Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

eer-cans on their heads, the players absorbed in the various games of hazard—billes (a primitive form
of billiards), dice, cards, backgammon, the intensely exciting “tringlet” (a form of spilikins), quarrels in
one corner, kisses in another—and some idea may be formed of the scene, over which flickered the light
of the great blazing fire, setting a thousand grotesque and enormous shadows dancing on the tavern
walls.
As to the noise—the place might have been the inside of a bell in full peal, while any intervals that
might occur in the hubbub were filled by the spluttering of the dripping-pan in front of the fire.
In the midst of all this uproar, on a bench inside the fireplace, a philosopher sat and meditated, with his
feet in the ashes and his eyes fixed on the blaze. It was Pierre Grainier.
“Now, then, look alive, arm yourselves—we march in an hour!” said Clop in Trouillefou to his rascals.
A girl sang a snatch of song:
“Father and mother dear, good-night;
The last to go put out the light.”
Two card-players were disputing. “Knave!” cried the reddest-faced of the two, shaking his fist at the
other, “I’ll so mark thee thou mightest take the place of knave of clubs in our lord the King’s own pack of
cards!”
“Ouf!”roared one, whose nasal drawl betrayed him as a Norman; “we are packed together here like
the saints of Caillouville!”
“Children,” said the Duke of Egypt to his audience in a falsetto voice, “the witches of France go to the
Sabbaths without ointment, or broomsticks, or any other mount, by a few magic words only. The witches
of Italy have always a goat in readiness at the door. All are bound to go up the chimney.”
The voice of the young scamp armed cap-à-pie dominated the hubbub.
“Noël! Noël!” he cried. “My first day in armour! A Vagabond! I’m a Vagabond, body of Christ! pour
me some wine! My friends, my name is Jean Frollo of the Mill, and I’m a gentleman. It’s my opinion that
if the Almighty were a man-at-arms he’d turn robber. Brothers, we are bound on a great expedition. We
are doughty men. Lay siege to the church, break in the doors, bring out the maid, save her from the
judges, save her from the priests, dismantle the cloister, burn the bishop in his house—we’ll do all this in
less time than it takes a burgomaster to eat a mouthful of soup. Our cause is a righteous one—we loot
Notre Dame, and there you are! We’ll hang Quasimodo. Are you acquainted with Quasimodo, fair
ladies? Have you seen him snorting on the back of the big bell on a day of high festival? Corne du Père!
’tis a grand sight—you’d say it was a devil astride a gaping maw. Hark ye, my friends; I am a truand to
the bottom of my heart, I am Argotier to the soul, I’m a born Cagou. I was very rich, but I’ve spent all I
had. My mother wanted to make me an officer, my father a subdeacon, my aunt a criminal councillor, my
grandmother a protonotary, but I made myself a Vagabond. I told my father so, and he spat his curse in
my face; my mother, the good old lady, fell to weeping and spluttering like the log in that fireplace. So
hey for a merry life! I’m a whole madhouse in myself. Landlady, my duck, some more wine—I’ve got
some money left yet, but no more of that Suresnes, it rasps my throat. Why, corbœuf, it’s like gargling
with a basket!”
The crowd received his every utterance with yells of laughter, and seeing that the uproar was