Page:Victor Hugo - The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (tr. Shoberl, 1833).djvu/26

4 then another, and another; in all, seven pillars, intersecting the hall longitudinally, and supporting the return of the double-vaulted roof. Around the first four pillars are shops, glistening with glass and jewellery; and around the other three, benches worn and polished by the hose of the pleaders and the gowns of the attorneys. Along the lofty walls, between the doors, between the windows, between the pillars, is ranged the interminable series of all the kings of France ever since Pharamond: the indolent kings with pendent arms and downcast eyes; the valiant and warlike kings with heads and hands boldly raised towards heaven. The tall, pointed windows are glazed with panes of a thousand hues; at the outlets are rich doors, finely carved; and the whole, ceiling, pillars, walls, wainscot, doors, statues, covered from top to bottom with a splendid colouring of blue and gold, which, already somewhat tarnished at the time we behold it, was almost entirely buried in dust and cobwebs in the year of grace 1549, when Du Breul still admired it by tradition.

Now figure to yourself that immense oblong hall, illumined by the dim light of a January day, stormed by a motley and noisy crowd, pouring in along the walls, and circling round the pillars, and you will have a faint idea of the general outline of the picture; the curious details of which we shall endeavour to delineate more precisely.

It is certain that if Ravaillac had not assassinated Henry IV. there would have been no documents of his trial deposited in the Rolls Office of the Palace of Justice, and no accomplices interested in the destruction of those documents; consequently, no incendiaries obliged, for want of better means, to burn the Rolls Office in order to burn the documents, and to burn the Palace of Justice in order to burn the Rolls Office; of course there would have been no fire in 1618, The old palace would still be standing with its old great hall; and I might then say to the reader—Go, look at it—and thus we should both be spared trouble, myself the trouble of writing, and him that of perusing, an indifferent description. This demonstrates the novel truth—that great events have incalculable consequences.