ieves
of France, arranged according to the order of their dignity; the minor
people walking first. Thus defiled by fours, with the divers insignia of
their grades, in that strange faculty, most of them lame, some
cripples, others one-armed, shop clerks, pilgrim, _hubins_, bootblacks,
thimble-riggers, street arabs, beggars, the blear-eyed beggars, thieves,
the weakly, vagabonds, merchants, sham soldiers, goldsmiths, passed
masters of pickpockets, isolated thieves. A catalogue that would
weary Homer. In the centre of the conclave of the passed masters of
pickpockets, one had some difficulty in distinguishing the King of
Argot, the grand coesre, so called, crouching in a little cart drawn
by two big dogs. After the kingdom of the Argotiers, came the Empire of
Galilee. Guillaume Rousseau, Emperor of the Empire of Galilee, marched
majestically in his robe of purple, spotted with wine, preceded by
buffoons wrestling and executing military dances; surrounded by his
macebearers, his pickpockets and clerks of the chamber of accounts. Last
of all came the corporation of law clerks, with its maypoles crowned
with flowers, its black robes, its music worthy of the orgy, and its
large candles of yellow wax. In the centre of this crowd, the grand
officers of the Brotherhood of Fools bore on their shoulders a litter
more loaded down with candles than the reliquary of Sainte-Genevieve in
time of pest; and on this litter shone resplendent, with crosier, cope,
and mitre, the new Pope of the Fools, the bellringer of Notre-Dame,
Quasimodo the hunchback.

Each section of this grotesque procession had its own music. The
Egyptians made their drums and African tambourines resound. The slang
men, not a very musical race, still clung to the goat's horn trumpet and
the Gothic rubebbe of the twelfth century. The Empire of Galilee was not
much more advanced; among its music one could hardly distinguish some
miserable rebec, from the infancy of the art, still imprisoned in the
_re-la-mi_. But it was around the Pope of the Fools that all the musical
riches of the epoch were displayed in a magnificent discord. It was
nothing but soprano rebecs, counter-tenor rebecs, and tenor rebecs,
not to reckon the flutes and brass instruments. Alas! our readers will
remember that this was Gringoire's orchestra.

It is difficult to convey an idea of the degree of proud and blissful
expansion to which the sad and hideous visage of Quasimodo had attained
during the