What say you, Messieurs les bourgeois?
You have here enough grotesque specimens of both sexes, to allow of laughing in Flemish fashion, and there are enough of us ugly in countenance to hope for a fine grinning match." Gringoire would have liked to retort; stupefaction, rage, indignation, deprived him of words.

Moreover, the suggestion of the popular hosier was received with such enthusiasm by these bourgeois who were flattered at being called "squires," that all resistance was useless.

There was nothing to be done but to allow one's self to drift with the torrent.
Gringoire hid his face between his two hands, not being so fortunate as to have a mantle with which to veil his head, like Agamemnon of Timantis..