Gringoire longed to answer; but amazement, anger, indignation, robbed him of speech. Moreover, the proposal of the popular hosier was greeted with such enthusiasm by those plain citizens who were flattered at being dubbed “Squires,” that all opposition was useless. Nothing remained but to follow the current. Gringoire hid his face in his hands, not being lucky enough to have a cloak to cover his head, like Agamemnon of Timanthes.
CHAPTER V
Quasimodo
In the twinkling of an eye, all was ready for the execution of Coppenole’s idea. Citizens, students, and lawyers’ clerks set briskly to work. The little chapel opposite the marble table was chosen as the stage for the grimaces. A broken pane in the pretty rose-window over the door left free a circle of stone, through which it was agreed that the contestants should thrust their heads. To reach it, all were obliged to climb upon a couple of barrels, which had been discovered somewhere and set one upon the other. It was settled that all candidates, men or women （for a papess might be chosen）， lest the effect of their grimaces should be weakened, should cover their faces and remain hidden in the chapel until the proper moment to appear. In less than an instant the chapel was filled with aspirants, upon whom the door was closed.
Coppenole, from his seat, directed everything, arranged everything. During the confusion, the Cardinal, no less disconcerted than Gringoire, withdrew with all his train, feigning business and vespers; the same crowd which had been so stirred by his coming, showing not the least emotion at his departure. Guillaume Rym was the only one who observed his Eminence’s flight. Popular attention, like the sun, pursued its course; starting from one end of the hall, after pausing for some time in the center, it was now at the other end. The marble table, the brocaded dais, had had their day; it was the turn of Louis XI’s chapel. The field was now clear for every kind of folly. No one remained but the Flemings and the vulgar herd.
The grimaces began. The first to appear at the window, with eyelids inverted until they showed the red, a cavernous mouth, and a forehead wrinkled like the boots of a hussar under the Empire, produced such inextinguishable laughter, that Homer would have taken all these clowns for gods. And yet, the great hall was anything but an Olympus, and Gringoire’s poor Jupiter knew this better than any one. A second, a third wry face fol-46 lowed, then another, and another; and still the shouts of laughter and stamps of delight increased. There was a certain peculiar intoxication in the spectacle, a certain potent ecstasy and fascination which it would be hard to explain to the reader of our own day and society. Let him imagine a series of faces presenting in turn every geometric form, from the triangle to the trapezium, from the cone to the polyhedron; every human expression, from rage to lust; every age, from the wrinkles of the new-born babe to the furrows of the old and dying; every religious phantasmagoria, from Faunus to Beelzebub; every animal profile, from the jaws of the dog to the beak of the bird, from the boar’s head to the pig’s snout. Let him picture to himself all the grotesque heads carved on the Pont Neuf, those petrified nightmares from the hand of Germain Pilon, taking breath and life, and coming in turn to gaze at you with fiery eyes; all the masks from a Venetian carnival passing before your glass,—in one word, a human kaleidoscope.
The revelry became more and more Flemish. Téniers could have given but an imperfect idea of it! Imagine Salvator Rosa’s battle-piece turned into a bacchanal feast. There were no longer students, ambassadors, townspeople, men, or women; no longer a Clopin Trouillefou, a Gilles Lecornu, a Simone Quatrelivres, or a Robin Poussepain. All distinctions died in the common license. The great hall ceased to be anything but a vast furnace of effrontery and mirth, wherein every mouth was a cry, every face a grimace, every individual a posture; the sum total howled and yelled. The strange faces which took their turn in gnashing their teeth through the rose-window were like so many brands cast into the flames; and from this effervescent mob arose, like steam from a furnace, a sharp, shrill, piercing sound, like the buzz of a gnat’s wings.
“Oh, confound it!”
“Just look at that face!”
“That’s nothing!”
“Let’s have another!”
“Guillemette Maugerepuis, do look at that bull’s head! it only lacks horns. It is not your husband.”
“Another!”
“By the Pope’s head! what’s the meaning of that contortion?”
“Well there! that’s not fair. You should show only your face.”
“That damned Perrette Callebotte! She is just capable of such a thing.”