ed his
fingers like castanets. At that moment he was sublime. On his head he
wore one of those overloaded helmets of the fifteenth century, which
frightened the enemy with their fanciful crests. His bristled with ten
iron beaks, so that Jehan could have disputed with Nestor's Homeric
vessel the redoubtable title of _dexeubolos_.

"What do I mean to do with it, august king of Thunes? Do you see that
row of statues which have such idiotic expressions, yonder, above the
three portals?"

"Yes. Well?"

"'Tis the gallery of the kings of France."

"What is that to me?" said Clopin.

"Wait! At the end of that gallery there is a door which is never
fastened otherwise than with a latch, and with this ladder I ascend, and
I am in the church."

"Child let me be the first to ascend."

"No, comrade, the ladder is mine. Come, you shall be the second."

"May Beelzebub strangle you!" said surly Clopin, "I won't be second to
anybody."

"Then find a ladder, Clopin!"

Jehan set out on a run across the Place, dragging his ladder and
shouting: "Follow me, lads!"

In an instant the ladder was raised, and propped against the balustrade
of the lower gallery, above one of the lateral doors. The throng of
vagabonds, uttering loud acclamations, crowded to its foot to ascend.
But Jehan maintained his right, and was the first to set foot on the
rungs. The passage was tolerably long. The gallery of the kings of
France is to-day about sixty feet above the pavement. The eleven steps
of the flight before the door, made it still higher. Jehan mounted
slowly, a good deal incommoded by his heavy armor, holding his crossbow
in one hand, and clinging to a rung with the other. When he reached
the middle of the ladder, he cast a melancholy glance at the poor dead
outcasts, with which the steps were strewn. "Alas!" said he, "here is a
heap of bodies worthy of the fifth book of the Iliad!" Then he continued
his ascent. The vagabonds followed him. There was one on every rung.
At the sight of this line of cuirassed backs, undulating as they rose
through the gloom, one would have pronounced it a serpent with steel
scales, which was raising itself erect in front of the church. Jehan who
formed the head, and who was whistling, completed the illusion.

The scholar finally reached the balcony of the gallery, and climbed over
it nimbly, to the applause of the whole vagabond tribe. Thus master of
the citadel, he uttered a shout of joy, and suddenly halted