The King, Crowned by Bells.
Clopin sat on the parapet, legs and arms crossed in silent contemplation, an untouched bottle of wine from the Tavern de Court des Miracles by his side. His steely black eyes were focused on the stone floor an uncountable number of feet below his perch amidst the gargouilles of her holiness; the virgin Notre Dame.
Things went in and out of his head like a disorderly line of Parisians, jostling and bumping one and other for position at the forefront of the truants mind. He was as still as the stone statues beside him, life passing over the hunched frame whenever the wind chanced through his midnight black hair. It was a solemn sight indeed.
Once or twice a passerby in the parvis thought they saw the gypsy move; thought they caught the vicious glint of his eyes in the moon shine, and stayed to watch until the moment had passed.
Clopin, for his part, was as unmoving as the witches iron grave.
Inside the mind of this majestic wonder, many a thing was pondered. They ranged from the trivial to the imperative, swimming around strangely behind his eyes. Thus was the life of the cut throat!
Slowly star shine passed over him, a picturesque beauty framed by hideous suitors – the gargouilles of Notre Dame, like their soul, were unfortunate but silent creatures. For this reason Clopin chose them as worthy company.
For any straggler in the square below scurrying home past curfew, the cloud that passed over Clopins' eyes as his thoughts found order would not have gone unnoticed. But no unfortunate soul littered the parvis that night, and no one saw the thread of arranged thoughts arrange themselves just so. For the readers pleasure though, his thoughts went thus:
Was he such violent a man that blood lust and the body came so speedily before human worth? Was he so cruel that judgment meant a smile and a wave, and the hang-mans noose said a thousand words corrupt justice could not, just so this fine king could retire to his fine bed chamber with his fine wine and fine women? (Not that Clopin had any women; it was not a thing he flaunted, like his voice or his authority, but Clopin was as pure as the dove and twice the virgin the archdeacon would ever be! This was just his way.) Was Clopin such the heart that could not open to new possibilities? – how was it, then, that some truants were so by choice and others by force? Saved from the rope by the pitcher only to be torn from themselves? Was Clopin so heartless?
No, dear reader, was quite simply the answer. Such a spirit was not, thus thought, so heartless. A father who murders out of love for his daughter will surely be welcomed into the arms of the Holy Virgin; la Vierge Sainte! The king of thieves sung through his nose, and his hideous stone frames smiled eerily. They opened their mouths and bared their fangs, crossed their hearts and sent prayers to the devil, who sighed on his fiery throne. Was it to be tonight? Did the heartless so readily abandon hope on the doors of the holy cross?
Clopin barely moved, like purple lighting he shone, and the bottle of wine joined the devil in Hell.
It was indeed in a truant's nature to sin at the hands of God, deny his own access into Paradise and condemn himself to dark Hellfire. This was a tradition of truancy; the final scream before the
gallows, the defying laugh before the flame, the scorning speech upon the Gréve and under the blade. Even in death a king and his court were glorious. Was la Court des Miracles de Paris no different? Damn the infallible cruelty of the thresholds of pain, men of honour did not go down without a fight, and perhaps King Clopin's fight; his morals biting and clawing at the tethers of his soul, was the most violently fought battle of all.
Around him, the gargouilles quivered, and Clopin; in his magnificent tenor, barely moving despite his pleasure, presented his âme to Satan before the eyes of God himself:
"You never can run from, nor hide what you've done from the eyes, the very eyes of Notre Dame!"
Oh, the hanging angels in their tombs at the Cemetery des Innocents where shaking in their chains, loveless beauties deflowered in their corset's and bold brave men quelled in an inadequate mob at the sound of that mournful, beautiful voice.
Clopins' wonderfully organized thoughts had all but turned a full circle, his final reverie forming on the horizon of his heart.
It is the very essence of the soul, the very nature of one's centre to be immortal; even Godless philosophers know that. Clopin had contemplated this before. He knew, through innumerable waves of imagination how futile the death of a soul was.
There is no doubt that there is no end to man. But still the gypsy smiled his devilish smile, laughed his precious laugh and turned his sparkling eyes to her majesty, the moon, who softly raised her dimples and twinkled at the earth.
Still shining brightly, Clopin Trouillefou left the balcony with a forward step and a farewell wave, and let the universe decide his fate.
It took mere seconds for the immortality of his soul to meet in crimson with the mortality of the pavement below and, grinning from ear to ear and at complete peace; the King of Thunes was dead.