The Hunchback of Notre Dame [antikvár]

BOOK I The Great Hall It is three hundred forty-eight years, six months, and nineteen days ago today that the citizens of Paris were awakened by the pealing of all the bells in the triple precincts of the City, the University, and the Town. Yet the sixth of January, 1482, is not a day preserved in history. There was nothing remarkable about the event which, so early in the morning, thus set in motion the bells and the good people of Paris. It was neither a Picardian nor a Burgundián assault, nor a reliquary carried in procession, nor a students' revolt, nor an entry of "our most honored lord. Monsieur the King," nor even a good hanging of thieves, male or female, in front of the Palace of Justice. Neither was it the sudden arrival, so frequent in the fifteenth century, of some bedizened and befeathered ambassador. Scarcely two days had elapsed since the last cavalcade of this sort, that of the Flemish envoys commissioned to conclude the marriage treaty between the dauphin and Margaret of Flanders, had entered Paris, to the great annoyance of the Cardinal of Bourbon, who, in order to please the king, had been obliged to give a gracious reception to those rude Flemish burgomasters, and to entertain them, at his Hotel 9