suffered, and the pitiful condition in which it had left him, far
from softening the populace had rendered its hatred more malicious by
arming it with a touch of mirth.

Hence, the "public prosecution" satisfied, as the bigwigs of the law
still express it in their jargon, the turn came of a thousand private
vengeances. Here, as in the Grand Hall, the women rendered themselves
particularly prominent. All cherished some rancor against him, some for
his malice, others for his ugliness. The latter were the most furious.

"Oh! mask of Antichrist!" said one.

"Rider on a broom handle!" cried another.

"What a fine tragic grimace," howled a third, "and who would make him
Pope of the Fools if to-day were yesterday?"

"'Tis well," struck in an old woman. "This is the grimace of the
pillory. When shall we have that of the gibbet?"

"When will you be coiffed with your big bell a hundred feet under
ground, cursed bellringer?"

"But 'tis the devil who rings the Angelus!"

"Oh! the deaf man! the one-eyed creature! the hunch-back! the monster!"

"A face to make a woman miscarry better than all the drugs and
medicines!"

And the two scholars, Jehan du Moulin, and Robin Poussepain, sang at the
top of their lungs, the ancient refrain,--

"_Une hart
Pour le pendard!
Un fagot
Pour le magot_!"*

* A rope for the gallows bird! A fagot for the ape.

A thousand other insults rained down upon him, and hoots and
imprecations, and laughter, and now and then, stones.

Quasimodo was deaf but his sight was clear, and the public fury was
no less energetically depicted on their visages than in their words.
Moreover, the blows from the stones explained the bursts of laughter.

At first he held his ground. But little by little that patience which
had borne up under the lash of the torturer, yielded and gave way before
all these stings of insects. The bull of the Asturias who has been but
little moved by the attacks of the picador grows irritated with the dogs
and banderilleras.

He first cast around a slow glance of hatred upon the crowd. But bound
as he was, his glance was powerless to drive away those flies which
were stinging his wound. Then he moved in his bonds, and his furious
exertions made the ancient wheel of the pillory shriek on its axle. All
this only increased the derision and hooting.

Then the wretched man, unable to break his collar, like that of a
chained wild beast, became tranquil once m