Section 91 of The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by William Tomko. The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo. Section 9, Part 2, Book VIII, Chapter 1, Analysis of Majestic Matters. Irresistible fate ever carrying him forward, which had now for so many hours showered its surprises on Gwynn Plain, and which had transported him to Windsor, transferred him again to London. Visionary realities exceeded each other without a moment's intermission. He could not escape from their influence. Freed from one, he met another. He had scarcely time to breathe. Anyone who has seen a juggler throwing and catching balls can judge the nature of fate. Those rising and falling projectiles are like men tossed in the hands of destiny. Projectiles and play things. On the evening of the same day, Gwynn Plain was an actor in an extraordinary scene. He was seated on a bench covered with fleur-de-lis over his silk and clothes he wore a robe of scarlet velvet lined with white silk, with a cape of ermine, and on his shoulders two bands of ermine embroidered with gold. Around him were men of all ages, young and old, seated like him on benches covered with fleur-de-lis, and dressed like him in ermine and purple. In front of him other men were kneeling, clothed in black silk gowns. Some of them were writing opposite, and a short distance from him he observed steps, a raised platform, a dais, a large escotchen, glittering between a lion and a unicorn, and at the top of the steps on the platform under the dais, resting against the escotchen, was a gilded chair with a crown over it. This was a throne, the throne of Great Britain. Gwyn Plain, himself a peer of England, was in the House of Lords. How Gwyn Plain's introduction to the House of Lords came about, we will now explain. Throughout the day, from morning to night, from Windsor to London, from Corleone Lodge to Westminster Hall, he had step by step mounted higher in the social grade. At each step he grew gittier. He had been conveyed from Windsor in a royal carriage with a peer's escort. There is not much difference between a guard of honour and a prisoner's. On that day, travellers on the London and Windsor Road saw a galloping cavalcade of gentlemen pensioners of Her Majesty's household escorting two carriages drawn at a rapid pace. In the first carriage sat the usher of the black rod, his wand in his hand.  Who was it who was thus being hurried on? A prince? A prisoner? It was Gwyn Plain. It looked as if they were conducting someone to the tower, unless, indeed, they were escorting him to the House of Lords. The Queen had done things well. As it was for her future brother-in-law she had provided an escort from her own household. The officer of the usher of the black rod rode on horseback at the head of the cavalcade. The usher of the black rod carried, on a cushion placed on the seat of the carriage, a black portfolio stamped with the royal crown. At Brentford, the last relay before London, the carriages and escort halted. A four-horse carriage of tortoise shell, with two postillions, a coachman in a wig and four footmen was in waiting. The wheels, steps, springs, pole, and all the fittings of this carriage were guilt. The horse's harness was of silver. This state coach was of an ancient and extraordinary shape, and would have been distinguished by its grandeur among the fifty-one celebrated carriages of which robo has left us drawings. The usher of the black rod and his officer alighted. The latter, having lifted the cushion, on which rested the royal portfolio, from the seat in the post-chase, carried it on outstretched hands and stood behind the usher. He first opened the door of the empty carriage, then the door of that occupied by Gwynn Plain, and, with downcast eyes, respectfully invited him to descend. Gwynn Plain left the chaise, and took his seat in the carriage. The usher carrying the rod, and the officer supporting the cushion, followed, and took their places on the low front seat provided for pages in old state coaches. The inside of the carriage was lined with white satin, trimmed with bench silk, with tufts and tassels of silver. The roof was painted with armorial bearings. The postillions of the chaises they were leaving were dressed in the royal livery. The attendance of the carriage they now entered wore a different but very magnificent livery. Gwynn Plain, in spite of his bewildered state, in which he felt quite overcome, remarked the gorgeously attired footman, and asked the usher of the black rod, whose livery is that? He answered, yours, my lord. The house of lords was to sit that evening. Courier Eret Serena, run the old records. In England, parliamentary work is by preference undertaken at night. It once happened that Sheridan began the speech at midnight, and finished it at sunrise. The two post-chases returned to Windsor. Gwynn Plain's carriage set out for London. This ornamented four-horse carriage proceeded at a walk from Brentford to London as befitted the dignity of the coachman. Gwynn Plain's servitude to ceremony was beginning in the shape of a solemn-looking coachman. The delay was, moreover, apparently prearranged, and we shall see presently its probable motive. Night was falling, though it was not quite dark, when the carriage stopped at the king's gate, a large sunken door between two turrets connecting White Hall with Westminster. The escort of gentlemen, pensioners, formed a circle around the carriage. A footman jumped down from behind it and opened the door. The usher of the black rod, followed by the officer carrying the cushion, got out of the carriage and addressed Gwynn Plain. My lord, be pleased to alight. I beg your lordship to keep your hat on. Gwynn Plain wore under his traveling cloak the suit of black silk which he had not changed since the previous evening. He had no sword. He left his cloak in the carriage. Under the arched way of the king's gate there was a small side door raised some few steps above the road. In ceremonial processions the greatest personage never walks first. The usher of the black rod, followed by his officer, walked first. Gwynn Plain followed. They ascended the steps and entered by the side door. Eventually they were in a wide circular room with a pillar in the center, the lower part of a turret. The room, being on the ground floor, was lighted by narrow windows in the pointed arches which served but to make darkness visible. Twilight often lends solemnity to a scene. Obscurity is in itself majestic. In this room thirteen men, disposed in ranks, were standing, three in the front row, six in the second row, and four behind. In the front row, one wore a crimson velvet gown, the other two gowns of the same color but of satin. All three had the arms of England embroidered on their shoulders. The second rank wore tunics of white silk, each one having a different coat of arms emblazoned in front. The last row were clad in black silk and were thus distinguished. The first wore a blue cape. The second had a scarlet St. George embroidered in front. The third two embroidered crimson crosses in front and behind. The fourth had a collar of black sable fur. All were uncovered, wore wigs and carried swords. Their faces were scarcely visible in the dim light. Neither could they see Gwynne Plain's face. The usher of the black rod, raising his wand, said, My Lord, Fremaine Clanscharly, Baron Clanscharly at Hunkerville, I, the usher of the black rod, first officer of the present's chamber, hand your lordship over to Garter King at Arms. The person clothed in velvet, quitting his place in the ranks, bowed to the ground before Gwynne Plain, and said, My Lord, Fremaine Clanscharly, I am Garter, principal King at Arms of England, I am the officer appointed and installed by his grace the Duke of Norfolk, Hereditary Earl Marshall. I have sworn obedience to the King, Peers, and Knights of the Garter. The day of my installation, when the Earl Marshall of England anointed me by pouring a goblet of wine on my head, I solemnly promised to be attentive to the nobility, to avoid bad company, to excuse, rather than accuse, gentle folks, and to assist widows and virgins. It is I who have the charge of arranging the funeral ceremonies of Peers, and the supervision of their armorial bearings. I place myself at the orders of your lordship. The first of those wearing satin tunics, having bowed deeply said, My Lord, I am Clarenceau, Second King at Arms of England. I am the officer who arranges the obsequies of nobles below the rank of Peers. I am at your lordship's disposal. The other wearer of the satin tunic bowed and spoke thus. My Lord, I am Norroy, Third King at Arms of England. Command me. The second row, erect and without bowing, advanced apace. The right-hand man said, My Lord, we are the six Dukes at Arms of England. I am York. Then each of the heralds, or Dukes at Arms, speaking in turn, coined his title. I am Lancaster. I am Richmond. I am Chester. I am Somerset. I am Windsor. The coats of arms embroidered on their breasts for those of the counties and towns from which they took their names. The third rank, dressed in black, remained silent. Garder King at Arms pointed them out to Gwyn Plaine, said, My Lord, these are the four Persevents at Arms, Blue Mantle. The man with the blue cape bowed. Rouge Dragon. He, with the St. George, inclined his head. Rouge Croix. He, with the scarlet cross, saluted. Port Cullis. He, with the sable fur collar, made his obeisance. On a sign from the King at Arms, the first of the Persevents, Blue Mantle, stepped forward and received from the officer of the usher the cushion of silver cloth and crown-emblazoned portfolio, and the King at Arms said to the usher of the black rod, Proceed, I leave in your hands the introduction of his lordship. The observance of these customs, and also of others which will now be described, were the old ceremonies in use prior to the time of Henry VIII, and which Anne, for some time, attempted to revive. There is nothing like it in existence now. Nevertheless, the House of Lords thinks that it is unchangeable. And if conservatism exists anywhere, it is there. It changes, nevertheless. A Perse Meuve. For instance, what has become of the May Pole, which the citizens of London erected on the first of May, when the piers went down to the House? The last one was erected in 1713. Since then the May Pole has disappeared. Disuse. Outwardly, unchangeable, inwardly mutable. May, for example, the title of Albemarle. It sounds eternal, yet it has been through six different families, Odo, Mandeville, Bethune, Plantagenet, Beauchamp, Monk. Under the title of Lester, five different names have been merged, Beaumont, Brioche, Dudley, Sidney, Koch. Under Lincoln VI, under Pembroke VII. The families change under unchanging titles. A superficial historian believes in immutability. In reality it does not exist. Man can never be more than a wave. Humanity is the ocean. Aristocracy is proud of what women consider a reproach. Age. Yet both cherish the same illusion that they do not change. It is probable the House of Lords will not recognize itself in the foregoing description, nor yet in that which follows, thus resembling the once pretty woman who objects to having any wrinkles. The mirror is ever a scapegoat, yet its truths cannot be contested. To portray exactly constitutes the duty of a historian. The King at Arms, turning to Gwynn Plain, said, �Be pleased to follow me, my Lord!� and added, �You will be saluted. Your Lordship, in returning the salute, will be pleased merely to raise the brim of your hat.� They moved off, in procession, towards a door at the far side of the room. The usher of the black rod walked in front, then blew mantel, carrying the cushion, then the King at Arms, and after him came Gwynn Plain wearing his hat. The rest, Kings at Arms, Harrels, and Persevents, remained in the circular room. Gwynn Plain, preceded by the usher of the black rod, and escorted by the King at Arms, passed from room to room in a direction which it would now be impossible to trace, the old houses of Parliament having been pulled down. Amongst others he crossed the Gothic State Chamber, in which took place the last meeting of James II, and Monmouth, and whose walls witnessed the useless debasement of the cowardly nephew at the feet of his vindictive uncle. On the walls of this chamber hung, in chronological order, nine full-length portraits of former peers, with their dates. Lord Nansladrin, 1305. Lord Baleol, 1306. Lord Bellestede, 1314. Lord Cantaloupe, 1356. Lord Mount Bagon, 1357. Lord Tibotot, 1373. Lord Zouch of Codnor, 1615. Lord Bella Acqua, with no date. Lord Heron and Ciri, count of Blois, also without date. It being now dark, lamps were burning at intervals in the galleries. Brass chandeliers with wax candles illuminated the rooms, lighting them like the side aisles of a church. None but officials were present. In one room, which the procession crossed, stood with heads respectively lowered the four clerks of the signet, and the clerk of the council. In another room stood the distinguished Knight Banneret, Philip Sydenham of Brimton, in Somersetshire. The Knight Banneret is a title conferred in Time of War, under the Unfurled Royal Standard. In another room was a senior baronet of England, Sir Edmund Bacon of Sophocke, heir of Sir Nicholas Bacon, styled Primus Berentorum and Leakey. Behind Sir Edmund was an armor-bearer with an archibus and an esquire carrying the arms of Ulster, the baronets being the hereditary defenders of the province of Ulster in Ireland. In another room was a Chancellor of the Exchequer, with his four accountants and the two deputies of the Lord Chamberlain appointed to cleave the tallies, 21. At the entrance of a corridor covered with matting, which was the communication between the lower and the upper house, when plain was saluted by Sir Thomas Mansell of Margam, Comptroller of the Queen's household and member for Glamorgan, and at the exit from the corridor, by a deputation of one for every two of the barons of the Sankh, Ports, four on the right and four on the left, the Sankh Ports being eight in number. William Hastings did obeisance for Hastings, Matthew Aylmore for Dover, Josias Burchett for Sandwich, Sir Philip Boteler for Hyth, John Brewer for New Romney, Edward Southwell for the Town of Rye, James Hays for Winchelsie, George Nailer for Seaford. As Grinplain was about to return the salute, the King at arms reminded him in a low voice of the etiquette. Only the brim of your hat, my Lord, Grinplain did as directed. He now entered the so-called painted chamber, in which there was no painting except a few of saints, and amongst them St. Edward, in the high arches of the long and deep pointed windows which were divided by what formed the ceiling of Westminster Hall and the floor of the painted chamber. On the far side of the wooden barrier, which divided the room from end to end, stood the three secretaries of state, men of Mark. The functions of the first of these officials comprised a supervision of all affairs relating to the south of England, Ireland, the colonies, France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Turkey. The second had charge of the north of England, and watched affairs in the Low Countries, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, and Russia. The third, a Scott, had charge of Scotland. The two first mentioned were English, one of them being the Honourable Robert Harley, member of the borough of New Radner. A Scotch member, Mungle Graham, Esquire, a relation of the Duke of Montrose, was present, all bowed without speaking to Grinplain, who returned the salute by touching his hat. The barrier-keeper, lift of the wooden arm, which, pivoting on a hinge, formed the entrance to the far side of the painted chamber, where stood the long table covered with green cloth reserved for peers. A branch of lighted candle stood on the table. Grinplain, preceded by the usher of the Black Rod, garter King at Arms, and blue mantle, penetrated into this privileged compartment. The barrier-keeper closed the opening immediately Grinplain had passed. The King at Arms, having entered the precincts of the privileged compartment, halted. The painted chamber was a spacious apartment. At the farther end, upright beneath the royal escutcheon, which was placed between the two windows, stood two old men in red velvet robes, with two rows of ermine-trend with gold lace on their shoulders, and wearing wigs and hats with white plumes. Through the openings of their robes might be detected silk garments and sword-hills, motionless behind them stood a man dressed in black silk, holding on high a great mace of gold surmounted by a crowned lion. It was a mace-bearer of the peers of England. The lion is their crest. Et les liens se sont les barons et les paires, runs the manuscript chronicle of Bertrand du Gwestlin. The King at Arms pointed out the two persons in velvet, and whispered to Gwynn Plain, My Lord, these are your equals. Be pleased to return their solute exactly as they make it. These two peers are barons, and have been named by the Lord Chancellor as your sponsors. They are very old and almost blind. They will, themselves, introduce you to the House of Lords. The first is Charles Mildmay. Lord Fitzwalter, sixth on the role of barons. The second is Augustus Arundel. Lord Arundel of Tearice. Thirty-eighth on the role of barons. The King at Arms, having advanced a step towards the two old men, proclaimed, Firmain Blancharly, Barron Clancharly, Barron Hunkerville, Marquis of Corleone in Sicily, greet your lordships. The two peers raised their hats to the full extent of the arm, and then replaced them. Gwynn Plain did the same. The usher of the black rod stepped forward, followed by Blue Mantle and Garder, King at Arms. The mace-bearer took up his post in front of Gwynn Plain. The two peers at his side Lord Fitzwalter on the right, and Lord Arundel of Tearice on the left. Lord Arundel, the elder of the two, was very feeble. He died the following year, bequeathing to his grandson John, a minor, the title which became extinct in 1768. The procession, leaving the painted chamber, entered a gallery in which were rows of pilasters, and between the spaces were sentinels, alternately pikemen of England and Hall-Birdiers of Scotland. The scotch Hall-Birdiers were magnificent, kilted soldiers, worthy to encounter later on at Fontenoy, the French cavalry, and the royal cuirassiers, whom their colonel thus addressed, Monsieur les maîtres assurer vos chapeaux nous allons avoir l'honneur de chargère. The captain of these soldiers saluted Gwynn Plain, and appears, his sponsors, with their swords. The men saluted with their pikes and Hall-Birds. At the end of the gallery shone a large door, so magnificent that its two folds seem to be masses of gold. On each side of the door there stood upright and motionless men who were called doorkeepers. Just before you came to this door the gallery widened out into a circular space. In this space was an armchair with an immense back and on it, judging by his wig and from the amplitude of his robes, was a distinguished person. It was William Cowper, Lord Chancellor of England. To be able to cap a royal infirmity with a similar one has its advantages. William Cowper was short-sighted, and had also defective sight, but in a lesser degree. The nearsightedness of William Cowper found favor in the eyes of the short-sighted queen and induced her to appoint him Lord Chancellor, and keeper of the royal conscience. William Cowper's upper lip was thin, and his lower one was thick, a sign of semi-good nature. This circular space was lighted by a lamp hung from the ceiling. The Lord Chancellor was sitting gravely in his large armchair. At his right was a clerk of the crown, and at his left the clerk of the parliaments. Each of the clerks had before him an open register and an inkhorn. Behind the Lord Chancellor was his mace-bearer, holding the mace with the crown on the top besides a train-bearer and purse-bearer in large wigs. All these officers are still in existence. On a little stand near the woolsack was a sword with a gold hilt and sheath and belt of crimson velvet. Behind the clerk of the crown was an officer holding in his hands the coronation robe. Behind the clerk of the parliaments another officer held a second robe, which is that of a pier. The robes, both of scarlet velvet, lined with white silk and having bands of ermine trimmed with gold lace over the shoulders, were similar except that the ermine band was wider on the coronation robe. The third officer, who was a librarian, carried a square of Flanders Leather, the Red Book. A little volume, bound in red Morocco, containing a list of the piers and commons, besides a few blank leaves and a pencil, which it was the custom to present to each new member on his entering the house. Gwynn Plain, behind the two piers, his sponsors, brought up the procession which stopped before the woolsack. The two piers, who introduced him, uncovered their heads and Gwynn Plain did likewise. The king-in-arms received from the hands of Blue Mantle the cushion of silver cloth, knelt down and presented the black portfolio on the cushion to the Lord Chancellor. The Lord Chancellor took the black portfolio and handed it to the clerk of the parliament. The clerk received it ceremoniously and then sat down. The clerk of the parliament opened the portfolio and arose. The portfolio contained the two usual messages, the royal pant and addressed to the House of Lords and the writ of summons. The clerk read aloud these two messages with respectful deliberation standing. The writ of summons, addressed to Firmaine Lord Clan Charlie, concluded with the accustomed formalities, we strictly enjoin you on the faith and allegiance that you owe to come and take your place in person among the prelets and piers sitting in our parliament at Westminster, for the purpose of giving your advice, in all honour and conscience, on the business of the kingdom and of the church. The reading of the messages being concluded, the Lord Chancellor raised his voice. The message of the crown has been read. Lord Clan Charlie, does your lordship renounce transubstantiation, adoration of saints and the mass? Gwyn Plain bowed. The test has been administered, said the Lord Chancellor, and the clerk of the parliament resumed. His lordship has taken the test. The Lord Chancellor added, my lord Clan Charlie, you can take your seat. So be it, said the two sponsors. The king at arms rose, took the sword from the stand, and buckled it around Gwyn Plain's waist. C'est fait, says the old Norman Charter, le père prend son espée, elle m'en haut-siege et assiste l'audience. Gwyn Plain heard a voice behind him which said, I array your lordship in a peer's robe. At the same time the officer who spoke to him, who was holding the robe, placed it on him, and tied the black strings of the ermine cape round his neck. Gwyn Plain, the scarlet robe on his shoulders, and the golden sword by his side, was attired like a peer's on his right and left. The librarian presented to him the red book, and put it in the pocket of his waistcoat. The king at arms murmured in his ear, my lord, unentering will bow to the royal chair. The royal chair is the throne. Meanwhile the two clerks were writing, each at his table, one on the register of the crown, the other on the register of the house. Then both, the clerk of the crowns preceding the other, brought their books to the Lord Chancellor, who signed them. Having signed the two registers, the Lord Chancellor rose. For main Lord Clan-Charlie, Baron Clan-Charlie, Baron Unckerville, Marquis of Corleone in Sicily, be you welcome among your peers, the Lord spiritual and temporal of Great Britain. Gwyn Plain's sponsors touched his shoulder. He turned round. The folds of the great gilded door at the end of the gallery opened. It was the door of the House of Lords. Thirty-six hours only had elapsed since Gwyn Plain, surrounded by a different procession, had entered the iron door of Southwork Jail. What shadowy chimeras had passed, with terrible rapidity through his brain, chimeras which were hard facts, rapidity which was a capture by assault. End of Section 91. Recording by William Tomko. Section 92 of The Man Who Laughs, by Victor Hugo. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by William Tomko. The Man Who Laughs, by Victor Hugo. Section 92, Part II, Book VIII, Chapter II, Impartiality. The creation of an equality with the king, called Peerage, was, in barbarous epochs, a useful fiction. This rudimentary political expedient produced in France and England different results. In France, the Peer was a mock king. In England, a real prince. Less grand than in France, but more genuine. We might say less, but worse. Peerage was born in France. The date is uncertain. Under Charlemagne says the legend. Under Robert Lissage says history, and history is not more to be relied on than legend. Favon writes, The King of France wished to attach to himself the great of his kingdom by the magnificent title of Peers, as if they were his equals. Peerage soon thrust forth branches, and from France passed over to England. The English Peerage has been a great fact, and almost a mighty institution. It had for president the Saxon with an Agamot, the Danish Thane, and the Norman Vavasur, commingled in the Baron. Baron is the same as Vier, which is translated into Spanish by Varone, and which signifies par excellence. Man, as early as 1075, the Barons made themselves felt by the King, and by what a King? By William the Conqueror. In 1086 they laid the foundation of feudality, and its basis was the Doomsday Book. Under John Lackland came conflict. The French Peerage took the high hand with Great Britain, and demanded that the King of England should appear at their bar. Great was the indignation of the English Barons. At the coronation of Philip Augustus, the King of England, as Duke of Normandy, carried the first square banner, and the Duke of Guyane, the second. Against this King, a vassal of the foreigner, the War of the Barons burst forth. The Barons imposed on the weak-minded King John Magnicarda, from which sprang the House of Lords. The Pope took part with the King, and excommunicated the Lords. The date was 1215, and the Pope was innocent the third, who wrote the Veni Sancte Spiritus, and who sent to John Lackland the four cardinal virtues in the shape of four gold rings. The Lords persisted. The duel continued through many generations. Pembroke struggled. 1248 was the year of the provisions of Oxford. 24 Barons limited the King's powers, discussed him, and called a night from each county to take part in the widened reach. Here was the dawn of the Commons. Later on, the Lords added two citizens from each city, and two burgesses from each borough. It arose from this, that up to the time of Elizabeth, the peers were judges of the validity of elections to the House of Commons. From their jurisdiction sprang the proverb that the members returned ought to be without the three P's. This did not obviate Rottenboros. In 1293 the court of peers in France had still the King of England under their jurisdiction, and Philippe Lebel cited Edward I to appear before him. Edward I was the King who ordered his son to boil him down after death, and to carry his bones to the wars under the follies of their kings, the Lords felt the necessity of fortifying Parliament. They divided it into two chambers, the upper and the lower. The Lords arrogantly kept the supremacy. If it happens that any member of the Commons should be so bold as to speak to the prejudice of the House of Lords, he has called to the bar of the House to be reprimanded, and occasionally to be sent to the Tower. There is the same distinction in voting. In the House of Lords they vote one by one, beginning with the junior, called the puny baron. Each peer answers content or non-content. In the Commons they vote together, by eye or no, in a crowd. The Commons accuse, the peers judge. The peers, in their disdain of figures, delegated to the Commons, who were to profit by it the superintendent of the ex-checker, thus named according to some, after the table cover, which was like a chessboard and according to others, from the drawers of the old safe, where was kept, behind an iron grating, the treasure of the kings of England. The yearbook dates from the end of the 13th century. In the War of the Roses, the weight of the Lords was thrown, now on the side of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, now on the side of Edmund, Duke of York. Wat Tyler, the Lollards, warwick the kingmaker, all that anarchy from which freedom is to spring, had for foundation, avowed or secret, the English feudal system. The Lollards were usefully jealous of the crown, for to be jealous is to be watchful. They circumscribed the royal initiative, diminished the category of cases of high treason, raised up, pretended Richards against Henry IV, appointed themselves arbitrators, judged the question of the three crowns between the Duke of York and Margaret of Anjou, and at need levied armies, and fought their battles of Shrewsbury, Tewkesbury, and St. Albans, sometimes winning, sometimes losing. Before this, in the 13th century, they had gained the battle of Louis, and had driven from the kingdom the four brothers of the king, bastards of Queen Isabella, by the Count de la Marche, all four usurers, who extorted money from Christians by means of the Jews, half princes, half sharpers, a thing common enough in more recent times, but not held in good odor in those days. Up to the 15th century, the Norman Duke peeped out in the King of England, and the acts of parliament were written in French. From the reign of Henry VII, by the will of the lords, these were written in English. England, British under Uther Pendragon, Roman under Caesar, Saxon under the hip-tarkey, Danish under Harold, Norman after William, then became, thanks to the lords, English. After that, she became Anglican. To everyone's religion at home is a great power. A foreign pope drags down the national life. A mecca is an octopus, Ed devours it. In 1534 London bowed out Rome. The period adopted the reformed religion, and the lords accepted Luther. Here we have the answer to the excommunication of 1215. It was agreeable to Henry VIII, but, in other respects, the lords were a trouble to him. As a bulldog to a bear, so was the House of Lords to Henry VIII. When Woolsey robbed the nation of Whitehall, and when Henry robbed Woolsey of it, who complained, four lords, Darcy of Chichester, St. John of Bletchow, and two Norman names, Mount Joey and Mount Eagle. The king usurped. The peerage encroached. There was something in hereditary power, which is incorruptible. Hence the insubordination of the lords. Even in Elizabeth's reign, the barons were restless. From the resulted, the tortures at Durham. Elizabeth was as a farthing gale over an executioner's block. Elizabeth assembled Parliament as seldom as possible, and reduced the House of Lords to sixty-five members, amongst whom there was but one marquee, Winchester, and not a single duke. In France the kings felt the same jealousy, and carried out the same elimination. Under Henry III there were no more than eight dukedoms in the peerage, and it was to the great vexation of the king that the Baron de Montes, the Baron de Corsi, the Baron de Colomiers, the Baron de Chateauneuf Anne Thémeré, the Baron de La Faire in Lardinois, the Baron de Montagne, and some others besides maintain themselves as barons, peers of France. In England the crown saw the peerage diminish with pleasure. Under Anne, to quote but one example, the peerages became extinct since the twelfth century amounted to five hundred and sixty-five. The War of the Roses had begun the extermination of dukes, which the acts of Mary Tudor completed. This was indeed the decapitation of the nobility.  Good policy, perhaps, but it is better to corrupt than to decapitate. James I was of this opinion. He restored dukedoms. He made a duke of his favorite, Villiers, who had made him a pig—twenty-two—a transformation from the duke feudal to the duke courtier. This sewing was to bring forth a rank harvest. Charles II was to make two of his mistress's duchesses, Barbara of Southampton and Louise de la Queroille of Portsmouth. Under Anne there were to be twenty-five dukes, of whom three were to be foreigners. Cumberland, Cambridge, and Schoenberg. Did this court policy, invented by James I, succeed? No. The House of Peers was irritated by the effort to shackle it by intrigue. It was irritated against James I. It was irritated against Charles I, who, we may observe, may have had something to do with the death of his father. Just as Marie de Medici's may have had something to do with the death of her husband. There was a rupture between Charles I and the peerage. The Lords, who, under James I, had tried at their bar extortion in the person of Bacon, under Charles I, tried treason in the person of Stratford. They had condemned Bacon. They condemned Stratford. One had lost his honor. The other lost his life. Charles I was first beheaded in the person of Stratford. The Lords lent their aid to the Commons. The King convokes Parliament to Oxford. The Revolution convokes it to London. Forty-four Peers sighed with the King. Twenty-two with the Republic. From this combination of the people with the Lords arose the Bill of Rights. A sketch of the French Dwa de L'Homme, a vague shadow flung back from the depths of futurity by the Revolution of France on the Revolution of England. Such were the services of the peerage. In voluntary ones, we admit, and dearly purchased, because the said peerage is a huge parasite, but considerable services, nevertheless. The despotic work of Louis XI of Richelieu and of Louis XIV, the creation of a Sultan, leveling, taken for true equality, the Bostonado given by the Scepter, the common abasement of the people, all these Turkish tricks in France, the peers prevented in England. The aristocracy was a wall, backing up the King on one side, sheltering the people on the other. They redeemed their arrogance towards the people by their insolence towards the King. Simon, Earl of Leichester, said to Henry III, King, thou hast lied. The lords curbed the crown, and graded against their kings in the tenderest point, that of Vennery. Every lord, passing through a royal park, had the right to kill a deer. In the house of the king, the peer was at home. In the Tower of London, the scale of allowance for the king was no more than that for a peer, namely, twelve pounds sterling per week. This was the house of lords doing. Yet more. We owe to it the deposition of kings. The lords ousted John Lackland, degraded Edward II, deposed Richard II, broke the power of Henry VI, and made Cromwell a possibility. With a Louis XIV, there was in Charles I, thanks to Cromwell, it remained latent. By the by, we may here observe that Cromwell himself, though no historian seems to have noticed the fact, aspired to the peerage. This was why he married Elizabeth Boucher, descendant and heiress of a Cromwell Lord Boucher, whose peerage became extinct in 1471, and of a Boucher Lord Robbersart, another peerage extinct in 1429. Carried on, with a formidable increase of important events, he found the suppression of a king a shorter way to power than the recovery of a peerage. A ceremonial of the lords, at times ominous, could reach even to the king. Two men at arms from the tower, with their axes on their shoulders, between whom an accused peer stood at the bar of the house, might have been there in like attendance on the king as on any other nobleman. For five centuries, the house of lords acted on a system, and carried it out with determination. They had their days of idleness and weakness, as, for instance, that strange time when they allowed themselves to be seduced by the vessels loaded with cheeses, hams, and Greek wines sent them by Julius II. The English aristocracy was restless, haughty, ungovernable, watchful, and patriotically mistrustful. It was that aristocracy, which, at the end of the 17th century, by act the 10th of the year, 1694, deprived the borough of Stockbridge in Hampshire, of the right of sending members to parliament, and forced the commons to declare no the election for that borough stained by papistical fraud. It imposed a test on James Duke of York, and, on his refusal to take it, excluded him from the throne. He reigned, notwithstanding, but the lords wound up by calling him to account at banishing him. That aristocracy has had, in its long duration, some instinctive progress. It has always given out a certain quantity of appreciable light, except now toward its end, which is at hand. Under James II it maintained in the lower house the proportion of 346 burgesses against 92 knights. The 16 barons, by courtesy of the sank ports, were more than counterbalanced by the 50 citizens of the 25 cities. Though corrupt and egotistic, that aristocracy was, in some instances, singularly impartial. It is harshly judged. History keeps all its compliments for the commons. The justice of this is doubtful. We consider the part played by the lords a very great one. Oligarchy is the independence of a barbarous state, but it is an independence. Take Poland, for instance, nominally a kingdom, really a republic. The peers of England held the throne in suspicion and guardianship. Time after time they have made their power more felt than that of the commons. They gave check to the king. Thus, in that remarkable year, 1694, the Triennial Parliament Bill, rejected by the commons, in consequence of the objections of William the Third, was passed to the lords. William the Third, in his irritation, deprived the Earl of Bath of the governorship of Pendennis Castle and Viscount Mordant of all his offices. The House of Lords was the Republic of Venice in the heart of the royalty of England. To reduce the king to a doge was its object, and in proportion, as it decreased the power of the crown, it increased that of the people. Royalty knew this, and hated the peerage. Each endeavored to lessen the other. What was thus lost by reach was proportionate profit to the people. Those two blind powers, Monarchy and Oligarchy, could not see that they were working for the benefit of a Third, which was democracy. What it delighted was to the crown, in the last century, to be able to hang a peer, Lord Ferrer's. However, they hung him with a silk and rope. How polite! They would not have hung a peer of France, the Duke of Richelieu hotly remarked. Granted, they would have beheaded him. Still more polite! Montmorency, Tang Carville, signed himself peer of France and England, thus throwing the English peerage into the second rank. The peers of France were higher and less powerful, holding to rank more than to authority and to precedence more than to domination. There was between them and the lords that shade of difference which separates vanity from pride. With the peers of France, to take presidents of foreign princes, of Spanish grandees, of Venetian patricians, to see seated on the lower benches the marshals of France, the Constable and the admiral of France, where he even comped the Toulouse and son of Louis XIV, to draw a distinction between duchies in the male and female line, to maintain the proper distance between a simple comped, like Armourignac or Albrey, and a comped prairie, like Evreau, to where, by right, at five and twenty, the Blue Ribbon of Golden Fleece, to counterbalance the Duke d'Electremolio. The most ancient peer of the court, with the duches, the most ancient peer of the parliament, to claim as many pages and horses to their carriages as an electore to be called Monsignor by the first president. To discuss whether the duches' domain dates his peerage to the Compe d'Eau from 1458 to cross the grand chamber diagonally, or by the side, such things were grave matters. Grave matters with the lords were the Navigation Act, the Test Act, the Enrollment of Europe in the Service of England, the Command of the Sea, the Expulsion of the Stewards, War with France, on one side Etiquette above all, on the other Empire above all. The Peers of England had the Substance, the Peers of France, the Shadow. To conclude, the House of Lords was a starting point. Towards civilization this is an immense thing, and had the honor to found a nation. It was a first incarnation of the unity of the people. English resistance, that obscure but all-powerful force, was born in the House of Lords. The barons, by a series of acts of violence against royalty, have paved the way for its eventful downfall. The House of Lords, at the present day, is somewhat sad and astonished at what it has unwillingly and unintentionally done, although more that it is irrevocable. What are concessions? Restitutions, and nations know it. I grant, says the king. I get back my own, says the people. The House of Lords believed that it was creating the privileges of the peerage, and it has produced the rights of the citizen. That vulture aristocracy has hatched the eagle's egg of liberty. And now the egg is broken. The eagle is soaring, the vulture dying. Aristocracy is at its last gasp. England is growing up. Still, let us be just towards the aristocracy, and enter the scale against royalty, and was its counter-poise. It was an obstacle to despotism. It was a barrier. Let us thank and bury it. Chapter 3 The Old Hall Near Westminster Abbey was an old Norman palace, which was burned in the time of Henry VIII. Its wings were spared. In one of them, Edward VI placed the House of Lords. In the other, the House of Commons. Neither the two wings nor the two chambers are now in existence. The whole has been rebuilt. We have already said, and we must repeat, that there is no resemblance between the House of Lords of the present day and that of the past. In demolishing the ancient palace, they somewhat demolished its ancient usages. The strokes of the pickaxe on the monument produced their counter-strokes on customs and charters. An old stone cannot fall without dragging down with it an old law. Place in a round room a parliament which has been hitherto held in a square room, and it will no longer be the same thing. A change in the shape of the shell changes the shape of the fish inside. If you wish to preserve an old thing, human or divine, a coat or a dogma, an ability or a priesthood, never repair anything about it thoroughly, even its outside cover. Patch it up, nothing more. For instance, Jesuitism is a piece added to Catholicism. Treat edifices as you would treat institutions. Shadows should dwell in ruins. Worn-out powers are uneasy and chambers freshly decorated. Ruined palaces accord best with institutions in rags. To attempt to describe the House of Lords of other days would be to attempt to describe the unknown. History is night. In history there is no second tier. That which is no longer on the stage immediately fades into obscurity. The scene is shifted and all is at once forgotten. The past has a synonym, the unknown. The peers of England sat as a court of justice in Westminster Hall and as the higher legislative chamber in the chamber specially reserved for the purpose called the House of Lords. Besides the House of Peers of England, which did not assemble as a court unless convoked by the crown, two great English tribunals, inferior to the House of Peers, but superior to all other jurisdiction, sat in Westminster Hall. At the end of that hall, they occupied adjoining compartments. The first was the court of King's Bench, in which the King was supposed to preside. The other the court of Chancery, in which the Chancellor presided. The one was a court of justice, the other a court of mercy. It was the Chancellor who counselled the King to pardon. Only rarely though. These two courts, which are still in existence, interpreted legislation and reconstructed it somewhat. For the art of the judge is to carve the code into jurisprudence, a task from which equity results as it best may. Legislation was worked up and applied in the severity of the great Hall of Westminster, the raptors of which were of chestnut wood over which spiders could not spread their webs. There are enough of them in all conscience in the laws. To sit as a court and to sit as a chamber are two distinct things. This double function constitutes supreme power. The long parliament, which began in November sixteen hundred and forty, felt the revolutionary necessity for this two-edged sword. So it declared that as House of Lords, it possessed judicial as well as legislative power. This double power has been, from time immemorial, bested in the House of Peers. We have just mentioned that as judges they occupied Westminster Hall. As legislators they had another chamber. This other chamber, properly called the House of Lords, was oblong and narrow. All the light in it came from four windows in deep embrasures, which received their light through the roof, and a bullseye composed of six panes with cartons over the throne. At night there was no other light than twelve-half candelabra fastened to the wall. The chamber of Venice was darker still. A certain obscurity is pleasing to those owls of supreme power. A high ceiling adorned with many-faced reliefos and gilded cornices circled over the chamber where the Lords assembled. The commons had but a flat ceiling. There is a meaning in all monarchical buildings. At one end of the long chamber of the Lords was the door. At the other opposite to it the throne. A few paces from the door, the bar, a transverse barrier and a sort of frontier marked the spot where the people ended and the period began. To the right of the throne was a fireplace with emplacent pinnacles and two bar reliefs of marble representing, one, the victory of Cut Wolf over the Britons in 572. The other, the geometrical plan of the borough of Dunstable which had four streets parallel to the four quarters of the world. The throne was approached by three steps. It was called the royal chair. On the two walls opposite each other were displayed in successive pictures on a huge piece of tapestry given to the Lords by Elizabeth. The adventures of the Armada from the time of its leaving Spain until it was wrecked on the coasts of Great Britain. The great halls of the ships were embroidered with threads of gold and silver which had become blackened by time. Against this tapestry cut at intervals by the candelabra fastened in the wall replaced to the right of the throne three rows of benches for the bishops and to the left three rows of benches for the dukes, marqueses and earls in tiers and separated by gamaways. On the three benches of the first section sat the dukes. On those of the second the marqueses. On those of the third the earls. The viscounts bench was placed across opposite the throne and behind between the viscounts and the bar were two benches for the barons. On the highest bench to the right of the throne sat the two archbishops of Canterbury and York. On the middle bench three bishops London, Durham and Winchester and the other bishops on the lowest bench. There is between the archbishop of Canterbury and the other bishops this considerable difference that he is bishops by divine providence whilst the others are only so by divine permission. On the right of the throne was a chair for the Prince of Wales and on the left folding chairs for the royal dukes and behind the latter a raced seat for minor peers who had not the privilege of voting. Plenty of Florida Lee everywhere and the great escutcheon of England over the four walls above the peers as well as above the King. The sons of Peers and the heirs to peerages assisted at the debates standing behind the throne between the days and the wall. A large square of space was left vacant between the tiers of benches placed along three sides of the chamber and the throne. In this space which was covered with a state carpet interwoven with the arms of Great Britain were four wool sacks one in front of the throne on which sat the Lord Chancellor between the mace and the seal. One in front of the bishops on which sat the judges, councillors of state who had the right to vote but not to speak. One in front of the dukes, marquises and earls on which sat the secretaries of state and one in front of the Viscount and Barrens on which sat the clerk of the crown and the clerk of the parliament and on which the two underclarks wrote kneeling. In the middle of the space was a large covered table heaped with bundles of papers, registers and summonses with magnificent ink stamps of chased silver and with high candlesticks at the four corners. The peers took their seats in chronological order each according to the date of the creation of his peerage. They ranked according to their titles and within their grade of nobility according to seniority. At the bar stood the usher of the black rod his wand in his hand. Inside the door was the deputy usher and outside the crier of the black rod whose duty it was to open the sittings of the courts of justice with the crier oh ye in French uttered thrice with a solemn accent upon the first syllable. Near the criers stood the sergeant mace bearer of the chancellor. In royal ceremonies the temporal peers wore carnets on their heads and the spiritual peers miters. The archbishops wore miters with the ducal carnet and the bishops who rank after viscounts miters with a barons cap. It is to be remarked as a coincidence at once strange and instructive that this square formed by the throne the bishops and the barons with kneeling magistrates within it was informed similar to the ancient parliament in France under the two first dynasties. The aspect of authority was the same in France as in England. Hinckmar in his treatise d'ordinazione sacchipalati described in 853 the sittings of the house of lords at Westminster in the 18th century. Strange indeed a description given 900 years before the existence of the thing described. But what is history? An echo of the past in the future a reflex from the future on the past. The assembly of parliament was obligatory only once in every seven years. The lords deliberated in secret with closed doors. The debates of the commons were public. Publicity entails diminution of dignity. The number of the lords was unlimited. To create lords was the menace of royalty a means of government. At the beginning of the 18th century the house of lords already contained a very large number of members. It has increased still further since that period. To dilute the aristocracy is politic. Elizabeth most probably erred in condensing the period into 65 lords. The less numerous the more intense is a period. In assemblies the more numerous the members the fewer the heads. James II understood this when he increased the upper house to 188 lords. 186 if we subtract from the peerages the two duchies of royal favorites Portsmouth and Cleveland. Under Anne the total number of the lords including bishops was 207. Not counting the Duke of Cumberland Husband of the Queen. There were 25 dukes of whom the Premier Norfolk did not take his seat being Catholic and of whom the junior Cambridge the elector of Hanover did although a foreigner. Winchester termed first and sole Marquis of England as a story that was termed sole Marquis of Spain was absent being a Jacobite so that there were only five Marquises of whom the Premier was Lindsay and the junior Lothian. 79 Earls of whom Darby was Premier and Islay Jr. 9 Miscounts of whom Hereford was Premier and Lonsdale Jr. and 62 Barons of whom Abergevenny was Premier and Harvey Jr. Lord Harvey the junior Baron was what was called the priestly of the house. Darby of whom Oxford, Shrewsbury and Kent took precedence and who was therefore but the fourth under James II became under Anne Premier Earl. Two Chancellor's names had disappeared from the list of Barons. Verlum under which designation history finds as Bacon and Wem under which it finds as Jeffries. Bacon and Jeffries both names overshadowed though by different crimes. In 1705 the 26 bishops were accused of 225 the sea of Chester being vacant. Amongst the bishops some were peers of high rank such as William Talbot Bishop of Oxford who was head of the Protestant branch of that family. Others were eminent doctors like John Sharp Archbishop of York Formula Dean of Narche. The poet Thomas Spratt Bishop of Rochester and apoplectic old man and that Bishop of Lincoln who was to die Archbishop of Canterbury Wake the Adversary of Bosway. On important occasions and when a message from the crown to the house was expected the whole of this august assembly in robes in wigs in miters or plumes formed out and displayed their rows of heads in tears along the walls of the house where the storm was vaguely to be seen exterminating the Armada. Almost as much as to say the storm is at the orders of England. End of section 93. Section 94 of The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by William Tomko. The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo. Section 94. Part 2. Book the 8th. Chapter 4. The Old Chamber. The whole ceremony of the investiture of Gwyn Plain from his entry under the King's Gate to his taking the test under the Nave window was enacted in a sort of twilight. Lord William Cowper had not permitted that he, as Lord Chancellor of England, should receive too many details of circumstances connected with the disfigurement of the young Lord Firmaine Clan Charlie, considering it below his dignity to know that a peer was not handsome, and feeling that his dignity would suffer if an inferior should venture to intrude on him information of such a nature. We know that a common fellow will take pleasure in saying, that Prince is humpbacked. Therefore it is abusive to say that a Lord is deformed. To the few words dropped on the subject by the Queen the Lord Chancellor had contented himself with replying, the face of a peer is in his peerage. Ultimately, however, the affidavits he had read and certified enlightened him. Hence the precautions which he took. The face of the new Lord on his entrance into the house might cause some sensation. This it was necessary to prevent, and the Lord Chancellor took his measures for the purpose. It is a fixed idea and a rule of conduct in grave percentages to allow as little disturbance as possible. Dislike of incident is a part of their gravity. He felt the necessity of so ordering matters that the admission of Gwynn Plain should take place without any hitch, and like that of any other successor, to the peerage. It was for this reason that the Lord Chancellor directed that the reception of Lord Fremaine Clan Charlie should take place at the evening sitting. The Chancellor, being the doorkeeper, Cuado Modo Otearos says the Norman Charter. Januorum Cancelorum Cue says Tertullian. He can officiate outside the room on the threshold, and Lord William Cowper had used his right by carrying out under the nave the formalities of the investiture of Lord Fremaine Clan Charlie. Moreover, he had brought forward the hour for the ceremonies so that the new peer actually made his entrance into the house before the house had assembled. For the investiture of a peer on the threshold, and not in the chamber itself, there were precedents. The first hereditary Baron, John de Beauchamp of Holt Castle, created by Patent by Richard II in 1387. Baron Kitterminster was thus installed. In renewing this precedent, the Lord Chancellor was creating for himself a future cause for embarrassment, of which he felt the inconvenience less than two years afterwards on the entrance of Viscount Newaven into the house of Lords. Short-sighted as we have already stated him to be, Lord William Cowper scarcely perceived the deformity of Gwynn Plain, while the two sponsors, being old and nearly blind, did not perceive it at all. The Lord Chancellor had chosen them for that very reason. More than this, the Lord Chancellor, having only seen the presence and stature of Gwynn Plain, thought him a fine-looking man. When the doorkeeper opened the folding doors to Gwynn Plain, there were but few peers in the house, and these few were nearly all old men. In assemblies the old members are the most punctual, just as towards women they are the most assiduous. On the duke's benches there were but two, one white-headed, the other gray, Thomas Osborne, duke of Leeds and Schomburg, son of that Schomburg, German by birth, French by his marshals baton, and English by his peerage, who was banished by the edict of Nance, and who, having fought against England as a Frenchman, fought against France as an Englishman. On the benches of the Lord spiritual there sat only the Archbishop of Canterbury, primate of England, above and below Dr. Simon Patrick, Bishop of Eli, in conversation with Evelyn Peerpoint, Marquis of Dorchester, who was explaining to him the difference between a gabion considered singly and when used in the parapet of a field work, and between palisades and phrases, the former being a row of posts driven into the ground in front of the tents for the purpose of protecting the camp. The latter sharp pointed stakes set up under the wall of a fortress to prevent the escalate of the besiegers and the desertion of the besieged, and the Marquis was explaining further the method of placing phrases in the ditches of redoubts, half of each stake being buried and half exposed. Thomas Thin, Viscount Weymouth, having approached the light of a chandelier, was examining a plan of his architects for laying out his gardens at Longleet in Wiltshire in the Italian style, as a lawn broken up into plots with squares of turf alternating with squares of red and yellow sand of river shells and of fine coal dust. On the Viscount's benches was a group of old peers, Essex, Osselstown, Peregrine, Osborne, William Zulestine, Earl of Rocheford, and amongst them a few more youthful ones, of the factions which did not wear wigs, gathered round Prince Devereux, Viscount Hereford, and discussing the question whether an infusion of Appalachia Holly was tea, very nearly said Osborne, quite said Essex. This discussion was attentively listened to by Paulette St. John, a cousin of Bowlingbroke, of whom Voltaire was, later on, in some degree the pupil, for Voltaire's education, commenced by Père Poiré, was finished by Bowlingbroke. On the Marquis's benches, Thomas de Grey, Marquis of Kent, Lord Chamberlain to the Queen, was informing Robert Bertie, Marquis of Lindsay, Lord Chamberlain of England, that the first prize in the great English lottery of 1694 had been won by two French refugees. Monsieur Lecoque, formerly consular in the Parliament of Paris, and Monsieur Ravenel, a gentleman of Brittany. The Earl of Weimius was reading a book entitled Pratique Curious d'Orclés de Sibyl. John Campbell, Earl of Greenwich, famous for his long chin, his gaiety, and his 87 years, was writing to his mistress. Lord Chandoes was trimming his nails.  On the second of Wulsak sat the Master of the Rolls, Saccorum Scriniorum Magister, who had then, for his residence, the house formally belonging to the converted Jews. Two under clerks were kneeling and turning over the leaves of the registers which lay on the fourth Wulsak. In the meantime the Lord Chancellor took his place on the first Wulsak. The members of the chamber took theirs, some sitting, other standing, when the Archbishop of Canterbury rose and read the prayer, and the sitting of the house began. Greenplane had already been there for some time without attracting any notice. The second bench of Barons, on which was his place, was close to the bar, so that he had had to take but a few steps to reach it. The two peers, his sponsors, sat, one on his right, the other on his left, thus almost concealing the presence of the newcomer. No one having been furnished with any previous information, the clerk of the parliament had read in a low voice, and as it were, mumbled through the different documents concerning the new peer, and the Lord Chancellor had proclaimed his admission in the midst of what is called, in the reports, general inattention. Everyone was talking. They're buzzed through the house that cheerful hum of voices, during which assemblies pass things which will not bear the light, and at which they wonder, when they find out what they have done, too late. Greenplane was seated in silence, with his head uncovered between the two old peers. Lord Fitzwalter and Lord Arundel, on entering, according to the instructions of the King at arms, afterwards renewed by his sponsors, he had bowed to the throne. Thus all was over. He was a peer. That pinnacle, under the glory of which he had, all his life seen as master Ursus, bowed himself down in fear, that prodigious pinnacle was under his feet. He was in that place, so dark and yet so dazzling in England. Old peak of the feudal mountain, leaking up for six centuries by Europe and by history. Terrible nimbus of a world of shadow. He had entered into the brightness of its glory, and his entrance was irrevocable. He was there in his own sphere, seated on his throne, like the King on his. He was there, and nothing in the future could obliterate the fact. The royal crown, which he saw under the dais, was brother to his coronet. He was a peer of that throne. In the face of majesty he was peerage, less but like. Yesterday what was he? A player. Today what was he? A prince. Yesterday nothing. Today everything. It was a sudden confrontation of misery and power, meeting face to face and resolving themselves at once into the two halves of a coincidence. Two speeches, adversity and prosperity, were taking possession of the same soul and each drawing that soul towards itself. Oh, pathetic division of an intellect, of a will, of a brain, between two brothers who are enemies, the phantom of poverty and the phantom of wealth, Abel and Cain in the same man. End of Section 94. Recording by William Tomko. Section 95 of The Man Who Laughs, by Victor Hugo. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by William Tomko. The Man Who Laughs, by Victor Hugo. Section 95, Part 2, Book VIII, Chapter 5, Aristocratic Gossip. By degrees, the seats of the house filled as the lords arrived. The question was the vote for augmenting, by a hundred thousand pounds sterling, the annual income of George of Denmark, Duke of Cumberland, the Queen's husband. Besides this, it was announced that several bills assented to by Her Majesty were to be brought back to the house by the commissioners of the Crown, empowered and charged to sanction them. This raised the sitting to a royal one. The peers all wore their robes over their usual court or ordinary dress. These robes, similar to that which had been thrown over a wind-plane, were alike for all, excepting that the dukes had five bands of ermine, trimmed with gold. Marqueses IV, Earl's and Viscount's III, and Barons II. Most of the lords entered in groups. They had met in the corridors and were continuing the conversations there begun. A few came in alone. The costumes of all were solemn, but neither their attitudes nor their words corresponded with them. On entering, each one bowed to the throne. The peers flowed in. The series of great names marched past with scant ceremonial, the public not being present. Leitzester entered and shook Litchfield's hand, then came Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, and Monmouth, the friend of Locke, under whose advice he had proposed a recoinage of money. Then Charles Campbell, Earl of Loudon, listening to Folk Grayville, Lord Brooke. Then Dorm, Earl of Carnarvon, then Robert Sutton. Baron Lexington, son of that Lexington who recommended Charles II, to banish Gregorio Leti, the historiographer, who was so ill-advised as to try to become a historian. Then Thomas Bellassus, by Count Falkenberg, a handsome old man, and the three cousins, Howard, Earl of Bindon, Bose Howard, Earl of Berkshire, and Stafford Howard, Earl of Stafford, all together. Then John Lovelace, Baron Lovelace, which peerage became extinct in 1736, so that Richardson was enabled to introduce Lovelace in his book and to create a type under the name. All these personages celebrated each in his own way, either in politics or in war, and of whom many were in honor to England were laughing and talking. It was history, as it were, seen in undress. In less than half an hour the house was nearly full. This was to be expected, as a sitting was a royal one. What was more unusual was the eagerness of the conversations. The house, so sleepy not long before, now hummed like a hive of bees. The arrival of the peers who had come in late had waken them up. These lords had brought news. It was strange that the peers who had been there at the opening of the sitting knew nothing of what had occurred, while those who had not been there knew all about it. Several lords had come from Windsor. For some hours, past the adventures of Gwynn Plain, had been the subject of conversation. A secret is a net, that one mesh drop, and the hole goes to pieces. In the morning, in consequence of the incidents related above, the whole story of a peer found on the stage, and of a mountain bank, become a lord, had burst forth at Windsor in royal places. The princes had talked about it, and then the lackeys. From the court the news soon reached the town. Events have await, and the mathematical rule of velocity, increasing in proportion to the squares of the distance, applies to them. They fall upon the public, and work themselves through it with the most astounding rapidity. At seven o'clock no one in London had caught wind of the story. By eight, Gwynn Plain was a talk of the town. Only the lords who had been so punctual that they were present before the assembling of the house were ignorant of the circumstances that having been in the town when the matter was talked of by every one, and having been in the house where nothing had been perceived, seated quietly on their benches they were addressed by the eager newcomers. Well! said Francis Brown, Vincount Montecute, to the marquee of Dorchester. What! Is it possible? What! The Laughing Man! Who is the Laughing Man? Don't you know the Laughing Man? No. He is a clown, a fellow performing at fairs. He has an extraordinary face which people gave a penny to look at. A mount to bank. Well! What then? You have just installed him as a peer of England.  I am not laughing, my Lord Dorchester. Lord Montecute made a sign to the clerk of the parliament who rose from his wool sack and confirmed to their lordships the fact of the admission of the new peer. Besides, he detailed the circumstances. How wonderful! said Lord Dorchester. I was talking to the Bishop of Eli all the while. The young Earl of Annasley addressed old Lord Irr who had but two years more to live as he died in 1707. My Lord Irr! My Lord Annasley! Did you know Lord Linnaeus Clan Charlie? A man of bygone days. Yes, I did. He died in Switzerland? Yes, we were relations. He was a Republican under Cromwell and remained a Republican under Charles II? A Republican? Not at all. He was sulking. He had a personal quarrel with the King. I know from good authority that Lord Charon Charlie would have returned to his allegiance if they had given him the office of Chancellor which Lord Hyde held. You astonished me, Lord Irr. I had heard that Lord Clan Charlie was an honest politician. An honest politician. Does such a thing exist? Young man, there is no such thing. And Cato? Oh! You believe in Cato, do you? And Aristides? They did well to exile him. And Thomas Moore?  And in your opinion Lord Clan Charlie was a man as you describe, as for a man remaining in exile, why it is simply ridiculous. He died there. An ambitious man disappointed. You ask if I knew him. I should think so indeed. I was his dearest friend. Do you know, Lord Irr, that he married when in Switzerland? I am pretty sure of it. And that he had a lawful heir by that marriage? Yes. Who is dead? Who is living? Living? Living. Impossible. It is a fact. Proved, authenticated, confirmed, registered. Then that son will inherit the Clan Charlie peerage? He is not going to inherit it. Why? Because he has inherited it. It is done. Done? Turn your head, Lord Irr. He is sitting behind you, on the barren's benches. Lord Irr turned, but Grin Plains face was concealed under his forest of hair. So, said the old man, who could see nothing but his hair, he has already adopted a new fashion. He does not wear a wig. Grantham accosted Colpepper. Someone is finally sold. Who is that? David Dury Moir. How is that? He is no longer a peer. How can that be? And Henry Averacuerqui, Earl of Grantham, told John Baron Colpepper the whole anecdote, how the waveflask had been carried to the Admiralty, about the parchment of the Comprachikos, the Jezu-Rages, countersigned Jeffries, and the confrontation in the torture cell at Southwick, the proof of all the facts acknowledged by the Lord Chancellor and by the Queen, the taking the test under the nave, and finally the admission of Lord Firmane Clancharly at the commencement of the sitting. Both the Lord's endeavour to distinguish his face as he sat between Lord Fitzwalter and Lord Arendelle, but with no better success than Lord Irr and Lord Annasly. Gwynnplain, either by chance or by the arrangement of his sponsors, forewarned by the Lord Chancellor, was so placed in shadow as to escape their curiosity. Who is it? Where is he? Such was the exclamation of all the newcomers, but no one was succeeded in making him out distinctly. Some, who had seen Gwynnplain in the green box, were exceedingly curious, but lost their labour, as it sometimes happens that a young lady is entrenched within a troop of dowagers. Gwynnplain was, as it were, enveloped in several layers of lords, old, infirm, and indifferent. Good livers with the gout are marvelously indifferent to stories about their neighbours. They're passed from hand to hand copies of a letter, three lines in length, written, it was said, by the Duchess Josiana to the Queen, her sister, an answer to the injunction made by her Majesty that she should espouse the new pier, the lawful heir of the clan Charlie's, Lord Fremain. This letter was couched in the following terms. Madam, the arrangement will suit me just as well. I can have Lord David for my lover. Signed Josiana. This note, whether a true copy or a forgery, was received by all with the greatest enthusiasm. A young Lord, Charles O'Campton, Baron Mohan, who belonged to the Wiglas faction, read and re-read it with delight. Louis de Duras, Earl of Favrecham, an Englishman with a Frenchman's wit, looked at Mohan and smiled. That is a woman I should like to marry, exclaimed Lord Mohan. The lords around them overheard the following dialogue between Duras and Mohan. Marry the Duchess Josiana, Lord Mohan. Why not? Plague take it. She would make one very happy. She would make many very happy. But is it not always a question of many? Lord Mohan, you are right. With regard to women, we have always the leavings of others. Has anyone ever had a beginning? Adam, perhaps. Not he. Then Satan. My dear Lord, concluded Louis de Duras, Adam only lent his name, poor dupe. He endorsed the human race. Man was begotten on the woman by the devil. Hugh Chalmondely, Earl of Chalmondely, strong in points of law, was asked from the bishop's benches by Nathaniel Crue, who was doubly a peer, being a temporal peer, as barren Crue, and a spiritual peer, as bishop of Durham. Is it possible? said Crue. Is it regular? said Chalmondely. The investiture of this peer was made outside the house, replied the bishop. But it is stated that there are precedents for it. Yes, Lord Beauchamp, under Richard II. Lord Chenay, under Elizabeth, and Lord Braughill, under Cromwell. Cromwell goes for nothing. What do you think of it all? Many different things. My Lord Chalmondely, what will be the rank of this young Lord Clanscharly in the house? My Lord Bishop, the interruption of the Republic having displaced ancient rites of precedents, Clanscharly now ranks in the periods between Barnard and Summers, so that should each be called upon to speak in turn, Lord Clanscharly would be the eighth in rotation. Really? He amount to bank from a public show. The act, per se, does not astonish me, my Lord Bishop. We meet with such things. Still, more wonderful circumstances occur. Was not the war of the roses predicted by the sudden drying up of the river Ouse in Belfordshire on January 1, 1399? Now, if a river dries up, a peer may, quite as naturally, fall into a servile condition. Ulysses, King of Ithaca, played all kinds of different parts, for main Clanscharly remained a Lord under his player's garb. Sorted garments touch not the soul's nobility, but taking the test, and the investiture outside the sitting, though strictly legal, might give rise to objections. I am of opinion that it will be necessary to look into the matter, to see if there be any ground to question the Lord Chancellor in Privy Council later on. We shall see in a week or two what is best to be done. And the Bishop added, all the same it is an adventure such as not occurred since Earl guess aboutus's time. Gwyn Plain, the laughing man, the tadcaster in, the green box, chaos vanquished, Switzerland, Chilean, the Comprachikos, exile, mutilation, the Republic, Jeffries, James II, the Jusus Regis, the bottle opened at the Admiralty, the Father, Lord Linnaeus, the legitimate son, Lord Firmain, the Bastard's son, Lord David, their probable lawsuits, the Duchess Josiana, the Lord Chancellor, the Queen. All these subjects of conversation ran from bench to bench. Whispering is like a train of gun powder. They seized on every incident all the details of the occurrence caused an immense murmur through the house. Gwyn Plain, wandering in the depths of his reverie, heard the buzzing without knowing that he was the cause of it. He was strangely attentive to the depths, not to the surface. Access of attention becomes isolation. The buzz of conversation in the house impedes its usual business no more than the dust raised by a troop impedes its march. The judges, who in the upper house were mere assistants without the privilege of speaking, except when questioned, had taken their places on the second woolsack, and the three secretaries of state theirs on the third. The heirs to peerages float into their compartment, at once without and within the house at the back of the throne. The peers, in their minority, were on their own benches. In 1705 the number of these little lords amounted to no less than a dozen. Huntington, Lincoln, Dorsett, Warwick, Bath, Barlington, Der Wentwater, destined to a tragical death, Logaville, Lonsdale, Dudley, Ward, and Carterette. A troop of brats made up of eight urls, two bicounts, and two barons. In the center, on the three stages of benches, each lord had taken his seat. Almost all the bishops were there. The dukes mustered strong, beginning with Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and ending with George Augustus, Elector of Hanover, and Duke of Cambridge, Jr. in date of creation, and consequently, Jr. in rank. All were in order, according to right of precedence. Cavendish, the Duke of Devonshire, whose grandfather had sheltered Hobbes at Hardwick when he was ninety-two, Lennox, Duke of Richmond, the three Fitzroy's, the Duke of Southampton, the Duke of Grafton, and the Duke of Northumberland, Butler, Duke of Ormond, Somerset, Duke of Beaufort, Bowclerk, Duke of St. Albans, Paulette, Duke of Bolton, Osborne, Duke of Leeds, Rottesley, Russell, Duke of Bedford, whose motto and device was Che Sara Sara, which expresses a determination to take things as they come, Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, Manners, Duke of Rutland, and others. Neither Howard, Duke of Norfolk nor Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury, was present being Catholics, nor Churchill, Duke of Malboro, the French Malbrook, who was at that time fighting the French and beating them. There were no Scotch dukes then, Queensbury, Montrose, and Roxburg not being admitted till 1707. End of Section 95, Recording by William Tomco. Section 96 of The Man Who Loves by Victor Hugo. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Man Who Loves by Victor Hugo. Part Two, Book the Eighth, Chapter Six. The High and the Low. All at once a bright light broke upon the house. Four doorkeepers brought and placed on each side of the throne four high candelabra filled with wax lights. The throne thus illuminated Sean in a kind of purple light. It was empty but august. The presence of the queen herself could not have added much majesty to it. The usher of the black rod entered with his wand and denounced. The Lord's commissioners of her majesty. The hum of conversation immediately subsided. A clerk in a wig and gown appeared at the great door holding a cushion worked with bloodily on which lay parchment documents. These documents were bills. From each hung the bill or bowl by a silken string for which laws are called bills in England and bowls at Rome. Behind the clerk worked three men in pierce robes and wearing plumed hats. These were the royal commissioners. The first was the Lord High Treasurer of England, Godolphin. The second, the Lord President of the Council, Pembroke. The third, the Lord of the Privy Seal, Newcastle. They walked one by one according to precedents not of their rank but of their commission. Godolphin first, Newcastle last, although a duke. They reached the bench in front of the throne to which they bowed, took off and replaced their hats and sat down on the bench. The Lord Chancellor turned towards the usher of the black rod and said, order the commons to the bar of the house. The usher of the black rod retired. The clerk, who was one of the clerks of the House of Lords, placed on the table between the four woolsacks, the cushion on which lay the bills. From there came an interruption which continued for some minutes. Two doorkeepers placed before the bar a stool with three steps. This stool was covered with crimson velvet on which flea-de-lis were designed in gilt nails. The great door which had been closed was reopened and a voice announced, the faithful commons of England. It was the usher of the black rod announcing the other half of parliament. The Lords put on their hats. The members of the House of Commons entered, preceded by their speaker, all with uncovered heads. They stopped at the bar. They were in their ordinary garb, for the most part dressed in black and wearing swords. The speaker, the right honourable John Smith and Esquire, member of the borough of Andover, got up on the stool which was at the centre of the bar. The speaker of the commons were a robe of black satin with large hanging sleeves embroidered before and behind with brandon-burgs of gold and a wig smaller than that of the Lord Chancellor. He was majestic but inferior. The commons, both speaker and members, stood waiting with uncovered heads before the peers who were seated with their hats on. Amongst the members of commons might have been remarked the Chief Justice of Chester, Joseph Jekyll, the Queen's Three Sergeants at Law, Hooper, Powis and Parker, James Montague, Solicitor General and the Attorney General, Simon Harker. With the exception of a few baronettes and knights and nine lords by courtesy, Hardington, Windsor, Woodstock, Mordant, Granby, Scudamore, Fitz Harding, Hyde and Berkeley, Sons of Pierce and Airsteep Peerages, all were of the people, a sort of gloomy and silent crowd. With the noise made by the trampling of feet had ceased, the crier of the black rod, standing by the door exclaimed, Oh ye, the clerk of the crown rose. He took, unfolded and read the first of the documents on the cushion. It was a message from the Queen, naming three commissioners to represent her in Parliament, with power to sanction the bills. To wit, here the clerk raised his voice, Sydney Earl Goodolphin. The clerk bowed to Lord Goodolphin. Lord Goodolphin raised his hat. The clerk continued, Thomas Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. The clerk bowed to Lord Pembroke. Lord Pembroke touched his hat. The clerk resumed, John Hulls, Duke of Newcastle. The Duke of Newcastle nodded. The clerk of the crown resumed his seat. The clerk of the Parliament arose. His under clerk, who had been on his knees behind him, got up also. Both turned their faces to the throne and their backs to the Commons. There were five bills on the cushion. These five bills, voted by the Commons and agreed by the Lords, awaited the royal sanction. The clerk of the Parliaments read the first bill. It was a bill passed by the Commons, charging the country with the costs of the improvements made by the Queen to her residence at Hampton Court, amounting to a million sterling. The reading over, the clerk bowed low to the throne. The under clerk bowed lower still, then, half turning his head towards the Commons, he said. The Queen accepts your bounty. Yen si le veut. The clerk read the second bill. It was a law condemning to imprisonment and fine, who soever withdrew himself from the service of the train-bands. The train-bands wore a militia, recruited from the middle and lower classes, serving gratis, which in Elizabeth's reign furnished, on the approach of the Armada, 185,000 foot soldiers and 40,000 horse. The two clerks made a fresh bow to the throne, after which the under clerk, again half turning his face to the Commons, said. La reine le veut. The third bill was for increasing the tithes and pre-bends of the bishopric of Lichfield and Coventry, which was one of the richest in England, for making an increased yearly allowance to the cathedral, for augmenting the number of its cannons, and for increasing its denaries and benefices to the benefit of our holy religion, as the preamble said forth. The fourth bill added to the budget fresh taxes. One on marbled paper, one on hackney coaches, fixed at the number of eight hundred in London, and taxed at a sum equal to fifty-two francs yearly each. One on barristers, attorneys and solicitors, at forty-eight francs a year ahead. One on tanned skins, notwithstanding, said the preamble, the complaints of the workers in leather. One on soap, notwithstanding the petitions of the City of Exeter, and of the Hall of Devonshire, where great quantities of cloth and surge were manufactured. One on wine at four shillings, one on flower, one on barley and hops, and one renewing, for four years, the necessities of the State, said the preamble, requiring to be attended to before the remonstrances of commerce. Tonnage juice varying from six francs per tonne, for ships coming from the westward, to eighteen francs on those coming from the eastward. Finally, the bill, declaring the sums already levied for the current year insufficient, concluded by decreeing a poll tax on each subject throughout the kingdom of four shillings per head, adding that a double tax would be levied on everyone who did not take the fresh oath to government. The fifth bill forbade the admission into the hospital of any sick person who, on entering, did not deposit a pound sterling to pay for his funeral in case of death. These last three bills, like the first two, were one after the other sanctioned and made law by a bow to the throne and the four words pronounced by the under-clarke, la reine levée, spoken over his shoulder to the commons. Then the under-clarke knelt down again before the fourth wool sack, and the Lord Chancellor said, sois-fait comme il est d'icié. This terminated the royal sitting. The speaker, bent double before the Chancellor, descended from the stool backwards, lifting up his robe behind him. The members of the House of Commons bowed to the ground, and as the upper house resumed the business of the day, heedless of all these marks of respect, the commons departed. End of section 96