Il triompha de cent bastilles
Qu'il investit.—
Voici pour toi, voici des filles,
Petit, petit.
These two passages are good specimens of what Brunetière called Hugo's barbarous and Merovingian humour, a species of humour which suits well the reproduction of a mediaeval Chanson, even if it offends the critical in a modern satire.
gentil, used in its original sense of 'noble'.
maillot, Old French form of maillet, a mace or club. salade, head-piece worn by knights, a word used in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.
duché, which is now masculine, was formerly of the feminine gender.
liais, lias; pierre de liais is Portland stone.
douve, as a term in fortification, means the wall of a ditch.