Notre-Dame de Paris | Page 8

Saint John, the king
should have inquired whether Monsieur Saint John likes Latin droned
out in a Provençal accent."
"He did it for the sake of employing those accursed singers of the King
of Sicily!" cried an old woman sharply from among the crowd beneath
the window. "I just put it to you! A thousand livres parisi for a mass!
and out of the tax on sea fish in the markets of Paris, to boot!"
"Peace, old crone," said a tall, grave person, stopping up his nose on the
side towards the fishwife; "a mass had to be founded. Would you wish
the king to fall ill again?"
"Bravely spoken, Sire Gilles Lecornu, master furrier of king's robes!"
cried the little student, clinging to the capital.
A shout of laughter from all the students greeted the unlucky name of
the poor furrier of the king's robes.
"Lecornu! Gilles Lecornu!" said some.
"Cornutus et hirsutus, horned and hairy," another went on.
"He! of course," continued the small imp on the capital, "What are they
laughing at? An honorable man is Gilles Lecornu, brother of Master
Jehan Lecornu, provost of the king's house, son of Master Mahiet
Lecornu, first porter of the Bois de Vincennes,--all bourgeois of Paris,

all married, from father to son."
The gayety redoubled. The big furrier, without uttering a word in reply,
tried to escape all the eyes riveted upon him from all sides; but he
perspired and panted in vain; like a wedge entering the wood, his
efforts served only to bury still more deeply in the shoulders of his
neighbors, his large, apoplectic face, purple with spite and rage.
At length one of these, as fat, short, and venerable as himself, came to
his rescue.
"Abomination! scholars addressing a bourgeois in that fashion in my
day would have been flogged with a fagot, which would have
afterwards been used to burn them."
The whole band burst into laughter.
"Holà hé! who is scolding so? Who is that screech owl of evil fortune?"
"Hold, I know him" said one of them; "'tis Master Andry Musnier."
"Because he is one of the four sworn booksellers of the university!"
said the other.
"Everything goes by fours in that shop," cried a third; "the four nations,
the four faculties, the four feasts, the four procurators, the four electors,
the four booksellers."
"Well," began Jean Frollo once more," we must play the devil with
them."*
* Faire le diable a quatre.
"Musnier, we'll burn your books."
"Musnier, we'll beat your lackeys."
"Musnier, we'll kiss your wife."
"That fine, big Mademoiselle Oudarde."
"Who is as fresh and as gay as though she were a widow."
"Devil take you!" growled Master Andry Musnier.
"Master Andry," pursued Jean Jehan, still clinging to his capital, "hold
your tongue, or I'll drop on your head!"
Master Andry raised his eyes, seemed to measure in an instant the
height of the pillar, the weight of the scamp, mentally multiplied that
weight by the square of the velocity and remained silent.
Jehan, master of the field of battle, pursued triumphantly:
"That's what I'll do, even if I am the brother of an archdeacon!"
"Fine gentry are our people of the university, not to have caused our
privileges to be respected on such a day as this! However, there is a

maypole and a bonfire in the town; a mystery, Pope of the Fools, and
Flemish ambassadors in the city; and, at the university, nothing!"
"Nevertheless, the Place Maubert is sufficiently large!" interposed one
of the clerks established on the window-sill.
"Down with the rector, the electors, and the procurators!" cried
Joannes.
"We must have a bonfire this evening in the Champ-Gaillard," went on
the other, "made of Master Andry's books."
"And the desks of the scribes!" added his neighbor.
"And the beadles' wands!"
"And the spittoons of the deans!"
"And the cupboards of the procurators!"
"And the hutches of the electors!"
"And the stools of the rector!"
"Down with them!" put in little Jehan, as counterpoint; "down with
Master Andry, the beadles and the scribes; the theologians, the doctors
and the decretists; the procurators, the electors and the rector!"
"The end of the world has come!,' muttered Master Andry, stopping up
his ears.
"By the way, there's the rector! see, he is passing through the Place,"
cried one of those in the window.
Each rivalled his neighbor in his haste to turn towards the Place.
"Is it really our venerable rector, Master Thibaut?" demanded Jehan
Frollo du Moulin, who, as he was clinging to one of the inner pillars,
could not see what was going on outside.
"Yes, yes," replied all the others, "it is really he, Master Thibaut, the
rector."
It was, in fact, the rector and all the dignitaries of the university, who
were marching in procession in