33: diète is the legislative assembly of the Empire, conclave the assembly of cardinals to elect a Pope.
34: suaire, lit. «shroud»; but it is difficult to see why Hugo chose this word for the papal mantle, unless helped there-to by the necessity of finding a rhyme for sanctuaire.
35: Pierre et César, en eux accouplant les deux Romes, the idea so much insisted on by Dante in the De Monarchia and the Divine Comedy, that the spiritual Rome of Peter's founding and the temporal Roman Empire of Caesar's creation were divinely sanctioned, and necessary to each other.
36: à larges pans, «on a generous scale».
37: la clef de voûte, «the keystone».
38: ducs à fleurons, «dukes with flowered escutcheons.»
39: nous arrive fanfare, «comes to us like trumpet-blast.»
40: What follows, the vision of the People, is very characteristic of Hugo, however unlike anything that Charles would have thought, and it is nobly expressed.
41: l'étreignant. The antecedent of the l' is pyramide.
42: sur ses hautes zones. The antecedent of ses is pyramide.