Name: 第04冊--第1章--維克多-雨果所著的《聖母院的駝背》--好靈魂 (Book 04 - Chapter 1 - The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo - Good Souls)
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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

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

Whoever cared to take them did so. In front of the wooden bed was a copper

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

I do not see why history has not transmitted to posterity the names of these

They were Agnes la Herme, Jehanne de la Tarme, Henriette la Gaultiere, Gauchere la

Violette, all four widows, all four dames of the Chapel Etienne 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

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 Agnes to Gauchere, gazing at the little creature

exposed, which was screaming and writhing on the wooden bed, terrified by so many

"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 Agnes, "but it must be a

"'Tis not a child, Agnes." "'Tis an abortion of a monkey," remarked

Gauchere. "'Tis a miracle," interposed Henriette la

"Then," remarked Agnes, "it is the third since the Sunday of the Loetare: 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 Gauchere.

"To think that Monsieur of Reims sent this enormity to Monsieur of Paris," added la

"I imagine," said Agnes 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

"I really hope," resumed la Gaultiere, "that nobody will apply for it."

"Ah, good heavens!" exclaimed Agnes; "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?

"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,

That head was deformed enough; one beheld only a forest of red hair, one eye, a

The eye wept, the mouth cried, and the teeth seemed to ask only to be allowed to

The whole struggled in the sack, to the great consternation of the crowd, which

increased and was renewed incessantly around it.

Dame Aloise 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

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 Etienne 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

his side his two regulators,--spiritual and temporal.

"Foundling!" he said, after examining the object; "found, apparently, on the banks of

"One can only see one eye," observed Damoiselle Guillemette; "there is a wart on

"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

"How do you know that?" asked Guillemette la Mairesse.

"I know it pertinently," replied the protonotary.

"Monsieur le protonotare," asked Gauchere, "what do you prognosticate of this

pretended foundling?" "The greatest misfortunes," replied

"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."