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Updated: May 23, 2025
Navailles consulted his oracle, and declared that he liked the big one best. Oriol, with a flourish of his trumpet, announced that he preferred the smug fellow. Peyrolles, with a look of horror on his face, rushed forward and attempted to intercept the new-comers, but he was too late. Cocardasse was already in front of Gonzague, and had made him a tremendous obeisance.
Cocardasse spoke next: "An ugly job. There's only one man alive to match Louis de Nevers." Something almost approaching a human smile distorted the wrinkled face of Æsop and made it appear more than usually repulsive. "You mean me," he said, and the smirk deepened, only to dissipate quickly as Cocardasse replied: "Devil a bit. I mean the little Parisian, Henri de Lagardere."
Cocardasse plucked Passepoil by the sleeve and drew him a little away from their fellow-ruffians. "We cannot fight against the Little Parisian," he whispered into the Norman's ear. "We will look on, comrade." Passepoil nodded approval, but spoke no word.
By this time Staupitz and the others had resumed their seats and were staring fixedly at Peyrolles, something to that worthy personage's embarrassment. Staupitz having said his say, dropped into silence, and Cocardasse leaned forward, asserting himself.
At the same moment the doors of the antechamber opened, and Cocardasse and Passepoil, with their naked swords in their hands, entered and ranged themselves on the side of Lagardere. "We shall be three!" said Cocardasse. "We shall be four!" said Passepoil. The situation was changed, but the situation was still perilous.
Then the door of the antechamber opened, and the hunchback entered the hall and paused for a moment, glancing at each of the Three Louis, with a look of love for one, a look of hate for the other, and a look of homage for the third. At the hunchback's heels came Cocardasse and Passepoil, waiting on events. The hunchback stood for a moment listening to the noise and jollity beyond the doors.
Peyrolles went to the door of the antechamber, and returned in an instant with Cocardasse and Passepoil, now both gorgeously dressed in an extravagantly modish manner, which became them, if possible, less than their previous rags and tatters. Both men saluted Gonzague profoundly, and both started at seeing the hunchback standing apart from them with averted face.
Passepoil interrupted, stuttering furiously in his excitement: "But he touched us with that secret thrust in our own school in Paris " Cocardasse completed his friend's statement: "Three times, here on the forehead, just between the eyes." Passepoil labored his point: "Devil take us if we could find a parry for it."
The fact was that Staupitz and his little band of babies, as he was pleased to call them, were not really of the same social standing in the world of cutthroats as Gascon Cocardasse and Norman Passepoil.
But three months ago a daughter was born to the nuptials of Nevers, and that is why we are here to-night. Monsieur Peyrolles would pretend that it is the old marquis who is using us, the old marquis who is suspicious of an amour between his daughter and Nevers. But I know better." "How do you know all this?" Cocardasse inquired. Æsop shrugged his shoulders.
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