Notre-Dame De Paris by Victor Hugo
page 30 of 809 (03%)
page 30 of 809 (03%)
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yelped the scholar.
"Down with Jupiter and the Cardinal de Bourbon!" vociferated Robin Poussepain and the other clerks perched in the window. "The morality this very instant!" repeated the crowd; "this very instant! the sack and the rope for the comedians, and the cardinal!" Poor Jupiter, haggard, frightened, pale beneath his rouge, dropped his thunderbolt, took his cap in his hand; then he bowed and trembled and stammered: "His eminence--the ambassadors--Madame Marguerite of Flanders--." He did not know what to say. In truth, he was afraid of being hung. Hung by the populace for waiting, hung by the cardinal for not having waited, he saw between the two dilemmas only an abyss; that is to say, a gallows. Luckily, some one came to rescue him from his embarrassment, and assume the responsibility. An individual who was standing beyond the railing, in the free space around the marble table, and whom no one had yet caught sight of, since his long, thin body was completely sheltered from every visual ray by the diameter of the pillar against which he was leaning; this individual, we say, tall, gaunt, pallid, blond, still young, although already wrinkled about the brow and cheeks, with brilliant eyes and a smiling mouth, clad in garments of black serge, worn and shining |
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