Notre-Dame de Paris
red, confused, mute with shame, she crossed her two beautiful
arms on her breast to conceal it. Had it not been for the flame
which burned in her cheeks, at the sight of her so silent and
motionless, one would have declared her a statue of Modesty. Her
eyes were lowered.
But the captain’s gesture had revealed the mysterious amulet
which she wore about her neck.
“What is that?” he said, seizing this pretext to approach once
more the beautiful creature whom he had just alarmed.
“Don’t touch it!” she replied, quickly, “’tis my guardian. It
will make me find my family again, if I remain worthy to do so.
Oh, leave me, monsieur le capitaine! My mother! My poor mother!
My mother! Where art thou? Come to my rescue! Have pity, Monsieur
Phœbus, give me back my gorgerette!”
Phœbus retreated amid said in a cold tone,—
“Oh, mademoiselle! I see plainly that you do not love me!”
“I do not love him!” exclaimed the unhappy child, and at the same
time she clung to the captain, whom she drew to a seat beside
her. “I do not love thee, my Phœbus? What art thou saying, wicked
man, to break my heart? Oh, take me! take all! do what you will
with me, I am thine. What matters to me the amulet! What matters
to me my mother! ’Tis thou who art my mother since I love thee!
Phœbus, my beloved Phœbus, dost thou see me? ’Tis I. Look at me;
’tis the little one whom thou wilt surely not repulse, who comes,
who comes herself to seek thee. My soul, my life, my body, my
person, all is one thing—which is thine, my captain. Well, no! We
will not marry, since that displeases thee; and then, what am I?
a miserable girl of the gutters; whilst thou, my Phœbus, art a
gentleman. A fine thing, truly! A dancer wed an officer! I was
mad. No, Phœbus, no; I will be thy mistress, thy amusement, thy
pleasure, when thou wilt; a girl who shall belong to thee. I was
only made for that, soiled, despised, dishonored, but what
matters it?—beloved. I shall be the proudest and the most joyous
of women. And when I grow old or ugly, Phœbus, when I am no
longer good to love you, you will suffer me to serve you still.
Others will embroider scarfs for you; ’tis I, the servant, who
will care for them. You will let me polish your spurs, brush your
doublet, dust your riding-boots. You will have that pity, will
you not, Phœbus? Meanwhile, take me! here, Phœbus, all this
belongs to thee, only love me! We gypsies need only air and
love.”
So saying, she threw her arms round the officer’s neck; she
looked up at him, supplicatingly, with a beautiful smile, and all
in tears. Her delicate neck rubbed against his cloth doublet with
its rough embroideries. She writhed on her knees, her beautiful
body half naked. The intoxicated captain pressed his ardent lips
to those lovely African shoulders. The young girl, her eyes bent
on the ceiling, as she leaned backwards, quivered, all
palpitating, beneath this kiss.
All at once, above Phœbus’s head she beheld another head; a
green, livid, convulsed face, with the look of a lost soul; near
this face was a hand grasping a poniard. It was the face and hand
of the priest; he had broken the door and he was there. Phœbus
could not see him. The young girl remained motionless, frozen
with terror, dumb, beneath that terrible apparition, like a dove
which should raise its head at the moment when the hawk is gazing
into her nest with its round eyes.
She could not even utter a cry. She saw the poniard descend upon
Phœbus, and rise again, reeking.
“Maledictions!” said the captain, and fell.
She fainted.
At the moment when her eyes closed, when all feeling vanished in
her, she thought that she felt a touch of fire imprinted upon her
lips, a kiss more burning than the red-hot iron of the
executioner.
When she recovered her senses, she was surrounded by soldiers of
the watch they were carrying away the captain, bathed in his
blood the priest had disappeared; the window at the back of the
room which opened on the river was wide open; they picked up a
cloak which they supposed to belong to the officer and she heard
them saying around her,
“’Tis a sorceress who has stabbed a captain.”
BOOK EIGHTH.
CHAPTER I. THE CROWN CHANGED INTO A DRY LEAF.
Gringoire and the entire Court of Miracles were suffering mortal
anxiety. For a whole month they had not known what had become of
la Esmeralda, which greatly pained the Duke of Egypt and his
friends the vagabonds, nor what had become of the goat, which
redoubled Gringoire’s grief. One evening the gypsy had
disappeared, and since that time had given no signs of life. All
search had proved fruitless. Some tormenting bootblacks had told
Gringoire about meeting her that same evening near the Pont
Saint-Michel, going off with an officer; but this husband, after
the fashion of Bohemia, was an incredulous philosopher, and
besides, he, better than any one else, knew to what a point his
wife was virginal. He had been able to form a judgment as to the
unconquerable modesty resulting from the combined virtues of the
amulet and the gypsy, and he had mathematically calculated the
resistance of that chastity to the second power. Accordingly, he
was at ease on that score.
Still he could not understand this disappearance. It was a
profound sorrow. He would have grown thin over it, had that been
possible. He had forgotten everything, even his literary tastes,
even his great work, _De figuris regularibus et irregularibus_,
which it was his intention to have printed with the first money
which he should procure (for he had raved over printing, ever
since he had seen the “Didascalon” of Hugues de Saint Victor,
printed with the celebrated characters of Vindelin de Spire).
One day, as he was passing sadly before the criminal Tournelle,
he perceived a considerable crowd at one of the gates of the
Palais de Justice.
“What is this?” he inquired of a young man who was coming out.
“I know not, sir,” replied the young man. “’Tis said that they
are trying a woman who hath assassinated a gendarme. It appears
that there is sorcery at the bottom of it, the archbishop and the
official have intervened in the case, and my brother, who is the
archdeacon of Josas, can think of nothing else. Now, I wished to
speak with him, but I have not been able to reach him because of
the throng, which vexes me greatly, as I stand in need of money.”
“Alas! sir,” said Gringoire, “I would that I could lend you some,
but, my breeches are worn to holes, and ’tis not crowns which
have done it.”
He dared not tell the young man that he was acquainted with his
brother the archdeacon, to whom he had not returned after the
scene in the church; a negligence which embarrassed him.
The scholar went his way, and Gringoire set out to follow the
crowd which was mounting the staircase of the great chamber. In
his opinion, there was nothing like the spectacle of a criminal
process for dissipating melancholy, so exhilaratingly stupid are
judges as a rule. The populace which he had joined walked and
elbowed in silence. After a slow and tiresome march through a
long, gloomy corridor, which wound through the court-house like
the intestinal canal of the ancient edifice, he arrived near a
low door, opening upon a hall which his lofty stature permitted
him to survey with a glance over the waving heads of the rabble.
The hall was vast and gloomy, which latter fact made it appear
still more spacious. The day was declining; the long, pointed
windows permitted only a pale ray of light to enter, which was
extinguished before it reached the vaulted ceiling, an enormous
trellis-work of sculptured beams, whose thousand figures seemed
to move confusedly in the shadows, many candles were already
lighted here and there on tables, and beaming on the heads of
clerks buried in masses of documents. The anterior portion of the
hall was occupied by the crowd; on the right and left were
magistrates and tables; at the end, upon a platform, a number of
judges, whose rear rank sank into the shadows, sinister and
motionless faces. The walls were sown with innumerable
fleurs-de-lis. A large figure of Christ might be vaguely descried
above the judges, and everywhere there were pikes and halberds,
upon whose points the reflection of the candles placed tips of
fire.
“Monsieur,” Gringoire inquired of one of his neighbors, “who are
all those persons ranged yonder, like prelates in council?”
“Monsieur,” replied the neighbor, “those on the right are the
counsellors of the grand chamber; those on the left, the
councillors of inquiry; the masters in black gowns, the messires
in red.”
“Who is that big red fellow, yonder above them, who is sweating?”
pursued Gringoire.
“It is monsieur the president.”
“And those sheep behind him?” continued Gringoire, who as we have
seen, did not love the magistracy, which arose, possibly, from
the grudge which he cherished against the Palais de Justice since
his dramatic misadventure.
“They are messieurs the masters of requests of the king’s
household.”
“And that boar in front of him?”
“He is monsieur the clerk of the Court of Parliament.”
“And that crocodile on the right?”
“Master Philippe Lheulier, advocate extraordinary of the king.”
“And that big, black tom-cat on the left?”
“Master Jacques Charmolue, procurator of the king in the
Ecclesiastical Court, with the gentlemen of the officialty.”
“Come now, monsieur,” said Gringoire, “pray what are all those
fine fellows doing yonder?”
“They are judging.”
“Judging whom? I do not see the accused.”
“’Tis a woman, sir. You cannot see her. She has her back turned
to us, and she is hidden from us by the crowd. Stay, yonder she
is, where you see a group of partisans.”
“Who is the woman?” asked Gringoire. “Do you know her name?”
“No, monsieur, I have but just arrived. I merely assume that
there is some sorcery about it, since the official is present at
the trial.”
“Come!” said our philosopher, “we are going to see all these
magistrates devour human flesh. ’Tis as good a spectacle as any
other.”
“Monsieur,” remarked his neighbor, “think you not, that Master
Jacques Charmolue has a very sweet air?”
“Hum!” replied Gringoire. “I distrust a sweetness which hath
pinched nostrils and thin lips.”
Here the bystanders imposed silence upon the two chatterers. They
were listening to an important deposition.
“Messeigneurs,” said an old woman in the middle of the hall,
whose form was so concealed beneath her garments that one would
have pronounced her a walking heap of rags; “Messeigneurs, the
thing is as true as that I am la Falourdel, established these
forty years at the Pont Saint Michel, and paying regularly my