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  • BOOK FIRST. 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:--

  • ANArKH.

  • 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.

  • 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 Hotel 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 Greve, 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 Chateau 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 facade 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 marechaussee, the marechaussee 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, Theophile'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 Provencal 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.

  • "Hola he! 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."

  • "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!

  • Hola he! 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!"

  • "Hola he! 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 Thibautode?" 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 Thibautode, 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-Genevieve 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- Genevieve!

  • 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- Genevieve!"

  • "Ho he!

  • Master Joachim de Ladehors! Ho he!

  • Louis Dahuille! Ho he 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!" "Hola he!

  • 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-

  • Genevieve!"

  • "To the deuce with the whole set of canons!"

  • "Abbe 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 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 seclet atra eura--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.

  • -BOOK FIRST. 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. "Noel! Noel! 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 Lienarde," 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 Lienarde. The stranger approached the railing.

  • "What would you have of me, damsels?" he asked, with alacrity.

  • "Oh! nothing," replied Lienarde, in great confusion; "it is my neighbor, Gisquette la

  • Gencienne, who wishes to speak with you."

  • "Not so," replied Gisquette, blushing; "it was Lienarde 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 Lienarde.

  • 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.

  • "He! yes," said Lienarde, "isn't she stupid?

  • So you know Jupiter?"

  • "Michel Giborne?" replied the unknown; "yes, madam."

  • "He has a fine beard!" said Lienarde. "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 Lienarde. "'The Good Judgment of Madame the Virgin,'-

  • -a morality, if you please, damsel."

  • "Ah! that makes a difference," responded Lienarde.

  • 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 Lienarde. "And all naked," added the young man.

  • Lienarde 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 Lienarde, "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 Lienarde, "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 Chatelet,

  • 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, Lienarde?"

  • "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

  • Lienarde.

  • 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.

  • "Hola he!" 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!

  • Hola he, 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."

  • -BOOK FIRST. 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

  • abbes 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 abbes 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, Abbe of Saint-Germain des

  • Pres, 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, Agnes la

  • Gadine, and Rabine Piedebou.

  • 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 parchous 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.

  • -BOOK FIRST. 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 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-Genevieve, 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 Abbe of Saint Genevieve, 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 abbe, "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 Lienarde, 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.

  • "He! 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 cortege, 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 Lienarde, 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.

  • -BOOK FIRST. 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 he! 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?"

  • "Hola he! 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 Lienarde, 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 Chatelet 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 Chatelet.

  • "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.

  • "Noel! Noel!

  • Noel!" 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!

  • Noel!

  • Noel!" 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!"

  • "He! 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.

  • -BOOK FIRST. 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 Hotel 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

  • hivres, 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 Chopin 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 FIRST. PREFACE.

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Book 01 - The Hunchback of Notre Dame 有聲小說,維克多-雨果著 (第1-6章) (Book 01 - The Hunchback of Notre Dame Audiobook by Victor Hugo (Chs 1-6))

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