Notre-Dame de Paris
cross, and the two thieves on the right and the left.” Here the
young gossips, growing warm at the memory of the entrance of
monsieur the legate, both began to talk at once.
“And, further on, at the Painters’ Gate, there were other
personages, very richly clad.”
“And at the fountain of Saint-Innocent, that huntsman, who was
chasing a hind with great clamor of dogs and hunting-horns.”
“And, at the Paris slaughter-houses, stages, representing the
fortress of Dieppe!”
“And when the legate passed, you remember, Gisquette? they made
the assault, and the English all had their throats cut.”
“And against the gate of the Châtelet, there were very fine
personages!”
“And on the Port au Change, which was all draped above!”
“And when the legate passed, they let fly on the bridge more than
two hundred sorts of birds; wasn’t it beautiful, Liénarde?”
“It will be better to-day,” finally resumed their interlocutor,
who seemed to listen to them with impatience.
“Do you promise us that this mystery will be fine?” said
Gisquette.
“Without doubt,” he replied; then he added, with a certain
emphasis,—“I am the author of it, damsels.”
“Truly?” said the young girls, quite taken aback.
“Truly!” replied the poet, bridling a little; “that is, to say,
there are two of us; Jehan Marchand, who has sawed the planks and
erected the framework of the theatre and the woodwork; and I, who
have made the piece. My name is Pierre Gringoire.”
The author of the “Cid” could not have said “Pierre Corneille”
with more pride.
Our readers have been able to observe, that a certain amount of
time must have already elapsed from the moment when Jupiter had
retired beneath the tapestry to the instant when the author of
the new morality had thus abruptly revealed himself to the
innocent admiration of Gisquette and Liénarde. Remarkable fact:
that whole crowd, so tumultuous but a few moments before, now
waited amiably on the word of the comedian; which proves the
eternal truth, still experienced every day in our theatres, that
the best means of making the public wait patiently is to assure
them that one is about to begin instantly.
However, scholar Johannes had not fallen asleep.
“Holà hé!” he shouted suddenly, in the midst of the peaceable
waiting which had followed the tumult. “Jupiter, Madame the
Virgin, buffoons of the devil! are you jeering at us? The piece!
the piece! commence or we will commence again!”
This was all that was needed.
The music of high and low instruments immediately became audible
from the interior of the stage; the tapestry was raised; four
personages, in motley attire and painted faces, emerged from it,
climbed the steep ladder of the theatre, and, arrived upon the
upper platform, arranged themselves in a line before the public,
whom they saluted with profound reverences; then the symphony
ceased.
The mystery was about to begin.
The four personages, after having reaped a rich reward of
applause for their reverences, began, in the midst of profound
silence, a prologue, which we gladly spare the reader. Moreover,
as happens in our own day, the public was more occupied with the
costumes that the actors wore than with the roles that they were
enacting; and, in truth, they were right. All four were dressed
in parti-colored robes of yellow and white, which were
distinguished from each other only by the nature of the stuff;
the first was of gold and silver brocade; the second, of silk;
the third, of wool; the fourth, of linen. The first of these
personages carried in his right hand a sword; the second, two
golden keys; the third, a pair of scales; the fourth, a spade:
and, in order to aid sluggish minds which would not have seen
clearly through the transparency of these attributes, there was
to be read, in large, black letters, on the hem of the robe of
brocade, MY NAME IS NOBILITY; on the hem of the silken robe, MY
NAME IS CLERGY; on the hem of the woolen robe, MY NAME IS
MERCHANDISE; on the hem of the linen robe, MY NAME IS LABOR. The
sex of the two male characters was briefly indicated to every
judicious spectator, by their shorter robes, and by the cap which
they wore on their heads; while the two female characters, less
briefly clad, were covered with hoods.
Much ill-will would also have been required, not to comprehend,
through the medium of the poetry of the prologue, that Labor was
wedded to Merchandise, and Clergy to Nobility, and that the two
happy couples possessed in common a magnificent golden dolphin,
which they desired to adjudge to the fairest only. So they were
roaming about the world seeking and searching for this beauty,
and, after having successively rejected the Queen of Golconda,
the Princess of Trebizonde, the daughter of the Grand Khan of
Tartary, etc., Labor and Clergy, Nobility and Merchandise, had
come to rest upon the marble table of the Palais de Justice, and
to utter, in the presence of the honest audience, as many
sentences and maxims as could then be dispensed at the Faculty of
Arts, at examinations, sophisms, determinances, figures, and
acts, where the masters took their degrees.
All this was, in fact, very fine.
Nevertheless, in that throng, upon which the four allegories vied
with each other in pouring out floods of metaphors, there was no
ear more attentive, no heart that palpitated more, not an eye was
more haggard, no neck more outstretched, than the eye, the ear,
the neck, and the heart of the author, of the poet, of that brave
Pierre Gringoire, who had not been able to resist, a moment
before, the joy of telling his name to two pretty girls. He had
retreated a few paces from them, behind his pillar, and there he
listened, looked, enjoyed. The amiable applause which had greeted
the beginning of his prologue was still echoing in his bosom, and
he was completely absorbed in that species of ecstatic
contemplation with which an author beholds his ideas fall, one by
one, from the mouth of the actor into the vast silence of the
audience. Worthy Pierre Gringoire!
It pains us to say it, but this first ecstasy was speedily
disturbed. Hardly had Gringoire raised this intoxicating cup of
joy and triumph to his lips, when a drop of bitterness was
mingled with it.
A tattered mendicant, who could not collect any coins, lost as he
was in the midst of the crowd, and who had not probably found
sufficient indemnity in the pockets of his neighbors, had hit
upon the idea of perching himself upon some conspicuous point, in
order to attract looks and alms. He had, accordingly, hoisted
himself, during the first verses of the prologue, with the aid of
the pillars of the reserve gallery, to the cornice which ran
round the balustrade at its lower edge; and there he had seated
himself, soliciting the attention and the pity of the multitude,
with his rags and a hideous sore which covered his right arm.
However, he uttered not a word.
The silence which he preserved allowed the prologue to proceed
without hindrance, and no perceptible disorder would have ensued,
if ill-luck had not willed that the scholar Joannes should catch
sight, from the heights of his pillar, of the mendicant and his
grimaces. A wild fit of laughter took possession of the young
scamp, who, without caring that he was interrupting the
spectacle, and disturbing the universal composure, shouted
boldly,—
“Look! see that sickly creature asking alms!”
Any one who has thrown a stone into a frog pond, or fired a shot
into a covey of birds, can form an idea of the effect produced by
these incongruous words, in the midst of the general attention.
It made Gringoire shudder as though it had been an electric
shock. The prologue stopped short, and all heads turned
tumultuously towards the beggar, who, far from being disconcerted
by this, saw, in this incident, a good opportunity for reaping
his harvest, and who began to whine in a doleful way, half
closing his eyes the while,—“Charity, please!”
“Well—upon my soul,” resumed Joannes, “it’s Clopin Trouillefou!
Holà hé, my friend, did your sore bother you on the leg, that you
have transferred it to your arm?” So saying, with the dexterity
of a monkey, he flung a bit of silver into the gray felt hat
which the beggar held in his ailing arm. The mendicant received
both the alms and the sarcasm without wincing, and continued, in
lamentable tones,—
“Charity, please!”
This episode considerably distracted the attention of the
audience; and a goodly number of spectators, among them Robin
Poussepain, and all the clerks at their head, gayly applauded
this eccentric duet, which the scholar, with his shrill voice,
and the mendicant had just improvised in the middle of the
prologue.
Gringoire was highly displeased. On recovering from his first
stupefaction, he bestirred himself to shout, to the four
personages on the stage, “Go on! What the devil!—go on!”—without
even deigning to cast a glance of disdain upon the two
interrupters.
At that moment, he felt some one pluck at the hem of his surtout;
he turned round, and not without ill-humor, and found
considerable difficulty in smiling; but he was obliged to do so,
nevertheless. It was the pretty arm of Gisquette la Gencienne,
which, passed through the railing, was soliciting his attention
in this manner.
“Monsieur,” said the young girl, “are they going to continue?”
“Of course,” replied Gringoire, a good deal shocked by the
question.
“In that case, messire,” she resumed, “would you have the
courtesy to explain to me—”
“What they are about to say?” interrupted Gringoire. “Well,
listen.”
“No,” said Gisquette, “but what they have said so far.”
Gringoire started, like a man whose wound has been probed to the
quick.
“A plague on the stupid and dull-witted little girl!” he
muttered, between his teeth.
From that moment forth, Gisquette was nothing to him.
In the meantime, the actors had obeyed his injunction, and the
public, seeing that they were beginning to speak again, began
once more to listen, not without having lost many beauties in the
sort of soldered joint which was formed between the two portions
of the piece thus abruptly cut short. Gringoire commented on it
bitterly to himself. Nevertheless, tranquillity was gradually
restored, the scholar held his peace, the mendicant counted over
some coins in his hat, and the piece resumed the upper hand.
It was, in fact, a very fine work, and one which, as it seems to
us, might be put to use to-day, by the aid of a little
rearrangement. The exposition, rather long and rather empty, that
is to say, according to the rules, was simple; and Gringoire, in
the candid sanctuary of his own conscience, admired its