BOOK SIXTH.
CHAPTER 1. AN IMPARTIAL GLANCE AT THE ANCIENT MAGISTRACY.
(continued)
"You have uttered a reply, knave, which deserves the halter.
Do you know to whom you are speaking?"
This sally was not fitted to arrest the explosion of general
merriment. It struck all as so whimsical, and so ridiculous,
that the wild laughter even attacked the sergeants of the Parloi-
aux-Bourgeois, a sort of pikemen, whose stupidity was part
of their uniform. Quasimodo alone preserved his seriousness,
for the good reason that he understood nothing of what was
going on around him. The judge, more and more irritated,
thought it his duty to continue in the same tone, hoping
thereby to strike the accused with a terror which should react
upon the audience, and bring it back to respect.
"So this is as much as to say, perverse and thieving knave
that you are, that you permit yourself to be lacking in
respect towards the Auditor of the Châtelet, to the magistrate
committed to the popular police of Paris, charged with searching
out crimes, delinquencies, and evil conduct; with controlling
all trades, and interdicting monopoly; with maintaining the
pavements; with debarring the hucksters of chickens, poultry,
and water-fowl; of superintending the measuring of fagots and
other sorts of wood; of purging the city of mud, and the air
of contagious maladies; in a word, with attending continually
to public affairs, without wages or hope of salary! Do you
know that I am called Florian Barbedienne, actual lieutenant
to monsieur the provost, and, moreover, commissioner, inquisitor,
controller, and examiner, with equal power in provostship,
bailiwick, preservation, and inferior court of judicature?--"
There is no reason why a deaf man talking to a deaf man
should stop. God knows where and when Master Florian
would have landed, when thus launched at full speed in lofty
eloquence, if the low door at the extreme end of the room had
not suddenly opened, and given entrance to the provost in
person. At his entrance Master Florian did not stop short,
but, making a half-turn on his heels, and aiming at the provost
the harangue with which he had been withering Quasimodo a
moment before,--
"Monseigneur," said he, "I demand such penalty as you
shall deem fitting against the prisoner here present, for
grave and aggravated offence against the court."
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