The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo [230]
“Hey-day!” said the king, scratching his left ear with his right hand; “that is a goodly slice of my city. And so the provost was king of all that?”
This time he did not correct himself. He continued to muse, and as if speaking to himself, said,—
“Have a care, Sir Provost! You had a very pretty piece of our Paris in your grasp. ”
All at once he burst forth. “By the Rood! Who are all these people who claim to be commissioners of highways, justiciaries, lords, and masters in our midst; who have their toll-gate in every bit of field, their gibbet and their hangman at every cross-road among our people, in such fashion that, as the Greek believed in as many gods as there were fountains, and the Persian in as many as he saw stars, the Frenchman now counts as many kings as he sees gallows? By the Lord! this thing is evil, and the confusion likes me not. I would fain know whether it be by the grace of God that there are other inspectors of highways in Paris than the king, other justice than that administered by our Parliament, and other emperor than ourselves in this realm! By the faith of my soul! the day must come when France shall know but one king, one lord, one judge, one heads-man, even as there is but one God in paradise!”
He again raised his cap, and went on, still meditating, with the look and tone of a hunter loosing and urging on his pack of dogs: “Good! my people! bravely done! destroy these false lords! do your work. At them, boys! at them! Plunder them, capture them, strip them! Ah, you would fain be kings, gentlemen? On, my people, on!”
Here he stopped abruptly, bit his lip, as if to recall a thought which had half escaped him, bent his piercing eye in turn upon each of the five persons who stood around him, and all at once, seizing his hat in both hands, and staring steadily at it, he thus addressed it: “Oh, I would burn you if you knew my secret thoughts!”
Then again casting about him the attentive, anxious glance of a fox returning by stealth to his earth, he added,—
“It matters not; we will succor the provost. Unfortunately, we have but few troops here to send forth at this moment against so large a populace. We must needs wait until tomorrow. Order shall be restored in the City, and all who are taken shall be strung up on the spot.”
“By-the-bye, Sire!” said Compere Coictier, “I forgot it in my first dismay,—the watch has caught two stragglers of the band. If it please your Majesty to see these men, they are here.”
“If it please me to see them!” cried the king. “Now, by the Rood! do you forget such things! Run quickly, you, Olivier! go and fetch them.”
Master Olivier went out, and returned a moment after with the two prisoners, surrounded by archers of the ordnance. The first had a fat, stupid face, with a drunken and astonished stare. He was dressed in rags, and bent his knee and dragged his foot as he walked. The second was a pale, smiling fellow, whom the reader already knows.
The king studied them for an instant without speaking, then abruptly addressed the first:—
“Your name?”
“Gieffroy Pincebourde.”
“Your business?”
“A Vagabond.”
“What part did you mean to play in this damnable revolt?”
The Vagabond looked at the king, swinging his arms with a dull look. His was one of those misshapen heads, where the understanding flourishes as ill as the flame beneath an extinguisher.
“I don’t know,” he said. “The others went, so I went too.”
“Did you not intend outrageously to attack and plunder your lord the Provost of the Palace?”
“I know that they were going to take something from some one. That’s all I know.”
A soldier showed the king a pruning-hook, which had been found upon the fellow.
“Do you recognize this weapon?” asked the king.
“Yes, it is my pruning-hook; I am a vine-dresser.”
“And do you acknowledge this man as your companion?” added Louis XI, pointing to the other prisoner.
“No. I do not know him.”
“Enough,” said the king. And beckoning to the silent, motionless person at the door, whom we have already pointed