Notre-Dame de Paris
who possessed any sagacity, Quasimodo passed for the demon;
Claude Frollo, for the sorcerer. It was evident that the
bellringer was to serve the archdeacon for a given time, at the
end of which he would carry away the latter’s soul, by way of
payment. Thus the archdeacon, in spite of the excessive austerity
of his life, was in bad odor among all pious souls; and there was
no devout nose so inexperienced that it could not smell him out
to be a magician.
And if, as he grew older, abysses had formed in his science, they
had also formed in his heart. That at least, is what one had
grounds for believing on scrutinizing that face upon which the
soul was only seen to shine through a sombre cloud. Whence that
large, bald brow? that head forever bent? that breast always
heaving with sighs? What secret thought caused his mouth to smile
with so much bitterness, at the same moment that his scowling
brows approached each other like two bulls on the point of
fighting? Why was what hair he had left already gray? What was
that internal fire which sometimes broke forth in his glance, to
such a degree that his eye resembled a hole pierced in the wall
of a furnace?
These symptoms of a violent moral preoccupation, had acquired an
especially high degree of intensity at the epoch when this story
takes place. More than once a choir-boy had fled in terror at
finding him alone in the church, so strange and dazzling was his
look. More than once, in the choir, at the hour of the offices,
his neighbor in the stalls had heard him mingle with the plain
song, _ad omnem tonum_, unintelligible parentheses. More than
once the laundress of the Terrain charged “with washing the
chapter” had observed, not without affright, the marks of nails
and clenched fingers on the surplice of monsieur the archdeacon
of Josas.
However, he redoubled his severity, and had never been more
exemplary. By profession as well as by character, he had always
held himself aloof from women; he seemed to hate them more than
ever. The mere rustling of a silken petticoat caused his hood to
fall over his eyes. Upon this score he was so jealous of
austerity and reserve, that when the Dame de Beaujeu, the king’s
daughter, came to visit the cloister of Notre-Dame, in the month
of December, 1481, he gravely opposed her entrance, reminding the
bishop of the statute of the Black Book, dating from the vigil of
Saint-Barthélemy, 1334, which interdicts access to the cloister
to “any woman whatever, old or young, mistress or maid.” Upon
which the bishop had been constrained to recite to him the
ordinance of Legate Odo, which excepts certain great dames,
_aliquæ magnates mulieres, quæ sine scandalo vitari non possunt_.
And again the archdeacon had protested, objecting that the
ordinance of the legate, which dated back to 1207, was anterior
by a hundred and twenty-seven years to the Black Book, and
consequently was abrogated in fact by it. And he had refused to
appear before the princess.
It was also noticed that his horror for Bohemian women and
gypsies had seemed to redouble for some time past. He had
petitioned the bishop for an edict which expressly forbade the
Bohemian women to come and dance and beat their tambourines on
the place of the Parvis; and for about the same length of time,
he had been ransacking the mouldy placards of the officialty, in
order to collect the cases of sorcerers and witches condemned to
fire or the rope, for complicity in crimes with rams, sows, or
goats.
CHAPTER VI. UNPOPULARITY.
The archdeacon and the bellringer, as we have already said, were
but little loved by the populace great and small, in the vicinity
of the cathedral. When Claude and Quasimodo went out together,
which frequently happened, and when they were seen traversing in
company, the valet behind the master, the cold, narrow, and
gloomy streets of the block of Notre-Dame, more than one evil
word, more than one ironical quaver, more than one insulting jest
greeted them on their way, unless Claude Frollo, which was rarely
the case, walked with head upright and raised, showing his severe
and almost august brow to the dumbfounded jeerers.
Both were in their quarter like “the poets” of whom Régnier
speaks,—
“All sorts of persons run after poets,
As warblers fly shrieking after owls.”
Sometimes a mischievous child risked his skin and bones for the
ineffable pleasure of driving a pin into Quasimodo’s hump. Again,
a young girl, more bold and saucy than was fitting, brushed the
priest’s black robe, singing in his face the sardonic ditty,
“_niche, niche_, the devil is caught.” Sometimes a group of
squalid old crones, squatting in a file under the shadow of the
steps to a porch, scolded noisily as the archdeacon and the
bellringer passed, and tossed them this encouraging welcome, with
a curse: “Hum! there’s a fellow whose soul is made like the other
one’s body!” Or a band of schoolboys and street urchins, playing
hop-scotch, rose in a body and saluted him classically, with some
cry in Latin: “_Eia! eia! Claudius cum claudo_!”
But the insult generally passed unnoticed both by the priest and
the bellringer. Quasimodo was too deaf to hear all these gracious
things, and Claude was too dreamy.
BOOK FIFTH.
CHAPTER I. _ABBAS BEATI MARTINI_.
Dom Claude’s fame had spread far and wide. It procured for him,
at about the epoch when he refused to see Madame de Beaujeu, a
visit which he long remembered.
It was in the evening. He had just retired, after the office, to
his canon’s cell in the cloister of Notre-Dame. This cell, with
the exception, possibly, of some glass phials, relegated to a
corner, and filled with a decidedly equivocal powder, which
strongly resembled the alchemist’s “powder of projection,”
presented nothing strange or mysterious. There were, indeed, here
and there, some inscriptions on the walls, but they were pure
sentences of learning and piety, extracted from good authors. The
archdeacon had just seated himself, by the light of a
three-jetted copper lamp, before a vast coffer crammed with
manuscripts. He had rested his elbow upon the open volume of
Honorius d’Autun, _De predestinatione et libero arbitrio_, and he
was turning over, in deep meditation, the leaves of a printed
folio which he had just brought, the sole product of the press
which his cell contained. In the midst of his revery there came a
knock at his door. “Who’s there?” cried the learned man, in the
gracious tone of a famished dog, disturbed over his bone.
A voice without replied, “Your friend, Jacques Coictier.” He went
to open the door.
It was, in fact, the king’s physician; a person about fifty years
of age, whose harsh physiognomy was modified only by a crafty
eye. Another man accompanied him. Both wore long slate-colored
robes, furred with minever, girded and closed, with caps of the
same stuff and hue. Their hands were concealed by their sleeves,
their feet by their robes, their eyes by their caps.
“God help me, messieurs!” said the archdeacon, showing them in;
“I was not expecting distinguished visitors at such an hour.” And
while speaking in this courteous fashion he cast an uneasy and
scrutinizing glance from the physician to his companion.
“’Tis never too late to come and pay a visit to so considerable a
learned man as Dom Claude Frollo de Tirechappe,” replied Doctor
Coictier, whose Franche-Comté accent made all his phrases drag
along with the majesty of a train-robe.
There then ensued between the physician and the archdeacon one of
those congratulatory prologues which, in accordance with custom,
at that epoch preceded all conversations between learned men, and
which did not prevent them from detesting each other in the most
cordial manner in the world. However, it is the same nowadays;
every wise man’s mouth complimenting another wise man is a vase
of honeyed gall.
Claude Frollo’s felicitations to Jacques Coictier bore reference
principally to the temporal advantages which the worthy physician
had found means to extract, in the course of his much envied
career, from each malady of the king, an operation of alchemy
much better and more certain than the pursuit of the
philosopher’s stone.
“In truth, Monsieur le Docteur Coictier, I felt great joy on
learning of the bishopric given your nephew, my reverend seigneur
Pierre Versé. Is he not Bishop of Amiens?”
“Yes, monsieur Archdeacon; it is a grace and mercy of God.”
“Do you know that you made a great figure on Christmas Day at the
head of your company of the chamber of accounts, Monsieur
President?”
“Vice-President, Dom Claude. Alas! nothing more.”
“How is your superb house in the Rue Saint-André des Arcs coming
on? ’Tis a Louvre. I love greatly the apricot tree which is
carved on the door, with this play of words: ‘A
L’ABRI-COTIER—Sheltered from reefs.’”
“Alas! Master Claude, all that masonry costeth me dear. In
proportion as the house is erected, I am ruined.”
“Ho! have you not your revenues from the jail, and the bailiwick
of the Palais, and the rents of all the houses, sheds, stalls,
and booths of the enclosure? ’Tis a fine breast to suck.”
“My castellany of Poissy has brought me in nothing this year.”
“But your tolls of Triel, of Saint-James, of
Saint-Germain-en-Laye are always good.”
“Six score livres, and not even Parisian livres at that.”
“You have your office of counsellor to the king. That is fixed.”
“Yes, brother Claude; but that accursed seigneury of Poligny,
which people make so much noise about, is worth not sixty gold
crowns, year out and year in.”
In the compliments which Dom Claude addressed to Jacques
Coictier, there was that sardonical, biting, and covertly mocking
accent, and the sad cruel smile of a superior and unhappy man who
toys for a moment, by way of distraction, with the dense
prosperity of a vulgar man. The other did not perceive it.
“Upon my soul,” said Claude at length, pressing his hand, “I am
glad to see you and in such good health.”
“Thanks, Master Claude.”
“By the way,” exclaimed Dom Claude, “how is your royal patient?”
“He payeth not sufficiently his physician,” replied the doctor,
casting a side glance at his companion.
“Think you so, Gossip Coictier,” said the latter.
These words, uttered in a tone of surprise and reproach, drew
upon this unknown personage the attention of the archdeacon
which, to tell the truth, had not been diverted from him a single
moment since the stranger had set foot across the threshold of
his cell. It had even required all the thousand reasons which he
had for handling tenderly Doctor Jacques Coictier, the
all-powerful physician of King Louis XI., to induce him to