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 Eloy 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.
“‘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?
Ohe! 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 roi, Ni Dieu.”
In the meantime, Clopin Trouillefou had finished the distribution of arms.
He approached Gringoire, who appeared to be plunged in a profound revery, with his feet on an andiron.
“Friend Pierre,” said the King of Thunes, “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 o’clock it is?”
“I do not know,” replied Gringoire.
Clopin 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 claws,” replied the old Bohemian.
“You speak like a man, Mathias,” said the King of Thunes. “Moreover, we will act promptly.
No resistance is to be feared in the church.
The canons are hares, and we are in force.
The people of the parliament will be well balked to-morrow when they come to seek her!
Guts of the pope I don’t want them to hang the pretty girl!”
Chopin quitted the dram-shop.
Meanwhile, Jehan was shouting in a hoarse voice:
“I eat, I drink, I am drunk, I am Jupiter!
Eh! Pierre, the Slaughterer, if you look at me like that again, I’ll fillip 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: “Luxuriosa res vinum et tumultuosa ebrietas. Alas! what good reason I have not to drink, and how excellently spoke Saint-Benoit: ‘Vinum apostatare facit etiam sapientes!’”
At that moment, Clopin 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 Cour des 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. Clopin mounted a large stone.
“To your ranks, Argot!” he cried. “Fall into line, Egypt!
Form ranks, Galilee!”
A movement began in the darkness.