windows were seen to open, and nightcaps and hands holding
candles appeared at the casements.

"Fire at the windows," shouted Clopin. The windows were immediately
closed, and the poor bourgeois, who had hardly had time to cast
a frightened glance on this scene of gleams and tumult, returned,
perspiring with fear to their wives, asking themselves whether the
witches' sabbath was now being held in the parvis of Notre-Dame,
or whether there was an assault of Burgundians, as in '64. Then the
husbands thought of theft; the wives, of rape; and all trembled.

"To the sack!" repeated the thieves' crew; but they dared not approach.
They stared at the beam, they stared at the church. The beam did not
stir, the edifice preserved its calm and deserted air; but something
chilled the outcasts.

"To work, locksmiths!" shouted Trouillefou. "Let the door be forced!"

No one took a step.

"Beard and belly!" said Clopin, "here be men afraid of a beam."

An old locksmith addressed him--

"Captain, 'tis not the beam which bothers us, 'tis the door, which is
all covered with iron bars. Our pincers are powerless against it."

"What more do you want to break it in?" demanded Clopin.

"Ah! we ought to have a battering ram."

The King of Thunes ran boldly to the formidable beam, and placed his
foot upon it: "Here is one!" he exclaimed; "'tis the canons who send it
to you." And, making a mocking salute in the direction of the church,
"Thanks, canons!"

This piece of bravado produced its effects,--the spell of the beam was
broken. The vagabonds recovered their courage; soon the heavy joist,
raised like a feather by two hundred vigorous arms, was flung with fury
against the great door which they had tried to batter down. At the sight
of that long beam, in the half-light which the infrequent torches of
the brigands spread over the Place, thus borne by that crowd of men who
dashed it at a run against the church, one would have thought that he
beheld a monstrous beast with a thousand feet attacking with lowered
head the giant of stone.

At the shock of the beam, the half metallic door sounded like an immense
drum; it was not burst in, but the whole cathedral trembled, and the
deepest cavities of the edifice were heard to echo.

At the same moment, a shower of large stones began to fall from the top
of the facade on the assailants.

"The devil!" cried Jehan, "are the towers shaking their balustrades down
on our heads?"

But the impu