Page 1827 - les-miserables

There swings the horrible skeleton of a poor lover who hung
himself.

The situation was good, and tavern-keepers succeeded
each other there, from father to son.
In the time of Mathurin Regnier, this cabaret was called
the Pot-aux-Roses, and as the rebus was then in fashion, it
had for its sign-board, a post (poteau) painted rose-color.
In the last century, the worthy Natoire, one of the fantas-
tic masters nowadays despised by the stiff school, having
got drunk many times in this wine-shop at the very table
where Regnier had drunk his fill, had painted, by way of
gratitude, a bunch of Corinth grapes on the pink post. The
keeper of the cabaret, in his joy, had changed his device and
had caused to be placed in gilt letters beneath the bunch
these words: ‘At the Bunch of Corinth Grapes’ (“Au Rai-
sin de Corinthe’). Hence the name of Corinthe. Nothing
is more natural to drunken men than ellipses. The ellipsis
is the zig-zag of the phrase. Corinthe gradually dethroned
the Pot-aux-Roses. The last proprietor of the dynasty, Father
Hucheloup, no longer acquainted even with the tradition,
had the post painted blue.
A room on the ground floor, where the bar was situated,
one on the first floor containing a billiard-table, a wood-
en spiral staircase piercing the ceiling, wine on the tables,
smoke on the walls, candles in broad daylight,—this was
the style of this cabaret. A staircase with a trap-door in the
lower room led to the cellar. On the second floor were the
lodgings of the Hucheloup family. They were reached by a

1827