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All circumstances which, two centuries later, "seemed so ridiculous to the court," as Sauval says, "that they served as a pastime to the king, and as an introduction to the royal ballet of Night, divided into four parts and danced on the theatre of the Petit-Bourbon." "Never," adds an eye witness of 1653, "have the sudden metamorphoses of the Court of Miracles been more happily presented.
Hence, not only the royal habitations, the Louvre, the Palace, the Bastille, the Tournelles, but simply seignorial residences, the Petit-Bourbon, the Hotel de Sens, the Hotel d' Angouleme, etc., had battlements on their walls, and machicolations over their doors. Churches were guarded by their sanctity. Some, among the number Notre-Dame, were fortified.
"So true is it that they supped at the Hotel-de-Ville," replied Oudarde but little affected by this catalogue, "that such a triumph of viands and comfits has never been seen." "I tell you that they were served by Le Sec, sergeant of the city, at the Hotel du Petit-Bourbon, and that that is where you are mistaken." "At the Hotel-de-Ville, I tell you!"
The old Louvre of Philip Augustus, that immense edifice whose great tower rallied about it three and twenty chief towers, not to reckon the lesser towers, seemed from a distance to be enshrined in the Gothic roofs of the Hotel d'Alencon, and the Petit-Bourbon.
He would remember that this was the color with which the executioner formerly painted those buildings judged "infamous;" he would recall the hotel of the Petit-Bourbon, bedaubed with yellow in memory of the Constable's treason; "a yellow of so fine a temper," says Sauval, "and so well laid on, that more than a hundred years have failed to wash out its color."
He would remember that it was the color with which the hangman smeared "accursed" edifices; he would recall the Hotel du Petit-Bourbon, all smeared thus, on account of the constable's treason. "Yellow, after all, of so good a quality," said Sauval, "and so well recommended, that more than a century has not yet caused it to lose its color."
"At the Petit-Bourbon, my dear! and they had illuminated with magic glasses the word hope, which is written on the grand portal." "At the Hotel-de-Ville! At the Hotel-de-Ville! And Husson-le-Voir played the flute!" "I tell you, no!" "I tell you, yes!" "I say, no!"
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