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  • BOOK SIXTH. CHAPTER I.

  • AN IMPARTIAL GLANCE AT THE ANCIENT MAGISTRACY.

  • A very happy personage in the year of grace 1482, was the noble gentleman Robert

  • d'Estouteville, chevalier, Sieur de Beyne, Baron d'Ivry and Saint Andry en la Marche,

  • counsellor and chamberlain to the king, and guard of the provostship of Paris.

  • It was already nearly seventeen years since he had received from the king, on November

  • 7, 1465, the comet year, that fine charge of the provostship of Paris, which was

  • reputed rather a seigneury than an office.

  • Dignitas, says Joannes Loemnoeus, quoe cum non exigua potestate politiam concernente,

  • atque proerogativis multis et juribus conjuncta est.

  • A marvellous thing in '82 was a gentleman bearing the king's commission, and whose

  • letters of institution ran back to the epoch of the marriage of the natural

  • daughter of Louis XI. with Monsieur the Bastard of Bourbon.

  • The same day on which Robert d'Estouteville took the place of Jacques de Villiers in

  • the provostship of Paris, Master Jehan Dauvet replaced Messire Helye de Thorrettes

  • in the first presidency of the Court of

  • Parliament, Jehan Jouvenel des Ursins supplanted Pierre de Morvilliers in the

  • office of chancellor of France, Regnault des Dormans ousted Pierre Puy from the

  • charge of master of requests in ordinary of the king's household.

  • Now, upon how many heads had the presidency, the chancellorship, the

  • mastership passed since Robert d'Estouteville had held the provostship of

  • Paris.

  • It had been "granted to him for safekeeping," as the letters patent said;

  • and certainly he kept it well.

  • He had clung to it, he had incorporated himself with it, he had so identified

  • himself with it that he had escaped that fury for change which possessed Louis XI.,

  • a tormenting and industrious king, whose

  • policy it was to maintain the elasticity of his power by frequent appointments and

  • revocations.

  • More than this; the brave chevalier had obtained the reversion of the office for

  • his son, and for two years already, the name of the noble man Jacques

  • d'Estouteville, equerry, had figured beside

  • his at the head of the register of the salary list of the provostship of Paris.

  • A rare and notable favor indeed!

  • It is true that Robert d'Estouteville was a good soldier, that he had loyally raised

  • his pennon against "the league of public good," and that he had presented to the

  • queen a very marvellous stag in

  • confectionery on the day of her entrance to Paris in 14...

  • Moreover, he possessed the good friendship of Messire Tristan l'Hermite, provost of

  • the marshals of the king's household.

  • Hence a very sweet and pleasant existence was that of Messire Robert.

  • In the first place, very good wages, to which were attached, and from which hung,

  • like extra bunches of grapes on his vine, the revenues of the civil and criminal

  • registries of the provostship, plus the

  • civil and criminal revenues of the tribunals of Embas of the Chatelet, without

  • reckoning some little toll from the bridges of Mantes and of Corbeil, and the profits

  • on the craft of Shagreen-makers of Paris,

  • on the corders of firewood and the measurers of salt.

  • Add to this the pleasure of displaying himself in rides about the city, and of

  • making his fine military costume, which you may still admire sculptured on his tomb in

  • the abbey of Valmont in Normandy, and his

  • morion, all embossed at Montlhery, stand out a contrast against the parti-colored

  • red and tawny robes of the aldermen and police.

  • And then, was it nothing to wield absolute supremacy over the sergeants of the police,

  • the porter and watch of the Chatelet, the two auditors of the Chatelet, auditores

  • castelleti, the sixteen commissioners of

  • the sixteen quarters, the jailer of the Chatelet, the four enfeoffed sergeants, the

  • hundred and twenty mounted sergeants, with maces, the chevalier of the watch with his

  • watch, his sub-watch, his counter-watch and his rear-watch?

  • Was it nothing to exercise high and low justice, the right to interrogate, to hang

  • and to draw, without reckoning petty jurisdiction in the first resort (in prima

  • instantia, as the charters say), on that

  • viscomty of Paris, so nobly appanaged with seven noble bailiwicks?

  • Can anything sweeter be imagined than rendering judgments and decisions, as

  • Messire Robert d'Estouteville daily did in the Grand Chatelet, under the large and

  • flattened arches of Philip Augustus? and

  • going, as he was wont to do every evening, to that charming house situated in the Rue

  • Galilee, in the enclosure of the royal palace, which he held in right of his wife,

  • Madame Ambroise de Lore, to repose after

  • the fatigue of having sent some poor wretch to pass the night in "that little cell of

  • the Rue de Escorcherie, which the provosts and aldermen of Paris used to make their

  • prison; the same being eleven feet long,

  • seven feet and four inches wide, and eleven feet high?"

  • And not only had Messire Robert d'Estouteville his special court as provost

  • and vicomte of Paris; but in addition he had a share, both for eye and tooth, in the

  • grand court of the king.

  • There was no head in the least elevated which had not passed through his hands

  • before it came to the headsman.

  • It was he who went to seek M. de Nemours at the Bastille Saint Antoine, in order to

  • conduct him to the Halles; and to conduct to the Greve M. de Saint-Pol, who clamored

  • and resisted, to the great joy of the

  • provost, who did not love monsieur the constable.

  • Here, assuredly, is more than sufficient to render a life happy and illustrious, and to

  • deserve some day a notable page in that interesting history of the provosts of

  • Paris, where one learns that Oudard de

  • Villeneuve had a house in the Rue des Boucheries, that Guillaume de Hangest

  • purchased the great and the little Savoy, that Guillaume Thiboust gave the nuns of

  • Sainte-Genevieve his houses in the Rue

  • Clopin, that Hugues Aubriot lived in the Hotel du Pore-Epic, and other domestic

  • facts.

  • Nevertheless, with so many reasons for taking life patiently and joyously, Messire

  • Robert d'Estouteville woke up on the morning of the seventh of January, 1482, in

  • a very surly and peevish mood.

  • Whence came this ill temper? He could not have told himself.

  • Was it because the sky was gray? or was the buckle of his old belt of Montlhery badly

  • fastened, so that it confined his provostal portliness too closely? had he beheld

  • ribald fellows, marching in bands of four,

  • beneath his window, and setting him at defiance, in doublets but no shirts, hats

  • without crowns, with wallet and bottle at their side?

  • Was it a vague presentiment of the three hundred and seventy livres, sixteen sous,

  • eight farthings, which the future King Charles VII. was to cut off from the

  • provostship in the following year?

  • The reader can take his choice; we, for our part, are much inclined to believe that he

  • was in a bad humor, simply because he was in a bad humor.

  • Moreover, it was the day after a festival, a tiresome day for every one, and above all

  • for the magistrate who is charged with sweeping away all the filth, properly and

  • figuratively speaking, which a festival day produces in Paris.

  • And then he had to hold a sitting at the Grand Chatelet.

  • Now, we have noticed that judges in general so arrange matters that their day of

  • audience shall also be their day of bad humor, so that they may always have some

  • one upon whom to vent it conveniently, in the name of the king, law, and justice.

  • However, the audience had begun without him.

  • His lieutenants, civil, criminal, and private, were doing his work, according to

  • usage; and from eight o'clock in the morning, some scores of bourgeois and

  • bourgeoises, heaped and crowded into an

  • obscure corner of the audience chamber of Embas du Chatelet, between a stout oaken

  • barrier and the wall, had been gazing blissfully at the varied and cheerful

  • spectacle of civil and criminal justice

  • dispensed by Master Florian Barbedienne, auditor of the Chatelet, lieutenant of

  • monsieur the provost, in a somewhat confused and utterly haphazard manner.

  • The hall was small, low, vaulted.

  • A table studded with fleurs-de-lis stood at one end, with a large arm-chair of carved

  • oak, which belonged to the provost and was empty, and a stool on the left for the

  • auditor, Master Florian.

  • Below sat the clerk of the court, scribbling; opposite was the populace; and

  • in front of the door, and in front of the table were many sergeants of the

  • provostship in sleeveless jackets of violet camlet, with white crosses.

  • Two sergeants of the Parloir-aux-Bourgeois, clothed in their jackets of Toussaint, half

  • red, half blue, were posted as sentinels before a low, closed door, which was

  • visible at the extremity of the hall, behind the table.

  • A single pointed window, narrowly encased in the thick wall, illuminated with a pale

  • ray of January sun two grotesque figures,-- the capricious demon of stone carved as a

  • tail-piece in the keystone of the vaulted

  • ceiling, and the judge seated at the end of the hall on the fleurs-de-lis.

  • Imagine, in fact, at the provost's table, leaning upon his elbows between two bundles

  • of documents of cases, with his foot on the train of his robe of plain brown cloth, his

  • face buried in his hood of white lamb's

  • skin, of which his brows seemed to be of a piece, red, crabbed, winking, bearing

  • majestically the load of fat on his cheeks which met under his chin, Master Florian

  • Barbedienne, auditor of the Chatelet.

  • Now, the auditor was deaf. A slight defect in an auditor.

  • Master Florian delivered judgment, none the less, without appeal and very suitably.

  • It is certainly quite sufficient for a judge to have the air of listening; and the

  • venerable auditor fulfilled this condition, the sole one in justice, all the better

  • because his attention could not be distracted by any noise.

  • Moreover, he had in the audience, a pitiless censor of his deeds and gestures,

  • in the person of our friend Jehan Frollo du Moulin, that little student of yesterday,

  • that "stroller," whom one was sure of

  • encountering all over Paris, anywhere except before the rostrums of the

  • professors.

  • "Stay," he said in a low tone to his companion, Robin Poussepain, who was

  • grinning at his side, while he was making his comments on the scenes which were being

  • unfolded before his eyes, "yonder is Jehanneton du Buisson.

  • The beautiful daughter of the lazy dog at the Marche-Neuf!--Upon my soul, he is

  • condemning her, the old rascal! he has no more eyes than ears.

  • Fifteen sous, four farthings, parisian, for having worn two rosaries!

  • 'Tis somewhat dear. Lex duri carminis.

  • Who's that?

  • Robin Chief-de-Ville, hauberkmaker. For having been passed and received master

  • of the said trade! That's his entrance money.

  • He! two gentlemen among these knaves!

  • Aiglet de Soins, Hutin de Mailly Two equerries, Corpus Christi!

  • Ah! they have been playing at dice. When shall I see our rector here?

  • A hundred livres parisian, fine to the king!

  • That Barbedienne strikes like a deaf man,-- as he is!

  • I'll be my brother the archdeacon, if that keeps me from gaming; gaming by day, gaming

  • by night, living at play, dying at play, and gaming away my soul after my shirt.

  • Holy Virgin, what damsels!

  • One after the other my lambs. Ambroise Lecuyere, Isabeau la Paynette,

  • Berarde Gironin! I know them all, by Heavens!

  • A fine! a fine!

  • That's what will teach you to wear gilded girdles! ten sous parisis! you coquettes!

  • Oh! the old snout of a judge! deaf and imbecile!

  • Oh! Florian the dolt! Oh!

  • Barbedienne the blockhead! There he is at the table!

  • He's eating the plaintiff, he's eating the suits, he eats, he chews, he crams, he

  • fills himself.

  • Fines, lost goods, taxes, expenses, loyal charges, salaries, damages, and interests,

  • gehenna, prison, and jail, and fetters with expenses are Christmas spice cake and

  • marchpanes of Saint-John to him!

  • Look at him, the pig!--Come! Good!

  • Another amorous woman! Thibaud-la-Thibaude, neither more nor less!

  • For having come from the Rue Glatigny!

  • What fellow is this? Gieffroy Mabonne, gendarme bearing the

  • crossbow. He has cursed the name of the Father.

  • A fine for la Thibaude!

  • A fine for Gieffroy! A fine for them both!

  • The deaf old fool! he must have mixed up the two cases!

  • Ten to one that he makes the wench pay for the oath and the gendarme for the amour!

  • Attention, Robin Poussepain! What are they going to bring in?

  • Here are many sergeants!

  • By Jupiter! all the bloodhounds of the pack are there.

  • It must be the great beast of the hunt--a wild boar.

  • And 'tis one, Robin, 'tis one.

  • And a fine one too! Hercle!

  • 'tis our prince of yesterday, our Pope of the Fools, our bellringer, our one-eyed

  • man, our hunchback, our grimace!

  • 'Tis Quasimodo!" It was he indeed.

  • It was Quasimodo, bound, encircled, roped, pinioned, and under good guard.

  • The squad of policemen who surrounded him was assisted by the chevalier of the watch

  • in person, wearing the arms of France embroidered on his breast, and the arms of

  • the city on his back.

  • There was nothing, however, about Quasimodo, except his deformity, which

  • could justify the display of halberds and arquebuses; he was gloomy, silent, and

  • tranquil.

  • Only now and then did his single eye cast a sly and wrathful glance upon the bonds with

  • which he was loaded.

  • He cast the same glance about him, but it was so dull and sleepy that the women only

  • pointed him out to each other in derision.

  • Meanwhile Master Florian, the auditor, turned over attentively the document in the

  • complaint entered against Quasimodo, which the clerk handed him, and, having thus

  • glanced at it, appeared to reflect for a moment.

  • Thanks to this precaution, which he always was careful to take at the moment when on

  • the point of beginning an examination, he knew beforehand the names, titles, and

  • misdeeds of the accused, made cut and dried

  • responses to questions foreseen, and succeeded in extricating himself from all

  • the windings of the interrogation without allowing his deafness to be too apparent.

  • The written charges were to him what the dog is to the blind man.

  • If his deafness did happen to betray him here and there, by some incoherent

  • apostrophe or some unintelligible question, it passed for profundity with some, and for

  • imbecility with others.

  • In neither case did the honor of the magistracy sustain any injury; for it is

  • far better that a judge should be reputed imbecile or profound than deaf.

  • Hence he took great care to conceal his deafness from the eyes of all, and he

  • generally succeeded so well that he had reached the point of deluding himself,

  • which is, by the way, easier than is supposed.

  • All hunchbacks walk with their heads held high, all stutterers harangue, all deaf

  • people speak low.

  • As for him, he believed, at the most, that his ear was a little refractory.

  • It was the sole concession which he made on this point to public opinion, in his

  • moments of frankness and examination of his conscience.

  • Having, then, thoroughly ruminated Quasimodo's affair, he threw back his head

  • and half closed his eyes, for the sake of more majesty and impartiality, so that, at

  • that moment, he was both deaf and blind.

  • A double condition, without which no judge is perfect.

  • It was in this magisterial attitude that he began the examination.

  • "Your name?"

  • Now this was a case which had not been "provided for by law," where a deaf man

  • should be obliged to question a deaf man.

  • Quasimodo, whom nothing warned that a question had been addressed to him,

  • continued to stare intently at the judge, and made no reply.

  • The judge, being deaf, and being in no way warned of the deafness of the accused,

  • thought that the latter had answered, as all accused do in general, and therefore he

  • pursued, with his mechanical and stupid self-possession,--

  • "Very well. And your age?"

  • Again Quasimodo made no reply to this question.

  • The judge supposed that it had been replied to, and continued,--

  • "Now, your profession?"

  • Still the same silence. The spectators had begun, meanwhile, to

  • whisper together, and to exchange glances.

  • "That will do," went on the imperturbable auditor, when he supposed that the accused

  • had finished his third reply.

  • "You are accused before us, primo, of nocturnal disturbance; secundo, of a

  • dishonorable act of violence upon the person of a foolish woman, in proejudicium

  • meretricis; tertio, of rebellion and

  • disloyalty towards the archers of the police of our lord, the king.

  • Explain yourself upon all these points.--- Clerk, have you written down what the

  • prisoner has said thus far?"

  • At this unlucky question, a burst of laughter rose from the clerk's table caught

  • by the audience, so violent, so wild, so contagious, so universal, that the two deaf

  • men were forced to perceive it.

  • Quasimodo turned round, shrugging his hump with disdain, while Master Florian, equally

  • astonished, and supposing that the laughter of the spectators had been provoked by some

  • irreverent reply from the accused, rendered

  • visible to him by that shrug of the shoulders, apostrophized him indignantly,--

  • "You have uttered a reply, knave, which deserves the halter.

  • Do you know to whom you are speaking?"

  • This sally was not fitted to arrest the explosion of general merriment.

  • It struck all as so whimsical, and so ridiculous, that the wild laughter even

  • attacked the sergeants of the Parloi-aux- Bourgeois, a sort of pikemen, whose

  • stupidity was part of their uniform.

  • Quasimodo alone preserved his seriousness, for the good reason that he understood

  • nothing of what was going on around him.

  • The judge, more and more irritated, thought it his duty to continue in the same tone,

  • hoping thereby to strike the accused with a terror which should react upon the

  • audience, and bring it back to respect.

  • "So this is as much as to say, perverse and thieving knave that you are, that you

  • permit yourself to be lacking in respect towards the Auditor of the Chatelet, to the

  • magistrate committed to the popular police

  • of Paris, charged with searching out crimes, delinquencies, and evil conduct;

  • with controlling all trades, and interdicting monopoly; with maintaining the

  • pavements; with debarring the hucksters of

  • chickens, poultry, and water-fowl; of superintending the measuring of fagots and

  • other sorts of wood; of purging the city of mud, and the air of contagious maladies; in

  • a word, with attending continually to

  • public affairs, without wages or hope of salary!

  • Do you know that I am called Florian Barbedienne, actual lieutenant to monsieur

  • the provost, and, moreover, commissioner, inquisitor, controller, and examiner, with

  • equal power in provostship, bailiwick,

  • preservation, and inferior court of judicature?--"

  • There is no reason why a deaf man talking to a deaf man should stop.

  • God knows where and when Master Florian would have landed, when thus launched at

  • full speed in lofty eloquence, if the low door at the extreme end of the room had not

  • suddenly opened, and given entrance to the provost in person.

  • At his entrance Master Florian did not stop short, but, making a half-turn on his

  • heels, and aiming at the provost the harangue with which he had been withering

  • Quasimodo a moment before,--

  • "Monseigneur," said he, "I demand such penalty as you shall deem fitting against

  • the prisoner here present, for grave and aggravated offence against the court."

  • And he seated himself, utterly breathless, wiping away the great drops of sweat which

  • fell from his brow and drenched, like tears, the parchments spread out before

  • him.

  • Messire Robert d'Estouteville frowned and made a gesture so imperious and significant

  • to Quasimodo, that the deaf man in some measure understood it.

  • The provost addressed him with severity, "What have you done that you have been

  • brought hither, knave?"

  • The poor fellow, supposing that the provost was asking his name, broke the silence

  • which he habitually preserved, and replied, in a harsh and guttural voice, "Quasimodo."

  • The reply matched the question so little that the wild laugh began to circulate once

  • more, and Messire Robert exclaimed, red with wrath,--

  • "Are you mocking me also, you arrant knave?"

  • "Bellringer of Notre-Dame," replied Quasimodo, supposing that what was required

  • of him was to explain to the judge who he was.

  • "Bellringer!" interpolated the provost, who had waked up early enough to be in a

  • sufficiently bad temper, as we have said, not to require to have his fury inflamed by

  • such strange responses.

  • "Bellringer! I'll play you a chime of rods on your back

  • through the squares of Paris! Do you hear, knave?"

  • "If it is my age that you wish to know," said Quasimodo, "I think that I shall be

  • twenty at Saint Martin's day." This was too much; the provost could no

  • longer restrain himself.

  • "Ah! you are scoffing at the provostship, wretch!

  • Messieurs the sergeants of the mace, you will take me this knave to the pillory of

  • the Greve, you will flog him, and turn him for an hour.

  • He shall pay me for it, tete Dieu!

  • And I order that the present judgment shall be cried, with the assistance of four sworn

  • trumpeters, in the seven castellanies of the viscomty of Paris."

  • The clerk set to work incontinently to draw up the account of the sentence.

  • "Ventre Dieu!

  • 'tis well adjudged!" cried the little scholar, Jehan Frollo du Moulin, from his

  • corner. The provost turned and fixed his flashing

  • eyes once more on Quasimodo.

  • "I believe the knave said 'Ventre Dieu' Clerk, add twelve deniers Parisian for the

  • oath, and let the vestry of Saint Eustache have the half of it; I have a particular

  • devotion for Saint Eustache."

  • In a few minutes the sentence was drawn up. Its tenor was simple and brief.

  • The customs of the provostship and the viscomty had not yet been worked over by

  • President Thibaut Baillet, and by Roger Barmne, the king's advocate; they had not

  • been obstructed, at that time, by that

  • lofty hedge of quibbles and procedures, which the two jurisconsults planted there

  • at the beginning of the sixteenth century. All was clear, expeditious, explicit.

  • One went straight to the point then, and at the end of every path there was immediately

  • visible, without thickets and without turnings; the wheel, the gibbet, or the

  • pillory.

  • One at least knew whither one was going.

  • The clerk presented the sentence to the provost, who affixed his seal to it, and

  • departed to pursue his round of the audience hall, in a frame of mind which

  • seemed destined to fill all the jails in Paris that day.

  • Jehan Frollo and Robin Poussepain laughed in their sleeves.

  • Quasimodo gazed on the whole with an indifferent and astonished air.

  • However, at the moment when Master Florian Barbedienne was reading the sentence in his

  • turn, before signing it, the clerk felt himself moved with pity for the poor wretch

  • of a prisoner, and, in the hope of

  • obtaining some mitigation of the penalty, he approached as near the auditor's ear as

  • possible, and said, pointing to Quasimodo, "That man is deaf."

  • He hoped that this community of infirmity would awaken Master Florian's interest in

  • behalf of the condemned man.

  • But, in the first place, we have already observed that Master Florian did not care

  • to have his deafness noticed.

  • In the next place, he was so hard of hearing That he did not catch a single word

  • of what the clerk said to him; nevertheless, he wished to have the

  • appearance of hearing, and replied, "Ah! ah! that is different; I did not know that.

  • An hour more of the pillory, in that case." And he signed the sentence thus modified.

  • "'Tis well done," said Robin Poussepain, who cherished a grudge against Quasimodo.

  • "That will teach him to handle people roughly."

  • -BOOK SIXTH. CHAPTER II.

  • THE RAT-HOLE.

  • The reader must permit us to take him back to the Place de Greve, which we quitted

  • yesterday with Gringoire, in order to follow la Esmeralda.

  • It is ten o'clock in the morning; everything is indicative of the day after a

  • festival.

  • The pavement is covered with rubbish; ribbons, rags, feathers from tufts of

  • plumes, drops of wax from the torches, crumbs of the public feast.

  • A goodly number of bourgeois are "sauntering," as we say, here and there,

  • turning over with their feet the extinct brands of the bonfire, going into raptures

  • in front of the Pillar House, over the

  • memory of the fine hangings of the day before, and to-day staring at the nails

  • that secured them a last pleasure. The venders of cider and beer are rolling

  • their barrels among the groups.

  • Some busy passers-by come and go. The merchants converse and call to each

  • other from the thresholds of their shops.

  • The festival, the ambassadors, Coppenole, the Pope of the Fools, are in all mouths;

  • they vie with each other, each trying to criticise it best and laugh the most.

  • And, meanwhile, four mounted sergeants, who have just posted themselves at the four

  • sides of the pillory, have already concentrated around themselves a goodly

  • proportion of the populace scattered on the

  • Place, who condemn themselves to immobility and fatigue in the hope of a small

  • execution.

  • If the reader, after having contemplated this lively and noisy scene which is being

  • enacted in all parts of the Place, will now transfer his gaze towards that ancient

  • demi-Gothic, demi-Romanesque house of the

  • Tour-Roland, which forms the corner on the quay to the west, he will observe, at the

  • angle of the facade, a large public breviary, with rich illuminations,

  • protected from the rain by a little

  • penthouse, and from thieves by a small grating, which, however, permits of the

  • leaves being turned.

  • Beside this breviary is a narrow, arched window, closed by two iron bars in the form

  • of a cross, and looking on the square; the only opening which admits a small quantity

  • of light and air to a little cell without a

  • door, constructed on the ground-floor, in the thickness of the walls of the old

  • house, and filled with a peace all the more profound, with a silence all the more

  • gloomy, because a public place, the most

  • populous and most noisy in Paris swarms and shrieks around it.

  • This little cell had been celebrated in Paris for nearly three centuries, ever

  • since Madame Rolande de la Tour-Roland, in mourning for her father who died in the

  • Crusades, had caused it to be hollowed out

  • in the wall of her own house, in order to immure herself there forever, keeping of

  • all her palace only this lodging whose door was walled up, and whose window stood open,

  • winter and summer, giving all the rest to the poor and to God.

  • The afflicted damsel had, in fact, waited twenty years for death in this premature

  • tomb, praying night and day for the soul of her father, sleeping in ashes, without even

  • a stone for a pillow, clothed in a black

  • sack, and subsisting on the bread and water which the compassion of the passers-by led

  • them to deposit on the ledge of her window, thus receiving charity after having

  • bestowed it.

  • At her death, at the moment when she was passing to the other sepulchre, she had

  • bequeathed this one in perpetuity to afflicted women, mothers, widows, or

  • maidens, who should wish to pray much for

  • others or for themselves, and who should desire to inter themselves alive in a great

  • grief or a great penance.

  • The poor of her day had made her a fine funeral, with tears and benedictions; but,

  • to their great regret, the pious maid had not been canonized, for lack of influence.

  • Those among them who were a little inclined to impiety, had hoped that the matter might

  • be accomplished in Paradise more easily than at Rome, and had frankly besought God,

  • instead of the pope, in behalf of the deceased.

  • The majority had contented themselves with holding the memory of Rolande sacred, and

  • converting her rags into relics.

  • The city, on its side, had founded in honor of the damoiselle, a public breviary, which

  • had been fastened near the window of the cell, in order that passers-by might halt

  • there from time to time, were it only to

  • pray; that prayer might remind them of alms, and that the poor recluses, heiresses

  • of Madame Rolande's vault, might not die outright of hunger and forgetfulness.

  • Moreover, this sort of tomb was not so very rare a thing in the cities of the Middle

  • Ages.

  • One often encountered in the most frequented street, in the most crowded and

  • noisy market, in the very middle, under the feet of the horses, under the wheels of the

  • carts, as it were, a cellar, a well, a tiny

  • walled and grated cabin, at the bottom of which a human being prayed night and day,

  • voluntarily devoted to some eternal lamentation, to some great expiation.

  • And all the reflections which that strange spectacle would awaken in us to-day; that

  • horrible cell, a sort of intermediary link between a house and the tomb, the cemetery

  • and the city; that living being cut off

  • from the human community, and thenceforth reckoned among the dead; that lamp

  • consuming its last drop of oil in the darkness; that remnant of life flickering

  • in the grave; that breath, that voice, that

  • eternal prayer in a box of stone; that face forever turned towards the other world;

  • that eye already illuminated with another sun; that ear pressed to the walls of a

  • tomb; that soul a prisoner in that body;

  • that body a prisoner in that dungeon cell, and beneath that double envelope of flesh

  • and granite, the murmur of that soul in pain;--nothing of all this was perceived by

  • the crowd.

  • The piety of that age, not very subtle nor much given to reasoning, did not see so

  • many facets in an act of religion.

  • It took the thing in the block, honored, venerated, hallowed the sacrifice at need,

  • but did not analyze the sufferings, and felt but moderate pity for them.

  • It brought some pittance to the miserable penitent from time to time, looked through

  • the hole to see whether he were still living, forgot his name, hardly knew how

  • many years ago he had begun to die, and to

  • the stranger, who questioned them about the living skeleton who was perishing in that

  • cellar, the neighbors replied simply, "It is the recluse."

  • Everything was then viewed without metaphysics, without exaggeration, without

  • magnifying glass, with the naked eye.

  • The microscope had not yet been invented, either for things of matter or for things

  • of the mind.

  • Moreover, although people were but little surprised by it, the examples of this sort

  • of cloistration in the hearts of cities were in truth frequent, as we have just

  • said.

  • There were in Paris a considerable number of these cells, for praying to God and

  • doing penance; they were nearly all occupied.

  • It is true that the clergy did not like to have them empty, since that implied

  • lukewarmness in believers, and that lepers were put into them when there were no

  • penitents on hand.

  • Besides the cell on the Greve, there was one at Montfaucon, one at the Charnier des

  • Innocents, another I hardly know where,--at the Clichon House, I think; others still at

  • many spots where traces of them are found in traditions, in default of memorials.

  • The University had also its own.

  • On Mount Sainte-Genevieve a sort of Job of the Middle Ages, for the space of thirty

  • years, chanted the seven penitential psalms on a dunghill at the bottom of a cistern,

  • beginning anew when he had finished,

  • singing loudest at night, magna voce per umbras, and to-day, the antiquary fancies

  • that he hears his voice as he enters the Rue du Puits-qui-parle--the street of the

  • "Speaking Well."

  • To confine ourselves to the cell in the Tour-Roland, we must say that it had never

  • lacked recluses.

  • After the death of Madame Roland, it had stood vacant for a year or two, though

  • rarely. Many women had come thither to mourn, until

  • their death, for relatives, lovers, faults.

  • Parisian malice, which thrusts its finger into everything, even into things which

  • concern it the least, affirmed that it had beheld but few widows there.

  • In accordance with the fashion of the epoch, a Latin inscription on the wall

  • indicated to the learned passer-by the pious purpose of this cell.

  • The custom was retained until the middle of the sixteenth century of explaining an

  • edifice by a brief device inscribed above the door.

  • Thus, one still reads in France, above the wicket of the prison in the seignorial

  • mansion of Tourville, Sileto et spera; in Ireland, beneath the armorial bearings

  • which surmount the grand door to Fortescue

  • Castle, Forte scutum, salus ducum; in England, over the principal entrance to the

  • hospitable mansion of the Earls Cowper: Tuum est.

  • At that time every edifice was a thought.

  • As there was no door to the walled cell of the Tour-Roland, these two words had been

  • carved in large Roman capitals over the window,--

  • TU, ORA.

  • And this caused the people, whose good sense does not perceive so much refinement

  • in things, and likes to translate Ludovico Magno by "Porte Saint-Denis," to give to

  • this dark, gloomy, damp cavity, the name of "The Rat-Hole."

  • An explanation less sublime, perhaps, than the other; but, on the other hand, more

  • picturesque.

  • -BOOK SIXTH. CHAPTER III.

  • HISTORY OF A LEAVENED CAKE OF MAIZE.

  • At the epoch of this history, the cell in the Tour-Roland was occupied.

  • If the reader desires to know by whom, he has only to lend an ear to the conversation

  • of three worthy gossips, who, at the moment when we have directed his attention to the

  • Rat-Hole, were directing their steps

  • towards the same spot, coming up along the water's edge from the Chatelet, towards the

  • Greve. Two of these women were dressed like good

  • bourgeoises of Paris.

  • Their fine white ruffs; their petticoats of linsey-woolsey, striped red and blue; their

  • white knitted stockings, with clocks embroidered in colors, well drawn upon

  • their legs; the square-toed shoes of tawny

  • leather with black soles, and, above all, their headgear, that sort of tinsel horn,

  • loaded down with ribbons and laces, which the women of Champagne still wear, in

  • company with the grenadiers of the imperial

  • guard of Russia, announced that they belonged to that class wives which holds

  • the middle ground between what the lackeys call a woman and what they term a lady.

  • They wore neither rings nor gold crosses, and it was easy to see that, in their ease,

  • this did not proceed from poverty, but simply from fear of being fined.

  • Their companion was attired in very much the same manner; but there was that

  • indescribable something about her dress and bearing which suggested the wife of a

  • provincial notary.

  • One could see, by the way in which her girdle rose above her hips, that she had

  • not been long in Paris.--Add to this a plaited tucker, knots of ribbon on her

  • shoes--and that the stripes of her

  • petticoat ran horizontally instead of vertically, and a thousand other enormities

  • which shocked good taste.

  • The two first walked with that step peculiar to Parisian ladies, showing Paris

  • to women from the country. The provincial held by the hand a big boy,

  • who held in his a large, flat cake.

  • We regret to be obliged to add, that, owing to the rigor of the season, he was using

  • his tongue as a handkerchief.

  • The child was making them drag him along, non passibus Cequis, as Virgil says, and

  • stumbling at every moment, to the great indignation of his mother.

  • It is true that he was looking at his cake more than at the pavement.

  • Some serious motive, no doubt, prevented his biting it (the cake), for he contented

  • himself with gazing tenderly at it.

  • But the mother should have rather taken charge of the cake.

  • It was cruel to make a Tantalus of the chubby-checked boy.

  • Meanwhile, the three demoiselles (for the name of dames was then reserved for noble

  • women) were all talking at once.

  • "Let us make haste, Demoiselle Mahiette," said the youngest of the three, who was

  • also the largest, to the provincial, "I greatly fear that we shall arrive too late;

  • they told us at the Chatelet that they were going to take him directly to the pillory."

  • "Ah, bah! what are you saying, Demoiselle Oudarde Musnier?" interposed the other

  • Parisienne.

  • "There are two hours yet to the pillory. We have time enough.

  • Have you ever seen any one pilloried, my dear Mahiette?"

  • "Yes," said the provincial, "at Reims."

  • "Ah, bah! What is your pillory at Reims?

  • A miserable cage into which only peasants are turned.

  • A great affair, truly!"

  • "Only peasants!" said Mahiette, "at the cloth market in Reims!

  • We have seen very fine criminals there, who have killed their father and mother!

  • Peasants!

  • For what do you take us, Gervaise?" It is certain that the provincial was on

  • the point of taking offence, for the honor of her pillory.

  • Fortunately, that discreet damoiselle, Oudarde Musnier, turned the conversation in

  • time. "By the way, Damoiselle Mahiette, what say

  • you to our Flemish Ambassadors?

  • Have you as fine ones at Reims?" "I admit," replied Mahiette, "that it is

  • only in Paris that such Flemings can be seen."

  • "Did you see among the embassy, that big ambassador who is a hosier?" asked Oudarde.

  • "Yes," said Mahiette. "He has the eye of a Saturn."

  • "And the big fellow whose face resembles a bare belly?" resumed Gervaise.

  • "And the little one, with small eyes framed in red eyelids, pared down and slashed up

  • like a thistle head?"

  • "'Tis their horses that are worth seeing," said Oudarde, "caparisoned as they are

  • after the fashion of their country!"

  • "Ah my dear," interrupted provincial Mahiette, assuming in her turn an air of

  • superiority, "what would you say then, if you had seen in '61, at the consecration at

  • Reims, eighteen years ago, the horses of the princes and of the king's company?

  • Housings and caparisons of all sorts; some of damask cloth, of fine cloth of gold,

  • furred with sables; others of velvet, furred with ermine; others all embellished

  • with goldsmith's work and large bells of gold and silver!

  • And what money that had cost! And what handsome boy pages rode upon

  • them!"

  • "That," replied Oudarde dryly, "does not prevent the Flemings having very fine

  • horses, and having had a superb supper yesterday with monsieur, the provost of the

  • merchants, at the Hotel-de-Ville, where

  • they were served with comfits and hippocras, and spices, and other

  • singularities." "What are you saying, neighbor!" exclaimed

  • Gervaise.

  • "It was with monsieur the cardinal, at the Petit Bourbon that they supped."

  • "Not at all. At the Hotel-de-Ville.

  • "Yes, indeed.

  • At the Petit Bourbon!" "It was at the Hotel-de-Ville," retorted

  • Oudarde sharply, "and Dr. Scourable addressed them a harangue in Latin, which

  • pleased them greatly.

  • My husband, who is sworn bookseller told me."

  • "It was at the Petit Bourbon," replied Gervaise, with no less spirit, "and this is

  • what monsieur the cardinal's procurator presented to them: twelve double quarts of

  • hippocras, white, claret, and red; twenty-

  • four boxes of double Lyons marchpane, gilded; as many torches, worth two livres a

  • piece; and six demi-queues of Beaune wine, white and claret, the best that could be

  • found.

  • I have it from my husband, who is a cinquantenier, at the Parloir-aux

  • Bourgeois, and who was this morning comparing the Flemish ambassadors with

  • those of Prester John and the Emperor of

  • Trebizond, who came from Mesopotamia to Paris, under the last king, and who wore

  • rings in their ears."

  • "So true is it that they supped at the Hotel-de-Ville," replied Oudarde but little

  • affected by this catalogue, "that such a triumph of viands and comfits has never

  • been seen."

  • "I tell you that they were served by Le Sec, sergeant of the city, at the Hotel du

  • Petit-Bourbon, and that that is where you are mistaken."

  • "At the Hotel-de-Ville, I tell you!"

  • "At the Petit-Bourbon, my dear! and they had illuminated with magic glasses the word

  • hope, which is written on the grand portal."

  • "At the Hotel-de-Ville!

  • At the Hotel-de-Ville! And Husson-le-Voir played the flute!"

  • "I tell you, no!" "I tell you, yes!"

  • "I say, no!"

  • Plump and worthy Oudarde was preparing to retort, and the quarrel might, perhaps,

  • have proceeded to a pulling of caps, had not Mahiette suddenly exclaimed,--"Look at

  • those people assembled yonder at the end of the bridge!

  • There is something in their midst that they are looking at!"

  • "In sooth," said Gervaise, "I hear the sounds of a tambourine.

  • I believe 'tis the little Esmeralda, who plays her mummeries with her goat.

  • Eh, be quick, Mahiette! redouble your pace and drag along your boy.

  • You are come hither to visit the curiosities of Paris.

  • You saw the Flemings yesterday; you must see the gypsy to-day."

  • "The gypsy!" said Mahiette, suddenly retracing her steps, and clasping her son's

  • arm forcibly.

  • "God preserve me from it! She would steal my child from me!

  • Come, Eustache!"

  • And she set out on a run along the quay towards the Greve, until she had left the

  • bridge far behind her.

  • In the meanwhile, the child whom she was dragging after her fell upon his knees; she

  • halted breathless. Oudarde and Gervaise rejoined her.

  • "That gypsy steal your child from you!" said Gervaise.

  • "That's a singular freak of yours!" Mahiette shook her head with a pensive air.

  • "The singular point is," observed Oudarde, "that la sachette has the same idea about

  • the Egyptian woman." "What is la sachette?" asked Mahiette.

  • "He!" said Oudarde, "Sister Gudule."

  • "And who is Sister Gudule?" persisted Mahiette.

  • "You are certainly ignorant of all but your Reims, not to know that!" replied Oudarde.

  • "'Tis the recluse of the Rat-Hole."

  • "What!" demanded Mahiette, "that poor woman to whom we are carrying this cake?"

  • Oudarde nodded affirmatively. "Precisely.

  • You will see her presently at her window on the Greve.

  • She has the same opinion as yourself of these vagabonds of Egypt, who play the

  • tambourine and tell fortunes to the public.

  • No one knows whence comes her horror of the gypsies and Egyptians.

  • But you, Mahiette--why do you run so at the mere sight of them?"

  • "Oh!" said Mahiette, seizing her child's round head in both hands, "I don't want

  • that to happen to me which happened to Paquette la Chantefleurie."

  • "Oh! you must tell us that story, my good Mahiette," said Gervaise, taking her arm.

  • "Gladly," replied Mahiette, "but you must be ignorant of all but your Paris not to

  • know that!

  • I will tell you then (but 'tis not necessary for us to halt that I may tell

  • you the tale), that Paquette la Chantefleurie was a pretty maid of eighteen

  • when I was one myself, that is to say,

  • eighteen years ago, and 'tis her own fault if she is not to-day, like me, a good,

  • plump, fresh mother of six and thirty, with a husband and a son.

  • However, after the age of fourteen, it was too late!

  • Well, she was the daughter of Guybertant, minstrel of the barges at Reims, the same

  • who had played before King Charles VII., at his coronation, when he descended our river

  • Vesle from Sillery to Muison, when Madame

  • the Maid of Orleans was also in the boat.

  • The old father died when Paquette was still a mere child; she had then no one but her

  • mother, the sister of M. Pradon, master- brazier and coppersmith in Paris, Rue Farm-

  • Garlin, who died last year.

  • You see she was of good family.

  • The mother was a good simple woman, unfortunately, and she taught Paquette

  • nothing but a bit of embroidery and toy- making which did not prevent the little one

  • from growing very large and remaining very poor.

  • They both dwelt at Reims, on the river front, Rue de Folle-Peine.

  • Mark this: For I believe it was this which brought misfortune to Paquette.

  • In '61, the year of the coronation of our King Louis XI. whom God preserve!

  • Paquette was so gay and so pretty that she was called everywhere by no other name than

  • "la Chantefleurie"--blossoming song. Poor girl!

  • She had handsome teeth, she was fond of laughing and displaying them.

  • Now, a maid who loves to laugh is on the road to weeping; handsome teeth ruin

  • handsome eyes.

  • So she was la Chantefleurie.

  • She and her mother earned a precarious living; they had been very destitute since

  • the death of the minstrel; their embroidery did not bring them in more than six

  • farthings a week, which does not amount to quite two eagle liards.

  • Where were the days when Father Guybertant had earned twelve sous parisian, in a

  • single coronation, with a song?

  • One winter (it was in that same year of '61), when the two women had neither fagots

  • nor firewood, it was very cold, which gave la Chantefleurie such a fine color that the

  • men called her Paquette! and many called

  • her Paquerette! and she was ruined.-- Eustache, just let me see you bite that

  • cake if you dare!--We immediately perceived that she was ruined, one Sunday when she

  • came to church with a gold cross about her neck.

  • At fourteen years of age! do you see?

  • First it was the young Vicomte de Cormontreuil, who has his bell tower three

  • leagues distant from Reims; then Messire Henri de Triancourt, equerry to the King;

  • then less than that, Chiart de Beaulion,

  • sergeant-at-arms; then, still descending, Guery Aubergeon, carver to the King; then,

  • Mace de Frepus, barber to monsieur the dauphin; then, Thevenin le Moine, King's

  • cook; then, the men growing continually

  • younger and less noble, she fell to Guillaume Racine, minstrel of the hurdy

  • gurdy and to Thierry de Mer, lamplighter.

  • Then, poor Chantefleurie, she belonged to every one: she had reached the last sou of

  • her gold piece. What shall I say to you, my damoiselles?

  • At the coronation, in the same year, '61, 'twas she who made the bed of the king of

  • the debauchees! In the same year!"

  • Mahiette sighed, and wiped away a tear which trickled from her eyes.

  • "This is no very extraordinary history," said Gervaise, "and in the whole of it I

  • see nothing of any Egyptian women or children."

  • "Patience!" resumed Mahiette, "you will see one child.--In '66, 'twill be sixteen years

  • ago this month, at Sainte-Paule's day, Paquette was brought to bed of a little

  • girl.

  • The unhappy creature! it was a great joy to her; she had long wished for a child.

  • Her mother, good woman, who had never known what to do except to shut her eyes, her

  • mother was dead.

  • Paquette had no longer any one to love in the world or any one to love her.

  • La Chantefleurie had been a poor creature during the five years since her fall.

  • She was alone, alone in this life, fingers were pointed at her, she was hooted at in

  • the streets, beaten by the sergeants, jeered at by the little boys in rags.

  • And then, twenty had arrived: and twenty is an old age for amorous women.

  • Folly began to bring her in no more than her trade of embroidery in former days; for

  • every wrinkle that came, a crown fled; winter became hard to her once more, wood

  • became rare again in her brazier, and bread in her cupboard.

  • She could no longer work because, in becoming voluptuous, she had grown lazy;

  • and she suffered much more because, in growing lazy, she had become voluptuous.

  • At least, that is the way in which monsieur the cure of Saint-Remy explains why these

  • women are colder and hungrier than other poor women, when they are old."

  • "Yes," remarked Gervaise, "but the gypsies?"

  • "One moment, Gervaise!" said Oudarde, whose attention was less impatient.

  • "What would be left for the end if all were in the beginning?

  • Continue, Mahiette, I entreat you. That poor Chantefleurie!"

  • Mahiette went on.

  • "So she was very sad, very miserable, and furrowed her cheeks with tears.

  • But in the midst of her shame, her folly, her debauchery, it seemed to her that she

  • should be less wild, less shameful, less dissipated, if there were something or some

  • one in the world whom she could love, and who could love her.

  • It was necessary that it should be a child, because only a child could be sufficiently

  • innocent for that.

  • She had recognized this fact after having tried to love a thief, the only man who

  • wanted her; but after a short time, she perceived that the thief despised her.

  • Those women of love require either a lover or a child to fill their hearts.

  • Otherwise, they are very unhappy.

  • As she could not have a lover, she turned wholly towards a desire for a child, and as

  • she had not ceased to be pious, she made her constant prayer to the good God for it.

  • So the good God took pity on her, and gave her a little daughter.

  • I will not speak to you of her joy; it was a fury of tears, and caresses, and kisses.

  • She nursed her child herself, made swaddling-bands for it out of her coverlet,

  • the only one which she had on her bed, and no longer felt either cold or hunger.

  • She became beautiful once more, in consequence of it.

  • An old maid makes a young mother.

  • Gallantry claimed her once more; men came to see la Chantefleurie; she found

  • customers again for her merchandise, and out of all these horrors she made baby

  • clothes, caps and bibs, bodices with

  • shoulder-straps of lace, and tiny bonnets of satin, without even thinking of buying

  • herself another coverlet.--Master Eustache, I have already told you not to eat that

  • cake.--It is certain that little Agnes,

  • that was the child's name, a baptismal name, for it was a long time since la

  • Chantefleurie had had any surname--it is certain that that little one was more

  • swathed in ribbons and embroideries than a dauphiness of Dauphiny!

  • Among other things, she had a pair of little shoes, the like of which King Louis

  • XI. certainly never had!

  • Her mother had stitched and embroidered them herself; she had lavished on them all

  • the delicacies of her art of embroideress, and all the embellishments of a robe for

  • the good Virgin.

  • They certainly were the two prettiest little pink shoes that could be seen.

  • They were no longer than my thumb, and one had to see the child's little feet come out

  • of them, in order to believe that they had been able to get into them.

  • 'Tis true that those little feet were so small, so pretty, so rosy! rosier than the

  • satin of the shoes!

  • When you have children, Oudarde, you will find that there is nothing prettier than

  • those little hands and feet."

  • "I ask no better," said Oudarde with a sigh, "but I am waiting until it shall suit

  • the good pleasure of M. Andry Musnier." "However, Paquette's child had more that

  • was pretty about it besides its feet.

  • I saw her when she was only four months old; she was a love!

  • She had eyes larger than her mouth, and the most charming black hair, which already

  • curled.

  • She would have been a magnificent brunette at the age of sixteen!

  • Her mother became more crazy over her every day.

  • She kissed her, caressed her, tickled her, washed her, decked her out, devoured her!

  • She lost her head over her, she thanked God for her.

  • Her pretty, little rosy feet above all were an endless source of wonderment, they were

  • a delirium of joy!

  • She was always pressing her lips to them, and she could never recover from her

  • amazement at their smallness.

  • She put them into the tiny shoes, took them out, admired them, marvelled at them,

  • looked at the light through them, was curious to see them try to walk on her bed,

  • and would gladly have passed her life on

  • her knees, putting on and taking off the shoes from those feet, as though they had

  • been those of an Infant Jesus."

  • "The tale is fair and good," said Gervaise in a low tone; "but where do gypsies come

  • into all that?" "Here," replied Mahiette.

  • "One day there arrived in Reims a very queer sort of people.

  • They were beggars and vagabonds who were roaming over the country, led by their duke

  • and their counts.

  • They were browned by exposure to the sun, they had closely curling hair, and silver

  • rings in their ears. The women were still uglier than the men.

  • They had blacker faces, which were always uncovered, a miserable frock on their

  • bodies, an old cloth woven of cords bound upon their shoulder, and their hair hanging

  • like the tail of a horse.

  • The children who scrambled between their legs would have frightened as many monkeys.

  • A band of excommunicates. All these persons came direct from lower

  • Egypt to Reims through Poland.

  • The Pope had confessed them, it was said, and had prescribed to them as penance to

  • roam through the world for seven years, without sleeping in a bed; and so they were

  • called penancers, and smelt horribly.

  • It appears that they had formerly been Saracens, which was why they believed in

  • Jupiter, and claimed ten livres of Tournay from all archbishops, bishops, and mitred

  • abbots with croziers.

  • A bull from the Pope empowered them to do that.

  • They came to Reims to tell fortunes in the name of the King of Algiers, and the

  • Emperor of Germany.

  • You can readily imagine that no more was needed to cause the entrance to the town to

  • be forbidden them.

  • Then the whole band camped with good grace outside the gate of Braine, on that hill

  • where stands a mill, beside the cavities of the ancient chalk pits.

  • And everybody in Reims vied with his neighbor in going to see them.

  • They looked at your hand, and told you marvellous prophecies; they were equal to

  • predicting to Judas that he would become Pope.

  • Nevertheless, ugly rumors were in circulation in regard to them; about

  • children stolen, purses cut, and human flesh devoured.

  • The wise people said to the foolish: "Don't go there!" and then went themselves on the

  • sly. It was an infatuation.

  • The fact is, that they said things fit to astonish a cardinal.

  • Mothers triumphed greatly over their little ones after the Egyptians had read in their

  • hands all sorts of marvels written in pagan and in Turkish.

  • One had an emperor; another, a pope; another, a captain.

  • Poor Chantefleurie was seized with curiosity; she wished to know about

  • herself, and whether her pretty little Agnes would not become some day Empress of

  • Armenia, or something else.

  • So she carried her to the Egyptians; and the Egyptian women fell to admiring the

  • child, and to caressing it, and to kissing it with their black mouths, and to

  • marvelling over its little band, alas! to the great joy of the mother.

  • They were especially enthusiastic over her pretty feet and shoes.

  • The child was not yet a year old.

  • She already lisped a little, laughed at her mother like a little mad thing, was plump

  • and quite round, and possessed a thousand charming little gestures of the angels of

  • paradise.

  • "She was very much frightened by the Egyptians, and wept.

  • But her mother kissed her more warmly and went away enchanted with the good fortune

  • which the soothsayers had foretold for her Agnes.

  • She was to be a beauty, virtuous, a queen.

  • So she returned to her attic in the Rue Folle-Peine, very proud of bearing with her

  • a queen.

  • The next day she took advantage of a moment when the child was asleep on her bed, (for

  • they always slept together), gently left the door a little way open, and ran to tell

  • a neighbor in the Rue de la Sechesserie,

  • that the day would come when her daughter Agnes would be served at table by the King

  • of England and the Archduke of Ethiopia, and a hundred other marvels.

  • On her return, hearing no cries on the staircase, she said to herself: 'Good! the

  • child is still asleep!'

  • She found her door wider open than she had left it, but she entered, poor mother, and

  • ran to the bed.---The child was no longer there, the place was empty.

  • Nothing remained of the child, but one of her pretty little shoes.

  • She flew out of the room, dashed down the stairs, and began to beat her head against

  • the wall, crying: 'My child! who has my child?

  • Who has taken my child?'

  • The street was deserted, the house isolated; no one could tell her anything

  • about it.

  • She went about the town, searched all the streets, ran hither and thither the whole

  • day long, wild, beside herself, terrible, snuffing at doors and windows like a wild

  • beast which has lost its young.

  • She was breathless, dishevelled, frightful to see, and there was a fire in her eyes

  • which dried her tears.

  • She stopped the passers-by and cried: 'My daughter! my daughter! my pretty little

  • daughter!

  • If any one will give me back my daughter, I will be his servant, the servant of his

  • dog, and he shall eat my heart if he will.'

  • She met M. le Cure of Saint-Remy, and said to him: 'Monsieur, I will till the earth

  • with my finger-nails, but give me back my child!'

  • It was heartrending, Oudarde; and IL saw a very hard man, Master Ponce Lacabre, the

  • procurator, weep. Ah! poor mother!

  • In the evening she returned home.

  • During her absence, a neighbor had seen two gypsies ascend up to it with a bundle in

  • their arms, then descend again, after closing the door.

  • After their departure, something like the cries of a child were heard in Paquette's

  • room.

  • The mother, burst into shrieks of laughter, ascended the stairs as though on wings, and

  • entered.--A frightful thing to tell, Oudarde!

  • Instead of her pretty little Agnes, so rosy and so fresh, who was a gift of the good

  • God, a sort of hideous little monster, lame, one-eyed, deformed, was crawling and

  • squalling over the floor.

  • She hid her eyes in horror. 'Oh!' said she, 'have the witches

  • transformed my daughter into this horrible animal?'

  • They hastened to carry away the little club-foot; he would have driven her mad.

  • It was the monstrous child of some gypsy woman, who had given herself to the devil.

  • He appeared to be about four years old, and talked a language which was no human

  • tongue; there were words in it which were impossible.

  • La Chantefleurie flung herself upon the little shoe, all that remained to her of

  • all that she loved.

  • She remained so long motionless over it, mute, and without breath, that they thought

  • she was dead.

  • Suddenly she trembled all over, covered her relic with furious kisses, and burst out

  • sobbing as though her heart were broken. I assure you that we were all weeping also.

  • She said: 'Oh, my little daughter! my pretty little daughter! where art thou?'--

  • and it wrung your very heart. I weep still when I think of it.

  • Our children are the marrow of our bones, you see.---My poor Eustache! thou art so

  • fair!--If you only knew how nice he is! yesterday he said to me: 'I want to be a

  • gendarme, that I do.'

  • Oh! my Eustache! if I were to lose thee!-- All at once la Chantefleurie rose, and set

  • out to run through Reims, screaming: 'To the gypsies' camp! to the gypsies' camp!

  • Police, to burn the witches!'

  • The gypsies were gone. It was pitch dark.

  • They could not be followed.

  • On the morrow, two leagues from Reims, on a heath between Gueux and Tilloy, the remains

  • of a large fire were found, some ribbons which had belonged to Paquette's child,

  • drops of blood, and the dung of a ram.

  • The night just past had been a Saturday.

  • There was no longer any doubt that the Egyptians had held their Sabbath on that

  • heath, and that they had devoured the child in company with Beelzebub, as the practice

  • is among the Mahometans.

  • When La Chantefleurie learned these horrible things, she did not weep, she

  • moved her lips as though to speak, but could not.

  • On the morrow, her hair was gray.

  • On the second day, she had disappeared. "'Tis in truth, a frightful tale," said

  • Oudarde, "and one which would make even a Burgundian weep."

  • "I am no longer surprised," added Gervaise, "that fear of the gypsies should spur you

  • on so sharply."

  • "And you did all the better," resumed Oudarde, "to flee with your Eustache just

  • now, since these also are gypsies from Poland."

  • "No," said Gervais, "'tis said that they come from Spain and Catalonia."

  • "Catalonia? 'tis possible," replied Oudarde.

  • "Pologne, Catalogue, Valogne, I always confound those three provinces, One thing

  • is certain, that they are gypsies." "Who certainly," added Gervaise, "have

  • teeth long enough to eat little children.

  • I should not be surprised if la Smeralda ate a little of them also, though she

  • pretends to be dainty.

  • Her white goat knows tricks that are too malicious for there not to be some impiety

  • underneath it all." Mahiette walked on in silence.

  • She was absorbed in that revery which is, in some sort, the continuation of a

  • mournful tale, and which ends only after having communicated the emotion, from

  • vibration to vibration, even to the very last fibres of the heart.

  • Nevertheless, Gervaise addressed her, "And did they ever learn what became of la

  • Chantefleurie?"

  • Mahiette made no reply. Gervaise repeated her question, and shook

  • her arm, calling her by name. Mahiette appeared to awaken from her

  • thoughts.

  • "What became of la Chantefleurie?" she said, repeating mechanically the words

  • whose impression was still fresh in her ear; then, ma king an effort to recall her

  • attention to the meaning of her words,

  • "Ah!" she continued briskly, "no one ever found out."

  • She added, after a pause,--

  • "Some said that she had been seen to quit Reims at nightfall by the Flechembault

  • gate; others, at daybreak, by the old Basee gate.

  • A poor man found her gold cross hanging on the stone cross in the field where the fair

  • is held. It was that ornament which had wrought her

  • ruin, in '61.

  • It was a gift from the handsome Vicomte de Cormontreuil, her first lover.

  • Paquette had never been willing to part with it, wretched as she had been.

  • She had clung to it as to life itself.

  • So, when we saw that cross abandoned, we all thought that she was dead.

  • Nevertheless, there were people of the Cabaret les Vantes, who said that they had

  • seen her pass along the road to Paris, walking on the pebbles with her bare feet.

  • But, in that case, she must have gone out through the Porte de Vesle, and all this

  • does not agree.

  • Or, to speak more truly, I believe that she actually did depart by the Porte de Vesle,

  • but departed from this world." "I do not understand you," said Gervaise.

  • "La Vesle," replied Mahiette, with a melancholy smile, "is the river."

  • "Poor Chantefleurie!" said Oudarde, with a shiver,--"drowned!"

  • "Drowned!" resumed Mahiette, "who could have told good Father Guybertant, when he

  • passed under the bridge of Tingueux with the current, singing in his barge, that one

  • day his dear little Paquette would also

  • pass beneath that bridge, but without song or boat.

  • "And the little shoe?" asked Gervaise. "Disappeared with the mother," replied

  • Mahiette.

  • "Poor little shoe!" said Oudarde. Oudarde, a big and tender woman, would have

  • been well pleased to sigh in company with Mahiette.

  • But Gervaise, more curious, had not finished her questions.

  • "And the monster?" she said suddenly, to Mahiette.

  • "What monster?" inquired the latter.

  • "The little gypsy monster left by the sorceresses in Chantefleurie's chamber, in

  • exchange for her daughter. What did you do with it?

  • I hope you drowned it also."

  • "No." replied Mahiette. "What?

  • You burned it then? In sooth, that is more just.

  • A witch child!"

  • "Neither the one nor the other, Gervaise.

  • Monseigneur the archbishop interested himself in the child of Egypt, exorcised

  • it, blessed it, removed the devil carefully from its body, and sent it to Paris, to be

  • exposed on the wooden bed at Notre-Dame, as a foundling."

  • "Those bishops!" grumbled Gervaise, "because they are learned, they do nothing

  • like anybody else.

  • I just put it to you, Oudarde, the idea of placing the devil among the foundlings!

  • For that little monster was assuredly the devil.

  • Well, Mahiette, what did they do with it in Paris?

  • I am quite sure that no charitable person wanted it."

  • "I do not know," replied the Remoise, "'twas just at that time that my husband

  • bought the office of notary, at Bern, two leagues from the town, and we were no

  • longer occupied with that story; besides,

  • in front of Bern, stand the two hills of Cernay, which hide the towers of the

  • cathedral in Reims from view."

  • While chatting thus, the three worthy bourgeoises had arrived at the Place de

  • Greve.

  • In their absorption, they had passed the public breviary of the Tour-Roland without

  • stopping, and took their way mechanically towards the pillory around which the throng

  • was growing more dense with every moment.

  • It is probable that the spectacle which at that moment attracted all looks in that

  • direction, would have made them forget completely the Rat-Hole, and the halt which

  • they intended to make there, if big

  • Eustache, six years of age, whom Mahiette was dragging along by the hand, had not

  • abruptly recalled the object to them: "Mother," said he, as though some instinct

  • warned him that the Rat-Hole was behind him, "can I eat the cake now?"

  • If Eustache had been more adroit, that is to say, less greedy, he would have

  • continued to wait, and would only have hazarded that simple question, "Mother, can

  • I eat the cake, now?" on their return to

  • the University, to Master Andry Musnier's, Rue Madame la Valence, when he had the two

  • arms of the Seine and the five bridges of the city between the Rat-Hole and the cake.

  • This question, highly imprudent at the moment when Eustache put it, aroused

  • Mahiette's attention. "By the way," she exclaimed, "we are

  • forgetting the recluse!

  • Show me the Rat-Hole, that I may carry her her cake."

  • "Immediately," said Oudarde, "'tis a charity."

  • But this did not suit Eustache.

  • "Stop! my cake!" said he, rubbing both ears alternatively with his shoulders, which, in

  • such cases, is the supreme sign of discontent.

  • The three women retraced their steps, and, on arriving in the vicinity of the Tour-

  • Roland, Oudarde said to the other two,-- "We must not all three gaze into the hole

  • at once, for fear of alarming the recluse.

  • Do you two pretend to read the Dominus in the breviary, while I thrust my nose into

  • the aperture; the recluse knows me a little.

  • I will give you warning when you can approach."

  • She proceeded alone to the window.

  • At the moment when she looked in, a profound pity was depicted on all her

  • features, and her frank, gay visage altered its expression and color as abruptly as

  • though it had passed from a ray of sunlight

  • to a ray of moonlight; her eye became humid; her mouth contracted, like that of a

  • person on the point of weeping.

  • A moment later, she laid her finger on her lips, and made a sign to Mahiette to draw

  • near and look.

  • Mahiette, much touched, stepped up in silence, on tiptoe, as though approaching

  • the bedside of a dying person.

  • It was, in fact, a melancholy spectacle which presented itself to the eyes of the

  • two women, as they gazed through the grating of the Rat-Hole, neither stirring

  • nor breathing.

  • The cell was small, broader than it was long, with an arched ceiling, and viewed

  • from within, it bore a considerable resemblance to the interior of a huge

  • bishop's mitre.

  • On the bare flagstones which formed the floor, in one corner, a woman was sitting,

  • or rather, crouching.

  • Her chin rested on her knees, which her crossed arms pressed forcibly to her

  • breast.

  • Thus doubled up, clad in a brown sack, which enveloped her entirely in large

  • folds, her long, gray hair pulled over in front, falling over her face and along her

  • legs nearly to her feet, she presented, at

  • the first glance, only a strange form outlined against the dark background of the

  • cell, a sort of dusky triangle, which the ray of daylight falling through the

  • opening, cut roughly into two shades, the one sombre, the other illuminated.

  • It was one of those spectres, half light, half shadow, such as one beholds in dreams

  • and in the extraordinary work of Goya, pale, motionless, sinister, crouching over

  • a tomb, or leaning against the grating of a prison cell.

  • It was neither a woman, nor a man, nor a living being, nor a definite form; it was a

  • figure, a sort of vision, in which the real and the fantastic intersected each other,

  • like darkness and day.

  • It was with difficulty that one distinguished, beneath her hair which

  • spread to the ground, a gaunt and severe profile; her dress barely allowed the

  • extremity of a bare foot to escape, which contracted on the hard, cold pavement.

  • The little of human form of which one caught a sight beneath this envelope of

  • mourning, caused a shudder.

  • That figure, which one might have supposed to be riveted to the flagstones, appeared

  • to possess neither movement, nor thought, nor breath.

  • Lying, in January, in that thin, linen sack, lying on a granite floor, without

  • fire, in the gloom of a cell whose oblique air-hole allowed only the cold breeze, but

  • never the sun, to enter from without, she did not appear to suffer or even to think.

  • One would have said that she had turned to stone with the cell, ice with the season.

  • Her hands were clasped, her eyes fixed.

  • At first sight one took her for a spectre; at the second, for a statue.

  • Nevertheless, at intervals, her blue lips half opened to admit a breath, and

  • trembled, but as dead and as mechanical as the leaves which the wind sweeps aside.

  • Nevertheless, from her dull eyes there escaped a look, an ineffable look, a

  • profound, lugubrious, imperturbable look, incessantly fixed upon a corner of the cell

  • which could not be seen from without; a

  • gaze which seemed to fix all the sombre thoughts of that soul in distress upon some

  • mysterious object.

  • Such was the creature who had received, from her habitation, the name of the

  • "recluse"; and, from her garment, the name of "the sacked nun."

  • The three women, for Gervaise had rejoined Mahiette and Oudarde, gazed through the

  • window.

  • Their heads intercepted the feeble light in the cell, without the wretched being whom

  • they thus deprived of it seeming to pay any attention to them.

  • "Do not let us trouble her," said Oudarde, in a low voice, "she is in her ecstasy; she

  • is praying."

  • Meanwhile, Mahiette was gazing with ever- increasing anxiety at that wan, withered,

  • dishevelled head, and her eyes filled with tears.

  • "This is very singular," she murmured.

  • She thrust her head through the bars, and succeeded in casting a glance at the corner

  • where the gaze of the unhappy woman was immovably riveted.

  • When she withdrew her head from the window, her countenance was inundated with tears.

  • "What do you call that woman?" she asked Oudarde.

  • Oudarde replied,--

  • "We call her Sister Gudule." "And I," returned Mahiette, "call her

  • Paquette la Chantefleurie."

  • Then, laying her finger on her lips, she motioned to the astounded Oudarde to thrust

  • her head through the window and look.

  • Oudarde looked and beheld, in the corner where the eyes of the recluse were fixed in

  • that sombre ecstasy, a tiny shoe of pink satin, embroidered with a thousand fanciful

  • designs in gold and silver.

  • Gervaise looked after Oudarde, and then the three women, gazing upon the unhappy

  • mother, began to weep. But neither their looks nor their tears

  • disturbed the recluse.

  • Her hands remained clasped; her lips mute; her eyes fixed; and that little shoe, thus

  • gazed at, broke the heart of any one who knew her history.

  • The three women had not yet uttered a single word; they dared not speak, even in

  • a low voice.

  • This deep silence, this deep grief, this profound oblivion in which everything had

  • disappeared except one thing, produced upon them the effect of the grand altar at

  • Christmas or Easter.

  • They remained silent, they meditated, they were ready to kneel.

  • It seemed to them that they were ready to enter a church on the day of Tenebrae.

  • At length Gervaise, the most curious of the three, and consequently the least

  • sensitive, tried to make the recluse speak: "Sister!

  • Sister Gudule!"

  • She repeated this call three times, raising her voice each time.

  • The recluse did not move; not a word, not a glance, not a sigh, not a sign of life.

  • Oudarde, in her turn, in a sweeter, more caressing voice,--"Sister!" said she,

  • "Sister Sainte-Gudule!" The same silence; the same immobility.

  • "A singular woman!" exclaimed Gervaise, "and one not to be moved by a catapult!"

  • "Perchance she is deaf," said Oudarde. "Perhaps she is blind," added Gervaise.

  • "Dead, perchance," returned Mahiette.

  • It is certain that if the soul had not already quitted this inert, sluggish,

  • lethargic body, it had at least retreated and concealed itself in depths whither the

  • perceptions of the exterior organs no longer penetrated.

  • "Then we must leave the cake on the window," said Oudarde; "some scamp will

  • take it.

  • What shall we do to rouse her?"

  • Eustache, who, up to that moment had been diverted by a little carriage drawn by a

  • large dog, which had just passed, suddenly perceived that his three conductresses were

  • gazing at something through the window,

  • and, curiosity taking possession of him in his turn, he climbed upon a stone post,

  • elevated himself on tiptoe, and applied his fat, red face to the opening, shouting,

  • "Mother, let me see too!"

  • At the sound of this clear, fresh, ringing child's voice, the recluse trembled; she

  • turned her head with the sharp, abrupt movement of a steel spring, her long,

  • fleshless hands cast aside the hair from

  • her brow, and she fixed upon the child, bitter, astonished, desperate eyes.

  • This glance was but a lightning flash.

  • "Oh my God!" she suddenly exclaimed, hiding her head on her knees, and it seemed as

  • though her hoarse voice tore her chest as it passed from it, "do not show me those of

  • others!"

  • "Good day, madam," said the child, gravely. Nevertheless, this shock had, so to speak,

  • awakened the recluse.

  • A long shiver traversed her frame from head to foot; her teeth chattered; she half

  • raised her head and said, pressing her elbows against her hips, and clasping her

  • feet in her hands as though to warm them,--

  • "Oh, how cold it is!" "Poor woman!" said Oudarde, with great

  • compassion, "would you like a little fire?" She shook her head in token of refusal.

  • "Well," resumed Oudarde, presenting her with a flagon; "here is some hippocras

  • which will warm you; drink it." Again she shook her head, looked at Oudarde

  • fixedly and replied, "Water."

  • Oudarde persisted,--"No, sister, that is no beverage for January.

  • You must drink a little hippocras and eat this leavened cake of maize, which we have

  • baked for you."

  • She refused the cake which Mahiette offered to her, and said, "Black bread."

  • "Come," said Gervaise, seized in her turn with an impulse of charity, and unfastening

  • her woolen cloak, "here is a cloak which is a little warmer than yours."

  • She refused the cloak as she had refused the flagon and the cake, and replied, "A

  • sack."

  • "But," resumed the good Oudarde, "you must have perceived to some extent, that

  • yesterday was a festival."

  • "I do perceive it," said the recluse; "'tis two days now since I have had any water in

  • my crock." She added, after a silence, "'Tis a

  • festival, I am forgotten.

  • People do well. Why should the world think of me, when I do

  • not think of it? Cold charcoal makes cold ashes."

  • And as though fatigued with having said so much, she dropped her head on her knees

  • again.

  • The simple and charitable Oudarde, who fancied that she understood from her last

  • words that she was complaining of the cold, replied innocently, "Then you would like a

  • little fire?"

  • "Fire!" said the sacked nun, with a strange accent; "and will you also make a little

  • for the poor little one who has been beneath the sod for these fifteen years?"

  • Every limb was trembling, her voice quivered, her eyes flashed, she had raised

  • herself upon her knees; suddenly she extended her thin, white hand towards the

  • child, who was regarding her with a look of astonishment.

  • "Take away that child!" she cried. "The Egyptian woman is about to pass by."

  • Then she fell face downward on the earth, and her forehead struck the stone, with the

  • sound of one stone against another stone. The three women thought her dead.

  • A moment later, however, she moved, and they beheld her drag herself, on her knees

  • and elbows, to the corner where the little shoe was.

  • Then they dared not look; they no longer saw her; but they heard a thousand kisses

  • and a thousand sighs, mingled with heartrending cries, and dull blows like

  • those of a head in contact with a wall.

  • Then, after one of these blows, so violent that all three of them staggered, they

  • heard no more.

  • "Can she have killed herself?" said Gervaise, venturing to pass her head

  • through the air-hole. "Sister!

  • Sister Gudule!"

  • "Sister Gudule!" repeated Oudarde. "Ah! good heavens! she no longer moves!"

  • resumed Gervaise; "is she dead? Gudule!

  • Gudule!"

  • Mahiette, choked to such a point that she could not speak, made an effort.

  • "Wait," said she.

  • Then bending towards the window, "Paquette!" she said, "Paquette le

  • Chantefleurie!"

  • A child who innocently blows upon the badly ignited fuse of a bomb, and makes it

  • explode in his face, is no more terrified than was Mahiette at the effect of that

  • name, abruptly launched into the cell of Sister Gudule.

  • The recluse trembled all over, rose erect on her bare feet, and leaped at the window

  • with eyes so glaring that Mahiette and Oudarde, and the other woman and the child

  • recoiled even to the parapet of the quay.

  • Meanwhile, the sinister face of the recluse appeared pressed to the grating of the air-

  • hole.

  • "Oh! oh!" she cried, with an appalling laugh; "'tis the Egyptian who is calling

  • me!" At that moment, a scene which was passing

  • at the pillory caught her wild eye.

  • Her brow contracted with horror, she stretched her two skeleton arms from her

  • cell, and shrieked in a voice which resembled a death-rattle, "So 'tis thou

  • once more, daughter of Egypt!

  • 'Tis thou who callest me, stealer of children!

  • Well! Be thou accursed! accursed! accursed!

  • accursed!"

  • -BOOK SIXTH. CHAPTER IV.

  • A TEAR FOR A DROP OF WATER.

  • These words were, so to speak, the point of union of two scenes, which had, up to that

  • time, been developed in parallel lines at the same moment, each on its particular

  • theatre; one, that which the reader has

  • just perused, in the Rat-Hole; the other, which he is about to read, on the ladder of

  • the pillory.

  • The first had for witnesses only the three women with whom the reader has just made

  • acquaintance; the second had for spectators all the public which we have seen above,

  • collecting on the Place de Greve, around the pillory and the gibbet.

  • That crowd which the four sergeants posted at nine o'clock in the morning at the four

  • corners of the pillory had inspired with the hope of some sort of an execution, no

  • doubt, not a hanging, but a whipping, a

  • cropping of ears, something, in short,-- that crowd had increased so rapidly that

  • the four policemen, too closely besieged, had had occasion to "press" it, as the

  • expression then ran, more than once, by

  • sound blows of their whips, and the haunches of their horses.

  • This populace, disciplined to waiting for public executions, did not manifest very

  • much impatience.

  • It amused itself with watching the pillory, a very simple sort of monument, composed of

  • a cube of masonry about six feet high and hollow in the interior.

  • A very steep staircase, of unhewn stone, which was called by distinction "the

  • ladder," led to the upper platform, upon which was visible a horizontal wheel of

  • solid oak.

  • The victim was bound upon this wheel, on his knees, with his hands behind his back.

  • A wooden shaft, which set in motion a capstan concealed in the interior of the

  • little edifice, imparted a rotatory motion to the wheel, which always maintained its

  • horizontal position, and in this manner

  • presented the face of the condemned man to all quarters of the square in succession.

  • This was what was called "turning" a criminal.

  • As the reader perceives, the pillory of the Greve was far from presenting all the

  • recreations of the pillory of the Halles. Nothing architectural, nothing monumental.

  • No roof to the iron cross, no octagonal lantern, no frail, slender columns

  • spreading out on the edge of the roof into capitals of acanthus leaves and flowers, no

  • waterspouts of chimeras and monsters, on

  • carved woodwork, no fine sculpture, deeply sunk in the stone.

  • They were forced to content themselves with those four stretches of rubble work, backed

  • with sandstone, and a wretched stone gibbet, meagre and bare, on one side.

  • The entertainment would have been but a poor one for lovers of Gothic architecture.

  • It is true that nothing was ever less curious on the score of architecture than

  • the worthy gapers of the Middle Ages, and that they cared very little for the beauty

  • of a pillory.

  • The victim finally arrived, bound to the tail of a cart, and when he had been

  • hoisted upon the platform, where he could be seen from all points of the Place, bound

  • with cords and straps upon the wheel of the

  • pillory, a prodigious hoot, mingled with laughter and acclamations, burst forth upon

  • the Place. They had recognized Quasimodo.

  • It was he, in fact.

  • The change was singular.

  • Pilloried on the very place where, on the day before, he had been saluted, acclaimed,

  • and proclaimed Pope and Prince of Fools, in the cortege of the Duke of Egypt, the King

  • of Thunes, and the Emperor of Galilee!

  • One thing is certain, and that is, that there was not a soul in the crowd, not even

  • himself, though in turn triumphant and the sufferer, who set forth this combination

  • clearly in his thought.

  • Gringoire and his philosophy were missing at this spectacle.

  • Soon Michel Noiret, sworn trumpeter to the king, our lord, imposed silence on the

  • louts, and proclaimed the sentence, in accordance with the order and command of

  • monsieur the provost.

  • Then he withdrew behind the cart, with his men in livery surcoats.

  • Quasimodo, impassible, did not wince.

  • All resistance had been rendered impossible to him by what was then called, in the

  • style of the criminal chancellery, "the vehemence and firmness of the bonds" which

  • means that the thongs and chains probably

  • cut into his flesh; moreover, it is a tradition of jail and wardens, which has

  • not been lost, and which the handcuffs still preciously preserve among us, a

  • civilized, gentle, humane people (the galleys and the guillotine in parentheses).

  • He had allowed himself to be led, pushed, carried, lifted, bound, and bound again.

  • Nothing was to be seen upon his countenance but the astonishment of a savage or an

  • idiot. He was known to be deaf; one might have

  • pronounced him to be blind.

  • They placed him on his knees on the circular plank; he made no resistance.

  • They removed his shirt and doublet as far as his girdle; he allowed them to have

  • their way.

  • They entangled him under a fresh system of thongs and buckles; he allowed them to bind

  • and buckle him.

  • Only from time to time he snorted noisily, like a calf whose head is hanging and

  • bumping over the edge of a butcher's cart.

  • "The dolt," said Jehan Frollo of the Mill, to his friend Robin Poussepain (for the two

  • students had followed the culprit, as was to have been expected), "he understands no

  • more than a cockchafer shut up in a box!"

  • There was wild laughter among the crowd when they beheld Quasimodo's hump, his

  • camel's breast, his callous and hairy shoulders laid bare.

  • During this gayety, a man in the livery of the city, short of stature and robust of

  • mien, mounted the platform and placed himself near the victim.

  • His name speedily circulated among the spectators.

  • It was Master Pierrat Torterue, official torturer to the Chatelet.

  • He began by depositing on an angle of the pillory a black hour-glass, the upper lobe

  • of which was filled with red sand, which it allowed to glide into the lower receptacle;

  • then he removed his parti-colored surtout,

  • and there became visible, suspended from his right hand, a thin and tapering whip of

  • long, white, shining, knotted, plaited thongs, armed with metal nails.

  • With his left hand, he negligently folded back his shirt around his right arm, to the

  • very armpit.

  • In the meantime, Jehan Frollo, elevating his curly blonde head above the crowd (he

  • had mounted upon the shoulders of Robin Poussepain for the purpose), shouted: "Come

  • and look, gentle ladies and men! they are

  • going to peremptorily flagellate Master Quasimodo, the bellringer of my brother,

  • monsieur the archdeacon of Josas, a knave of oriental architecture, who has a back

  • like a dome, and legs like twisted columns!"

  • And the crowd burst into a laugh, especially the boys and young girls.

  • At length the torturer stamped his foot.

  • The wheel began to turn. Quasimodo wavered beneath his bonds.

  • The amazement which was suddenly depicted upon his deformed face caused the bursts of

  • laughter to redouble around him.

  • All at once, at the moment when the wheel in its revolution presented to Master

  • Pierrat, the humped back of Quasimodo, Master Pierrat raised his arm; the fine

  • thongs whistled sharply through the air,

  • like a handful of adders, and fell with fury upon the wretch's shoulders.

  • Quasimodo leaped as though awakened with a start.

  • He began to understand.

  • He writhed in his bonds; a violent contraction of surprise and pain distorted

  • the muscles of his face, but he uttered not a single sigh.

  • He merely turned his head backward, to the right, then to the left, balancing it as a

  • bull does who has been stung in the flanks by a gadfly.

  • A second blow followed the first, then a third, and another and another, and still

  • others. The wheel did not cease to turn, nor the

  • blows to rain down.

  • Soon the blood burst forth, and could be seen trickling in a thousand threads down

  • the hunchback's black shoulders; and the slender thongs, in their rotatory motion

  • which rent the air, sprinkled drops of it upon the crowd.

  • Quasimodo had resumed, to all appearance, his first imperturbability.

  • He had at first tried, in a quiet way and without much outward movement, to break his

  • bonds.

  • His eye had been seen to light up, his muscles to stiffen, his members to

  • concentrate their force, and the straps to stretch.

  • The effort was powerful, prodigious, desperate; but the provost's seasoned bonds

  • resisted. They cracked, and that was all.

  • Quasimodo fell back exhausted.

  • Amazement gave way, on his features, to a sentiment of profound and bitter

  • discouragement.

  • He closed his single eye, allowed his head to droop upon his breast, and feigned

  • death. From that moment forth, he stirred no more.

  • Nothing could force a movement from him.

  • Neither his blood, which did not cease to flow, nor the blows which redoubled in

  • fury, nor the wrath of the torturer, who grew excited himself and intoxicated with

  • the execution, nor the sound of the

  • horrible thongs, more sharp and whistling than the claws of scorpions.

  • At length a bailiff from the Chatelet clad in black, mounted on a black horse, who had

  • been stationed beside the ladder since the beginning of the execution, extended his

  • ebony wand towards the hour-glass.

  • The torturer stopped. The wheel stopped.

  • Quasimodo's eye opened slowly. The scourging was finished.

  • Two lackeys of the official torturer bathed the bleeding shoulders of the patient,

  • anointed them with some unguent which immediately closed all the wounds, and

  • threw upon his back a sort of yellow vestment, in cut like a chasuble.

  • In the meanwhile, Pierrat Torterue allowed the thongs, red and gorged with blood, to

  • drip upon the pavement.

  • All was not over for Quasimodo.

  • He had still to undergo that hour of pillory which Master Florian Barbedienne

  • had so judiciously added to the sentence of Messire Robert d'Estouteville; all to the

  • greater glory of the old physiological and

  • psychological play upon words of Jean de Cumene, Surdus absurdus: a deaf man is

  • absurd.

  • So the hour-glass was turned over once more, and they left the hunchback fastened

  • to the plank, in order that justice might be accomplished to the very end.

  • The populace, especially in the Middle Ages, is in society what the child is in

  • the family.

  • As long as it remains in its state of primitive ignorance, of moral and

  • intellectual minority, it can be said of it as of the child,--

  • 'Tis the pitiless age.

  • We have already shown that Quasimodo was generally hated, for more than one good

  • reason, it is true.

  • There was hardly a spectator in that crowd who had not or who did not believe that he

  • had reason to complain of the malevolent hunchback of Notre-Dame.

  • The joy at seeing him appear thus in the pillory had been universal; and the harsh

  • punishment which he had just suffered, and the pitiful condition in which it had left

  • him, far from softening the populace had

  • rendered its hatred more malicious by arming it with a touch of mirth.

  • Hence, the "public prosecution" satisfied, as the bigwigs of the law still express it

  • in their jargon, the turn came of a thousand private vengeances.

  • Here, as in the Grand Hall, the women rendered themselves particularly prominent.

  • All cherished some rancor against him, some for his malice, others for his ugliness.

  • The latter were the most furious.

  • "Oh! mask of Antichrist!" said one. "Rider on a broom handle!" cried another.

  • "What a fine tragic grimace," howled a third, "and who would make him Pope of the

  • Fools if to-day were yesterday?"

  • "'Tis well," struck in an old woman. "This is the grimace of the pillory.

  • When shall we have that of the gibbet?"

  • "When will you be coiffed with your big bell a hundred feet under ground, cursed

  • bellringer?" "But 'tis the devil who rings the Angelus!"

  • "Oh! the deaf man! the one-eyed creature! the hunch-back! the monster!"

  • "A face to make a woman miscarry better than all the drugs and medicines!"

  • And the two scholars, Jehan du Moulin, and Robin Poussepain, sang at the top of their

  • lungs, the ancient refrain,--

  • "Une hart Pour le pendard! Un fagot Pour le magot!"*

  • *A rope for the gallows bird! A fagot for the ape.

  • A thousand other insults rained down upon him, and hoots and imprecations, and

  • laughter, and now and then, stones.

  • Quasimodo was deaf but his sight was clear, and the public fury was no less

  • energetically depicted on their visages than in their words.

  • Moreover, the blows from the stones explained the bursts of laughter.

  • At first he held his ground.

  • But little by little that patience which had borne up under the lash of the

  • torturer, yielded and gave way before all these stings of insects.

  • The bull of the Asturias who has been but little moved by the attacks of the picador

  • grows irritated with the dogs and banderilleras.

  • He first cast around a slow glance of hatred upon the crowd.

  • But bound as he was, his glance was powerless to drive away those flies which

  • were stinging his wound.

  • Then he moved in his bonds, and his furious exertions made the ancient wheel of the

  • pillory shriek on its axle. All this only increased the derision and

  • hooting.

  • Then the wretched man, unable to break his collar, like that of a chained wild beast,

  • became tranquil once more; only at intervals a sigh of rage heaved the hollows

  • of his chest.

  • There was neither shame nor redness on his face.

  • He was too far from the state of society, and too near the state of nature to know

  • what shame was.

  • Moreover, with such a degree of deformity, is infamy a thing that can be felt?

  • But wrath, hatred, despair, slowly lowered over that hideous visage a cloud which grew

  • ever more and more sombre, ever more and more charged with electricity, which burst

  • forth in a thousand lightning flashes from the eye of the cyclops.

  • Nevertheless, that cloud cleared away for a moment, at the passage of a mule which

  • traversed the crowd, bearing a priest.

  • As far away as he could see that mule and that priest, the poor victim's visage grew

  • gentler.

  • The fury which had contracted it was followed by a strange smile full of

  • ineffable sweetness, gentleness, and tenderness.

  • In proportion as the priest approached, that smile became more clear, more

  • distinct, more radiant. It was like the arrival of a Saviour, which

  • the unhappy man was greeting.

  • But as soon as the mule was near enough to the pillory to allow of its rider

  • recognizing the victim, the priest dropped his eyes, beat a hasty retreat, spurred on

  • rigorously, as though in haste to rid

  • himself of humiliating appeals, and not at all desirous of being saluted and

  • recognized by a poor fellow in such a predicament.

  • This priest was Archdeacon Dom Claude Frollo.

  • The cloud descended more blackly than ever upon Quasimodo's brow.

  • The smile was still mingled with it for a time, but was bitter, discouraged,

  • profoundly sad. Time passed on.

  • He had been there at least an hour and a half, lacerated, maltreated, mocked

  • incessantly, and almost stoned.

  • All at once he moved again in his chains with redoubled despair, which made the

  • whole framework that bore him tremble, and, breaking the silence which he had

  • obstinately preserved hitherto, he cried in

  • a hoarse and furious voice, which resembled a bark rather than a human cry, and which

  • was drowned in the noise of the hoots-- "Drink!"

  • This exclamation of distress, far from exciting compassion, only added amusement

  • to the good Parisian populace who surrounded the ladder, and who, it must be

  • confessed, taken in the mass and as a

  • multitude, was then no less cruel and brutal than that horrible tribe of robbers

  • among whom we have already conducted the reader, and which was simply the lower

  • stratum of the populace.

  • Not a voice was raised around the unhappy victim, except to jeer at his thirst.

  • It is certain that at that moment he was more grotesque and repulsive than pitiable,

  • with his face purple and dripping, his eye wild, his mouth foaming with rage and pain,

  • and his tongue lolling half out.

  • It must also be stated that if a charitable soul of a bourgeois or bourgeoise, in the

  • rabble, had attempted to carry a glass of water to that wretched creature in torment,

  • there reigned around the infamous steps of

  • the pillory such a prejudice of shame and ignominy, that it would have sufficed to

  • repulse the good Samaritan.

  • At the expiration of a few moments, Quasimodo cast a desperate glance upon the

  • crowd, and repeated in a voice still more heartrending: "Drink!"

  • And all began to laugh.

  • "Drink this!" cried Robin Poussepain, throwing in his face a sponge which had

  • been soaked in the gutter. "There, you deaf villain, I'm your debtor."

  • A woman hurled a stone at his head,--

  • "That will teach you to wake us up at night with your peal of a dammed soul."

  • "He, good, my son!" howled a cripple, making an effort to reach him with his

  • crutch, "will you cast any more spells on us from the top of the towers of Notre-

  • Dame?"

  • "Here's a drinking cup!" chimed in a man, flinging a broken jug at his breast.

  • "'Twas you that made my wife, simply because she passed near you, give birth to

  • a child with two heads!"

  • "And my cat bring forth a kitten with six paws!" yelped an old crone, launching a

  • brick at him. "Drink!" repeated Quasimodo panting, and

  • for the third time.

  • At that moment he beheld the crowd give way.

  • A young girl, fantastically dressed, emerged from the throng.

  • She was accompanied by a little white goat with gilded horns, and carried a tambourine

  • in her hand. Quasimodo's eyes sparkled.

  • It was the gypsy whom he had attempted to carry off on the preceding night, a misdeed

  • for which he was dimly conscious that he was being punished at that very moment;

  • which was not in the least the case, since

  • he was being chastised only for the misfortune of being deaf, and of having

  • been judged by a deaf man.

  • He doubted not that she had come to wreak her vengeance also, and to deal her blow

  • like the rest. He beheld her, in fact, mount the ladder

  • rapidly.

  • Wrath and spite suffocate him.

  • He would have liked to make the pillory crumble into ruins, and if the lightning of

  • his eye could have dealt death, the gypsy would have been reduced to powder before

  • she reached the platform.

  • She approached, without uttering a syllable, the victim who writhed in a vain

  • effort to escape her, and detaching a gourd from her girdle, she raised it gently to

  • the parched lips of the miserable man.

  • Then, from that eye which had been, up to that moment, so dry and burning, a big tear

  • was seen to fall, and roll slowly down that deformed visage so long contracted with

  • despair.

  • It was the first, in all probability, that the unfortunate man had ever shed.

  • Meanwhile, he had forgotten to drink.

  • The gypsy made her little pout, from impatience, and pressed the spout to the

  • tusked month of Quasimodo, with a smile. He drank with deep draughts.

  • His thirst was burning.

  • When he had finished, the wretch protruded his black lips, no doubt, with the object

  • of kissing the beautiful hand which had just succoured him.

  • But the young girl, who was, perhaps, somewhat distrustful, and who remembered

  • the violent attempt of the night, withdrew her hand with the frightened gesture of a

  • child who is afraid of being bitten by a beast.

  • Then the poor deaf man fixed on her a look full of reproach and inexpressible sadness.

  • It would have been a touching spectacle anywhere,--this beautiful, fresh, pure, and

  • charming girl, who was at the same time so weak, thus hastening to the relief of so

  • much misery, deformity, and malevolence.

  • On the pillory, the spectacle was sublime. The very populace were captivated by it,

  • and began to clap their hands, crying,-- "Noel!

  • Noel!"

  • It was at that moment that the recluse caught sight, from the window of her bole,

  • of the gypsy on the pillory, and hurled at her her sinister imprecation,--

  • "Accursed be thou, daughter of Egypt!

  • Accursed! accursed!"

  • -BOOK SIXTH. CHAPTER V.

  • END OF THE STORY OF THE CAKE.

  • La Esmeralda turned pale and descended from the pillory, staggering as she went.

  • The voice of the recluse still pursued her,--

  • "Descend! descend!

  • Thief of Egypt! thou shalt ascend it once more!"

  • "The sacked nun is in one of her tantrums," muttered the populace; and that was the end

  • of it.

  • For that sort of woman was feared; which rendered them sacred.

  • People did not then willingly attack one who prayed day and night.

  • The hour had arrived for removing Quasimodo.

  • He was unbound, the crowd dispersed.

  • Near the Grand Pont, Mahiette, who was returning with her two companions, suddenly

  • halted,-- "By the way, Eustache! what did you do with

  • that cake?"

  • "Mother," said the child, "while you were talking with that lady in the bole, a big

  • dog took a bite of my cake, and then I bit it also."

  • "What, sir, did you eat the whole of it?" she went on.

  • "Mother, it was the dog. I told him, but he would not listen to me.

  • Then I bit into it, also."

  • "'Tis a terrible child!" said the mother, smiling and scolding at one and the same

  • time. "Do you see, Oudarde?

  • He already eats all the fruit from the cherry-tree in our orchard of Charlerange.

  • So his grandfather says that he will be a captain.

  • Just let me catch you at it again, Master Eustache.

  • Come along, you greedy fellow!" End of Volume 1.

BOOK SIXTH. CHAPTER I.

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第06冊--《聖母院的駝背》有聲小說,維克多-雨果著(第1-5章)。 (Book 06 - The Hunchback of Notre Dame Audiobook by Victor Hugo (Chs 1-5))

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