The Memoirs of Victor Hugo | Page 8

and flew away, and the knaves in a pack of
playing-cards by the four heralds.
A vast carpet embroidered with fleurs-de-lys, made expressly for the

occasion, and called the "coronation carpet," covered the old flagstones
from one end of the cathedral to the other and concealed the
tombstones in the pavement. Thick, luminous smoke of incense filled
the nave. The birds that had been set at liberty flew wildly about in this
cloud.
The King changed his costume six or seven times. The first prince of
the blood, Louis Philippe, Duke d'Orleans, aided him. The Duke de
Bordeaux, who was five years old, was in a gallery.

The pew in which Nodier and I were seated adjoined those of the
Deputies. In the middle of the ceremony, just before the King
prostrated himself at the feet of the Archbishop, a Deputy for the Doubs
department, named M. Hémonin, turned towards Nodier, who was
close to him, and with his finger on his lips, as a sign that he did not
wish to disturb the Archbishop's orisons by speaking, slipped
something into my friend's hand. This something was a book. Nodier
took it and glanced over it.
"What is it?" I whispered.
"Nothing very precious," he replied. "An odd volume of Shakespeare,
Glasgow edition."
One of the tapestries from the treasure of the church hanging exactly
opposite to us represented a not very historical interview between John
Lackland and Philip Augustus. Nodier turned over the leaves of the
book for a few minutes, then pointed to the tapestry.
"You see that tapestry?"
"Yes."
"Do you know what it represents?"
"No."
"John Lackland."
"Well, what of it?"
"John Lackland is also in this book."
The volume, which was in sheep binding and worn at the corners, was
indeed a copy of King John.
M. Hémonin turned to Nodier and said: "I paid six sous for it."
In the evening the Duke of Northumberland gave a ball. It was a
magnificent, fairylike spectacle. This Arabian Nights ambassador
brought one of these nights to Rheims. Every woman found a diamond

in her bouquet.
I could not dance. Nodier had not danced since he was sixteen years of
age, when a great aunt went into ecstasies over his terpsichorean efforts
and congratulated him in the following terms: "~Tu est charmant, tu
danses comme rim chou~!" We did not go to Lord Northumberland's
ball.
"What shall we do tonight?" said I to Nodier. He held up his odd
volume and answered:
"Let us read this."
We read.
That is to say, Nodier read. He knew English (without being able to
speak it, I believe) enough to make it out. He read aloud, and translated
as he read. At intervals, while he rested, I took the book bought from
the ragpicker of Soissons, and read passages from the Romancero. Like
Nodier, I translated as I read. We compared the English with the
Castilian book; we confronted the dramatic with the epic. Nodier stood
up for Shakespeare, whom he could read in English, and I for the
Romancero, which I could read in Spanish. We brought face to face, he
the bastard Faulconbridge, I the bastard Mudarra. And little by little in
contradicting we convinced each other, and Nodier became filled with
enthusiasm for the Romancero, and I with admiration for Shakespeare.
Listeners arrived. One passes the evening as best one can in a
provincial town on a coronation day when one doesn't go to the ball.
We formed quite a little club. There was an academician, M. Roger; a
man of letters, M. d'Eckstein; M. de Marcellus, friend and country
neighbour of my father, who poked fun at his royalism and mine; good
old Marquis d'Herbouville, and M. Hémonin, donor of the book that
cost six sous.
"It isn't worth the money!" exclaimed M. Roger.
The conversation developed into a debate. Judgment was passed upon
King John. M. de Marcellus declared that the assassination of Arthur
was an improbable incident. It was pointed out to him that it was a
matter of history. It was with difficulty that he became reconciled to it.
For kings to kill each other was impossible. To M. de Marcellus's mind
the murdering of kings began on January 21. Regicide was
synonymous with '93. To kill a king was an unheard-of thing that the
"populace" alone were capable of doing. No king except Louis XVI.

had ever been violently put to death. He, however, reluctantly admitted
the case of Charles I. In his death also he saw the hand of the populace.
All the rest was demagogic lying and calumny.
Although as good a royalist as he, I ventured to insinuate that the
sixteenth century had existed, and that it was the period when the
Jesuits had clearly propounded the question of "bleeding the