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Title: Notre-Dame de Paris
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Author: Victor Hugo
Translator: Isabel F. Hapgood
Release Date: November 13, 2009 [EBook #2610]
Last Updated: June 19, 2019
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS ***
Produced by Peter Snow Cao, and David Widger
cover
NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS
Also known as:
_THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME_
By Victor Hugo
Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood
PREFACE.
A few years ago, while visiting or, rather, rummaging about
Notre-Dame, the author of this book found, in an obscure nook of
one of the towers, the following word, engraved by hand upon the
wall:—
ἈΝÁΓΚΗ.
These Greek capitals, black with age, and quite deeply graven in
the stone, with I know not what signs peculiar to Gothic
caligraphy imprinted upon their forms and upon their attitudes,
as though with the purpose of revealing that it had been a hand
of the Middle Ages which had inscribed them there, and especially
the fatal and melancholy meaning contained in them, struck the
author deeply.
He questioned himself; he sought to divine who could have been
that soul in torment which had not been willing to quit this
world without leaving this stigma of crime or unhappiness upon
the brow of the ancient church.
Afterwards, the wall was whitewashed or scraped down, I know not
which, and the inscription disappeared. For it is thus that
people have been in the habit of proceeding with the marvellous
churches of the Middle Ages for the last two hundred years.
Mutilations come to them from every quarter, from within as well
as from without. The priest whitewashes them, the archdeacon
scrapes them down; then the populace arrives and demolishes them.
Thus, with the exception of the fragile memory which the author
of this book here consecrates to it, there remains to-day nothing
whatever of the mysterious word engraved within the gloomy tower
of Notre-Dame,—nothing of the destiny which it so sadly summed
up. The man who wrote that word upon the wall disappeared from
the midst of the generations of man many centuries ago; the word,
in its turn, has been effaced from the wall of the church; the
church will, perhaps, itself soon disappear from the face of the
earth.
It is upon this word that this book is founded.
March, 1831.
CONTENTS
PREFACE.
VOLUME I.
BOOK FIRST.
CHAPTER I. THE GRAND HALL.
CHAPTER II. PIERRE GRINGOIRE.
CHAPTER III. MONSIEUR THE CARDINAL.
CHAPTER IV. MASTER JACQUES COPPENOLE.
CHAPTER V. QUASIMODO.
CHAPTER VI. ESMERALDA.
BOOK SECOND.
CHAPTER I. FROM CHARYBDIS TO SCYLLA.
CHAPTER II. THE PLACE DE GRÈVE.
CHAPTER III. KISSES FOR BLOWS.
CHAPTER IV. THE INCONVENIENCES OF FOLLOWING A PRETTY WOMAN
THROUGH THE STREETS IN THE EVENING.
CHAPTER V. RESULT OF THE DANGERS.
CHAPTER VI. THE BROKEN JUG.
CHAPTER VII. A BRIDAL NIGHT.
BOOK THIRD.
CHAPTER I. NOTRE-DAME.
CHAPTER II. A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS.
BOOK FOURTH.
CHAPTER I. GOOD SOULS.
CHAPTER II. CLAUDE FROLLO.
CHAPTER III. _IMMANIS PECORIS CUSTOS, IMMANIOR IPSE_.
CHAPTER IV. THE DOG AND HIS MASTER.
CHAPTER V. MORE ABOUT CLAUDE FROLLO.
CHAPTER VI. UNPOPULARITY.
BOOK FIFTH.
CHAPTER I. _ABBAS BEATI MARTINI_.
CHAPTER II. THIS WILL KILL THAT.
BOOK SIXTH.
CHAPTER I. AN IMPARTIAL GLANCE AT THE ANCIENT MAGISTRACY.
CHAPTER II. THE RAT-HOLE.
CHAPTER III. HISTORY OF A LEAVENED CAKE OF MAIZE.
CHAPTER IV. A TEAR FOR A DROP OF WATER.
CHAPTER V. END OF THE STORY OF THE CAKE.
VOLUME II.
BOOK SEVENTH.
CHAPTER I. THE DANGER OF CONFIDING ONE’S SECRET TO A GOAT.
CHAPTER II. A PRIEST AND A PHILOSOPHER ARE TWO DIFFERENT
THINGS.
CHAPTER III. THE BELLS.
CHAPTER IV. ἈΝÁΓΚΗ.
CHAPTER V. THE TWO MEN CLOTHED IN BLACK.
CHAPTER VI. THE EFFECT WHICH SEVEN OATHS IN THE OPEN AIR CAN
PRODUCE.
CHAPTER VII. THE MYSTERIOUS MONK.
CHAPTER VIII. THE UTILITY OF WINDOWS WHICH OPEN ON THE RIVER.
BOOK EIGHTH.
CHAPTER I. THE CROWN CHANGED INTO A DRY LEAF.
CHAPTER II. CONTINUATION OF THE CROWN WHICH WAS CHANGED INTO A
DRY LEAF.
CHAPTER III. END OF THE CROWN WHICH WAS TURNED INTO A DRY
LEAF.
CHAPTER IV. _LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA_—LEAVE ALL HOPE BEHIND, YE
WHO ENTER HERE.
CHAPTER V. THE MOTHER.
CHAPTER VI. THREE HUMAN HEARTS DIFFERENTLY CONSTRUCTED.
BOOK NINTH.
CHAPTER I. DELIRIUM.
CHAPTER II. HUNCHBACKED, ONE EYED, LAME.
CHAPTER III. DEAF.
CHAPTER IV. EARTHENWARE AND CRYSTAL.
CHAPTER V. THE KEY TO THE RED DOOR.
CHAPTER VI. CONTINUATION OF THE KEY TO THE RED DOOR.
BOOK TENTH.
CHAPTER I. GRINGOIRE HAS MANY GOOD IDEAS IN SUCCESSION.—RUE
DES BERNARDINS.
CHAPTER II. TURN VAGABOND.
CHAPTER III. LONG LIVE MIRTH.
CHAPTER IV. AN AWKWARD FRIEND.
CHAPTER V. THE RETREAT IN WHICH MONSIEUR LOUIS OF FRANCE SAYS
HIS PRAYERS.
CHAPTER VI. LITTLE SWORD IN POCKET.
CHAPTER VII. CHATEAUPERS TO THE RESCUE.
BOOK ELEVENTH.
CHAPTER I. THE LITTLE SHOE.
CHAPTER II. THE BEAUTIFUL CREATURE CLAD IN WHITE. (Dante.)
CHAPTER III. THE MARRIAGE OF PHOEBUS.
CHAPTER IV. THE MARRIAGE OF QUASIMODO.
NOTE.
FOOTNOTES.
VOLUME I.
BOOK FIRST.
CHAPTER I. THE GRAND HALL.
Three hundred and forty-eight years, six months, and nineteen
days ago to-day, the Parisians awoke to the sound of all the
bells in the triple circuit of the city, the university, and the
town ringing a full peal.
The sixth of January, 1482, is not, however, a day of which
history has preserved the memory. There was nothing notable in
the event which thus set the bells and the _bourgeois_ of Paris
in a ferment from early morning. It was neither an assault by the
Picards nor the Burgundians, nor a hunt led along in procession,
nor a revolt of scholars in the town of Laas, nor an entry of
“our much dread lord, monsieur the king,” nor even a pretty
hanging of male and female thieves by the courts of Paris.
Neither was it the arrival, so frequent in the fifteenth century,
of some plumed and bedizened embassy. It was barely two days
since the last cavalcade of that nature, that of the Flemish
ambassadors charged with concluding the marriage between the
dauphin and Marguerite of Flanders, had made its entry into
Paris, to the great annoyance of M. le Cardinal de Bourbon, who,
for the sake of pleasing the king, had been obliged to assume an
amiable mien towards this whole rustic rabble of Flemish
burgomasters, and to regale them at his Hôtel de Bourbon, with a
very “pretty morality, allegorical satire, and farce,” while a
driving rain drenched the magnificent tapestries at his door.
What put the “whole population of Paris in commotion,” as Jehan
de Troyes expresses it, on the sixth of January, was the double
solemnity, united from time immemorial, of the Epiphany and the
Feast of Fools.
On that day, there was to be a bonfire on the Place de Grève, a
maypole at the Chapelle de Braque, and a mystery at the Palais de
Justice. It had been cried, to the sound of the trumpet, the
preceding evening at all the cross roads, by the provost’s men,
clad in handsome, short, sleeveless coats of violet camelot, with
large white crosses upon their breasts.
So the crowd of citizens, male and female, having closed their
houses and shops, thronged from every direction, at early morn,
towards some one of the three spots designated.
Each had made his choice; one, the bonfire; another, the maypole;
another, the mystery play. It must be stated, in honor of the
good sense of the loungers of Paris, that the greater part of
this crowd directed their steps towards the bonfire, which was
quite in season, or towards the mystery play, which was to be
presented in the grand hall of the Palais de Justice (the courts
of law), which was well roofed and walled; and that the curious
left the poor, scantily flowered maypole to shiver all alone
beneath the sky of January, in the cemetery of the Chapel of
Braque.
The populace thronged the avenues of the law courts in
particular, because they knew that the Flemish ambassadors, who
had arrived two days previously, intended to be present at the
representation of the mystery, and at the election of the Pope of
the Fools, which was also to take place in the grand hall.
It was no easy matter on that day, to force one’s way into that
grand hall, although it was then reputed to be the largest
covered enclosure in the world (it is true that Sauval had not
yet measured the grand hall of the Château of Montargis). The
palace place, encumbered with people, offered to the curious
gazers at the windows the aspect of a sea; into which five or six
streets, like so many mouths of rivers, discharged every moment
fresh floods of heads. The waves of this crowd, augmented
incessantly, dashed against the angles of the houses which
projected here and there, like so many promontories, into the
irregular basin of the place. In the centre of the lofty
Gothic[1] façade of the palace, the grand staircase, incessantly
ascended and descended by a double current, which, after parting
on the intermediate landing-place, flowed in broad waves along
its lateral slopes,—the grand staircase, I say, trickled
incessantly into the place, like a cascade into a lake. The
cries, the laughter, the trampling of those thousands of feet,
produced a great noise and a great clamor. From time to time,
this noise and clamor redoubled; the current which drove the
crowd towards the grand staircase flowed backwards, became
troubled, formed whirlpools. This was produced by the buffet of
an archer, or the horse of one of the provost’s sergeants, which
kicked to restore order; an admirable tradition which the
provostship has bequeathed to the constablery, the constablery to
the _maréchaussée_, the _maréchaussée_ to our _gendarmeri_ of
Paris.
Thousands of good, calm, _bourgeois_ faces thronged the windows,
the doors, the dormer windows, the roofs, gazing at the palace,
gazing at the populace, and asking nothing more; for many
Parisians content themselves with the spectacle of the
spectators, and a wall behind which something is going on becomes
at once, for us, a very curious thing indeed.
If it could be granted to us, the men of 1830, to mingle in
thought with those Parisians of the fifteenth century, and to
enter with them, jostled, elbowed, pulled about, into that
immense hall of the palace, which was so cramped on that sixth of
January, 1482, the spectacle would not be devoid of either
interest or charm, and we should have about us only things that
were so old that they would seem new.
With the reader’s consent, we will endeavor to retrace in
thought, the impression which he would have experienced in
company with us on crossing the threshold of that grand hall, in
the midst of that tumultuous crowd in surcoats, short, sleeveless
jackets, and doublets.
And, first of all, there is a buzzing in the ears, a dazzlement
in the eyes. Above our heads is a double ogive vault, panelled
with wood carving, painted azure, and sown with golden
fleurs-de-lis; beneath our feet a pavement of black and white
marble, alternating. A few paces distant, an enormous pillar,
then another, then another; seven pillars in all, down the length
of the hall, sustaining the spring of the arches of the double
vault, in the centre of its width. Around four of the pillars,
stalls of merchants, all sparkling with glass and tinsel; around
the last three, benches of oak, worn and polished by the trunk
hose of the litigants, and the robes of the attorneys. Around the
hall, along the lofty wall, between the doors, between the
windows, between the pillars, the interminable row of all the
kings of France, from Pharamond down: the lazy kings, with
pendent arms and downcast eyes; the valiant and combative kings,
with heads and arms raised boldly heavenward. Then in the long,
pointed windows, glass of a thousand hues; at the wide entrances
to the hall, rich doors, finely sculptured; and all, the vaults,
pillars, walls, jambs, panelling, doors, statues, covered from
top to bottom with a splendid blue and gold illumination, which,
a trifle tarnished at the epoch when we behold it, had almost
entirely disappeared beneath dust and spiders in the year of
grace, 1549, when du Breul still admired it from tradition.
Let the reader picture to himself now, this immense, oblong hall,
illuminated by the pallid light of a January day, invaded by a
motley and noisy throng which drifts along the walls, and eddies
round the seven pillars, and he will have a confused idea of the
whole effect of the picture, whose curious details we shall make
an effort to indicate with more precision.
It is certain, that if Ravaillac had not assassinated Henri IV.,
there would have been no documents in the trial of Ravaillac
deposited in the clerk’s office of the Palais de Justice, no
accomplices interested in causing the said documents to
disappear; hence, no incendiaries obliged, for lack of better
means, to burn the clerk’s office in order to burn the documents,
and to burn the Palais de Justice in order to burn the clerk’s
office; consequently, in short, no conflagration in 1618. The old
Palais would be standing still, with its ancient grand hall; I
should be able to say to the reader, “Go and look at it,” and we
should thus both escape the necessity,—I of making, and he of
reading, a description of it, such as it is. Which demonstrates a
new truth: that great events have incalculable results.
It is true that it may be quite possible, in the first place,
that Ravaillac had no accomplices; and in the second, that if he
had any, they were in no way connected with the fire of 1618. Two
other very plausible explanations exist: First, the great flaming
star, a foot broad, and a cubit high, which fell from heaven, as
every one knows, upon the law courts, after midnight on the
seventh of March; second, Théophile’s quatrain,—
“Sure, ’twas but a sorry game
When at Paris, Dame Justice,
Through having eaten too much spice,
Set the palace all aflame.”
Whatever may be thought of this triple explanation, political,
physical, and poetical, of the burning of the law courts in 1618,
the unfortunate fact of the fire is certain. Very little to-day
remains, thanks to this catastrophe,—thanks, above all, to the
successive restorations which have completed what it spared,—very
little remains of that first dwelling of the kings of France,—of
that elder palace of the Louvre, already so old in the time of
Philip the Handsome, that they sought there for the traces of the
magnificent buildings erected by King Robert and described by
Helgaldus. Nearly everything has disappeared. What has become of
the chamber of the chancellery, where Saint Louis consummated his
marriage? the garden where he administered justice, “clad in a
coat of camelot, a surcoat of linsey-woolsey, without sleeves,
and a sur-mantle of black sandal, as he lay upon the carpet with
Joinville?” Where is the chamber of the Emperor Sigismond? and
that of Charles IV.? that of Jean the Landless? Where is the
staircase, from which Charles VI. promulgated his edict of
pardon? the slab where Marcel cut the throats of Robert de
Clermont and the Marshal of Champagne, in the presence of the
dauphin? the wicket where the bulls of Pope Benedict were torn,
and whence those who had brought them departed decked out, in
derision, in copes and mitres, and making an apology through all
Paris? and the grand hall, with its gilding, its azure, its
statues, its pointed arches, its pillars, its immense vault, all
fretted with carvings? and the gilded chamber? and the stone
lion, which stood at the door, with lowered head and tail between
his legs, like the lions on the throne of Solomon, in the
humiliated attitude which befits force in the presence of
justice? and the beautiful doors? and the stained glass? and the
chased ironwork, which drove Biscornette to despair? and the
delicate woodwork of Hancy? What has time, what have men done
with these marvels? What have they given us in return for all
this Gallic history, for all this Gothic art? The heavy flattened
arches of M. de Brosse, that awkward architect of the
Saint-Gervais portal. So much for art; and, as for history, we
have the gossiping reminiscences of the great pillar, still
ringing with the tattle of the Patru.
It is not much. Let us return to the veritable grand hall of the
veritable old palace. The two extremities of this gigantic
parallelogram were occupied, the one by the famous marble table,
so long, so broad, and so thick that, as the ancient land
rolls—in a style that would have given Gargantua an appetite—say,
“such a slice of marble as was never beheld in the world”; the
other by the chapel where Louis XI. had himself sculptured on his
knees before the Virgin, and whither he caused to be brought,
without heeding the two gaps thus made in the row of royal
statues, the statues of Charlemagne and of Saint Louis, two
saints whom he supposed to be great in favor in heaven, as kings
of France. This chapel, quite new, having been built only six
years, was entirely in that charming taste of delicate
architecture, of marvellous sculpture, of fine and deep chasing,
which marks with us the end of the Gothic era, and which is
perpetuated to about the middle of the sixteenth century in the
fairylike fancies of the Renaissance. The little open-work rose
window, pierced above the portal, was, in particular, a
masterpiece of lightness and grace; one would have pronounced it
a star of lace.
In the middle of the hall, opposite the great door, a platform of
gold brocade, placed against the wall, a special entrance to
which had been effected through a window in the corridor of the
gold chamber, had been erected for the Flemish emissaries and the
other great personages invited to the presentation of the mystery
play.
It was upon the marble table that the mystery was to be enacted,
as usual. It had been arranged for the purpose, early in the
morning; its rich slabs of marble, all scratched by the heels of
law clerks, supported a cage of carpenter’s work of considerable
height, the upper surface of which, within view of the whole
hall, was to serve as the theatre, and whose interior, masked by
tapestries, was to take the place of dressing-rooms for the
personages of the piece. A ladder, naively placed on the outside,
was to serve as means of communication between the dressing-room
and the stage, and lend its rude rungs to entrances as well as to
exits. There was no personage, however unexpected, no sudden
change, no theatrical effect, which was not obliged to mount that
ladder. Innocent and venerable infancy of art and contrivances!
Four of the bailiff of the palace’s sergeants, perfunctory
guardians of all the pleasures of the people, on days of festival
as well as on days of execution, stood at the four corners of the
marble table.
The piece was only to begin with the twelfth stroke of the great
palace clock sounding midday. It was very late, no doubt, for a
theatrical representation, but they had been obliged to fix the
hour to suit the convenience of the ambassadors.
Now, this whole multitude had been waiting since morning. A
goodly number of curious, good people had been shivering since
daybreak before the grand staircase of the palace; some even
affirmed that they had passed the night across the threshold of
the great door, in order to make sure that they should be the
first to pass in. The crowd grew more dense every moment, and,
like water, which rises above its normal level, began to mount
along the walls, to swell around the pillars, to spread out on
the entablatures, on the cornices, on the window-sills, on all
the salient points of the architecture, on all the reliefs of the
sculpture. Hence, discomfort, impatience, weariness, the liberty
of a day of cynicism and folly, the quarrels which break forth
for all sorts of causes—a pointed elbow, an iron-shod shoe, the
fatigue of long waiting—had already, long before the hour
appointed for the arrival of the ambassadors, imparted a harsh
and bitter accent to the clamor of these people who were shut in,
fitted into each other, pressed, trampled upon, stifled. Nothing
was to be heard but imprecations on the Flemish, the provost of
the merchants, the Cardinal de Bourbon, the bailiff of the
courts, Madame Marguerite of Austria, the sergeants with their
rods, the cold, the heat, the bad weather, the Bishop of Paris,
the Pope of the Fools, the pillars, the statues, that closed
door, that open window; all to the vast amusement of a band of
scholars and lackeys scattered through the mass, who mingled with
all this discontent their teasing remarks, and their malicious
suggestions, and pricked the general bad temper with a pin, so to
speak.
Among the rest there was a group of those merry imps, who, after
smashing the glass in a window, had seated themselves hardily on
the entablature, and from that point despatched their gaze and
their railleries both within and without, upon the throng in the
hall, and the throng upon the Place. It was easy to see, from
their parodied gestures, their ringing laughter, the bantering
appeals which they exchanged with their comrades, from one end of
the hall to the other, that these young clerks did not share the
weariness and fatigue of the rest of the spectators, and that
they understood very well the art of extracting, for their own
private diversion from that which they had under their eyes, a
spectacle which made them await the other with patience.
“Upon my soul, so it’s you, ‘Joannes Frollo de Molendino!’” cried
one of them, to a sort of little, light-haired imp, with a
well-favored and malign countenance, clinging to the acanthus
leaves of a capital; “you are well named John of the Mill, for
your two arms and your two legs have the air of four wings
fluttering on the breeze. How long have you been here?”
“By the mercy of the devil,” retorted Joannes Frollo, “these four
hours and more; and I hope that they will be reckoned to my
credit in purgatory. I heard the eight singers of the King of
Sicily intone the first verse of seven o’clock mass in the
Sainte-Chapelle.”
“Fine singers!” replied the other, “with voices even more pointed
than their caps! Before founding a mass for Monsieur Saint John,
the king should have inquired whether Monsieur Saint John likes
Latin droned out in a Provençal accent.”
“He did it for the sake of employing those accursed singers of
the King of Sicily!” cried an old woman sharply from among the
crowd beneath the window. “I just put it to you! A thousand
_livres parisi_ for a mass! and out of the tax on sea fish in the
markets of Paris, to boot!”
“Peace, old crone,” said a tall, grave person, stopping up his
nose on the side towards the fishwife; “a mass had to be founded.
Would you wish the king to fall ill again?”
“Bravely spoken, Sire Gilles Lecornu, master furrier of king’s
robes!” cried the little student, clinging to the capital.
A shout of laughter from all the students greeted the unlucky
name of the poor furrier of the king’s robes.
“Lecornu! Gilles Lecornu!” said some.
“_Cornutus et hirsutus_, horned and hairy,” another went on.
“He! of course,” continued the small imp on the capital, “What
are they laughing at? An honorable man is Gilles Lecornu, brother
of Master Jehan Lecornu, provost of the king’s house, son of
Master Mahiet Lecornu, first porter of the Bois de Vincennes,—all
_bourgeois_ of Paris, all married, from father to son.”
The gayety redoubled. The big furrier, without uttering a word in
reply, tried to escape all the eyes riveted upon him from all
sides; but he perspired and panted in vain; like a wedge entering
the wood, his efforts served only to bury still more deeply in
the shoulders of his neighbors, his large, apoplectic face,
purple with spite and rage.
At length one of these, as fat, short, and venerable as himself,
came to his rescue.
“Abomination! scholars addressing a _bourgeois_ in that fashion
in my day would have been flogged with a fagot, which would have
afterwards been used to burn them.”
The whole band burst into laughter.
“Holà hé! who is scolding so? Who is that screech owl of evil
fortune?”
“Hold, I know him” said one of them; “’tis Master Andry Musnier.”
“Because he is one of the four sworn booksellers of the
university!” said the other.
“Everything goes by fours in that shop,” cried a third; “the four
nations, the four faculties, the four feasts, the four
procurators, the four electors, the four booksellers.”
“Well,” began Jean Frollo once more, “we must play the devil with
them.”[2]
“Musnier, we’ll burn your books.”
“Musnier, we’ll beat your lackeys.”
“Musnier, we’ll kiss your wife.”
“That fine, big Mademoiselle Oudarde.”
“Who is as fresh and as gay as though she were a widow.”
“Devil take you!” growled Master Andry Musnier.
“Master Andry,” pursued Jean Jehan, still clinging to his
capital, “hold your tongue, or I’ll drop on your head!”
Master Andry raised his eyes, seemed to measure in an instant the
height of the pillar, the weight of the scamp, mentally
multiplied that weight by the square of the velocity and remained
silent.
Jehan, master of the field of battle, pursued triumphantly:
“That’s what I’ll do, even if I am the brother of an archdeacon!”
“Fine gentry are our people of the university, not to have caused
our privileges to be respected on such a day as this! However,
there is a maypole and a bonfire in the town; a mystery, Pope of
the Fools, and Flemish ambassadors in the city; and, at the
university, nothing!”
“Nevertheless, the Place Maubert is sufficiently large!”
interposed one of the clerks established on the window-sill.
“Down with the rector, the electors, and the procurators!” cried
Joannes.
“We must have a bonfire this evening in the Champ-Gaillard,” went
on the other, “made of Master Andry’s books.”
“And the desks of the scribes!” added his neighbor.
“And the beadles’ wands!”
“And the spittoons of the deans!”
“And the cupboards of the procurators!”
“And the hutches of the electors!”
“And the stools of the rector!”
“Down with them!” put in little Jehan, as counterpoint; “down
with Master Andry, the beadles and the scribes; the theologians,
the doctors and the decretists; the procurators, the electors and
the rector!”
“The end of the world has come!” muttered Master Andry, stopping
up his ears.
“By the way, there’s the rector! see, he is passing through the
Place,” cried one of those in the window.
Each rivalled his neighbor in his haste to turn towards the
Place.
“Is it really our venerable rector, Master Thibaut?” demanded
Jehan Frollo du Moulin, who, as he was clinging to one of the
inner pillars, could not see what was going on outside.
“Yes, yes,” replied all the others, “it is really he, Master
Thibaut, the rector.”
It was, in fact, the rector and all the dignitaries of the
university, who were marching in procession in front of the
embassy, and at that moment traversing the Place. The students
crowded into the window, saluted them as they passed with
sarcasms and ironical applause. The rector, who was walking at
the head of his company, had to support the first broadside; it
was severe.
“Good day, monsieur le recteur! Holà hé! good day there!”
“How does he manage to be here, the old gambler? Has he abandoned
his dice?”
“How he trots along on his mule! her ears are not so long as
his!”
“Holà hé! good day, monsieur le recteur Thibaut! _Tybalde
aleator_! Old fool! old gambler!”
“God preserve you! Did you throw double six often last night?”
“Oh! what a decrepit face, livid and haggard and drawn with the
love of gambling and of dice!”
“Where are you bound for in that fashion, Thibaut, _Tybalde ad
dados_, with your back turned to the university, and trotting
towards the town?”
“He is on his way, no doubt, to seek a lodging in the Rue
Thibautodé?”[3] cried Jehan du M. Moulin.
The entire band repeated this quip in a voice of thunder,
clapping their hands furiously.
“You are going to seek a lodging in the Rue Thibautodé, are you
not, monsieur le recteur, gamester on the side of the devil?”
Then came the turns of the other dignitaries.
“Down with the beadles! down with the mace-bearers!”
“Tell me, Robin Pouissepain, who is that yonder?”
“He is Gilbert de Suilly, _Gilbertus de Soliaco_, the chancellor
of the College of Autun.”
“Hold on, here’s my shoe; you are better placed than I, fling it
in his face.”
“_Saturnalitias mittimus ecce nuces_.”
“Down with the six theologians, with their white surplices!”
“Are those the theologians? I thought they were the white geese
given by Sainte-Geneviève to the city, for the fief of Roogny.”
“Down with the doctors!”
“Down with the cardinal disputations, and quibblers!”
“My cap to you, Chancellor of Sainte-Geneviève! You have done me
a wrong. ’Tis true; he gave my place in the nation of Normandy to
little Ascanio Falzapada, who comes from the province of Bourges,
since he is an Italian.”
“That is an injustice,” said all the scholars. “Down with the
Chancellor of Sainte-Geneviève!”
“Ho hé! Master Joachim de Ladehors! Ho hé! Louis Dahuille! Ho hé
Lambert Hoctement!”
“May the devil stifle the procurator of the German nation!”
“And the chaplains of the Sainte-Chapelle, with their gray
_amices; cum tunices grisis_!”
“_Seu de pellibus grisis fourratis_!”
“Holà hé! Masters of Arts! All the beautiful black copes! all the
fine red copes!”
“They make a fine tail for the rector.”
“One would say that he was a Doge of Venice on his way to his
bridal with the sea.”
“Say, Jehan! here are the canons of Sainte-Geneviève!”
“To the deuce with the whole set of canons!”
“Abbé Claude Choart! Doctor Claude Choart! Are you in search of
Marie la Giffarde?”
“She is in the Rue de Glatigny.”
“She is making the bed of the king of the debauchees.”
“She is paying her four deniers[4] _quatuor denarios_.”
“_Aut unum bombum_.”
“Would you like to have her pay you in the face?”
“Comrades! Master Simon Sanguin, the Elector of Picardy, with his
wife on the crupper!”
“_Post equitem sedet atra cura_—behind the horseman sits black
care.”
“Courage, Master Simon!”
“Good day, Mister Elector!”
“Good night, Madame Electress!”
“How happy they are to see all that!” sighed Joannes de
Molendino, still perched in the foliage of his capital.
Meanwhile, the sworn bookseller of the university, Master Andry
Musnier, was inclining his ear to the furrier of the king’s
robes, Master Gilles Lecornu.
“I tell you, sir, that the end of the world has come. No one has
ever beheld such outbreaks among the students! It is the accursed
inventions of this century that are ruining
everything,—artilleries, bombards, and, above all, printing, that
other German pest. No more manuscripts, no more books! printing
will kill bookselling. It is the end of the world that is drawing
nigh.”
“I see that plainly, from the progress of velvet stuffs,” said
the fur-merchant.
At this moment, midday sounded.
“Ha!” exclaimed the entire crowd, in one voice.
The scholars held their peace. Then a great hurly-burly ensued; a
vast movement of feet, hands, and heads; a general outbreak of
coughs and handkerchiefs; each one arranged himself, assumed his
post, raised himself up, and grouped himself. Then came a great
silence; all necks remained outstretched, all mouths remained
open, all glances were directed towards the marble table. Nothing
made its appearance there. The bailiff’s four sergeants were
still there, stiff, motionless, as painted statues. All eyes
turned to the estrade reserved for the Flemish envoys. The door
remained closed, the platform empty. This crowd had been waiting
since daybreak for three things: noonday, the embassy from
Flanders, the mystery play. Noonday alone had arrived on time.
On this occasion, it was too much.
They waited one, two, three, five minutes, a quarter of an hour;
nothing came. The dais remained empty, the theatre dumb. In the
meantime, wrath had succeeded to impatience. Irritated words
circulated in a low tone, still, it is true. “The mystery! the
mystery!” they murmured, in hollow voices. Heads began to
ferment. A tempest, which was only rumbling in the distance as
yet, was floating on the surface of this crowd. It was Jehan du
Moulin who struck the first spark from it.
“The mystery, and to the devil with the Flemings!” he exclaimed
at the full force of his lungs, twining like a serpent around his
pillar.
The crowd clapped their hands.
“The mystery!” it repeated, “and may all the devils take
Flanders!”
“We must have the mystery instantly,” resumed the student; “or
else, my advice is that we should hang the bailiff of the courts,
by way of a morality and a comedy.”
“Well said,” cried the people, “and let us begin the hanging with
his sergeants.”
A grand acclamation followed. The four poor fellows began to turn
pale, and to exchange glances. The crowd hurled itself towards
them, and they already beheld the frail wooden railing, which
separated them from it, giving way and bending before the
pressure of the throng.
It was a critical moment.
“To the sack, to the sack!” rose the cry on all sides.
At that moment, the tapestry of the dressing-room, which we have
described above, was raised, and afforded passage to a personage,
the mere sight of whom suddenly stopped the crowd, and changed
its wrath into curiosity as by enchantment.
“Silence! silence!”
The personage, but little reassured, and trembling in every limb,
advanced to the edge of the marble table with a vast amount of
bows, which, in proportion as he drew nearer, more and more
resembled genuflections.
In the meanwhile, tranquillity had gradually been restored. All
that remained was that slight murmur which always rises above the
silence of a crowd.
“Messieurs the _bourgeois_,” said he, “and mesdemoiselles the
_bourgeoises_, we shall have the honor of declaiming and
representing, before his eminence, monsieur the cardinal, a very
beautiful morality which has for its title, ‘The Good Judgment of
Madame the Virgin Mary.’ I am to play Jupiter. His eminence is,
at this moment, escorting the very honorable embassy of the Duke
of Austria; which is detained, at present, listening to the
harangue of monsieur the rector of the university, at the gate
Baudets. As soon as his illustrious eminence, the cardinal,
arrives, we will begin.”
It is certain, that nothing less than the intervention of Jupiter
was required to save the four unfortunate sergeants of the
bailiff of the courts. If we had the happiness of having invented
this very veracious tale, and of being, in consequence,
responsible for it before our Lady Criticism, it is not against
us that the classic precept, _Nec deus intersit_, could be
invoked. Moreover, the costume of Seigneur Jupiter, was very
handsome, and contributed not a little towards calming the crowd,
by attracting all its attention. Jupiter was clad in a coat of
mail, covered with black velvet, with gilt nails; and had it not
been for the rouge, and the huge red beard, each of which covered
one-half of his face,—had it not been for the roll of gilded
cardboard, spangled, and all bristling with strips of tinsel,
which he held in his hand, and in which the eyes of the initiated
easily recognized thunderbolts,—had not his feet been
flesh-colored, and banded with ribbons in Greek fashion, he might
have borne comparison, so far as the severity of his mien was
concerned, with a Breton archer from the guard of Monsieur de
Berry.
CHAPTER II. PIERRE GRINGOIRE.
Nevertheless, as be harangued them, the satisfaction and
admiration unanimously excited by his costume were dissipated by
his words; and when he reached that untoward conclusion: “As soon
as his illustrious eminence, the cardinal, arrives, we will
begin,” his voice was drowned in a thunder of hooting.
“Begin instantly! The mystery! the mystery immediately!” shrieked
the people. And above all the voices, that of Johannes de
Molendino was audible, piercing the uproar like the fife’s
derisive serenade: “Commence instantly!” yelped the scholar.
“Down with Jupiter and the Cardinal de Bourbon!” vociferated
Robin Poussepain and the other clerks perched in the window.
“The morality this very instant!” repeated the crowd; “this very
instant! the sack and the rope for the comedians, and the
cardinal!”
Poor Jupiter, haggard, frightened, pale beneath his rouge,
dropped his thunderbolt, took his cap in his hand; then he bowed
and trembled and stammered: “His eminence—the ambassadors—Madame
Marguerite of Flanders—.” He did not know what to say. In truth,
he was afraid of being hung.
Hung by the populace for waiting, hung by the cardinal for not
having waited, he saw between the two dilemmas only an abyss;
that is to say, a gallows.
Luckily, some one came to rescue him from his embarrassment, and
assume the responsibility.
An individual who was standing beyond the railing, in the free
space around the marble table, and whom no one had yet caught
sight of, since his long, thin body was completely sheltered from
every visual ray by the diameter of the pillar against which he
was leaning; this individual, we say, tall, gaunt, pallid, blond,
still young, although already wrinkled about the brow and cheeks,
with brilliant eyes and a smiling mouth, clad in garments of
black serge, worn and shining with age, approached the marble
table, and made a sign to the poor sufferer. But the other was so
confused that he did not see him. The new comer advanced another
step.
“Jupiter,” said he, “my dear Jupiter!”
The other did not hear.
At last, the tall blond, driven out of patience, shrieked almost
in his face,—
“Michel Giborne!”
“Who calls me?” said Jupiter, as though awakened with a start.
“I,” replied the person clad in black.
“Ah!” said Jupiter.
“Begin at once,” went on the other. “Satisfy the populace; I
undertake to appease the bailiff, who will appease monsieur the
cardinal.”
Jupiter breathed once more.
“Messeigneurs the _bourgeois_,” he cried, at the top of his lungs
to the crowd, which continued to hoot him, “we are going to begin
at once.”
“_Evoe Jupiter! Plaudite cives_! All hail, Jupiter! Applaud,
citizens!” shouted the scholars.
“Noël! Noël! good, good,” shouted the people.
The hand clapping was deafening, and Jupiter had already
withdrawn under his tapestry, while the hall still trembled with
acclamations.
In the meanwhile, the personage who had so magically turned the
tempest into dead calm, as our old and dear Corneille puts it,
had modestly retreated to the half-shadow of his pillar, and
would, no doubt, have remained invisible there, motionless, and
mute as before, had he not been plucked by the sleeve by two
young women, who, standing in the front row of the spectators,
had noticed his colloquy with Michel Giborne-Jupiter.
“Master,” said one of them, making him a sign to approach.
“Hold your tongue, my dear Liénarde,” said her neighbor, pretty,
fresh, and very brave, in consequence of being dressed up in her
best attire. “He is not a clerk, he is a layman; you must not say
master to him, but messire.”
“Messire,” said Liénarde.
The stranger approached the railing.
“What would you have of me, damsels?” he asked, with alacrity.
“Oh! nothing,” replied Liénarde, in great confusion; “it is my
neighbor, Gisquette la Gencienne, who wishes to speak with you.”
“Not so,” replied Gisquette, blushing; “it was Liénarde who
called you master; I only told her to say messire.”
The two young girls dropped their eyes. The man, who asked
nothing better than to enter into conversation, looked at them
with a smile.
“So you have nothing to say to me, damsels?”
“Oh! nothing at all,” replied Gisquette.
“Nothing,” said Liénarde.
The tall, light-haired young man retreated a step; but the two
curious maidens had no mind to let slip their prize.
“Messire,” said Gisquette, with the impetuosity of an open
sluice, or of a woman who has made up her mind, “do you know that
soldier who is to play the part of Madame the Virgin in the
mystery?”
“You mean the part of Jupiter?” replied the stranger.
“Hé! yes,” said Liénarde, “isn’t she stupid? So you know
Jupiter?”
“Michel Giborne?” replied the unknown; “yes, madam.”
“He has a fine beard!” said Liénarde.
“Will what they are about to say here be fine?” inquired
Gisquette, timidly.
“Very fine, mademoiselle,” replied the unknown, without the
slightest hesitation.
“What is it to be?” said Liénarde.
“‘The Good Judgment of Madame the Virgin,’—a morality, if you
please, damsel.”
“Ah! that makes a difference,” responded Liénarde.
A brief silence ensued—broken by the stranger.
“It is a perfectly new morality, and one which has never yet been
played.”
“Then it is not the same one,” said Gisquette, “that was given
two years ago, on the day of the entrance of monsieur the legate,
and where three handsome maids played the parts—”
“Of sirens,” said Liénarde.
“And all naked,” added the young man.
Liénarde lowered her eyes modestly. Gisquette glanced at her and
did the same. He continued, with a smile,—
“It was a very pleasant thing to see. To-day it is a morality
made expressly for Madame the Demoiselle of Flanders.”
“Will they sing shepherd songs?” inquired Gisquette.
“Fie!” said the stranger, “in a morality? you must not confound
styles. If it were a farce, well and good.”
“That is a pity,” resumed Gisquette. “That day, at the Ponceau
Fountain, there were wild men and women, who fought and assumed
many aspects, as they sang little motets and bergerettes.”
“That which is suitable for a legate,” returned the stranger,
with a good deal of dryness, “is not suitable for a princess.”
“And beside them,” resumed Liénarde, “played many brass
instruments, making great melodies.”
“And for the refreshment of the passers-by,” continued Gisquette,
“the fountain spouted through three mouths, wine, milk, and
hippocrass, of which every one drank who wished.”
“And a little below the Ponceau, at the Trinity,” pursued
Liénarde, “there was a passion performed, and without any
speaking.”
“How well I remember that!” exclaimed Gisquette; “God on the
cross, and the two thieves on the right and the left.” Here the
young gossips, growing warm at the memory of the entrance of
monsieur the legate, both began to talk at once.
“And, further on, at the Painters’ Gate, there were other
personages, very richly clad.”
“And at the fountain of Saint-Innocent, that huntsman, who was
chasing a hind with great clamor of dogs and hunting-horns.”
“And, at the Paris slaughter-houses, stages, representing the
fortress of Dieppe!”
“And when the legate passed, you remember, Gisquette? they made
the assault, and the English all had their throats cut.”
“And against the gate of the Châtelet, there were very fine
personages!”
“And on the Port au Change, which was all draped above!”
“And when the legate passed, they let fly on the bridge more than
two hundred sorts of birds; wasn’t it beautiful, Liénarde?”
“It will be better to-day,” finally resumed their interlocutor,
who seemed to listen to them with impatience.
“Do you promise us that this mystery will be fine?” said
Gisquette.
“Without doubt,” he replied; then he added, with a certain
emphasis,—“I am the author of it, damsels.”
“Truly?” said the young girls, quite taken aback.
“Truly!” replied the poet, bridling a little; “that is, to say,
there are two of us; Jehan Marchand, who has sawed the planks and
erected the framework of the theatre and the woodwork; and I, who
have made the piece. My name is Pierre Gringoire.”
The author of the “Cid” could not have said “Pierre Corneille”
with more pride.
Our readers have been able to observe, that a certain amount of
time must have already elapsed from the moment when Jupiter had
retired beneath the tapestry to the instant when the author of
the new morality had thus abruptly revealed himself to the
innocent admiration of Gisquette and Liénarde. Remarkable fact:
that whole crowd, so tumultuous but a few moments before, now
waited amiably on the word of the comedian; which proves the
eternal truth, still experienced every day in our theatres, that
the best means of making the public wait patiently is to assure
them that one is about to begin instantly.
However, scholar Johannes had not fallen asleep.
“Holà hé!” he shouted suddenly, in the midst of the peaceable
waiting which had followed the tumult. “Jupiter, Madame the
Virgin, buffoons of the devil! are you jeering at us? The piece!
the piece! commence or we will commence again!”
This was all that was needed.
The music of high and low instruments immediately became audible
from the interior of the stage; the tapestry was raised; four
personages, in motley attire and painted faces, emerged from it,
climbed the steep ladder of the theatre, and, arrived upon the
upper platform, arranged themselves in a line before the public,
whom they saluted with profound reverences; then the symphony
ceased.
The mystery was about to begin.
The four personages, after having reaped a rich reward of
applause for their reverences, began, in the midst of profound
silence, a prologue, which we gladly spare the reader. Moreover,
as happens in our own day, the public was more occupied with the
costumes that the actors wore than with the roles that they were
enacting; and, in truth, they were right. All four were dressed
in parti-colored robes of yellow and white, which were
distinguished from each other only by the nature of the stuff;
the first was of gold and silver brocade; the second, of silk;
the third, of wool; the fourth, of linen. The first of these
personages carried in his right hand a sword; the second, two
golden keys; the third, a pair of scales; the fourth, a spade:
and, in order to aid sluggish minds which would not have seen
clearly through the transparency of these attributes, there was
to be read, in large, black letters, on the hem of the robe of
brocade, MY NAME IS NOBILITY; on the hem of the silken robe, MY
NAME IS CLERGY; on the hem of the woolen robe, MY NAME IS
MERCHANDISE; on the hem of the linen robe, MY NAME IS LABOR. The
sex of the two male characters was briefly indicated to every
judicious spectator, by their shorter robes, and by the cap which
they wore on their heads; while the two female characters, less
briefly clad, were covered with hoods.
Much ill-will would also have been required, not to comprehend,
through the medium of the poetry of the prologue, that Labor was
wedded to Merchandise, and Clergy to Nobility, and that the two
happy couples possessed in common a magnificent golden dolphin,
which they desired to adjudge to the fairest only. So they were
roaming about the world seeking and searching for this beauty,
and, after having successively rejected the Queen of Golconda,
the Princess of Trebizonde, the daughter of the Grand Khan of
Tartary, etc., Labor and Clergy, Nobility and Merchandise, had
come to rest upon the marble table of the Palais de Justice, and
to utter, in the presence of the honest audience, as many
sentences and maxims as could then be dispensed at the Faculty of
Arts, at examinations, sophisms, determinances, figures, and
acts, where the masters took their degrees.
All this was, in fact, very fine.
Nevertheless, in that throng, upon which the four allegories vied
with each other in pouring out floods of metaphors, there was no
ear more attentive, no heart that palpitated more, not an eye was
more haggard, no neck more outstretched, than the eye, the ear,
the neck, and the heart of the author, of the poet, of that brave
Pierre Gringoire, who had not been able to resist, a moment
before, the joy of telling his name to two pretty girls. He had
retreated a few paces from them, behind his pillar, and there he
listened, looked, enjoyed. The amiable applause which had greeted
the beginning of his prologue was still echoing in his bosom, and
he was completely absorbed in that species of ecstatic
contemplation with which an author beholds his ideas fall, one by
one, from the mouth of the actor into the vast silence of the
audience. Worthy Pierre Gringoire!
It pains us to say it, but this first ecstasy was speedily
disturbed. Hardly had Gringoire raised this intoxicating cup of
joy and triumph to his lips, when a drop of bitterness was
mingled with it.
A tattered mendicant, who could not collect any coins, lost as he
was in the midst of the crowd, and who had not probably found
sufficient indemnity in the pockets of his neighbors, had hit
upon the idea of perching himself upon some conspicuous point, in
order to attract looks and alms. He had, accordingly, hoisted
himself, during the first verses of the prologue, with the aid of
the pillars of the reserve gallery, to the cornice which ran
round the balustrade at its lower edge; and there he had seated
himself, soliciting the attention and the pity of the multitude,
with his rags and a hideous sore which covered his right arm.
However, he uttered not a word.
The silence which he preserved allowed the prologue to proceed
without hindrance, and no perceptible disorder would have ensued,
if ill-luck had not willed that the scholar Joannes should catch
sight, from the heights of his pillar, of the mendicant and his
grimaces. A wild fit of laughter took possession of the young
scamp, who, without caring that he was interrupting the
spectacle, and disturbing the universal composure, shouted
boldly,—
“Look! see that sickly creature asking alms!”
Any one who has thrown a stone into a frog pond, or fired a shot
into a covey of birds, can form an idea of the effect produced by
these incongruous words, in the midst of the general attention.
It made Gringoire shudder as though it had been an electric
shock. The prologue stopped short, and all heads turned
tumultuously towards the beggar, who, far from being disconcerted
by this, saw, in this incident, a good opportunity for reaping
his harvest, and who began to whine in a doleful way, half
closing his eyes the while,—“Charity, please!”
“Well—upon my soul,” resumed Joannes, “it’s Clopin Trouillefou!
Holà hé, my friend, did your sore bother you on the leg, that you
have transferred it to your arm?” So saying, with the dexterity
of a monkey, he flung a bit of silver into the gray felt hat
which the beggar held in his ailing arm. The mendicant received
both the alms and the sarcasm without wincing, and continued, in
lamentable tones,—
“Charity, please!”
This episode considerably distracted the attention of the
audience; and a goodly number of spectators, among them Robin
Poussepain, and all the clerks at their head, gayly applauded
this eccentric duet, which the scholar, with his shrill voice,
and the mendicant had just improvised in the middle of the
prologue.
Gringoire was highly displeased. On recovering from his first
stupefaction, he bestirred himself to shout, to the four
personages on the stage, “Go on! What the devil!—go on!”—without
even deigning to cast a glance of disdain upon the two
interrupters.
At that moment, he felt some one pluck at the hem of his surtout;
he turned round, and not without ill-humor, and found
considerable difficulty in smiling; but he was obliged to do so,
nevertheless. It was the pretty arm of Gisquette la Gencienne,
which, passed through the railing, was soliciting his attention
in this manner.
“Monsieur,” said the young girl, “are they going to continue?”
“Of course,” replied Gringoire, a good deal shocked by the
question.
“In that case, messire,” she resumed, “would you have the
courtesy to explain to me—”
“What they are about to say?” interrupted Gringoire. “Well,
listen.”
“No,” said Gisquette, “but what they have said so far.”
Gringoire started, like a man whose wound has been probed to the
quick.
“A plague on the stupid and dull-witted little girl!” he
muttered, between his teeth.
From that moment forth, Gisquette was nothing to him.
In the meantime, the actors had obeyed his injunction, and the
public, seeing that they were beginning to speak again, began
once more to listen, not without having lost many beauties in the
sort of soldered joint which was formed between the two portions
of the piece thus abruptly cut short. Gringoire commented on it
bitterly to himself. Nevertheless, tranquillity was gradually
restored, the scholar held his peace, the mendicant counted over
some coins in his hat, and the piece resumed the upper hand.
It was, in fact, a very fine work, and one which, as it seems to
us, might be put to use to-day, by the aid of a little
rearrangement. The exposition, rather long and rather empty, that
is to say, according to the rules, was simple; and Gringoire, in
the candid sanctuary of his own conscience, admired its
clearness. As the reader may surmise, the four allegorical
personages were somewhat weary with having traversed the three
sections of the world, without having found suitable opportunity
for getting rid of their golden dolphin. Thereupon a eulogy of
the marvellous fish, with a thousand delicate allusions to the
young betrothed of Marguerite of Flanders, then sadly cloistered
in at Amboise, and without a suspicion that Labor and Clergy,
Nobility and Merchandise had just made the circuit of the world
in his behalf. The said dauphin was then young, was handsome, was
stout, and, above all (magnificent origin of all royal virtues),
he was the son of the Lion of France. I declare that this bold
metaphor is admirable, and that the natural history of the
theatre, on a day of allegory and royal marriage songs, is not in
the least startled by a dolphin who is the son of a lion. It is
precisely these rare and Pindaric mixtures which prove the poet’s
enthusiasm. Nevertheless, in order to play the part of critic
also, the poet might have developed this beautiful idea in
something less than two hundred lines. It is true that the
mystery was to last from noon until four o’clock, in accordance
with the orders of monsieur the provost, and that it was
necessary to say something. Besides, the people listened
patiently.
All at once, in the very middle of a quarrel between Mademoiselle
Merchandise and Madame Nobility, at the moment when Monsieur
Labor was giving utterance to this wonderful line,—
In forest ne’er was seen a more triumphant beast;
the door of the reserved gallery which had hitherto remained so
inopportunely closed, opened still more inopportunely; and the
ringing voice of the usher announced abruptly, “His eminence,
Monseigneur the Cardinal de Bourbon.”
CHAPTER III. MONSIEUR THE CARDINAL.
Poor Gringoire! the din of all the great double petards of the
Saint-Jean, the discharge of twenty arquebuses on supports, the
detonation of that famous serpentine of the Tower of Billy,
which, during the siege of Paris, on Sunday, the twenty-sixth of
September, 1465, killed seven Burgundians at one blow, the
explosion of all the powder stored at the gate of the Temple,
would have rent his ears less rudely at that solemn and dramatic
moment, than these few words, which fell from the lips of the
usher, “His eminence, Monseigneur the Cardinal de Bourbon.”
It is not that Pierre Gringoire either feared or disdained
monsieur the cardinal. He had neither the weakness nor the
audacity for that. A true eclectic, as it would be expressed
nowadays, Gringoire was one of those firm and lofty, moderate and
calm spirits, which always know how to bear themselves amid all
circumstances (_stare in dimidio rerum_), and who are full of
reason and of liberal philosophy, while still setting store by
cardinals. A rare, precious, and never interrupted race of
philosophers to whom wisdom, like another Ariadne, seems to have
given a clew of thread which they have been walking along
unwinding since the beginning of the world, through the labyrinth
of human affairs. One finds them in all ages, ever the same; that
is to say, always according to all times. And, without reckoning
our Pierre Gringoire, who may represent them in the fifteenth
century if we succeed in bestowing upon him the distinction which
he deserves, it certainly was their spirit which animated Father
du Breul, when he wrote, in the sixteenth, these naively sublime
words, worthy of all centuries: “I am a Parisian by nation, and a
Parrhisian in language, for _parrhisia_ in Greek signifies
liberty of speech; of which I have made use even towards
messeigneurs the cardinals, uncle and brother to Monsieur the
Prince de Conty, always with respect to their greatness, and
without offending any one of their suite, which is much to say.”
There was then neither hatred for the cardinal, nor disdain for
his presence, in the disagreeable impression produced upon Pierre
Gringoire. Quite the contrary; our poet had too much good sense
and too threadbare a coat, not to attach particular importance to
having the numerous allusions in his prologue, and, in
particular, the glorification of the dauphin, son of the Lion of
France, fall upon the most eminent ear. But it is not interest
which predominates in the noble nature of poets. I suppose that
the entity of the poet may be represented by the number ten; it
is certain that a chemist on analyzing and pharmacopolizing it,
as Rabelais says, would find it composed of one part interest to
nine parts of self-esteem.
Now, at the moment when the door had opened to admit the
cardinal, the nine parts of self-esteem in Gringoire, swollen and
expanded by the breath of popular admiration, were in a state of
prodigious augmentation, beneath which disappeared, as though
stifled, that imperceptible molecule of which we have just
remarked upon in the constitution of poets; a precious
ingredient, by the way, a ballast of reality and humanity,
without which they would not touch the earth. Gringoire enjoyed
seeing, feeling, fingering, so to speak an entire assembly (of
knaves, it is true, but what matters that?) stupefied, petrified,
and as though asphyxiated in the presence of the incommensurable
tirades which welled up every instant from all parts of his
bridal song. I affirm that he shared the general beatitude, and
that, quite the reverse of La Fontaine, who, at the presentation
of his comedy of the “Florentine,” asked, “Who is the ill-bred
lout who made that rhapsody?” Gringoire would gladly have
inquired of his neighbor, “Whose masterpiece is this?”
The reader can now judge of the effect produced upon him by the
abrupt and unseasonable arrival of the cardinal.
That which he had to fear was only too fully realized. The
entrance of his eminence upset the audience. All heads turned
towards the gallery. It was no longer possible to hear one’s
self. “The cardinal! The cardinal!” repeated all mouths. The
unhappy prologue stopped short for the second time.
The cardinal halted for a moment on the threshold of the estrade.
While he was sending a rather indifferent glance around the
audience, the tumult redoubled. Each person wished to get a
better view of him. Each man vied with the other in thrusting his
head over his neighbor’s shoulder.
He was, in fact, an exalted personage, the sight of whom was well
worth any other comedy. Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon, Archbishop
and Comte of Lyon, Primate of the Gauls, was allied both to Louis
XI., through his brother, Pierre, Seigneur de Beaujeu, who had
married the king’s eldest daughter, and to Charles the Bold
through his mother, Agnes of Burgundy. Now, the dominating trait,
the peculiar and distinctive trait of the character of the
Primate of the Gauls, was the spirit of the courtier, and
devotion to the powers that be. The reader can form an idea of
the numberless embarrassments which this double relationship had
caused him, and of all the temporal reefs among which his
spiritual bark had been forced to tack, in order not to suffer
shipwreck on either Louis or Charles, that Scylla and that
Charybdis which had devoured the Duc de Nemours and the Constable
de Saint-Pol. Thanks to Heaven’s mercy, he had made the voyage
successfully, and had reached home without hindrance. But
although he was in port, and precisely because he was in port, he
never recalled without disquiet the varied haps of his political
career, so long uneasy and laborious. Thus, he was in the habit
of saying that the year 1476 had been “white and black” for
him—meaning thereby, that in the course of that year he had lost
his mother, the Duchesse de la Bourbonnais, and his cousin, the
Duke of Burgundy, and that one grief had consoled him for the
other.
Nevertheless, he was a fine man; he led a joyous cardinal’s life,
liked to enliven himself with the royal vintage of Challuau, did
not hate Richarde la Garmoise and Thomasse la Saillarde, bestowed
alms on pretty girls rather than on old women,—and for all these
reasons was very agreeable to the _populace_ of Paris. He never
went about otherwise than surrounded by a small court of bishops
and abbés of high lineage, gallant, jovial, and given to
carousing on occasion; and more than once the good and devout
women of Saint Germain d’ Auxerre, when passing at night beneath
the brightly illuminated windows of Bourbon, had been scandalized
to hear the same voices which had intoned vespers for them during
the day carolling, to the clinking of glasses, the bacchic
proverb of Benedict XII., that pope who had added a third crown
to the Tiara—_Bibamus papaliter_.
It was this justly acquired popularity, no doubt, which preserved
him on his entrance from any bad reception at the hands of the
mob, which had been so displeased but a moment before, and very
little disposed to respect a cardinal on the very day when it was
to elect a pope. But the Parisians cherish little rancor; and
then, having forced the beginning of the play by their authority,
the good _bourgeois_ had got the upper hand of the cardinal, and
this triumph was sufficient for them. Moreover, the Cardinal de
Bourbon was a handsome man,—he wore a fine scarlet robe, which he
carried off very well,—that is to say, he had all the women on
his side, and, consequently, the best half of the audience.
Assuredly, it would be injustice and bad taste to hoot a cardinal
for having come late to the spectacle, when he is a handsome man,
and when he wears his scarlet robe well.
He entered, then, bowed to those present with the hereditary
smile of the great for the people, and directed his course slowly
towards his scarlet velvet arm-chair, with the air of thinking of
something quite different. His cortege—what we should nowadays
call his staff—of bishops and abbés invaded the estrade in his
train, not without causing redoubled tumult and curiosity among
the audience. Each man vied with his neighbor in pointing them
out and naming them, in seeing who should recognize at least one
of them: this one, the Bishop of Marseilles (Alaudet, if my
memory serves me right);—this one, the primicier of
Saint-Denis;—this one, Robert de Lespinasse, Abbé of
Saint-Germain des Prés, that libertine brother of a mistress of
Louis XI.; all with many errors and absurdities. As for the
scholars, they swore. This was their day, their feast of fools,
their saturnalia, the annual orgy of the corporation of law
clerks and of the school. There was no turpitude which was not
sacred on that day. And then there were gay gossips in the
crowd—Simone Quatrelivres, Agnès la Gadine, and Rabine Piédebou.
Was it not the least that one could do to swear at one’s ease and
revile the name of God a little, on so fine a day, in such good
company as dignitaries of the church and loose women? So they did
not abstain; and, in the midst of the uproar, there was a
frightful concert of blasphemies and enormities of all the
unbridled tongues, the tongues of clerks and students restrained
during the rest of the year, by the fear of the hot iron of Saint
Louis. Poor Saint Louis! how they set him at defiance in his own
court of law! Each one of them selected from the new-comers on
the platform, a black, gray, white, or violet cassock as his
target. Joannes Frollo de Molendin, in his quality of brother to
an archdeacon, boldly attacked the scarlet; he sang in deafening
tones, with his impudent eyes fastened on the cardinal, “_Cappa
repleta mero_!”
All these details which we here lay bare for the edification of
the reader, were so covered by the general uproar, that they were
lost in it before reaching the reserved platforms; moreover, they
would have moved the cardinal but little, so much a part of the
customs were the liberties of that day. Moreover, he had another
cause for solicitude, and his mien as wholly preoccupied with it,
which entered the estrade the same time as himself; this was the
embassy from Flanders.
Not that he was a profound politician, nor was he borrowing
trouble about the possible consequences of the marriage of his
cousin Marguerite de Bourgoyne to his cousin Charles, Dauphin de
Vienne; nor as to how long the good understanding which had been
patched up between the Duke of Austria and the King of France
would last; nor how the King of England would take this disdain
of his daughter. All that troubled him but little; and he gave a
warm reception every evening to the wine of the royal vintage of
Chaillot, without a suspicion that several flasks of that same
wine (somewhat revised and corrected, it is true, by Doctor
Coictier), cordially offered to Edward IV. by Louis XI., would,
some fine morning, rid Louis XI. of Edward IV. “The much honored
embassy of Monsieur the Duke of Austria,” brought the cardinal
none of these cares, but it troubled him in another direction. It
was, in fact, somewhat hard, and we have already hinted at it on
the second page of this book,—for him, Charles de Bourbon, to be
obliged to feast and receive cordially no one knows what
_bourgeois_;—for him, a cardinal, to receive aldermen;—for him, a
Frenchman, and a jolly companion, to receive Flemish
beer-drinkers,—and that in public! This was, certainly, one of
the most irksome grimaces that he had ever executed for the good
pleasure of the king.
So he turned toward the door, and with the best grace in the
world (so well had he trained himself to it), when the usher
announced, in a sonorous voice, “Messieurs the Envoys of Monsieur
the Duke of Austria.” It is useless to add that the whole hall
did the same.
Then arrived, two by two, with a gravity which made a contrast in
the midst of the frisky ecclesiastical escort of Charles de
Bourbon, the eight and forty ambassadors of Maximilian of
Austria, having at their head the reverend Father in God, Jehan,
Abbot of Saint-Bertin, Chancellor of the Golden Fleece, and
Jacques de Goy, Sieur Dauby, Grand Bailiff of Ghent. A deep
silence settled over the assembly, accompanied by stifled
laughter at the preposterous names and all the _bourgeois_
designations which each of these personages transmitted with
imperturbable gravity to the usher, who then tossed names and
titles pell-mell and mutilated to the crowd below. There were
Master Loys Roelof, alderman of the city of Louvain; Messire
Clays d’Etuelde, alderman of Brussels; Messire Paul de Baeust,
Sieur de Voirmizelle, President of Flanders; Master Jehan
Coleghens, burgomaster of the city of Antwerp; Master George de
la Moere, first alderman of the kuere of the city of Ghent;
Master Gheldolf van der Hage, first alderman of the _parchons_ of
the said town; and the Sieur de Bierbecque, and Jehan Pinnock,
and Jehan Dymaerzelle, etc., etc., etc.; bailiffs, aldermen,
burgomasters; burgomasters, aldermen, bailiffs—all stiff,
affectedly grave, formal, dressed out in velvet and damask,
hooded with caps of black velvet, with great tufts of Cyprus gold
thread; good Flemish heads, after all, severe and worthy faces,
of the family which Rembrandt makes to stand out so strong and
grave from the black background of his “Night Patrol”; personages
all of whom bore, written on their brows, that Maximilian of
Austria had done well in “trusting implicitly,” as the manifest
ran, “in their sense, valor, experience, loyalty, and good
wisdom.”
There was one exception, however. It was a subtle, intelligent,
crafty-looking face, a sort of combined monkey and diplomat phiz,
before whom the cardinal made three steps and a profound bow, and
whose name, nevertheless, was only, “Guillaume Rym, counsellor
and pensioner of the City of Ghent.”
Few persons were then aware who Guillaume Rym was. A rare genius
who in a time of revolution would have made a brilliant
appearance on the surface of events, but who in the fifteenth
century was reduced to cavernous intrigues, and to “living in
mines,” as the Duc de Saint-Simon expresses it. Nevertheless, he
was appreciated by the “miner” of Europe; he plotted familiarly
with Louis XI., and often lent a hand to the king’s secret jobs.
All which things were quite unknown to that throng, who were
amazed at the cardinal’s politeness to that frail figure of a
Flemish bailiff.
CHAPTER IV. MASTER JACQUES COPPENOLE.
While the pensioner of Ghent and his eminence were exchanging
very low bows and a few words in voices still lower, a man of
lofty stature, with a large face and broad shoulders, presented
himself, in order to enter abreast with Guillaume Rym; one would
have pronounced him a bull-dog by the side of a fox. His felt
doublet and leather jerkin made a spot on the velvet and silk
which surrounded him. Presuming that he was some groom who had
stolen in, the usher stopped him.
“Hold, my friend, you cannot pass!”
The man in the leather jerkin shouldered him aside.
“What does this knave want with me?” said he, in stentorian
tones, which rendered the entire hall attentive to this strange
colloquy. “Don’t you see that I am one of them?”
“Your name?” demanded the usher.
“Jacques Coppenole.”
“Your titles?”
“Hosier at the sign of the ‘Three Little Chains,’ of Ghent.”
The usher recoiled. One might bring one’s self to announce
aldermen and burgomasters, but a hosier was too much. The
cardinal was on thorns. All the people were staring and
listening. For two days his eminence had been exerting his utmost
efforts to lick these Flemish bears into shape, and to render
them a little more presentable to the public, and this freak was
startling. But Guillaume Rym, with his polished smile, approached
the usher.
“Announce Master Jacques Coppenole, clerk of the aldermen of the
city of Ghent,” he whispered, very low.
“Usher,” interposed the cardinal, aloud, “announce Master Jacques
Coppenole, clerk of the aldermen of the illustrious city of
Ghent.”
This was a mistake. Guillaume Rym alone might have conjured away
the difficulty, but Coppenole had heard the cardinal.
“No, cross of God?” he exclaimed, in his voice of thunder,
“Jacques Coppenole, hosier. Do you hear, usher? Nothing more,
nothing less. Cross of God! hosier; that’s fine enough. Monsieur
the Archduke has more than once sought his _gant_[5] in my hose.”
Laughter and applause burst forth. A jest is always understood in
Paris, and, consequently, always applauded.
Let us add that Coppenole was of the people, and that the
auditors which surrounded him were also of the people. Thus the
communication between him and them had been prompt, electric,
and, so to speak, on a level. The haughty air of the Flemish
hosier, by humiliating the courtiers, had touched in all these
plebeian souls that latent sentiment of dignity still vague and
indistinct in the fifteenth century.
This hosier was an equal, who had just held his own before
monsieur the cardinal. A very sweet reflection to poor fellows
habituated to respect and obedience towards the underlings of the
sergeants of the bailiff of Sainte-Geneviève, the cardinal’s
train-bearer.
Coppenole proudly saluted his eminence, who returned the salute
of the all-powerful _bourgeois_ feared by Louis XI. Then, while
Guillaume Rym, a “sage and malicious man,” as Philippe de Comines
puts it, watched them both with a smile of raillery and
superiority, each sought his place, the cardinal quite abashed
and troubled, Coppenole tranquil and haughty, and thinking, no
doubt, that his title of hosier was as good as any other, after
all, and that Marie of Burgundy, mother to that Marguerite whom
Coppenole was to-day bestowing in marriage, would have been less
afraid of the cardinal than of the hosier; for it is not a
cardinal who would have stirred up a revolt among the men of
Ghent against the favorites of the daughter of Charles the Bold;
it is not a cardinal who could have fortified the populace with a
word against her tears and prayers, when the Maid of Flanders
came to supplicate her people in their behalf, even at the very
foot of the scaffold; while the hosier had only to raise his
leather elbow, in order to cause to fall your two heads, most
illustrious seigneurs, Guy d’Hymbercourt and Chancellor Guillaume
Hugonet.
Nevertheless, all was over for the poor cardinal, and he was
obliged to quaff to the dregs the bitter cup of being in such bad
company.
The reader has, probably, not forgotten the impudent beggar who
had been clinging fast to the fringes of the cardinal’s gallery
ever since the beginning of the prologue. The arrival of the
illustrious guests had by no means caused him to relax his hold,
and, while the prelates and ambassadors were packing themselves
into the stalls—like genuine Flemish herrings—he settled himself
at his ease, and boldly crossed his legs on the architrave. The
insolence of this proceeding was extraordinary, yet no one
noticed it at first, the attention of all being directed
elsewhere. He, on his side, perceived nothing that was going on
in the hall; he wagged his head with the unconcern of a
Neapolitan, repeating from time to time, amid the clamor, as from
a mechanical habit, “Charity, please!” And, assuredly, he was,
out of all those present, the only one who had not deigned to
turn his head at the altercation between Coppenole and the usher.
Now, chance ordained that the master hosier of Ghent, with whom
the people were already in lively sympathy, and upon whom all
eyes were riveted—should come and seat himself in the front row
of the gallery, directly above the mendicant; and people were not
a little amazed to see the Flemish ambassador, on concluding his
inspection of the knave thus placed beneath his eyes, bestow a
friendly tap on that ragged shoulder. The beggar turned round;
there was surprise, recognition, a lighting up of the two
countenances, and so forth; then, without paying the slightest
heed in the world to the spectators, the hosier and the wretched
being began to converse in a low tone, holding each other’s
hands, in the meantime, while the rags of Clopin Trouillefou,
spread out upon the cloth of gold of the dais, produced the
effect of a caterpillar on an orange.
The novelty of this singular scene excited such a murmur of mirth
and gayety in the hall, that the cardinal was not slow to
perceive it; he half bent forward, and, as from the point where
he was placed he could catch only an imperfect view of
Trouillerfou’s ignominious doublet, he very naturally imagined
that the mendicant was asking alms, and, disgusted with his
audacity, he exclaimed: “Bailiff of the Courts, toss me that
knave into the river!”
“Cross of God! monseigneur the cardinal,” said Coppenole, without
quitting Clopin’s hand, “he’s a friend of mine.”
“Good! good!” shouted the populace. From that moment, Master
Coppenole enjoyed in Paris as in Ghent, “great favor with the
people; for men of that sort do enjoy it,” says Philippe de
Comines, “when they are thus disorderly.” The cardinal bit his
lips. He bent towards his neighbor, the Abbé of Sainte-Geneviève,
and said to him in a low tone,—“Fine ambassadors monsieur the
archduke sends here, to announce to us Madame Marguerite!”
“Your eminence,” replied the abbé, “wastes your politeness on
these Flemish swine. _Margaritas ante porcos_, pearls before
swine.”
“Say rather,” retorted the cardinal, with a smile, “_Porcos ante
Margaritam_, swine before the pearl.”
The whole little court in cassocks went into ecstacies over this
play upon words. The cardinal felt a little relieved; he was
quits with Coppenole, he also had had his jest applauded.
Now, will those of our readers who possess the power of
generalizing an image or an idea, as the expression runs in the
style of to-day, permit us to ask them if they have formed a very
clear conception of the spectacle presented at this moment, upon
which we have arrested their attention, by the vast parallelogram
of the grand hall of the palace.
In the middle of the hall, backed against the western wall, a
large and magnificent gallery draped with cloth of gold, into
which enter in procession, through a small, arched door, grave
personages, announced successively by the shrill voice of an
usher. On the front benches were already a number of venerable
figures, muffled in ermine, velvet, and scarlet. Around the
dais—which remains silent and dignified—below, opposite,
everywhere, a great crowd and a great murmur. Thousands of
glances directed by the people on each face upon the dais, a
thousand whispers over each name. Certainly, the spectacle is
curious, and well deserves the attention of the spectators. But
yonder, quite at the end, what is that sort of trestle work with
four motley puppets upon it, and more below? Who is that man
beside the trestle, with a black doublet and a pale face? Alas!
my dear reader, it is Pierre Gringoire and his prologue.
We have all forgotten him completely.
This is precisely what he feared.
From the moment of the cardinal’s entrance, Gringoire had never
ceased to tremble for the safety of his prologue. At first he had
enjoined the actors, who had stopped in suspense, to continue,
and to raise their voices; then, perceiving that no one was
listening, he had stopped them; and, during the entire quarter of
an hour that the interruption lasted, he had not ceased to stamp,
to flounce about, to appeal to Gisquette and Liénarde, and to
urge his neighbors to the continuance of the prologue; all in
vain. No one quitted the cardinal, the embassy, and the
gallery—sole centre of this vast circle of visual rays. We must
also believe, and we say it with regret, that the prologue had
begun slightly to weary the audience at the moment when his
eminence had arrived, and created a diversion in so terrible a
fashion. After all, on the gallery as well as on the marble
table, the spectacle was the same: the conflict of Labor and
Clergy, of Nobility and Merchandise. And many people preferred to
see them alive, breathing, moving, elbowing each other in flesh
and blood, in this Flemish embassy, in this Episcopal court,
under the cardinal’s robe, under Coppenole’s jerkin, than
painted, decked out, talking in verse, and, so to speak, stuffed
beneath the yellow amid white tunics in which Gringoire had so
ridiculously clothed them.
Nevertheless, when our poet beheld quiet reestablished to some
extent, he devised a stratagem which might have redeemed all.
“Monsieur,” he said, turning towards one of his neighbors, a
fine, big man, with a patient face, “suppose we begin again.”
“What?” said his neighbor.
“Hé! the Mystery,” said Gringoire.
“As you like,” returned his neighbor.
This semi-approbation sufficed for Gringoire, and, conducting his
own affairs, he began to shout, confounding himself with the
crowd as much as possible: “Begin the mystery again! begin
again!”
“The devil!” said Joannes de Molendino, “what are they jabbering
down yonder, at the end of the hall?” (for Gringoire was making
noise enough for four.) “Say, comrades, isn’t that mystery
finished? They want to begin it all over again. That’s not fair!”
“No, no!” shouted all the scholars. “Down with the mystery! Down
with it!”
But Gringoire had multiplied himself, and only shouted the more
vigorously: “Begin again! begin again!”
These clamors attracted the attention of the cardinal.
“Monsieur Bailiff of the Courts,” said he to a tall, black man,
placed a few paces from him, “are those knaves in a holy-water
vessel, that they make such a hellish noise?”
The bailiff of the courts was a sort of amphibious magistrate, a
sort of bat of the judicial order, related to both the rat and
the bird, the judge and the soldier.
He approached his eminence, and not without a good deal of fear
of the latter’s displeasure, he awkwardly explained to him the
seeming disrespect of the audience: that noonday had arrived
before his eminence, and that the comedians had been forced to
begin without waiting for his eminence.
The cardinal burst into a laugh.
“On my faith, the rector of the university ought to have done the
same. What say you, Master Guillaume Rym?”
“Monseigneur,” replied Guillaume Rym, “let us be content with
having escaped half of the comedy. There is at least that much
gained.”
“Can these rascals continue their farce?” asked the bailiff.
“Continue, continue,” said the cardinal, “it’s all the same to
me. I’ll read my breviary in the meantime.”
The bailiff advanced to the edge of the estrade, and cried, after
having invoked silence by a wave of the hand,—
“_Bourgeois_, rustics, and citizens, in order to satisfy those
who wish the play to begin again, and those who wish it to end,
his eminence orders that it be continued.”
Both parties were forced to resign themselves. But the public and
the author long cherished a grudge against the cardinal.
So the personages on the stage took up their parts, and Gringoire
hoped that the rest of his work, at least, would be listened to.
This hope was speedily dispelled like his other illusions;
silence had indeed, been restored in the audience, after a
fashion; but Gringoire had not observed that at the moment when
the cardinal gave the order to continue, the gallery was far from
full, and that after the Flemish envoys there had arrived new
personages forming part of the _cortège_, whose names and ranks,
shouted out in the midst of his dialogue by the intermittent cry
of the usher, produced considerable ravages in it. Let the reader
imagine the effect in the midst of a theatrical piece, of the
yelping of an usher, flinging in between two rhymes, and often in
the middle of a line, parentheses like the following,—
“Master Jacques Charmolue, procurator to the king in the
Ecclesiastical Courts!”
“Jehan de Harlay, equerry guardian of the office of chevalier of
the night watch of the city of Paris!”
“Messire Galiot de Genoilhac, chevalier, seigneur de Brussac,
master of the king’s artillery!”
“Master Dreux-Raguier, surveyor of the woods and forests of the
king our sovereign, in the land of France, Champagne and Brie!”
“Messire Louis de Graville, chevalier, councillor, and
chamberlain of the king, admiral of France, keeper of the Forest
of Vincennes!”
“Master Denis le Mercier, guardian of the house of the blind at
Paris!” etc., etc., etc.
This was becoming unbearable.
This strange accompaniment, which rendered it difficult to follow
the piece, made Gringoire all the more indignant because he could
not conceal from himself the fact that the interest was
continually increasing, and that all his work required was a
chance of being heard.
It was, in fact, difficult to imagine a more ingenious and more
dramatic composition. The four personages of the prologue were
bewailing themselves in their mortal embarrassment, when Venus in
person, (_vera incessa patuit dea_) presented herself to them,
clad in a fine robe bearing the heraldic device of the ship of
the city of Paris. She had come herself to claim the dolphin
promised to the most beautiful. Jupiter, whose thunder could be
heard rumbling in the dressing-room, supported her claim, and
Venus was on the point of carrying it off,—that is to say,
without allegory, of marrying monsieur the dauphin, when a young
child clad in white damask, and holding in her hand a daisy (a
transparent personification of Mademoiselle Marguerite of
Flanders) came to contest it with Venus.
Theatrical effect and change.
After a dispute, Venus, Marguerite, and the assistants agreed to
submit to the good judgment of time holy Virgin. There was
another good part, that of the king of Mesopotamia; but through
so many interruptions, it was difficult to make out what end he
served. All these persons had ascended by the ladder to the
stage.
But all was over; none of these beauties had been felt nor
understood. On the entrance of the cardinal, one would have said
that an invisible magic thread had suddenly drawn all glances
from the marble table to the gallery, from the southern to the
western extremity of the hall. Nothing could disenchant the
audience; all eyes remained fixed there, and the new-comers and
their accursed names, and their faces, and their costumes,
afforded a continual diversion. This was very distressing. With
the exception of Gisquette and Liénarde, who turned round from
time to time when Gringoire plucked them by the sleeve; with the
exception of the big, patient neighbor, no one listened, no one
looked at the poor, deserted morality full face. Gringoire saw
only profiles.
With what bitterness did he behold his whole erection of glory
and of poetry crumble away bit by bit! And to think that these
people had been upon the point of instituting a revolt against
the bailiff through impatience to hear his work! now that they
had it they did not care for it. This same representation which
had been begun amid so unanimous an acclamation! Eternal flood
and ebb of popular favor! To think that they had been on the
point of hanging the bailiff’s sergeant! What would he not have
given to be still at that hour of honey!
But the usher’s brutal monologue came to an end; every one had
arrived, and Gringoire breathed freely once more; the actors
continued bravely. But Master Coppenole, the hosier, must needs
rise of a sudden, and Gringoire was forced to listen to him
deliver, amid universal attention, the following abominable
harangue.
“Messieurs the _bourgeois_ and squires of Paris, I don’t know,
cross of God! what we are doing here. I certainly do see yonder
in the corner on that stage, some people who appear to be
fighting. I don’t know whether that is what you call a “mystery,”
but it is not amusing; they quarrel with their tongues and
nothing more. I have been waiting for the first blow this quarter
of an hour; nothing comes; they are cowards who only scratch each
other with insults. You ought to send for the fighters of London
or Rotterdam; and, I can tell you! you would have had blows of
the fist that could be heard in the Place; but these men excite
our pity. They ought at least, to give us a moorish dance, or
some other mummer! That is not what was told me; I was promised a
feast of fools, with the election of a pope. We have our pope of
fools at Ghent also; we’re not behindhand in that, cross of God!
But this is the way we manage it; we collect a crowd like this
one here, then each person in turn passes his head through a
hole, and makes a grimace at the rest; time one who makes the
ugliest, is elected pope by general acclamation; that’s the way
it is. It is very diverting. Would you like to make your pope
after the fashion of my country? At all events, it will be less
wearisome than to listen to chatterers. If they wish to come and
make their grimaces through the hole, they can join the game.
What say you, Messieurs les _bourgeois_? You have here enough
grotesque specimens of both sexes, to allow of laughing in
Flemish fashion, and there are enough of us ugly in countenance
to hope for a fine grinning match.”
Gringoire would have liked to retort; stupefaction, rage,
indignation, deprived him of words. Moreover, the suggestion of
the popular hosier was received with such enthusiasm by these
_bourgeois_ who were flattered at being called “squires,” that
all resistance was useless. There was nothing to be done but to
allow one’s self to drift with the torrent. Gringoire hid his
face between his two hands, not being so fortunate as to have a
mantle with which to veil his head, like Agamemnon of Timantis.
CHAPTER V. QUASIMODO.
In the twinkling of an eye, all was ready to execute Coppenole’s
idea. _Bourgeois_, scholars and law clerks all set to work. The
little chapel situated opposite the marble table was selected for
the scene of the grinning match. A pane broken in the pretty rose
window above the door, left free a circle of stone through which
it was agreed that the competitors should thrust their heads. In
order to reach it, it was only necessary to mount upon a couple
of hogsheads, which had been produced from I know not where, and
perched one upon the other, after a fashion. It was settled that
each candidate, man or woman (for it was possible to choose a
female pope), should, for the sake of leaving the impression of
his grimace fresh and complete, cover his face and remain
concealed in the chapel until the moment of his appearance. In
less than an instant, the chapel was crowded with competitors,
upon whom the door was then closed.
Coppenole, from his post, ordered all, directed all, arranged
all. During the uproar, the cardinal, no less abashed than
Gringoire, had retired with all his suite, under the pretext of
business and vespers, without the crowd which his arrival had so
deeply stirred being in the least moved by his departure.
Guillaume Rym was the only one who noticed his eminence’s
discomfiture. The attention of the populace, like the sun,
pursued its revolution; having set out from one end of the hall,
and halted for a space in the middle, it had now reached the
other end. The marble table, the brocaded gallery had each had
their day; it was now the turn of the chapel of Louis XI.
Henceforth, the field was open to all folly. There was no one
there now, but the Flemings and the rabble.
The grimaces began. The first face which appeared at the
aperture, with eyelids turned up to the reds, a mouth open like a
maw, and a brow wrinkled like our hussar boots of the Empire,
evoked such an inextinguishable peal of laughter that Homer would
have taken all these louts for gods. Nevertheless, the grand hall
was anything but Olympus, and Gringoire’s poor Jupiter knew it
better than any one else. A second and third grimace followed,
then another and another; and the laughter and transports of
delight went on increasing. There was in this spectacle, a
peculiar power of intoxication and fascination, of which it would
be difficult to convey to the reader of our day and our salons
any idea.
Let the reader picture to himself a series of visages presenting
successively all geometrical forms, from the triangle to the
trapezium, from the cone to the polyhedron; all human
expressions, from wrath to lewdness; all ages, from the wrinkles
of the new-born babe to the wrinkles of the aged and dying; all
religious phantasmagories, from Faun to Beelzebub; all animal
profiles, from the maw to the beak, from the jowl to the muzzle.
Let the reader imagine all these grotesque figures of the Pont
Neuf, those nightmares petrified beneath the hand of Germain
Pilon, assuming life and breath, and coming in turn to stare you
in the face with burning eyes; all the masks of the Carnival of
Venice passing in succession before your glass,—in a word, a
human kaleidoscope.
The orgy grew more and more Flemish. Teniers could have given but
a very imperfect idea of it. Let the reader picture to himself in
bacchanal form, Salvator Rosa’s battle. There were no longer
either scholars or ambassadors or _bourgeois_ or men or women;
there was no longer any Clopin Trouillefou, nor Gilles Lecornu,
nor Marie Quatrelivres, nor Robin Poussepain. All was universal
license. The grand hall was no longer anything but a vast furnace
of effrontry and joviality, where every mouth was a cry, every
individual a posture; everything shouted and howled. The strange
visages which came, in turn, to gnash their teeth in the rose
window, were like so many brands cast into the brazier; and from
the whole of this effervescing crowd, there escaped, as from a
furnace, a sharp, piercing, stinging noise, hissing like the
wings of a gnat.
“Ho hé! curse it!”
“Just look at that face!”
“It’s not good for anything.”
“Guillemette Maugerepuis, just look at that bull’s muzzle; it
only lacks the horns. It can’t be your husband.”
“Another!”
“Belly of the pope! what sort of a grimace is that?”
“Holà hé! that’s cheating. One must show only one’s face.”
“That damned Perrette Callebotte! she’s capable of that!”
“Good! Good!”
“I’m stifling!”
“There’s a fellow whose ears won’t go through!” Etc., etc.
But we must do justice to our friend Jehan. In the midst of this
witches’ sabbath, he was still to be seen on the top of his
pillar, like the cabin-boy on the topmast. He floundered about
with incredible fury. His mouth was wide open, and from it there
escaped a cry which no one heard, not that it was covered by the
general clamor, great as that was but because it attained, no
doubt, the limit of perceptible sharp sounds, the thousand
vibrations of Sauveur, or the eight thousand of Biot.
As for Gringoire, the first moment of depression having passed,
he had regained his composure. He had hardened himself against
adversity.—“Continue!” he had said for the third time, to his
comedians, speaking machines; then as he was marching with great
strides in front of the marble table, a fancy seized him to go
and appear in his turn at the aperture of the chapel, were it
only for the pleasure of making a grimace at that ungrateful
populace.—“But no, that would not be worthy of us; no, vengeance!
let us combat until the end,” he repeated to himself; “the power
of poetry over people is great; I will bring them back. We shall
see which will carry the day, grimaces or polite literature.”
Alas! he had been left the sole spectator of his piece. It was
far worse than it had been a little while before. He no longer
beheld anything but backs.
I am mistaken. The big, patient man, whom he had already
consulted in a critical moment, had remained with his face turned
towards the stage. As for Gisquette and Liénarde, they had
deserted him long ago.
Gringoire was touched to the heart by the fidelity of his only
spectator. He approached him and addressed him, shaking his arm
slightly; for the good man was leaning on the balustrade and
dozing a little.
“Monsieur,” said Gringoire, “I thank you!”
“Monsieur,” replied the big man with a yawn, “for what?”
“I see what wearies you,” resumed the poet; “’tis all this noise
which prevents your hearing comfortably. But be at ease! your
name shall descend to posterity! Your name, if you please?”
“Renauld Chateau, guardian of the seals of the Châtelet of Paris,
at your service.”
“Monsieur, you are the only representative of the muses here,”
said Gringoire.
“You are too kind, sir,” said the guardian of the seals at the
Châtelet.
“You are the only one,” resumed Gringoire, “who has listened to
the piece decorously. What do you think of it?”
“He! he!” replied the fat magistrate, half aroused, “it’s
tolerably jolly, that’s a fact.”
Gringoire was forced to content himself with this eulogy; for a
thunder of applause, mingled with a prodigious acclamation, cut
their conversation short. The Pope of the Fools had been elected.
“Noël! Noël! Noël!”[6] shouted the people on all sides. That was,
in fact, a marvellous grimace which was beaming at that moment
through the aperture in the rose window. After all the
pentagonal, hexagonal, and whimsical faces, which had succeeded
each other at that hole without realizing the ideal of the
grotesque which their imaginations, excited by the orgy, had
constructed, nothing less was needed to win their suffrages than
the sublime grimace which had just dazzled the assembly. Master
Coppenole himself applauded, and Clopin Trouillefou, who had been
among the competitors (and God knows what intensity of ugliness
his visage could attain), confessed himself conquered: We will do
the same. We shall not try to give the reader an idea of that
tetrahedral nose, that horseshoe mouth; that little left eye
obstructed with a red, bushy, bristling eyebrow, while the right
eye disappeared entirely beneath an enormous wart; of those teeth
in disarray, broken here and there, like the embattled parapet of
a fortress; of that callous lip, upon which one of these teeth
encroached, like the tusk of an elephant; of that forked chin;
and above all, of the expression spread over the whole; of that
mixture of malice, amazement, and sadness. Let the reader dream
of this whole, if he can.
The acclamation was unanimous; people rushed towards the chapel.
They made the lucky Pope of the Fools come forth in triumph. But
it was then that surprise and admiration attained their highest
pitch; the grimace was his face.
Or rather, his whole person was a grimace. A huge head, bristling
with red hair; between his shoulders an enormous hump, a
counterpart perceptible in front; a system of thighs and legs so
strangely astray that they could touch each other only at the
knees, and, viewed from the front, resembled the crescents of two
scythes joined by the handles; large feet, monstrous hands; and,
with all this deformity, an indescribable and redoubtable air of
vigor, agility, and courage,—strange exception to the eternal
rule which wills that force as well as beauty shall be the result
of harmony. Such was the pope whom the fools had just chosen for
themselves.
One would have pronounced him a giant who had been broken and
badly put together again.
When this species of cyclops appeared on the threshold of the
chapel, motionless, squat, and almost as broad as he was tall;
_squared_ on the _base_, as a great man says; with his doublet
half red, half violet, sown with silver bells, and, above all, in
the perfection of his ugliness, the populace recognized him on
the instant, and shouted with one voice,—
“’Tis Quasimodo, the bellringer! ’tis Quasimodo, the hunchback of
Notre-Dame! Quasimodo, the one-eyed! Quasimodo, the bandy-legged!
Noël! Noël!”
It will be seen that the poor fellow had a choice of surnames.
“Let the women with child beware!” shouted the scholars.
“Or those who wish to be,” resumed Joannes.
The women did, in fact, hide their faces.
“Oh! the horrible monkey!” said one of them.
“As wicked as he is ugly,” retorted another.
“He’s the devil,” added a third.
“I have the misfortune to live near Notre-Dame; I hear him
prowling round the eaves by night.”
“With the cats.”
“He’s always on our roofs.”
“He throws spells down our chimneys.”
“The other evening, he came and made a grimace at me through my
attic window. I thought that it was a man. Such a fright as I
had!”
“I’m sure that he goes to the witches’ sabbath. Once he left a
broom on my leads.”
“Oh! what a displeasing hunchback’s face!”
“Oh! what an ill-favored soul!”
“Whew!”
The men, on the contrary, were delighted and applauded.
Quasimodo, the object of the tumult, still stood on the threshold
of the chapel, sombre and grave, and allowed them to admire him.
One scholar (Robin Poussepain, I think), came and laughed in his
face, and too close. Quasimodo contented himself with taking him
by the girdle, and hurling him ten paces off amid the crowd; all
without uttering a word.
Master Coppenole, in amazement, approached him.
“Cross of God! Holy Father! you possess the handsomest ugliness
that I have ever beheld in my life. You would deserve to be pope
at Rome, as well as at Paris.”
So saying, he placed his hand gayly on his shoulder. Quasimodo
did not stir. Coppenole went on,—
“You are a rogue with whom I have a fancy for carousing, were it
to cost me a new dozen of twelve livres of Tours. How does it
strike you?”
Quasimodo made no reply.
“Cross of God!” said the hosier, “are you deaf?”
He was, in truth, deaf.
Nevertheless, he began to grow impatient with Coppenole’s
behavior, and suddenly turned towards him with so formidable a
gnashing of teeth, that the Flemish giant recoiled, like a
bull-dog before a cat.
Then there was created around that strange personage, a circle of
terror and respect, whose radius was at least fifteen geometrical
feet. An old woman explained to Coppenole that Quasimodo was
deaf.
“Deaf!” said the hosier, with his great Flemish laugh. “Cross of
God! He’s a perfect pope!”
“Hé! I recognize him,” exclaimed Jehan, who had, at last,
descended from his capital, in order to see Quasimodo at closer
quarters, “he’s the bellringer of my brother, the archdeacon.
Good-day, Quasimodo!”
“What a devil of a man!” said Robin Poussepain still all bruised
with his fall. “He shows himself; he’s a hunchback. He walks;
he’s bandy-legged. He looks at you; he’s one-eyed. You speak to
him; he’s deaf. And what does this Polyphemus do with his
tongue?”
“He speaks when he chooses,” said the old woman; “he became deaf
through ringing the bells. He is not dumb.”
“That he lacks,” remarks Jehan.
“And he has one eye too many,” added Robin Poussepain.
“Not at all,” said Jehan wisely. “A one-eyed man is far less
complete than a blind man. He knows what he lacks.”
In the meantime, all the beggars, all the lackeys, all the
cutpurses, joined with the scholars, had gone in procession to
seek, in the cupboard of the law clerks’ company, the cardboard
tiara, and the derisive robe of the Pope of the Fools. Quasimodo
allowed them to array him in them without wincing, and with a
sort of proud docility. Then they made him seat himself on a
motley litter. Twelve officers of the fraternity of fools raised
him on their shoulders; and a sort of bitter and disdainful joy
lighted up the morose face of the cyclops, when he beheld beneath
his deformed feet all those heads of handsome, straight,
well-made men. Then the ragged and howling procession set out on
its march, according to custom, around the inner galleries of the
Courts, before making the circuit of the streets and squares.
CHAPTER VI. ESMERALDA.
We are delighted to be able to inform the reader, that during the
whole of this scene, Gringoire and his piece had stood firm. His
actors, spurred on by him, had not ceased to spout his comedy,
and he had not ceased to listen to it. He had made up his mind
about the tumult, and was determined to proceed to the end, not
giving up the hope of a return of attention on the part of the
public. This gleam of hope acquired fresh life, when he saw
Quasimodo, Coppenole, and the deafening escort of the pope of the
procession of fools quit the hall amid great uproar. The throng
rushed eagerly after them. “Good,” he said to himself, “there go
all the mischief-makers.” Unfortunately, all the mischief-makers
constituted the entire audience. In the twinkling of an eye, the
grand hall was empty.
To tell the truth, a few spectators still remained, some
scattered, others in groups around the pillars, women, old men,
or children, who had had enough of the uproar and tumult. Some
scholars were still perched astride of the window-sills, engaged
in gazing into the Place.
“Well,” thought Gringoire, “here are still as many as are
required to hear the end of my mystery. They are few in number,
but it is a choice audience, a lettered audience.”
An instant later, a symphony which had been intended to produce
the greatest effect on the arrival of the Virgin, was lacking.
Gringoire perceived that his music had been carried off by the
procession of the Pope of the Fools. “Skip it,” said he,
stoically.
He approached a group of _bourgeois_, who seemed to him to be
discussing his piece. This is the fragment of conversation which
he caught,—
“You know, Master Cheneteau, the Hôtel de Navarre, which belonged
to Monsieur de Nemours?”
“Yes, opposite the Chapelle de Braque.”
“Well, the treasury has just let it to Guillaume Alixandre,
historian, for six livres, eight sols, parisian, a year.”
“How rents are going up!”
“Come,” said Gringoire to himself, with a sigh, “the others are
listening.”
“Comrades,” suddenly shouted one of the young scamps from the
window, “La Esmeralda! La Esmeralda in the Place!”
This word produced a magical effect. Every one who was left in
the hall flew to the windows, climbing the walls in order to see,
and repeating, “La Esmeralda! La Esmeralda?” At the same time, a
great sound of applause was heard from without.
“What’s the meaning of this, of the Esmeralda?” said Gringoire,
wringing his hands in despair. “Ah, good heavens! it seems to be
the turn of the windows now.”
He returned towards the marble table, and saw that the
representation had been interrupted. It was precisely at the
instant when Jupiter should have appeared with his thunder. But
Jupiter was standing motionless at the foot of the stage.
“Michel Giborne!” cried the irritated poet, “what are you doing
there? Is that your part? Come up!”
“Alas!” said Jupiter, “a scholar has just seized the ladder.”
Gringoire looked. It was but too true. All communication between
his plot and its solution was intercepted.
“The rascal,” he murmured. “And why did he take that ladder?”
“In order to go and see the Esmeralda,” replied Jupiter
piteously. “He said, ‘Come, here’s a ladder that’s of no use!’
and he took it.”
This was the last blow. Gringoire received it with resignation.
“May the devil fly away with you!” he said to the comedian, “and
if I get my pay, you shall receive yours.”
Then he beat a retreat, with drooping head, but the last in the
field, like a general who has fought well.
And as he descended the winding stairs of the courts: “A fine
rabble of asses and dolts these Parisians!” he muttered between
his teeth; “they come to hear a mystery and don’t listen to it at
all! They are engrossed by every one, by Clopin Trouillefou, by
the cardinal, by Coppenole, by Quasimodo, by the devil! but by
Madame the Virgin Mary, not at all. If I had known, I’d have
given you Virgin Mary; you ninnies! And I! to come to see faces
and behold only backs! to be a poet, and to reap the success of
an apothecary! It is true that Homerus begged through the Greek
towns, and that Naso died in exile among the Muscovites. But may
the devil flay me if I understand what they mean with their
Esmeralda! What is that word, in the first place?—’tis Egyptian!”
BOOK SECOND.
CHAPTER I. FROM CHARYBDIS TO SCYLLA.
Night comes on early in January. The streets were already dark
when Gringoire issued forth from the Courts. This gloom pleased
him; he was in haste to reach some obscure and deserted alley, in
order there to meditate at his ease, and in order that the
philosopher might place the first dressing upon the wound of the
poet. Philosophy, moreover, was his sole refuge, for he did not
know where he was to lodge for the night. After the brilliant
failure of his first theatrical venture, he dared not return to
the lodging which he occupied in the Rue Grenier-sur-l’Eau,
opposite to the Port-au-Foin, having depended upon receiving from
monsieur the provost for his epithalamium, the wherewithal to pay
Master Guillaume Doulx-Sire, farmer of the taxes on cloven-footed
animals in Paris, the rent which he owed him, that is to say,
twelve sols parisian; twelve times the value of all that he
possessed in the world, including his trunk-hose, his shirt, and
his cap. After reflecting a moment, temporarily sheltered beneath
the little wicket of the prison of the treasurer of the
Sainte-Chappelle, as to the shelter which he would select for the
night, having all the pavements of Paris to choose from, he
remembered to have noticed the week previously in the Rue de la
Savaterie, at the door of a councillor of the parliament, a
stepping stone for mounting a mule, and to have said to himself
that that stone would furnish, on occasion, a very excellent
pillow for a mendicant or a poet. He thanked Providence for
having sent this happy idea to him; but, as he was preparing to
cross the Place, in order to reach the tortuous labyrinth of the
city, where meander all those old sister streets, the Rues de la
Barillerie, de la Vieille-Draperie, de la Savaterie, de la
Juiverie, etc., still extant to-day, with their nine-story
houses, he saw the procession of the Pope of the Fools, which was
also emerging from the court house, and rushing across the
courtyard, with great cries, a great flashing of torches, and the
music which belonged to him, Gringoire. This sight revived the
pain of his self-love; he fled. In the bitterness of his dramatic
misadventure, everything which reminded him of the festival of
that day irritated his wound and made it bleed.
He was on the point of turning to the Pont Saint-Michel; children
were running about here and there with fire lances and rockets.
“Pest on firework candles!” said Gringoire; and he fell back on
the Pont au Change. To the house at the head of the bridge there
had been affixed three small banners, representing the king, the
dauphin, and Marguerite of Flanders, and six little pennons on
which were portrayed the Duke of Austria, the Cardinal de
Bourbon, M. de Beaujeu, and Madame Jeanne de France, and Monsieur
the Bastard of Bourbon, and I know not whom else; all being
illuminated with torches. The rabble were admiring.
“Happy painter, Jehan Fourbault!” said Gringoire with a deep
sigh; and he turned his back upon the bannerets and pennons. A
street opened before him; he thought it so dark and deserted that
he hoped to there escape from all the rumors as well as from all
the gleams of the festival. At the end of a few moments his foot
came in contact with an obstacle; he stumbled and fell. It was
the May truss, which the clerks of the clerks’ law court had
deposited that morning at the door of a president of the
parliament, in honor of the solemnity of the day. Gringoire bore
this new disaster heroically; he picked himself up, and reached
the water’s edge. After leaving behind him the civic Tournelle[7]
and the criminal tower, and skirted the great walls of the king’s
garden, on that unpaved strand where the mud reached to his
ankles, he reached the western point of the city, and considered
for some time the islet of the Passeur-aux-Vaches, which has
disappeared beneath the bronze horse of the Pont Neuf. The islet
appeared to him in the shadow like a black mass, beyond the
narrow strip of whitish water which separated him from it. One
could divine by the ray of a tiny light the sort of hut in the
form of a beehive where the ferryman of cows took refuge at
night.
“Happy ferryman!” thought Gringoire; “you do not dream of glory,
and you do not make marriage songs! What matters it to you, if
kings and Duchesses of Burgundy marry? You know no other daisies
(_marguerites_) than those which your April greensward gives your
cows to browse upon; while I, a poet, am hooted, and shiver, and
owe twelve sous, and the soles of my shoes are so transparent,
that they might serve as glasses for your lantern! Thanks,
ferryman, your cabin rests my eyes, and makes me forget Paris!”
He was roused from his almost lyric ecstacy, by a big double
Saint-Jean cracker, which suddenly went off from the happy cabin.
It was the cow ferryman, who was taking his part in the
rejoicings of the day, and letting off fireworks.
This cracker made Gringoire’s skin bristle up all over.
“Accursed festival!” he exclaimed, “wilt thou pursue me
everywhere? Oh! good God! even to the ferryman’s!”
Then he looked at the Seine at his feet, and a horrible
temptation took possession of him:
“Oh!” said he, “I would gladly drown myself, were the water not
so cold!”
Then a desperate resolution occurred to him. It was, since he
could not escape from the Pope of the Fools, from Jehan
Fourbault’s bannerets, from May trusses, from squibs and
crackers, to go to the Place de Grève.
“At least,” he said to himself, “I shall there have a firebrand
of joy wherewith to warm myself, and I can sup on some crumbs of
the three great armorial bearings of royal sugar which have been
erected on the public refreshment-stall of the city.”
CHAPTER II. THE PLACE DE GRÈVE.
There remains to-day but a very imperceptible vestige of the
Place de Grève, such as it existed then; it consists in the
charming little turret, which occupies the angle north of the
Place, and which, already enshrouded in the ignoble plaster which
fills with paste the delicate lines of its sculpture, would soon
have disappeared, perhaps submerged by that flood of new houses
which so rapidly devours all the ancient façades of Paris.
The persons who, like ourselves, never cross the Place de Grève
without casting a glance of pity and sympathy on that poor turret
strangled between two hovels of the time of Louis XV., can easily
reconstruct in their minds the aggregate of edifices to which it
belonged, and find again entire in it the ancient Gothic place of
the fifteenth century.
It was then, as it is to-day, an irregular trapezoid, bordered on
one side by the quay, and on the other three by a series of
lofty, narrow, and gloomy houses. By day, one could admire the
variety of its edifices, all sculptured in stone or wood, and
already presenting complete specimens of the different domestic
architectures of the Middle Ages, running back from the fifteenth
to the eleventh century, from the casement which had begun to
dethrone the arch, to the Roman semicircle, which had been
supplanted by the ogive, and which still occupies, below it, the
first story of that ancient house de la Tour Roland, at the
corner of the Place upon the Seine, on the side of the street
with the Tannerie. At night, one could distinguish nothing of all
that mass of buildings, except the black indentation of the
roofs, unrolling their chain of acute angles round the place; for
one of the radical differences between the cities of that time,
and the cities of the present day, lay in the façades which
looked upon the places and streets, and which were then gables.
For the last two centuries the houses have been turned round.
In the centre of the eastern side of the Place, rose a heavy and
hybrid construction, formed of three buildings placed in
juxtaposition. It was called by three names which explain its
history, its destination, and its architecture: “The House of the
Dauphin,” because Charles V., when Dauphin, had inhabited it;
“The Marchandise,” because it had served as town hall; and “The
Pillared House” (_domus ad piloria_), because of a series of
large pillars which sustained the three stories. The city found
there all that is required for a city like Paris; a chapel in
which to pray to God; a _plaidoyer_, or pleading room, in which
to hold hearings, and to repel, at need, the King’s people; and
under the roof, an _arsenac_ full of artillery. For the
_bourgeois_ of Paris were aware that it is not sufficient to pray
in every conjuncture, and to plead for the franchises of the
city, and they had always in reserve, in the garret of the town
hall, a few good rusty arquebuses. The Grève had then that
sinister aspect which it preserves to-day from the execrable
ideas which it awakens, and from the sombre town hall of
Dominique Bocador, which has replaced the Pillared House. It must
be admitted that a permanent gibbet and a pillory, “a justice and
a ladder,” as they were called in that day, erected side by side
in the centre of the pavement, contributed not a little to cause
eyes to be turned away from that fatal place, where so many
beings full of life and health have agonized; where, fifty years
later, that fever of Saint Vallier was destined to have its
birth, that terror of the scaffold, the most monstrous of all
maladies because it comes not from God, but from man.
It is a consoling idea (let us remark in passing), to think that
the death penalty, which three hundred years ago still encumbered
with its iron wheels, its stone gibbets, and all its
paraphernalia of torture, permanent and riveted to the pavement,
the Grève, the Halles, the Place Dauphine, the Cross du Trahoir,
the Marché aux Pourceaux, that hideous Montfaucon, the barrier
des Sergents, the Place aux Chats, the Porte Saint-Denis,
Champeaux, the Porte Baudets, the Porte Saint Jacques, without
reckoning the innumerable ladders of the provosts, the bishop of
the chapters, of the abbots, of the priors, who had the decree of
life and death,—without reckoning the judicial drownings in the
river Seine; it is consoling to-day, after having lost
successively all the pieces of its armor, its luxury of torment,
its penalty of imagination and fancy, its torture for which it
reconstructed every five years a leather bed at the Grand
Châtelet, that ancient suzerain of feudal society almost expunged
from our laws and our cities, hunted from code to code, chased
from place to place, has no longer, in our immense Paris, any
more than a dishonored corner of the Grève,—than a miserable
guillotine, furtive, uneasy, shameful, which seems always afraid
of being caught in the act, so quickly does it disappear after
having dealt its blow.
CHAPTER III. KISSES FOR BLOWS.
When Pierre Gringoire arrived on the Place de Grève, he was
paralyzed. He had directed his course across the Pont aux
Meuniers, in order to avoid the rabble on the Pont au Change, and
the pennons of Jehan Fourbault; but the wheels of all the
bishop’s mills had splashed him as he passed, and his doublet was
drenched; it seemed to him besides, that the failure of his piece
had rendered him still more sensible to cold than usual. Hence he
made haste to draw near the bonfire, which was burning
magnificently in the middle of the Place. But a considerable
crowd formed a circle around it.
“Accursed Parisians!” he said to himself (for Gringoire, like a
true dramatic poet, was subject to monologues) “there they are
obstructing my fire! Nevertheless, I am greatly in need of a
chimney corner; my shoes drink in the water, and all those cursed
mills wept upon me! That devil of a Bishop of Paris, with his
mills! I’d just like to know what use a bishop can make of a
mill! Does he expect to become a miller instead of a bishop? If
only my malediction is needed for that, I bestow it upon him! and
his cathedral, and his mills! Just see if those boobies will put
themselves out! Move aside! I’d like to know what they are doing
there! They are warming themselves, much pleasure may it give
them! They are watching a hundred fagots burn; a fine spectacle!”
On looking more closely, he perceived that the circle was much
larger than was required simply for the purpose of getting warm
at the king’s fire, and that this concourse of people had not
been attracted solely by the beauty of the hundred fagots which
were burning.
In a vast space left free between the crowd and the fire, a young
girl was dancing.
Whether this young girl was a human being, a fairy, or an angel,
is what Gringoire, sceptical philosopher and ironical poet that
he was, could not decide at the first moment, so fascinated was
he by this dazzling vision.
She was not tall, though she seemed so, so boldly did her slender
form dart about. She was swarthy of complexion, but one divined
that, by day, her skin must possess that beautiful golden tone of
the Andalusians and the Roman women. Her little foot, too, was
Andalusian, for it was both pinched and at ease in its graceful
shoe. She danced, she turned, she whirled rapidly about on an old
Persian rug, spread negligently under her feet; and each time
that her radiant face passed before you, as she whirled, her
great black eyes darted a flash of lightning at you.
All around her, all glances were riveted, all mouths open; and,
in fact, when she danced thus, to the humming of the Basque
tambourine, which her two pure, rounded arms raised above her
head, slender, frail and vivacious as a wasp, with her corsage of
gold without a fold, her variegated gown puffing out, her bare
shoulders, her delicate limbs, which her petticoat revealed at
times, her black hair, her eyes of flame, she was a supernatural
creature.
“In truth,” said Gringoire to himself, “she is a salamander, she
is a nymph, she is a goddess, she is a bacchante of the Menelean
Mount!”
At that moment, one of the salamander’s braids of hair became
unfastened, and a piece of yellow copper which was attached to
it, rolled to the ground.
“Hé, no!” said he, “she is a gypsy!”
All illusions had disappeared.
She began her dance once more; she took from the ground two
swords, whose points she rested against her brow, and which she
made to turn in one direction, while she turned in the other; it
was a purely gypsy effect. But, disenchanted though Gringoire
was, the whole effect of this picture was not without its charm
and its magic; the bonfire illuminated, with a red flaring light,
which trembled, all alive, over the circle of faces in the crowd,
on the brow of the young girl, and at the background of the Place
cast a pallid reflection, on one side upon the ancient, black,
and wrinkled façade of the House of Pillars, on the other, upon
the old stone gibbet.
Among the thousands of visages which that light tinged with
scarlet, there was one which seemed, even more than all the
others, absorbed in contemplation of the dancer. It was the face
of a man, austere, calm, and sombre. This man, whose costume was
concealed by the crowd which surrounded him, did not appear to be
more than five and thirty years of age; nevertheless, he was
bald; he had merely a few tufts of thin, gray hair on his
temples; his broad, high forehead had begun to be furrowed with
wrinkles, but his deep-set eyes sparkled with extraordinary
youthfulness, an ardent life, a profound passion. He kept them
fixed incessantly on the gypsy, and, while the giddy young girl
of sixteen danced and whirled, for the pleasure of all, his
revery seemed to become more and more sombre. From time to time,
a smile and a sigh met upon his lips, but the smile was more
melancholy than the sigh.
The young girl, stopped at length, breathless, and the people
applauded her lovingly.
“Djali!” said the gypsy.
Then Gringoire saw come up to her, a pretty little white goat,
alert, wide-awake, glossy, with gilded horns, gilded hoofs, and
gilded collar, which he had not hitherto perceived, and which had
remained lying curled up on one corner of the carpet watching his
mistress dance.
“Djali!” said the dancer, “it is your turn.”
And, seating herself, she gracefully presented her tambourine to
the goat.
“Djali,” she continued, “what month is this?”
The goat lifted its fore foot, and struck one blow upon the
tambourine. It was the first month in the year, in fact.
“Djali,” pursued the young girl, turning her tambourine round,
“what day of the month is this?”
Djali raised his little gilt hoof, and struck six blows on the
tambourine.
“Djali,” pursued the Egyptian, with still another movement of the
tambourine, “what hour of the day is it?”
Djali struck seven blows. At that moment, the clock of the Pillar
House rang out seven.
The people were amazed.
“There’s sorcery at the bottom of it,” said a sinister voice in
the crowd. It was that of the bald man, who never removed his
eyes from the gypsy.
She shuddered and turned round; but applause broke forth and
drowned the morose exclamation.
It even effaced it so completely from her mind, that she
continued to question her goat.
“Djali, what does Master Guichard Grand-Remy, captain of the
pistoliers of the town do, at the procession of Candlemas?”
Djali reared himself on his hind legs, and began to bleat,
marching along with so much dainty gravity, that the entire
circle of spectators burst into a laugh at this parody of the
interested devoutness of the captain of pistoliers.
“Djali,” resumed the young girl, emboldened by her growing
success, “how preaches Master Jacques Charmolue, procurator to
the king in the ecclesiastical court?”
The goat seated himself on his hind quarters, and began to bleat,
waving his fore feet in so strange a manner, that, with the
exception of the bad French, and worse Latin, Jacques Charmolue
was there complete,—gesture, accent, and attitude.
And the crowd applauded louder than ever.
“Sacrilege! profanation!” resumed the voice of the bald man.
The gypsy turned round once more.
“Ah!” said she, “’tis that villanous man!” Then, thrusting her
under lip out beyond the upper, she made a little pout, which
appeared to be familiar to her, executed a pirouette on her heel,
and set about collecting in her tambourine the gifts of the
multitude.
Big blanks, little blanks, targes[8] and eagle liards showered
into it.
All at once, she passed in front of Gringoire. Gringoire put his
hand so recklessly into his pocket that she halted. “The devil!”
said the poet, finding at the bottom of his pocket the reality,
that is, to say, a void. In the meantime, the pretty girl stood
there, gazing at him with her big eyes, and holding out her
tambourine to him and waiting. Gringoire broke into a violent
perspiration.
If he had all Peru in his pocket, he would certainly have given
it to the dancer; but Gringoire had not Peru, and, moreover,
America had not yet been discovered.
Happily, an unexpected incident came to his rescue.
“Will you take yourself off, you Egyptian grasshopper?” cried a
sharp voice, which proceeded from the darkest corner of the
Place.
The young girl turned round in affright. It was no longer the
voice of the bald man; it was the voice of a woman, bigoted and
malicious.
However, this cry, which alarmed the gypsy, delighted a troop of
children who were prowling about there.
“It is the recluse of the Tour-Roland,” they exclaimed, with wild
laughter, “it is the sacked nun who is scolding! Hasn’t she
supped? Let’s carry her the remains of the city refreshments!”
All rushed towards the Pillar House.
In the meanwhile, Gringoire had taken advantage of the dancer’s
embarrassment, to disappear. The children’s shouts had reminded
him that he, also, had not supped, so he ran to the public
buffet. But the little rascals had better legs than he; when he
arrived, they had stripped the table. There remained not so much
as a miserable _camichon_ at five sous the pound. Nothing
remained upon the wall but slender fleurs-de-lis, mingled with
rose bushes, painted in 1434 by Mathieu Biterne. It was a meagre
supper.
It is an unpleasant thing to go to bed without supper, it is a
still less pleasant thing not to sup and not to know where one is
to sleep. That was Gringoire’s condition. No supper, no shelter;
he saw himself pressed on all sides by necessity, and he found
necessity very crabbed. He had long ago discovered the truth,
that Jupiter created men during a fit of misanthropy, and that
during a wise man’s whole life, his destiny holds his philosophy
in a state of siege. As for himself, he had never seen the
blockade so complete; he heard his stomach sounding a parley, and
he considered it very much out of place that evil destiny should
capture his philosophy by famine.
This melancholy revery was absorbing him more and more, when a
song, quaint but full of sweetness, suddenly tore him from it. It
was the young gypsy who was singing.
Her voice was like her dancing, like her beauty. It was
indefinable and charming; something pure and sonorous, aerial,
winged, so to speak. There were continual outbursts, melodies,
unexpected cadences, then simple phrases strewn with aerial and
hissing notes; then floods of scales which would have put a
nightingale to rout, but in which harmony was always present;
then soft modulations of octaves which rose and fell, like the
bosom of the young singer. Her beautiful face followed, with
singular mobility, all the caprices of her song, from the wildest
inspiration to the chastest dignity. One would have pronounced
her now a mad creature, now a queen.
The words which she sang were in a tongue unknown to Gringoire,
and which seemed to him to be unknown to herself, so little
relation did the expression which she imparted to her song bear
to the sense of the words. Thus, these four lines, in her mouth,
were madly gay,—
Un cofre de gran riqueza
Hallaron dentro un pilar,
Dentro del, nuevas banderas
Con figuras de espantar.[9]
And an instant afterwards, at the accents which she imparted to
this stanza,—
Alarabes de cavallo
Sin poderse menear,
Con espadas, y los cuellos,
Ballestas de buen echar,
Gringoire felt the tears start to his eyes. Nevertheless, her
song breathed joy, most of all, and she seemed to sing like a
bird, from serenity and heedlessness.
The gypsy’s song had disturbed Gringoire’s revery as the swan
disturbs the water. He listened in a sort of rapture, and
forgetfulness of everything. It was the first moment in the
course of many hours when he did not feel that he suffered.
The moment was brief.
The same woman’s voice, which had interrupted the gypsy’s dance,
interrupted her song.
“Will you hold your tongue, you cricket of hell?” it cried, still
from the same obscure corner of the place.
The poor “cricket” stopped short. Gringoire covered up his ears.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, “accursed saw with missing teeth, which comes
to break the lyre!”
Meanwhile, the other spectators murmured like himself; “To the
devil with the sacked nun!” said some of them. And the old
invisible kill-joy might have had occasion to repent of her
aggressions against the gypsy had their attention not been
diverted at this moment by the procession of the Pope of the
Fools, which, after having traversed many streets and squares,
debouched on the Place de Grève, with all its torches and all its
uproar.
This procession, which our readers have seen set out from the
Palais de Justice, had organized on the way, and had been
recruited by all the knaves, idle thieves, and unemployed
vagabonds in Paris; so that it presented a very respectable
aspect when it arrived at the Grève.
First came Egypt. The Duke of Egypt headed it, on horseback, with
his counts on foot holding his bridle and stirrups for him;
behind them, the male and female Egyptians, pell-mell, with their
little children crying on their shoulders; all—duke, counts, and
populace—in rags and tatters. Then came the Kingdom of Argot;
that is to say, all the thieves of France, arranged according to
the order of their dignity; the minor people walking first. Thus
defiled by fours, with the divers insignia of their grades, in
that strange faculty, most of them lame, some cripples, others
one-armed, shop clerks, pilgrims, _hubins_, bootblacks,
thimble-riggers, street arabs, beggars, the blear-eyed beggars,
thieves, the weakly, vagabonds, merchants, sham soldiers,
goldsmiths, passed masters of pickpockets, isolated thieves. A
catalogue that would weary Homer. In the centre of the conclave
of the passed masters of pickpockets, one had some difficulty in
distinguishing the King of Argot, the grand coësre, so called,
crouching in a little cart drawn by two big dogs. After the
kingdom of the Argotiers, came the Empire of Galilee. Guillaume
Rousseau, Emperor of the Empire of Galilee, marched majestically
in his robe of purple, spotted with wine, preceded by buffoons
wrestling and executing military dances; surrounded by his
macebearers, his pickpockets and clerks of the chamber of
accounts. Last of all came the corporation of law clerks, with
its maypoles crowned with flowers, its black robes, its music
worthy of the orgy, and its large candles of yellow wax. In the
centre of this crowd, the grand officers of the Brotherhood of
Fools bore on their shoulders a litter more loaded down with
candles than the reliquary of Sainte-Geneviève in time of pest;
and on this litter shone resplendent, with crosier, cope, and
mitre, the new Pope of the Fools, the bellringer of Notre-Dame,
Quasimodo the hunchback.
Each section of this grotesque procession had its own music. The
Egyptians made their drums and African tambourines resound. The
slang men, not a very musical race, still clung to the goat’s
horn trumpet and the Gothic rubebbe of the twelfth century. The
Empire of Galilee was not much more advanced; among its music one
could hardly distinguish some miserable rebec, from the infancy
of the art, still imprisoned in the _ré-la-mi_. But it was around
the Pope of the Fools that all the musical riches of the epoch
were displayed in a magnificent discord. It was nothing but
soprano rebecs, counter-tenor rebecs, and tenor rebecs, not to
reckon the flutes and brass instruments. Alas! our readers will
remember that this was Gringoire’s orchestra.
It is difficult to convey an idea of the degree of proud and
blissful expansion to which the sad and hideous visage of
Quasimodo had attained during the transit from the Palais de
Justice, to the Place de Grève. It was the first enjoyment of
self-love that he had ever experienced. Down to that day, he had
known only humiliation, disdain for his condition, disgust for
his person. Hence, deaf though he was, he enjoyed, like a
veritable pope, the acclamations of that throng, which he hated
because he felt that he was hated by it. What mattered it that
his people consisted of a pack of fools, cripples, thieves, and
beggars? it was still a people and he was its sovereign. And he
accepted seriously all this ironical applause, all this derisive
respect, with which the crowd mingled, it must be admitted, a
good deal of very real fear. For the hunchback was robust; for
the bandy-legged fellow was agile; for the deaf man was
malicious: three qualities which temper ridicule.
We are far from believing, however, that the new Pope of the
Fools understood both the sentiments which he felt and the
sentiments which he inspired. The spirit which was lodged in this
failure of a body had, necessarily, something incomplete and deaf
about it. Thus, what he felt at the moment was to him, absolutely
vague, indistinct, and confused. Only joy made itself felt, only
pride dominated. Around that sombre and unhappy face, there hung
a radiance.
It was, then, not without surprise and alarm, that at the very
moment when Quasimodo was passing the Pillar House, in that
semi-intoxicated state, a man was seen to dart from the crowd,
and to tear from his hands, with a gesture of anger, his crosier
of gilded wood, the emblem of his mock popeship.
This man, this rash individual, was the man with the bald brow,
who, a moment earlier, standing with the gypsy’s group had
chilled the poor girl with his words of menace and of hatred. He
was dressed in an ecclesiastical costume. At the moment when he
stood forth from the crowd, Gringoire, who had not noticed him up
to that time, recognized him: “Hold!” he said, with an
exclamation of astonishment. “Eh! ’tis my master in Hermes, Dom
Claude Frollo, the archdeacon! What the devil does he want of
that old one-eyed fellow? He’ll get himself devoured!”
A cry of terror arose, in fact. The formidable Quasimodo had
hurled himself from the litter, and the women turned aside their
eyes in order not to see him tear the archdeacon asunder.
He made one bound as far as the priest, looked at him, and fell
upon his knees.
The priest tore off his tiara, broke his crozier, and rent his
tinsel cope.
Quasimodo remained on his knees, with head bent and hands
clasped. Then there was established between them a strange
dialogue of signs and gestures, for neither of them spoke. The
priest, erect on his feet, irritated, threatening, imperious;
Quasimodo, prostrate, humble, suppliant. And, nevertheless, it is
certain that Quasimodo could have crushed the priest with his
thumb.
At length the archdeacon, giving Quasimodo’s powerful shoulder a
rough shake, made him a sign to rise and follow him.
Quasimodo rose.
Then the Brotherhood of Fools, their first stupor having passed
off, wished to defend their pope, so abruptly dethroned. The
Egyptians, the men of slang, and all the fraternity of law
clerks, gathered howling round the priest.
Quasimodo placed himself in front of the priest, set in play the
muscles of his athletic fists, and glared upon the assailants
with the snarl of an angry tiger.
The priest resumed his sombre gravity, made a sign to Quasimodo,
and retired in silence.
Quasimodo walked in front of him, scattering the crowd as he
passed.
When they had traversed the populace and the Place, the cloud of
curious and idle were minded to follow them. Quasimodo then
constituted himself the rearguard, and followed the archdeacon,
walking backwards, squat, surly, monstrous, bristling, gathering
up his limbs, licking his boar’s tusks, growling like a wild
beast, and imparting to the crowd immense vibrations, with a look
or a gesture.
Both were allowed to plunge into a dark and narrow street, where
no one dared to venture after them; so thoroughly did the mere
chimera of Quasimodo gnashing his teeth bar the entrance.
“Here’s a marvellous thing,” said Gringoire; “but where the deuce
shall I find some supper?”
CHAPTER IV. THE INCONVENIENCES OF FOLLOWING A PRETTY WOMAN
THROUGH THE STREETS IN THE EVENING.
Gringoire set out to follow the gypsy at all hazards. He had seen
her, accompanied by her goat, take to the Rue de la Coutellerie;
he took the Rue de la Coutellerie.
“Why not?” he said to himself.
Gringoire, a practical philosopher of the streets of Paris, had
noticed that nothing is more propitious to revery than following
a pretty woman without knowing whither she is going. There was in
this voluntary abdication of his freewill, in this fancy
submitting itself to another fancy, which suspects it not, a
mixture of fantastic independence and blind obedience, something
indescribable, intermediate between slavery and liberty, which
pleased Gringoire,—a spirit essentially compound, undecided, and
complex, holding the extremities of all extremes, incessantly
suspended between all human propensities, and neutralizing one by
the other. He was fond of comparing himself to Mahomet’s coffin,
attracted in two different directions by two loadstones, and
hesitating eternally between the heights and the depths, between
the vault and the pavement, between fall and ascent, between
zenith and nadir.
If Gringoire had lived in our day, what a fine middle course he
would hold between classicism and romanticism!
But he was not sufficiently primitive to live three hundred
years, and ’tis a pity. His absence is a void which is but too
sensibly felt to-day.
Moreover, for the purpose of thus following passers-by (and
especially female passers-by) in the streets, which Gringoire was
fond of doing, there is no better disposition than ignorance of
where one is going to sleep.
So he walked along, very thoughtfully, behind the young girl, who
hastened her pace and made her goat trot as she saw the
_bourgeois_ returning home and the taverns—the only shops which
had been open that day—closing.
“After all,” he half thought to himself, “she must lodge
somewhere; gypsies have kindly hearts. Who knows?—”
And in the points of suspense which he placed after this
reticence in his mind, there lay I know not what flattering
ideas.
Meanwhile, from time to time, as he passed the last groups of
_bourgeois_ closing their doors, he caught some scraps of their
conversation, which broke the thread of his pleasant hypotheses.
Now it was two old men accosting each other.
“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!”
And the windows were closed. But Gringoire had lost the thread of
his ideas, nevertheless.
Fortunately, he speedily found it again, and he knotted it
together without difficulty, thanks to the gypsy, thanks to
Djali, who still walked in front of him; two fine, delicate, and
charming creatures, whose tiny feet, beautiful forms, and
graceful manners he was engaged in admiring, almost confusing
them in his contemplation; believing them to be both young girls,
from their intelligence and good friendship; regarding them both
as goats,—so far as the lightness, agility, and dexterity of
their walk were concerned.
But the streets were becoming blacker and more deserted every
moment. The curfew had sounded long ago, and it was only at rare
intervals now that they encountered a passer-by in the street, or
a light in the windows. Gringoire had become involved, in his
pursuit of the gypsy, in that inextricable labyrinth of alleys,
squares, and closed courts which surround the ancient sepulchre
of the Saints-Innocents, and which resembles a ball of thread
tangled by a cat. “Here are streets which possess but little
logic!” said Gringoire, lost in the thousands of circuits which
returned upon themselves incessantly, but where the young girl
pursued a road which seemed familiar to her, without hesitation
and with a step which became ever more rapid. As for him, he
would have been utterly ignorant of his situation had he not
espied, in passing, at the turn of a street, the octagonal mass
of the pillory of the fish markets, the open-work summit of which
threw its black, fretted outlines clearly upon a window which was
still lighted in the Rue Verdelet.
The young girl’s attention had been attracted to him for the last
few moments; she had repeatedly turned her head towards him with
uneasiness; she had even once come to a standstill, and taking
advantage of a ray of light which escaped from a half-open bakery
to survey him intently, from head to foot, then, having cast this
glance, Gringoire had seen her make that little pout which he had
already noticed, after which she passed on.
This little pout had furnished Gringoire with food for thought.
There was certainly both disdain and mockery in that graceful
grimace. So he dropped his head, began to count the
paving-stones, and to follow the young girl at a little greater
distance, when, at the turn of a street, which had caused him to
lose sight of her, he heard her utter a piercing cry.
He hastened his steps.
The street was full of shadows. Nevertheless, a twist of tow
soaked in oil, which burned in a cage at the feet of the Holy
Virgin at the street corner, permitted Gringoire to make out the
gypsy struggling in the arms of two men, who were endeavoring to
stifle her cries. The poor little goat, in great alarm, lowered
his horns and bleated.
“Help! gentlemen of the watch!” shouted Gringoire, and advanced
bravely. One of the men who held the young girl turned towards
him. It was the formidable visage of Quasimodo.
Gringoire did not take to flight, but neither did he advance
another step.
Quasimodo came up to him, tossed him four paces away on the
pavement with a backward turn of the hand, and plunged rapidly
into the gloom, bearing the young girl folded across one arm like
a silken scarf. His companion followed him, and the poor goat ran
after them all, bleating plaintively.
“Murder! murder!” shrieked the unhappy gypsy.
“Halt, rascals, and yield me that wench!” suddenly shouted in a
voice of thunder, a cavalier who appeared suddenly from a
neighboring square.
It was a captain of the king’s archers, armed from head to foot,
with his sword in his hand.
He tore the gypsy from the arms of the dazed Quasimodo, threw her
across his saddle, and at the moment when the terrible hunchback,
recovering from his surprise, rushed upon him to regain his prey,
fifteen or sixteen archers, who followed their captain closely,
made their appearance, with their two-edged swords in their
fists. It was a squad of the king’s police, which was making the
rounds, by order of Messire Robert d’Estouteville, guard of the
provostship of Paris.
Quasimodo was surrounded, seized, garroted; he roared, he foamed
at the mouth, he bit; and had it been broad daylight, there is no
doubt that his face alone, rendered more hideous by wrath, would
have put the entire squad to flight. But by night he was deprived
of his most formidable weapon, his ugliness.
His companion had disappeared during the struggle.
The gypsy gracefully raised herself upright upon the officer’s
saddle, placed both hands upon the young man’s shoulders, and
gazed fixedly at him for several seconds, as though enchanted
with his good looks and with the aid which he had just rendered
her. Then breaking silence first, she said to him, making her
sweet voice still sweeter than usual,—
“What is your name, monsieur le gendarme?”
“Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers, at your service, my beauty!”
replied the officer, drawing himself up.
“Thanks,” said she.
And while Captain Phœbus was turning up his moustache in
Burgundian fashion, she slipped from the horse, like an arrow
falling to earth, and fled.
A flash of lightning would have vanished less quickly.
“Nombrill of the Pope!” said the captain, causing Quasimodo’s
straps to be drawn tighter, “I should have preferred to keep the
wench.”
“What would you have, captain?” said one gendarme. “The warbler
has fled, and the bat remains.”
CHAPTER V. RESULT OF THE DANGERS.
Gringoire, thoroughly stunned by his fall, remained on the
pavement in front of the Holy Virgin at the street corner. Little
by little, he regained his senses; at first, for several minutes,
he was floating in a sort of half-somnolent revery, which was not
without its charm, in which æriel figures of the gypsy and her
goat were coupled with Quasimodo’s heavy fist. This state lasted
but a short time. A decidedly vivid sensation of cold in the part
of his body which was in contact with the pavement, suddenly
aroused him and caused his spirit to return to the surface.
“Whence comes this chill?” he said abruptly, to himself. He then
perceived that he was lying half in the middle of the gutter.
“That devil of a hunchbacked cyclops!” he muttered between his
teeth; and he tried to rise. But he was too much dazed and
bruised; he was forced to remain where he was. Moreover, his hand
was tolerably free; he stopped up his nose and resigned himself.
“The mud of Paris,” he said to himself—for decidedly he thought
that he was sure that the gutter would prove his refuge for the
night; and what can one do in a refuge, except dream?—“the mud of
Paris is particularly stinking; it must contain a great deal of
volatile and nitric salts. That, moreover, is the opinion of
Master Nicholas Flamel, and of the alchemists—”
The word _alchemists_ suddenly suggested to his mind the idea of
Archdeacon Claude Frollo. He recalled the violent scene which he
had just witnessed in part; that the gypsy was struggling with
two men, that Quasimodo had a companion; and the morose and
haughty face of the archdeacon passed confusedly through his
memory. “That would be strange!” he said to himself. And on that
fact and that basis he began to construct a fantastic edifice of
hypothesis, that card-castle of philosophers; then, suddenly
returning once more to reality, “Come! I’m freezing!” he
ejaculated.
The place was, in fact, becoming less and less tenable. Each
molecule of the gutter bore away a molecule of heat radiating
from Gringoire’s loins, and the equilibrium between the
temperature of his body and the temperature of the brook, began
to be established in rough fashion.
Quite a different annoyance suddenly assailed him. A group of
children, those little bare-footed savages who have always roamed
the pavements of Paris under the eternal name of _gamins_, and
who, when we were also children ourselves, threw stones at all of
us in the afternoon, when we came out of school, because our
trousers were not torn—a swarm of these young scamps rushed
towards the square where Gringoire lay, with shouts and laughter
which seemed to pay but little heed to the sleep of the
neighbors. They were dragging after them some sort of hideous
sack; and the noise of their wooden shoes alone would have roused
the dead. Gringoire who was not quite dead yet, half raised
himself.
“Ohé, Hennequin Dandèche! Ohé, Jehan Pincebourde!” they shouted
in deafening tones, “old Eustache Moubon, the merchant at the
corner, has just died. We’ve got his straw pallet, we’re going to
have a bonfire out of it. It’s the turn of the Flemish to-day!”
And behold, they flung the pallet directly upon Gringoire, beside
whom they had arrived, without espying him. At the same time, one
of them took a handful of straw and set off to light it at the
wick of the good Virgin.
“S’death!” growled Gringoire, “am I going to be too warm now?”
It was a critical moment. He was caught between fire and water;
he made a superhuman effort, the effort of a counterfeiter of
money who is on the point of being boiled, and who seeks to
escape. He rose to his feet, flung aside the straw pallet upon
the street urchins, and fled.
“Holy Virgin!” shrieked the children; “’tis the merchant’s
ghost!”
And they fled in their turn.
The straw mattress remained master of the field. Belleforêt,
Father Le Juge, and Corrozet affirm that it was picked up on the
morrow, with great pomp, by the clergy of the quarter, and borne
to the treasury of the church of Saint Opportune, where the
sacristan, even as late as 1789, earned a tolerably handsome
revenue out of the great miracle of the Statue of the Virgin at
the corner of the Rue Mauconseil, which had, by its mere
presence, on the memorable night between the sixth and seventh of
January, 1482, exorcised the defunct Eustache Moubon, who, in
order to play a trick on the devil, had at his death maliciously
concealed his soul in his straw pallet.
CHAPTER VI. THE BROKEN JUG.
After having run for some time at the top of his speed, without
knowing whither, knocking his head against many a street corner,
leaping many a gutter, traversing many an alley, many a court,
many a square, seeking flight and passage through all the
meanderings of the ancient passages of the Halles, exploring in
his panic terror what the fine Latin of the maps calls _tota via,
cheminum et viaria_, our poet suddenly halted for lack of breath
in the first place, and in the second, because he had been
collared, after a fashion, by a dilemma which had just occurred
to his mind. “It strikes me, Master Pierre Gringoire,” he said to
himself, placing his finger to his brow, “that you are running
like a madman. The little scamps are no less afraid of you than
you are of them. It strikes me, I say, that you heard the clatter
of their wooden shoes fleeing southward, while you were fleeing
northward. Now, one of two things, either they have taken flight,
and the pallet, which they must have forgotten in their terror,
is precisely that hospitable bed in search of which you have been
running ever since morning, and which madame the Virgin
miraculously sends you, in order to recompense you for having
made a morality in her honor, accompanied by triumphs and
mummeries; or the children have not taken flight, and in that
case they have put the brand to the pallet, and that is precisely
the good fire which you need to cheer, dry, and warm you. In
either case, good fire or good bed, that straw pallet is a gift
from heaven. The blessed Virgin Marie who stands at the corner of
the Rue Mauconseil, could only have made Eustache Moubon die for
that express purpose; and it is folly on your part to flee thus
zigzag, like a Picard before a Frenchman, leaving behind you what
you seek before you; and you are a fool!”
Then he retraced his steps, and feeling his way and searching,
with his nose to the wind and his ears on the alert, he tried to
find the blessed pallet again, but in vain. There was nothing to
be found but intersections of houses, closed courts, and
crossings of streets, in the midst of which he hesitated and
doubted incessantly, being more perplexed and entangled in this
medley of streets than he would have been even in the labyrinth
of the Hôtel des Tournelles. At length he lost patience, and
exclaimed solemnly: “Cursed be cross roads! ’tis the devil who
has made them in the shape of his pitchfork!”
This exclamation afforded him a little solace, and a sort of
reddish reflection which he caught sight of at that moment, at
the extremity of a long and narrow lane, completed the elevation
of his moral tone. “God be praised!” said he, “There it is
yonder! There is my pallet burning.” And comparing himself to the
pilot who suffers shipwreck by night, “_Salve_,” he added
piously, “_salve, maris stella_!”
Did he address this fragment of litany to the Holy Virgin, or to
the pallet? We are utterly unable to say.
He had taken but a few steps in the long street, which sloped
downwards, was unpaved, and more and more muddy and steep, when
he noticed a very singular thing. It was not deserted; here and
there along its extent crawled certain vague and formless masses,
all directing their course towards the light which flickered at
the end of the street, like those heavy insects which drag along
by night, from blade to blade of grass, towards the shepherd’s
fire.
Nothing renders one so adventurous as not being able to feel the
place where one’s pocket is situated. Gringoire continued to
advance, and had soon joined that one of the forms which dragged
along most indolently, behind the others. On drawing near, he
perceived that it was nothing else than a wretched legless
cripple in a bowl, who was hopping along on his two hands like a
wounded field-spider which has but two legs left. At the moment
when he passed close to this species of spider with a human
countenance, it raised towards him a lamentable voice: “_La buona
mancia, signor! la buona mancia_!”[10]
“Deuce take you,” said Gringoire, “and me with you, if I know
what you mean!”
And he passed on.
He overtook another of these itinerant masses, and examined it.
It was an impotent man, both halt and crippled, and halt and
crippled to such a degree that the complicated system of crutches
and wooden legs which sustained him, gave him the air of a
mason’s scaffolding on the march. Gringoire, who liked noble and
classical comparisons, compared him in thought to the living
tripod of Vulcan.
This living tripod saluted him as he passed, but stopping his hat
on a level with Gringoire’s chin, like a shaving dish, while he
shouted in the latter’s ears: “_Señor cabellero, para comprar un
pedaso de pan_!”[11]
“It appears,” said Gringoire, “that this one can also talk; but
’tis a rude language, and he is more fortunate than I if he
understands it.” Then, smiting his brow, in a sudden transition
of ideas: “By the way, what the deuce did they mean this morning
with their _Esmeralda?_”
He was minded to augment his pace, but for the third time
something barred his way. This something or, rather, some one was
a blind man, a little blind fellow with a bearded, Jewish face,
who, rowing away in the space about him with a stick, and towed
by a large dog, droned through his nose with a Hungarian accent:
“_Facitote caritatem_!”
“Well, now,” said Gringoire, “here’s one at last who speaks a
Christian tongue. I must have a very charitable aspect, since
they ask alms of me in the present lean condition of my purse. My
friend,” and he turned towards the blind man, “I sold my last
shirt last week; that is to say, since you understand only the
language of Cicero: _Vendidi hebdomade nuper transita meam
ultimam chemisam_.”
That said, he turned his back upon the blind man, and pursued his
way. But the blind man began to increase his stride at the same
time; and, behold! the cripple and the legless man, in his bowl,
came up on their side in great haste, and with great clamor of
bowl and crutches, upon the pavement. Then all three, jostling
each other at poor Gringoire’s heels, began to sing their song to
him,—
“_Caritatem_!” chanted the blind man.
“_La buona mancia_!” chanted the cripple in the bowl.
And the lame man took up the musical phrase by repeating: “_Un
pedaso de pan_!”
Gringoire stopped up his ears. “Oh, tower of Babel!” he
exclaimed.
He set out to run. The blind man ran! The lame man ran! The
cripple in the bowl ran!
And then, in proportion as he plunged deeper into the street,
cripples in bowls, blind men and lame men, swarmed about him, and
men with one arm, and with one eye, and the leprous with their
sores, some emerging from little streets adjacent, some from the
air-holes of cellars, howling, bellowing, yelping, all limping
and halting, all flinging themselves towards the light, and
humped up in the mire, like snails after a shower.
Gringoire, still followed by his three persecutors, and not
knowing very well what was to become of him, marched along in
terror among them, turning out for the lame, stepping over the
cripples in bowls, with his feet imbedded in that ant-hill of
lame men, like the English captain who got caught in the
quicksand of a swarm of crabs.
The idea occurred to him of making an effort to retrace his
steps. But it was too late. This whole legion had closed in
behind him, and his three beggars held him fast. So he proceeded,
impelled both by this irresistible flood, by fear, and by a
vertigo which converted all this into a sort of horrible dream.
At last he reached the end of the street. It opened upon an
immense place, where a thousand scattered lights flickered in the
confused mists of night. Gringoire flew thither, hoping to
escape, by the swiftness of his legs, from the three infirm
spectres who had clutched him.
“_Onde vas, hombre_?” (Where are you going, my man?) cried the
cripple, flinging away his crutches, and running after him with
the best legs that ever traced a geometrical step upon the
pavements of Paris.
In the meantime the legless man, erect upon his feet, crowned
Gringoire with his heavy iron bowl, and the blind man glared in
his face with flaming eyes!
“Where am I?” said the terrified poet.
“In the Court of Miracles,” replied a fourth spectre, who had
accosted them.
“Upon my soul,” resumed Gringoire, “I certainly do behold the
blind who see, and the lame who walk, but where is the Saviour?”
They replied by a burst of sinister laughter.
The poor poet cast his eyes about him. It was, in truth, that
redoubtable Cour des Miracles, whither an honest man had never
penetrated at such an hour; the magic circle where the officers
of the Châtelet and the sergeants of the provostship, who
ventured thither, disappeared in morsels; a city of thieves, a
hideous wart on the face of Paris; a sewer, from which escaped
every morning, and whither returned every night to crouch, that
stream of vices, of mendicancy and vagabondage which always
overflows in the streets of capitals; a monstrous hive, to which
returned at nightfall, with their booty, all the drones of the
social order; a lying hospital where the bohemian, the disfrocked
monk, the ruined scholar, the ne’er-do-wells of all nations,
Spaniards, Italians, Germans,—of all religions, Jews, Christians,
Mahometans, idolaters, covered with painted sores, beggars by
day, were transformed by night into brigands; an immense
dressing-room, in a word, where, at that epoch, the actors of
that eternal comedy, which theft, prostitution, and murder play
upon the pavements of Paris, dressed and undressed.
It was a vast place, irregular and badly paved, like all the
squares of Paris at that date. Fires, around which swarmed
strange groups, blazed here and there. Every one was going,
coming, and shouting. Shrill laughter was to be heard, the
wailing of children, the voices of women. The hands and heads of
this throng, black against the luminous background, outlined
against it a thousand eccentric gestures. At times, upon the
ground, where trembled the light of the fires, mingled with
large, indefinite shadows, one could behold a dog passing, which
resembled a man, a man who resembled a dog. The limits of races
and species seemed effaced in this city, as in a pandemonium.
Men, women, beasts, age, sex, health, maladies, all seemed to be
in common among these people; all went together, they mingled,
confounded, superposed; each one there participated in all.
The poor and flickering flames of the fire permitted Gringoire to
distinguish, amid his trouble, all around the immense place, a
hideous frame of ancient houses, whose wormeaten, shrivelled,
stunted façades, each pierced with one or two lighted attic
windows, seemed to him, in the darkness, like enormous heads of
old women, ranged in a circle, monstrous and crabbed, winking as
they looked on at the Witches’ Sabbath.
It was like a new world, unknown, unheard of, misshapen,
creeping, swarming, fantastic.
Gringoire, more and more terrified, clutched by the three beggars
as by three pairs of tongs, dazed by a throng of other faces
which frothed and yelped around him, unhappy Gringoire endeavored
to summon his presence of mind, in order to recall whether it was
a Saturday. But his efforts were vain; the thread of his memory
and of his thought was broken; and, doubting everything, wavering
between what he saw and what he felt, he put to himself this
unanswerable question,—
“If I exist, does this exist? if this exists, do I exist?”
At that moment, a distinct cry arose in the buzzing throng which
surrounded him, “Let’s take him to the king! let’s take him to
the king!”
“Holy Virgin!” murmured Gringoire, “the king here must be a ram.”
“To the king! to the king!” repeated all voices.
They dragged him off. Each vied with the other in laying his
claws upon him. But the three beggars did not loose their hold
and tore him from the rest, howling, “He belongs to us!”
The poet’s already sickly doublet yielded its last sigh in this
struggle.
While traversing the horrible place, his vertigo vanished. After
taking a few steps, the sentiment of reality returned to him. He
began to become accustomed to the atmosphere of the place. At the
first moment there had arisen from his poet’s head, or, simply
and prosaically, from his empty stomach, a mist, a vapor, so to
speak, which, spreading between objects and himself, permitted
him to catch a glimpse of them only in the incoherent fog of
nightmare,—in those shadows of dreams which distort every
outline, agglomerating objects into unwieldy groups, dilating
things into chimeras, and men into phantoms. Little by little,
this hallucination was succeeded by a less bewildered and
exaggerating view. Reality made its way to the light around him,
struck his eyes, struck his feet, and demolished, bit by bit, all
that frightful poetry with which he had, at first, believed
himself to be surrounded. He was forced to perceive that he was
not walking in the Styx, but in mud, that he was elbowed not by
demons, but by thieves; that it was not his soul which was in
question, but his life (since he lacked that precious
conciliator, which places itself so effectually between the
bandit and the honest man—a purse). In short, on examining the
orgy more closely, and with more coolness, he fell from the
witches’ sabbath to the dram-shop.
The Cour des Miracles was, in fact, merely a dram-shop; but a
brigand’s dram-shop, reddened quite as much with blood as with
wine.
The spectacle which presented itself to his eyes, when his ragged
escort finally deposited him at the end of his trip, was not
fitted to bear him back to poetry, even to the poetry of hell. It
was more than ever the prosaic and brutal reality of the tavern.
Were we not in the fifteenth century, we would say that Gringoire
had descended from Michael Angelo to Callot.
Around a great fire which burned on a large, circular flagstone,
the flames of which had heated red-hot the legs of a tripod,
which was empty for the moment, some wormeaten tables were
placed, here and there, haphazard, no lackey of a geometrical
turn having deigned to adjust their parallelism, or to see to it
that they did not make too unusual angles. Upon these tables
gleamed several dripping pots of wine and beer, and round these
pots were grouped many bacchic visages, purple with the fire and
the wine. There was a man with a huge belly and a jovial face,
noisily kissing a woman of the town, thickset and brawny. There
was a sort of sham soldier, a “naquois,” as the slang expression
runs, who was whistling as he undid the bandages from his
fictitious wound, and removing the numbness from his sound and
vigorous knee, which had been swathed since morning in a thousand
ligatures. On the other hand, there was a wretched fellow,
preparing with celandine and beef’s blood, his “leg of God,” for
the next day. Two tables further on, a palmer, with his pilgrim’s
costume complete, was practising the lament of the Holy Queen,
not forgetting the drone and the nasal drawl. Further on, a young
scamp was taking a lesson in epilepsy from an old pretender, who
was instructing him in the art of foaming at the mouth, by
chewing a morsel of soap. Beside him, a man with the dropsy was
getting rid of his swelling, and making four or five female
thieves, who were disputing at the same table, over a child who
had been stolen that evening, hold their noses. All circumstances
which, two centuries later, “seemed so ridiculous to the court,”
as Sauval says, “that they served as a pastime to the king, and
as an introduction to the royal ballet of Night, divided into
four parts and danced on the theatre of the Petit-Bourbon.”
“Never,” adds an eye witness of 1653, “have the sudden
metamorphoses of the Court of Miracles been more happily
presented. Benserade prepared us for it by some very gallant
verses.”
Loud laughter everywhere, and obscene songs. Each one held his
own course, carping and swearing, without listening to his
neighbor. Pots clinked, and quarrels sprang up at the shock of
the pots, and the broken pots made rents in the rags.
A big dog, seated on his tail, gazed at the fire. Some children
were mingled in this orgy. The stolen child wept and cried.
Another, a big boy four years of age, seated with legs dangling,
upon a bench that was too high for him, before a table that
reached to his chin, and uttering not a word. A third, gravely
spreading out upon the table with his finger, the melted tallow
which dripped from a candle. Last of all, a little fellow
crouching in the mud, almost lost in a cauldron, which he was
scraping with a tile, and from which he was evoking a sound that
would have made Stradivarius swoon.
Near the fire was a hogshead, and on the hogshead a beggar. This
was the king on his throne.
The three who had Gringoire in their clutches led him in front of
this hogshead, and the entire bacchanal rout fell silent for a
moment, with the exception of the cauldron inhabited by the
child.
Gringoire dared neither breathe nor raise his eyes.
“_Hombre, quita tu sombrero_!” said one of the three knaves, in
whose grasp he was, and, before he had comprehended the meaning,
the other had snatched his hat—a wretched headgear, it is true,
but still good on a sunny day or when there was but little rain.
Gringoire sighed.
Meanwhile the king addressed him, from the summit of his cask,—
“Who is this rogue?”
Gringoire shuddered. That voice, although accentuated by menace,
recalled to him another voice, which, that very morning, had
dealt the deathblow to his mystery, by drawling, nasally, in the
midst of the audience, “Charity, please!” He raised his head. It
was indeed Clopin Trouillefou.
Clopin Trouillefou, arrayed in his royal insignia, wore neither
one rag more nor one rag less. The sore upon his arm had already
disappeared. He held in his hand one of those whips made of
thongs of white leather, which police sergeants then used to
repress the crowd, and which were called _boullayes_. On his head
he wore a sort of headgear, bound round and closed at the top.
But it was difficult to make out whether it was a child’s cap or
a king’s crown, the two things bore so strong a resemblance to
each other.
Meanwhile Gringoire, without knowing why, had regained some hope,
on recognizing in the King of the Cour des Miracles his accursed
mendicant of the Grand Hall.
“Master,” stammered he; “monseigneur—sire—how ought I to address
you?” he said at length, having reached the culminating point of
his crescendo, and knowing neither how to mount higher, nor to
descend again.
“Monseigneur, his majesty, or comrade, call me what you please.
But make haste. What have you to say in your own defence?”
“_In your own defence?_” thought Gringoire, “that displeases me.”
He resumed, stuttering, “I am he, who this morning—”
“By the devil’s claws!” interrupted Clopin, “your name, knave,
and nothing more. Listen. You are in the presence of three
powerful sovereigns: myself, Clopin Trouillefou, King of Thunes,
successor to the Grand Coësre, supreme suzerain of the Realm of
Argot; Mathias Hunyadi Spicali, Duke of Egypt and of Bohemia, the
old yellow fellow whom you see yonder, with a dish clout round
his head; Guillaume Rousseau, Emperor of Galilee, that fat fellow
who is not listening to us but caressing a wench. We are your
judges. You have entered the Kingdom of Argot, without being an
_argotier_; you have violated the privileges of our city. You
must be punished unless you are a _capon_, a _franc-mitou_ or a
_rifodé_; that is to say, in the slang of honest folks,—a thief,
a beggar, or a vagabond. Are you anything of that sort? Justify
yourself; announce your titles.”
“Alas!” said Gringoire, “I have not that honor. I am the author—”
“That is sufficient,” resumed Trouillefou, without permitting him
to finish. “You are going to be hanged. ’Tis a very simple
matter, gentlemen and honest _bourgeois_! as you treat our people
in your abode, so we treat you in ours! The law which you apply
to vagabonds, vagabonds apply to you. ’Tis your fault if it is
harsh. One really must behold the grimace of an honest man above
the hempen collar now and then; that renders the thing honorable.
Come, friend, divide your rags gayly among these damsels. I am
going to have you hanged to amuse the vagabonds, and you are to
give them your purse to drink your health. If you have any
mummery to go through with, there’s a very good God the Father in
that mortar yonder, in stone, which we stole from Saint-Pierre
aux Bœufs. You have four minutes in which to fling your soul at
his head.”
The harangue was formidable.
“Well said, upon my soul! Clopin Trouillefou preaches like the
Holy Father the Pope!” exclaimed the Emperor of Galilee, smashing
his pot in order to prop up his table.
“Messeigneurs, emperors, and kings,” said Gringoire coolly (for I
know not how, firmness had returned to him, and he spoke with
resolution), “don’t think of such a thing; my name is Pierre
Gringoire. I am the poet whose morality was presented this
morning in the grand hall of the Courts.”
“Ah! so it was you, master!” said Clopin. “I was there, _par la
tête Dieu_! Well! comrade, is that any reason, because you bored
us to death this morning, that you should not be hung this
evening?”
“I shall find difficulty in getting out of it,” said Gringoire to
himself. Nevertheless, he made one more effort: “I don’t see why
poets are not classed with vagabonds,” said he. “Vagabond, Æsopus
certainly was; Homerus was a beggar; Mercurius was a thief—”
Clopin interrupted him: “I believe that you are trying to blarney
us with your jargon. Zounds! let yourself be hung, and don’t kick
up such a row over it!”
“Pardon me, monseigneur, the King of Thunes,” replied Gringoire,
disputing the ground foot by foot. “It is worth trouble—One
moment!—Listen to me—You are not going to condemn me without
having heard me”—
His unlucky voice was, in fact, drowned in the uproar which rose
around him. The little boy scraped away at his cauldron with more
spirit than ever; and, to crown all, an old woman had just placed
on the tripod a frying-pan of grease, which hissed away on the
fire with a noise similar to the cry of a troop of children in
pursuit of a masker.
In the meantime, Clopin Trouillefou appeared to hold a momentary
conference with the Duke of Egypt, and the Emperor of Galilee,
who was completely drunk. Then he shouted shrilly: “Silence!”
and, as the cauldron and the frying-pan did not heed him, and
continued their duet, he jumped down from his hogshead, gave a
kick to the boiler, which rolled ten paces away bearing the child
with it, a kick to the frying-pan, which upset in the fire with
all its grease, and gravely remounted his throne, without
troubling himself about the stifled tears of the child, or the
grumbling of the old woman, whose supper was wasting away in a
fine white flame.
Trouillefou made a sign, and the duke, the emperor, and the
passed masters of pickpockets, and the isolated robbers, came and
ranged themselves around him in a horseshoe, of which Gringoire,
still roughly held by the body, formed the centre. It was a
semicircle of rags, tatters, tinsel, pitchforks, axes, legs
staggering with intoxication, huge, bare arms, faces sordid,
dull, and stupid. In the midst of this Round Table of beggary,
Clopin Trouillefou,—as the doge of this senate, as the king of
this peerage, as the pope of this conclave,—dominated; first by
virtue of the height of his hogshead, and next by virtue of an
indescribable, haughty, fierce, and formidable air, which caused
his eyes to flash, and corrected in his savage profile the
bestial type of the race of vagabonds. One would have pronounced
him a boar amid a herd of swine.
“Listen,” said he to Gringoire, fondling his misshapen chin with
his horny hand; “I don’t see why you should not be hung. It is
true that it appears to be repugnant to you; and it is very
natural, for you _bourgeois_ are not accustomed to it. You form
for yourselves a great idea of the thing. After all, we don’t
wish you any harm. Here is a means of extricating yourself from
your predicament for the moment. Will you become one of us?”
The reader can judge of the effect which this proposition
produced upon Gringoire, who beheld life slipping away from him,
and who was beginning to lose his hold upon it. He clutched at it
again with energy.
“Certainly I will, and right heartily,” said he.
“Do you consent,” resumed Clopin, “to enroll yourself among the
people of the knife?”
“Of the knife, precisely,” responded Gringoire.
“You recognize yourself as a member of the free
_bourgeoisie?_”[12] added the King of Thunes.
“Of the free _bourgeoisie_.”
“Subject of the Kingdom of Argot?”
“Of the Kingdom of Argot[13].”
“A vagabond?”
“A vagabond.”
“In your soul?”
“In my soul.”
“I must call your attention to the fact,” continued the king,
“that you will be hung all the same.”
“The devil!” said the poet.
“Only,” continued Clopin imperturbably, “you will be hung later
on, with more ceremony, at the expense of the good city of Paris,
on a handsome stone gibbet, and by honest men. That is a
consolation.”
“Just so,” responded Gringoire.
“There are other advantages. In your quality of a high-toned
sharper, you will not have to pay the taxes on mud, or the poor,
or lanterns, to which the _bourgeois_ of Paris are subject.”
“So be it,” said the poet. “I agree. I am a vagabond, a thief, a
sharper, a man of the knife, anything you please; and I am all
that already, monsieur, King of Thunes, for I am a philosopher;
_et omnia in philosophia, omnes in philosopho continentur_,—all
things are contained in philosophy, all men in the philosopher,
as you know.”
The King of Thunes scowled.
“What do you take me for, my friend? What Hungarian Jew patter
are you jabbering at us? I don’t know Hebrew. One isn’t a Jew
because one is a bandit. I don’t even steal any longer. I’m above
that; I kill. Cut-throat, yes; cutpurse, no.”
Gringoire tried to slip in some excuse between these curt words,
which wrath rendered more and more jerky.
“I ask your pardon, monseigneur. It is not Hebrew; ’tis Latin.”
“I tell you,” resumed Clopin angrily, “that I’m not a Jew, and
that I’ll have you hung, belly of the synagogue, like that little
shopkeeper of Judea, who is by your side, and whom I entertain
strong hopes of seeing nailed to a counter one of these days,
like the counterfeit coin that he is!”
So saying, he pointed his finger at the little, bearded Hungarian
Jew who had accosted Gringoire with his _facitote caritatem_, and
who, understanding no other language beheld with surprise the
King of Thunes’s ill-humor overflow upon him.
At length Monsieur Clopin calmed down.
“So you will be a vagabond, you knave?” he said to our poet.
“Of course,” replied the poet.
“Willing is not all,” said the surly Clopin; “good will doesn’t
put one onion the more into the soup, and ’tis good for nothing
except to go to Paradise with; now, Paradise and the thieves’
band are two different things. In order to be received among the
thieves,[14] you must prove that you are good for something, and
for that purpose, you must search the manikin.”
“I’ll search anything you like,” said Gringoire.
Clopin made a sign. Several thieves detached themselves from the
circle, and returned a moment later. They brought two thick
posts, terminated at their lower extremities in spreading timber
supports, which made them stand readily upon the ground; to the
upper extremity of the two posts they fitted a cross-beam, and
the whole constituted a very pretty portable gibbet, which
Gringoire had the satisfaction of beholding rise before him, in a
twinkling. Nothing was lacking, not even the rope, which swung
gracefully over the cross-beam.
“What are they going to do?” Gringoire asked himself with some
uneasiness. A sound of bells, which he heard at that moment, put
an end to his anxiety; it was a stuffed manikin, which the
vagabonds were suspending by the neck from the rope, a sort of
scarecrow dressed in red, and so hung with mule-bells and larger
bells, that one might have tricked out thirty Castilian mules
with them. These thousand tiny bells quivered for some time with
the vibration of the rope, then gradually died away, and finally
became silent when the manikin had been brought into a state of
immobility by that law of the pendulum which has dethroned the
water clock and the hour-glass. Then Clopin, pointing out to
Gringoire a rickety old stool placed beneath the manikin,—“Climb
up there.”
“Death of the devil!” objected Gringoire; “I shall break my neck.
Your stool limps like one of Martial’s distiches; it has one
hexameter leg and one pentameter leg.”
“Climb!” repeated Clopin.
Gringoire mounted the stool, and succeeded, not without some
oscillations of head and arms, in regaining his centre of
gravity.
“Now,” went on the King of Thunes, “twist your right foot round
your left leg, and rise on the tip of your left foot.”
“Monseigneur,” said Gringoire, “so you absolutely insist on my
breaking some one of my limbs?”
Clopin tossed his head.
“Hark ye, my friend, you talk too much. Here’s the gist of the
matter in two words: you are to rise on tiptoe, as I tell you; in
that way you will be able to reach the pocket of the manikin, you
will rummage it, you will pull out the purse that is there,—and
if you do all this without our hearing the sound of a bell, all
is well: you shall be a vagabond. All we shall then have to do,
will be to thrash you soundly for the space of a week.”
“_Ventre-Dieu_! I will be careful,” said Gringoire. “And suppose
I do make the bells sound?”
“Then you will be hanged. Do you understand?”
“I don’t understand at all,” replied Gringoire.
“Listen, once more. You are to search the manikin, and take away
its purse; if a single bell stirs during the operation, you will
be hung. Do you understand that?”
“Good,” said Gringoire; “I understand that. And then?”
“If you succeed in removing the purse without our hearing the
bells, you are a vagabond, and you will be thrashed for eight
consecutive days. You understand now, no doubt?”
“No, monseigneur; I no longer understand. Where is the advantage
to me? hanged in one case, cudgelled in the other?”
“And a vagabond,” resumed Clopin, “and a vagabond; is that
nothing? It is for your interest that we should beat you, in
order to harden you to blows.”
“Many thanks,” replied the poet.
“Come, make haste,” said the king, stamping upon his cask, which
resounded like a huge drum! “Search the manikin, and let there be
an end to this! I warn you for the last time, that if I hear a
single bell, you will take the place of the manikin.”
The band of thieves applauded Clopin’s words, and arranged
themselves in a circle round the gibbet, with a laugh so pitiless
that Gringoire perceived that he amused them too much not to have
everything to fear from them. No hope was left for him,
accordingly, unless it were the slight chance of succeeding in
the formidable operation which was imposed upon him; he decided
to risk it, but it was not without first having addressed a
fervent prayer to the manikin he was about to plunder, and who
would have been easier to move to pity than the vagabonds. These
myriad bells, with their little copper tongues, seemed to him
like the mouths of so many asps, open and ready to sting and to
hiss.
“Oh!” he said, in a very low voice, “is it possible that my life
depends on the slightest vibration of the least of these bells?
Oh!” he added, with clasped hands, “bells, do not ring,
hand-bells do not clang, mule-bells do not quiver!”
He made one more attempt upon Trouillefou.
“And if there should come a gust of wind?”
“You will be hanged,” replied the other, without hesitation.
Perceiving that no respite, nor reprieve, nor subterfuge was
possible, he bravely decided upon his course of action; he wound
his right foot round his left leg, raised himself on his left
foot, and stretched out his arm: but at the moment when his hand
touched the manikin, his body, which was now supported upon one
leg only, wavered on the stool which had but three; he made an
involuntary effort to support himself by the manikin, lost his
balance, and fell heavily to the ground, deafened by the fatal
vibration of the thousand bells of the manikin, which, yielding
to the impulse imparted by his hand, described first a rotary
motion, and then swayed majestically between the two posts.
“Malediction!” he cried as he fell, and remained as though dead,
with his face to the earth.
Meanwhile, he heard the dreadful peal above his head, the
diabolical laughter of the vagabonds, and the voice of
Trouillefou saying,—
“Pick me up that knave, and hang him without ceremony.” He rose.
They had already detached the manikin to make room for him.
The thieves made him mount the stool, Clopin came to him, passed
the rope about his neck, and, tapping him on the shoulder,—
“Adieu, my friend. You can’t escape now, even if you digested
with the pope’s guts.”
The word “Mercy!” died away upon Gringoire’s lips. He cast his
eyes about him; but there was no hope: all were laughing.
“Bellevigne de l’Étoile,” said the King of Thunes to an enormous
vagabond, who stepped out from the ranks, “climb upon the cross
beam.”
Bellevigne de l’Étoile nimbly mounted the transverse beam, and in
another minute, Gringoire, on raising his eyes, beheld him, with
terror, seated upon the beam above his head.
“Now,” resumed Clopin Trouillefou, “as soon as I clap my hands,
you, Andry the Red, will fling the stool to the ground with a
blow of your knee; you, François Chanteprune, will cling to the
feet of the rascal; and you, Bellevigne, will fling yourself on
his shoulders; and all three at once, do you hear?”
Gringoire shuddered.
“Are you ready?” said Clopin Trouillefou to the three thieves,
who held themselves in readiness to fall upon Gringoire. A moment
of horrible suspense ensued for the poor victim, during which
Clopin tranquilly thrust into the fire with the tip of his foot,
some bits of vine shoots which the flame had not caught. “Are you
ready?” he repeated, and opened his hands to clap. One second
more and all would have been over.
But he paused, as though struck by a sudden thought.
“One moment!” said he; “I forgot! It is our custom not to hang a
man without inquiring whether there is any woman who wants him.
Comrade, this is your last resource. You must wed either a female
vagabond or the noose.”
This law of the vagabonds, singular as it may strike the reader,
remains to-day written out at length, in ancient English
legislation. (See _Burington’s Observations_.)
Gringoire breathed again. This was the second time that he had
returned to life within an hour. So he did not dare to trust to
it too implicitly.
“Holà!” cried Clopin, mounted once more upon his cask, “holà!
women, females, is there among you, from the sorceress to her
cat, a wench who wants this rascal? Holà, Colette la Charonne!
Elisabeth Trouvain! Simone Jodouyne! Marie Piédebou! Thonne la
Longue! Bérarde Fanouel! Michelle Genaille! Claude Ronge-oreille!
Mathurine Girorou!—Holà! Isabeau-la-Thierrye! Come and see! A man
for nothing! Who wants him?”
Gringoire, no doubt, was not very appetizing in this miserable
condition. The female vagabonds did not seem to be much affected
by the proposition. The unhappy wretch heard them answer: “No!
no! hang him; there’ll be the more fun for us all!”
Nevertheless, three emerged from the throng and came to smell of
him. The first was a big wench, with a square face. She examined
the philosopher’s deplorable doublet attentively. His garment was
worn, and more full of holes than a stove for roasting chestnuts.
The girl made a wry face. “Old rag!” she muttered, and addressing
Gringoire, “Let’s see your cloak!” “I have lost it,” replied
Gringoire. “Your hat?” “They took it away from me.” “Your shoes?”
“They have hardly any soles left.” “Your purse?” “Alas!”
stammered Gringoire, “I have not even a sou.” “Let them hang you,
then, and say ‘Thank you!’” retorted the vagabond wench, turning
her back on him.
The second,—old, black, wrinkled, hideous, with an ugliness
conspicuous even in the Cour des Miracles, trotted round
Gringoire. He almost trembled lest she should want him. But she
mumbled between her teeth, “He’s too thin,” and went off.
The third was a young girl, quite fresh, and not too ugly. “Save
me!” said the poor fellow to her, in a low tone. She gazed at him
for a moment with an air of pity, then dropped her eyes, made a
plait in her petticoat, and remained in indecision. He followed
all these movements with his eyes; it was the last gleam of hope.
“No,” said the young girl, at length, “no! Guillaume Longuejoue
would beat me.” She retreated into the crowd.
“You are unlucky, comrade,” said Clopin.
Then rising to his feet, upon his hogshead. “No one wants him,”
he exclaimed, imitating the accent of an auctioneer, to the great
delight of all; “no one wants him? once, twice, three times!”
and, turning towards the gibbet with a sign of his hand, “Gone!”
Bellevigne de l’Étoile, Andry the Red, François Chanteprune,
stepped up to Gringoire.
At that moment a cry arose among the thieves: “_La Esmeralda! La
Esmeralda!_”
Gringoire shuddered, and turned towards the side whence the
clamor proceeded.
The crowd opened, and gave passage to a pure and dazzling form.
It was the gypsy.
“La Esmeralda!” said Gringoire, stupefied in the midst of his
emotions, by the abrupt manner in which that magic word knotted
together all his reminiscences of the day.
This rare creature seemed, even in the Cour des Miracles, to
exercise her sway of charm and beauty. The vagabonds, male and
female, ranged themselves gently along her path, and their brutal
faces beamed beneath her glance.
She approached the victim with her light step. Her pretty Djali
followed her. Gringoire was more dead than alive. She examined
him for a moment in silence.
“You are going to hang this man?” she said gravely, to Clopin.
“Yes, sister,” replied the King of Thunes, “unless you will take
him for your husband.”
She made her pretty little pout with her under lip. “I’ll take
him,” said she.
Gringoire firmly believed that he had been in a dream ever since
morning, and that this was the continuation of it.
The change was, in fact, violent, though a gratifying one. They
undid the noose, and made the poet step down from the stool. His
emotion was so lively that he was obliged to sit down.
The Duke of Egypt brought an earthenware crock, without uttering
a word. The gypsy offered it to Gringoire: “Fling it on the
ground,” said she.
The crock broke into four pieces.
“Brother,” then said the Duke of Egypt, laying his hands upon
their foreheads, “she is your wife; sister, he is your husband
for four years. Go.”
CHAPTER VII. A BRIDAL NIGHT.
A few moments later our poet found himself in a tiny arched
chamber, very cosy, very warm, seated at a table which appeared
to ask nothing better than to make some loans from a larder
hanging near by, having a good bed in prospect, and alone with a
pretty girl. The adventure smacked of enchantment. He began
seriously to take himself for a personage in a fairy tale; he
cast his eyes about him from time to time to time, as though to
see if the chariot of fire, harnessed to two-winged chimeras,
which alone could have so rapidly transported him from Tartarus
to Paradise, were still there. At times, also, he fixed his eyes
obstinately upon the holes in his doublet, in order to cling to
reality, and not lose the ground from under his feet completely.
His reason, tossed about in imaginary space, now hung only by
this thread.
The young girl did not appear to pay any attention to him; she
went and came, displaced a stool, talked to her goat, and
indulged in a pout now and then. At last she came and seated
herself near the table, and Gringoire was able to scrutinize her
at his ease.
You have been a child, reader, and you would, perhaps, be very
happy to be one still. It is quite certain that you have not,
more than once (and for my part, I have passed whole days, the
best employed of my life, at it) followed from thicket to
thicket, by the side of running water, on a sunny day, a
beautiful green or blue dragon-fly, breaking its flight in abrupt
angles, and kissing the tips of all the branches. You recollect
with what amorous curiosity your thought and your gaze were
riveted upon this little whirlwind, hissing and humming with
wings of purple and azure, in the midst of which floated an
imperceptible body, veiled by the very rapidity of its movement.
The aerial being which was dimly outlined amid this quivering of
wings, appeared to you chimerical, imaginary, impossible to
touch, impossible to see. But when, at length, the dragon-fly
alighted on the tip of a reed, and, holding your breath the
while, you were able to examine the long, gauze wings, the long
enamel robe, the two globes of crystal, what astonishment you
felt, and what fear lest you should again behold the form
disappear into a shade, and the creature into a chimera! Recall
these impressions, and you will readily appreciate what Gringoire
felt on contemplating, beneath her visible and palpable form,
that Esmeralda of whom, up to that time, he had only caught a
glimpse, amidst a whirlwind of dance, song, and tumult.
Sinking deeper and deeper into his revery: “So this,” he said to
himself, following her vaguely with his eyes, “is _la Esmeralda!_
a celestial creature! a street dancer! so much, and so little!
’Twas she who dealt the death-blow to my mystery this morning,
’tis she who saves my life this evening! My evil genius! My good
angel! A pretty woman, on my word! and who must needs love me
madly to have taken me in that fashion. By the way,” said he,
rising suddenly, with that sentiment of the true which formed the
foundation of his character and his philosophy, “I don’t know
very well how it happens, but I am her husband!”
With this idea in his head and in his eyes, he stepped up to the
young girl in a manner so military and so gallant that she drew
back.
“What do you want of me?” said she.
“Can you ask me, adorable Esmeralda?” replied Gringoire, with so
passionate an accent that he was himself astonished at it on
hearing himself speak.
The gypsy opened her great eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“What!” resumed Gringoire, growing warmer and warmer, and
supposing that, after all, he had to deal merely with a virtue of
the Cour des Miracles; “am I not thine, sweet friend, art thou
not mine?”
And, quite ingenuously, he clasped her waist.
The gypsy’s corsage slipped through his hands like the skin of an
eel. She bounded from one end of the tiny room to the other,
stooped down, and raised herself again, with a little poniard in
her hand, before Gringoire had even had time to see whence the
poniard came; proud and angry, with swelling lips and inflated
nostrils, her cheeks as red as an api apple,[15] and her eyes
darting lightnings. At the same time, the white goat placed
itself in front of her, and presented to Gringoire a hostile
front, bristling with two pretty horns, gilded and very sharp.
All this took place in the twinkling of an eye.
The dragon-fly had turned into a wasp, and asked nothing better
than to sting.
Our philosopher was speechless, and turned his astonished eyes
from the goat to the young girl. “Holy Virgin!” he said at last,
when surprise permitted him to speak, “here are two hearty
dames!”
The gypsy broke the silence on her side.
“You must be a very bold knave!”
“Pardon, mademoiselle,” said Gringoire, with a smile. “But why
did you take me for your husband?”
“Should I have allowed you to be hanged?”
“So,” said the poet, somewhat disappointed in his amorous hopes.
“You had no other idea in marrying me than to save me from the
gibbet?”
“And what other idea did you suppose that I had?”
Gringoire bit his lips. “Come,” said he, “I am not yet so
triumphant in Cupido, as I thought. But then, what was the good
of breaking that poor jug?”
Meanwhile Esmeralda’s dagger and the goat’s horns were still upon
the defensive.
“Mademoiselle Esmeralda,” said the poet, “let us come to terms. I
am not a clerk of the court, and I shall not go to law with you
for thus carrying a dagger in Paris, in the teeth of the
ordinances and prohibitions of M. the Provost. Nevertheless, you
are not ignorant of the fact that Noël Lescrivain was condemned,
a week ago, to pay ten Parisian sous, for having carried a
cutlass. But this is no affair of mine, and I will come to the
point. I swear to you, upon my share of Paradise, not to approach
you without your leave and permission, but do give me some
supper.”
The truth is, Gringoire was, like M. Despreaux, “not very
voluptuous.” He did not belong to that chevalier and musketeer
species, who take young girls by assault. In the matter of love,
as in all other affairs, he willingly assented to temporizing and
adjusting terms; and a good supper, and an amiable tête-à-tête
appeared to him, especially when he was hungry, an excellent
interlude between the prologue and the catastrophe of a love
adventure.
The gypsy did not reply. She made her disdainful little grimace,
drew up her head like a bird, then burst out laughing, and the
tiny poniard disappeared as it had come, without Gringoire being
able to see where the wasp concealed its sting.
A moment later, there stood upon the table a loaf of rye bread, a
slice of bacon, some wrinkled apples and a jug of beer. Gringoire
began to eat eagerly. One would have said, to hear the furious
clashing of his iron fork and his earthenware plate, that all his
love had turned to appetite.
The young girl seated opposite him, watched him in silence,
visibly preoccupied with another thought, at which she smiled
from time to time, while her soft hand caressed the intelligent
head of the goat, gently pressed between her knees.
A candle of yellow wax illuminated this scene of voracity and
revery.
Meanwhile, the first cravings of his stomach having been stilled,
Gringoire felt some false shame at perceiving that nothing
remained but one apple.
“You do not eat, Mademoiselle Esmeralda?”
She replied by a negative sign of the head, and her pensive
glance fixed itself upon the vault of the ceiling.
“What the deuce is she thinking of?” thought Gringoire, staring
at what she was gazing at; “’tis impossible that it can be that
stone dwarf carved in the keystone of that arch, which thus
absorbs her attention. What the deuce! I can bear the
comparison!”
He raised his voice, “Mademoiselle!”
She seemed not to hear him.
He repeated, still more loudly, “Mademoiselle Esmeralda!”
Trouble wasted. The young girl’s mind was elsewhere, and
Gringoire’s voice had not the power to recall it. Fortunately,
the goat interfered. She began to pull her mistress gently by the
sleeve.
“What dost thou want, Djali?” said the gypsy, hastily, as though
suddenly awakened.
“She is hungry,” said Gringoire, charmed to enter into
conversation. Esmeralda began to crumble some bread, which Djali
ate gracefully from the hollow of her hand.
Moreover, Gringoire did not give her time to resume her revery.
He hazarded a delicate question.
“So you don’t want me for your husband?”
The young girl looked at him intently, and said, “No.”
“For your lover?” went on Gringoire.
She pouted, and replied, “No.”
“For your friend?” pursued Gringoire.
She gazed fixedly at him again, and said, after a momentary
reflection, “Perhaps.”
This “perhaps,” so dear to philosophers, emboldened Gringoire.
“Do you know what friendship is?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied the gypsy; “it is to be brother and sister; two
souls which touch without mingling, two fingers on one hand.”
“And love?” pursued Gringoire.
“Oh! love!” said she, and her voice trembled, and her eye beamed.
“That is to be two and to be but one. A man and a woman mingled
into one angel. It is heaven.”
The street dancer had a beauty as she spoke thus, that struck
Gringoire singularly, and seemed to him in perfect keeping with
the almost oriental exaltation of her words. Her pure, red lips
half smiled; her serene and candid brow became troubled, at
intervals, under her thoughts, like a mirror under the breath;
and from beneath her long, drooping, black eyelashes, there
escaped a sort of ineffable light, which gave to her profile that
ideal serenity which Raphael found at the mystic point of
intersection of virginity, maternity, and divinity.
Nevertheless, Gringoire continued,—
“What must one be then, in order to please you?”
“A man.”
“And I—” said he, “what, then, am I?”
“A man has a helmet on his head, a sword in his hand, and golden
spurs on his heels.”
“Good,” said Gringoire, “without a horse, no man. Do you love any
one?”
“As a lover?—”
“Yes.”
She remained thoughtful for a moment, then said with a peculiar
expression: “That I shall know soon.”
“Why not this evening?” resumed the poet tenderly. “Why not me?”
She cast a grave glance upon him and said,—
“I can never love a man who cannot protect me.”
Gringoire colored, and took the hint. It was evident that the
young girl was alluding to the slight assistance which he had
rendered her in the critical situation in which she had found
herself two hours previously. This memory, effaced by his own
adventures of the evening, now recurred to him. He smote his
brow.
“By the way, mademoiselle, I ought to have begun there. Pardon my
foolish absence of mind. How did you contrive to escape from the
claws of Quasimodo?”
This question made the gypsy shudder.
“Oh! the horrible hunchback,” said she, hiding her face in her
hands. And she shuddered as though with violent cold.
“Horrible, in truth,” said Gringoire, who clung to his idea; “but
how did you manage to escape him?”
La Esmeralda smiled, sighed, and remained silent.
“Do you know why he followed you?” began Gringoire again, seeking
to return to his question by a circuitous route.
“I don’t know,” said the young girl, and she added hastily, “but
you were following me also, why were you following me?”
“In good faith,” responded Gringoire, “I don’t know either.”
Silence ensued. Gringoire slashed the table with his knife. The
young girl smiled and seemed to be gazing through the wall at
something. All at once she began to sing in a barely articulate
voice,—
Quando las pintadas aves,
Mudas estan, y la tierra—[16]
She broke off abruptly, and began to caress Djali.
“That’s a pretty animal of yours,” said Gringoire.
“She is my sister,” she answered.
“Why are you called _la Esmeralda?_” asked the poet.
“I do not know.”
“But why?”
She drew from her bosom a sort of little oblong bag, suspended
from her neck by a string of adrézarach beads. This bag exhaled a
strong odor of camphor. It was covered with green silk, and bore
in its centre a large piece of green glass, in imitation of an
emerald.
“Perhaps it is because of this,” said she.
Gringoire was on the point of taking the bag in his hand. She
drew back.
“Don’t touch it! It is an amulet. You would injure the charm or
the charm would injure you.”
The poet’s curiosity was more and more aroused.
“Who gave it to you?”
She laid one finger on her mouth and concealed the amulet in her
bosom. He tried a few more questions, but she hardly replied.
“What is the meaning of the words, _la Esmeralda?_”
“I don’t know,” said she.
“To what language do they belong?”
“They are Egyptian, I think.”
“I suspected as much,” said Gringoire, “you are not a native of
France?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are your parents alive?”
She began to sing, to an ancient air,—
Mon père est oiseau,
Ma mère est oiselle.
Je passe l’eau sans nacelle,
Je passe l’eau sans bateau,
Ma mère est oiselle,
Mon père est oiseau.[17]
“Good,” said Gringoire. “At what age did you come to France?”
“When I was very young.”
“And when to Paris?”
“Last year. At the moment when we were entering the papal gate I
saw a reed warbler flit through the air, that was at the end of
August; I said, it will be a hard winter.”
“So it was,” said Gringoire, delighted at this beginning of a
conversation. “I passed it in blowing my fingers. So you have the
gift of prophecy?”
She retired into her laconics again.
“Is that man whom you call the Duke of Egypt, the chief of your
tribe?”
“Yes.”
“But it was he who married us,” remarked the poet timidly.
She made her customary pretty grimace.
“I don’t even know your name.”
“My name? If you want it, here it is,—Pierre Gringoire.”
“I know a prettier one,” said she.
“Naughty girl!” retorted the poet. “Never mind, you shall not
provoke me. Wait, perhaps you will love me more when you know me
better; and then, you have told me your story with so much
confidence, that I owe you a little of mine. You must know, then,
that my name is Pierre Gringoire, and that I am a son of the
farmer of the notary’s office of Gonesse. My father was hung by
the Burgundians, and my mother disembowelled by the Picards, at
the siege of Paris, twenty years ago. At six years of age,
therefore, I was an orphan, without a sole to my foot except the
pavements of Paris. I do not know how I passed the interval from
six to sixteen. A fruit dealer gave me a plum here, a baker flung
me a crust there; in the evening I got myself taken up by the
watch, who threw me into prison, and there I found a bundle of
straw. All this did not prevent my growing up and growing thin,
as you see. In the winter I warmed myself in the sun, under the
porch of the Hôtel de Sens, and I thought it very ridiculous that
the fire on Saint John’s Day was reserved for the dog days. At
sixteen, I wished to choose a calling. I tried all in succession.
I became a soldier; but I was not brave enough. I became a monk;
but I was not sufficiently devout; and then I’m a bad hand at
drinking. In despair, I became an apprentice of the woodcutters,
but I was not strong enough; I had more of an inclination to
become a schoolmaster; ’tis true that I did not know how to read,
but that’s no reason. I perceived at the end of a certain time,
that I lacked something in every direction; and seeing that I was
good for nothing, of my own free will I became a poet and
rhymester. That is a trade which one can always adopt when one is
a vagabond, and it’s better than stealing, as some young brigands
of my acquaintance advised me to do. One day I met by luck, Dom
Claude Frollo, the reverend archdeacon of Notre-Dame. He took an
interest in me, and it is to him that I to-day owe it that I am a
veritable man of letters, who knows Latin from the _de Officiis_
of Cicero to the mortuology of the Celestine Fathers, and a
barbarian neither in scholastics, nor in politics, nor in
rhythmics, that sophism of sophisms. I am the author of the
Mystery which was presented to-day with great triumph and a great
concourse of populace, in the grand hall of the Palais de
Justice. I have also made a book which will contain six hundred
pages, on the wonderful comet of 1465, which sent one man mad. I
have enjoyed still other successes. Being somewhat of an
artillery carpenter, I lent a hand to Jean Mangue’s great
bombard, which burst, as you know, on the day when it was tested,
on the Pont de Charenton, and killed four and twenty curious
spectators. You see that I am not a bad match in marriage. I know
a great many sorts of very engaging tricks, which I will teach
your goat; for example, to mimic the Bishop of Paris, that cursed
Pharisee whose mill wheels splash passers-by the whole length of
the Pont aux Meuniers. And then my mystery will bring me in a
great deal of coined money, if they will only pay me. And
finally, I am at your orders, I and my wits, and my science and
my letters, ready to live with you, damsel, as it shall please
you, chastely or joyously; husband and wife, if you see fit;
brother and sister, if you think that better.”
Gringoire ceased, awaiting the effect of his harangue on the
young girl. Her eyes were fixed on the ground.
“_Phœbus,_” she said in a low voice. Then, turning towards the
poet, “_Phœbus_,—what does that mean?”
Gringoire, without exactly understanding what the connection
could be between his address and this question, was not sorry to
display his erudition. Assuming an air of importance, he
replied,—
“It is a Latin word which means _sun._”
“Sun!” she repeated.
“It is the name of a handsome archer, who was a god,” added
Gringoire.
“A god!” repeated the gypsy, and there was something pensive and
passionate in her tone.
At that moment, one of her bracelets became unfastened and fell.
Gringoire stooped quickly to pick it up; when he straightened up,
the young girl and the goat had disappeared. He heard the sound
of a bolt. It was a little door, communicating, no doubt, with a
neighboring cell, which was being fastened on the outside.
“Has she left me a bed, at least?” said our philosopher.
He made the tour of his cell. There was no piece of furniture
adapted to sleeping purposes, except a tolerably long wooden
coffer; and its cover was carved, to boot; which afforded
Gringoire, when he stretched himself out upon it, a sensation
somewhat similar to that which Micromégas would feel if he were
to lie down on the Alps.
“Come!” said he, adjusting himself as well as possible, “I must
resign myself. But here’s a strange nuptial night. ’Tis a pity.
There was something innocent and antediluvian about that broken
crock, which quite pleased me.”
BOOK THIRD.
CHAPTER I. NOTRE-DAME.
The church of Notre-Dame de Paris is still no doubt, a majestic
and sublime edifice. But, beautiful as it has been preserved in
growing old, it is difficult not to sigh, not to wax indignant,
before the numberless degradations and mutilations which time and
men have both caused the venerable monument to suffer, without
respect for Charlemagne, who laid its first stone, or for Philip
Augustus, who laid the last.
On the face of this aged queen of our cathedrals, by the side of
a wrinkle, one always finds a scar. _Tempus edax, homo
edacior_[18]; which I should be glad to translate thus: time is
blind, man is stupid.
If we had leisure to examine with the reader, one by one, the
diverse traces of destruction imprinted upon the old church,
time’s share would be the least, the share of men the most,
especially _the men of art_, since there have been individuals
who assumed the title of architects during the last two
centuries.
And, in the first place, to cite only a few leading examples,
there certainly are few finer architectural pages than this
façade, where, successively and at once, the three portals
hollowed out in an arch; the broidered and dentated cordon of the
eight and twenty royal niches; the immense central rose window,
flanked by its two lateral windows, like a priest by his deacon
and subdeacon; the frail and lofty gallery of trefoil arcades,
which supports a heavy platform above its fine, slender columns;
and lastly, the two black and massive towers with their slate
penthouses, harmonious parts of a magnificent whole, superposed
in five gigantic stories;—develop themselves before the eye, in a
mass and without confusion, with their innumerable details of
statuary, carving, and sculpture, joined powerfully to the
tranquil grandeur of the whole; a vast symphony in stone, so to
speak; the colossal work of one man and one people, all together
one and complex, like the Iliads and the Romanceros, whose sister
it is; prodigious product of the grouping together of all the
forces of an epoch, where, upon each stone, one sees the fancy of
the workman disciplined by the genius of the artist start forth
in a hundred fashions; a sort of human creation, in a word,
powerful and fecund as the divine creation of which it seems to
have stolen the double character,—variety, eternity.
And what we here say of the façade must be said of the entire
church; and what we say of the cathedral church of Paris, must be
said of all the churches of Christendom in the Middle Ages. All
things are in place in that art, self-created, logical, and well
proportioned. To measure the great toe of the foot is to measure
the giant.
Let us return to the façade of Notre-Dame, as it still appears to
us, when we go piously to admire the grave and puissant
cathedral, which inspires terror, so its chronicles assert: _quæ
mole sua terrorem incutit spectantibus_.
Three important things are to-day lacking in that façade: in the
first place, the staircase of eleven steps which formerly raised
it above the soil; next, the lower series of statues which
occupied the niches of the three portals; and lastly the upper
series, of the twenty-eight most ancient kings of France, which
garnished the gallery of the first story, beginning with
Childebert, and ending with Phillip Augustus, holding in his hand
“the imperial apple.”
Time has caused the staircase to disappear, by raising the soil
of the city with a slow and irresistible progress; but, while
thus causing the eleven steps which added to the majestic height
of the edifice, to be devoured, one by one, by the rising tide of
the pavements of Paris,—time has bestowed upon the church perhaps
more than it has taken away, for it is time which has spread over
the façade that sombre hue of the centuries which makes the old
age of monuments the period of their beauty.
But who has thrown down the two rows of statues? who has left the
niches empty? who has cut, in the very middle of the central
portal, that new and bastard arch? who has dared to frame therein
that commonplace and heavy door of carved wood, à la Louis XV.,
beside the arabesques of Biscornette? The men, the architects,
the artists of our day.
And if we enter the interior of the edifice, who has overthrown
that colossus of Saint Christopher, proverbial for magnitude
among statues, as the grand hall of the Palais de Justice was
among halls, as the spire of Strasbourg among spires? And those
myriads of statues, which peopled all the spaces between the
columns of the nave and the choir, kneeling, standing,
equestrian, men, women, children, kings, bishops, gendarmes, in
stone, in marble, in gold, in silver, in copper, in wax even,—who
has brutally swept them away? It is not time.
And who substituted for the ancient gothic altar, splendidly
encumbered with shrines and reliquaries, that heavy marble
sarcophagus, with angels’ heads and clouds, which seems a
specimen pillaged from the Val-de-Grâce or the Invalides? Who
stupidly sealed that heavy anachronism of stone in the
Carlovingian pavement of Hercandus? Was it not Louis XIV.,
fulfilling the request of Louis XIII.?
And who put the cold, white panes in the place of those windows,
“high in color,” which caused the astonished eyes of our fathers
to hesitate between the rose of the grand portal and the arches
of the apse? And what would a sub-chanter of the sixteenth
century say, on beholding the beautiful yellow wash, with which
our archiepiscopal vandals have desmeared their cathedral? He
would remember that it was the color with which the hangman
smeared “accursed” edifices; he would recall the Hôtel du
Petit-Bourbon, all smeared thus, on account of the constable’s
treason. “Yellow, after all, of so good a quality,” said Sauval,
“and so well recommended, that more than a century has not yet
caused it to lose its color.” He would think that the sacred
place had become infamous, and would flee.
And if we ascend the cathedral, without mentioning a thousand
barbarisms of every sort,—what has become of that charming little
bell tower, which rested upon the point of intersection of the
cross-roofs, and which, no less frail and no less bold than its
neighbor (also destroyed), the spire of the Sainte-Chapelle,
buried itself in the sky, farther forward than the towers,
slender, pointed, sonorous, carved in open work. An architect of
good taste amputated it (1787), and considered it sufficient to
mask the wound with that large, leaden plaster, which resembles a
pot cover.
’Tis thus that the marvellous art of the Middle Ages has been
treated in nearly every country, especially in France. One can
distinguish on its ruins three sorts of lesions, all three of
which cut into it at different depths; first, time, which has
insensibly notched its surface here and there, and gnawed it
everywhere; next, political and religious revolution, which,
blind and wrathful by nature, have flung themselves tumultuously
upon it, torn its rich garment of carving and sculpture, burst
its rose windows, broken its necklace of arabesques and tiny
figures, torn out its statues, sometimes because of their mitres,
sometimes because of their crowns; lastly, fashions, even more
grotesque and foolish, which, since the anarchical and splendid
deviations of the Renaissance, have followed each other in the
necessary decadence of architecture. Fashions have wrought more
harm than revolutions. They have cut to the quick; they have
attacked the very bone and framework of art; they have cut,
slashed, disorganized, killed the edifice, in form as in the
symbol, in its consistency as well as in its beauty. And then
they have made it over; a presumption of which neither time nor
revolutions at least have been guilty. They have audaciously
adjusted, in the name of “good taste,” upon the wounds of gothic
architecture, their miserable gewgaws of a day, their ribbons of
marble, their pompons of metal, a veritable leprosy of egg-shaped
ornaments, volutes, whorls, draperies, garlands, fringes, stone
flames, bronze clouds, pudgy cupids, chubby-cheeked cherubim,
which begin to devour the face of art in the oratory of Catherine
de Medicis, and cause it to expire, two centuries later, tortured
and grimacing, in the boudoir of the Dubarry.
Thus, to sum up the points which we have just indicated, three
sorts of ravages to-day disfigure Gothic architecture. Wrinkles
and warts on the epidermis; this is the work of time. Deeds of
violence, brutalities, contusions, fractures; this is the work of
the revolutions from Luther to Mirabeau. Mutilations,
amputations, dislocation of the joints, _restorations_; this is
the Greek, Roman, and barbarian work of professors according to
Vitruvius and Vignole. This magnificent art produced by the
Vandals has been slain by the academies. The centuries, the
revolutions, which at least devastate with impartiality and
grandeur, have been joined by a cloud of school architects,
licensed, sworn, and bound by oath; defacing with the discernment
and choice of bad taste, substituting the _chicorées_ of Louis
XV. for the Gothic lace, for the greater glory of the Parthenon.
It is the kick of the ass at the dying lion. It is the old oak
crowning itself, and which, to heap the measure full, is stung,
bitten, and gnawed by caterpillars.
How far it is from the epoch when Robert Cenalis, comparing
Notre-Dame de Paris to the famous temple of Diana at Ephesus, _so
much lauded by the ancient pagans_, which Erostatus _has_
immortalized, found the Gallic temple “more excellent in length,
breadth, height, and structure.”[19]
Notre-Dame is not, moreover, what can be called a complete,
definite, classified monument. It is no longer a Romanesque
church; nor is it a Gothic church. This edifice is not a type.
Notre-Dame de Paris has not, like the Abbey of Tournus, the grave
and massive frame, the large and round vault, the glacial
bareness, the majestic simplicity of the edifices which have the
rounded arch for their progenitor. It is not, like the Cathedral
of Bourges, the magnificent, light, multiform, tufted, bristling
efflorescent product of the pointed arch. Impossible to class it
in that ancient family of sombre, mysterious churches, low and
crushed as it were by the round arch, almost Egyptian, with the
exception of the ceiling; all hieroglyphics, all sacerdotal, all
symbolical, more loaded in their ornaments, with lozenges and
zigzags, than with flowers, with flowers than with animals, with
animals than with men; the work of the architect less than of the
bishop; first transformation of art, all impressed with
theocratic and military discipline, taking root in the Lower
Empire, and stopping with the time of William the Conqueror.
Impossible to place our Cathedral in that other family of lofty,
aerial churches, rich in painted windows and sculpture; pointed
in form, bold in attitude; communal and _bourgeois_ as political
symbols; free, capricious, lawless, as a work of art; second
transformation of architecture, no longer hieroglyphic, immovable
and sacerdotal, but artistic, progressive, and popular, which
begins at the return from the crusades, and ends with Louis IX.
Notre-Dame de Paris is not of pure Romanesque, like the first;
nor of pure Arabian race, like the second.
It is an edifice of the transition period. The Saxon architect
completed the erection of the first pillars of the nave, when the
pointed arch, which dates from the Crusade, arrived and placed
itself as a conqueror upon the large Romanesque capitals which
should support only round arches. The pointed arch, mistress
since that time, constructed the rest of the church.
Nevertheless, timid and inexperienced at the start, it sweeps
out, grows larger, restrains itself, and dares no longer dart
upwards in spires and lancet windows, as it did later on, in so
many marvellous cathedrals. One would say that it were conscious
of the vicinity of the heavy Romanesque pillars.
However, these edifices of the transition from the Romanesque to
the Gothic, are no less precious for study than the pure types.
They express a shade of the art which would be lost without them.
It is the graft of the pointed upon the round arch.
Notre-Dame de Paris is, in particular, a curious specimen of this
variety. Each face, each stone of the venerable monument, is a
page not only of the history of the country, but of the history
of science and art as well. Thus, in order to indicate here only
the principal details, while the little Red Door almost attains
to the limits of the Gothic delicacy of the fifteenth century,
the pillars of the nave, by their size and weight, go back to the
Carlovingian Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. One would suppose
that six centuries separated these pillars from that door. There
is no one, not even the hermetics, who does not find in the
symbols of the grand portal a satisfactory compendium of their
science, of which the Church of Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie was
so complete a hieroglyph. Thus, the Roman abbey, the
philosophers’ church, the Gothic art, Saxon art, the heavy, round
pillar, which recalls Gregory VII., the hermetic symbolism, with
which Nicolas Flamel played the prelude to Luther, papal unity,
schism, Saint-Germain des Prés, Saint-Jacques de la
Boucherie,—all are mingled, combined, amalgamated in Notre-Dame.
This central mother church is, among the ancient churches of
Paris, a sort of chimera; it has the head of one, the limbs of
another, the haunches of another, something of all.
We repeat it, these hybrid constructions are not the least
interesting for the artist, for the antiquarian, for the
historian. They make one feel to what a degree architecture is a
primitive thing, by demonstrating (what is also demonstrated by
the cyclopean vestiges, the pyramids of Egypt, the gigantic
Hindoo pagodas) that the greatest products of architecture are
less the works of individuals than of society; rather the
offspring of a nation’s effort, than the inspired flash of a man
of genius; the deposit left by a whole people; the heaps
accumulated by centuries; the residue of successive evaporations
of human society,—in a word, species of formations. Each wave of
time contributes its alluvium, each race deposits its layer on
the monument, each individual brings his stone. Thus do the
beavers, thus do the bees, thus do men. The great symbol of
architecture, Babel, is a hive.
Great edifices, like great mountains, are the work of centuries.
Art often undergoes a transformation while they are pending,
_pendent opera interrupta_; they proceed quietly in accordance
with the transformed art. The new art takes the monument where it
finds it, incrusts itself there, assimilates it to itself,
develops it according to its fancy, and finishes it if it can.
The thing is accomplished without trouble, without effort,
without reaction,—following a natural and tranquil law. It is a
graft which shoots up, a sap which circulates, a vegetation which
starts forth anew. Certainly there is matter here for many large
volumes, and often the universal history of humanity in the
successive engrafting of many arts at many levels, upon the same
monument. The man, the artist, the individual, is effaced in
these great masses, which lack the name of their author; human
intelligence is there summed up and totalized. Time is the
architect, the nation is the builder.
Not to consider here anything except the Christian architecture
of Europe, that younger sister of the great masonries of the
Orient, it appears to the eyes as an immense formation divided
into three well-defined zones, which are superposed, the one upon
the other: the Romanesque zone[20], the Gothic zone, the zone of
the Renaissance, which we would gladly call the Greco-Roman zone.
The Roman layer, which is the most ancient and deepest, is
occupied by the round arch, which reappears, supported by the
Greek column, in the modern and upper layer of the Renaissance.
The pointed arch is found between the two. The edifices which
belong exclusively to any one of these three layers are perfectly
distinct, uniform, and complete. There is the Abbey of Jumiéges,
there is the Cathedral of Reims, there is the Sainte-Croix of
Orléans. But the three zones mingle and amalgamate along the
edges, like the colors in the solar spectrum. Hence, complex
monuments, edifices of gradation and transition. One is Roman at
the base, Gothic in the middle, Greco-Roman at the top. It is
because it was six hundred years in building. This variety is
rare. The donjon keep of d’Étampes is a specimen of it. But
monuments of two formations are more frequent. There is
Notre-Dame de Paris, a pointed-arch edifice, which is imbedded by
its pillars in that Roman zone, in which are plunged the portal
of Saint-Denis, and the nave of Saint-Germain des Prés. There is
the charming, half-Gothic chapter-house of Bocherville, where the
Roman layer extends half way up. There is the cathedral of Rouen,
which would be entirely Gothic if it did not bathe the tip of its
central spire in the zone of the Renaissance.[21]
However, all these shades, all these differences, do not affect
the surfaces of edifices only. It is art which has changed its
skin. The very constitution of the Christian church is not
attacked by it. There is always the same internal woodwork, the
same logical arrangement of parts. Whatever may be the carved and
embroidered envelope of a cathedral, one always finds beneath
it—in the state of a germ, and of a rudiment at the least—the
Roman basilica. It is eternally developed upon the soil according
to the same law. There are, invariably, two naves, which
intersect in a cross, and whose upper portion, rounded into an
apse, forms the choir; there are always the side aisles, for
interior processions, for chapels,—a sort of lateral walks or
promenades where the principal nave discharges itself through the
spaces between the pillars. That settled, the number of chapels,
doors, bell towers, and pinnacles are modified to infinity,
according to the fancy of the century, the people, and art. The
service of religion once assured and provided for, architecture
does what she pleases. Statues, stained glass, rose windows,
arabesques, denticulations, capitals, bas-reliefs,—she combines
all these imaginings according to the arrangement which best
suits her. Hence, the prodigious exterior variety of these
edifices, at whose foundation dwells so much order and unity. The
trunk of a tree is immovable; the foliage is capricious.
CHAPTER II. A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS.
We have just attempted to restore, for the reader’s benefit, that
admirable church of Notre-Dame de Paris. We have briefly pointed
out the greater part of the beauties which it possessed in the
fifteenth century, and which it lacks to-day; but we have omitted
the principal thing,—the view of Paris which was then to be
obtained from the summits of its towers.
That was, in fact,—when, after having long groped one’s way up
the dark spiral which perpendicularly pierces the thick wall of
the belfries, one emerged, at last abruptly, upon one of the
lofty platforms inundated with light and air,—that was, in fact,
a fine picture which spread out, on all sides at once, before the
eye; a spectacle _sui generis_, of which those of our readers who
have had the good fortune to see a Gothic city entire, complete,
homogeneous,—a few of which still remain, Nuremberg in Bavaria
and Vittoria in Spain,—can readily form an idea; or even smaller
specimens, provided that they are well preserved,—Vitré in
Brittany, Nordhausen in Prussia.
The Paris of three hundred and fifty years ago—the Paris of the
fifteenth century—was already a gigantic city. We Parisians
generally make a mistake as to the ground which we think that we
have gained, since Paris has not increased much over one-third
since the time of Louis XI. It has certainly lost more in beauty
than it has gained in size.
Paris had its birth, as the reader knows, in that old island of
the City which has the form of a cradle. The strand of that
island was its first boundary wall, the Seine its first moat.
Paris remained for many centuries in its island state, with two
bridges, one on the north, the other on the south; and two bridge
heads, which were at the same time its gates and its
fortresses,—the Grand-Châtelet on the right bank, the
Petit-Châtelet on the left. Then, from the date of the kings of
the first race, Paris, being too cribbed and confined in its
island, and unable to return thither, crossed the water. Then,
beyond the Grand, beyond the Petit-Châtelet, a first circle of
walls and towers began to infringe upon the country on the two
sides of the Seine. Some vestiges of this ancient enclosure still
remained in the last century; to-day, only the memory of it is
left, and here and there a tradition, the Baudets or Baudoyer
gate, _Porta Bagauda_.
Little by little, the tide of houses, always thrust from the
heart of the city outwards, overflows, devours, wears away, and
effaces this wall. Philip Augustus makes a new dike for it. He
imprisons Paris in a circular chain of great towers, both lofty
and solid. For the period of more than a century, the houses
press upon each other, accumulate, and raise their level in this
basin, like water in a reservoir. They begin to deepen; they pile
story upon story; they mount upon each other; they gush forth at
the top, like all laterally compressed growth, and there is a
rivalry as to which shall thrust its head above its neighbors,
for the sake of getting a little air. The street glows narrower
and deeper, every space is overwhelmed and disappears. The houses
finally leap the wall of Philip Augustus, and scatter joyfully
over the plain, without order, and all askew, like runaways.
There they plant themselves squarely, cut themselves gardens from
the fields, and take their ease. Beginning with 1367, the city
spreads to such an extent into the suburbs, that a new wall
becomes necessary, particularly on the right bank; Charles V.
builds it. But a city like Paris is perpetually growing. It is
only such cities that become capitals. They are funnels, into
which all the geographical, political, moral, and intellectual
water-sheds of a country, all the natural slopes of a people,
pour; wells of civilization, so to speak, and also sewers, where
commerce, industry, intelligence, population,—all that is sap,
all that is life, all that is the soul of a nation, filters and
amasses unceasingly, drop by drop, century by century.
So Charles V.’s wall suffered the fate of that of Philip
Augustus. At the end of the fifteenth century, the Faubourg
strides across it, passes beyond it, and runs farther. In the
sixteenth, it seems to retreat visibly, and to bury itself deeper
and deeper in the old city, so thick had the new city already
become outside of it. Thus, beginning with the fifteenth century,
where our story finds us, Paris had already outgrown the three
concentric circles of walls which, from the time of Julian the
Apostate, existed, so to speak, in germ in the Grand-Châtelet and
the Petit-Châtelet. The mighty city had cracked, in succession,
its four enclosures of walls, like a child grown too large for
his garments of last year. Under Louis XI., this sea of houses
was seen to be pierced at intervals by several groups of ruined
towers, from the ancient wall, like the summits of hills in an
inundation,—like archipelagos of the old Paris submerged beneath
the new. Since that time Paris has undergone yet another
transformation, unfortunately for our eyes; but it has passed
only one more wall, that of Louis XV., that miserable wall of mud
and spittle, worthy of the king who built it, worthy of the poet
who sung it,—
Le mur murant Paris rend Paris murmurant.[22]
In the fifteenth century, Paris was still divided into three
wholly distinct and separate towns, each having its own
physiognomy, its own specialty, its manners, customs, privileges,
and history: the City, the University, the Town. The City, which
occupied the island, was the most ancient, the smallest, and the
mother of the other two, crowded in between them like (may we be
pardoned the comparison) a little old woman between two large and
handsome maidens. The University covered the left bank of the
Seine, from the Tournelle to the Tour de Nesle, points which
correspond in the Paris of to-day, the one to the wine market,
the other to the mint. Its wall included a large part of that
plain where Julian had built his hot baths. The hill of
Sainte-Geneviève was enclosed in it. The culminating point of
this sweep of walls was the Papal gate, that is to say, near the
present site of the Pantheon. The Town, which was the largest of
the three fragments of Paris, held the right bank. Its quay,
broken or interrupted in many places, ran along the Seine, from
the Tour de Billy to the Tour du Bois; that is to say, from the
place where the granary stands to-day, to the present site of the
Tuileries. These four points, where the Seine intersected the
wall of the capital, the Tournelle and the Tour de Nesle on the
right, the Tour de Billy and the Tour du Bois on the left, were
called pre-eminently, _the four towers of Paris_. The Town
encroached still more extensively upon the fields than the
University. The culminating point of the Town wall (that of
Charles V.) was at the gates of Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin,
whose situation has not been changed.
As we have just said, each of these three great divisions of
Paris was a town, but too special a town to be complete, a city
which could not get along without the other two. Hence three
entirely distinct aspects: churches abounded in the City;
palaces, in the Town; and colleges, in the University. Neglecting
here the originalities, of secondary importance in old Paris, and
the capricious regulations regarding the public highways, we will
say, from a general point of view, taking only masses and the
whole group, in this chaos of communal jurisdictions, that the
island belonged to the bishop, the right bank to the provost of
the merchants, the left bank to the Rector; over all ruled the
provost of Paris, a royal not a municipal official. The City had
Notre-Dame; the Town, the Louvre and the Hôtel de Ville; the
University, the Sorbonne. The Town had the markets (Halles); the
city, the Hospital; the University, the Pré-aux-Clercs. Offences
committed by the scholars on the left bank were tried in the law
courts on the island, and were punished on the right bank at
Montfaucon; unless the rector, feeling the university to be
strong and the king weak, intervened; for it was the students’
privilege to be hanged on their own grounds.
The greater part of these privileges, it may be noted in passing,
and there were some even better than the above, had been extorted
from the kings by revolts and mutinies. It is the course of
things from time immemorial; the king only lets go when the
people tear away. There is an old charter which puts the matter
naively: _àpropos_ of fidelity: _Civibus fidelitas in reges, quæ
tamen aliquoties seditionibus interrupta, multa peperit
privilegia_.
In the fifteenth century, the Seine bathed five islands within
the walls of Paris: Louviers island, where there were then trees,
and where there is no longer anything but wood; l’île aux Vaches,
and l’île Notre-Dame, both deserted, with the exception of one
house, both fiefs of the bishop—in the seventeenth century, a
single island was formed out of these two, which was built upon
and named l’île Saint-Louis—, lastly the City, and at its point,
the little islet of the cow tender, which was afterwards engulfed
beneath the platform of the Pont-Neuf. The City then had five
bridges: three on the right, the Pont Notre-Dame, and the Pont au
Change, of stone, the Pont aux Meuniers, of wood; two on the
left, the Petit Pont, of stone, the Pont Saint-Michel, of wood;
all loaded with houses.
The University had six gates, built by Philip Augustus; there
were, beginning with la Tournelle, the Porte Saint-Victor, the
Porte Bordelle, the Porte Papale, the Porte Saint-Jacques, the
Porte Saint-Michel, the Porte Saint-Germain. The Town had six
gates, built by Charles V.; beginning with the Tour de Billy they
were: the Porte Saint-Antoine, the Porte du Temple, the Porte
Saint-Martin, the Porte Saint-Denis, the Porte Montmartre, the
Porte Saint-Honoré. All these gates were strong, and also
handsome, which does not detract from strength. A large, deep
moat, with a brisk current during the high water of winter,
bathed the base of the wall round Paris; the Seine furnished the
water. At night, the gates were shut, the river was barred at
both ends of the city with huge iron chains, and Paris slept
tranquilly.
From a bird’s-eye view, these three burgs, the City, the Town,
and the University, each presented to the eye an inextricable
skein of eccentrically tangled streets. Nevertheless, at first
sight, one recognized the fact that these three fragments formed
but one body. One immediately perceived three long parallel
streets, unbroken, undisturbed, traversing, almost in a straight
line, all three cities, from one end to the other; from North to
South, perpendicularly, to the Seine, which bound them together,
mingled them, infused them in each other, poured and transfused
the people incessantly, from one to the other, and made one out
of the three. The first of these streets ran from the Porte
Saint-Martin: it was called the Rue Saint-Jacques in the
University, Rue de la Juiverie in the City, Rue Saint-Martin in
the Town; it crossed the water twice, under the name of the Petit
Pont and the Pont Notre-Dame. The second, which was called the
Rue de la Harpe on the left bank, Rue de la Barillerié in the
island, Rue Saint-Denis on the right bank, Pont Saint-Michel on
one arm of the Seine, Pont au Change on the other, ran from the
Porte Saint-Michel in the University, to the Porte Saint-Denis in
the Town. However, under all these names, there were but two
streets, parent streets, generating streets,—the two arteries of
Paris. All the other veins of the triple city either derived
their supply from them or emptied into them.
Independently of these two principal streets, piercing Paris
diametrically in its whole breadth, from side to side, common to
the entire capital, the City and the University had also each its
own great special street, which ran lengthwise by them, parallel
to the Seine, cutting, as it passed, at right angles, the two
arterial thoroughfares. Thus, in the Town, one descended in a
straight line from the Porte Saint-Antoine to the Porte
Saint-Honoré; in the University from the Porte Saint-Victor to
the Porte Saint-Germain. These two great thoroughfares
intersected by the two first, formed the canvas upon which
reposed, knotted and crowded together on every hand, the
labyrinthine network of the streets of Paris. In the
incomprehensible plan of these streets, one distinguished
likewise, on looking attentively, two clusters of great streets,
like magnified sheaves of grain, one in the University, the other
in the Town, which spread out gradually from the bridges to the
gates.
Some traces of this geometrical plan still exist to-day.
Now, what aspect did this whole present, when, as viewed from the
summit of the towers of Notre-Dame, in 1482? That we shall try to
describe.
For the spectator who arrived, panting, upon that pinnacle, it
was first a dazzling confusing view of roofs, chimneys, streets,
bridges, places, spires, bell towers. Everything struck your eye
at once: the carved gable, the pointed roof, the turrets
suspended at the angles of the walls; the stone pyramids of the
eleventh century, the slate obelisks of the fifteenth; the round,
bare tower of the donjon keep; the square and fretted tower of
the church; the great and the little, the massive and the aerial.
The eye was, for a long time, wholly lost in this labyrinth,
where there was nothing which did not possess its originality,
its reason, its genius, its beauty,—nothing which did not proceed
from art; beginning with the smallest house, with its painted and
carved front, with external beams, elliptical door, with
projecting stories, to the royal Louvre, which then had a
colonnade of towers. But these are the principal masses which
were then to be distinguished when the eye began to accustom
itself to this tumult of edifices.
In the first place, the City.—“The island of the City,” as Sauval
says, who, in spite of his confused medley, sometimes has such
happy turns of expression,—“the island of the city is made like a
great ship, stuck in the mud and run aground in the current, near
the centre of the Seine.”
We have just explained that, in the fifteenth century, this ship
was anchored to the two banks of the river by five bridges. This
form of a ship had also struck the heraldic scribes; for it is
from that, and not from the siege by the Normans, that the ship
which blazons the old shield of Paris, comes, according to Favyn
and Pasquier. For him who understands how to decipher them,
armorial bearings are algebra, armorial bearings have a tongue.
The whole history of the second half of the Middle Ages is
written in armorial bearings,—the first half is in the symbolism
of the Roman churches. They are the hieroglyphics of feudalism,
succeeding those of theocracy.
Thus the City first presented itself to the eye, with its stern
to the east, and its prow to the west. Turning towards the prow,
one had before one an innumerable flock of ancient roofs, over
which arched broadly the lead-covered apse of the
Sainte-Chapelle, like an elephant’s haunches loaded with its
tower. Only here, this tower was the most audacious, the most
open, the most ornamented spire of cabinet-maker’s work that ever
let the sky peep through its cone of lace. In front of
Notre-Dame, and very near at hand, three streets opened into the
cathedral square,—a fine square, lined with ancient houses. Over
the south side of this place bent the wrinkled and sullen façade
of the Hôtel Dieu, and its roof, which seemed covered with warts
and pustules. Then, on the right and the left, to east and west,
within that wall of the City, which was yet so contracted, rose
the bell towers of its one and twenty churches, of every date, of
every form, of every size, from the low and wormeaten belfry of
Saint-Denis du Pas (_Carcer Glaucini_) to the slender needles of
Saint-Pierre aux Bœufs and Saint-Landry.
Behind Notre-Dame, the cloister and its Gothic galleries spread
out towards the north; on the south, the half-Roman palace of the
bishop; on the east, the desert point of the Terrain. In this
throng of houses the eye also distinguished, by the lofty
open-work mitres of stone which then crowned the roof itself,
even the most elevated windows of the palace, the hotel given by
the city, under Charles VI., to Juvénal des Ursins; a little
farther on, the pitch-covered sheds of the Palus Market; in still
another quarter the new apse of Saint-Germain le Vieux,
lengthened in 1458, with a bit of the Rue aux Febves; and then,
in places, a square crowded with people; a pillory, erected at
the corner of a street; a fine fragment of the pavement of Philip
Augustus, a magnificent flagging, grooved for the horses’ feet,
in the middle of the road, and so badly replaced in the sixteenth
century by the miserable cobblestones, called the _pavement of
the League;_ a deserted back courtyard, with one of those
diaphanous staircase turrets, such as were erected in the
fifteenth century, one of which is still to be seen in the Rue
des Bourdonnais. Lastly, at the right of the Sainte-Chapelle,
towards the west, the Palais de Justice rested its group of
towers at the edge of the water. The thickets of the king’s
gardens, which covered the western point of the City, masked the
Island du Passeur. As for the water, from the summit of the
towers of Notre-Dame one hardly saw it, on either side of the
City; the Seine was hidden by bridges, the bridges by houses.
And when the glance passed these bridges, whose roofs were
visibly green, rendered mouldy before their time by the vapors
from the water, if it was directed to the left, towards the
University, the first edifice which struck it was a large, low
sheaf of towers, the Petit-Châtelet, whose yawning gate devoured
the end of the Petit-Pont. Then, if your view ran along the bank,
from east to west, from the Tournelle to the Tour de Nesle, there
was a long cordon of houses, with carved beams, stained-glass
windows, each story projecting over that beneath it, an
interminable zigzag of _bourgeois_ gables, frequently interrupted
by the mouth of a street, and from time to time also by the front
or angle of a huge stone mansion, planted at its ease, with
courts and gardens, wings and detached buildings, amid this
populace of crowded and narrow houses, like a grand gentleman
among a throng of rustics. There were five or six of these
mansions on the quay, from the house of Lorraine, which shared
with the Bernardins the grand enclosure adjoining the Tournelle,
to the Hôtel de Nesle, whose principal tower ended Paris, and
whose pointed roofs were in a position, during three months of
the year, to encroach, with their black triangles, upon the
scarlet disk of the setting sun.
This side of the Seine was, however, the least mercantile of the
two. Students furnished more of a crowd and more noise there than
artisans, and there was not, properly speaking, any quay, except
from the Pont Saint-Michel to the Tour de Nesle. The rest of the
bank of the Seine was now a naked strand, the same as beyond the
Bernardins; again, a throng of houses, standing with their feet
in the water, as between the two bridges.
There was a great uproar of laundresses; they screamed, and
talked, and sang from morning till night along the beach, and
beat a great deal of linen there, just as in our day. This is not
the least of the gayeties of Paris.
The University presented a dense mass to the eye. From one end to
the other, it was homogeneous and compact. The thousand roofs,
dense, angular, clinging to each other, composed, nearly all, of
the same geometrical element, offered, when viewed from above,
the aspect of a crystallization of the same substance.
The capricious ravine of streets did not cut this block of houses
into too disproportionate slices. The forty-two colleges were
scattered about in a fairly equal manner, and there were some
everywhere. The amusingly varied crests of these beautiful
edifices were the product of the same art as the simple roofs
which they overshot, and were, actually, only a multiplication of
the square or the cube of the same geometrical figure. Hence they
complicated the whole effect, without disturbing it; completed,
without overloading it. Geometry is harmony. Some fine mansions
here and there made magnificent outlines against the picturesque
attics of the left bank. The house of Nevers, the house of Rome,
the house of Reims, which have disappeared; the Hôtel de Cluny,
which still exists, for the consolation of the artist, and whose
tower was so stupidly deprived of its crown a few years ago.
Close to Cluny, that Roman palace, with fine round arches, were
once the hot baths of Julian. There were a great many abbeys, of
a beauty more devout, of a grandeur more solemn than the
mansions, but not less beautiful, not less grand. Those which
first caught the eye were the Bernardins, with their three bell
towers; Sainte-Geneviève, whose square tower, which still exists,
makes us regret the rest; the Sorbonne, half college, half
monastery, of which so admirable a nave survives; the fine
quadrilateral cloister of the Mathurins; its neighbor, the
cloister of Saint-Benoît, within whose walls they have had time
to cobble up a theatre, between the seventh and eighth editions
of this book; the Cordeliers, with their three enormous adjacent
gables; the Augustins, whose graceful spire formed, after the
Tour de Nesle, the second denticulation on this side of Paris,
starting from the west. The colleges, which are, in fact, the
intermediate ring between the cloister and the world, hold the
middle position in the monumental series between the hotels and
the abbeys, with a severity full of elegance, sculpture less
giddy than the palaces, an architecture less severe than the
convents. Unfortunately, hardly anything remains of these
monuments, where Gothic art combined with so just a balance,
richness and economy. The churches (and they were numerous and
splendid in the University, and they were graded there also in
all the ages of architecture, from the round arches of
Saint-Julian to the pointed arches of Saint-Séverin), the
churches dominated the whole; and, like one harmony more in this
mass of harmonies, they pierced in quick succession the multiple
open work of the gables with slashed spires, with open-work bell
towers, with slender pinnacles, whose line was also only a
magnificent exaggeration of the acute angle of the roofs.
The ground of the University was hilly; Mount Sainte-Geneviève
formed an enormous mound to the south; and it was a sight to see
from the summit of Notre-Dame how that throng of narrow and
tortuous streets (to-day the Latin Quarter), those bunches of
houses which, spread out in every direction from the top of this
eminence, precipitated themselves in disorder, and almost
perpendicularly down its flanks, nearly to the water’s edge,
having the air, some of falling, others of clambering up again,
and all of holding to one another. A continual flux of a thousand
black points which passed each other on the pavements made
everything move before the eyes; it was the populace seen thus
from aloft and afar.
Lastly, in the intervals of these roofs, of these spires, of
these accidents of numberless edifices, which bent and writhed,
and jagged in so eccentric a manner the extreme line of the
University, one caught a glimpse, here and there, of a great
expanse of moss-grown wall, a thick, round tower, a crenellated
city gate, shadowing forth the fortress; it was the wall of
Philip Augustus. Beyond, the fields gleamed green; beyond, fled
the roads, along which were scattered a few more suburban houses,
which became more infrequent as they became more distant. Some of
these faubourgs were important: there were, first, starting from
la Tournelle, the Bourg Saint-Victor, with its one arch bridge
over the Bièvre, its abbey where one could read the epitaph of
Louis le Gros, _epitaphium Ludovici Grossi_, and its church with
an octagonal spire, flanked with four little bell towers of the
eleventh century (a similar one can be seen at Étampes; it is not
yet destroyed); next, the Bourg Saint-Marceau, which already had
three churches and one convent; then, leaving the mill of the
Gobelins and its four white walls on the left, there was the
Faubourg Saint-Jacques with the beautiful carved cross in its
square; the church of Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas, which was then
Gothic, pointed, charming; Saint-Magloire, a fine nave of the
fourteenth century, which Napoleon turned into a hayloft;
Notre-Dame des Champs, where there were Byzantine mosaics;
lastly, after having left behind, full in the country, the
Monastery des Chartreux, a rich edifice contemporary with the
Palais de Justice, with its little garden divided into
compartments, and the haunted ruins of Vauvert, the eye fell, to
the west, upon the three Roman spires of Saint-Germain des Prés.
The Bourg Saint-Germain, already a large community, formed
fifteen or twenty streets in the rear; the pointed bell tower of
Saint-Sulpice marked one corner of the town. Close beside it one
descried the quadrilateral enclosure of the fair of
Saint-Germain, where the market is situated to-day; then the
abbot’s pillory, a pretty little round tower, well capped with a
leaden cone; the brickyard was further on, and the Rue du Four,
which led to the common bakehouse, and the mill on its hillock,
and the lazar house, a tiny house, isolated and half seen.
But that which attracted the eye most of all, and fixed it for a
long time on that point, was the abbey itself. It is certain that
this monastery, which had a grand air, both as a church and as a
seignory; that abbatial palace, where the bishops of Paris
counted themselves happy if they could pass the night; that
refectory, upon which the architect had bestowed the air, the
beauty, and the rose window of a cathedral; that elegant chapel
of the Virgin; that monumental dormitory; those vast gardens;
that portcullis; that drawbridge; that envelope of battlements
which notched to the eye the verdure of the surrounding meadows;
those courtyards, where gleamed men at arms, intermingled with
golden copes;—the whole grouped and clustered about three lofty
spires, with round arches, well planted upon a Gothic apse, made
a magnificent figure against the horizon.
When, at length, after having contemplated the University for a
long time, you turned towards the right bank, towards the Town,
the character of the spectacle was abruptly altered. The Town, in
fact much larger than the University, was also less of a unit. At
the first glance, one saw that it was divided into many masses,
singularly distinct. First, to the eastward, in that part of the
town which still takes its name from the marsh where Camulogènes
entangled Cæsar, was a pile of palaces. The block extended to the
very water’s edge. Four almost contiguous hotels, Jouy, Sens,
Barbeau, the house of the Queen, mirrored their slate peaks,
broken with slender turrets, in the Seine.
These four edifices filled the space from the Rue des
Nonaindières, to the abbey of the Celestins, whose spire
gracefully relieved their line of gables and battlements. A few
miserable, greenish hovels, hanging over the water in front of
these sumptuous hotels, did not prevent one from seeing the fine
angles of their façades, their large, square windows with stone
mullions, their pointed porches overloaded with statues, the
vivid outlines of their walls, always clear cut, and all those
charming accidents of architecture, which cause Gothic art to
have the air of beginning its combinations afresh with every
monument.
Behind these palaces, extended in all directions, now broken,
fenced in, battlemented like a citadel, now veiled by great trees
like a Carthusian convent, the immense and multiform enclosure of
that miraculous Hôtel de Saint-Pol, where the King of France
possessed the means of lodging superbly two and twenty princes of
the rank of the dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy, with their
domestics and their suites, without counting the great lords, and
the emperor when he came to view Paris, and the lions, who had
their separate hotel at the royal hotel. Let us say here that a
prince’s apartment was then composed of never less than eleven
large rooms, from the chamber of state to the oratory, not to
mention the galleries, baths, vapor-baths, and other “superfluous
places,” with which each apartment was provided; not to mention
the private gardens for each of the king’s guests; not to mention
the kitchens, the cellars, the domestic offices, the general
refectories of the house, the poultry-yards, where there were
twenty-two general laboratories, from the bakehouses to the
wine-cellars; games of a thousand sorts, malls, tennis, and
riding at the ring; aviaries, fishponds, menageries, stables,
barns, libraries, arsenals and foundries. This was what a king’s
palace, a Louvre, a Hôtel de Saint-Pol was then. A city within a
city.
From the tower where we are placed, the Hôtel Saint-Pol, almost
half hidden by the four great houses of which we have just
spoken, was still very considerable and very marvellous to see.
One could there distinguish, very well, though cleverly united
with the principal building by long galleries, decked with
painted glass and slender columns, the three hotels which Charles
V. had amalgamated with his palace: the Hôtel du Petit-Muce, with
the airy balustrade, which formed a graceful border to its roof;
the Hôtel of the Abbé de Saint-Maur, having the vanity of a
stronghold, a great tower, machicolations, loopholes, iron
gratings, and over the large Saxon door, the armorial bearings of
the abbé, between the two mortises of the drawbridge; the Hôtel
of the Comte d’Étampes, whose donjon keep, ruined at its summit,
was rounded and notched like a cock’s comb; here and there, three
or four ancient oaks, forming a tuft together like enormous
cauliflowers; gambols of swans, in the clear water of the
fishponds, all in folds of light and shade; many courtyards of
which one beheld picturesque bits; the Hôtel of the Lions, with
its low, pointed arches on short, Saxon pillars, its iron
gratings and its perpetual roar; shooting up above the whole, the
scale-ornamented spire of the Ave-Maria; on the left, the house
of the Provost of Paris, flanked by four small towers, delicately
grooved, in the middle; at the extremity, the Hôtel Saint-Pol,
properly speaking, with its multiplied façades, its successive
enrichments from the time of Charles V., the hybrid excrescences,
with which the fancy of the architects had loaded it during the
last two centuries, with all the apses of its chapels, all the
gables of its galleries, a thousand weathercocks for the four
winds, and its two lofty contiguous towers, whose conical roof,
surrounded by battlements at its base, looked like those pointed
caps which have their edges turned up.
Continuing to mount the stories of this amphitheatre of palaces
spread out afar upon the ground, after crossing a deep ravine
hollowed out of the roofs in the Town, which marked the passage
of the Rue Saint-Antoine, the eye reached the house of Angoulême,
a vast construction of many epochs, where there were perfectly
new and very white parts, which melted no better into the whole
than a red patch on a blue doublet. Nevertheless, the remarkably
pointed and lofty roof of the modern palace, bristling with
carved eaves, covered with sheets of lead, where coiled a
thousand fantastic arabesques of sparkling incrustations of
gilded bronze, that roof, so curiously damascened, darted upwards
gracefully from the midst of the brown ruins of the ancient
edifice; whose huge and ancient towers, rounded by age like
casks, sinking together with old age, and rending themselves from
top to bottom, resembled great bellies unbuttoned. Behind rose
the forest of spires of the Palais des Tournelles. Not a view in
the world, either at Chambord or at the Alhambra, is more magic,
more aerial, more enchanting, than that thicket of spires, tiny
bell towers, chimneys, weather-vanes, winding staircases,
lanterns through which the daylight makes its way, which seem cut
out at a blow, pavilions, spindle-shaped turrets, or, as they
were then called, _tournelles_, all differing in form, in height,
and attitude. One would have pronounced it a gigantic stone
chess-board.
To the right of the Tournelles, that truss of enormous towers,
black as ink, running into each other and tied, as it were, by a
circular moat; that donjon keep, much more pierced with loopholes
than with windows; that drawbridge, always raised; that
portcullis, always lowered,—is the Bastille. Those sorts of black
beaks which project from between the battlements, and which you
take from a distance to be cave spouts, are cannons.
Beneath them, at the foot of the formidable edifice, behold the
Porte Sainte-Antoine, buried between its two towers.
Beyond the Tournelles, as far as the wall of Charles V., spread
out, with rich compartments of verdure and of flowers, a velvet
carpet of cultivated land and royal parks, in the midst of which
one recognized, by its labyrinth of trees and alleys, the famous
Dædalus garden which Louis XI. had given to Coictier. The
doctor’s observatory rose above the labyrinth like a great
isolated column, with a tiny house for a capital. Terrible
astrologies took place in that laboratory.
There to-day is the Place Royale.
As we have just said, the quarter of the palace, of which we have
just endeavored to give the reader some idea by indicating only
the chief points, filled the angle which Charles V.’s wall made
with the Seine on the east. The centre of the Town was occupied
by a pile of houses for the populace. It was there, in fact, that
the three bridges disgorged upon the right bank, and bridges lead
to the building of houses rather than palaces. That congregation
of _bourgeois_ habitations, pressed together like the cells in a
hive, had a beauty of its own. It is with the roofs of a capital
as with the waves of the sea,—they are grand. First the streets,
crossed and entangled, forming a hundred amusing figures in the
block; around the market-place, it was like a star with a
thousand rays.
The Rues Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin, with their innumerable
ramifications, rose one after the other, like trees intertwining
their branches; and then the tortuous lines, the Rues de la
Plâtrerie, de la Verrerie, de la Tixeranderie, etc., meandered
over all. There were also fine edifices which pierced the
petrified undulations of that sea of gables. At the head of the
Pont aux Changeurs, behind which one beheld the Seine foaming
beneath the wheels of the Pont aux Meuniers, there was the
Châlelet, no longer a Roman tower, as under Julian the Apostate,
but a feudal tower of the thirteenth century, and of a stone so
hard that the pickaxe could not break away so much as the
thickness of the fist in a space of three hours; there was the
rich square bell tower of Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, with its
angles all frothing with carvings, already admirable, although it
was not finished in the fifteenth century. (It lacked, in
particular, the four monsters, which, still perched to-day on the
corners of its roof, have the air of so many sphinxes who are
propounding to new Paris the riddle of the ancient Paris. Rault,
the sculptor, only placed them in position in 1526, and received
twenty francs for his pains.) There was the Maison-aux-Piliers,
the Pillar House, opening upon that Place de Grève of which we
have given the reader some idea; there was Saint-Gervais, which a
front “in good taste” has since spoiled; Saint-Méry, whose
ancient pointed arches were still almost round arches;
Saint-Jean, whose magnificent spire was proverbial; there were
twenty other monuments, which did not disdain to bury their
wonders in that chaos of black, deep, narrow streets. Add the
crosses of carved stone, more lavishly scattered through the
squares than even the gibbets; the cemetery of the Innocents,
whose architectural wall could be seen in the distance above the
roofs; the pillory of the Markets, whose top was visible between
two chimneys of the Rue de la Cossonnerie; the ladder of the
Croix-du-Trahoir, in its square always black with people; the
circular buildings of the wheat mart; the fragments of Philip
Augustus’s ancient wall, which could be made out here and there,
drowned among the houses, its towers gnawed by ivy, its gates in
ruins, with crumbling and deformed stretches of wall; the quay
with its thousand shops, and its bloody knacker’s yards; the
Seine encumbered with boats, from the Port au Foin to
For-l’Évêque, and you will have a confused picture of what the
central trapezium of the Town was like in 1482.
With these two quarters, one of hotels, the other of houses, the
third feature of aspect presented by the city was a long zone of
abbeys, which bordered it in nearly the whole of its
circumference, from the rising to the setting sun, and, behind
the circle of fortifications which hemmed in Paris, formed a
second interior enclosure of convents and chapels. Thus,
immediately adjoining the park des Tournelles, between the Rue
Saint-Antoine and the Vieille Rue du Temple, there stood
Sainte-Catherine, with its immense cultivated lands, which were
terminated only by the wall of Paris. Between the old and the new
Rue du Temple, there was the Temple, a sinister group of towers,
lofty, erect, and isolated in the middle of a vast, battlemented
enclosure. Between the Rue Neuve-du-Temple and the Rue
Saint-Martin, there was the Abbey of Saint-Martin, in the midst
of its gardens, a superb fortified church, whose girdle of
towers, whose diadem of bell towers, yielded in force and
splendor only to Saint-Germain des Prés. Between the Rue
Saint-Martin and the Rue Saint-Denis, spread the enclosure of the
Trinité.
Lastly, between the Rue Saint-Denis, and the Rue Montorgueil,
stood the Filles-Dieu. On one side, the rotting roofs and unpaved
enclosure of the Cour des Miracles could be descried. It was the
sole profane ring which was linked to that devout chain of
convents.
Finally, the fourth compartment, which stretched itself out in
the agglomeration of the roofs on the right bank, and which
occupied the western angle of the enclosure, and the banks of the
river down stream, was a fresh cluster of palaces and hôtels
pressed close about the base of the Louvre. The old Louvre of
Philip Augustus, that immense edifice whose great tower rallied
about it three and twenty chief towers, not to reckon the lesser
towers, seemed from a distance to be enshrined in the Gothic
roofs of the Hôtel d’Alençon, and the Petit-Bourbon. This hydra
of towers, giant guardian of Paris, with its four and twenty
heads, always erect, with its monstrous haunches, loaded or
scaled with slates, and all streaming with metallic reflections,
terminated with wonderful effect the configuration of the Town
towards the west.
Thus an immense block, which the Romans called _insula_, or
island, of _bourgeois_ houses, flanked on the right and the left
by two blocks of palaces, crowned, the one by the Louvre, the
other by the Tournelles, bordered on the north by a long girdle
of abbeys and cultivated enclosures, all amalgamated and melted
together in one view; upon these thousands of edifices, whose
tiled and slated roofs outlined upon each other so many fantastic
chains, the bell towers, tattooed, fluted, and ornamented with
twisted bands, of the four and forty churches on the right bank;
myriads of cross streets; for boundary on one side, an enclosure
of lofty walls with square towers (that of the University had
round towers); on the other, the Seine, cut by bridges, and
bearing on its bosom a multitude of boats; behold the Town of
Paris in the fifteenth century.
Beyond the walls, several suburban villages pressed close about
the gates, but less numerous and more scattered than those of the
University. Behind the Bastille there were twenty hovels
clustered round the curious sculptures of the Croix-Faubin and
the flying buttresses of the Abbey of Saint-Antoine des Champs;
then Popincourt, lost amid wheat fields; then la Courtille, a
merry village of wine-shops; the hamlet of Saint-Laurent with its
church whose bell tower, from afar, seemed to add itself to the
pointed towers of the Porte Saint-Martin; the Faubourg
Saint-Denis, with the vast enclosure of Saint-Ladre; beyond the
Montmartre Gate, the Grange-Batelière, encircled with white
walls; behind it, with its chalky slopes, Montmartre, which had
then almost as many churches as windmills, and which has kept
only the windmills, for society no longer demands anything but
bread for the body. Lastly, beyond the Louvre, the Faubourg
Saint-Honoré, already considerable at that time, could be seen
stretching away into the fields, and Petit-Bretagne gleaming
green, and the Marché aux Pourceaux spreading abroad, in whose
centre swelled the horrible apparatus used for boiling
counterfeiters. Between la Courtille and Saint-Laurent, your eye
had already noticed, on the summit of an eminence crouching amid
desert plains, a sort of edifice which resembled from a distance
a ruined colonnade, mounted upon a basement with its foundation
laid bare. This was neither a Parthenon, nor a temple of the
Olympian Jupiter. It was Montfaucon.
Now, if the enumeration of so many edifices, summary as we have
endeavored to make it, has not shattered in the reader’s mind the
general image of old Paris, as we have constructed it, we will
recapitulate it in a few words. In the centre, the island of the
City, resembling as to form an enormous tortoise, and throwing
out its bridges with tiles for scales; like legs from beneath its
gray shell of roofs. On the left, the monolithic trapezium, firm,
dense, bristling, of the University; on the right, the vast
semicircle of the Town, much more intermixed with gardens and
monuments. The three blocks, city, university, and town, marbled
with innumerable streets. Across all, the Seine, “foster-mother
Seine,” as says Father Du Breul, blocked with islands, bridges,
and boats. All about an immense plain, patched with a thousand
sorts of cultivated plots, sown with fine villages. On the left,
Issy, Vanvres, Vaugirarde, Montrouge, Gentilly, with its round
tower and its square tower, etc.; on the right, twenty others,
from Conflans to Ville-l’Évêque. On the horizon, a border of
hills arranged in a circle like the rim of the basin. Finally,
far away to the east, Vincennes, and its seven quadrangular
towers to the south, Bicêtre and its pointed turrets; to the
north, Saint-Denis and its spire; to the west, Saint Cloud and
its donjon keep. Such was the Paris which the ravens, who lived
in 1482, beheld from the summits of the towers of Notre-Dame.
Nevertheless, Voltaire said of this city, that “before Louis
XIV., it possessed but four fine monuments”: the dome of the
Sorbonne, the Val-de-Grâce, the modern Louvre, and I know not
what the fourth was—the Luxembourg, perhaps. Fortunately,
Voltaire was the author of “Candide” in spite of this, and in
spite of this, he is, among all the men who have followed each
other in the long series of humanity, the one who has best
possessed the diabolical laugh. Moreover, this proves that one
can be a fine genius, and yet understand nothing of an art to
which one does not belong. Did not Molière imagine that he was
doing Raphael and Michael-Angelo a very great honor, by calling
them “those Mignards of their age?”
Let us return to Paris and to the fifteenth century.
It was not then merely a handsome city; it was a homogeneous
city, an architectural and historical product of the Middle Ages,
a chronicle in stone. It was a city formed of two layers only;
the Romanesque layer and the Gothic layer; for the Roman layer
had disappeared long before, with the exception of the Hot Baths
of Julian, where it still pierced through the thick crust of the
Middle Ages. As for the Celtic layer, no specimens were any
longer to be found, even when sinking wells.
Fifty years later, when the Renaissance began to mingle with this
unity which was so severe and yet so varied, the dazzling luxury
of its fantasies and systems, its debasements of Roman round
arches, Greek columns, and Gothic bases, its sculpture which was
so tender and so ideal, its peculiar taste for arabesques and
acanthus leaves, its architectural paganism, contemporary with
Luther, Paris, was perhaps, still more beautiful, although less
harmonious to the eye, and to the thought.
But this splendid moment lasted only for a short time; the
Renaissance was not impartial; it did not content itself with
building, it wished to destroy; it is true that it required the
room. Thus Gothic Paris was complete only for a moment.
Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie had barely been completed when the
demolition of the old Louvre was begun.
After that, the great city became more disfigured every day.
Gothic Paris, beneath which Roman Paris was effaced, was effaced
in its turn; but can any one say what Paris has replaced it?
There is the Paris of Catherine de Medicis at the
Tuileries;[23]—the Paris of Henri II., at the Hôtel de Ville, two
edifices still in fine taste;—the Paris of Henri IV., at the
Place Royale: façades of brick with stone corners, and slated
roofs, tri-colored houses;—the Paris of Louis XIII., at the
Val-de-Grâce: a crushed and squat architecture, with vaults like
basket-handles, and something indescribably pot-bellied in the
column, and thickset in the dome;—the Paris of Louis XIV., in the
Invalides: grand, rich, gilded, cold;—the Paris of Louis XV., in
Saint-Sulpice: volutes, knots of ribbon, clouds, vermicelli and
chiccory leaves, all in stone;—the Paris of Louis XVI., in the
Pantheon: Saint Peter of Rome, badly copied (the edifice is
awkwardly heaped together, which has not amended its lines);—the
Paris of the Republic, in the School of Medicine: a poor Greek
and Roman taste, which resembles the Coliseum or the Parthenon as
the constitution of the year III., resembles the laws of
Minos,—it is called in architecture, “the Messidor”[24]
taste;—the Paris of Napoleon in the Place Vendôme: this one is
sublime, a column of bronze made of cannons;—the Paris of the
Restoration, at the Bourse: a very white colonnade supporting a
very smooth frieze; the whole is square and cost twenty millions.
To each of these characteristic monuments there is attached by a
similarity of taste, fashion, and attitude, a certain number of
houses scattered about in different quarters and which the eyes
of the connoisseur easily distinguishes and furnishes with a
date. When one knows how to look, one finds the spirit of a
century, and the physiognomy of a king, even in the knocker on a
door.
The Paris of the present day has then, no general physiognomy. It
is a collection of specimens of many centuries, and the finest
have disappeared. The capital grows only in houses, and what
houses! At the rate at which Paris is now proceeding, it will
renew itself every fifty years.
Thus the historical significance of its architecture is being
effaced every day. Monuments are becoming rarer and rarer, and
one seems to see them gradually engulfed, by the flood of houses.
Our fathers had a Paris of stone; our sons will have one of
plaster.
So far as the modern monuments of new Paris are concerned, we
would gladly be excused from mentioning them. It is not that we
do not admire them as they deserve. The Sainte-Geneviève of M.
Soufflot is certainly the finest Savoy cake that has ever been
made in stone. The Palace of the Legion of Honor is also a very
distinguished bit of pastry. The dome of the wheat market is an
English jockey cap, on a grand scale. The towers of Saint-Sulpice
are two huge clarinets, and the form is as good as any other; the
telegraph, contorted and grimacing, forms an admirable accident
upon their roofs. Saint-Roch has a door which, for magnificence,
is comparable only to that of Saint-Thomas d’Aquin. It has, also,
a crucifixion in high relief, in a cellar, with a sun of gilded
wood. These things are fairly marvellous. The lantern of the
labyrinth of the Jardin des Plantes is also very ingenious.
As for the Palace of the Bourse, which is Greek as to its
colonnade, Roman in the round arches of its doors and windows, of
the Renaissance by virtue of its flattened vault, it is
indubitably a very correct and very pure monument; the proof is
that it is crowned with an attic, such as was never seen in
Athens, a beautiful, straight line, gracefully broken here and
there by stovepipes. Let us add that if it is according to rule
that the architecture of a building should be adapted to its
purpose in such a manner that this purpose shall be immediately
apparent from the mere aspect of the building, one cannot be too
much amazed at a structure which might be indifferently—the
palace of a king, a chamber of communes, a town-hall, a college,
a riding-school, an academy, a warehouse, a court-house, a
museum, a barracks, a sepulchre, a temple, or a theatre. However,
it is an Exchange. An edifice ought to be, moreover, suitable to
the climate. This one is evidently constructed expressly for our
cold and rainy skies. It has a roof almost as flat as roofs in
the East, which involves sweeping the roof in winter, when it
snows; and of course roofs are made to be swept. As for its
purpose, of which we just spoke, it fulfils it to a marvel; it is
a bourse in France as it would have been a temple in Greece. It
is true that the architect was at a good deal of trouble to
conceal the clock face, which would have destroyed the purity of
the fine lines of the façade; but, on the other hand, we have
that colonnade which circles round the edifice and under which,
on days of high religious ceremony, the theories of the
stock-brokers and the courtiers of commerce can be developed so
majestically.
These are very superb structures. Let us add a quantity of fine,
amusing, and varied streets, like the Rue de Rivoli, and I do not
despair of Paris presenting to the eye, when viewed from a
balloon, that richness of line, that opulence of detail, that
diversity of aspect, that grandiose something in the simple, and
unexpected in the beautiful, which characterizes a checker-board.
However, admirable as the Paris of to-day may seem to you,
reconstruct the Paris of the fifteenth century, call it up before
you in thought; look at the sky athwart that surprising forest of
spires, towers, and belfries; spread out in the centre of the
city, tear away at the point of the islands, fold at the arches
of the bridges, the Seine, with its broad green and yellow
expanses, more variable than the skin of a serpent; project
clearly against an azure horizon the Gothic profile of this
ancient Paris. Make its contour float in a winter’s mist which
clings to its numerous chimneys; drown it in profound night and
watch the odd play of lights and shadows in that sombre labyrinth
of edifices; cast upon it a ray of light which shall vaguely
outline it and cause to emerge from the fog the great heads of
the towers; or take that black silhouette again, enliven with
shadow the thousand acute angles of the spires and gables, and
make it start out more toothed than a shark’s jaw against a
copper-colored western sky,—and then compare.
And if you wish to receive of the ancient city an impression with
which the modern one can no longer furnish you, climb—on the
morning of some grand festival, beneath the rising sun of Easter
or of Pentecost—climb upon some elevated point, whence you
command the entire capital; and be present at the wakening of the
chimes. Behold, at a signal given from heaven, for it is the sun
which gives it, all those churches quiver simultaneously. First
come scattered strokes, running from one church to another, as
when musicians give warning that they are about to begin. Then,
all at once, behold!—for it seems at times, as though the ear
also possessed a sight of its own,—behold, rising from each bell
tower, something like a column of sound, a cloud of harmony.
First, the vibration of each bell mounts straight upwards, pure
and, so to speak, isolated from the others, into the splendid
morning sky; then, little by little, as they swell they melt
together, mingle, are lost in each other, and amalgamate in a
magnificent concert. It is no longer anything but a mass of
sonorous vibrations incessantly sent forth from the numerous
belfries; floats, undulates, bounds, whirls over the city, and
prolongs far beyond the horizon the deafening circle of its
oscillations.
Nevertheless, this sea of harmony is not a chaos; great and
profound as it is, it has not lost its transparency; you behold
the windings of each group of notes which escapes from the
belfries. You can follow the dialogue, by turns grave and shrill,
of the treble and the bass; you can see the octaves leap from one
tower to another; you watch them spring forth, winged, light, and
whistling, from the silver bell, to fall, broken and limping from
the bell of wood; you admire in their midst the rich gamut which
incessantly ascends and re-ascends the seven bells of
Saint-Eustache; you see light and rapid notes running across it,
executing three or four luminous zigzags, and vanishing like
flashes of lightning. Yonder is the Abbey of Saint-Martin, a
shrill, cracked singer; here the gruff and gloomy voice of the
Bastille; at the other end, the great tower of the Louvre, with
its bass. The royal chime of the palace scatters on all sides,
and without relaxation, resplendent trills, upon which fall, at
regular intervals, the heavy strokes from the belfry of
Notre-Dame, which makes them sparkle like the anvil under the
hammer. At intervals you behold the passage of sounds of all
forms which come from the triple peal of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
Then, again, from time to time, this mass of sublime noises opens
and gives passage to the beats of the Ave Maria, which bursts
forth and sparkles like an aigrette of stars. Below, in the very
depths of the concert, you confusedly distinguish the interior
chanting of the churches, which exhales through the vibrating
pores of their vaulted roofs.
Assuredly, this is an opera which it is worth the trouble of
listening to. Ordinarily, the noise which escapes from Paris by
day is the city speaking; by night, it is the city breathing; in
this case, it is the city singing. Lend an ear, then, to this
concert of bell towers; spread over all the murmur of half a
million men, the eternal plaint of the river, the infinite
breathings of the wind, the grave and distant quartette of the
four forests arranged upon the hills, on the horizon, like
immense stacks of organ pipes; extinguish, as in a half shade,
all that is too hoarse and too shrill about the central chime,
and say whether you know anything in the world more rich and
joyful, more golden, more dazzling, than this tumult of bells and
chimes;—than this furnace of music,—than these ten thousand
brazen voices chanting simultaneously in the flutes of stone,
three hundred feet high,—than this city which is no longer
anything but an orchestra,—than this symphony which produces the
noise of a tempest.
BOOK FOURTH.
CHAPTER I. GOOD SOULS.
Sixteen years previous to the epoch when this story takes place,
one fine morning, on Quasimodo Sunday, a living creature had been
deposited, after mass, in the church of Notre-Dame, on the wooden
bed securely fixed in the vestibule on the left, opposite that
great image of Saint Christopher, which the figure of Messire
Antoine des Essarts, chevalier, carved in stone, had been gazing
at on his knees since 1413, when they took it into their heads to
overthrow the saint and the faithful follower. Upon this bed of
wood it was customary to expose foundlings for public charity.
Whoever cared to take them did so. In front of the wooden bed was
a copper basin for alms.
The sort of living being which lay upon that plank on the morning
of Quasimodo, in the year of the Lord, 1467, appeared to excite
to a high degree, the curiosity of the numerous group which had
congregated about the wooden bed. The group was formed for the
most part of the fair sex. Hardly any one was there except old
women.
In the first row, and among those who were most bent over the
bed, four were noticeable, who, from their gray _cagoule_, a sort
of cassock, were recognizable as attached to some devout
sisterhood. I do not see why history has not transmitted to
posterity the names of these four discreet and venerable damsels.
They were Agnès la Herme, Jehanne de la Tarme, Henriette la
Gaultière, Gauchère la Violette, all four widows, all four dames
of the Chapel Étienne Haudry, who had quitted their house with
the permission of their mistress, and in conformity with the
statutes of Pierre d’Ailly, in order to come and hear the sermon.
However, if these good Haudriettes were, for the moment,
complying with the statutes of Pierre d’Ailly, they certainly
violated with joy those of Michel de Brache, and the Cardinal of
Pisa, which so inhumanly enjoined silence upon them.
“What is this, sister?” said Agnès to Gauchère, gazing at the
little creature exposed, which was screaming and writhing on the
wooden bed, terrified by so many glances.
“What is to become of us,” said Jehanne, “if that is the way
children are made now?”
“I’m not learned in the matter of children,” resumed Agnès, “but
it must be a sin to look at this one.”
“’Tis not a child, Agnès.”
“’Tis an abortion of a monkey,” remarked Gauchère.
“’Tis a miracle,” interposed Henriette la Gaultière.
“Then,” remarked Agnès, “it is the third since the Sunday of the
_Lætare_: for, in less than a week, we had the miracle of the
mocker of pilgrims divinely punished by Notre-Dame
d’Aubervilliers, and that was the second miracle within a month.”
“This pretended foundling is a real monster of abomination,”
resumed Jehanne.
“He yells loud enough to deafen a chanter,” continued Gauchère.
“Hold your tongue, you little howler!”
“To think that Monsieur of Reims sent this enormity to Monsieur
of Paris,” added la Gaultière, clasping her hands.
“I imagine,” said Agnès la Herme, “that it is a beast, an
animal,—the fruit of a Jew and a sow; something not Christian, in
short, which ought to be thrown into the fire or into the water.”
“I really hope,” resumed la Gaultière, “that nobody will apply
for it.”
“Ah, good heavens!” exclaimed Agnès; “those poor nurses yonder in
the foundling asylum, which forms the lower end of the lane as
you go to the river, just beside Monseigneur the bishop! what if
this little monster were to be carried to them to suckle? I’d
rather give suck to a vampire.”
“How innocent that poor la Herme is!” resumed Jehanne; “don’t you
see, sister, that this little monster is at least four years old,
and that he would have less appetite for your breast than for a
turnspit.”
The “little monster” we should find it difficult ourselves to
describe him otherwise, was, in fact, not a new-born child. It
was a very angular and very lively little mass, imprisoned in its
linen sack, stamped with the cipher of Messire Guillaume
Chartier, then bishop of Paris, with a head projecting. That head
was deformed enough; one beheld only a forest of red hair, one
eye, a mouth, and teeth. The eye wept, the mouth cried, and the
teeth seemed to ask only to be allowed to bite. The whole
struggled in the sack, to the great consternation of the crowd,
which increased and was renewed incessantly around it.
Dame Aloïse de Gondelaurier, a rich and noble woman, who held by
the hand a pretty girl about five or six years of age, and
dragged a long veil about, suspended to the golden horn of her
headdress, halted as she passed the wooden bed, and gazed for a
moment at the wretched creature, while her charming little
daughter, Fleur-de-Lys de Gondelaurier, spelled out with her
tiny, pretty finger, the permanent inscription attached to the
wooden bed: “Foundlings.”
“Really,” said the dame, turning away in disgust, “I thought that
they only exposed children here.”
She turned her back, throwing into the basin a silver florin,
which rang among the liards, and made the poor goodwives of the
chapel of Étienne Haudry open their eyes.
A moment later, the grave and learned Robert Mistricolle, the
king’s protonotary, passed, with an enormous missal under one arm
and his wife on the other (Damoiselle Guillemette la Mairesse),
having thus by his side his two regulators,—spiritual and
temporal.
“Foundling!” he said, after examining the object; “found,
apparently, on the banks of the river Phlegethon.”
“One can only see one eye,” observed Damoiselle Guillemette;
“there is a wart on the other.”
“It’s not a wart,” returned Master Robert Mistricolle, “it is an
egg which contains another demon exactly similar, who bears
another little egg which contains another devil, and so on.”
“How do you know that?” asked Guillemette la Mairesse.
“I know it pertinently,” replied the protonotary.
“Monsieur le protonotare,” asked Gauchère, “what do you
prognosticate of this pretended foundling?”
“The greatest misfortunes,” replied Mistricolle.
“Ah! good heavens!” said an old woman among the spectators, “and
that besides our having had a considerable pestilence last year,
and that they say that the English are going to disembark in a
company at Harfleur.”
“Perhaps that will prevent the queen from coming to Paris in the
month of September,” interposed another; “trade is so bad
already.”
“My opinion is,” exclaimed Jehanne de la Tarme, “that it would be
better for the louts of Paris, if this little magician were put
to bed on a fagot than on a plank.”
“A fine, flaming fagot,” added the old woman.
“It would be more prudent,” said Mistricolle.
For several minutes, a young priest had been listening to the
reasoning of the Haudriettes and the sentences of the notary. He
had a severe face, with a large brow, a profound glance. He
thrust the crowd silently aside, scrutinized the “little
magician,” and stretched out his hand upon him. It was high time,
for all the devotees were already licking their chops over the
“fine, flaming fagot.”
“I adopt this child,” said the priest.
He took it in his cassock and carried it off. The spectators
followed him with frightened glances. A moment later, he had
disappeared through the “Red Door,” which then led from the
church to the cloister.
When the first surprise was over, Jehanne de la Tarme bent down
to the ear of la Gaultière,—
“I told you so, sister,—that young clerk, Monsieur Claude Frollo,
is a sorcerer.”
CHAPTER II. CLAUDE FROLLO.
In fact, Claude Frollo was no common person.
He belonged to one of those middle-class families which were
called indifferently, in the impertinent language of the last
century, the high _bourgeoise_ or the petty nobility. This family
had inherited from the brothers Paclet the fief of Tirechappe,
which was dependent upon the Bishop of Paris, and whose
twenty-one houses had been in the thirteenth century the object
of so many suits before the official. As possessor of this fief,
Claude Frollo was one of the twenty-seven seigneurs keeping claim
to a manor in fee in Paris and its suburbs; and for a long time,
his name was to be seen inscribed in this quality, between the
Hôtel de Tancarville, belonging to Master François Le Rez, and
the college of Tours, in the records deposited at Saint Martin
des Champs.
Claude Frollo had been destined from infancy, by his parents, to
the ecclesiastical profession. He had been taught to read in
Latin; he had been trained to keep his eyes on the ground and to
speak low. While still a child, his father had cloistered him in
the college of Torchi in the University. There it was that he had
grown up, on the missal and the lexicon.
Moreover, he was a sad, grave, serious child, who studied
ardently, and learned quickly; he never uttered a loud cry in
recreation hour, mixed but little in the bacchanals of the Rue du
Fouarre, did not know what it was to _dare alapas et capillos
laniare_, and had cut no figure in that revolt of 1463, which the
annalists register gravely, under the title of “The sixth trouble
of the University.” He seldom rallied the poor students of
Montaigu on the _cappettes_ from which they derived their name,
or the bursars of the college of Dormans on their shaved tonsure,
and their surtout parti-colored of bluish-green, blue, and violet
cloth, _azurini coloris et bruni_, as says the charter of the
Cardinal des Quatre-Couronnes.
On the other hand, he was assiduous at the great and the small
schools of the Rue Saint Jean de Beauvais. The first pupil whom
the Abbé de Saint Pierre de Val, at the moment of beginning his
reading on canon law, always perceived, glued to a pillar of the
school Saint-Vendregesile, opposite his rostrum, was Claude
Frollo, armed with his horn ink-bottle, biting his pen,
scribbling on his threadbare knee, and, in winter, blowing on his
fingers. The first auditor whom Messire Miles d’Isliers, doctor
in decretals, saw arrive every Monday morning, all breathless, at
the opening of the gates of the school of the Chef-Saint-Denis,
was Claude Frollo. Thus, at sixteen years of age, the young clerk
might have held his own, in mystical theology, against a father
of the church; in canonical theology, against a father of the
councils; in scholastic theology, against a doctor of Sorbonne.
Theology conquered, he had plunged into decretals. From the
“Master of Sentences,” he had passed to the “Capitularies of
Charlemagne;” and he had devoured in succession, in his appetite
for science, decretals upon decretals, those of Theodore, Bishop
of Hispalus; those of Bouchard, Bishop of Worms; those of Yves,
Bishop of Chartres; next the decretal of Gratian, which succeeded
the capitularies of Charlemagne; then the collection of Gregory
IX.; then the Epistle of _Superspecula_, of Honorius III. He
rendered clear and familiar to himself that vast and tumultuous
period of civil law and canon law in conflict and at strife with
each other, in the chaos of the Middle Ages,—a period which
Bishop Theodore opens in 618, and which Pope Gregory closes in
1227.
Decretals digested, he flung himself upon medicine, on the
liberal arts. He studied the science of herbs, the science of
unguents; he became an expert in fevers and in contusions, in
sprains and abcesses. Jacques d’ Espars would have received him
as a physician; Richard Hellain, as a surgeon. He also passed
through all the degrees of licentiate, master, and doctor of
arts. He studied the languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, a triple
sanctuary then very little frequented. His was a veritable fever
for acquiring and hoarding, in the matter of science. At the age
of eighteen, he had made his way through the four faculties; it
seemed to the young man that life had but one sole object:
learning.
It was towards this epoch, that the excessive heat of the summer
of 1466 caused that grand outburst of the plague which carried
off more than forty thousand souls in the vicomty of Paris, and
among others, as Jean de Troyes states, “Master Arnoul,
astrologer to the king, who was a very fine man, both wise and
pleasant.” The rumor spread in the University that the Rue
Tirechappe was especially devastated by the malady. It was there
that Claude’s parents resided, in the midst of their fief. The
young scholar rushed in great alarm to the paternal mansion. When
he entered it, he found that both father and mother had died on
the preceding day. A very young brother of his, who was in
swaddling clothes, was still alive and crying abandoned in his
cradle. This was all that remained to Claude of his family; the
young man took the child under his arm and went off in a pensive
mood. Up to that moment, he had lived only in science; he now
began to live in life.
This catastrophe was a crisis in Claude’s existence. Orphaned,
the eldest, head of the family at the age of nineteen, he felt
himself rudely recalled from the reveries of school to the
realities of this world. Then, moved with pity, he was seized
with passion and devotion towards that child, his brother; a
sweet and strange thing was a human affection to him, who had
hitherto loved his books alone.
This affection developed to a singular point; in a soul so new,
it was like a first love. Separated since infancy from his
parents, whom he had hardly known; cloistered and immured, as it
were, in his books; eager above all things to study and to learn;
exclusively attentive up to that time, to his intelligence which
broadened in science, to his imagination, which expanded in
letters,—the poor scholar had not yet had time to feel the place
of his heart.
This young brother, without mother or father, this little child
which had fallen abruptly from heaven into his arms, made a new
man of him. He perceived that there was something else in the
world besides the speculations of the Sorbonne, and the verses of
Homer; that man needed affections; that life without tenderness
and without love was only a set of dry, shrieking, and rending
wheels. Only, he imagined, for he was at the age when illusions
are as yet replaced only by illusions, that the affections of
blood and family were the sole ones necessary, and that a little
brother to love sufficed to fill an entire existence.
He threw himself, therefore, into the love for his little Jehan
with the passion of a character already profound, ardent,
concentrated; that poor frail creature, pretty, fair-haired,
rosy, and curly,—that orphan with another orphan for his only
support, touched him to the bottom of his heart; and grave
thinker as he was, he set to meditating upon Jehan with an
infinite compassion. He kept watch and ward over him as over
something very fragile, and very worthy of care. He was more than
a brother to the child; he became a mother to him.
Little Jehan had lost his mother while he was still at the
breast; Claude gave him to a nurse. Besides the fief of
Tirechappe, he had inherited from his father the fief of Moulin,
which was a dependency of the square tower of Gentilly; it was a
mill on a hill, near the château of Winchestre (Bicêtre). There
was a miller’s wife there who was nursing a fine child; it was
not far from the university, and Claude carried the little Jehan
to her in his own arms.
From that time forth, feeling that he had a burden to bear, he
took life very seriously. The thought of his little brother
became not only his recreation, but the object of his studies. He
resolved to consecrate himself entirely to a future for which he
was responsible in the sight of God, and never to have any other
wife, any other child than the happiness and fortune of his
brother. Therefore, he attached himself more closely than ever to
the clerical profession. His merits, his learning, his quality of
immediate vassal of the Bishop of Paris, threw the doors of the
church wide open to him. At the age of twenty, by special
dispensation of the Holy See, he was a priest, and served as the
youngest of the chaplains of Notre-Dame the altar which is
called, because of the late mass which is said there, _altare
pigrorum_.
There, plunged more deeply than ever in his dear books, which he
quitted only to run for an hour to the fief of Moulin, this
mixture of learning and austerity, so rare at his age, had
promptly acquired for him the respect and admiration of the
monastery. From the cloister, his reputation as a learned man had
passed to the people, among whom it had changed a little, a
frequent occurrence at that time, into reputation as a sorcerer.
It was at the moment when he was returning, on Quasimodo day,
from saying his mass at the Altar of the Lazy, which was by the
side of the door leading to the nave on the right, near the image
of the Virgin, that his attention had been attracted by the group
of old women chattering around the bed for foundlings.
Then it was that he approached the unhappy little creature, which
was so hated and so menaced. That distress, that deformity, that
abandonment, the thought of his young brother, the idea which
suddenly occurred to him, that if he were to die, his dear little
Jehan might also be flung miserably on the plank for
foundlings,—all this had gone to his heart simultaneously; a
great pity had moved in him, and he had carried off the child.
When he removed the child from the sack, he found it greatly
deformed, in very sooth. The poor little wretch had a wart on his
left eye, his head placed directly on his shoulders, his spinal
column was crooked, his breast bone prominent, and his legs
bowed; but he appeared to be lively; and although it was
impossible to say in what language he lisped, his cry indicated
considerable force and health. Claude’s compassion increased at
the sight of this ugliness; and he made a vow in his heart to
rear the child for the love of his brother, in order that,
whatever might be the future faults of the little Jehan, he
should have beside him that charity done for his sake. It was a
sort of investment of good works, which he was effecting in the
name of his young brother; it was a stock of good works which he
wished to amass in advance for him, in case the little rogue
should some day find himself short of that coin, the only sort
which is received at the toll-bar of paradise.
He baptized his adopted child, and gave him the name of
Quasimodo, either because he desired thereby to mark the day,
when he had found him, or because he wished to designate by that
name to what a degree the poor little creature was incomplete,
and hardly sketched out. In fact, Quasimodo, blind, hunchbacked,
knock-kneed, was only an “almost.”
CHAPTER III. _IMMANIS PECORIS CUSTOS, IMMANIOR IPSE_.
Now, in 1482, Quasimodo had grown up. He had become a few years
previously the bellringer of Notre-Dame, thanks to his father by
adoption, Claude Frollo,—who had become archdeacon of Josas,
thanks to his suzerain, Messire Louis de Beaumont,—who had become
Bishop of Paris, at the death of Guillaume Chartier in 1472,
thanks to his patron, Olivier Le Daim, barber to Louis XI., king
by the grace of God.
So Quasimodo was the ringer of the chimes of Notre-Dame.
In the course of time there had been formed a certain peculiarly
intimate bond which united the ringer to the church. Separated
forever from the world, by the double fatality of his unknown
birth and his natural deformity, imprisoned from his infancy in
that impassable double circle, the poor wretch had grown used to
seeing nothing in this world beyond the religious walls which had
received him under their shadow. Notre-Dame had been to him
successively, as he grew up and developed, the egg, the nest, the
house, the country, the universe.
There was certainly a sort of mysterious and pre-existing harmony
between this creature and this church. When, still a little
fellow, he had dragged himself tortuously and by jerks beneath
the shadows of its vaults, he seemed, with his human face and his
bestial limbs, the natural reptile of that humid and sombre
pavement, upon which the shadow of the Romanesque capitals cast
so many strange forms.
Later on, the first time that he caught hold, mechanically, of
the ropes to the towers, and hung suspended from them, and set
the bell to clanging, it produced upon his adopted father,
Claude, the effect of a child whose tongue is unloosed and who
begins to speak.
It is thus that, little by little, developing always in sympathy
with the cathedral, living there, sleeping there, hardly ever
leaving it, subject every hour to the mysterious impress, he came
to resemble it, he incrusted himself in it, so to speak, and
became an integral part of it. His salient angles fitted into the
retreating angles of the cathedral (if we may be allowed this
figure of speech), and he seemed not only its inhabitant but more
than that, its natural tenant. One might almost say that he had
assumed its form, as the snail takes on the form of its shell. It
was his dwelling, his hole, his envelope. There existed between
him and the old church so profound an instinctive sympathy, so
many magnetic affinities, so many material affinities, that he
adhered to it somewhat as a tortoise adheres to its shell. The
rough and wrinkled cathedral was his shell.
It is useless to warn the reader not to take literally all the
similes which we are obliged to employ here to express the
singular, symmetrical, direct, almost consubstantial union of a
man and an edifice. It is equally unnecessary to state to what a
degree that whole cathedral was familiar to him, after so long
and so intimate a cohabitation. That dwelling was peculiar to
him. It had no depths to which Quasimodo had not penetrated, no
height which he had not scaled. He often climbed many stones up
the front, aided solely by the uneven points of the carving. The
towers, on whose exterior surface he was frequently seen
clambering, like a lizard gliding along a perpendicular wall,
those two gigantic twins, so lofty, so menacing, so formidable,
possessed for him neither vertigo, nor terror, nor shocks of
amazement.
To see them so gentle under his hand, so easy to scale, one would
have said that he had tamed them. By dint of leaping, climbing,
gambolling amid the abysses of the gigantic cathedral he had
become, in some sort, a monkey and a goat, like the Calabrian
child who swims before he walks, and plays with the sea while
still a babe.
Moreover, it was not his body alone which seemed fashioned after
the Cathedral, but his mind also. In what condition was that
mind? What bent had it contracted, what form had it assumed
beneath that knotted envelope, in that savage life? This it would
be hard to determine. Quasimodo had been born one-eyed,
hunchbacked, lame. It was with great difficulty, and by dint of
great patience that Claude Frollo had succeeded in teaching him
to talk. But a fatality was attached to the poor foundling.
Bellringer of Notre-Dame at the age of fourteen, a new infirmity
had come to complete his misfortunes: the bells had broken the
drums of his ears; he had become deaf. The only gate which nature
had left wide open for him had been abruptly closed, and forever.
In closing, it had cut off the only ray of joy and of light which
still made its way into the soul of Quasimodo. His soul fell into
profound night. The wretched being’s misery became as incurable
and as complete as his deformity. Let us add that his deafness
rendered him to some extent dumb. For, in order not to make
others laugh, the very moment that he found himself to be deaf,
he resolved upon a silence which he only broke when he was alone.
He voluntarily tied that tongue which Claude Frollo had taken so
much pains to unloose. Hence, it came about, that when necessity
constrained him to speak, his tongue was torpid, awkward, and
like a door whose hinges have grown rusty.
If now we were to try to penetrate to the soul of Quasimodo
through that thick, hard rind; if we could sound the depths of
that badly constructed organism; if it were granted to us to look
with a torch behind those non-transparent organs to explore the
shadowy interior of that opaque creature, to elucidate his
obscure corners, his absurd no-thoroughfares, and suddenly to
cast a vivid light upon the soul enchained at the extremity of
that cave, we should, no doubt, find the unhappy Psyche in some
poor, cramped, and ricketty attitude, like those prisoners
beneath the Leads of Venice, who grew old bent double in a stone
box which was both too low and too short for them.
It is certain that the mind becomes atrophied in a defective
body. Quasimodo was barely conscious of a soul cast in his own
image, moving blindly within him. The impressions of objects
underwent a considerable refraction before reaching his mind. His
brain was a peculiar medium; the ideas which passed through it
issued forth completely distorted. The reflection which resulted
from this refraction was, necessarily, divergent and perverted.
Hence a thousand optical illusions, a thousand aberrations of
judgment, a thousand deviations, in which his thought strayed,
now mad, now idiotic.
The first effect of this fatal organization was to trouble the
glance which he cast upon things. He received hardly any
immediate perception of them. The external world seemed much
farther away to him than it does to us.
The second effect of his misfortune was to render him malicious.
He was malicious, in fact, because he was savage; he was savage
because he was ugly. There was logic in his nature, as there is
in ours.
His strength, so extraordinarily developed, was a cause of still
greater malevolence: “_Malus puer robustus_,” says Hobbes.
This justice must, however be rendered to him. Malevolence was
not, perhaps, innate in him. From his very first steps among men,
he had felt himself, later on he had seen himself, spewed out,
blasted, rejected. Human words were, for him, always a raillery
or a malediction. As he grew up, he had found nothing but hatred
around him. He had caught the general malevolence. He had picked
up the weapon with which he had been wounded.
After all, he turned his face towards men only with reluctance;
his cathedral was sufficient for him. It was peopled with marble
figures,—kings, saints, bishops,—who at least did not burst out
laughing in his face, and who gazed upon him only with
tranquillity and kindliness. The other statues, those of the
monsters and demons, cherished no hatred for him, Quasimodo. He
resembled them too much for that. They seemed rather, to be
scoffing at other men. The saints were his friends, and blessed
him; the monsters were his friends and guarded him. So he held
long communion with them. He sometimes passed whole hours
crouching before one of these statues, in solitary conversation
with it. If any one came, he fled like a lover surprised in his
serenade.
And the cathedral was not only society for him, but the universe,
and all nature beside. He dreamed of no other hedgerows than the
painted windows, always in flower; no other shade than that of
the foliage of stone which spread out, loaded with birds, in the
tufts of the Saxon capitals; of no other mountains than the
colossal towers of the church; of no other ocean than Paris,
roaring at their bases.
What he loved above all else in the maternal edifice, that which
aroused his soul, and made it open its poor wings, which it kept
so miserably folded in its cavern, that which sometimes rendered
him even happy, was the bells. He loved them, fondled them,
talked to them, understood them. From the chime in the spire,
over the intersection of the aisles and nave, to the great bell
of the front, he cherished a tenderness for them all. The central
spire and the two towers were to him as three great cages, whose
birds, reared by himself, sang for him alone. Yet it was these
very bells which had made him deaf; but mothers often love best
that child which has caused them the most suffering.
It is true that their voice was the only one which he could still
hear. On this score, the big bell was his beloved. It was she
whom he preferred out of all that family of noisy girls which
bustled above him, on festival days. This bell was named Marie.
She was alone in the southern tower, with her sister Jacqueline,
a bell of lesser size, shut up in a smaller cage beside hers.
This Jacqueline was so called from the name of the wife of Jean
Montagu, who had given it to the church, which had not prevented
his going and figuring without his head at Montfaucon. In the
second tower there were six other bells, and, finally, six
smaller ones inhabited the belfry over the crossing, with the
wooden bell, which rang only between after dinner on Good Friday
and the morning of the day before Easter. So Quasimodo had
fifteen bells in his seraglio; but big Marie was his favorite.
No idea can be formed of his delight on days when the grand peal
was sounded. At the moment when the archdeacon dismissed him, and
said, “Go!” he mounted the spiral staircase of the clock tower
faster than any one else could have descended it. He entered
perfectly breathless into the aerial chamber of the great bell;
he gazed at her a moment, devoutly and lovingly; then he gently
addressed her and patted her with his hand, like a good horse,
which is about to set out on a long journey. He pitied her for
the trouble that she was about to suffer. After these first
caresses, he shouted to his assistants, placed in the lower story
of the tower, to begin. They grasped the ropes, the wheel
creaked, the enormous capsule of metal started slowly into
motion. Quasimodo followed it with his glance and trembled. The
first shock of the clapper and the brazen wall made the framework
upon which it was mounted quiver. Quasimodo vibrated with the
bell.
“Vah!” he cried, with a senseless burst of laughter. However, the
movement of the bass was accelerated, and, in proportion as it
described a wider angle, Quasimodo’s eye opened also more and
more widely, phosphoric and flaming. At length the grand peal
began; the whole tower trembled; woodwork, leads, cut stones, all
groaned at once, from the piles of the foundation to the trefoils
of its summit. Then Quasimodo boiled and frothed; he went and
came; he trembled from head to foot with the tower. The bell,
furious, running riot, presented to the two walls of the tower
alternately its brazen throat, whence escaped that tempestuous
breath, which is audible leagues away. Quasimodo stationed
himself in front of this open throat; he crouched and rose with
the oscillations of the bell, breathed in this overwhelming
breath, gazed by turns at the deep place, which swarmed with
people, two hundred feet below him, and at that enormous, brazen
tongue which came, second after second, to howl in his ear.
It was the only speech which he understood, the only sound which
broke for him the universal silence. He swelled out in it as a
bird does in the sun. All of a sudden, the frenzy of the bell
seized upon him; his look became extraordinary; he lay in wait
for the great bell as it passed, as a spider lies in wait for a
fly, and flung himself abruptly upon it, with might and main.
Then, suspended above the abyss, borne to and fro by the
formidable swinging of the bell, he seized the brazen monster by
the ear-laps, pressed it between both knees, spurred it on with
his heels, and redoubled the fury of the peal with the whole
shock and weight of his body. Meanwhile, the tower trembled; he
shrieked and gnashed his teeth, his red hair rose erect, his
breast heaving like a bellows, his eye flashed flames, the
monstrous bell neighed, panting, beneath him; and then it was no
longer the great bell of Notre-Dame nor Quasimodo: it was a
dream, a whirlwind, a tempest, dizziness mounted astride of
noise; a spirit clinging to a flying crupper, a strange centaur,
half man, half bell; a sort of horrible Astolphus, borne away
upon a prodigious hippogriff of living bronze.
The presence of this extraordinary being caused, as it were, a
breath of life to circulate throughout the entire cathedral. It
seemed as though there escaped from him, at least according to
the growing superstitions of the crowd, a mysterious emanation
which animated all the stones of Notre-Dame, and made the deep
bowels of the ancient church to palpitate. It sufficed for people
to know that he was there, to make them believe that they beheld
the thousand statues of the galleries and the fronts in motion.
And the cathedral did indeed seem a docile and obedient creature
beneath his hand; it waited on his will to raise its great voice;
it was possessed and filled with Quasimodo, as with a familiar
spirit. One would have said that he made the immense edifice
breathe. He was everywhere about it; in fact, he multiplied
himself on all points of the structure. Now one perceived with
affright at the very top of one of the towers, a fantastic dwarf
climbing, writhing, crawling on all fours, descending outside
above the abyss, leaping from projection to projection, and going
to ransack the belly of some sculptured gorgon; it was Quasimodo
dislodging the crows. Again, in some obscure corner of the church
one came in contact with a sort of living chimera, crouching and
scowling; it was Quasimodo engaged in thought. Sometimes one
caught sight, upon a bell tower, of an enormous head and a bundle
of disordered limbs swinging furiously at the end of a rope; it
was Quasimodo ringing vespers or the Angelus. Often at night a
hideous form was seen wandering along the frail balustrade of
carved lacework, which crowns the towers and borders the
circumference of the apse; again it was the hunchback of
Notre-Dame. Then, said the women of the neighborhood, the whole
church took on something fantastic, supernatural, horrible; eyes
and mouths were opened, here and there; one heard the dogs, the
monsters, and the gargoyles of stone, which keep watch night and
day, with outstretched neck and open jaws, around the monstrous
cathedral, barking. And, if it was a Christmas Eve, while the
great bell, which seemed to emit the death rattle, summoned the
faithful to the midnight mass, such an air was spread over the
sombre façade that one would have declared that the grand portal
was devouring the throng, and that the rose window was watching
it. And all this came from Quasimodo. Egypt would have taken him
for the god of this temple; the Middle Ages believed him to be
its demon: he was in fact its soul.
To such an extent was this disease that for those who know that
Quasimodo has existed, Notre-Dame is to-day deserted, inanimate,
dead. One feels that something has disappeared from it. That
immense body is empty; it is a skeleton; the spirit has quitted
it, one sees its place and that is all. It is like a skull which
still has holes for the eyes, but no longer sight.
CHAPTER IV. THE DOG AND HIS MASTER.
Nevertheless, there was one human creature whom Quasimodo
excepted from his malice and from his hatred for others, and whom
he loved even more, perhaps, than his cathedral: this was Claude
Frollo.
The matter was simple; Claude Frollo had taken him in, had
adopted him, had nourished him, had reared him. When a little
lad, it was between Claude Frollo’s legs that he was accustomed
to seek refuge, when the dogs and the children barked after him.
Claude Frollo had taught him to talk, to read, to write. Claude
Frollo had finally made him the bellringer. Now, to give the big
bell in marriage to Quasimodo was to give Juliet to Romeo.
Hence Quasimodo’s gratitude was profound, passionate, boundless;
and although the visage of his adopted father was often clouded
or severe, although his speech was habitually curt, harsh,
imperious, that gratitude never wavered for a single moment. The
archdeacon had in Quasimodo the most submissive slave, the most
docile lackey, the most vigilant of dogs. When the poor
bellringer became deaf, there had been established between him
and Claude Frollo, a language of signs, mysterious and understood
by themselves alone. In this manner the archdeacon was the sole
human being with whom Quasimodo had preserved communication. He
was in sympathy with but two things in this world: Notre-Dame and
Claude Frollo.
There is nothing which can be compared with the empire of the
archdeacon over the bellringer; with the attachment of the
bellringer for the archdeacon. A sign from Claude and the idea of
giving him pleasure would have sufficed to make Quasimodo hurl
himself headlong from the summit of Notre-Dame. It was a
remarkable thing—all that physical strength which had reached in
Quasimodo such an extraordinary development, and which was placed
by him blindly at the disposition of another. There was in it, no
doubt, filial devotion, domestic attachment; there was also the
fascination of one spirit by another spirit. It was a poor,
awkward, and clumsy organization, which stood with lowered head
and supplicating eyes before a lofty and profound, a powerful and
superior intellect. Lastly, and above all, it was gratitude.
Gratitude so pushed to its extremest limit, that we do not know
to what to compare it. This virtue is not one of those of which
the finest examples are to be met with among men. We will say
then, that Quasimodo loved the archdeacon as never a dog, never a
horse, never an elephant loved his master.
CHAPTER V. MORE ABOUT CLAUDE FROLLO.
In 1482, Quasimodo was about twenty years of age; Claude Frollo,
about thirty-six. One had grown up, the other had grown old.
Claude Frollo was no longer the simple scholar of the college of
Torchi, the tender protector of a little child, the young and
dreamy philosopher who knew many things and was ignorant of many.
He was a priest, austere, grave, morose; one charged with souls;
monsieur the archdeacon of Josas, the bishop’s second acolyte,
having charge of the two deaneries of Montlhéry, and Châteaufort,
and one hundred and seventy-four country curacies. He was an
imposing and sombre personage, before whom the choir boys in alb
and in jacket trembled, as well as the machicots[25], and the
brothers of Saint-Augustine and the matutinal clerks of
Notre-Dame, when he passed slowly beneath the lofty arches of the
choir, majestic, thoughtful, with arms folded and his head so
bent upon his breast that all one saw of his face was his large,
bald brow.
Dom Claude Frollo had, however, abandoned neither science nor the
education of his young brother, those two occupations of his
life. But as time went on, some bitterness had been mingled with
these things which were so sweet. In the long run, says Paul
Diacre, the best lard turns rancid. Little Jehan Frollo, surnamed
(_du Moulin_) “of the Mill” because of the place where he had
been reared, had not grown up in the direction which Claude would
have liked to impose upon him. The big brother counted upon a
pious, docile, learned, and honorable pupil. But the little
brother, like those young trees which deceive the gardener’s
hopes and turn obstinately to the quarter whence they receive sun
and air, the little brother did not grow and did not multiply,
but only put forth fine bushy and luxuriant branches on the side
of laziness, ignorance, and debauchery. He was a regular devil,
and a very disorderly one, who made Dom Claude scowl; but very
droll and very subtle, which made the big brother smile.
Claude had confided him to that same college of Torchi where he
had passed his early years in study and meditation; and it was a
grief to him that this sanctuary, formerly edified by the name of
Frollo, should to-day be scandalized by it. He sometimes preached
Jehan very long and severe sermons, which the latter intrepidly
endured. After all, the young scapegrace had a good heart, as can
be seen in all comedies. But the sermon over, he none the less
tranquilly resumed his course of seditions and enormities. Now it
was a _béjaune_ or yellow beak (as they called the new arrivals
at the university), whom he had been mauling by way of welcome; a
precious tradition which has been carefully preserved to our own
day. Again, he had set in movement a band of scholars, who had
flung themselves upon a wine-shop in classic fashion, _quasi
classico excitati_, had then beaten the tavern-keeper “with
offensive cudgels,” and joyously pillaged the tavern, even to
smashing in the hogsheads of wine in the cellar. And then it was
a fine report in Latin, which the sub-monitor of Torchi carried
piteously to Dom Claude with this dolorous marginal
comment,—_Rixa; prima causa vinum optimum potatum_. Finally, it
was said, a thing quite horrible in a boy of sixteen, that his
debauchery often extended as far as the Rue de Glatigny.
Claude, saddened and discouraged in his human affections, by all
this, had flung himself eagerly into the arms of learning, that
sister which, at least does not laugh in your face, and which
always pays you, though in money that is sometimes a little
hollow, for the attention which you have paid to her. Hence, he
became more and more learned, and, at the same time, as a natural
consequence, more and more rigid as a priest, more and more sad
as a man. There are for each of us several parallelisms between
our intelligence, our habits, and our character, which develop
without a break, and break only in the great disturbances of
life.
As Claude Frollo had passed through nearly the entire circle of
human learning—positive, exterior, and permissible—since his
youth, he was obliged, unless he came to a halt, _ubi defuit
orbis_, to proceed further and seek other aliments for the
insatiable activity of his intelligence. The antique symbol of
the serpent biting its tail is, above all, applicable to science.
It would appear that Claude Frollo had experienced this. Many
grave persons affirm that, after having exhausted the _fas_ of
human learning, he had dared to penetrate into the _nefas_. He
had, they said, tasted in succession all the apples of the tree
of knowledge, and, whether from hunger or disgust, had ended by
tasting the forbidden fruit. He had taken his place by turns, as
the reader has seen, in the conferences of the theologians in
Sorbonne,—in the assemblies of the doctors of art, after the
manner of Saint-Hilaire,—in the disputes of the decretalists,
after the manner of Saint-Martin,—in the congregations of
physicians at the holy water font of Notre-Dame, _ad cupam
Nostræ-Dominæ_. All the dishes permitted and approved, which
those four great kitchens called the four faculties could
elaborate and serve to the understanding, he had devoured, and
had been satiated with them before his hunger was appeased. Then
he had penetrated further, lower, beneath all that finished,
material, limited knowledge; he had, perhaps, risked his soul,
and had seated himself in the cavern at that mysterious table of
the alchemists, of the astrologers, of the hermetics, of which
Averroès, Guillaume de Paris, and Nicolas Flamel hold the end in
the Middle Ages; and which extends in the East, by the light of
the seven-branched candlestick, to Solomon, Pythagoras, and
Zoroaster.
That is, at least, what was supposed, whether rightly or not. It
is certain that the archdeacon often visited the cemetery of the
Saints-Innocents, where, it is true, his father and mother had
been buried, with other victims of the plague of 1466; but that
he appeared far less devout before the cross of their grave than
before the strange figures with which the tomb of Nicolas Flamel
and Claude Pernelle, erected just beside it, was loaded.
It is certain that he had frequently been seen to pass along the
Rue des Lombards, and furtively enter a little house which formed
the corner of the Rue des Ecrivans and the Rue Marivault. It was
the house which Nicolas Flamel had built, where he had died about
1417, and which, constantly deserted since that time, had already
begun to fall in ruins,—so greatly had the hermetics and the
alchemists of all countries wasted away the walls, merely by
carving their names upon them. Some neighbors even affirm that
they had once seen, through an air-hole, Archdeacon Claude
excavating, turning over, digging up the earth in the two
cellars, whose supports had been daubed with numberless couplets
and hieroglyphics by Nicolas Flamel himself. It was supposed that
Flamel had buried the philosopher’s stone in the cellar; and the
alchemists, for the space of two centuries, from Magistri to
Father Pacifique, never ceased to worry the soil until the house,
so cruelly ransacked and turned over, ended by falling into dust
beneath their feet.
Again, it is certain that the archdeacon had been seized with a
singular passion for the symbolical door of Notre-Dame, that page
of a conjuring book written in stone, by Bishop Guillaume de
Paris, who has, no doubt, been damned for having affixed so
infernal a frontispiece to the sacred poem chanted by the rest of
the edifice. Archdeacon Claude had the credit also of having
fathomed the mystery of the colossus of Saint Christopher, and of
that lofty, enigmatical statue which then stood at the entrance
of the vestibule, and which the people, in derision, called
“Monsieur Legris.” But, what every one might have noticed was the
interminable hours which he often employed, seated upon the
parapet of the area in front of the church, in contemplating the
sculptures of the front; examining now the foolish virgins with
their lamps reversed, now the wise virgins with their lamps
upright; again, calculating the angle of vision of that raven
which belongs to the left front, and which is looking at a
mysterious point inside the church, where is concealed the
philosopher’s stone, if it be not in the cellar of Nicolas
Flamel.
It was, let us remark in passing, a singular fate for the Church
of Notre-Dame at that epoch to be so beloved, in two different
degrees, and with so much devotion, by two beings so dissimilar
as Claude and Quasimodo. Beloved by one, a sort of instinctive
and savage half-man, for its beauty, for its stature, for the
harmonies which emanated from its magnificent ensemble; beloved
by the other, a learned and passionate imagination, for its myth,
for the sense which it contains, for the symbolism scattered
beneath the sculptures of its front,—like the first text
underneath the second in a palimpsest,—in a word, for the enigma
which it is eternally propounding to the understanding.
Furthermore, it is certain that the archdeacon had established
himself in that one of the two towers which looks upon the Grève,
just beside the frame for the bells, a very secret little cell,
into which no one, not even the bishop, entered without his
leave, it was said. This tiny cell had formerly been made almost
at the summit of the tower, among the ravens’ nests, by Bishop
Hugo de Besançon[26] who had wrought sorcery there in his day.
What that cell contained, no one knew; but from the strand of the
Terrain, at night, there was often seen to appear, disappear, and
reappear at brief and regular intervals, at a little dormer
window opening upon the back of the tower, a certain red,
intermittent, singular light which seemed to follow the panting
breaths of a bellows, and to proceed from a flame, rather than
from a light. In the darkness, at that height, it produced a
singular effect; and the goodwives said: “There’s the archdeacon
blowing! hell is sparkling up yonder!”
There were no great proofs of sorcery in that, after all, but
there was still enough smoke to warrant a surmise of fire, and
the archdeacon bore a tolerably formidable reputation. We ought
to mention however, that the sciences of Egypt, that necromancy
and magic, even the whitest, even the most innocent, had no more
envenomed enemy, no more pitiless denunciator before the
gentlemen of the officialty of Notre-Dame. Whether this was
sincere horror, or the game played by the thief who shouts, “stop
thief!” at all events, it did not prevent the archdeacon from
being considered by the learned heads of the chapter, as a soul
who had ventured into the vestibule of hell, who was lost in the
caves of the cabal, groping amid the shadows of the occult
sciences. Neither were the people deceived thereby; with any one
who possessed any sagacity, Quasimodo passed for the demon;
Claude Frollo, for the sorcerer. It was evident that the
bellringer was to serve the archdeacon for a given time, at the
end of which he would carry away the latter’s soul, by way of
payment. Thus the archdeacon, in spite of the excessive austerity
of his life, was in bad odor among all pious souls; and there was
no devout nose so inexperienced that it could not smell him out
to be a magician.
And if, as he grew older, abysses had formed in his science, they
had also formed in his heart. That at least, is what one had
grounds for believing on scrutinizing that face upon which the
soul was only seen to shine through a sombre cloud. Whence that
large, bald brow? that head forever bent? that breast always
heaving with sighs? What secret thought caused his mouth to smile
with so much bitterness, at the same moment that his scowling
brows approached each other like two bulls on the point of
fighting? Why was what hair he had left already gray? What was
that internal fire which sometimes broke forth in his glance, to
such a degree that his eye resembled a hole pierced in the wall
of a furnace?
These symptoms of a violent moral preoccupation, had acquired an
especially high degree of intensity at the epoch when this story
takes place. More than once a choir-boy had fled in terror at
finding him alone in the church, so strange and dazzling was his
look. More than once, in the choir, at the hour of the offices,
his neighbor in the stalls had heard him mingle with the plain
song, _ad omnem tonum_, unintelligible parentheses. More than
once the laundress of the Terrain charged “with washing the
chapter” had observed, not without affright, the marks of nails
and clenched fingers on the surplice of monsieur the archdeacon
of Josas.
However, he redoubled his severity, and had never been more
exemplary. By profession as well as by character, he had always
held himself aloof from women; he seemed to hate them more than
ever. The mere rustling of a silken petticoat caused his hood to
fall over his eyes. Upon this score he was so jealous of
austerity and reserve, that when the Dame de Beaujeu, the king’s
daughter, came to visit the cloister of Notre-Dame, in the month
of December, 1481, he gravely opposed her entrance, reminding the
bishop of the statute of the Black Book, dating from the vigil of
Saint-Barthélemy, 1334, which interdicts access to the cloister
to “any woman whatever, old or young, mistress or maid.” Upon
which the bishop had been constrained to recite to him the
ordinance of Legate Odo, which excepts certain great dames,
_aliquæ magnates mulieres, quæ sine scandalo vitari non possunt_.
And again the archdeacon had protested, objecting that the
ordinance of the legate, which dated back to 1207, was anterior
by a hundred and twenty-seven years to the Black Book, and
consequently was abrogated in fact by it. And he had refused to
appear before the princess.
It was also noticed that his horror for Bohemian women and
gypsies had seemed to redouble for some time past. He had
petitioned the bishop for an edict which expressly forbade the
Bohemian women to come and dance and beat their tambourines on
the place of the Parvis; and for about the same length of time,
he had been ransacking the mouldy placards of the officialty, in
order to collect the cases of sorcerers and witches condemned to
fire or the rope, for complicity in crimes with rams, sows, or
goats.
CHAPTER VI. UNPOPULARITY.
The archdeacon and the bellringer, as we have already said, were
but little loved by the populace great and small, in the vicinity
of the cathedral. When Claude and Quasimodo went out together,
which frequently happened, and when they were seen traversing in
company, the valet behind the master, the cold, narrow, and
gloomy streets of the block of Notre-Dame, more than one evil
word, more than one ironical quaver, more than one insulting jest
greeted them on their way, unless Claude Frollo, which was rarely
the case, walked with head upright and raised, showing his severe
and almost august brow to the dumbfounded jeerers.
Both were in their quarter like “the poets” of whom Régnier
speaks,—
“All sorts of persons run after poets,
As warblers fly shrieking after owls.”
Sometimes a mischievous child risked his skin and bones for the
ineffable pleasure of driving a pin into Quasimodo’s hump. Again,
a young girl, more bold and saucy than was fitting, brushed the
priest’s black robe, singing in his face the sardonic ditty,
“_niche, niche_, the devil is caught.” Sometimes a group of
squalid old crones, squatting in a file under the shadow of the
steps to a porch, scolded noisily as the archdeacon and the
bellringer passed, and tossed them this encouraging welcome, with
a curse: “Hum! there’s a fellow whose soul is made like the other
one’s body!” Or a band of schoolboys and street urchins, playing
hop-scotch, rose in a body and saluted him classically, with some
cry in Latin: “_Eia! eia! Claudius cum claudo_!”
But the insult generally passed unnoticed both by the priest and
the bellringer. Quasimodo was too deaf to hear all these gracious
things, and Claude was too dreamy.
BOOK FIFTH.
CHAPTER I. _ABBAS BEATI MARTINI_.
Dom Claude’s fame had spread far and wide. It procured for him,
at about the epoch when he refused to see Madame de Beaujeu, a
visit which he long remembered.
It was in the evening. He had just retired, after the office, to
his canon’s cell in the cloister of Notre-Dame. This cell, with
the exception, possibly, of some glass phials, relegated to a
corner, and filled with a decidedly equivocal powder, which
strongly resembled the alchemist’s “powder of projection,”
presented nothing strange or mysterious. There were, indeed, here
and there, some inscriptions on the walls, but they were pure
sentences of learning and piety, extracted from good authors. The
archdeacon had just seated himself, by the light of a
three-jetted copper lamp, before a vast coffer crammed with
manuscripts. He had rested his elbow upon the open volume of
Honorius d’Autun, _De predestinatione et libero arbitrio_, and he
was turning over, in deep meditation, the leaves of a printed
folio which he had just brought, the sole product of the press
which his cell contained. In the midst of his revery there came a
knock at his door. “Who’s there?” cried the learned man, in the
gracious tone of a famished dog, disturbed over his bone.
A voice without replied, “Your friend, Jacques Coictier.” He went
to open the door.
It was, in fact, the king’s physician; a person about fifty years
of age, whose harsh physiognomy was modified only by a crafty
eye. Another man accompanied him. Both wore long slate-colored
robes, furred with minever, girded and closed, with caps of the
same stuff and hue. Their hands were concealed by their sleeves,
their feet by their robes, their eyes by their caps.
“God help me, messieurs!” said the archdeacon, showing them in;
“I was not expecting distinguished visitors at such an hour.” And
while speaking in this courteous fashion he cast an uneasy and
scrutinizing glance from the physician to his companion.
“’Tis never too late to come and pay a visit to so considerable a
learned man as Dom Claude Frollo de Tirechappe,” replied Doctor
Coictier, whose Franche-Comté accent made all his phrases drag
along with the majesty of a train-robe.
There then ensued between the physician and the archdeacon one of
those congratulatory prologues which, in accordance with custom,
at that epoch preceded all conversations between learned men, and
which did not prevent them from detesting each other in the most
cordial manner in the world. However, it is the same nowadays;
every wise man’s mouth complimenting another wise man is a vase
of honeyed gall.
Claude Frollo’s felicitations to Jacques Coictier bore reference
principally to the temporal advantages which the worthy physician
had found means to extract, in the course of his much envied
career, from each malady of the king, an operation of alchemy
much better and more certain than the pursuit of the
philosopher’s stone.
“In truth, Monsieur le Docteur Coictier, I felt great joy on
learning of the bishopric given your nephew, my reverend seigneur
Pierre Versé. Is he not Bishop of Amiens?”
“Yes, monsieur Archdeacon; it is a grace and mercy of God.”
“Do you know that you made a great figure on Christmas Day at the
head of your company of the chamber of accounts, Monsieur
President?”
“Vice-President, Dom Claude. Alas! nothing more.”
“How is your superb house in the Rue Saint-André des Arcs coming
on? ’Tis a Louvre. I love greatly the apricot tree which is
carved on the door, with this play of words: ‘A
L’ABRI-COTIER—Sheltered from reefs.’”
“Alas! Master Claude, all that masonry costeth me dear. In
proportion as the house is erected, I am ruined.”
“Ho! have you not your revenues from the jail, and the bailiwick
of the Palais, and the rents of all the houses, sheds, stalls,
and booths of the enclosure? ’Tis a fine breast to suck.”
“My castellany of Poissy has brought me in nothing this year.”
“But your tolls of Triel, of Saint-James, of
Saint-Germain-en-Laye are always good.”
“Six score livres, and not even Parisian livres at that.”
“You have your office of counsellor to the king. That is fixed.”
“Yes, brother Claude; but that accursed seigneury of Poligny,
which people make so much noise about, is worth not sixty gold
crowns, year out and year in.”
In the compliments which Dom Claude addressed to Jacques
Coictier, there was that sardonical, biting, and covertly mocking
accent, and the sad cruel smile of a superior and unhappy man who
toys for a moment, by way of distraction, with the dense
prosperity of a vulgar man. The other did not perceive it.
“Upon my soul,” said Claude at length, pressing his hand, “I am
glad to see you and in such good health.”
“Thanks, Master Claude.”
“By the way,” exclaimed Dom Claude, “how is your royal patient?”
“He payeth not sufficiently his physician,” replied the doctor,
casting a side glance at his companion.
“Think you so, Gossip Coictier,” said the latter.
These words, uttered in a tone of surprise and reproach, drew
upon this unknown personage the attention of the archdeacon
which, to tell the truth, had not been diverted from him a single
moment since the stranger had set foot across the threshold of
his cell. It had even required all the thousand reasons which he
had for handling tenderly Doctor Jacques Coictier, the
all-powerful physician of King Louis XI., to induce him to
receive the latter thus accompanied. Hence, there was nothing
very cordial in his manner when Jacques Coictier said to him,—
“By the way, Dom Claude, I bring you a colleague who has desired
to see you on account of your reputation.”
“Monsieur belongs to science?” asked the archdeacon, fixing his
piercing eye upon Coictier’s companion. He found beneath the
brows of the stranger a glance no less piercing or less
distrustful than his own.
He was, so far as the feeble light of the lamp permitted one to
judge, an old man about sixty years of age and of medium stature,
who appeared somewhat sickly and broken in health. His profile,
although of a very ordinary outline, had something powerful and
severe about it; his eyes sparkled beneath a very deep
superciliary arch, like a light in the depths of a cave; and
beneath his cap which was well drawn down and fell upon his nose,
one recognized the broad expanse of a brow of genius.
He took it upon himself to reply to the archdeacon’s question,—
“Reverend master,” he said in a grave tone, “your renown has
reached my ears, and I wish to consult you. I am but a poor
provincial gentleman, who removeth his shoes before entering the
dwellings of the learned. You must know my name. I am called
Gossip Tourangeau.”
“Strange name for a gentleman,” said the archdeacon to himself.
Nevertheless, he had a feeling that he was in the presence of a
strong and earnest character. The instinct of his own lofty
intellect made him recognize an intellect no less lofty under
Gossip Tourangeau’s furred cap, and as he gazed at the solemn
face, the ironical smile which Jacques Coictier’s presence called
forth on his gloomy face, gradually disappeared as twilight fades
on the horizon of night. Stern and silent, he had resumed his
seat in his great armchair; his elbow rested as usual, on the
table, and his brow on his hand. After a few moments of
reflection, he motioned his visitors to be seated, and, turning
to Gossip Tourangeau he said,—
“You come to consult me, master, and upon what science?”
“Your reverence,” replied Tourangeau, “I am ill, very ill. You
are said to be great Æsculapius, and I am come to ask your advice
in medicine.”
“Medicine!” said the archdeacon, tossing his head. He seemed to
meditate for a moment, and then resumed: “Gossip Tourangeau,
since that is your name, turn your head, you will find my reply
already written on the wall.”
Gossip Tourangeau obeyed, and read this inscription engraved
above his head: “_Medicine is the daughter of
dreams_.—JAMBLIQUE.”
Meanwhile, Doctor Jacques Coictier had heard his companion’s
question with a displeasure which Dom Claude’s response had but
redoubled. He bent down to the ear of Gossip Tourangeau, and said
to him, softly enough not to be heard by the archdeacon: “I
warned you that he was mad. You insisted on seeing him.”
“’Tis very possible that he is right, madman as he is, Doctor
Jacques,” replied his comrade in the same low tone, and with a
bitter smile.
“As you please,” replied Coictier dryly. Then, addressing the
archdeacon: “You are clever at your trade, Dom Claude, and you
are no more at a loss over Hippocrates than a monkey is over a
nut. Medicine a dream! I suspect that the pharmacopolists and the
master physicians would insist upon stoning you if they were
here. So you deny the influence of philtres upon the blood, and
unguents on the skin! You deny that eternal pharmacy of flowers
and metals, which is called the world, made expressly for that
eternal invalid called man!”
“I deny,” said Dom Claude coldly, “neither pharmacy nor the
invalid. I reject the physician.”
“Then it is not true,” resumed Coictier hotly, “that gout is an
internal eruption; that a wound caused by artillery is to be
cured by the application of a young mouse roasted; that young
blood, properly injected, restores youth to aged veins; it is not
true that two and two make four, and that emprostathonos follows
opistathonos.”
The archdeacon replied without perturbation: “There are certain
things of which I think in a certain fashion.”
Coictier became crimson with anger.
“There, there, my good Coictier, let us not get angry,” said
Gossip Tourangeau. “Monsieur the archdeacon is our friend.”
Coictier calmed down, muttering in a low tone,—
“After all, he’s mad.”
“_Pasque-dieu_, Master Claude,” resumed Gossip Tourangeau, after
a silence, “You embarrass me greatly. I had two things to consult
you upon, one touching my health and the other touching my star.”
“Monsieur,” returned the archdeacon, “if that be your motive, you
would have done as well not to put yourself out of breath
climbing my staircase. I do not believe in Medicine. I do not
believe in Astrology.”
“Indeed!” said the man, with surprise.
Coictier gave a forced laugh.
“You see that he is mad,” he said, in a low tone, to Gossip
Tourangeau. “He does not believe in astrology.”
“The idea of imagining,” pursued Dom Claude, “that every ray of a
star is a thread which is fastened to the head of a man!”
“And what then, do you believe in?” exclaimed Gossip Tourangeau.
The archdeacon hesitated for a moment, then he allowed a gloomy
smile to escape, which seemed to give the lie to his response:
“_Credo in Deum_.”
“_Dominum nostrum_,” added Gossip Tourangeau, making the sign of
the cross.
“Amen,” said Coictier.
“Reverend master,” resumed Tourangeau, “I am charmed in soul to
see you in such a religious frame of mind. But have you reached
the point, great savant as you are, of no longer believing in
science?”
“No,” said the archdeacon, grasping the arm of Gossip Tourangeau,
and a ray of enthusiasm lighted up his gloomy eyes, “no, I do not
reject science. I have not crawled so long, flat on my belly,
with my nails in the earth, through the innumerable ramifications
of its caverns, without perceiving far in front of me, at the end
of the obscure gallery, a light, a flame, a something, the
reflection, no doubt, of the dazzling central laboratory where
the patient and the wise have found out God.”
“And in short,” interrupted Tourangeau, “what do you hold to be
true and certain?”
“Alchemy.”
Coictier exclaimed, “Pardieu, Dom Claude, alchemy has its use, no
doubt, but why blaspheme medicine and astrology?”
“Naught is your science of man, naught is your science of the
stars,” said the archdeacon, commandingly.
“That’s driving Epidaurus and Chaldea very fast,” replied the
physician with a grin.
“Listen, Messire Jacques. This is said in good faith. I am not
the king’s physician, and his majesty has not given me the Garden
of Dædalus in which to observe the constellations. Don’t get
angry, but listen to me. What truth have you deduced, I will not
say from medicine, which is too foolish a thing, but from
astrology? Cite to me the virtues of the vertical boustrophedon,
the treasures of the number ziruph and those of the number
zephirod!”
“Will you deny,” said Coictier, “the sympathetic force of the
collar bone, and the cabalistics which are derived from it?”
“An error, Messire Jacques! None of your formulas end in reality.
Alchemy on the other hand has its discoveries. Will you contest
results like this? Ice confined beneath the earth for a thousand
years is transformed into rock crystals. Lead is the ancestor of
all metals. For gold is not a metal, gold is light. Lead requires
only four periods of two hundred years each, to pass in
succession from the state of lead, to the state of red arsenic,
from red arsenic to tin, from tin to silver. Are not these facts?
But to believe in the collar bone, in the full line and in the
stars, is as ridiculous as to believe with the inhabitants of
Grand-Cathay that the golden oriole turns into a mole, and that
grains of wheat turn into fish of the carp species.”
“I have studied hermetic science!” exclaimed Coictier, “and I
affirm—”
The fiery archdeacon did not allow him to finish: “And I have
studied medicine, astrology, and hermetics. Here alone is the
truth.” (As he spoke thus, he took from the top of the coffer a
phial filled with the powder which we have mentioned above),
“here alone is light! Hippocrates is a dream; Urania is a dream;
Hermes, a thought. Gold is the sun; to make gold is to be God.
Herein lies the one and only science. I have sounded the depths
of medicine and astrology, I tell you! Naught, nothingness! The
human body, shadows! the planets, shadows!”
And he fell back in his armchair in a commanding and inspired
attitude. Gossip Touraugeau watched him in silence. Coictier
tried to grin, shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly, and repeated
in a low voice,—
“A madman!”
“And,” said Tourangeau suddenly, “the wondrous result,—have you
attained it, have you made gold?”
“If I had made it,” replied the archdeacon, articulating his
words slowly, like a man who is reflecting, “the king of France
would be named Claude and not Louis.”
The stranger frowned.
“What am I saying?” resumed Dom Claude, with a smile of disdain.
“What would the throne of France be to me when I could rebuild
the empire of the Orient?”
“Very good!” said the stranger.
“Oh, the poor fool!” murmured Coictier.
The archdeacon went on, appearing to reply now only to his
thoughts,—
“But no, I am still crawling; I am scratching my face and knees
against the pebbles of the subterranean pathway. I catch a
glimpse, I do not contemplate! I do not read, I spell out!”
“And when you know how to read!” demanded the stranger, “will you
make gold?”
“Who doubts it?” said the archdeacon.
“In that case Our Lady knows that I am greatly in need of money,
and I should much desire to read in your books. Tell me, reverend
master, is your science inimical or displeasing to Our Lady?”
“Whose archdeacon I am?” Dom Claude contented himself with
replying, with tranquil hauteur.
“That is true, my master. Well! will it please you to initiate
me? Let me spell with you.”
Claude assumed the majestic and pontifical attitude of a Samuel.
“Old man, it requires longer years than remain to you, to
undertake this voyage across mysterious things. Your head is very
gray! One comes forth from the cavern only with white hair, but
only those with dark hair enter it. Science alone knows well how
to hollow, wither, and dry up human faces; she needs not to have
old age bring her faces already furrowed. Nevertheless, if the
desire possesses you of putting yourself under discipline at your
age, and of deciphering the formidable alphabet of the sages,
come to me; ’tis well, I will make the effort. I will not tell
you, poor old man, to go and visit the sepulchral chambers of the
pyramids, of which ancient Herodotus speaks, nor the brick tower
of Babylon, nor the immense white marble sanctuary of the Indian
temple of Eklinga. I, no more than yourself, have seen the
Chaldean masonry works constructed according to the sacred form
of the Sikra, nor the temple of Solomon, which is destroyed, nor
the stone doors of the sepulchre of the kings of Israel, which
are broken. We will content ourselves with the fragments of the
book of Hermes which we have here. I will explain to you the
statue of Saint Christopher, the symbol of the sower, and that of
the two angels which are on the front of the Sainte-Chapelle, and
one of which holds in his hands a vase, the other, a cloud—”
Here Jacques Coictier, who had been unhorsed by the archdeacon’s
impetuous replies, regained his saddle, and interrupted him with
the triumphant tone of one learned man correcting
another,—“_Erras amice Claudi_. The symbol is not the number. You
take Orpheus for Hermes.”
“’Tis you who are in error,” replied the archdeacon, gravely.
“Dædalus is the base; Orpheus is the wall; Hermes is the
edifice,—that is all. You shall come when you will,” he
continued, turning to Tourangeau, “I will show you the little
parcels of gold which remained at the bottom of Nicholas Flamel’s
alembic, and you shall compare them with the gold of Guillaume de
Paris. I will teach you the secret virtues of the Greek word,
_peristera_. But, first of all, I will make you read, one after
the other, the marble letters of the alphabet, the granite pages
of the book. We shall go to the portal of Bishop Guillaume and of
Saint-Jean le Rond at the Sainte-Chapelle, then to the house of
Nicholas Flamel, Rue Manvault, to his tomb, which is at the
Saints-Innocents, to his two hospitals, Rue de Montmorency. I
will make you read the hieroglyphics which cover the four great
iron cramps on the portal of the hospital Saint-Gervais, and of
the Rue de la Ferronnerie. We will spell out in company, also,
the façade of Saint-Côme, of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Ardents, of
Saint Martin, of Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie—.”
For a long time, Gossip Tourangeau, intelligent as was his
glance, had appeared not to understand Dom Claude. He
interrupted.
“_Pasque-dieu_! what are your books, then?”
“Here is one of them,” said the archdeacon.
And opening the window of his cell he pointed out with his finger
the immense church of Notre-Dame, which, outlining against the
starry sky the black silhouette of its two towers, its stone
flanks, its monstrous haunches, seemed an enormous two-headed
sphinx, seated in the middle of the city.
The archdeacon gazed at the gigantic edifice for some time in
silence, then extending his right hand, with a sigh, towards the
printed book which lay open on the table, and his left towards
Notre-Dame, and turning a sad glance from the book to the
church,—“Alas,” he said, “this will kill that.”
Coictier, who had eagerly approached the book, could not repress
an exclamation. “Hé, but now, what is there so formidable in
this: ‘GLOSSA IN EPISTOLAS D. PAULI, _Norimbergæ, Antonius
Koburger_, 1474.’ This is not new. ’Tis a book of Pierre Lombard,
the Master of Sentences. Is it because it is printed?”
“You have said it,” replied Claude, who seemed absorbed in a
profound meditation, and stood resting, his forefinger bent
backward on the folio which had come from the famous press of
Nuremberg. Then he added these mysterious words: “Alas! alas!
small things come at the end of great things; a tooth triumphs
over a mass. The Nile rat kills the crocodile, the swordfish
kills the whale, the book will kill the edifice.”
The curfew of the cloister sounded at the moment when Master
Jacques was repeating to his companion in low tones, his eternal
refrain, “_He is mad!_” To which his companion this time replied,
“I believe that he is.”
It was the hour when no stranger could remain in the cloister.
The two visitors withdrew. “Master,” said Gossip Tourangeau, as
he took leave of the archdeacon, “I love wise men and great
minds, and I hold you in singular esteem. Come to-morrow to the
Palace des Tournelles, and inquire for the Abbé de Sainte-Martin,
of Tours.”
The archdeacon returned to his chamber dumbfounded, comprehending
at last who Gossip Tourangeau was, and recalling that passage of
the register of Sainte-Martin, of Tours:—_Abbas beati Martini,
SCILICET REX FRANCIÆ, est canonicus de consuetudine et habet
parvam præbendam quam habet sanctus Venantius, et debet sedere in
sede thesaurarii_.
It is asserted that after that epoch the archdeacon had frequent
conferences with Louis XI., when his majesty came to Paris, and
that Dom Claude’s influence quite overshadowed that of Olivier le
Daim and Jacques Coictier, who, as was his habit, rudely took the
king to task on that account.
CHAPTER II. THIS WILL KILL THAT.
Our lady readers will pardon us if we pause for a moment to seek
what could have been the thought concealed beneath those
enigmatic words of the archdeacon: “This will kill that. The book
will kill the edifice.”
To our mind, this thought had two faces. In the first place, it
was a priestly thought. It was the affright of the priest in the
presence of a new agent, the printing press. It was the terror
and dazzled amazement of the men of the sanctuary, in the
presence of the luminous press of Gutenberg. It was the pulpit
and the manuscript taking the alarm at the printed word:
something similar to the stupor of a sparrow which should behold
the angel Legion unfold his six million wings. It was the cry of
the prophet who already hears emancipated humanity roaring and
swarming; who beholds in the future, intelligence sapping faith,
opinion dethroning belief, the world shaking off Rome. It was the
prognostication of the philosopher who sees human thought,
volatilized by the press, evaporating from the theocratic
recipient. It was the terror of the soldier who examines the
brazen battering ram, and says:—“The tower will crumble.” It
signified that one power was about to succeed another power. It
meant, “The press will kill the church.”
But underlying this thought, the first and most simple one, no
doubt, there was in our opinion another, newer one, a corollary
of the first, less easy to perceive and more easy to contest, a
view as philosophical and belonging no longer to the priest alone
but to the savant and the artist. It was a presentiment that
human thought, in changing its form, was about to change its mode
of expression; that the dominant idea of each generation would no
longer be written with the same matter, and in the same manner;
that the book of stone, so solid and so durable, was about to
make way for the book of paper, more solid and still more
durable. In this connection the archdeacon’s vague formula had a
second sense. It meant, “Printing will kill architecture.”
In fact, from the origin of things down to the fifteenth century
of the Christian era, inclusive, architecture is the great book
of humanity, the principal expression of man in his different
stages of development, either as a force or as an intelligence.
When the memory of the first races felt itself overloaded, when
the mass of reminiscences of the human race became so heavy and
so confused that speech naked and flying, ran the risk of losing
them on the way, men transcribed them on the soil in a manner
which was at once the most visible, most durable, and most
natural. They sealed each tradition beneath a monument.
The first monuments were simple masses of rock, “which the iron
had not touched,” as Moses says. Architecture began like all
writing. It was first an alphabet. Men planted a stone upright,
it was a letter, and each letter was a hieroglyph, and upon each
hieroglyph rested a group of ideas, like the capital on the
column. This is what the earliest races did everywhere, at the
same moment, on the surface of the entire world. We find the
“standing stones” of the Celts in Asian Siberia; in the pampas of
America.
Later on, they made words; they placed stone upon stone, they
coupled those syllables of granite, and attempted some
combinations. The Celtic dolmen and cromlech, the Etruscan
tumulus, the Hebrew galgal, are words. Some, especially the
tumulus, are proper names. Sometimes even, when men had a great
deal of stone, and a vast plain, they wrote a phrase. The immense
pile of Karnac is a complete sentence.
At last they made books. Traditions had brought forth symbols,
beneath which they disappeared like the trunk of a tree beneath
its foliage; all these symbols in which humanity placed faith
continued to grow, to multiply, to intersect, to become more and
more complicated; the first monuments no longer sufficed to
contain them, they were overflowing in every part; these
monuments hardly expressed now the primitive tradition, simple
like themselves, naked and prone upon the earth. The symbol felt
the need of expansion in the edifice. Then architecture was
developed in proportion with human thought; it became a giant
with a thousand heads and a thousand arms, and fixed all this
floating symbolism in an eternal, visible, palpable form. While
Dædalus, who is force, measured; while Orpheus, who is
intelligence, sang;—the pillar, which is a letter; the arcade,
which is a syllable; the pyramid, which is a word,—all set in
movement at once by a law of geometry and by a law of poetry,
grouped themselves, combined, amalgamated, descended, ascended,
placed themselves side by side on the soil, ranged themselves in
stories in the sky, until they had written under the dictation of
the general idea of an epoch, those marvellous books which were
also marvellous edifices: the Pagoda of Eklinga, the Rhamseion of
Egypt, the Temple of Solomon.
The generating idea, the word, was not only at the foundation of
all these edifices, but also in the form. The temple of Solomon,
for example, was not alone the binding of the holy book; it was
the holy book itself. On each one of its concentric walls, the
priests could read the word translated and manifested to the eye,
and thus they followed its transformations from sanctuary to
sanctuary, until they seized it in its last tabernacle, under its
most concrete form, which still belonged to architecture: the
arch. Thus the word was enclosed in an edifice, but its image was
upon its envelope, like the human form on the coffin of a mummy.
And not only the form of edifices, but the sites selected for
them, revealed the thought which they represented, according as
the symbol to be expressed was graceful or grave. Greece crowned
her mountains with a temple harmonious to the eye; India
disembowelled hers, to chisel therein those monstrous
subterranean pagodas, borne up by gigantic rows of granite
elephants.
Thus, during the first six thousand years of the world, from the
most immemorial pagoda of Hindustan, to the cathedral of Cologne,
architecture was the great handwriting of the human race. And
this is so true, that not only every religious symbol, but every
human thought, has its page and its monument in that immense
book.
All civilization begins in theocracy and ends in democracy. This
law of liberty following unity is written in architecture. For,
let us insist upon this point, masonry must not be thought to be
powerful only in erecting the temple and in expressing the myth
and sacerdotal symbolism; in inscribing in hieroglyphs upon its
pages of stone the mysterious tables of the law. If it were
thus,—as there comes in all human society a moment when the
sacred symbol is worn out and becomes obliterated under freedom
of thought, when man escapes from the priest, when the
excrescence of philosophies and systems devour the face of
religion,—architecture could not reproduce this new state of
human thought; its leaves, so crowded on the face, would be empty
on the back; its work would be mutilated; its book would be
incomplete. But no.
Let us take as an example the Middle Ages, where we see more
clearly because it is nearer to us. During its first period,
while theocracy is organizing Europe, while the Vatican is
rallying and reclassing about itself the elements of a Rome made
from the Rome which lies in ruins around the Capitol, while
Christianity is seeking all the stages of society amid the
rubbish of anterior civilization, and rebuilding with its ruins a
new hierarchic universe, the keystone to whose vault is the
priest—one first hears a dull echo from that chaos, and then,
little by little, one sees, arising from beneath the breath of
Christianity, from beneath the hand of the barbarians, from the
fragments of the dead Greek and Roman architectures, that
mysterious Romanesque architecture, sister of the theocratic
masonry of Egypt and of India, inalterable emblem of pure
catholicism, unchangeable hieroglyph of the papal unity. All the
thought of that day is written, in fact, in this sombre,
Romanesque style. One feels everywhere in it authority, unity,
the impenetrable, the absolute, Gregory VII.; always the priest,
never the man; everywhere caste, never the people.
But the Crusades arrive. They are a great popular movement, and
every great popular movement, whatever may be its cause and
object, always sets free the spirit of liberty from its final
precipitate. New things spring into life every day. Here opens
the stormy period of the Jacqueries, Pragueries, and Leagues.
Authority wavers, unity is divided. Feudalism demands to share
with theocracy, while awaiting the inevitable arrival of the
people, who will assume the part of the lion: _Quia nominor leo_.
Seignory pierces through sacerdotalism; the commonality, through
seignory. The face of Europe is changed. Well! the face of
architecture is changed also. Like civilization, it has turned a
page, and the new spirit of the time finds her ready to write at
its dictation. It returns from the crusades with the pointed
arch, like the nations with liberty.
Then, while Rome is undergoing gradual dismemberment, Romanesque
architecture dies. The hieroglyph deserts the cathedral, and
betakes itself to blazoning the donjon keep, in order to lend
prestige to feudalism. The cathedral itself, that edifice
formerly so dogmatic, invaded henceforth by the _bourgeoisie_, by
the community, by liberty, escapes the priest and falls into the
power of the artist. The artist builds it after his own fashion.
Farewell to mystery, myth, law. Fancy and caprice, welcome.
Provided the priest has his basilica and his altar, he has
nothing to say. The four walls belong to the artist. The
architectural book belongs no longer to the priest, to religion,
to Rome; it is the property of poetry, of imagination, of the
people. Hence the rapid and innumerable transformations of that
architecture which owns but three centuries, so striking after
the stagnant immobility of the Romanesque architecture, which
owns six or seven. Nevertheless, art marches on with giant
strides. Popular genius amid originality accomplish the task
which the bishops formerly fulfilled. Each race writes its line
upon the book, as it passes; it erases the ancient Romanesque
hieroglyphs on the frontispieces of cathedrals, and at the most
one only sees dogma cropping out here and there, beneath the new
symbol which it has deposited. The popular drapery hardly permits
the religious skeleton to be suspected. One cannot even form an
idea of the liberties which the architects then take, even toward
the Church. There are capitals knitted of nuns and monks,
shamelessly coupled, as on the hall of chimney pieces in the
Palais de Justice, in Paris. There is Noah’s adventure carved to
the last detail, as under the great portal of Bourges. There is a
bacchanalian monk, with ass’s ears and glass in hand, laughing in
the face of a whole community, as on the lavatory of the Abbey of
Bocherville. There exists at that epoch, for thought written in
stone, a privilege exactly comparable to our present liberty of
the press. It is the liberty of architecture.
This liberty goes very far. Sometimes a portal, a façade, an
entire church, presents a symbolical sense absolutely foreign to
worship, or even hostile to the Church. In the thirteenth
century, Guillaume de Paris, and Nicholas Flamel, in the
fifteenth, wrote such seditious pages. Saint-Jacques de la
Boucherie was a whole church of the opposition.
Thought was then free only in this manner; hence it never wrote
itself out completely except on the books called edifices.
Thought, under the form of edifice, could have beheld itself
burned in the public square by the hands of the executioner, in
its manuscript form, if it had been sufficiently imprudent to
risk itself thus; thought, as the door of a church, would have
been a spectator of the punishment of thought as a book. Having
thus only this resource, masonry, in order to make its way to the
light, flung itself upon it from all quarters. Hence the immense
quantity of cathedrals which have covered Europe—a number so
prodigious that one can hardly believe it even after having
verified it. All the material forces, all the intellectual forces
of society converged towards the same point: architecture. In
this manner, under the pretext of building churches to God, art
was developed in its magnificent proportions.
Then whoever was born a poet became an architect. Genius,
scattered in the masses, repressed in every quarter under
feudalism as under a _testudo_ of brazen bucklers, finding no
issue except in the direction of architecture,—gushed forth
through that art, and its Iliads assumed the form of cathedrals.
All other arts obeyed, and placed themselves under the discipline
of architecture. They were the workmen of the great work. The
architect, the poet, the master, summed up in his person the
sculpture which carved his façades, painting which illuminated
his windows, music which set his bells to pealing, and breathed
into his organs. There was nothing down to poor poetry,—properly
speaking, that which persisted in vegetating in
manuscripts,—which was not forced, in order to make something of
itself, to come and frame itself in the edifice in the shape of a
hymn or of prose; the same part, after all, which the tragedies
of Æschylus had played in the sacerdotal festivals of Greece;
Genesis, in the temple of Solomon.
Thus, down to the time of Gutenberg, architecture is the
principal writing, the universal writing. In that granite book,
begun by the Orient, continued by Greek and Roman antiquity, the
Middle Ages wrote the last page. Moreover, this phenomenon of an
architecture of the people following an architecture of caste,
which we have just been observing in the Middle Ages, is
reproduced with every analogous movement in the human
intelligence at the other great epochs of history. Thus, in order
to enunciate here only summarily, a law which it would require
volumes to develop: in the high Orient, the cradle of primitive
times, after Hindoo architecture came Phœnician architecture,
that opulent mother of Arabian architecture; in antiquity, after
Egyptian architecture, of which Etruscan style and cyclopean
monuments are but one variety, came Greek architecture (of which
the Roman style is only a continuation), surcharged with the
Carthaginian dome; in modern times, after Romanesque architecture
came Gothic architecture. And by separating there three series
into their component parts, we shall find in the three eldest
sisters, Hindoo architecture, Egyptian architecture, Romanesque
architecture, the same symbol; that is to say, theocracy, caste,
unity, dogma, myth, God: and for the three younger sisters,
Phœnician architecture, Greek architecture, Gothic architecture,
whatever, nevertheless, may be the diversity of form inherent in
their nature, the same signification also; that is to say,
liberty, the people, man.
In the Hindu, Egyptian, or Romanesque architecture, one feels the
priest, nothing but the priest, whether he calls himself Brahmin,
Magian, or Pope. It is not the same in the architectures of the
people. They are richer and less sacred. In the Phœnician, one
feels the merchant; in the Greek, the republican; in the Gothic,
the citizen.
The general characteristics of all theocratic architecture are
immutability, horror of progress, the preservation of traditional
lines, the consecration of the primitive types, the constant
bending of all the forms of men and of nature to the
incomprehensible caprices of the symbol. These are dark books,
which the initiated alone understand how to decipher. Moreover,
every form, every deformity even, has there a sense which renders
it inviolable. Do not ask of Hindoo, Egyptian, Romanesque masonry
to reform their design, or to improve their statuary. Every
attempt at perfecting is an impiety to them. In these
architectures it seems as though the rigidity of the dogma had
spread over the stone like a sort of second petrifaction. The
general characteristics of popular masonry, on the contrary, are
progress, originality, opulence, perpetual movement. They are
already sufficiently detached from religion to think of their
beauty, to take care of it, to correct without relaxation their
parure of statues or arabesques. They are of the age. They have
something human, which they mingle incessantly with the divine
symbol under which they still produce. Hence, edifices
comprehensible to every soul, to every intelligence, to every
imagination, symbolical still, but as easy to understand as
nature. Between theocratic architecture and this there is the
difference that lies between a sacred language and a vulgar
language, between hieroglyphics and art, between Solomon and
Phidias.
If the reader will sum up what we have hitherto briefly, very
briefly, indicated, neglecting a thousand proofs and also a
thousand objections of detail, he will be led to this: that
architecture was, down to the fifteenth century, the chief
register of humanity; that in that interval not a thought which
is in any degree complicated made its appearance in the world,
which has not been worked into an edifice; that every popular
idea, and every religious law, has had its monumental records;
that the human race has, in short, had no important thought which
it has not written in stone. And why? Because every thought,
either philosophical or religious, is interested in perpetuating
itself; because the idea which has moved one generation wishes to
move others also, and leave a trace. Now, what a precarious
immortality is that of the manuscript! How much more solid,
durable, unyielding, is a book of stone! In order to destroy the
written word, a torch and a Turk are sufficient. To demolish the
constructed word, a social revolution, a terrestrial revolution
are required. The barbarians passed over the Coliseum; the
deluge, perhaps, passed over the Pyramids.
In the fifteenth century everything changes.
Human thought discovers a mode of perpetuating itself, not only
more durable and more resisting than architecture, but still more
simple and easy. Architecture is dethroned. Gutenberg’s letters
of lead are about to supersede Orpheus’s letters of stone.
_The book is about to kill the edifice_.
The invention of printing is the greatest event in history. It is
the mother of revolution. It is the mode of expression of
humanity which is totally renewed; it is human thought stripping
off one form and donning another; it is the complete and
definitive change of skin of that symbolical serpent which since
the days of Adam has represented intelligence.
In its printed form, thought is more imperishable than ever; it
is volatile, irresistible, indestructible. It is mingled with the
air. In the days of architecture it made a mountain of itself,
and took powerful possession of a century and a place. Now it
converts itself into a flock of birds, scatters itself to the
four winds, and occupies all points of air and space at once.
We repeat, who does not perceive that in this form it is far more
indelible? It was solid, it has become alive. It passes from
duration in time to immortality. One can demolish a mass; how can
one extirpate ubiquity? If a flood comes, the mountains will have
long disappeared beneath the waves, while the birds will still be
flying about; and if a single ark floats on the surface of the
cataclysm, they will alight upon it, will float with it, will be
present with it at the ebbing of the waters; and the new world
which emerges from this chaos will behold, on its awakening, the
thought of the world which has been submerged soaring above it,
winged and living.
And when one observes that this mode of expression is not only
the most conservative, but also the most simple, the most
convenient, the most practicable for all; when one reflects that
it does not drag after it bulky baggage, and does not set in
motion a heavy apparatus; when one compares thought forced, in
order to transform itself into an edifice, to put in motion four
or five other arts and tons of gold, a whole mountain of stones,
a whole forest of timber-work, a whole nation of workmen; when
one compares it to the thought which becomes a book, and for
which a little paper, a little ink, and a pen suffice,—how can
one be surprised that human intelligence should have quitted
architecture for printing? Cut the primitive bed of a river
abruptly with a canal hollowed out below its level, and the river
will desert its bed.
Behold how, beginning with the discovery of printing,
architecture withers away little by little, becomes lifeless and
bare. How one feels the water sinking, the sap departing, the
thought of the times and of the people withdrawing from it! The
chill is almost imperceptible in the fifteenth century; the press
is, as yet, too weak, and, at the most, draws from powerful
architecture a superabundance of life. But practically beginning
with the sixteenth century, the malady of architecture is
visible; it is no longer the expression of society; it becomes
classic art in a miserable manner; from being Gallic, European,
indigenous, it becomes Greek and Roman; from being true and
modern, it becomes pseudo-classic. It is this decadence which is
called the Renaissance. A magnificent decadence, however, for the
ancient Gothic genius, that sun which sets behind the gigantic
press of Mayence, still penetrates for a while longer with its
rays that whole hybrid pile of Latin arcades and Corinthian
columns.
It is that setting sun which we mistake for the dawn.
Nevertheless, from the moment when architecture is no longer
anything but an art like any other; as soon as it is no longer
the total art, the sovereign art, the tyrant art,—it has no
longer the power to retain the other arts. So they emancipate
themselves, break the yoke of the architect, and take themselves
off, each one in its own direction. Each one of them gains by
this divorce. Isolation aggrandizes everything. Sculpture becomes
statuary, the image trade becomes painting, the canon becomes
music. One would pronounce it an empire dismembered at the death
of its Alexander, and whose provinces become kingdoms.
Hence Raphael, Michael Angelo, Jean Goujon, Palestrina, those
splendors of the dazzling sixteenth century.
Thought emancipates itself in all directions at the same time as
the arts. The arch-heretics of the Middle Ages had already made
large incisions into Catholicism. The sixteenth century breaks
religious unity. Before the invention of printing, reform would
have been merely a schism; printing converted it into a
revolution. Take away the press; heresy is enervated. Whether it
be Providence or Fate, Gutenburg is the precursor of Luther.
Nevertheless, when the sun of the Middle Ages is completely set,
when the Gothic genius is forever extinct upon the horizon,
architecture grows dim, loses its color, becomes more and more
effaced. The printed book, the gnawing worm of the edifice, sucks
and devours it. It becomes bare, denuded of its foliage, and
grows visibly emaciated. It is petty, it is poor, it is nothing.
It no longer expresses anything, not even the memory of the art
of another time. Reduced to itself, abandoned by the other arts,
because human thought is abandoning it, it summons bunglers in
place of artists. Glass replaces the painted windows. The
stone-cutter succeeds the sculptor. Farewell all sap, all
originality, all life, all intelligence. It drags along, a
lamentable workshop mendicant, from copy to copy. Michael Angelo,
who, no doubt, felt even in the sixteenth century that it was
dying, had a last idea, an idea of despair. That Titan of art
piled the Pantheon on the Parthenon, and made Saint-Peter’s at
Rome. A great work, which deserved to remain unique, the last
originality of architecture, the signature of a giant artist at
the bottom of the colossal register of stone which was closed
forever. With Michael Angelo dead, what does this miserable
architecture, which survived itself in the state of a spectre,
do? It takes Saint-Peter in Rome, copies it and parodies it. It
is a mania. It is a pity. Each century has its Saint-Peter’s of
Rome; in the seventeenth century, the Val-de-Grâce; in the
eighteenth, Sainte-Geneviève. Each country has its Saint-Peter’s
of Rome. London has one; Petersburg has another; Paris has two or
three. The insignificant testament, the last dotage of a decrepit
grand art falling back into infancy before it dies.
If, in place of the characteristic monuments which we have just
described, we examine the general aspect of art from the
sixteenth to the eighteenth century, we notice the same phenomena
of decay and phthisis. Beginning with François II., the
architectural form of the edifice effaces itself more and more,
and allows the geometrical form, like the bony structure of an
emaciated invalid, to become prominent. The fine lines of art
give way to the cold and inexorable lines of geometry. An edifice
is no longer an edifice; it is a polyhedron. Meanwhile,
architecture is tormented in her struggles to conceal this
nudity. Look at the Greek pediment inscribed upon the Roman
pediment, and vice versâ. It is still the Pantheon on the
Parthenon: Saint-Peter’s of Rome. Here are the brick houses of
Henri IV., with their stone corners; the Place Royale, the Place
Dauphine. Here are the churches of Louis XIII., heavy, squat,
thickset, crowded together, loaded with a dome like a hump. Here
is the Mazarin architecture, the wretched Italian pasticcio of
the Four Nations. Here are the palaces of Louis XIV., long
barracks for courtiers, stiff, cold, tiresome. Here, finally, is
Louis XV., with chiccory leaves and vermicelli, and all the
warts, and all the fungi, which disfigure that decrepit,
toothless, and coquettish old architecture. From François II. to
Louis XV., the evil has increased in geometrical progression. Art
has no longer anything but skin upon its bones. It is miserably
perishing.
Meanwhile what becomes of printing? All the life which is leaving
architecture comes to it. In proportion as architecture ebbs,
printing swells and grows. That capital of forces which human
thought had been expending in edifices, it henceforth expends in
books. Thus, from the sixteenth century onward, the press, raised
to the level of decaying architecture, contends with it and kills
it. In the seventeenth century it is already sufficiently the
sovereign, sufficiently triumphant, sufficiently established in
its victory, to give to the world the feast of a great literary
century. In the eighteenth, having reposed for a long time at the
Court of Louis XIV., it seizes again the old sword of Luther,
puts it into the hand of Voltaire, and rushes impetuously to the
attack of that ancient Europe, whose architectural expression it
has already killed. At the moment when the eighteenth century
comes to an end, it has destroyed everything. In the nineteenth,
it begins to reconstruct.
Now, we ask, which of the three arts has really represented human
thought for the last three centuries? which translates it? which
expresses not only its literary and scholastic vagaries, but its
vast, profound, universal movement? which constantly superposes
itself, without a break, without a gap, upon the human race,
which walks a monster with a thousand legs?—Architecture or
printing?
It is printing. Let the reader make no mistake; architecture is
dead; irretrievably slain by the printed book,—slain because it
endures for a shorter time,—slain because it costs more. Every
cathedral represents millions. Let the reader now imagine what an
investment of funds it would require to rewrite the architectural
book; to cause thousands of edifices to swarm once more upon the
soil; to return to those epochs when the throng of monuments was
such, according to the statement of an eye witness, “that one
would have said that the world in shaking itself, had cast off
its old garments in order to cover itself with a white vesture of
churches.” _Erat enim ut si mundus, ipse excutiendo semet,
rejecta vetustate, candidam ecclesiarum vestem indueret_. (GLABER
RADOLPHUS.)
A book is so soon made, costs so little, and can go so far! How
can it surprise us that all human thought flows in this channel?
This does not mean that architecture will not still have a fine
monument, an isolated masterpiece, here and there. We may still
have from time to time, under the reign of printing, a column
made I suppose, by a whole army from melted cannon, as we had
under the reign of architecture, Iliads and Romanceros,
Mahabâhrata, and Nibelungen Lieds, made by a whole people, with
rhapsodies piled up and melted together. The great accident of an
architect of genius may happen in the twentieth century, like
that of Dante in the thirteenth. But architecture will no longer
be the social art, the collective art, the dominating art. The
grand poem, the grand edifice, the grand work of humanity will no
longer be built: it will be printed.
And henceforth, if architecture should arise again accidentally,
it will no longer be mistress. It will be subservient to the law
of literature, which formerly received the law from it. The
respective positions of the two arts will be inverted. It is
certain that in architectural epochs, the poems, rare it is true,
resemble the monuments. In India, Vyasa is branching, strange,
impenetrable as a pagoda. In Egyptian Orient, poetry has like the
edifices, grandeur and tranquillity of line; in antique Greece,
beauty, serenity, calm; in Christian Europe, the Catholic
majesty, the popular naïvete, the rich and luxuriant vegetation
of an epoch of renewal. The Bible resembles the Pyramids; the
Iliad, the Parthenon; Homer, Phidias. Dante in the thirteenth
century is the last Romanesque church; Shakespeare in the
sixteenth, the last Gothic cathedral.
Thus, to sum up what we have hitherto said, in a fashion which is
necessarily incomplete and mutilated, the human race has two
books, two registers, two testaments: masonry and printing; the
Bible of stone and the Bible of paper. No doubt, when one
contemplates these two Bibles, laid so broadly open in the
centuries, it is permissible to regret the visible majesty of the
writing of granite, those gigantic alphabets formulated in
colonnades, in pylons, in obelisks, those sorts of human
mountains which cover the world and the past, from the pyramid to
the bell tower, from Cheops to Strasbourg. The past must be
reread upon these pages of marble. This book, written by
architecture, must be admired and perused incessantly; but the
grandeur of the edifice which printing erects in its turn must
not be denied.
That edifice is colossal. Some compiler of statistics has
calculated, that if all the volumes which have issued from the
press since Gutenberg’s day were to be piled one upon another,
they would fill the space between the earth and the moon; but it
is not that sort of grandeur of which we wished to speak.
Nevertheless, when one tries to collect in one’s mind a
comprehensive image of the total products of printing down to our
own days, does not that total appear to us like an immense
construction, resting upon the entire world, at which humanity
toils without relaxation, and whose monstrous crest is lost in
the profound mists of the future? It is the anthill of
intelligence. It is the hive whither come all imaginations, those
golden bees, with their honey.
The edifice has a thousand stories. Here and there one beholds on
its staircases the gloomy caverns of science which pierce its
interior. Everywhere upon its surface, art causes its arabesques,
rosettes, and laces to thrive luxuriantly before the eyes. There,
every individual work, however capricious and isolated it may
seem, has its place and its projection. Harmony results from the
whole. From the cathedral of Shakespeare to the mosque of Byron,
a thousand tiny bell towers are piled pell-mell above this
metropolis of universal thought. At its base are written some
ancient titles of humanity which architecture had not registered.
To the left of the entrance has been fixed the ancient
bas-relief, in white marble, of Homer; to the right, the polyglot
Bible rears its seven heads. The hydra of the Romancero and some
other hybrid forms, the Vedas and the Nibelungen bristle further
on.
Nevertheless, the prodigious edifice still remains incomplete.
The press, that giant machine, which incessantly pumps all the
intellectual sap of society, belches forth without pause fresh
materials for its work. The whole human race is on the
scaffoldings. Each mind is a mason. The humblest fills his hole,
or places his stone. Rétif de La Bretonne brings his hod of
plaster. Every day a new course rises. Independently of the
original and individual contribution of each writer, there are
collective contingents. The eighteenth century gives the
_Encyclopedia_, the revolution gives the _Moniteur_. Assuredly,
it is a construction which increases and piles up in endless
spirals; there also are confusion of tongues, incessant activity,
indefatigable labor, eager competition of all humanity, refuge
promised to intelligence, a new Flood against an overflow of
barbarians. It is the second tower of Babel of the human race.
BOOK SIXTH.
CHAPTER I. AN IMPARTIAL GLANCE AT THE ANCIENT MAGISTRACY.
A very happy personage in the year of grace 1482, was the noble
gentleman Robert d’Estouteville, chevalier, Sieur de Beyne, Baron
d’Ivry and Saint Andry en la Marche, counsellor and chamberlain
to the king, and guard of the provostship of Paris. It was
already nearly seventeen years since he had received from the
king, on November 7, 1465, the comet year,[27] that fine charge
of the provostship of Paris, which was reputed rather a seigneury
than an office. _Dignitas_, says Joannes Lœmnœus, _quæ cum non
exigua potestate politiam concernente, atque prærogativis multis
et juribus conjuncta est_. A marvellous thing in ’82 was a
gentleman bearing the king’s commission, and whose letters of
institution ran back to the epoch of the marriage of the natural
daughter of Louis XI. with Monsieur the Bastard of Bourbon.
The same day on which Robert d’Estouteville took the place of
Jacques de Villiers in the provostship of Paris, Master Jehan
Dauvet replaced Messire Helye de Thorrettes in the first
presidency of the Court of Parliament, Jehan Jouvenel des Ursins
supplanted Pierre de Morvilliers in the office of chancellor of
France, Regnault des Dormans ousted Pierre Puy from the charge of
master of requests in ordinary of the king’s household. Now, upon
how many heads had the presidency, the chancellorship, the
mastership passed since Robert d’Estouteville had held the
provostship of Paris. It had been “granted to him for
safekeeping,” as the letters patent said; and certainly he kept
it well. He had clung to it, he had incorporated himself with it,
he had so identified himself with it that he had escaped that
fury for change which possessed Louis XI., a tormenting and
industrious king, whose policy it was to maintain the elasticity
of his power by frequent appointments and revocations. More than
this; the brave chevalier had obtained the reversion of the
office for his son, and for two years already, the name of the
noble man Jacques d’Estouteville, equerry, had figured beside his
at the head of the register of the salary list of the provostship
of Paris. A rare and notable favor indeed! It is true that Robert
d’Estouteville was a good soldier, that he had loyally raised his
pennon against “the league of public good,” and that he had
presented to the queen a very marvellous stag in confectionery on
the day of her entrance to Paris in 14.... Moreover, he possessed
the good friendship of Messire Tristan l’Hermite, provost of the
marshals of the king’s household. Hence a very sweet and pleasant
existence was that of Messire Robert. In the first place, very
good wages, to which were attached, and from which hung, like
extra bunches of grapes on his vine, the revenues of the civil
and criminal registries of the provostship, plus the civil and
criminal revenues of the tribunals of Embas of the Châtelet,
without reckoning some little toll from the bridges of Mantes and
of Corbeil, and the profits on the craft of Shagreen-makers of
Paris, on the corders of firewood and the measurers of salt. Add
to this the pleasure of displaying himself in rides about the
city, and of making his fine military costume, which you may
still admire sculptured on his tomb in the abbey of Valmont in
Normandy, and his morion, all embossed at Montlhéry, stand out a
contrast against the parti-colored red and tawny robes of the
aldermen and police. And then, was it nothing to wield absolute
supremacy over the sergeants of the police, the porter and watch
of the Châtelet, the two auditors of the Châtelet, _auditores
castelleti_, the sixteen commissioners of the sixteen quarters,
the jailer of the Châtelet, the four enfeoffed sergeants, the
hundred and twenty mounted sergeants, with maces, the chevalier
of the watch with his watch, his sub-watch, his counter-watch and
his rear-watch? Was it nothing to exercise high and low justice,
the right to interrogate, to hang and to draw, without reckoning
petty jurisdiction in the first resort (_in prima instantia_, as
the charters say), on that viscomty of Paris, so nobly appanaged
with seven noble bailiwicks? Can anything sweeter be imagined
than rendering judgments and decisions, as Messire Robert
d’Estouteville daily did in the Grand Châtelet, under the large
and flattened arches of Philip Augustus? and going, as he was
wont to do every evening, to that charming house situated in the
Rue Galilée, in the enclosure of the royal palace, which he held
in right of his wife, Madame Ambroise de Loré, to repose after
the fatigue of having sent some poor wretch to pass the night in
“that little cell of the Rue de Escorcherie, which the provosts
and aldermen of Paris used to make their prison; the same being
eleven feet long, seven feet and four inches wide, and eleven
feet high?”[28]
And not only had Messire Robert d’Estouteville his special court
as provost and vicomte of Paris; but in addition he had a share,
both for eye and tooth, in the grand court of the king. There was
no head in the least elevated which had not passed through his
hands before it came to the headsman. It was he who went to seek
M. de Nemours at the Bastille Saint Antoine, in order to conduct
him to the Halles; and to conduct to the Grève M. de Saint-Pol,
who clamored and resisted, to the great joy of the provost, who
did not love monsieur the constable.
Here, assuredly, is more than sufficient to render a life happy
and illustrious, and to deserve some day a notable page in that
interesting history of the provosts of Paris, where one learns
that Oudard de Villeneuve had a house in the Rue des Boucheries,
that Guillaume de Hangest purchased the great and the little
Savoy, that Guillaume Thiboust gave the nuns of Sainte-Geneviève
his houses in the Rue Clopin, that Hugues Aubriot lived in the
Hôtel du Porc-Épic, and other domestic facts.
Nevertheless, with so many reasons for taking life patiently and
joyously, Messire Robert d’Estouteville woke up on the morning of
the seventh of January, 1482, in a very surly and peevish mood.
Whence came this ill temper? He could not have told himself. Was
it because the sky was gray? or was the buckle of his old belt of
Montlhéry badly fastened, so that it confined his provostal
portliness too closely? had he beheld ribald fellows, marching in
bands of four, beneath his window, and setting him at defiance,
in doublets but no shirts, hats without crowns, with wallet and
bottle at their side? Was it a vague presentiment of the three
hundred and seventy livres, sixteen sous, eight farthings, which
the future King Charles VII. was to cut off from the provostship
in the following year? The reader can take his choice; we, for
our part, are much inclined to believe that he was in a bad
humor, simply because he was in a bad humor.
Moreover, it was the day after a festival, a tiresome day for
every one, and above all for the magistrate who is charged with
sweeping away all the filth, properly and figuratively speaking,
which a festival day produces in Paris. And then he had to hold a
sitting at the Grand Châtelet. Now, we have noticed that judges
in general so arrange matters that their day of audience shall
also be their day of bad humor, so that they may always have some
one upon whom to vent it conveniently, in the name of the king,
law, and justice.
However, the audience had begun without him. His lieutenants,
civil, criminal, and private, were doing his work, according to
usage; and from eight o’clock in the morning, some scores of
_bourgeois_ and _bourgeoises_, heaped and crowded into an obscure
corner of the audience chamber of Embas du Châtelet, between a
stout oaken barrier and the wall, had been gazing blissfully at
the varied and cheerful spectacle of civil and criminal justice
dispensed by Master Florian Barbedienne, auditor of the Châtelet,
lieutenant of monsieur the provost, in a somewhat confused and
utterly haphazard manner.
The hall was small, low, vaulted. A table studded with
fleurs-de-lis stood at one end, with a large arm-chair of carved
oak, which belonged to the provost and was empty, and a stool on
the left for the auditor, Master Florian. Below sat the clerk of
the court, scribbling; opposite was the populace; and in front of
the door, and in front of the table were many sergeants of the
provostship in sleeveless jackets of violet camlet, with white
crosses. Two sergeants of the Parloir-aux-Bourgeois, clothed in
their jackets of Toussaint, half red, half blue, were posted as
sentinels before a low, closed door, which was visible at the
extremity of the hall, behind the table. A single pointed window,
narrowly encased in the thick wall, illuminated with a pale ray
of January sun two grotesque figures,—the capricious demon of
stone carved as a tail-piece in the keystone of the vaulted
ceiling, and the judge seated at the end of the hall on the
fleurs-de-lis.
Imagine, in fact, at the provost’s table, leaning upon his elbows
between two bundles of documents of cases, with his foot on the
train of his robe of plain brown cloth, his face buried in his
hood of white lamb’s skin, of which his brows seemed to be of a
piece, red, crabbed, winking, bearing majestically the load of
fat on his cheeks which met under his chin, Master Florian
Barbedienne, auditor of the Châtelet.
Now, the auditor was deaf. A slight defect in an auditor. Master
Florian delivered judgment, none the less, without appeal and
very suitably. It is certainly quite sufficient for a judge to
have the air of listening; and the venerable auditor fulfilled
this condition, the sole one in justice, all the better because
his attention could not be distracted by any noise.
Moreover, he had in the audience, a pitiless censor of his deeds
and gestures, in the person of our friend Jehan Frollo du Moulin,
that little student of yesterday, that “stroller,” whom one was
sure of encountering all over Paris, anywhere except before the
rostrums of the professors.
“Stay,” he said in a low tone to his companion, Robin Poussepain,
who was grinning at his side, while he was making his comments on
the scenes which were being unfolded before his eyes, “yonder is
Jehanneton du Buisson. The beautiful daughter of the lazy dog at
the Marché-Neuf!—Upon my soul, he is condemning her, the old
rascal! he has no more eyes than ears. Fifteen sous, four
farthings, parisian, for having worn two rosaries! ’Tis somewhat
dear. _Lex duri carminis_. Who’s that? Robin Chief-de-Ville,
hauberkmaker. For having been passed and received master of the
said trade! That’s his entrance money. He! two gentlemen among
these knaves! Aiglet de Soins, Hutin de Mailly Two equerries,
_Corpus Christi!_ Ah! they have been playing at dice. When shall
I see our rector here? A hundred livres parisian, fine to the
king! That Barbedienne strikes like a deaf man,—as he is! I’ll be
my brother the archdeacon, if that keeps me from gaming; gaming
by day, gaming by night, living at play, dying at play, and
gaming away my soul after my shirt. Holy Virgin, what damsels!
One after the other my lambs. Ambroise Lécuyère, Isabeau la
Paynette, Bérarde Gironin! I know them all, by Heavens! A fine! a
fine! That’s what will teach you to wear gilded girdles! ten sous
parisis! you coquettes! Oh! the old snout of a judge! deaf and
imbecile! Oh! Florian the dolt! Oh! Barbedienne the blockhead!
There he is at the table! He’s eating the plaintiff, he’s eating
the suits, he eats, he chews, he crams, he fills himself. Fines,
lost goods, taxes, expenses, loyal charges, salaries, damages,
and interests, gehenna, prison, and jail, and fetters with
expenses are Christmas spice cake and marchpanes of Saint-John to
him! Look at him, the pig!—Come! Good! Another amorous woman!
Thibaud-la-Thibaude, neither more nor less! For having come from
the Rue Glatigny! What fellow is this? Gieffroy Mabonne, gendarme
bearing the crossbow. He has cursed the name of the Father. A
fine for la Thibaude! A fine for Gieffroy! A fine for them both!
The deaf old fool! he must have mixed up the two cases! Ten to
one that he makes the wench pay for the oath and the gendarme for
the amour! Attention, Robin Poussepain! What are they going to
bring in? Here are many sergeants! By Jupiter! all the
bloodhounds of the pack are there. It must be the great beast of
the hunt—a wild boar. And ’tis one, Robin, ’tis one. And a fine
one too! _Hercle!_ ’tis our prince of yesterday, our Pope of the
Fools, our bellringer, our one-eyed man, our hunchback, our
grimace! ’Tis Quasimodo!”
It was he indeed.
It was Quasimodo, bound, encircled, roped, pinioned, and under
good guard. The squad of policemen who surrounded him was
assisted by the chevalier of the watch in person, wearing the
arms of France embroidered on his breast, and the arms of the
city on his back. There was nothing, however, about Quasimodo,
except his deformity, which could justify the display of halberds
and arquebuses; he was gloomy, silent, and tranquil. Only now and
then did his single eye cast a sly and wrathful glance upon the
bonds with which he was loaded.
He cast the same glance about him, but it was so dull and sleepy
that the women only pointed him out to each other in derision.
Meanwhile Master Florian, the auditor, turned over attentively
the document in the complaint entered against Quasimodo, which
the clerk handed him, and, having thus glanced at it, appeared to
reflect for a moment. Thanks to this precaution, which he always
was careful to take at the moment when on the point of beginning
an examination, he knew beforehand the names, titles, and
misdeeds of the accused, made cut and dried responses to
questions foreseen, and succeeded in extricating himself from all
the windings of the interrogation without allowing his deafness
to be too apparent. The written charges were to him what the dog
is to the blind man. If his deafness did happen to betray him
here and there, by some incoherent apostrophe or some
unintelligible question, it passed for profundity with some, and
for imbecility with others. In neither case did the honor of the
magistracy sustain any injury; for it is far better that a judge
should be reputed imbecile or profound than deaf. Hence he took
great care to conceal his deafness from the eyes of all, and he
generally succeeded so well that he had reached the point of
deluding himself, which is, by the way, easier than is supposed.
All hunchbacks walk with their heads held high, all stutterers
harangue, all deaf people speak low. As for him, he believed, at
the most, that his ear was a little refractory. It was the sole
concession which he made on this point to public opinion, in his
moments of frankness and examination of his conscience.
Having, then, thoroughly ruminated Quasimodo’s affair, he threw
back his head and half closed his eyes, for the sake of more
majesty and impartiality, so that, at that moment, he was both
deaf and blind. A double condition, without which no judge is
perfect. It was in this magisterial attitude that he began the
examination.
“Your name?”
Now this was a case which had not been “provided for by law,”
where a deaf man should be obliged to question a deaf man.
Quasimodo, whom nothing warned that a question had been addressed
to him, continued to stare intently at the judge, and made no
reply. The judge, being deaf, and being in no way warned of the
deafness of the accused, thought that the latter had answered, as
all accused do in general, and therefore he pursued, with his
mechanical and stupid self-possession,—
“Very well. And your age?”
Again Quasimodo made no reply to this question. The judge
supposed that it had been replied to, and continued,—
“Now, your profession?”
Still the same silence. The spectators had begun, meanwhile, to
whisper together, and to exchange glances.
“That will do,” went on the imperturbable auditor, when he
supposed that the accused had finished his third reply. “You are
accused before us, _primo_, of nocturnal disturbance; _secundo_,
of a dishonorable act of violence upon the person of a foolish
woman, _in præjudicium meretricis; tertio_, of rebellion and
disloyalty towards the archers of the police of our lord, the
king. Explain yourself upon all these points.—Clerk, have you
written down what the prisoner has said thus far?”
At this unlucky question, a burst of laughter rose from the
clerk’s table caught by the audience, so violent, so wild, so
contagious, so universal, that the two deaf men were forced to
perceive it. Quasimodo turned round, shrugging his hump with
disdain, while Master Florian, equally astonished, and supposing
that the laughter of the spectators had been provoked by some
irreverent reply from the accused, rendered visible to him by
that shrug of the shoulders, apostrophized him indignantly,—
“You have uttered a reply, knave, which deserves the halter. Do
you know to whom you are speaking?”
This sally was not fitted to arrest the explosion of general
merriment. It struck all as so whimsical, and so ridiculous, that
the wild laughter even attacked the sergeants of the
Parloi-aux-Bourgeois, a sort of pikemen, whose stupidity was part
of their uniform. Quasimodo alone preserved his seriousness, for
the good reason that he understood nothing of what was going on
around him. The judge, more and more irritated, thought it his
duty to continue in the same tone, hoping thereby to strike the
accused with a terror which should react upon the audience, and
bring it back to respect.
“So this is as much as to say, perverse and thieving knave that
you are, that you permit yourself to be lacking in respect
towards the Auditor of the Châtelet, to the magistrate committed
to the popular police of Paris, charged with searching out
crimes, delinquencies, and evil conduct; with controlling all
trades, and interdicting monopoly; with maintaining the
pavements; with debarring the hucksters of chickens, poultry, and
water-fowl; of superintending the measuring of fagots and other
sorts of wood; of purging the city of mud, and the air of
contagious maladies; in a word, with attending continually to
public affairs, without wages or hope of salary! Do you know that
I am called Florian Barbedienne, actual lieutenant to monsieur
the provost, and, moreover, commissioner, inquisitor,
_controller_, and examiner, with equal power in provostship,
bailiwick, preservation, and inferior court of judicature?—”
There is no reason why a deaf man talking to a deaf man should
stop. God knows where and when Master Florian would have landed,
when thus launched at full speed in lofty eloquence, if the low
door at the extreme end of the room had not suddenly opened, and
given entrance to the provost in person. At his entrance Master
Florian did not stop short, but, making a half-turn on his heels,
and aiming at the provost the harangue with which he had been
withering Quasimodo a moment before,—
“Monseigneur,” said he, “I demand such penalty as you shall deem
fitting against the prisoner here present, for grave and
aggravated offence against the court.”
And he seated himself, utterly breathless, wiping away the great
drops of sweat which fell from his brow and drenched, like tears,
the parchments spread out before him. Messire Robert
d’Estouteville frowned and made a gesture so imperious and
significant to Quasimodo, that the deaf man in some measure
understood it.
The provost addressed him with severity, “What have you done that
you have been brought hither, knave?”
The poor fellow, supposing that the provost was asking his name,
broke the silence which he habitually preserved, and replied, in
a harsh and guttural voice, “Quasimodo.”
The reply matched the question so little that the wild laugh
began to circulate once more, and Messire Robert exclaimed, red
with wrath,—
“Are you mocking me also, you arrant knave?”
“Bellringer of Notre-Dame,” replied Quasimodo, supposing that
what was required of him was to explain to the judge who he was.
“Bellringer!” interpolated the provost, who had waked up early
enough to be in a sufficiently bad temper, as we have said, not
to require to have his fury inflamed by such strange responses.
“Bellringer! I’ll play you a chime of rods on your back through
the squares of Paris! Do you hear, knave?”
“If it is my age that you wish to know,” said Quasimodo, “I think
that I shall be twenty at Saint Martin’s day.”
This was too much; the provost could no longer restrain himself.
“Ah! you are scoffing at the provostship, wretch! Messieurs the
sergeants of the mace, you will take me this knave to the pillory
of the Grève, you will flog him, and turn him for an hour. He
shall pay me for it, _tête Dieu!_ And I order that the present
judgment shall be cried, with the assistance of four sworn
trumpeters, in the seven castellanies of the viscomty of Paris.”
The clerk set to work incontinently to draw up the account of the
sentence.
“_Ventre Dieu!_ ’tis well adjudged!” cried the little scholar,
Jehan Frollo du Moulin, from his corner.
The provost turned and fixed his flashing eyes once more on
Quasimodo. “I believe the knave said ‘_Ventre Dieu!_’ Clerk, add
twelve deniers Parisian for the oath, and let the vestry of Saint
Eustache have the half of it; I have a particular devotion for
Saint Eustache.”
In a few minutes the sentence was drawn up. Its tenor was simple
and brief. The customs of the provostship and the viscomty had
not yet been worked over by President Thibaut Baillet, and by
Roger Barmne, the king’s advocate; they had not been obstructed,
at that time, by that lofty hedge of quibbles and procedures,
which the two jurisconsults planted there at the beginning of the
sixteenth century. All was clear, expeditious, explicit. One went
straight to the point then, and at the end of every path there
was immediately visible, without thickets and without turnings;
the wheel, the gibbet, or the pillory. One at least knew whither
one was going.
The clerk presented the sentence to the provost, who affixed his
seal to it, and departed to pursue his round of the audience
hall, in a frame of mind which seemed destined to fill all the
jails in Paris that day. Jehan Frollo and Robin Poussepain
laughed in their sleeves. Quasimodo gazed on the whole with an
indifferent and astonished air.
However, at the moment when Master Florian Barbedienne was
reading the sentence in his turn, before signing it, the clerk
felt himself moved with pity for the poor wretch of a prisoner,
and, in the hope of obtaining some mitigation of the penalty, he
approached as near the auditor’s ear as possible, and said,
pointing to Quasimodo, “That man is deaf.”
He hoped that this community of infirmity would awaken Master
Florian’s interest in behalf of the condemned man. But, in the
first place, we have already observed that Master Florian did not
care to have his deafness noticed. In the next place, he was so
hard of hearing that he did not catch a single word of what the
clerk said to him; nevertheless, he wished to have the appearance
of hearing, and replied, “Ah! ah! that is different; I did not
know that. An hour more of the pillory, in that case.”
And he signed the sentence thus modified.
“’Tis well done,” said Robin Poussepain, who cherished a grudge
against Quasimodo. “That will teach him to handle people
roughly.”
CHAPTER II. THE RAT-HOLE.
The reader must permit us to take him back to the Place de Grève,
which we quitted yesterday with Gringoire, in order to follow la
Esmeralda.
It is ten o’clock in the morning; everything is indicative of the
day after a festival. The pavement is covered with rubbish;
ribbons, rags, feathers from tufts of plumes, drops of wax from
the torches, crumbs of the public feast. A goodly number of
_bourgeois_ are “sauntering,” as we say, here and there, turning
over with their feet the extinct brands of the bonfire, going
into raptures in front of the Pillar House, over the memory of
the fine hangings of the day before, and to-day staring at the
nails that secured them a last pleasure. The venders of cider and
beer are rolling their barrels among the groups. Some busy
passers-by come and go. The merchants converse and call to each
other from the thresholds of their shops. The festival, the
ambassadors, Coppenole, the Pope of the Fools, are in all mouths;
they vie with each other, each trying to criticise it best and
laugh the most. And, meanwhile, four mounted sergeants, who have
just posted themselves at the four sides of the pillory, have
already concentrated around themselves a goodly proportion of the
populace scattered on the Place, who condemn themselves to
immobility and fatigue in the hope of a small execution.
If the reader, after having contemplated this lively and noisy
scene which is being enacted in all parts of the Place, will now
transfer his gaze towards that ancient demi-Gothic,
demi-Romanesque house of the Tour-Roland, which forms the corner
on the quay to the west, he will observe, at the angle of the
façade, a large public breviary, with rich illuminations,
protected from the rain by a little penthouse, and from thieves
by a small grating, which, however, permits of the leaves being
turned. Beside this breviary is a narrow, arched window, closed
by two iron bars in the form of a cross, and looking on the
square; the only opening which admits a small quantity of light
and air to a little cell without a door, constructed on the
ground-floor, in the thickness of the walls of the old house, and
filled with a peace all the more profound, with a silence all the
more gloomy, because a public place, the most populous and most
noisy in Paris swarms and shrieks around it.
This little cell had been celebrated in Paris for nearly three
centuries, ever since Madame Rolande de la Tour-Roland, in
mourning for her father who died in the Crusades, had caused it
to be hollowed out in the wall of her own house, in order to
immure herself there forever, keeping of all her palace only this
lodging whose door was walled up, and whose window stood open,
winter and summer, giving all the rest to the poor and to God.
The afflicted damsel had, in fact, waited twenty years for death
in this premature tomb, praying night and day for the soul of her
father, sleeping in ashes, without even a stone for a pillow,
clothed in a black sack, and subsisting on the bread and water
which the compassion of the passers-by led them to deposit on the
ledge of her window, thus receiving charity after having bestowed
it. At her death, at the moment when she was passing to the other
sepulchre, she had bequeathed this one in perpetuity to afflicted
women, mothers, widows, or maidens, who should wish to pray much
for others or for themselves, and who should desire to inter
themselves alive in a great grief or a great penance. The poor of
her day had made her a fine funeral, with tears and benedictions;
but, to their great regret, the pious maid had not been
canonized, for lack of influence. Those among them who were a
little inclined to impiety, had hoped that the matter might be
accomplished in Paradise more easily than at Rome, and had
frankly besought God, instead of the pope, in behalf of the
deceased. The majority had contented themselves with holding the
memory of Rolande sacred, and converting her rags into relics.
The city, on its side, had founded in honor of the damoiselle, a
public breviary, which had been fastened near the window of the
cell, in order that passers-by might halt there from time to
time, were it only to pray; that prayer might remind them of
alms, and that the poor recluses, heiresses of Madame Rolande’s
vault, might not die outright of hunger and forgetfulness.
Moreover, this sort of tomb was not so very rare a thing in the
cities of the Middle Ages. One often encountered in the most
frequented street, in the most crowded and noisy market, in the
very middle, under the feet of the horses, under the wheels of
the carts, as it were, a cellar, a well, a tiny walled and grated
cabin, at the bottom of which a human being prayed night and day,
voluntarily devoted to some eternal lamentation, to some great
expiation. And all the reflections which that strange spectacle
would awaken in us to-day; that horrible cell, a sort of
intermediary link between a house and the tomb, the cemetery and
the city; that living being cut off from the human community, and
thenceforth reckoned among the dead; that lamp consuming its last
drop of oil in the darkness; that remnant of life flickering in
the grave; that breath, that voice, that eternal prayer in a box
of stone; that face forever turned towards the other world; that
eye already illuminated with another sun; that ear pressed to the
walls of a tomb; that soul a prisoner in that body; that body a
prisoner in that dungeon cell, and beneath that double envelope
of flesh and granite, the murmur of that soul in pain;—nothing of
all this was perceived by the crowd. The piety of that age, not
very subtle nor much given to reasoning, did not see so many
facets in an act of religion. It took the thing in the block,
honored, venerated, hallowed the sacrifice at need, but did not
analyze the sufferings, and felt but moderate pity for them. It
brought some pittance to the miserable penitent from time to
time, looked through the hole to see whether he were still
living, forgot his name, hardly knew how many years ago he had
begun to die, and to the stranger, who questioned them about the
living skeleton who was perishing in that cellar, the neighbors
replied simply, “It is the recluse.”
Everything was then viewed without metaphysics, without
exaggeration, without magnifying glass, with the naked eye. The
microscope had not yet been invented, either for things of matter
or for things of the mind.
Moreover, although people were but little surprised by it, the
examples of this sort of cloistration in the hearts of cities
were in truth frequent, as we have just said. There were in Paris
a considerable number of these cells, for praying to God and
doing penance; they were nearly all occupied. It is true that the
clergy did not like to have them empty, since that implied
lukewarmness in believers, and that lepers were put into them
when there were no penitents on hand. Besides the cell on the
Grève, there was one at Montfaucon, one at the Charnier des
Innocents, another I hardly know where,—at the Clichon House, I
think; others still at many spots where traces of them are found
in traditions, in default of memorials. The University had also
its own. On Mount Sainte-Geneviève a sort of Job of the Middle
Ages, for the space of thirty years, chanted the seven
penitential psalms on a dunghill at the bottom of a cistern,
beginning anew when he had finished, singing loudest at night,
_magna voce per umbras_, and to-day, the antiquary fancies that
he hears his voice as he enters the Rue du Puits-qui-parle—the
street of the “Speaking Well.”
To confine ourselves to the cell in the Tour-Roland, we must say
that it had never lacked recluses. After the death of Madame
Roland, it had stood vacant for a year or two, though rarely.
Many women had come thither to mourn, until their death, for
relatives, lovers, faults. Parisian malice, which thrusts its
finger into everything, even into things which concern it the
least, affirmed that it had beheld but few widows there.
In accordance with the fashion of the epoch, a Latin inscription
on the wall indicated to the learned passer-by the pious purpose
of this cell. The custom was retained until the middle of the
sixteenth century of explaining an edifice by a brief device
inscribed above the door. Thus, one still reads in France, above
the wicket of the prison in the seignorial mansion of Tourville,
_Sileto et spera_; in Ireland, beneath the armorial bearings
which surmount the grand door to Fortescue Castle, _Forte scutum,
salus ducum_; in England, over the principal entrance to the
hospitable mansion of the Earls Cowper: _Tuum est_. At that time
every edifice was a thought.
As there was no door to the walled cell of the Tour-Roland, these
two words had been carved in large Roman capitals over the
window,—
TU, ORA.
And this caused the people, whose good sense does not perceive so
much refinement in things, and likes to translate _Ludovico
Magno_ by _Porte Saint-Denis_, to give to this dark, gloomy, damp
cavity, the name of “The Rat-Hole.” An explanation less sublime,
perhaps, than the other; but, on the other hand, more
picturesque.
CHAPTER III. HISTORY OF A LEAVENED CAKE OF MAIZE.
At the epoch of this history, the cell in the Tour-Roland was
occupied. If the reader desires to know by whom, he has only to
lend an ear to the conversation of three worthy gossips, who, at
the moment when we have directed his attention to the Rat-Hole,
were directing their steps towards the same spot, coming up along
the water’s edge from the Châtelet, towards the Grève.
Two of these women were dressed like good _bourgeoises_ of Paris.
Their fine white ruffs; their petticoats of linsey-woolsey,
striped red and blue; their white knitted stockings, with clocks
embroidered in colors, well drawn upon their legs; the
square-toed shoes of tawny leather with black soles, and, above
all, their headgear, that sort of tinsel horn, loaded down with
ribbons and laces, which the women of Champagne still wear, in
company with the grenadiers of the imperial guard of Russia,
announced that they belonged to that class wives which holds the
middle ground between what the lackeys call a woman and what they
term a lady. They wore neither rings nor gold crosses, and it was
easy to see that, in their ease, this did not proceed from
poverty, but simply from fear of being fined. Their companion was
attired in very much the same manner; but there was that
indescribable something about her dress and bearing which
suggested the wife of a provincial notary. One could see, by the
way in which her girdle rose above her hips, that she had not
been long in Paris. Add to this a plaited tucker, knots of ribbon
on her shoes—and that the stripes of her petticoat ran
horizontally instead of vertically, and a thousand other
enormities which shocked good taste.
The two first walked with that step peculiar to Parisian ladies,
showing Paris to women from the country. The provincial held by
the hand a big boy, who held in his a large, flat cake.
We regret to be obliged to add, that, owing to the rigor of the
season, he was using his tongue as a handkerchief.
The child was making them drag him along, _non passibus æquis_,
as Virgil says, and stumbling at every moment, to the great
indignation of his mother. It is true that he was looking at his
cake more than at the pavement. Some serious motive, no doubt,
prevented his biting it (the cake), for he contented himself with
gazing tenderly at it. But the mother should have rather taken
charge of the cake. It was cruel to make a Tantalus of the
chubby-cheeked boy.
Meanwhile, the three demoiselles (for the name of _dames_ was
then reserved for noble women) were all talking at once.
“Let us make haste, Demoiselle Mahiette,” said the youngest of
the three, who was also the largest, to the provincial, “I
greatly fear that we shall arrive too late; they told us at the
Châtelet that they were going to take him directly to the
pillory.”
“Ah, bah! what are you saying, Demoiselle Oudarde Musnier?”
interposed the other Parisienne. “There are two hours yet to the
pillory. We have time enough. Have you ever seen any one
pilloried, my dear Mahiette?”
“Yes,” said the provincial, “at Reims.”
“Ah, bah! What is your pillory at Reims? A miserable cage into
which only peasants are turned. A great affair, truly!”
“Only peasants!” said Mahiette, “at the cloth market in Reims! We
have seen very fine criminals there, who have killed their father
and mother! Peasants! For what do you take us, Gervaise?”
It is certain that the provincial was on the point of taking
offence, for the honor of her pillory. Fortunately, that discreet
damoiselle, Oudarde Musnier, turned the conversation in time.
“By the way, Damoiselle Mahiette, what say you to our Flemish
Ambassadors? Have you as fine ones at Reims?”
“I admit,” replied Mahiette, “that it is only in Paris that such
Flemings can be seen.”
“Did you see among the embassy, that big ambassador who is a
hosier?” asked Oudarde.
“Yes,” said Mahiette. “He has the eye of a Saturn.”
“And the big fellow whose face resembles a bare belly?” resumed
Gervaise. “And the little one, with small eyes framed in red
eyelids, pared down and slashed up like a thistle head?”
“’Tis their horses that are worth seeing,” said Oudarde,
“caparisoned as they are after the fashion of their country!”
“Ah my dear,” interrupted provincial Mahiette, assuming in her
turn an air of superiority, “what would you say then, if you had
seen in ’61, at the consecration at Reims, eighteen years ago,
the horses of the princes and of the king’s company? Housings and
caparisons of all sorts; some of damask cloth, of fine cloth of
gold, furred with sables; others of velvet, furred with ermine;
others all embellished with goldsmith’s work and large bells of
gold and silver! And what money that had cost! And what handsome
boy pages rode upon them!”
“That,” replied Oudarde dryly, “does not prevent the Flemings
having very fine horses, and having had a superb supper yesterday
with monsieur, the provost of the merchants, at the
Hôtel-de-Ville, where they were served with comfits and
hippocras, and spices, and other singularities.”
“What are you saying, neighbor!” exclaimed Gervaise. “It was with
monsieur the cardinal, at the Petit Bourbon that they supped.”
“Not at all. At the Hôtel-de-Ville.
“Yes, indeed. At the Petit Bourbon!”
“It was at the Hôtel-de-Ville,” retorted Oudarde sharply, “and
Dr. Scourable addressed them a harangue in Latin, which pleased
them greatly. My husband, who is sworn bookseller told me so.”
“It was at the Petit Bourbon,” replied Gervaise, with no less
spirit, “and this is what monsieur the cardinal’s procurator
presented to them: twelve double quarts of hippocras, white,
claret, and red; twenty-four boxes of double Lyons marchpane,
gilded; as many torches, worth two livres a piece; and six
demi-queues[29] of Beaune wine, white and claret, the best that
could be found. I have it from my husband, who is a
cinquantenier[30], at the Parloir-aux Bourgeois, and who was this
morning comparing the Flemish ambassadors with those of Prester
John and the Emperor of Trebizond, who came from Mesopotamia to
Paris, under the last king, and who wore rings in their ears.”
“So true is it that they supped at the Hôtel-de-Ville,” replied
Oudarde but little affected by this catalogue, “that such a
triumph of viands and comfits has never been seen.”
“I tell you that they were served by Le Sec, sergeant of the
city, at the Hôtel du Petit-Bourbon, and that that is where you
are mistaken.”
“At the Hôtel-de-Ville, I tell you!”
“At the Petit-Bourbon, my dear! and they had illuminated with
magic glasses the word _Hope_, which is written on the grand
portal.”
“At the Hôtel-de-Ville! At the Hôtel-de-Ville! And Husson-le-Voir
played the flute!”
“I tell you, no!”
“I tell you, yes!”
“I say, no!”
Plump and worthy Oudarde was preparing to retort, and the quarrel
might, perhaps, have proceeded to a pulling of caps, had not
Mahiette suddenly exclaimed,—“Look at those people assembled
yonder at the end of the bridge! There is something in their
midst that they are looking at!”
“In sooth,” said Gervaise, “I hear the sounds of a tambourine. I
believe ’tis the little Esmeralda, who plays her mummeries with
her goat. Eh, be quick, Mahiette! redouble your pace and drag
along your boy. You are come hither to visit the curiosities of
Paris. You saw the Flemings yesterday; you must see the gypsy
to-day.”
“The gypsy!” said Mahiette, suddenly retracing her steps, and
clasping her son’s arm forcibly. “God preserve me from it! She
would steal my child from me! Come, Eustache!”
And she set out on a run along the quay towards the Grève, until
she had left the bridge far behind her. In the meanwhile, the
child whom she was dragging after her fell upon his knees; she
halted breathless. Oudarde and Gervaise rejoined her.
“That gypsy steal your child from you!” said Gervaise. “That’s a
singular freak of yours!”
Mahiette shook her head with a pensive air.
“The singular point is,” observed Oudarde, “that _la sachette_
has the same idea about the Egyptian woman.”
“What is _la sachette_?” asked Mahiette.
“Hé!” said Oudarde, “Sister Gudule.”
“And who is Sister Gudule?” persisted Mahiette.
“You are certainly ignorant of all but your Reims, not to know
that!” replied Oudarde. “’Tis the recluse of the Rat-Hole.”
“What!” demanded Mahiette, “that poor woman to whom we are
carrying this cake?”
Oudarde nodded affirmatively.
“Precisely. You will see her presently at her window on the
Grève. She has the same opinion as yourself of these vagabonds of
Egypt, who play the tambourine and tell fortunes to the public.
No one knows whence comes her horror of the gypsies and
Egyptians. But you, Mahiette—why do you run so at the mere sight
of them?”
“Oh!” said Mahiette, seizing her child’s round head in both
hands, “I don’t want that to happen to me which happened to
Paquette la Chantefleurie.”
“Oh! you must tell us that story, my good Mahiette,” said
Gervaise, taking her arm.
“Gladly,” replied Mahiette, “but you must be ignorant of all but
your Paris not to know that! I will tell you then (but ’tis not
necessary for us to halt that I may tell you the tale), that
Paquette la Chantefleurie was a pretty maid of eighteen when I
was one myself, that is to say, eighteen years ago, and ’tis her
own fault if she is not to-day, like me, a good, plump, fresh
mother of six and thirty, with a husband and a son. However,
after the age of fourteen, it was too late! Well, she was the
daughter of Guybertant, minstrel of the barges at Reims, the same
who had played before King Charles VII., at his coronation, when
he descended our river Vesle from Sillery to Muison, when Madame
the Maid of Orleans was also in the boat. The old father died
when Paquette was still a mere child; she had then no one but her
mother, the sister of M. Pradon, master-brazier and coppersmith
in Paris, Rue Parin-Garlin, who died last year. You see she was
of good family. The mother was a good simple woman,
unfortunately, and she taught Paquette nothing but a bit of
embroidery and toy-making which did not prevent the little one
from growing very large and remaining very poor. They both dwelt
at Reims, on the river front, Rue de Folle-Peine. Mark this: For
I believe it was this which brought misfortune to Paquette. In
’61, the year of the coronation of our King Louis XI. whom God
preserve! Paquette was so gay and so pretty that she was called
everywhere by no other name than _la Chantefleurie_—blossoming
song. Poor girl! She had handsome teeth, she was fond of laughing
and displaying them. Now, a maid who loves to laugh is on the
road to weeping; handsome teeth ruin handsome eyes. So she was la
Chantefleurie. She and her mother earned a precarious living;
they had been very destitute since the death of the minstrel;
their embroidery did not bring them in more than six farthings a
week, which does not amount to quite two eagle liards. Where were
the days when Father Guybertant had earned twelve sous parisian,
in a single coronation, with a song? One winter (it was in that
same year of ’61), when the two women had neither fagots nor
firewood, it was very cold, which gave la Chantefleurie such a
fine color that the men called her Paquette![31] and many called
her Pâquerette![32] and she was ruined.—Eustache, just let me see
you bite that cake if you dare!—We immediately perceived that she
was ruined, one Sunday when she came to church with a gold cross
about her neck. At fourteen years of age! do you see? First it
was the young Vicomte de Cormontreuil, who has his bell tower
three leagues distant from Reims; then Messire Henri de
Triancourt, equerry to the King; then less than that, Chiart de
Beaulion, sergeant-at-arms; then, still descending, Guery
Aubergeon, carver to the King; then, Macé de Frépus, barber to
monsieur the dauphin; then, Thévenin le Moine, King’s cook; then,
the men growing continually younger and less noble, she fell to
Guillaume Racine, minstrel of the hurdy-gurdy and to Thierry de
Mer, lamplighter. Then, poor Chantefleurie, she belonged to every
one: she had reached the last sou of her gold piece. What shall I
say to you, my damoiselles? At the coronation, in the same year,
’61, ’twas she who made the bed of the king of the debauchees! In
the same year!”
Mahiette sighed, and wiped away a tear which trickled from her
eyes.
“This is no very extraordinary history,” said Gervaise, “and in
the whole of it I see nothing of any Egyptian women or children.”
“Patience!” resumed Mahiette, “you will see one child.—In ’66,
’twill be sixteen years ago this month, at Sainte-Paule’s day,
Paquette was brought to bed of a little girl. The unhappy
creature! it was a great joy to her; she had long wished for a
child. Her mother, good woman, who had never known what to do
except to shut her eyes, her mother was dead. Paquette had no
longer any one to love in the world or any one to love her. La
Chantefleurie had been a poor creature during the five years
since her fall. She was alone, alone in this life, fingers were
pointed at her, she was hooted at in the streets, beaten by the
sergeants, jeered at by the little boys in rags. And then, twenty
had arrived: and twenty is an old age for amorous women. Folly
began to bring her in no more than her trade of embroidery in
former days; for every wrinkle that came, a crown fled; winter
became hard to her once more, wood became rare again in her
brazier, and bread in her cupboard. She could no longer work
because, in becoming voluptuous, she had grown lazy; and she
suffered much more because, in growing lazy, she had become
voluptuous. At least, that is the way in which monsieur the curé
of Saint-Remy explains why these women are colder and hungrier
than other poor women, when they are old.”
“Yes,” remarked Gervaise, “but the gypsies?”
“One moment, Gervaise!” said Oudarde, whose attention was less
impatient. “What would be left for the end if all were in the
beginning? Continue, Mahiette, I entreat you. That poor
Chantefleurie!”
Mahiette went on.
“So she was very sad, very miserable, and furrowed her cheeks
with tears. But in the midst of her shame, her folly, her
debauchery, it seemed to her that she should be less wild, less
shameful, less dissipated, if there were something or some one in
the world whom she could love, and who could love her. It was
necessary that it should be a child, because only a child could
be sufficiently innocent for that. She had recognized this fact
after having tried to love a thief, the only man who wanted her;
but after a short time, she perceived that the thief despised
her. Those women of love require either a lover or a child to
fill their hearts. Otherwise, they are very unhappy. As she could
not have a lover, she turned wholly towards a desire for a child,
and as she had not ceased to be pious, she made her constant
prayer to the good God for it. So the good God took pity on her,
and gave her a little daughter. I will not speak to you of her
joy; it was a fury of tears, and caresses, and kisses. She nursed
her child herself, made swaddling-bands for it out of her
coverlet, the only one which she had on her bed, and no longer
felt either cold or hunger. She became beautiful once more, in
consequence of it. An old maid makes a young mother. Gallantry
claimed her once more; men came to see la Chantefleurie; she
found customers again for her merchandise, and out of all these
horrors she made baby clothes, caps and bibs, bodices with
shoulder-straps of lace, and tiny bonnets of satin, without even
thinking of buying herself another coverlet.—Master Eustache, I
have already told you not to eat that cake.—It is certain that
little Agnès, that was the child’s name, a baptismal name, for it
was a long time since la Chantefleurie had had any surname—it is
certain that that little one was more swathed in ribbons and
embroideries than a dauphiness of Dauphiny! Among other things,
she had a pair of little shoes, the like of which King Louis XI.
certainly never had! Her mother had stitched and embroidered them
herself; she had lavished on them all the delicacies of her art
of embroideress, and all the embellishments of a robe for the
good Virgin. They certainly were the two prettiest little pink
shoes that could be seen. They were no longer than my thumb, and
one had to see the child’s little feet come out of them, in order
to believe that they had been able to get into them. ’Tis true
that those little feet were so small, so pretty, so rosy! rosier
than the satin of the shoes! When you have children, Oudarde, you
will find that there is nothing prettier than those little hands
and feet.”
“I ask no better,” said Oudarde with a sigh, “but I am waiting
until it shall suit the good pleasure of M. Andry Musnier.”
“However, Paquette’s child had more that was pretty about it
besides its feet. I saw her when she was only four months old;
she was a love! She had eyes larger than her mouth, and the most
charming black hair, which already curled. She would have been a
magnificent brunette at the age of sixteen! Her mother became
more crazy over her every day. She kissed her, caressed her,
tickled her, washed her, decked her out, devoured her! She lost
her head over her, she thanked God for her. Her pretty, little
rosy feet above all were an endless source of wonderment, they
were a delirium of joy! She was always pressing her lips to them,
and she could never recover from her amazement at their
smallness. She put them into the tiny shoes, took them out,
admired them, marvelled at them, looked at the light through
them, was curious to see them try to walk on her bed, and would
gladly have passed her life on her knees, putting on and taking
off the shoes from those feet, as though they had been those of
an Infant Jesus.”
“The tale is fair and good,” said Gervaise in a low tone; “but
where do gypsies come into all that?”
“Here,” replied Mahiette. “One day there arrived in Reims a very
queer sort of people. They were beggars and vagabonds who were
roaming over the country, led by their duke and their counts.
They were browned by exposure to the sun, they had closely
curling hair, and silver rings in their ears. The women were
still uglier than the men. They had blacker faces, which were
always uncovered, a miserable frock on their bodies, an old cloth
woven of cords bound upon their shoulder, and their hair hanging
like the tail of a horse. The children who scrambled between
their legs would have frightened as many monkeys. A band of
excommunicates. All these persons came direct from lower Egypt to
Reims through Poland. The Pope had confessed them, it was said,
and had prescribed to them as penance to roam through the world
for seven years, without sleeping in a bed; and so they were
called penancers, and smelt horribly. It appears that they had
formerly been Saracens, which was why they believed in Jupiter,
and claimed ten livres of Tournay from all archbishops, bishops,
and mitred abbots with croziers. A bull from the Pope empowered
them to do that. They came to Reims to tell fortunes in the name
of the King of Algiers, and the Emperor of Germany. You can
readily imagine that no more was needed to cause the entrance to
the town to be forbidden them. Then the whole band camped with
good grace outside the gate of Braine, on that hill where stands
a mill, beside the cavities of the ancient chalk pits. And
everybody in Reims vied with his neighbor in going to see them.
They looked at your hand, and told you marvellous prophecies;
they were equal to predicting to Judas that he would become Pope.
Nevertheless, ugly rumors were in circulation in regard to them;
about children stolen, purses cut, and human flesh devoured. The
wise people said to the foolish: “Don’t go there!” and then went
themselves on the sly. It was an infatuation. The fact is, that
they said things fit to astonish a cardinal. Mothers triumphed
greatly over their little ones after the Egyptians had read in
their hands all sorts of marvels written in pagan and in Turkish.
One had an emperor; another, a pope; another, a captain. Poor
Chantefleurie was seized with curiosity; she wished to know about
herself, and whether her pretty little Agnès would not become
some day Empress of Armenia, or something else. So she carried
her to the Egyptians; and the Egyptian women fell to admiring the
child, and to caressing it, and to kissing it with their black
mouths, and to marvelling over its little band, alas! to the
great joy of the mother. They were especially enthusiastic over
her pretty feet and shoes. The child was not yet a year old. She
already lisped a little, laughed at her mother like a little mad
thing, was plump and quite round, and possessed a thousand
charming little gestures of the angels of paradise.
“She was very much frightened by the Egyptians, and wept. But her
mother kissed her more warmly and went away enchanted with the
good fortune which the soothsayers had foretold for her Agnès.
She was to be a beauty, virtuous, a queen. So she returned to her
attic in the Rue Folle-Peine, very proud of bearing with her a
queen. The next day she took advantage of a moment when the child
was asleep on her bed, (for they always slept together), gently
left the door a little way open, and ran to tell a neighbor in
the Rue de la Séchesserie, that the day would come when her
daughter Agnès would be served at table by the King of England
and the Archduke of Ethiopia, and a hundred other marvels. On her
return, hearing no cries on the staircase, she said to herself:
‘Good! the child is still asleep!’ She found her door wider open
than she had left it, but she entered, poor mother, and ran to
the bed.—The child was no longer there, the place was empty.
Nothing remained of the child, but one of her pretty little
shoes. She flew out of the room, dashed down the stairs, and
began to beat her head against the wall, crying: ‘My child! who
has my child? Who has taken my child?’ The street was deserted,
the house isolated; no one could tell her anything about it. She
went about the town, searched all the streets, ran hither and
thither the whole day long, wild, beside herself, terrible,
snuffing at doors and windows like a wild beast which has lost
its young. She was breathless, dishevelled, frightful to see, and
there was a fire in her eyes which dried her tears. She stopped
the passers-by and cried: ‘My daughter! my daughter! my pretty
little daughter! If any one will give me back my daughter, I will
be his servant, the servant of his dog, and he shall eat my heart
if he will.’ She met M. le Curé of Saint-Remy, and said to him:
‘Monsieur, I will till the earth with my finger-nails, but give
me back my child!’ It was heartrending, Oudarde; and I saw a very
hard man, Master Ponce Lacabre, the procurator, weep. Ah! poor
mother! In the evening she returned home. During her absence, a
neighbor had seen two gypsies ascend up to it with a bundle in
their arms, then descend again, after closing the door. After
their departure, something like the cries of a child were heard
in Paquette’s room. The mother, burst into shrieks of laughter,
ascended the stairs as though on wings, and entered.—A frightful
thing to tell, Oudarde! Instead of her pretty little Agnès, so
rosy and so fresh, who was a gift of the good God, a sort of
hideous little monster, lame, one-eyed, deformed, was crawling
and squalling over the floor. She hid her eyes in horror. ‘Oh!’
said she, ‘have the witches transformed my daughter into this
horrible animal?’ They hastened to carry away the little
club-foot; he would have driven her mad. It was the monstrous
child of some gypsy woman, who had given herself to the devil. He
appeared to be about four years old, and talked a language which
was no human tongue; there were words in it which were
impossible. La Chantefleurie flung herself upon the little shoe,
all that remained to her of all that she loved. She remained so
long motionless over it, mute, and without breath, that they
thought she was dead. Suddenly she trembled all over, covered her
relic with furious kisses, and burst out sobbing as though her
heart were broken. I assure you that we were all weeping also.
She said: ‘Oh, my little daughter! my pretty little daughter!
where art thou?’—and it wrung your very heart. I weep still when
I think of it. Our children are the marrow of our bones, you
see.—My poor Eustache! thou art so fair!—If you only knew how
nice he is! yesterday he said to me: ‘I want to be a gendarme,
that I do.’ Oh! my Eustache! if I were to lose thee!—All at once
la Chantefleurie rose, and set out to run through Reims,
screaming: ‘To the gypsies’ camp! to the gypsies’ camp! Police,
to burn the witches!’ The gypsies were gone. It was pitch dark.
They could not be followed. On the morrow, two leagues from
Reims, on a heath between Gueux and Tilloy, the remains of a
large fire were found, some ribbons which had belonged to
Paquette’s child, drops of blood, and the dung of a ram. The
night just past had been a Saturday. There was no longer any
doubt that the Egyptians had held their Sabbath on that heath,
and that they had devoured the child in company with Beelzebub,
as the practice is among the Mahometans. When La Chantefleurie
learned these horrible things, she did not weep, she moved her
lips as though to speak, but could not. On the morrow, her hair
was gray. On the second day, she had disappeared.
“’Tis in truth, a frightful tale,” said Oudarde, “and one which
would make even a Burgundian weep.”
“I am no longer surprised,” added Gervaise, “that fear of the
gypsies should spur you on so sharply.”
“And you did all the better,” resumed Oudarde, “to flee with your
Eustache just now, since these also are gypsies from Poland.”
“No,” said Gervais, “’tis said that they come from Spain and
Catalonia.”
“Catalonia? ’tis possible,” replied Oudarde. “Pologne, Catalogne,
Valogne, I always confound those three provinces, One thing is
certain, that they are gypsies.”
“Who certainly,” added Gervaise, “have teeth long enough to eat
little children. I should not be surprised if la Smeralda ate a
little of them also, though she pretends to be dainty. Her white
goat knows tricks that are too malicious for there not to be some
impiety underneath it all.”
Mahiette walked on in silence. She was absorbed in that revery
which is, in some sort, the continuation of a mournful tale, and
which ends only after having communicated the emotion, from
vibration to vibration, even to the very last fibres of the
heart. Nevertheless, Gervaise addressed her, “And did they ever
learn what became of la Chantefleurie?” Mahiette made no reply.
Gervaise repeated her question, and shook her arm, calling her by
name. Mahiette appeared to awaken from her thoughts.
“What became of la Chantefleurie?” she said, repeating
mechanically the words whose impression was still fresh in her
ear; then, making an effort to recall her attention to the
meaning of her words, “Ah!” she continued briskly, “no one ever
found out.”
She added, after a pause,—
“Some said that she had been seen to quit Reims at nightfall by
the Fléchembault gate; others, at daybreak, by the old Basée
gate. A poor man found her gold cross hanging on the stone cross
in the field where the fair is held. It was that ornament which
had wrought her ruin, in ’61. It was a gift from the handsome
Vicomte de Cormontreuil, her first lover. Paquette had never been
willing to part with it, wretched as she had been. She had clung
to it as to life itself. So, when we saw that cross abandoned, we
all thought that she was dead. Nevertheless, there were people of
the Cabaret les Vantes, who said that they had seen her pass
along the road to Paris, walking on the pebbles with her bare
feet. But, in that case, she must have gone out through the Porte
de Vesle, and all this does not agree. Or, to speak more truly, I
believe that she actually did depart by the Porte de Vesle, but
departed from this world.”
“I do not understand you,” said Gervaise.
“La Vesle,” replied Mahiette, with a melancholy smile, “is the
river.”
“Poor Chantefleurie!” said Oudarde, with a shiver,—“drowned!”
“Drowned!” resumed Mahiette, “who could have told good Father
Guybertant, when he passed under the bridge of Tingueux with the
current, singing in his barge, that one day his dear little
Paquette would also pass beneath that bridge, but without song or
boat.
“And the little shoe?” asked Gervaise.
“Disappeared with the mother,” replied Mahiette.
“Poor little shoe!” said Oudarde.
Oudarde, a big and tender woman, would have been well pleased to
sigh in company with Mahiette. But Gervaise, more curious, had
not finished her questions.
“And the monster?” she said suddenly, to Mahiette.
“What monster?” inquired the latter.
“The little gypsy monster left by the sorceresses in
Chantefleurie’s chamber, in exchange for her daughter. What did
you do with it? I hope you drowned it also.”
“No.” replied Mahiette.
“What? You burned it then? In sooth, that is more just. A witch
child!”
“Neither the one nor the other, Gervaise. Monseigneur the
archbishop interested himself in the child of Egypt, exorcised
it, blessed it, removed the devil carefully from its body, and
sent it to Paris, to be exposed on the wooden bed at Notre-Dame,
as a foundling.”
“Those bishops!” grumbled Gervaise, “because they are learned,
they do nothing like anybody else. I just put it to you, Oudarde,
the idea of placing the devil among the foundlings! For that
little monster was assuredly the devil. Well, Mahiette, what did
they do with it in Paris? I am quite sure that no charitable
person wanted it.”
“I do not know,” replied the Rémoise, “’twas just at that time
that my husband bought the office of notary, at Beru, two leagues
from the town, and we were no longer occupied with that story;
besides, in front of Beru, stand the two hills of Cernay, which
hide the towers of the cathedral in Reims from view.”
While chatting thus, the three worthy _bourgeoises_ had arrived
at the Place de Grève. In their absorption, they had passed the
public breviary of the Tour-Roland without stopping, and took
their way mechanically towards the pillory around which the
throng was growing more dense with every moment. It is probable
that the spectacle which at that moment attracted all looks in
that direction, would have made them forget completely the
Rat-Hole, and the halt which they intended to make there, if big
Eustache, six years of age, whom Mahiette was dragging along by
the hand, had not abruptly recalled the object to them: “Mother,”
said he, as though some instinct warned him that the Rat-Hole was
behind him, “can I eat the cake now?”
If Eustache had been more adroit, that is to say, less greedy, he
would have continued to wait, and would only have hazarded that
simple question, “Mother, can I eat the cake, now?” on their
return to the University, to Master Andry Musnier’s, Rue Madame
la Valence, when he had the two arms of the Seine and the five
bridges of the city between the Rat-Hole and the cake.
This question, highly imprudent at the moment when Eustache put
it, aroused Mahiette’s attention.
“By the way,” she exclaimed, “we are forgetting the recluse! Show
me the Rat-Hole, that I may carry her her cake.”
“Immediately,” said Oudarde, “’tis a charity.”
But this did not suit Eustache.
“Stop! my cake!” said he, rubbing both ears alternatively with
his shoulders, which, in such cases, is the supreme sign of
discontent.
The three women retraced their steps, and, on arriving in the
vicinity of the Tour-Roland, Oudarde said to the other two,—
“We must not all three gaze into the hole at once, for fear of
alarming the recluse. Do you two pretend to read the _Dominus_ in
the breviary, while I thrust my nose into the aperture; the
recluse knows me a little. I will give you warning when you can
approach.”
She proceeded alone to the window. At the moment when she looked
in, a profound pity was depicted on all her features, and her
frank, gay visage altered its expression and color as abruptly as
though it had passed from a ray of sunlight to a ray of
moonlight; her eye became humid; her mouth contracted, like that
of a person on the point of weeping. A moment later, she laid her
finger on her lips, and made a sign to Mahiette to draw near and
look.
Mahiette, much touched, stepped up in silence, on tiptoe, as
though approaching the bedside of a dying person.
It was, in fact, a melancholy spectacle which presented itself to
the eyes of the two women, as they gazed through the grating of
the Rat-Hole, neither stirring nor breathing.
The cell was small, broader than it was long, with an arched
ceiling, and viewed from within, it bore a considerable
resemblance to the interior of a huge bishop’s mitre. On the bare
flagstones which formed the floor, in one corner, a woman was
sitting, or rather, crouching. Her chin rested on her knees,
which her crossed arms pressed forcibly to her breast. Thus
doubled up, clad in a brown sack, which enveloped her entirely in
large folds, her long, gray hair pulled over in front, falling
over her face and along her legs nearly to her feet, she
presented, at the first glance, only a strange form outlined
against the dark background of the cell, a sort of dusky
triangle, which the ray of daylight falling through the opening,
cut roughly into two shades, the one sombre, the other
illuminated. It was one of those spectres, half light, half
shadow, such as one beholds in dreams and in the extraordinary
work of Goya, pale, motionless, sinister, crouching over a tomb,
or leaning against the grating of a prison cell.
It was neither a woman, nor a man, nor a living being, nor a
definite form; it was a figure, a sort of vision, in which the
real and the fantastic intersected each other, like darkness and
day. It was with difficulty that one distinguished, beneath her
hair which spread to the ground, a gaunt and severe profile; her
dress barely allowed the extremity of a bare foot to escape,
which contracted on the hard, cold pavement. The little of human
form of which one caught a sight beneath this envelope of
mourning, caused a shudder.
That figure, which one might have supposed to be riveted to the
flagstones, appeared to possess neither movement, nor thought,
nor breath. Lying, in January, in that thin, linen sack, lying on
a granite floor, without fire, in the gloom of a cell whose
oblique air-hole allowed only the cold breeze, but never the sun,
to enter from without, she did not appear to suffer or even to
think. One would have said that she had turned to stone with the
cell, ice with the season. Her hands were clasped, her eyes
fixed. At first sight one took her for a spectre; at the second,
for a statue.
Nevertheless, at intervals, her blue lips half opened to admit a
breath, and trembled, but as dead and as mechanical as the leaves
which the wind sweeps aside.
Nevertheless, from her dull eyes there escaped a look, an
ineffable look, a profound, lugubrious, imperturbable look,
incessantly fixed upon a corner of the cell which could not be
seen from without; a gaze which seemed to fix all the sombre
thoughts of that soul in distress upon some mysterious object.
Such was the creature who had received, from her habitation, the
name of the “recluse”; and, from her garment, the name of “the
sacked nun.”
The three women, for Gervaise had rejoined Mahiette and Oudarde,
gazed through the window. Their heads intercepted the feeble
light in the cell, without the wretched being whom they thus
deprived of it seeming to pay any attention to them. “Do not let
us trouble her,” said Oudarde, in a low voice, “she is in her
ecstasy; she is praying.”
Meanwhile, Mahiette was gazing with ever-increasing anxiety at
that wan, withered, dishevelled head, and her eyes filled with
tears. “This is very singular,” she murmured.
She thrust her head through the bars, and succeeded in casting a
glance at the corner where the gaze of the unhappy woman was
immovably riveted.
When she withdrew her head from the window, her countenance was
inundated with tears.
“What do you call that woman?” she asked Oudarde.
Oudarde replied,—
“We call her Sister Gudule.”
“And I,” returned Mahiette, “call her Paquette la Chantefleurie.”
Then, laying her finger on her lips, she motioned to the
astounded Oudarde to thrust her head through the window and look.
Oudarde looked and beheld, in the corner where the eyes of the
recluse were fixed in that sombre ecstasy, a tiny shoe of pink
satin, embroidered with a thousand fanciful designs in gold and
silver.
Gervaise looked after Oudarde, and then the three women, gazing
upon the unhappy mother, began to weep.
But neither their looks nor their tears disturbed the recluse.
Her hands remained clasped; her lips mute; her eyes fixed; and
that little shoe, thus gazed at, broke the heart of any one who
knew her history.
The three women had not yet uttered a single word; they dared not
speak, even in a low voice. This deep silence, this deep grief,
this profound oblivion in which everything had disappeared except
one thing, produced upon them the effect of the grand altar at
Christmas or Easter. They remained silent, they meditated, they
were ready to kneel. It seemed to them that they were ready to
enter a church on the day of Tenebræ.
At length Gervaise, the most curious of the three, and
consequently the least sensitive, tried to make the recluse
speak:
“Sister! Sister Gudule!”
She repeated this call three times, raising her voice each time.
The recluse did not move; not a word, not a glance, not a sigh,
not a sign of life.
Oudarde, in her turn, in a sweeter, more caressing
voice,—“Sister!” said she, “Sister Sainte-Gudule!”
The same silence; the same immobility.
“A singular woman!” exclaimed Gervaise, “and one not to be moved
by a catapult!”
“Perchance she is deaf,” said Oudarde.
“Perhaps she is blind,” added Gervaise.
“Dead, perchance,” returned Mahiette.
It is certain that if the soul had not already quitted this
inert, sluggish, lethargic body, it had at least retreated and
concealed itself in depths whither the perceptions of the
exterior organs no longer penetrated.
“Then we must leave the cake on the window,” said Oudarde; “some
scamp will take it. What shall we do to rouse her?”
Eustache, who, up to that moment had been diverted by a little
carriage drawn by a large dog, which had just passed, suddenly
perceived that his three conductresses were gazing at something
through the window, and, curiosity taking possession of him in
his turn, he climbed upon a stone post, elevated himself on
tiptoe, and applied his fat, red face to the opening, shouting,
“Mother, let me see too!”
At the sound of this clear, fresh, ringing child’s voice, the
recluse trembled; she turned her head with the sharp, abrupt
movement of a steel spring, her long, fleshless hands cast aside
the hair from her brow, and she fixed upon the child, bitter,
astonished, desperate eyes. This glance was but a lightning
flash.
“Oh my God!” she suddenly exclaimed, hiding her head on her
knees, and it seemed as though her hoarse voice tore her chest as
it passed from it, “do not show me those of others!”
“Good day, madam,” said the child, gravely.
Nevertheless, this shock had, so to speak, awakened the recluse.
A long shiver traversed her frame from head to foot; her teeth
chattered; she half raised her head and said, pressing her elbows
against her hips, and clasping her feet in her hands as though to
warm them,—
“Oh, how cold it is!”
“Poor woman!” said Oudarde, with great compassion, “would you
like a little fire?”
She shook her head in token of refusal.
“Well,” resumed Oudarde, presenting her with a flagon; “here is
some hippocras which will warm you; drink it.”
Again she shook her head, looked at Oudarde fixedly and replied,
“Water.”
Oudarde persisted,—“No, sister, that is no beverage for January.
You must drink a little hippocras and eat this leavened cake of
maize, which we have baked for you.”
She refused the cake which Mahiette offered to her, and said,
“Black bread.”
“Come,” said Gervaise, seized in her turn with an impulse of
charity, and unfastening her woolen cloak, “here is a cloak which
is a little warmer than yours.”
She refused the cloak as she had refused the flagon and the cake,
and replied, “A sack.”
“But,” resumed the good Oudarde, “you must have perceived to some
extent, that yesterday was a festival.”
“I do perceive it,” said the recluse; “’tis two days now since I
have had any water in my crock.”
She added, after a silence, “’Tis a festival, I am forgotten.
People do well. Why should the world think of me, when I do not
think of it? Cold charcoal makes cold ashes.”
And as though fatigued with having said so much, she dropped her
head on her knees again. The simple and charitable Oudarde, who
fancied that she understood from her last words that she was
complaining of the cold, replied innocently, “Then you would like
a little fire?”
“Fire!” said the sacked nun, with a strange accent; “and will you
also make a little for the poor little one who has been beneath
the sod for these fifteen years?”
Every limb was trembling, her voice quivered, her eyes flashed,
she had raised herself upon her knees; suddenly she extended her
thin, white hand towards the child, who was regarding her with a
look of astonishment. “Take away that child!” she cried. “The
Egyptian woman is about to pass by.”
Then she fell face downward on the earth, and her forehead struck
the stone, with the sound of one stone against another stone. The
three women thought her dead. A moment later, however, she moved,
and they beheld her drag herself, on her knees and elbows, to the
corner where the little shoe was. Then they dared not look; they
no longer saw her; but they heard a thousand kisses and a
thousand sighs, mingled with heartrending cries, and dull blows
like those of a head in contact with a wall. Then, after one of
these blows, so violent that all three of them staggered, they
heard no more.
“Can she have killed herself?” said Gervaise, venturing to pass
her head through the air-hole. “Sister! Sister Gudule!”
“Sister Gudule!” repeated Oudarde.
“Ah! good heavens! she no longer moves!” resumed Gervaise; “is
she dead? Gudule! Gudule!”
Mahiette, choked to such a point that she could not speak, made
an effort. “Wait,” said she. Then bending towards the window,
“Paquette!” she said, “Paquette le Chantefleurie!”
A child who innocently blows upon the badly ignited fuse of a
bomb, and makes it explode in his face, is no more terrified than
was Mahiette at the effect of that name, abruptly launched into
the cell of Sister Gudule.
The recluse trembled all over, rose erect on her bare feet, and
leaped at the window with eyes so glaring that Mahiette and
Oudarde, and the other woman and the child recoiled even to the
parapet of the quay.
Meanwhile, the sinister face of the recluse appeared pressed to
the grating of the air-hole. “Oh! oh!” she cried, with an
appalling laugh; “’tis the Egyptian who is calling me!”
At that moment, a scene which was passing at the pillory caught
her wild eye. Her brow contracted with horror, she stretched her
two skeleton arms from her cell, and shrieked in a voice which
resembled a death-rattle, “So ’tis thou once more, daughter of
Egypt! ’Tis thou who callest me, stealer of children! Well! Be
thou accursed! accursed! accursed! accursed!”
CHAPTER IV. A TEAR FOR A DROP OF WATER.
These words were, so to speak, the point of union of two scenes,
which had, up to that time, been developed in parallel lines at
the same moment, each on its particular theatre; one, that which
the reader has just perused, in the Rat-Hole; the other, which he
is about to read, on the ladder of the pillory. The first had for
witnesses only the three women with whom the reader has just made
acquaintance; the second had for spectators all the public which
we have seen above, collecting on the Place de Grève, around the
pillory and the gibbet.
That crowd which the four sergeants posted at nine o’clock in the
morning at the four corners of the pillory had inspired with the
hope of some sort of an execution, no doubt, not a hanging, but a
whipping, a cropping of ears, something, in short,—that crowd had
increased so rapidly that the four policemen, too closely
besieged, had had occasion to “press” it, as the expression then
ran, more than once, by sound blows of their whips, and the
haunches of their horses.
This populace, disciplined to waiting for public executions, did
not manifest very much impatience. It amused itself with watching
the pillory, a very simple sort of monument, composed of a cube
of masonry about six feet high and hollow in the interior. A very
steep staircase, of unhewn stone, which was called by distinction
“the ladder,” led to the upper platform, upon which was visible a
horizontal wheel of solid oak. The victim was bound upon this
wheel, on his knees, with his hands behind his back. A wooden
shaft, which set in motion a capstan concealed in the interior of
the little edifice, imparted a rotatory motion to the wheel,
which always maintained its horizontal position, and in this
manner presented the face of the condemned man to all quarters of
the square in succession. This was what was called “turning” a
criminal.
As the reader perceives, the pillory of the Grève was far from
presenting all the recreations of the pillory of the Halles.
Nothing architectural, nothing monumental. No roof to the iron
cross, no octagonal lantern, no frail, slender columns spreading
out on the edge of the roof into capitals of acanthus leaves and
flowers, no waterspouts of chimeras and monsters, on carved
woodwork, no fine sculpture, deeply sunk in the stone.
They were forced to content themselves with those four stretches
of rubble work, backed with sandstone, and a wretched stone
gibbet, meagre and bare, on one side.
The entertainment would have been but a poor one for lovers of
Gothic architecture. It is true that nothing was ever less
curious on the score of architecture than the worthy gapers of
the Middle Ages, and that they cared very little for the beauty
of a pillory.
The victim finally arrived, bound to the tail of a cart, and when
he had been hoisted upon the platform, where he could be seen
from all points of the Place, bound with cords and straps upon
the wheel of the pillory, a prodigious hoot, mingled with
laughter and acclamations, burst forth upon the Place. They had
recognized Quasimodo.
It was he, in fact. The change was singular. Pilloried on the
very place where, on the day before, he had been saluted,
acclaimed, and proclaimed Pope and Prince of Fools, in the
cortège of the Duke of Egypt, the King of Thunes, and the Emperor
of Galilee! One thing is certain, and that is, that there was not
a soul in the crowd, not even himself, though in turn triumphant
and the sufferer, who set forth this combination clearly in his
thought. Gringoire and his philosophy were missing at this
spectacle.
Soon Michel Noiret, sworn trumpeter to the king, our lord,
imposed silence on the louts, and proclaimed the sentence, in
accordance with the order and command of monsieur the provost.
Then he withdrew behind the cart, with his men in livery
surcoats.
Quasimodo, impassible, did not wince. All resistance had been
rendered impossible to him by what was then called, in the style
of the criminal chancellery, “the vehemence and firmness of the
bonds” which means that the thongs and chains probably cut into
his flesh; moreover, it is a tradition of jail and wardens, which
has not been lost, and which the handcuffs still preciously
preserve among us, a civilized, gentle, humane people (the
galleys and the guillotine in parentheses).
He had allowed himself to be led, pushed, carried, lifted, bound,
and bound again. Nothing was to be seen upon his countenance but
the astonishment of a savage or an idiot. He was known to be
deaf; one might have pronounced him to be blind.
They placed him on his knees on the circular plank; he made no
resistance. They removed his shirt and doublet as far as his
girdle; he allowed them to have their way. They entangled him
under a fresh system of thongs and buckles; he allowed them to
bind and buckle him. Only from time to time he snorted noisily,
like a calf whose head is hanging and bumping over the edge of a
butcher’s cart.
“The dolt,” said Jehan Frollo of the Mill, to his friend Robin
Poussepain (for the two students had followed the culprit, as was
to have been expected), “he understands no more than a cockchafer
shut up in a box!”
There was wild laughter among the crowd when they beheld
Quasimodo’s hump, his camel’s breast, his callous and hairy
shoulders laid bare. During this gayety, a man in the livery of
the city, short of stature and robust of mien, mounted the
platform and placed himself near the victim. His name speedily
circulated among the spectators. It was Master Pierrat Torterue,
official torturer to the Châtelet.
He began by depositing on an angle of the pillory a black
hour-glass, the upper lobe of which was filled with red sand,
which it allowed to glide into the lower receptacle; then he
removed his parti-colored surtout, and there became visible,
suspended from his right hand, a thin and tapering whip of long,
white, shining, knotted, plaited thongs, armed with metal nails.
With his left hand, he negligently folded back his shirt around
his right arm, to the very armpit.
In the meantime, Jehan Frollo, elevating his curly blonde head
above the crowd (he had mounted upon the shoulders of Robin
Poussepain for the purpose), shouted: “Come and look, gentle
ladies and men! they are going to peremptorily flagellate Master
Quasimodo, the bellringer of my brother, monsieur the archdeacon
of Josas, a knave of oriental architecture, who has a back like a
dome, and legs like twisted columns!”
And the crowd burst into a laugh, especially the boys and young
girls.
At length the torturer stamped his foot. The wheel began to turn.
Quasimodo wavered beneath his bonds. The amazement which was
suddenly depicted upon his deformed face caused the bursts of
laughter to redouble around him.
All at once, at the moment when the wheel in its revolution
presented to Master Pierrat, the humped back of Quasimodo, Master
Pierrat raised his arm; the fine thongs whistled sharply through
the air, like a handful of adders, and fell with fury upon the
wretch’s shoulders.
Quasimodo leaped as though awakened with a start. He began to
understand. He writhed in his bonds; a violent contraction of
surprise and pain distorted the muscles of his face, but he
uttered not a single sigh. He merely turned his head backward, to
the right, then to the left, balancing it as a bull does who has
been stung in the flanks by a gadfly.
A second blow followed the first, then a third, and another and
another, and still others. The wheel did not cease to turn, nor
the blows to rain down.
Soon the blood burst forth, and could be seen trickling in a
thousand threads down the hunchback’s black shoulders; and the
slender thongs, in their rotatory motion which rent the air,
sprinkled drops of it upon the crowd.
Quasimodo had resumed, to all appearance, his first
imperturbability. He had at first tried, in a quiet way and
without much outward movement, to break his bonds. His eye had
been seen to light up, his muscles to stiffen, his members to
concentrate their force, and the straps to stretch. The effort
was powerful, prodigious, desperate; but the provost’s seasoned
bonds resisted. They cracked, and that was all. Quasimodo fell
back exhausted. Amazement gave way, on his features, to a
sentiment of profound and bitter discouragement. He closed his
single eye, allowed his head to droop upon his breast, and
feigned death.
From that moment forth, he stirred no more. Nothing could force a
movement from him. Neither his blood, which did not cease to
flow, nor the blows which redoubled in fury, nor the wrath of the
torturer, who grew excited himself and intoxicated with the
execution, nor the sound of the horrible thongs, more sharp and
whistling than the claws of scorpions.
At length a bailiff from the Châtelet clad in black, mounted on a
black horse, who had been stationed beside the ladder since the
beginning of the execution, extended his ebony wand towards the
hour-glass. The torturer stopped. The wheel stopped. Quasimodo’s
eye opened slowly.
The scourging was finished. Two lackeys of the official torturer
bathed the bleeding shoulders of the patient, anointed them with
some unguent which immediately closed all the wounds, and threw
upon his back a sort of yellow vestment, in cut like a chasuble.
In the meanwhile, Pierrat Torterue allowed the thongs, red and
gorged with blood, to drip upon the pavement.
All was not over for Quasimodo. He had still to undergo that hour
of pillory which Master Florian Barbedienne had so judiciously
added to the sentence of Messire Robert d’Estouteville; all to
the greater glory of the old physiological and psychological play
upon words of Jean de Cumène, _Surdus absurdus_: a deaf man is
absurd.
So the hour-glass was turned over once more, and they left the
hunchback fastened to the plank, in order that justice might be
accomplished to the very end.
The populace, especially in the Middle Ages, is in society what
the child is in the family. As long as it remains in its state of
primitive ignorance, of moral and intellectual minority, it can
be said of it as of the child,—
’Tis the pitiless age.
We have already shown that Quasimodo was generally hated, for
more than one good reason, it is true. There was hardly a
spectator in that crowd who had not or who did not believe that
he had reason to complain of the malevolent hunchback of
Notre-Dame. The joy at seeing him appear thus in the pillory had
been universal; and the harsh punishment which he had just
suffered, and the pitiful condition in which it had left him, far
from softening the populace had rendered its hatred more
malicious by arming it with a touch of mirth.
Hence, the “public prosecution” satisfied, as the bigwigs of the
law still express it in their jargon, the turn came of a thousand
private vengeances. Here, as in the Grand Hall, the women
rendered themselves particularly prominent. All cherished some
rancor against him, some for his malice, others for his ugliness.
The latter were the most furious.
“Oh! mask of Antichrist!” said one.
“Rider on a broom handle!” cried another.
“What a fine tragic grimace,” howled a third, “and who would make
him Pope of the Fools if to-day were yesterday?”
“’Tis well,” struck in an old woman. “This is the grimace of the
pillory. When shall we have that of the gibbet?”
“When will you be coiffed with your big bell a hundred feet under
ground, cursed bellringer?”
“But ’tis the devil who rings the Angelus!”
“Oh! the deaf man! the one-eyed creature! the hunch-back! the
monster!”
“A face to make a woman miscarry better than all the drugs and
medicines!”
And the two scholars, Jehan du Moulin, and Robin Poussepain, sang
at the top of their lungs, the ancient refrain,—
“Une hart
Pour le pendard!
Un fagot
Pour le magot!”[33]
A thousand other insults rained down upon him, and hoots and
imprecations, and laughter, and now and then, stones.
Quasimodo was deaf but his sight was clear, and the public fury
was no less energetically depicted on their visages than in their
words. Moreover, the blows from the stones explained the bursts
of laughter.
At first he held his ground. But little by little that patience
which had borne up under the lash of the torturer, yielded and
gave way before all these stings of insects. The bull of the
Asturias who has been but little moved by the attacks of the
picador grows irritated with the dogs and banderilleras.
He first cast around a slow glance of hatred upon the crowd. But
bound as he was, his glance was powerless to drive away those
flies which were stinging his wound. Then he moved in his bonds,
and his furious exertions made the ancient wheel of the pillory
shriek on its axle. All this only increased the derision and
hooting.
Then the wretched man, unable to break his collar, like that of a
chained wild beast, became tranquil once more; only at intervals
a sigh of rage heaved the hollows of his chest. There was neither
shame nor redness on his face. He was too far from the state of
society, and too near the state of nature to know what shame was.
Moreover, with such a degree of deformity, is infamy a thing that
can be felt? But wrath, hatred, despair, slowly lowered over that
hideous visage a cloud which grew ever more and more sombre, ever
more and more charged with electricity, which burst forth in a
thousand lightning flashes from the eye of the cyclops.
Nevertheless, that cloud cleared away for a moment, at the
passage of a mule which traversed the crowd, bearing a priest. As
far away as he could see that mule and that priest, the poor
victim’s visage grew gentler. The fury which had contracted it
was followed by a strange smile full of ineffable sweetness,
gentleness, and tenderness. In proportion as the priest
approached, that smile became more clear, more distinct, more
radiant. It was like the arrival of a Saviour, which the unhappy
man was greeting. But as soon as the mule was near enough to the
pillory to allow of its rider recognizing the victim, the priest
dropped his eyes, beat a hasty retreat, spurred on rigorously, as
though in haste to rid himself of humiliating appeals, and not at
all desirous of being saluted and recognized by a poor fellow in
such a predicament.
This priest was Archdeacon Dom Claude Frollo.
The cloud descended more blackly than ever upon Quasimodo’s brow.
The smile was still mingled with it for a time, but was bitter,
discouraged, profoundly sad.
Time passed on. He had been there at least an hour and a half,
lacerated, maltreated, mocked incessantly, and almost stoned.
All at once he moved again in his chains with redoubled despair,
which made the whole framework that bore him tremble, and,
breaking the silence which he had obstinately preserved hitherto,
he cried in a hoarse and furious voice, which resembled a bark
rather than a human cry, and which was drowned in the noise of
the hoots—“Drink!”
This exclamation of distress, far from exciting compassion, only
added amusement to the good Parisian populace who surrounded the
ladder, and who, it must be confessed, taken in the mass and as a
multitude, was then no less cruel and brutal than that horrible
tribe of robbers among whom we have already conducted the reader,
and which was simply the lower stratum of the populace. Not a
voice was raised around the unhappy victim, except to jeer at his
thirst. It is certain that at that moment he was more grotesque
and repulsive than pitiable, with his face purple and dripping,
his eye wild, his mouth foaming with rage and pain, and his
tongue lolling half out. It must also be stated that if a
charitable soul of a _bourgeois_ or _bourgeoise_, in the rabble,
had attempted to carry a glass of water to that wretched creature
in torment, there reigned around the infamous steps of the
pillory such a prejudice of shame and ignominy, that it would
have sufficed to repulse the good Samaritan.
At the expiration of a few moments, Quasimodo cast a desperate
glance upon the crowd, and repeated in a voice still more
heartrending: “Drink!”
And all began to laugh.
“Drink this!” cried Robin Poussepain, throwing in his face a
sponge which had been soaked in the gutter. “There, you deaf
villain, I’m your debtor.”
A woman hurled a stone at his head,—
“That will teach you to wake us up at night with your peal of a
dammed soul.”
“He, good, my son!” howled a cripple, making an effort to reach
him with his crutch, “will you cast any more spells on us from
the top of the towers of Notre-Dame?”
“Here’s a drinking cup!” chimed in a man, flinging a broken jug
at his breast. “’Twas you that made my wife, simply because she
passed near you, give birth to a child with two heads!”
“And my cat bring forth a kitten with six paws!” yelped an old
crone, launching a brick at him.
“Drink!” repeated Quasimodo panting, and for the third time.
At that moment he beheld the crowd give way. A young girl,
fantastically dressed, emerged from the throng. She was
accompanied by a little white goat with gilded horns, and carried
a tambourine in her hand.
Quasimodo’s eyes sparkled. It was the gypsy whom he had attempted
to carry off on the preceding night, a misdeed for which he was
dimly conscious that he was being punished at that very moment;
which was not in the least the case, since he was being chastised
only for the misfortune of being deaf, and of having been judged
by a deaf man. He doubted not that she had come to wreak her
vengeance also, and to deal her blow like the rest.
He beheld her, in fact, mount the ladder rapidly. Wrath and spite
suffocate him. He would have liked to make the pillory crumble
into ruins, and if the lightning of his eye could have dealt
death, the gypsy would have been reduced to powder before she
reached the platform.
She approached, without uttering a syllable, the victim who
writhed in a vain effort to escape her, and detaching a gourd
from her girdle, she raised it gently to the parched lips of the
miserable man.
Then, from that eye which had been, up to that moment, so dry and
burning, a big tear was seen to fall, and roll slowly down that
deformed visage so long contracted with despair. It was the
first, in all probability, that the unfortunate man had ever
shed.
Meanwhile, he had forgotten to drink. The gypsy made her little
pout, from impatience, and pressed the spout to the tusked month
of Quasimodo, with a smile.
He drank with deep draughts. His thirst was burning.
When he had finished, the wretch protruded his black lips, no
doubt, with the object of kissing the beautiful hand which had
just succoured him. But the young girl, who was, perhaps,
somewhat distrustful, and who remembered the violent attempt of
the night, withdrew her hand with the frightened gesture of a
child who is afraid of being bitten by a beast.
Then the poor deaf man fixed on her a look full of reproach and
inexpressible sadness.
It would have been a touching spectacle anywhere,—this beautiful,
fresh, pure, and charming girl, who was at the same time so weak,
thus hastening to the relief of so much misery, deformity, and
malevolence. On the pillory, the spectacle was sublime.
The very populace were captivated by it, and began to clap their
hands, crying,—
“Noël! Noël!”
It was at that moment that the recluse caught sight, from the
window of her bole, of the gypsy on the pillory, and hurled at
her her sinister imprecation,—
“Accursed be thou, daughter of Egypt! Accursed! accursed!”
CHAPTER V. END OF THE STORY OF THE CAKE.
La Esmeralda turned pale and descended from the pillory,
staggering as she went. The voice of the recluse still pursued
her,—
“Descend! descend! Thief of Egypt! thou shalt ascend it once
more!”
“The sacked nun is in one of her tantrums,” muttered the
populace; and that was the end of it. For that sort of woman was
feared; which rendered them sacred. People did not then willingly
attack one who prayed day and night.
The hour had arrived for removing Quasimodo. He was unbound, the
crowd dispersed.
Near the Grand Pont, Mahiette, who was returning with her two
companions, suddenly halted,—
“By the way, Eustache! what did you do with that cake?”
“Mother,” said the child, “while you were talking with that lady
in the bole, a big dog took a bite of my cake, and then I bit it
also.”
“What, sir, did you eat the whole of it?” she went on.
“Mother, it was the dog. I told him, but he would not listen to
me. Then I bit into it, also.”
“’Tis a terrible child!” said the mother, smiling and scolding at
one and the same time. “Do you see, Oudarde? He already eats all
the fruit from the cherry-tree in our orchard of Charlerange. So
his grandfather says that he will be a captain. Just let me catch
you at it again, Master Eustache. Come along, you greedy fellow!”
VOLUME II.
BOOK SEVENTH.
CHAPTER I. THE DANGER OF CONFIDING ONE’S SECRET TO A GOAT.
Many weeks had elapsed.
The first of March had arrived. The sun, which Dubartas, that
classic ancestor of periphrase, had not yet dubbed the
“Grand-duke of Candles,” was none the less radiant and joyous on
that account. It was one of those spring days which possesses so
much sweetness and beauty, that all Paris turns out into the
squares and promenades and celebrates them as though they were
Sundays. In those days of brilliancy, warmth, and serenity, there
is a certain hour above all others, when the façade of Notre-Dame
should be admired. It is the moment when the sun, already
declining towards the west, looks the cathedral almost full in
the face. Its rays, growing more and more horizontal, withdraw
slowly from the pavement of the square, and mount up the
perpendicular façade, whose thousand bosses in high relief they
cause to start out from the shadows, while the great central rose
window flames like the eye of a cyclops, inflamed with the
reflections of the forge.
This was the hour.
Opposite the lofty cathedral, reddened by the setting sun, on the
stone balcony built above the porch of a rich Gothic house, which
formed the angle of the square and the Rue du Parvis, several
young girls were laughing and chatting with every sort of grace
and mirth. From the length of the veil which fell from their
pointed coif, twined with pearls, to their heels, from the
fineness of the embroidered chemisette which covered their
shoulders and allowed a glimpse, according to the pleasing custom
of the time, of the swell of their fair virgin bosoms, from the
opulence of their under-petticoats still more precious than their
overdress (marvellous refinement), from the gauze, the silk, the
velvet, with which all this was composed, and, above all, from
the whiteness of their hands, which certified to their leisure
and idleness, it was easy to divine they were noble and wealthy
heiresses. They were, in fact, Damoiselle Fleur-de-Lys de
Gondelaurier and her companions, Diane de Christeuil, Amelotte de
Montmichel, Colombe de Gaillefontaine, and the little de
Champchevrier maiden; all damsels of good birth, assembled at
that moment at the house of the dame widow de Gondelaurier, on
account of Monseigneur de Beaujeu and Madame his wife, who were
to come to Paris in the month of April, there to choose maids of
honor for the Dauphiness Marguerite, who was to be received in
Picardy from the hands of the Flemings. Now, all the squires for
twenty leagues around were intriguing for this favor for their
daughters, and a goodly number of the latter had been already
brought or sent to Paris. These four maidens had been confided to
the discreet and venerable charge of Madame Aloïse de
Gondelaurier, widow of a former commander of the king’s
cross-bowmen, who had retired with her only daughter to her house
in the Place du Parvis, Notre-Dame, in Paris.
The balcony on which these young girls stood opened from a
chamber richly tapestried in fawn-colored Flanders leather,
stamped with golden foliage. The beams, which cut the ceiling in
parallel lines, diverted the eye with a thousand eccentric
painted and gilded carvings. Splendid enamels gleamed here and
there on carved chests; a boar’s head in faïence crowned a
magnificent dresser, whose two shelves announced that the
mistress of the house was the wife or widow of a knight banneret.
At the end of the room, by the side of a lofty chimney blazoned
with arms from top to bottom, in a rich red velvet arm-chair, sat
Dame de Gondelaurier, whose five and fifty years were written
upon her garments no less distinctly than upon her face.
Beside her stood a young man of imposing mien, although partaking
somewhat of vanity and bravado—one of those handsome fellows whom
all women agree to admire, although grave men learned in
physiognomy shrug their shoulders at them. This young man wore
the garb of a captain of the king’s unattached archers, which
bears far too much resemblance to the costume of Jupiter, which
the reader has already been enabled to admire in the first book
of this history, for us to inflict upon him a second description.
The damoiselles were seated, a part in the chamber, a part in the
balcony, some on square cushions of Utrecht velvet with golden
corners, others on stools of oak carved in flowers and figures.
Each of them held on her knee a section of a great needlework
tapestry, on which they were working in company, while one end of
it lay upon the rush mat which covered the floor.
They were chatting together in that whispering tone and with the
half-stifled laughs peculiar to an assembly of young girls in
whose midst there is a young man. The young man whose presence
served to set in play all these feminine self-conceits, appeared
to pay very little heed to the matter, and, while these pretty
damsels were vying with one another to attract his attention, he
seemed to be chiefly absorbed in polishing the buckle of his
sword belt with his doeskin glove. From time to time, the old
lady addressed him in a very low tone, and he replied as well as
he was able, with a sort of awkward and constrained politeness.
From the smiles and significant gestures of Dame Aloïse, from the
glances which she threw towards her daughter, Fleur-de-Lys, as
she spoke low to the captain, it was easy to see that there was
here a question of some betrothal concluded, some marriage near
at hand no doubt, between the young man and Fleur-de-Lys. From
the embarrassed coldness of the officer, it was easy to see that
on his side, at least, love had no longer any part in the matter.
His whole air was expressive of constraint and weariness, which
our lieutenants of the garrison would to-day translate admirably
as, “What a beastly bore!”
The poor dame, very much infatuated with her daughter, like any
other silly mother, did not perceive the officer’s lack of
enthusiasm, and strove in low tones to call his attention to the
infinite grace with which Fleur-de-Lys used her needle or wound
her skein.
“Come, little cousin,” she said to him, plucking him by the
sleeve, in order to speak in his ear, “Look at her, do! see her
stoop.”
“Yes, truly,” replied the young man, and fell back into his
glacial and absent-minded silence.
A moment later, he was obliged to bend down again, and Dame
Aloïse said to him,—
“Have you ever beheld a more gay and charming face than that of
your betrothed? Can one be more white and blonde? are not her
hands perfect? and that neck—does it not assume all the curves of
the swan in ravishing fashion? How I envy you at times! and how
happy you are to be a man, naughty libertine that you are! Is not
my Fleur-de-Lys adorably beautiful, and are you not desperately
in love with her?”
“Of course,” he replied, still thinking of something else.
“But do say something,” said Madame Aloïse, suddenly giving his
shoulder a push; “you have grown very timid.”
We can assure our readers that timidity was neither the captain’s
virtue nor his defect. But he made an effort to do what was
demanded of him.
“Fair cousin,” he said, approaching Fleur-de-Lys, “what is the
subject of this tapestry work which you are fashioning?”
“Fair cousin,” responded Fleur-de-Lys, in an offended tone, “I
have already told you three times. ’Tis the grotto of Neptune.”
It was evident that Fleur-de-Lys saw much more clearly than her
mother through the captain’s cold and absent-minded manner. He
felt the necessity of making some conversation.
“And for whom is this Neptunerie destined?”
“For the Abbey of Saint-Antoine des Champs,” answered
Fleur-de-Lys, without raising her eyes.
The captain took up a corner of the tapestry.
“Who, my fair cousin, is this big gendarme, who is puffing out
his cheeks to their full extent and blowing a trumpet?”
“’Tis Triton,” she replied.
There was a rather pettish intonation in Fleur-de-Lys’s laconic
words. The young man understood that it was indispensable that he
should whisper something in her ear, a commonplace, a gallant
compliment, no matter what. Accordingly he bent down, but he
could find nothing in his imagination more tender and personal
than this,—
“Why does your mother always wear that surcoat with armorial
designs, like our grandmothers of the time of Charles VII.? Tell
her, fair cousin, that ’tis no longer the fashion, and that the
hinge (_gond_) and the laurel (_laurier_) embroidered on her robe
give her the air of a walking mantlepiece. In truth, people no
longer sit thus on their banners, I assure you.”
Fleur-de-Lys raised her beautiful eyes, full of reproach, “Is
that all of which you can assure me?” she said, in a low voice.
In the meantime, Dame Aloïse, delighted to see them thus bending
towards each other and whispering, said as she toyed with the
clasps of her prayer-book,—
“Touching picture of love!”
The captain, more and more embarrassed, fell back upon the
subject of the tapestry,—“’Tis, in sooth, a charming work!” he
exclaimed.
Whereupon Colombe de Gaillefontaine, another beautiful blonde,
with a white skin, dressed to the neck in blue damask, ventured a
timid remark which she addressed to Fleur-de-Lys, in the hope
that the handsome captain would reply to it, “My dear
Gondelaurier, have you seen the tapestries of the Hôtel de la
Roche-Guyon?”
“Is not that the hôtel in which is enclosed the garden of the
Lingère du Louvre?” asked Diane de Christeuil with a laugh; for
she had handsome teeth, and consequently laughed on every
occasion.
“And where there is that big, old tower of the ancient wall of
Paris,” added Amelotte de Montmichel, a pretty fresh and
curly-headed brunette, who had a habit of sighing just as the
other laughed, without knowing why.
“My dear Colombe,” interpolated Dame Aloïse, “do you not mean the
hôtel which belonged to Monsieur de Bacqueville, in the reign of
King Charles VI.? there are indeed many superb high warp
tapestries there.”
“Charles VI.! Charles VI.!” muttered the young captain, twirling
his moustache. “Good heavens! what old things the good dame does
remember!”
Madame de Gondelaurier continued, “Fine tapestries, in truth. A
work so esteemed that it passes as unrivalled.”
At that moment Bérangère de Champchevrier, a slender little maid
of seven years, who was peering into the square through the
trefoils of the balcony, exclaimed, “Oh! look, fair Godmother
Fleur-de-Lys, at that pretty dancer who is dancing on the
pavement and playing the tambourine in the midst of the loutish
_bourgeois!_”
The sonorous vibration of a tambourine was, in fact, audible.
“Some gypsy from Bohemia,” said Fleur-de-Lys, turning carelessly
toward the square.
“Look! look!” exclaimed her lively companions; and they all ran
to the edge of the balcony, while Fleur-de-Lys, rendered
thoughtful by the coldness of her betrothed, followed them
slowly, and the latter, relieved by this incident, which put an
end to an embarrassing conversation, retreated to the farther end
of the room, with the satisfied air of a soldier released from
duty. Nevertheless, the fair Fleur-de-Lys’s was a charming and
noble service, and such it had formerly appeared to him; but the
captain had gradually become _blasé;_ the prospect of a speedy
marriage cooled him more every day. Moreover, he was of a fickle
disposition, and, must we say it, rather vulgar in taste.
Although of very noble birth, he had contracted in his official
harness more than one habit of the common trooper. The tavern and
its accompaniments pleased him. He was only at his ease amid
gross language, military gallantries, facile beauties, and
successes yet more easy. He had, nevertheless, received from his
family some education and some politeness of manner; but he had
been thrown on the world too young, he had been in garrison at
too early an age, and every day the polish of a gentleman became
more and more effaced by the rough friction of his gendarme’s
cross-belt. While still continuing to visit her from time to
time, from a remnant of common respect, he felt doubly
embarrassed with Fleur-de-Lys; in the first place, because, in
consequence of having scattered his love in all sorts of places,
he had reserved very little for her; in the next place, because,
amid so many stiff, formal, and decent ladies, he was in constant
fear lest his mouth, habituated to oaths, should suddenly take
the bit in its teeth, and break out into the language of the
tavern. The effect can be imagined!
Moreover, all this was mingled in him, with great pretentions to
elegance, toilet, and a fine appearance. Let the reader reconcile
these things as best he can. I am simply the historian.
He had remained, therefore, for several minutes, leaning in
silence against the carved jamb of the chimney, and thinking or
not thinking, when Fleur-de-Lys suddenly turned and addressed
him. After all, the poor young girl was pouting against the
dictates of her heart.
“Fair cousin, did you not speak to us of a little Bohemian whom
you saved a couple of months ago, while making the patrol with
the watch at night, from the hands of a dozen robbers?”
“I believe so, fair cousin,” said the captain.
“Well,” she resumed, “perchance ’tis that same gypsy girl who is
dancing yonder, on the church square. Come and see if you
recognize her, fair Cousin Phœbus.”
A secret desire for reconciliation was apparent in this gentle
invitation which she gave him to approach her, and in the care
which she took to call him by name. Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers
(for it is he whom the reader has had before his eyes since the
beginning of this chapter) slowly approached the balcony. “Stay,”
said Fleur-de-Lys, laying her hand tenderly on Phœbus’s arm;
“look at that little girl yonder, dancing in that circle. Is she
your Bohemian?”
Phœbus looked, and said,—
“Yes, I recognize her by her goat.”
“Oh! in fact, what a pretty little goat!” said Amelotte, clasping
her hands in admiration.
“Are his horns of real gold?” inquired Bérangère.
Without moving from her arm-chair, Dame Aloïse interposed, “Is
she not one of those gypsy girls who arrived last year by the
Gibard gate?”
“Madame my mother,” said Fleur-de-Lys gently, “that gate is now
called the Porte d’Enfer.”
Mademoiselle de Gondelaurier knew how her mother’s antiquated
mode of speech shocked the captain. In fact, he began to sneer,
and muttered between his teeth: “Porte Gibard! Porte Gibard! ’Tis
enough to make King Charles VI. pass by.”
“Godmother!” exclaimed Bérangère, whose eyes, incessantly in
motion, had suddenly been raised to the summit of the towers of
Notre-Dame, “who is that black man up yonder?”
All the young girls raised their eyes. A man was, in truth,
leaning on the balustrade which surmounted the northern tower,
looking on the Grève. He was a priest. His costume could be
plainly discerned, and his face resting on both his hands. But he
stirred no more than if he had been a statue. His eyes, intently
fixed, gazed into the Place.
It was something like the immobility of a bird of prey, who has
just discovered a nest of sparrows, and is gazing at it.
“’Tis monsieur the archdeacon of Josas,” said Fleur-de-Lys.
“You have good eyes if you can recognize him from here,” said the
Gaillefontaine.
“How he is staring at the little dancer!” went on Diane de
Christeuil.
“Let the gypsy beware!” said Fleur-de-Lys, “for he loves not
Egypt.”
“’Tis a great shame for that man to look upon her thus,” added
Amelotte de Montmichel, “for she dances delightfully.”
“Fair cousin Phœbus,” said Fleur-de-Lys suddenly, “Since you know
this little gypsy, make her a sign to come up here. It will amuse
us.”
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed all the young girls, clapping their hands.
“Why! ’tis not worth while,” replied Phœbus. “She has forgotten
me, no doubt, and I know not so much as her name. Nevertheless,
as you wish it, young ladies, I will make the trial.” And leaning
over the balustrade of the balcony, he began to shout, “Little
one!”
The dancer was not beating her tambourine at the moment. She
turned her head towards the point whence this call proceeded, her
brilliant eyes rested on Phœbus, and she stopped short.
“Little one!” repeated the captain; and he beckoned her to
approach.
The young girl looked at him again, then she blushed as though a
flame had mounted into her cheeks, and, taking her tambourine
under her arm, she made her way through the astonished spectators
towards the door of the house where Phœbus was calling her, with
slow, tottering steps, and with the troubled look of a bird which
is yielding to the fascination of a serpent.
A moment later, the tapestry portière was raised, and the gypsy
appeared on the threshold of the chamber, blushing, confused,
breathless, her large eyes drooping, and not daring to advance
another step.
Bérangère clapped her hands.
Meanwhile, the dancer remained motionless upon the threshold. Her
appearance had produced a singular effect upon these young girls.
It is certain that a vague and indistinct desire to please the
handsome officer animated them all, that his splendid uniform was
the target of all their coquetries, and that from the moment he
presented himself, there existed among them a secret, suppressed
rivalry, which they hardly acknowledged even to themselves, but
which broke forth, none the less, every instant, in their
gestures and remarks. Nevertheless, as they were all very nearly
equal in beauty, they contended with equal arms, and each could
hope for the victory. The arrival of the gypsy suddenly destroyed
this equilibrium. Her beauty was so rare, that, at the moment
when she appeared at the entrance of the apartment, it seemed as
though she diffused a sort of light which was peculiar to
herself. In that narrow chamber, surrounded by that sombre frame
of hangings and woodwork, she was incomparably more beautiful and
more radiant than on the public square. She was like a torch
which has suddenly been brought from broad daylight into the
dark. The noble damsels were dazzled by her in spite of
themselves. Each one felt herself, in some sort, wounded in her
beauty. Hence, their battle front (may we be allowed the
expression,) was immediately altered, although they exchanged not
a single word. But they understood each other perfectly. Women’s
instincts comprehend and respond to each other more quickly than
the intelligences of men. An enemy had just arrived; all felt
it—all rallied together. One drop of wine is sufficient to tinge
a glass of water red; to diffuse a certain degree of ill temper
throughout a whole assembly of pretty women, the arrival of a
prettier woman suffices, especially when there is but one man
present.
Hence the welcome accorded to the gypsy was marvellously glacial.
They surveyed her from head to foot, then exchanged glances, and
all was said; they understood each other. Meanwhile, the young
girl was waiting to be spoken to, in such emotion that she dared
not raise her eyelids.
The captain was the first to break the silence. “Upon my word,”
said he, in his tone of intrepid fatuity, “here is a charming
creature! What think you of her, fair cousin?”
This remark, which a more delicate admirer would have uttered in
a lower tone, at least was not of a nature to dissipate the
feminine jealousies which were on the alert before the gypsy.
Fleur-de-Lys replied to the captain with a bland affectation of
disdain;—“Not bad.”
The others whispered.
At length, Madame Aloïse, who was not the less jealous because
she was so for her daughter, addressed the dancer,—“Approach,
little one.”
“Approach, little one!” repeated, with comical dignity, little
Bérangère, who would have reached about as high as her hips.
The gypsy advanced towards the noble dame.
“Fair child,” said Phœbus, with emphasis, taking several steps
towards her, “I do not know whether I have the supreme honor of
being recognized by you.”
She interrupted him, with a smile and a look full of infinite
sweetness,—
“Oh! yes,” said she.
“She has a good memory,” remarked Fleur-de-Lys.
“Come, now,” resumed Phœbus, “you escaped nimbly the other
evening. Did I frighten you!”
“Oh! no,” said the gypsy.
There was in the intonation of that “Oh! no,” uttered after that
“Oh! yes,” an ineffable something which wounded Fleur-de-Lys.
“You left me in your stead, my beauty,” pursued the captain,
whose tongue was unloosed when speaking to a girl out of the
street, “a crabbed knave, one-eyed and hunchbacked, the bishop’s
bellringer, I believe. I have been told that by birth he is the
bastard of an archdeacon and a devil. He has a pleasant name: he
is called _Quatre-Temps_ (Ember Days), _Pâques-Fleuries_ (Palm
Sunday), _Mardi-Gras_ (Shrove Tuesday), I know not what! The name
of some festival when the bells are pealed! So he took the
liberty of carrying you off, as though you were made for beadles!
’Tis too much. What the devil did that screech-owl want with you?
Hey, tell me!”
“I do not know,” she replied.
“The inconceivable impudence! A bellringer carrying off a wench,
like a vicomte! a lout poaching on the game of gentlemen! that is
a rare piece of assurance. However, he paid dearly for it. Master
Pierrat Torterue is the harshest groom that ever curried a knave;
and I can tell you, if it will be agreeable to you, that your
bellringer’s hide got a thorough dressing at his hands.”
“Poor man!” said the gypsy, in whom these words revived the
memory of the pillory.
The captain burst out laughing.
“Corne-de-bœuf! here’s pity as well placed as a feather in a
pig’s tail! May I have as big a belly as a pope, if—”
He stopped short. “Pardon me, ladies; I believe that I was on the
point of saying something foolish.”
“Fie, sir” said la Gaillefontaine.
“He talks to that creature in her own tongue!” added
Fleur-de-Lys, in a low tone, her irritation increasing every
moment. This irritation was not diminished when she beheld the
captain, enchanted with the gypsy, and, most of all, with
himself, execute a pirouette on his heel, repeating with coarse,
naïve, and soldierly gallantry,—
“A handsome wench, upon my soul!”
“Rather savagely dressed,” said Diane de Christeuil, laughing to
show her fine teeth.
This remark was a flash of light to the others. Not being able to
impugn her beauty, they attacked her costume.
“That is true,” said la Montmichel; “what makes you run about the
streets thus, without guimpe or ruff?”
“That petticoat is so short that it makes one tremble,” added la
Gaillefontaine.
“My dear,” continued Fleur-de-Lys, with decided sharpness, “You
will get yourself taken up by the sumptuary police for your
gilded girdle.”
“Little one, little one;” resumed la Christeuil, with an
implacable smile, “if you were to put respectable sleeves upon
your arms they would get less sunburned.”
It was, in truth, a spectacle worthy of a more intelligent
spectator than Phœbus, to see how these beautiful maidens, with
their envenomed and angry tongues, wound, serpent-like, and
glided and writhed around the street dancer. They were cruel and
graceful; they searched and rummaged maliciously in her poor and
silly toilet of spangles and tinsel. There was no end to their
laughter, irony, and humiliation. Sarcasms rained down upon the
gypsy, and haughty condescension and malevolent looks. One would
have thought they were young Roman dames thrusting golden pins
into the breast of a beautiful slave. One would have pronounced
them elegant grayhounds, circling, with inflated nostrils, round
a poor woodland fawn, whom the glance of their master forbade
them to devour.
After all, what was a miserable dancer on the public squares in
the presence of these high-born maidens? They seemed to take no
heed of her presence, and talked of her aloud, to her face, as of
something unclean, abject, and yet, at the same time, passably
pretty.
The gypsy was not insensible to these pin-pricks. From time to
time a flush of shame, a flash of anger inflamed her eyes or her
cheeks; with disdain she made that little grimace with which the
reader is already familiar, but she remained motionless; she
fixed on Phœbus a sad, sweet, resigned look. There was also
happiness and tenderness in that gaze. One would have said that
she endured for fear of being expelled.
Phœbus laughed, and took the gypsy’s part with a mixture of
impertinence and pity.
“Let them talk, little one!” he repeated, jingling his golden
spurs. “No doubt your toilet is a little extravagant and wild,
but what difference does that make with such a charming damsel as
yourself?”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed the blonde Gaillefontaine, drawing up
her swan-like throat, with a bitter smile. “I see that messieurs
the archers of the king’s police easily take fire at the handsome
eyes of gypsies!”
“Why not?” said Phœbus.
At this reply uttered carelessly by the captain, like a stray
stone, whose fall one does not even watch, Colombe began to
laugh, as well as Diane, Amelotte, and Fleur-de-Lys, into whose
eyes at the same time a tear started.
The gypsy, who had dropped her eyes on the floor at the words of
Colombe de Gaillefontaine, raised them beaming with joy and pride
and fixed them once more on Phœbus. She was very beautiful at
that moment.
The old dame, who was watching this scene, felt offended, without
understanding why.
“Holy Virgin!” she suddenly exclaimed, “what is it moving about
my legs? Ah! the villanous beast!”
It was the goat, who had just arrived, in search of his mistress,
and who, in dashing towards the latter, had begun by entangling
his horns in the pile of stuffs which the noble dame’s garments
heaped up on her feet when she was seated.
This created a diversion. The gypsy disentangled his horns
without uttering a word.
“Oh! here’s the little goat with golden hoofs!” exclaimed
Bérangère, dancing with joy.
The gypsy crouched down on her knees and leaned her cheek against
the fondling head of the goat. One would have said that she was
asking pardon for having quitted it thus.
Meanwhile, Diane had bent down to Colombe’s ear.
“Ah! good heavens! why did not I think of that sooner? ’Tis the
gypsy with the goat. They say she is a sorceress, and that her
goat executes very miraculous tricks.”
“Well!” said Colombe, “the goat must now amuse us in its turn,
and perform a miracle for us.”
Diane and Colombe eagerly addressed the gypsy.
“Little one, make your goat perform a miracle.”
“I do not know what you mean,” replied the dancer.
“A miracle, a piece of magic, a bit of sorcery, in short.”
“I do not understand.” And she fell to caressing the pretty
animal, repeating, “Djali! Djali!”
At that moment Fleur-de-Lys noticed a little bag of embroidered
leather suspended from the neck of the goat,—
“What is that?” she asked of the gypsy.
The gypsy raised her large eyes upon her and replied gravely,—
“That is my secret.”
“I should really like to know what your secret is,” thought
Fleur-de-Lys.
Meanwhile, the good dame had risen angrily,—“Come now, gypsy, if
neither you nor your goat can dance for us, what are you doing
here?”
The gypsy walked slowly towards the door, without making any
reply. But the nearer she approached it, the more her pace
slackened. An irresistible magnet seemed to hold her. Suddenly
she turned her eyes, wet with tears, towards Phœbus, and halted.
“True God!” exclaimed the captain, “that’s not the way to depart.
Come back and dance something for us. By the way, my sweet love,
what is your name?”
“La Esmeralda,” said the dancer, never taking her eyes from him.
At this strange name, a burst of wild laughter broke from the
young girls.
“Here’s a terrible name for a young lady,” said Diane.
“You see well enough,” retorted Amelotte, “that she is an
enchantress.”
“My dear,” exclaimed Dame Aloïse solemnly, “your parents did not
commit the sin of giving you that name at the baptismal font.”
In the meantime, several minutes previously, Bérangère had coaxed
the goat into a corner of the room with a marchpane cake, without
any one having noticed her. In an instant they had become good
friends. The curious child had detached the bag from the goat’s
neck, had opened it, and had emptied out its contents on the rush
matting; it was an alphabet, each letter of which was separately
inscribed on a tiny block of boxwood. Hardly had these playthings
been spread out on the matting, when the child, with surprise,
beheld the goat (one of whose “miracles” this was no doubt), draw
out certain letters with its golden hoof, and arrange them, with
gentle pushes, in a certain order. In a moment they constituted a
word, which the goat seemed to have been trained to write, so
little hesitation did it show in forming it, and Bérangère
suddenly exclaimed, clasping her hands in admiration,—
“Godmother Fleur-de-Lys, see what the goat has just done!”
Fleur-de-Lys ran up and trembled. The letters arranged upon the
floor formed this word,—
PHŒBUS.
“Was it the goat who wrote that?” she inquired in a changed
voice.
“Yes, godmother,” replied Bérangêre.
It was impossible to doubt it; the child did not know how to
write.
“This is the secret!” thought Fleur-de-Lys.
Meanwhile, at the child’s exclamation, all had hastened up, the
mother, the young girls, the gypsy, and the officer.
The gypsy beheld the piece of folly which the goat had committed.
She turned red, then pale, and began to tremble like a culprit
before the captain, who gazed at her with a smile of satisfaction
and amazement.
“Phœbus!” whispered the young girls, stupefied: “’tis the
captain’s name!”
“You have a marvellous memory!” said Fleur-de-Lys, to the
petrified gypsy. Then, bursting into sobs: “Oh!” she stammered
mournfully, hiding her face in both her beautiful hands, “she is
a magician!” And she heard another and a still more bitter voice
at the bottom of her heart, saying,—“She is a rival!”
She fell fainting.
“My daughter! my daughter!” cried the terrified mother. “Begone,
you gypsy of hell!”
In a twinkling, La Esmeralda gathered up the unlucky letters,
made a sign to Djali, and went out through one door, while
Fleur-de-Lys was being carried out through the other.
Captain Phœbus, on being left alone, hesitated for a moment
between the two doors, then he followed the gypsy.
CHAPTER II. A PRIEST AND A PHILOSOPHER ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.
The priest whom the young girls had observed at the top of the
North tower, leaning over the Place and so attentive to the dance
of the gypsy, was, in fact, Archdeacon Claude Frollo.
Our readers have not forgotten the mysterious cell which the
archdeacon had reserved for himself in that tower. (I do not
know, by the way be it said, whether it be not the same, the
interior of which can be seen to-day through a little square
window, opening to the east at the height of a man above the
platform from which the towers spring; a bare and dilapidated
den, whose badly plastered walls are ornamented here and there,
at the present day, with some wretched yellow engravings
representing the façades of cathedrals. I presume that this hole
is jointly inhabited by bats and spiders, and that, consequently,
it wages a double war of extermination on the flies).
Every day, an hour before sunset, the archdeacon ascended the
staircase to the tower, and shut himself up in this cell, where
he sometimes passed whole nights. That day, at the moment when,
standing before the low door of his retreat, he was fitting into
the lock the complicated little key which he always carried about
him in the purse suspended to his side, a sound of tambourine and
castanets had reached his ear. These sounds came from the Place
du Parvis. The cell, as we have already said, had only one window
opening upon the rear of the church. Claude Frollo had hastily
withdrawn the key, and an instant later, he was on the top of the
tower, in the gloomy and pensive attitude in which the maidens
had seen him.
There he stood, grave, motionless, absorbed in one look and one
thought. All Paris lay at his feet, with the thousand spires of
its edifices and its circular horizon of gentle hills—with its
river winding under its bridges, and its people moving to and fro
through its streets,—with the clouds of its smoke,—with the
mountainous chain of its roofs which presses Notre-Dame in its
doubled folds; but out of all the city, the archdeacon gazed at
one corner only of the pavement, the Place du Parvis; in all that
throng at but one figure,—the gypsy.
It would have been difficult to say what was the nature of this
look, and whence proceeded the flame that flashed from it. It was
a fixed gaze, which was, nevertheless, full of trouble and
tumult. And, from the profound immobility of his whole body,
barely agitated at intervals by an involuntary shiver, as a tree
is moved by the wind; from the stiffness of his elbows, more
marble than the balustrade on which they leaned; or the sight of
the petrified smile which contracted his face,—one would have
said that nothing living was left about Claude Frollo except his
eyes.
The gypsy was dancing; she was twirling her tambourine on the tip
of her finger, and tossing it into the air as she danced
Provençal sarabands; agile, light, joyous, and unconscious of the
formidable gaze which descended perpendicularly upon her head.
The crowd was swarming around her; from time to time, a man
accoutred in red and yellow made them form into a circle, and
then returned, seated himself on a chair a few paces from the
dancer, and took the goat’s head on his knees. This man seemed to
be the gypsy’s companion. Claude Frollo could not distinguish his
features from his elevated post.
From the moment when the archdeacon caught sight of this
stranger, his attention seemed divided between him and the
dancer, and his face became more and more gloomy. All at once he
rose upright, and a quiver ran through his whole body: “Who is
that man?” he muttered between his teeth: “I have always seen her
alone before!”
Then he plunged down beneath the tortuous vault of the spiral
staircase, and once more descended. As he passed the door of the
bell chamber, which was ajar, he saw something which struck him;
he beheld Quasimodo, who, leaning through an opening of one of
those slate penthouses which resemble enormous blinds, appeared
also to be gazing at the Place. He was engaged in so profound a
contemplation, that he did not notice the passage of his adopted
father. His savage eye had a singular expression; it was a
charmed, tender look. “This is strange!” murmured Claude. “Is it
the gypsy at whom he is thus gazing?” He continued his descent.
At the end of a few minutes, the anxious archdeacon entered upon
the Place from the door at the base of the tower.
“What has become of the gypsy girl?” he said, mingling with the
group of spectators which the sound of the tambourine had
collected.
“I know not,” replied one of his neighbors, “I think that she has
gone to make some of her fandangoes in the house opposite,
whither they have called her.”
In the place of the gypsy, on the carpet, whose arabesques had
seemed to vanish but a moment previously by the capricious
figures of her dance, the archdeacon no longer beheld any one but
the red and yellow man, who, in order to earn a few testers in
his turn, was walking round the circle, with his elbows on his
hips, his head thrown back, his face red, his neck outstretched,
with a chair between his teeth. To the chair he had fastened a
cat, which a neighbor had lent, and which was spitting in great
affright.
“Notre-Dame!” exclaimed the archdeacon, at the moment when the
juggler, perspiring heavily, passed in front of him with his
pyramid of chair and his cat, “What is Master Pierre Gringoire
doing here?”
The harsh voice of the archdeacon threw the poor fellow into such
a commotion that he lost his equilibrium, together with his whole
edifice, and the chair and the cat tumbled pell-mell upon the
heads of the spectators, in the midst of inextinguishable
hootings.
It is probable that Master Pierre Gringoire (for it was indeed
he) would have had a sorry account to settle with the neighbor
who owned the cat, and all the bruised and scratched faces which
surrounded him, if he had not hastened to profit by the tumult to
take refuge in the church, whither Claude Frollo had made him a
sign to follow him.
The cathedral was already dark and deserted; the side-aisles were
full of shadows, and the lamps of the chapels began to shine out
like stars, so black had the vaulted ceiling become. Only the
great rose window of the façade, whose thousand colors were
steeped in a ray of horizontal sunlight, glittered in the gloom
like a mass of diamonds, and threw its dazzling reflection to the
other end of the nave.
When they had advanced a few paces, Dom Claude placed his back
against a pillar, and gazed intently at Gringoire. The gaze was
not the one which Gringoire feared, ashamed as he was of having
been caught by a grave and learned person in the costume of a
buffoon. There was nothing mocking or ironical in the priest’s
glance, it was serious, tranquil, piercing. The archdeacon was
the first to break the silence.
“Come now, Master Pierre. You are to explain many things to me.
And first of all, how comes it that you have not been seen for
two months, and that now one finds you in the public squares, in
a fine equipment in truth! Motley red and yellow, like a Caudebec
apple?”
“Messire,” said Gringoire, piteously, “it is, in fact, an amazing
accoutrement. You see me no more comfortable in it than a cat
coiffed with a calabash. ’Tis very ill done, I am conscious, to
expose messieurs the sergeants of the watch to the liability of
cudgelling beneath this cassock the humerus of a Pythagorean
philosopher. But what would you have, my reverend master? ’tis
the fault of my ancient jerkin, which abandoned me in cowardly
wise, at the beginning of the winter, under the pretext that it
was falling into tatters, and that it required repose in the
basket of a rag-picker. What is one to do? Civilization has not
yet arrived at the point where one can go stark naked, as ancient
Diogenes wished. Add that a very cold wind was blowing, and ’tis
not in the month of January that one can successfully attempt to
make humanity take this new step. This garment presented itself,
I took it, and I left my ancient black smock, which, for a
hermetic like myself, was far from being hermetically closed.
Behold me then, in the garments of a stage-player, like Saint
Genest. What would you have? ’tis an eclipse. Apollo himself
tended the flocks of Admetus.”
“’Tis a fine profession that you are engaged in!” replied the
archdeacon.
“I agree, my master, that ’tis better to philosophize and
poetize, to blow the flame in the furnace, or to receive it from
carry cats on a shield. So, when you addressed me, I was as
foolish as an ass before a turnspit. But what would you have,
messire? One must eat every day, and the finest Alexandrine
verses are not worth a bit of Brie cheese. Now, I made for Madame
Marguerite of Flanders, that famous epithalamium, as you know,
and the city will not pay me, under the pretext that it was not
excellent; as though one could give a tragedy of Sophocles for
four crowns! Hence, I was on the point of dying with hunger.
Happily, I found that I was rather strong in the jaw; so I said
to this jaw,—perform some feats of strength and of equilibrium:
nourish thyself. _Ale te ipsam_. A pack of beggars who have
become my good friends, have taught me twenty sorts of herculean
feats, and now I give to my teeth every evening the bread which
they have earned during the day by the sweat of my brow. After
all, _concedo_, I grant that it is a sad employment for my
intellectual faculties, and that man is not made to pass his life
in beating the tambourine and biting chairs. But, reverend
master, it is not sufficient to pass one’s life, one must earn
the means for life.”
Dom Claude listened in silence. All at once his deep-set eye
assumed so sagacious and penetrating an expression, that
Gringoire felt himself, so to speak, searched to the bottom of
the soul by that glance.
“Very good, Master Pierre; but how comes it that you are now in
company with that gypsy dancer?”
“In faith!” said Gringoire, “’tis because she is my wife and I am
her husband.”
The priest’s gloomy eyes flashed into flame.
“Have you done that, you wretch!” he cried, seizing Gringoire’s
arm with fury; “have you been so abandoned by God as to raise
your hand against that girl?”
“On my chance of paradise, monseigneur,” replied Gringoire,
trembling in every limb, “I swear to you that I have never
touched her, if that is what disturbs you.”
“Then why do you talk of husband and wife?” said the priest.
Gringoire made haste to relate to him as succinctly as possible,
all that the reader already knows, his adventure in the Court of
Miracles and the broken-crock marriage. It appeared, moreover,
that this marriage had led to no results whatever, and that each
evening the gypsy girl cheated him of his nuptial right as on the
first day. “’Tis a mortification,” he said in conclusion, “but
that is because I have had the misfortune to wed a virgin.”
“What do you mean?” demanded the archdeacon, who had been
gradually appeased by this recital.
“’Tis very difficult to explain,” replied the poet. “It is a
superstition. My wife is, according to what an old thief, who is
called among us the Duke of Egypt, has told me, a foundling or a
lost child, which is the same thing. She wears on her neck an
amulet which, it is affirmed, will cause her to meet her parents
some day, but which will lose its virtue if the young girl loses
hers. Hence it follows that both of us remain very virtuous.”
“So,” resumed Claude, whose brow cleared more and more, “you
believe, Master Pierre, that this creature has not been
approached by any man?”
“What would you have a man do, Dom Claude, as against a
superstition? She has got that in her head. I assuredly esteem as
a rarity this nunlike prudery which is preserved untamed amid
those Bohemian girls who are so easily brought into subjection.
But she has three things to protect her: the Duke of Egypt, who
has taken her under his safeguard, reckoning, perchance, on
selling her to some gay abbé; all his tribe, who hold her in
singular veneration, like a Notre-Dame; and a certain tiny
poignard, which the buxom dame always wears about her, in some
nook, in spite of the ordinances of the provost, and which one
causes to fly out into her hands by squeezing her waist. ’Tis a
proud wasp, I can tell you!”
The archdeacon pressed Gringoire with questions.
La Esmeralda, in the judgment of Gringoire, was an inoffensive
and charming creature, pretty, with the exception of a pout which
was peculiar to her; a naïve and passionate damsel, ignorant of
everything and enthusiastic about everything; not yet aware of
the difference between a man and a woman, even in her dreams;
made like that; wild especially over dancing, noise, the open
air; a sort of woman bee, with invisible wings on her feet, and
living in a whirlwind. She owed this nature to the wandering life
which she had always led. Gringoire had succeeded in learning
that, while a mere child, she had traversed Spain and Catalonia,
even to Sicily; he believed that she had even been taken by the
caravan of Zingari, of which she formed a part, to the kingdom of
Algiers, a country situated in Achaia, which country adjoins, on
one side Albania and Greece; on the other, the Sicilian Sea,
which is the road to Constantinople. The Bohemians, said
Gringoire, were vassals of the King of Algiers, in his quality of
chief of the White Moors. One thing is certain, that la Esmeralda
had come to France while still very young, by way of Hungary.
From all these countries the young girl had brought back
fragments of queer jargons, songs, and strange ideas, which made
her language as motley as her costume, half Parisian, half
African. However, the people of the quarters which she frequented
loved her for her gayety, her daintiness, her lively manners, her
dances, and her songs. She believed herself to be hated, in all
the city, by but two persons, of whom she often spoke in terror:
the sacked nun of the Tour-Roland, a villanous recluse who
cherished some secret grudge against these gypsies, and who
cursed the poor dancer every time that the latter passed before
her window; and a priest, who never met her without casting at
her looks and words which frightened her.
The mention of this last circumstance disturbed the archdeacon
greatly, though Gringoire paid no attention to his perturbation;
to such an extent had two months sufficed to cause the heedless
poet to forget the singular details of the evening on which he
had met the gypsy, and the presence of the archdeacon in it all.
Otherwise, the little dancer feared nothing; she did not tell
fortunes, which protected her against those trials for magic
which were so frequently instituted against gypsy women. And
then, Gringoire held the position of her brother, if not of her
husband. After all, the philosopher endured this sort of platonic
marriage very patiently. It meant a shelter and bread at least.
Every morning, he set out from the lair of the thieves, generally
with the gypsy; he helped her make her collections of targes[34]
and little blanks[35] in the squares; each evening he returned to
the same roof with her, allowed her to bolt herself into her
little chamber, and slept the sleep of the just. A very sweet
existence, taking it all in all, he said, and well adapted to
revery. And then, on his soul and conscience, the philosopher was
not very sure that he was madly in love with the gypsy. He loved
her goat almost as dearly. It was a charming animal, gentle,
intelligent, clever; a learned goat. Nothing was more common in
the Middle Ages than these learned animals, which amazed people
greatly, and often led their instructors to the stake. But the
witchcraft of the goat with the golden hoofs was a very innocent
species of magic. Gringoire explained them to the archdeacon,
whom these details seemed to interest deeply. In the majority of
cases, it was sufficient to present the tambourine to the goat in
such or such a manner, in order to obtain from him the trick
desired. He had been trained to this by the gypsy, who possessed,
in these delicate arts, so rare a talent that two months had
sufficed to teach the goat to write, with movable letters, the
word “Phœbus.”
“‘Phœbus!’” said the priest; “why ‘Phœbus’?”
“I know not,” replied Gringoire. “Perhaps it is a word which she
believes to be endowed with some magic and secret virtue. She
often repeats it in a low tone when she thinks that she is
alone.”
“Are you sure,” persisted Claude, with his penetrating glance,
“that it is only a word and not a name?”
“The name of whom?” said the poet.
“How should I know?” said the priest.
“This is what I imagine, messire. These Bohemians are something
like Guebrs, and adore the sun. Hence, Phœbus.”
“That does not seem so clear to me as to you, Master Pierre.”
“After all, that does not concern me. Let her mumble her Phœbus
at her pleasure. One thing is certain, that Djali loves me almost
as much as he does her.”
“Who is Djali?”
“The goat.”
The archdeacon dropped his chin into his hand, and appeared to
reflect for a moment. All at once he turned abruptly to Gringoire
once more.
“And do you swear to me that you have not touched her?”
“Whom?” said Gringoire; “the goat?”
“No, that woman.”
“My wife? I swear to you that I have not.”
“You are often alone with her?”
“A good hour every evening.”
Dom Claude frowned.
“Oh! oh! _Solus cum sola non cogitabuntur orare Pater Noster_.”
“Upon my soul, I could say the _Pater_, and the _Ave Maria_, and
the _Credo in Deum patrem omnipotentem_ without her paying any
more attention to me than a chicken to a church.”
“Swear to me, by the body of your mother,” repeated the
archdeacon violently, “that you have not touched that creature
with even the tip of your finger.”
“I will also swear it by the head of my father, for the two
things have more affinity between them. But, my reverend master,
permit me a question in my turn.”
“Speak, sir.”
“What concern is it of yours?”
The archdeacon’s pale face became as crimson as the cheek of a
young girl. He remained for a moment without answering; then,
with visible embarrassment,—
“Listen, Master Pierre Gringoire. You are not yet damned, so far
as I know. I take an interest in you, and wish you well. Now the
least contact with that Egyptian of the demon would make you the
vassal of Satan. You know that ’tis always the body which ruins
the soul. Woe to you if you approach that woman! That is all.”
“I tried once,” said Gringoire, scratching his ear; “it was the
first day: but I got stung.”
“You were so audacious, Master Pierre?” and the priest’s brow
clouded over again.
“On another occasion,” continued the poet, with a smile, “I
peeped through the keyhole, before going to bed, and I beheld the
most delicious dame in her shift that ever made a bed creak under
her bare foot.”
“Go to the devil!” cried the priest, with a terrible look; and,
giving the amazed Gringoire a push on the shoulders, he plunged,
with long strides, under the gloomiest arcades of the cathedral.
CHAPTER III. THE BELLS.
After the morning in the pillory, the neighbors of Notre-Dame
thought they noticed that Quasimodo’s ardor for ringing had grown
cool. Formerly, there had been peals for every occasion, long
morning serenades, which lasted from prime to compline; peals
from the belfry for a high mass, rich scales drawn over the
smaller bells for a wedding, for a christening, and mingling in
the air like a rich embroidery of all sorts of charming sounds.
The old church, all vibrating and sonorous, was in a perpetual
joy of bells. One was constantly conscious of the presence of a
spirit of noise and caprice, who sang through all those mouths of
brass. Now that spirit seemed to have departed; the cathedral
seemed gloomy, and gladly remained silent; festivals and funerals
had the simple peal, dry and bare, demanded by the ritual,
nothing more. Of the double noise which constitutes a church, the
organ within, the bell without, the organ alone remained. One
would have said that there was no longer a musician in the
belfry. Quasimodo was always there, nevertheless; what, then, had
happened to him? Was it that the shame and despair of the pillory
still lingered in the bottom of his heart, that the lashes of his
tormentor’s whip reverberated unendingly in his soul, and that
the sadness of such treatment had wholly extinguished in him even
his passion for the bells? or was it that Marie had a rival in
the heart of the bellringer of Notre-Dame, and that the great
bell and her fourteen sisters were neglected for something more
amiable and more beautiful?
It chanced that, in the year of grace 1482, Annunciation Day fell
on Tuesday, the twenty-fifth of March. That day the air was so
pure and light that Quasimodo felt some returning affection for
his bells. He therefore ascended the northern tower while the
beadle below was opening wide the doors of the church, which were
then enormous panels of stout wood, covered with leather,
bordered with nails of gilded iron, and framed in carvings “very
artistically elaborated.”
On arriving in the lofty bell chamber, Quasimodo gazed for some
time at the six bells and shook his head sadly, as though
groaning over some foreign element which had interposed itself in
his heart between them and him. But when he had set them to
swinging, when he felt that cluster of bells moving under his
hand, when he saw, for he did not hear it, the palpitating octave
ascend and descend that sonorous scale, like a bird hopping from
branch to branch; when the demon Music, that demon who shakes a
sparkling bundle of strette, trills and arpeggios, had taken
possession of the poor deaf man, he became happy once more, he
forgot everything, and his heart expanding, made his face beam.
He went and came, he beat his hands together, he ran from rope to
rope, he animated the six singers with voice and gesture, like
the leader of an orchestra who is urging on intelligent
musicians.
“Go on,” said he, “go on, go on, Gabrielle, pour out all thy
noise into the Place, ’tis a festival to-day. No laziness,
Thibauld; thou art relaxing; go on, go on, then, art thou rusted,
thou sluggard? That is well! quick! quick! let not thy clapper be
seen! Make them all deaf like me. That’s it, Thibauld, bravely
done! Guillaume! Guillaume! thou art the largest, and Pasquier is
the smallest, and Pasquier does best. Let us wager that those who
hear him will understand him better than they understand thee.
Good! good! my Gabrielle, stoutly, more stoutly! Eli! what are
you doing up aloft there, you two Moineaux (sparrows)? I do not
see you making the least little shred of noise. What is the
meaning of those beaks of copper which seem to be gaping when
they should sing? Come, work now, ’tis the Feast of the
Annunciation. The sun is fine, the chime must be fine also. Poor
Guillaume! thou art all out of breath, my big fellow!”
He was wholly absorbed in spurring on his bells, all six of which
vied with each other in leaping and shaking their shining
haunches, like a noisy team of Spanish mules, pricked on here and
there by the apostrophes of the muleteer.
All at once, on letting his glance fall between the large slate
scales which cover the perpendicular wall of the bell tower at a
certain height, he beheld on the square a young girl,
fantastically dressed, stop, spread out on the ground a carpet,
on which a small goat took up its post, and a group of spectators
collect around her. This sight suddenly changed the course of his
ideas, and congealed his enthusiasm as a breath of air congeals
melted rosin. He halted, turned his back to the bells, and
crouched down behind the projecting roof of slate, fixing upon
the dancer that dreamy, sweet, and tender look which had already
astonished the archdeacon on one occasion. Meanwhile, the
forgotten bells died away abruptly and all together, to the great
disappointment of the lovers of bell ringing, who were listening
in good faith to the peal from above the Pont du Change, and who
went away dumbfounded, like a dog who has been offered a bone and
given a stone.
CHAPTER IV. ἈΝÁΓΚΗ.
It chanced that upon a fine morning in this same month of March,
I think it was on Saturday the 29th, Saint Eustache’s day, our
young friend the student, Jehan Frollo du Moulin, perceived, as
he was dressing himself, that his breeches, which contained his
purse, gave out no metallic ring. “Poor purse,” he said, drawing
it from his fob, “what! not the smallest parisis! how cruelly the
dice, beer-pots, and Venus have depleted thee! How empty,
wrinkled, limp, thou art! Thou resemblest the throat of a fury! I
ask you, Messer Cicero, and Messer Seneca, copies of whom, all
dog’s-eared, I behold scattered on the floor, what profits it me
to know, better than any governor of the mint, or any Jew on the
Pont aux Changeurs, that a golden crown stamped with a crown is
worth thirty-five unzains of twenty-five sous, and eight deniers
parisis apiece, and that a crown stamped with a crescent is worth
thirty-six unzains of twenty-six sous, six deniers tournois
apiece, if I have not a single wretched black liard to risk on
the double-six! Oh! Consul Cicero! this is no calamity from which
one extricates one’s self with periphrases, _quemadmodum_, and
_verum enim vero!_”
He dressed himself sadly. An idea had occurred to him as he laced
his boots, but he rejected it at first; nevertheless, it
returned, and he put on his waistcoat wrong side out, an evident
sign of violent internal combat. At last he dashed his cap
roughly on the floor, and exclaimed: “So much the worse! Let come
of it what may. I am going to my brother! I shall catch a sermon,
but I shall catch a crown.”
Then he hastily donned his long jacket with furred half-sleeves,
picked up his cap, and went out like a man driven to desperation.
He descended the Rue de la Harpe toward the City. As he passed
the Rue de la Huchette, the odor of those admirable spits, which
were incessantly turning, tickled his olfactory apparatus, and he
bestowed a loving glance toward the Cyclopean roast, which one
day drew from the Franciscan friar, Calatagirone, this pathetic
exclamation: _Veramente, queste rotisserie sono cosa
stupenda!_[36] But Jehan had not the wherewithal to buy a
breakfast, and he plunged, with a profound sigh, under the
gateway of the Petit-Châtelet, that enormous double trefoil of
massive towers which guarded the entrance to the City.
He did not even take the trouble to cast a stone in passing, as
was the usage, at the miserable statue of that Périnet Leclerc
who had delivered up the Paris of Charles VI. to the English, a
crime which his effigy, its face battered with stones and soiled
with mud, expiated for three centuries at the corner of the Rue
de la Harpe and the Rue de Buci, as in an eternal pillory.
The Petit-Pont traversed, the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève crossed,
Jehan de Molendino found himself in front of Notre-Dame. Then
indecision seized upon him once more, and he paced for several
minutes round the statue of M. Legris, repeating to himself with
anguish: “The sermon is sure, the crown is doubtful.”
He stopped a beadle who emerged from the cloister,—“Where is
monsieur the archdeacon of Josas?”
“I believe that he is in his secret cell in the tower,” said the
beadle; “I should advise you not to disturb him there, unless you
come from some one like the pope or monsieur the king.”
Jehan clapped his hands.
“_Bédiable!_ here’s a magnificent chance to see the famous
sorcery cell!”
This reflection having brought him to a decision, he plunged
resolutely into the small black doorway, and began the ascent of
the spiral of Saint-Gilles, which leads to the upper stories of
the tower. “I am going to see,” he said to himself on the way.
“By the ravens of the Holy Virgin! it must needs be a curious
thing, that cell which my reverend brother hides so secretly!
’Tis said that he lights up the kitchens of hell there, and that
he cooks the philosopher’s stone there over a hot fire. _Bédieu!_
I care no more for the philosopher’s stone than for a pebble, and
I would rather find over his furnace an omelette of Easter eggs
and bacon, than the biggest philosopher’s stone in the world.”’
On arriving at the gallery of slender columns, he took breath for
a moment, and swore against the interminable staircase by I know
not how many million cartloads of devils; then he resumed his
ascent through the narrow door of the north tower, now closed to
the public. Several moments after passing the bell chamber, he
came upon a little landing-place, built in a lateral niche, and
under the vault of a low, pointed door, whose enormous lock and
strong iron bars he was enabled to see through a loophole pierced
in the opposite circular wall of the staircase. Persons desirous
of visiting this door at the present day will recognize it by
this inscription engraved in white letters on the black wall:
“J’ADORE CORALIE, 1823. SIGNÉ UGÈNE.” “Signé” stands in the text.
“Ugh!” said the scholar; “’tis here, no doubt.”
The key was in the lock, the door was very close to him; he gave
it a gentle push and thrust his head through the opening.
The reader cannot have failed to turn over the admirable works of
Rembrandt, that Shakespeare of painting. Amid so many marvellous
engravings, there is one etching in particular, which is supposed
to represent Doctor Faust, and which it is impossible to
contemplate without being dazzled. It represents a gloomy cell;
in the centre is a table loaded with hideous objects; skulls,
spheres, alembics, compasses, hieroglyphic parchments. The doctor
is before this table clad in his large coat and covered to the
very eyebrows with his furred cap. He is visible only to his
waist. He has half risen from his immense arm-chair, his clenched
fists rest on the table, and he is gazing with curiosity and
terror at a large luminous circle, formed of magic letters, which
gleams from the wall beyond, like the solar spectrum in a dark
chamber. This cabalistic sun seems to tremble before the eye, and
fills the wan cell with its mysterious radiance. It is horrible
and it is beautiful.
Something very similar to Faust’s cell presented itself to
Jehan’s view, when he ventured his head through the half-open
door. It also was a gloomy and sparsely lighted retreat. There
also stood a large arm-chair and a large table, compasses,
alembics, skeletons of animals suspended from the ceiling, a
globe rolling on the floor, hippocephali mingled promiscuously
with drinking cups, in which quivered leaves of gold, skulls
placed upon vellum checkered with figures and characters, huge
manuscripts piled up wide open, without mercy on the cracking
corners of the parchment; in short, all the rubbish of science,
and everywhere on this confusion dust and spiders’ webs; but
there was no circle of luminous letters, no doctor in an ecstasy
contemplating the flaming vision, as the eagle gazes upon the
sun.
Nevertheless, the cell was not deserted. A man was seated in the
arm-chair, and bending over the table. Jehan, to whom his back
was turned, could see only his shoulders and the back of his
skull; but he had no difficulty in recognizing that bald head,
which nature had provided with an eternal tonsure, as though
desirous of marking, by this external symbol, the archdeacon’s
irresistible clerical vocation.
Jehan accordingly recognized his brother; but the door had been
opened so softly, that nothing warned Dom Claude of his presence.
The inquisitive scholar took advantage of this circumstance to
examine the cell for a few moments at his leisure. A large
furnace, which he had not at first observed, stood to the left of
the arm-chair, beneath the window. The ray of light which
penetrated through this aperture made its way through a spider’s
circular web, which tastefully inscribed its delicate rose in the
arch of the window, and in the centre of which the insect
architect hung motionless, like the hub of this wheel of lace.
Upon the furnace were accumulated in disorder, all sorts of
vases, earthenware bottles, glass retorts, and mattresses of
charcoal. Jehan observed, with a sigh, that there was no
frying-pan. “How cold the kitchen utensils are!” he said to
himself.
In fact, there was no fire in the furnace, and it seemed as
though none had been lighted for a long time. A glass mask, which
Jehan noticed among the utensils of alchemy, and which served no
doubt, to protect the archdeacon’s face when he was working over
some substance to be dreaded, lay in one corner covered with dust
and apparently forgotten. Beside it lay a pair of bellows no less
dusty, the upper side of which bore this inscription incrusted in
copper letters: SPIRA SPERA.
Other inscriptions were written, in accordance with the fashion
of the hermetics, in great numbers on the walls; some traced with
ink, others engraved with a metal point. There were, moreover,
Gothic letters, Hebrew letters, Greek letters, and Roman letters,
pell-mell; the inscriptions overflowed at haphazard, on top of
each other, the more recent effacing the more ancient, and all
entangled with each other, like the branches in a thicket, like
pikes in an affray. It was, in fact, a strangely confused
mingling of all human philosophies, all reveries, all human
wisdom. Here and there one shone out from among the rest like a
banner among lance heads. Generally, it was a brief Greek or
Roman device, such as the Middle Ages knew so well how to
formulate.—_Unde? Inde?—Homo homini monstrum—Astra, castra,
nomen, numen._—Μέγα βιβλίον, μέγα κακόν.—_Sapere aude. Fiat ubi
vult_—etc.; sometimes a word devoid of all apparent sense,
Ἀναγκοφαγία, which possibly contained a bitter allusion to the
regime of the cloister; sometimes a simple maxim of clerical
discipline formulated in a regular hexameter _Cœlestem dominum
terrestrem dicite dominum_. There was also Hebrew jargon, of
which Jehan, who as yet knew but little Greek, understood
nothing; and all were traversed in every direction by stars, by
figures of men or animals, and by intersecting triangles; and
this contributed not a little to make the scrawled wall of the
cell resemble a sheet of paper over which a monkey had drawn back
and forth a pen filled with ink.
The whole chamber, moreover, presented a general aspect of
abandonment and dilapidation; and the bad state of the utensils
induced the supposition that their owner had long been distracted
from his labors by other preoccupations. Meanwhile, this master,
bent over a vast manuscript, ornamented with fantastical
illustrations, appeared to be tormented by an idea which
incessantly mingled with his meditations. That at least was
Jehan’s idea, when he heard him exclaim, with the thoughtful
breaks of a dreamer thinking aloud,—
“Yes, Manou said it, and Zoroaster taught it! the sun is born
from fire, the moon from the sun; fire is the soul of the
universe; its elementary atoms pour forth and flow incessantly
upon the world through infinite channels! At the point where
these currents intersect each other in the heavens, they produce
light; at their points of intersection on earth, they produce
gold. Light, gold; the same thing! From fire to the concrete
state. The difference between the visible and the palpable,
between the fluid and the solid in the same substance, between
water and ice, nothing more. These are no dreams; it is the
general law of nature. But what is one to do in order to extract
from science the secret of this general law? What! this light
which inundates my hand is gold! These same atoms dilated in
accordance with a certain law need only be condensed in
accordance with another law. How is it to be done? Some have
fancied by burying a ray of sunlight, Averroës,—yes, ’tis
Averroës,—Averroës buried one under the first pillar on the left
of the sanctuary of the Koran, in the great Mahometan mosque of
Cordova; but the vault cannot be opened for the purpose of
ascertaining whether the operation has succeeded, until after the
lapse of eight thousand years.
“The devil!” said Jehan, to himself, “’tis a long while to wait
for a crown!”
“Others have thought,” continued the dreamy archdeacon, “that it
would be better worth while to operate upon a ray of Sirius. But
’tis exceeding hard to obtain this ray pure, because of the
simultaneous presence of other stars whose rays mingle with it.
Flamel esteemed it more simple to operate upon terrestrial fire.
Flamel! there’s predestination in the name! _Flamma!_ yes, fire.
All lies there. The diamond is contained in the carbon, gold is
in the fire. But how to extract it? Magistri affirms that there
are certain feminine names, which possess a charm so sweet and
mysterious, that it suffices to pronounce them during the
operation. Let us read what Manon says on the matter: ‘Where
women are honored, the divinities are rejoiced; where they are
despised, it is useless to pray to God. The mouth of a woman is
constantly pure; it is a running water, it is a ray of sunlight.
The name of a woman should be agreeable, sweet, fanciful; it
should end in long vowels, and resemble words of benediction.’
Yes, the sage is right; in truth, Maria, Sophia, la
Esmeral—Damnation! always that thought!”
And he closed the book violently.
He passed his hand over his brow, as though to brush away the
idea which assailed him; then he took from the table a nail and a
small hammer, whose handle was curiously painted with cabalistic
letters.
“For some time,” he said with a bitter smile, “I have failed in
all my experiments! one fixed idea possesses me, and sears my
brain like fire. I have not even been able to discover the secret
of Cassiodorus, whose lamp burned without wick and without oil. A
simple matter, nevertheless—”
“The deuce!” muttered Jehan in his beard.
“Hence,” continued the priest, “one wretched thought is
sufficient to render a man weak and beside himself! Oh! how
Claude Pernelle would laugh at me. She who could not turn
Nicholas Flamel aside, for one moment, from his pursuit of the
great work! What! I hold in my hand the magic hammer of Zéchiélé!
at every blow dealt by the formidable rabbi, from the depths of
his cell, upon this nail, that one of his enemies whom he had
condemned, were he a thousand leagues away, was buried a cubit
deep in the earth which swallowed him. The King of France
himself, in consequence of once having inconsiderately knocked at
the door of the thermaturgist, sank to the knees through the
pavement of his own Paris. This took place three centuries ago.
Well! I possess the hammer and the nail, and in my hands they are
utensils no more formidable than a club in the hands of a maker
of edge tools. And yet all that is required is to find the magic
word which Zéchiélé pronounced when he struck his nail.”
“What nonsense!” thought Jehan.
“Let us see, let us try!” resumed the archdeacon briskly. “Were I
to succeed, I should behold the blue spark flash from the head of
the nail. Emen-Hétan! Emen-Hétan! That’s not it. Sigéani!
Sigéani! May this nail open the tomb to any one who bears the
name of Phœbus! A curse upon it! Always and eternally the same
idea!”
And he flung away the hammer in a rage. Then he sank down so
deeply on the arm-chair and the table, that Jehan lost him from
view behind the great pile of manuscripts. For the space of
several minutes, all that he saw was his fist convulsively
clenched on a book. Suddenly, Dom Claude sprang up, seized a
compass and engraved in silence upon the wall in capital letters,
this Greek word
ἈΝÁΓΚΗ.
“My brother is mad,” said Jehan to himself; “it would have been
far more simple to write _Fatum_, every one is not obliged to
know Greek.”
The archdeacon returned and seated himself in his armchair, and
placed his head on both his hands, as a sick man does, whose head
is heavy and burning.
The student watched his brother with surprise. He did not know,
he who wore his heart on his sleeve, he who observed only the
good old law of Nature in the world, he who allowed his passions
to follow their inclinations, and in whom the lake of great
emotions was always dry, so freely did he let it off each day by
fresh drains,—he did not know with what fury the sea of human
passions ferments and boils when all egress is denied to it, how
it accumulates, how it swells, how it overflows, how it hollows
out the heart; how it breaks in inward sobs, and dull
convulsions, until it has rent its dikes and burst its bed. The
austere and glacial envelope of Claude Frollo, that cold surface
of steep and inaccessible virtue, had always deceived Jehan. The
merry scholar had never dreamed that there was boiling lava,
furious and profound, beneath the snowy brow of Ætna.
We do not know whether he suddenly became conscious of these
things; but, giddy as he was, he understood that he had seen what
he ought not to have seen, that he had just surprised the soul of
his elder brother in one of its most secret altitudes, and that
Claude must not be allowed to know it. Seeing that the archdeacon
had fallen back into his former immobility, he withdrew his head
very softly, and made some noise with his feet outside the door,
like a person who has just arrived and is giving warning of his
approach.
“Enter!” cried the archdeacon, from the interior of his cell; “I
was expecting you. I left the door unlocked expressly; enter
Master Jacques!”
The scholar entered boldly. The archdeacon, who was very much
embarrassed by such a visit in such a place, trembled in his
arm-chair. “What! ’tis you, Jehan?”
“’Tis a J, all the same,” said the scholar, with his ruddy,
merry, and audacious face.
Dom Claude’s visage had resumed its severe expression.
“What are you come for?”
“Brother,” replied the scholar, making an effort to assume a
decent, pitiful, and modest mien, and twirling his cap in his
hands with an innocent air; “I am come to ask of you—”
“What?”
“A little lecture on morality, of which I stand greatly in need,”
Jehan did not dare to add aloud,—“and a little money of which I
am in still greater need.” This last member of his phrase
remained unuttered.
“Monsieur,” said the archdeacon, in a cold tone, “I am greatly
displeased with you.”
“Alas!” sighed the scholar.
Dom Claude made his arm-chair describe a quarter circle, and
gazed intently at Jehan.
“I am very glad to see you.”
This was a formidable exordium. Jehan braced himself for a rough
encounter.
“Jehan, complaints are brought me about you every day. What
affray was that in which you bruised with a cudgel a little
vicomte, Albert de Ramonchamp?”
“Oh!” said Jehan, “a vast thing that! A malicious page amused
himself by splashing the scholars, by making his horse gallop
through the mire!”
“Who,” pursued the archdeacon, “is that Mahiet Fargel, whose gown
you have torn? _Tunicam dechiraverunt_, saith the complaint.”
“Ah bah! a wretched cap of a Montaigu! Isn’t that it?”
“The complaint says _tunicam_ and not _cappettam_. Do you know
Latin?”
Jehan did not reply.
“Yes,” pursued the priest shaking his head, “that is the state of
learning and letters at the present day. The Latin tongue is
hardly understood, Syriac is unknown, Greek so odious that ’tis
accounted no ignorance in the most learned to skip a Greek word
without reading it, and to say, ‘_Græcum est non legitur_.’”
The scholar raised his eyes boldly. “Monsieur my brother, doth it
please you that I shall explain in good French vernacular that
Greek word which is written yonder on the wall?”
“What word?”
“ἈΝÁΓΚΗ.”
A slight flush spread over the cheeks of the priest with their
high bones, like the puff of smoke which announces on the outside
the secret commotions of a volcano. The student hardly noticed
it.
“Well, Jehan,” stammered the elder brother with an effort, “What
is the meaning of yonder word?”
“FATE.”
Dom Claude turned pale again, and the scholar pursued carelessly.
“And that word below it, graved by the same hand, _Ἀνάγνεία_,
signifies ‘impurity.’ You see that people do know their Greek.”
And the archdeacon remained silent. This Greek lesson had
rendered him thoughtful.
Master Jehan, who possessed all the artful ways of a spoiled
child, judged that the moment was a favorable one in which to
risk his request. Accordingly, he assumed an extremely soft tone
and began,—
“My good brother, do you hate me to such a degree as to look
savagely upon me because of a few mischievous cuffs and blows
distributed in a fair war to a pack of lads and brats, _quibusdam
marmosetis_? You see, good Brother Claude, that people know their
Latin.”
But all this caressing hypocrisy did not have its usual effect on
the severe elder brother. Cerberus did not bite at the honey
cake. The archdeacon’s brow did not lose a single wrinkle.
“What are you driving at?” he said dryly.
“Well, in point of fact, this!” replied Jehan bravely, “I stand
in need of money.”
At this audacious declaration, the archdeacon’s visage assumed a
thoroughly pedagogical and paternal expression.
“You know, Monsieur Jehan, that our fief of Tirechappe, putting
the direct taxes and the rents of the nine and twenty houses in a
block, yields only nine and thirty livres, eleven sous, six
deniers, Parisian. It is one half more than in the time of the
brothers Paclet, but it is not much.”
“I need money,” said Jehan stoically.
“You know that the official has decided that our twenty-one
houses should be moved full into the fief of the Bishopric, and
that we could redeem this homage only by paying the reverend
bishop two marks of silver gilt of the price of six livres
parisis. Now, these two marks I have not yet been able to get
together. You know it.”
“I know that I stand in need of money,” repeated Jehan for the
third time.
“And what are you going to do with it?”
This question caused a flash of hope to gleam before Jehan’s
eyes. He resumed his dainty, caressing air.
“Stay, dear Brother Claude, I should not come to you, with any
evil motive. There is no intention of cutting a dash in the
taverns with your unzains, and of strutting about the streets of
Paris in a caparison of gold brocade, with a lackey, _cum meo
laquasio_. No, brother, ’tis for a good work.”
“What good work?” demanded Claude, somewhat surprised.
“Two of my friends wish to purchase an outfit for the infant of a
poor Haudriette widow. It is a charity. It will cost three
florins, and I should like to contribute to it.”
“What are names of your two friends?”
“Pierre l’Assommeur and Baptiste Croque-Oison.”[37]
“Hum,” said the archdeacon; “those are names as fit for a good
work as a catapult for the chief altar.”
It is certain that Jehan had made a very bad choice of names for
his two friends. He realized it too late.
“And then,” pursued the sagacious Claude, “what sort of an
infant’s outfit is it that is to cost three florins, and that for
the child of a Haudriette? Since when have the Haudriette widows
taken to having babes in swaddling-clothes?”
Jehan broke the ice once more.
“Eh, well! yes! I need money in order to go and see Isabeau la
Thierrye to-night; in the Val-d’ Amour!”
“Impure wretch!” exclaimed the priest.
“Ἀναγνεία!” said Jehan.
This quotation, which the scholar borrowed with malice,
perchance, from the wall of the cell, produced a singular effect
on the archdeacon. He bit his lips and his wrath was drowned in a
crimson flush.
“Begone,” he said to Jehan. “I am expecting some one.”
The scholar made one more effort.
“Brother Claude, give me at least one little parisis to buy
something to eat.”
“How far have you gone in the Decretals of Gratian?” demanded Dom
Claude.
“I have lost my copy books.
“Where are you in your Latin humanities?”
“My copy of Horace has been stolen.”
“Where are you in Aristotle?”
“I’ faith! brother what father of the church is it, who says that
the errors of heretics have always had for their lurking place
the thickets of Aristotle’s metaphysics? A plague on Aristotle! I
care not to tear my religion on his metaphysics.”
“Young man,” resumed the archdeacon, “at the king’s last entry,
there was a young gentleman, named Philippe de Comines, who wore
embroidered on the housings of his horse this device, upon which
I counsel you to meditate: _Qui non laborat, non manducet_.”
The scholar remained silent for a moment, with his finger in his
ear, his eyes on the ground, and a discomfited mien.
All at once he turned round to Claude with the agile quickness of
a wagtail.
“So, my good brother, you refuse me a sou parisis, wherewith to
buy a crust at a baker’s shop?”
“_Qui non laborat, non manducet_.”
At this response of the inflexible archdeacon, Jehan hid his head
in his hands, like a woman sobbing, and exclaimed with an
expression of despair: “Ὀτοτοτοτοτοῖ.”
“What is the meaning of this, sir?” demanded Claude, surprised at
this freak.
“What indeed!” said the scholar; and he lifted to Claude his
impudent eyes into which he had just thrust his fists in order to
communicate to them the redness of tears; “’tis Greek! ’tis an
anapæst of Æschylus which expresses grief perfectly.”
And here he burst into a laugh so droll and violent that it made
the archdeacon smile. It was Claude’s fault, in fact: why had he
so spoiled that child?
“Oh! good Brother Claude,” resumed Jehan, emboldened by this
smile, “look at my worn out boots. Is there a cothurnus in the
world more tragic than these boots, whose soles are hanging out
their tongues?”
The archdeacon promptly returned to his original severity.
“I will send you some new boots, but no money.”
“Only a poor little parisis, brother,” continued the suppliant
Jehan. “I will learn Gratian by heart, I will believe firmly in
God, I will be a regular Pythagoras of science and virtue. But
one little parisis, in mercy! Would you have famine bite me with
its jaws which are gaping in front of me, blacker, deeper, and
more noisome than a Tartarus or the nose of a monk?”
Dom Claude shook his wrinkled head: “_Qui non laborat_—”
Jehan did not allow him to finish.
“Well,” he exclaimed, “to the devil then! Long live joy! I will
live in the tavern, I will fight, I will break pots and I will go
and see the wenches.” And thereupon, he hurled his cap at the
wall, and snapped his fingers like castanets.
The archdeacon surveyed him with a gloomy air.
“Jehan, you have no soul.”
“In that case, according to Epicurius, I lack a something made of
another something which has no name.”
“Jehan, you must think seriously of amending your ways.”
“Oh, come now,” cried the student, gazing in turn at his brother
and the alembics on the furnace, “everything is preposterous
here, both ideas and bottles!”
“Jehan, you are on a very slippery downward road. Do you know
whither you are going?”
“To the wine-shop,” said Jehan.
“The wine-shop leads to the pillory.”
“’Tis as good a lantern as any other, and perchance with that
one, Diogenes would have found his man.”
“The pillory leads to the gallows.”
“The gallows is a balance which has a man at one end and the
whole earth at the other. ’Tis fine to be the man.”
“The gallows leads to hell.”
“’Tis a big fire.”
“Jehan, Jehan, the end will be bad.”
“The beginning will have been good.”
At that moment, the sound of a footstep was heard on the
staircase.
“Silence!” said the archdeacon, laying his finger on his mouth,
“here is Master Jacques. Listen, Jehan,” he added, in a low
voice; “have a care never to speak of what you shall have seen or
heard here. Hide yourself quickly under the furnace, and do not
breathe.”
The scholar concealed himself; just then a happy idea occurred to
him.
“By the way, Brother Claude, a form for not breathing.”
“Silence! I promise.”
“You must give it to me.”
“Take it, then!” said the archdeacon angrily, flinging his purse
at him.
Jehan darted under the furnace again, and the door opened.
CHAPTER V. THE TWO MEN CLOTHED IN BLACK.
The personage who entered wore a black gown and a gloomy mien.
The first point which struck the eye of our Jehan (who, as the
reader will readily surmise, had ensconced himself in his nook in
such a manner as to enable him to see and hear everything at his
good pleasure) was the perfect sadness of the garments and the
visage of this new-corner. There was, nevertheless, some
sweetness diffused over that face, but it was the sweetness of a
cat or a judge, an affected, treacherous sweetness. He was very
gray and wrinkled, and not far from his sixtieth year, his eyes
blinked, his eyebrows were white, his lip pendulous, and his
hands large. When Jehan saw that it was only this, that is to
say, no doubt a physician or a magistrate, and that this man had
a nose very far from his mouth, a sign of stupidity, he nestled
down in his hole, in despair at being obliged to pass an
indefinite time in such an uncomfortable attitude, and in such
bad company.
The archdeacon, in the meantime, had not even risen to receive
this personage. He had made the latter a sign to seat himself on
a stool near the door, and, after several moments of a silence
which appeared to be a continuation of a preceding meditation, he
said to him in a rather patronizing way, “Good day, Master
Jacques.”
“Greeting, master,” replied the man in black.
There was in the two ways in which “Master Jacques” was
pronounced on the one hand, and the “master” by preeminence on
the other, the difference between monseigneur and monsieur,
between _domine_ and _domne_. It was evidently the meeting of a
teacher and a disciple.
“Well!” resumed the archdeacon, after a fresh silence which
Master Jacques took good care not to disturb, “how are you
succeeding?”
“Alas! master,” said the other, with a sad smile, “I am still
seeking the stone. Plenty of ashes. But not a spark of gold.”
Dom Claude made a gesture of impatience. “I am not talking to you
of that, Master Jacques Charmolue, but of the trial of your
magician. Is it not Marc Cenaine that you call him? the butler of
the Court of Accounts? Does he confess his witchcraft? Have you
been successful with the torture?”
“Alas! no,” replied Master Jacques, still with his sad smile; “we
have not that consolation. That man is a stone. We might have him
boiled in the Marché aux Pourceaux, before he would say anything.
Nevertheless, we are sparing nothing for the sake of getting at
the truth; he is already thoroughly dislocated, we are applying
all the herbs of Saint John’s day; as saith the old comedian
Plautus,—
‘Advorsum stimulos, laminas, crucesque, compedesque,
Nervos, catenas, carceres, numellas, pedicas, boias.’
Nothing answers; that man is terrible. I am at my wit’s end over
him.”
“You have found nothing new in his house?”
“I’ faith, yes,” said Master Jacques, fumbling in his pouch;
“this parchment. There are words in it which we cannot
comprehend. The criminal advocate, Monsieur Philippe Lheulier,
nevertheless, knows a little Hebrew, which he learned in that
matter of the Jews of the Rue Kantersten, at Brussels.”
So saying, Master Jacques unrolled a parchment. “Give it here,”
said the archdeacon. And casting his eyes upon this writing:
“Pure magic, Master Jacques!” he exclaimed. “‘Emen-Hétan!’ ’Tis
the cry of the vampires when they arrive at the witches’ sabbath.
_Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso!_ ’Tis the command which
chains the devil in hell. _Hax, pax, max!_ that refers to
medicine. A formula against the bite of mad dogs. Master Jacques!
you are procurator to the king in the Ecclesiastical Courts: this
parchment is abominable.”
“We will put the man to the torture once more. Here again,” added
Master Jacques, fumbling afresh in his pouch, “is something that
we have found at Marc Cenaine’s house.”
It was a vessel belonging to the same family as those which
covered Dom Claude’s furnace.
“Ah!” said the archdeacon, “a crucible for alchemy.”
“I will confess to you,” continued Master Jacques, with his timid
and awkward smile, “that I have tried it over the furnace, but I
have succeeded no better than with my own.”
The archdeacon began an examination of the vessel. “What has he
engraved on his crucible? _Och! och!_ the word which expels
fleas! That Marc Cenaine is an ignoramus! I verily believe that
you will never make gold with this! ’Tis good to set in your
bedroom in summer and that is all!”
“Since we are talking about errors,” said the king’s procurator,
“I have just been studying the figures on the portal below before
ascending hither; is your reverence quite sure that the opening
of the work of physics is there portrayed on the side towards the
Hôtel-Dieu, and that among the seven nude figures which stand at
the feet of Notre-Dame, that which has wings on his heels is
Mercurius?”
“Yes,” replied the priest; “’tis Augustin Nypho who writes it,
that Italian doctor who had a bearded demon who acquainted him
with all things. However, we will descend, and I will explain it
to you with the text before us.”
“Thanks, master,” said Charmolue, bowing to the earth. “By the
way, I was on the point of forgetting. When doth it please you
that I shall apprehend the little sorceress?”
“What sorceress?”
“That gypsy girl you know, who comes every day to dance on the
church square, in spite of the official’s prohibition! She hath a
demoniac goat with horns of the devil, which reads, which writes,
which knows mathematics like Picatrix, and which would suffice to
hang all Bohemia. The prosecution is all ready; ’twill soon be
finished, I assure you! A pretty creature, on my soul, that
dancer! The handsomest black eyes! Two Egyptian carbuncles! When
shall we begin?”
The archdeacon was excessively pale.
“I will tell you that hereafter,” he stammered, in a voice that
was barely articulate; then he resumed with an effort, “Busy
yourself with Marc Cenaine.”
“Be at ease,” said Charmolue with a smile; “I’ll buckle him down
again for you on the leather bed when I get home. But ’tis a
devil of a man; he wearies even Pierrat Torterue himself, who
hath hands larger than my own. As that good Plautus saith,—
‘Nudus vinctus, centum pondo, es quando pendes per pedes.’
The torture of the wheel and axle! ’Tis the most effectual! He
shall taste it!”
Dom Claude seemed absorbed in gloomy abstraction. He turned to
Charmolue,—
“Master Pierrat—Master Jacques, I mean, busy yourself with Marc
Cenaine.”
“Yes, yes, Dom Claude. Poor man! he will have suffered like
Mummol. What an idea to go to the witches’ sabbath! a butler of
the Court of Accounts, who ought to know Charlemagne’s text;
_Stryga vel masca!_—In the matter of the little girl,—Smelarda,
as they call her,—I will await your orders. Ah! as we pass
through the portal, you will explain to me also the meaning of
the gardener painted in relief, which one sees as one enters the
church. Is it not the Sower? Hé! master, of what are you
thinking, pray?”
Dom Claude, buried in his own thoughts, no longer listened to
him. Charmolue, following the direction of his glance, perceived
that it was fixed mechanically on the great spider’s web which
draped the window. At that moment, a bewildered fly which was
seeking the March sun, flung itself through the net and became
entangled there. On the agitation of his web, the enormous spider
made an abrupt move from his central cell, then with one bound,
rushed upon the fly, which he folded together with his fore
antennæ, while his hideous proboscis dug into the victim’s head.
“Poor fly!” said the king’s procurator in the ecclesiastical
court; and he raised his hand to save it. The archdeacon, as
though roused with a start, withheld his arm with convulsive
violence.
“Master Jacques,” he cried, “let fate take its course!” The
procurator wheeled round in affright; it seemed to him that
pincers of iron had clutched his arm. The priest’s eye was
staring, wild, flaming, and remained riveted on the horrible
little group of the spider and the fly.
“Oh, yes!” continued the priest, in a voice which seemed to
proceed from the depths of his being, “behold here a symbol of
all. She flies, she is joyous, she is just born; she seeks the
spring, the open air, liberty: oh, yes! but let her come in
contact with the fatal network, and the spider issues from it,
the hideous spider! Poor dancer! poor, predestined fly! Let
things take their course, Master Jacques, ’tis fate! Alas!
Claude, thou art the spider! Claude, thou art the fly also! Thou
wert flying towards learning, light, the sun. Thou hadst no other
care than to reach the open air, the full daylight of eternal
truth; but in precipitating thyself towards the dazzling window
which opens upon the other world,—upon the world of brightness,
intelligence, and science—blind fly! senseless, learned man! thou
hast not perceived that subtle spider’s web, stretched by destiny
betwixt the light and thee—thou hast flung thyself headlong into
it, and now thou art struggling with head broken and mangled
wings between the iron antennæ of fate! Master Jacques! Master
Jacques! let the spider work its will!”
“I assure you,” said Charmolue, who was gazing at him without
comprehending him, “that I will not touch it. But release my arm,
master, for pity’s sake! You have a hand like a pair of pincers.”
The archdeacon did not hear him. “Oh, madman!” he went on,
without removing his gaze from the window. “And even couldst thou
have broken through that formidable web, with thy gnat’s wings,
thou believest that thou couldst have reached the light? Alas!
that pane of glass which is further on, that transparent
obstacle, that wall of crystal, harder than brass, which
separates all philosophies from the truth, how wouldst thou have
overcome it? Oh, vanity of science! how many wise men come flying
from afar, to dash their heads against thee! How many systems
vainly fling themselves buzzing against that eternal pane!”
He became silent. These last ideas, which had gradually led him
back from himself to science, appeared to have calmed him.
Jacques Charmolue recalled him wholly to a sense of reality by
addressing to him this question: “Come, now, master, when will
you come to aid me in making gold? I am impatient to succeed.”
The archdeacon shook his head, with a bitter smile. “Master
Jacques read Michel Psellus’ ‘_Dialogus de Energia et Operatione
Dæmonum_.’ What we are doing is not wholly innocent.”
“Speak lower, master! I have my suspicions of it,” said Jacques
Charmolue. “But one must practise a bit of hermetic science when
one is only procurator of the king in the ecclesiastical court,
at thirty crowns tournois a year. Only speak low.”
At that moment the sound of jaws in the act of mastication, which
proceeded from beneath the furnace, struck Charmolue’s uneasy
ear.
“What’s that?” he inquired.
It was the scholar, who, ill at ease, and greatly bored in his
hiding-place, had succeeded in discovering there a stale crust
and a triangle of mouldy cheese, and had set to devouring the
whole without ceremony, by way of consolation and breakfast. As
he was very hungry, he made a great deal of noise, and he
accented each mouthful strongly, which startled and alarmed the
procurator.
“’Tis a cat of mine,” said the archdeacon, quickly, “who is
regaling herself under there with a mouse.”
This explanation satisfied Charmolue.
“In fact, master,” he replied, with a respectful smile, “all
great philosophers have their familiar animal. You know what
Servius saith: ‘_Nullus enim locus sine genio est_,—for there is
no place that hath not its spirit.’”
But Dom Claude, who stood in terror of some new freak on the part
of Jehan, reminded his worthy disciple that they had some figures
on the façade to study together, and the two quitted the cell, to
the accompaniment of a great “ouf!” from the scholar, who began
to seriously fear that his knee would acquire the imprint of his
chin.
CHAPTER VI. THE EFFECT WHICH SEVEN OATHS IN THE OPEN AIR CAN
PRODUCE.
“_Te Deum laudamus_!” exclaimed Master Jehan, creeping out from
his hole, “the screech-owls have departed. Och! och! Hax! pax!
max! fleas! mad dogs! the devil! I have had enough of their
conversation! My head is humming like a bell tower. And mouldy
cheese to boot! Come on! Let us descend, take the big brother’s
purse and convert all these coins into bottles!”
He cast a glance of tenderness and admiration into the interior
of the precious pouch, readjusted his toilet, rubbed up his
boots, dusted his poor half sleeves, all gray with ashes,
whistled an air, indulged in a sportive pirouette, looked about
to see whether there were not something more in the cell to take,
gathered up here and there on the furnace some amulet in glass
which might serve to bestow, in the guise of a trinket, on
Isabeau la Thierrye, finally pushed open the door which his
brother had left unfastened, as a last indulgence, and which he,
in his turn, left open as a last piece of malice, and descended
the circular staircase, skipping like a bird.
In the midst of the gloom of the spiral staircase, he elbowed
something which drew aside with a growl; he took it for granted
that it was Quasimodo, and it struck him as so droll that he
descended the remainder of the staircase holding his sides with
laughter. On emerging upon the Place, he laughed yet more
heartily.
He stamped his foot when he found himself on the ground once
again. “Oh!” said he, “good and honorable pavement of Paris,
cursed staircase, fit to put the angels of Jacob’s ladder out of
breath! What was I thinking of to thrust myself into that stone
gimlet which pierces the sky; all for the sake of eating bearded
cheese, and looking at the bell-towers of Paris through a hole in
the wall!”
He advanced a few paces, and caught sight of the two screech
owls, that is to say, Dom Claude and Master Jacques Charmolue,
absorbed in contemplation before a carving on the façade. He
approached them on tiptoe, and heard the archdeacon say in a low
tone to Charmolue: “’Twas Guillaume de Paris who caused a Job to
be carved upon this stone of the hue of lapis-lazuli, gilded on
the edges. Job represents the philosopher’s stone, which must
also be tried and martyrized in order to become perfect, as saith
Raymond Lulle: _Sub conservatione formæ specificæ salva anima_.”
“That makes no difference to me,” said Jehan, “’tis I who have
the purse.”
At that moment he heard a powerful and sonorous voice articulate
behind him a formidable series of oaths. “_Sang Dieu!
Ventre-Dieu! Bédieu! Corps de Dieu! Nombril de Belzébuth! Nom
d’un pape! Corne et tonnerre_.”
“Upon my soul!” exclaimed Jehan, “that can only be my friend,
Captain Phœbus!”
This name of Phœbus reached the ears of the archdeacon at the
moment when he was explaining to the king’s procurator the dragon
which is hiding its tail in a bath, from which issue smoke and
the head of a king. Dom Claude started, interrupted himself and,
to the great amazement of Charmolue, turned round and beheld his
brother Jehan accosting a tall officer at the door of the
Gondelaurier mansion.
It was, in fact, Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers. He was backed up
against a corner of the house of his betrothed and swearing like
a heathen.
“By my faith! Captain Phœbus,” said Jehan, taking him by the
hand, “you are cursing with admirable vigor.”
“Horns and thunder!” replied the captain.
“Horns and thunder yourself!” replied the student. “Come now,
fair captain, whence comes this overflow of fine words?”
“Pardon me, good comrade Jehan,” exclaimed Phœbus, shaking his
hand, “a horse going at a gallop cannot halt short. Now, I was
swearing at a hard gallop. I have just been with those prudes,
and when I come forth, I always find my throat full of curses, I
must spit them out or strangle, _ventre et tonnerre!_”
“Will you come and drink?” asked the scholar.
This proposition calmed the captain.
“I’m willing, but I have no money.”
“But I have!”
“Bah! let’s see it!”
Jehan spread out the purse before the captain’s eyes, with
dignity and simplicity. Meanwhile, the archdeacon, who had
abandoned the dumbfounded Charmolue where he stood, had
approached them and halted a few paces distant, watching them
without their noticing him, so deeply were they absorbed in
contemplation of the purse.
Phœbus exclaimed: “A purse in your pocket, Jehan! ’tis the moon
in a bucket of water, one sees it there but ’tis not there. There
is nothing but its shadow. Pardieu! let us wager that these are
pebbles!”
Jehan replied coldly: “Here are the pebbles wherewith I pave my
fob!”
And without adding another word, he emptied the purse on a
neighboring post, with the air of a Roman saving his country.
“True God!” muttered Phœbus, “targes, big-blanks, little blanks,
mailles,[38] every two worth one of Tournay, farthings of Paris,
real eagle liards! ’Tis dazzling!”
Jehan remained dignified and immovable. Several liards had rolled
into the mud; the captain in his enthusiasm stooped to pick them
up. Jehan restrained him.
“Fye, Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers!”
Phœbus counted the coins, and turning towards Jehan with
solemnity, “Do you know, Jehan, that there are three and twenty
sous parisis! whom have you plundered to-night, in the Street
Cut-Weazand?”
Jehan flung back his blonde and curly head, and said,
half-closing his eyes disdainfully,—
“We have a brother who is an archdeacon and a fool.”
“_Corne de Dieu!_” exclaimed Phœbus, “the worthy man!”
“Let us go and drink,” said Jehan.
“Where shall we go?” said Phœbus; “‘To Eve’s Apple.’”
“No, captain, to ‘Ancient Science.’ An old woman sawing a basket
handle;[39] ’tis a rebus, and I like that.”
“A plague on rebuses, Jehan! the wine is better at ‘Eve’s Apple’;
and then, beside the door there is a vine in the sun which cheers
me while I am drinking.”
“Well! here goes for Eve and her apple,” said the student, and
taking Phœbus’s arm. “By the way, my dear captain, you just
mentioned the Rue Coupe-Gueule[40] That is a very bad form of
speech; people are no longer so barbarous. They say,
Coupe-Gorge[41].”
The two friends set out towards “Eve’s Apple.” It is unnecessary
to mention that they had first gathered up the money, and that
the archdeacon followed them.
The archdeacon followed them, gloomy and haggard. Was this the
Phœbus whose accursed name had been mingled with all his thoughts
ever since his interview with Gringoire? He did not know it, but
it was at least a Phœbus, and that magic name sufficed to make
the archdeacon follow the two heedless comrades with the stealthy
tread of a wolf, listening to their words and observing their
slightest gestures with anxious attention. Moreover, nothing was
easier than to hear everything they said, as they talked loudly,
not in the least concerned that the passers-by were taken into
their confidence. They talked of duels, wenches, wine pots, and
folly.
At the turning of a street, the sound of a tambourine reached
them from a neighboring square. Dom Claude heard the officer say
to the scholar,—
“Thunder! Let us hasten our steps!”
“Why, Phœbus?”
“I’m afraid lest the Bohemian should see me.”
“What Bohemian?”
“The little girl with the goat.”
“La Smeralda?”
“That’s it, Jehan. I always forget her devil of a name. Let us
make haste, she will recognize me. I don’t want to have that girl
accost me in the street.”
“Do you know her, Phœbus?”
Here the archdeacon saw Phœbus sneer, bend down to Jehan’s ear,
and say a few words to him in a low voice; then Phœbus burst into
a laugh, and shook his head with a triumphant air.
“Truly?” said Jehan.
“Upon my soul!” said Phœbus.
“This evening?”
“This evening.”
“Are you sure that she will come?”
“Are you a fool, Jehan? Does one doubt such things?”
“Captain Phœbus, you are a happy gendarme!”
The archdeacon heard the whole of this conversation. His teeth
chattered; a visible shiver ran through his whole body. He halted
for a moment, leaned against a post like a drunken man, then
followed the two merry knaves.
At the moment when he overtook them once more, they had changed
their conversation. He heard them singing at the top of their
lungs the ancient refrain,—
Les enfants des Petits-Carreaux
Se font pendre comme des veaux[42].
CHAPTER VII. THE MYSTERIOUS MONK.
The illustrious wine shop of “Eve’s Apple” was situated in the
University, at the corner of the Rue de la Rondelle and the Rue
de la Bâtonnier. It was a very spacious and very low hall on the
ground floor, with a vaulted ceiling whose central spring rested
upon a huge pillar of wood painted yellow; tables everywhere,
shining pewter jugs hanging on the walls, always a large number
of drinkers, a plenty of wenches, a window on the street, a vine
at the door, and over the door a flaring piece of sheet-iron,
painted with an apple and a woman, rusted by the rain and turning
with the wind on an iron pin. This species of weather-vane which
looked upon the pavement was the signboard.
Night was falling; the square was dark; the wine-shop, full of
candles, flamed afar like a forge in the gloom; the noise of
glasses and feasting, of oaths and quarrels, which escaped
through the broken panes, was audible. Through the mist which the
warmth of the room spread over the window in front, a hundred
confused figures could be seen swarming, and from time to time a
burst of noisy laughter broke forth from it. The passers-by who
were going about their business, slipped past this tumultuous
window without glancing at it. Only at intervals did some little
ragged boy raise himself on tiptoe as far as the ledge, and hurl
into the drinking-shop, that ancient, jeering hoot, with which
drunken men were then pursued: “Aux Houls, saouls, saouls,
saouls!”
Nevertheless, one man paced imperturbably back and forth in front
of the tavern, gazing at it incessantly, and going no further
from it than a pikeman from his sentry-box. He was enveloped in a
mantle to his very nose. This mantle he had just purchased of the
old-clothes man, in the vicinity of the “Eve’s Apple,” no doubt
to protect himself from the cold of the March evening, possibly
also, to conceal his costume. From time to time he paused in
front of the dim window with its leaden lattice, listened,
looked, and stamped his foot.
At length the door of the dram-shop opened. This was what he
appeared to be waiting for. Two boon companions came forth. The
ray of light which escaped from the door crimsoned for a moment
their jovial faces.
The man in the mantle went and stationed himself on the watch
under a porch on the other side of the street.
“_Corne et tonnerre!_” said one of the comrades. “Seven o’clock
is on the point of striking. ’Tis the hour of my appointed
meeting.”
“I tell you,” repeated his companion, with a thick tongue, “that
I don’t live in the Rue des Mauvaises Paroles, _indignus qui
inter mala verba habitat_. I have a lodging in the Rue
Jean-Pain-Mollet, _in vico Johannis Pain-Mollet_. You are more
horned than a unicorn if you assert the contrary. Every one knows
that he who once mounts astride a bear is never after afraid; but
you have a nose turned to dainties like Saint-Jacques of the
hospital.”
“Jehan, my friend, you are drunk,” said the other.
The other replied staggering, “It pleases you to say so, Phœbus;
but it hath been proved that Plato had the profile of a hound.”
The reader has, no doubt, already recognized our two brave
friends, the captain and the scholar. It appears that the man who
was lying in wait for them had also recognized them, for he
slowly followed all the zigzags that the scholar caused the
captain to make, who being a more hardened drinker had retained
all his self-possession. By listening to them attentively, the
man in the mantle could catch in its entirety the following
interesting conversation,—
“_Corbacque!_ Do try to walk straight, master bachelor; you know
that I must leave you. Here it is seven o’clock. I have an
appointment with a woman.”
“Leave me then! I see stars and lances of fire. You are like the
Château de Dampmartin, which is bursting with laughter.”
“By the warts of my grandmother, Jehan, you are raving with too
much rabidness. By the way, Jehan, have you any money left?”
“Monsieur Rector, there is no mistake; the little butcher’s shop,
_parva boucheria_.”
“Jehan! my friend Jehan! You know that I made an appointment with
that little girl at the end of the Pont Saint-Michel, and I can
only take her to the Falourdel’s, the old crone of the bridge,
and that I must pay for a chamber. The old witch with a white
moustache would not trust me. Jehan! for pity’s sake! Have we
drunk up the whole of the curé’s purse? Have you not a single
parisis left?”
“The consciousness of having spent the other hours well is a just
and savory condiment for the table.”
“Belly and guts! a truce to your whimsical nonsense! Tell me,
Jehan of the devil! have you any money left? Give it to me,
_bédieu!_ or I will search you, were you as leprous as Job, and
as scabby as Cæsar!”
“Monsieur, the Rue Galiache is a street which hath at one end the
Rue de la Verrerie, and at the other the Rue de la Tixeranderie.”
“Well, yes! my good friend Jehan, my poor comrade, the Rue
Galiache is good, very good. But in the name of heaven collect
your wits. I must have a sou parisis, and the appointment is for
seven o’clock.”
“Silence for the rondo, and attention to the refrain,—
“Quand les rats mangeront les cas,
Le roi sera seigneur d’Arras;
Quand la mer, qui est grande et lée
Sera à la Saint-Jean gelée,
On verra, par-dessus la glace,
Sortir ceux d’Arras de leur place.”[43]
“Well, scholar of Antichrist, may you be strangled with the
entrails of your mother!” exclaimed Phœbus, and he gave the
drunken scholar a rough push; the latter slipped against the
wall, and slid flabbily to the pavement of Philip Augustus. A
remnant of fraternal pity, which never abandons the heart of a
drinker, prompted Phœbus to roll Jehan with his foot upon one of
those pillows of the poor, which Providence keeps in readiness at
the corner of all the street posts of Paris, and which the rich
blight with the name of “a rubbish-heap.” The captain adjusted
Jehan’s head upon an inclined plane of cabbage-stumps, and on the
very instant, the scholar fell to snoring in a magnificent bass.
Meanwhile, all malice was not extinguished in the captain’s
heart. “So much the worse if the devil’s cart picks you up on its
passage!” he said to the poor, sleeping clerk; and he strode off.
The man in the mantle, who had not ceased to follow him, halted
for a moment before the prostrate scholar, as though agitated by
indecision; then, uttering a profound sigh, he also strode off in
pursuit of the captain.
We, like them, will leave Jehan to slumber beneath the open sky,
and will follow them also, if it pleases the reader.
On emerging into the Rue Saint-André-des-Arcs, Captain Phœbus
perceived that some one was following him. On glancing sideways
by chance, he perceived a sort of shadow crawling after him along
the walls. He halted, it halted; he resumed his march, it resumed
its march. This disturbed him not overmuch. “Ah, bah!” he said to
himself, “I have not a sou.”
He paused in front of the College d’Autun. It was at this college
that he had sketched out what he called his studies, and, through
a scholar’s teasing habit which still lingered in him, he never
passed the façade without inflicting on the statue of Cardinal
Pierre Bertrand, sculptured to the right of the portal, the
affront of which Priapus complains so bitterly in the satire of
Horace, _Olim truncus eram ficulnus_. He had done this with so
much unrelenting animosity that the inscription, _Eduensis
episcopus_, had become almost effaced. Therefore, he halted
before the statue according to his wont. The street was utterly
deserted. At the moment when he was coolly retying his shoulder
knots, with his nose in the air, he saw the shadow approaching
him with slow steps, so slow that he had ample time to observe
that this shadow wore a cloak and a hat. On arriving near him, it
halted and remained more motionless than the statue of Cardinal
Bertrand. Meanwhile, it riveted upon Phœbus two intent eyes, full
of that vague light which issues in the night time from the
pupils of a cat.
The captain was brave, and would have cared very little for a
highwayman, with a rapier in his hand. But this walking statue,
this petrified man, froze his blood. There were then in
circulation, strange stories of a surly monk, a nocturnal prowler
about the streets of Paris, and they recurred confusedly to his
memory. He remained for several minutes in stupefaction, and
finally broke the silence with a forced laugh.
“Monsieur, if you are a robber, as I hope you are, you produce
upon me the effect of a heron attacking a nutshell. I am the son
of a ruined family, my dear fellow. Try your hand near by here.
In the chapel of this college there is some wood of the true
cross set in silver.”
The hand of the shadow emerged from beneath its mantle and
descended upon the arm of Phœbus with the grip of an eagle’s
talon; at the same time the shadow spoke,—
“Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers!”
“What, the devil!” said Phœbus, “you know my name!”
“I know not your name alone,” continued the man in the mantle,
with his sepulchral voice. “You have a _rendezvous_ this
evening.”
“Yes,” replied Phœbus in amazement.
“At seven o’clock.”
“In a quarter of an hour.”
“At la Falourdel’s.”
“Precisely.”
“The lewd hag of the Pont Saint-Michel.”
“Of Saint Michel the archangel, as the Pater Noster saith.”
“Impious wretch!” muttered the spectre. “With a woman?”
“_Confiteor_,—I confess—.”
“Who is called—?”
“La Smeralda,” said Phœbus, gayly. All his heedlessness had
gradually returned.
At this name, the shadow’s grasp shook the arm of Phœbus in a
fury.
“Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers, thou liest!”
Any one who could have beheld at that moment the captain’s
inflamed countenance, his leap backwards, so violent that he
disengaged himself from the grip which held him, the proud air
with which he clapped his hand on his swordhilt, and, in the
presence of this wrath the gloomy immobility of the man in the
cloak,—any one who could have beheld this would have been
frightened. There was in it a touch of the combat of Don Juan and
the statue.
“Christ and Satan!” exclaimed the captain. “That is a word which
rarely strikes the ear of a Châteaupers! Thou wilt not dare
repeat it.”
“Thou liest!” said the shadow coldly.
The captain gnashed his teeth. Surly monk, phantom,
superstitions,—he had forgotten all at that moment. He no longer
beheld anything but a man, and an insult.
“Ah! this is well!” he stammered, in a voice stifled with rage.
He drew his sword, then stammering, for anger as well as fear
makes a man tremble: “Here! On the spot! Come on! Swords! Swords!
Blood on the pavement!”
But the other never stirred. When he beheld his adversary on
guard and ready to parry,—
“Captain Phœbus,” he said, and his tone vibrated with bitterness,
“you forget your appointment.”
The rages of men like Phœbus are milk-soups, whose ebullition is
calmed by a drop of cold water. This simple remark caused the
sword which glittered in the captain’s hand to be lowered.
“Captain,” pursued the man, “to-morrow, the day after to-morrow,
a month hence, ten years hence, you will find me ready to cut
your throat; but go first to your rendezvous.”
“In sooth,” said Phœbus, as though seeking to capitulate with
himself, “these are two charming things to be encountered in a
rendezvous,—a sword and a wench; but I do not see why I should
miss the one for the sake of the other, when I can have both.”
He replaced his sword in its scabbard.
“Go to your rendezvous,” said the man.
“Monsieur,” replied Phœbus with some embarrassment, “many thanks
for your courtesy. In fact, there will be ample time to-morrow
for us to chop up father Adam’s doublet into slashes and
buttonholes. I am obliged to you for allowing me to pass one more
agreeable quarter of an hour. I certainly did hope to put you in
the gutter, and still arrive in time for the fair one, especially
as it has a better appearance to make the women wait a little in
such cases. But you strike me as having the air of a gallant man,
and it is safer to defer our affair until to-morrow. So I will
betake myself to my rendezvous; it is for seven o’clock, as you
know.” Here Phœbus scratched his ear. “Ah. _Corne Dieu!_ I had
forgotten! I haven’t a sou to discharge the price of the garret,
and the old crone will insist on being paid in advance. She
distrusts me.”
“Here is the wherewithal to pay.”
Phœbus felt the stranger’s cold hand slip into his a large piece
of money. He could not refrain from taking the money and pressing
the hand.
“_Vrai Dieu!_” he exclaimed, “you are a good fellow!”
“One condition,” said the man. “Prove to me that I have been
wrong and that you were speaking the truth. Hide me in some
corner whence I can see whether this woman is really the one
whose name you uttered.”
“Oh!” replied Phœbus, “’tis all one to me. We will take, the
Sainte-Marthe chamber; you can look at your ease from the kennel
hard by.”
“Come then,” said the shadow.
“At your service,” said the captain, “I know not whether you are
Messer Diavolus in person; but let us be good friends for this
evening; to-morrow I will repay you all my debts, both of purse
and sword.”
They set out again at a rapid pace. At the expiration of a few
minutes, the sound of the river announced to them that they were
on the Pont Saint-Michel, then loaded with houses.
“I will first show you the way,” said Phœbus to his companion, “I
will then go in search of the fair one who is awaiting me near
the Petit-Châtelet.”
His companion made no reply; he had not uttered a word since they
had been walking side by side. Phœbus halted before a low door,
and knocked roughly; a light made its appearance through the
cracks of the door.
“Who is there?” cried a toothless voice.
“_Corps-Dieu! Tête-Dieu! Ventre-Dieu!_” replied the captain.
The door opened instantly, and allowed the new-comers to see an
old woman and an old lamp, both of which trembled. The old woman
was bent double, clad in tatters, with a shaking head, pierced
with two small eyes, and coiffed with a dish clout; wrinkled
everywhere, on hands and face and neck; her lips retreated under
her gums, and about her mouth she had tufts of white hairs which
gave her the whiskered look of a cat.
The interior of the den was no less dilapitated than she; there
were chalk walls, blackened beams in the ceiling, a dismantled
chimney-piece, spiders’ webs in all the corners, in the middle a
staggering herd of tables and lame stools, a dirty child among
the ashes, and at the back a staircase, or rather, a wooden
ladder, which ended in a trapdoor in the ceiling.
On entering this lair, Phœbus’s mysterious companion raised his
mantle to his very eyes. Meanwhile, the captain, swearing like a
Saracen, hastened to “make the sun shine in a crown” as saith our
admirable Régnier.
“The Sainte-Marthe chamber,” said he.
The old woman addressed him as monseigneur, and shut up the crown
in a drawer. It was the coin which the man in the black mantle
had given to Phœbus. While her back was turned, the bushy-headed
and ragged little boy who was playing in the ashes, adroitly
approached the drawer, abstracted the crown, and put in its place
a dry leaf which he had plucked from a fagot.
The old crone made a sign to the two gentlemen, as she called
them, to follow her, and mounted the ladder in advance of them.
On arriving at the upper story, she set her lamp on a coffer,
and, Phœbus, like a frequent visitor of the house, opened a door
which opened on a dark hole. “Enter here, my dear fellow,” he
said to his companion. The man in the mantle obeyed without a
word in reply, the door closed upon him; he heard Phœbus bolt it,
and a moment later descend the stairs again with the aged hag.
The light had disappeared.
CHAPTER VIII. THE UTILITY OF WINDOWS WHICH OPEN ON THE RIVER.
Claude Frollo (for we presume that the reader, more intelligent
than Phœbus, has seen in this whole adventure no other surly monk
than the archdeacon), Claude Frollo groped about for several
moments in the dark lair into which the captain had bolted him.
It was one of those nooks which architects sometimes reserve at
the point of junction between the roof and the supporting wall. A
vertical section of this kennel, as Phœbus had so justly styled
it, would have made a triangle. Moreover, there was neither
window nor air-hole, and the slope of the roof prevented one from
standing upright. Accordingly, Claude crouched down in the dust,
and the plaster which cracked beneath him; his head was on fire;
rummaging around him with his hands, he found on the floor a bit
of broken glass, which he pressed to his brow, and whose coolness
afforded him some relief.
What was taking place at that moment in the gloomy soul of the
archdeacon? God and himself could alone know.
In what order was he arranging in his mind la Esmeralda, Phœbus,
Jacques Charmolue, his young brother so beloved, yet abandoned by
him in the mire, his archdeacon’s cassock, his reputation perhaps
dragged to la Falourdel’s, all these adventures, all these
images? I cannot say. But it is certain that these ideas formed
in his mind a horrible group.
He had been waiting a quarter of an hour; it seemed to him that
he had grown a century older. All at once he heard the creaking
of the boards of the stairway; some one was ascending. The
trapdoor opened once more; a light reappeared. There was a
tolerably large crack in the worm-eaten door of his den; he put
his face to it. In this manner he could see all that went on in
the adjoining room. The cat-faced old crone was the first to
emerge from the trap-door, lamp in hand; then Phœbus, twirling
his moustache, then a third person, that beautiful and graceful
figure, la Esmeralda. The priest beheld her rise from below like
a dazzling apparition. Claude trembled, a cloud spread over his
eyes, his pulses beat violently, everything rustled and whirled
around him; he no longer saw nor heard anything.
When he recovered himself, Phœbus and Esmeralda were alone seated
on the wooden coffer beside the lamp which made these two
youthful figures and a miserable pallet at the end of the attic
stand out plainly before the archdeacon’s eyes.
Beside the pallet was a window, whose panes broken like a
spider’s web upon which rain has fallen, allowed a view, through
its rent meshes, of a corner of the sky, and the moon lying far
away on an eiderdown bed of soft clouds.
The young girl was blushing, confused, palpitating. Her long,
drooping lashes shaded her crimson cheeks. The officer, to whom
she dared not lift her eyes, was radiant. Mechanically, and with
a charmingly unconscious gesture, she traced with the tip of her
finger incoherent lines on the bench, and watched her finger. Her
foot was not visible. The little goat was nestling upon it.
The captain was very gallantly clad; he had tufts of embroidery
at his neck and wrists; a great elegance at that day.
It was not without difficulty that Dom Claude managed to hear
what they were saying, through the humming of the blood, which
was boiling in his temples.
(A conversation between lovers is a very commonplace affair. It
is a perpetual “I love you.” A musical phrase which is very
insipid and very bald for indifferent listeners, when it is not
ornamented with some _fioriture;_ but Claude was not an
indifferent listener.)
“Oh!” said the young girl, without raising her eyes, “do not
despise me, monseigneur Phœbus. I feel that what I am doing is
not right.”
“Despise you, my pretty child!” replied the officer with an air
of superior and distinguished gallantry, “despise you,
_tête-Dieu!_ and why?”
“For having followed you!”
“On that point, my beauty, we don’t agree. I ought not to despise
you, but to hate you.”
The young girl looked at him in affright: “Hate me! what have I
done?”
“For having required so much urging.”
“Alas!” said she, “’tis because I am breaking a vow. I shall not
find my parents! The amulet will lose its virtue. But what
matters it? What need have I of father or mother now?”
So saying, she fixed upon the captain her great black eyes, moist
with joy and tenderness.
“Devil take me if I understand you!” exclaimed Phœbus. La
Esmeralda remained silent for a moment, then a tear dropped from
her eyes, a sigh from her lips, and she said,—“Oh! monseigneur, I
love you.”
Such a perfume of chastity, such a charm of virtue surrounded the
young girl, that Phœbus did not feel completely at his ease
beside her. But this remark emboldened him: “You love me!” he
said with rapture, and he threw his arm round the gypsy’s waist.
He had only been waiting for this opportunity.
The priest saw it, and tested with the tip of his finger the
point of a poniard which he wore concealed in his breast.
“Phœbus,” continued the Bohemian, gently releasing her waist from
the captain’s tenacious hands, “You are good, you are generous,
you are handsome; you saved me, me who am only a poor child lost
in Bohemia. I had long been dreaming of an officer who should
save my life. ’Twas of you that I was dreaming, before I knew
you, my Phœbus; the officer of my dream had a beautiful uniform
like yours, a grand look, a sword; your name is Phœbus; ’tis a
beautiful name. I love your name; I love your sword. Draw your
sword, Phœbus, that I may see it.”
“Child!” said the captain, and he unsheathed his sword with a
smile.
The gypsy looked at the hilt, the blade; examined the cipher on
the guard with adorable curiosity, and kissed the sword, saying,—
“You are the sword of a brave man. I love my captain.” Phœbus
again profited by the opportunity to impress upon her beautiful
bent neck a kiss which made the young girl straighten herself up
as scarlet as a poppy. The priest gnashed his teeth over it in
the dark.
“Phœbus,” resumed the gypsy, “let me talk to you. Pray walk a
little, that I may see you at full height, and that I may hear
your spurs jingle. How handsome you are!”
The captain rose to please her, chiding her with a smile of
satisfaction,—
“What a child you are! By the way, my charmer, have you seen me
in my archer’s ceremonial doublet?”
“Alas! no,” she replied.
“It is very handsome!”
Phœbus returned and seated himself beside her, but much closer
than before.
“Listen, my dear—”
The gypsy gave him several little taps with her pretty hand on
his mouth, with a childish mirth and grace and gayety.
“No, no, I will not listen to you. Do you love me? I want you to
tell me whether you love me.”
“Do I love thee, angel of my life!” exclaimed the captain, half
kneeling. “My body, my blood, my soul, all are thine; all are for
thee. I love thee, and I have never loved any one but thee.”
The captain had repeated this phrase so many times, in many
similar conjunctures, that he delivered it all in one breath,
without committing a single mistake. At this passionate
declaration, the gypsy raised to the dirty ceiling which served
for the skies a glance full of angelic happiness.
“Oh!” she murmured, “this is the moment when one should die!”
Phœbus found “the moment” favorable for robbing her of another
kiss, which went to torture the unhappy archdeacon in his nook.
“Die!” exclaimed the amorous captain, “What are you saying, my
lovely angel? ’Tis a time for living, or Jupiter is only a scamp!
Die at the beginning of so sweet a thing! _Corne-de-bœuf_, what a
jest! It is not that. Listen, my dear Similar, Esmenarda—Pardon!
you have so prodigiously Saracen a name that I never can get it
straight. ’Tis a thicket which stops me short.”
“Good heavens!” said the poor girl, “and I thought my name pretty
because of its singularity! But since it displeases you, I would
that I were called Goton.”
“Ah! do not weep for such a trifle, my graceful maid! ’tis a name
to which one must get accustomed, that is all. When I once know
it by heart, all will go smoothly. Listen then, my dear Similar;
I adore you passionately. I love you so that ’tis simply
miraculous. I know a girl who is bursting with rage over it—”
The jealous girl interrupted him: “Who?”
“What matters that to us?” said Phœbus; “do you love me?”
“Oh!”—said she.
“Well! that is all. You shall see how I love you also. May the
great devil Neptunus spear me if I do not make you the happiest
woman in the world. We will have a pretty little house somewhere.
I will make my archers parade before your windows. They are all
mounted, and set at defiance those of Captain Mignon. There are
_voulgiers, cranequiniers_ and hand _couleveiniers_[44]. I will
take you to the great sights of the Parisians at the storehouse
of Rully. Eighty thousand armed men, thirty thousand white
harnesses, short coats or coats of mail; the sixty-seven banners
of the trades; the standards of the parliaments, of the chamber
of accounts, of the treasury of the generals, of the aides of the
mint; a devilish fine array, in short! I will conduct you to see
the lions of the Hôtel du Roi, which are wild beasts. All women
love that.”
For several moments the young girl, absorbed in her charming
thoughts, was dreaming to the sound of his voice, without
listening to the sense of his words.
“Oh! how happy you will be!” continued the captain, and at the
same time he gently unbuckled the gypsy’s girdle.
“What are you doing?” she said quickly. This “act of violence”
had roused her from her revery.
“Nothing,” replied Phœbus, “I was only saying that you must
abandon all this garb of folly, and the street corner when you
are with me.”
“When I am with you, Phœbus!” said the young girl tenderly.
She became pensive and silent once more.
The captain, emboldened by her gentleness, clasped her waist
without resistance; then began softly to unlace the poor child’s
corsage, and disarranged her tucker to such an extent that the
panting priest beheld the gypsy’s beautiful shoulder emerge from
the gauze, as round and brown as the moon rising through the
mists of the horizon.
The young girl allowed Phœbus to have his way. She did not appear
to perceive it. The eye of the bold captain flashed.
Suddenly she turned towards him,—
“Phœbus,” she said, with an expression of infinite love,
“instruct me in thy religion.”
“My religion!” exclaimed the captain, bursting with laughter, “I
instruct you in my religion! _Corne et tonnerre!_ What do you
want with my religion?”
“In order that we may be married,” she replied.
The captain’s face assumed an expression of mingled surprise and
disdain, of carelessness and libertine passion.
“Ah, bah!” said he, “do people marry?”
The Bohemian turned pale, and her head drooped sadly on her
breast.
“My beautiful love,” resumed Phœbus, tenderly, “what nonsense is
this? A great thing is marriage, truly! one is none the less
loving for not having spit Latin into a priest’s shop!”
While speaking thus in his softest voice, he approached extremely
near the gypsy; his caressing hands resumed their place around
her supple and delicate waist, his eye flashed more and more, and
everything announced that Monsieur Phœbus was on the verge of one
of those moments when Jupiter himself commits so many follies
that Homer is obliged to summon a cloud to his rescue.
But Dom Claude saw everything. The door was made of thoroughly
rotten cask staves, which left large apertures for the passage of
his hawklike gaze. This brown-skinned, broad-shouldered priest,
hitherto condemned to the austere virginity of the cloister, was
quivering and boiling in the presence of this night scene of love
and voluptuousness. This young and beautiful girl given over in
disarray to the ardent young man, made melted lead flow in
his-veins; his eyes darted with sensual jealousy beneath all
those loosened pins. Any one who could, at that moment, have seen
the face of the unhappy man glued to the wormeaten bars, would
have thought that he beheld the face of a tiger glaring from the
depths of a cage at some jackal devouring a gazelle. His eye
shone like a candle through the cracks of the door.
All at once, Phœbus, with a rapid gesture, removed the gypsy’s
gorgerette. The poor child, who had remained pale and dreamy,
awoke with a start; she recoiled hastily from the enterprising
officer, and, casting a glance at her bare neck and shoulders,
red, confused, mute with shame, she crossed her two beautiful
arms on her breast to conceal it. Had it not been for the flame
which burned in her cheeks, at the sight of her so silent and
motionless, one would have declared her a statue of Modesty. Her
eyes were lowered.
But the captain’s gesture had revealed the mysterious amulet
which she wore about her neck.
“What is that?” he said, seizing this pretext to approach once
more the beautiful creature whom he had just alarmed.
“Don’t touch it!” she replied, quickly, “’tis my guardian. It
will make me find my family again, if I remain worthy to do so.
Oh, leave me, monsieur le capitaine! My mother! My poor mother!
My mother! Where art thou? Come to my rescue! Have pity, Monsieur
Phœbus, give me back my gorgerette!”
Phœbus retreated amid said in a cold tone,—
“Oh, mademoiselle! I see plainly that you do not love me!”
“I do not love him!” exclaimed the unhappy child, and at the same
time she clung to the captain, whom she drew to a seat beside
her. “I do not love thee, my Phœbus? What art thou saying, wicked
man, to break my heart? Oh, take me! take all! do what you will
with me, I am thine. What matters to me the amulet! What matters
to me my mother! ’Tis thou who art my mother since I love thee!
Phœbus, my beloved Phœbus, dost thou see me? ’Tis I. Look at me;
’tis the little one whom thou wilt surely not repulse, who comes,
who comes herself to seek thee. My soul, my life, my body, my
person, all is one thing—which is thine, my captain. Well, no! We
will not marry, since that displeases thee; and then, what am I?
a miserable girl of the gutters; whilst thou, my Phœbus, art a
gentleman. A fine thing, truly! A dancer wed an officer! I was
mad. No, Phœbus, no; I will be thy mistress, thy amusement, thy
pleasure, when thou wilt; a girl who shall belong to thee. I was
only made for that, soiled, despised, dishonored, but what
matters it?—beloved. I shall be the proudest and the most joyous
of women. And when I grow old or ugly, Phœbus, when I am no
longer good to love you, you will suffer me to serve you still.
Others will embroider scarfs for you; ’tis I, the servant, who
will care for them. You will let me polish your spurs, brush your
doublet, dust your riding-boots. You will have that pity, will
you not, Phœbus? Meanwhile, take me! here, Phœbus, all this
belongs to thee, only love me! We gypsies need only air and
love.”
So saying, she threw her arms round the officer’s neck; she
looked up at him, supplicatingly, with a beautiful smile, and all
in tears. Her delicate neck rubbed against his cloth doublet with
its rough embroideries. She writhed on her knees, her beautiful
body half naked. The intoxicated captain pressed his ardent lips
to those lovely African shoulders. The young girl, her eyes bent
on the ceiling, as she leaned backwards, quivered, all
palpitating, beneath this kiss.
All at once, above Phœbus’s head she beheld another head; a
green, livid, convulsed face, with the look of a lost soul; near
this face was a hand grasping a poniard. It was the face and hand
of the priest; he had broken the door and he was there. Phœbus
could not see him. The young girl remained motionless, frozen
with terror, dumb, beneath that terrible apparition, like a dove
which should raise its head at the moment when the hawk is gazing
into her nest with its round eyes.
She could not even utter a cry. She saw the poniard descend upon
Phœbus, and rise again, reeking.
“Maledictions!” said the captain, and fell.
She fainted.
At the moment when her eyes closed, when all feeling vanished in
her, she thought that she felt a touch of fire imprinted upon her
lips, a kiss more burning than the red-hot iron of the
executioner.
When she recovered her senses, she was surrounded by soldiers of
the watch they were carrying away the captain, bathed in his
blood the priest had disappeared; the window at the back of the
room which opened on the river was wide open; they picked up a
cloak which they supposed to belong to the officer and she heard
them saying around her,
“’Tis a sorceress who has stabbed a captain.”
BOOK EIGHTH.
CHAPTER I. THE CROWN CHANGED INTO A DRY LEAF.
Gringoire and the entire Court of Miracles were suffering mortal
anxiety. For a whole month they had not known what had become of
la Esmeralda, which greatly pained the Duke of Egypt and his
friends the vagabonds, nor what had become of the goat, which
redoubled Gringoire’s grief. One evening the gypsy had
disappeared, and since that time had given no signs of life. All
search had proved fruitless. Some tormenting bootblacks had told
Gringoire about meeting her that same evening near the Pont
Saint-Michel, going off with an officer; but this husband, after
the fashion of Bohemia, was an incredulous philosopher, and
besides, he, better than any one else, knew to what a point his
wife was virginal. He had been able to form a judgment as to the
unconquerable modesty resulting from the combined virtues of the
amulet and the gypsy, and he had mathematically calculated the
resistance of that chastity to the second power. Accordingly, he
was at ease on that score.
Still he could not understand this disappearance. It was a
profound sorrow. He would have grown thin over it, had that been
possible. He had forgotten everything, even his literary tastes,
even his great work, _De figuris regularibus et irregularibus_,
which it was his intention to have printed with the first money
which he should procure (for he had raved over printing, ever
since he had seen the “Didascalon” of Hugues de Saint Victor,
printed with the celebrated characters of Vindelin de Spire).
One day, as he was passing sadly before the criminal Tournelle,
he perceived a considerable crowd at one of the gates of the
Palais de Justice.
“What is this?” he inquired of a young man who was coming out.
“I know not, sir,” replied the young man. “’Tis said that they
are trying a woman who hath assassinated a gendarme. It appears
that there is sorcery at the bottom of it, the archbishop and the
official have intervened in the case, and my brother, who is the
archdeacon of Josas, can think of nothing else. Now, I wished to
speak with him, but I have not been able to reach him because of
the throng, which vexes me greatly, as I stand in need of money.”
“Alas! sir,” said Gringoire, “I would that I could lend you some,
but, my breeches are worn to holes, and ’tis not crowns which
have done it.”
He dared not tell the young man that he was acquainted with his
brother the archdeacon, to whom he had not returned after the
scene in the church; a negligence which embarrassed him.
The scholar went his way, and Gringoire set out to follow the
crowd which was mounting the staircase of the great chamber. In
his opinion, there was nothing like the spectacle of a criminal
process for dissipating melancholy, so exhilaratingly stupid are
judges as a rule. The populace which he had joined walked and
elbowed in silence. After a slow and tiresome march through a
long, gloomy corridor, which wound through the court-house like
the intestinal canal of the ancient edifice, he arrived near a
low door, opening upon a hall which his lofty stature permitted
him to survey with a glance over the waving heads of the rabble.
The hall was vast and gloomy, which latter fact made it appear
still more spacious. The day was declining; the long, pointed
windows permitted only a pale ray of light to enter, which was
extinguished before it reached the vaulted ceiling, an enormous
trellis-work of sculptured beams, whose thousand figures seemed
to move confusedly in the shadows, many candles were already
lighted here and there on tables, and beaming on the heads of
clerks buried in masses of documents. The anterior portion of the
hall was occupied by the crowd; on the right and left were
magistrates and tables; at the end, upon a platform, a number of
judges, whose rear rank sank into the shadows, sinister and
motionless faces. The walls were sown with innumerable
fleurs-de-lis. A large figure of Christ might be vaguely descried
above the judges, and everywhere there were pikes and halberds,
upon whose points the reflection of the candles placed tips of
fire.
“Monsieur,” Gringoire inquired of one of his neighbors, “who are
all those persons ranged yonder, like prelates in council?”
“Monsieur,” replied the neighbor, “those on the right are the
counsellors of the grand chamber; those on the left, the
councillors of inquiry; the masters in black gowns, the messires
in red.”
“Who is that big red fellow, yonder above them, who is sweating?”
pursued Gringoire.
“It is monsieur the president.”
“And those sheep behind him?” continued Gringoire, who as we have
seen, did not love the magistracy, which arose, possibly, from
the grudge which he cherished against the Palais de Justice since
his dramatic misadventure.
“They are messieurs the masters of requests of the king’s
household.”
“And that boar in front of him?”
“He is monsieur the clerk of the Court of Parliament.”
“And that crocodile on the right?”
“Master Philippe Lheulier, advocate extraordinary of the king.”
“And that big, black tom-cat on the left?”
“Master Jacques Charmolue, procurator of the king in the
Ecclesiastical Court, with the gentlemen of the officialty.”
“Come now, monsieur,” said Gringoire, “pray what are all those
fine fellows doing yonder?”
“They are judging.”
“Judging whom? I do not see the accused.”
“’Tis a woman, sir. You cannot see her. She has her back turned
to us, and she is hidden from us by the crowd. Stay, yonder she
is, where you see a group of partisans.”
“Who is the woman?” asked Gringoire. “Do you know her name?”
“No, monsieur, I have but just arrived. I merely assume that
there is some sorcery about it, since the official is present at
the trial.”
“Come!” said our philosopher, “we are going to see all these
magistrates devour human flesh. ’Tis as good a spectacle as any
other.”
“Monsieur,” remarked his neighbor, “think you not, that Master
Jacques Charmolue has a very sweet air?”
“Hum!” replied Gringoire. “I distrust a sweetness which hath
pinched nostrils and thin lips.”
Here the bystanders imposed silence upon the two chatterers. They
were listening to an important deposition.
“Messeigneurs,” said an old woman in the middle of the hall,
whose form was so concealed beneath her garments that one would
have pronounced her a walking heap of rags; “Messeigneurs, the
thing is as true as that I am la Falourdel, established these
forty years at the Pont Saint Michel, and paying regularly my
rents, lord’s dues, and quit rents; at the gate opposite the
house of Tassin-Caillart, the dyer, which is on the side up the
river—a poor old woman now, but a pretty maid in former days, my
lords. Some one said to me lately, ‘La Falourdel, don’t use your
spinning-wheel too much in the evening; the devil is fond of
combing the distaffs of old women with his horns. ’Tis certain
that the surly monk who was round about the temple last year, now
prowls in the City. Take care, La Falourdel, that he doth not
knock at your door.’ One evening I was spinning on my wheel,
there comes a knock at my door; I ask who it is. They swear. I
open. Two men enter. A man in black and a handsome officer. Of
the black man nothing could be seen but his eyes, two coals of
fire. All the rest was hat and cloak. They say to me,—‘The
Sainte-Marthe chamber.’—’Tis my upper chamber, my lords, my
cleanest. They give me a crown. I put the crown in my drawer, and
I say: ‘This shall go to buy tripe at the slaughter-house of la
Gloriette to-morrow.’ We go up stairs. On arriving at the upper
chamber, and while my back is turned, the black man disappears.
That dazed me a bit. The officer, who was as handsome as a great
lord, goes down stairs again with me. He goes out. In about the
time it takes to spin a quarter of a handful of flax, he returns
with a beautiful young girl, a doll who would have shone like the
sun had she been coiffed. She had with her a goat; a big
billy-goat, whether black or white, I no longer remember. That
set me to thinking. The girl does not concern me, but the goat! I
love not those beasts, they have a beard and horns. They are so
like a man. And then, they smack of the witches, sabbath.
However, I say nothing. I had the crown. That is right, is it
not, Monsieur Judge? I show the captain and the wench to the
upper chamber, and I leave them alone; that is to say, with the
goat. I go down and set to spinning again—I must inform you that
my house has a ground floor and story above. I know not why I
fell to thinking of the surly monk whom the goat had put into my
head again, and then the beautiful girl was rather strangely
decked out. All at once, I hear a cry upstairs, and something
falls on the floor and the window opens. I run to mine which is
beneath it, and I behold a black mass pass before my eyes and
fall into the water. It was a phantom clad like a priest. It was
a moonlight night. I saw him quite plainly. He was swimming in
the direction of the city. Then, all of a tremble, I call the
watch. The gentlemen of the police enter, and not knowing just at
the first moment what the matter was, and being merry, they beat
me. I explain to them. We go up stairs, and what do we find? my
poor chamber all blood, the captain stretched out at full length
with a dagger in his neck, the girl pretending to be dead, and
the goat all in a fright. ‘Pretty work!’ I say, ‘I shall have to
wash that floor for more than a fortnight. It will have to be
scraped; it will be a terrible job.’ They carried off the
officer, poor young man, and the wench with her bosom all bare.
But wait, the worst is that on the next day, when I wanted to
take the crown to buy tripe, I found a dead leaf in its place.”
The old woman ceased. A murmur of horror ran through the
audience.
“That phantom, that goat,—all smacks of magic,” said one of
Gringoire’s neighbors.
“And that dry leaf!” added another.
“No doubt about it,” joined in a third, “she is a witch who has
dealings with the surly monk, for the purpose of plundering
officers.”
Gringoire himself was not disinclined to regard this as
altogether alarming and probable.
“Goody Falourdel,” said the president majestically, “have you
nothing more to communicate to the court?”
“No, monseigneur,” replied the crone, “except that the report has
described my house as a hovel and stinking; which is an
outrageous fashion of speaking. The houses on the bridge are not
imposing, because there are such multitudes of people; but,
nevertheless, the butchers continue to dwell there, who are
wealthy folk, and married to very proper and handsome women.”
The magistrate who had reminded Gringoire of a crocodile rose,—
“Silence!” said he. “I pray the gentlemen not to lose sight of
the fact that a dagger was found on the person of the accused.
Goody Falourdel, have you brought that leaf into which the crown
which the demon gave you was transformed?
“Yes, monseigneur,” she replied; “I found it again. Here it is.”
A bailiff handed the dead leaf to the crocodile, who made a
doleful shake of the head, and passed it on to the president, who
gave it to the procurator of the king in the ecclesiastical
court, and thus it made the circuit of the hall.
“It is a birch leaf,” said Master Jacques Charmolue. “A fresh
proof of magic.”
A counsellor took up the word.
“Witness, two men went upstairs together in your house: the black
man, whom you first saw disappear and afterwards swimming in the
Seine, with his priestly garments, and the officer. Which of the
two handed you the crown?” The old woman pondered for a moment
and then said,—
“The officer.”
A murmur ran through the crowd.
“Ah!” thought Gringoire, “this makes some doubt in my mind.”
But Master Philippe Lheulier, advocate extraordinary to the king,
interposed once more.
“I will recall to these gentlemen, that in the deposition taken
at his bedside, the assassinated officer, while declaring that he
had a vague idea when the black man accosted him that the latter
might be the surly monk, added that the phantom had pressed him
eagerly to go and make acquaintance with the accused; and upon
his, the captain’s, remarking that he had no money, he had given
him the crown which the said officer paid to la Falourdel. Hence,
that crown is the money of hell.”
This conclusive observation appeared to dissipate all the doubts
of Gringoire and the other sceptics in the audience.
“You have the documents, gentlemen,” added the king’s advocate,
as he took his seat; “you can consult the testimony of Phœbus de
Châteaupers.”
At that name, the accused sprang up, her head rose above the
throng. Gringoire with horror recognized la Esmeralda.
She was pale; her tresses, formerly so gracefully braided and
spangled with sequins, hung in disorder; her lips were blue, her
hollow eyes were terrible. Alas!
“Phœbus!” she said, in bewilderment; “where is he? O
messeigneurs! before you kill me, tell me, for pity sake, whether
he still lives?”
“Hold your tongue, woman,” replied the president, “that is no
affair of ours.”
“Oh! for mercy’s sake, tell me if he is alive!” she repeated,
clasping her beautiful emaciated hands; and the sound of her
chains in contact with her dress, was heard.
“Well!” said the king’s advocate roughly, “he is dying. Are you
satisfied?”
The unhappy girl fell back on her criminal’s seat, speechless,
tearless, white as a wax figure.
The president bent down to a man at his feet, who wore a gold cap
and a black gown, a chain on his neck and a wand in his hand.
“Bailiff, bring in the second accused.”
All eyes turned towards a small door, which opened, and, to the
great agitation of Gringoire, gave passage to a pretty goat with
horns and hoofs of gold. The elegant beast halted for a moment on
the threshold, stretching out its neck as though, perched on the
summit of a rock, it had before its eyes an immense horizon.
Suddenly it caught sight of the gypsy girl, and leaping over the
table and the head of a clerk, in two bounds it was at her knees;
then it rolled gracefully on its mistress’s feet, soliciting a
word or a caress; but the accused remained motionless, and poor
Djali himself obtained not a glance.
“Eh, why—’tis my villanous beast,” said old Falourdel, “I
recognize the two perfectly!”
Jacques Charmolue interfered.
“If the gentlemen please, we will proceed to the examination of
the goat.” He was, in fact, the second criminal. Nothing more
simple in those days than a suit of sorcery instituted against an
animal. We find, among others in the accounts of the provost’s
office for 1466, a curious detail concerning the expenses of the
trial of Gillet-Soulart and his sow, “executed for their
demerits,” at Corbeil. Everything is there, the cost of the pens
in which to place the sow, the five hundred bundles of brushwood
purchased at the port of Morsant, the three pints of wine and the
bread, the last repast of the victim fraternally shared by the
executioner, down to the eleven days of guard and food for the
sow, at eight deniers parisis each. Sometimes, they went even
further than animals. The capitularies of Charlemagne and of
Louis le Débonnaire impose severe penalties on fiery phantoms
which presume to appear in the air.
Meanwhile the procurator had exclaimed: “If the demon which
possesses this goat, and which has resisted all exorcisms,
persists in its deeds of witchcraft, if it alarms the court with
them, we warn it that we shall be forced to put in requisition
against it the gallows or the stake. Gringoire broke out into a
cold perspiration. Charmolue took from the table the gypsy’s
tambourine, and presenting it to the goat, in a certain manner,
asked the latter,—
“What o’clock is it?”
The goat looked at it with an intelligent eye, raised its gilded
hoof, and struck seven blows.
It was, in fact, seven o’clock. A movement of terror ran through
the crowd.
Gringoire could not endure it.
“He is destroying himself!” he cried aloud; “You see well that he
does not know what he is doing.”
“Silence among the louts at the end of the hall!” said the
bailiff sharply.
Jacques Charmolue, by the aid of the same manœuvres of the
tambourine, made the goat perform many other tricks connected
with the date of the day, the month of the year, etc., which the
reader has already witnessed. And, by virtue of an optical
illusion peculiar to judicial proceedings, these same spectators
who had, probably, more than once applauded in the public square
Djali’s innocent magic were terrified by it beneath the roof of
the Palais de Justice. The goat was undoubtedly the devil.
It was far worse when the procurator of the king, having emptied
upon a floor a certain bag filled with movable letters, which
Djali wore round his neck, they beheld the goat extract with his
hoof from the scattered alphabet the fatal name of _Phœbus_. The
witchcraft of which the captain had been the victim appeared
irresistibly demonstrated, and in the eyes of all, the gypsy,
that ravishing dancer, who had so often dazzled the passers-by
with her grace, was no longer anything but a frightful vampire.
However, she betrayed no sign of life; neither Djali’s graceful
evolutions, nor the menaces of the court, nor the suppressed
imprecations of the spectators any longer reached her mind.
In order to arouse her, a police officer was obliged to shake her
unmercifully, and the president had to raise his voice,—
“Girl, you are of the Bohemian race, addicted to deeds of
witchcraft. You, in complicity with the bewitched goat implicated
in this suit, during the night of the twenty-ninth of March last,
murdered and stabbed, in concert with the powers of darkness, by
the aid of charms and underhand practices, a captain of the
king’s arches of the watch, Phœbus de Châteaupers. Do you persist
in denying it?”
“Horror!” exclaimed the young girl, hiding her face in her hands.
“My Phœbus! Oh, this is hell!”
“Do you persist in your denial?” demanded the president coldly.
“Do I deny it?” she said with terrible accents; and she rose with
flashing eyes.
The president continued squarely,—
“Then how do you explain the facts laid to your charge?”
She replied in a broken voice,—
“I have already told you. I do not know. ’Twas a priest, a priest
whom I do not know; an infernal priest who pursues me!”
“That is it,” retorted the judge; “the surly monk.”
“Oh, gentlemen! have mercy! I am but a poor girl—”
“Of Egypt,” said the judge.
Master Jacques Charmolue interposed sweetly,—
“In view of the sad obstinacy of the accused, I demand the
application of the torture.”
“Granted,” said the president.
The unhappy girl quivered in every limb. But she rose at the
command of the men with partisans, and walked with a tolerably
firm step, preceded by Charmolue and the priests of the
officiality, between two rows of halberds, towards a medium-sized
door which suddenly opened and closed again behind her, and which
produced upon the grief-stricken Gringoire the effect of a
horrible mouth which had just devoured her.
When she disappeared, they heard a plaintive bleating; it was the
little goat mourning.
The sitting of the court was suspended. A counsellor having
remarked that the gentlemen were fatigued, and that it would be a
long time to wait until the torture was at an end, the president
replied that a magistrate must know how to sacrifice himself to
his duty.
“What an annoying and vexatious hussy,” said an aged judge, “to
get herself put to the question when one has not supped!”
CHAPTER II. CONTINUATION OF THE CROWN WHICH WAS CHANGED INTO A
DRY LEAF.
After ascending and descending several steps in the corridors,
which were so dark that they were lighted by lamps at midday, La
Esmeralda, still surrounded by her lugubrious escort, was thrust
by the police into a gloomy chamber. This chamber, circular in
form, occupied the ground floor of one of those great towers,
which, even in our own century, still pierce through the layer of
modern edifices with which modern Paris has covered ancient
Paris. There were no windows to this cellar; no other opening
than the entrance, which was low, and closed by an enormous iron
door. Nevertheless, light was not lacking; a furnace had been
constructed in the thickness of the wall; a large fire was
lighted there, which filled the vault with its crimson
reflections and deprived a miserable candle, which stood in one
corner, of all radiance. The iron grating which served to close
the oven, being raised at that moment, allowed only a view at the
mouth of the flaming vent-hole in the dark wall, the lower
extremity of its bars, like a row of black and pointed teeth, set
flat apart; which made the furnace resemble one of those mouths
of dragons which spout forth flames in ancient legends. By the
light which escaped from it, the prisoner beheld, all about the
room, frightful instruments whose use she did not understand. In
the centre lay a leather mattress, placed almost flat upon the
ground, over which hung a strap provided with a buckle, attached
to a brass ring in the mouth of a flat-nosed monster carved in
the keystone of the vault. Tongs, pincers, large ploughshares,
filled the interior of the furnace, and glowed in a confused heap
on the coals. The sanguine light of the furnace illuminated in
the chamber only a confused mass of horrible things.
This Tartarus was called simply, The Question Chamber.
On the bed, in a negligent attitude, sat Pierrat Torterue, the
official torturer. His underlings, two gnomes with square faces,
leather aprons, and linen breeches, were moving the iron
instruments on the coals.
In vain did the poor girl summon up her courage; on entering this
chamber she was stricken with horror.
The sergeants of the bailiff of the courts drew up in line on one
side, the priests of the officiality on the other. A clerk,
inkhorn, and a table were in one corner.
Master Jacques Charmolue approached the gypsy with a very sweet
smile.
“My dear child,” said he, “do you still persist in your denial?”
“Yes,” she replied, in a dying voice.
“In that case,” replied Charmolue, “it will be very painful for
us to have to question you more urgently than we should like.
Pray take the trouble to seat yourself on this bed. Master
Pierrat, make room for mademoiselle, and close the door.”
Pierrat rose with a growl.
“If I shut the door,” he muttered, “my fire will go out.”
“Well, my dear fellow,” replied Charmolue, “leave it open then.”
Meanwhile, la Esmeralda had remained standing. That leather bed
on which so many unhappy wretches had writhed, frightened her.
Terror chilled the very marrow of her bones; she stood there
bewildered and stupefied. At a sign from Charmolue, the two
assistants took her and placed her in a sitting posture on the
bed. They did her no harm; but when these men touched her, when
that leather touched her, she felt all her blood retreat to her
heart. She cast a frightened look around the chamber. It seemed
to her as though she beheld advancing from all quarters towards
her, with the intention of crawling up her body and biting and
pinching her, all those hideous implements of torture, which as
compared to the instruments of all sorts she had hitherto seen,
were like what bats, centipedes, and spiders are among insects
and birds.
“Where is the physician?” asked Charmolue.
“Here,” replied a black gown whom she had not before noticed.
She shuddered.
“Mademoiselle,” resumed the caressing voice of the procucrator of
the Ecclesiastical court, “for the third time, do you persist in
denying the deeds of which you are accused?”
This time she could only make a sign with her head.
“You persist?” said Jacques Charmolue. “Then it grieves me
deeply, but I must fulfil my office.”
“Monsieur le Procureur du Roi,” said Pierrat abruptly, “How shall
we begin?”
Charmolue hesitated for a moment with the ambiguous grimace of a
poet in search of a rhyme.
“With the boot,” he said at last.
The unfortunate girl felt herself so utterly abandoned by God and
men, that her head fell upon her breast like an inert thing which
has no power in itself.
The tormentor and the physician approached her simultaneously. At
the same time, the two assistants began to fumble among their
hideous arsenal.
At the clanking of their frightful irons, the unhappy child
quivered like a dead frog which is being galvanized. “Oh!” she
murmured, so low that no one heard her; “Oh, my Phœbus!” Then she
fell back once more into her immobility and her marble silence.
This spectacle would have rent any other heart than those of her
judges. One would have pronounced her a poor sinful soul, being
tortured by Satan beneath the scarlet wicket of hell. The
miserable body which that frightful swarm of saws, wheels, and
racks were about to clasp in their clutches, the being who was
about to be manipulated by the harsh hands of executioners and
pincers, was that gentle, white, fragile creature, a poor grain
of millet which human justice was handing over to the terrible
mills of torture to grind. Meanwhile, the callous hands of
Pierrat Torterue’s assistants had bared that charming leg, that
tiny foot, which had so often amazed the passers-by with their
delicacy and beauty, in the squares of Paris.
“’Tis a shame!” muttered the tormentor, glancing at these
graceful and delicate forms.
Had the archdeacon been present, he certainly would have recalled
at that moment his symbol of the spider and the fly. Soon the
unfortunate girl, through a mist which spread before her eyes,
beheld the boot approach; she soon beheld her foot encased
between iron plates disappear in the frightful apparatus. Then
terror restored her strength.
“Take that off!” she cried angrily; and drawing herself up, with
her hair all dishevelled: “Mercy!”
She darted from the bed to fling herself at the feet of the
king’s procurator, but her leg was fast in the heavy block of oak
and iron, and she sank down upon the boot, more crushed than a
bee with a lump of lead on its wing.
At a sign from Charmolue, she was replaced on the bed, and two
coarse hands adjusted to her delicate waist the strap which hung
from the ceiling.
“For the last time, do you confess the facts in the case?”
demanded Charmolue, with his imperturbable benignity.
“I am innocent.”
“Then, mademoiselle, how do you explain the circumstance laid to
your charge?”
“Alas, monseigneur, I do not know.”
“So you deny them?”
“All!”
“Proceed,” said Charmolue to Pierrat.
Pierrat turned the handle of the screw-jack, the boot was
contracted, and the unhappy girl uttered one of those horrible
cries which have no orthography in any human language.
“Stop!” said Charmolue to Pierrat. “Do you confess?” he said to
the gypsy.
“All!” cried the wretched girl. “I confess! I confess! Mercy!”
She had not calculated her strength when she faced the torture.
Poor child, whose life up to that time had been so joyous, so
pleasant, so sweet, the first pain had conquered her!
“Humanity forces me to tell you,” remarked the king’s procurator,
“that in confessing, it is death that you must expect.”
“I certainly hope so!” said she. And she fell back upon the
leather bed, dying, doubled up, allowing herself to hang
suspended from the strap buckled round her waist.
“Come, fair one, hold up a little,” said Master Pierrat, raising
her. “You have the air of the lamb of the Golden Fleece which
hangs from Monsieur de Bourgogne’s neck.”
Jacques Charmolue raised his voice,
“Clerk, write. Young Bohemian maid, you confess your
participation in the feasts, witches’ sabbaths, and witchcrafts
of hell, with ghosts, hags, and vampires? Answer.”
“Yes,” she said, so low that her words were lost in her
breathing.
“You confess to having seen the ram which Beelzebub causes to
appear in the clouds to call together the witches’ sabbath, and
which is beheld by socerers alone?”
“Yes.”
“You confess to having adored the heads of Bophomet, those
abominable idols of the Templars?”
“Yes.”
“To having had habitual dealings with the devil under the form of
a goat familiar, joined with you in the suit?”
“Yes.”
“Lastly, you avow and confess to having, with the aid of the
demon, and of the phantom vulgarly known as the surly monk, on
the night of the twenty-ninth of March last, murdered and
assassinated a captain named Phœbus de Châteaupers?”
She raised her large, staring eyes to the magistrate, and
replied, as though mechanically, without convulsion or
agitation,—
“Yes.”
It was evident that everything within her was broken.
“Write, clerk,” said Charmolue. And, addressing the torturers,
“Release the prisoner, and take her back to the court.”
When the prisoner had been “unbooted,” the procurator of the
ecclesiastical court examined her foot, which was still swollen
with pain. “Come,” said he, “there’s no great harm done. You
shrieked in good season. You could still dance, my beauty!”
Then he turned to his acolytes of the officiality,—
“Behold justice enlightened at last! This is a solace, gentlemen!
Madamoiselle will bear us witness that we have acted with all
possible gentleness.”
CHAPTER III. END OF THE CROWN WHICH WAS TURNED INTO A DRY LEAF.
When she re-entered the audience hall, pale and limping, she was
received with a general murmur of pleasure. On the part of the
audience there was the feeling of impatience gratified which one
experiences at the theatre at the end of the last entr’acte of
the comedy, when the curtain rises and the conclusion is about to
begin. On the part of the judges, it was the hope of getting
their suppers sooner.
The little goat also bleated with joy. He tried to run towards
his mistress, but they had tied him to the bench.
Night was fully set in. The candles, whose number had not been
increased, cast so little light, that the walls of the hall could
not be seen. The shadows there enveloped all objects in a sort of
mist. A few apathetic faces of judges alone could be dimly
discerned. Opposite them, at the extremity of the long hall, they
could see a vaguely white point standing out against the sombre
background. This was the accused.
She had dragged herself to her place. When Charmolue had
installed himself in a magisterial manner in his own, he seated
himself, then rose and said, without exhibiting too much
self-complacency at his success,—“The accused has confessed all.”
“Bohemian girl,” the president continued, “have you avowed all
your deeds of magic, prostitution, and assassination on Phœbus de
Châteaupers.”
Her heart contracted. She was heard to sob amid the darkness.
“Anything you like,” she replied feebly, “but kill me quickly!”
“Monsieur, procurator of the king in the ecclesiastical courts,”
said the president, “the chamber is ready to hear you in your
charge.”
Master Charmolue exhibited an alarming note book, and began to
read, with many gestures and the exaggerated accentuation of the
pleader, an oration in Latin, wherein all the proofs of the suit
were piled up in Ciceronian periphrases, flanked with quotations
from Plautus, his favorite comic author. We regret that we are
not able to offer to our readers this remarkable piece. The
orator pronounced it with marvellous action. Before he had
finished the exordium, the perspiration was starting from his
brow, and his eyes from his head.
All at once, in the middle of a fine period, he interrupted
himself, and his glance, ordinarily so gentle and even stupid,
became menacing.
“Gentlemen,” he exclaimed (this time in French, for it was not in
his copy book), “Satan is so mixed up in this affair, that here
he is present at our debates, and making sport of their majesty.
Behold!”
So saying, he pointed to the little goat, who, on seeing
Charmolue gesticulating, had, in point of fact, thought it
appropriate to do the same, and had seated himself on his
haunches, reproducing to the best of his ability, with his
forepaws and his bearded head the pathetic pantomine of the
king’s procurator in the ecclesiastical court. This was, if the
reader remembers, one of his prettiest accomplishments. This
incident, this last proof, produced a great effect. The goat’s
hoofs were tied, and the king’s procurator resumed the thread of
his eloquence.
It was very long, but the peroration was admirable. Here is the
concluding phrase; let the reader add the hoarse voice and the
breathless gestures of Master Charmolue,
“_Ideo, domni, coram stryga demonstrata, crimine patente,
intentione criminis existente, in nomine sanctæ ecclesiæ
Nostræ-Dominæ Parisiensis quæ est in saisina habendi omnimodam
altam et bassam justitiam in illa hac intemerata Civitatis
insula, tenore præsentium declaremus nos requirere, primo,
aliquamdam pecuniariam indemnitatem; secundo, amendationem
honorabilem ante portalium maximum Nostræ-Dominæ, ecclesiæ
cathedralis; tertio, sententiam in virtute cujus ista styrga cum
sua capella, seu in trivio vulgariter dicto_ la Grève, _seu in
insula exeunte in fluvio Secanæ, juxta pointam juardini regalis,
executatæ sint!_”[45]
He put on his cap again and seated himself.
“_Eheu!_” sighed the broken-hearted Gringoire, “_bassa
latinitas_—bastard latin!”
Another man in a black gown rose near the accused; he was her
lawyer. The judges, who were fasting, began to grumble.
“Advocate, be brief,” said the president.
“Monsieur the President,” replied the advocate, “since the
defendant has confessed the crime, I have only one word to say to
these gentlemen. Here is a text from the Salic law; ‘If a witch
hath eaten a man, and if she be convicted of it, she shall pay a
fine of eight thousand deniers, which amount to two hundred sous
of gold.’ May it please the chamber to condemn my client to the
fine?”
“An abrogated text,” said the advocate extraordinary of the king.
“_Nego_, I deny it,” replied the advocate.
“Put it to the vote!” said one of the councillors; “the crime is
manifest, and it is late.”
They proceeded to take a vote without leaving the room. The
judges signified their assent without giving their reasons, they
were in a hurry. Their capped heads were seen uncovering one
after the other, in the gloom, at the lugubrious question
addressed to them by the president in a low voice. The poor
accused had the appearance of looking at them, but her troubled
eye no longer saw.
Then the clerk began to write; then he handed a long parchment to
the president.
Then the unhappy girl heard the people moving, the pikes
clashing, and a freezing voice saying to her,—
“Bohemian wench, on the day when it shall seem good to our lord
the king, at the hour of noon, you will be taken in a tumbrel, in
your shift, with bare feet, and a rope about your neck, before
the grand portal of Notre-Dame, and you will there make an
apology with a wax torch of the weight of two pounds in your
hand, and thence you will be conducted to the Place de Grève,
where you will be hanged and strangled on the town gibbet; and
likewise your goat; and you will pay to the official three lions
of gold, in reparation of the crimes by you committed and by you
confessed, of sorcery and magic, debauchery and murder, upon the
person of the Sieur Phœbus de Châteaupers. May God have mercy on
your soul!”
“Oh! ’tis a dream!” she murmured; and she felt rough hands
bearing her away.
CHAPTER IV. _LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA_—LEAVE ALL HOPE BEHIND, YE
WHO ENTER HERE.
In the Middle Ages, when an edifice was complete, there was
almost as much of it in the earth as above it. Unless built upon
piles, like Notre-Dame, a palace, a fortress, a church, had
always a double bottom. In cathedrals, it was, in some sort,
another subterranean cathedral, low, dark, mysterious, blind, and
mute, under the upper nave which was overflowing with light and
reverberating with organs and bells day and night. Sometimes it
was a sepulchre. In palaces, in fortresses, it was a prison,
sometimes a sepulchre also, sometimes both together. These mighty
buildings, whose mode of formation and _vegetation_ we have
elsewhere explained, had not simply _foundations_, but, so to
speak, roots which ran branching through the soil in chambers,
galleries, and staircases, like the construction above. Thus
churches, palaces, fortresses, had the earth half way up their
bodies. The cellars of an edifice formed another edifice, into
which one descended instead of ascending, and which extended its
subterranean grounds under the external piles of the monument,
like those forests and mountains which are reversed in the
mirror-like waters of a lake, beneath the forests and mountains
of the banks.
At the fortress of Saint-Antoine, at the Palais de Justice of
Paris, at the Louvre, these subterranean edifices were prisons.
The stories of these prisons, as they sank into the soil, grew
constantly narrower and more gloomy. They were so many zones,
where the shades of horror were graduated. Dante could never
imagine anything better for his hell. These tunnels of cells
usually terminated in a sack of a lowest dungeon, with a vat-like
bottom, where Dante placed Satan, where society placed those
condemned to death. A miserable human existence, once interred
there; farewell light, air, life, _ogni speranza_—every hope; it
only came forth to the scaffold or the stake. Sometimes it rotted
there; human justice called this _forgetting_. Between men and
himself, the condemned man felt a pile of stones and jailers
weighing down upon his head; and the entire prison, the massive
bastille was nothing more than an enormous, complicated lock,
which barred him off from the rest of the world.
It was in a sloping cavity of this description, in the
_oubliettes_ excavated by Saint-Louis, in the _inpace_ of the
Tournelle, that la Esmeralda had been placed on being condemned
to death, through fear of her escape, no doubt, with the colossal
court-house over her head. Poor fly, who could not have lifted
even one of its blocks of stone!
Assuredly, Providence and society had been equally unjust; such
an excess of unhappiness and of torture was not necessary to
break so frail a creature.
There she lay, lost in the shadows, buried, hidden, immured. Any
one who could have beheld her in this state, after having seen
her laugh and dance in the sun, would have shuddered. Cold as
night, cold as death, not a breath of air in her tresses, not a
human sound in her ear, no longer a ray of light in her eyes;
snapped in twain, crushed with chains, crouching beside a jug and
a loaf, on a little straw, in a pool of water, which was formed
under her by the sweating of the prison walls; without motion,
almost without breath, she had no longer the power to suffer;
Phœbus, the sun, midday, the open air, the streets of Paris, the
dances with applause, the sweet babblings of love with the
officer; then the priest, the old crone, the poignard, the blood,
the torture, the gibbet; all this did, indeed, pass before her
mind, sometimes as a charming and golden vision, sometimes as a
hideous nightmare; but it was no longer anything but a vague and
horrible struggle, lost in the gloom, or distant music played up
above ground, and which was no longer audible at the depth where
the unhappy girl had fallen.
Since she had been there, she had neither waked nor slept. In
that misfortune, in that cell, she could no longer distinguish
her waking hours from slumber, dreams from reality, any more than
day from night. All this was mixed, broken, floating,
disseminated confusedly in her thought. She no longer felt, she
no longer knew, she no longer thought; at the most, she only
dreamed. Never had a living creature been thrust more deeply into
nothingness.
Thus benumbed, frozen, petrified, she had barely noticed on two
or three occasions, the sound of a trapdoor opening somewhere
above her, without even permitting the passage of a little light,
and through which a hand had tossed her a bit of black bread.
Nevertheless, this periodical visit of the jailer was the sole
communication which was left her with mankind.
A single thing still mechanically occupied her ear; above her
head, the dampness was filtering through the mouldy stones of the
vault, and a drop of water dropped from them at regular
intervals. She listened stupidly to the noise made by this drop
of water as it fell into the pool beside her.
This drop of water falling from time to time into that pool, was
the only movement which still went on around her, the only clock
which marked the time, the only noise which reached her of all
the noise made on the surface of the earth.
To tell the whole, however, she also felt, from time to time, in
that cesspool of mire and darkness, something cold passing over
her foot or her arm, and she shuddered.
How long had she been there? She did not know. She had a
recollection of a sentence of death pronounced somewhere, against
some one, then of having been herself carried away, and of waking
up in darkness and silence, chilled to the heart. She had dragged
herself along on her hands. Then iron rings that cut her ankles,
and chains had rattled. She had recognized the fact that all
around her was wall, that below her there was a pavement covered
with moisture and a truss of straw; but neither lamp nor
air-hole. Then she had seated herself on that straw and,
sometimes, for the sake of changing her attitude, on the last
stone step in her dungeon. For a while she had tried to count the
black minutes measured off for her by the drop of water; but that
melancholy labor of an ailing brain had broken off of itself in
her head, and had left her in stupor.
At length, one day, or one night, (for midnight and midday were
of the same color in that sepulchre), she heard above her a
louder noise than was usually made by the turnkey when he brought
her bread and jug of water. She raised her head, and beheld a ray
of reddish light passing through the crevices in the sort of
trapdoor contrived in the roof of the _inpace_.
At the same time, the heavy lock creaked, the trap grated on its
rusty hinges, turned, and she beheld a lantern, a hand, and the
lower portions of the bodies of two men, the door being too low
to admit of her seeing their heads. The light pained her so
acutely that she shut her eyes.
When she opened them again the door was closed, the lantern was
deposited on one of the steps of the staircase; a man alone stood
before her. A monk’s black cloak fell to his feet, a cowl of the
same color concealed his face. Nothing was visible of his person,
neither face nor hands. It was a long, black shroud standing
erect, and beneath which something could be felt moving. She
gazed fixedly for several minutes at this sort of spectre. But
neither he nor she spoke. One would have pronounced them two
statues confronting each other. Two things only seemed alive in
that cavern; the wick of the lantern, which sputtered on account
of the dampness of the atmosphere, and the drop of water from the
roof, which cut this irregular sputtering with its monotonous
splash, and made the light of the lantern quiver in concentric
waves on the oily water of the pool.
At last the prisoner broke the silence.
“Who are you?”
“A priest.”
The words, the accent, the sound of his voice made her tremble.
The priest continued, in a hollow voice,—
“Are you prepared?”
“For what?”
“To die.”
“Oh!” said she, “will it be soon?”
“To-morrow.”
Her head, which had been raised with joy, fell back upon her
breast.
“’Tis very far away yet!” she murmured; “why could they not have
done it to-day?”
“Then you are very unhappy?” asked the priest, after a silence.
“I am very cold,” she replied.
She took her feet in her hands, a gesture habitual with unhappy
wretches who are cold, as we have already seen in the case of the
recluse of the Tour-Roland, and her teeth chattered.
The priest appeared to cast his eyes around the dungeon from
beneath his cowl.
“Without light! without fire! in the water! it is horrible!”
“Yes,” she replied, with the bewildered air which unhappiness had
given her. “The day belongs to every one, why do they give me
only night?”
“Do you know,” resumed the priest, after a fresh silence, “why
you are here?”
“I thought I knew once,” she said, passing her thin fingers over
her eyelids, as though to aid her memory, “but I know no longer.”
All at once she began to weep like a child.
“I should like to get away from here, sir. I am cold, I am
afraid, and there are creatures which crawl over my body.”
“Well, follow me.”
So saying, the priest took her arm. The unhappy girl was frozen
to her very soul. Yet that hand produced an impression of cold
upon her.
“Oh!” she murmured, “’tis the icy hand of death. Who are you?”
The priest threw back his cowl; she looked. It was the sinister
visage which had so long pursued her; that demon’s head which had
appeared at la Falourdel’s, above the head of her adored Phœbus;
that eye which she last had seen glittering beside a dagger.
This apparition, always so fatal for her, and which had thus
driven her on from misfortune to misfortune, even to torture,
roused her from her stupor. It seemed to her that the sort of
veil which had lain thick upon her memory was rent away. All the
details of her melancholy adventure, from the nocturnal scene at
la Falourdel’s to her condemnation to the Tournelle, recurred to
her memory, no longer vague and confused as heretofore, but
distinct, harsh, clear, palpitating, terrible. These souvenirs,
half effaced and almost obliterated by excess of suffering, were
revived by the sombre figure which stood before her, as the
approach of fire causes letters traced upon white paper with
invisible ink, to start out perfectly fresh. It seemed to her
that all the wounds of her heart opened and bled simultaneously.
“Hah!” she cried, with her hands on her eyes, and a convulsive
trembling, “’tis the priest!”
Then she dropped her arms in discouragement, and remained seated,
with lowered head, eyes fixed on the ground, mute and still
trembling.
The priest gazed at her with the eye of a hawk which has long
been soaring in a circle from the heights of heaven over a poor
lark cowering in the wheat, and has long been silently
contracting the formidable circles of his flight, and has
suddenly swooped down upon his prey like a flash of lightning,
and holds it panting in his talons.
She began to murmur in a low voice,—
“Finish! finish! the last blow!” and she drew her head down in
terror between her shoulders, like the lamb awaiting the blow of
the butcher’s axe.
“So I inspire you with horror?” he said at length.
She made no reply.
“Do I inspire you with horror?” he repeated.
Her lips contracted, as though with a smile.
“Yes,” said she, “the headsman scoffs at the condemned. Here he
has been pursuing me, threatening me, terrifying me for months!
Had it not been for him, my God, how happy it should have been!
It was he who cast me into this abyss! Oh heavens! it was he who
killed him! my Phœbus!”
Here, bursting into sobs, and raising her eyes to the priest,—
“Oh! wretch, who are you? What have I done to you? Do you then,
hate me so? Alas! what have you against me?”
“I love thee!” cried the priest.
Her tears suddenly ceased, she gazed at him with the look of an
idiot. He had fallen on his knees and was devouring her with eyes
of flame.
“Dost thou understand? I love thee!” he cried again.
“What love!” said the unhappy girl with a shudder.
He resumed,—
“The love of a damned soul.”
Both remained silent for several minutes, crushed beneath the
weight of their emotions; he maddened, she stupefied.
“Listen,” said the priest at last, and a singular calm had come
over him; “you shall know all I am about to tell you that which I
have hitherto hardly dared to say to myself, when furtively
interrogating my conscience at those deep hours of the night when
it is so dark that it seems as though God no longer saw us.
Listen. Before I knew you, young girl, I was happy.”
“So was I!” she sighed feebly.
“Do not interrupt me. Yes, I was happy, at least I believed
myself to be so. I was pure, my soul was filled with limpid
light. No head was raised more proudly and more radiantly than
mine. Priests consulted me on chastity; doctors, on doctrines.
Yes, science was all in all to me; it was a sister to me, and a
sister sufficed. Not but that with age other ideas came to me.
More than once my flesh had been moved as a woman’s form passed
by. That force of sex and blood which, in the madness of youth, I
had imagined that I had stifled forever had, more than once,
convulsively raised the chain of iron vows which bind me, a
miserable wretch, to the cold stones of the altar. But fasting,
prayer, study, the mortifications of the cloister, rendered my
soul mistress of my body once more, and then I avoided women.
Moreover, I had but to open a book, and all the impure mists of
my brain vanished before the splendors of science. In a few
moments, I felt the gross things of earth flee far away, and I
found myself once more calm, quieted, and serene, in the presence
of the tranquil radiance of eternal truth. As long as the demon
sent to attack me only vague shadows of women who passed
occasionally before my eyes in church, in the streets, in the
fields, and who hardly recurred to my dreams, I easily vanquished
him. Alas! if the victory has not remained with me, it is the
fault of God, who has not created man and the demon of equal
force. Listen. One day—”
Here the priest paused, and the prisoner heard sighs of anguish
break from his breast with a sound of the death rattle.
He resumed,—
“One day I was leaning on the window of my cell. What book was I
reading then? Oh! all that is a whirlwind in my head. I was
reading. The window opened upon a Square. I heard a sound of
tambourine and music. Annoyed at being thus disturbed in my
revery, I glanced into the Square. What I beheld, others saw
beside myself, and yet it was not a spectacle made for human
eyes. There, in the middle of the pavement,—it was midday, the
sun was shining brightly,—a creature was dancing. A creature so
beautiful that God would have preferred her to the Virgin and
have chosen her for his mother and have wished to be born of her
if she had been in existence when he was made man! Her eyes were
black and splendid; in the midst of her black locks, some hairs
through which the sun shone glistened like threads of gold. Her
feet disappeared in their movements like the spokes of a rapidly
turning wheel. Around her head, in her black tresses, there were
disks of metal, which glittered in the sun, and formed a coronet
of stars on her brow. Her dress thick set with spangles, blue,
and dotted with a thousand sparks, gleamed like a summer night.
Her brown, supple arms twined and untwined around her waist, like
two scarfs. The form of her body was surprisingly beautiful. Oh!
what a resplendent figure stood out, like something luminous even
in the sunlight! Alas, young girl, it was thou! Surprised,
intoxicated, charmed, I allowed myself to gaze upon thee. I
looked so long that I suddenly shuddered with terror; I felt that
fate was seizing hold of me.”
The priest paused for a moment, overcome with emotion. Then he
continued,—
“Already half fascinated, I tried to cling fast to something and
hold myself back from falling. I recalled the snares which Satan
had already set for me. The creature before my eyes possessed
that superhuman beauty which can come only from heaven or hell.
It was no simple girl made with a little of our earth, and dimly
lighted within by the vacillating ray of a woman’s soul. It was
an angel! but of shadows and flame, and not of light. At the
moment when I was meditating thus, I beheld beside you a goat, a
beast of witches, which smiled as it gazed at me. The midday sun
gave him golden horns. Then I perceived the snare of the demon,
and I no longer doubted that you had come from hell and that you
had come thence for my perdition. I believed it.”
Here the priest looked the prisoner full in the face, and added,
coldly,—
“I believe it still. Nevertheless, the charm operated little by
little; your dancing whirled through my brain; I felt the
mysterious spell working within me. All that should have awakened
was lulled to sleep; and like those who die in the snow, I felt
pleasure in allowing this sleep to draw on. All at once, you
began to sing. What could I do, unhappy wretch? Your song was
still more charming than your dancing. I tried to flee.
Impossible. I was nailed, rooted to the spot. It seemed to me
that the marble of the pavement had risen to my knees. I was
forced to remain until the end. My feet were like ice, my head
was on fire. At last you took pity on me, you ceased to sing, you
disappeared. The reflection of the dazzling vision, the
reverberation of the enchanting music disappeared by degrees from
my eyes and my ears. Then I fell back into the embrasure of the
window, more rigid, more feeble than a statue torn from its base.
The vesper bell roused me. I drew myself up; I fled; but alas!
something within me had fallen never to rise again, something had
come upon me from which I could not flee.”
He made another pause and went on,—
“Yes, dating from that day, there was within me a man whom I did
not know. I tried to make use of all my remedies. The cloister,
the altar, work, books,—follies! Oh, how hollow does science
sound when one in despair dashes against it a head full of
passions! Do you know, young girl, what I saw thenceforth between
my book and me? You, your shade, the image of the luminous
apparition which had one day crossed the space before me. But
this image had no longer the same color; it was sombre, funereal,
gloomy as the black circle which long pursues the vision of the
imprudent man who has gazed intently at the sun.
“Unable to rid myself of it, since I heard your song humming ever
in my head, beheld your feet dancing always on my breviary, felt
even at night, in my dreams, your form in contact with my own, I
desired to see you again, to touch you, to know who you were, to
see whether I should really find you like the ideal image which I
had retained of you, to shatter my dream, perchance, with
reality. At all events, I hoped that a new impression would
efface the first, and the first had become insupportable. I
sought you. I saw you once more. Calamity! When I had seen you
twice, I wanted to see you a thousand times, I wanted to see you
always. Then—how stop myself on that slope of hell?—then I no
longer belonged to myself. The other end of the thread which the
demon had attached to my wings he had fastened to his foot. I
became vagrant and wandering like yourself. I waited for you
under porches, I stood on the lookout for you at the street
corners, I watched for you from the summit of my tower. Every
evening I returned to myself more charmed, more despairing, more
bewitched, more lost!
“I had learned who you were; an Egyptian, Bohemian, gypsy,
zingara. How could I doubt the magic? Listen. I hoped that a
trial would free me from the charm. A witch enchanted Bruno
d’Ast; he had her burned, and was cured. I knew it. I wanted to
try the remedy. First I tried to have you forbidden the square in
front of Notre-Dame, hoping to forget you if you returned no
more. You paid no heed to it. You returned. Then the idea of
abducting you occurred to me. One night I made the attempt. There
were two of us. We already had you in our power, when that
miserable officer came up. He delivered you. Thus did he begin
your unhappiness, mine, and his own. Finally, no longer knowing
what to do, and what was to become of me, I denounced you to the
official.
“I thought that I should be cured like Bruno d’Ast. I also had a
confused idea that a trial would deliver you into my hands; that,
as a prisoner I should hold you, I should have you; that there
you could not escape from me; that you had already possessed me a
sufficiently long time to give me the right to possess you in my
turn. When one does wrong, one must do it thoroughly. ’Tis
madness to halt midway in the monstrous! The extreme of crime has
its deliriums of joy. A priest and a witch can mingle in delight
upon the truss of straw in a dungeon!
“Accordingly, I denounced you. It was then that I terrified you
when we met. The plot which I was weaving against you, the storm
which I was heaping up above your head, burst from me in threats
and lightning glances. Still, I hesitated. My project had its
terrible sides which made me shrink back.
“Perhaps I might have renounced it; perhaps my hideous thought
would have withered in my brain, without bearing fruit. I thought
that it would always depend upon me to follow up or discontinue
this prosecution. But every evil thought is inexorable, and
insists on becoming a deed; but where I believed myself to be all
powerful, fate was more powerful than I. Alas! ’tis fate which
has seized you and delivered you to the terrible wheels of the
machine which I had constructed doubly. Listen. I am nearing the
end.
“One day,—again the sun was shining brilliantly—I behold a man
pass me uttering your name and laughing, who carries sensuality
in his eyes. Damnation! I followed him; you know the rest.”
He ceased.
The young girl could find but one word:
“Oh, my Phœbus!”
“Not that name!” said the priest, grasping her arm violently.
“Utter not that name! Oh! miserable wretches that we are, ’tis
that name which has ruined us! or, rather we have ruined each
other by the inexplicable play of fate! you are suffering, are
you not? you are cold; the night makes you blind, the dungeon
envelops you; but perhaps you still have some light in the bottom
of your soul, were it only your childish love for that empty man
who played with your heart, while I bear the dungeon within me;
within me there is winter, ice, despair; I have night in my soul.
“Do you know what I have suffered? I was present at your trial. I
was seated on the official’s bench. Yes, under one of the
priests’ cowls, there were the contortions of the damned. When
you were brought in, I was there; when you were questioned, I was
there.—Den of wolves!—It was my crime, it was my gallows that I
beheld being slowly reared over your head. I was there for every
witness, every proof, every plea; I could count each of your
steps in the painful path; I was still there when that ferocious
beast—oh! I had not foreseen torture! Listen. I followed you to
that chamber of anguish. I beheld you stripped and handled, half
naked, by the infamous hands of the tormentor. I beheld your
foot, that foot which I would have given an empire to kiss and
die, that foot, beneath which to have had my head crushed I
should have felt such rapture,—I beheld it encased in that
horrible boot, which converts the limbs of a living being into
one bloody clod. Oh, wretch! while I looked on at that, I held
beneath my shroud a dagger, with which I lacerated my breast.
When you uttered that cry, I plunged it into my flesh; at a
second cry, it would have entered my heart. Look! I believe that
it still bleeds.”
He opened his cassock. His breast was in fact, mangled as by the
claw of a tiger, and on his side he had a large and badly healed
wound.
The prisoner recoiled with horror.
“Oh!” said the priest, “young girl, have pity upon me! You think
yourself unhappy; alas! alas! you know not what unhappiness is.
Oh! to love a woman! to be a priest! to be hated! to love with
all the fury of one’s soul; to feel that one would give for the
least of her smiles, one’s blood, one’s vitals, one’s fame, one’s
salvation, one’s immortality and eternity, this life and the
other; to regret that one is not a king, emperor, archangel, God,
in order that one might place a greater slave beneath her feet;
to clasp her night and day in one’s dreams and one’s thoughts,
and to behold her in love with the trappings of a soldier and to
have nothing to offer her but a priest’s dirty cassock, which
will inspire her with fear and disgust! To be present with one’s
jealousy and one’s rage, while she lavishes on a miserable,
blustering imbecile, treasures of love and beauty! To behold that
body whose form burns you, that bosom which possesses so much
sweetness, that flesh palpitate and blush beneath the kisses of
another! Oh heaven! to love her foot, her arm, her shoulder, to
think of her blue veins, of her brown skin, until one writhes for
whole nights together on the pavement of one’s cell, and to
behold all those caresses which one has dreamed of, end in
torture! To have succeeded only in stretching her upon the
leather bed! Oh! these are the veritable pincers, reddened in the
fires of hell. Oh! blessed is he who is sawn between two planks,
or torn in pieces by four horses! Do you know what that torture
is, which is imposed upon you for long nights by your burning
arteries, your bursting heart, your breaking head, your
teeth-knawed hands; mad tormentors which turn you incessantly, as
upon a red-hot gridiron, to a thought of love, of jealousy, and
of despair! Young girl, mercy! a truce for a moment! a few ashes
on these live coals! Wipe away, I beseech you, the perspiration
which trickles in great drops from my brow! Child! torture me
with one hand, but caress me with the other! Have pity, young
girl! Have pity upon me!”
The priest writhed on the wet pavement, beating his head against
the corners of the stone steps. The young girl gazed at him, and
listened to him.
When he ceased, exhausted and panting, she repeated in a low
voice,—
“Oh my Phœbus!”
The priest dragged himself towards her on his knees.
“I beseech you,” he cried, “if you have any heart, do not repulse
me! Oh! I love you! I am a wretch! When you utter that name,
unhappy girl, it is as though you crushed all the fibres of my
heart between your teeth. Mercy! If you come from hell I will go
thither with you. I have done everything to that end. The hell
where you are, shall be paradise; the sight of you is more
charming than that of God! Oh! speak! you will have none of me? I
should have thought the mountains would be shaken in their
foundations on the day when a woman would repulse such a love.
Oh! if you only would! Oh! how happy we might be. We would flee—I
would help you to flee,—we would go somewhere, we would seek that
spot on earth, where the sun is brightest, the sky the bluest,
where the trees are most luxuriant. We would love each other, we
would pour our two souls into each other, and we would have a
thirst for ourselves which we would quench in common and
incessantly at that fountain of inexhaustible love.”
She interrupted with a terrible and thrilling laugh.
“Look, father, you have blood on your fingers!”
The priest remained for several moments as though petrified, with
his eyes fixed upon his hand.
“Well, yes!” he resumed at last, with strange gentleness, “insult
me, scoff at me, overwhelm me with scorn! but come, come. Let us
make haste. It is to be to-morrow, I tell you. The gibbet on the
Grève, you know it? it stands always ready. It is horrible! to
see you ride in that tumbrel! Oh mercy! Until now I have never
felt the power of my love for you.—Oh! follow me. You shall take
your time to love me after I have saved you. You shall hate me as
long as you will. But come. To-morrow! to-morrow! the gallows!
your execution! Oh! save yourself! spare me!”
He seized her arm, he was beside himself, he tried to drag her
away.
She fixed her eye intently on him.
“What has become of my Phœbus?”
“Ah!” said the priest, releasing her arm, “you are pitiless.”
“What has become of Phœbus?” she repeated coldly.
“He is dead!” cried the priest.
“Dead!” said she, still icy and motionless “then why do you talk
to me of living?”
He was not listening to her.
“Oh! yes,” said he, as though speaking to himself, “he certainly
must be dead. The blade pierced deeply. I believe I touched his
heart with the point. Oh! my very soul was at the end of the
dagger!”
The young girl flung herself upon him like a raging tigress, and
pushed him upon the steps of the staircase with supernatural
force.
“Begone, monster! Begone, assassin! Leave me to die! May the
blood of both of us make an eternal stain upon your brow! Be
thine, priest! Never! never! Nothing shall unite us! not hell
itself! Go, accursed man! Never!”
The priest had stumbled on the stairs. He silently disentangled
his feet from the folds of his robe, picked up his lantern again,
and slowly began the ascent of the steps which led to the door;
he opened the door and passed through it.
All at once, the young girl beheld his head reappear; it wore a
frightful expression, and he cried, hoarse with rage and
despair,—
“I tell you he is dead!”
She fell face downwards upon the floor, and there was no longer
any sound audible in the cell than the sob of the drop of water
which made the pool palpitate amid the darkness.
CHAPTER V. THE MOTHER.
I do not believe that there is anything sweeter in the world than
the ideas which awake in a mother’s heart at the sight of her
child’s tiny shoe; especially if it is a shoe for festivals, for
Sunday, for baptism, the shoe embroidered to the very sole, a
shoe in which the infant has not yet taken a step. That shoe has
so much grace and daintiness, it is so impossible for it to walk,
that it seems to the mother as though she saw her child. She
smiles upon it, she kisses it, she talks to it; she asks herself
whether there can actually be a foot so tiny; and if the child be
absent, the pretty shoe suffices to place the sweet and fragile
creature before her eyes. She thinks she sees it, she does see
it, complete, living, joyous, with its delicate hands, its round
head, its pure lips, its serene eyes whose white is blue. If it
is in winter, it is yonder, crawling on the carpet, it is
laboriously climbing upon an ottoman, and the mother trembles
lest it should approach the fire. If it is summer time, it crawls
about the yard, in the garden, plucks up the grass between the
paving-stones, gazes innocently at the big dogs, the big horses,
without fear, plays with the shells, with the flowers, and makes
the gardener grumble because he finds sand in the flower-beds and
earth in the paths. Everything laughs, and shines and plays
around it, like it, even the breath of air and the ray of sun
which vie with each other in disporting among the silky ringlets
of its hair. The shoe shows all this to the mother, and makes her
heart melt as fire melts wax.
But when the child is lost, these thousand images of joy, of
charms, of tenderness, which throng around the little shoe,
become so many horrible things. The pretty broidered shoe is no
longer anything but an instrument of torture which eternally
crushes the heart of the mother. It is always the same fibre
which vibrates, the tenderest and most sensitive; but instead of
an angel caressing it, it is a demon who is wrenching at it.
One May morning, when the sun was rising on one of those dark
blue skies against which Garofolo loves to place his Descents
from the Cross, the recluse of the Tour-Roland heard a sound of
wheels, of horses and irons in the Place de Grève. She was
somewhat aroused by it, knotted her hair upon her ears in order
to deafen herself, and resumed her contemplation, on her knees,
of the inanimate object which she had adored for fifteen years.
This little shoe was the universe to her, as we have already
said. Her thought was shut up in it, and was destined never more
to quit it except at death. The sombre cave of the Tour-Roland
alone knew how many bitter imprecations, touching complaints,
prayers and sobs she had wafted to heaven in connection with that
charming bauble of rose-colored satin. Never was more despair
bestowed upon a prettier and more graceful thing.
It seemed as though her grief were breaking forth more violently
than usual; and she could be heard outside lamenting in a loud
and monotonous voice which rent the heart.
“Oh my daughter!” she said, “my daughter, my poor, dear little
child, so I shall never see thee more! It is over! It always
seems to me that it happened yesterday! My God! my God! it would
have been better not to give her to me than to take her away so
soon. Did you not know that our children are part of ourselves,
and that a mother who has lost her child no longer believes in
God? Ah! wretch that I am to have gone out that day! Lord! Lord!
to have taken her from me thus; you could never have looked at me
with her, when I was joyously warming her at my fire, when she
laughed as she suckled, when I made her tiny feet creep up my
breast to my lips? Oh! if you had looked at that, my God, you
would have taken pity on my joy; you would not have taken from me
the only love which lingered, in my heart! Was I then, Lord, so
miserable a creature, that you could not look at me before
condemning me?—Alas! Alas! here is the shoe; where is the foot?
where is the rest? Where is the child? My daughter! my daughter!
what did they do with thee? Lord, give her back to me. My knees
have been worn for fifteen years in praying to thee, my God! Is
not that enough? Give her back to me one day, one hour, one
minute; one minute, Lord! and then cast me to the demon for all
eternity! Oh! if I only knew where the skirt of your garment
trails, I would cling to it with both hands, and you would be
obliged to give me back my child! Have you no pity on her pretty
little shoe? Could you condemn a poor mother to this torture for
fifteen years? Good Virgin! good Virgin of heaven! my infant
Jesus has been taken from me, has been stolen from me; they
devoured her on a heath, they drank her blood, they cracked her
bones! Good Virgin, have pity upon me. My daughter, I want my
daughter! What is it to me that she is in paradise? I do not want
your angel, I want my child! I am a lioness, I want my whelp. Oh!
I will writhe on the earth, I will break the stones with my
forehead, and I will damn myself, and I will curse you, Lord, if
you keep my child from me! you see plainly that my arms are all
bitten, Lord! Has the good God no mercy?—Oh! give me only salt
and black bread, only let me have my daughter to warm me like a
sun! Alas! Lord my God. Alas! Lord my God, I am only a vile
sinner; but my daughter made me pious. I was full of religion for
the love of her, and I beheld you through her smile as through an
opening into heaven. Oh! if I could only once, just once more, a
single time, put this shoe on her pretty little pink foot, I
would die blessing you, good Virgin. Ah! fifteen years! she will
be grown up now!—Unhappy child! what! it is really true then I
shall never see her more, not even in heaven, for I shall not go
there myself. Oh! what misery to think that here is her shoe, and
that that is all!”
The unhappy woman flung herself upon that shoe; her consolation
and her despair for so many years, and her vitals were rent with
sobs as on the first day; because, for a mother who has lost her
child, it is always the first day. That grief never grows old.
The mourning garments may grow white and threadbare, the heart
remains dark.
At that moment, the fresh and joyous cries of children passed in
front of the cell. Every time that children crossed her vision or
struck her ear, the poor mother flung herself into the darkest
corner of her sepulchre, and one would have said, that she sought
to plunge her head into the stone in order not to hear them. This
time, on the contrary, she drew herself upright with a start, and
listened eagerly. One of the little boys had just said,—
“They are going to hang a gypsy to-day.”
With the abrupt leap of that spider which we have seen fling
itself upon a fly at the trembling of its web, she rushed to her
air-hole, which opened as the reader knows, on the Place de
Grève. A ladder had, in fact, been raised up against the
permanent gibbet, and the hangman’s assistant was busying himself
with adjusting the chains which had been rusted by the rain.
There were some people standing about.
The laughing group of children was already far away. The sacked
nun sought with her eyes some passer-by whom she might question.
All at once, beside her cell, she perceived a priest making a
pretext of reading the public breviary, but who was much less
occupied with the “lectern of latticed iron,” than with the
gallows, toward which he cast a fierce and gloomy glance from
time to time. She recognized monsieur the archdeacon of Josas, a
holy man.
“Father,” she inquired, “whom are they about to hang yonder?”
The priest looked at her and made no reply; she repeated her
question. Then he said,—
“I know not.”
“Some children said that it was a gypsy,” went on the recluse.
“I believe so,” said the priest.
Then Paquette la Chantefleurie burst into hyena-like laughter.
“Sister,” said the archdeacon, “do you then hate the gypsies
heartily?”
“Do I hate them!” exclaimed the recluse, “they are vampires,
stealers of children! They devoured my little daughter, my child,
my only child! I have no longer any heart, they devoured it!”
She was frightful. The priest looked at her coldly.
“There is one in particular whom I hate, and whom I have cursed,”
she resumed; “it is a young one, of the age which my daughter
would be if her mother had not eaten my daughter. Every time that
that young viper passes in front of my cell, she sets my blood in
a ferment.”
“Well, sister, rejoice,” said the priest, icy as a sepulchral
statue; “that is the one whom you are about to see die.”
His head fell upon his bosom and he moved slowly away.
The recluse writhed her arms with joy.
“I predicted it for her, that she would ascend thither! Thanks,
priest!” she cried.
And she began to pace up and down with long strides before the
grating of her window, her hair dishevelled, her eyes flashing,
with her shoulder striking against the wall, with the wild air of
a female wolf in a cage, who has long been famished, and who
feels the hour for her repast drawing near.
CHAPTER VI. THREE HUMAN HEARTS DIFFERENTLY CONSTRUCTED.
Phœbus was not dead, however. Men of that stamp die hard. When
Master Philippe Lheulier, advocate extraordinary of the king, had
said to poor Esmeralda; “He is dying,” it was an error or a jest.
When the archdeacon had repeated to the condemned girl; “He is
dead,” the fact is that he knew nothing about it, but that he
believed it, that he counted on it, that he did not doubt it,
that he devoutly hoped it. It would have been too hard for him to
give favorable news of his rival to the woman whom he loved. Any
man would have done the same in his place.
It was not that Phœbus’s wound had not been serious, but it had
not been as much so as the archdeacon believed. The physician, to
whom the soldiers of the watch had carried him at the first
moment, had feared for his life during the space of a week, and
had even told him so in Latin. But youth had gained the upper
hand; and, as frequently happens, in spite of prognostications
and diagnoses, nature had amused herself by saving the sick man
under the physician’s very nose. It was while he was still lying
on the leech’s pallet that he had submitted to the interrogations
of Philippe Lheulier and the official inquisitors, which had
annoyed him greatly. Hence, one fine morning, feeling himself
better, he had left his golden spurs with the leech as payment,
and had slipped away. This had not, however, interfered with the
progress of the affair. Justice, at that epoch, troubled itself
very little about the clearness and definiteness of a criminal
suit. Provided that the accused was hung, that was all that was
necessary. Now the judge had plenty of proofs against la
Esmeralda. They had supposed Phœbus to be dead, and that was the
end of the matter.
Phœbus, on his side, had not fled far. He had simply rejoined his
company in garrison at Queue-en-Brie, in the Isle-de-France, a
few stages from Paris.
After all, it did not please him in the least to appear in this
suit. He had a vague feeling that he should play a ridiculous
figure in it. On the whole, he did not know what to think of the
whole affair. Superstitious, and not given to devoutness, like
every soldier who is only a soldier, when he came to question
himself about this adventure, he did not feel assured as to the
goat, as to the singular fashion in which he had met La
Esmeralda, as to the no less strange manner in which she had
allowed him to divine her love, as to her character as a gypsy,
and lastly, as to the surly monk. He perceived in all these
incidents much more magic than love, probably a sorceress,
perhaps the devil; a comedy, in short, or to speak in the
language of that day, a very disagreeable mystery, in which he
played a very awkward part, the role of blows and derision. The
captain was quite put out of countenance about it; he experienced
that sort of shame which our La Fontaine has so admirably
defined,—
Ashamed as a fox who has been caught by a fowl.
Moreover, he hoped that the affair would not get noised abroad,
that his name would hardly be pronounced in it, and that in any
case it would not go beyond the courts of the Tournelle. In this
he was not mistaken, there was then no _Gazette des Tribunaux;_
and as not a week passed which had not its counterfeiter to boil,
or its witch to hang, or its heretic to burn, at some one of the
innumerable justices of Paris, people were so accustomed to
seeing in all the squares the ancient feudal Themis, bare armed,
with sleeves stripped up, performing her duty at the gibbets, the
ladders, and the pillories, that they hardly paid any heed to it.
Fashionable society of that day hardly knew the name of the
victim who passed by at the corner of the street, and it was the
populace at the most who regaled themselves with this coarse
fare. An execution was an habitual incident of the public
highways, like the braising-pan of the baker or the
slaughter-house of the knacker. The executioner was only a sort
of butcher of a little deeper dye than the rest.
Hence Phœbus’s mind was soon at ease on the score of the
enchantress Esmeralda, or Similar, as he called her, concerning
the blow from the dagger of the Bohemian or of the surly monk (it
mattered little which to him), and as to the issue of the trial.
But as soon as his heart was vacant in that direction,
Fleur-de-Lys returned to it. Captain Phœbus’s heart, like the
physics of that day, abhorred a vacuum.
Queue-en-Brie was a very insipid place to stay at then, a village
of farriers, and cow-girls with chapped hands, a long line of
poor dwellings and thatched cottages, which borders the grand
road on both sides for half a league; a tail (queue), in short,
as its name imports.
Fleur-de-Lys was his last passion but one, a pretty girl, a
charming dowry; accordingly, one fine morning, quite cured, and
assuming that, after the lapse of two months, the Bohemian affair
must be completely finished and forgotten, the amorous cavalier
arrived on a prancing horse at the door of the Gondelaurier
mansion.
He paid no attention to a tolerably numerous rabble which had
assembled in the Place du Parvis, before the portal of
Notre-Dame; he remembered that it was the month of May; he
supposed that it was some procession, some Pentecost, some
festival, hitched his horse to the ring at the door, and gayly
ascended the stairs to his beautiful betrothed.
She was alone with her mother.
The scene of the witch, her goat, her cursed alphabet, and
Phœbus’s long absences, still weighed on Fleur-de-Lys’s heart.
Nevertheless, when she beheld her captain enter, she thought him
so handsome, his doublet so new, his baldrick so shining, and his
air so impassioned, that she blushed with pleasure. The noble
damsel herself was more charming than ever. Her magnificent blond
hair was plaited in a ravishing manner, she was dressed entirely
in that sky blue which becomes fair people so well, a bit of
coquetry which she had learned from Colombe, and her eyes were
swimming in that languor of love which becomes them still better.
Phœbus, who had seen nothing in the line of beauty, since he left
the village maids of Queue-en-Brie, was intoxicated with
Fleur-de-Lys, which imparted to our officer so eager and gallant
an air, that his peace was immediately made. Madame de
Gondelaurier herself, still maternally seated in her big
arm-chair, had not the heart to scold him. As for Fleur-de-Lys’s
reproaches, they expired in tender cooings.
The young girl was seated near the window still embroidering her
grotto of Neptune. The captain was leaning over the back of her
chair, and she was addressing her caressing reproaches to him in
a low voice.
“What has become of you these two long months, wicked man?”
“I swear to you,” replied Phœbus, somewhat embarrassed by the
question, “that you are beautiful enough to set an archbishop to
dreaming.”
She could not repress a smile.
“Good, good, sir. Let my beauty alone and answer my question. A
fine beauty, in sooth!”
“Well, my dear cousin, I was recalled to the garrison.
“And where is that, if you please? and why did not you come to
say farewell?”
“At Queue-en-Brie.”
Phœbus was delighted with the first question, which helped him to
avoid the second.
“But that is quite close by, monsieur. Why did you not come to
see me a single time?”
Here Phœbus was rather seriously embarrassed.
“Because—the service—and then, charming cousin, I have been ill.”
“Ill!” she repeated in alarm.
“Yes, wounded!”
“Wounded!”
The poor child was completely upset.
“Oh! do not be frightened at that,” said Phœbus, carelessly, “it
was nothing. A quarrel, a sword cut; what is that to you?”
“What is that to me?” exclaimed Fleur-de-Lys, raising her
beautiful eyes filled with tears. “Oh! you do not say what you
think when you speak thus. What sword cut was that? I wish to
know all.”
“Well, my dear fair one, I had a falling out with Mahé Fédy, you
know? the lieutenant of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and we ripped open
a few inches of skin for each other. That is all.”
The mendacious captain was perfectly well aware that an affair of
honor always makes a man stand well in the eyes of a woman. In
fact, Fleur-de-Lys looked him full in the face, all agitated with
fear, pleasure, and admiration. Still, she was not completely
reassured.
“Provided that you are wholly cured, my Phœbus!” said she. “I do
not know your Mahé Fédy, but he is a villanous man. And whence
arose this quarrel?”
Here Phœbus, whose imagination was endowed with but mediocre
power of creation, began to find himself in a quandary as to a
means of extricating himself for his prowess.
“Oh! how do I know?—a mere nothing, a horse, a remark! Fair
cousin,” he exclaimed, for the sake of changing the conversation,
“what noise is this in the Cathedral Square?”
He approached the window.
“Oh! _Mon Dieu_, fair cousin, how many people there are on the
Place!”
“I know not,” said Fleur-de-Lys; “it appears that a witch is to
do penance this morning before the church, and thereafter to be
hung.”
The captain was so thoroughly persuaded that la Esmeralda’s
affair was concluded, that he was but little disturbed by
Fleur-de-Lys’s words. Still, he asked her one or two questions.
“What is the name of this witch?”
“I do not know,” she replied.
“And what is she said to have done?”
She shrugged her white shoulders.
“I know not.”
“Oh, _mon Dieu Jésus!_” said her mother; “there are so many
witches nowadays that I dare say they burn them without knowing
their names. One might as well seek the name of every cloud in
the sky. After all, one may be tranquil. The good God keeps his
register.” Here the venerable dame rose and came to the window.
“Good Lord! you are right, Phœbus,” said she. “The rabble is
indeed great. There are people on all the roofs, blessed be God!
Do you know, Phœbus, this reminds me of my best days. The
entrance of King Charles VII., when, also, there were many
people. I no longer remember in what year that was. When I speak
of this to you, it produces upon you the effect,—does it not?—the
effect of something very old, and upon me of something very
young. Oh! the crowd was far finer than at the present day. They
even stood upon the machicolations of the Porte Sainte-Antoine.
The king had the queen on a pillion, and after their highnesses
came all the ladies mounted behind all the lords. I remember that
they laughed loudly, because beside Amanyon de Garlande, who was
very short of stature, there rode the Sire Matefelon, a chevalier
of gigantic size, who had killed heaps of English. It was very
fine. A procession of all the gentlemen of France, with their
oriflammes waving red before the eye. There were some with
pennons and some with banners. How can I tell? the Sire de Calan
with a pennon; Jean de Châteaumorant with a banner; the Sire de
Courcy with a banner, and a more ample one than any of the others
except the Duc de Bourbon. Alas! ’tis a sad thing to think that
all that has existed and exists no longer!”
The two lovers were not listening to the venerable dowager.
Phœbus had returned and was leaning on the back of his
betrothed’s chair, a charming post whence his libertine glance
plunged into all the openings of Fleur-de-Lys’s gorget. This
gorget gaped so conveniently, and allowed him to see so many
exquisite things and to divine so many more, that Phœbus, dazzled
by this skin with its gleams of satin, said to himself, “How can
any one love anything but a fair skin?”
Both were silent. The young girl raised sweet, enraptured eyes to
him from time to time, and their hair mingled in a ray of spring
sunshine.
“Phœbus,” said Fleur-de-Lys suddenly, in a low voice, “we are to
be married three months hence; swear to me that you have never
loved any other woman than myself.”
“I swear it, fair angel!” replied Phœbus, and his passionate
glances aided the sincere tone of his voice in convincing
Fleur-de-Lys.
Meanwhile, the good mother, charmed to see the betrothed pair on
terms of such perfect understanding, had just quitted the
apartment to attend to some domestic matter; Phœbus observed it,
and this so emboldened the adventurous captain that very strange
ideas mounted to his brain. Fleur-de-Lys loved him, he was her
betrothed; she was alone with him; his former taste for her had
re-awakened, not with all its freshness but with all its ardor;
after all, there is no great harm in tasting one’s wheat while it
is still in the blade; I do not know whether these ideas passed
through his mind, but one thing is certain, that Fleur-de-Lys was
suddenly alarmed by the expression of his glance. She looked
round and saw that her mother was no longer there.
“Good heavens!” said she, blushing and uneasy, “how very warm I
am!”
“I think, in fact,” replied Phœbus, “that it cannot be far from
midday. The sun is troublesome. We need only lower the curtains.”
“No, no,” exclaimed the poor little thing, “on the contrary, I
need air.”
And like a fawn who feels the breath of the pack of hounds, she
rose, ran to the window, opened it, and rushed upon the balcony.
Phœbus, much discomfited, followed her.
The Place du Parvis Notre-Dame, upon which the balcony looked, as
the reader knows, presented at that moment a singular and
sinister spectacle which caused the fright of the timid
Fleur-de-Lys to change its nature.
An immense crowd, which overflowed into all the neighboring
streets, encumbered the Place, properly speaking. The little
wall, breast high, which surrounded the Place, would not have
sufficed to keep it free had it not been lined with a thick hedge
of sergeants and hackbuteers, culverines in hand. Thanks to this
thicket of pikes and arquebuses, the Parvis was empty. Its
entrance was guarded by a force of halberdiers with the armorial
bearings of the bishop. The large doors of the church were
closed, and formed a contrast with the innumerable windows on the
Place, which, open to their very gables, allowed a view of
thousands of heads heaped up almost like the piles of bullets in
a park of artillery.
The surface of this rabble was dingy, dirty, earthy. The
spectacle which it was expecting was evidently one of the sort
which possess the privilege of bringing out and calling together
the vilest among the populace. Nothing is so hideous as the noise
which was made by that swarm of yellow caps and dirty heads. In
that throng there were more laughs than cries, more women than
men.
From time to time, a sharp and vibrating voice pierced the
general clamor.
“Ohé! Mahiet Baliffre! Is she to be hung yonder?”
“Fool! ’tis here that she is to make her apology in her shift!
the good God is going to cough Latin in her face! That is always
done here, at midday. If ’tis the gallows that you wish, go to
the Grève.”
“I will go there, afterwards.”
“Tell me, la Boucanbry? Is it true that she has refused a
confessor?”
“It appears so, La Bechaigne.”
“You see what a pagan she is!”
“’Tis the custom, monsieur. The bailiff of the courts is bound to
deliver the malefactor ready judged for execution if he be a
layman, to the provost of Paris; if a clerk, to the official of
the bishopric.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Oh, God!” said Fleur-de-Lys, “the poor creature!”
This thought filled with sadness the glance which she cast upon
the populace. The captain, much more occupied with her than with
that pack of the rabble, was amorously rumpling her girdle
behind. She turned round, entreating and smiling.
“Please let me alone, Phœbus! If my mother were to return, she
would see your hand!”
At that moment, midday rang slowly out from the clock of
Notre-Dame. A murmur of satisfaction broke out in the crowd. The
last vibration of the twelfth stroke had hardly died away when
all heads surged like the waves beneath a squall, and an immense
shout went up from the pavement, the windows, and the roofs,
“There she is!”
Fleur-de-Lys pressed her hands to her eyes, that she might not
see.
“Charming girl,” said Phœbus, “do you wish to withdraw?”
“No,” she replied; and she opened through curiosity, the eyes
which she had closed through fear.
A tumbrel drawn by a stout Norman horse, and all surrounded by
cavalry in violet livery with white crosses, had just debouched
upon the Place through the Rue Saint-Pierre-aux-Bœufs. The
sergeants of the watch were clearing a passage for it through the
crowd, by stout blows from their clubs. Beside the cart rode
several officers of justice and police, recognizable by their
black costume and their awkwardness in the saddle. Master Jacques
Charmolue paraded at their head.
In the fatal cart sat a young girl with her arms tied behind her
back, and with no priest beside her. She was in her shift; her
long black hair (the fashion then was to cut it off only at the
foot of the gallows) fell in disorder upon her half-bared throat
and shoulders.
Athwart that waving hair, more glossy than the plumage of a
raven, a thick, rough, gray rope was visible, twisted and
knotted, chafing her delicate collar-bones and twining round the
charming neck of the poor girl, like an earthworm round a flower.
Beneath that rope glittered a tiny amulet ornamented with bits of
green glass, which had been left to her no doubt, because nothing
is refused to those who are about to die. The spectators in the
windows could see in the bottom of the cart her naked legs which
she strove to hide beneath her, as by a final feminine instinct.
At her feet lay a little goat, bound. The condemned girl held
together with her teeth her imperfectly fastened shift. One would
have said that she suffered still more in her misery from being
thus exposed almost naked to the eyes of all. Alas! modesty is
not made for such shocks.
“Jesus!” said Fleur-de-Lys hastily to the captain. “Look fair
cousin, ’tis that wretched Bohemian with the goat.”
So saying, she turned to Phœbus. His eyes were fixed on the
tumbrel. He was very pale.
“What Bohemian with the goat?” he stammered.
“What!” resumed Fleur-de-Lys, “do you not remember?”
Phœbus interrupted her.
“I do not know what you mean.”
He made a step to re-enter the room, but Fleur-de-Lys, whose
jealousy, previously so vividly aroused by this same gypsy, had
just been re-awakened, Fleur-de-Lys gave him a look full of
penetration and distrust. She vaguely recalled at that moment
having heard of a captain mixed up in the trial of that witch.
“What is the matter with you?” she said to Phœbus, “one would
say, that this woman had disturbed you.”
Phœbus forced a sneer,—
“Me! Not the least in the world! Ah! yes, certainly!”
“Remain, then!” she continued imperiously, “and let us see the
end.”
The unlucky captain was obliged to remain. He was somewhat
reassured by the fact that the condemned girl never removed her
eyes from the bottom of the cart. It was but too surely la
Esmeralda. In this last stage of opprobrium and misfortune, she
was still beautiful; her great black eyes appeared still larger,
because of the emaciation of her cheeks; her pale profile was
pure and sublime. She resembled what she had been, in the same
degree that a virgin by Masaccio, resembles a virgin of
Raphael,—weaker, thinner, more delicate.
Moreover, there was nothing in her which was not shaken in some
sort, and which with the exception of her modesty, she did not
let go at will, so profoundly had she been broken by stupor and
despair. Her body bounded at every jolt of the tumbrel like a
dead or broken thing; her gaze was dull and imbecile. A tear was
still visible in her eyes, but motionless and frozen, so to
speak.
Meanwhile, the lugubrious cavalcade has traversed the crowd amid
cries of joy and curious attitudes. But as a faithful historian,
we must state that on beholding her so beautiful, so depressed,
many were moved with pity, even among the hardest of them.
The tumbrel had entered the Parvis.
It halted before the central portal. The escort ranged themselves
in line on both sides. The crowd became silent, and, in the midst
of this silence full of anxiety and solemnity, the two leaves of
the grand door swung back, as of themselves, on their hinges,
which gave a creak like the sound of a fife. Then there became
visible in all its length, the deep, gloomy church, hung in
black, sparely lighted with a few candles gleaming afar off on
the principal altar, opened in the midst of the Place which was
dazzling with light, like the mouth of a cavern. At the very
extremity, in the gloom of the apse, a gigantic silver cross was
visible against a black drapery which hung from the vault to the
pavement. The whole nave was deserted. But a few heads of priests
could be seen moving confusedly in the distant choir stalls, and,
at the moment when the great door opened, there escaped from the
church a loud, solemn, and monotonous chanting, which cast over
the head of the condemned girl, in gusts, fragments of melancholy
psalms,—
“_Non timebo millia populi circumdantis me: exsurge, Domine;
salvum me fac, Deus!_”
“_Salvum me fac, Deus, quoniam intraverunt aquæ usque ad animam
meam_.
“_Infixus sum in limo profundi; et non est substantia_.”
At the same time, another voice, separate from the choir, intoned
upon the steps of the chief altar, this melancholy offertory,—
“_Qui verbum meum audit, et credit ei qui misit me, habet vitam
æternam et in judicium non venit; sed transit a morte in
vitam._”[46]
This chant, which a few old men buried in the gloom sang from
afar over that beautiful creature, full of youth and life,
caressed by the warm air of spring, inundated with sunlight was
the mass for the dead.
The people listened devoutly.
The unhappy girl seemed to lose her sight and her consciousness
in the obscure interior of the church. Her white lips moved as
though in prayer, and the headsman’s assistant who approached to
assist her to alight from the cart, heard her repeating this word
in a low tone,—“Phœbus.”
They untied her hands, made her alight, accompanied by her goat,
which had also been unbound, and which bleated with joy at
finding itself free: and they made her walk barefoot on the hard
pavement to the foot of the steps leading to the door. The rope
about her neck trailed behind her. One would have said it was a
serpent following her.
Then the chanting in the church ceased. A great golden cross and
a row of wax candles began to move through the gloom. The
halberds of the motley beadles clanked; and, a few moments later,
a long procession of priests in chasubles, and deacons in
dalmatics, marched gravely towards the condemned girl, as they
drawled their song, spread out before her view and that of the
crowd. But her glance rested on the one who marched at the head,
immediately after the cross-bearer.
“Oh!” she said in a low voice, and with a shudder, “’tis he
again! the priest!”
It was in fact, the archdeacon. On his left he had the
sub-chanter, on his right, the chanter, armed with his official
wand. He advanced with head thrown back, his eyes fixed and wide
open, intoning in a strong voice,—
“_De ventre inferi clamavi, et exaudisti vocem meam_.
“_Et projecisti me in profundum in corde maris, et flumem
circumdedit me._”[47]
At the moment when he made his appearance in the full daylight
beneath the lofty arched portal, enveloped in an ample cope of
silver barred with a black cross, he was so pale that more than
one person in the crowd thought that one of the marble bishops
who knelt on the sepulchral stones of the choir had risen and was
come to receive upon the brink of the tomb, the woman who was
about to die.
She, no less pale, no less like a statue, had hardly noticed that
they had placed in her hand a heavy, lighted candle of yellow
wax; she had not heard the yelping voice of the clerk reading the
fatal contents of the apology; when they told her to respond with
_Amen_, she responded _Amen_. She only recovered life and force
when she beheld the priest make a sign to her guards to withdraw,
and himself advance alone towards her.
Then she felt her blood boil in her head, and a remnant of
indignation flashed up in that soul already benumbed and cold.
The archdeacon approached her slowly; even in that extremity, she
beheld him cast an eye sparkling with sensuality, jealousy, and
desire, over her exposed form. Then he said aloud,—
“Young girl, have you asked God’s pardon for your faults and
shortcomings?”
He bent down to her ear, and added (the spectators supposed that
he was receiving her last confession): “Will you have me? I can
still save you!”
She looked intently at him: “Begone, demon, or I will denounce
you!”
He gave vent to a horrible smile: “You will not be believed. You
will only add a scandal to a crime. Reply quickly! Will you have
me?”
“What have you done with my Phœbus?”
“He is dead!” said the priest.
At that moment the wretched archdeacon raised his head
mechanically and beheld at the other end of the Place, in the
balcony of the Gondelaurier mansion, the captain standing beside
Fleur-de-Lys. He staggered, passed his hand across his eyes,
looked again, muttered a curse, and all his features were
violently contorted.
“Well, die then!” he hissed between his teeth. “No one shall have
you.” Then, raising his hand over the gypsy, he exclaimed in a
funereal voice:—“_I nunc, anima anceps, et sit tibi Deus
misericors!_”[48]
This was the dread formula with which it was the custom to
conclude these gloomy ceremonies. It was the signal agreed upon
between the priest and the executioner.
The crowd knelt.
“_Kyrie eleison_,”[49] said the priests, who had remained beneath
the arch of the portal.
“_Kyrie eleison_,” repeated the throng in that murmur which runs
over all heads, like the waves of a troubled sea.
“_Amen_,” said the archdeacon.
He turned his back on the condemned girl, his head sank upon his
breast once more, he crossed his hands and rejoined his escort of
priests, and a moment later he was seen to disappear, with the
cross, the candles, and the copes, beneath the misty arches of
the cathedral, and his sonorous voice was extinguished by degrees
in the choir, as he chanted this verse of despair,—
“_Omnes gurgites tui et fluctus tui super me transierunt_.”[50]
At the same time, the intermittent clash of the iron butts of the
beadles’ halberds, gradually dying away among the columns of the
nave, produced the effect of a clock hammer striking the last
hour of the condemned.
The doors of Notre-Dame remained open, allowing a view of the
empty desolate church, draped in mourning, without candles, and
without voices.
The condemned girl remained motionless in her place, waiting to
be disposed of. One of the sergeants of police was obliged to
notify Master Charmolue of the fact, as the latter, during this
entire scene, had been engaged in studying the bas-relief of the
grand portal which represents, according to some, the sacrifice
of Abraham; according to others, the philosopher’s alchemical
operation: the sun being figured forth by the angel; the fire, by
the fagot; the artisan, by Abraham.
There was considerable difficulty in drawing him away from that
contemplation, but at length he turned round; and, at a signal
which he gave, two men clad in yellow, the executioner’s
assistants, approached the gypsy to bind her hands once more.
The unhappy creature, at the moment of mounting once again the
fatal cart, and proceeding to her last halting-place, was seized,
possibly, with some poignant clinging to life. She raised her
dry, red eyes to heaven, to the sun, to the silvery clouds, cut
here and there by a blue trapezium or triangle; then she lowered
them to objects around her, to the earth, the throng, the houses;
all at once, while the yellow man was binding her elbows, she
uttered a terrible cry, a cry of joy. Yonder, on that balcony, at
the corner of the Place, she had just caught sight of him, of her
friend, her lord, Phœbus, the other apparition of her life!
The judge had lied! the priest had lied! it was certainly he, she
could not doubt it; he was there, handsome, alive, dressed in his
brilliant uniform, his plume on his head, his sword by his side!
“Phœbus!” she cried, “my Phœbus!”
And she tried to stretch towards him arms trembling with love and
rapture, but they were bound.
Then she saw the captain frown, a beautiful young girl who was
leaning against him gazed at him with disdainful lips and
irritated eyes; then Phœbus uttered some words which did not
reach her, and both disappeared precipitately behind the window
opening upon the balcony, which closed after them.
“Phœbus!” she cried wildly, “can it be you believe it?” A
monstrous thought had just presented itself to her. She
remembered that she had been condemned to death for murder
committed on the person of Phœbus de Châteaupers.
She had borne up until that moment. But this last blow was too
harsh. She fell lifeless on the pavement.
“Come,” said Charmolue, “carry her to the cart, and make an end
of it.”
No one had yet observed in the gallery of the statues of the
kings, carved directly above the arches of the portal, a strange
spectator, who had, up to that time, observed everything with
such impassiveness, with a neck so strained, a visage so hideous
that, in his motley accoutrement of red and violet, he might have
been taken for one of those stone monsters through whose mouths
the long gutters of the cathedral have discharged their waters
for six hundred years. This spectator had missed nothing that had
taken place since midday in front of the portal of Notre-Dame.
And at the very beginning he had securely fastened to one of the
small columns a large knotted rope, one end of which trailed on
the flight of steps below. This being done, he began to look on
tranquilly, whistling from time to time when a blackbird flitted
past. Suddenly, at the moment when the superintendent’s
assistants were preparing to execute Charmolue’s phlegmatic
order, he threw his leg over the balustrade of the gallery,
seized the rope with his feet, his knees and his hands; then he
was seen to glide down the façade, as a drop of rain slips down a
window-pane, rush to the two executioners with the swiftness of a
cat which has fallen from a roof, knock them down with two
enormous fists, pick up the gypsy with one hand, as a child would
her doll, and dash back into the church with a single bound,
lifting the young girl above his head and crying in a formidable
voice,—
“Sanctuary!”
This was done with such rapidity, that had it taken place at
night, the whole of it could have been seen in the space of a
single flash of lightning.
“Sanctuary! Sanctuary!” repeated the crowd; and the clapping of
ten thousand hands made Quasimodo’s single eye sparkle with joy
and pride.
This shock restored the condemned girl to her senses. She raised
her eyelids, looked at Quasimodo, then closed them again
suddenly, as though terrified by her deliverer.
Charmolue was stupefied, as well as the executioners and the
entire escort. In fact, within the bounds of Notre-Dame, the
condemned girl could not be touched. The cathedral was a place of
refuge. All temporal jurisdiction expired upon its threshold.
Quasimodo had halted beneath the great portal, his huge feet
seemed as solid on the pavement of the church as the heavy Roman
pillars. His great, bushy head sat low between his shoulders,
like the heads of lions, who also have a mane and no neck. He
held the young girl, who was quivering all over, suspended from
his horny hands like a white drapery; but he carried her with as
much care as though he feared to break her or blight her. One
would have said that he felt that she was a delicate, exquisite,
precious thing, made for other hands than his. There were moments
when he looked as if not daring to touch her, even with his
breath. Then, all at once, he would press her forcibly in his
arms, against his angular bosom, like his own possession, his
treasure, as the mother of that child would have done. His
gnome’s eye, fastened upon her, inundated her with tenderness,
sadness, and pity, and was suddenly raised filled with
lightnings. Then the women laughed and wept, the crowd stamped
with enthusiasm, for, at that moment Quasimodo had a beauty of
his own. He was handsome; he, that orphan, that foundling, that
outcast, he felt himself august and strong, he gazed in the face
of that society from which he was banished, and in which he had
so powerfully intervened, of that human justice from which he had
wrenched its prey, of all those tigers whose jaws were forced to
remain empty, of those policemen, those judges, those
executioners, of all that force of the king which he, the meanest
of creatures, had just broken, with the force of God.
And then, it was touching to behold this protection which had
fallen from a being so hideous upon a being so unhappy, a
creature condemned to death saved by Quasimodo. They were two
extremes of natural and social wretchedness, coming into contact
and aiding each other.
Meanwhile, after several moments of triumph, Quasimodo had
plunged abruptly into the church with his burden. The populace,
fond of all prowess, sought him with their eyes, beneath the
gloomy nave, regretting that he had so speedily disappeared from
their acclamations. All at once, he was seen to re-appear at one
of the extremities of the gallery of the kings of France; he
traversed it, running like a madman, raising his conquest high in
his arms and shouting: “Sanctuary!” The crowd broke forth into
fresh applause. The gallery passed, he plunged once more into the
interior of the church. A moment later, he re-appeared upon the
upper platform, with the gypsy still in his arms, still running
madly, still crying, “Sanctuary!” and the throng applauded.
Finally, he made his appearance for the third time upon the
summit of the tower where hung the great bell; from that point he
seemed to be showing to the entire city the girl whom he had
saved, and his voice of thunder, that voice which was so rarely
heard, and which he never heard himself, repeated thrice with
frenzy, even to the clouds: “Sanctuary! Sanctuary! Sanctuary!”
“Noël! Noël!” shouted the populace in its turn; and that immense
acclamation flew to astonish the crowd assembled at the Grève on
the other bank, and the recluse who was still waiting with her
eyes riveted on the gibbet.
BOOK NINTH.
CHAPTER I. DELIRIUM.
Claude Frollo was no longer in Notre-Dame when his adopted son so
abruptly cut the fatal web in which the archdeacon and the gypsy
were entangled. On returning to the sacristy he had torn off his
alb, cope, and stole, had flung all into the hands of the
stupefied beadle, had made his escape through the private door of
the cloister, had ordered a boatman of the Terrain to transport
him to the left bank of the Seine, and had plunged into the hilly
streets of the University, not knowing whither he was going,
encountering at every step groups of men and women who were
hurrying joyously towards the Pont Saint-Michel, in the hope of
still arriving in time to see the witch hung there,—pale, wild,
more troubled, more blind and more fierce than a night bird let
loose and pursued by a troop of children in broad daylight. He no
longer knew where he was, what he thought, or whether he were
dreaming. He went forward, walking, running, taking any street at
haphazard, making no choice, only urged ever onward away from the
Grève, the horrible Grève, which he felt confusedly, to be behind
him.
In this manner he skirted Mount Sainte-Geneviève, and finally
emerged from the town by the Porte Saint-Victor. He continued his
flight as long as he could see, when he turned round, the
turreted enclosure of the University, and the rare houses of the
suburb; but, when, at length, a rise of ground had completely
concealed from him that odious Paris, when he could believe
himself to be a hundred leagues distant from it, in the fields,
in the desert, he halted, and it seemed to him that he breathed
more freely.
Then frightful ideas thronged his mind. Once more he could see
clearly into his soul, and he shuddered. He thought of that
unhappy girl who had destroyed him, and whom he had destroyed. He
cast a haggard eye over the double, tortuous way which fate had
caused their two destinies to pursue up to their point of
intersection, where it had dashed them against each other without
mercy. He meditated on the folly of eternal vows, on the vanity
of chastity, of science, of religion, of virtue, on the
uselessness of God. He plunged to his heart’s content in evil
thoughts, and in proportion as he sank deeper, he felt a Satanic
laugh burst forth within him.
And as he thus sifted his soul to the bottom, when he perceived
how large a space nature had prepared there for the passions, he
sneered still more bitterly. He stirred up in the depths of his
heart all his hatred, all his malevolence; and, with the cold
glance of a physician who examines a patient, he recognized the
fact that this malevolence was nothing but vitiated love; that
love, that source of every virtue in man, turned to horrible
things in the heart of a priest, and that a man constituted like
himself, in making himself a priest, made himself a demon. Then
he laughed frightfully, and suddenly became pale again, when he
considered the most sinister side of his fatal passion, of that
corrosive, venomous malignant, implacable love, which had ended
only in the gibbet for one of them and in hell for the other;
condemnation for her, damnation for him.
And then his laughter came again, when he reflected that Phœbus
was alive; that after all, the captain lived, was gay and happy,
had handsomer doublets than ever, and a new mistress whom he was
conducting to see the old one hanged. His sneer redoubled its
bitterness when he reflected that out of the living beings whose
death he had desired, the gypsy, the only creature whom he did
not hate, was the only one who had not escaped him.
Then from the captain, his thought passed to the people, and
there came to him a jealousy of an unprecedented sort. He
reflected that the people also, the entire populace, had had
before their eyes the woman whom he loved exposed almost naked.
He writhed his arms with agony as he thought that the woman whose
form, caught by him alone in the darkness would have been supreme
happiness, had been delivered up in broad daylight at full
noonday, to a whole people, clad as for a night of
voluptuousness. He wept with rage over all these mysteries of
love, profaned, soiled, laid bare, withered forever. He wept with
rage as he pictured to himself how many impure looks had been
gratified at the sight of that badly fastened shift, and that
this beautiful girl, this virgin lily, this cup of modesty and
delight, to which he would have dared to place his lips only
trembling, had just been transformed into a sort of public bowl,
whereat the vilest populace of Paris, thieves, beggars, lackeys,
had come to quaff in common an audacious, impure, and depraved
pleasure.
And when he sought to picture to himself the happiness which he
might have found upon earth, if she had not been a gypsy, and if
he had not been a priest, if Phœbus had not existed and if she
had loved him; when he pictured to himself that a life of
serenity and love would have been possible to him also, even to
him; that there were at that very moment, here and there upon the
earth, happy couples spending the hours in sweet converse beneath
orange trees, on the banks of brooks, in the presence of a
setting sun, of a starry night; and that if God had so willed, he
might have formed with her one of those blessed couples,—his
heart melted in tenderness and despair.
Oh! she! still she! It was this fixed idea which returned
incessantly, which tortured him, which ate into his brain, and
rent his vitals. He did not regret, he did not repent; all that
he had done he was ready to do again; he preferred to behold her
in the hands of the executioner rather than in the arms of the
captain. But he suffered; he suffered so that at intervals he
tore out handfuls of his hair to see whether it were not turning
white.
Among other moments there came one, when it occurred to him that
it was perhaps the very minute when the hideous chain which he
had seen that morning, was pressing its iron noose closer about
that frail and graceful neck. This thought caused the
perspiration to start from every pore.
There was another moment when, while laughing diabolically at
himself, he represented to himself la Esmeralda as he had seen
her on that first day, lively, careless, joyous, gayly attired,
dancing, winged, harmonious, and la Esmeralda of the last day, in
her scanty shift, with a rope about her neck, mounting slowly
with her bare feet, the angular ladder of the gallows; he figured
to himself this double picture in such a manner that he gave vent
to a terrible cry.
While this hurricane of despair overturned, broke, tore up, bent,
uprooted everything in his soul, he gazed at nature around him.
At his feet, some chickens were searching the thickets and
pecking, enamelled beetles ran about in the sun; overhead, some
groups of dappled gray clouds were floating across the blue sky;
on the horizon, the spire of the Abbey Saint-Victor pierced the
ridge of the hill with its slate obelisk; and the miller of the
Copeaue hillock was whistling as he watched the laborious wings
of his mill turning. All this active, organized, tranquil life,
recurring around him under a thousand forms, hurt him. He resumed
his flight.
He sped thus across the fields until evening. This flight from
nature, life, himself, man, God, everything, lasted all day long.
Sometimes he flung himself face downward on the earth, and tore
up the young blades of wheat with his nails. Sometimes he halted
in the deserted street of a village, and his thoughts were so
intolerable that he grasped his head in both hands and tried to
tear it from his shoulders in order to dash it upon the pavement.
Towards the hour of sunset, he examined himself again, and found
himself nearly mad. The tempest which had raged within him ever
since the instant when he had lost the hope and the will to save
the gypsy,—that tempest had not left in his conscience a single
healthy idea, a single thought which maintained its upright
position. His reason lay there almost entirely destroyed. There
remained but two distinct images in his mind, la Esmeralda and
the gallows; all the rest was blank. Those two images united,
presented to him a frightful group; and the more he concentrated
what attention and thought was left to him, the more he beheld
them grow, in accordance with a fantastic progression, the one in
grace, in charm, in beauty, in light, the other in deformity and
horror; so that at last la Esmeralda appeared to him like a star,
the gibbet like an enormous, fleshless arm.
One remarkable fact is, that during the whole of this torture,
the idea of dying did not seriously occur to him. The wretch was
made so. He clung to life. Perhaps he really saw hell beyond it.
Meanwhile, the day continued to decline. The living being which
still existed in him reflected vaguely on retracing its steps. He
believed himself to be far away from Paris; on taking his
bearings, he perceived that he had only circled the enclosure of
the University. The spire of Saint-Sulpice, and the three lofty
needles of Saint Germain-des-Prés, rose above the horizon on his
right. He turned his steps in that direction. When he heard the
brisk challenge of the men-at-arms of the abbey, around the
crenelated, circumscribing wall of Saint-Germain, he turned
aside, took a path which presented itself between the abbey and
the lazar-house of the bourg, and at the expiration of a few
minutes found himself on the verge of the Pré-aux-Clercs. This
meadow was celebrated by reason of the brawls which went on there
night and day; it was the hydra of the poor monks of
Saint-Germain: _quod monachis Sancti-Germaini pratensis hydra
fuit, clericis nova semper dissidiorum capita suscitantibus_. The
archdeacon was afraid of meeting some one there; he feared every
human countenance; he had just avoided the University and the
Bourg Saint-Germain; he wished to re-enter the streets as late as
possible. He skirted the Pré-aux-Clercs, took the deserted path
which separated it from the Dieu-Neuf, and at last reached the
water’s edge. There Dom Claude found a boatman, who, for a few
farthings in Parisian coinage, rowed him up the Seine as far as
the point of the city, and landed him on that tongue of abandoned
land where the reader has already beheld Gringoire dreaming, and
which was prolonged beyond the king’s gardens, parallel to the
Ile du Passeur-aux-Vaches.
The monotonous rocking of the boat and the ripple of the water
had, in some sort, quieted the unhappy Claude. When the boatman
had taken his departure, he remained standing stupidly on the
strand, staring straight before him and perceiving objects only
through magnifying oscillations which rendered everything a sort
of phantasmagoria to him. The fatigue of a great grief not
infrequently produces this effect on the mind.
The sun had set behind the lofty Tour-de-Nesle. It was the
twilight hour. The sky was white, the water of the river was
white. Between these two white expanses, the left bank of the
Seine, on which his eyes were fixed, projected its gloomy mass
and, rendered ever thinner and thinner by perspective, it plunged
into the gloom of the horizon like a black spire. It was loaded
with houses, of which only the obscure outline could be
distinguished, sharply brought out in shadows against the light
background of the sky and the water. Here and there windows began
to gleam, like the holes in a brazier. That immense black obelisk
thus isolated between the two white expanses of the sky and the
river, which was very broad at this point, produced upon Dom
Claude a singular effect, comparable to that which would be
experienced by a man who, reclining on his back at the foot of
the tower of Strasbourg, should gaze at the enormous spire
plunging into the shadows of the twilight above his head. Only,
in this case, it was Claude who was erect and the obelisk which
was lying down; but, as the river, reflecting the sky, prolonged
the abyss below him, the immense promontory seemed to be as
boldly launched into space as any cathedral spire; and the
impression was the same. This impression had even one stronger
and more profound point about it, that it was indeed the tower of
Strasbourg, but the tower of Strasbourg two leagues in height;
something unheard of, gigantic, immeasurable; an edifice such as
no human eye has ever seen; a tower of Babel. The chimneys of the
houses, the battlements of the walls, the faceted gables of the
roofs, the spire of the Augustines, the tower of Nesle, all these
projections which broke the profile of the colossal obelisk added
to the illusion by displaying in eccentric fashion to the eye the
indentations of a luxuriant and fantastic sculpture.
Claude, in the state of hallucination in which he found himself,
believed that he saw, that he saw with his actual eyes, the bell
tower of hell; the thousand lights scattered over the whole
height of the terrible tower seemed to him so many porches of the
immense interior furnace; the voices and noises which escaped
from it seemed so many shrieks, so many death groans. Then he
became alarmed, he put his hands on his ears that he might no
longer hear, turned his back that he might no longer see, and
fled from the frightful vision with hasty strides.
But the vision was in himself.
When he re-entered the streets, the passers-by elbowing each
other by the light of the shop-fronts, produced upon him the
effect of a constant going and coming of spectres about him.
There were strange noises in his ears; extraordinary fancies
disturbed his brain. He saw neither houses, nor pavements, nor
chariots, nor men and women, but a chaos of indeterminate objects
whose edges melted into each other. At the corner of the Rue de
la Barillerie, there was a grocer’s shop whose porch was
garnished all about, according to immemorial custom, with hoops
of tin from which hung a circle of wooden candles, which came in
contact with each other in the wind, and rattled like castanets.
He thought he heard a cluster of skeletons at Montfaucon clashing
together in the gloom.
“Oh!” he muttered, “the night breeze dashes them against each
other, and mingles the noise of their chains with the rattle of
their bones! Perhaps she is there among them!”
In his state of frenzy, he knew not whither he was going. After a
few strides he found himself on the Pont Saint-Michel. There was
a light in the window of a ground-floor room; he approached.
Through a cracked window he beheld a mean chamber which recalled
some confused memory to his mind. In that room, badly lighted by
a meagre lamp, there was a fresh, light-haired young man, with a
merry face, who amid loud bursts of laughter was embracing a very
audaciously attired young girl; and near the lamp sat an old
crone spinning and singing in a quavering voice. As the young man
did not laugh constantly, fragments of the old woman’s ditty
reached the priest; it was something unintelligible yet
frightful,—
“Grève, aboie, Grève, grouille!
File, file, ma quenouille,
File sa corde au bourreau,
Qui siffle dans le préau,
Grève, aboie, Grève, grouille!
“La belle corde de chanvre!
Semez d’Issy jusqu’à Vanvre
Du chanvre et non pas du blé.
Le voleur n’a pas volé
La belle corde de chanvre.
“Grève, grouille, Grève, aboie!
Pour voir la fille de joie,
Prendre au gibet chassieux,
Les fenêtres sont des yeux.
Grève, grouille, Grève, aboie!”[51]
Thereupon the young man laughed and caressed the wench. The crone
was la Falourdel; the girl was a courtesan; the young man was his
brother Jehan.
He continued to gaze. That spectacle was as good as any other.
He saw Jehan go to a window at the end of the room, open it, cast
a glance on the quay, where in the distance blazed a thousand
lighted casements, and he heard him say as he closed the sash,—
“’Pon my soul! How dark it is; the people are lighting their
candles, and the good God his stars.”
Then Jehan came back to the hag, smashed a bottle standing on the
table, exclaiming,—
“Already empty, _cor-bœuf!_ and I have no more money! Isabeau, my
dear, I shall not be satisfied with Jupiter until he has changed
your two white nipples into two black bottles, where I may suck
wine of Beaune day and night.”
This fine pleasantry made the courtesan laugh, and Jehan left the
room.
Dom Claude had barely time to fling himself on the ground in
order that he might not be met, stared in the face and recognized
by his brother. Luckily, the street was dark, and the scholar was
tipsy. Nevertheless, he caught sight of the archdeacon prone upon
the earth in the mud.
“Oh! oh!” said he; “here’s a fellow who has been leading a jolly
life, to-day.”
He stirred up Dom Claude with his foot, and the latter held his
breath.
“Dead drunk,” resumed Jehan. “Come, he’s full. A regular leech
detached from a hogshead. He’s bald,” he added, bending down,
“’tis an old man! _Fortunate senex!_”
Then Dom Claude heard him retreat, saying,—
“’Tis all the same, reason is a fine thing, and my brother the
archdeacon is very happy in that he is wise and has money.”
Then the archdeacon rose to his feet, and ran without halting,
towards Notre-Dame, whose enormous towers he beheld rising above
the houses through the gloom.
At the instant when he arrived, panting, on the Place du Parvis,
he shrank back and dared not raise his eyes to the fatal edifice.
“Oh!” he said, in a low voice, “is it really true that such a
thing took place here, to-day, this very morning?”
Still, he ventured to glance at the church. The front was sombre;
the sky behind was glittering with stars. The crescent of the
moon, in her flight upward from the horizon, had paused at the
moment, on the summit of the light hand tower, and seemed to have
perched itself, like a luminous bird, on the edge of the
balustrade, cut out in black trefoils.
The cloister door was shut; but the archdeacon always carried
with him the key of the tower in which his laboratory was
situated. He made use of it to enter the church.
In the church he found the gloom and silence of a cavern. By the
deep shadows which fell in broad sheets from all directions, he
recognized the fact that the hangings for the ceremony of the
morning had not yet been removed. The great silver cross shone
from the depths of the gloom, powdered with some sparkling
points, like the milky way of that sepulchral night. The long
windows of the choir showed the upper extremities of their arches
above the black draperies, and their painted panes, traversed by
a ray of moonlight had no longer any hues but the doubtful colors
of night, a sort of violet, white and blue, whose tint is found
only on the faces of the dead. The archdeacon, on perceiving
these wan spots all around the choir, thought he beheld the
mitres of damned bishops. He shut his eyes, and when he opened
them again, he thought they were a circle of pale visages gazing
at him.
He started to flee across the church. Then it seemed to him that
the church also was shaking, moving, becoming endued with
animation, that it was alive; that each of the great columns was
turning into an enormous paw, which was beating the earth with
its big stone spatula, and that the gigantic cathedral was no
longer anything but a sort of prodigious elephant, which was
breathing and marching with its pillars for feet, its two towers
for trunks and the immense black cloth for its housings.
This fever or madness had reached such a degree of intensity that
the external world was no longer anything more for the unhappy
man than a sort of Apocalypse,—visible, palpable, terrible.
For one moment, he was relieved. As he plunged into the side
aisles, he perceived a reddish light behind a cluster of pillars.
He ran towards it as to a star. It was the poor lamp which
lighted the public breviary of Notre-Dame night and day, beneath
its iron grating. He flung himself eagerly upon the holy book in
the hope of finding some consolation, or some encouragement
there. The hook lay open at this passage of Job, over which his
staring eye glanced,—
“And a spirit passed before my face, and I heard a small voice,
and the hair of my flesh stood up.”
On reading these gloomy words, he felt that which a blind man
feels when he feels himself pricked by the staff which he has
picked up. His knees gave way beneath him, and he sank upon the
pavement, thinking of her who had died that day. He felt so many
monstrous vapors pass and discharge themselves in his brain, that
it seemed to him that his head had become one of the chimneys of
hell.
It would appear that he remained a long time in this attitude, no
longer thinking, overwhelmed and passive beneath the hand of the
demon. At length some strength returned to him; it occurred to
him to take refuge in his tower beside his faithful Quasimodo. He
rose; and, as he was afraid, he took the lamp from the breviary
to light his way. It was a sacrilege; but he had got beyond
heeding such a trifle now.
He slowly climbed the stairs of the towers, filled with a secret
fright which must have been communicated to the rare passers-by
in the Place du Parvis by the mysterious light of his lamp,
mounting so late from loophole to loophole of the bell tower.
All at once, he felt a freshness on his face, and found himself
at the door of the highest gallery. The air was cold; the sky was
filled with hurrying clouds, whose large, white flakes drifted
one upon another like the breaking up of river ice after the
winter. The crescent of the moon, stranded in the midst of the
clouds, seemed a celestial vessel caught in the ice-cakes of the
air.
He lowered his gaze, and contemplated for a moment, through the
railing of slender columns which unites the two towers, far away,
through a gauze of mists and smoke, the silent throng of the
roofs of Paris, pointed, innumerable, crowded and small like the
waves of a tranquil sea on a sum-mer night.
The moon cast a feeble ray, which imparted to earth and heaven an
ashy hue.
At that moment the clock raised its shrill, cracked voice.
Midnight rang out. The priest thought of midday; twelve o’clock
had come back again.
“Oh!” he said in a very low tone, “she must be cold now.”
All at once, a gust of wind extinguished his lamp, and almost at
the same instant, he beheld a shade, a whiteness, a form, a
woman, appear from the opposite angle of the tower. He started.
Beside this woman was a little goat, which mingled its bleat with
the last bleat of the clock.
He had strength enough to look. It was she.
She was pale, she was gloomy. Her hair fell over her shoulders as
in the morning; but there was no longer a rope on her neck, her
hands were no longer bound; she was free, she was dead.
She was dressed in white and had a white veil on her head.
She came towards him, slowly, with her gaze fixed on the sky. The
supernatural goat followed her. He felt as though made of stone
and too heavy to flee. At every step which she took in advance,
he took one backwards, and that was all. In this way he retreated
once more beneath the gloomy arch of the stairway. He was chilled
by the thought that she might enter there also; had she done so,
he would have died of terror.
She did arrive, in fact, in front of the door to the stairway,
and paused there for several minutes, stared intently into the
darkness, but without appearing to see the priest, and passed on.
She seemed taller to him than when she had been alive; he saw the
moon through her white robe; he heard her breath.
When she had passed on, he began to descend the staircase again,
with the slowness which he had observed in the spectre, believing
himself to be a spectre too, haggard, with hair on end, his
extinguished lamp still in his hand; and as he descended the
spiral steps, he distinctly heard in his ear a voice laughing and
repeating,—
“A spirit passed before my face, and I heard a small voice, and
the hair of my flesh stood up.”
CHAPTER II. HUNCHBACKED, ONE EYED, LAME.
Every city during the Middle Ages, and every city in France down
to the time of Louis XII. had its places of asylum. These
sanctuaries, in the midst of the deluge of penal and barbarous
jurisdictions which inundated the city, were a species of islands
which rose above the level of human justice. Every criminal who
landed there was safe. There were in every suburb almost as many
places of asylum as gallows. It was the abuse of impunity by the
side of the abuse of punishment; two bad things which strove to
correct each other. The palaces of the king, the hôtels of the
princes, and especially churches, possessed the right of asylum.
Sometimes a whole city which stood in need of being repeopled was
temporarily created a place of refuge. Louis XI. made all Paris a
refuge in 1467.
His foot once within the asylum, the criminal was sacred; but he
must beware of leaving it; one step outside the sanctuary, and he
fell back into the flood. The wheel, the gibbet, the strappado,
kept good guard around the place of refuge, and lay in watch
incessantly for their prey, like sharks around a vessel. Hence,
condemned men were to be seen whose hair had grown white in a
cloister, on the steps of a palace, in the enclosure of an abbey,
beneath the porch of a church; in this manner the asylum was a
prison as much as any other. It sometimes happened that a solemn
decree of parliament violated the asylum and restored the
condemned man to the executioner; but this was of rare
occurrence. Parliaments were afraid of the bishops, and when
there was friction between these two robes, the gown had but a
poor chance against the cassock. Sometimes, however, as in the
affair of the assassins of Petit-Jean, the headsman of Paris, and
in that of Emery Rousseau, the murderer of Jean Valleret, justice
overleaped the church and passed on to the execution of its
sentences; but unless by virtue of a decree of Parliament, woe to
him who violated a place of asylum with armed force! The reader
knows the manner of death of Robert de Clermont, Marshal of
France, and of Jean de Châlons, Marshal of Champagne; and yet the
question was only of a certain Perrin Marc, the clerk of a
money-changer, a miserable assassin; but the two marshals had
broken the doors of St. Méry. Therein lay the enormity.
Such respect was cherished for places of refuge that, according
to tradition, animals even felt it at times. Aymoire relates that
a stag, being chased by Dagobert, having taken refuge near the
tomb of Saint-Denis, the pack of hounds stopped short and barked.
Churches generally had a small apartment prepared for the
reception of supplicants. In 1407, Nicolas Flamel caused to be
built on the vaults of Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, a chamber
which cost him four livres six sous, sixteen farthings, parisis.
At Notre-Dame it was a tiny cell situated on the roof of the side
aisle, beneath the flying buttresses, precisely at the spot where
the wife of the present janitor of the towers has made for
herself a garden, which is to the hanging gardens of Babylon what
a lettuce is to a palm-tree, what a porter’s wife is to a
Semiramis.
It was here that Quasimodo had deposited la Esmeralda, after his
wild and triumphant course. As long as that course lasted, the
young girl had been unable to recover her senses, half
unconscious, half awake, no longer feeling anything, except that
she was mounting through the air, floating in it, flying in it,
that something was raising her above the earth. From time to time
she heard the loud laughter, the noisy voice of Quasimodo in her
ear; she half opened her eyes; then below her she confusedly
beheld Paris checkered with its thousand roofs of slate and
tiles, like a red and blue mosaic, above her head the frightful
and joyous face of Quasimodo. Then her eyelids drooped again; she
thought that all was over, that they had executed her during her
swoon, and that the misshapen spirit which had presided over her
destiny, had laid hold of her and was bearing her away. She dared
not look at him, and she surrendered herself to her fate. But
when the bellringer, dishevelled and panting, had deposited her
in the cell of refuge, when she felt his huge hands gently
detaching the cord which bruised her arms, she felt that sort of
shock which awakens with a start the passengers of a vessel which
runs aground in the middle of a dark night. Her thoughts awoke
also, and returned to her one by one. She saw that she was in
Notre-Dame; she remembered having been torn from the hands of the
executioner; that Phœbus was alive, that Phœbus loved her no
longer; and as these two ideas, one of which shed so much
bitterness over the other, presented themselves simultaneously to
the poor condemned girl; she turned to Quasimodo, who was
standing in front of her, and who terrified her; she said to
him,—
“Why have you saved me?”
He gazed at her with anxiety, as though seeking to divine what
she was saying to him. She repeated her question. Then he gave
her a profoundly sorrowful glance and fled. She was astonished.
A few moments later he returned, bearing a package which he cast
at her feet. It was clothing which some charitable women had left
on the threshold of the church for her.
Then she dropped her eyes upon herself and saw that she was
almost naked, and blushed. Life had returned.
Quasimodo appeared to experience something of this modesty. He
covered his eyes with his large hand and retired once more, but
slowly.
She made haste to dress herself. The robe was a white one with a
white veil,—the garb of a novice of the Hôtel-Dieu.
She had barely finished when she beheld Quasimodo returning. He
carried a basket under one arm and a mattress under the other. In
the basket there was a bottle, bread, and some provisions. He set
the basket on the floor and said, “Eat!” He spread the mattress
on the flagging and said, “Sleep.”
It was his own repast, it was his own bed, which the bellringer
had gone in search of.
The gypsy raised her eyes to thank him, but she could not
articulate a word. She dropped her head with a quiver of terror.
Then he said to her.—
“I frighten you. I am very ugly, am I not? Do not look at me;
only listen to me. During the day you will remain here; at night
you can walk all over the church. But do not leave the church
either by day or by night. You would be lost. They would kill
you, and I should die.”
She was touched and raised her head to answer him. He had
disappeared. She found herself alone once more, meditating upon
the singular words of this almost monstrous being, and struck by
the sound of his voice, which was so hoarse yet so gentle.
Then she examined her cell. It was a chamber about six feet
square, with a small window and a door on the slightly sloping
plane of the roof formed of flat stones. Many gutters with the
figures of animals seemed to be bending down around her, and
stretching their necks in order to stare at her through the
window. Over the edge of her roof she perceived the tops of
thousands of chimneys which caused the smoke of all the fires in
Paris to rise beneath her eyes. A sad sight for the poor gypsy, a
foundling, condemned to death, an unhappy creature, without
country, without family, without a hearthstone.
At the moment when the thought of her isolation thus appeared to
her more poignant than ever, she felt a bearded and hairy head
glide between her hands, upon her knees. She started (everything
alarmed her now) and looked. It was the poor goat, the agile
Djali, which had made its escape after her, at the moment when
Quasimodo had put to flight Charmolue’s brigade, and which had
been lavishing caresses on her feet for nearly an hour past,
without being able to win a glance. The gypsy covered him with
kisses.
“Oh! Djali!” she said, “how I have forgotten thee! And so thou
still thinkest of me! Oh! thou art not an ingrate!”
At the same time, as though an invisible hand had lifted the
weight which had repressed her tears in her heart for so long,
she began to weep, and, in proportion as her tears flowed, she
felt all that was most acrid and bitter in her grief depart with
them.
Evening came, she thought the night so beautiful that she made
the circuit of the elevated gallery which surrounds the church.
It afforded her some relief, so calm did the earth appear when
viewed from that height.
CHAPTER III. DEAF.
On the following morning, she perceived on awaking, that she had
been asleep. This singular thing astonished her. She had been so
long unaccustomed to sleep! A joyous ray of the rising sun
entered through her window and touched her face. At the same time
with the sun, she beheld at that window an object which
frightened her, the unfortunate face of Quasimodo. She
involuntarily closed her eyes again, but in vain; she fancied
that she still saw through the rosy lids that gnome’s mask,
one-eyed and gap-toothed. Then, while she still kept her eyes
closed, she heard a rough voice saying, very gently,—
“Be not afraid. I am your friend. I came to watch you sleep. It
does not hurt you if I come to see you sleep, does it? What
difference does it make to you if I am here when your eyes are
closed! Now I am going. Stay, I have placed myself behind the
wall. You can open your eyes again.”
There was something more plaintive than these words, and that was
the accent in which they were uttered. The gypsy, much touched,
opened her eyes. He was, in fact, no longer at the window. She
approached the opening, and beheld the poor hunchback crouching
in an angle of the wall, in a sad and resigned attitude. She made
an effort to surmount the repugnance with which he inspired her.
“Come,” she said to him gently. From the movement of the gypsy’s
lips, Quasimodo thought that she was driving him away; then he
rose and retired limping, slowly, with drooping head, without
even daring to raise to the young girl his gaze full of despair.
“Do come,” she cried, but he continued to retreat. Then she
darted from her cell, ran to him, and grasped his arm. On feeling
her touch him, Quasimodo trembled in every limb. He raised his
suppliant eye, and seeing that she was leading him back to her
quarters, his whole face beamed with joy and tenderness. She
tried to make him enter the cell; but he persisted in remaining
on the threshold. “No, no,” said he; “the owl enters not the nest
of the lark.”
Then she crouched down gracefully on her couch, with her goat
asleep at her feet. Both remained motionless for several moments,
considering in silence, she so much grace, he so much ugliness.
Every moment she discovered some fresh deformity in Quasimodo.
Her glance travelled from his knock knees to his humped back,
from his humped back to his only eye. She could not comprehend
the existence of a being so awkwardly fashioned. Yet there was so
much sadness and so much gentleness spread over all this, that
she began to become reconciled to it.
He was the first to break the silence. “So you were telling me to
return?”
She made an affirmative sign of the head, and said, “Yes.”
He understood the motion of the head. “Alas!” he said, as though
hesitating whether to finish, “I am—I am deaf.”
“Poor man!” exclaimed the Bohemian, with an expression of kindly
pity.
He began to smile sadly.
“You think that that was all that I lacked, do you not? Yes, I am
deaf, that is the way I am made. ’Tis horrible, is it not? You
are so beautiful!”
There lay in the accents of the wretched man so profound a
consciousness of his misery, that she had not the strength to say
a word. Besides, he would not have heard her. He went on,—
“Never have I seen my ugliness as at the present moment. When I
compare myself to you, I feel a very great pity for myself, poor
unhappy monster that I am! Tell me, I must look to you like a
beast. You, you are a ray of sunshine, a drop of dew, the song of
a bird! I am something frightful, neither man nor animal, I know
not what, harder, more trampled under foot, and more unshapely
than a pebble stone!”
Then he began to laugh, and that laugh was the most heartbreaking
thing in the world. He continued,—
“Yes, I am deaf; but you shall talk to me by gestures, by signs.
I have a master who talks with me in that way. And then, I shall
very soon know your wish from the movement of your lips, from
your look.”
“Well!” she interposed with a smile, “tell me why you saved me.”
He watched her attentively while she was speaking.
“I understand,” he replied. “You ask me why I saved you. You have
forgotten a wretch who tried to abduct you one night, a wretch to
whom you rendered succor on the following day on their infamous
pillory. A drop of water and a little pity,—that is more than I
can repay with my life. You have forgotten that wretch; but he
remembers it.”
She listened to him with profound tenderness. A tear swam in the
eye of the bellringer, but did not fall. He seemed to make it a
sort of point of honor to retain it.
“Listen,” he resumed, when he was no longer afraid that the tear
would escape; “our towers here are very high, a man who should
fall from them would be dead before touching the pavement; when
it shall please you to have me fall, you will not have to utter
even a word, a glance will suffice.”
Then he rose. Unhappy as was the Bohemian, this eccentric being
still aroused some compassion in her. She made him a sign to
remain.
“No, no,” said he; “I must not remain too long. I am not at my
ease. It is out of pity that you do not turn away your eyes. I
shall go to some place where I can see you without your seeing
me: it will be better so.”
He drew from his pocket a little metal whistle.
“Here,” said he, “when you have need of me, when you wish me to
come, when you will not feel too much horror at the sight of me,
use this whistle. I can hear this sound.”
He laid the whistle on the floor and fled.
CHAPTER IV. EARTHENWARE AND CRYSTAL.
Day followed day. Calm gradually returned to the soul of la
Esmeralda. Excess of grief, like excess of joy is a violent thing
which lasts but a short time. The heart of man cannot remain long
in one extremity. The gypsy had suffered so much, that nothing
was left her but astonishment. With security, hope had returned
to her. She was outside the pale of society, outside the pale of
life, but she had a vague feeling that it might not be impossible
to return to it. She was like a dead person, who should hold in
reserve the key to her tomb.
She felt the terrible images which had so long persecuted her,
gradually departing. All the hideous phantoms, Pierrat Torterue,
Jacques Charmolue, were effaced from her mind, all, even the
priest.
And then, Phœbus was alive; she was sure of it, she had seen him.
To her the fact of Phœbus being alive was everything. After the
series of fatal shocks which had overturned everything within
her, she had found but one thing intact in her soul, one
sentiment,—her love for the captain. Love is like a tree; it
sprouts forth of itself, sends its roots out deeply through our
whole being, and often continues to flourish greenly over a heart
in ruins.
And the inexplicable point about it is that the more blind is
this passion, the more tenacious it is. It is never more solid
than when it has no reason in it.
La Esmeralda did not think of the captain without bitterness, no
doubt. No doubt it was terrible that he also should have been
deceived; that he should have believed that impossible thing,
that he could have conceived of a stab dealt by her who would
have given a thousand lives for him. But, after all, she must not
be too angry with him for it; had she not confessed her crime?
had she not yielded, weak woman that she was, to torture? The
fault was entirely hers. She should have allowed her finger nails
to be torn out rather than such a word to be wrenched from her.
In short, if she could but see Phœbus once more, for a single
minute, only one word would be required, one look, in order to
undeceive him, to bring him back. She did not doubt it. She was
astonished also at many singular things, at the accident of
Phœbus’s presence on the day of the penance, at the young girl
with whom he had been. She was his sister, no doubt. An
unreasonable explanation, but she contented herself with it,
because she needed to believe that Phœbus still loved her, and
loved her alone. Had he not sworn it to her? What more was
needed, simple and credulous as she was? And then, in this
matter, were not appearances much more against her than against
him? Accordingly, she waited. She hoped.
Let us add that the church, that vast church, which surrounded
her on every side, which guarded her, which saved her, was itself
a sovereign tranquillizer. The solemn lines of that architecture,
the religious attitude of all the objects which surrounded the
young girl, the serene and pious thoughts which emanated, so to
speak, from all the pores of that stone, acted upon her without
her being aware of it. The edifice had also sounds fraught with
such benediction and such majesty, that they soothed this ailing
soul. The monotonous chanting of the celebrants, the responses of
the people to the priest, sometimes inarticulate, sometimes
thunderous, the harmonious trembling of the painted windows, the
organ, bursting forth like a hundred trumpets, the three
belfries, humming like hives of huge bees, that whole orchestra
on which bounded a gigantic scale, ascending, descending
incessantly from the voice of a throng to that of one bell,
dulled her memory, her imagination, her grief. The bells, in
particular, lulled her. It was something like a powerful
magnetism which those vast instruments shed over her in great
waves.
Thus every sunrise found her more calm, breathing better, less
pale. In proportion as her inward wounds closed, her grace and
beauty blossomed once more on her countenance, but more
thoughtful, more reposeful. Her former character also returned to
her, somewhat even of her gayety, her pretty pout, her love for
her goat, her love for singing, her modesty. She took care to
dress herself in the morning in the corner of her cell for fear
some inhabitants of the neighboring attics might see her through
the window.
When the thought of Phœbus left her time, the gypsy sometimes
thought of Quasimodo. He was the sole bond, the sole connection,
the sole communication which remained to her with men, with the
living. Unfortunate girl! she was more outside the world than
Quasimodo. She understood not in the least the strange friend
whom chance had given her. She often reproached herself for not
feeling a gratitude which should close her eyes, but decidedly,
she could not accustom herself to the poor bellringer. He was too
ugly.
She had left the whistle which he had given her lying on the
ground. This did not prevent Quasimodo from making his appearance
from time to time during the first few days. She did her best not
to turn aside with too much repugnance when he came to bring her
her basket of provisions or her jug of water, but he always
perceived the slightest movement of this sort, and then he
withdrew sadly.
Once he came at the moment when she was caressing Djali. He stood
pensively for several minutes before this graceful group of the
goat and the gypsy; at last he said, shaking his heavy and
ill-formed head,—
“My misfortune is that I still resemble a man too much. I should
like to be wholly a beast like that goat.”
She gazed at him in amazement.
He replied to the glance,—
“Oh! I well know why,” and he went away.
On another occasion he presented himself at the door of the cell
(which he never entered) at the moment when la Esmeralda was
singing an old Spanish ballad, the words of which she did not
understand, but which had lingered in her ear because the gypsy
women had lulled her to sleep with it when she was a little
child. At the sight of that villanous form which made its
appearance so abruptly in the middle of her song, the young girl
paused with an involuntary gesture of alarm. The unhappy
bellringer fell upon his knees on the threshold, and clasped his
large, misshapen hands with a suppliant air. “Oh!” he said,
sorrowfully, “continue, I implore you, and do not drive me away.”
She did not wish to pain him, and resumed her lay, trembling all
over. By degrees, however, her terror disappeared, and she
yielded herself wholly to the slow and melancholy air which she
was singing. He remained on his knees with hands clasped, as in
prayer, attentive, hardly breathing, his gaze riveted upon the
gypsy’s brilliant eyes.
On another occasion, he came to her with an awkward and timid
air. “Listen,” he said, with an effort; “I have something to say
to you.” She made him a sign that she was listening. Then he
began to sigh, half opened his lips, appeared for a moment to be
on the point of speaking, then he looked at her again, shook his
head, and withdrew slowly, with his brow in his hand, leaving the
gypsy stupefied. Among the grotesque personages sculptured on the
wall, there was one to whom he was particularly attached, and
with which he often seemed to exchange fraternal glances. Once
the gypsy heard him saying to it,—
“Oh! why am not I of stone, like you!”
At last, one morning, la Esmeralda had advanced to the edge of
the roof, and was looking into the Place over the pointed roof of
Saint-Jean le Rond. Quasimodo was standing behind her. He had
placed himself in that position in order to spare the young girl,
as far as possible, the displeasure of seeing him. All at once
the gypsy started, a tear and a flash of joy gleamed
simultaneously in her eyes, she knelt on the brink of the roof
and extended her arms towards the Place with anguish, exclaiming:
“Phœbus! come! come! a word, a single word in the name of heaven!
Phœbus! Phœbus!” Her voice, her face, her gesture, her whole
person bore the heartrending expression of a shipwrecked man who
is making a signal of distress to the joyous vessel which is
passing afar off in a ray of sunlight on the horizon.
Quasimodo leaned over the Place, and saw that the object of this
tender and agonizing prayer was a young man, a captain, a
handsome cavalier all glittering with arms and decorations,
prancing across the end of the Place, and saluting with his plume
a beautiful lady who was smiling at him from her balcony.
However, the officer did not hear the unhappy girl calling him;
he was too far away.
But the poor deaf man heard. A profound sigh heaved his breast;
he turned round; his heart was swollen with all the tears which
he was swallowing; his convulsively-clenched fists struck against
his head, and when he withdrew them there was a bunch of red hair
in each hand.
The gypsy paid no heed to him. He said in a low voice as he
gnashed his teeth,—
“Damnation! That is what one should be like! ’Tis only necessary
to be handsome on the outside!”
Meanwhile, she remained kneeling, and cried with extraordinary
agitation,—
“Oh! there he is alighting from his horse! He is about to enter
that house!—Phœbus!—He does not hear me! Phœbus!—How wicked that
woman is to speak to him at the same time with me! Phœbus!
Phœbus!”
The deaf man gazed at her. He understood this pantomime. The poor
bellringer’s eye filled with tears, but he let none fall. All at
once he pulled her gently by the border of her sleeve. She turned
round. He had assumed a tranquil air; he said to her,—
“Would you like to have me bring him to you?”
She uttered a cry of joy.
“Oh! go! hasten! run! quick! that captain! that captain! bring
him to me! I will love you for it!”
She clasped his knees. He could not refrain from shaking his head
sadly.
“I will bring him to you,” he said, in a weak voice. Then he
turned his head and plunged down the staircase with great
strides, stifling with sobs.
When he reached the Place, he no longer saw anything except the
handsome horse hitched at the door of the Gondelaurier house; the
captain had just entered there.
He raised his eyes to the roof of the church. La Esmeralda was
there in the same spot, in the same attitude. He made her a sad
sign with his head; then he planted his back against one of the
stone posts of the Gondelaurier porch, determined to wait until
the captain should come forth.
In the Gondelaurier house it was one of those gala days which
precede a wedding. Quasimodo beheld many people enter, but no one
come out. He cast a glance towards the roof from time to time;
the gypsy did not stir any more than himself. A groom came and
unhitched the horse and led it to the stable of the house.
The entire day passed thus, Quasimodo at his post, la Esmeralda
on the roof, Phœbus, no doubt, at the feet of Fleur-de-Lys.
At length night came, a moonless night, a dark night. Quasimodo
fixed his gaze in vain upon la Esmeralda; soon she was no more
than a whiteness amid the twilight; then nothing. All was
effaced, all was black.
Quasimodo beheld the front windows from top to bottom of the
Gondelaurier mansion illuminated; he saw the other casements in
the Place lighted one by one, he also saw them extinguished to
the very last, for he remained the whole evening at his post. The
officer did not come forth. When the last passers-by had returned
home, when the windows of all the other houses were extinguished,
Quasimodo was left entirely alone, entirely in the dark. There
were at that time no lamps in the square before Notre-Dame.
Meanwhile, the windows of the Gondelaurier mansion remained
lighted, even after midnight. Quasimodo, motionless and
attentive, beheld a throng of lively, dancing shadows pass
athwart the many-colored painted panes. Had he not been deaf, he
would have heard more and more distinctly, in proportion as the
noise of sleeping Paris died away, a sound of feasting, laughter,
and music in the Gondelaurier mansion.
Towards one o’clock in the morning, the guests began to take
their leave. Quasimodo, shrouded in darkness watched them all
pass out through the porch illuminated with torches. None of them
was the captain.
He was filled with sad thoughts; at times he looked upwards into
the air, like a person who is weary of waiting. Great black
clouds, heavy, torn, split, hung like crape hammocks beneath the
starry dome of night. One would have pronounced them spiders’
webs of the vault of heaven.
In one of these moments he suddenly beheld the long window on the
balcony, whose stone balustrade projected above his head, open
mysteriously. The frail glass door gave passage to two persons,
and closed noiselessly behind them; it was a man and a woman.
It was not without difficulty that Quasimodo succeeded in
recognizing in the man the handsome captain, in the woman the
young lady whom he had seen welcome the officer in the morning
from that very balcony. The place was perfectly dark, and a
double crimson curtain which had fallen across the door the very
moment it closed again, allowed no light to reach the balcony
from the apartment.
The young man and the young girl, so far as our deaf man could
judge, without hearing a single one of their words, appeared to
abandon themselves to a very tender tête-à-tête. The young girl
seemed to have allowed the officer to make a girdle for her of
his arm, and gently repulsed a kiss.
Quasimodo looked on from below at this scene which was all the
more pleasing to witness because it was not meant to be seen. He
contemplated with bitterness that beauty, that happiness. After
all, nature was not dumb in the poor fellow, and his human
sensibility, all maliciously contorted as it was, quivered no
less than any other. He thought of the miserable portion which
Providence had allotted to him; that woman and the pleasure of
love, would pass forever before his eyes, and that he should
never do anything but behold the felicity of others. But that
which rent his heart most in this sight, that which mingled
indignation with his anger, was the thought of what the gypsy
would suffer could she behold it. It is true that the night was
very dark, that la Esmeralda, if she had remained at her post
(and he had no doubt of this), was very far away, and that it was
all that he himself could do to distinguish the lovers on the
balcony. This consoled him.
Meanwhile, their conversation grew more and more animated. The
young lady appeared to be entreating the officer to ask nothing
more of her. Of all this Quasimodo could distinguish only the
beautiful clasped hands, the smiles mingled with tears, the young
girl’s glances directed to the stars, the eyes of the captain
lowered ardently upon her.
Fortunately, for the young girl was beginning to resist but
feebly, the door of the balcony suddenly opened once more and an
old dame appeared; the beauty seemed confused, the officer
assumed an air of displeasure, and all three withdrew.
A moment later, a horse was champing his bit under the porch, and
the brilliant officer, enveloped in his night cloak, passed
rapidly before Quasimodo.
The bellringer allowed him to turn the corner of the street, then
he ran after him with his ape-like agility, shouting: “Hey there!
captain!”
The captain halted.
“What wants this knave with me?” he said, catching sight through
the gloom of that hipshot form which ran limping after him.
Meanwhile, Quasimodo had caught up with him, and had boldly
grasped his horse’s bridle: “Follow me, captain; there is one
here who desires to speak with you!
“_Cornemahom_!” grumbled Phœbus, “here’s a villanous; ruffled
bird which I fancy I have seen somewhere. Holà master, will you
let my horse’s bridle alone?”
“Captain,” replied the deaf man, “do you not ask me who it is?”
“I tell you to release my horse,” retorted Phœbus, impatiently.
“What means the knave by clinging to the bridle of my steed? Do
you take my horse for a gallows?”
Quasimodo, far from releasing the bridle, prepared to force him
to retrace his steps. Unable to comprehend the captain’s
resistance, he hastened to say to him,—
“Come, captain, ’tis a woman who is waiting for you.” He added
with an effort: “A woman who loves you.”
“A rare rascal!” said the captain, “who thinks me obliged to go
to all the women who love me! or who say they do. And what if, by
chance, she should resemble you, you face of a screech-owl? Tell
the woman who has sent you that I am about to marry, and that she
may go to the devil!”
“Listen,” exclaimed Quasimodo, thinking to overcome his
hesitation with a word, “come, monseigneur! ’tis the gypsy whom
you know!”
This word did, indeed, produce a great effect on Phœbus, but not
of the kind which the deaf man expected. It will be remembered
that our gallant officer had retired with Fleur-de-Lys several
moments before Quasimodo had rescued the condemned girl from the
hands of Charmolue. Afterwards, in all his visits to the
Gondelaurier mansion he had taken care not to mention that woman,
the memory of whom was, after all, painful to him; and on her
side, Fleur-de-Lys had not deemed it politic to tell him that the
gypsy was alive. Hence Phœbus believed poor “Similar” to be dead,
and that a month or two had elapsed since her death. Let us add
that for the last few moments the captain had been reflecting on
the profound darkness of the night, the supernatural ugliness,
the sepulchral voice of the strange messenger; that it was past
midnight; that the street was deserted, as on the evening when
the surly monk had accosted him; and that his horse snorted as it
looked at Quasimodo.
“The gypsy!” he exclaimed, almost frightened. “Look here, do you
come from the other world?”
And he laid his hand on the hilt of his dagger.
“Quick, quick,” said the deaf man, endeavoring to drag the horse
along; “this way!”
Phœbus dealt him a vigorous kick in the breast.
Quasimodo’s eye flashed. He made a motion to fling himself on the
captain. Then he drew himself up stiffly and said,—
“Oh! how happy you are to have some one who loves you!”
He emphasized the words “some one,” and loosing the horse’s
bridle,—
“Begone!”
Phœbus spurred on in all haste, swearing. Quasimodo watched him
disappear in the shades of the street.
“Oh!” said the poor deaf man, in a very low voice; “to refuse
that!”
He re-entered Notre-Dame, lighted his lamp and climbed to the
tower again. The gypsy was still in the same place, as he had
supposed.
She flew to meet him as far off as she could see him. “Alone!”
she cried, clasping her beautiful hands sorrowfully.
“I could not find him,” said Quasimodo coldly.
“You should have waited all night,” she said angrily.
He saw her gesture of wrath, and understood the reproach.
“I will lie in wait for him better another time,” he said,
dropping his head.
“Begone!” she said to him.
He left her. She was displeased with him. He preferred to have
her abuse him rather than to have afflicted her. He had kept all
the pain to himself.
From that day forth, the gypsy no longer saw him. He ceased to
come to her cell. At the most she occasionally caught a glimpse
at the summit of the towers, of the bellringer’s face turned
sadly to her. But as soon as she perceived him, he disappeared.
We must admit that she was not much grieved by this voluntary
absence on the part of the poor hunchback. At the bottom of her
heart she was grateful to him for it. Moreover, Quasimodo did not
deceive himself on this point.
She no longer saw him, but she felt the presence of a good genius
about her. Her provisions were replenished by an invisible hand
during her slumbers. One morning she found a cage of birds on her
window. There was a piece of sculpture above her window which
frightened her. She had shown this more than once in Quasimodo’s
presence. One morning, for all these things happened at night,
she no longer saw it, it had been broken. The person who had
climbed up to that carving must have risked his life.
Sometimes, in the evening, she heard a voice, concealed beneath
the wind screen of the bell tower, singing a sad, strange song,
as though to lull her to sleep. The lines were unrhymed, such as
a deaf person can make.
Ne regarde pas la figure,
Jeune fille, regarde le cœur.
Le cœur d’un beau jeune homme est souvent difforme.
Il y a des cœurs où l’amour ne se conserve pas.
Jeune fille, le sapin n’est pas beau,
N’est pas beau comme le peuplier,
Mais il garde son feuillage l’hiver.
Hélas! à quoi bon dire cela?
Ce qui n’est pas beau a tort d’être;
La beauté n’aime que la beauté,
Avril tourne le dos à janvier.
La beauté est parfaite,
La beauté peut tout,
La beauté est la seule chose qui n’existe pas à demi.
Le corbeau ne vole que le jour,
Le hibou ne vole que la nuit,
Le cygne vole la nuit et le jour.[52]
One morning, on awaking, she saw on her window two vases filled
with flowers. One was a very beautiful and very brilliant but
cracked vase of glass. It had allowed the water with which it had
been filled to escape, and the flowers which it contained were
withered. The other was an earthenware pot, coarse and common,
but which had preserved all its water, and its flowers remained
fresh and crimson.
I know not whether it was done intentionally, but La Esmeralda
took the faded nosegay and wore it all day long upon her breast.
That day she did not hear the voice singing in the tower.
She troubled herself very little about it. She passed her days in
caressing Djali, in watching the door of the Gondelaurier house,
in talking to herself about Phœbus, and in crumbling up her bread
for the swallows.
She had entirely ceased to see or hear Quasimodo. The poor
bellringer seemed to have disappeared from the church. One night,
nevertheless, when she was not asleep, but was thinking of her
handsome captain, she heard something breathing near her cell.
She rose in alarm, and saw by the light of the moon, a shapeless
mass lying across her door on the outside. It was Quasimodo
asleep there upon the stones.
CHAPTER V. THE KEY TO THE RED DOOR.
In the meantime, public rumor had informed the archdeacon of the
miraculous manner in which the gypsy had been saved. When he
learned it, he knew not what his sensations were. He had
reconciled himself to la Esmeralda’s death. In that matter he was
tranquil; he had reached the bottom of personal suffering. The
human heart (Dom Claude had meditated upon these matters) can
contain only a certain quantity of despair. When the sponge is
saturated, the sea may pass over it without causing a single drop
more to enter it.
Now, with la Esmeralda dead, the sponge was soaked, all was at an
end on this earth for Dom Claude. But to feel that she was alive,
and Phœbus also, meant that tortures, shocks, alternatives, life,
were beginning again. And Claude was weary of all this.
When he heard this news, he shut himself in his cell in the
cloister. He appeared neither at the meetings of the chapter nor
at the services. He closed his door against all, even against the
bishop. He remained thus immured for several weeks. He was
believed to be ill. And so he was, in fact.
What did he do while thus shut up? With what thoughts was the
unfortunate man contending? Was he giving final battle to his
formidable passion? Was he concocting a final plan of death for
her and of perdition for himself?
His Jehan, his cherished brother, his spoiled child, came once to
his door, knocked, swore, entreated, gave his name half a score
of times. Claude did not open.
He passed whole days with his face close to the panes of his
window. From that window, situated in the cloister, he could see
la Esmeralda’s chamber. He often saw herself with her goat,
sometimes with Quasimodo. He remarked the little attentions of
the ugly deaf man, his obedience, his delicate and submissive
ways with the gypsy. He recalled, for he had a good memory, and
memory is the tormentor of the jealous, he recalled the singular
look of the bellringer, bent on the dancer upon a certain
evening. He asked himself what motive could have impelled
Quasimodo to save her. He was the witness of a thousand little
scenes between the gypsy and the deaf man, the pantomime of
which, viewed from afar and commented on by his passion, appeared
very tender to him. He distrusted the capriciousness of women.
Then he felt a jealousy which he could never have believed
possible awakening within him, a jealousy which made him redden
with shame and indignation: “One might condone the captain, but
this one!” This thought upset him.
His nights were frightful. As soon as he learned that the gypsy
was alive, the cold ideas of spectre and tomb which had
persecuted him for a whole day vanished, and the flesh returned
to goad him. He turned and twisted on his couch at the thought
that the dark-skinned maiden was so near him.
Every night his delirious imagination represented la Esmeralda to
him in all the attitudes which had caused his blood to boil most.
He beheld her outstretched upon the poniarded captain, her eyes
closed, her beautiful bare throat covered with Phœbus’s blood, at
that moment of bliss when the archdeacon had imprinted on her
pale lips that kiss whose burn the unhappy girl, though half
dead, had felt. He beheld her, again, stripped by the savage
hands of the torturers, allowing them to bare and to enclose in
the boot with its iron screw, her tiny foot, her delicate rounded
leg, her white and supple knee. Again he beheld that ivory knee
which alone remained outside of Torterue’s horrible apparatus.
Lastly, he pictured the young girl in her shift, with the rope
about her neck, shoulders bare, feet bare, almost nude, as he had
seen her on that last day. These images of voluptuousness made
him clench his fists, and a shiver run along his spine.
One night, among others, they heated so cruelly his virgin and
priestly blood, that he bit his pillow, leaped from his bed,
flung on a surplice over his shirt, and left his cell, lamp in
hand, half naked, wild, his eyes aflame.
He knew where to find the key to the red door, which connected
the cloister with the church, and he always had about him, as the
reader knows, the key of the staircase leading to the towers.
CHAPTER VI. CONTINUATION OF THE KEY TO THE RED DOOR.
That night, la Esmeralda had fallen asleep in her cell, full of
oblivion, of hope, and of sweet thoughts. She had already been
asleep for some time, dreaming as always, of Phœbus, when it
seemed to her that she heard a noise near her. She slept lightly
and uneasily, the sleep of a bird; a mere nothing waked her. She
opened her eyes. The night was very dark. Nevertheless, she saw a
figure gazing at her through the window; a lamp lighted up this
apparition. The moment that the figure saw that la Esmeralda had
perceived it, it blew out the lamp. But the young girl had had
time to catch a glimpse of it; her eyes closed again with terror.
“Oh!” she said in a faint voice, “the priest!”
All her past unhappiness came back to her like a flash of
lightning. She fell back on her bed, chilled.
A moment later she felt a touch along her body which made her
shudder so that she straightened herself up in a sitting posture,
wide awake and furious.
The priest had just slipped in beside her. He encircled her with
both arms.
She tried to scream and could not.
“Begone, monster! begone assassin!” she said, in a voice which
was low and trembling with wrath and terror.
“Mercy! mercy!” murmured the priest, pressing his lips to her
shoulder.
She seized his bald head by its remnant of hair and tried to
thrust aside his kisses as though they had been bites.
“Mercy!” repeated the unfortunate man. “If you but knew what my
love for you is! ’Tis fire, melted lead, a thousand daggers in my
heart.”
She stopped his two arms with superhuman force.
“Let me go,” she said, “or I will spit in your face!”
He released her. “Vilify me, strike me, be malicious! Do what you
will! But have mercy! love me!”
Then she struck him with the fury of a child. She made her
beautiful hands stiff to bruise his face. “Begone, demon!”
“Love me! love me! pity!” cried the poor priest returning her
blows with caresses.
All at once she felt him stronger than herself.
“There must be an end to this!” he said, gnashing his teeth.
She was conquered, palpitating in his arms, and in his power. She
felt a wanton hand straying over her. She made a last effort, and
began to cry: “Help! Help! A vampire! a vampire!”
Nothing came. Djali alone was awake and bleating with anguish.
“Hush!” said the panting priest.
All at once, as she struggled and crawled on the floor, the
gypsy’s hand came in contact with something cold and metallic—it
was Quasimodo’s whistle. She seized it with a convulsive hope,
raised it to her lips and blew with all the strength that she had
left. The whistle gave a clear, piercing sound.
“What is that?” said the priest.
Almost at the same instant he felt himself raised by a vigorous
arm. The cell was dark; he could not distinguish clearly who it
was that held him thus; but he heard teeth chattering with rage,
and there was just sufficient light scattered among the gloom to
allow him to see above his head the blade of a large knife.
The priest fancied that he perceived the form of Quasimodo. He
assumed that it could be no one but he. He remembered to have
stumbled, as he entered, over a bundle which was stretched across
the door on the outside. But, as the newcomer did not utter a
word, he knew not what to think. He flung himself on the arm
which held the knife, crying: “Quasimodo!” He forgot, at that
moment of distress, that Quasimodo was deaf.
In a twinkling, the priest was overthrown and a leaden knee
rested on his breast.
From the angular imprint of that knee he recognized Quasimodo;
but what was to be done? how could he make the other recognize
him? the darkness rendered the deaf man blind.
He was lost. The young girl, pitiless as an enraged tigress, did
not intervene to save him. The knife was approaching his head;
the moment was critical. All at once, his adversary seemed
stricken with hesitation.
“No blood on her!” he said in a dull voice.
It was, in fact, Quasimodo’s voice.
Then the priest felt a large hand dragging him feet first out of
the cell; it was there that he was to die. Fortunately for him,
the moon had risen a few moments before.
When they had passed through the door of the cell, its pale rays
fell upon the priest’s countenance. Quasimodo looked him full in
the face, a trembling seized him, and he released the priest and
shrank back.
The gypsy, who had advanced to the threshold of her cell, beheld
with surprise their roles abruptly changed. It was now the priest
who menaced, Quasimodo who was the suppliant.
The priest, who was overwhelming the deaf man with gestures of
wrath and reproach, made the latter a violent sign to retire.
The deaf man dropped his head, then he came and knelt at the
gypsy’s door,—“Monseigneur,” he said, in a grave and resigned
voice, “you shall do all that you please afterwards, but kill me
first.”
So saying, he presented his knife to the priest. The priest,
beside himself, was about to seize it. But the young girl was
quicker than he; she wrenched the knife from Quasimodo’s hands
and burst into a frantic laugh,—“Approach,” she said to the
priest.
She held the blade high. The priest remained undecided.
She would certainly have struck him.
Then she added with a pitiless expression, well aware that she
was about to pierce the priest’s heart with thousands of red-hot
irons,—
“Ah! I know that Phœbus is not dead!”
The priest overturned Quasimodo on the floor with a kick, and,
quivering with rage, darted back under the vault of the
staircase.
When he was gone, Quasimodo picked up the whistle which had just
saved the gypsy.
“It was getting rusty,” he said, as he handed it back to her;
then he left her alone.
The young girl, deeply agitated by this violent scene, fell back
exhausted on her bed, and began to sob and weep. Her horizon was
becoming gloomy once more.
The priest had groped his way back to his cell.
It was settled. Dom Claude was jealous of Quasimodo!
He repeated with a thoughtful air his fatal words: “No one shall
have her.”
BOOK TENTH.
CHAPTER I. GRINGOIRE HAS MANY GOOD IDEAS IN SUCCESSION.—RUE DES
BERNARDINS.
As soon as Pierre Gringoire had seen how this whole affair was
turning, and that there would decidedly be the rope, hanging, and
other disagreeable things for the principal personages in this
comedy, he had not cared to identify himself with the matter
further. The outcasts with whom he had remained, reflecting that,
after all, it was the best company in Paris,—the outcasts had
continued to interest themselves in behalf of the gypsy. He had
thought it very simple on the part of people who had, like
herself, nothing else in prospect but Charmolue and Torterue, and
who, unlike himself, did not gallop through the regions of
imagination between the wings of Pegasus. From their remarks, he
had learned that his wife of the broken crock had taken refuge in
Notre-Dame, and he was very glad of it. But he felt no temptation
to go and see her there. He meditated occasionally on the little
goat, and that was all. Moreover, he was busy executing feats of
strength during the day for his living, and at night he was
engaged in composing a memorial against the Bishop of Paris, for
he remembered having been drenched by the wheels of his mills,
and he cherished a grudge against him for it. He also occupied
himself with annotating the fine work of Baudry-le-Rouge, Bishop
of Noyon and Tournay, _De Cupa Petrarum_, which had given him a
violent passion for architecture, an inclination which had
replaced in his heart his passion for hermeticism, of which it
was, moreover, only a natural corollary, since there is an
intimate relation between hermeticism and masonry. Gringoire had
passed from the love of an idea to the love of the form of that
idea.
One day he had halted near Saint Germain-l’Auxerrois, at the
corner of a mansion called “For-l’Évêque” (the Bishop’s
Tribunal), which stood opposite another called “For-le-Roi” (the
King’s Tribunal). At this For-l’Évêque, there was a charming
chapel of the fourteenth century, whose apse was on the street.
Gringoire was devoutly examining its exterior sculptures. He was
in one of those moments of egotistical, exclusive, supreme,
enjoyment when the artist beholds nothing in the world but art,
and the world in art. All at once he feels a hand laid gravely on
his shoulder. He turns round. It was his old friend, his former
master, monsieur the archdeacon.
He was stupefied. It was a long time since he had seen the
archdeacon, and Dom Claude was one of those solemn and
impassioned men, a meeting with whom always upsets the
equilibrium of a sceptical philosopher.
The archdeacon maintained silence for several minutes, during
which Gringoire had time to observe him. He found Dom Claude
greatly changed; pale as a winter’s morning, with hollow eyes,
and hair almost white. The priest broke the silence at length, by
saying, in a tranquil but glacial tone,—
“How do you do, Master Pierre?”
“My health?” replied Gringoire. “Eh! eh! one can say both one
thing and another on that score. Still, it is good, on the whole.
I take not too much of anything. You know, master, that the
secret of keeping well, according to Hippocrates; _id est: cibi,
potus, somni, venus, omnia moderata sint_.”
“So you have no care, Master Pierre?” resumed the archdeacon,
gazing intently at Gringoire.
“None, i’ faith!”
“And what are you doing now?”
“You see, master. I am examining the chiselling of these stones,
and the manner in which yonder bas-relief is thrown out.”
The priest began to smile with that bitter smile which raises
only one corner of the mouth.
“And that amuses you?”
“’Tis paradise!” exclaimed Gringoire. And leaning over the
sculptures with the fascinated air of a demonstrator of living
phenomena: “Do you not think, for instance, that yon
metamorphosis in bas-relief is executed with much adroitness,
delicacy and patience? Observe that slender column. Around what
capital have you seen foliage more tender and better caressed by
the chisel. Here are three raised bosses of Jean Maillevin. They
are not the finest works of this great master. Nevertheless, the
naïvete, the sweetness of the faces, the gayety of the attitudes
and draperies, and that inexplicable charm which is mingled with
all the defects, render the little figures very diverting and
delicate, perchance, even too much so. You think that it is not
diverting?”
“Yes, certainly!” said the priest.
“And if you were to see the interior of the chapel!” resumed the
poet, with his garrulous enthusiasm. “Carvings everywhere. ’Tis
as thickly clustered as the head of a cabbage! The apse is of a
very devout, and so peculiar a fashion that I have never beheld
anything like it elsewhere!”
Dom Claude interrupted him,—
“You are happy, then?”
Gringoire replied warmly;—
“On my honor, yes! First I loved women, then animals. Now I love
stones. They are quite as amusing as women and animals, and less
treacherous.”
The priest laid his hand on his brow. It was his habitual
gesture.
“Really?”
“Stay!” said Gringoire, “one has one’s pleasures!” He took the
arm of the priest, who let him have his way, and made him enter
the staircase turret of For-l’Évêque. “Here is a staircase! every
time that I see it I am happy. It is of the simplest and rarest
manner of steps in Paris. All the steps are bevelled underneath.
Its beauty and simplicity consist in the interspacing of both,
being a foot or more wide, which are interlaced, interlocked,
fitted together, enchained enchased, interlined one upon another,
and bite into each other in a manner that is truly firm and
graceful.”
“And you desire nothing?”
“No.”
“And you regret nothing?”
“Neither regret nor desire. I have arranged my mode of life.”
“What men arrange,” said Claude, “things disarrange.”
“I am a Pyrrhonian philosopher,” replied Gringoire, “and I hold
all things in equilibrium.”
“And how do you earn your living?”
“I still make epics and tragedies now and then; but that which
brings me in most is the industry with which you are acquainted,
master; carrying pyramids of chairs in my teeth.”
“The trade is but a rough one for a philosopher.”
“’Tis still equilibrium,” said Gringoire. “When one has an idea,
one encounters it in everything.”
“I know that,” replied the archdeacon.
After a silence, the priest resumed,—
“You are, nevertheless, tolerably poor?”
“Poor, yes; unhappy, no.”
At that moment, a trampling of horses was heard, and our two
interlocutors beheld defiling at the end of the street, a company
of the king’s unattached archers, their lances borne high, an
officer at their head. The cavalcade was brilliant, and its march
resounded on the pavement.
“How you gaze at that officer!” said Gringoire, to the
archdeacon.
“Because I think I recognize him.”
“What do you call him?”
“I think,” said Claude, “that his name is Phœbus de Châteaupers.”
“Phœbus! A curious name! There is also a Phœbus, Comte de Foix. I
remember having known a wench who swore only by the name of
Phœbus.”
“Come away from here,” said the priest. “I have something to say
to you.”
From the moment of that troop’s passing, some agitation had
pierced through the archdeacon’s glacial envelope. He walked on.
Gringoire followed him, being accustomed to obey him, like all
who had once approached that man so full of ascendency. They
reached in silence the Rue des Bernardins, which was nearly
deserted. Here Dom Claude paused.
“What have you to say to me, master?” Gringoire asked him.
“Do you not think that the dress of those cavaliers whom we have
just seen is far handsomer than yours and mine?”
Gringoire tossed his head.
“I’ faith! I love better my red and yellow jerkin, than those
scales of iron and steel. A fine pleasure to produce, when you
walk, the same noise as the Quay of Old Iron, in an earthquake!”
“So, Gringoire, you have never cherished envy for those handsome
fellows in their military doublets?”
“Envy for what, monsieur the archdeacon? their strength, their
armor, their discipline? Better philosophy and independence in
rags. I prefer to be the head of a fly rather than the tail of a
lion.”
“That is singular,” said the priest dreamily. “Yet a handsome
uniform is a beautiful thing.”
Gringoire, perceiving that he was in a pensive mood, quitted him
to go and admire the porch of a neighboring house. He came back
clapping his hands.
“If you were less engrossed with the fine clothes of men of war,
monsieur the archdeacon, I would entreat you to come and see this
door. I have always said that the house of the Sieur Aubry had
the most superb entrance in the world.”
“Pierre Gringoire,” said the archdeacon, “What have you done with
that little gypsy dancer?”
“La Esmeralda? You change the conversation very abruptly.”
“Was she not your wife?”
“Yes, by virtue of a broken crock. We were to have four years of
it. By the way,” added Gringoire, looking at the archdeacon in a
half bantering way, “are you still thinking of her?”
“And you think of her no longer?”
“Very little. I have so many things. Good heavens, how pretty
that little goat was!”
“Had she not saved your life?”
“’Tis true, pardieu!”
“Well, what has become of her? What have you done with her?”
“I cannot tell you. I believe that they have hanged her.”
“You believe so?”
“I am not sure. When I saw that they wanted to hang people, I
retired from the game.”
“That is all you know of it?”
“Wait a bit. I was told that she had taken refuge in Notre-Dame,
and that she was safe there, and I am delighted to hear it, and I
have not been able to discover whether the goat was saved with
her, and that is all I know.”
“I will tell you more,” cried Dom Claude; and his voice, hitherto
low, slow, and almost indistinct, turned to thunder. “She has in
fact, taken refuge in Notre-Dame. But in three days justice will
reclaim her, and she will be hanged on the Grève. There is a
decree of parliament.”
“That’s annoying,” said Gringoire.
The priest, in an instant, became cold and calm again.
“And who the devil,” resumed the poet, “has amused himself with
soliciting a decree of reintegration? Why couldn’t they leave
parliament in peace? What harm does it do if a poor girl takes
shelter under the flying buttresses of Notre-Dame, beside the
swallows’ nests?”
“There are satans in this world,” remarked the archdeacon.
“’Tis devilish badly done,” observed Gringoire.
The archdeacon resumed after a silence,—
“So, she saved your life?”
“Among my good friends the outcasts. A little more or a little
less and I should have been hanged. They would have been sorry
for it to-day.”
“Would not you like to do something for her?”
“I ask nothing better, Dom Claude; but what if I entangle myself
in some villanous affair?”
“What matters it?”
“Bah! what matters it? You are good, master, that you are! I have
two great works already begun.”
The priest smote his brow. In spite of the calm which he
affected, a violent gesture betrayed his internal convulsions
from time to time.
“How is she to be saved?”
Gringoire said to him; “Master, I will reply to you; _Il padelt_,
which means in Turkish, ‘God is our hope.’”
“How is she to be saved?” repeated Claude dreamily.
Gringoire smote his brow in his turn.
“Listen, master. I have imagination; I will devise expedients for
you. What if one were to ask her pardon from the king?”
“Of Louis XI.! A pardon!”
“Why not?”
“To take the tiger’s bone from him!”
Gringoire began to seek fresh expedients.
“Well, stay! Shall I address to the midwives a request
accompanied by the declaration that the girl is with child!”
This made the priest’s hollow eye flash.
“With child! knave! do you know anything of this?”
Gringoire was alarmed by his air. He hastened to say, “Oh, no,
not I! Our marriage was a real _forismaritagium_. I stayed
outside. But one might obtain a respite, all the same.”
“Madness! Infamy! Hold your tongue!”
“You do wrong to get angry,” muttered Gringoire. “One obtains a
respite; that does no harm to any one, and allows the midwives,
who are poor women, to earn forty deniers parisis.”
The priest was not listening to him!
“But she must leave that place, nevertheless!” he murmured, “the
decree is to be executed within three days. Moreover, there will
be no decree; that Quasimodo! Women have very depraved tastes!”
He raised his voice: “Master Pierre, I have reflected well; there
is but one means of safety for her.”
“What? I see none myself.”
“Listen, Master Pierre, remember that you owe your life to her. I
will tell you my idea frankly. The church is watched night and
day; only those are allowed to come out, who have been seen to
enter. Hence you can enter. You will come. I will lead you to
her. You will change clothes with her. She will take your
doublet; you will take her petticoat.”
“So far, it goes well,” remarked the philosopher, “and then?”
“And then? she will go forth in your garments; you will remain
with hers. You will be hanged, perhaps, but she will be saved.”
Gringoire scratched his ear, with a very serious air. “Stay!”
said he, “that is an idea which would never have occurred to me
unaided.”
At Dom Claude’s proposition, the open and benign face of the poet
had abruptly clouded over, like a smiling Italian landscape, when
an unlucky squall comes up and dashes a cloud across the sun.
“Well! Gringoire, what say you to the means?”
“I say, master, that I shall not be hanged, perchance, but that I
shall be hanged indubitably.
“That concerns us not.”
“The deuce!” said Gringoire.
“She has saved your life. ’Tis a debt that you are discharging.”
“There are a great many others which I do not discharge.”
“Master Pierre, it is absolutely necessary.”
The archdeacon spoke imperiously.
“Listen, Dom Claude,” replied the poet in utter consternation.
“You cling to that idea, and you are wrong. I do not see why I
should get myself hanged in some one else’s place.”
“What have you, then, which attaches you so strongly to life?”
“Oh! a thousand reasons!”
“What reasons, if you please?”
“What? The air, the sky, the morning, the evening, the moonlight,
my good friends the thieves, our jeers with the old hags of
go-betweens, the fine architecture of Paris to study, three great
books to make, one of them being against the bishops and his
mills; and how can I tell all? Anaxagoras said that he was in the
world to admire the sun. And then, from morning till night, I
have the happiness of passing all my days with a man of genius,
who is myself, which is very agreeable.”
“A head fit for a mule bell!” muttered the archdeacon. “Oh! tell
me who preserved for you that life which you render so charming
to yourself? To whom do you owe it that you breathe that air,
behold that sky, and can still amuse your lark’s mind with your
whimsical nonsense and madness? Where would you be, had it not
been for her? Do you then desire that she through whom you are
alive, should die? that she should die, that beautiful, sweet,
adorable creature, who is necessary to the light of the world and
more divine than God, while you, half wise, and half fool, a vain
sketch of something, a sort of vegetable, which thinks that it
walks, and thinks that it thinks, you will continue to live with
the life which you have stolen from her, as useless as a candle
in broad daylight? Come, have a little pity, Gringoire; be
generous in your turn; it was she who set the example.”
The priest was vehement. Gringoire listened to him at first with
an undecided air, then he became touched, and wound up with a
grimace which made his pallid face resemble that of a new-born
infant with an attack of the colic.
“You are pathetic!” said he, wiping away a tear. “Well! I will
think about it. That’s a queer idea of yours.—After all,” he
continued after a pause, “who knows? perhaps they will not hang
me. He who becomes betrothed does not always marry. When they
find me in that little lodging so grotesquely muffled in
petticoat and coif, perchance they will burst with laughter. And
then, if they do hang me,—well! the halter is as good a death as
any. ’Tis a death worthy of a sage who has wavered all his life;
a death which is neither flesh nor fish, like the mind of a
veritable sceptic; a death all stamped with Pyrrhonism and
hesitation, which holds the middle station betwixt heaven and
earth, which leaves you in suspense. ’Tis a philosopher’s death,
and I was destined thereto, perchance. It is magnificent to die
as one has lived.”
The priest interrupted him: “Is it agreed.”
“What is death, after all?” pursued Gringoire with exaltation. “A
disagreeable moment, a toll-gate, the passage of little to
nothingness. Some one having asked Cercidas, the Megalopolitan,
if he were willing to die: ‘Why not?’ he replied; ‘for after my
death I shall see those great men, Pythagoras among the
philosophers, Hecatæus among historians, Homer among poets,
Olympus among musicians.’”
The archdeacon gave him his hand: “It is settled, then? You will
come to-morrow?”
This gesture recalled Gringoire to reality.
“Ah! i’ faith no!” he said in the tone of a man just waking up.
“Be hanged! ’tis too absurd. I will not.”
“Farewell, then!” and the archdeacon added between his teeth:
“I’ll find you again!”
“I do not want that devil of a man to find me,” thought
Gringoire; and he ran after Dom Claude. “Stay, monsieur the
archdeacon, no ill-feeling between old friends! You take an
interest in that girl, my wife, I mean, and ’tis well. You have
devised a scheme to get her out of Notre-Dame, but your way is
extremely disagreeable to me, Gringoire. If I had only another
one myself! I beg to say that a luminous inspiration has just
occurred to me. If I possessed an expedient for extricating her
from a dilemma, without compromising my own neck to the extent of
a single running knot, what would you say to it? Will not that
suffice you? Is it absolutely necessary that I should be hanged,
in order that you may be content?”
The priest tore out the buttons of his cassock with impatience:
“Stream of words! What is your plan?”
“Yes,” resumed Gringoire, talking to himself and touching his
nose with his forefinger in sign of meditation,—“that’s it!—The
thieves are brave fellows!—The tribe of Egypt love her!—They will
rise at the first word!—Nothing easier!—A sudden stroke.—Under
cover of the disorder, they will easily carry her off!—Beginning
to-morrow evening. They will ask nothing better.
“The plan! speak,” cried the archdeacon shaking him.
Gringoire turned majestically towards him: “Leave me! You see
that I am composing.” He meditated for a few moments more, then
began to clap his hands over his thought, crying: “Admirable!
success is sure!”
“The plan!” repeated Claude in wrath.
Gringoire was radiant.
“Come, that I may tell you that very softly. ’Tis a truly gallant
counter-plot, which will extricate us all from the matter.
Pardieu, it must be admitted that I am no fool.”
He broke off.
“Oh, by the way! is the little goat with the wench?”
“Yes. The devil take you!”
“They would have hanged it also, would they not?”
“What is that to me?”
“Yes, they would have hanged it. They hanged a sow last month.
The headsman loveth that; he eats the beast afterwards. Take my
pretty Djali! Poor little lamb!”
“Malediction!” exclaimed Dom Claude. “You are the executioner.
What means of safety have you found, knave? Must your idea be
extracted with the forceps?”
“Very fine, master, this is it.”
Gringoire bent his head to the archdeacon’s head and spoke to him
in a very low voice, casting an uneasy glance the while from one
end to the other of the street, though no one was passing. When
he had finished, Dom Claude took his hand and said coldly: “’Tis
well. Farewell until to-morrow.”
“Until to-morrow,” repeated Gringoire. And, while the archdeacon
was disappearing in one direction, he set off in the other,
saying to himself in a low voice: “Here’s a grand affair,
Monsieur Pierre Gringoire. Never mind! ’Tis not written that
because one is of small account one should take fright at a great
enterprise. Bitou carried a great bull on his shoulders; the
water-wagtails, the warblers, and the buntings traverse the
ocean.”
CHAPTER II. TURN VAGABOND.
On re-entering the cloister, the archdeacon found at the door of
his cell his brother Jehan du Moulin, who was waiting for him,
and who had beguiled the tedium of waiting by drawing on the wall
with a bit of charcoal, a profile of his elder brother, enriched
with a monstrous nose.
Dom Claude hardly looked at his brother; his thoughts were
elsewhere. That merry scamp’s face whose beaming had so often
restored serenity to the priest’s sombre physiognomy, was now
powerless to melt the gloom which grew more dense every day over
that corrupted, mephitic, and stagnant soul.
“Brother,” said Jehan timidly, “I am come to see you.”
The archdeacon did not even raise his eyes.
“What then?”
“Brother,” resumed the hypocrite, “you are so good to me, and you
give me such wise counsels that I always return to you.”
“What next?”
“Alas! brother, you were perfectly right when you said to
me,—“Jehan! Jehan! _cessat doctorum doctrina, discipulorum
disciplina_. Jehan, be wise, Jehan, be learned, Jehan, pass not
the night outside of the college without lawful occasion and due
leave of the master. Cudgel not the Picards: _noli, Joannes,
verberare Picardos_. Rot not like an unlettered ass, _quasi
asinus illitteratus_, on the straw seats of the school. Jehan,
allow yourself to be punished at the discretion of the master.
Jehan go every evening to chapel, and sing there an anthem with
verse and orison to Madame the glorious Virgin Mary.”—Alas! what
excellent advice was that!”
“And then?”
“Brother, you behold a culprit, a criminal, a wretch, a
libertine, a man of enormities! My dear brother, Jehan hath made
of your counsels straw and dung to trample under foot. I have
been well chastised for it, and God is extraordinarily just. As
long as I had money, I feasted, I lead a mad and joyous life. Oh!
how ugly and crabbed behind is debauch which is so charming in
front! Now I have no longer a blank; I have sold my napery, my
shirt and my towels; no more merry life! The beautiful candle is
extinguished and I have henceforth, only a wretched tallow dip
which smokes in my nose. The wenches jeer at me. I drink water. I
am overwhelmed with remorse and with creditors.”
“The rest?” said the archdeacon.
“Alas! my very dear brother, I should like to settle down to a
better life. I come to you full of contrition, I am penitent. I
make my confession. I beat my breast violently. You are quite
right in wishing that I should some day become a licentiate and
sub-monitor in the college of Torchi. At the present moment I
feel a magnificent vocation for that profession. But I have no
more ink and I must buy some; I have no more paper, I have no
more books, and I must buy some. For this purpose, I am greatly
in need of a little money, and I come to you, brother, with my
heart full of contrition.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes,” said the scholar. “A little money.”
“I have none.”
Then the scholar said, with an air which was both grave and
resolute: “Well, brother, I am sorry to be obliged to tell you
that very fine offers and propositions are being made to me in
another quarter. You will not give me any money? No. In that case
I shall become a professional vagabond.”
As he uttered these monstrous words, he assumed the mien of Ajax,
expecting to see the lightnings descend upon his head.
The archdeacon said coldly to him,—
“Become a vagabond.”
Jehan made him a deep bow, and descended the cloister stairs,
whistling.
At the moment when he was passing through the courtyard of the
cloister, beneath his brother’s window, he heard that window
open, raised his eyes and beheld the archdeacon’s severe head
emerge.
“Go to the devil!” said Dom Claude; “here is the last money which
you will get from me?”
At the same time, the priest flung Jehan a purse, which gave the
scholar a big bump on the forehead, and with which Jehan
retreated, both vexed and content, like a dog who had been stoned
with marrow bones.
CHAPTER III. LONG LIVE MIRTH.
The reader has probably not forgotten that a part of the Cour de
Miracles was enclosed by the ancient wall which surrounded the
city, a goodly number of whose towers had begun, even at that
epoch, to fall to ruin. One of these towers had been converted
into a pleasure resort by the vagabonds. There was a dram-shop in
the underground story, and the rest in the upper stories. This
was the most lively, and consequently the most hideous, point of
the whole outcast den. It was a sort of monstrous hive, which
buzzed there night and day. At night, when the remainder of the
beggar horde slept, when there was no longer a window lighted in
the dingy façades of the Place, when not a cry was any longer to
be heard proceeding from those innumerable families, those
ant-hills of thieves, of wenches, and stolen or bastard children,
the merry tower was still recognizable by the noise which it
made, by the scarlet light which, flashing simultaneously from
the air-holes, the windows, the fissures in the cracked walls,
escaped, so to speak, from its every pore.
The cellar then, was the dram-shop. The descent to it was through
a low door and by a staircase as steep as a classic Alexandrine.
Over the door, by way of a sign there hung a marvellous daub,
representing new sous and dead chickens,[53] with this, pun
below: _Aux sonneurs pour les trépassés_,—The ringers for the
dead.
One evening when the curfew was sounding from all the belfries in
Paris, the sergeants of the watch might have observed, had it
been granted to them to enter the formidable Court of Miracles,
that more tumult than usual was in progress in the vagabonds’
tavern, that more drinking was being done, and louder swearing.
Outside in the Place, there, were many groups conversing in low
tones, as when some great plan is being framed, and here and
there a knave crouching down engaged in sharpening a villanous
iron blade on a paving-stone.
Meanwhile, in the tavern itself, wine and gaming offered such a
powerful diversion to the ideas which occupied the vagabonds’
lair that evening, that it would have been difficult to divine
from the remarks of the drinkers, what was the matter in hand.
They merely wore a gayer air than was their wont, and some weapon
could be seen glittering between the legs of each of them,—a
sickle, an axe, a big two-edged sword or the hook of an old
hackbut.
The room, circular in form, was very spacious; but the tables
were so thickly set and the drinkers so numerous, that all that
the tavern contained, men, women, benches, beer-jugs, all that
were drinking, all that were sleeping, all that were playing, the
well, the lame, seemed piled up pell-mell, with as much order and
harmony as a heap of oyster shells. There were a few tallow dips
lighted on the tables; but the real luminary of this tavern, that
which played the part in this dram-shop of the chandelier of an
opera house, was the fire. This cellar was so damp that the fire
was never allowed to go out, even in midsummer; an immense
chimney with a sculptured mantel, all bristling with heavy iron
andirons and cooking utensils, with one of those huge fires of
mixed wood and peat which at night, in village streets make the
reflection of forge windows stand out so red on the opposite
walls. A big dog gravely seated in the ashes was turning a spit
loaded with meat before the coals.
Great as was the confusion, after the first glance one could
distinguish in that multitude, three principal groups which
thronged around three personages already known to the reader. One
of these personages, fantastically accoutred in many an oriental
rag, was Mathias Hungadi Spicali, Duke of Egypt and Bohemia. The
knave was seated on a table with his legs crossed, and in a loud
voice was bestowing his knowledge of magic, both black and white,
on many a gaping face which surrounded him. Another rabble
pressed close around our old friend, the valiant King of Thunes,
armed to the teeth. Clopin Trouillefou, with a very serious air
and in a low voice, was regulating the distribution of an
enormous cask of arms, which stood wide open in front of him and
from whence poured out in profusion, axes, swords, bassinets,
coats of mail, broadswords, lance-heads, arrows, and
viretons,[54] like apples and grapes from a horn of plenty. Every
one took something from the cask, one a morion, another a long,
straight sword, another a dagger with a cross-shaped hilt. The
very children were arming themselves, and there were even
cripples in bowls who, in armor and cuirass, made their way
between the legs of the drinkers, like great beetles.
Finally, a third audience, the most noisy, the most jovial, and
the most numerous, encumbered benches and tables, in the midst of
which harangued and swore a flute-like voice, which escaped from
beneath a heavy armor, complete from casque to spurs. The
individual who had thus screwed a whole outfit upon his body, was
so hidden by his warlike accoutrements that nothing was to be
seen of his person save an impertinent, red, snub nose, a rosy
mouth, and bold eyes. His belt was full of daggers and poniards,
a huge sword on his hip, a rusted cross-bow at his left, and a
vast jug of wine in front of him, without reckoning on his right,
a fat wench with her bosom uncovered. All mouths around him were
laughing, cursing, and drinking.
Add twenty secondary groups, the waiters, male and female,
running with jugs on their heads, gamblers squatting over taws,
merelles,[55] dice, vachettes, the ardent game of tringlet,
quarrels in one corner, kisses in another, and the reader will
have some idea of this whole picture, over which flickered the
light of a great, flaming fire, which made a thousand huge and
grotesque shadows dance over the walls of the drinking shop.
As for the noise, it was like the inside of a bell at full peal.
The dripping-pan, where crackled a rain of grease, filled with
its continual sputtering the intervals of these thousand
dialogues, which intermingled from one end of the apartment to
the other.
In the midst of this uproar, at the extremity of the tavern, on
the bench inside the chimney, sat a philosopher meditating with
his feet in the ashes and his eyes on the brands. It was Pierre
Gringoire.
“Be quick! make haste, arm yourselves! we set out on the march in
an hour!” said Clopin Trouillefou to his thieves.
A wench was humming,—
“Bonsoir mon père et ma mère,
Les derniers couvrent le feu.”[56]
Two card players were disputing,—
“Knave!” cried the reddest faced of the two, shaking his fist at
the other; “I’ll mark you with the club. You can take the place
of Mistigri in the pack of cards of monseigneur the king.”
“Ugh!” roared a Norman, recognizable by his nasal accent; “we are
packed in here like the saints of Caillouville!”
“My sons,” the Duke of Egypt was saying to his audience, in a
falsetto voice, “sorceresses in France go to the witches’ sabbath
without broomsticks, or grease, or steed, merely by means of some
magic words. The witches of Italy always have a buck waiting for
them at their door. All are bound to go out through the chimney.”
The voice of the young scamp armed from head to foot, dominated
the uproar.
“Hurrah! hurrah!” he was shouting. “My first day in armor!
Outcast! I am an outcast. Give me something to drink. My friends,
my name is Jehan Frollo du Moulin, and I am a gentleman. My
opinion is that if God were a _gendarme_, he would turn robber.
Brothers, we are about to set out on a fine expedition. Lay siege
to the church, burst in the doors, drag out the beautiful girl,
save her from the judges, save her from the priests, dismantle
the cloister, burn the bishop in his palace—all this we will do
in less time than it takes for a burgomaster to eat a spoonful of
soup. Our cause is just, we will plunder Notre-Dame and that will
be the end of it. We will hang Quasimodo. Do you know Quasimodo,
ladies? Have you seen him make himself breathless on the big bell
on a grand Pentecost festival! _Corne du Père!_ ’tis very fine!
One would say he was a devil mounted on a man. Listen to me, my
friends; I am a vagabond to the bottom of my heart, I am a member
of the slang thief gang in my soul, I was born an independent
thief. I have been rich, and I have devoured all my property. My
mother wanted to make an officer of me; my father, a sub-deacon;
my aunt, a councillor of inquests; my grandmother, prothonotary
to the king; my great aunt, a treasurer of the short robe,—and I
have made myself an outcast. I said this to my father, who spit
his curse in my face; to my mother, who set to weeping and
chattering, poor old lady, like yonder fagot on the and-irons.
Long live mirth! I am a real Bicêtre. Waitress, my dear, more
wine. I have still the wherewithal to pay. I want no more Surène
wine. It distresses my throat. I’d as lief, _corbœuf!_ gargle my
throat with a basket.”
Meanwhile, the rabble applauded with shouts of laughter; and
seeing that the tumult was increasing around him, the scholar
cried,—.
“Oh! what a fine noise! _Populi debacchantis populosa
debacchatio!_” Then he began to sing, his eye swimming in
ecstasy, in the tone of a canon intoning vespers, _Quæ cantica!
quæ organa! quæ cantilenæ! quæ melodiæ hic sine fine decantantur!
Sonant melliflua hymnorum organa, suavissima angelorum melodia,
cantica canticorum mira!_ He broke off: “Tavern-keeper of the
devil, give me some supper!”
There was a moment of partial silence, during which the sharp
voice of the Duke of Egypt rose, as he gave instructions to his
Bohemians.
“The weasel is called Adrune; the fox, Blue-foot, or the Racer of
the Woods; the wolf, Gray-foot, or Gold-foot; the bear the Old
Man, or Grandfather. The cap of a gnome confers invisibility, and
causes one to behold invisible things. Every toad that is
baptized must be clad in red or black velvet, a bell on its neck,
a bell on its feet. The godfather holds its head, the godmother
its hinder parts. ’Tis the demon Sidragasum who hath the power to
make wenches dance stark naked.”
“By the mass!” interrupted Jehan, “I should like to be the demon
Sidragasum.”
Meanwhile, the vagabonds continued to arm themselves and whisper
at the other end of the dram-shop.
“That poor Esmeralda!” said a Bohemian. “She is our sister. She
must be taken away from there.”
“Is she still at Notre-Dame?” went on a merchant with the
appearance of a Jew.
“Yes, pardieu!”
“Well! comrades!” exclaimed the merchant, “to Notre-Dame! So much
the better, since there are in the chapel of Saints Féréol and
Ferrution two statues, the one of John the Baptist, the other of
Saint-Antoine, of solid gold, weighing together seven marks of
gold and fifteen estellins; and the pedestals are of silver-gilt,
of seventeen marks, five ounces. I know that; I am a goldsmith.”
Here they served Jehan with his supper. As he threw himself back
on the bosom of the wench beside him, he exclaimed,—
“By Saint Voult-de-Lucques, whom people call Saint Goguelu, I am
perfectly happy. I have before me a fool who gazes at me with the
smooth face of an archduke. Here is one on my left whose teeth
are so long that they hide his chin. And then, I am like the
Marshal de Gié at the siege of Pontoise, I have my right resting
on a hillock. _Ventre-Mahom!_ Comrade! you have the air of a
merchant of tennis-balls; and you come and sit yourself beside
me! I am a nobleman, my friend! Trade is incompatible with
nobility. Get out of that! Holà hé! You others, don’t fight!
What, Baptiste Croque-Oison, you who have such a fine nose are
going to risk it against the big fists of that lout! Fool! _Non
cuiquam datum est habere nasum_—not every one is favored with a
nose. You are really divine, Jacqueline Ronge-Oreille! ’tis a
pity that you have no hair! Holà! my name is Jehan Frollo, and my
brother is an archdeacon. May the devil fly off with him! All
that I tell you is the truth. In turning vagabond, I have gladly
renounced the half of a house situated in paradise, which my
brother had promised me. _Dimidiam domum in paradiso_. I quote
the text. I have a fief in the Rue Tirechappe, and all the women
are in love with me, as true as Saint Éloy was an excellent
goldsmith, and that the five trades of the good city of Paris are
the tanners, the tawers, the makers of cross-belts, the
purse-makers, and the sweaters, and that Saint Laurent was burnt
with eggshells. I swear to you, comrades.
“Que je ne beuvrai de piment,
Devant un an, si je cy ment![57]
“’Tis moonlight, my charmer; see yonder through the window how
the wind is tearing the clouds to tatters! Even thus will I do to
your gorget.—Wenches, wipe the children’s noses and snuff the
candles.—Christ and Mahom! What am I eating here, Jupiter? Ohé!
innkeeper! the hair which is not on the heads of your hussies one
finds in your omelettes. Old woman! I like bald omelettes. May
the devil confound you!—A fine hostelry of Beelzebub, where the
hussies comb their heads with the forks!
“Et je n’ai moi,
Par la sang-Dieu!
Ni foi, ni loi,
Ni feu, ni lieu,
Ni roi,
Ni Dieu.”[58]
In the meantime, Clopin Trouillefou had finished the distribution
of arms. He approached Gringoire, who appeared to be plunged in a
profound revery, with his feet on an andiron.
“Friend Pierre,” said the King of Thunes, “what the devil are you
thinking about?”
Gringoire turned to him with a melancholy smile.
“I love the fire, my dear lord. Not for the trivial reason that
fire warms the feet or cooks our soup, but because it has sparks.
Sometimes I pass whole hours in watching the sparks. I discover a
thousand things in those stars which are sprinkled over the black
background of the hearth. Those stars are also worlds.”
“Thunder, if I understand you!” said the outcast. “Do you know
what o’clock it is?”
“I do not know,” replied Gringoire.
Clopin approached the Duke of Egypt.
“Comrade Mathias, the time we have chosen is not a good one. King
Louis XI. is said to be in Paris.”
“Another reason for snatching our sister from his claws,” replied
the old Bohemian.
“You speak like a man, Mathias,” said the King of Thunes.
“Moreover, we will act promptly. No resistance is to be feared in
the church. The canons are hares, and we are in force. The people
of the parliament will be well balked to-morrow when they come to
seek her! Guts of the pope I don’t want them to hang the pretty
girl!”
Clopin quitted the dram-shop.
Meanwhile, Jehan was shouting in a hoarse voice:
“I eat, I drink, I am drunk, I am Jupiter! Eh! Pierre, the
Slaughterer, if you look at me like that again, I’ll fillip the
dust off your nose for you.”
Gringoire, torn from his meditations, began to watch the wild and
noisy scene which surrounded him, muttering between his teeth:
“_Luxuriosa res vinum et tumultuosa ebrietas_. Alas! what good
reason I have not to drink, and how excellently spoke
Saint-Benoît: ‘_Vinum apostatare facit etiam sapientes!_’”
At that moment, Clopin returned and shouted in a voice of
thunder: “Midnight!”
At this word, which produced the effect of the call to boot and
saddle on a regiment at a halt, all the outcasts, men, women,
children, rushed in a mass from the tavern, with great noise of
arms and old iron implements.
The moon was obscured.
The Cour des Miracles was entirely dark. There was not a single
light. One could make out there a throng of men and women
conversing in low tones. They could be heard buzzing, and a gleam
of all sorts of weapons was visible in the darkness. Clopin
mounted a large stone.
“To your ranks, Argot!”[59] he cried. “Fall into line, Egypt!
Form ranks, Galilee!”
A movement began in the darkness. The immense multitude appeared
to form in a column. After a few minutes, the King of Thunes
raised his voice once more,—
“Now, silence to march through Paris! The password is, ‘Little
sword in pocket!’ The torches will not be lighted till we reach
Notre-Dame! Forward, march!”
Ten minutes later, the cavaliers of the watch fled in terror
before a long procession of black and silent men which was
descending towards the Pont au Change, through the tortuous
streets which pierce the close-built neighborhood of the markets
in every direction.
CHAPTER IV. AN AWKWARD FRIEND.
That night, Quasimodo did not sleep. He had just made his last
round of the church. He had not noticed, that at the moment when
he was closing the doors, the archdeacon had passed close to him
and betrayed some displeasure on seeing him bolting and barring
with care the enormous iron locks which gave to their large
leaves the solidity of a wall. Dom Claude’s air was even more
preoccupied than usual. Moreover, since the nocturnal adventure
in the cell, he had constantly abused Quasimodo, but in vain did
he ill treat, and even beat him occasionally, nothing disturbed
the submission, patience, the devoted resignation of the faithful
bellringer. He endured everything on the part of the archdeacon,
insults, threats, blows, without murmuring a complaint. At the
most, he gazed uneasily after Dom Claude when the latter ascended
the staircase of the tower; but the archdeacon had abstained from
presenting himself again before the gypsy’s eyes.
On that night, accordingly, Quasimodo, after having cast a glance
at his poor bells which he so neglected now, Jacqueline, Marie,
and Thibauld, mounted to the summit of the Northern tower, and
there setting his dark lanturn, well closed, upon the leads, he
began to gaze at Paris. The night, as we have already said, was
very dark. Paris which, so to speak was not lighted at that
epoch, presented to the eye a confused collection of black
masses, cut here and there by the whitish curve of the Seine.
Quasimodo no longer saw any light with the exception of one
window in a distant edifice, whose vague and sombre profile was
outlined well above the roofs, in the direction of the Porte
Sainte-Antoine. There also, there was some one awake.
As the only eye of the bellringer peered into that horizon of
mist and night, he felt within him an inexpressible uneasiness.
For several days he had been upon his guard. He had perceived men
of sinister mien, who never took their eyes from the young girl’s
asylum, prowling constantly about the church. He fancied that
some plot might be in process of formation against the unhappy
refugee. He imagined that there existed a popular hatred against
her, as against himself, and that it was very possible that
something might happen soon. Hence he remained upon his tower on
the watch, “dreaming in his dream-place,” as Rabelais says, with
his eye directed alternately on the cell and on Paris, keeping
faithful guard, like a good dog, with a thousand suspicions in
his mind.
All at once, while he was scrutinizing the great city with that
eye which nature, by a sort of compensation, had made so piercing
that it could almost supply the other organs which Quasimodo
lacked, it seemed to him that there was something singular about
the Quay de la Vieille-Pelleterie, that there was a movement at
that point, that the line of the parapet, standing out blackly
against the whiteness of the water was not straight and tranquil,
like that of the other quays, but that it undulated to the eye,
like the waves of a river, or like the heads of a crowd in
motion.
This struck him as strange. He redoubled his attention. The
movement seemed to be advancing towards the City. There was no
light. It lasted for some time on the quay; then it gradually
ceased, as though that which was passing were entering the
interior of the island; then it stopped altogether, and the line
of the quay became straight and motionless again.
At the moment when Quasimodo was lost in conjectures, it seemed
to him that the movement had re-appeared in the Rue du Parvis,
which is prolonged into the city perpendicularly to the façade of
Notre-Dame. At length, dense as was the darkness, he beheld the
head of a column debouch from that street, and in an instant a
crowd—of which nothing could be distinguished in the gloom except
that it was a crowd—spread over the Place.
This spectacle had a terror of its own. It is probable that this
singular procession, which seemed so desirous of concealing
itself under profound darkness, maintained a silence no less
profound. Nevertheless, some noise must have escaped it, were it
only a trampling. But this noise did not even reach our deaf man,
and this great multitude, of which he saw hardly anything, and of
which he heard nothing, though it was marching and moving so near
him, produced upon him the effect of a rabble of dead men, mute,
impalpable, lost in a smoke. It seemed to him, that he beheld
advancing towards him a fog of men, and that he saw shadows
moving in the shadow.
Then his fears returned to him, the idea of an attempt against
the gypsy presented itself once more to his mind. He was
conscious, in a confused way, that a violent crisis was
approaching. At that critical moment he took counsel with
himself, with better and prompter reasoning than one would have
expected from so badly organized a brain. Ought he to awaken the
gypsy? to make her escape? Whither? The streets were invested,
the church backed on the river. No boat, no issue!—There was but
one thing to be done; to allow himself to be killed on the
threshold of Notre-Dame, to resist at least until succor arrived,
if it should arrive, and not to trouble la Esmeralda’s sleep.
This resolution once taken, he set to examining the enemy with
more tranquillity.
The throng seemed to increase every moment in the church square.
Only, he presumed that it must be making very little noise, since
the windows on the Place remained closed. All at once, a flame
flashed up, and in an instant seven or eight lighted torches
passed over the heads of the crowd, shaking their tufts of flame
in the deep shade. Quasimodo then beheld distinctly surging in
the Parvis a frightful herd of men and women in rags, armed with
scythes, pikes, billhooks and partisans, whose thousand points
glittered. Here and there black pitchforks formed horns to the
hideous faces. He vaguely recalled this populace, and thought
that he recognized all the heads who had saluted him as Pope of
the Fools some months previously. One man who held a torch in one
hand and a club in the other, mounted a stone post and seemed to
be haranguing them. At the same time the strange army executed
several evolutions, as though it were taking up its post around
the church. Quasimodo picked up his lantern and descended to the
platform between the towers, in order to get a nearer view, and
to spy out a means of defence.
Clopin Trouillefou, on arriving in front of the lofty portal of
Notre-Dame had, in fact, ranged his troops in order of battle.
Although he expected no resistance, he wished, like a prudent
general, to preserve an order which would permit him to face, at
need, a sudden attack of the watch or the police. He had
accordingly stationed his brigade in such a manner that, viewed
from above and from a distance, one would have pronounced it the
Roman triangle of the battle of Ecnomus, the boar’s head of
Alexander or the famous wedge of Gustavus Adolphus. The base of
this triangle rested on the back of the Place in such a manner as
to bar the entrance of the Rue du Parvis; one of its sides faced
Hôtel-Dieu, the other the Rue Saint-Pierre-aux-Bœufs. Clopin
Trouillefou had placed himself at the apex with the Duke of
Egypt, our friend Jehan, and the most daring of the scavengers.
An enterprise like that which the vagabonds were now undertaking
against Notre-Dame was not a very rare thing in the cities of the
Middle Ages. What we now call the “police” did not exist then. In
populous cities, especially in capitals, there existed no single,
central, regulating power. Feudalism had constructed these great
communities in a singular manner. A city was an assembly of a
thousand seigneuries, which divided it into compartments of all
shapes and sizes. Hence, a thousand conflicting establishments of
police; that is to say, no police at all. In Paris, for example,
independently of the hundred and forty-one lords who laid claim
to a manor, there were five and twenty who laid claim to a manor
and to administering justice, from the Bishop of Paris, who had
five hundred streets, to the Prior of Notre-Dame des Champs, who
had four. All these feudal justices recognized the suzerain
authority of the king only in name. All possessed the right of
control over the roads. All were at home. Louis XI., that
indefatigable worker, who so largely began the demolition of the
feudal edifice, continued by Richelieu and Louis XIV. for the
profit of royalty, and finished by Mirabeau for the benefit of
the people,—Louis XI. had certainly made an effort to break this
network of seignories which covered Paris, by throwing violently
across them all two or three troops of general police. Thus, in
1465, an order to the inhabitants to light candles in their
windows at nightfall, and to shut up their dogs under penalty of
death; in the same year, an order to close the streets in the
evening with iron chains, and a prohibition to wear daggers or
weapons of offence in the streets at night. But in a very short
time, all these efforts at communal legislation fell into
abeyance. The _bourgeois_ permitted the wind to blow out their
candles in the windows, and their dogs to stray; the iron chains
were stretched only in a state of siege; the prohibition to wear
daggers wrought no other changes than from the name of the Rue
Coupe-Gueule to the name of the Rue-Coupe-Gorge[60] which is an
evident progress. The old scaffolding of feudal jurisdictions
remained standing; an immense aggregation of bailiwicks and
seignories crossing each other all over the city, interfering
with each other, entangled in one another, enmeshing each other,
trespassing on each other; a useless thicket of watches,
sub-watches and counter-watches, over which, with armed force,
passed brigandage, rapine, and sedition. Hence, in this disorder,
deeds of violence on the part of the populace directed against a
palace, a hôtel, or house in the most thickly populated quarters,
were not unheard-of occurrences. In the majority of such cases,
the neighbors did not meddle with the matter unless the pillaging
extended to themselves. They stopped up their ears to the musket
shots, closed their shutters, barricaded their doors, allowed the
matter to be concluded with or without the watch, and the next
day it was said in Paris, “Étienne Barbette was broken open last
night. The Marshal de Clermont was seized last night, etc.”
Hence, not only the royal habitations, the Louvre, the Palace,
the Bastille, the Tournelles, but simply seignorial residences,
the Petit-Bourbon, the Hôtel de Sens, the Hôtel d’Angoulême,
etc., had battlements on their walls, and machicolations over
their doors. Churches were guarded by their sanctity. Some, among
the number Notre-Dame, were fortified. The Abbey of
Saint-Germain-des-Prés was castellated like a baronial mansion,
and more brass expended about it in bombards than in bells. Its
fortress was still to be seen in 1610. To-day, barely its church
remains.
Let us return to Notre-Dame.
When the first arrangements were completed, and we must say, to
the honor of vagabond discipline, that Clopin’s orders were
executed in silence, and with admirable precision, the worthy
chief of the band, mounted on the parapet of the church square,
and raised his hoarse and surly voice, turning towards
Notre-Dame, and brandishing his torch whose light, tossed by the
wind, and veiled every moment by its own smoke, made the reddish
façade of the church appear and disappear before the eye.
“To you, Louis de Beaumont, bishop of Paris, counsellor in the
Court of Parliament, I, Clopin Trouillefou, king of Thunes, grand
Coësre, prince of Argot, bishop of fools, I say: Our sister,
falsely condemned for magic, hath taken refuge in your church,
you owe her asylum and safety. Now the Court of Parliament wishes
to seize her once more there, and you consent to it; so that she
would be hanged to-morrow in the Grève, if God and the outcasts
were not here. If your church is sacred, so is our sister; if our
sister is not sacred, neither is your church. That is why we call
upon you to return the girl if you wish to save your church, or
we will take possession of the girl again and pillage the church,
which will be a good thing. In token of which I here plant my
banner, and may God preserve you, bishop of Paris.”
Quasimodo could not, unfortunately, hear these words uttered with
a sort of sombre and savage majesty. A vagabond presented his
banner to Clopin, who planted it solemnly between two
paving-stones. It was a pitchfork from whose points hung a
bleeding quarter of carrion meat.
That done, the King of Thunes turned round and cast his eyes over
his army, a fierce multitude whose glances flashed almost equally
with their pikes. After a momentary pause,—“Forward, my Sons!” he
cried; “to work, locksmiths!”
Thirty bold men, square shouldered, and with pick-lock faces,
stepped from the ranks, with hammers, pincers, and bars of iron
on their shoulders. They betook themselves to the principal door
of the church, ascended the steps, and were soon to be seen
squatting under the arch, working at the door with pincers and
levers; a throng of vagabonds followed them to help or look on.
The eleven steps before the portal were covered with them.
But the door stood firm. “The devil! ’tis hard and obstinate!”
said one. “It is old, and its gristles have become bony,” said
another. “Courage, comrades!” resumed Clopin. “I wager my head
against a dipper that you will have opened the door, rescued the
girl, and despoiled the chief altar before a single beadle is
awake. Stay! I think I hear the lock breaking up.”
Clopin was interrupted by a frightful uproar which re-sounded
behind him at that moment. He wheeled round. An enormous beam had
just fallen from above; it had crushed a dozen vagabonds on the
pavement with the sound of a cannon, breaking in addition, legs
here and there in the crowd of beggars, who sprang aside with
cries of terror. In a twinkling, the narrow precincts of the
church parvis were cleared. The locksmiths, although protected by
the deep vaults of the portal, abandoned the door and Clopin
himself retired to a respectful distance from the church.
“I had a narrow escape!” cried Jehan. “I felt the wind, of it,
_tête-de-bœuf!_ but Pierre the Slaughterer is slaughtered!”
It is impossible to describe the astonishment mingled with fright
which fell upon the ruffians in company with this beam.
They remained for several minutes with their eyes in the air,
more dismayed by that piece of wood than by the king’s twenty
thousand archers.
“Satan!” muttered the Duke of Egypt, “this smacks of magic!”
“’Tis the moon which threw this log at us,” said Andry the Red.
“Call the moon the friend of the Virgin, after that!” went on
François Chanteprune.
“A thousand popes!” exclaimed Clopin, “you are all fools!” But he
did not know how to explain the fall of the beam.
Meanwhile, nothing could be distinguished on the façade, to whose
summit the light of the torches did not reach. The heavy beam lay
in the middle of the enclosure, and groans were heard from the
poor wretches who had received its first shock, and who had been
almost cut in twain, on the angle of the stone steps.
The King of Thunes, his first amazement passed, finally found an
explanation which appeared plausible to his companions.
“Throat of God! are the canons defending themselves? To the sack,
then! to the sack!”
“To the sack!” repeated the rabble, with a furious hurrah. A
discharge of crossbows and hackbuts against the front of the
church followed.
At this detonation, the peaceable inhabitants of the surrounding
houses woke up; many windows were seen to open, and nightcaps and
hands holding candles appeared at the casements.
“Fire at the windows,” shouted Clopin. The windows were
immediately closed, and the poor _bourgeois_, who had hardly had
time to cast a frightened glance on this scene of gleams and
tumult, returned, perspiring with fear to their wives, asking
themselves whether the witches’ sabbath was now being held in the
parvis of Notre-Dame, or whether there was an assault of
Burgundians, as in ’64. Then the husbands thought of theft; the
wives, of rape; and all trembled.
“To the sack!” repeated the thieves’ crew; but they dared not
approach. They stared at the beam, they stared at the church. The
beam did not stir, the edifice preserved its calm and deserted
air; but something chilled the outcasts.
“To work, locksmiths!” shouted Trouillefou. “Let the door be
forced!”
No one took a step.
“Beard and belly!” said Clopin, “here be men afraid of a beam.”
An old locksmith addressed him—
“Captain, ’tis not the beam which bothers us, ’tis the door,
which is all covered with iron bars. Our pincers are powerless
against it.”
“What more do you want to break it in?” demanded Clopin.
“Ah! we ought to have a battering ram.”
The King of Thunes ran boldly to the formidable beam, and placed
his foot upon it: “Here is one!” he exclaimed; “’tis the canons
who send it to you.” And, making a mocking salute in the
direction of the church, “Thanks, canons!”
This piece of bravado produced its effects,—the spell of the beam
was broken. The vagabonds recovered their courage; soon the heavy
joist, raised like a feather by two hundred vigorous arms, was
flung with fury against the great door which they had tried to
batter down. At the sight of that long beam, in the half-light
which the infrequent torches of the brigands spread over the
Place, thus borne by that crowd of men who dashed it at a run
against the church, one would have thought that he beheld a
monstrous beast with a thousand feet attacking with lowered head
the giant of stone.
At the shock of the beam, the half metallic door sounded like an
immense drum; it was not burst in, but the whole cathedral
trembled, and the deepest cavities of the edifice were heard to
echo.
At the same moment, a shower of large stones began to fall from
the top of the façade on the assailants.
“The devil!” cried Jehan, “are the towers shaking their
balustrades down on our heads?”
But the impulse had been given, the King of Thunes had set the
example. Evidently, the bishop was defending himself, and they
only battered the door with the more rage, in spite of the stones
which cracked skulls right and left.
It was remarkable that all these stones fell one by one; but they
followed each other closely. The thieves always felt two at a
time, one on their legs and one on their heads. There were few
which did not deal their blow, and a large layer of dead and
wounded lay bleeding and panting beneath the feet of the
assailants who, now grown furious, replaced each other without
intermission. The long beam continued to belabor the door, at
regular intervals, like the clapper of a bell, the stones to rain
down, the door to groan.
The reader has no doubt divined that this unexpected resistance
which had exasperated the outcasts came from Quasimodo.
Chance had, unfortunately, favored the brave deaf man.
When he had descended to the platform between the towers, his
ideas were all in confusion. He had run up and down along the
gallery for several minutes like a madman, surveying from above,
the compact mass of vagabonds ready to hurl itself on the church,
demanding the safety of the gypsy from the devil or from God. The
thought had occurred to him of ascending to the southern belfry
and sounding the alarm, but before he could have set the bell in
motion, before Marie’s voice could have uttered a single clamor,
was there not time to burst in the door of the church ten times
over? It was precisely the moment when the locksmiths were
advancing upon it with their tools. What was to be done?
All at once, he remembered that some masons had been at work all
day repairing the wall, the timber-work, and the roof of the
south tower. This was a flash of light. The wall was of stone,
the roof of lead, the timber-work of wood. (That prodigious
timber-work, so dense that it was called “the forest.”)
Quasimodo hastened to that tower. The lower chambers were, in
fact, full of materials. There were piles of rough blocks of
stone, sheets of lead in rolls, bundles of laths, heavy beams
already notched with the saw, heaps of plaster.
Time was pressing, The pikes and hammers were at work below. With
a strength which the sense of danger increased tenfold, he seized
one of the beams—the longest and heaviest; he pushed it out
through a loophole, then, grasping it again outside of the tower,
he made it slide along the angle of the balustrade which
surrounds the platform, and let it fly into the abyss. The
enormous timber, during that fall of a hundred and sixty feet,
scraping the wall, breaking the carvings, turned many times on
its centre, like the arm of a windmill flying off alone through
space. At last it reached the ground, the horrible cry arose, and
the black beam, as it rebounded from the pavement, resembled a
serpent leaping.
Quasimodo beheld the outcasts scatter at the fall of the beam,
like ashes at the breath of a child. He took advantage of their
fright, and while they were fixing a superstitious glance on the
club which had fallen from heaven, and while they were putting
out the eyes of the stone saints on the front with a discharge of
arrows and buckshot, Quasimodo was silently piling up plaster,
stones, and rough blocks of stone, even the sacks of tools
belonging to the masons, on the edge of the balustrade from which
the beam had already been hurled.
Thus, as soon as they began to batter the grand door, the shower
of rough blocks of stone began to fall, and it seemed to them
that the church itself was being demolished over their heads.
Any one who could have beheld Quasimodo at that moment would have
been frightened. Independently of the projectiles which he had
piled upon the balustrade, he had collected a heap of stones on
the platform itself. As fast as the blocks on the exterior edge
were exhausted, he drew on the heap. Then he stooped and rose,
stooped and rose again with incredible activity. His huge gnome’s
head bent over the balustrade, then an enormous stone fell, then
another, then another. From time to time, he followed a fine
stone with his eye, and when it did good execution, he said,
“Hum!”
Meanwhile, the beggars did not grow discouraged. The thick door
on which they were venting their fury had already trembled more
than twenty times beneath the weight of their oaken
battering-ram, multiplied by the strength of a hundred men. The
panels cracked, the carved work flew into splinters, the hinges,
at every blow, leaped from their pins, the planks yawned, the
wood crumbled to powder, ground between the iron sheathing.
Fortunately for Quasimodo, there was more iron than wood.
Nevertheless, he felt that the great door was yielding. Although
he did not hear it, every blow of the ram reverberated
simultaneously in the vaults of the church and within it. From
above he beheld the vagabonds, filled with triumph and rage,
shaking their fists at the gloomy façade; and both on the gypsy’s
account and his own he envied the wings of the owls which flitted
away above his head in flocks.
His shower of stone blocks was not sufficient to repel the
assailants.
At this moment of anguish, he noticed, a little lower down than
the balustrade whence he was crushing the thieves, two long stone
gutters which discharged immediately over the great door; the
internal orifice of these gutters terminated on the pavement of
the platform. An idea occurred to him; he ran in search of a
fagot in his bellringer’s den, placed on this fagot a great many
bundles of laths, and many rolls of lead, munitions which he had
not employed so far, and having arranged this pile in front of
the hole to the two gutters, he set it on fire with his lantern.
During this time, since the stones no longer fell, the outcasts
ceased to gaze into the air. The bandits, panting like a pack of
hounds who are forcing a boar into his lair, pressed tumultuously
round the great door, all disfigured by the battering ram, but
still standing. They were waiting with a quiver for the great
blow which should split it open. They vied with each other in
pressing as close as possible, in order to dash among the first,
when it should open, into that opulent cathedral, a vast
reservoir where the wealth of three centuries had been piled up.
They reminded each other with roars of exultation and greedy
lust, of the beautiful silver crosses, the fine copes of brocade,
the beautiful tombs of silver gilt, the great magnificences of
the choir, the dazzling festivals, the Christmasses sparkling
with torches, the Easters sparkling with sunshine,—all those
splendid solemneties wherein chandeliers, ciboriums, tabernacles,
and reliquaries, studded the altars with a crust of gold and
diamonds. Certainly, at that fine moment, thieves and pseudo
sufferers, doctors in stealing, and vagabonds, were thinking much
less of delivering the gypsy than of pillaging Notre-Dame. We
could even easily believe that for a goodly number among them la
Esmeralda was only a pretext, if thieves needed pretexts.
All at once, at the moment when they were grouping themselves
round the ram for a last effort, each one holding his breath and
stiffening his muscles in order to communicate all his force to
the decisive blow, a howl more frightful still than that which
had burst forth and expired beneath the beam, rose among them.
Those who did not cry out, those who were still alive, looked.
Two streams of melted lead were falling from the summit of the
edifice into the thickest of the rabble. That sea of men had just
sunk down beneath the boiling metal, which had made, at the two
points where it fell, two black and smoking holes in the crowd,
such as hot water would make in snow. Dying men, half consumed
and groaning with anguish, could be seen writhing there. Around
these two principal streams there were drops of that horrible
rain, which scattered over the assailants and entered their
skulls like gimlets of fire. It was a heavy fire which
overwhelmed these wretches with a thousand hailstones.
The outcry was heartrending. They fled pell-mell, hurling the
beam upon the bodies, the boldest as well as the most timid, and
the parvis was cleared a second time.
All eyes were raised to the top of the church. They beheld there
an extraordinary sight. On the crest of the highest gallery,
higher than the central rose window, there was a great flame
rising between the two towers with whirlwinds of sparks, a vast,
disordered, and furious flame, a tongue of which was borne into
the smoke by the wind, from time to time. Below that fire, below
the gloomy balustrade with its trefoils showing darkly against
its glare, two spouts with monster throats were vomiting forth
unceasingly that burning rain, whose silvery stream stood out
against the shadows of the lower façade. As they approached the
earth, these two jets of liquid lead spread out in sheaves, like
water springing from the thousand holes of a watering-pot. Above
the flame, the enormous towers, two sides of each of which were
visible in sharp outline, the one wholly black, the other wholly
red, seemed still more vast with all the immensity of the shadow
which they cast even to the sky.
Their innumerable sculptures of demons and dragons assumed a
lugubrious aspect. The restless light of the flame made them move
to the eye. There were griffins which had the air of laughing,
gargoyles which one fancied one heard yelping, salamanders which
puffed at the fire, tarasques[61] which sneezed in the smoke. And
among the monsters thus roused from their sleep of stone by this
flame, by this noise, there was one who walked about, and who was
seen, from time to time, to pass across the glowing face of the
pile, like a bat in front of a candle.
Without doubt, this strange beacon light would awaken far away,
the woodcutter of the hills of Bicêtre, terrified to behold the
gigantic shadow of the towers of Notre-Dame quivering over his
heaths.
A terrified silence ensued among the outcasts, during which
nothing was heard, but the cries of alarm of the canons shut up
in their cloister, and more uneasy than horses in a burning
stable, the furtive sound of windows hastily opened and still
more hastily closed, the internal hurly-burly of the houses and
of the Hôtel-Dieu, the wind in the flame, the last death-rattle
of the dying, and the continued crackling of the rain of lead
upon the pavement.
In the meanwhile, the principal vagabonds had retired beneath the
porch of the Gondelaurier mansion, and were holding a council of
war.
The Duke of Egypt, seated on a stone post, contemplated the
phantasmagorical bonfire, glowing at a height of two hundred feet
in the air, with religious terror. Clopin Trouillefou bit his
huge fists with rage.
“Impossible to get in!” he muttered between his teeth.
“An old, enchanted church!” grumbled the aged Bohemian, Mathias
Hungadi Spicali.
“By the Pope’s whiskers!” went on a sham soldier, who had once
been in service, “here are church gutters spitting melted lead at
you better than the machicolations of Lectoure.”
“Do you see that demon passing and repassing in front of the
fire?” exclaimed the Duke of Egypt.
“Pardieu, ’tis that damned bellringer, ’tis Quasimodo,” said
Clopin.
The Bohemian tossed his head. “I tell you, that ’tis the spirit
Sabnac, the grand marquis, the demon of fortifications. He has
the form of an armed soldier, the head of a lion. Sometimes he
rides a hideous horse. He changes men into stones, of which he
builds towers. He commands fifty legions ’Tis he indeed; I
recognize him. Sometimes he is clad in a handsome golden robe,
figured after the Turkish fashion.”
“Where is Bellevigne de l’Étoile?” demanded Clopin.
“He is dead.”
Andry the Red laughed in an idiotic way: “Notre-Dame is making
work for the hospital,” said he.
“Is there, then, no way of forcing this door,” exclaimed the King
of Thunes, stamping his foot.
The Duke of Egypt pointed sadly to the two streams of boiling
lead which did not cease to streak the black façade, like two
long distaffs of phosphorus.
“Churches have been known to defend themselves thus all by
themselves,” he remarked with a sigh. “Saint-Sophia at
Constantinople, forty years ago, hurled to the earth three times
in succession, the crescent of Mahom, by shaking her domes, which
are her heads. Guillaume de Paris, who built this one was a
magician.”
“Must we then retreat in pitiful fashion, like highwaymen?” said
Clopin. “Must we leave our sister here, whom those hooded wolves
will hang to-morrow.”
“And the sacristy, where there are wagon-loads of gold!” added a
vagabond, whose name, we regret to say, we do not know.
“Beard of Mahom!” cried Trouillefou.
“Let us make another trial,” resumed the vagabond.
Mathias Hungadi shook his head.
“We shall never get in by the door. We must find the defect in
the armor of the old fairy; a hole, a false postern, some joint
or other.”
“Who will go with me?” said Clopin. “I shall go at it again. By
the way, where is the little scholar Jehan, who is so encased in
iron?”
“He is dead, no doubt,” some one replied; “we no longer hear his
laugh.”
The King of Thunes frowned: “So much the worse. There was a brave
heart under that ironmongery. And Master Pierre Gringoire?”
“Captain Clopin,” said Andry the Red, “he slipped away before we
reached the Pont-aux-Changeurs.”
Clopin stamped his foot. “_Gueule-Dieu!_ ’twas he who pushed us
on hither, and he has deserted us in the very middle of the job!
Cowardly chatterer, with a slipper for a helmet!”
“Captain Clopin,” said Andry the Red, who was gazing down Rue du
Parvis, “yonder is the little scholar.”
“Praised be Pluto!” said Clopin. “But what the devil is he
dragging after him?”
It was, in fact, Jehan, who was running as fast as his heavy
outfit of a Paladin, and a long ladder which trailed on the
pavement, would permit, more breathless than an ant harnessed to
a blade of grass twenty times longer than itself.
“Victory! _Te Deum!_” cried the scholar. “Here is the ladder of
the longshoremen of Port Saint-Landry.”
Clopin approached him.
“Child, what do you mean to do, _corne-dieu!_ with this ladder?”
“I have it,” replied Jehan, panting. “I knew where it was under
the shed of the lieutenant’s house. There’s a wench there whom I
know, who thinks me as handsome as Cupido. I made use of her to
get the ladder, and I have the ladder, _Pasque-Mahom!_ The poor
girl came to open the door to me in her shift.”
“Yes,” said Clopin, “but what are you going to do with that
ladder?”
Jehan gazed at him with a malicious, knowing look, and cracked
his fingers like castanets. At that moment he was sublime. On his
head he wore one of those overloaded helmets of the fifteenth
century, which frightened the enemy with their fanciful crests.
His bristled with ten iron beaks, so that Jehan could have
disputed with Nestor’s Homeric vessel the redoubtable title of
δεκέμβολος.
“What do I mean to do with it, august king of Thunes? Do you see
that row of statues which have such idiotic expressions, yonder,
above the three portals?”
“Yes. Well?”
“’Tis the gallery of the kings of France.”
“What is that to me?” said Clopin.
“Wait! At the end of that gallery there is a door which is never
fastened otherwise than with a latch, and with this ladder I
ascend, and I am in the church.”
“Child let me be the first to ascend.”
“No, comrade, the ladder is mine. Come, you shall be the second.”
“May Beelzebub strangle you!” said surly Clopin, “I won’t be
second to anybody.”
“Then find a ladder, Clopin!”
Jehan set out on a run across the Place, dragging his ladder and
shouting: “Follow me, lads!”
In an instant the ladder was raised, and propped against the
balustrade of the lower gallery, above one of the lateral doors.
The throng of vagabonds, uttering loud acclamations, crowded to
its foot to ascend. But Jehan maintained his right, and was the
first to set foot on the rungs. The passage was tolerably long.
The gallery of the kings of France is to-day about sixty feet
above the pavement. The eleven steps of the flight before the
door, made it still higher. Jehan mounted slowly, a good deal
incommoded by his heavy armor, holding his crossbow in one hand,
and clinging to a rung with the other. When he reached the middle
of the ladder, he cast a melancholy glance at the poor dead
outcasts, with which the steps were strewn. “Alas!” said he,
“here is a heap of bodies worthy of the fifth book of the Iliad!”
Then he continued his ascent. The vagabonds followed him. There
was one on every rung. At the sight of this line of cuirassed
backs, undulating as they rose through the gloom, one would have
pronounced it a serpent with steel scales, which was raising
itself erect in front of the church. Jehan who formed the head,
and who was whistling, completed the illusion.
The scholar finally reached the balcony of the gallery, and
climbed over it nimbly, to the applause of the whole vagabond
tribe. Thus master of the citadel, he uttered a shout of joy, and
suddenly halted, petrified. He had just caught sight of Quasimodo
concealed in the dark, with flashing eye, behind one of the
statues of the kings.
Before a second assailant could gain a foothold on the gallery,
the formidable hunchback leaped to the head of the ladder,
without uttering a word, seized the ends of the two uprights with
his powerful hands, raised them, pushed them out from the wall,
balanced the long and pliant ladder, loaded with vagabonds from
top to bottom for a moment, in the midst of shrieks of anguish,
then suddenly, with superhuman force, hurled this cluster of men
backward into the Place. There was a moment when even the most
resolute trembled. The ladder, launched backwards, remained erect
and standing for an instant, and seemed to hesitate, then
wavered, then suddenly, describing a frightful arc of a circle
eighty feet in radius, crashed upon the pavement with its load of
ruffians, more rapidly than a drawbridge when its chains break.
There arose an immense imprecation, then all was still, and a few
mutilated wretches were seen, crawling over the heap of dead.
A sound of wrath and grief followed the first cries of triumph
among the besiegers. Quasimodo, impassive, with both elbows
propped on the balustrade, looked on. He had the air of an old,
bushy-headed king at his window.
As for Jehan Frollo, he was in a critical position. He found
himself in the gallery with the formidable bellringer, alone,
separated from his companions by a vertical wall eighty feet
high. While Quasimodo was dealing with the ladder, the scholar
had run to the postern which he believed to be open. It was not.
The deaf man had closed it behind him when he entered the
gallery. Jehan had then concealed himself behind a stone king,
not daring to breathe, and fixing upon the monstrous hunchback a
frightened gaze, like the man, who, when courting the wife of the
guardian of a menagerie, went one evening to a love rendezvous,
mistook the wall which he was to climb, and suddenly found
himself face to face with a white bear.
For the first few moments, the deaf man paid no heed to him; but
at last he turned his head, and suddenly straightened up. He had
just caught sight of the scholar.
Jehan prepared himself for a rough shock, but the deaf man
remained motionless; only he had turned towards the scholar and
was looking at him.
“Ho ho!” said Jehan, “what do you mean by staring at me with that
solitary and melancholy eye?”
As he spoke thus, the young scamp stealthily adjusted his
crossbow.
“Quasimodo!” he cried, “I am going to change your surname: you
shall be called the blind man.”
The shot sped. The feathered vireton[62] whizzed and entered the
hunchback’s left arm. Quasimodo appeared no more moved by it than
by a scratch to King Pharamond. He laid his hand on the arrow,
tore it from his arm, and tranquilly broke it across his big
knee; then he let the two pieces drop on the floor, rather than
threw them down. But Jehan had no opportunity to fire a second
time. The arrow broken, Quasimodo breathing heavily, bounded like
a grasshopper, and he fell upon the scholar, whose armor was
flattened against the wall by the blow.
Then in that gloom, wherein wavered the light of the torches, a
terrible thing was seen.
Quasimodo had grasped with his left hand the two arms of Jehan,
who did not offer any resistance, so thoroughly did he feel that
he was lost. With his right hand, the deaf man detached one by
one, in silence, with sinister slowness, all the pieces of his
armor, the sword, the daggers, the helmet, the cuirass, the leg
pieces. One would have said that it was a monkey taking the shell
from a nut. Quasimodo flung the scholar’s iron shell at his feet,
piece by piece. When the scholar beheld himself disarmed,
stripped, weak, and naked in those terrible hands, he made no
attempt to speak to the deaf man, but began to laugh audaciously
in his face, and to sing with his intrepid heedlessness of a
child of sixteen, the then popular ditty:—
“Elle est bien habillée,
La ville de Cambrai;
Marafin l’a pillée....”[63]
He did not finish. Quasimodo was seen on the parapet of the
gallery, holding the scholar by the feet with one hand and
whirling him over the abyss like a sling; then a sound like that
of a bony structure in contact with a wall was heard, and
something was seen to fall which halted a third of the way down
in its fall, on a projection in the architecture. It was a dead
body which remained hanging there, bent double, its loins broken,
its skull empty.
A cry of horror rose among the vagabonds.
“Vengeance!” shouted Clopin. “To the sack!” replied the
multitude. “Assault! assault!”
There came a tremendous howl, in which were mingled all tongues,
all dialects, all accents. The death of the poor scholar imparted
a furious ardor to that crowd. It was seized with shame, and the
wrath of having been held so long in check before a church by a
hunchback. Rage found ladders, multiplied the torches, and, at
the expiration of a few minutes, Quasimodo, in despair, beheld
that terrible ant heap mount on all sides to the assault of
Notre-Dame. Those who had no ladders had knotted ropes; those who
had no ropes climbed by the projections of the carvings. They
hung from each other’s rags. There were no means of resisting
that rising tide of frightful faces; rage made these fierce
countenances ruddy; their clayey brows were dripping with sweat;
their eyes darted lightnings; all these grimaces, all these
horrors laid siege to Quasimodo. One would have said that some
other church had despatched to the assault of Notre-Dame its
gorgons, its dogs, its drées, its demons, its most fantastic
sculptures. It was like a layer of living monsters on the stone
monsters of the façade.
Meanwhile, the Place was studded with a thousand torches. This
scene of confusion, till now hid in darkness, was suddenly
flooded with light. The parvis was resplendent, and cast a
radiance on the sky; the bonfire lighted on the lofty platform
was still burning, and illuminated the city far away. The
enormous silhouette of the two towers, projected afar on the
roofs of Paris, and formed a large notch of black in this light.
The city seemed to be aroused. Alarm bells wailed in the
distance. The vagabonds howled, panted, swore, climbed; and
Quasimodo, powerless against so many enemies, shuddering for the
gypsy, beholding the furious faces approaching ever nearer and
nearer to his gallery, entreated heaven for a miracle, and wrung
his arms in despair.
CHAPTER V. THE RETREAT IN WHICH MONSIEUR LOUIS OF FRANCE SAYS HIS
PRAYERS.
The reader has not, perhaps, forgotten that one moment before
catching sight of the nocturnal band of vagabonds, Quasimodo, as
he inspected Paris from the heights of his bell tower, perceived
only one light burning, which gleamed like a star from a window
on the topmost story of a lofty edifice beside the Porte
Saint-Antoine. This edifice was the Bastille. That star was the
candle of Louis XI. King Louis XI. had, in fact, been two days in
Paris. He was to take his departure on the next day but one for
his citadel of Montilz-les-Tours. He made but seldom and brief
appearance in his good city of Paris, since there he did not feel
about him enough pitfalls, gibbets, and Scotch archers.
He had come, that day, to sleep at the Bastille. The great
chamber five toises[64] square, which he had at the Louvre, with
its huge chimney-piece loaded with twelve great beasts and
thirteen great prophets, and his grand bed, eleven feet by
twelve, pleased him but little. He felt himself lost amid all
this grandeur. This good _bourgeois_ king preferred the Bastille
with a tiny chamber and couch. And then, the Bastille was
stronger than the Louvre.
This little chamber, which the king reserved for himself in the
famous state prison, was also tolerably spacious and occupied the
topmost story of a turret rising from the donjon keep. It was
circular in form, carpeted with mats of shining straw, ceiled
with beams, enriched with fleurs-de-lis of gilded metal with
interjoists in color; wainscoated with rich woods sown with
rosettes of white metal, and with others painted a fine, bright
green, made of orpiment and fine indigo.
There was only one window, a long pointed casement, latticed with
brass wire and bars of iron, further darkened by fine colored
panes with the arms of the king and of the queen, each pane being
worth two and twenty sols.
There was but one entrance, a modern door, with a flat arch,
garnished with a piece of tapestry on the inside, and on the
outside by one of those porches of Irish wood, frail edifices of
cabinet-work curiously wrought, numbers of which were still to be
seen in old houses a hundred and fifty years ago. “Although they
disfigure and embarrass the places,” says Sauvel in despair, “our
old people are still unwilling to get rid of them, and keep them
in spite of everybody.”
In this chamber, nothing was to be found of what furnishes
ordinary apartments, neither benches, nor trestles, nor forms,
nor common stools in the form of a chest, nor fine stools
sustained by pillars and counter-pillars, at four sols a piece.
Only one easy arm-chair, very magnificent, was to be seen; the
wood was painted with roses on a red ground, the seat was of ruby
Cordovan leather, ornamented with long silken fringes, and
studded with a thousand golden nails. The loneliness of this
chair made it apparent that only one person had a right to sit
down in this apartment. Beside the chair, and quite close to the
window, there was a table covered with a cloth with a pattern of
birds. On this table stood an inkhorn spotted with ink, some
parchments, several pens, and a large goblet of chased silver. A
little further on was a brazier, a praying stool in crimson
velvet, relieved with small bosses of gold. Finally, at the
extreme end of the room, a simple bed of scarlet and yellow
damask, without either tinsel or lace; having only an ordinary
fringe. This bed, famous for having borne the sleep or the
sleeplessness of Louis XI., was still to be seen two hundred
years ago, at the house of a councillor of state, where it was
seen by old Madame Pilou, celebrated in _Cyrus_ under the name
_Arricidie_ and of _la Morale Vivante_.
Such was the chamber which was called “the retreat where Monsieur
Louis de France says his prayers.”
At the moment when we have introduced the reader into it, this
retreat was very dark. The curfew bell had sounded an hour
before; night was come, and there was only one flickering wax
candle set on the table to light five persons variously grouped
in the chamber.
The first on which the light fell was a seigneur superbly clad in
breeches and jerkin of scarlet striped with silver, and a loose
coat with half sleeves of cloth of gold with black figures. This
splendid costume, on which the light played, seemed glazed with
flame on every fold. The man who wore it had his armorial
bearings embroidered on his breast in vivid colors; a chevron
accompanied by a deer passant. The shield was flanked, on the
right by an olive branch, on the left by a deer’s antlers. This
man wore in his girdle a rich dagger whose hilt, of silver gilt,
was chased in the form of a helmet, and surmounted by a count’s
coronet. He had a forbidding air, a proud mien, and a head held
high. At the first glance one read arrogance on his visage; at
the second, craft.
He was standing bareheaded, a long roll of parchment in his hand,
behind the arm-chair in which was seated, his body ungracefully
doubled up, his knees crossed, his elbow on the table, a very
badly accoutred personage. Let the reader imagine in fact, on the
rich seat of Cordova leather, two crooked knees, two thin thighs,
poorly clad in black worsted tricot, a body enveloped in a cloak
of fustian, with fur trimming of which more leather than hair was
visible; lastly, to crown all, a greasy old hat of the worst sort
of black cloth, bordered with a circular string of leaden
figures. This, in company with a dirty skull-cap, which hardly
allowed a hair to escape, was all that distinguished the seated
personage. He held his head so bent upon his breast, that nothing
was to be seen of his face thus thrown into shadow, except the
tip of his nose, upon which fell a ray of light, and which must
have been long. From the thinness of his wrinkled hand, one
divined that he was an old man. It was Louis XI. At some distance
behind them, two men dressed in garments of Flemish style were
conversing, who were not sufficiently lost in the shadow to
prevent any one who had been present at the performance of
Gringoire’s mystery from recognizing in them two of the principal
Flemish envoys, Guillaume Rym, the sagacious pensioner of Ghent,
and Jacques Coppenole, the popular hosier. The reader will
remember that these men were mixed up in the secret politics of
Louis XI. Finally, quite at the end of the room, near the door,
in the dark, stood, motionless as a statue, a vigorous man with
thickset limbs, a military harness, with a surcoat of armorial
bearings, whose square face pierced with staring eyes, slit with
an immense mouth, his ears concealed by two large screens of flat
hair, had something about it both of the dog and the tiger.
All were uncovered except the king.
The gentleman who stood near the king was reading him a sort of
long memorial to which his majesty seemed to be listening
attentively. The two Flemings were whispering together.
“Cross of God!” grumbled Coppenole, “I am tired of standing; is
there no chair here?”
Rym replied by a negative gesture, accompanied by a discreet
smile.
“Croix-Dieu!” resumed Coppenole, thoroughly unhappy at being
obliged to lower his voice thus, “I should like to sit down on
the floor, with my legs crossed, like a hosier, as I do in my
shop.”
“Take good care that you do not, Master Jacques.”
“Ouais! Master Guillaume! can one only remain here on his feet?”
“Or on his knees,” said Rym.
At that moment the king’s voice was uplifted. They held their
peace.
“Fifty sols for the robes of our valets, and twelve livres for
the mantles of the clerks of our crown! That’s it! Pour out gold
by the ton! Are you mad, Olivier?”
As he spoke thus, the old man raised his head. The golden shells
of the collar of Saint-Michael could be seen gleaming on his
neck. The candle fully illuminated his gaunt and morose profile.
He tore the papers from the other’s hand.
“You are ruining us!” he cried, casting his hollow eyes over the
scroll. “What is all this? What need have we of so prodigious a
household? Two chaplains at ten livres a month each, and, a
chapel clerk at one hundred sols! A valet-de-chambre at ninety
livres a year. Four head cooks at six score livres a year each! A
spit-cook, an herb-cook, a sauce-cook, a butler, two
sumpter-horse lackeys, at ten livres a month each! Two scullions
at eight livres! A groom of the stables and his two aids at four
and twenty livres a month! A porter, a pastry-cook, a baker, two
carters, each sixty livres a year! And the farrier six score
livres! And the master of the chamber of our funds, twelve
hundred livres! And the comptroller five hundred. And how do I
know what else? ’Tis ruinous. The wages of our servants are
putting France to the pillage! All the ingots of the Louvre will
melt before such a fire of expenses! We shall have to sell our
plate! And next year, if God and our Lady (here he raised his
hat) lend us life, we shall drink our potions from a pewter pot!”
So saying, he cast a glance at the silver goblet which gleamed
upon the table. He coughed and continued,—
“Master Olivier, the princes who reign over great lordships, like
kings and emperors, should not allow sumptuousness in their
houses; for the fire spreads thence through the province. Hence,
Master Olivier, consider this said once for all. Our expenditure
increases every year. The thing displease us. How, _pasque-Dieu!_
when in ’79 it did not exceed six and thirty thousand livres, did
it attain in ’80, forty-three thousand six hundred and nineteen
livres? I have the figures in my head. In ’81, sixty-six thousand
six hundred and eighty livres, and this year, by the faith of my
body, it will reach eighty thousand livres! Doubled in four
years! Monstrous!”
He paused breathless, then resumed energetically,—
“I behold around me only people who fatten on my leanness! you
suck crowns from me at every pore.”
All remained silent. This was one of those fits of wrath which
are allowed to take their course. He continued,—
“’Tis like that request in Latin from the gentlemen of France,
that we should re-establish what they call the grand charges of
the Crown! Charges in very deed! Charges which crush! Ah!
gentlemen! you say that we are not a king to reign _dapifero
nullo, buticulario nullo!_ We will let you see, _pasque-Dieu!_
whether we are not a king!”
Here he smiled, in the consciousness of his power; this softened
his bad humor, and he turned towards the Flemings,—
“Do you see, Gossip Guillaume? the grand warden of the keys, the
grand butler, the grand chamberlain, the grand seneschal are not
worth the smallest valet. Remember this, Gossip Coppenole. They
serve no purpose, as they stand thus useless round the king; they
produce upon me the effect of the four Evangelists who surround
the face of the big clock of the palace, and which Philippe
Brille has just set in order afresh. They are gilt, but they do
not indicate the hour; and the hands can get on without them.”
He remained in thought for a moment, then added, shaking his aged
head,—
“Ho! ho! by our Lady, I am not Philippe Brille, and I shall not
gild the great vassals anew. Continue, Olivier.”
The person whom he designated by this name, took the papers into
his hands again, and began to read aloud,—
“To Adam Tenon, clerk of the warden of the seals of the
provostship of Paris; for the silver, making, and engraving of
said seals, which have been made new because the others
preceding, by reason of their antiquity and their worn condition,
could no longer be successfully used, twelve livres parisis.
“To Guillaume Frère, the sum of four livres, four sols parisis,
for his trouble and salary, for having nourished and fed the
doves in the two dove-cots of the Hôtel des Tournelles, during
the months of January, February, and March of this year; and for
this he hath given seven sextiers of barley.
“To a gray friar for confessing a criminal, four sols parisis.”
The king listened in silence. From time to time he coughed; then
he raised the goblet to his lips and drank a draught with a
grimace.
“During this year there have been made by the ordinance of
justice, to the sound of the trumpet, through the squares of
Paris, fifty-six proclamations. Account to be regulated.
“For having searched and ransacked in certain places, in Paris as
well as elsewhere, for money said to be there concealed; but
nothing hath been found: forty-five livres parisis.”
“Bury a crown to unearth a sou!” said the king.
“For having set in the Hôtel des Tournelles six panes of white
glass in the place where the iron cage is, thirteen sols; for
having made and delivered by command of the king, on the day of
the musters, four shields with the escutcheons of the said
seigneur, encircled with garlands of roses all about, six livres;
for two new sleeves to the king’s old doublet, twenty sols; for a
box of grease to grease the boots of the king, fifteen deniers; a
stable newly made to lodge the king’s black pigs, thirty livres
parisis; many partitions, planks, and trap-doors, for the
safekeeping of the lions at Saint-Paul, twenty-two livres.”
“These be dear beasts,” said Louis XI. “It matters not; it is a
fine magnificence in a king. There is a great red lion whom I
love for his pleasant ways. Have you seen him, Master Guillaume?
Princes must have these terrific animals; for we kings must have
lions for our dogs and tigers for our cats. The great befits a
crown. In the days of the pagans of Jupiter, when the people
offered the temples a hundred oxen and a hundred sheep, the
emperors gave a hundred lions and a hundred eagles. This was wild
and very fine. The kings of France have always had roarings round
their throne. Nevertheless, people must do me this justice, that
I spend still less money on it than they did, and that I possess
a greater modesty of lions, bears, elephants, and leopards.—Go
on, Master Olivier. We wished to say thus much to our Flemish
friends.”
Guillaume Rym bowed low, while Coppenole, with his surly mien,
had the air of one of the bears of which his majesty was
speaking. The king paid no heed. He had just dipped his lips into
the goblet, and he spat out the beverage, saying: “Foh! what a
disagreeable potion!” The man who was reading continued:—
“For feeding a rascally footpad, locked up these six months in
the little cell of the flayer, until it should be determined what
to do with him, six livres, four sols.”
“What’s that?” interrupted the king; “feed what ought to be
hanged! _Pasque-Dieu!_ I will give not a sou more for that
nourishment. Olivier, come to an understanding about the matter
with Monsieur d’Estouteville, and prepare me this very evening
the wedding of the gallant and the gallows. Resume.”
Olivier made a mark with his thumb against the article of the
“rascally foot soldier,” and passed on.
“To Henriet Cousin, master executor of the high works of justice
in Paris, the sum of sixty sols parisis, to him assessed and
ordained by monseigneur the provost of Paris, for having bought,
by order of the said sieur the provost, a great broad sword,
serving to execute and decapitate persons who are by justice
condemned for their demerits, and he hath caused the same to be
garnished with a sheath and with all things thereto appertaining;
and hath likewise caused to be repointed and set in order the old
sword, which had become broken and notched in executing justice
on Messire Louis de Luxembourg, as will more fully appear....”
The king interrupted: “That suffices. I allow the sum with great
good will. Those are expenses which I do not begrudge. I have
never regretted that money. Continue.”
“For having made over a great cage....”
“Ah!” said the king, grasping the arms of his chair in both
hands, “I knew well that I came hither to this Bastille for some
purpose. Hold, Master Olivier; I desire to see that cage myself.
You shall read me the cost while I am examining it. Messieurs
Flemings, come and see this; ’tis curious.”
Then he rose, leaned on the arm of his interlocutor, made a sign
to the sort of mute who stood before the door to precede him, to
the two Flemings to follow him, and quitted the room.
The royal company was recruited, at the door of the retreat, by
men of arms, all loaded down with iron, and by slender pages
bearing flambeaux. It marched for some time through the interior
of the gloomy donjon, pierced with staircases and corridors even
in the very thickness of the walls. The captain of the Bastille
marched at their head, and caused the wickets to be opened before
the bent and aged king, who coughed as he walked.
At each wicket, all heads were obliged to stoop, except that of
the old man bent double with age. “Hum,” said he between his
gums, for he had no longer any teeth, “we are already quite
prepared for the door of the sepulchre. For a low door, a bent
passer.”
At length, after having passed a final wicket, so loaded with
locks that a quarter of an hour was required to open it, they
entered a vast and lofty vaulted hall, in the centre of which
they could distinguish by the light of the torches, a huge cubic
mass of masonry, iron, and wood. The interior was hollow. It was
one of those famous cages of prisoners of state, which were
called “the little daughters of the king.” In its walls there
were two or three little windows so closely trellised with stout
iron bars; that the glass was not visible. The door was a large
flat slab of stone, as on tombs; the sort of door which serves
for entrance only. Only here, the occupant was alive.
The king began to walk slowly round the little edifice, examining
it carefully, while Master Olivier, who followed him, read aloud
the note.
“For having made a great cage of wood of solid beams, timbers and
wall-plates, measuring nine feet in length by eight in breadth,
and of the height of seven feet between the partitions, smoothed
and clamped with great bolts of iron, which has been placed in a
chamber situated in one of the towers of the Bastille
Saint-Antoine, in which cage is placed and detained, by command
of the king our lord, a prisoner who formerly inhabited an old,
decrepit, and ruined cage. There have been employed in making the
said new cage, ninety-six horizontal beams, and fifty-two upright
joists, ten wall plates three toises long; there have been
occupied nineteen carpenters to hew, work, and fit all the said
wood in the courtyard of the Bastille during twenty days.”
“Very fine heart of oak,” said the king, striking the woodwork
with his fist.
“There have been used in this cage,” continued the other, “two
hundred and twenty great bolts of iron, of nine feet, and of
eight, the rest of medium length, with the rowels, caps and
counterbands appertaining to the said bolts; weighing, the said
iron in all, three thousand, seven hundred and thirty-five
pounds; beside eight great squares of iron, serving to attach the
said cage in place with clamps and nails weighing in all two
hundred and eighteen pounds, not reckoning the iron of the
trellises for the windows of the chamber wherein the cage hath
been placed, the bars of iron for the door of the cage and other
things.”
“’Tis a great deal of iron,” said the king, “to contain the light
of a spirit.”
“The whole amounts to three hundred and seventeen livres, five
sols, seven deniers.”
“_Pasque-Dieu!_” exclaimed the king.
At this oath, which was the favorite of Louis XI., some one
seemed to awaken in the interior of the cage; the sound of chains
was heard, grating on the floor, and a feeble voice, which seemed
to issue from the tomb was uplifted. “Sire! sire! mercy!” The one
who spoke thus could not be seen.
“Three hundred and seventeen livres, five sols, seven deniers,”
repeated Louis XI. The lamentable voice which had proceeded from
the cage had frozen all present, even Master Olivier himself. The
king alone wore the air of not having heard. At his order, Master
Olivier resumed his reading, and his majesty coldly continued his
inspection of the cage.
“In addition to this there hath been paid to a mason who hath
made the holes wherein to place the gratings of the windows, and
the floor of the chamber where the cage is, because that floor
could not support this cage by reason of its weight, twenty-seven
livres fourteen sols parisis.”
The voice began to moan again.
“Mercy, sire! I swear to you that ’twas Monsieur the Cardinal
d’Angers and not I, who was guilty of treason.”
“The mason is bold!” said the king. “Continue, Olivier.”
Olivier continued,—
“To a joiner for window frames, bedstead, hollow stool, and other
things, twenty livres, two sols parisis.”
The voice also continued.
“Alas, sire! will you not listen to me? I protest to you that
’twas not I who wrote the matter to Monseigneur de Guyenne, but
Monsieur le Cardinal Balue.”
“The joiner is dear,” quoth the king. “Is that all?”
“No, sire. To a glazier, for the windows of the said chamber,
forty-six sols, eight deniers parisis.”
“Have mercy, sire! Is it not enough to have given all my goods to
my judges, my plate to Monsieur de Torcy, my library to Master
Pierre Doriolle, my tapestry to the governor of the Roussillon? I
am innocent. I have been shivering in an iron cage for fourteen
years. Have mercy, sire! You will find your reward in heaven.”
“Master Olivier,” said the king, “the total?”
“Three hundred sixty-seven livres, eight sols, three deniers
parisis.
“Notre-Dame!” cried the king. “This is an outrageous cage!”
He tore the book from Master Olivier’s hands, and set to
reckoning it himself upon his fingers, examining the paper and
the cage alternately. Meanwhile, the prisoner could be heard
sobbing. This was lugubrious in the darkness, and their faces
turned pale as they looked at each other.
“Fourteen years, sire! Fourteen years now! since the month of
April, 1469. In the name of the Holy Mother of God, sire, listen
to me! During all this time you have enjoyed the heat of the sun.
Shall I, frail creature, never more behold the day? Mercy, sire!
Be pitiful! Clemency is a fine, royal virtue, which turns aside
the currents of wrath. Does your majesty believe that in the hour
of death it will be a great cause of content for a king never to
have left any offence unpunished? Besides, sire, I did not betray
your majesty, ’twas Monsieur d’Angers; and I have on my foot a
very heavy chain, and a great ball of iron at the end, much
heavier than it should be in reason. Eh! sire! Have pity on me!”
“Olivier,” cried the king, throwing back his head, “I observe
that they charge me twenty sols a hogshead for plaster, while it
is worth but twelve. You will refer back this account.”
He turned his back on the cage, and set out to leave the room.
The miserable prisoner divined from the removal of the torches
and the noise, that the king was taking his departure.
“Sire! sire!” he cried in despair.
The door closed again. He no longer saw anything, and heard only
the hoarse voice of the turnkey, singing in his ears this ditty,—
“Maître Jean Balue,
A perdu la vue
De ses évêchés.
Monsieur de Verdun.
N’en a plus pas un;
Tous sont dépêchés.”[65]
The king reascended in silence to his retreat, and his suite
followed him, terrified by the last groans of the condemned man.
All at once his majesty turned to the Governor of the Bastille,—
“By the way,” said he, “was there not some one in that cage?”
“Pardieu, yes sire!” replied the governor, astounded by the
question.
“And who was it?”
“Monsieur the Bishop of Verdun.”
The king knew this better than any one else. But it was a mania
of his.
“Ah!” said he, with the innocent air of thinking of it for the
first time, “Guillaume de Harancourt, the friend of Monsieur the
Cardinal Balue. A good devil of a bishop!”
At the expiration of a few moments, the door of the retreat had
opened again, then closed upon the five personages whom the
reader has seen at the beginning of this chapter, and who resumed
their places, their whispered conversations, and their attitudes.
During the king’s absence, several despatches had been placed on
his table, and he broke the seals himself. Then he began to read
them promptly, one after the other, made a sign to Master Olivier
who appeared to exercise the office of minister, to take a pen,
and without communicating to him the contents of the despatches,
he began to dictate in a low voice, the replies which the latter
wrote, on his knees, in an inconvenient attitude before the
table.
Guillaume Rym was on the watch.
The king spoke so low that the Flemings heard nothing of his
dictation, except some isolated and rather unintelligible scraps,
such as,—
“To maintain the fertile places by commerce, and the sterile by
manufactures....—To show the English lords our four bombards,
London, Brabant, Bourg-en-Bresse, Saint-Omer....—Artillery is the
cause of war being made more judiciously now....—To Monsieur de
Bressuire, our friend....—Armies cannot be maintained without
tribute, etc.”
Once he raised his voice,—
“_Pasque Dieu!_ Monsieur the King of Sicily seals his letters
with yellow wax, like a king of France. Perhaps we are in the
wrong to permit him so to do. My fair cousin of Burgundy granted
no armorial bearings with a field of gules. The grandeur of
houses is assured by the integrity of prerogatives. Note this,
friend Olivier.”
Again,—
“Oh! oh!” said he, “What a long message! What doth our brother
the emperor claim?” And running his eye over the missive and
breaking his reading with interjection: “Surely! the Germans are
so great and powerful, that it is hardly credible—But let us not
forget the old proverb: ‘The finest county is Flanders; the
finest duchy, Milan; the finest kingdom, France.’ Is it not so,
Messieurs Flemings?”
This time Coppenole bowed in company with Guillaume Rym. The
hosier’s patriotism was tickled.
The last despatch made Louis XI. frown.
“What is this?” he said, “Complaints and fault finding against
our garrisons in Picardy! Olivier, write with diligence to M. the
Marshal de Rouault:—That discipline is relaxed. That the
gendarmes of the unattached troops, the feudal nobles, the free
archers, and the Swiss inflict infinite evils on the
rustics.—That the military, not content with what they find in
the houses of the rustics, constrain them with violent blows of
cudgel or of lash to go and get wine, spices, and other
unreasonable things in the town.—That monsieur the king knows
this. That we undertake to guard our people against
inconveniences, larcenies and pillage.—That such is our will, by
our Lady!—That in addition, it suits us not that any fiddler,
barber, or any soldier varlet should be clad like a prince, in
velvet, cloth of silk, and rings of gold.—That these vanities are
hateful to God.—That we, who are gentlemen, content ourselves
with a doublet of cloth at sixteen sols the ell, of Paris.—That
messieurs the camp-followers can very well come down to that,
also.—Command and ordain.—To Monsieur de Rouault, our
friend.—Good.”
He dictated this letter aloud, in a firm tone, and in jerks. At
the moment when he finished it, the door opened and gave passage
to a new personage, who precipitated himself into the chamber,
crying in affright,—
“Sire! sire! there is a sedition of the populace in Paris!” Louis
XI.’s grave face contracted; but all that was visible of his
emotion passed away like a flash of lightning. He controlled
himself and said with tranquil severity,—
“Gossip Jacques, you enter very abruptly!”
“Sire! sire! there is a revolt!” repeated Gossip Jacques
breathlessly.
The king, who had risen, grasped him roughly by the arm, and said
in his ear, in such a manner as to be heard by him alone, with
concentrated rage and a sidelong glance at the Flemings,—
“Hold your tongue! or speak low!”
The new comer understood, and began in a low tone to give a very
terrified account, to which the king listened calmly, while
Guillaume Rym called Coppenole’s attention to the face and dress
of the new arrival, to his furred cowl, (_caputia fourrata_), his
short cape, (_epitogia curta_), his robe of black velvet, which
bespoke a president of the court of accounts.
Hardly had this personage given the king some explanations, when
Louis XI. exclaimed, bursting into a laugh,—
“In truth? Speak aloud, Gossip Coictier! What call is there for
you to talk so low? Our Lady knoweth that we conceal nothing from
our good friends the Flemings.”
“But sire...”
“Speak loud!”
Gossip Coictier was struck dumb with surprise.
“So,” resumed the king,—“speak sir,—there is a commotion among
the louts in our good city of Paris?”
“Yes, sire.”
“And which is moving you say, against monsieur the bailiff of the
Palais-de-Justice?”
“So it appears,” said the gossip, who still stammered, utterly
astounded by the abrupt and inexplicable change which had just
taken place in the king’s thoughts.
Louis XI. continued: “Where did the watch meet the rabble?”
“Marching from the Grand Truanderie, towards the
Pont-aux-Changeurs. I met it myself as I was on my way hither to
obey your majesty’s commands. I heard some of them shouting:
‘Down with the bailiff of the palace!’”
“And what complaints have they against the bailiff?”
“Ah!” said Gossip Jacques, “because he is their lord.”
“Really?”
“Yes, sire. They are knaves from the Cour-des-Miracles. They have
been complaining this long while, of the bailiff, whose vassals
they are. They do not wish to recognize him either as judge or as
voyer?”[66]
“Yes, certainly!” retorted the king with a smile of satisfaction
which he strove in vain to disguise.
“In all their petitions to the Parliament, they claim to have but
two masters. Your majesty and their God, who is the devil, I
believe.”
“Eh! eh!” said the king.
He rubbed his hands, he laughed with that inward mirth which
makes the countenance beam; he was unable to dissimulate his joy,
although he endeavored at moments to compose himself. No one
understood it in the least, not even Master Olivier. He remained
silent for a moment, with a thoughtful but contented air.
“Are they in force?” he suddenly inquired.
“Yes, assuredly, sire,” replied Gossip Jacques.
“How many?”
“Six thousand at the least.”
The king could not refrain from saying: “Good!” he went on,—
“Are they armed?”
“With scythes, pikes, hackbuts, pickaxes. All sorts of very
violent weapons.”
The king did not appear in the least disturbed by this list.
Jacques considered it his duty to add,—
“If your majesty does not send prompt succor to the bailiff, he
is lost.”
“We will send,” said the king with an air of false seriousness.
“It is well. Assuredly we will send. Monsieur the bailiff is our
friend. Six thousand! They are desperate scamps! Their audacity
is marvellous, and we are greatly enraged at it. But we have only
a few people about us to-night. To-morrow morning will be time
enough.”
Gossip Jacques exclaimed, “Instantly, sire! there will be time to
sack the bailiwick a score of times, to violate the seignory, to
hang the bailiff. For God’s sake, sire! send before to-morrow
morning.”
The king looked him full in the face. “I have told you to-morrow
morning.”
It was one of those looks to which one does not reply. After a
silence, Louis XI. raised his voice once more,—
“You should know that, Gossip Jacques. What was—”
He corrected himself. “What is the bailiff’s feudal
jurisdiction?”
“Sire, the bailiff of the palace has the Rue Calendre as far as
the Rue de l’Herberie, the Place Saint-Michel, and the localities
vulgarly known as the Mureaux, situated near the church of
Notre-Dame des Champs (here Louis XI. raised the brim of his
hat), which hotels number thirteen, plus the Cour des Miracles,
plus the Maladerie, called the Banlieue, plus the whole highway
which begins at that Maladerie and ends at the Porte
Sainte-Jacques. Of these divers places he is voyer, high, middle,
and low, justiciary, full seigneur.”
“Bless me!” said the king, scratching his left ear with his right
hand, “that makes a goodly bit of my city! Ah! monsieur the
bailiff was king of all that.”
This time he did not correct himself. He continued dreamily, and
as though speaking to himself,—
“Very fine, monsieur the bailiff! You had there between your
teeth a pretty slice of our Paris.”
All at once he broke out explosively, “_Pasque-Dieu!_ What people
are those who claim to be voyers, justiciaries, lords and masters
in our domains? who have their tollgates at the end of every
field? their gallows and their hangman at every cross-road among
our people? So that as the Greek believed that he had as many
gods as there were fountains, and the Persian as many as he
beheld stars, the Frenchman counts as many kings as he sees
gibbets! Pardieu! ’tis an evil thing, and the confusion of it
displeases me. I should greatly like to know whether it be the
mercy of God that there should be in Paris any other lord than
the king, any other judge than our parliament, any other emperor
than ourselves in this empire! By the faith of my soul! the day
must certainly come when there shall exist in France but one
king, one lord, one judge, one headsman, as there is in paradise
but one God!”
He lifted his cap again, and continued, still dreamily, with the
air and accent of a hunter who is cheering on his pack of hounds:
“Good, my people! bravely done! break these false lords! do your
duty! at them! have at them! pillage them! take them! sack
them!... Ah! you want to be kings, messeigneurs? On, my people
on!”
Here he interrupted himself abruptly, bit his lips as though to
take back his thought which had already half escaped, bent his
piercing eyes in turn on each of the five persons who surrounded
him, and suddenly grasping his hat with both hands and staring
full at it, he said to it: “Oh! I would burn you if you knew what
there was in my head.”
Then casting about him once more the cautious and uneasy glance
of the fox re-entering his hole,—
“No matter! we will succor monsieur the bailiff. Unfortunately,
we have but few troops here at the present moment, against so
great a populace. We must wait until to-morrow. The order will be
transmitted to the City and every one who is caught will be
immediately hung.”
“By the way, sire,” said Gossip Coictier, “I had forgotten that
in the first agitation, the watch have seized two laggards of the
band. If your majesty desires to see these men, they are here.”
“If I desire to see them!” cried the king. “What! _Pasque-Dieu!_
You forget a thing like that! Run quick, you, Olivier! Go, seek
them!”
Master Olivier quitted the room and returned a moment later with
the two prisoners, surrounded by archers of the guard. The first
had a coarse, idiotic, drunken and astonished face. He was
clothed in rags, and walked with one knee bent and dragging his
leg. The second had a pallid and smiling countenance, with which
the reader is already acquainted.
The king surveyed them for a moment without uttering a word, then
addressing the first one abruptly,—
“What’s your name?”
“Gieffroy Pincebourde.”
“Your trade.”
“Outcast.”
“What were you going to do in this damnable sedition?”
The outcast stared at the king, and swung his arms with a stupid
air.
He had one of those awkwardly shaped heads where intelligence is
about as much at its ease as a light beneath an extinguisher.
“I know not,” said he. “They went, I went.”
“Were you not going to outrageously attack and pillage your lord,
the bailiff of the palace?”
“I know that they were going to take something from some one.
That is all.”
A soldier pointed out to the king a billhook which he had seized
on the person of the vagabond.
“Do you recognize this weapon?” demanded the king.
“Yes; ’tis my billhook; I am a vine-dresser.”
“And do you recognize this man as your companion?” added Louis
XI., pointing to the other prisoner.
“No, I do not know him.”
“That will do,” said the king, making a sign with his finger to
the silent personage who stood motionless beside the door, to
whom we have already called the reader’s attention.
“Gossip Tristan, here is a man for you.”
Tristan l’Hermite bowed. He gave an order in a low voice to two
archers, who led away the poor vagabond.
In the meantime, the king had approached the second prisoner, who
was perspiring in great drops: “Your name?”
“Sire, Pierre Gringoire.”
“Your trade?”
“Philosopher, sire.”
“How do you permit yourself, knave, to go and besiege our friend,
monsieur the bailiff of the palace, and what have you to say
concerning this popular agitation?”
“Sire, I had nothing to do with it.”
“Come, now! you wanton wretch, were not you apprehended by the
watch in that bad company?”
“No, sire, there is a mistake. ’Tis a fatality. I make tragedies.
Sire, I entreat your majesty to listen to me. I am a poet. ’Tis
the melancholy way of men of my profession to roam the streets by
night. I was passing there. It was mere chance. I was unjustly
arrested; I am innocent of this civil tempest. Your majesty sees
that the vagabond did not recognize me. I conjure your majesty—”
“Hold your tongue!” said the king, between two swallows of his
ptisan. “You split our head!”
Tristan l’Hermite advanced and pointing to Gringoire,—
“Sire, can this one be hanged also?”
This was the first word that he had uttered.
“Phew!” replied the king, “I see no objection.”
“I see a great many!” said Gringoire.
At that moment, our philosopher was greener than an olive. He
perceived from the king’s cold and indifferent mien that there
was no other resource than something very pathetic, and he flung
himself at the feet of Louis XI., exclaiming, with gestures of
despair:—
“Sire! will your majesty deign to hear me. Sire! break not in
thunder over so small a thing as myself. God’s great lightning
doth not bombard a lettuce. Sire, you are an august and, very
puissant monarch; have pity on a poor man who is honest, and who
would find it more difficult to stir up a revolt than a cake of
ice would to give out a spark! Very gracious sire, kindness is
the virtue of a lion and a king. Alas! rigor only frightens
minds; the impetuous gusts of the north wind do not make the
traveller lay aside his cloak; the sun, bestowing his rays little
by little, warms him in such ways that it will make him strip to
his shirt. Sire, you are the sun. I protest to you, my sovereign
lord and master, that I am not an outcast, thief, and disorderly
fellow. Revolt and brigandage belong not to the outfit of Apollo.
I am not the man to fling myself into those clouds which break
out into seditious clamor. I am your majesty’s faithful vassal.
That same jealousy which a husband cherisheth for the honor of
his wife, the resentment which the son hath for the love of his
father, a good vassal should feel for the glory of his king; he
should pine away for the zeal of this house, for the
aggrandizement of his service. Every other passion which should
transport him would be but madness. These, sire, are my maxims of
state: then do not judge me to be a seditious and thieving rascal
because my garment is worn at the elbows. If you will grant me
mercy, sire, I will wear it out on the knees in praying to God
for you night and morning! Alas! I am not extremely rich, ’tis
true. I am even rather poor. But not vicious on that account. It
is not my fault. Every one knoweth that great wealth is not to be
drawn from literature, and that those who are best posted in good
books do not always have a great fire in winter. The advocate’s
trade taketh all the grain, and leaveth only straw to the other
scientific professions. There are forty very excellent proverbs
anent the hole-ridden cloak of the philosopher. Oh, sire!
clemency is the only light which can enlighten the interior of so
great a soul. Clemency beareth the torch before all the other
virtues. Without it they are but blind men groping after God in
the dark. Compassion, which is the same thing as clemency,
causeth the love of subjects, which is the most powerful
bodyguard to a prince. What matters it to your majesty, who
dazzles all faces, if there is one poor man more on earth, a poor
innocent philosopher spluttering amid the shadows of calamity,
with an empty pocket which resounds against his hollow belly?
Moreover, sire, I am a man of letters. Great kings make a pearl
for their crowns by protecting letters. Hercules did not disdain
the title of Musagetes. Mathias Corvin favored Jean de Monroyal,
the ornament of mathematics. Now, ’tis an ill way to protect
letters to hang men of letters. What a stain on Alexander if he
had hung Aristoteles! This act would not be a little patch on the
face of his reputation to embellish it, but a very malignant
ulcer to disfigure it. Sire! I made a very proper epithalamium
for Mademoiselle of Flanders and Monseigneur the very august
Dauphin. That is not a firebrand of rebellion. Your majesty sees
that I am not a scribbler of no reputation, that I have studied
excellently well, and that I possess much natural eloquence. Have
mercy upon me, sire! In so doing you will perform a gallant deed
to our Lady, and I swear to you that I am greatly terrified at
the idea of being hanged!”
So saying, the unhappy Gringoire kissed the king’s slippers, and
Guillaume Rym said to Coppenole in a low tone: “He doth well to
drag himself on the earth. Kings are like the Jupiter of Crete,
they have ears only in their feet.” And without troubling himself
about the Jupiter of Crete, the hosier replied with a heavy
smile, and his eyes fixed on Gringoire: “Oh! that’s it exactly! I
seem to hear Chancellor Hugonet craving mercy of me.”
When Gringoire paused at last, quite out of breath, he raised his
head tremblingly towards the king, who was engaged in scratching
a spot on the knee of his breeches with his finger-nail; then his
majesty began to drink from the goblet of ptisan. But he uttered
not a word, and this silence tortured Gringoire. At last the king
looked at him. “Here is a terrible bawler!” said, he. Then,
turning to Tristan l’Hermite, “Bah! let him go!”
Gringoire fell backwards, quite thunderstruck with joy.
“At liberty!” growled Tristan “Doth not your majesty wish to have
him detained a little while in a cage?”
“Gossip,” retorted Louis XI., “think you that ’tis for birds of
this feather that we cause to be made cages at three hundred and
sixty-seven livres, eight sous, three deniers apiece? Release him
at once, the wanton (Louis XI. was fond of this word which
formed, with _Pasque-Dieu_, the foundation of his joviality), and
put him out with a buffet.”
“Ugh!” cried Gringoire, “what a great king is here!”
And for fear of a counter order, he rushed towards the door,
which Tristan opened for him with a very bad grace. The soldiers
left the room with him, pushing him before them with stout
thwacks, which Gringoire bore like a true stoical philosopher.
The king’s good humor since the revolt against the bailiff had
been announced to him, made itself apparent in every way. This
unwonted clemency was no small sign of it. Tristan l’Hermite in
his corner wore the surly look of a dog who has had a bone
snatched away from him.
Meanwhile, the king thrummed gayly with his fingers on the arm of
his chair, the March of Pont-Audemer. He was a dissembling
prince, but one who understood far better how to hide his
troubles than his joys. These external manifestations of joy at
any good news sometimes proceeded to very great lengths thus, on
the death, of Charles the Bold, to the point of vowing silver
balustrades to Saint Martin of Tours; on his advent to the
throne, so far as forgetting to order his father’s obsequies.
“Hé! sire!” suddenly exclaimed Jacques Coictier, “what has become
of the acute attack of illness for which your majesty had me
summoned?”
“Oh!” said the king, “I really suffer greatly, my gossip. There
is a hissing in my ear and fiery rakes rack my chest.”
Coictier took the king’s hand, and begun to feel of his pulse
with a knowing air.
“Look, Coppenole,” said Rym, in a low voice. “Behold him between
Coictier and Tristan. They are his whole court. A physician for
himself, a headsman for others.”
As he felt the king’s pulse, Coictier assumed an air of greater
and greater alarm. Louis XI. watched him with some anxiety.
Coictier grew visibly more gloomy. The brave man had no other
farm than the king’s bad health. He speculated on it to the best
of his ability.
“Oh! oh!” he murmured at length, “this is serious indeed.”
“Is it not?” said the king, uneasily.
“_Pulsus creber, anhelans, crepitans, irregularis_,” continued
the leech.
“_Pasque-Dieu!_”
“This may carry off its man in less than three days.”
“Our Lady!” exclaimed the king. “And the remedy, gossip?”
“I am meditating upon that, sire.”
He made Louis XI. put out his tongue, shook his head, made a
grimace, and in the very midst of these affectations,—
“Pardieu, sire,” he suddenly said, “I must tell you that there is
a receivership of the royal prerogatives vacant, and that I have
a nephew.”
“I give the receivership to your nephew, Gossip Jacques,” replied
the king; “but draw this fire from my breast.”
“Since your majesty is so clement,” replied the leech, “you will
not refuse to aid me a little in building my house, Rue
Saint-André-des-Arcs.”
“Heugh!” said the king.
“I am at the end of my finances,” pursued the doctor; “and it
would really be a pity that the house should not have a roof; not
on account of the house, which is simple and thoroughly
_bourgeois_, but because of the paintings of Jehan Fourbault,
which adorn its wainscoating. There is a Diana flying in the air,
but so excellent, so tender, so delicate, of so ingenuous an
action, her hair so well coiffed and adorned with a crescent, her
flesh so white, that she leads into temptation those who regard
her too curiously. There is also a Ceres. She is another very
fair divinity. She is seated on sheaves of wheat and crowned with
a gallant garland of wheat ears interlaced with salsify and other
flowers. Never were seen more amorous eyes, more rounded limbs, a
nobler air, or a more gracefully flowing skirt. She is one of the
most innocent and most perfect beauties whom the brush has ever
produced.”
“Executioner!” grumbled Louis XI., “what are you driving at?”
“I must have a roof for these paintings, sire, and, although ’tis
but a small matter, I have no more money.”
“How much doth your roof cost?”
“Why a roof of copper, embellished and gilt, two thousand livres
at the most.”
“Ah, assassin!” cried the king, “He never draws out one of my
teeth which is not a diamond.”
“Am I to have my roof?” said Coictier.
“Yes; and go to the devil, but cure me.”
Jacques Coictier bowed low and said,—
“Sire, it is a repellent which will save you. We will apply to
your loins the great defensive composed of cerate, Armenian bole,
white of egg, oil, and vinegar. You will continue your ptisan and
we will answer for your majesty.”
A burning candle does not attract one gnat alone. Master Olivier,
perceiving the king to be in a liberal mood, and judging the
moment to be propitious, approached in his turn.
“Sire—”
“What is it now?” said Louis XI. “Sire, your majesty knoweth that
Simon Radin is dead?”
“Well?”
“He was councillor to the king in the matter of the courts of the
treasury.”
“Well?”
“Sire, his place is vacant.”
As he spoke thus, Master Olivier’s haughty face quitted its
arrogant expression for a lowly one. It is the only change which
ever takes place in a courtier’s visage. The king looked him well
in the face and said in a dry tone,—“I understand.”
He resumed,—
“Master Olivier, the Marshal de Boucicaut was wont to say,
‘There’s no master save the king, there are no fishes save in the
sea.’ I see that you agree with Monsieur de Boucicaut. Now listen
to this; we have a good memory. In ’68 we made you valet of our
chamber: in ’69, guardian of the fortress of the bridge of
Saint-Cloud, at a hundred livres of Tournay in wages (you wanted
them of Paris). In November, ’73, by letters given to Gergeole,
we instituted you keeper of the Wood of Vincennes, in the place
of Gilbert Acle, equerry; in ’75, gruyer[67] of the forest of
Rouvray-lez-Saint-Cloud, in the place of Jacques le Maire; in
’78, we graciously settled on you, by letters patent sealed
doubly with green wax, an income of ten livres parisis, for you
and your wife, on the Place of the Merchants, situated at the
School Saint-Germain; in ’79, we made you gruyer of the forest of
Senart, in place of that poor Jehan Daiz; then captain of the
Château of Loches; then governor of Saint-Quentin; then captain
of the bridge of Meulan, of which you cause yourself to be called
comte. Out of the five sols fine paid by every barber who shaves
on a festival day, there are three sols for you and we have the
rest. We have been good enough to change your name of Le Mauvais
(The Evil), which resembled your face too closely. In ’76, we
granted you, to the great displeasure of our nobility, armorial
bearings of a thousand colors, which give you the breast of a
peacock. _Pasque-Dieu!_ Are not you surfeited? Is not the draught
of fishes sufficiently fine and miraculous? Are you not afraid
that one salmon more will make your boat sink? Pride will be your
ruin, gossip. Ruin and disgrace always press hard on the heels of
pride. Consider this and hold your tongue.”
These words, uttered with severity, made Master Olivier’s face
revert to its insolence.
“Good!” he muttered, almost aloud, “’tis easy to see that the
king is ill to-day; he giveth all to the leech.”
Louis XI. far from being irritated by this petulant insult,
resumed with some gentleness, “Stay, I was forgetting that I made
you my ambassador to Madame Marie, at Ghent. Yes, gentlemen,”
added the king turning to the Flemings, “this man hath been an
ambassador. There, my gossip,” he pursued, addressing Master
Olivier, “let us not get angry; we are old friends. ’Tis very
late. We have terminated our labors. Shave me.”
Our readers have not, without doubt, waited until the present
moment to recognize in Master Olivier that terrible Figaro whom
Providence, the great maker of dramas, mingled so artistically in
the long and bloody comedy of the reign of Louis XI. We will not
here undertake to develop that singular figure. This barber of
the king had three names. At court he was politely called Olivier
le Daim (the Deer); among the people Olivier the Devil. His real
name was Olivier le Mauvais.
Accordingly, Olivier le Mauvais remained motionless, sulking at
the king, and glancing askance at Jacques Coictier.
“Yes, yes, the physician!” he said between his teeth.
“Ah, yes, the physician!” retorted Louis XI., with singular good
humor; “the physician has more credit than you. ’Tis very simple;
he has taken hold upon us by the whole body, and you hold us only
by the chin. Come, my poor barber, all will come right. What
would you say and what would become of your office if I were a
king like Chilperic, whose gesture consisted in holding his beard
in one hand? Come, gossip mine, fulfil your office, shave me. Go
get what you need therefor.”
Olivier perceiving that the king had made up his mind to laugh,
and that there was no way of even annoying him, went off
grumbling to execute his orders.
The king rose, approached the window, and suddenly opening it
with extraordinary agitation,—
“Oh! yes!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands, “yonder is a redness
in the sky over the City. ’Tis the bailiff burning. It can be
nothing else but that. Ah! my good people! here you are aiding me
at last in tearing down the rights of lordship!”
Then turning towards the Flemings: “Come, look at this,
gentlemen. Is it not a fire which gloweth yonder?”
The two men of Ghent drew near.
“A great fire,” said Guillaume Rym.
“Oh!” exclaimed Coppenole, whose eyes suddenly flashed, “that
reminds me of the burning of the house of the Seigneur
d’Hymbercourt. There must be a goodly revolt yonder.”
“You think so, Master Coppenole?” And Louis XI.’s glance was
almost as joyous as that of the hosier. “Will it not be difficult
to resist?”
“Cross of God! Sire! Your majesty will damage many companies of
men of war thereon.”
“Ah! I! ’tis different,” returned the king. “If I willed.”
The hosier replied hardily,—
“If this revolt be what I suppose, sire, you might will in vain.”
“Gossip,” said Louis XI., “with the two companies of my
unattached troops and one discharge of a serpentine, short work
is made of a populace of louts.”
The hosier, in spite of the signs made to him by Guillaume Rym,
appeared determined to hold his own against the king.
“Sire, the Swiss were also louts. Monsieur the Duke of Burgundy
was a great gentleman, and he turned up his nose at that rabble
rout. At the battle of Grandson, sire, he cried: ‘Men of the
cannon! Fire on the villains!’ and he swore by Saint-George. But
Advoyer Scharnachtal hurled himself on the handsome duke with his
battle-club and his people, and when the glittering Burgundian
army came in contact with these peasants in bull hides, it flew
in pieces like a pane of glass at the blow of a pebble. Many
lords were then slain by low-born knaves; and Monsieur de
Château-Guyon, the greatest seigneur in Burgundy, was found dead,
with his gray horse, in a little marsh meadow.”
“Friend,” returned the king, “you are speaking of a battle. The
question here is of a mutiny. And I will gain the upper hand of
it as soon as it shall please me to frown.”
The other replied indifferently,—
“That may be, sire; in that case, ’tis because the people’s hour
hath not yet come.”
Guillaume Rym considered it incumbent on him to intervene,—
“Master Coppenole, you are speaking to a puissant king.”
“I know it,” replied the hosier, gravely.
“Let him speak, Monsieur Rym, my friend,” said the king; “I love
this frankness of speech. My father, Charles the Seventh, was
accustomed to say that the truth was ailing; I thought her dead,
and that she had found no confessor. Master Coppenole undeceiveth
me.”
Then, laying his hand familiarly on Coppenole’s shoulder,—
“You were saying, Master Jacques?”
“I say, sire, that you may possibly be in the right, that the
hour of the people may not yet have come with you.”
Louis XI. gazed at him with his penetrating eye,—
“And when will that hour come, master?”
“You will hear it strike.”
“On what clock, if you please?”
Coppenole, with his tranquil and rustic countenance, made the
king approach the window.
“Listen, sire! There is here a donjon keep, a belfry, cannons,
_bourgeois_, soldiers; when the belfry shall hum, when the
cannons shall roar, when the donjon shall fall in ruins amid
great noise, when _bourgeois_ and soldiers shall howl and slay
each other, the hour will strike.”
Louis’s face grew sombre and dreamy. He remained silent for a
moment, then he gently patted with his hand the thick wall of the
donjon, as one strokes the haunches of a steed.
“Oh! no!” said he. “You will not crumble so easily, will you, my
good Bastille?”
And turning with an abrupt gesture towards the sturdy Fleming,—
“Have you never seen a revolt, Master Jacques?”
“I have made them,” said the hosier.
“How do you set to work to make a revolt?” said the king.
“Ah!” replied Coppenole, “’tis not very difficult. There are a
hundred ways. In the first place, there must be discontent in the
city. The thing is not uncommon. And then, the character of the
inhabitants. Those of Ghent are easy to stir into revolt. They
always love the prince’s son; the prince, never. Well! One
morning, I will suppose, some one enters my shop, and says to me:
‘Father Coppenole, there is this and there is that, the
Demoiselle of Flanders wishes to save her ministers, the grand
bailiff is doubling the impost on shagreen, or something
else,’—what you will. I leave my work as it stands, I come out of
my hosier’s stall, and I shout: ‘To the sack?’ There is always
some smashed cask at hand. I mount it, and I say aloud, in the
first words that occur to me, what I have on my heart; and when
one is of the people, sire, one always has something on the
heart. Then people troop up, they shout, they ring the alarm
bell, they arm the louts with what they take from the soldiers,
the market people join in, and they set out. And it will always
be thus, so long as there are lords in the seignories,
_bourgeois_ in the bourgs, and peasants in the country.”
“And against whom do you thus rebel?” inquired the king; “against
your bailiffs? against your lords?”
“Sometimes; that depends. Against the duke, also, sometimes.”
Louis XI. returned and seated himself, saying, with a smile,—
“Ah! here they have only got as far as the bailiffs.”
At that instant Olivier le Daim returned. He was followed by two
pages, who bore the king’s toilet articles; but what struck Louis
XI. was that he was also accompanied by the provost of Paris and
the chevalier of the watch, who appeared to be in consternation.
The spiteful barber also wore an air of consternation, which was
one of contentment beneath, however. It was he who spoke first.
“Sire, I ask your majesty’s pardon for the calamitous news which
I bring.”
The king turned quickly and grazed the mat on the floor with the
feet of his chair,—
“What does this mean?”
“Sire,” resumed Olivier le Daim, with the malicious air of a man
who rejoices that he is about to deal a violent blow, “’tis not
against the bailiff of the courts that this popular sedition is
directed.”
“Against whom, then?”
“Against you, sire?’
The aged king rose erect and straight as a young man,—
“Explain yourself, Olivier! And guard your head well, gossip; for
I swear to you by the cross of Saint-Lô that, if you lie to us at
this hour, the sword which severed the head of Monsieur de
Luxembourg is not so notched that it cannot yet sever yours!”
The oath was formidable; Louis XI. had only sworn twice in the
course of his life by the cross of Saint-Lô.
Olivier opened his mouth to reply.
“Sire—”
“On your knees!” interrupted the king violently. “Tristan, have
an eye to this man.”
Olivier knelt down and said coldly,—
“Sire, a sorceress was condemned to death by your court of
parliament. She took refuge in Notre-Dame. The people are trying
to take her from thence by main force. Monsieur the provost and
monsieur the chevalier of the watch, who have just come from the
riot, are here to give me the lie if this is not the truth. The
populace is besieging Notre-Dame.”
“Yes, indeed!” said the king in a low voice, all pale and
trembling with wrath. “Notre-Dame! They lay siege to our Lady, my
good mistress in her cathedral!—Rise, Olivier. You are right. I
give you Simon Radin’s charge. You are right. ’Tis I whom they
are attacking. The witch is under the protection of this church,
the church is under my protection. And I thought that they were
acting against the bailiff! ’Tis against myself!”
Then, rendered young by fury, he began to walk up and down with
long strides. He no longer laughed, he was terrible, he went and
came; the fox was changed into a hyæna. He seemed suffocated to
such a degree that he could not speak; his lips moved, and his
fleshless fists were clenched. All at once he raised his head,
his hollow eye appeared full of light, and his voice burst forth
like a clarion: “Down with them, Tristan! A heavy hand for these
rascals! Go, Tristan, my friend! slay! slay!”
This eruption having passed, he returned to his seat, and said
with cold and concentrated wrath,—
“Here, Tristan! There are here with us in the Bastille the fifty
lances of the Vicomte de Gif, which makes three hundred horse:
you will take them. There is also the company of our unattached
archers of Monsieur de Châteaupers: you will take it. You are
provost of the marshals; you have the men of your provostship:
you will take them. At the Hôtel Saint-Pol you will find forty
archers of monsieur the dauphin’s new guard: you will take them.
And, with all these, you will hasten to Notre-Dame. Ah!
messieurs, louts of Paris, do you fling yourselves thus against
the crown of France, the sanctity of Notre-Dame, and the peace of
this commonwealth! Exterminate, Tristan! exterminate! and let not
a single one escape, except it be for Montfaucon.”
Tristan bowed. “’Tis well, sire.”
He added, after a silence, “And what shall I do with the
sorceress?”
This question caused the king to meditate.
“Ah!” said he, “the sorceress! Monsieur d’Estouteville, what did
the people wish to do with her?”
“Sire,” replied the provost of Paris, “I imagine that since the
populace has come to tear her from her asylum in Notre-Dame, ’tis
because that impunity wounds them, and they desire to hang her.”
The king appeared to reflect deeply: then, addressing Tristan
l’Hermite, “Well! gossip, exterminate the people and hang the
sorceress.”
“That’s it,” said Rym in a low tone to Coppenole, “punish the
people for willing a thing, and then do what they wish.”
“Enough, sire,” replied Tristan. “If the sorceress is still in
Notre-Dame, must she be seized in spite of the sanctuary?”
“_Pasque-Dieu!_ the sanctuary!” said the king, scratching his
ear. “But the woman must be hung, nevertheless.”
Here, as though seized with a sudden idea, he flung himself on
his knees before his chair, took off his hat, placed it on the
seat, and gazing devoutly at one of the leaden amulets which
loaded it down, “Oh!” said he, with clasped hands, “our Lady of
Paris, my gracious patroness, pardon me. I will only do it this
once. This criminal must be punished. I assure you, madame the
virgin, my good mistress, that she is a sorceress who is not
worthy of your amiable protection. You know, madame, that many
very pious princes have overstepped the privileges of the
churches for the glory of God and the necessities of the State.
Saint Hugues, bishop of England, permitted King Edward to hang a
witch in his church. Saint-Louis of France, my master,
transgressed, with the same object, the church of Monsieur
Saint-Paul; and Monsieur Alphonse, son of the king of Jerusalem,
the very church of the Holy Sepulchre. Pardon me, then, for this
once. Our Lady of Paris, I will never do so again, and I will
give you a fine statue of silver, like the one which I gave last
year to Our Lady of Écouys. So be it.”
He made the sign of the cross, rose, donned his hat once more,
and said to Tristan,—
“Be diligent, gossip. Take Monsieur Châteaupers with you. You
will cause the tocsin to be sounded. You will crush the populace.
You will seize the witch. ’Tis said. And I mean the business of
the execution to be done by you. You will render me an account of
it. Come, Olivier, I shall not go to bed this night. Shave me.”
Tristan l’Hermite bowed and departed. Then the king, dismissing
Rym and Coppenole with a gesture,—
“God guard you, messieurs, my good friends the Flemings. Go, take
a little repose. The night advances, and we are nearer the
morning than the evening.”
Both retired and gained their apartments under the guidance of
the captain of the Bastille. Coppenole said to Guillaume Rym,—
“Hum! I have had enough of that coughing king! I have seen
Charles of Burgundy drunk, and he was less malignant than Louis
XI. when ailing.”
“Master Jacques,” replied Rym, “’tis because wine renders kings
less cruel than does barley water.”
CHAPTER VI. LITTLE SWORD IN POCKET.
On emerging from the Bastille, Gringoire descended the Rue
Saint-Antoine with the swiftness of a runaway horse. On arriving
at the Baudoyer gate, he walked straight to the stone cross which
rose in the middle of that place, as though he were able to
distinguish in the darkness the figure of a man clad and cloaked
in black, who was seated on the steps of the cross.
“Is it you, master?” said Gringoire.
The personage in black rose.
“Death and passion! You make me boil, Gringoire. The man on the
tower of Saint-Gervais has just cried half-past one o’clock in
the morning.”
“Oh,” retorted Gringoire, “’tis no fault of mine, but of the
watch and the king. I have just had a narrow escape. I always
just miss being hung. ’Tis my predestination.”
“You lack everything,” said the other. “But come quickly. Have
you the password?”
“Fancy, master, I have seen the king. I come from him. He wears
fustian breeches. ’Tis an adventure.”
“Oh! distaff of words! what is your adventure to me! Have you the
password of the outcasts?”
“I have it. Be at ease. ‘Little sword in pocket.’”
“Good. Otherwise, we could not make our way as far as the church.
The outcasts bar the streets. Fortunately, it appears that they
have encountered resistance. We may still arrive in time.”
“Yes, master, but how are we to get into Notre-Dame?”
“I have the key to the tower.”
“And how are we to get out again?”
“Behind the cloister there is a little door which opens on the
Terrain and the water. I have taken the key to it, and I moored a
boat there this morning.”
“I have had a beautiful escape from being hung!” Gringoire
repeated.
“Eh, quick! come!” said the other.
Both descended towards the city with long strides.
CHAPTER VII. CHATEAUPERS TO THE RESCUE.
The reader will, perhaps, recall the critical situation in which
we left Quasimodo. The brave deaf man, assailed on all sides, had
lost, if not all courage, at least all hope of saving, not
himself (he was not thinking of himself), but the gypsy. He ran
distractedly along the gallery. Notre-Dame was on the point of
being taken by storm by the outcasts. All at once, a great
galloping of horses filled the neighboring streets, and, with a
long file of torches and a thick column of cavaliers, with free
reins and lances in rest, these furious sounds debouched on the
Place like a hurricane,—
“France! France! cut down the louts! Châteaupers to the rescue!
Provostship! Provostship!”
The frightened vagabonds wheeled round.
Quasimodo who did not hear, saw the naked swords, the torches,
the irons of the pikes, all that cavalry, at the head of which he
recognized Captain Phœbus; he beheld the confusion of the
outcasts, the terror of some, the disturbance among the bravest
of them, and from this unexpected succor he recovered so much
strength, that he hurled from the church the first assailants who
were already climbing into the gallery.
It was, in fact, the king’s troops who had arrived. The vagabonds
behaved bravely. They defended themselves like desperate men.
Caught on the flank, by the Rue Saint-Pierre-aux-Bœufs, and in
the rear through the Rue du Parvis, driven to bay against
Notre-Dame, which they still assailed and Quasimodo defended, at
the same time besiegers and besieged, they were in the singular
situation in which Comte Henri Harcourt, _Taurinum obsessor idem
et obsessus_, as his epitaph says, found himself later on, at the
famous siege of Turin, in 1640, between Prince Thomas of Savoy,
whom he was besieging, and the Marquis de Leganez, who was
blockading him.
The battle was frightful. There was a dog’s tooth for wolf’s
flesh, as P. Mathieu says. The king’s cavaliers, in whose midst
Phœbus de Châteaupers bore himself valiantly, gave no quarter,
and the slash of the sword disposed of those who escaped the
thrust of the lance. The outcasts, badly armed foamed and bit
with rage. Men, women, children, hurled themselves on the
cruppers and the breasts of the horses, and hung there like cats,
with teeth, finger nails and toe nails. Others struck the
archers’ in the face with their torches. Others thrust iron hooks
into the necks of the cavaliers and dragged them down. They
slashed in pieces those who fell.
One was noticed who had a large, glittering scythe, and who, for
a long time, mowed the legs of the horses. He was frightful. He
was singing a ditty, with a nasal intonation, he swung and drew
back his scythe incessantly. At every blow he traced around him a
great circle of severed limbs. He advanced thus into the very
thickest of the cavalry, with the tranquil slowness, the lolling
of the head and the regular breathing of a harvester attacking a
field of wheat. It was Clopin Trouillefou. A shot from an
arquebus laid him low.
In the meantime, windows had been opened again. The neighbors
hearing the war cries of the king’s troops, had mingled in the
affray, and bullets rained upon the outcasts from every story.
The Parvis was filled with a thick smoke, which the musketry
streaked with flame. Through it one could confusedly distinguish
the front of Notre-Dame, and the decrepit Hôtel-Dieu with some
wan invalids gazing down from the heights of its roof all
checkered with dormer windows.
At length the vagabonds gave way. Weariness, the lack of good
weapons, the fright of this surprise, the musketry from the
windows, the valiant attack of the king’s troops, all overwhelmed
them. They forced the line of assailants, and fled in every
direction, leaving the Parvis encumbered with dead.
When Quasimodo, who had not ceased to fight for a moment, beheld
this rout, he fell on his knees and raised his hands to heaven;
then, intoxicated with joy, he ran, he ascended with the
swiftness of a bird to that cell, the approaches to which he had
so intrepidly defended. He had but one thought now; it was to
kneel before her whom he had just saved for the second time.
When he entered the cell, he found it empty.
BOOK ELEVENTH.
CHAPTER I. THE LITTLE SHOE.
La Esmeralda was sleeping at the moment when the outcasts
assailed the church.
Soon the ever-increasing uproar around the edifice, and the
uneasy bleating of her goat which had been awakened, had roused
her from her slumbers. She had sat up, she had listened, she had
looked; then, terrified by the light and noise, she had rushed
from her cell to see. The aspect of the Place, the vision which
was moving in it, the disorder of that nocturnal assault, that
hideous crowd, leaping like a cloud of frogs, half seen in the
gloom, the croaking of that hoarse multitude, those few red
torches running and crossing each other in the darkness like the
meteors which streak the misty surfaces of marshes, this whole
scene produced upon her the effect of a mysterious battle between
the phantoms of the witches’ sabbath and the stone monsters of
the church. Imbued from her very infancy with the superstitions
of the Bohemian tribe, her first thought was that she had caught
the strange beings peculiar to the night, in their deeds of
witchcraft. Then she ran in terror to cower in her cell, asking
of her pallet some less terrible nightmare.
But little by little the first vapors of terror had been
dissipated; from the constantly increasing noise, and from many
other signs of reality, she felt herself besieged not by
spectres, but by human beings. Then her fear, though it did not
increase, changed its character. She had dreamed of the
possibility of a popular mutiny to tear her from her asylum. The
idea of once more recovering life, hope, Phœbus, who was ever
present in her future, the extreme helplessness of her condition,
flight cut off, no support, her abandonment, her isolation,—these
thoughts and a thousand others overwhelmed her. She fell upon her
knees, with her head on her bed, her hands clasped over her head,
full of anxiety and tremors, and, although a gypsy, an idolater,
and a pagan, she began to entreat with sobs, mercy from the good
Christian God, and to pray to our Lady, her hostess. For even if
one believes in nothing, there are moments in life when one is
always of the religion of the temple which is nearest at hand.
She remained thus prostrate for a very long time, trembling in
truth, more than praying, chilled by the ever-closer breath of
that furious multitude, understanding nothing of this outburst,
ignorant of what was being plotted, what was being done, what
they wanted, but foreseeing a terrible issue.
In the midst of this anguish, she heard some one walking near
her. She turned round. Two men, one of whom carried a lantern,
had just entered her cell. She uttered a feeble cry.
“Fear nothing,” said a voice which was not unknown to her, “it is
I.”
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Pierre Gringoire.”
This name reassured her. She raised her eyes once more, and
recognized the poet in very fact. But there stood beside him a
black figure veiled from head to foot, which struck her by its
silence.
“Oh!” continued Gringoire in a tone of reproach, “Djali
recognized me before you!”
The little goat had not, in fact, waited for Gringoire to
announce his name. No sooner had he entered than it rubbed itself
gently against his knees, covering the poet with caresses and
with white hairs, for it was shedding its hair. Gringoire
returned the caresses.
“Who is this with you?” said the gypsy, in a low voice.
“Be at ease,” replied Gringoire. “’Tis one of my friends.” Then
the philosopher setting his lantern on the ground, crouched upon
the stones, and exclaimed enthusiastically, as he pressed Djali
in his arms,—
“Oh! ’tis a graceful beast, more considerable no doubt, for it’s
neatness than for its size, but ingenious, subtle, and lettered
as a grammarian! Let us see, my Djali, hast thou forgotten any of
thy pretty tricks? How does Master Jacques Charmolue?...”
The man in black did not allow him to finish. He approached
Gringoire and shook him roughly by the shoulder.
Gringoire rose.
“’Tis true,” said he: “I forgot that we are in haste. But that is
no reason master, for getting furious with people in this manner.
My dear and lovely child, your life is in danger, and Djali’s
also. They want to hang you again. We are your friends, and we
have come to save you. Follow us.”
“Is it true?” she exclaimed in dismay.
“Yes, perfectly true. Come quickly!”
“I am willing,” she stammered. “But why does not your friend
speak?”
“Ah!” said Gringoire, “’tis because his father and mother were
fantastic people who made him of a taciturn temperament.”
She was obliged to content herself with this explanation.
Gringoire took her by the hand; his companion picked up the
lantern and walked on in front. Fear stunned the young girl. She
allowed herself to be led away. The goat followed them, frisking,
so joyous at seeing Gringoire again that it made him stumble
every moment by thrusting its horns between his legs.
“Such is life,” said the philosopher, every time that he came
near falling down; “’tis often our best friends who cause us to
be overthrown.”
They rapidly descended the staircase of the towers, crossed the
church, full of shadows and solitude, and all reverberating with
uproar, which formed a frightful contrast, and emerged into the
courtyard of the cloister by the red door. The cloister was
deserted; the canons had fled to the bishop’s palace in order to
pray together; the courtyard was empty, a few frightened lackeys
were crouching in dark corners. They directed their steps towards
the door which opened from this court upon the Terrain. The man
in black opened it with a key which he had about him. Our readers
are aware that the Terrain was a tongue of land enclosed by walls
on the side of the City and belonging to the chapter of
Notre-Dame, which terminated the island on the east, behind the
church. They found this enclosure perfectly deserted. There was
here less tumult in the air. The roar of the outcasts’ assault
reached them more confusedly and less clamorously. The fresh
breeze which follows the current of a stream, rustled the leaves
of the only tree planted on the point of the Terrain, with a
noise that was already perceptible. But they were still very
close to danger. The nearest edifices to them were the bishop’s
palace and the church. It was plainly evident that there was
great internal commotion in the bishop’s palace. Its shadowy mass
was all furrowed with lights which flitted from window to window;
as, when one has just burned paper, there remains a sombre
edifice of ashes in which bright sparks run a thousand eccentric
courses. Beside them, the enormous towers of Notre-Dame, thus
viewed from behind, with the long nave above which they rise cut
out in black against the red and vast light which filled the
Parvis, resembled two gigantic andirons of some cyclopean
fire-grate.
What was to be seen of Paris on all sides wavered before the eye
in a gloom mingled with light. Rembrandt has such backgrounds to
his pictures.
The man with the lantern walked straight to the point of the
Terrain. There, at the very brink of the water, stood the
wormeaten remains of a fence of posts latticed with laths,
whereon a low vine spread out a few thin branches like the
fingers of an outspread hand. Behind, in the shadow cast by this
trellis, a little boat lay concealed. The man made a sign to
Gringoire and his companion to enter. The goat followed them. The
man was the last to step in. Then he cut the boat’s moorings,
pushed it from the shore with a long boat-hook, and, seizing two
oars, seated himself in the bow, rowing with all his might
towards midstream. The Seine is very rapid at this point, and he
had a good deal of trouble in leaving the point of the island.
Gringoire’s first care on entering the boat was to place the goat
on his knees. He took a position in the stern; and the young
girl, whom the stranger inspired with an indefinable uneasiness,
seated herself close to the poet.
When our philosopher felt the boat sway, he clapped his hands and
kissed Djali between the horns.
“Oh!” said he, “now we are safe, all four of us.”
He added with the air of a profound thinker, “One is indebted
sometimes to fortune, sometimes to ruse, for the happy issue of
great enterprises.”
The boat made its way slowly towards the right shore. The young
girl watched the unknown man with secret terror. He had carefully
turned off the light of his dark lantern. A glimpse could be
caught of him in the obscurity, in the bow of the boat, like a
spectre. His cowl, which was still lowered, formed a sort of
mask; and every time that he spread his arms, upon which hung
large black sleeves, as he rowed, one would have said they were
two huge bat’s wings. Moreover, he had not yet uttered a word or
breathed a syllable. No other noise was heard in the boat than
the splashing of the oars, mingled with the rippling of the water
along her sides.
“On my soul!” exclaimed Gringoire suddenly, “we are as cheerful
and joyous as young owls! We preserve the silence of Pythagoreans
or fishes! _Pasque-Dieu!_ my friends, I should greatly like to
have some one speak to me. The human voice is music to the human
ear. ’Tis not I who say that, but Didymus of Alexandria, and they
are illustrious words. Assuredly, Didymus of Alexandria is no
mediocre philosopher.—One word, my lovely child! say but one word
to me, I entreat you. By the way, you had a droll and peculiar
little pout; do you still make it? Do you know, my dear, that
parliament hath full jurisdiction over all places of asylum, and
that you were running a great risk in your little chamber at
Notre-Dame? Alas! the little bird trochylus maketh its nest in
the jaws of the crocodile.—Master, here is the moon re-appearing.
If only they do not perceive us. We are doing a laudable thing in
saving mademoiselle, and yet we should be hung by order of the
king if we were caught. Alas! human actions are taken by two
handles. That is branded with disgrace in one which is crowned in
another. He admires Cicero who blames Catiline. Is it not so,
master? What say you to this philosophy? I possess philosophy by
instinct, by nature, _ut apes geometriam_.—Come! no one answers
me. What unpleasant moods you two are in! I must do all the
talking alone. That is what we call a monologue in
tragedy.—_Pasque-Dieu!_ I must inform you that I have just seen
the king, Louis XI., and that I have caught this oath from
him,—_Pasque-Dieu!_ They are still making a hearty howl in the
city.—’Tis a villanous, malicious old king. He is all swathed in
furs. He still owes me the money for my epithalamium, and he came
within a nick of hanging me this evening, which would have been
very inconvenient to me.—He is niggardly towards men of merit. He
ought to read the four books of Salvien of Cologne, _Adversus
Avaritiam_. In truth! ’Tis a paltry king in his ways with men of
letters, and one who commits very barbarous cruelties. He is a
sponge, to soak money raised from the people. His saving is like
the spleen which swelleth with the leanness of all the other
members. Hence complaints against the hardness of the times
become murmurs against the prince. Under this gentle and pious
sire, the gallows crack with the hung, the blocks rot with blood,
the prisons burst like over full bellies. This king hath one hand
which grasps, and one which hangs. He is the procurator of Dame
Tax and Monsieur Gibbet. The great are despoiled of their
dignities, and the little incessantly overwhelmed with fresh
oppressions. He is an exorbitant prince. I love not this monarch.
And you, master?”
The man in black let the garrulous poet chatter on. He continued
to struggle against the violent and narrow current, which
separates the prow of the City and the stem of the island of
Notre-Dame, which we call to-day the Isle St. Louis.
“By the way, master!” continued Gringoire suddenly. “At the
moment when we arrived on the Parvis, through the enraged
outcasts, did your reverence observe that poor little devil whose
skull your deaf man was just cracking on the railing of the
gallery of the kings? I am near sighted and I could not recognize
him. Do you know who he could be?”
The stranger answered not a word. But he suddenly ceased rowing,
his arms fell as though broken, his head sank on his breast, and
la Esmeralda heard him sigh convulsively. She shuddered. She had
heard such sighs before.
The boat, abandoned to itself, floated for several minutes with
the stream. But the man in black finally recovered himself,
seized the oars once more and began to row against the current.
He doubled the point of the Isle of Notre Dame, and made for the
landing-place of the Port au Foin.
“Ah!” said Gringoire, “yonder is the Barbeau mansion.—Stay,
master, look: that group of black roofs which make such singular
angles yonder, above that heap of black, fibrous grimy, dirty
clouds, where the moon is completely crushed and spread out like
the yolk of an egg whose shell is broken.—’Tis a fine mansion.
There is a chapel crowned with a small vault full of very well
carved enrichments. Above, you can see the bell tower, very
delicately pierced. There is also a pleasant garden, which
consists of a pond, an aviary, an echo, a mall, a labyrinth, a
house for wild beasts, and a quantity of leafy alleys very
agreeable to Venus. There is also a rascal of a tree which is
called ‘the lewd,’ because it favored the pleasures of a famous
princess and a constable of France, who was a gallant and a
wit.—Alas! we poor philosophers are to a constable as a plot of
cabbages or a radish bed to the garden of the Louvre. What
matters it, after all? human life, for the great as well as for
us, is a mixture of good and evil. Pain is always by the side of
joy, the spondee by the dactyl.—Master, I must relate to you the
history of the Barbeau mansion. It ends in tragic fashion. It was
in 1319, in the reign of Philippe V., the longest reign of the
kings of France. The moral of the story is that the temptations
of the flesh are pernicious and malignant. Let us not rest our
glance too long on our neighbor’s wife, however gratified our
senses may be by her beauty. Fornication is a very libertine
thought. Adultery is a prying into the pleasures of others—Ohé!
the noise yonder is redoubling!”
The tumult around Notre-Dame was, in fact, increasing. They
listened. Cries of victory were heard with tolerable
distinctness. All at once, a hundred torches, the light of which
glittered upon the helmets of men at arms, spread over the church
at all heights, on the towers, on the galleries, on the flying
buttresses. These torches seemed to be in search of something;
and soon distant clamors reached the fugitives distinctly:—“The
gypsy! the sorceress! death to the gypsy!”
The unhappy girl dropped her head upon her hands, and the unknown
began to row furiously towards the shore. Meanwhile our
philosopher reflected. He clasped the goat in his arms, and
gently drew away from the gypsy, who pressed closer and closer to
him, as though to the only asylum which remained to her.
It is certain that Gringoire was enduring cruel perplexity. He
was thinking that the goat also, “according to existing law,”
would be hung if recaptured; which would be a great pity, poor
Djali! that he had thus two condemned creatures attached to him;
that his companion asked no better than to take charge of the
gypsy. A violent combat began between his thoughts, in which,
like the Jupiter of the Iliad, he weighed in turn the gypsy and
the goat; and he looked at them alternately with eyes moist with
tears, saying between his teeth:
“But I cannot save you both!”
A shock informed them that the boat had reached the land at last.
The uproar still filled the city. The unknown rose, approached
the gypsy, and endeavored to take her arm to assist her to
alight. She repulsed him and clung to the sleeve of Gringoire,
who, in his turn, absorbed in the goat, almost repulsed her. Then
she sprang alone from the boat. She was so troubled that she did
not know what she did or whither she was going. Thus she remained
for a moment, stunned, watching the water flow past; when she
gradually returned to her senses, she found herself alone on the
wharf with the unknown. It appears that Gringoire had taken
advantage of the moment of debarcation to slip away with the goat
into the block of houses of the Rue Grenier-sur-l’Eau.
The poor gypsy shivered when she beheld herself alone with this
man. She tried to speak, to cry out, to call Gringoire; her
tongue was dumb in her mouth, and no sound left her lips. All at
once she felt the stranger’s hand on hers. It was a strong, cold
hand. Her teeth chattered, she turned paler than the ray of
moonlight which illuminated her. The man spoke not a word. He
began to ascend towards the Place de Grève, holding her by the
hand.
At that moment, she had a vague feeling that destiny is an
irresistible force. She had no more resistance left in her, she
allowed herself to be dragged along, running while he walked. At
this spot the quay ascended. But it seemed to her as though she
were descending a slope.
She gazed about her on all sides. Not a single passer-by. The
quay was absolutely deserted. She heard no sound, she felt no
people moving save in the tumultuous and glowing city, from which
she was separated only by an arm of the Seine, and whence her
name reached her, mingled with cries of “Death!” The rest of
Paris was spread around her in great blocks of shadows.
Meanwhile, the stranger continued to drag her along with the same
silence and the same rapidity. She had no recollection of any of
the places where she was walking. As she passed before a lighted
window, she made an effort, drew up suddenly, and cried out,
“Help!”
The _bourgeois_ who was standing at the window opened it,
appeared there in his shirt with his lamp, stared at the quay
with a stupid air, uttered some words which she did not
understand, and closed his shutter again. It was her last gleam
of hope extinguished.
The man in black did not utter a syllable; he held her firmly,
and set out again at a quicker pace. She no longer resisted, but
followed him, completely broken.
From time to time she called together a little strength, and
said, in a voice broken by the unevenness of the pavement and the
breathlessness of their flight, “Who are you? Who are you?” He
made no reply.
They arrived thus, still keeping along the quay, at a tolerably
spacious square. It was the Grève. In the middle, a sort of
black, erect cross was visible; it was the gallows. She
recognized all this, and saw where she was.
The man halted, turned towards her and raised his cowl.
“Oh!” she stammered, almost petrified, “I knew well that it was
he again!”
It was the priest. He looked like the ghost of himself; that is
an effect of the moonlight, it seems as though one beheld only
the spectres of things in that light.
“Listen!” he said to her; and she shuddered at the sound of that
fatal voice which she had not heard for a long time. He continued
speaking with those brief and panting jerks, which betoken deep
internal convulsions. “Listen! we are here. I am going to speak
to you. This is the Grève. This is an extreme point. Destiny
gives us to one another. I am going to decide as to your life;
you will decide as to my soul. Here is a place, here is a night
beyond which one sees nothing. Then listen to me. I am going to
tell you.... In the first place, speak not to me of your Phœbus.
(As he spoke thus he paced to and fro, like a man who cannot
remain in one place, and dragged her after him.) Do not speak to
me of him. Do you see? If you utter that name, I know not what I
shall do, but it will be terrible.”
Then, like a body which recovers its centre of gravity, he became
motionless once more, but his words betrayed no less agitation.
His voice grew lower and lower.
“Do not turn your head aside thus. Listen to me. It is a serious
matter. In the first place, here is what has happened.—All this
will not be laughed at. I swear it to you.—What was I saying?
Remind me! Oh!—There is a decree of Parliament which gives you
back to the scaffold. I have just rescued you from their hands.
But they are pursuing you. Look!”
He extended his arm toward the City. The search seemed, in fact,
to be still in progress there. The uproar drew nearer; the tower
of the lieutenant’s house, situated opposite the Grève, was full
of clamors and light, and soldiers could be seen running on the
opposite quay with torches and these cries, “The gypsy! Where is
the gypsy! Death! Death!”
“You see that they are in pursuit of you, and that I am not lying
to you. I love you.—Do not open your mouth; refrain from speaking
to me rather, if it be only to tell me that you hate me. I have
made up my mind not to hear that again.—I have just saved
you.—Let me finish first. I can save you wholly. I have prepared
everything. It is yours at will. If you wish, I can do it.”
He broke off violently. “No, that is not what I should say!”
As he went with hurried step and made her hurry also, for he did
not release her, he walked straight to the gallows, and pointed
to it with his finger,—
“Choose between us two,” he said, coldly.
She tore herself from his hands and fell at the foot of the
gibbet, embracing that funereal support, then she half turned her
beautiful head, and looked at the priest over her shoulder. One
would have said that she was a Holy Virgin at the foot of the
cross. The priest remained motionless, his finger still raised
toward the gibbet, preserving his attitude like a statue. At
length the gypsy said to him,—
“It causes me less horror than you do.”
Then he allowed his arm to sink slowly, and gazed at the pavement
in profound dejection.
“If these stones could speak,” he murmured, “yes, they would say
that a very unhappy man stands here.”
He went on. The young girl, kneeling before the gallows,
enveloped in her long flowing hair, let him speak on without
interruption. He now had a gentle and plaintive accent which
contrasted sadly with the haughty harshness of his features.
“I love you. Oh! how true that is! So nothing comes of that fire
which burns my heart! Alas! young girl, night and day—yes, night
and day I tell you,—it is torture. Oh! I suffer too much, my poor
child. ’Tis a thing deserving of compassion, I assure you. You
see that I speak gently to you. I really wish that you should no
longer cherish this horror of me.—After all, if a man loves a
woman, ’tis not his fault!—Oh, my God!—What! So you will never
pardon me? You will always hate me? All is over then. It is that
which renders me evil, do you see? and horrible to myself.—You
will not even look at me! You are thinking of something else,
perchance, while I stand here and talk to you, shuddering on the
brink of eternity for both of us! Above all things, do not speak
to me of the officer!—I would cast myself at your knees, I would
kiss not your feet, but the earth which is under your feet; I
would sob like a child, I would tear from my breast not words,
but my very heart and vitals, to tell you that I love you;—all
would be useless, all!—And yet you have nothing in your heart but
what is tender and merciful. You are radiant with the most
beautiful mildness; you are wholly sweet, good, pitiful, and
charming. Alas! You cherish no ill will for any one but me alone!
Oh! what a fatality!”
He hid his face in his hands. The young girl heard him weeping.
It was for the first time. Thus erect and shaken by sobs, he was
more miserable and more suppliant than when on his knees. He wept
thus for a considerable time.
“Come!” he said, these first tears passed, “I have no more words.
I had, however, thought well as to what you would say. Now I
tremble and shiver and break down at the decisive moment, I feel
conscious of something supreme enveloping us, and I stammer. Oh!
I shall fall upon the pavement if you do not take pity on me,
pity on yourself. Do not condemn us both. If you only knew how
much I love you! What a heart is mine! Oh! what desertion of all
virtue! What desperate abandonment of myself! A doctor, I mock at
science; a gentleman, I tarnish my own name; a priest, I make of
the missal a pillow of sensuality, I spit in the face of my God!
all this for thee, enchantress! to be more worthy of thy hell!
And you will not have the apostate! Oh! let me tell you all! more
still, something more horrible, oh! Yet more horrible!...”
As he uttered these last words, his air became utterly
distracted. He was silent for a moment, and resumed, as though
speaking to himself, and in a strong voice,—
“Cain, what hast thou done with thy brother?”
There was another silence, and he went on—
“What have I done with him, Lord? I received him, I reared him, I
nourished him, I loved him, I idolized him, and I have slain him!
Yes, Lord, they have just dashed his head before my eyes on the
stone of thine house, and it is because of me, because of this
woman, because of her.”
His eye was wild. His voice grew ever weaker; he repeated many
times, yet, mechanically, at tolerably long intervals, like a
bell prolonging its last vibration: “Because of her.—Because of
her.”
Then his tongue no longer articulated any perceptible sound; but
his lips still moved. All at once he sank together, like
something crumbling, and lay motionless on the earth, with his
head on his knees.
A touch from the young girl, as she drew her foot from under him,
brought him to himself. He passed his hand slowly over his hollow
cheeks, and gazed for several moments at his fingers, which were
wet, “What!” he murmured, “I have wept!”
And turning suddenly to the gypsy with unspeakable anguish,—
“Alas! you have looked coldly on at my tears! Child, do you know
that those tears are of lava? Is it indeed true? Nothing touches
when it comes from the man whom one does not love. If you were to
see me die, you would laugh. Oh! I do not wish to see you die!
One word! A single word of pardon! Say not that you love me, say
only that you will do it; that will suffice; I will save you. If
not—oh! the hour is passing. I entreat you by all that is sacred,
do not wait until I shall have turned to stone again, like that
gibbet which also claims you! Reflect that I hold the destinies
of both of us in my hand, that I am mad,—it is terrible,—that I
may let all go to destruction, and that there is beneath us a
bottomless abyss, unhappy girl, whither my fall will follow yours
to all eternity! One word of kindness! Say one word! only one
word!”
She opened her mouth to answer him. He flung himself on his knees
to receive with adoration the word, possibly a tender one, which
was on the point of issuing from her lips. She said to him, “You
are an assassin!”
The priest clasped her in his arms with fury, and began to laugh
with an abominable laugh.
“Well, yes, an assassin!” he said, “and I will have you. You will
not have me for your slave, you shall have me for your master. I
will have you! I have a den, whither I will drag you. You will
follow me, you will be obliged to follow me, or I will deliver
you up! You must die, my beauty, or be mine! belong to the
priest! belong to the apostate! belong to the assassin! this very
night, do you hear? Come! joy; kiss me, mad girl! The tomb or my
bed!”
His eyes sparkled with impurity and rage. His lewd lips reddened
the young girl’s neck. She struggled in his arms. He covered her
with furious kisses.
“Do not bite me, monster!” she cried. “Oh! the foul, odious monk!
leave me! I will tear out thy ugly gray hair and fling it in thy
face by the handful!”
He reddened, turned pale, then released her and gazed at her with
a gloomy air. She thought herself victorious, and continued,—
“I tell you that I belong to my Phœbus, that ’tis Phœbus whom I
love, that ’tis Phœbus who is handsome! you are old, priest! you
are ugly! Begone!”
He gave vent to a horrible cry, like the wretch to whom a hot
iron is applied. “Die, then!” he said, gnashing his teeth. She
saw his terrible look and tried to fly. He caught her once more,
he shook her, he flung her on the ground, and walked with rapid
strides towards the corner of the Tour-Roland, dragging her after
him along the pavement by her beautiful hands.
On arriving there, he turned to her,—
“For the last time, will you be mine?”
She replied with emphasis,—
“No!”
Then he cried in a loud voice,—
“Gudule! Gudule! here is the gypsy! take your vengeance!”
The young girl felt herself seized suddenly by the elbow. She
looked. A fleshless arm was stretched from an opening in the
wall, and held her like a hand of iron.
“Hold her well,” said the priest; “’tis the gypsy escaped.
Release her not. I will go in search of the sergeants. You shall
see her hanged.”
A guttural laugh replied from the interior of the wall to these
bloody words—“Hah! hah! hah!”—The gypsy watched the priest retire
in the direction of the Pont Notre-Dame. A cavalcade was heard in
that direction.
The young girl had recognized the spiteful recluse. Panting with
terror, she tried to disengage herself. She writhed, she made
many starts of agony and despair, but the other held her with
incredible strength. The lean and bony fingers which bruised her,
clenched on her flesh and met around it. One would have said that
this hand was riveted to her arm. It was more than a chain, more
than a fetter, more than a ring of iron, it was a living pair of
pincers endowed with intelligence, which emerged from the wall.
She fell back against the wall exhausted, and then the fear of
death took possession of her. She thought of the beauty of life,
of youth, of the view of heaven, the aspects of nature, of her
love for Phœbus, of all that was vanishing and all that was
approaching, of the priest who was denouncing her, of the
headsman who was to come, of the gallows which was there. Then
she felt terror mount to the very roots of her hair and she heard
the mocking laugh of the recluse, saying to her in a very low
tone: “Hah! hah! hah! you are going to be hanged!”
She turned a dying look towards the window, and she beheld the
fierce face of the sacked nun through the bars.
“What have I done to you?” she said, almost lifeless.
The recluse did not reply, but began to mumble with a singsong
irritated, mocking intonation: “Daughter of Egypt! daughter of
Egypt! daughter of Egypt!”
The unhappy Esmeralda dropped her head beneath her flowing hair,
comprehending that it was no human being she had to deal with.
All at once the recluse exclaimed, as though the gypsy’s question
had taken all this time to reach her brain,—“‘What have you done
to me?’ you say! Ah! what have you done to me, gypsy! Well!
listen.—I had a child! you see! I had a child! a child, I tell
you!—a pretty little girl!—my Agnès!” she went on wildly, kissing
something in the dark.—“Well! do you see, daughter of Egypt? they
took my child from me; they stole my child; they ate my child.
That is what you have done to me.”
The young girl replied like a lamb,—
“Alas! perchance I was not born then!”
“Oh! yes!” returned the recluse, “you must have been born. You
were among them. She would be the same age as you! so!—I have
been here fifteen years; fifteen years have I suffered; fifteen
years have I prayed; fifteen years have I beat my head against
these four walls—I tell you that ’twas the gypsies who stole her
from me, do you hear that? and who ate her with their teeth.—Have
you a heart? imagine a child playing, a child sucking; a child
sleeping. It is so innocent a thing!—Well! that, that is what
they took from me, what they killed. The good God knows it well!
To-day, it is my turn; I am going to eat the gypsy.—Oh! I would
bite you well, if the bars did not prevent me! My head is too
large!—Poor little one! while she was asleep! And if they woke
her up when they took her, in vain she might cry; I was not
there!—Ah! gypsy mothers, you devoured my child! come see your
own.”
Then she began to laugh or to gnash her teeth, for the two things
resembled each other in that furious face. The day was beginning
to dawn. An ashy gleam dimly lighted this scene, and the gallows
grew more and more distinct in the square. On the other side, in
the direction of the bridge of Notre-Dame, the poor condemned
girl fancied that she heard the sound of cavalry approaching.
“Madam,” she cried, clasping her hands and falling on her knees,
dishevelled, distracted, mad with fright; “madam! have pity! They
are coming. I have done nothing to you. Would you wish to see me
die in this horrible fashion before your very eyes? You are
pitiful, I am sure. It is too frightful. Let me make my escape.
Release me! Mercy. I do not wish to die like that!”
“Give me back my child!” said the recluse.
“Mercy! Mercy!”
“Give me back my child!”
“Release me, in the name of heaven!”
“Give me back my child!”
Again the young girl fell; exhausted, broken, and having already
the glassy eye of a person in the grave.
“Alas!” she faltered, “you seek your child, I seek my parents.”
“Give me back my little Agnès!” pursued Gudule. “You do not know
where she is? Then die!—I will tell you. I was a woman of the
town, I had a child, they took my child. It was the gypsies. You
see plainly that you must die. When your mother, the gypsy, comes
to reclaim you, I shall say to her: ‘Mother, look at that
gibbet!—Or, give me back my child. Do you know where she is, my
little daughter? Stay! I will show you. Here is her shoe, all
that is left me of her. Do you know where its mate is? If you
know, tell me, and if it is only at the other end of the world, I
will crawl to it on my knees.”
As she spoke thus, with her other arm extended through the
window, she showed the gypsy the little embroidered shoe. It was
already light enough to distinguish its shape and its colors.
“Let me see that shoe,” said the gypsy, quivering. “God! God!”
And at the same time, with her hand which was at liberty, she
quickly opened the little bag ornamented with green glass, which
she wore about her neck.
“Go on, go on!” grumbled Gudule, “search your demon’s amulet!”
All at once, she stopped short, trembled in every limb, and cried
in a voice which proceeded from the very depths of her being: “My
daughter!”
The gypsy had just drawn from the bag a little shoe absolutely
similar to the other. To this little shoe was attached a
parchment on which was inscribed this charm,—
Quand le pareil retrouveras
Ta mère te tendras les bras.[68]
Quicker than a flash of lightning, the recluse had laid the two
shoes together, had read the parchment and had put close to the
bars of the window her face beaming with celestial joy as she
cried,—
“My daughter! my daughter!”
“My mother!” said the gypsy.
Here we are unequal to the task of depicting the scene. The wall
and the iron bars were between them. “Oh! the wall!” cried the
recluse. “Oh! to see her and not to embrace her! Your hand! your
hand!”
The young girl passed her arm through the opening; the recluse
threw herself on that hand, pressed her lips to it and there
remained, buried in that kiss, giving no other sign of life than
a sob which heaved her breast from time to time. In the
meanwhile, she wept in torrents, in silence, in the dark, like a
rain at night. The poor mother poured out in floods upon that
adored hand the dark and deep well of tears, which lay within
her, and into which her grief had filtered, drop by drop, for
fifteen years.
All at once she rose, flung aside her long gray hair from her
brow, and without uttering a word, began to shake the bars of her
cage cell, with both hands, more furiously than a lioness. The
bars held firm. Then she went to seek in the corner of her cell a
huge paving stone, which served her as a pillow, and launched it
against them with such violence that one of the bars broke,
emitting thousands of sparks. A second blow completely shattered
the old iron cross which barricaded the window. Then with her two
hands, she finished breaking and removing the rusted stumps of
the bars. There are moments when woman’s hands possess superhuman
strength.
A passage broken, less than a minute was required for her to
seize her daughter by the middle of her body, and draw her into
her cell. “Come let me draw you out of the abyss,” she murmured.
When her daughter was inside the cell, she laid her gently on the
ground, then raised her up again, and bearing her in her arms as
though she were still only her little Agnès, she walked to and
fro in her little room, intoxicated, frantic, joyous, crying out,
singing, kissing her daughter, talking to her, bursting into
laughter, melting into tears, all at once and with vehemence.
“My daughter! my daughter!” she said. “I have my daughter! here
she is! The good God has given her back to me! Ha you! come all
of you! Is there any one there to see that I have my daughter?
Lord Jesus, how beautiful she is! You have made me wait fifteen
years, my good God, but it was in order to give her back to me
beautiful.—Then the gypsies did not eat her! Who said so? My
little daughter! my little daughter! Kiss me. Those good gypsies!
I love the gypsies!—It is really you! That was what made my heart
leap every time that you passed by. And I took that for hatred!
Forgive me, my Agnès, forgive me. You thought me very malicious,
did you not? I love you. Have you still the little mark on your
neck? Let us see. She still has it. Oh! you are beautiful! It was
I who gave you those big eyes, mademoiselle. Kiss me. I love you.
It is nothing to me that other mothers have children; I scorn
them now. They have only to come and see. Here is mine. See her
neck, her eyes, her hair, her hands. Find me anything as
beautiful as that! Oh! I promise you she will have lovers, that
she will! I have wept for fifteen years. All my beauty has
departed and has fallen to her. Kiss me.”
She addressed to her a thousand other extravagant remarks, whose
accent constituted their sole beauty, disarranged the poor girl’s
garments even to the point of making her blush, smoothed her
silky hair with her hand, kissed her foot, her knee, her brow,
her eyes, was in raptures over everything. The young girl let her
have her way, repeating at intervals and very low and with
infinite tenderness, “My mother!”
“Do you see, my little girl,” resumed the recluse, interspersing
her words with kisses, “I shall love you dearly? We will go away
from here. We are going to be very happy. I have inherited
something in Reims, in our country. You know Reims? Ah! no, you
do not know it; you were too small! If you only knew how pretty
you were at the age of four months! Tiny feet that people came
even from Epernay, which is seven leagues away, to see! We shall
have a field, a house. I will put you to sleep in my bed. My God!
my God! who would believe this? I have my daughter!”
“Oh, my mother!” said the young girl, at length finding strength
to speak in her emotion, “the gypsy woman told me so. There was a
good gypsy of our band who died last year, and who always cared
for me like a nurse. It was she who placed this little bag about
my neck. She always said to me: ‘Little one, guard this jewel
well! ’Tis a treasure. It will cause thee to find thy mother once
again. Thou wearest thy mother about thy neck.’—The gypsy
predicted it!”
The sacked nun again pressed her daughter in her arms.
“Come, let me kiss you! You say that prettily. When we are in the
country, we will place these little shoes on an infant Jesus in
the church. We certainly owe that to the good, holy Virgin. What
a pretty voice you have! When you spoke to me just now, it was
music! Ah! my Lord God! I have found my child again! But is this
story credible? Nothing will kill one—or I should have died of
joy.”
And then she began to clap her hands again and to laugh and to
cry out: “We are going to be so happy!”
At that moment, the cell resounded with the clang of arms and a
galloping of horses which seemed to be coming from the Pont
Notre-Dame, amid advancing farther and farther along the quay.
The gypsy threw herself with anguish into the arms of the sacked
nun.
“Save me! save me! mother! they are coming!”
“Oh, heaven! what are you saying? I had forgotten! They are in
pursuit of you! What have you done?”
“I know not,” replied the unhappy child; “but I am condemned to
die.”
“To die!” said Gudule, staggering as though struck by lightning;
“to die!” she repeated slowly, gazing at her daughter with
staring eyes.
“Yes, mother,” replied the frightened young girl, “they want to
kill me. They are coming to seize me. That gallows is for me!
Save me! save me! They are coming! Save me!”
The recluse remained for several moments motionless and
petrified, then she moved her head in sign of doubt, and suddenly
giving vent to a burst of laughter, but with that terrible laugh
which had come back to her,—
“Ho! ho! no! ’tis a dream of which you are telling me. Ah, yes! I
lost her, that lasted fifteen years, and then I found her again,
and that lasted a minute! And they would take her from me again!
And now, when she is beautiful, when she is grown up, when she
speaks to me, when she loves me; it is now that they would come
to devour her, before my very eyes, and I her mother! Oh! no!
these things are not possible. The good God does not permit such
things as that.”
Here the cavalcade appeared to halt, and a voice was heard to say
in the distance,—
“This way, Messire Tristan! The priest says that we shall find
her at the Rat-Hole.” The noise of the horses began again.
The recluse sprang to her feet with a shriek of despair. “Fly!
fly! my child! All comes back to me. You are right. It is your
death! Horror! Maledictions! Fly!”
She thrust her head through the window, and withdrew it again
hastily.
“Remain,” she said, in a low, curt, and lugubrious tone, as she
pressed the hand of the gypsy, who was more dead than alive.
“Remain! Do not breathe! There are soldiers everywhere. You
cannot get out. It is too light.”
Her eyes were dry and burning. She remained silent for a moment;
but she paced the cell hurriedly, and halted now and then to
pluck out handfuls of her gray hairs, which she afterwards tore
with her teeth.
Suddenly she said: “They draw near. I will speak with them. Hide
yourself in this corner. They will not see you. I will tell them
that you have made your escape. That I released you, i’ faith!”
She set her daughter (down for she was still carrying her), in
one corner of the cell which was not visible from without. She
made her crouch down, arranged her carefully so that neither foot
nor hand projected from the shadow, untied her black hair which
she spread over her white robe to conceal it, placed in front of
her her jug and her paving stone, the only articles of furniture
which she possessed, imagining that this jug and stone would hide
her. And when this was finished she became more tranquil, and
knelt down to pray. The day, which was only dawning, still left
many shadows in the Rat-Hole.
At that moment, the voice of the priest, that infernal voice,
passed very close to the cell, crying,—
“This way, Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers.”
At that name, at that voice, la Esmeralda, crouching in her
corner, made a movement.
“Do not stir!” said Gudule.
She had barely finished when a tumult of men, swords, and horses
halted around the cell. The mother rose quickly and went to post
herself before her window, in order to stop it up. She beheld a
large troop of armed men, both horse and foot, drawn up on the
Grève.
The commander dismounted, and came toward her.
“Old woman!” said this man, who had an atrocious face, “we are in
search of a witch to hang her; we were told that you had her.”
The poor mother assumed as indifferent an air as she could, and
replied,—
“I know not what you mean.”
The other resumed, “_Tête Dieu!_ What was it that frightened
archdeacon said? Where is he?”
“Monseigneur,” said a soldier, “he has disappeared.”
“Come, now, old madwoman,” began the commander again, “do not
lie. A sorceress was given in charge to you. What have you done
with her?”
The recluse did not wish to deny all, for fear of awakening
suspicion, and replied in a sincere and surly tone,—
“If you are speaking of a big young girl who was put into my
hands a while ago, I will tell you that she bit me, and that I
released her. There! Leave me in peace.”
The commander made a grimace of disappointment. “Don’t lie to me,
old spectre!” said he. “My name is Tristan l’Hermite, and I am
the king’s gossip. Tristan the Hermit, do you hear?” He added, as
he glanced at the Place de Grève around him, “’Tis a name which
has an echo here.”
“You might be Satan the Hermit,” replied Gudule, who was
regaining hope, “but I should have nothing else to say to you,
and I should never be afraid of you.”
“_Tête-Dieu_,” said Tristan, “here is a crone! Ah! So the witch
girl hath fled! And in which direction did she go?” Gudule
replied in a careless tone,—
“Through the Rue du Mouton, I believe.”
Tristan turned his head and made a sign to his troop to prepare
to set out on the march again. The recluse breathed freely once
more.
“Monseigneur,” suddenly said an archer, “ask the old elf why the
bars of her window are broken in this manner.”
This question brought anguish again to the heart of the miserable
mother. Nevertheless, she did not lose all presence of mind.
“They have always been thus,” she stammered.
“Bah!” retorted the archer, “only yesterday they still formed a
fine black cross, which inspired devotion.”
Tristan cast a sidelong glance at the recluse.
“I think the old dame is getting confused!”
The unfortunate woman felt that all depended on her
self-possession, and, although with death in her soul, she began
to grin. Mothers possess such strength.
“Bah!” said she, “the man is drunk. ’Tis more than a year since
the tail of a stone cart dashed against my window and broke in
the grating. And how I cursed the carter, too.”
“’Tis true,” said another archer, “I was there.”
Always and everywhere people are to be found who have seen
everything. This unexpected testimony from the archer
re-encouraged the recluse, whom this interrogatory was forcing to
cross an abyss on the edge of a knife. But she was condemned to a
perpetual alternative of hope and alarm.
“If it was a cart which did it,” retorted the first soldier, “the
stumps of the bars should be thrust inwards, while they actually
are pushed outwards.”
“Hé! hé!” said Tristan to the soldier, “you have the nose of an
inquisitor of the Châtelet. Reply to what he says, old woman.”
“Good heavens!” she exclaimed, driven to bay, and in a voice that
was full of tears in despite of her efforts, “I swear to you,
monseigneur, that ’twas a cart which broke those bars. You hear
the man who saw it. And then, what has that to do with your
gypsy?”
“Hum!” growled Tristan.
“The devil!” went on the soldier, flattered by the provost’s
praise, “these fractures of the iron are perfectly fresh.”
Tristan tossed his head. She turned pale.
“How long ago, say you, did the cart do it?”
“A month, a fortnight, perhaps, monseigneur, I know not.”
“She first said more than a year,” observed the soldier.
“That is suspicious,” said the provost.
“Monseigneur!” she cried, still pressed against the opening, and
trembling lest suspicion should lead them to thrust their heads
through and look into her cell; “monseigneur, I swear to you that
’twas a cart which broke this grating. I swear it to you by the
angels of paradise. If it was not a cart, may I be eternally
damned, and I reject God!”
“You put a great deal of heat into that oath;” said Tristan, with
his inquisitorial glance.
The poor woman felt her assurance vanishing more and more. She
had reached the point of blundering, and she comprehended with
terror that she was saying what she ought not to have said.
Here another soldier came up, crying,—
“Monsieur, the old hag lies. The sorceress did not flee through
the Rue de Mouton. The street chain has remained stretched all
night, and the chain guard has seen no one pass.”
Tristan, whose face became more sinister with every moment,
addressed the recluse,—
“What have you to say to that?”
She tried to make head against this new incident,
“That I do not know, monseigneur; that I may have been mistaken.
I believe, in fact, that she crossed the water.”
“That is in the opposite direction,” said the provost, “and it is
not very likely that she would wish to re-enter the city, where
she was being pursued. You are lying, old woman.”
“And then,” added the first soldier, “there is no boat either on
this side of the stream or on the other.”
“She swam across,” replied the recluse, defending her ground foot
by foot.
“Do women swim?” said the soldier.
“_Tête Dieu!_ old woman! You are lying!” repeated Tristan
angrily. “I have a good mind to abandon that sorceress and take
you. A quarter of an hour of torture will, perchance, draw the
truth from your throat. Come! You are to follow us.”
She seized on these words with avidity.
“As you please, monseigneur. Do it. Do it. Torture. I am willing.
Take me away. Quick, quick! let us set out at once!—During that
time,” she said to herself, “my daughter will make her escape.”
“’S death!” said the provost, “what an appetite for the rack! I
understand not this madwoman at all.”
An old, gray-haired sergeant of the guard stepped out of the
ranks, and addressing the provost,—
“Mad in sooth, monseigneur. If she released the gypsy, it was not
her fault, for she loves not the gypsies. I have been of the
watch these fifteen years, and I hear her every evening cursing
the Bohemian women with endless imprecations. If the one of whom
we are in pursuit is, as I suppose, the little dancer with the
goat, she detests that one above all the rest.”
Gudule made an effort and said,—
“That one above all.”
The unanimous testimony of the men of the watch confirmed the old
sergeant’s words to the provost. Tristan l’Hermite, in despair at
extracting anything from the recluse, turned his back on her, and
with unspeakable anxiety she beheld him direct his course slowly
towards his horse.
“Come!” he said, between his teeth, “March on! let us set out
again on the quest. I shall not sleep until that gypsy is
hanged.”
But he still hesitated for some time before mounting his horse.
Gudule palpitated between life and death, as she beheld him cast
about the Place that uneasy look of a hunting dog which
instinctively feels that the lair of the beast is close to him,
and is loath to go away. At length he shook his head and leaped
into his saddle. Gudule’s horribly compressed heart now dilated,
and she said in a low voice, as she cast a glance at her
daughter, whom she had not ventured to look at while they were
there, “Saved!”
The poor child had remained all this time in her corner, without
breathing, without moving, with the idea of death before her. She
had lost nothing of the scene between Gudule and Tristan, and the
anguish of her mother had found its echo in her heart. She had
heard all the successive snappings of the thread by which she
hung suspended over the gulf; twenty times she had fancied that
she saw it break, and at last she began to breathe again and to
feel her foot on firm ground. At that moment she heard a voice
saying to the provost: “_Corbœuf!_ Monsieur le Prevôt, ’tis no
affair of mine, a man of arms, to hang witches. The rabble of the
populace is suppressed. I leave you to attend to the matter
alone. You will allow me to rejoin my company, who are waiting
for their captain.”
The voice was that of Phœbus de Châteaupers; that which took
place within her was ineffable. He was there, her friend, her
protector, her support, her refuge, her Phœbus. She rose, and
before her mother could prevent her, she had rushed to the
window, crying,—
“Phœbus! aid me, my Phœbus!”
Phœbus was no longer there. He had just turned the corner of the
Rue de la Coutellerie at a gallop. But Tristan had not yet taken
his departure.
The recluse rushed upon her daughter with a roar of agony. She
dragged her violently back, digging her nails into her neck. A
tigress mother does not stand on trifles. But it was too late.
Tristan had seen.
“Hé! hé!” he exclaimed with a laugh which laid bare all his teeth
and made his face resemble the muzzle of a wolf, “two mice in the
trap!”
“I suspected as much,” said the soldier.
Tristan clapped him on the shoulder,—
“You are a good cat! Come!” he added, “where is Henriet Cousin?”
A man who had neither the garments nor the air of a soldier,
stepped from the ranks. He wore a costume half gray, half brown,
flat hair, leather sleeves, and carried a bundle of ropes in his
huge hand. This man always attended Tristan, who always attended
Louis XI. “Friend,” said Tristan l’Hermite, “I presume that this
is the sorceress of whom we are in search. You will hang me this
one. Have you your ladder?”
“There is one yonder, under the shed of the Pillar-House,”
replied the man. “Is it on this justice that the thing is to be
done?” he added, pointing to the stone gibbet.
“Yes.”
“Ho, hé!” continued the man with a huge laugh, which was still
more brutal than that of the provost, “we shall not have far to
go.”
“Make haste!” said Tristan, “you shall laugh afterwards.”
In the meantime, the recluse had not uttered another word since
Tristan had seen her daughter and all hope was lost. She had
flung the poor gypsy, half dead, into the corner of the cellar,
and had placed herself once more at the window with both hands
resting on the angle of the sill like two claws. In this attitude
she was seen to cast upon all those soldiers her glance which had
become wild and frantic once more. At the moment when Rennet
Cousin approached her cell, she showed him so savage a face that
he shrank back.
“Monseigneur,” he said, returning to the provost, “which am I to
take?”
“The young one.”
“So much the better, for the old one seemeth difficult.”
“Poor little dancer with the goat!” said the old sergeant of the
watch.
Rennet Cousin approached the window again. The mother’s eyes made
his own droop. He said with a good deal of timidity,—
“Madam”—
She interrupted him in a very low but furious voice,—
“What do you ask?”
“It is not you,” he said, “it is the other.”
“What other?”
“The young one.”
She began to shake her head, crying,—
“There is no one! there is no one! there is no one!”
“Yes, there is!” retorted the hangman, “and you know it well. Let
me take the young one. I have no wish to harm you.”
She said, with a strange sneer,—
“Ah! so you have no wish to harm me!”
“Let me have the other, madam; ’tis monsieur the provost who
wills it.”
She repeated with a look of madness,—
“There is no one here.”
“I tell you that there is!” replied the executioner. “We have all
seen that there are two of you.”
“Look then!” said the recluse, with a sneer. “Thrust your head
through the window.”
The executioner observed the mother’s finger-nails and dared not.
“Make haste!” shouted Tristan, who had just ranged his troops in
a circle round the Rat-Hole, and who sat on his horse beside the
gallows.
Rennet returned once more to the provost in great embarrassment.
He had flung his rope on the ground, and was twisting his hat
between his hands with an awkward air.
“Monseigneur,” he asked, “where am I to enter?”
“By the door.”
“There is none.”
“By the window.”
“’Tis too small.”
“Make it larger,” said Tristan angrily. “Have you not pickaxes?”
The mother still looked on steadfastly from the depths of her
cavern. She no longer hoped for anything, she no longer knew what
she wished, except that she did not wish them to take her
daughter.
Rennet Cousin went in search of the chest of tools for the night
man, under the shed of the Pillar-House. He drew from it also the
double ladder, which he immediately set up against the gallows.
Five or six of the provost’s men armed themselves with picks and
crowbars, and Tristan betook himself, in company with them,
towards the window.
“Old woman,” said the provost, in a severe tone, “deliver up to
us that girl quietly.”
She looked at him like one who does not understand.
“_Tête Dieu!_” continued Tristan, “why do you try to prevent this
sorceress being hung as it pleases the king?”
The wretched woman began to laugh in her wild way.
“Why? She is my daughter.”
The tone in which she pronounced these words made even Henriet
Cousin shudder.
“I am sorry for that,” said the provost, “but it is the king’s
good pleasure.”
She cried, redoubling her terrible laugh,—
“What is your king to me? I tell you that she is my daughter!”
“Pierce the wall,” said Tristan.
In order to make a sufficiently wide opening, it sufficed to
dislodge one course of stone below the window. When the mother
heard the picks and crowbars mining her fortress, she uttered a
terrible cry; then she began to stride about her cell with
frightful swiftness, a wild beasts’ habit which her cage had
imparted to her. She no longer said anything, but her eyes
flamed. The soldiers were chilled to the very soul.
All at once she seized her paving stone, laughed, and hurled it
with both fists upon the workmen. The stone, badly flung (for her
hands trembled), touched no one, and fell short under the feet of
Tristan’s horse. She gnashed her teeth.
In the meantime, although the sun had not yet risen, it was broad
daylight; a beautiful rose color enlivened the ancient, decayed
chimneys of the Pillar-House. It was the hour when the earliest
windows of the great city open joyously on the roofs. Some
workmen, a few fruit-sellers on their way to the markets on their
asses, began to traverse the Grève; they halted for a moment
before this group of soldiers clustered round the Rat-Hole,
stared at it with an air of astonishment and passed on.
The recluse had gone and seated herself by her daughter, covering
her with her body, in front of her, with staring eyes, listening
to the poor child, who did not stir, but who kept murmuring in a
low voice, these words only, “Phœbus! Phœbus!” In proportion as
the work of the demolishers seemed to advance, the mother
mechanically retreated, and pressed the young girl closer and
closer to the wall. All at once, the recluse beheld the stone
(for she was standing guard and never took her eyes from it),
move, and she heard Tristan’s voice encouraging the workers. Then
she aroused from the depression into which she had fallen during
the last few moments, cried out, and as she spoke, her voice now
rent the ear like a saw, then stammered as though all kind of
maledictions were pressing to her lips to burst forth at once.
“Ho! ho! ho! Why this is terrible! You are ruffians! Are you
really going to take my daughter? Oh! the cowards! Oh! the
hangman lackeys! the wretched, blackguard assassins! Help! help!
fire! Will they take my child from me like this? Who is it then
who is called the good God?”
Then, addressing Tristan, foaming at the mouth, with wild eyes,
all bristling and on all fours like a female panther,—
“Draw near and take my daughter! Do not you understand that this
woman tells you that she is my daughter? Do you know what it is
to have a child? Eh! lynx, have you never lain with your female?
have you never had a cub? and if you have little ones, when they
howl have you nothing in your vitals that moves?”
“Throw down the stone,” said Tristan; “it no longer holds.”
The crowbars raised the heavy course. It was, as we have said,
the mother’s last bulwark.
She threw herself upon it, she tried to hold it back; she
scratched the stone with her nails, but the massive block, set in
movement by six men, escaped her and glided gently to the ground
along the iron levers.
The mother, perceiving an entrance effected, fell down in front
of the opening, barricading the breach with her body, beating the
pavement with her head, and shrieking with a voice rendered so
hoarse by fatigue that it was hardly audible,—
“Help! fire! fire!”
“Now take the wench,” said Tristan, still impassive.
The mother gazed at the soldiers in such formidable fashion that
they were more inclined to retreat than to advance.
“Come, now,” repeated the provost. “Here you, Rennet Cousin!”
No one took a step.
The provost swore,—
“_Tête de Christ!_ my men of war! afraid of a woman!”
“Monseigneur,” said Rennet, “do you call that a woman?”
“She has the mane of a lion,” said another.
“Come!” repeated the provost, “the gap is wide enough. Enter
three abreast, as at the breach of Pontoise. Let us make an end
of it, death of Mahom! I will make two pieces of the first man
who draws back!”
Placed between the provost and the mother, both threatening, the
soldiers hesitated for a moment, then took their resolution, and
advanced towards the Rat-Hole.
When the recluse saw this, she rose abruptly on her knees, flung
aside her hair from her face, then let her thin flayed hands fall
by her side. Then great tears fell, one by one, from her eyes;
they flowed down her cheeks through a furrow, like a torrent
through a bed which it has hollowed for itself.
At the same time she began to speak, but in a voice so
supplicating, so gentle, so submissive, so heartrending, that
more than one old convict-warder around Tristan who must have
devoured human flesh wiped his eyes.
“Messeigneurs! messieurs the sergeants, one word. There is one
thing which I must say to you. She is my daughter, do you see? my
dear little daughter whom I had lost! Listen. It is quite a
history. Consider that I knew the sergeants very well. They were
always good to me in the days when the little boys threw stones
at me, because I led a life of pleasure. Do you see? You will
leave me my child when you know! I was a poor woman of the town.
It was the Bohemians who stole her from me. And I kept her shoe
for fifteen years. Stay, here it is. That was the kind of foot
which she had. At Reims! La Chantefleurie! Rue Folle-Peine!
Perchance, you knew about that. It was I. In your youth, then,
there was a merry time, when one passed good hours. You will take
pity on me, will you not, gentlemen? The gypsies stole her from
me; they hid her from me for fifteen years. I thought her dead.
Fancy, my good friends, believed her to be dead. I have passed
fifteen years here in this cellar, without a fire in winter. It
is hard. The poor, dear little shoe! I have cried so much that
the good God has heard me. This night he has given my daughter
back to me. It is a miracle of the good God. She was not dead.
You will not take her from me, I am sure. If it were myself, I
would say nothing; but she, a child of sixteen! Leave her time to
see the sun! What has she done to you? nothing at all. Nor have
I. If you did but know that she is all I have, that I am old,
that she is a blessing which the Holy Virgin has sent to me! And
then, you are all so good! You did not know that she was my
daughter; but now you do know it. Oh! I love her! Monsieur, the
grand provost. I would prefer a stab in my own vitals to a
scratch on her finger! You have the air of such a good lord! What
I have told you explains the matter, does it not? Oh! if you have
had a mother, monseigneur! you are the captain, leave me my
child! Consider that I pray you on my knees, as one prays to
Jesus Christ! I ask nothing of any one; I am from Reims,
gentlemen; I own a little field inherited from my uncle, Mahiet
Pradon. I am no beggar. I wish nothing, but I do want my child!
oh! I want to keep my child! The good God, who is the master, has
not given her back to me for nothing! The king! you say the king!
It would not cause him much pleasure to have my little daughter
killed! And then, the king is good! she is my daughter! she is my
own daughter! She belongs not to the king! she is not yours! I
want to go away! we want to go away! and when two women pass, one
a mother and the other a daughter, one lets them go! Let us pass!
we belong in Reims. Oh! you are very good, messieurs the
sergeants, I love you all. You will not take my dear little one,
it is impossible! It is utterly impossible, is it not? My child,
my child!”
We will not try to give an idea of her gestures, her tone, of the
tears which she swallowed as she spoke, of the hands which she
clasped and then wrung, of the heart-breaking smiles, of the
swimming glances, of the groans, the sighs, the miserable and
affecting cries which she mingled with her disordered, wild, and
incoherent words. When she became silent Tristan l’Hermite
frowned, but it was to conceal a tear which welled up in his
tiger’s eye. He conquered this weakness, however, and said in a
curt tone,—
“The king wills it.”
Then he bent down to the ear of Rennet Cousin, and said to him in
a very low tone,—
“Make an end of it quickly!” Possibly, the redoubtable provost
felt his heart also failing him.
The executioner and the sergeants entered the cell. The mother
offered no resistance, only she dragged herself towards her
daughter and threw herself bodily upon her. The gypsy beheld the
soldiers approach. The horror of death reanimated her,—
“Mother!” she shrieked, in a tone of indescribable distress,
“Mother! they are coming! defend me!”
“Yes, my love, I am defending you!” replied the mother, in a
dying voice; and clasping her closely in her arms, she covered
her with kisses. The two lying thus on the earth, the mother upon
the daughter, presented a spectacle worthy of pity.
Rennet Cousin grasped the young girl by the middle of her body,
beneath her beautiful shoulders. When she felt that hand, she
cried, “Heuh!” and fainted. The executioner who was shedding
large tears upon her, drop by drop, was about to bear her away in
his arms. He tried to detach the mother, who had, so to speak,
knotted her hands around her daughter’s waist; but she clung so
strongly to her child, that it was impossible to separate them.
Then Rennet Cousin dragged the young girl outside the cell, and
the mother after her. The mother’s eyes were also closed.
At that moment, the sun rose, and there was already on the Place
a fairly numerous assembly of people who looked on from a
distance at what was being thus dragged along the pavement to the
gibbet. For that was Provost Tristan’s way at executions. He had
a passion for preventing the approach of the curious.
There was no one at the windows. Only at a distance, at the
summit of that one of the towers of Notre-Dame which commands the
Grève, two men outlined in black against the light morning sky,
and who seemed to be looking on, were visible.
Rennet Cousin paused at the foot of the fatal ladder, with that
which he was dragging, and, barely breathing, with so much pity
did the thing inspire him, he passed the rope around the lovely
neck of the young girl. The unfortunate child felt the horrible
touch of the hemp. She raised her eyelids, and saw the fleshless
arm of the stone gallows extended above her head. Then she shook
herself and shrieked in a loud and heartrending voice: “No! no! I
will not!” Her mother, whose head was buried and concealed in her
daughter’s garments, said not a word; only her whole body could
be seen to quiver, and she was heard to redouble her kisses on
her child. The executioner took advantage of this moment to
hastily loose the arms with which she clasped the condemned girl.
Either through exhaustion or despair, she let him have his way.
Then he took the young girl on his shoulder, from which the
charming creature hung, gracefully bent over his large head. Then
he set his foot on the ladder in order to ascend.
At that moment, the mother who was crouching on the pavement,
opened her eyes wide. Without uttering a cry, she raised herself
erect with a terrible expression; then she flung herself upon the
hand of the executioner, like a beast on its prey, and bit it. It
was done like a flash of lightning. The headsman howled with
pain. Those near by rushed up. With difficulty they withdrew his
bleeding hand from the mother’s teeth. She preserved a profound
silence. They thrust her back with much brutality, and noticed
that her head fell heavily on the pavement. They raised her, she
fell back again. She was dead.
The executioner, who had not loosed his hold on the young girl,
began to ascend the ladder once more.
CHAPTER II. THE BEAUTIFUL CREATURE CLAD IN WHITE. (Dante.)
When Quasimodo saw that the cell was empty, that the gypsy was no
longer there, that while he had been defending her she had been
abducted, he grasped his hair with both hands and stamped with
surprise and pain; then he set out to run through the entire
church seeking his Bohemian, howling strange cries to all the
corners of the walls, strewing his red hair on the pavement. It
was just at the moment when the king’s archers were making their
victorious entrance into Notre-Dame, also in search of the gypsy.
Quasimodo, poor, deaf fellow, aided them in their fatal
intentions, without suspecting it; he thought that the outcasts
were the gypsy’s enemies. He himself conducted Tristan l’Hermite
to all possible hiding-places, opened to him the secret doors,
the double bottoms of the altars, the rear sacristries. If the
unfortunate girl had still been there, it would have been he
himself who would have delivered her up.
When the fatigue of finding nothing had disheartened Tristan, who
was not easily discouraged, Quasimodo continued the search alone.
He made the tour of the church twenty times, length and breadth,
up and down, ascending and descending, running, calling,
shouting, peeping, rummaging, ransacking, thrusting his head into
every hole, pushing a torch under every vault, despairing, mad. A
male who has lost his female is no more roaring nor more haggard.
At last when he was sure, perfectly sure that she was no longer
there, that all was at an end, that she had been snatched from
him, he slowly mounted the staircase to the towers, that
staircase which he had ascended with so much eagerness and
triumph on the day when he had saved her. He passed those same
places once more with drooping head, voiceless, tearless, almost
breathless. The church was again deserted, and had fallen back
into its silence. The archers had quitted it to track the
sorceress in the city. Quasimodo, left alone in that vast
Notre-Dame, so besieged and tumultuous but a short time before,
once more betook himself to the cell where the gypsy had slept
for so many weeks under his guardianship.
As he approached it, he fancied that he might, perhaps, find her
there. When, at the turn of the gallery which opens on the roof
of the side aisles, he perceived the tiny cell with its little
window and its little door crouching beneath a great flying
buttress like a bird’s nest under a branch, the poor man’s heart
failed him, and he leaned against a pillar to keep from falling.
He imagined that she might have returned thither, that some good
genius had, no doubt, brought her back, that this chamber was too
tranquil, too safe, too charming for her not to be there, and he
dared not take another step for fear of destroying his illusion.
“Yes,” he said to himself, “perchance she is sleeping, or
praying. I must not disturb her.”
At length he summoned up courage, advanced on tiptoe, looked,
entered. Empty. The cell was still empty. The unhappy deaf man
walked slowly round it, lifted the bed and looked beneath it, as
though she might be concealed between the pavement and the
mattress, then he shook his head and remained stupefied. All at
once, he crushed his torch under his foot, and, without uttering
a word, without giving vent to a sigh, he flung himself at full
speed, head foremost against the wall, and fell fainting on the
floor.
When he recovered his senses, he threw himself on the bed and
rolling about, he kissed frantically the place where the young
girl had slept and which was still warm; he remained there for
several moments as motionless as though he were about to expire;
then he rose, dripping with perspiration, panting, mad, and began
to beat his head against the wall with the frightful regularity
of the clapper of his bells, and the resolution of a man
determined to kill himself. At length he fell a second time,
exhausted; he dragged himself on his knees outside the cell, and
crouched down facing the door, in an attitude of astonishment.
He remained thus for more than an hour without making a movement,
with his eye fixed on the deserted cell, more gloomy, and more
pensive than a mother seated between an empty cradle and a full
coffin. He uttered not a word; only at long intervals, a sob
heaved his body violently, but it was a tearless sob, like summer
lightning which makes no noise.
It appears to have been then, that, seeking at the bottom of his
lonely thoughts for the unexpected abductor of the gypsy, he
thought of the archdeacon. He remembered that Dom Claude alone
possessed a key to the staircase leading to the cell; he recalled
his nocturnal attempts on the young girl, in the first of which
he, Quasimodo, had assisted, the second of which he had
prevented. He recalled a thousand details, and soon he no longer
doubted that the archdeacon had taken the gypsy. Nevertheless,
such was his respect for the priest, such his gratitude, his
devotion, his love for this man had taken such deep root in his
heart, that they resisted, even at this moment, the talons of
jealousy and despair.
He reflected that the archdeacon had done this thing, and the
wrath of blood and death which it would have evoked in him
against any other person, turned in the poor deaf man, from the
moment when Claude Frollo was in question, into an increase of
grief and sorrow.
At the moment when his thought was thus fixed upon the priest,
while the daybreak was whitening the flying buttresses, he
perceived on the highest story of Notre-Dame, at the angle formed
by the external balustrade as it makes the turn of the chancel, a
figure walking. This figure was coming towards him. He recognized
it. It was the archdeacon.
Claude was walking with a slow, grave step. He did not look
before him as he walked, he was directing his course towards the
northern tower, but his face was turned aside towards the right
bank of the Seine, and he held his head high, as though trying to
see something over the roofs. The owl often assumes this oblique
attitude. It flies towards one point and looks towards another.
In this manner the priest passed above Quasimodo without seeing
him.
The deaf man, who had been petrified by this sudden apparition,
beheld him disappear through the door of the staircase to the
north tower. The reader is aware that this is the tower from
which the Hôtel-de-Ville is visible. Quasimodo rose and followed
the archdeacon.
Quasimodo ascended the tower staircase for the sake of ascending
it, for the sake of seeing why the priest was ascending it.
Moreover, the poor bellringer did not know what he (Quasimodo)
should do, what he should say, what he wished. He was full of
fury and full of fear. The archdeacon and the gypsy had come into
conflict in his heart.
When he reached the summit of the tower, before emerging from the
shadow of the staircase and stepping upon the platform, he
cautiously examined the position of the priest. The priest’s back
was turned to him. There is an openwork balustrade which
surrounds the platform of the bell tower. The priest, whose eyes
looked down upon the town, was resting his breast on that one of
the four sides of the balustrades which looks upon the Pont
Notre-Dame.
Quasimodo, advancing with the tread of a wolf behind him, went to
see what he was gazing at thus.
The priest’s attention was so absorbed elsewhere that he did not
hear the deaf man walking behind him.
Paris is a magnificent and charming spectacle, and especially at
that day, viewed from the top of the towers of Notre-Dame, in the
fresh light of a summer dawn. The day might have been in July.
The sky was perfectly serene. Some tardy stars were fading away
at various points, and there was a very brilliant one in the
east, in the brightest part of the heavens. The sun was about to
appear; Paris was beginning to move. A very white and very pure
light brought out vividly to the eye all the outlines that its
thousands of houses present to the east. The giant shadow of the
towers leaped from roof to roof, from one end of the great city
to the other. There were several quarters from which were already
heard voices and noisy sounds. Here the stroke of a bell, there
the stroke of a hammer, beyond, the complicated clatter of a cart
in motion.
Already several columns of smoke were being belched forth from
the chimneys scattered over the whole surface of roofs, as
through the fissures of an immense sulphurous crater. The river,
which ruffles its waters against the arches of so many bridges,
against the points of so many islands, was wavering with silvery
folds. Around the city, outside the ramparts, sight was lost in a
great circle of fleecy vapors through which one confusedly
distinguished the indefinite line of the plains, and the graceful
swell of the heights. All sorts of floating sounds were dispersed
over this half-awakened city. Towards the east, the morning
breeze chased a few soft white bits of wool torn from the misty
fleece of the hills.
In the Parvis, some good women, who had their milk jugs in their
hands, were pointing out to each other, with astonishment, the
singular dilapidation of the great door of Notre-Dame, and the
two solidified streams of lead in the crevices of the stone. This
was all that remained of the tempest of the night. The bonfire
lighted between the towers by Quasimodo had died out. Tristan had
already cleared up the Place, and had the dead thrown into the
Seine. Kings like Louis XI. are careful to clean the pavement
quickly after a massacre.
Outside the balustrade of the tower, directly under the point
where the priest had paused, there was one of those fantastically
carved stone gutters with which Gothic edifices bristle, and, in
a crevice of that gutter, two pretty wallflowers in blossom,
shaken out and vivified, as it were, by the breath of air, made
frolicsome salutations to each other. Above the towers, on high,
far away in the depths of the sky, the cries of little birds were
heard.
But the priest was not listening to, was not looking at, anything
of all this. He was one of the men for whom there are no
mornings, no birds, no flowers. In that immense horizon, which
assumed so many aspects about him, his contemplation was
concentrated on a single point.
Quasimodo was burning to ask him what he had done with the gypsy;
but the archdeacon seemed to be out of the world at that moment.
He was evidently in one of those violent moments of life when one
would not feel the earth crumble. He remained motionless and
silent, with his eyes steadily fixed on a certain point; and
there was something so terrible about this silence and immobility
that the savage bellringer shuddered before it and dared not come
in contact with it. Only, and this was also one way of
interrogating the archdeacon, he followed the direction of his
vision, and in this way the glance of the unhappy deaf man fell
upon the Place de Grève.
Thus he saw what the priest was looking at. The ladder was
erected near the permanent gallows. There were some people and
many soldiers in the Place. A man was dragging a white thing,
from which hung something black, along the pavement. This man
halted at the foot of the gallows.
Here something took place which Quasimodo could not see very
clearly. It was not because his only eye had not preserved its
long range, but there was a group of soldiers which prevented his
seeing everything. Moreover, at that moment the sun appeared, and
such a flood of light overflowed the horizon that one would have
said that all the points in Paris, spires, chimneys, gables, had
simultaneously taken fire.
Meanwhile, the man began to mount the ladder. Then Quasimodo saw
him again distinctly. He was carrying a woman on his shoulder, a
young girl dressed in white; that young girl had a noose about
her neck. Quasimodo recognized her.
It was she.
The man reached the top of the ladder. There he arranged the
noose. Here the priest, in order to see the better, knelt upon
the balustrade.
All at once the man kicked away the ladder abruptly, and
Quasimodo, who had not breathed for several moments, beheld the
unhappy child dangling at the end of the rope two fathoms above
the pavement, with the man squatting on her shoulders. The rope
made several gyrations on itself, and Quasimodo beheld horrible
convulsions run along the gypsy’s body. The priest, on his side,
with outstretched neck and eyes starting from his head,
contemplated this horrible group of the man and the young
girl,—the spider and the fly.
At the moment when it was most horrible, the laugh of a demon, a
laugh which one can only give vent to when one is no longer
human, burst forth on the priest’s livid face.
Quasimodo did not hear that laugh, but he saw it.
The bellringer retreated several paces behind the archdeacon, and
suddenly hurling himself upon him with fury, with his huge hands
he pushed him by the back over into the abyss over which Dom
Claude was leaning.
The priest shrieked: “Damnation!” and fell.
The spout, above which he had stood, arrested him in his fall. He
clung to it with desperate hands, and, at the moment when he
opened his mouth to utter a second cry, he beheld the formidable
and avenging face of Quasimodo thrust over the edge of the
balustrade above his head.
Then he was silent.
The abyss was there below him. A fall of more than two hundred
feet and the pavement.
In this terrible situation, the archdeacon said not a word,
uttered not a groan. He merely writhed upon the spout, with
incredible efforts to climb up again; but his hands had no hold
on the granite, his feet slid along the blackened wall without
catching fast. People who have ascended the towers of Notre-Dame
know that there is a swell of the stone immediately beneath the
balustrade. It was on this retreating angle that miserable
archdeacon exhausted himself. He had not to deal with a
perpendicular wall, but with one which sloped away beneath him.
Quasimodo had but to stretch out his hand in order to draw him
from the gulf; but he did not even look at him. He was looking at
the Grève. He was looking at the gallows. He was looking at the
gypsy.
The deaf man was leaning, with his elbows on the balustrade, at
the spot where the archdeacon had been a moment before, and
there, never detaching his gaze from the only object which
existed for him in the world at that moment, he remained
motionless and mute, like a man struck by lightning, and a long
stream of tears flowed in silence from that eye which, up to that
time, had never shed but one tear.
Meanwhile, the archdeacon was panting. His bald brow was dripping
with perspiration, his nails were bleeding against the stones,
his knees were flayed by the wall.
He heard his cassock, which was caught on the spout, crack and
rip at every jerk that he gave it. To complete his misfortune,
this spout ended in a leaden pipe which bent under the weight of
his body. The archdeacon felt this pipe slowly giving way. The
miserable man said to himself that, when his hands should be worn
out with fatigue, when his cassock should tear asunder, when the
lead should give way, he would be obliged to fall, and terror
seized upon his very vitals. Now and then he glanced wildly at a
sort of narrow shelf formed, ten feet lower down, by projections
of the sculpture, and he prayed heaven, from the depths of his
distressed soul, that he might be allowed to finish his life,
were it to last two centuries, on that space two feet square.
Once, he glanced below him into the Place, into the abyss; the
head which he raised again had its eyes closed and its hair
standing erect.
There was something frightful in the silence of these two men.
While the archdeacon agonized in this terrible fashion a few feet
below him, Quasimodo wept and gazed at the Grève.
The archdeacon, seeing that all his exertions served only to
weaken the fragile support which remained to him, decided to
remain quiet. There he hung, embracing the gutter, hardly
breathing, no longer stirring, making no longer any other
movements than that mechanical convulsion of the stomach, which
one experiences in dreams when one fancies himself falling. His
fixed eyes were wide open with a stare. He lost ground little by
little, nevertheless, his fingers slipped along the spout; he
became more and more conscious of the feebleness of his arms and
the weight of his body. The curve of the lead which sustained him
inclined more and more each instant towards the abyss.
He beheld below him, a frightful thing, the roof of Saint-Jean le
Rond, as small as a card folded in two. He gazed at the
impressive carvings, one by one, of the tower, suspended like
himself over the precipice, but without terror for themselves or
pity for him. All was stone around him; before his eyes, gaping
monsters; below, quite at the bottom, in the Place, the pavement;
above his head, Quasimodo weeping.
In the Parvis there were several groups of curious good people,
who were tranquilly seeking to divine who the madman could be who
was amusing himself in so strange a manner. The priest heard them
saying, for their voices reached him, clear and shrill: “Why, he
will break his neck!”
Quasimodo wept.
At last the archdeacon, foaming with rage and despair, understood
that all was in vain. Nevertheless, he collected all the strength
which remained to him for a final effort. He stiffened himself
upon the spout, pushed against the wall with both his knees,
clung to a crevice in the stones with his hands, and succeeded in
climbing back with one foot, perhaps; but this effort made the
leaden beak on which he rested bend abruptly. His cassock burst
open at the same time. Then, feeling everything give way beneath
him, with nothing but his stiffened and failing hands to support
him, the unfortunate man closed his eyes and let go of the spout.
He fell.
Quasimodo watched him fall.
A fall from such a height is seldom perpendicular. The
archdeacon, launched into space, fell at first head foremost,
with outspread hands; then he whirled over and over many times;
the wind blew him upon the roof of a house, where the unfortunate
man began to break up. Nevertheless, he was not dead when he
reached there. The bellringer saw him still endeavor to cling to
a gable with his nails; but the surface sloped too much, and he
had no more strength. He slid rapidly along the roof like a
loosened tile, and dashed upon the pavement. There he no longer
moved.
Then Quasimodo raised his eyes to the gypsy, whose body he beheld
hanging from the gibbet, quivering far away beneath her white
robe with the last shudderings of anguish, then he dropped them
on the archdeacon, stretched out at the base of the tower, and no
longer retaining the human form, and he said, with a sob which
heaved his deep chest,—“Oh! all that I have ever loved!”
CHAPTER III. THE MARRIAGE OF PHOEBUS.
Towards evening on that day, when the judiciary officers of the
bishop came to pick up from the pavement of the Parvis the
dislocated corpse of the archdeacon, Quasimodo had disappeared.
A great many rumors were in circulation with regard to this
adventure. No one doubted but that the day had come when, in
accordance with their compact, Quasimodo, that is to say, the
devil, was to carry off Claude Frollo, that is to say, the
sorcerer. It was presumed that he had broken the body when taking
the soul, like monkeys who break the shell to get at the nut.
This is why the archdeacon was not interred in consecrated earth.
Louis XI. died a year later, in the month of August, 1483.
As for Pierre Gringoire, he succeeded in saving the goat, and he
won success in tragedy. It appears that, after having tasted
astrology, philosophy, architecture, hermetics,—all vanities, he
returned to tragedy, vainest pursuit of all. This is what he
called “coming to a tragic end.” This is what is to be read, on
the subject of his dramatic triumphs, in 1483, in the accounts of
the “Ordinary:” “To Jehan Marchand and Pierre Gringoire,
carpenter and composer, who have made and composed the mystery
made at the Châtelet of Paris, at the entry of Monsieur the
Legate, and have ordered the personages, clothed and dressed the
same, as in the said mystery was required; and likewise, for
having made the scaffoldings thereto necessary; and for this
deed,—one hundred livres.”
Phœbus de Châteaupers also came to a tragic end. He married.
CHAPTER IV. THE MARRIAGE OF QUASIMODO.
We have just said that Quasimodo disappeared from Notre-Dame on
the day of the gypsy’s and of the archdeacon’s death. He was not
seen again, in fact; no one knew what had become of him.
During the night which followed the execution of la Esmeralda,
the night men had detached her body from the gibbet, and had
carried it, according to custom, to the cellar of Montfaucon.
Montfaucon was, as Sauval says, “the most ancient and the most
superb gibbet in the kingdom.” Between the faubourgs of the
Temple and Saint Martin, about a hundred and sixty toises from
the walls of Paris, a few bow shots from La Courtille, there was
to be seen on the crest of a gentle, almost imperceptible
eminence, but sufficiently elevated to be seen for several
leagues round about, an edifice of strange form, bearing
considerable resemblance to a Celtic cromlech, and where also
human sacrifices were offered.
Let the reader picture to himself, crowning a limestone hillock,
an oblong mass of masonry fifteen feet in height, thirty wide,
forty long, with a gate, an external railing and a platform; on
this platform sixteen enormous pillars of rough hewn stone,
thirty feet in height, arranged in a colonnade round three of the
four sides of the mass which support them, bound together at
their summits by heavy beams, whence hung chains at intervals; on
all these chains, skeletons; in the vicinity, on the plain, a
stone cross and two gibbets of secondary importance, which seemed
to have sprung up as shoots around the central gallows; above all
this, in the sky, a perpetual flock of crows; that was
Montfaucon.
At the end of the fifteenth century, the formidable gibbet which
dated from 1328, was already very much dilapidated; the beams
were wormeaten, the chains rusted, the pillars green with mould;
the layers of hewn stone were all cracked at their joints, and
grass was growing on that platform which no feet touched. The
monument made a horrible profile against the sky; especially at
night when there was a little moonlight on those white skulls, or
when the breeze of evening brushed the chains and the skeletons,
and swayed all these in the darkness. The presence of this gibbet
sufficed to render gloomy all the surrounding places.
The mass of masonry which served as foundation to the odious
edifice was hollow. A huge cellar had been constructed there,
closed by an old iron grating, which was out of order, into which
were cast not only the human remains, which were taken from the
chains of Montfaucon, but also the bodies of all the unfortunates
executed on the other permanent gibbets of Paris. To that deep
charnel-house, where so many human remains and so many crimes
have rotted in company, many great ones of this world, many
innocent people, have contributed their bones, from Enguerrand de
Marigni, the first victim, and a just man, to Admiral de Coligni,
who was its last, and who was also a just man.
As for the mysterious disappearance of Quasimodo, this is all
that we have been able to discover.
About eighteen months or two years after the events which
terminate this story, when search was made in that cavern for the
body of Olivier le Daim, who had been hanged two days previously,
and to whom Charles VIII. had granted the favor of being buried
in Saint Laurent, in better company, they found among all those
hideous carcasses two skeletons, one of which held the other in
its embrace. One of these skeletons, which was that of a woman,
still had a few strips of a garment which had once been white,
and around her neck was to be seen a string of adrézarach beads
with a little silk bag ornamented with green glass, which was
open and empty. These objects were of so little value that the
executioner had probably not cared for them. The other, which
held this one in a close embrace, was the skeleton of a man. It
was noticed that his spinal column was crooked, his head seated
on his shoulder blades, and that one leg was shorter than the
other. Moreover, there was no fracture of the vertebrae at the
nape of the neck, and it was evident that he had not been hanged.
Hence, the man to whom it had belonged had come thither and had
died there. When they tried to detach the skeleton which he held
in his embrace, he fell to dust.
NOTE
ADDED TO THE DEFINITIVE EDITION.
It is by mistake that this edition was announced as augmented by
many _new_ chapters. The word should have been _unpublished_. In
fact, if by new, _newly made_ is to be understood, the chapters
added to this edition are not new. They were written at the same
time as the rest of the work; they date from the same epoch, and
sprang from the same thought, they have always formed a part of
the manuscript of “Notre-Dame-de-Paris.” Moreover, the author
cannot comprehend how fresh developments could be added to a work
of this character after its completion. This is not to be done at
will. According to his idea, a romance is born in a manner that
is, in some sort, necessary, with all its chapters; a drama is
born with all its scenes. Think not that there is anything
arbitrary in the numbers of parts of which that whole, that
mysterious microcosm which you call a drama or a romance, is
composed. Grafting and soldering take badly on works of this
nature, which should gush forth in a single stream and so remain.
The thing once done, do not change your mind, do not touch it up.
The book once published, the sex of the work, whether virile or
not, has been recognized and proclaimed; when the child has once
uttered his first cry he is born, there he is, he is made so,
neither father nor mother can do anything, he belongs to the air
and to the sun, let him live or die, such as he is. Has your book
been a failure? So much the worse. Add no chapters to an
unsuccessful book. Is it incomplete? You should have completed it
when you conceived it. Is your tree crooked? You cannot
straighten it up. Is your romance consumptive? Is your romance
not capable of living? You cannot supply it with the breath which
it lacks. Has your drama been born lame? Take my advice, and do
not provide it with a wooden leg.
Hence the author attaches particular importance to the public
knowing for a certainty that the chapters here added have not
been made expressly for this reprint. They were not published in
the preceding editions of the book for a very simple reason. At
the time when “Notre-Dame-de-Paris” was printed the first time,
the manuscript of these three chapters had been mislaid. It was
necessary to rewrite them or to dispense with them. The author
considered that the only two of these chapters which were in the
least important, owing to their extent, were chapters on art and
history which in no way interfered with the groundwork of the
drama and the romance, that the public would not notice their
loss, and that he, the author, would alone be in possession of
the secret. He decided to omit them, and then, if the whole truth
must be confessed, his indolence shrunk from the task of
rewriting the three lost chapters. He would have found it a
shorter matter to make a new romance.
Now the chapters have been found, and he avails himself of the
first opportunity to restore them to their place.
This now, is his entire work, such as he dreamed it, such as he
made it, good or bad, durable or fragile, but such as he wishes
it.
These recovered chapters will possess no doubt, but little value
in the eyes of persons, otherwise very judicious, who have sought
in “Notre-Dame-de-Paris” only the drama, the romance. But there
are perchance, other readers, who have not found it useless to
study the æsthetic and philosophic thought concealed in this
book, and who have taken pleasure, while reading
“Notre-Dame-de-Paris,” in unravelling beneath the romance
something else than the romance, and in following (may we be
pardoned these rather ambitious expressions), the system of the
historian and the aim of the artist through the creation of the
poet.
For such people especially, the chapters added to this edition
will complete “Notre-Dame-de-Paris,” if we admit that
“Notre-Dame-de-Paris” was worth the trouble of completing.
In one of these chapters on the present decadence of
architecture, and on the death (in his mind almost inevitable) of
that king of arts, the author expresses and develops an opinion
unfortunately well rooted in him, and well thought out. But he
feels it necessary to say here that he earnestly desires that the
future may, some day, put him in the wrong. He knows that art in
all its forms has everything to hope from the new generations
whose genius, still in the germ, can be heard gushing forth in
our studios. The grain is in the furrow, the harvest will
certainly be fine. He merely fears, and the reason may be seen in
the second volume of this edition, that the sap may have been
withdrawn from that ancient soil of architecture which has been
for so many centuries the best field for art.
Nevertheless, there are to-day in the artistic youth so much
life, power, and, so to speak, predestination, that in our
schools of architecture in particular, at the present time, the
professors, who are detestable, produce, not only unconsciously
but even in spite of themselves, excellent pupils; quite the
reverse of that potter mentioned by Horace, who dreamed amphoræ
and produced pots. _Currit rota, urcens exit_.
But, in any case, whatever may be the future of architecture, in
whatever manner our young architects may one day solve the
question of their art, let us, while waiting for new monument,
preserve the ancient monuments. Let us, if possible, inspire the
nation with a love for national architecture. That, the author
declares, is one of the principal aims of this book; it is one of
the principal aims of his life.
“Notre-Dame-de-Paris” has, perhaps opened some true perspectives
on the art of the Middle Ages, on that marvellous art which up to
the present time has been unknown to some, and, what is worse,
misknown by others. But the author is far from regarding as
accomplished, the task which he has voluntarily imposed on
himself. He has already pleaded on more than one occasion, the
cause of our ancient architecture, he has already loudly
denounced many profanations, many demolitions, many impieties. He
will not grow weary. He has promised himself to recur frequently
to this subject. He will return to it. He will be as
indefatigable in defending our historical edifices as our
iconoclasts of the schools and academies are eager in attacking
them; for it is a grievous thing to see into what hands the
architecture of the Middle Ages has fallen, and in what a manner
the botchers of plaster of the present day treat the ruin of this
grand art, it is even a shame for us intelligent men who see them
at work and content ourselves with hooting them. And we are not
speaking here merely of what goes on in the provinces, but of
what is done in Paris at our very doors, beneath our windows, in
the great city, in the lettered city, in the city of the press,
of word, of thought. We cannot resist the impulse to point out,
in concluding this note, some of the acts of vandalism which are
every day planned, debated, begun, continued, and successfully
completed under the eyes of the artistic public of Paris, face to
face with criticism, which is disconcerted by so much audacity.
An archbishop’s palace has just been demolished, an edifice in
poor taste, no great harm is done; but in a block with the
archiepiscopal palace a bishop’s palace has been demolished, a
rare fragment of the fourteenth century, which the demolishing
architect could not distinguish from the rest. He has torn up the
wheat with the tares; ’tis all the same. They are talking of
razing the admirable chapel of Vincennes, in order to make, with
its stones, some fortification, which Daumesnil did not need,
however. While the Palais Bourbon, that wretched edifice, is
being repaired at great expense, gusts of wind and equinoctial
storms are allowed to destroy the magnificent painted windows of
the Sainte-Chapelle. For the last few days there has been a
scaffolding on the tower of Saint Jacques de la Boucherie; and
one of these mornings the pick will be laid to it. A mason has
been found to build a little white house between the venerable
towers of the Palais de-Justice. Another has been found willing
to prune away Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the feudal abbey with three
bell towers. Another will be found, no doubt, capable of pulling
down Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois. All these masons claim to be
architects, are paid by the prefecture or from the petty budget,
and wear green coats. All the harm which false taste can inflict
on good taste, they accomplish. While we write, deplorable
spectacle! one of them holds possession of the Tuileries, one of
them is giving Philibert Delorme a scar across the middle of his
face; and it is not, assuredly, one of the least of the scandals
of our time to see with what effrontery the heavy architecture of
this gentleman is being flattened over one of the most delicate
façades of the Renaissance!
PARIS, October 20, 1832.
FOOTNOTES:
1 (return) The word Gothic, in the sense in which it is generally
employed, is wholly unsuitable, but wholly consecrated. Hence we accept
it and we adopt it, like all the rest of the world, to characterize the
architecture of the second half of the Middle Ages, where the ogive is
the principle which succeeds the architecture of the first period, of
which the semi-circle is the father.
2 (return) _Faire le diable à quatre_.
3 (return) _Thibaut au des_,—Thibaut of the dice.
4 (return) An old French coin, equal to the two hundred and fortieth
part of a pound.
5 (return) Got the first idea of a thing.
6 (return) The ancient French _hurrah_.
7 (return) A chamber of the ancient parliament of Paris.
8 (return) A blank: an old French coin; six blanks were worth two sous
and a half; targe, an ancient coin of Burgundy, a farthing.
9 (return)
A coffer of great richness
In a pillar’s heart they found,
Within it lay new banners,
With figures to astound.
10 (return) Alms.
11 (return) Give me the means to buy a bit of bread, sir.
12 (return) A high-toned sharper.
13 (return) Thieves.
14 (return) L’argot.
15 (return) A small dessert apple, bright red on one side and
greenish-white on the other.
16 (return) When the gay-plumaged birds grow weary, and the earth—
17 (return)
My father is a bird,
my mother is a bird.
I cross the water without a barque,
I cross the water without a boat.
My mother is a bird,
my father is a bird.
18 (return) Time is a devourer; man, more so.
19 (return) _Histoire Gallicane_, liv. II. Periode III. fo. 130, p. 1.
20 (return) This is the same which is called, according to locality,
climate, and races, Lombard, Saxon, or Byzantine. There are four sister
and parallel architectures, each having its special character, but
derived from the same origin, the round arch.
_Facies non omnibus una,
Non diversa tamen, qualem_, etc.
Their faces not all alike, nor yet different, but such as the faces of
sisters ought to be.
21 (return) This portion of the spire, which was of woodwork, is
precisely that which was consumed by lightning, in 1823.
22 (return) The wall walling Paris makes Paris murmur.
23 (return) We have seen with sorrow mingled with indignation, that it
is the intention to increase, to recast, to make over, that is to say,
to destroy this admirable palace. The architects of our day have too
heavy a hand to touch these delicate works of the Renaissance. We still
cherish a hope that they will not dare. Moreover, this demolition of
the Tuileries now, would be not only a brutal deed of violence, which
would make a drunken vandal blush—it would be an act of treason. The
Tuileries is not simply a masterpiece of the art of the sixteenth
century, it is a page of the history of the nineteenth. This palace no
longer belongs to the king, but to the people. Let us leave it as it
is. Our revolution has twice set its seal upon its front. On one of its
two façades, there are the cannon-balls of the 10th of August; on the
other, the balls of the 29th of July. It is sacred. Paris, April 7,
1831. (_Note to the fifth edition._)
24 (return) The tenth month of the French republican calendar, from the
19th of June to the 18th of July.
25 (return) An official of Notre-Dame, lower than a beneficed
clergyman, higher than simple paid chanters.
26 (return) Hugo II. de Bisuncio, 1326-1332.
27 (return) This comet against which Pope Calixtus, uncle of Borgia,
ordered public prayers, is the same which reappeared in 1835.
28 (return) Comptes du domaine, 1383.
29 (return) A _Queue_ was a cask which held a hogshead and a half.
30 (return) A captain of fifty men.
31 (return) Ox-eye daisy.
32 (return) Easter daisy.
33 (return) A rope for the gallows bird! A fagot for the ape.
34 (return) An ancient Burgundian coin.
35 (return) An ancient French coin.
36 (return) Truly, these roastings are a stupendous thing!
37 (return) Peter the Slaughterer; and Baptist Crack-Gosling.
38 (return) An ancient copper coin, the forty-fourth part of a sou or
the twelfth part of a farthing.
39 (return) Une vielle qui _scie_ une _anse_
40 (return) Cut-Weazand Street.
41 (return) Cut-Throat Street.
42 (return) The children of the Petits Carreaux let themselves be hung
like calves.
43 (return) When the rats eat the cats, the king will be lord of Arras;
when the sea which is great and wide, is frozen over at St. John’s
tide, men will see across the ice, those who dwell in Arras quit their
place.
44 (return) Varieties of the crossbow.
45 (return) The substance of this exordium is contained in the
president’s sentence.
46 (return) “He that heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me,
hath eternal life, and hath not come into condemnation; but is passed
from death to life.”
47 (return) “Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my
voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep in the midst of the seas,
and the floods compassed me about.”
48 (return) “Go now, soul, trembling in the balance, and God have mercy
upon thee.”
49 (return) “Lord have mercy upon us.”
50 (return) “All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me.”
51 (return) Bark, Grève, grumble, Grève! Spin, spin, my distaff, spin
her rope for the hangman, who is whistling in the meadow. What a
beautiful hempen rope! Sow hemp, not wheat, from Issy to Vanvre. The
thief hath not stolen the beautiful hempen rope. Grumble, Grève, bark,
Grève! To see the dissolute wench hang on the blear-eyed gibbet,
windows are eyes.
52 (return) Look not at the face, young girl, look at the heart. The
heart of a handsome young man is often deformed. There are hearts in
which love does not keep. Young girl, the pine is not beautiful; it is
not beautiful like the poplar, but it keeps its foliage in winter.
Alas! What is the use of saying that? That which is not beautiful has
no right to exist; beauty loves only beauty; April turns her back on
January. Beauty is perfect, beauty can do all things, beauty is the
only thing which does not exist by halves. The raven flies only by day,
the owl flies only by night, the swan flies by day and by night.
53 (return) _Sols neufs: poulets tués_.
54 (return) An arrow with a pyramidal head of iron and copper spiral
wings, by which a rotatory motion was communicated.
55 (return) A game played on a checker-board containing three
concentric sets of squares, with small stones. The game consisted in
getting three stones in a row.
56 (return) Good night, father and mother, the last cover up the fire.
57 (return) That I will drink no spiced and honeyed wine for a year, if
I am lying now.
58 (return) And by the blood of God, I have neither faith nor law, nor
fire nor dwelling-place, nor king nor God.
59 (return) Men of the brotherhood of slang: thieves.
60 (return) Cut-throat. Coupe-gueule being the vulgar word for
cut-weazand.
61 (return) The representation of a monstrous animal solemnly drawn
about in Tarascon and other French towns.
62 (return) An arrow with a pyramidal head of iron and copper spiral
wings by which a rotatory motion was communicated.
63 (return) The city of Cambrai is well dressed. Marafin plundered it.
64 (return) An ancient long measure in France, containing six feet and
nearly five inches English measure.
65 (return) Master Jean Balue has lost sight of his bishoprics.
Monsieur of Verdun has no longer one; all have been killed off.
66 (return) One in charge of the highways.
67 (return) A lord having a right on the woods of his vassals.
68 (return) When thou shalt find its mate, thy mother will stretch out
her arms to thee.
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