of the rue de Parvis. One of its sides faced Hôtel-de, the other the rue Saint-Pierre-au-Bouf. Clopantry Faux had placed himself at the apex with the Duke of Egypt, our friend Jehan, and the most daring of the scavengers. An enterprise like that which the vagabonds were now undertaking against Notre-Dame was not a very rare thing in the cities of the Middle Ages. What we now call the police did not exist then. In popular cities, especially in capitals, there existed no single, central regulating power. Feudalism had constructed these great communities in a singular manner. A city was an assembly of a thousand seniors, which divided it into compartments of all shapes and sizes, hence a thousand conflicting establishments of police, that is to say, no police at all. In Paris, for example, independently of the 141 lords who laid claim to a manor, there were five and twenty who laid claim to a manor and to administering justice, from the bishop of Paris, who had five hundred streets, to the prior of Notre-Dame-de-Schoppe, who had four. All these feudal justices recognized the Souserain authority of the King only in name. All possessed the right of control over the roads. All were at home. Louis XI, that indefatigable worker, who so largely began the demolition of the feudal edifice, continued by Richelieu and Louis XIV, for the profit of royalty and finished by Mirabeau for the benefit of the people, Louis XI had certainly made an effort to break this network of seniors which covered Paris by throwing violently across them all two or three troops of general police. Thus, in 1465, an order to the inhabitants to light candles in their windows at nightfall and to shut up their dogs under penalty of death. In the same year, an order to close the streets in the evening with iron chains and a prohibition to wear daggers or weapons of offence in the streets at night. But in very short time all these efforts at communal legislation fell into abeyance. The bourgeois permitted the wind to blow out their candles in the windows and their dogs to stray. The iron chains were stretched only in a state of siege. The prohibition to wear daggers wrought no other changes than from the name of the Rue Cougueuil to the name of the Rue Cougorgé, which is an evident progress. The old scaffolding of feudal jurisdictions remained standing. An immense aggregation of bailiwicks and seniories crossing each other all over the city, interfering with each other, entangling in one another, enmeshing each other, trespassing on each other, a useless thicket of watches, sub-watches, and counter-watches, over which, with armed force, passed brigandage, rappin, and sedition. Hence, in this disorder, periods of violence on the part of the populace directed against a palace, a hotel, or house in the most thickly populated quarters, were not unheard of occurrences. In the majority of such cases the neighbors did not meddle with the matter unless the pillaging extended to themselves. They stopped up their ears to the musket shots, closed their shutters, barricaded their doors, allowed the matter to be concluded with or without the watch, and on the next day, it was said in Paris, a Tien Barbette was broken open last night, the Marchel de Clermont was seized last night, etc. Hence, not only the royal habitations, the Louvre, the palace, the Bastille, the Tournelle, but simply seniorial residences, the Petit Bourbon, the Hotel de Saint, the Hotel de Angélème, etc., had battlements on their walls and machiculations over their doors. Churches were guarded by their sanctity. Some, among the number Notre-Dame, were fortified. The Abbey of Saint-Germain-de-Pres was castulated like a baronial mansion, and more brass expended about it in bombards than in bells. Its fortress was still to be seen in 1610. Today, barely its church remains. Let us return to Notre-Dame. When the first arrangements were completed, and we must say, to the honour of the vagabond discipline, that Clopin's orders were executed in silence and with admirable precision, the worthy chief of the band mounted on the parapet of the church square and raised his horse and surly voice, turning towards Notre-Dame and brandishing his torch, whose light, tossed by the wind, and veiled every moment by its own smoke, made the reddish facade of the church appear and disappear before the eye. To you, Louis de Beaumont, Bishop of Paris, councillor in the Court of Parliament, I, Clopin Tri-Faux, King of Tounais, Grand-Cohès, Prince of Arget, Bishop of Fools, I say, Your sister, falsely condemned for magic, hath taken refuge in your church. You owe her asylum and safety. Now the Court of Parliament wishes to seize her once more there, and you consent to it, so that she would be hanged to-morrow in the grave, if God and the outcasts were not here. If your church is sacred, so is our sister. If our sister is not sacred, neither is your church. That is why we call upon you to return the girl, if you wish to save your church, or we will take possession of the girl again and pillage the church, which will be a good thing, in token of which I here plant my banner and make God preserve you, Bishop of Paris." Quasimodo could not, unfortunately, hear these words uttered with a sort of somber and savage majesty. A vagabond presented his banner to Clopin, who planted it solemnly between two paving-stones. It was a pitchfork from whose points hung a bleeding quarter of carrion meat. That done the King of Tounais turned round and cast his eyes over his army, a fierce multitude whose glances flashed almost equally with their pikes. After a momentary pause, "'Farward, my sons!' he cried, "'To work, locksmiths!' Thirty bold men, square-shouldered, with picklock faces, stepped from the ranks with hammers, pincers, and bars of iron on their shoulders. They betook themselves to the principal door of the church, ascended the steps, and were soon to be seen squatting under the arch, working at the door with pincers and levers. A throng of vagabonds followed them to help or look on. The eleven steps before the portal were covered with them. But the door stood firm. "'The devil! Tis hard and obstinate,' said one. "'It is old, and its gristles have become bony,' said another. "'Courage, comrades!' resumed Clopin. "'I wager my head against a dipper that you will have opened the door, rescue the girl, and de-spoil the chief altar before a single beetle is awake. Stay! I think I hear the lock breaking up!' Clopin was interrupted by a frightful uproar which resounded behind him at that moment. He wheeled round. An enormous beam had just fallen from above. It had crushed a dozen vagabonds on the pavement with the sound of a cannon, breaking in addition legs here and there in the crowd of beggars, who sprang aside with cries of terror. In a twinkling the narrow precincts of the church parvilles were cleared. The locksmiths, although protected by the deep vaults of the portal, abandoned the door, and Clopin himself retired to a respectful distance from the church. "'I had a narrow escape,' cried Jehan. "'I felt the wind of it! De-de-boof! But Pierre the slaughterer is slaughtered!' "'It is impossible to describe the astonishment mingled with fright which fell upon the Ruffians in company with this beam. They remained for several minutes with their eyes in the air, more dismayed by that piece of wood than by the king's twenty thousand archers. "'Satan!' muttered the Duke of Egypt. "'This smacks of magic!' "'Dis the moon which threw this log at us!' said André the Red. "'Call the moon the friend of the Virgin after that!' went on François Chantpriné. "'A thousand popes!' exclaimed Clopin. "'You are all fools!' But he did not know how to explain the fall of the beam.' Meanwhile nothing could be distinguished on the façade to whose summit the light of the torches did not reach. The heavy beam lay in the middle of the enclosure, and groans were heard from the poor wretches who had received its first shock, and who had been almost cut in twain on the angle of the stone steps. The king of Tune, his first amazement passed, finally found an explanation which appeared plausible to his companions. "'Throughout of God! Are the cannons defending themselves? To the sack, then! To the sack!' "'To the sack!' repeated the rabble with a furious hurrah. A discharge of crossbows and hack-butts against the front of the church followed. At this detonation the peaceable inhabitants of the surrounding houses woke up. Many windows were seen to open, and night-caps and hands-holding candles appeared at the casements. "'Fire at the windows!' shouted Clopin. The windows were immediately closed, and the poor bourgeois, who had hardly had time to cast a frightened glance on this scene of gleams and tumult, returned perspiring with fear to their wives, asking themselves whether the witch's sabbath was now being held in the parvie of Notre-Dame, or whether there was an assault of brigundians as in sixty-four. Then the husbands thought of theft, the wives of rape, and all trembled. "'To the sack!' repeated the thieves' crew. But they dared not approach. They stared at the beam. They stared at the church. The beam did not stir. The edifice preserved its calm and deserted air, but something chilled the outcasts. "'To work, locksmiths!' shouted Trifot. Let the door be forced!' No one took a step. "'Beard and belly!' said Clopin. Here be men afraid of a beam!' An old locksmith addressed him. "'Captain, tis not the beam which bothers us. Tis the door which is all covered with iron bars. Our pincers are powerless against it.' "'What more do you want to break it in?' demanded Clopin. "'Ah, we ought to have a battering-ram!' The king of Tunei ran boldly to the formidable beam and placed his foot upon it. "'Here is one!' he exclaimed. "'Tis the cannons who send it to you!' And making a mocking salute in the direction of the church. "'Thanks, cannons!' This piece of bravado produced its effects. The spell of the beam was broken. The vagabonds recovered their courage. Soon the heavy joist, raised like a feather by two hundred vigorous arms, was flung with a fury against the great door which they had tried to batter down. At the sight of that long beam, in the half-light which the infrequent torches of the brigands spread over the plas, thus born by that crowd of men who dashed it at a run against the church, one would have thought that he beheld a monstrous beast with a thousand feet, attacking with lowered head the giant of stone. At the shock of the beam, the half-metallic door sounded like an immense drum. It was not burst in, but the whole cathedral trembled, and the deepest cavities of the edifice were heard to echo. At the same moment a shower of large stones began to fall from the top of the façade on the assailants. "'The devil!' cried Jehan, "'Are the towers shaking their balustrades down on our heads?' But the impulse had been given, the king of Tunei had set the example. Evidently the bishop was defending himself, and they only battered the door with more rage, in spite of the stones which cracked skulls right and left. It was remarkable that all these stones fell one by one, but they followed each other closely. Their thieves always fell two at a time, one on their legs and one on their heads. There were few which did not deal their blow, and a large layer of dead and wounded lay bleeding and panting beneath the feet of the assailants, who, now grown furious, replaced each other without intermission. The long beam continued to belabor the door at regular intervals, like the clapper of a bell, the stones to rain down, the door to groan. The reader has no doubt divine that this unexpected resistance which had exasperated the outcasts came from Quasimodo. Chance had, unfortunately, favored the brave deaf man. When he had descended to the platform between the towers, his ideas were all in confusion. He had run up and down along the gallery for several minutes like a madman, surveying from above the compact mass of vagabonds ready to hurl itself on the church, demanding the safety of the gypsy from the devil or from God. The thought had occurred to him of ascending to the southern belfry and sounding the alarm, but before he could have set the bell in motion, before Marie's voice could have uttered a single clamor, was there not time to burst in the door of the church ten times over? It was precisely the moment when the locksmiths were advancing upon it with their tools. What was to be done? All at once he remembered that some masons had been at work all day repairing the wall, the timber work, and the roof of the southern tower. This was a flash of light. The wall was of stone, the roof of lead, the timber work of wood. That prodigious timber work so dense that it was called the forest. Quasimodo hastened to that tower. The lower chambers were, in fact, full of materials. There were piles of rough blocks of stone, sheets of lead in rolls, bundles of laths, heavy beams already notched with the saw, heaps of plaster. Time was pressing, the pikes and hammers were at work below. With a strength which the sense of danger increased tenfold, he seized one of the beams, the longest and heaviest. He pushed it out through a loophole, then grasping it again outside of the tower, he made it slide along the angle of the balustrade which surrounds the platform and let it fly into the abyss. The enormous timber, during that fall of a hundred and sixty feet, scraping the wall, breaking the carvings, turned many times on its center like the arm of a windmill flying off alone through space. At last it reached the ground, the horrible cry arose, and the black beam, as it rebounded from the pavement, resembled a serpent leaping. Quasimodo beheld the outcast scatter at the fall of the beam, like ashes at the breath of a child. It took advantage of their fright, and while they were fixing a superstitious glance on the club which had fallen from heaven, and while they were putting out the eyes of the stone saints on the front with the discharge of arrows and buckshot, Quasimodo was silently piling up plaster, stones, and rough blocks of stone, even the sacks of tools belonging to the masons, on the edge of the balustrade from which the beam had already been hurled. Thus, as soon as they began to batter the grand door, the shower of rough blocks of stone began to fall, and it seemed to them that the church itself was being demolished over their heads. Anyone who could have beheld Quasimodo at that moment would have been frightened. Independently of the projectiles which he had piled upon the balustrade, he had collected a heap of stones on the platform itself. As fast as the blocks on the exterior wedge were exhausted, he drew on the heap. Then he stooped and rose, stooped and rose again with incredible activity. His huge gnome's head bent over the balustrade, then an enormous stone fell, then another, then another. From time to time he followed a fine stone with his eye, and when it did good execution he said, HUM! Meanwhile, the beggars did not grow discouraged. The thick door in which they were venting their fury had already trembled more than twenty times beneath the weight of their oaken battering-ram, multiplied by the strength of a hundred men. The panels cracked, the carved work flew into splinters, the hinges at every blow leaped from their pins, the planks yawned, the wood crumbled to powder ground between the iron sheathing. Fortunately for Quasimodo there was more iron than wood. Nevertheless he felt that the great door was yielding. Although he did not hear it, every blow of the ram reverberated simultaneously in the vaults of the church and within it. From above he beheld the vagabonds, filled with triumph and rage, shaking their fists at the gloomy façade, and both on the gypsy's account and his own he envied the wings of the owls which flitted away above his head in flocks. His shower of stone blocks was not sufficient to repel the assailants. At this moment of anguish he noticed a little lower down than the balustrade whence he was crushing the thieves, two long stone gutters which discharged immediately over the great door. The internal orifice of these gutters terminated on the pavement of the platform. An idea occurred to him. He ran in search of a faggot in his bell ringers den, placed on this faggot a great many bundles of laths and many rolls of lead, munitions which he had not employed so far, and having arranged this pile in front of the hole to the two gutters he set it on fire with his lantern. During this time, since the stones no longer fell, the outcasts ceased to gaze into the air. The bandits, panting like a pack of hounds who are forcing a bore into his lair, pressed tumultuously round the great door, all disfigured by the battering ram but still standing. They were waiting with a quiver for the great blow which should split it open. They vied with each other in pressing as close as possible in order to dash among the first when it should open into that opulent cathedral, a vast reservoir where the wealth of three centuries had been piled up. They reminded each other with roars of exultation and greedy lust of the beautiful silver crosses, the fine copes of brocade, the beautiful tombs of silver gilt, the great magnificences of the choir, the dazzling festivals, the Christmases sparkling with torches, the Easter sparkling with sunshine, all those splendid solemnities wherein chandeliers, siboriums, tabernacles and reliquaries study the altars with a crust of gold and diamonds. Certainly, at that fine moment, thieves and pseudo-sufferers, doctors in stealing and vagabonds were thinking much less of delivering the gypsy than of pillaging Notre-Dame. We could even easily believe that for a goodly number among them Lais Meralda was only a pretext, if thieves needed pretexts. All at once, at the moment when they were grouping themselves round the ram for a last effort, each one holding his breath and stiffening his muscles in order to communicate all his force to the decisive blow, a howl more frightful still than that which had burst forth and expired beneath the beam, rose among them. Those who did not cry out, those who were still alive looked. Two streams of melted lead were falling from the summit of the edifice into the thickest of the rabble. That sea of men had just sunk down beneath the boiling metal, which had made at the two points where it fell two black and smoking holes in the crowd, such as hot water would make in snow. Dying men, half consumed and groaning with anguish, could be seen writhing there. Around these two principal streams there were drops of that horrible rain which scattered over the assailants and entered their skulls like gimlets of fire. It was a heavy fire which overwhelmed these wretches with a thousand hail-stones. The outcry was heart-rending. They fled pel-mel, hurling the beam upon the bodies, the boldest as well as the most timid, and the parvie was cleared a second time. All eyes were raised to the top of the church. They beheld there an extraordinary sight. On the crest of the highest gallery, higher than the central rose window, there was a great flame rising between the two towers with whirlwinds of sparks, a vast, disordered and furious flame, a tongue of which was born into the smoke by the wind from time to time. Below that fire, below the gloomy balustrade with its tree-foils showing darkly against its glare, two spouts with monster-throats were vomiting forth unceasingly that burning rain, whose silvery stream stood out against the shadows of the lower façade. As they approached the earth, these two jets of liquid lead spread out in sheaves, like water springing from the thousand holes of a water-pot. Above the flame, the enormous towers, two sides of each of which were visible in sharp outline, the one holy black, the other holy red, seemed still more vast with all the immensity of the shadow which they cast even to the sky. Their innumerable sculptures of demons and dragons assumed a lugubrious aspect. The restless light of the flame made them move to the eye. There were griffons which had the air of laughing, gargoyles which one fancied, one heard yelping, salamanders which puffed at the fire, tarasques which sneezed in the smoke, and among the monsters thus roused from their sleep of stone by this flame, by this noise, there was one who walked about, and who was seen from time to time to pass across the glowing face of the pile, like a bat in front of a candle. Without doubt, this strange beacon light would awaken far away the woodcutter of the hills of Bicetra, terrified to behold the gigantic shadow of the towers of Notre-Dame quivering over his heaths. A terrified silence ensued among the outcasts, during which nothing was heard but the cries of alarm of the cannons shut up in their cloister, and more uneasy than horses in a burning stable, the furtive sound of windows hastily opened and still more hastily closed. The internal hurly burly of the houses and of the hôtel d'eux, the wind in the flame, the last death-rattle of the dying, and the continued crackling of the rain of lead upon the pavement. In the meanwhile the principal vagabonds had retired beneath the porch of the gondolarié mansion, and were holding a council of war. The Duke of Egypt, seated on a stone post, contemplated the fantasmagorical bonfire, glowing at a height of two hundred feet in the air, with religious terror. Clopantry Faux bit his huge fists with rage. "'Impossible to get in,' he muttered between his teeth. "'An old enchanted church,' grumbled the aged Bohemian Matthias Hongadi Spikali. "'By the Pope's whiskers,' went on a sham soldier, who had once been in service, "'here our church gutters spitting melted lead at you better than the machicolations of Lectur.' "'Did you see the demon passing and repassing in front of the fire?' exclaimed the Duke of Egypt. "'Pardieu, tis that damned bell-ringer, tis Quasimodo,' said Clopant. The Bohemian tossed his head. "'I tell you, that is the spirit sub-knock, the grand marquis, the demon of fortifications. He has the form of an armed soldier, the head of a lion. Sometimes he rides a hideous horse. He changes men into stones, of which he builds towers. He commands fifty legions. Yes he, indeed. I recognize him. Sometimes he is clad in a handsome golden robe, figured after the Turkish fashion.' "'Where is Belvine de la Toie?' demanded Clopant. "'He is dead.' Andre the Red laughed in an idiotic way. "'Notredam is making work for the hospital,' said he. "'Is there, then, no way of forcing this door?' exclaimed the king of Toonay, stamping his foot. The Duke of Egypt pointed sadly to the two streams of boiling lead, which did not cease to streak the black façade, like two long distaffs of phosphorus. "'The churches have been known to defend themselves thus all by themselves,' he remarked with a sigh. "'Sant Sophia, at Constantinople, forty years ago, hurled to the earth three times in succession the crescent of mayhem by shaking her domes, which are her heads. Gayum de Paris, who built this one, was a magician. "'Must we then retreat in pitiful fashion, like highwaymen?' said Clopant. "'Must we leave our sister here, whom those hooded wolves will hang to-morrow?' "'And a sacristy, where there are wagon-loads of gold,' added a vagabond, whose name we regret to say we do not know. "'Beard of Mahum!' cried Trifot. "'Let us make another trial,' resumed the vagabond. Matias Hungari shook his head. "'We shall never get in by the door. We must find the defect in the armour of the old ferry, a hole, a false postern, some joint or other.' "'Who will go with me?' said Clopant. "'I shall go at it again. By the way, where is the little scholar Jehan, who is so encased in iron?' "'He is dead, no doubt,' someone replied. "'We no longer hear his laugh.' The king of Tunei frowned. So much the worse! There was a brave heart under that iron mongery. And Master Pierre Gringoire?' "'Captain Clopant,' said André the Red. He slipped away before he reached the Pante-au-Changère.' Clopant stamped his foot. "'Gayour Dieu! To us he who pushed us on hither! And he has deserted us in the very middle of the job! Cowardly chatterer, with a slipper for a helmet!' "'Captain Clopant,' said André the Red, who is gazing down Rue du Parvis. Yander is the little scholar.' "'Praised be Pluto!' said Clopant. But what the devil is he dragging after him?' It was, in fact, Jehan, who was running as fast as his heavy outfit of a paladin and a long ladder which trailed on the pavement would permit. More breathless than an ant harnessed to a blade of grass twenty times longer than itself. "'Victory! Tedeum!' cried the scholar. "'Here is the ladder of the longshoremen of Port Saint Laundrie!' Clopant approached him. "'Child, what do you mean to do, garnet Dieu, with this ladder?' "'I have it,' replied Jehan panting. "'I knew where it was, under the shed of the lieutenant's house. There's a winch there whom I know, who thinks me as handsome as Cupidot. I made use of her to get the ladder, and I have the ladder. Pascade my home. The poor girl came to open the door to me in her shift.' "'Yes,' said Clopant. But what are you going to do with that ladder?' Jehan gazed at him with a malicious knowing look and cracked his fingers like castanets. At that moment he was sublime. On his head he wore one of those overloaded helmets of the fifteenth century which frightened the enemy with their fanciful crests. He bristled with ten iron beaks, so that Jehan could have disputed with Nestor's Homeric vessel the redoubtable title of Dexciabolos. "'What do I mean to do with it, Auguste King of Tunae? Do you see that row of statues which have such idiotic expressions yonder above the three portals? Yes, well. Tiss the gallery of the Kings of France.' "'What is that to me?' said Clopant. "'Wait! At the end of that gallery there is a door which is never fastened otherwise than with a latch, and with this ladder I ascend, and I am in the church.' "'Child, let me be the first to ascend.' "'No, comrade, the ladder is mine. Come, you shall be the second.' "'May Beersybub strangle you,' said Sirly Clopant. "'I won't be second to anybody.' "'Then find a ladder, Clopant.' Jehan set out on a run across the plos, dragging his ladder and shouting, "'Follow me, lads!' In an instant the ladder was raised and propped against the balustrade of the lower gallery above one of the lateral doors. The throng of vagabonds, uttering loud acclamations, crowded to its foot to ascend. But Jehan maintained his right and was the first to set foot on the rungs. The passage was tolerably long. The gallery of the Kings of France is to-day about sixty feet above the pavement. The eleven steps of the flight before the door made it still higher. Jehan mounted slowly, a good deal incommoded by his heavy armor, holding his crossbow in one hand and clinging to a rung with the other. When he reached the middle of the ladder he cast a melancholy glance at the poor dead outcasts with which the steps were strewn. "'Alas!' said he. Here is a heap of bodies worthy of the fifth book of the Iliad!' Then he continued his assent. The vagabonds followed him. There was one on every rung. At the sight of this line of queer-assed backs, undulating as they rose through the gloom, one would have pronounced it a serpent with steel scales which was raising itself erect in front of the church. Jehan, who formed the head and who was whistling, completed the illusion. The scholar finally reached the balcony of the gallery and climbed over it nimbly to the applause of the whole vagabond tribe. Thus, master of the citadel, he uttered a shout of joy and suddenly halted, petrified. He had just caught sight of Quasimodo concealed in the dark, with flashing eye behind one of the statues of the kings. Before a second assailant could gain a foothold on the gallery, the formidable hunchback leaped to the head of the ladder, without uttering a word, seized the ends of the two uprights with his powerful hands, raised them, pushed them out from the wall, balanced the long and pliant ladder, loaded with vagabonds from top to bottom for a moment. In the midst of the shrieks of anguish, then suddenly, with superhuman force, hurled this cluster of men backward into the plaza. There was a moment when even the most resolute trembled. The ladder, launched backwards, remained erect and standing for an instant, and then seemed to hesitate, then wavered, then suddenly, describing a frightful arc of a circle eighty feet in radius, crashed upon the pavement with its load of ruffians, more rapidly than a drawbridge when its chains break. There arose an immense imprecation, then all was still, and a few mutilated wretches were seen crawling over the heap of dead. A sound of wrath and grief followed the first cries of triumph among the besiegers. Quasimodo, impassive with both elbows propped on the balustrade, looked on. He had the air of an old, bushy-headed king at his window. As for Jehan Frollo, he was in a critical position. He found himself in the gallery with the formidable bell-ringer, alone, separated from his companions by a vertical wall eighty feet high. While Quasimodo was dealing with the ladder, the scholar had run to the postern which he believed to be open. It was not. The deaf man had closed it behind him when he entered the gallery. Jehan had then concealed himself behind a stone king not daring to breathe, and fixing upon the monstrous hunchback a frightened gaze, like the man who, when courting the wife of the guardian of a menagerie, went one evening to a love rendezvous mistook the wall which he was to climb and suddenly found himself face to face with a white bear. For the first few moments the deaf man paid no heed to him, but at last he turned his head and suddenly straightened up. He had just caught sight of the scholar. Jehan prepared himself for a rough shock, but the deaf man remained motionless. Only he had turned towards the scholar and was looking at him. "'Oh-ho!' said Jehan. What do you mean by staring at me with that solitary and melancholy eye?' As he spoke thus, the young scamp stealthily adjusted his crossbow. "'Quasimodo!' he cried. I am going to change your surname. You shall be called the blind man.' The shot sped. The feathered veritin whizzed and entered the hunchback's left arm. Quasimodo appeared no more moved by it than by a scratch to King Ferriman. He laid his hand on the arrow, tore it from his arm, and tranquilly broke it across his big knee. Then he let the two pieces drop on the floor, rather than threw them down. But Jehan had no opportunity to fire a second time. The arrow broken, Quasimodo breathing heavily, bounded like a grasshopper, and he fell upon the scholar, whose armor was flatten against the wall by the blow. Then in that gloom wherein wavered the light of the torches a terrible thing was seen. Quasimodo had grasped with his left hand the two arms of Jehan, who did not offer any resistance. So thoroughly did he feel that he was lost. With his right hand the deaf man detached one by one in silence, with sinister slowness all the pieces of his armor, the sword, the daggers, the helmet, the cuirass, the leg pieces. One would have said that it was a monkey taking the shell from a nut. Quasimodo flung the scholar's iron shell at his feet, piece by piece. When the scholar beheld himself disarmed, stripped, weak, and naked in those terrible hands, he made no attempt to speak to the deaf man, but began to laugh audaciously in his face, and to sing with his intrepid heedlessness of a child of sixteen, the then popular ditty, He did not finish. Quasimodo was seen on the parapet of the gallery, holding the scholar by the feet with one hand and hurling him over the abyss like a sling. Then a sound like that of a bony structure in contact with a wall was heard, and something was seen to fall which halted a third of the way down in its fall, on a projection in the architecture. It was a dead body which remained hanging there, bent double, its loins broken, its skull empty. A cry of horror rose among the vagabonds. Vagants! shouted Clopan. To the sack! replied the multitude. Assault! Assault! There came a tremendous howl in which they mingled all tongues, all dialects, all accents. The death of the poor scholar imparted a furious ardor to that crowd. It was seized with shame and the wrath of having been held so long in check before a church by a hunchback. Rage found ladders, multiplied the torches, and at the expiration of a few minutes, Quasimodo, in despair, beheld that terrible ant-heap mount on all sides to the assault of Notre-Dame. Those who had no ladders had knotted ropes. Those who had no ropes climbed by the projections of the carvings. They hung from each other's rags. There were no means of resisting that rising tide of frightful faces. Rage made these fierce countenances ruddy. Their clayy brows were dripping with sweat. Their eyes darted lightnings. All these grimaces, all these horrors, laid siege to Quasimodo. One would have said that some other church had dispatched to the assault of Notre-Dame its gorgons, its dogs, its drays, its demons, its most fantastic sculptures. It was like a layer of living monsters on the stone monsters of the façade. Meanwhile the plass was studded with a thousand torches. This scene of confusion till now hid in darkness was suddenly flooded with light. The parvilles was resplendent and cast a radiance on the sky. The bonfire lighted on the lofty platform was still burning and illuminated the city far away. The enormous silhouette of the two towers projected afar on the roofs of Paris and formed a large notch of black in this light. The city seemed to be aroused. Alarm bells wailed in the distance. The vagabonds howled, panted, swore, climbed. And Quasimodo, powerless against so many enemies, shuddering for the gypsy, beholding the furious faces approaching ever nearer and nearer to his gallery, entreated heaven for a miracle, and wrung his arms in despair.