“Do you know that it is cold, Master Thibaut Fernicle?” (Gringoire had been aware of this since the beginning of the winter.)
“Yes, indeed, Master Boniface Disome! Are we going to have a winter such as we had three years ago, in ’80, when wood cost eight sous the measure?”
“Bah! that’s nothing, Master Thibaut, compared with the winter of 1407, when it froze from St. Martin’s Day until Candlemas! and so cold that the pen of the registrar of the parliament froze every three words, in the Grand Chamber! which interrupted the registration of justice.”
Further on there were two female neighbors at their windows, holding candles, which the fog caused to sputter.
“Has your husband told you about the mishap, Mademoiselle la Boudraque?”
“No. What is it, Mademoiselle Turquant?”
“The horse of M. Gilles Godin, the notary at the Châtelet, took fright at the Flemings and their procession, and overturned Master Philippe Avrillot, lay monk of the Célestins.”
“Really?”
“Actually.”
“A bourgeois horse! ’tis rather too much! If it had been a cavalry horse, well and good!”