BOOK SIXTH.
CHAPTER 1. AN IMPARTIAL GLANCE AT THE ANCIENT MAGISTRACY.
(continued)
Imagine, in fact, at the provost's table, leaning upon his
elbows between two bundles of documents of cases, with his
foot on the train of his robe of plain brown cloth, his face
buried in his hood of white lamb's skin, of which his brows
seemed to be of a piece, red, crabbed, winking, bearing
majestically the load of fat on his cheeks which met under his
chin, Master Florian Barbedienne, auditor of the Châtelet.
Now, the auditor was deaf. A slight defect in an auditor.
Master Florian delivered judgment, none the less, without
appeal and very suitably. It is certainly quite sufficient
for a judge to have the .air of listening; and the venerable
auditor fulfilled this condition, the sole one in justice, all
the better because his attention could not be distracted by
any noise.
Moreover, he had in the audience, a pitiless censor of his
deeds and gestures, in the person of our friend Jehan Frollo
du Moulin, that little student of yesterday, that "stroller,"
whom one was sure of encountering all over Paris, anywhere
except before the rostrums of the professors.
|