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  • -BOOK TENTH. CHAPTER I.

  • GRINGOIRE HAS MANY GOOD IDEAS IN SUCCESSION.--RUE DES BERNARDINS.

  • As soon as Pierre Gringoire had seen how this whole affair was turning, and that

  • there would decidedly be the rope, hanging, and other disagreeable things for the

  • principal personages in this comedy, he had

  • not cared to identify himself with the matter further.

  • The outcasts with whom he had remained, reflecting that, after all, it was the best

  • company in Paris,--the outcasts had continued to interest themselves in behalf

  • of the gypsy.

  • He had thought it very simple on the part of people who had, like herself, nothing

  • else in prospect but Charmolue and Torterue, and who, unlike himself, did not

  • gallop through the regions of imagination between the wings of Pegasus.

  • From their remarks, he had learned that his wife of the broken crock had taken refuge

  • in Notre-Dame, and he was very glad of it.

  • But he felt no temptation to go and see her there.

  • He meditated occasionally on the little goat, and that was all.

  • Moreover, he was busy executing feats of strength during the day for his living, and

  • at night he was engaged in composing a memorial against the Bishop of Paris, for

  • he remembered having been drenched by the

  • wheels of his mills, and he cherished a grudge against him for it.

  • He also occupied himself with annotating the fine work of Baudry-le-Rouge, Bishop of

  • Noyon and Tournay, De Cupa Petrarum, which had given him a violent passion for

  • architecture, an inclination which had

  • replaced in his heart his passion for hermeticism, of which it was, moreover,

  • only a natural corollary, since there is an intimate relation between hermeticism and

  • masonry.

  • Gringoire had passed from the love of an idea to the love of the form of that idea.

  • One day he had halted near Saint Germain- l'Auxerrois, at the corner of a mansion

  • called "For-l'Eveque" (the Bishop's Tribunal), which stood opposite another

  • called "For-le-Roi" (the King's Tribunal).

  • At this For-l'Eveque, there was a charming chapel of the fourteenth century, whose

  • apse was on the street. Gringoire was devoutly examining its

  • exterior sculptures.

  • He was in one of those moments of egotistical, exclusive, supreme, enjoyment

  • when the artist beholds nothing in the world but art, and the world in art.

  • All at once he feels a hand laid gravely on his shoulder.

  • He turns round. It was his old friend, his former master,

  • monsieur the archdeacon.

  • He was stupefied.

  • It was a long time since he had seen the archdeacon, and Dom Claude was one of those

  • solemn and impassioned men, a meeting with whom always upsets the equilibrium of a

  • sceptical philosopher.

  • The archdeacon maintained silence for several minutes, during which Gringoire had

  • time to observe him.

  • He found Dom Claude greatly changed; pale as a winter's morning, with hollow eyes,

  • and hair almost white. The priest broke the silence at length, by

  • saying, in a tranquil but glacial tone,--

  • "How do you do, Master Pierre?" "My health?" replied Gringoire.

  • "Eh! eh! one can say both one thing and another on that score.

  • Still, it is good, on the whole.

  • I take not too much of anything. You know, master, that the secret of

  • keeping well, according to Hippocrates; id est: cibi, potus, somni, venus, omnia

  • moderata sint."

  • "So you have no care, Master Pierre?" resumed the archdeacon, gazing intently at

  • Gringoire. "None, i' faith!"

  • "And what are you doing now?"

  • "You see, master. I am examining the chiselling of these

  • stones, and the manner in which yonder bas- relief is thrown out."

  • The priest began to smile with that bitter smile which raises only one corner of the

  • mouth. "And that amuses you?"

  • "'Tis paradise!" exclaimed Gringoire.

  • And leaning over the sculptures with the fascinated air of a demonstrator of living

  • phenomena: "Do you not think, for instance, that yon metamorphosis in bas-relief is

  • executed with much adroitness, delicacy and patience?

  • Observe that slender column.

  • Around what capital have you seen foliage more tender and better caressed by the

  • chisel. Here are three raised bosses of Jean

  • Maillevin.

  • They are not the finest works of this great master.

  • Nevertheless, the naivete, the sweetness of the faces, the gayety of the attitudes and

  • draperies, and that inexplicable charm which is mingled with all the defects,

  • render the little figures very diverting and delicate, perchance, even too much so.

  • You think that it is not diverting?" "Yes, certainly!" said the priest.

  • "And if you were to see the interior of the chapel!" resumed the poet, with his

  • garrulous enthusiasm. "Carvings everywhere.

  • 'Tis as thickly clustered as the head of a cabbage!

  • The apse is of a very devout, and so peculiar a fashion that I have never beheld

  • anything like it elsewhere!"

  • Dom Claude interrupted him,-- "You are happy, then?"

  • Gringoire replied warmly;-- "On my honor, yes!

  • First I loved women, then animals.

  • Now I love stones. They are quite as amusing as women and

  • animals, and less treacherous." The priest laid his hand on his brow.

  • It was his habitual gesture.

  • "Really?" "Stay!" said Gringoire, "one has one's

  • pleasures!"

  • He took the arm of the priest, who let him have his way, and made him enter the

  • staircase turret of For-l'Eveque. "Here is a staircase! every time that I see

  • it I am happy.

  • It is of the simplest and rarest manner of steps in Paris.

  • All the steps are bevelled underneath.

  • Its beauty and simplicity consist in the interspacing of both, being a foot or more

  • wide, which are interlaced, interlocked, fitted together, enchained enchased,

  • interlined one upon another, and bite into

  • each other in a manner that is truly firm and graceful."

  • "And you desire nothing?" "No."

  • "And you regret nothing?"

  • "Neither regret nor desire. I have arranged my mode of life."

  • "What men arrange," said Claude, "things disarrange."

  • "I am a Pyrrhonian philosopher," replied Gringoire, "and I hold all things in

  • equilibrium." "And how do you earn your living?"

  • "I still make epics and tragedies now and then; but that which brings me in most is

  • the industry with which you are acquainted, master; carrying pyramids of chairs in my

  • teeth."

  • "The trade is but a rough one for a philosopher."

  • "'Tis still equilibrium," said Gringoire. "When one has an idea, one encounters it in

  • everything."

  • "I know that," replied the archdeacon. After a silence, the priest resumed,--

  • "You are, nevertheless, tolerably poor?" "Poor, yes; unhappy, no."

  • At that moment, a trampling of horses was heard, and our two interlocutors beheld

  • defiling at the end of the street, a company of the king's unattached archers,

  • their lances borne high, an officer at their head.

  • The cavalcade was brilliant, and its march resounded on the pavement.

  • "How you gaze at that officer!" said Gringoire, to the archdeacon.

  • "Because I think I recognize him." "What do you call him?"

  • "I think," said Claude, "that his name is Phoebus de Chateaupers."

  • "Phoebus! A curious name!

  • There is also a Phoebus, Comte de Foix.

  • I remember having known a wench who swore only by the name of Phoebus."

  • "Come away from here," said the priest. "I have something to say to you."

  • From the moment of that troop's passing, some agitation had pierced through the

  • archdeacon's glacial envelope. He walked on.

  • Gringoire followed him, being accustomed to obey him, like all who had once approached

  • that man so full of ascendency. They reached in silence the Rue des

  • Bernardins, which was nearly deserted.

  • Here Dom Claude paused. "What have you to say to me, master?"

  • Gringoire asked him.

  • "Do you not think that the dress of those cavaliers whom we have just seen is far

  • handsomer than yours and mine?" Gringoire tossed his head.

  • "I' faith!

  • I love better my red and yellow jerkin, than those scales of iron and steel.

  • A fine pleasure to produce, when you walk, the same noise as the Quay of Old Iron, in

  • an earthquake!"

  • "So, Gringoire, you have never cherished envy for those handsome fellows in their

  • military doublets?"

  • "Envy for what, monsieur the archdeacon? their strength, their armor, their

  • discipline? Better philosophy and independence in rags.

  • I prefer to be the head of a fly rather than the tail of a lion."

  • "That is singular," said the priest dreamily.

  • "Yet a handsome uniform is a beautiful thing."

  • Gringoire, perceiving that he was in a pensive mood, quitted him to go and admire

  • the porch of a neighboring house.

  • He came back clapping his hands. "If you were less engrossed with the fine

  • clothes of men of war, monsieur the archdeacon, I would entreat you to come and

  • see this door.

  • I have always said that the house of the Sieur Aubry had the most superb entrance in

  • the world."

  • "Pierre Gringoire," said the archdeacon, "What have you done with that little gypsy

  • dancer?" "La Esmeralda?

  • You change the conversation very abruptly."

  • "Was she not your wife?" "Yes, by virtue of a broken crock.

  • We were to have four years of it.

  • By the way," added Gringoire, looking at the archdeacon in a half bantering way,

  • "are you still thinking of her?" "And you think of her no longer?"

  • "Very little.

  • I have so many things. Good heavens, how pretty that little goat

  • was!" "Had she not saved your life?"

  • "'Tis true, pardieu!"

  • "Well, what has become of her? What have you done with her?"

  • "I cannot tell you. I believe that they have hanged her."

  • "You believe so?"

  • "I am not sure. When I saw that they wanted to hang people,

  • I retired from the game." "That is all you know of it?"

  • "Wait a bit.

  • I was told that she had taken refuge in Notre-Dame, and that she was safe there,

  • and I am delighted to hear it, and I have not been able to discover whether the goat

  • was saved with her, and that is all I know."

  • "I will tell you more," cried Dom Claude; and his voice, hitherto low, slow, and

  • almost indistinct, turned to thunder.

  • "She has in fact, taken refuge in Notre- Dame.

  • But in three days justice will reclaim her, and she will be hanged on the Greve.

  • There is a decree of parliament."

  • "That's annoying," said Gringoire. The priest, in an instant, became cold and

  • calm again.

  • "And who the devil," resumed the poet, "has amused himself with soliciting a decree of

  • reintegration? Why couldn't they leave parliament in

  • peace?

  • What harm does it do if a poor girl takes shelter under the flying buttresses of

  • Notre-Dame, beside the swallows' nests?" "There are satans in this world," remarked

  • the archdeacon.

  • "'Tis devilish badly done," observed Gringoire.

  • The archdeacon resumed after a silence,-- "So, she saved your life?"

  • "Among my good friends the outcasts.

  • A little more or a little less and I should have been hanged.

  • They would have been sorry for it to-day." "Would not you like to do something for

  • her?"

  • "I ask nothing better, Dom Claude; but what if I entangle myself in some villanous

  • affair?" "What matters it?"

  • "Bah! what matters it?

  • You are good, master, that you are! I have two great works already begun."

  • The priest smote his brow.

  • In spite of the calm which he affected, a violent gesture betrayed his internal

  • convulsions from time to time. "How is she to be saved?"

  • Gringoire said to him; "Master, I will reply to you; Il padelt, which means in

  • Turkish, 'God is our hope.'" "How is she to be saved?" repeated Claude

  • dreamily.

  • Gringoire smote his brow in his turn. "Listen, master.

  • I have imagination; I will devise expedients for you.

  • What if one were to ask her pardon from the king?"

  • "Of Louis XI.! A pardon!"

  • "Why not?"

  • "To take the tiger's bone from him!" Gringoire began to seek fresh expedients.

  • "Well, stay!

  • Shall I address to the midwives a request accompanied by the declaration that the

  • girl is with child!" This made the priest's hollow eye flash.

  • "With child! knave! do you know anything of this?"

  • Gringoire was alarmed by his air. He hastened to say, "Oh, no, not I!

  • Our marriage was a real forismaritagium.

  • I stayed outside. But one might obtain a respite, all the

  • same." "Madness!

  • Infamy!

  • Hold your tongue!" "You do wrong to get angry," muttered

  • Gringoire.

  • "One obtains a respite; that does no harm to any one, and allows the midwives, who

  • are poor women, to earn forty deniers parisis."

  • The priest was not listening to him!

  • "But she must leave that place, nevertheless!" he murmured, "the decree is

  • to be executed within three days. Moreover, there will be no decree; that

  • Quasimodo!

  • Women have very depraved tastes!" He raised his voice: "Master Pierre, I have

  • reflected well; there is but one means of safety for her."

  • "What?

  • I see none myself." "Listen, Master Pierre, remember that you

  • owe your life to her. I will tell you my idea frankly.

  • The church is watched night and day; only those are allowed to come out, who have

  • been seen to enter. Hence you can enter.

  • You will come.

  • I will lead you to her. You will change clothes with her.

  • She will take your doublet; you will take her petticoat."

  • "So far, it goes well," remarked the philosopher, "and then?"

  • "And then? she will go forth in your garments; you will remain with hers.

  • You will be hanged, perhaps, but she will be saved."

  • Gringoire scratched his ear, with a very serious air.

  • "Stay!" said he, "that is an idea which would never have occurred to me unaided."

  • At Dom Claude's proposition, the open and benign face of the poet had abruptly

  • clouded over, like a smiling Italian landscape, when an unlucky squall comes up

  • and dashes a cloud across the sun.

  • "Well! Gringoire, what say you to the means?"

  • "I say, master, that I shall not be hanged, perchance, but that I shall be hanged

  • indubitably.

  • "That concerns us not." "The deuce!" said Gringoire.

  • "She has saved your life. 'Tis a debt that you are discharging."

  • "There are a great many others which I do not discharge."

  • "Master Pierre, it is absolutely necessary."

  • The archdeacon spoke imperiously.

  • "Listen, Dom Claude," replied the poet in utter consternation.

  • "You cling to that idea, and you are wrong. I do not see why I should get myself hanged

  • in some one else's place."

  • "What have you, then, which attaches you so strongly to life?"

  • "Oh! a thousand reasons!" "What reasons, if you please?"

  • "What?

  • The air, the sky, the morning, the evening, the moonlight, my good friends the thieves,

  • our jeers with the old hags of go-betweens, the fine architecture of Paris to study,

  • three great books to make, one of them

  • being against the bishops and his mills; and how can I tell all?

  • Anaxagoras said that he was in the world to admire the sun.

  • And then, from morning till night, I have the happiness of passing all my days with a

  • man of genius, who is myself, which is very agreeable."

  • "A head fit for a mule bell!" muttered the archdeacon.

  • "Oh! tell me who preserved for you that life which you render so charming to

  • yourself?

  • To whom do you owe it that you breathe that air, behold that sky, and can still amuse

  • your lark's mind with your whimsical nonsense and madness?

  • Where would you be, had it not been for her?

  • Do you then desire that she through whom you are alive, should die? that she should

  • die, that beautiful, sweet, adorable creature, who is necessary to the light of

  • the world and more divine than God, while

  • you, half wise, and half fool, a vain sketch of something, a sort of vegetable,

  • which thinks that it walks, and thinks that it thinks, you will continue to live with

  • the life which you have stolen from her, as useless as a candle in broad daylight?

  • Come, have a little pity, Gringoire; be generous in your turn; it was she who set

  • the example."

  • The priest was vehement.

  • Gringoire listened to him at first with an undecided air, then he became touched, and

  • wound up with a grimace which made his pallid face resemble that of a new-born

  • infant with an attack of the colic.

  • "You are pathetic!" said he, wiping away a tear.

  • "Well! I will think about it.

  • That's a queer idea of yours.--After all," he continued after a pause, "who knows?

  • perhaps they will not hang me. He who becomes betrothed does not always

  • marry.

  • When they find me in that little lodging so grotesquely muffled in petticoat and coif,

  • perchance they will burst with laughter. And then, if they do hang me,--well! the

  • halter is as good a death as any.

  • 'Tis a death worthy of a sage who has wavered all his life; a death which is

  • neither flesh nor fish, like the mind of a veritable sceptic; a death all stamped with

  • Pyrrhonism and hesitation, which holds the

  • middle station betwixt heaven and earth, which leaves you in suspense.

  • 'Tis a philosopher's death, and I was destined thereto, perchance.

  • It is magnificent to die as one has lived."

  • The priest interrupted him: "Is it agreed." "What is death, after all?" pursued

  • Gringoire with exaltation. "A disagreeable moment, a toll-gate, the

  • passage of little to nothingness.

  • Some one having asked Cercidas, the Megalopolitan, if he were willing to die:

  • 'Why not?' he replied; 'for after my death I shall see those great men, Pythagoras

  • among the philosophers, Hecataeus among

  • historians, Homer among poets, Olympus among musicians.'"

  • The archdeacon gave him his hand: "It is settled, then?

  • You will come to-morrow?"

  • This gesture recalled Gringoire to reality. "Ah! i' faith no!" he said in the tone of a

  • man just waking up. "Be hanged!

  • 'tis too absurd.

  • I will not." "Farewell, then!" and the archdeacon added

  • between his teeth: "I'll find you again!"

  • "I do not want that devil of a man to find me," thought Gringoire; and he ran after

  • Dom Claude. "Stay, monsieur the archdeacon, no ill-

  • feeling between old friends!

  • You take an interest in that girl, my wife, I mean, and 'tis well.

  • You have devised a scheme to get her out of Notre-Dame, but your way is extremely

  • disagreeable to me, Gringoire.

  • If I had only another one myself! I beg to say that a luminous inspiration

  • has just occurred to me.

  • If I possessed an expedient for extricating her from a dilemma, without compromising my

  • own neck to the extent of a single running knot, what would you say to it?

  • Will not that suffice you?

  • Is it absolutely necessary that I should be hanged, in order that you may be content?"

  • The priest tore out the buttons of his cassock with impatience: "Stream of words!

  • What is your plan?"

  • "Yes," resumed Gringoire, talking to himself and touching his nose with his

  • forefinger in sign of meditation,--"that's it!--The thieves are brave fellows!--The

  • tribe of Egypt love her!--They will rise at

  • the first word!--Nothing easier!--A sudden stroke.--Under cover of the disorder, they

  • will easily carry her off!--Beginning to- morrow evening.

  • They will ask nothing better.

  • "The plan! speak," cried the archdeacon shaking him.

  • Gringoire turned majestically towards him: "Leave me!

  • You see that I am composing."

  • He meditated for a few moments more, then began to clap his hands over his thought,

  • crying: "Admirable! success is sure!" "The plan!" repeated Claude in wrath.

  • Gringoire was radiant.

  • "Come, that I may tell you that very softly.

  • 'Tis a truly gallant counter-plot, which will extricate us all from the matter.

  • Pardieu, it must be admitted that I am no fool."

  • He broke off. "Oh, by the way! is the little goat with

  • the wench?"

  • "Yes. The devil take you!"

  • "They would have hanged it also, would they not?"

  • "What is that to me?"

  • "Yes, they would have hanged it. They hanged a sow last month.

  • The headsman loveth that; he eats the beast afterwards.

  • Take my pretty Djali!

  • Poor little lamb!" "Malediction!" exclaimed Dom Claude.

  • "You are the executioner. What means of safety have you found, knave?

  • Must your idea be extracted with the forceps?"

  • "Very fine, master, this is it."

  • Gringoire bent his head to the archdeacon's head and spoke to him in a very low voice,

  • casting an uneasy glance the while from one end to the other of the street, though no

  • one was passing.

  • When he had finished, Dom Claude took his hand and said coldly: "'Tis well.

  • Farewell until to-morrow." "Until to-morrow," repeated Gringoire.

  • And, while the archdeacon was disappearing in one direction, he set off in the other,

  • saying to himself in a low voice: "Here's a grand affair, Monsieur Pierre Gringoire.

  • Never mind!

  • 'Tis not written that because one is of small account one should take fright at a

  • great enterprise.

  • Bitou carried a great bull on his shoulders; the water-wagtails, the

  • warblers, and the buntings traverse the ocean."

  • -BOOK TENTH. CHAPTER II.

  • TURN VAGABOND.

  • On re-entering the cloister, the archdeacon found at the door of his cell his brother

  • Jehan du Moulin, who was waiting for him, and who had beguiled the tedium of waiting

  • by drawing on the wall with a bit of

  • charcoal, a profile of his elder brother, enriched with a monstrous nose.

  • Dom Claude hardly looked at his brother; his thoughts were elsewhere.

  • That merry scamp's face whose beaming had so often restored serenity to the priest's

  • sombre physiognomy, was now powerless to melt the gloom which grew more dense every

  • day over that corrupted, mephitic, and stagnant soul.

  • "Brother," said Jehan timidly, "I am come to see you."

  • The archdeacon did not even raise his eyes.

  • "What then?" "Brother," resumed the hypocrite, "you are

  • so good to me, and you give me such wise counsels that I always return to you."

  • "What next?"

  • "Alas! brother, you were perfectly right when you said to me,--"Jehan!

  • Jehan! cessat doctorum doctrina, discipulorum disciplina.

  • Jehan, be wise, Jehan, be learned, Jehan, pass not the night outside of the college

  • without lawful occasion and due leave of the master.

  • Cudgel not the Picards: noli, Joannes, verberare Picardos.

  • Rot not like an unlettered ass, quasi asinus illitteratus, on the straw seats of

  • the school.

  • Jehan, allow yourself to be punished at the discretion of the master.

  • Jehan go every evening to chapel, and sing there an anthem with verse and orison to

  • Madame the glorious Virgin Mary."--Alas! what excellent advice was that!"

  • "And then?"

  • "Brother, you behold a culprit, a criminal, a wretch, a libertine, a man of enormities!

  • My dear brother, Jehan hath made of your counsels straw and dung to trample under

  • foot.

  • I have been well chastised for it, and God is extraordinarily just.

  • As long as I had money, I feasted, I lead a mad and joyous life.

  • Oh! how ugly and crabbed behind is debauch which is so charming in front!

  • Now I have no longer a blank; I have sold my napery, my shirt and my towels; no more

  • merry life!

  • The beautiful candle is extinguished and I have henceforth, only a wretched tallow dip

  • which smokes in my nose. The wenches jeer at me.

  • I drink water.--I am overwhelmed with remorse and with creditors.

  • "The rest?" said the archdeacon. "Alas! my very dear brother, I should like

  • to settle down to a better life.

  • I come to you full of contrition, I am penitent.

  • I make my confession. I beat my breast violently.

  • You are quite right in wishing that I should some day become a licentiate and

  • sub-monitor in the college of Torchi. At the present moment I feel a magnificent

  • vocation for that profession.

  • But I have no more ink and I must buy some; I have no more paper, I have no more books,

  • and I must buy some.

  • For this purpose, I am greatly in need of a little money, and I come to you, brother,

  • with my heart full of contrition." "Is that all?"

  • "Yes," said the scholar.

  • "A little money." "I have none."

  • Then the scholar said, with an air which was both grave and resolute: "Well,

  • brother, I am sorry to be obliged to tell you that very fine offers and propositions

  • are being made to me in another quarter.

  • You will not give me any money? No. In that case I shall become a

  • professional vagabond."

  • As he uttered these monstrous words, he assumed the mien of Ajax, expecting to see

  • the lightnings descend upon his head. The archdeacon said coldly to him,--"Become

  • a vagabond."

  • Jehan made him a deep bow, and descended the cloister stairs, whistling.

  • At the moment when he was passing through the courtyard of the cloister, beneath his

  • brother's window, he heard that window open, raised his eyes and beheld the

  • archdeacon's severe head emerge.

  • "Go to the devil!" said Dom Claude; "here is the last money which you will get from

  • me?"

  • At the same time, the priest flung Jehan a purse, which gave the scholar a big bump on

  • the forehead, and with which Jehan retreated, both vexed and content, like a

  • dog who had been stoned with marrow bones.

  • -BOOK TENTH. CHAPTER IV.

  • AN AWKWARD FRIEND.

  • That night, Quasimodo did not sleep. He had just made his last round of the

  • church.

  • He had not noticed, that at the moment when he was closing the doors, the archdeacon

  • had passed close to him and betrayed some displeasure on seeing him bolting and

  • barring with care the enormous iron locks

  • which gave to their large leaves the solidity of a wall.

  • Dom Claude's air was even more preoccupied than usual.

  • Moreover, since the nocturnal adventure in the cell, he had constantly abused

  • Quasimodo, but in vain did he ill treat, and even beat him occasionally, nothing

  • disturbed the submission, patience, the

  • devoted resignation of the faithful bellringer.

  • He endured everything on the part of the archdeacon, insults, threats, blows,

  • without murmuring a complaint.

  • At the most, he gazed uneasily after Dom Claude when the latter ascended the

  • staircase of the tower; but the archdeacon had abstained from presenting himself again

  • before the gypsy's eyes.

  • On that night, accordingly, Quasimodo, after having cast a glance at his poor

  • bells which he so neglected now, Jacqueline, Marie, and Thibauld, mounted to

  • the summit of the Northern tower, and there

  • setting his dark lanturn, well closed, upon the leads, he began to gaze at Paris.

  • The night, as we have already said, was very dark.

  • Paris which, so to speak was not lighted at that epoch, presented to the eye a confused

  • collection of black masses, cut here and there by the whitish curve of the Seine.

  • Quasimodo no longer saw any light with the exception of one window in a distant

  • edifice, whose vague and sombre profile was outlined well above the roofs, in the

  • direction of the Porte Sainte-Antoine.

  • There also, there was some one awake. As the only eye of the bellringer peered

  • into that horizon of mist and night, he felt within him an inexpressible

  • uneasiness.

  • For several days he had been upon his guard.

  • He had perceived men of sinister mien, who never took their eyes from the young girl's

  • asylum, prowling constantly about the church.

  • He fancied that some plot might be in process of formation against the unhappy

  • refugee.

  • He imagined that there existed a popular hatred against her, as against himself, and

  • that it was very possible that something might happen soon.

  • Hence he remained upon his tower on the watch, "dreaming in his dream-place," as

  • Rabelais says, with his eye directed alternately on the cell and on Paris,

  • keeping faithful guard, like a good dog, with a thousand suspicions in his mind.

  • All at once, while he was scrutinizing the great city with that eye which nature, by a

  • sort of compensation, had made so piercing that it could almost supply the other

  • organs which Quasimodo lacked, it seemed to

  • him that there was something singular about the Quay de la Vieille-Pelleterie, that

  • there was a movement at that point, that the line of the parapet, standing out

  • blackly against the whiteness of the water

  • was not straight and tranquil, like that of the other quays, but that it undulated to

  • the eye, like the waves of a river, or like the heads of a crowd in motion.

  • This struck him as strange.

  • He redoubled his attention. The movement seemed to be advancing towards

  • the City. There was no light.

  • It lasted for some time on the quay; then it gradually ceased, as though that which

  • was passing were entering the interior of the island; then it stopped altogether, and

  • the line of the quay became straight and motionless again.

  • At the moment when Quasimodo was lost in conjectures, it seemed to him that the

  • movement had re-appeared in the Rue du Parvis, which is prolonged into the city

  • perpendicularly to the facade of Notre- Dame.

  • At length, dense as was the darkness, he beheld the head of a column debouch from

  • that street, and in an instant a crowd--of which nothing could be distinguished in the

  • gloom except that it was a crowd--spread over the Place.

  • This spectacle had a terror of its own.

  • It is probable that this singular procession, which seemed so desirous of

  • concealing itself under profound darkness, maintained a silence no less profound.

  • Nevertheless, some noise must have escaped it, were it only a trampling.

  • But this noise did not even reach our deaf man, and this great multitude, of which he

  • saw hardly anything, and of which he heard nothing, though it was marching and moving

  • so near him, produced upon him the effect

  • of a rabble of dead men, mute, impalpable, lost in a smoke.

  • It seemed to him, that he beheld advancing towards him a fog of men, and that he saw

  • shadows moving in the shadow.

  • Then his fears returned to him, the idea of an attempt against the gypsy presented

  • itself once more to his mind. He was conscious, in a confused way, that a

  • violent crisis was approaching.

  • At that critical moment he took counsel with himself, with better and prompter

  • reasoning than one would have expected from so badly organized a brain.

  • Ought he to awaken the gypsy? to make her escape?

  • Whither? The streets were invested, the church

  • backed on the river.

  • No boat, no issue!--There was but one thing to be done; to allow himself to be killed

  • on the threshold of Notre-Dame, to resist at least until succor arrived, if it should

  • arrive, and not to trouble la Esmeralda's sleep.

  • This resolution once taken, he set to examining the enemy with more tranquillity.

  • The throng seemed to increase every moment in the church square.

  • Only, he presumed that it must be making very little noise, since the windows on the

  • Place remained closed.

  • All at once, a flame flashed up, and in an instant seven or eight lighted torches

  • passed over the heads of the crowd, shaking their tufts of flame in the deep shade.

  • Quasimodo then beheld distinctly surging in the Parvis a frightful herd of men and

  • women in rags, armed with scythes, pikes, billhooks and partisans, whose thousand

  • points glittered.

  • Here and there black pitchforks formed horns to the hideous faces.

  • He vaguely recalled this populace, and thought that he recognized all the heads

  • who had saluted him as Pope of the Fools some months previously.

  • One man who held a torch in one hand and a club in the other, mounted a stone post and

  • seemed to be haranguing them.

  • At the same time the strange army executed several evolutions, as though it were

  • taking up its post around the church.

  • Quasimodo picked up his lantern and descended to the platform between the

  • towers, in order to get a nearer view, and to spy out a means of defence.

  • Clopin Trouillefou, on arriving in front of the lofty portal of Notre-Dame had, in

  • fact, ranged his troops in order of battle.

  • Although he expected no resistance, he wished, like a prudent general, to preserve

  • an order which would permit him to face, at need, a sudden attack of the watch or the

  • police.

  • He had accordingly stationed his brigade in such a manner that, viewed from above and

  • from a distance, one would have pronounced it the Roman triangle of the battle of

  • Ecnomus, the boar's head of Alexander or the famous wedge of Gustavus Adolphus.

  • The base of this triangle rested on the back of the Place in such a manner as to

  • bar the entrance of the Rue du Parvis; one of its sides faced Hotel-Dieu, the other

  • the Rue Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs.

  • Clopin Trouillefou had placed himself at the apex with the Duke of Egypt, our friend

  • Jehan, and the most daring of the scavengers.

  • An enterprise like that which the vagabonds were now undertaking against Notre-Dame was

  • not a very rare thing in the cities of the Middle Ages.

  • What we now call the "police" did not exist then.

  • In populous cities, especially in capitals, there existed no single, central,

  • regulating power.

  • Feudalism had constructed these great communities in a singular manner.

  • A city was an assembly of a thousand seigneuries, which divided it into

  • compartments of all shapes and sizes.

  • Hence, a thousand conflicting establishments of police; that is to say,

  • no police at all.

  • In Paris, for example, independently of the hundred and forty-one lords who laid claim

  • to a manor, there were five and twenty who laid claim to a manor and to administering

  • justice, from the Bishop of Paris, who had

  • five hundred streets, to the Prior of Notre-Dame des Champs, who had four.

  • All these feudal justices recognized the suzerain authority of the king only in

  • name.

  • All possessed the right of control over the roads.

  • All were at home.

  • Louis XI., that indefatigable worker, who so largely began the demolition of the

  • feudal edifice, continued by Richelieu and Louis XIV. for the profit of royalty, and

  • finished by Mirabeau for the benefit of the

  • people,--Louis XI. had certainly made an effort to break this network of seignories

  • which covered Paris, by throwing violently across them all two or three troops of

  • general police.

  • Thus, in 1465, an order to the inhabitants to light candles in their windows at

  • nightfall, and to shut up their dogs under penalty of death; in the same year, an

  • order to close the streets in the evening

  • with iron chains, and a prohibition to wear daggers or weapons of offence in the

  • streets at night. But in a very short time, all these efforts

  • at communal legislation fell into abeyance.

  • The bourgeois permitted the wind to blow out their candles in the windows, and their

  • dogs to stray; the iron chains were stretched only in a state of siege; the

  • prohibition to wear daggers wrought no

  • other changes than from the name of the Rue Coupe-Gueule to the name of the Rue-Coupe-

  • Gorge which is an evident progress.

  • The old scaffolding of feudal jurisdictions remained standing; an immense aggregation

  • of bailiwicks and seignories crossing each other all over the city, interfering with

  • each other, entangled in one another,

  • enmeshing each other, trespassing on each other; a useless thicket of watches, sub-

  • watches and counter-watches, over which, with armed force, passed brigandage,

  • rapine, and sedition.

  • Hence, in this disorder, deeds of violence on the part of the populace directed

  • against a palace, a hotel, or house in the most thickly populated quarters, were not

  • unheard-of occurrences.

  • In the majority of such cases, the neighbors did not meddle with the matter

  • unless the pillaging extended to themselves.

  • They stopped up their ears to the musket shots, closed their shutters, barricaded

  • their doors, allowed the matter to be concluded with or without the watch, and

  • the next day it was said in Paris, "Etienne Barbette was broken open last night.

  • The Marshal de Clermont was seized last night, etc."

  • Hence, not only the royal habitations, the Louvre, the Palace, the Bastille, the

  • Tournelles, but simply seignorial residences, the Petit-Bourbon, the Hotel de

  • Sens, the Hotel d' Angouleme, etc., had

  • battlements on their walls, and machicolations over their doors.

  • Churches were guarded by their sanctity. Some, among the number Notre-Dame, were

  • fortified.

  • The Abbey of Saint-German-des-Pres was castellated like a baronial mansion, and

  • more brass expended about it in bombards than in bells.

  • Its fortress was still to be seen in 1610.

  • To-day, barely its church remains. Let us return to Notre-Dame.

  • When the first arrangements were completed, and we must say, to the honor of vagabond

  • discipline, that Clopin's orders were executed in silence, and with admirable

  • precision, the worthy chief of the band,

  • mounted on the parapet of the church square, and raised his hoarse and surly

  • voice, turning towards Notre-Dame, and brandishing his torch whose light, tossed

  • by the wind, and veiled every moment by its

  • own smoke, made the reddish facade of the church appear and disappear before the eye.

  • "To you, Louis de Beaumont, bishop of Paris, counsellor in the Court of

  • Parliament, I, Clopin Trouillefou, king of Thunes, grand Coesre, prince of Argot,

  • bishop of fools, I say: Our sister, falsely

  • condemned for magic, hath taken refuge in your church, you owe her asylum and safety.

  • Now the Court of Parliament wishes to seize her once more there, and you consent to it;

  • so that she would be hanged to-morrow in the Greve, if God and the outcasts were not

  • here.

  • If your church is sacred, so is our sister; if our sister is not sacred, neither is

  • your church.

  • That is why we call upon you to return the girl if you wish to save your church, or we

  • will take possession of the girl again and pillage the church, which will be a good

  • thing.

  • In token of which I here plant my banner, and may God preserve you, bishop of Paris."

  • Quasimodo could not, unfortunately, hear these words uttered with a sort of sombre

  • and savage majesty.

  • A vagabond presented his banner to Clopin, who planted it solemnly between two paving-

  • stones. It was a pitchfork from whose points hung a

  • bleeding quarter of carrion meat.

  • That done, the King of Thunes turned round and cast his eyes over his army, a fierce

  • multitude whose glances flashed almost equally with their pikes.

  • After a momentary pause,--"Forward, my Sons!" he cried; "to work, locksmiths!"

  • Thirty bold men, square shouldered, and with pick-lock faces, stepped from the

  • ranks, with hammers, pincers, and bars of iron on their shoulders.

  • They betook themselves to the principal door of the church, ascended the steps, and

  • were soon to be seen squatting under the arch, working at the door with pincers and

  • levers; a throng of vagabonds followed them to help or look on.

  • The eleven steps before the portal were covered with them.

  • But the door stood firm.

  • "The devil! 'tis hard and obstinate!" said one.

  • "It is old, and its gristles have become bony," said another.

  • "Courage, comrades!" resumed Clopin.

  • "I wager my head against a dipper that you will have opened the door, rescued the

  • girl, and despoiled the chief altar before a single beadle is awake.

  • Stay!

  • I think I hear the lock breaking up." Clopin was interrupted by a frightful

  • uproar which re-sounded behind him at that moment.

  • He wheeled round.

  • An enormous beam had just fallen from above; it had crushed a dozen vagabonds on

  • the pavement with the sound of a cannon, breaking in addition, legs here and there

  • in the crowd of beggars, who sprang aside with cries of terror.

  • In a twinkling, the narrow precincts of the church parvis were cleared.

  • The locksmiths, although protected by the deep vaults of the portal, abandoned the

  • door and Clopin himself retired to a respectful distance from the church.

  • "I had a narrow escape!" cried Jehan.

  • "I felt the wind, of it, tete-de-boeuf! but Pierre the Slaughterer is slaughtered!"

  • It is impossible to describe the astonishment mingled with fright which fell

  • upon the ruffians in company with this beam.

  • They remained for several minutes with their eyes in the air, more dismayed by

  • that piece of wood than by the king's twenty thousand archers.

  • "Satan!" muttered the Duke of Egypt, "this smacks of magic!"

  • "'Tis the moon which threw this log at us," said Andry the Red.

  • "Call the moon the friend of the Virgin, after that!" went on Francois Chanteprune.

  • "A thousand popes!" exclaimed Clopin, "you are all fools!"

  • But he did not know how to explain the fall of the beam.

  • Meanwhile, nothing could be distinguished on the facade, to whose summit the light of

  • the torches did not reach.

  • The heavy beam lay in the middle of the enclosure, and groans were heard from the

  • poor wretches who had received its first shock, and who had been almost cut in

  • twain, on the angle of the stone steps.

  • The King of Thunes, his first amazement passed, finally found an explanation which

  • appeared plausible to his companions. "Throat of God! are the canons defending

  • themselves?

  • To the sack, then! to the sack!" "To the sack!" repeated the rabble, with a

  • furious hurrah. A discharge of crossbows and hackbuts

  • against the front of the church followed.

  • At this detonation, the peaceable inhabitants of the surrounding houses woke

  • up; many windows were seen to open, and nightcaps and hands holding candles

  • appeared at the casements.

  • "Fire at the windows," shouted Clopin.

  • The windows were immediately closed, and the poor bourgeois, who had hardly had time

  • to cast a frightened glance on this scene of gleams and tumult, returned, perspiring

  • with fear to their wives, asking themselves

  • whether the witches' sabbath was now being held in the parvis of Notre-Dame, or

  • whether there was an assault of Burgundians, as in '64.

  • Then the husbands thought of theft; the wives, of rape; and all trembled.

  • "To the sack!" repeated the thieves' crew; but they dared not approach.

  • They stared at the beam, they stared at the church.

  • The beam did not stir, the edifice preserved its calm and deserted air; but

  • something chilled the outcasts.

  • "To work, locksmiths!" shouted Trouillefou. "Let the door be forced!"

  • No one took a step. "Beard and belly!" said Clopin, "here be

  • men afraid of a beam."

  • An old locksmith addressed him-- "Captain, 'tis not the beam which bothers

  • us, 'tis the door, which is all covered with iron bars.

  • Our pincers are powerless against it."

  • "What more do you want to break it in?" demanded Clopin.

  • "Ah! we ought to have a battering ram."

  • The King of Thunes ran boldly to the formidable beam, and placed his foot upon

  • it: "Here is one!" he exclaimed; "'tis the canons who send it to you."

  • And, making a mocking salute in the direction of the church, "Thanks, canons!"

  • This piece of bravado produced its effects,--the spell of the beam was broken.

  • The vagabonds recovered their courage; soon the heavy joist, raised like a feather by

  • two hundred vigorous arms, was flung with fury against the great door which they had

  • tried to batter down.

  • At the sight of that long beam, in the half-light which the infrequent torches of

  • the brigands spread over the Place, thus borne by that crowd of men who dashed it at

  • a run against the church, one would have

  • thought that he beheld a monstrous beast with a thousand feet attacking with lowered

  • head the giant of stone.

  • At the shock of the beam, the half metallic door sounded like an immense drum; it was

  • not burst in, but the whole cathedral trembled, and the deepest cavities of the

  • edifice were heard to echo.

  • At the same moment, a shower of large stones began to fall from the top of the

  • facade on the assailants.

  • "The devil!" cried Jehan, "are the towers shaking their balustrades down on our

  • heads?" But the impulse had been given, the King of

  • Thunes had set the example.

  • Evidently, the bishop was defending himself, and they only battered the door

  • with the more rage, in spite of the stones which cracked skulls right and left.

  • It was remarkable that all these stones fell one by one; but they followed each

  • other closely. The thieves always felt two at a time, one

  • on their legs and one on their heads.

  • There were few which did not deal their blow, and a large layer of dead and wounded

  • lay bleeding and panting beneath the feet of the assailants who, now grown furious,

  • replaced each other without intermission.

  • The long beam continued to belabor the door, at regular intervals, like the

  • clapper of a bell, the stones to rain down, the door to groan.

  • The reader has no doubt divined that this unexpected resistance which had exasperated

  • the outcasts came from Quasimodo. Chance had, unfortunately, favored the

  • brave deaf man.

  • When he had descended to the platform between the towers, his ideas were all in

  • confusion.

  • He had run up and down along the gallery for several minutes like a madman,

  • surveying from above, the compact mass of vagabonds ready to hurl itself on the

  • church, demanding the safety of the gypsy from the devil or from God.

  • The thought had occurred to him of ascending to the southern belfry and

  • sounding the alarm, but before he could have set the bell in motion, before Marie's

  • voice could have uttered a single clamor,

  • was there not time to burst in the door of the church ten times over?

  • It was precisely the moment when the locksmiths were advancing upon it with

  • their tools.

  • What was to be done? All at once, he remembered that some masons

  • had been at work all day repairing the wall, the timber-work, and the roof of the

  • south tower.

  • This was a flash of light. The wall was of stone, the roof of lead,

  • the timber-work of wood. (That prodigious timber-work, so dense that

  • it was called "the forest.")

  • Quasimodo hastened to that tower. The lower chambers were, in fact, full of

  • materials.

  • There were piles of rough blocks of stone, sheets of lead in rolls, bundles of laths,

  • heavy beams already notched with the saw, heaps of plaster.

  • Time was pressing, The pikes and hammers were at work below.

  • With a strength which the sense of danger increased tenfold, he seized one of the

  • beams--the longest and heaviest; he pushed it out through a loophole, then, grasping

  • it again outside of the tower, he made it

  • slide along the angle of the balustrade which surrounds the platform, and let it

  • fly into the abyss.

  • The enormous timber, during that fall of a hundred and sixty feet, scraping the wall,

  • breaking the carvings, turned many times on its centre, like the arm of a windmill

  • flying off alone through space.

  • At last it reached the ground, the horrible cry arose, and the black beam, as it

  • rebounded from the pavement, resembled a serpent leaping.

  • Quasimodo beheld the outcasts scatter at the fall of the beam, like ashes at the

  • breath of a child.

  • He took advantage of their fright, and while they were fixing a superstitious

  • glance on the club which had fallen from heaven, and while they were putting out the

  • eyes of the stone saints on the front with

  • a discharge of arrows and buckshot, Quasimodo was silently piling up plaster,

  • stones, and rough blocks of stone, even the sacks of tools belonging to the masons, on

  • the edge of the balustrade from which the beam had already been hurled.

  • Thus, as soon as they began to batter the grand door, the shower of rough blocks of

  • stone began to fall, and it seemed to them that the church itself was being demolished

  • over their heads.

  • Any one who could have beheld Quasimodo at that moment would have been frightened.

  • Independently of the projectiles which he had piled upon the balustrade, he had

  • collected a heap of stones on the platform itself.

  • As fast as the blocks on the exterior edge were exhausted, he drew on the heap.

  • Then he stooped and rose, stooped and rose again with incredible activity.

  • His huge gnome's head bent over the balustrade, then an enormous stone fell,

  • then another, then another.

  • From time to time, he followed a fine stone with his eye, and when it did good

  • execution, he said, "Hum!" Meanwhile, the beggars did not grow

  • discouraged.

  • The thick door on which they were venting their fury had already trembled more than

  • twenty times beneath the weight of their oaken battering-ram, multiplied by the

  • strength of a hundred men.

  • The panels cracked, the carved work flew into splinters, the hinges, at every blow,

  • leaped from their pins, the planks yawned, the wood crumbled to powder, ground between

  • the iron sheathing.

  • Fortunately for Quasimodo, there was more iron than wood.

  • Nevertheless, he felt that the great door was yielding.

  • Although he did not hear it, every blow of the ram reverberated simultaneously in the

  • vaults of the church and within it.

  • From above he beheld the vagabonds, filled with triumph and rage, shaking their fists

  • at the gloomy facade; and both on the gypsy's account and his own he envied the

  • wings of the owls which flitted away above his head in flocks.

  • His shower of stone blocks was not sufficient to repel the assailants.

  • At this moment of anguish, he noticed, a little lower down than the balustrade

  • whence he was crushing the thieves, two long stone gutters which discharged

  • immediately over the great door; the

  • internal orifice of these gutters terminated on the pavement of the platform.

  • An idea occurred to him; he ran in search of a fagot in his bellringer's den, placed

  • on this fagot a great many bundles of laths, and many rolls of lead, munitions

  • which he had not employed so far, and

  • having arranged this pile in front of the hole to the two gutters, he set it on fire

  • with his lantern.

  • During this time, since the stones no longer fell, the outcasts ceased to gaze

  • into the air.

  • The bandits, panting like a pack of hounds who are forcing a boar into his lair,

  • pressed tumultuously round the great door, all disfigured by the battering ram, but

  • still standing.

  • They were waiting with a quiver for the great blow which should split it open.

  • They vied with each other in pressing as close as possible, in order to dash among

  • the first, when it should open, into that opulent cathedral, a vast reservoir where

  • the wealth of three centuries had been piled up.

  • They reminded each other with roars of exultation and greedy lust, of the

  • beautiful silver crosses, the fine copes of brocade, the beautiful tombs of silver

  • gilt, the great magnificences of the choir,

  • the dazzling festivals, the Christmasses sparkling with torches, the Easters

  • sparkling with sunshine,--all those splendid solemneties wherein chandeliers,

  • ciboriums, tabernacles, and reliquaries,

  • studded the altars with a crust of gold and diamonds.

  • Certainly, at that fine moment, thieves and pseudo sufferers, doctors in stealing, and

  • vagabonds, were thinking much less of delivering the gypsy than of pillaging

  • Notre-Dame.

  • We could even easily believe that for a goodly number among them la Esmeralda was

  • only a pretext, if thieves needed pretexts.

  • All at once, at the moment when they were grouping themselves round the ram for a

  • last effort, each one holding his breath and stiffening his muscles in order to

  • communicate all his force to the decisive

  • blow, a howl more frightful still than that which had burst forth and expired beneath

  • the beam, rose among them. Those who did not cry out, those who were

  • still alive, looked.

  • Two streams of melted lead were falling from the summit of the edifice into the

  • thickest of the rabble.

  • That sea of men had just sunk down beneath the boiling metal, which had made, at the

  • two points where it fell, two black and smoking holes in the crowd, such as hot

  • water would make in snow.

  • Dying men, half consumed and groaning with anguish, could be seen writhing there.

  • Around these two principal streams there were drops of that horrible rain, which

  • scattered over the assailants and entered their skulls like gimlets of fire.

  • It was a heavy fire which overwhelmed these wretches with a thousand hailstones.

  • The outcry was heartrending.

  • They fled pell-mell, hurling the beam upon the bodies, the boldest as well as the most

  • timid, and the parvis was cleared a second time.

  • All eyes were raised to the top of the church.

  • They beheld there an extraordinary sight.

  • On the crest of the highest gallery, higher than the central rose window, there was a

  • great flame rising between the two towers with whirlwinds of sparks, a vast,

  • disordered, and furious flame, a tongue of

  • which was borne into the smoke by the wind, from time to time.

  • Below that fire, below the gloomy balustrade with its trefoils showing darkly

  • against its glare, two spouts with monster throats were vomiting forth unceasingly

  • that burning rain, whose silvery stream

  • stood out against the shadows of the lower facade.

  • As they approached the earth, these two jets of liquid lead spread out in sheaves,

  • like water springing from the thousand holes of a watering-pot.

  • Above the flame, the enormous towers, two sides of each of which were visible in

  • sharp outline, the one wholly black, the other wholly red, seemed still more vast

  • with all the immensity of the shadow which they cast even to the sky.

  • Their innumerable sculptures of demons and dragons assumed a lugubrious aspect.

  • The restless light of the flame made them move to the eye.

  • There were griffins which had the air of laughing, gargoyles which one fancied one

  • heard yelping, salamanders which puffed at the fire, tarasques which sneezed in the

  • smoke.

  • And among the monsters thus roused from their sleep of stone by this flame, by this

  • noise, there was one who walked about, and who was seen, from time to time, to pass

  • across the glowing face of the pile, like a bat in front of a candle.

  • Without doubt, this strange beacon light would awaken far away, the woodcutter of

  • the hills of Bicetre, terrified to behold the gigantic shadow of the towers of Notre-

  • Dame quivering over his heaths.

  • A terrified silence ensued among the outcasts, during which nothing was heard,

  • but the cries of alarm of the canons shut up in their cloister, and more uneasy than

  • horses in a burning stable, the furtive

  • sound of windows hastily opened and still more hastily closed, the internal hurly-

  • burly of the houses and of the Hotel-Dieu, the wind in the flame, the last death-

  • rattle of the dying, and the continued

  • crackling of the rain of lead upon the pavement.

  • In the meanwhile, the principal vagabonds had retired beneath the porch of the

  • Gondelaurier mansion, and were holding a council of war.

  • The Duke of Egypt, seated on a stone post, contemplated the phantasmagorical bonfire,

  • glowing at a height of two hundred feet in the air, with religious terror.

  • Clopin Trouillefou bit his huge fists with rage.

  • "Impossible to get in!" he muttered between his teeth.

  • "An old, enchanted church!" grumbled the aged Bohemian, Mathias Hungadi Spicali.

  • "By the Pope's whiskers!" went on a sham soldier, who had once been in service,

  • "here are church gutters spitting melted lead at you better than the machicolations

  • of Lectoure."

  • "Do you see that demon passing and repassing in front of the fire?" exclaimed

  • the Duke of Egypt. "Pardieu, 'tis that damned bellringer, 'tis

  • Quasimodo," said Clopin.

  • The Bohemian tossed his head. "I tell you, that 'tis the spirit Sabnac,

  • the grand marquis, the demon of fortifications.

  • He has the form of an armed soldier, the head of a lion.

  • Sometimes he rides a hideous horse. He changes men into stones, of which he

  • builds towers.

  • He commands fifty legions 'Tis he indeed; I recognize him.

  • Sometimes he is clad in a handsome golden robe, figured after the Turkish fashion."

  • "Where is Bellevigne de l'Etoile?" demanded Clopin.

  • "He is dead."

  • Andry the Red laughed in an idiotic way: "Notre-Dame is making work for the

  • hospital," said he.

  • "Is there, then, no way of forcing this door," exclaimed the King of Thunes,

  • stamping his foot.

  • The Duke of Egypt pointed sadly to the two streams of boiling lead which did not cease

  • to streak the black facade, like two long distaffs of phosphorus.

  • "Churches have been known to defend themselves thus all by themselves," he

  • remarked with a sigh.

  • "Saint-Sophia at Constantinople, forty years ago, hurled to the earth three times

  • in succession, the crescent of Mahom, by shaking her domes, which are her heads.

  • Guillaume de Paris, who built this one was a magician."

  • "Must we then retreat in pitiful fashion, like highwaymen?" said Clopin.

  • "Must we leave our sister here, whom those hooded wolves will hang to-morrow."

  • "And the sacristy, where there are wagon- loads of gold!" added a vagabond, whose

  • name, we regret to say, we do not know.

  • "Beard of Mahom!" cried Trouillefou. "Let us make another trial," resumed the

  • vagabond. Mathias Hungadi shook his head.

  • "We shall never get in by the door.

  • We must find the defect in the armor of the old fairy; a hole, a false postern, some

  • joint or other." "Who will go with me?" said Clopin.

  • "I shall go at it again.

  • By the way, where is the little scholar Jehan, who is so encased in iron?"

  • "He is dead, no doubt," some one replied; "we no longer hear his laugh."

  • The King of Thunes frowned: "So much the worse.

  • There was a brave heart under that ironmongery.

  • And Master Pierre Gringoire?"

  • "Captain Clopin," said Andry the Red, "he slipped away before we reached the Pont-

  • aux-Changeurs." Clopin stamped his foot.

  • "Gueule-Dieu!

  • 'twas he who pushed us on hither, and he has deserted us in the very middle of the

  • job! Cowardly chatterer, with a slipper for a

  • helmet!"

  • "Captain Clopin," said Andry the Red, who was gazing down Rue du Parvis, "yonder is

  • the little scholar." "Praised be Pluto!" said Clopin.

  • "But what the devil is he dragging after him?"

  • It was, in fact, Jehan, who was running as fast as his heavy outfit of a Paladin, and

  • a long ladder which trailed on the pavement, would permit, more breathless

  • than an ant harnessed to a blade of grass twenty times longer than itself.

  • "Victory! Te Deum!" cried the scholar.

  • "Here is the ladder of the longshoremen of Port Saint-Landry."

  • Clopin approached him. "Child, what do you mean to do, corne-dieu!

  • with this ladder?"

  • "I have it," replied Jehan, panting. "I knew where it was under the shed of the

  • lieutenant's house. There's a wench there whom I know, who

  • thinks me as handsome as Cupido.

  • I made use of her to get the ladder, and I have the ladder, Pasque-Mahom!

  • The poor girl came to open the door to me in her shift."

  • "Yes," said Clopin, "but what are you going to do with that ladder?"

  • Jehan gazed at him with a malicious, knowing look, and cracked his fingers like

  • castanets.

  • At that moment he was sublime. On his head he wore one of those overloaded

  • helmets of the fifteenth century, which frightened the enemy with their fanciful

  • crests.

  • His bristled with ten iron beaks, so that Jehan could have disputed with Nestor's

  • Homeric vessel the redoubtable title of dexeubolos.

  • "What do I mean to do with it, august king of Thunes?

  • Do you see that row of statues which have such idiotic expressions, yonder, above the

  • three portals?"

  • "Yes. Well?" "'Tis the gallery of the kings of France."

  • "What is that to me?" said Clopin. "Wait!

  • At the end of that gallery there is a door which is never fastened otherwise than with

  • a latch, and with this ladder I ascend, and I am in the church."

  • "Child let me be the first to ascend."

  • "No, comrade, the ladder is mine. Come, you shall be the second."

  • "May Beelzebub strangle you!" said surly Clopin, "I won't be second to anybody."

  • "Then find a ladder, Clopin!"

  • Jehan set out on a run across the Place, dragging his ladder and shouting: "Follow

  • me, lads!"

  • In an instant the ladder was raised, and propped against the balustrade of the lower

  • gallery, above one of the lateral doors.

  • The throng of vagabonds, uttering loud acclamations, crowded to its foot to

  • ascend. But Jehan maintained his right, and was the

  • first to set foot on the rungs.

  • The passage was tolerably long. The gallery of the kings of France is to-

  • day about sixty feet above the pavement. The eleven steps of the flight before the

  • door, made it still higher.

  • Jehan mounted slowly, a good deal incommoded by his heavy armor, holding his

  • crossbow in one hand, and clinging to a rung with the other.

  • When he reached the middle of the ladder, he cast a melancholy glance at the poor

  • dead outcasts, with which the steps were strewn.

  • "Alas!" said he, "here is a heap of bodies worthy of the fifth book of the Iliad!"

  • Then he continued his ascent. The vagabonds followed him.

  • There was one on every rung.

  • At the sight of this line of cuirassed backs, undulating as they rose through the

  • gloom, one would have pronounced it a serpent with steel scales, which was

  • raising itself erect in front of the church.

  • Jehan who formed the head, and who was whistling, completed the illusion.

  • The scholar finally reached the balcony of the gallery, and climbed over it nimbly, to

  • the applause of the whole vagabond tribe.

  • Thus master of the citadel, he uttered a shout of joy, and suddenly halted,

  • petrified.

  • He had just caught sight of Quasimodo concealed in the dark, with flashing eye,

  • behind one of the statues of the kings.

  • Before a second assailant could gain a foothold on the gallery, the formidable

  • hunchback leaped to the head of the ladder, without uttering a word, seized the ends of

  • the two uprights with his powerful hands,

  • raised them, pushed them out from the wall, balanced the long and pliant ladder, loaded

  • with vagabonds from top to bottom for a moment, in the midst of shrieks of anguish,

  • then suddenly, with superhuman force,

  • hurled this cluster of men backward into the Place.

  • There was a moment when even the most resolute trembled.

  • The ladder, launched backwards, remained erect and standing for an instant, and

  • seemed to hesitate, then wavered, then suddenly, describing a frightful arc of a

  • circle eighty feet in radius, crashed upon

  • the pavement with its load of ruffians, more rapidly than a drawbridge when its

  • chains break.

  • There arose an immense imprecation, then all was still, and a few mutilated wretches

  • were seen, crawling over the heap of dead. A sound of wrath and grief followed the

  • first cries of triumph among the besiegers.

  • Quasimodo, impassive, with both elbows propped on the balustrade, looked on.

  • He had the air of an old, bushy-headed king at his window.

  • As for Jehan Frollo, he was in a critical position.

  • He found himself in the gallery with the formidable bellringer, alone, separated

  • from his companions by a vertical wall eighty feet high.

  • While Quasimodo was dealing with the ladder, the scholar had run to the postern

  • which he believed to be open. It was not.

  • The deaf man had closed it behind him when he entered the gallery.

  • Jehan had then concealed himself behind a stone king, not daring to breathe, and

  • fixing upon the monstrous hunchback a frightened gaze, like the man, who, when

  • courting the wife of the guardian of a

  • menagerie, went one evening to a love rendezvous, mistook the wall which he was

  • to climb, and suddenly found himself face to face with a white bear.

  • For the first few moments, the deaf man paid no heed to him; but at last he turned

  • his head, and suddenly straightened up. He had just caught sight of the scholar.

  • Jehan prepared himself for a rough shock, but the deaf man remained motionless; only

  • he had turned towards the scholar and was looking at him.

  • "Ho ho!" said Jehan, "what do you mean by staring at me with that solitary and

  • melancholy eye?" As he spoke thus, the young scamp

  • stealthily adjusted his crossbow.

  • "Quasimodo!" he cried, "I am going to change your surname: you shall be called

  • the blind man." The shot sped.

  • The feathered vireton whizzed and entered the hunchback's left arm.

  • Quasimodo appeared no more moved by it than by a scratch to King Pharamond.

  • He laid his hand on the arrow, tore it from his arm, and tranquilly broke it across his

  • big knee; then he let the two pieces drop on the floor, rather than threw them down.

  • But Jehan had no opportunity to fire a second time.

  • The arrow broken, Quasimodo breathing heavily, bounded like a grasshopper, and he

  • fell upon the scholar, whose armor was flattened against the wall by the blow.

  • Then in that gloom, wherein wavered the light of the torches, a terrible thing was

  • seen.

  • Quasimodo had grasped with his left hand the two arms of Jehan, who did not offer

  • any resistance, so thoroughly did he feel that he was lost.

  • With his right hand, the deaf man detached one by one, in silence, with sinister

  • slowness, all the pieces of his armor, the sword, the daggers, the helmet, the

  • cuirass, the leg pieces.

  • One would have said that it was a monkey taking the shell from a nut.

  • Quasimodo flung the scholar's iron shell at his feet, piece by piece.

  • When the scholar beheld himself disarmed, stripped, weak, and naked in those terrible

  • hands, he made no attempt to speak to the deaf man, but began to laugh audaciously in

  • his face, and to sing with his intrepid

  • heedlessness of a child of sixteen, the then popular ditty:--

  • "Elle est bien habillee, La ville de Cambrai; Marafin l'a pillee..."*

  • * The city of Cambrai is well dressed.

  • Marafin plundered it. He did not finish.

  • Quasimodo was seen on the parapet of the gallery, holding the scholar by the feet

  • with one hand and whirling him over the abyss like a sling; then a sound like that

  • of a bony structure in contact with a wall

  • was heard, and something was seen to fall which halted a third of the way down in its

  • fall, on a projection in the architecture.

  • It was a dead body which remained hanging there, bent double, its loins broken, its

  • skull empty. A cry of horror rose among the vagabonds.

  • "Vengeance!" shouted Clopin.

  • "To the sack!" replied the multitude. "Assault! assault!"

  • There came a tremendous howl, in which were mingled all tongues, all dialects, all

  • accents.

  • The death of the poor scholar imparted a furious ardor to that crowd.

  • It was seized with shame, and the wrath of having been held so long in check before a

  • church by a hunchback.

  • Rage found ladders, multiplied the torches, and, at the expiration of a few minutes,

  • Quasimodo, in despair, beheld that terrible ant heap mount on all sides to the assault

  • of Notre-Dame.

  • Those who had no ladders had knotted ropes; those who had no ropes climbed by the

  • projections of the carvings. They hung from each other's rags.

  • There were no means of resisting that rising tide of frightful faces; rage made

  • these fierce countenances ruddy; their clayey brows were dripping with sweat;

  • their eyes darted lightnings; all these

  • grimaces, all these horrors laid siege to Quasimodo.

  • One would have said that some other church had despatched to the assault of Notre-Dame

  • its gorgons, its dogs, its drees, its demons, its most fantastic sculptures.

  • It was like a layer of living monsters on the stone monsters of the facade.

  • Meanwhile, the Place was studded with a thousand torches.

  • This scene of confusion, till now hid in darkness, was suddenly flooded with light.

  • The parvis was resplendent, and cast a radiance on the sky; the bonfire lighted on

  • the lofty platform was still burning, and illuminated the city far away.

  • The enormous silhouette of the two towers, projected afar on the roofs of Paris, and

  • formed a large notch of black in this light.

  • The city seemed to be aroused.

  • Alarm bells wailed in the distance.

  • The vagabonds howled, panted, swore, climbed; and Quasimodo, powerless against

  • so many enemies, shuddering for the gypsy, beholding the furious faces approaching

  • ever nearer and nearer to his gallery,

  • entreated heaven for a miracle, and wrung his arms in despair

  • -BOOK TENTH. CHAPTER III.

  • LONG LIVE MIRTH.

  • The reader has probably not forgotten that a part of the Cour de Miracles was enclosed

  • by the ancient wall which surrounded the city, a goodly number of whose towers had

  • begun, even at that epoch, to fall to ruin.

  • One of these towers had been converted into a pleasure resort by the vagabonds.

  • There was a drain-shop in the underground story, and the rest in the upper stories.

  • This was the most lively, and consequently the most hideous, point of the whole

  • outcast den. It was a sort of monstrous hive, which

  • buzzed there night and day.

  • At night, when the remainder of the beggar horde slept, when there was no longer a

  • window lighted in the dingy facades of the Place, when not a cry was any longer to be

  • heard proceeding from those innumerable

  • families, those ant-hills of thieves, of wenches, and stolen or bastard children,

  • the merry tower was still recognizable by the noise which it made, by the scarlet

  • light which, flashing simultaneously from

  • the air-holes, the windows, the fissures in the cracked walls, escaped, so to speak,

  • from its every pore. The cellar then, was the dram-shop.

  • The descent to it was through a low door and by a staircase as steep as a classic

  • Alexandrine.

  • Over the door, by way of a sign there hung a marvellous daub, representing new sons

  • and dead chickens, with this, pun below: Aux sonneurs pour les trepasses,--The

  • wringers for the dead.

  • One evening when the curfew was sounding from all the belfries in Paris, the

  • sergeants of the watch might have observed, had it been granted to them to enter the

  • formidable Court of Miracles, that more

  • tumult than usual was in progress in the vagabonds' tavern, that more drinking was

  • being done, and louder swearing.

  • Outside in the Place, there, were many groups conversing in low tones, as when

  • some great plan is being framed, and here and there a knave crouching down engaged in

  • sharpening a villanous iron blade on a paving-stone.

  • Meanwhile, in the tavern itself, wine and gaming offered such a powerful diversion to

  • the ideas which occupied the vagabonds' lair that evening, that it would have been

  • difficult to divine from the remarks of the drinkers, what was the matter in hand.

  • They merely wore a gayer air than was their wont, and some weapon could be seen

  • glittering between the legs of each of them,--a sickle, an axe, a big two-edged

  • sword or the hook of an old hackbut.

  • The room, circular in form, was very spacious; but the tables were so thickly

  • set and the drinkers so numerous, that all that the tavern contained, men, women,

  • benches, beer-jugs, all that were drinking,

  • all that were sleeping, all that were playing, the well, the lame, seemed piled

  • up pell-mell, with as much order and harmony as a heap of oyster shells.

  • There were a few tallow dips lighted on the tables; but the real luminary of this

  • tavern, that which played the part in this dram-shop of the chandelier of an opera

  • house, was the fire.

  • This cellar was so damp that the fire was never allowed to go out, even in midsummer;

  • an immense chimney with a sculptured mantel, all bristling with heavy iron

  • andirons and cooking utensils, with one of

  • those huge fires of mixed wood and peat which at night, in village streets make the

  • reflection of forge windows stand out so red on the opposite walls.

  • A big dog gravely seated in the ashes was turning a spit loaded with meat before the

  • coals.

  • Great as was the confusion, after the first glance one could distinguish in that

  • multitude, three principal groups which thronged around three personages already

  • known to the reader.

  • One of these personages, fantastically accoutred in many an oriental rag, was

  • Mathias Hungadi Spicali, Duke of Egypt and Bohemia.

  • The knave was seated on a table with his legs crossed, and in a loud voice was

  • bestowing his knowledge of magic, both black and white, on many a gaping face

  • which surrounded him.

  • Another rabble pressed close around our old friend, the valiant King of Thunes, armed

  • to the teeth.

  • Clopin Trouillefou, with a very serious air and in a low voice, was regulating the

  • distribution of an enormous cask of arms, which stood wide open in front of him and

  • from whence poured out in profusion, axes,

  • swords, bassinets, coats of mail, broadswords, lance-heads, arrows, and

  • viretons, like apples and grapes from a horn of plenty.

  • Every one took something from the cask, one a morion, another a long, straight sword,

  • another a dagger with a cross--shaped hilt.

  • The very children were arming themselves, and there were even cripples in bowls who,

  • in armor and cuirass, made their way between the legs of the drinkers, like

  • great beetles.

  • Finally, a third audience, the most noisy, the most jovial, and the most numerous,

  • encumbered benches and tables, in the midst of which harangued and swore a flute-like

  • voice, which escaped from beneath a heavy armor, complete from casque to spurs.

  • The individual who had thus screwed a whole outfit upon his body, was so hidden by his

  • warlike accoutrements that nothing was to be seen of his person save an impertinent,

  • red, snub nose, a rosy mouth, and bold eyes.

  • His belt was full of daggers and poniards, a huge sword on his hip, a rusted cross-bow

  • at his left, and a vast jug of wine in front of him, without reckoning on his

  • right, a fat wench with her bosom uncovered.

  • All mouths around him were laughing, cursing, and drinking.

  • Add twenty secondary groups, the waiters, male and female, running with jugs on their

  • heads, gamblers squatting over taws, merelles, dice, vachettes, the ardent game

  • of tringlet, quarrels in one corner, kisses

  • in another, and the reader will have some idea of this whole picture, over which

  • flickered the light of a great, flaming fire, which made a thousand huge and

  • grotesque shadows dance over the walls of the drinking shop.

  • As for the noise, it was like the inside of a bell at full peal.

  • The dripping-pan, where crackled a rain of grease, filled with its continual

  • sputtering the intervals of these thousand dialogues, which intermingled from one end

  • of the apartment to the other.

  • In the midst of this uproar, at the extremity of the tavern, on the bench

  • inside the chimney, sat a philosopher meditating with his feet in the ashes and

  • his eyes on the brands.

  • It was Pierre Gringoire. "Be quick! make haste, arm yourselves! we

  • set out on the march in an hour!" said Clopin Trouillefou to his thieves.

  • A wench was humming,--

  • "Bonsoir mon pere et ma mere, Les derniers couvrent le feu."*

  • * Good night, father and mother, the last cover up the fire.

  • Two card players were disputing,--

  • "Knave!" cried the reddest faced of the two, shaking his fist at the other; "I'll

  • mark you with the club. You can take the place of Mistigri in the

  • pack of cards of monseigneur the king."

  • "Ugh!" roared a Norman, recognizable by his nasal accent; "we are packed in here like

  • the saints of Caillouville!"

  • "My sons," the Duke of Egypt was saying to his audience, in a falsetto voice,

  • "sorceresses in France go to the witches' sabbath without broomsticks, or grease, or

  • steed, merely by means of some magic words.

  • The witches of Italy always have a buck waiting for them at their door.

  • All are bound to go out through the chimney."

  • The voice of the young scamp armed from head to foot, dominated the uproar.

  • "Hurrah! hurrah!" he was shouting. "My first day in armor!

  • Outcast!

  • I am an outcast. Give me something to drink.

  • My friends, my name is Jehan Frollo du Moulin, and I am a gentleman.

  • My opinion is that if God were a gendarme, he would turn robber.

  • Brothers, we are about to set out on a fine expedition.

  • Lay siege to the church, burst in the doors, drag out the beautiful girl, save

  • her from the judges, save her from the priests, dismantle the cloister, burn the

  • bishop in his palace--all this we will do

  • in less time than it takes for a burgomaster to eat a spoonful of soup.

  • Our cause is just, we will plunder Notre- Dame and that will be the end of it.

  • We will hang Quasimodo.

  • Do you know Quasimodo, ladies? Have you seen him make himself breathless

  • on the big bell on a grand Pentecost festival!

  • Corne du Pere!

  • 'tis very fine! One would say he was a devil mounted on a

  • man.

  • Listen to me, my friends; I am a vagabond to the bottom of my heart, I am a member of

  • the slang thief gang in my soul, I was born an independent thief.

  • I have been rich, and I have devoured all my property.

  • My mother wanted to make an officer of me; my father, a sub-deacon; my aunt, a

  • councillor of inquests; my grandmother, prothonotary to the king; my great aunt, a

  • treasurer of the short robe,--and I have made myself an outcast.

  • I said this to my father, who spit his curse in my face; to my mother, who set to

  • weeping and chattering, poor old lady, like yonder fagot on the and-irons.

  • Long live mirth!

  • I am a real Bicetre. Waitress, my dear, more wine.

  • I have still the wherewithal to pay. I want no more Surene wine.

  • It distresses my throat.

  • I'd as lief, corboeuf! gargle my throat with a basket."

  • Meanwhile, the rabble applauded with shouts of laughter; and seeing that the tumult was

  • increasing around him, the scholar cried,-- .

  • "Oh! what a fine noise!

  • Populi debacchantis populosa debacchatio!"

  • Then he began to sing, his eye swimming in ecstasy, in the tone of a canon intoning

  • vespers, Quoe cantica! quoe organa! quoe cantilenoe! quoe meloclioe hic sine fine

  • decantantur!

  • Sonant melliflua hymnorum organa, suavissima angelorum melodia, cantica

  • canticorum mira! He broke off: "Tavern-keeper of the devil,

  • give me some supper!"

  • There was a moment of partial silence, during which the sharp voice of the Duke of

  • Egypt rose, as he gave instructions to his Bohemians.

  • "The weasel is called Adrune; the fox, Blue-foot, or the Racer of the Woods; the

  • wolf, Gray-foot, or Gold-foot; the bear the Old Man, or Grandfather.

  • The cap of a gnome confers invisibility, and causes one to behold invisible things.

  • Every toad that is baptized must be clad in red or black velvet, a bell on its neck, a

  • bell on its feet.

  • The godfather holds its head, the godmother its hinder parts.

  • 'Tis the demon Sidragasum who hath the power to make wenches dance stark naked."

  • "By the mass!" interrupted Jehan, "I should like to be the demon Sidragasum."

  • Meanwhile, the vagabonds continued to arm themselves and whisper at the other end of

  • the dram-shop.

  • "That poor Esmeralda!" said a Bohemian. "She is our sister.

  • She must be taken away from there." "Is she still at Notre-Dame?" went on a

  • merchant with the appearance of a Jew.

  • "Yes, pardieu!" "Well! comrades!" exclaimed the merchant,

  • "to Notre-Dame!

  • So much the better, since there are in the chapel of Saints Fereol and Ferrution two

  • statues, the one of John the Baptist, the other of Saint-Antoine, of solid gold,

  • weighing together seven marks of gold and

  • fifteen estellins; and the pedestals are of silver-gilt, of seventeen marks, five

  • ounces. I know that; I am a goldsmith."

  • Here they served Jehan with his supper.

  • As he threw himself back on the bosom of the wench beside him, he exclaimed,--

  • "By Saint Voult-de-Lucques, whom people call Saint Goguelu, I am perfectly happy.

  • I have before me a fool who gazes at me with the smooth face of an archduke.

  • Here is one on my left whose teeth are so long that they hide his chin.

  • And then, I am like the Marshal de Gie at the siege of Pontoise, I have my right

  • resting on a hillock. Ventre-Mahom!

  • Comrade! you have the air of a merchant of tennis-balls; and you come and sit yourself

  • beside me! I am a nobleman, my friend!

  • Trade is incompatible with nobility.

  • Get out of that! Hola he!

  • You others, don't fight!

  • What, Baptiste Croque-Oison, you who have such a fine nose are going to risk it

  • against the big fists of that lout! Fool!

  • Non cuiquam datum est habere nasum--not every one is favored with a nose.

  • You are really divine, Jacqueline Ronge- Oreille!

  • 'tis a pity that you have no hair!

  • Hola! my name is Jehan Frollo, and my brother is an archdeacon.

  • May the devil fly off with him! All that I tell you is the truth.

  • In turning vagabond, I have gladly renounced the half of a house situated in

  • paradise, which my brother had promised me. Dimidiam domum in paradiso.

  • I quote the text.

  • I have a fief in the Rue Tirechappe, and all the women are in love with me, as true

  • as Saint Eloy was an excellent goldsmith, and that the five trades of the good city

  • of Paris are the tanners, the tawers, the

  • makers of cross-belts, the purse-makers, and the sweaters, and that Saint Laurent

  • was burnt with eggshells. I swear to you, comrades.

  • "Que je ne beuvrai de piment, Devant un an, si je cy ment.*

  • * That I will drink no spiced and honeyed wine for a year, if I am lying now.

  • "'Tis moonlight, my charmer; see yonder through the window how the wind is tearing

  • the clouds to tatters!

  • Even thus will I do to your gorget.-- Wenches, wipe the children's noses and

  • snuff the candles.--Christ and Mahom! What am I eating here, Jupiter?

  • Ohe! innkeeper! the hair which is not on the heads of your hussies one finds in your

  • omelettes. Old woman!

  • I like bald omelettes.

  • May the devil confound you!--A fine hostelry of Beelzebub, where the hussies

  • comb their heads with the forks!

  • "Et je n'ai moi, Par la sang-Dieu! Ni foi, ni loi, Ni feu, ni lieu, Ni

  • roi, Ni Dieu."*

  • * And by the blood of God, I have neither faith nor law, nor fire nor dwelling-

  • place, nor king nor God.

  • In the meantime, Clopin Trouillefou had finished the distribution of arms.

  • He approached Gringoire, who appeared to be plunged in a profound revery, with his feet

  • on an andiron.

  • "Friend Pierre," said the King of Thunes, "what the devil are you thinking about?"

  • Gringoire turned to him with a melancholy smile.

  • "I love the fire, my dear lord.

  • Not for the trivial reason that fire warms the feet or cooks our soup, but because it

  • has sparks. Sometimes I pass whole hours in watching

  • the sparks.

  • I discover a thousand things in those stars which are sprinkled over the black

  • background of the hearth. Those stars are also worlds."

  • "Thunder, if I understand you!" said the outcast.

  • "Do you know what o'clock it is?" "I do not know," replied Gringoire.

  • Clopin approached the Duke of Egypt.

  • "Comrade Mathias, the time we have chosen is not a good one.

  • King Louis XI. is said to be in Paris." "Another reason for snatching our sister

  • from his claws," replied the old Bohemian.

  • "You speak like a man, Mathias," said the King of Thunes.

  • "Moreover, we will act promptly. No resistance is to be feared in the

  • church.

  • The canons are hares, and we are in force. The people of the parliament will be well

  • balked to-morrow when they come to seek her!

  • Guts of the pope I don't want them to hang the pretty girl!"

  • Chopin quitted the dram-shop. Meanwhile, Jehan was shouting in a hoarse

  • voice:

  • "I eat, I drink, I am drunk, I am Jupiter! Eh! Pierre, the Slaughterer, if you look at

  • me like that again, I'll fillip the dust off your nose for you."

  • Gringoire, torn from his meditations, began to watch the wild and noisy scene which

  • surrounded him, muttering between his teeth: "Luxuriosa res vinum et tumultuosa

  • ebrietas.

  • Alas! what good reason I have not to drink, and how excellently spoke Saint-Benoit:

  • 'Vinum apostatare facit etiam sapientes!'" At that moment, Clopin returned and shouted

  • in a voice of thunder: "Midnight!"

  • At this word, which produced the effect of the call to boot and saddle on a regiment

  • at a halt, all the outcasts, men, women, children, rushed in a mass from the tavern,

  • with great noise of arms and old iron implements.

  • The moon was obscured. The Cour des Miracles was entirely dark.

  • There was not a single light.

  • One could make out there a throng of men and women conversing in low tones.

  • They could be heard buzzing, and a gleam of all sorts of weapons was visible in the

  • darkness.

  • Clopin mounted a large stone. "To your ranks, Argot!" he cried.

  • "Fall into line, Egypt! Form ranks, Galilee!"

  • A movement began in the darkness.

  • The immense multitude appeared to form in a column.

  • After a few minutes, the King of Thunes raised his voice once more,--

  • "Now, silence to march through Paris!

  • The password is, 'Little sword in pocket!' The torches will not be lighted till we

  • reach Notre-Dame! Forward, march!"

  • Ten minutes later, the cavaliers of the watch fled in terror before a long

  • procession of black and silent men which was descending towards the Pont an Change,

  • through the tortuous streets which pierce

  • the close-built neighborhood of the markets in every direction.

  • -BOOK TENTH. CHAPTER V - PART 1.

  • THE RETREAT IN WHICH MONSIEUR LOUIS OF FRANCE SAYS HIS PRAYERS.

  • The reader has not, perhaps, forgotten that one moment before catching sight of the

  • nocturnal band of vagabonds, Quasimodo, as he inspected Paris from the heights of his

  • bell tower, perceived only one light

  • burning, which gleamed like a star from a window on the topmost story of a lofty

  • edifice beside the Porte Saint-Antoine. This edifice was the Bastille.

  • That star was the candle of Louis XI.

  • King Louis XI. had, in fact, been two days in Paris.

  • He was to take his departure on the next day but one for his citadel of Montilz-les-

  • Tours.

  • He made but seldom and brief appearance in his good city of Paris, since there he did

  • not feel about him enough pitfalls, gibbets, and Scotch archers.

  • He had come, that day, to sleep at the Bastille.

  • The great chamber five toises square, which he had at the Louvre, with its huge

  • chimney-piece loaded with twelve great beasts and thirteen great prophets, and his

  • grand bed, eleven feet by twelve, pleased him but little.

  • He felt himself lost amid all this grandeur.

  • This good bourgeois king preferred the Bastille with a tiny chamber and couch.

  • And then, the Bastille was stronger than the Louvre.

  • This little chamber, which the king reserved for himself in the famous state

  • prison, was also tolerably spacious and occupied the topmost story of a turret

  • rising from the donjon keep.

  • It was circular in form, carpeted with mats of shining straw, ceiled with beams,

  • enriched with fleurs-de-lis of gilded metal with interjoists in color; wainscoated with

  • rich woods sown with rosettes of white

  • metal, and with others painted a fine, bright green, made of orpiment and fine

  • indigo.

  • There was only one window, a long pointed casement, latticed with brass wire and bars

  • of iron, further darkened by fine colored panes with the arms of the king and of the

  • queen, each pane being worth two and twenty sols.

  • There was but one entrance, a modern door, with a fiat arch, garnished with a piece of

  • tapestry on the inside, and on the outside by one of those porches of Irish wood,

  • frail edifices of cabinet-work curiously

  • wrought, numbers of which were still to be seen in old houses a hundred and fifty

  • years ago.

  • "Although they disfigure and embarrass the places," says Sauvel in despair, "our old

  • people are still unwilling to get rid of them, and keep them in spite of everybody."

  • In this chamber, nothing was to be found of what furnishes ordinary apartments, neither

  • benches, nor trestles, nor forms, nor common stools in the form of a chest, nor

  • fine stools sustained by pillars and counter-pillars, at four sols a piece.

  • Only one easy arm-chair, very magnificent, was to be seen; the wood was painted with

  • roses on a red ground, the seat was of ruby Cordovan leather, ornamented with long

  • silken fringes, and studded with a thousand golden nails.

  • The loneliness of this chair made it apparent that only one person had a right

  • to sit down in this apartment.

  • Beside the chair, and quite close to the window, there was a table covered with a

  • cloth with a pattern of birds.

  • On this table stood an inkhorn spotted with ink, some parchments, several pens, and a

  • large goblet of chased silver.

  • A little further on was a brazier, a praying stool in crimson velvet, relieved

  • with small bosses of gold.

  • Finally, at the extreme end of the room, a simple bed of scarlet and yellow damask,

  • without either tinsel or lace; having only an ordinary fringe.

  • This bed, famous for having borne the sleep or the sleeplessness of Louis XI., was

  • still to be seen two hundred years ago, at the house of a councillor of state, where

  • it was seen by old Madame Pilou, celebrated

  • in Cyrus under the name "Arricidie" and of "la Morale Vivante".

  • Such was the chamber which was called "the retreat where Monsieur Louis de France says

  • his prayers."

  • At the moment when we have introduced the reader into it, this retreat was very dark.

  • The curfew bell had sounded an hour before; night was come, and there was only one

  • flickering wax candle set on the table to light five persons variously grouped in the

  • chamber.

  • The first on which the light fell was a seigneur superbly clad in breeches and

  • jerkin of scarlet striped with silver, and a loose coat with half sleeves of cloth of

  • gold with black figures.

  • This splendid costume, on which the light played, seemed glazed with flame on every

  • fold.

  • The man who wore it had his armorial bearings embroidered on his breast in vivid

  • colors; a chevron accompanied by a deer passant.

  • The shield was flanked, on the right by an olive branch, on the left by a deer's

  • antlers.

  • This man wore in his girdle a rich dagger whose hilt, of silver gilt, was chased in

  • the form of a helmet, and surmounted by a count's coronet.

  • He had a forbidding air, a proud mien, and a head held high.

  • At the first glance one read arrogance on his visage; at the second, craft.

  • He was standing bareheaded, a long roll of parchment in his hand, behind the arm-chair

  • in which was seated, his body ungracefully doubled up, his knees crossed, his elbow on

  • the table, a very badly accoutred personage.

  • Let the reader imagine in fact, on the rich seat of Cordova leather, two crooked knees,

  • two thin thighs, poorly clad in black worsted tricot, a body enveloped in a cloak

  • of fustian, with fur trimming of which more

  • leather than hair was visible; lastly, to crown all, a greasy old hat of the worst

  • sort of black cloth, bordered with a circular string of leaden figures.

  • This, in company with a dirty skull-cap, which hardly allowed a hair to escape, was

  • all that distinguished the seated personage.

  • He held his head so bent upon his breast, that nothing was to be seen of his face

  • thus thrown into shadow, except the tip of his nose, upon which fell a ray of light,

  • and which must have been long.

  • From the thinness of his wrinkled hand, one divined that he was an old man.

  • It was Louis XI.

  • At some distance behind them, two men dressed in garments of Flemish style were

  • conversing, who were not sufficiently lost in the shadow to prevent any one who had

  • been present at the performance of

  • Gringoire's mystery from recognizing in them two of the principal Flemish envoys,

  • Guillaume Rym, the sagacious pensioner of Ghent, and Jacques Coppenole, the popular

  • hosier.

  • The reader will remember that these men were mixed up in the secret politics of

  • Louis XI.

  • Finally, quite at the end of the room, near the door, in the dark, stood, motionless as

  • a statue, a vigorous man with thickset limbs, a military harness, with a surcoat

  • of armorial bearings, whose square face

  • pierced with staring eyes, slit with an immense mouth, his ears concealed by two

  • large screens of flat hair, had something about it both of the dog and the tiger.

  • All were uncovered except the king.

  • The gentleman who stood near the king was reading him a sort of long memorial to

  • which his majesty seemed to be listening attentively.

  • The two Flemings were whispering together.

  • "Cross of God!" grumbled Coppenole, "I am tired of standing; is there no chair here?"

  • Rym replied by a negative gesture, accompanied by a discreet smile.

  • "Croix-Dieu!" resumed Coppenole, thoroughly unhappy at being obliged to lower his voice

  • thus, "I should like to sit down on the floor, with my legs crossed, like a hosier,

  • as I do in my shop."

  • "Take good care that you do not, Master Jacques."

  • "Ouais! Master Guillaume! can one only remain here

  • on his feet?"

  • "Or on his knees," said Rym. At that moment the king's voice was

  • uplifted. They held their peace.

  • "Fifty sols for the robes of our valets, and twelve livres for the mantles of the

  • clerks of our crown! That's it!

  • Pour out gold by the ton!

  • Are you mad, Olivier?" As he spoke thus, the old man raised his

  • head. The golden shells of the collar of Saint-

  • Michael could be seen gleaming on his neck.

  • The candle fully illuminated his gaunt and morose profile.

  • He tore the papers from the other's hand. "You are ruining us!" he cried, casting his

  • hollow eyes over the scroll.

  • "What is all this? What need have we of so prodigious a

  • household? Two chaplains at ten livres a month each,

  • and, a chapel clerk at one hundred sols!

  • A valet-de-chambre at ninety livres a year. Four head cooks at six score livres a year

  • each!

  • A spit-cook, an herb-cook, a sauce-cook, a butler, two sumpter-horse lackeys, at ten

  • livres a month each! Two scullions at eight livres!

  • A groom of the stables and his two aids at four and twenty livres a month!

  • A porter, a pastry-cook, a baker, two carters, each sixty livres a year!

  • And the farrier six score livres!

  • And the master of the chamber of our funds, twelve hundred livres!

  • And the comptroller five hundred. And how do I know what else?

  • 'Tis ruinous.

  • The wages of our servants are putting France to the pillage!

  • All the ingots of the Louvre will melt before such a fire of expenses!

  • We shall have to sell our plate!

  • And next year, if God and our Lady (here he raised his hat) lend us life, we shall

  • drink our potions from a pewter pot!" So saying, he cast a glance at the silver

  • goblet which gleamed upon the table.

  • He coughed and continued,--

  • "Master Olivier, the princes who reign over great lordships, like kings and emperors,

  • should not allow sumptuousness in their houses; for the fire spreads thence through

  • the province.

  • Hence, Master Olivier, consider this said once for all.

  • Our expenditure increases every year. The thing displease us.

  • How, pasque-Dieu! when in '79 it did not exceed six and thirty thousand livres, did

  • it attain in '80, forty-three thousand six hundred and nineteen livres?

  • I have the figures in my head.

  • In '81, sixty-six thousand six hundred and eighty livres, and this year, by the faith

  • of my body, it will reach eighty thousand livres!

  • Doubled in four years!

  • Monstrous!" He paused breathless, then resumed

  • energetically,--

  • "I behold around me only people who fatten on my leanness! you suck crowns from me at

  • every pore." All remained silent.

  • This was one of those fits of wrath which are allowed to take their course.

  • He continued,--

  • "'Tis like that request in Latin from the gentlemen of France, that we should re-

  • establish what they call the grand charges of the Crown!

  • Charges in very deed!

  • Charges which crush! Ah! gentlemen! you say that we are not a

  • king to reign dapifero nullo, buticulario nullo!

  • We will let you see, pasque-Dieu! whether we are not a king!"

  • Here he smiled, in the consciousness of his power; this softened his bad humor, and he

  • turned towards the Flemings,--

  • "Do you see, Gossip Guillaume? the grand warden of the keys, the grand butler, the

  • grand chamberlain, the grand seneschal are not worth the smallest valet.

  • Remember this, Gossip Coppenole.

  • They serve no purpose, as they stand thus useless round the king; they produce upon

  • me the effect of the four Evangelists who surround the face of the big clock of the

  • palace, and which Philippe Brille has just set in order afresh.

  • They are gilt, but they do not indicate the hour; and the hands can get on without

  • them."

  • He remained in thought for a moment, then added, shaking his aged head,--

  • "Ho! ho! by our Lady, I am not Philippe Brille, and I shall not gild the great

  • vassals anew.

  • Continue, Olivier." The person whom he designated by this name,

  • took the papers into his hands again, and began to read aloud,--

  • "To Adam Tenon, clerk of the warden of the seals of the provostship of Paris; for the

  • silver, making, and engraving of said seals, which have been made new because the

  • others preceding, by reason of their

  • antiquity and their worn condition, could no longer be successfully used, twelve

  • livres parisis.

  • "To Guillaume Frere, the sum of four livres, four sols parisis, for his trouble

  • and salary, for having nourished and fed the doves in the two dove-cots of the Hotel

  • des Tournelles, during the months of

  • January, February, and March of this year; and for this he hath given seven sextiers

  • of barley. "To a gray friar for confessing a criminal,

  • four sols parisis."

  • The king listened in silence. From time to time he coughed; then he

  • raised the goblet to his lips and drank a draught with a grimace.

  • "During this year there have been made by the ordinance of justice, to the sound of

  • the trumpet, through the squares of Paris, fifty-six proclamations.

  • Account to be regulated.

  • "For having searched and ransacked in certain places, in Paris as well as

  • elsewhere, for money said to be there concealed; but nothing hath been found:

  • forty-five livres parisis."

  • "Bury a crown to unearth a sou!" said the king.

  • "For having set in the Hotel des Tournelles six panes of white glass in the place where

  • the iron cage is, thirteen sols; for having made and delivered by command of the king,

  • on the day of the musters, four shields

  • with the escutcheons of the said seigneur, encircled with garlands of roses all about,

  • six livres; for two new sleeves to the king's old doublet, twenty sols; for a box

  • of grease to grease the boots of the king,

  • fifteen deniers; a stable newly made to lodge the king's black pigs, thirty livres

  • parisis; many partitions, planks, and trap- doors, for the safekeeping of the lions at

  • Saint-Paul, twenty-two livres."

  • "These be dear beasts," said Louis XI. "It matters not; it is a fine magnificence

  • in a king. There is a great red lion whom I love for

  • his pleasant ways.

  • Have you seen him, Master Guillaume? Princes must have these terrific animals;

  • for we kings must have lions for our dogs and tigers for our cats.

  • The great befits a crown.

  • In the days of the pagans of Jupiter, when the people offered the temples a hundred

  • oxen and a hundred sheep, the emperors gave a hundred lions and a hundred eagles.

  • This was wild and very fine.

  • The kings of France have always had roarings round their throne.

  • Nevertheless, people must do me this justice, that I spend still less money on

  • it than they did, and that I possess a greater modesty of lions, bears, elephants,

  • and leopards.--Go on, Master Olivier.

  • We wished to say thus much to our Flemish friends."

  • Guillaume Rym bowed low, while Coppenole, with his surly mien, had the air of one of

  • the bears of which his majesty was speaking.

  • The king paid no heed.

  • He had just dipped his lips into the goblet, and he spat out the beverage,

  • saying: "Foh! what a disagreeable potion!" The man who was reading continued:--

  • "For feeding a rascally footpad, locked up these six months in the little cell of the

  • flayer, until it should be determined what to do with him, six livres, four sols."

  • "What's that?" interrupted the king; "feed what ought to be hanged!

  • Pasque-Dieu! I will give not a sou more for that

  • nourishment.

  • Olivier, come to an understanding about the matter with Monsieur d'Estouteville, and

  • prepare me this very evening the wedding of the gallant and the gallows.

  • Resume."

  • Olivier made a mark with his thumb against the article of the "rascally foot soldier,"

  • and passed on.

  • "To Henriet Cousin, master executor of the high works of justice in Paris, the sum of

  • sixty sols parisis, to him assessed and ordained by monseigneur the provost of

  • Paris, for having bought, by order of the

  • said sieur the provost, a great broad sword, serving to execute and decapitate

  • persons who are by justice condemned for their demerits, and he hath caused the same

  • to be garnished with a sheath and with all

  • things thereto appertaining; and hath likewise caused to be repointed and set in

  • order the old sword, which had become broken and notched in executing justice on

  • Messire Louis de Luxembourg, as will more fully appear."

  • The king interrupted: "That suffices. I allow the sum with great good will.

  • Those are expenses which I do not begrudge.

  • I have never regretted that money. Continue."

  • "For having made over a great cage..."

  • "Ah!" said the king, grasping the arms of his chair in both hands, "I knew well that

  • I came hither to this Bastille for some purpose.

  • Hold, Master Olivier; I desire to see that cage myself.

  • You shall read me the cost while I am examining it.

  • Messieurs Flemings, come and see this; 'tis curious."

  • Then he rose, leaned on the arm of his interlocutor, made a sign to the sort of

  • mute who stood before the door to precede him, to the two Flemings to follow him, and

  • quitted the room.

  • The royal company was recruited, at the door of the retreat, by men of arms, all

  • loaded down with iron, and by slender pages bearing flambeaux.

  • It marched for some time through the interior of the gloomy donjon, pierced with

  • staircases and corridors even in the very thickness of the walls.

  • The captain of the Bastille marched at their head, and caused the wickets to be

  • opened before the bent and aged king, who coughed as he walked.

  • At each wicket, all heads were obliged to stoop, except that of the old man bent

  • double with age.

  • "Hum," said he between his gums, for he had no longer any teeth, "we are already quite

  • prepared for the door of the sepulchre. For a low door, a bent passer."

  • At length, after having passed a final wicket, so loaded with locks that a quarter

  • of an hour was required to open it, they entered a vast and lofty vaulted hall, in

  • the centre of which they could distinguish

  • by the light of the torches, a huge cubic mass of masonry, iron, and wood.

  • The interior was hollow.

  • It was one of those famous cages of prisoners of state, which were called "the

  • little daughters of the king."

  • In its walls there were two or three little windows so closely trellised with stout

  • iron bars; that the glass was not visible.

  • The door was a large flat slab of stone, as on tombs; the sort of door which serves for

  • entrance only. Only here, the occupant was alive.

  • The king began to walk slowly round the little edifice, examining it carefully,

  • while Master Olivier, who followed him, read aloud the note.

  • "For having made a great cage of wood of solid beams, timbers and wall-plates,

  • measuring nine feet in length by eight in breadth, and of the height of seven feet

  • between the partitions, smoothed and

  • clamped with great bolts of iron, which has been placed in a chamber situated in one of

  • the towers of the Bastille Saint-Antoine, in which cage is placed and detained, by

  • command of the king our lord, a prisoner

  • who formerly inhabited an old, decrepit, and ruined cage.

  • There have been employed in making the said new cage, ninety-six horizontal beams, and

  • fifty-two upright joists, ten wall plates three toises long; there have been occupied

  • nineteen carpenters to hew, work, and fit

  • all the said wood in the courtyard of the Bastille during twenty days."

  • "Very fine heart of oak," said the king, striking the woodwork with his fist.

  • "There have been used in this cage," continued the other, "two hundred and

  • twenty great bolts of iron, of nine feet, and of eight, the rest of medium length,

  • with the rowels, caps and counterbands

  • appertaining to the said bolts; weighing, the said iron in all, three thousand, seven

  • hundred and thirty-five pounds; beside eight great squares of iron, serving to

  • attach the said cage in place with clamps

  • and nails weighing in all two hundred and eighteen pounds, not reckoning the iron of

  • the trellises for the windows of the chamber wherein the cage hath been placed,

  • the bars of iron for the door of the cage and other things."

  • "'Tis a great deal of iron," said the king, "to contain the light of a spirit."

  • "The whole amounts to three hundred and seventeen livres, five sols, seven

  • deniers." "Pasque-Dieu!" exclaimed the king.

  • At this oath, which was the favorite of Louis XI., some one seemed to awaken in the

  • interior of the cage; the sound of chains was heard, grating on the floor, and a

  • feeble voice, which seemed to issue from the tomb was uplifted.

  • "Sire! sire! mercy!" The one who spoke thus could not be seen.

  • "Three hundred and seventeen livres, five sols, seven deniers," repeated Louis XI.

  • The lamentable voice which had proceeded from the cage had frozen all present, even

  • Master Olivier himself.

  • The king alone wore the air of not having heard.

  • At his order, Master Olivier resumed his reading, and his majesty coldly continued

  • his inspection of the cage.

  • "In addition to this there hath been paid to a mason who hath made the holes wherein

  • to place the gratings of the windows, and the floor of the chamber where the cage is,

  • because that floor could not support this

  • cage by reason of its weight, twenty-seven livres fourteen sols parisis."

  • The voice began to moan again. "Mercy, sire!

  • I swear to you that 'twas Monsieur the Cardinal d'Angers and not I, who was guilty

  • of treason." "The mason is bold!" said the king.

  • "Continue, Olivier."

  • Olivier continued,-- "To a joiner for window frames, bedstead,

  • hollow stool, and other things, twenty livres, two sols parisis."

  • The voice also continued.

  • "Alas, sire! will you not listen to me? I protest to you that 'twas not I who wrote

  • the matter to Monseigneur do Guyenne, but Monsieur le Cardinal Balue."

  • "The joiner is dear," quoth the king.

  • "Is that all?" "No, sire.

  • To a glazier, for the windows of the said chamber, forty-six sols, eight deniers

  • parisis."

  • "Have mercy, sire!

  • Is it not enough to have given all my goods to my judges, my plate to Monsieur de

  • Torcy, my library to Master Pierre Doriolle, my tapestry to the governor of

  • the Roussillon?

  • I am innocent. I have been shivering in an iron cage for

  • fourteen years. Have mercy, sire!

  • You will find your reward in heaven."

  • "Master Olivier," said the king, "the total?"

  • "Three hundred sixty-seven livres, eight sols, three deniers parisis.

  • "Notre-Dame!" cried the king.

  • "This is an outrageous cage!" He tore the book from Master Olivier's

  • hands, and set to reckoning it himself upon his fingers, examining the paper and the

  • cage alternately.

  • Meanwhile, the prisoner could be heard sobbing.

  • This was lugubrious in the darkness, and their faces turned pale as they looked at

  • each other.

  • "Fourteen years, sire! Fourteen years now! since the month of

  • April, 1469. In the name of the Holy Mother of God,

  • sire, listen to me!

  • During all this time you have enjoyed the heat of the sun.

  • Shall I, frail creature, never more behold the day?

  • Mercy, sire!

  • Be pitiful! Clemency is a fine, royal virtue, which

  • turns aside the currents of wrath.

  • Does your majesty believe that in the hour of death it will be a great cause of

  • content for a king never to have left any offence unpunished?

  • Besides, sire, I did not betray your majesty, 'twas Monsieur d'Angers; and I

  • have on my foot a very heavy chain, and a great ball of iron at the end, much heavier

  • than it should be in reason.

  • Eh! sire! Have pity on me!"

  • "Olivier," cried the king, throwing back his head, "I observe that they charge me

  • twenty sols a hogshead for plaster, while it is worth but twelve.

  • You will refer back this account."

  • He turned his back on the cage, and set out to leave the room.

  • The miserable prisoner divined from the removal of the torches and the noise, that

  • the king was taking his departure.

  • "Sire! sire!" he cried in despair. The door closed again.

  • He no longer saw anything, and heard only the hoarse voice of the turnkey, singing in

  • his ears this ditty,--

  • "Maitre Jean Balue, A perdu la vue

  • De ses eveches. Monsieur de Verdun.

  • N'en a plus pas un; Tous sont depeches."*

  • * Master Jean Balue has lost sight of his bishoprics.

  • Monsieur of Verdun

  • has no longer one; all have been killed off.

  • The king reascended in silence to his retreat, and his suite followed him,

  • terrified by the last groans of the condemned man.

  • All at once his majesty turned to the Governor of the Bastille,--

  • "By the way," said he, "was there not some one in that cage?"

  • "Pardieu, yes sire!" replied the governor, astounded by the question.

  • "And who was it?" "Monsieur the Bishop of Verdun."

  • The king knew this better than any one else.

  • But it was a mania of his.

  • "Ah!" said he, with the innocent air of thinking of it for the first time,

  • "Guillaume de Harancourt, the friend of Monsieur the Cardinal Balue.

  • A good devil of a bishop!"

  • At the expiration of a few moments, the door of the retreat had opened again, then

  • closed upon the five personages whom the reader has seen at the beginning of this

  • chapter, and who resumed their places,

  • their whispered conversations, and their attitudes.

  • During the king's absence, several despatches had been placed on his table,

  • and he broke the seals himself.

  • Then he began to read them promptly, one after the other, made a sign to Master

  • Olivier who appeared to exercise the office of minister, to take a pen, and without

  • communicating to him the contents of the

  • despatches, he began to dictate in a low voice, the replies which the latter wrote,

  • on his knees, in an inconvenient attitude before the table.

  • Guillaume Rym was on the watch.

  • The king spoke so low that the Flemings heard nothing of his dictation, except some

  • isolated and rather unintelligible scraps, such as,--

  • "To maintain the fertile places by commerce, and the sterile by

  • manufactures....--To show the English lords our four bombards, London, Brabant, Bourg-

  • en-Bresse, Saint-Omer....--Artillery is the

  • cause of war being made more judiciously now....--To Monsieur de Bressuire, our

  • friend....--Armies cannot be maintained without tribute, etc."

  • Once he raised his voice,--

  • "Pasque Dieu! Monsieur the King of Sicily seals his

  • letters with yellow wax, like a king of France.

  • Perhaps we are in the wrong to permit him so to do.

  • My fair cousin of Burgundy granted no armorial bearings with a field of gules.

  • The grandeur of houses is assured by the integrity of prerogatives.

  • Note this, friend Olivier." Again,--

  • "Oh! oh!" said he, "What a long message!

  • What doth our brother the emperor claim?"

  • And running his eye over the missive and breaking his reading with interjection:

  • "Surely! the Germans are so great and powerful, that it is hardly credible--But

  • let us not forget the old proverb: 'The

  • finest county is Flanders; the finest duchy, Milan; the finest kingdom, France.'

  • Is it not so, Messieurs Flemings?" This time Coppenole bowed in company with

  • Guillaume Rym.

  • The hosier's patriotism was tickled. The last despatch made Louis XI. frown.

  • "What is this?" he said, "Complaints and fault finding against our garrisons in

  • Picardy!

  • Olivier, write with diligence to M. the Marshal de Rouault:--That discipline is

  • relaxed.

  • That the gendarmes of the unattached troops, the feudal nobles, the free

  • archers, and the Swiss inflict infinite evils on the rustics.--That the military,

  • not content with what they find in the

  • houses of the rustics, constrain them with violent blows of cudgel or of lash to go

  • and get wine, spices, and other unreasonable things in the town.--That

  • monsieur the king knows this.

  • That we undertake to guard our people against inconveniences, larcenies and

  • pillage.--That such is our will, by our Lady!--That in addition, it suits us not

  • that any fiddler, barber, or any soldier

  • varlet should be clad like a prince, in velvet, cloth of silk, and rings of gold.--

  • That these vanities are hateful to God.-- That we, who are gentlemen, content

  • ourselves with a doublet of cloth at

  • sixteen sols the ell, of Paris.--That messieurs the camp-followers can very well

  • come down to that, also.--Command and ordain.--To Monsieur de Rouault, our

  • friend.--Good."

  • He dictated this letter aloud, in a firm tone, and in jerks.

  • At the moment when he finished it, the door opened and gave passage to a new personage,

  • who precipitated himself into the chamber, crying in affright,--

  • "Sire! sire! there is a sedition of the populace in Paris!"

  • Louis XI.'s grave face contracted; but all that was visible of his emotion passed away

  • like a flash of lightning.

  • He controlled himself and said with tranquil severity,--

  • "Gossip Jacques, you enter very abruptly!" "Sire! sire! there is a revolt!" repeated

  • Gossip Jacques breathlessly.

  • The king, who had risen, grasped him roughly by the arm, and said in his ear, in

  • such a manner as to be heard by him alone, with concentrated rage and a sidelong

  • glance at the Flemings,--

  • "Hold your tongue! or speak low!"

  • The new comer understood, and began in a low tone to give a very terrified account,

  • to which the king listened calmly, while Guillaume Rym called Coppenole's attention

  • to the face and dress of the new arrival,

  • to his furred cowl, (caputia fourrata), his short cape, (epitogia curta), his robe of

  • black velvet, which bespoke a president of the court of accounts.

  • Hardly had this personage given the king some explanations, when Louis XI.

  • exclaimed, bursting into a laugh,-- "In truth?

  • Speak aloud, Gossip Coictier!

  • What call is there for you to talk so low? Our Lady knoweth that we conceal nothing

  • from our good friends the Flemings." "But sire..."

  • "Speak loud!"

  • Gossip Coictier was struck dumb with surprise.

  • "So," resumed the king,--"speak sir,--there is a commotion among the louts in our good

  • city of Paris?"

  • "Yes, sire." "And which is moving you say, against

  • monsieur the bailiff of the Palais-de- Justice?"

  • "So it appears," said the gossip, who still stammered, utterly astounded by the abrupt

  • and inexplicable change which had just taken place in the king's thoughts.

  • Louis XI. continued: "Where did the watch meet the rabble?"

  • "Marching from the Grand Truanderie, towards the Pont-aux-Changeurs.

  • I met it myself as I was on my way hither to obey your majesty's commands.

  • I heard some of them shouting: 'Down with the bailiff of the palace!'"

  • "And what complaints have they against the bailiff?"

  • "Ah!" said Gossip Jacques, "because he is their lord."

  • "Really?"

  • "Yes, sire. They are knaves from the Cour-des-Miracles.

  • They have been complaining this long while, of the bailiff, whose vassals they are.

  • They do not wish to recognize him either as judge or as voyer?"

  • "Yes, certainly!" retorted the king with a smile of satis-faction which he strove in

  • vain to disguise.

  • "In all their petitions to the Parliament, they claim to have but two masters.

  • Your majesty and their God, who is the devil, I believe."

  • "Eh! eh!" said the king.

  • He rubbed his hands, he laughed with that inward mirth which makes the countenance

  • beam; he was unable to dissimulate his joy, although he endeavored at moments to

  • compose himself.

  • No one understood it in the least, not even Master Olivier.

  • He remained silent for a moment, with a thoughtful but contented air.

  • "Are they in force?" he suddenly inquired.

  • "Yes, assuredly, sire," replied Gossip Jacques.

  • "How many?" "Six thousand at the least."

  • The king could not refrain from saying: "Good!" he went on,--

  • "Are they armed?" "With scythes, pikes, hackbuts, pickaxes.

  • All sorts of very violent weapons."

  • The king did not appear in the least disturbed by this list.

  • Jacques considered it his duty to add,-- "If your majesty does not send prompt

  • succor to the bailiff, he is lost."

  • "We will send," said the king with an air of false seriousness.

  • "It is well. Assuredly we will send.

  • Monsieur the bailiff is our friend.

  • Six thousand! They are desperate scamps!

  • Their audacity is marvellous, and we are greatly enraged at it.

  • But we have only a few people about us to- night.

  • To-morrow morning will be time enough."

  • Gossip Jacques exclaimed, "Instantly, sire! there will be time to sack the bailiwick a

  • score of times, to violate the seignory, to hang the bailiff.

  • For God's sake, sire! send before to-morrow morning."

  • The king looked him full in the face. "I have told you to-morrow morning."

  • It was one Of those looks to which one does not reply.

  • After a silence, Louis XI. raised his voice once more,--

  • "You should know that, Gossip Jacques.

  • What was--" He corrected himself.

  • "What is the bailiff's feudal jurisdiction?"

  • "Sire, the bailiff of the palace has the Rue Calendre as far as the Rue de

  • l'Herberie, the Place Saint-Michel, and the localities vulgarly known as the Mureaux,

  • situated near the church of Notre-Dame des

  • Champs (here Louis XI. raised the brim of his hat), which hotels number thirteen,

  • plus the Cour des Miracles, plus the Maladerie, called the Banlieue, plus the

  • whole highway which begins at that

  • Maladerie and ends at the Porte Sainte- Jacques.

  • Of these divers places he is voyer, high, middle, and low, justiciary, full

  • seigneur."

  • "Bless me!" said the king, scratching his left ear with his right hand, "that makes a

  • goodly bit of my city! Ah! monsieur the bailiff was king of all

  • that."

  • This time he did not correct himself. He continued dreamily, and as though

  • speaking to himself,-- "Very fine, monsieur the bailiff!

  • You had there between your teeth a pretty slice of our Paris."

  • All at once he broke out explosively, "Pasque-Dieu!

  • What people are those who claim to be voyers, justiciaries, lords and masters in

  • our domains? who have their tollgates at the end of every field? their gallows and

  • their hangman at every cross-road among our people?

  • So that as the Greek believed that he had as many gods as there were fountains, and

  • the Persian as many as he beheld stars, the Frenchman counts as many kings as he sees

  • gibbets!

  • Pardieu! 'tis an evil thing, and the confusion of it

  • displeases me.

  • I should greatly like to know whether it be the mercy of God that there should be in

  • Paris any other lord than the king, any other judge than our parliament, any other

  • emperor than ourselves in this empire!

  • By the faith of my soul! the day must certainly come when there shall exist in

  • France but one king, one lord, one judge, one headsman, as there is in paradise but

  • one God!"

  • He lifted his cap again, and continued, still dreamily, with the air and accent of

  • a hunter who is cheering on his pack of hounds: "Good, my people! bravely done!

  • break these false lords! do your duty! at

  • them! have at them! pillage them! take them! sack them!...

  • Ah! you want to be kings, messeigneurs? On, my people on!"

  • Here he interrupted himself abruptly, bit his lips as though to take back his thought

  • which had already half escaped, bent his piercing eyes in turn on each of the five

  • persons who surrounded him, and suddenly

  • grasping his hat with both hands and staring full at it, he said to it: "Oh!

  • I would burn you if you knew what there was in my head."

  • Then casting about him once more the cautious and uneasy glance of the fox re-

  • entering his hole,-- "No matter! we will succor monsieur the

  • bailiff.

  • Unfortunately, we have but few troops here at the present moment, against so great a

  • populace. We must wait until to-morrow.

  • The order will be transmitted to the City and every one who is caught will be

  • immediately hung."

  • "By the way, sire," said Gossip Coictier, "I had forgotten that in the first

  • agitation, the watch have seized two laggards of the band.

  • If your majesty desires to see these men, they are here."

  • "If I desire to see them!" cried the king. "What!

  • Pasque-Dieu!

  • You forget a thing like that! Run quick, you, Olivier!

  • Go, seek them!"

  • Master Olivier quitted the room and returned a moment later with the two

  • prisoners, surrounded by archers of the guard.

  • The first had a coarse, idiotic, drunken and astonished face.

  • He was clothed in rags, and walked with one knee bent and dragging his leg.

  • The second had a pallid and smiling countenance, with which the reader is

  • already acquainted.

  • The king surveyed them for a moment without uttering a word, then addressing the first

  • one abruptly,-- "What's your name?"

  • "Gieffroy Pincebourde."

  • "Your trade." "Outcast."

  • "What were you going to do in this damnable sedition?"

  • The outcast stared at the king, and swung his arms with a stupid air.

  • He had one of those awkwardly shaped heads where intelligence is about as much at its

  • ease as a light beneath an extinguisher.

  • "I know not," said he. "They went, I went."

  • "Were you not going to outrageously attack and pillage your lord, the bailiff of the

  • palace?"

  • "I know that they were going to take something from some one.

  • That is all."

  • A soldier pointed out to the king a billhook which he had seized on the person

  • of the vagabond. "Do you recognize this weapon?" demanded

  • the king.

  • "Yes; 'tis my billhook; I am a vine- dresser."

  • "And do you recognize this man as your companion?" added Louis XI., pointing to

  • the other prisoner.

  • "No, I do not know him."

  • "That will do," said the king, making a sign with his finger to the silent

  • personage who stood motionless beside the door, to whom we have already called the

  • reader's attention.

  • "Gossip Tristan, here is a man for you." Tristan l'Hermite bowed.

  • He gave an order in a low voice to two archers, who led away the poor vagabond.

  • In the meantime, the king had approached the second prisoner, who was perspiring in

  • great drops: "Your name?" "Sire, Pierre Gringoire."

  • "Your trade?"

  • "Philosopher, sire." "How do you permit yourself, knave, to go

  • and besiege our friend, monsieur the bailiff of the palace, and what have you to

  • say concerning this popular agitation?"

  • "Sire, I had nothing to do with it." "Come, now! you wanton wretch, were not you

  • apprehended by the watch in that bad company?"

  • "No, sire, there is a mistake.

  • 'Tis a fatality. I make tragedies.

  • Sire, I entreat your majesty to listen to me.

  • I am a poet.

  • 'Tis the melancholy way of men of my profession to roam the streets by night.

  • I was passing there. It was mere chance.

  • I was unjustly arrested; I am innocent of this civil tempest.

  • Your majesty sees that the vagabond did not recognize me.

  • I conjure your majesty--"

  • "Hold your tongue!" said the king, between two swallows of his ptisan.

  • "You split our head!" Tristan l'Hermite advanced and pointing to

  • Gringoire,--

  • "Sire, can this one be hanged also?" This was the first word that he had

  • uttered. "Phew!" replied the king, "I see no

  • objection."

  • "I see a great many!" said Gringoire. At that moment, our philosopher was greener

  • than an olive.

  • He perceived from the king's cold and indifferent mien that there was no other

  • resource than something very pathetic, and he flung himself at the feet of Louis XI.,

  • exclaiming, with gestures of despair:--

  • "Sire! will your majesty deign to hear me. Sire! break not in thunder over so small a

  • thing as myself. God's great lightning doth not bombard a

  • lettuce.

  • Sire, you are an august and, very puissant monarch; have pity on a poor man who is

  • honest, and who would find it more difficult to stir up a revolt than a cake

  • of ice would to give out a spark!

  • Very gracious sire, kindness is the virtue of a lion and a king.

  • Alas! rigor only frightens minds; the impetuous gusts of the north wind do not

  • make the traveller lay aside his cloak; the sun, bestowing his rays little by little,

  • warms him in such ways that it will make him strip to his shirt.

  • Sire, you are the sun.

  • I protest to you, my sovereign lord and master, that I am not an outcast, thief,

  • and disorderly fellow. Revolt and brigandage belong not to the

  • outfit of Apollo.

  • I am not the man to fling myself into those clouds which break out into seditious

  • clamor. I am your majesty's faithful vassal.

  • That same jealousy which a husband cherisheth for the honor of his wife, the

  • resentment which the son hath for the love of his father, a good vassal should feel

  • for the glory of his king; he should pine

  • away for the zeal of this house, for the aggrandizement of his service.

  • Every other passion which should transport him would be but madness.

  • These, sire, are my maxims of state: then do not judge me to be a seditious and

  • thieving rascal because my garment is worn at the elbows.

  • If you will grant me mercy, sire, I will wear it out on the knees in praying to God

  • for you night and morning! Alas!

  • I am not extremely rich, 'tis true.

  • I am even rather poor. But not vicious on that account.

  • It is not my fault.

  • Every one knoweth that great wealth is not to be drawn from literature, and that those

  • who are best posted in good books do not always have a great fire in winter.

  • The advocate's trade taketh all the grain, and leaveth only straw to the other

  • scientific professions.

  • There are forty very excellent proverbs anent the hole-ridden cloak of the

  • philosopher.

  • Oh, sire! clemency is the only light which can enlighten the interior of so great a

  • soul. Clemency beareth the torch before all the

  • other virtues.

  • Without it they are but blind men groping after God in the dark.

  • Compassion, which is the same thing as clemency, causeth the love of subjects,

  • which is the most powerful bodyguard to a prince.

  • What matters it to your majesty, who dazzles all faces, if there is one poor man

  • more on earth, a poor innocent philosopher spluttering amid the shadows of calamity,

  • with an empty pocket which resounds against his hollow belly?

  • Moreover, sire, I am a man of letters. Great kings make a pearl for their crowns

  • by protecting letters.

  • Hercules did not disdain the title of Musagetes.

  • Mathias Corvin favored Jean de Monroyal, the ornament of mathematics.

  • Now, 'tis an ill way to protect letters to hang men of letters.

  • What a stain on Alexander if he had hung Aristoteles!

  • This act would not be a little patch on the face of his reputation to embellish it, but

  • a very malignant ulcer to disfigure it. Sire!

  • I made a very proper epithalamium for Mademoiselle of Flanders and Monseigneur

  • the very august Dauphin. That is not a firebrand of rebellion.

  • Your majesty sees that I am not a scribbler of no reputation, that I have studied

  • excellently well, and that I possess much natural eloquence.

  • Have mercy upon me, sire!

  • In so doing you will perform a gallant deed to our Lady, and I swear to you that I am

  • greatly terrified at the idea of being hanged!"

  • So saying, the unhappy Gringoire kissed the king's slippers, and Guillaume Rym said to

  • Coppenole in a low tone: "He doth well to drag himself on the earth.

  • Kings are like the Jupiter of Crete, they have ears only in their feet."

  • And without troubling himself about the Jupiter of Crete, the hosier replied with a

  • heavy smile, and his eyes fixed on Gringoire: "Oh! that's it exactly!

  • I seem to hear Chancellor Hugonet craving mercy of me."

  • When Gringoire paused at last, quite out of breath, he raised his head tremblingly

  • towards the king, who was engaged in scratching a spot on the knee of his

  • breeches with his finger-nail; then his

  • majesty began to drink from the goblet of ptisan.

  • But he uttered not a word, and this silence tortured Gringoire.

  • At last the king looked at him.

  • "Here is a terrible bawler!" said, he. Then, turning to Tristan l'Hermite, "Bali!

  • let him go!" Gringoire fell backwards, quite

  • thunderstruck with joy.

  • "At liberty!" growled Tristan "Doth not your majesty wish to have him detained a

  • little while in a cage?"

  • "Gossip," retorted Louis XI., "think you that 'tis for birds of this feather that we

  • cause to be made cages at three hundred and sixty-seven livres, eight sous, three

  • deniers apiece?

  • Release him at once, the wanton (Louis XI. was fond of this word which formed, with

  • Pasque-Dieu, the foundation of his joviality), and put him out with a buffet."

  • "Ugh!" cried Gringoire, "what a great king is here!"

  • And for fear of a counter order, he rushed towards the door, which Tristan opened for

  • him with a very bad grace.

  • The soldiers left the room with him, pushing him before them with stout thwacks,

  • which Gringoire bore like a true stoical philosopher.

  • The king's good humor since the revolt against the bailiff had been announced to

  • him, made itself apparent in every way. This unwonted clemency was no small sign of

  • it.

  • Tristan l'Hermite in his corner wore the surly look of a dog who has had a bone

  • snatched away from him.

  • -BOOK TENTH. CHAPTER V - PART 2.

  • THE RETREAT IN WHICH MONSIEUR LOUIS OF FRANCE SAYS HIS PRAYERS.

  • Meanwhile, the king thrummed gayly with his fingers on the arm of his chair, the March

  • of Pont-Audemer.

  • He was a dissembling prince, but one who understood far better how to hide his

  • troubles than his joys.

  • These external manifestations of joy at any good news sometimes proceeded to very great

  • lengths thus, on the death, of Charles the Bold, to the point of vowing silver

  • balustrades to Saint Martin of Tours; on

  • his advent to the throne, so far as forgetting to order his father's obsequies.

  • "He! sire!" suddenly exclaimed Jacques Coictier, "what has become of the acute

  • attack of illness for which your majesty had me summoned?"

  • "Oh!" said the king, "I really suffer greatly, my gossip.

  • There is a hissing in my ear and fiery rakes rack my chest."

  • Coictier took the king's hand, and begun to feel of his pulse with a knowing air.

  • "Look, Coppenole," said Rym, in a low voice.

  • "Behold him between Coictier and Tristan.

  • They are his whole court. A physician for himself, a headsman for

  • others."

  • As he felt the king's pulse, Coictier assumed an air of greater and greater

  • alarm. Louis XI. watched him with some anxiety.

  • Coictier grew visibly more gloomy.

  • The brave man had no other farm than the king's bad health.

  • He speculated on it to the best of his ability.

  • "Oh! oh!" he murmured at length, "this is serious indeed."

  • "Is it not?" said the king, uneasily. "Pulsus creber, anhelans, crepitans,

  • irregularis," continued the leech.

  • "Pasque-Dieu!" "This may carry off its man in less than

  • three days." "Our Lady!" exclaimed the king.

  • "And the remedy, gossip?"

  • "I am meditating upon that, sire." He made Louis XI. put out his tongue, shook

  • his head, made a grimace, and in the very midst of these affectations,--

  • "Pardieu, sire," he suddenly said, "I must tell you that there is a receivership of

  • the royal prerogatives vacant, and that I have a nephew."

  • "I give the receivership to your nephew, Gossip Jacques," replied the king; "but

  • draw this fire from my breast."

  • "Since your majesty is so clement," replied the leech, "you will not refuse to aid me a

  • little in building my house, Rue Saint- Andre-des-Arcs."

  • "Heugh!" said the king.

  • "I am at the end of my finances," pursued the doctor; "and it would really be a pity

  • that the house should not have a roof; not on account of the house, which is simple

  • and thoroughly bourgeois, but because of

  • the paintings of Jehan Fourbault, which adorn its wainscoating.

  • There is a Diana flying in the air, but so excellent, so tender, so delicate, of so

  • ingenuous an action, her hair so well coiffed and adorned with a crescent, her

  • flesh so white, that she leads into

  • temptation those who regard her too curiously.

  • There is also a Ceres. She is another very fair divinity.

  • She is seated on sheaves of wheat and crowned with a gallant garland of wheat

  • ears interlaced with salsify and other flowers.

  • Never were seen more amorous eyes, more rounded limbs, a nobler air, or a more

  • gracefully flowing skirt.

  • She is one of the most innocent and most perfect beauties whom the brush has ever

  • produced." "Executioner!" grumbled Louis XI., "what

  • are you driving at?"

  • "I must have a roof for these paintings, sire, and, although 'tis but a small

  • matter, I have no more money." "How much doth your roof cost?"

  • "Why a roof of copper, embellished and gilt, two thousand livres at the most."

  • "Ah, assassin!" cried the king, "He never draws out one of my teeth which is not a

  • diamond."

  • "Am I to have my roof?" said Coictier. "Yes; and go to the devil, but cure me."

  • Jacques Coictier bowed low and said,-- "Sire, it is a repellent which will save

  • you.

  • We will apply to your loins the great defensive composed of cerate, Armenian

  • bole, white of egg, oil, and vinegar. You will continue your ptisan and we will

  • answer for your majesty."

  • A burning candle does not attract one gnat alone.

  • Master Olivier, perceiving the king to be in a liberal mood, and judging the moment

  • to be propitious, approached in his turn.

  • "Sire--" "What is it now?" said Louis XI.

  • "Sire, your majesty knoweth that Simon Radin is dead?"

  • "Well?"

  • "He was councillor to the king in the matter of the courts of the treasury."

  • "Well?" "Sire, his place is vacant."

  • As he spoke thus, Master Olivier's haughty face quitted its arrogant expression for a

  • lowly one. It is the only change which ever takes

  • place in a courtier's visage.

  • The king looked him well in the face and said in a dry tone,--"I understand."

  • He resumed,

  • "Master Olivier, the Marshal de Boucicaut was wont to say, 'There's no master save

  • the king, there are no fishes save in the sea.'

  • I see that you agree with Monsieur de Boucicaut.

  • Now listen to this; we have a good memory.

  • In '68 we made you valet of our chamber: in '69, guardian of the fortress of the bridge

  • of Saint-Cloud, at a hundred livres of Tournay in wages (you wanted them of

  • Paris).

  • In November, '73, by letters given to Gergeole, we instituted you keeper of the

  • Wood of Vincennes, in the place of Gilbert Acle, equerry; in '75, gruyer of the forest

  • of Rouvray-lez-Saint-Cloud, in the place of

  • Jacques le Maire; in '78, we graciously settled on you, by letters patent sealed

  • doubly with green wax, an income of ten livres parisis, for you and your wife, on

  • the Place of the Merchants, situated at the

  • School Saint-Germain; in '79, we made you gruyer of the forest of Senart, in place of

  • that poor Jehan Daiz; then captain of the Chateau of Loches; then governor of Saint-

  • Quentin; then captain of the bridge of

  • Meulan, of which you cause yourself to be called comte.

  • Out of the five sols fine paid by every barber who shaves on a festival day, there

  • are three sols for you and we have the rest.

  • We have been good enough to change your name of Le Mauvais (The Evil), which

  • resembled your face too closely.

  • In '76, we granted you, to the great displeasure of our nobility, armorial

  • bearings of a thousand colors, which give you the breast of a peacock.

  • Pasque-Dieu!

  • Are not you surfeited? Is not the draught of fishes sufficiently

  • fine and miraculous? Are you not afraid that one salmon more

  • will make your boat sink?

  • Pride will be your ruin, gossip. Ruin and disgrace always press hard on the

  • heels of pride. Consider this and hold your tongue."

  • These words, uttered with severity, made Master Olivier's face revert to its

  • insolence.

  • "Good!" he muttered, almost aloud, "'tis easy to see that the king is ill to-day; he

  • giveth all to the leech."

  • Louis XI. far from being irritated by this petulant insult, resumed with some

  • gentleness, "Stay, I was forgetting that I made you my ambassador to Madame Marie, at

  • Ghent.

  • Yes, gentlemen," added the king turning to the Flemings, "this man hath been an

  • ambassador.

  • There, my gossip," he pursued, addressing Master Olivier, "let us not get angry; we

  • are old friends. 'Tis very late.

  • We have terminated our labors.

  • Shave me."

  • Our readers have not, without doubt, waited until the present moment to recognize in

  • Master Olivier that terrible Figaro whom Providence, the great maker of dramas,

  • mingled so artistically in the long and bloody comedy of the reign of Louis XI.

  • We will not here undertake to develop that singular figure.

  • This barber of the king had three names.

  • At court he was politely called Olivier le Daim (the Deer); among the people Olivier

  • the Devil. His real name was Olivier le Mauvais.

  • Accordingly, Olivier le Mauvais remained motionless, sulking at the king, and

  • glancing askance at Jacques Coictier. "Yes, yes, the physician!" he said between

  • his teeth.

  • "Ah, yes, the physician!" retorted Louis XI., with singular good humor; "the

  • physician has more credit than you.

  • 'Tis very simple; he has taken hold upon us by the whole body, and you hold us only by

  • the chin. Come, my poor barber, all will come right.

  • What would you say and what would become of your office if I were a king like

  • Chilperic, whose gesture consisted in holding his beard in one hand?

  • Come, gossip mine, fulfil your office, shave me.

  • Go get what you need therefor."

  • Olivier perceiving that the king had made up his mind to laugh, and that there was no

  • way of even annoying him, went off grumbling to execute his orders.

  • The king rose, approached the window, and suddenly opening it with extraordinary

  • agitation,--

  • "Oh! yes!" he exclaimed, clapping his hands, "yonder is a redness in the sky over

  • the City. 'Tis the bailiff burning.

  • It can be nothing else but that.

  • Ah! my good people! here you are aiding me at last in tearing down the rights of

  • lordship!" Then turning towards the Flemings: "Come,

  • look at this, gentlemen.

  • Is it not a fire which gloweth yonder?" The two men of Ghent drew near.

  • "A great fire," said Guillaume Rym.

  • "Oh!" exclaimed Coppenole, whose eyes suddenly flashed, "that reminds me of the

  • burning of the house of the Seigneur d'Hymbercourt.

  • There must be a goodly revolt yonder."

  • "You think so, Master Coppenole?" And Louis XI.'s glance was almost as joyous

  • as that of the hosier. "Will it not be difficult to resist?"

  • "Cross of God!

  • Sire! Your majesty will damage many companies of

  • men of war thereon." "Ah! I!

  • 'tis different," returned the king.

  • "If I willed." The hosier replied hardily,--

  • "If this revolt be what I suppose, sire, you might will in vain."

  • "Gossip," said Louis XI., "with the two companies of my unattached troops and one

  • discharge of a serpentine, short work is made of a populace of louts."

  • The hosier, in spite of the signs made to him by Guillaume Rym, appeared determined

  • to hold his own against the king. "Sire, the Swiss were also louts.

  • Monsieur the Duke of Burgundy was a great gentleman, and he turned up his nose at

  • that rabble rout. At the battle of Grandson, sire, he cried:

  • 'Men of the cannon!

  • Fire on the villains!' and he swore by Saint-George.

  • But Advoyer Scharnachtal hurled himself on the handsome duke with his battle-club and

  • his people, and when the glittering Burgundian army came in contact with these

  • peasants in bull hides, it flew in pieces

  • like a pane of glass at the blow of a pebble.

  • Many lords were then slain by low-born knaves; and Monsieur de Chateau-Guyon, the

  • greatest seigneur in Burgundy, was found dead, with his gray horse, in a little

  • marsh meadow."

  • "Friend," returned the king, "you are speaking of a battle.

  • The question here is of a mutiny. And I will gain the upper hand of it as

  • soon as it shall please me to frown."

  • The other replied indifferently,-- "That may be, sire; in that case, 'tis

  • because the people's hour hath not yet come."

  • Guillaume Rym considered it incumbent on him to intervene,--

  • "Master Coppenole, you are speaking to a puissant king."

  • "I know it," replied the hosier, gravely.

  • "Let him speak, Monsieur Rym, my friend," said the king; "I love this frankness of

  • speech.

  • My father, Charles the Seventh, was accustomed to say that the truth was

  • ailing; I thought her dead, and that she had found no confessor.

  • Master Coppenole undeceiveth me."

  • Then, laying his hand familiarly on Coppenole's shoulder,--

  • "You were saying, Master Jacques?"

  • "I say, sire, that you may possibly be in the right, that the hour of the people may

  • not yet have come with you." Louis XI. gazed at him with his penetrating

  • eye,--

  • "And when will that hour come, master?" "You will hear it strike."

  • "On what clock, if you please?"

  • Coppenole, with his tranquil and rustic countenance, made the king approach the

  • window. "Listen, sire!

  • There is here a donjon keep, a belfry, cannons, bourgeois, soldiers; when the

  • belfry shall hum, when the cannons shall roar, when the donjon shall fall in ruins

  • amid great noise, when bourgeois and

  • soldiers shall howl and slay each other, the hour will strike."

  • Louis's face grew sombre and dreamy.

  • He remained silent for a moment, then he gently patted with his hand the thick wall

  • of the donjon, as one strokes the haunches of a steed.

  • "Oh! no!" said he.

  • "You will not crumble so easily, will you, my good Bastille?"

  • And turning with an abrupt gesture towards the sturdy Fleming,--

  • "Have you never seen a revolt, Master Jacques?"

  • "I have made them," said the hosier. "How do you set to work to make a revolt?"

  • said the king.

  • "Ah!" replied Coppenole, "'tis not very difficult.

  • There are a hundred ways. In the first place, there must be

  • discontent in the city.

  • The thing is not uncommon. And then, the character of the inhabitants.

  • Those of Ghent are easy to stir into revolt.

  • They always love the prince's son; the prince, never.

  • Well!

  • One morning, I will suppose, some one enters my shop, and says to me: 'Father

  • Coppenole, there is this and there is that, the Demoiselle of Flanders wishes to save

  • her ministers, the grand bailiff is

  • doubling the impost on shagreen, or something else,'--what you will.

  • I leave my work as it stands, I come out of my hosier's stall, and I shout: 'To the

  • sack?'

  • There is always some smashed cask at hand.

  • I mount it, and I say aloud, in the first words that occur to me, what I have on my

  • heart; and when one is of the people, sire, one always has something on the heart: Then

  • people troop up, they shout, they ring the

  • alarm bell, they arm the louts with what they take from the soldiers, the market

  • people join in, and they set out.

  • And it will always be thus, so long as there are lords in the seignories,

  • bourgeois in the bourgs, and peasants in the country."

  • "And against whom do you thus rebel?" inquired the king; "against your bailiffs?

  • against your lords?" "Sometimes; that depends.

  • Against the duke, also, sometimes."

  • Louis XI. returned and seated himself, saying, with a smile,--

  • "Ah! here they have only got as far as the bailiffs."

  • At that instant Olivier le Daim returned.

  • He was followed by two pages, who bore the king's toilet articles; but what struck

  • Louis XI. was that he was also accompanied by the provost of Paris and the chevalier

  • of the watch, who appeared to be in consternation.

  • The spiteful barber also wore an air of consternation, which was one of contentment

  • beneath, however.

  • It was he who spoke first. "Sire, I ask your majesty's pardon for the

  • calamitous news which I bring." The king turned quickly and grazed the mat

  • on the floor with the feet of his chair,--

  • "What does this mean?"

  • "Sire," resumed Olivier le Daim, with the malicious air of a man who rejoices that he

  • is about to deal a violent blow, "'tis not against the bailiff of the courts that this

  • popular sedition is directed."

  • "Against whom, then?" "Against you, sire?'

  • The aged king rose erect and straight as a young man,--

  • "Explain yourself, Olivier!

  • And guard your head well, gossip; for I swear to you by the cross of Saint-Lo that,

  • if you lie to us at this hour, the sword which severed the head of Monsieur de

  • Luxembourg is not so notched that it cannot yet sever yours!"

  • The oath was formidable; Louis XI. had only sworn twice in the course of his life by

  • the cross of Saint-Lo. Olivier opened his mouth to reply.

  • "Sire--"

  • "On your knees!" interrupted the king violently.

  • "Tristan, have an eye to this man." Olivier knelt down and said coldly,--

  • "Sire, a sorceress was condemned to death by your court of parliament.

  • She took refuge in Notre-Dame. The people are trying to take her from

  • thence by main force.

  • Monsieur the provost and monsieur the chevalier of the watch, who have just come

  • from the riot, are here to give me the lie if this is not the truth.

  • The populace is besieging Notre-Dame."

  • "Yes, indeed!" said the king in a low voice, all pale and trembling with wrath.

  • "Notre-Dame! They lay siege to our Lady, my good

  • mistress in her cathedral!--Rise, Olivier.

  • You are right. I give you Simon Radin's charge.

  • You are right. 'Tis I whom they are attacking.

  • The witch is under the protection of this church, the church is under my protection.

  • And I thought that they were acting against the bailiff!

  • 'Tis against myself!"

  • Then, rendered young by fury, he began to walk up and down with long strides.

  • He no longer laughed, he was terrible, he went and came; the fox was changed into a

  • hyaena.

  • He seemed suffocated to such a degree that he could not speak; his lips moved, and his

  • fleshless fists were clenched.

  • All at once he raised his head, his hollow eye appeared full of light, and his voice

  • burst forth like a clarion: "Down with them, Tristan!

  • A heavy hand for these rascals!

  • Go, Tristan, my friend! slay! slay!" This eruption having passed, he returned to

  • his seat, and said with cold and concentrated wrath,--

  • "Here, Tristan!

  • There are here with us in the Bastille the fifty lances of the Vicomte de Gif, which

  • makes three hundred horse: you will take them.

  • There is also the company of our unattached archers of Monsieur de Chateaupers: you

  • will take it.

  • You are provost of the marshals; you have the men of your provostship: you will take

  • them.

  • At the Hotel Saint-Pol you will find forty archers of monsieur the dauphin's new

  • guard: you will take them. And, with all these, you will hasten to

  • Notre-Dame.

  • Ah! messieurs, louts of Paris, do you fling yourselves thus against the crown of

  • France, the sanctity of Notre-Dame, and the peace of this commonwealth!

  • Exterminate, Tristan! exterminate! and let not a single one escape, except it be for

  • Montfaucon." Tristan bowed.

  • "'Tis well, sire."

  • He added, after a silence, "And what shall I do with the sorceress?"

  • This question caused the king to meditate. "Ah!" said he, "the sorceress!

  • Monsieur d'Estouteville, what did the people wish to do with her?"

  • "Sire," replied the provost of Paris, "I imagine that since the populace has come to

  • tear her from her asylum in Notre-Dame, 'tis because that impunity wounds them, and

  • they desire to hang her."

  • The king appeared to reflect deeply: then, addressing Tristan l'Hermite, "Well!

  • gossip, exterminate the people and hang the sorceress."

  • "That's it," said Rym in a low tone to Coppenole, "punish the people for willing a

  • thing, and then do what they wish." "Enough, sire," replied Tristan.

  • "If the sorceress is still in Notre-Dame, must she be seized in spite of the

  • sanctuary?" "Pasque-Dieu! the sanctuary!" said the

  • king, scratching his ear.

  • "But the woman must be hung, nevertheless."

  • Here, as though seized with a sudden idea, he flung himself on his knees before his

  • chair, took off his hat, placed it on the seat, and gazing devoutly at one of the

  • leaden amulets which loaded it down, "Oh!"

  • said he, with clasped hands, "our Lady of Paris, my gracious patroness, pardon me.

  • I will only do it this once. This criminal must be punished.

  • I assure you, madame the virgin, my good mistress, that she is a sorceress who is

  • not worthy of your amiable protection.

  • You know, madame, that many very pious princes have overstepped the privileges of

  • the churches for the glory of God and the necessities of the State.

  • Saint Hugues, bishop of England, permitted King Edward to hang a witch in his church.

  • Saint-Louis of France, my master, transgressed, with the same object, the

  • church of Monsieur Saint-Paul; and Monsieur Alphonse, son of the king of Jerusalem, the

  • very church of the Holy Sepulchre.

  • Pardon me, then, for this once. Our Lady of Paris, I will never do so

  • again, and I will give you a fine statue of silver, like the one which I gave last year

  • to Our Lady of Ecouys.

  • So be it." He made the sign of the cross, rose, donned

  • his hat once more, and said to Tristan,-- "Be diligent, gossip.

  • Take Monsieur Chateaupers with you.

  • You will cause the tocsin to be sounded. You will crush the populace.

  • You will seize the witch. 'Tis said.

  • And I mean the business of the execution to be done by you.

  • You will render me an account of it. Come, Olivier, I shall not go to bed this

  • night.

  • Shave me." Tristan l'Hermite bowed and departed.

  • Then the king, dismissing Rym and Coppenole with a gesture,--

  • "God guard you, messieurs, my good friends the Flemings.

  • Go, take a little repose. The night advances, and we are nearer the

  • morning than the evening."

  • Both retired and gained their apartments under the guidance of the captain of the

  • Bastille. Coppenole said to Guillaume Rym,--

  • "Hum!

  • I have had enough of that coughing king! I have seen Charles of Burgundy drunk, and

  • he was less malignant than Louis XI. when ailing."

  • "Master Jacques," replied Rym, "'tis because wine renders kings less cruel than

  • does barley water."

  • -BOOK TENTH. CHAPTER VI.

  • LITTLE SWORD IN POCKET.

  • On emerging from the Bastille, Gringoire descended the Rue Saint-Antoine with the

  • swiftness of a runaway horse.

  • On arriving at the Baudoyer gate, he walked straight to the stone cross which rose in

  • the middle of that place, as though he were able to distinguish in the darkness the

  • figure of a man clad and cloaked in black, who was seated on the steps of the cross.

  • "Is it you, master?" said Gringoire. The personage in black rose.

  • "Death and passion!

  • You make me boil, Gringoire. The man on the tower of Saint-Gervais has

  • just cried half-past one o'clock in the morning."

  • "Oh," retorted Gringoire, "'tis no fault of mine, but of the watch and the king.

  • I have just had a narrow escape. I always just miss being hung.

  • 'Tis my predestination."

  • "You lack everything," said the other. "But come quickly.

  • Have you the password?" "Fancy, master, I have seen the king.

  • I come from him.

  • He wears fustian breeches. 'Tis an adventure."

  • "Oh! distaff of words! what is your adventure to me!

  • Have you the password of the outcasts?"

  • "I have it. Be at ease.

  • 'Little sword in pocket.'" "Good.

  • Otherwise, we could not make our way as far as the church.

  • The outcasts bar the streets. Fortunately, it appears that they have

  • encountered resistance.

  • We may still arrive in time." "Yes, master, but how are we to get into

  • Notre-Dame?" "I have the key to the tower."

  • "And how are we to get out again?"

  • "Behind the cloister there is a little door which opens on the Terrain and the water.

  • I have taken the key to it, and I moored a boat there this morning."

  • "I have had a beautiful escape from being hung!"

  • Gringoire repeated. "Eh, quick! come!" said the other.

  • Both descended towards the city with long strides.

  • -BOOK TENTH. CHAPTER VII.

  • CHATEAUPERS TO THE RESCUE.

  • The reader will, perhaps, recall the critical situation in which we left

  • Quasimodo.

  • The brave deaf man, assailed on all sides, had lost, if not all courage, at least all

  • hope of saving, not himself (he was not thinking of himself), but the gypsy.

  • He ran distractedly along the gallery.

  • Notre-Dame was on the point of being taken by storm by the outcasts.

  • All at once, a great galloping of horses filled the neighboring streets, and, with a

  • long file of torches and a thick column of cavaliers, with free reins and lances in

  • rest, these furious sounds debouched on the Place like a hurricane,--

  • "France! France! cut down the louts!

  • Chateaupers to the rescue!

  • Provostship! Provostship!"

  • The frightened vagabonds wheeled round.

  • Quasimodo who did not hear, saw the naked swords, the torches, the irons of the

  • pikes, all that cavalry, at the head of which he recognized Captain Phoebus; he

  • beheld the confusion of the outcasts, the

  • terror of some, the disturbance among the bravest of them, and from this unexpected

  • succor he recovered so much strength, that he hurled from the church the first

  • assailants who were already climbing into the gallery.

  • It was, in fact, the king's troops who had arrived.

  • The vagabonds behaved bravely.

  • They defended themselves like desperate men.

  • Caught on the flank, by the Rue Saint- Pierre-aux-Boeufs, and in the rear through

  • the Rue du Parvis, driven to bay against Notre-Dame, which they still assailed and

  • Quasimodo defended, at the same time

  • besiegers and besieged, they were in the singular situation in which Comte Henri

  • Harcourt, Taurinum obsessor idem et obsessus, as his epitaph says, found

  • himself later on, at the famous siege of

  • Turin, in 1640, between Prince Thomas of Savoy, whom he was besieging, and the

  • Marquis de Leganez, who was blockading him. The battle was frightful.

  • There was a dog's tooth for wolf's flesh, as P. Mathieu says.

  • The king's cavaliers, in whose midst Phoebus de Chateaupers bore himself

  • valiantly, gave no quarter, and the slash of the sword disposed of those who escaped

  • the thrust of the lance.

  • The outcasts, badly armed foamed and bit with rage.

  • Men, women, children, hurled themselves on the cruppers and the breasts of the horses,

  • and hung there like cats, with teeth, finger nails and toe nails.

  • Others struck the archers' in the face with their torches.

  • Others thrust iron hooks into the necks of the cavaliers and dragged them down.

  • They slashed in pieces those who fell.

  • One was noticed who had a large, glittering scythe, and who, for a long time, mowed the

  • legs of the horses. He was frightful.

  • He was singing a ditty, with a nasal intonation, he swung and drew back his

  • scythe incessantly. At every blow he traced around him a great

  • circle of severed limbs.

  • He advanced thus into the very thickest of the cavalry, with the tranquil slowness,

  • the lolling of the head and the regular breathing of a harvester attacking a field

  • of wheat.

  • It was Chopin Trouillefou. A shot from an arquebus laid him low.

  • In the meantime, windows had been opened again.

  • The neighbors hearing the war cries of the king's troops, had mingled in the affray,

  • and bullets rained upon the outcasts from every story.

  • The Parvis was filled with a thick smoke, which the musketry streaked with flame.

  • Through it one could confusedly distinguish the front of Notre-Dame, and the decrepit

  • Hotel-Dieu with some wan invalids gazing down from the heights of its roof all

  • checkered with dormer windows.

  • At length the vagabonds gave way. Weariness, the lack of good weapons, the

  • fright of this surprise, the musketry from the windows, the valiant attack of the

  • king's troops, all overwhelmed them.

  • They forced the line of assailants, and fled in every direction, leaving the Parvis

  • encumbered with dead.

  • When Quasimodo, who had not ceased to fight for a moment, beheld this rout, he fell on

  • his knees and raised his hands to heaven; then, intoxicated with joy, he ran, he

  • ascended with the swiftness of a bird to

  • that cell, the approaches to which he had so intrepidly defended.

  • He had but one thought now; it was to kneel before her whom he had just saved for the

  • second time.

  • When he entered the cell, he found it empty.

-BOOK TENTH. CHAPTER I.

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