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Nicholas, the roaring of grain elevators, rattling of winch-chains, trumpeting of ship sirens, mewing of gulls, the bells of Notre Dame and the bells of St. Victor, all fused, orchestrated, into one triumphant symphony beneath the clear blue sky and the trade flags of the world. La Joconde was berthed beside a Messagerie boat which they had to cross to reach her.
Gervaise asked the meaning of one of the pictures, the Noces de Cana; Coupeau stopped before La Joconde, declaring that it was like one of his aunts. Boche and Bibi-la-Grillade snickered and pushed each other at the sight of the nude female figures, and the Gaudrons, husband and wife, stood open-mouthed and deeply touched before Murillo's Virgin.
But neither the Brother Joconde nor his Penitents saw aught of it, forasmuch as they took heed only of eternal things, and deemed the vain agitation of men to be but a foolish game. They marched through the streets singing the "Veni creator spiritus," and crying out: "Pray, for the times are at hand."
This Messire Florimont Lecocq was Sergeant at the Châtelet Prison and a partisan of the English. So, standing on the great stone, Brother Joconde preached to the people. "Sow ye," he cried, "sow ye, good folk; sow abundantly of beans, for He which is to come will come quickly."
I am so fond of the bygone school of music, Father Benwell the flowing graceful delicious melodies of the composers who followed Mozart. One can only enjoy that music in Paris. Would you believe that I waited a week to hear Nicolo's delightful Joconde for the second time. I was almost the only young man in the stalls.
Next Simone la Bardine took up her parable and said: "Brother Joconde, I lived once in a fine house in the Rue Saint-Antoine, near by the Place Baudet, which is the fairest quarter of Paris, and the wealthiest.
In imitation of Da Vinci's celebrated picture in the Louvre, the background represented a stretch of arid rocky landscape, unrelieved by foliage, and against it rose in pose and general outline the counterpart of "La Joconde." The dress and drapery were of black velvet, utterly bare of ornament, and out of the canvas looked a face of marvellous, yet mysteriously mournful beauty.
Upon some new joke of Maurice's, the lawyer gave his amorous programme in the following terms: "Understand me, a woman must be as intelligent as Hypatia, and have the sensibility of Heloise; the smile of a Joconde, and the limbs of an Antiope; and, even then, if she had not the throat of a Venus de Medicis, I should not love her."
A wooden bridge, which previously existed here, having been frequently carried away by inundations, Lewis XII ordered the construction of the present one of stone, which was begun in 1499, and completed in 1507. It was built from the plan of one JOCONDE, a Cordelier, and native of Verona, and is generally admired for the solidity, as well as beauty of its architecture.
Hadn't he the very hair of Raphael flowing down on his shoulders? The hair, alas, but not the head! We swallowed him whole, however; we hung upon his lips and proclaimed his genius on the house- tops. The women were all dying to sit to him for their portraits and be made immortal, like Leonardo's Joconde.
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