“Now,” resumed Clopin Trouillefou, “when I clap my hands, do you, Andry le Rouge, knock over the stool with your knee; François Chante-Prune will hang on to the rascal’s legs, and you, Bellevigne, jump on to his shoulders—but all three at the same time, do you hear?”

Gringoire shuddered.

“Ready?” cried Clopin Trouillefou to the three Argotiers waiting to fall on Gringoire like spiders on a fly. The poor victim had a moment of horrible suspense, during which Clopin calmly pushed into the fire with the point of his shoe some twigs of vine which the flame had not yet reached.

“Ready?” he repeated, and raised his hands to clap. A second more and it would have been all over.

But he stopped short, struck by a sudden idea. “One moment,” he said; “I had forgotten. It is the custom with us not to hang a man without first asking if there’s any woman who will have him. Comrade, that’s your last chance. You must marry either an Argotiére or the rope.”

Absurd as this gipsy law may appear to the reader, he will find it set forth at full length in old English law. (See Burington’s Observations.)

Gringoire breathed again. It was the second reprieve he had had within the last half hour. Yet he could not place much confidence in it.

“Holá!” shouted Clopin, who had reascended his throne. “Holá there! women—wenches—is there any one of you, from the witch to her cat, any jade among you who’ll have this rogue? Holá Colette la Charonne! Elisabeth Trouvain! Simone Jodouyne! Marie Pièdebou! Thonne-la-Longue! Bèrarde Fanouel! Michelle Genaille! Claude Ronge-oreille! Mathurine Girorou! Hullah! Isabeau la Thierrye! Come and look! A husband for nothing! Who’ll have him?”

Gringoire, in this miserable plight, was doubtless not exactly tempting. The ladies seemed but little moved at the proposal, for the unfortunate man heard them answer: “No, no—hang him! Then we shall all get some enjoyment out of him!”

Three of them, however, did come forward and inspect him. The first, a big, square-faced young woman, carefully examined the philosopher’s deplorable doublet. His coat was threadbare and with more holes in it than a chestnut roaster. The woman made a wry face. “An old rag,” she muttered, and turning to Gringoire, “Let’s see thy cloak.”

“I have lost it,” answered Gringoire.

“Thy hat?”

“They took it from me.”

“Thy shoes?”

“The soles are coming off.”

“Thy purse?”

“Alas!” stammered Gringoire, “I haven’t a single denier parisis.”

“Then be hanged and welcome!” retorted the woman, turning her back on him.

The second, a hideous old beldame, black and wrinkled, and so ugly as to be conspicuous even in the Court of Miracles, came and viewed him from all sides. He almost trembled lest she should take a fancy to him. But she muttered between her teeth, “He’s too lean,” and went away.