woodworking magazine hardbound edition volume 1

book sixth.chapter i. an impartial glance at the ancientmagistracy. a very happy personage in the year of grace1482, was the noble gentleman robert d'estouteville, chevalier, sieur de beyne,baron d'ivry and saint andry en la marche, counsellor and chamberlain to the king, andguard of the provostship of paris. it was already nearly seventeen years sincehe had received from the king, on november 7, 1465, the comet year, that fine chargeof the provostship of paris, which was reputed rather a seigneury than an office. dignitas, says joannes loemnoeus, quoe cumnon exigua potestate politiam concernente,

atque proerogativis multis et juribusconjuncta est. a marvellous thing in '82 was a gentlemanbearing the king's commission, and whose letters of institution ran back to theepoch of the marriage of the natural daughter of louis xi. with monsieur thebastard of bourbon. the same day on which robert d'estoutevilletook the place of jacques de villiers in the provostship of paris, master jehandauvet replaced messire helye de thorrettes in the first presidency of the court of parliament, jehan jouvenel des ursinssupplanted pierre de morvilliers in the office of chancellor of france, regnaultdes dormans ousted pierre puy from the

charge of master of requests in ordinary ofthe king's household. now, upon how many heads had thepresidency, the chancellorship, the mastership passed since robertd'estouteville had held the provostship of paris. it had been "granted to him forsafekeeping," as the letters patent said; and certainly he kept it well. he had clung to it, he had incorporatedhimself with it, he had so identified himself with it that he had escaped thatfury for change which possessed louis xi., a tormenting and industrious king, whose

policy it was to maintain the elasticity ofhis power by frequent appointments and revocations. more than this; the brave chevalier hadobtained the reversion of the office for his son, and for two years already, thename of the noble man jacques d'estouteville, equerry, had figured beside his at the head of the register of thesalary list of the provostship of paris. a rare and notable favor indeed! it is true that robert d'estouteville was agood soldier, that he had loyally raised his pennon against "the league of publicgood," and that he had presented to the

queen a very marvellous stag in confectionery on the day of her entrance toparis in 14... moreover, he possessed the good friendshipof messire tristan l'hermite, provost of the marshals of the king's household. hence a very sweet and pleasant existencewas that of messire robert. in the first place, very good wages, towhich were attached, and from which hung, like extra bunches of grapes on his vine,the revenues of the civil and criminal registries of the provostship, plus the civil and criminal revenues of thetribunals of embas of the chatelet, without

reckoning some little toll from the bridgesof mantes and of corbeil, and the profits on the craft of shagreen-makers of paris, on the corders of firewood and themeasurers of salt. add to this the pleasure of displayinghimself in rides about the city, and of making his fine military costume, which youmay still admire sculptured on his tomb in the abbey of valmont in normandy, and his morion, all embossed at montlhery, standout a contrast against the parti-colored red and tawny robes of the aldermen andpolice. and then, was it nothing to wield absolutesupremacy over the sergeants of the police,

the porter and watch of the chatelet, thetwo auditors of the chatelet, auditores castelleti, the sixteen commissioners of the sixteen quarters, the jailer of thechatelet, the four enfeoffed sergeants, the hundred and twenty mounted sergeants, withmaces, the chevalier of the watch with his watch, his sub-watch, his counter-watch andhis rear-watch? was it nothing to exercise high and lowjustice, the right to interrogate, to hang and to draw, without reckoning pettyjurisdiction in the first resort (in prima instantia, as the charters say), on that viscomty of paris, so nobly appanaged withseven noble bailiwicks?

can anything sweeter be imagined thanrendering judgments and decisions, as messire robert d'estouteville daily did inthe grand chatelet, under the large and flattened arches of philip augustus? and going, as he was wont to do every evening,to that charming house situated in the rue galilee, in the enclosure of the royalpalace, which he held in right of his wife, madame ambroise de lore, to repose after the fatigue of having sent some poor wretchto pass the night in "that little cell of the rue de escorcherie, which the provostsand aldermen of paris used to make their prison; the same being eleven feet long,

seven feet and four inches wide, and elevenfeet high?" and not only had messire robertd'estouteville his special court as provost and vicomte of paris; but in addition hehad a share, both for eye and tooth, in the grand court of the king. there was no head in the least elevatedwhich had not passed through his hands before it came to the headsman. it was he who went to seek m. de nemours atthe bastille saint antoine, in order to conduct him to the halles; and to conductto the greve m. de saint-pol, who clamored and resisted, to the great joy of the

provost, who did not love monsieur theconstable. here, assuredly, is more than sufficient torender a life happy and illustrious, and to deserve some day a notable page in thatinteresting history of the provosts of paris, where one learns that oudard de villeneuve had a house in the rue desboucheries, that guillaume de hangest purchased the great and the little savoy,that guillaume thiboust gave the nuns of sainte-genevieve his houses in the rue clopin, that hugues aubriot lived in thehotel du pore-epic, and other domestic facts.

nevertheless, with so many reasons fortaking life patiently and joyously, messire robert d'estouteville woke up on themorning of the seventh of january, 1482, in a very surly and peevish mood. whence came this ill temper?he could not have told himself. was it because the sky was gray? or was thebuckle of his old belt of montlhery badly fastened, so that it confined his provostalportliness too closely? had he beheld ribald fellows, marching in bands of four, beneath his window, and setting him atdefiance, in doublets but no shirts, hats without crowns, with wallet and bottle attheir side?

was it a vague presentiment of the threehundred and seventy livres, sixteen sous, eight farthings, which the future kingcharles vii. was to cut off from the provostship in the following year? the reader can take his choice; we, for ourpart, are much inclined to believe that he was in a bad humor, simply because he wasin a bad humor. moreover, it was the day after a festival,a tiresome day for every one, and above all for the magistrate who is charged withsweeping away all the filth, properly and figuratively speaking, which a festival dayproduces in paris. and then he had to hold a sitting at thegrand chatelet.

now, we have noticed that judges in generalso arrange matters that their day of audience shall also be their day of badhumor, so that they may always have some one upon whom to vent it conveniently, inthe name of the king, law, and justice. however, the audience had begun withouthim. his lieutenants, civil, criminal, andprivate, were doing his work, according to usage; and from eight o'clock in themorning, some scores of bourgeois and bourgeoises, heaped and crowded into an obscure corner of the audience chamber ofembas du chatelet, between a stout oaken barrier and the wall, had been gazingblissfully at the varied and cheerful

spectacle of civil and criminal justice dispensed by master florian barbedienne,auditor of the chatelet, lieutenant of monsieur the provost, in a somewhatconfused and utterly haphazard manner. the hall was small, low, vaulted. a table studded with fleurs-de-lis stood atone end, with a large arm-chair of carved oak, which belonged to the provost and wasempty, and a stool on the left for the auditor, master florian. below sat the clerk of the court,scribbling; opposite was the populace; and in front of the door, and in front of thetable were many sergeants of the

provostship in sleeveless jackets of violetcamlet, with white crosses. two sergeants of the parloir-aux-bourgeois,clothed in their jackets of toussaint, half red, half blue, were posted as sentinelsbefore a low, closed door, which was visible at the extremity of the hall,behind the table. a single pointed window, narrowly encasedin the thick wall, illuminated with a pale ray of january sun two grotesque figures,--the capricious demon of stone carved as a tail-piece in the keystone of the vaulted ceiling, and the judge seated at the end ofthe hall on the fleurs-de-lis. imagine, in fact, at the provost's table,leaning upon his elbows between two bundles

of documents of cases, with his foot on thetrain of his robe of plain brown cloth, his face buried in his hood of white lamb's skin, of which his brows seemed to be of apiece, red, crabbed, winking, bearing majestically the load of fat on his cheekswhich met under his chin, master florian barbedienne, auditor of the chatelet. now, the auditor was deaf.a slight defect in an auditor. master florian delivered judgment, none theless, without appeal and very suitably. it is certainly quite sufficient for ajudge to have the air of listening; and the venerable auditor fulfilled this condition,the sole one in justice, all the better

because his attention could not bedistracted by any noise. moreover, he had in the audience, apitiless censor of his deeds and gestures, in the person of our friend jehan frollo dumoulin, that little student of yesterday, that "stroller," whom one was sure of encountering all over paris, anywhereexcept before the rostrums of the professors. "stay," he said in a low tone to hiscompanion, robin poussepain, who was grinning at his side, while he was makinghis comments on the scenes which were being unfolded before his eyes, "yonder isjehanneton du buisson.

the beautiful daughter of the lazy dog atthe marche-neuf!--upon my soul, he is condemning her, the old rascal! he has nomore eyes than ears. fifteen sous, four farthings, parisian, forhaving worn two rosaries! 'tis somewhat dear.lex duri carminis. who's that? robin chief-de-ville, hauberkmaker.for having been passed and received master of the said trade!that's his entrance money. he! two gentlemen among these knaves! aiglet de soins, hutin de mailly twoequerries, corpus christi!

ah! they have been playing at dice.when shall i see our rector here? a hundred livres parisian, fine to theking! that barbedienne strikes like a deaf man,--as he is! i'll be my brother the archdeacon, if thatkeeps me from gaming; gaming by day, gaming by night, living at play, dying at play,and gaming away my soul after my shirt. holy virgin, what damsels! one after the other my lambs.ambroise lecuyere, isabeau la paynette, berarde gironin!i know them all, by heavens! a fine! a fine!

that's what will teach you to wear gildedgirdles! ten sous parisis! you coquettes! oh! the old snout of a judge! deaf andimbecile! oh! florian the dolt! oh! barbedienne the blockhead!there he is at the table! he's eating the plaintiff, he's eating thesuits, he eats, he chews, he crams, he fills himself. fines, lost goods, taxes, expenses, loyalcharges, salaries, damages, and interests, gehenna, prison, and jail, and fetters withexpenses are christmas spice cake and marchpanes of saint-john to him!

look at him, the pig!--come!good! another amorous woman!thibaud-la-thibaude, neither more nor less! for having come from the rue glatigny! what fellow is this?gieffroy mabonne, gendarme bearing the crossbow.he has cursed the name of the father. a fine for la thibaude! a fine for gieffroy!a fine for them both! the deaf old fool! he must have mixed upthe two cases! ten to one that he makes the wench pay forthe oath and the gendarme for the amour!

attention, robin poussepain!what are they going to bring in? here are many sergeants! by jupiter! all the bloodhounds of the packare there. it must be the great beast of the hunt--awild boar. and 'tis one, robin, 'tis one. and a fine one too!hercle! 'tis our prince of yesterday, our pope ofthe fools, our bellringer, our one-eyed man, our hunchback, our grimace! 'tis quasimodo!"it was he indeed.

it was quasimodo, bound, encircled, roped,pinioned, and under good guard. the squad of policemen who surrounded himwas assisted by the chevalier of the watch in person, wearing the arms of franceembroidered on his breast, and the arms of the city on his back. there was nothing, however, aboutquasimodo, except his deformity, which could justify the display of halberds andarquebuses; he was gloomy, silent, and tranquil. only now and then did his single eye cast asly and wrathful glance upon the bonds with which he was loaded.

he cast the same glance about him, but itwas so dull and sleepy that the women only pointed him out to each other in derision. meanwhile master florian, the auditor,turned over attentively the document in the complaint entered against quasimodo, whichthe clerk handed him, and, having thus glanced at it, appeared to reflect for amoment. thanks to this precaution, which he alwayswas careful to take at the moment when on the point of beginning an examination, heknew beforehand the names, titles, and misdeeds of the accused, made cut and dried responses to questions foreseen, andsucceeded in extricating himself from all

the windings of the interrogation withoutallowing his deafness to be too apparent. the written charges were to him what thedog is to the blind man. if his deafness did happen to betray himhere and there, by some incoherent apostrophe or some unintelligible question,it passed for profundity with some, and for imbecility with others. in neither case did the honor of themagistracy sustain any injury; for it is far better that a judge should be reputedimbecile or profound than deaf. hence he took great care to conceal hisdeafness from the eyes of all, and he generally succeeded so well that he hadreached the point of deluding himself,

which is, by the way, easier than issupposed. all hunchbacks walk with their heads heldhigh, all stutterers harangue, all deaf people speak low. as for him, he believed, at the most, thathis ear was a little refractory. it was the sole concession which he made onthis point to public opinion, in his moments of frankness and examination of hisconscience. having, then, thoroughly ruminatedquasimodo's affair, he threw back his head and half closed his eyes, for the sake ofmore majesty and impartiality, so that, at that moment, he was both deaf and blind.

a double condition, without which no judgeis perfect. it was in this magisterial attitude that hebegan the examination. "your name?" now this was a case which had not been"provided for by law," where a deaf man should be obliged to question a deaf man. quasimodo, whom nothing warned that aquestion had been addressed to him, continued to stare intently at the judge,and made no reply. the judge, being deaf, and being in no waywarned of the deafness of the accused, thought that the latter had answered, asall accused do in general, and therefore he

pursued, with his mechanical and stupidself-possession,-- "very well.and your age?" again quasimodo made no reply to thisquestion. the judge supposed that it had been repliedto, and continued,-- "now, your profession?" still the same silence.the spectators had begun, meanwhile, to whisper together, and to exchange glances. "that will do," went on the imperturbableauditor, when he supposed that the accused had finished his third reply.

"you are accused before us, primo, ofnocturnal disturbance; secundo, of a dishonorable act of violence upon theperson of a foolish woman, in proejudicium meretricis; tertio, of rebellion and disloyalty towards the archers of thepolice of our lord, the king. explain yourself upon all these points.---clerk, have you written down what the prisoner has said thus far?" at this unlucky question, a burst oflaughter rose from the clerk's table caught by the audience, so violent, so wild, socontagious, so universal, that the two deaf men were forced to perceive it.

quasimodo turned round, shrugging his humpwith disdain, while master florian, equally astonished, and supposing that the laughterof the spectators had been provoked by some irreverent reply from the accused, rendered visible to him by that shrug of theshoulders, apostrophized him indignantly,-- "you have uttered a reply, knave, whichdeserves the halter. do you know to whom you are speaking?" this sally was not fitted to arrest theexplosion of general merriment. it struck all as so whimsical, and soridiculous, that the wild laughter even attacked the sergeants of the parloi-aux-bourgeois, a sort of pikemen, whose

stupidity was part of their uniform. quasimodo alone preserved his seriousness,for the good reason that he understood nothing of what was going on around him. the judge, more and more irritated, thoughtit his duty to continue in the same tone, hoping thereby to strike the accused with aterror which should react upon the audience, and bring it back to respect. "so this is as much as to say, perverse andthieving knave that you are, that you permit yourself to be lacking in respecttowards the auditor of the chatelet, to the magistrate committed to the popular police

of paris, charged with searching outcrimes, delinquencies, and evil conduct; with controlling all trades, andinterdicting monopoly; with maintaining the pavements; with debarring the hucksters of chickens, poultry, and water-fowl; ofsuperintending the measuring of fagots and other sorts of wood; of purging the city ofmud, and the air of contagious maladies; in a word, with attending continually to public affairs, without wages or hope ofsalary! do you know that i am called florianbarbedienne, actual lieutenant to monsieur the provost, and, moreover, commissioner,inquisitor, controller, and examiner, with

equal power in provostship, bailiwick, preservation, and inferior court ofjudicature?--" there is no reason why a deaf man talkingto a deaf man should stop. god knows where and when master florianwould have landed, when thus launched at full speed in lofty eloquence, if the lowdoor at the extreme end of the room had not suddenly opened, and given entrance to theprovost in person. at his entrance master florian did not stopshort, but, making a half-turn on his heels, and aiming at the provost theharangue with which he had been withering quasimodo a moment before,--

"monseigneur," said he, "i demand suchpenalty as you shall deem fitting against the prisoner here present, for grave andaggravated offence against the court." and he seated himself, utterly breathless,wiping away the great drops of sweat which fell from his brow and drenched, liketears, the parchments spread out before him. messire robert d'estouteville frowned andmade a gesture so imperious and significant to quasimodo, that the deaf man in somemeasure understood it. the provost addressed him with severity,"what have you done that you have been brought hither, knave?"

the poor fellow, supposing that the provostwas asking his name, broke the silence which he habitually preserved, and replied,in a harsh and guttural voice, "quasimodo." the reply matched the question so littlethat the wild laugh began to circulate once more, and messire robert exclaimed, redwith wrath,-- "are you mocking me also, you arrantknave?" "bellringer of notre-dame," repliedquasimodo, supposing that what was required of him was to explain to the judge who hewas. "bellringer!" interpolated the provost, whohad waked up early enough to be in a sufficiently bad temper, as we have said,not to require to have his fury inflamed by

such strange responses. "bellringer!i'll play you a chime of rods on your back through the squares of paris!do you hear, knave?" "if it is my age that you wish to know,"said quasimodo, "i think that i shall be twenty at saint martin's day."this was too much; the provost could no longer restrain himself. "ah! you are scoffing at the provostship,wretch! messieurs the sergeants of the mace, youwill take me this knave to the pillory of the greve, you will flog him, and turn himfor an hour.

he shall pay me for it, tete dieu! and i order that the present judgment shallbe cried, with the assistance of four sworn trumpeters, in the seven castellanies ofthe viscomty of paris." the clerk set to work incontinently to drawup the account of the sentence. "ventre dieu! 'tis well adjudged!" cried the littlescholar, jehan frollo du moulin, from his corner.the provost turned and fixed his flashing eyes once more on quasimodo. "i believe the knave said 'ventre dieu'clerk, add twelve deniers parisian for the

oath, and let the vestry of saint eustachehave the half of it; i have a particular devotion for saint eustache." in a few minutes the sentence was drawn up.its tenor was simple and brief. the customs of the provostship and theviscomty had not yet been worked over by president thibaut baillet, and by rogerbarmne, the king's advocate; they had not been obstructed, at that time, by that lofty hedge of quibbles and procedures,which the two jurisconsults planted there at the beginning of the sixteenth century.all was clear, expeditious, explicit. one went straight to the point then, and atthe end of every path there was immediately

visible, without thickets and withoutturnings; the wheel, the gibbet, or the pillory. one at least knew whither one was going. the clerk presented the sentence to theprovost, who affixed his seal to it, and departed to pursue his round of theaudience hall, in a frame of mind which seemed destined to fill all the jails inparis that day. jehan frollo and robin poussepain laughedin their sleeves. quasimodo gazed on the whole with anindifferent and astonished air. however, at the moment when master florianbarbedienne was reading the sentence in his

turn, before signing it, the clerk felthimself moved with pity for the poor wretch of a prisoner, and, in the hope of obtaining some mitigation of the penalty,he approached as near the auditor's ear as possible, and said, pointing to quasimodo,"that man is deaf." he hoped that this community of infirmitywould awaken master florian's interest in behalf of the condemned man. but, in the first place, we have alreadyobserved that master florian did not care to have his deafness noticed. in the next place, he was so hard ofhearing that he did not catch a single word

of what the clerk said to him;nevertheless, he wished to have the appearance of hearing, and replied, "ah!ah! that is different; i did not know that. an hour more of the pillory, in that case."and he signed the sentence thus modified. "'tis well done," said robin poussepain,who cherished a grudge against quasimodo. "that will teach him to handle peopleroughly." -book sixth.chapter ii. the rat-hole. the reader must permit us to take him backto the place de greve, which we quitted yesterday with gringoire, in order tofollow la esmeralda.

it is ten o'clock in the morning;everything is indicative of the day after a festival. the pavement is covered with rubbish;ribbons, rags, feathers from tufts of plumes, drops of wax from the torches,crumbs of the public feast. a goodly number of bourgeois are"sauntering," as we say, here and there, turning over with their feet the extinctbrands of the bonfire, going into raptures in front of the pillar house, over the memory of the fine hangings of the daybefore, and to-day staring at the nails that secured them a last pleasure.the venders of cider and beer are rolling

their barrels among the groups. some busy passers-by come and go.the merchants converse and call to each other from the thresholds of their shops. the festival, the ambassadors, coppenole,the pope of the fools, are in all mouths; they vie with each other, each trying tocriticise it best and laugh the most. and, meanwhile, four mounted sergeants, whohave just posted themselves at the four sides of the pillory, have alreadyconcentrated around themselves a goodly proportion of the populace scattered on the place, who condemn themselves to immobilityand fatigue in the hope of a small

execution. if the reader, after having contemplatedthis lively and noisy scene which is being enacted in all parts of the place, will nowtransfer his gaze towards that ancient demi-gothic, demi-romanesque house of the tour-roland, which forms the corner on thequay to the west, he will observe, at the angle of the facade, a large publicbreviary, with rich illuminations, protected from the rain by a little penthouse, and from thieves by a smallgrating, which, however, permits of the leaves being turned.

beside this breviary is a narrow, archedwindow, closed by two iron bars in the form of a cross, and looking on the square; theonly opening which admits a small quantity of light and air to a little cell without a door, constructed on the ground-floor, inthe thickness of the walls of the old house, and filled with a peace all the moreprofound, with a silence all the more gloomy, because a public place, the most populous and most noisy in paris swarms andshrieks around it. this little cell had been celebrated inparis for nearly three centuries, ever since madame rolande de la tour-roland, inmourning for her father who died in the

crusades, had caused it to be hollowed out in the wall of her own house, in order toimmure herself there forever, keeping of all her palace only this lodging whose doorwas walled up, and whose window stood open, winter and summer, giving all the rest tothe poor and to god. the afflicted damsel had, in fact, waitedtwenty years for death in this premature tomb, praying night and day for the soul ofher father, sleeping in ashes, without even a stone for a pillow, clothed in a black sack, and subsisting on the bread and waterwhich the compassion of the passers-by led them to deposit on the ledge of her window,thus receiving charity after having

bestowed it. at her death, at the moment when she waspassing to the other sepulchre, she had bequeathed this one in perpetuity toafflicted women, mothers, widows, or maidens, who should wish to pray much for others or for themselves, and who shoulddesire to inter themselves alive in a great grief or a great penance. the poor of her day had made her a finefuneral, with tears and benedictions; but, to their great regret, the pious maid hadnot been canonized, for lack of influence. those among them who were a little inclinedto impiety, had hoped that the matter might

be accomplished in paradise more easilythan at rome, and had frankly besought god, instead of the pope, in behalf of thedeceased. the majority had contented themselves withholding the memory of rolande sacred, and converting her rags into relics. the city, on its side, had founded in honorof the damoiselle, a public breviary, which had been fastened near the window of thecell, in order that passers-by might halt there from time to time, were it only to pray; that prayer might remind them ofalms, and that the poor recluses, heiresses of madame rolande's vault, might not dieoutright of hunger and forgetfulness.

moreover, this sort of tomb was not so veryrare a thing in the cities of the middle ages. one often encountered in the mostfrequented street, in the most crowded and noisy market, in the very middle, under thefeet of the horses, under the wheels of the carts, as it were, a cellar, a well, a tiny walled and grated cabin, at the bottom ofwhich a human being prayed night and day, voluntarily devoted to some eternallamentation, to some great expiation. and all the reflections which that strangespectacle would awaken in us to-day; that horrible cell, a sort of intermediary linkbetween a house and the tomb, the cemetery

and the city; that living being cut off from the human community, and thenceforthreckoned among the dead; that lamp consuming its last drop of oil in thedarkness; that remnant of life flickering in the grave; that breath, that voice, that eternal prayer in a box of stone; that faceforever turned towards the other world; that eye already illuminated with anothersun; that ear pressed to the walls of a tomb; that soul a prisoner in that body; that body a prisoner in that dungeon cell,and beneath that double envelope of flesh and granite, the murmur of that soul inpain;--nothing of all this was perceived by

the crowd. the piety of that age, not very subtle normuch given to reasoning, did not see so many facets in an act of religion. it took the thing in the block, honored,venerated, hallowed the sacrifice at need, but did not analyze the sufferings, andfelt but moderate pity for them. it brought some pittance to the miserablepenitent from time to time, looked through the hole to see whether he were stillliving, forgot his name, hardly knew how many years ago he had begun to die, and to the stranger, who questioned them about theliving skeleton who was perishing in that

cellar, the neighbors replied simply, "itis the recluse." everything was then viewed withoutmetaphysics, without exaggeration, without magnifying glass, with the naked eye. the microscope had not yet been invented,either for things of matter or for things of the mind. moreover, although people were but littlesurprised by it, the examples of this sort of cloistration in the hearts of citieswere in truth frequent, as we have just said. there were in paris a considerable numberof these cells, for praying to god and

doing penance; they were nearly alloccupied. it is true that the clergy did not like tohave them empty, since that implied lukewarmness in believers, and that leperswere put into them when there were no penitents on hand. besides the cell on the greve, there wasone at montfaucon, one at the charnier des innocents, another i hardly know where,--atthe clichon house, i think; others still at many spots where traces of them are foundin traditions, in default of memorials. the university had also its own. on mount sainte-genevieve a sort of job ofthe middle ages, for the space of thirty

years, chanted the seven penitential psalmson a dunghill at the bottom of a cistern, beginning anew when he had finished, singing loudest at night, magna voce perumbras, and to-day, the antiquary fancies that he hears his voice as he enters therue du puits-qui-parle--the street of the "speaking well." to confine ourselves to the cell in thetour-roland, we must say that it had never lacked recluses. after the death of madame roland, it hadstood vacant for a year or two, though rarely.many women had come thither to mourn, until

their death, for relatives, lovers, faults. parisian malice, which thrusts its fingerinto everything, even into things which concern it the least, affirmed that it hadbeheld but few widows there. in accordance with the fashion of theepoch, a latin inscription on the wall indicated to the learned passer-by thepious purpose of this cell. the custom was retained until the middle ofthe sixteenth century of explaining an edifice by a brief device inscribed abovethe door. thus, one still reads in france, above thewicket of the prison in the seignorial mansion of tourville, sileto et spera; inireland, beneath the armorial bearings

which surmount the grand door to fortescue castle, forte scutum, salus ducum; inengland, over the principal entrance to the hospitable mansion of the earls cowper:tuum est. at that time every edifice was a thought. as there was no door to the walled cell ofthe tour-roland, these two words had been carved in large roman capitals over thewindow,-- tu, ora. and this caused the people, whose goodsense does not perceive so much refinement in things, and likes to translate ludovicomagno by "porte saint-denis," to give to

this dark, gloomy, damp cavity, the name of"the rat-hole." an explanation less sublime, perhaps, thanthe other; but, on the other hand, more picturesque. -book sixth.chapter iii. history of a leavened cake of maize. at the epoch of this history, the cell inthe tour-roland was occupied. if the reader desires to know by whom, hehas only to lend an ear to the conversation of three worthy gossips, who, at the momentwhen we have directed his attention to the rat-hole, were directing their steps

towards the same spot, coming up along thewater's edge from the chatelet, towards the greve.two of these women were dressed like good bourgeoises of paris. their fine white ruffs; their petticoats oflinsey-woolsey, striped red and blue; their white knitted stockings, with clocksembroidered in colors, well drawn upon their legs; the square-toed shoes of tawny leather with black soles, and, above all,their headgear, that sort of tinsel horn, loaded down with ribbons and laces, whichthe women of champagne still wear, in company with the grenadiers of the imperial

guard of russia, announced that theybelonged to that class wives which holds the middle ground between what the lackeyscall a woman and what they term a lady. they wore neither rings nor gold crosses,and it was easy to see that, in their ease, this did not proceed from poverty, butsimply from fear of being fined. their companion was attired in very muchthe same manner; but there was that indescribable something about her dress andbearing which suggested the wife of a provincial notary. one could see, by the way in which hergirdle rose above her hips, that she had not been long in paris.--add to this aplaited tucker, knots of ribbon on her

shoes--and that the stripes of her petticoat ran horizontally instead ofvertically, and a thousand other enormities which shocked good taste. the two first walked with that steppeculiar to parisian ladies, showing paris to women from the country.the provincial held by the hand a big boy, who held in his a large, flat cake. we regret to be obliged to add, that, owingto the rigor of the season, he was using his tongue as a handkerchief. the child was making them drag him along,non passibus cequis, as virgil says, and

stumbling at every moment, to the greatindignation of his mother. it is true that he was looking at his cakemore than at the pavement. some serious motive, no doubt, preventedhis biting it (the cake), for he contented himself with gazing tenderly at it. but the mother should have rather takencharge of the cake. it was cruel to make a tantalus of thechubby-checked boy. meanwhile, the three demoiselles (for thename of dames was then reserved for noble women) were all talking at once. "let us make haste, demoiselle mahiette,"said the youngest of the three, who was

also the largest, to the provincial, "igreatly fear that we shall arrive too late; they told us at the chatelet that they weregoing to take him directly to the pillory." "ah, bah! what are you saying, demoiselleoudarde musnier?" interposed the other parisienne. "there are two hours yet to the pillory.we have time enough. have you ever seen any one pilloried, mydear mahiette?" "yes," said the provincial, "at reims." "ah, bah!what is your pillory at reims? a miserable cage into which only peasantsare turned.

a great affair, truly!" "only peasants!" said mahiette, "at thecloth market in reims! we have seen very fine criminals there, whohave killed their father and mother! peasants! for what do you take us, gervaise?"it is certain that the provincial was on the point of taking offence, for the honorof her pillory. fortunately, that discreet damoiselle,oudarde musnier, turned the conversation in time."by the way, damoiselle mahiette, what say you to our flemish ambassadors?

have you as fine ones at reims?""i admit," replied mahiette, "that it is only in paris that such flemings can beseen." "did you see among the embassy, that bigambassador who is a hosier?" asked oudarde. "yes," said mahiette."he has the eye of a saturn." "and the big fellow whose face resembles abare belly?" resumed gervaise. "and the little one, with small eyes framedin red eyelids, pared down and slashed up like a thistle head?" "'tis their horses that are worth seeing,"said oudarde, "caparisoned as they are after the fashion of their country!"

"ah my dear," interrupted provincialmahiette, assuming in her turn an air of superiority, "what would you say then, ifyou had seen in '61, at the consecration at reims, eighteen years ago, the horses ofthe princes and of the king's company? housings and caparisons of all sorts; someof damask cloth, of fine cloth of gold, furred with sables; others of velvet,furred with ermine; others all embellished with goldsmith's work and large bells ofgold and silver! and what money that had cost!and what handsome boy pages rode upon them!" "that," replied oudarde dryly, "does notprevent the flemings having very fine

horses, and having had a superb supperyesterday with monsieur, the provost of the merchants, at the hotel-de-ville, where they were served with comfits andhippocras, and spices, and other singularities.""what are you saying, neighbor!" exclaimed gervaise. "it was with monsieur the cardinal, at thepetit bourbon that they supped." "not at all.at the hotel-de-ville. "yes, indeed. at the petit bourbon!""it was at the hotel-de-ville," retorted

oudarde sharply, "and dr. scourableaddressed them a harangue in latin, which pleased them greatly. my husband, who is sworn bookseller toldme." "it was at the petit bourbon," repliedgervaise, with no less spirit, "and this is what monsieur the cardinal's procuratorpresented to them: twelve double quarts of hippocras, white, claret, and red; twenty- four boxes of double lyons marchpane,gilded; as many torches, worth two livres a piece; and six demi-queues of beaune wine,white and claret, the best that could be found.

i have it from my husband, who is acinquantenier, at the parloir-aux bourgeois, and who was this morningcomparing the flemish ambassadors with those of prester john and the emperor of trebizond, who came from mesopotamia toparis, under the last king, and who wore rings in their ears." "so true is it that they supped at thehotel-de-ville," replied oudarde but little affected by this catalogue, "that such atriumph of viands and comfits has never been seen." "i tell you that they were served by lesec, sergeant of the city, at the hotel du

petit-bourbon, and that that is where youare mistaken." "at the hotel-de-ville, i tell you!" "at the petit-bourbon, my dear! and theyhad illuminated with magic glasses the word hope, which is written on the grandportal." "at the hotel-de-ville! at the hotel-de-ville!and husson-le-voir played the flute!" "i tell you, no!""i tell you, yes!" "i say, no!" plump and worthy oudarde was preparing toretort, and the quarrel might, perhaps,

have proceeded to a pulling of caps, hadnot mahiette suddenly exclaimed,--"look at those people assembled yonder at the end ofthe bridge! there is something in their midst that theyare looking at!" "in sooth," said gervaise, "i hear thesounds of a tambourine. i believe 'tis the little esmeralda, whoplays her mummeries with her goat. eh, be quick, mahiette! redouble your paceand drag along your boy. you are come hither to visit thecuriosities of paris. you saw the flemings yesterday; you mustsee the gypsy to-day." "the gypsy!" said mahiette, suddenlyretracing her steps, and clasping her son's

arm forcibly. "god preserve me from it!she would steal my child from me! come, eustache!" and she set out on a run along the quaytowards the greve, until she had left the bridge far behind her. in the meanwhile, the child whom she wasdragging after her fell upon his knees; she halted breathless.oudarde and gervaise rejoined her. "that gypsy steal your child from you!"said gervaise. "that's a singular freak of yours!"mahiette shook her head with a pensive air.

"the singular point is," observed oudarde,"that la sachette has the same idea about the egyptian woman.""what is la sachette?" asked mahiette. "he!" said oudarde, "sister gudule." "and who is sister gudule?" persistedmahiette. "you are certainly ignorant of all but yourreims, not to know that!" replied oudarde. "'tis the recluse of the rat-hole." "what!" demanded mahiette, "that poor womanto whom we are carrying this cake?" oudarde nodded affirmatively."precisely. you will see her presently at her window onthe greve.

she has the same opinion as yourself ofthese vagabonds of egypt, who play the tambourine and tell fortunes to the public. no one knows whence comes her horror of thegypsies and egyptians. but you, mahiette--why do you run so at themere sight of them?" "oh!" said mahiette, seizing her child'sround head in both hands, "i don't want that to happen to me which happened topaquette la chantefleurie." "oh! you must tell us that story, my goodmahiette," said gervaise, taking her arm. "gladly," replied mahiette, "but you mustbe ignorant of all but your paris not to know that!

i will tell you then (but 'tis notnecessary for us to halt that i may tell you the tale), that paquette lachantefleurie was a pretty maid of eighteen when i was one myself, that is to say, eighteen years ago, and 'tis her own faultif she is not to-day, like me, a good, plump, fresh mother of six and thirty, witha husband and a son. however, after the age of fourteen, it wastoo late! well, she was the daughter of guybertant,minstrel of the barges at reims, the same who had played before king charles vii., athis coronation, when he descended our river vesle from sillery to muison, when madame

the maid of orleans was also in the boat. the old father died when paquette was stilla mere child; she had then no one but her mother, the sister of m. pradon, master-brazier and coppersmith in paris, rue farm- garlin, who died last year. you see she was of good family. the mother was a good simple woman,unfortunately, and she taught paquette nothing but a bit of embroidery and toy-making which did not prevent the little one from growing very large and remaining verypoor. they both dwelt at reims, on the riverfront, rue de folle-peine.

mark this: for i believe it was this whichbrought misfortune to paquette. in '61, the year of the coronation of ourking louis xi. whom god preserve! paquette was so gay and so pretty that shewas called everywhere by no other name than "la chantefleurie"--blossoming song.poor girl! she had handsome teeth, she was fond oflaughing and displaying them. now, a maid who loves to laugh is on theroad to weeping; handsome teeth ruin handsome eyes. so she was la chantefleurie. she and her mother earned a precariousliving; they had been very destitute since

the death of the minstrel; their embroiderydid not bring them in more than six farthings a week, which does not amount toquite two eagle liards. where were the days when father guybertanthad earned twelve sous parisian, in a single coronation, with a song? one winter (it was in that same year of'61), when the two women had neither fagots nor firewood, it was very cold, which gavela chantefleurie such a fine color that the men called her paquette! and many called her paquerette! and she was ruined.--eustache, just let me see you bite that cake if you dare!--we immediately perceivedthat she was ruined, one sunday when she

came to church with a gold cross about herneck. at fourteen years of age! do you see? first it was the young vicomte decormontreuil, who has his bell tower three leagues distant from reims; then messirehenri de triancourt, equerry to the king; then less than that, chiart de beaulion, sergeant-at-arms; then, still descending,guery aubergeon, carver to the king; then, mace de frepus, barber to monsieur thedauphin; then, thevenin le moine, king's cook; then, the men growing continually younger and less noble, she fell toguillaume racine, minstrel of the hurdy

gurdy and to thierry de mer, lamplighter. then, poor chantefleurie, she belonged toevery one: she had reached the last sou of her gold piece.what shall i say to you, my damoiselles? at the coronation, in the same year, '61,'twas she who made the bed of the king of the debauchees!in the same year!" mahiette sighed, and wiped away a tearwhich trickled from her eyes. "this is no very extraordinary history,"said gervaise, "and in the whole of it i see nothing of any egyptian women orchildren." "patience!" resumed mahiette, "you will seeone child.--in '66, 'twill be sixteen years

ago this month, at sainte-paule's day,paquette was brought to bed of a little girl. the unhappy creature! it was a great joy toher; she had long wished for a child. her mother, good woman, who had never knownwhat to do except to shut her eyes, her mother was dead. paquette had no longer any one to love inthe world or any one to love her. la chantefleurie had been a poor creatureduring the five years since her fall. she was alone, alone in this life, fingerswere pointed at her, she was hooted at in the streets, beaten by the sergeants,jeered at by the little boys in rags.

and then, twenty had arrived: and twenty isan old age for amorous women. folly began to bring her in no more thanher trade of embroidery in former days; for every wrinkle that came, a crown fled;winter became hard to her once more, wood became rare again in her brazier, and breadin her cupboard. she could no longer work because, inbecoming voluptuous, she had grown lazy; and she suffered much more because, ingrowing lazy, she had become voluptuous. at least, that is the way in which monsieurthe cure of saint-remy explains why these women are colder and hungrier than otherpoor women, when they are old." "yes," remarked gervaise, "but thegypsies?"

"one moment, gervaise!" said oudarde, whoseattention was less impatient. "what would be left for the end if all werein the beginning? continue, mahiette, i entreat you.that poor chantefleurie!" mahiette went on. "so she was very sad, very miserable, andfurrowed her cheeks with tears. but in the midst of her shame, her folly,her debauchery, it seemed to her that she should be less wild, less shameful, lessdissipated, if there were something or some one in the world whom she could love, andwho could love her. it was necessary that it should be a child,because only a child could be sufficiently

innocent for that. she had recognized this fact after havingtried to love a thief, the only man who wanted her; but after a short time, sheperceived that the thief despised her. those women of love require either a loveror a child to fill their hearts. otherwise, they are very unhappy. as she could not have a lover, she turnedwholly towards a desire for a child, and as she had not ceased to be pious, she madeher constant prayer to the good god for it. so the good god took pity on her, and gaveher a little daughter. i will not speak to you of her joy; it wasa fury of tears, and caresses, and kisses.

she nursed her child herself, madeswaddling-bands for it out of her coverlet, the only one which she had on her bed, andno longer felt either cold or hunger. she became beautiful once more, inconsequence of it. an old maid makes a young mother. gallantry claimed her once more; men cameto see la chantefleurie; she found customers again for her merchandise, andout of all these horrors she made baby clothes, caps and bibs, bodices with shoulder-straps of lace, and tiny bonnetsof satin, without even thinking of buying herself another coverlet.--master eustache,i have already told you not to eat that

cake.--it is certain that little agnes, that was the child's name, a baptismalname, for it was a long time since la chantefleurie had had any surname--it iscertain that that little one was more swathed in ribbons and embroideries than adauphiness of dauphiny! among other things, she had a pair oflittle shoes, the like of which king louis xi. certainly never had! her mother had stitched and embroideredthem herself; she had lavished on them all the delicacies of her art of embroideress,and all the embellishments of a robe for the good virgin.

they certainly were the two prettiestlittle pink shoes that could be seen. they were no longer than my thumb, and onehad to see the child's little feet come out of them, in order to believe that they hadbeen able to get into them. 'tis true that those little feet were sosmall, so pretty, so rosy! rosier than the satin of the shoes! when you have children, oudarde, you willfind that there is nothing prettier than those little hands and feet." "i ask no better," said oudarde with asigh, "but i am waiting until it shall suit the good pleasure of m. andry musnier.""however, paquette's child had more that

was pretty about it besides its feet. i saw her when she was only four monthsold; she was a love! she had eyes larger than her mouth, and themost charming black hair, which already curled. she would have been a magnificent brunetteat the age of sixteen! her mother became more crazy over her everyday. she kissed her, caressed her, tickled her,washed her, decked her out, devoured her! she lost her head over her, she thanked godfor her. her pretty, little rosy feet above all werean endless source of wonderment, they were

a delirium of joy! she was always pressing her lips to them,and she could never recover from her amazement at their smallness. she put them into the tiny shoes, took themout, admired them, marvelled at them, looked at the light through them, wascurious to see them try to walk on her bed, and would gladly have passed her life on her knees, putting on and taking off theshoes from those feet, as though they had been those of an infant jesus." "the tale is fair and good," said gervaisein a low tone; "but where do gypsies come

into all that?""here," replied mahiette. "one day there arrived in reims a veryqueer sort of people. they were beggars and vagabonds who wereroaming over the country, led by their duke and their counts. they were browned by exposure to the sun,they had closely curling hair, and silver rings in their ears.the women were still uglier than the men. they had blacker faces, which were alwaysuncovered, a miserable frock on their bodies, an old cloth woven of cords boundupon their shoulder, and their hair hanging like the tail of a horse.

the children who scrambled between theirlegs would have frightened as many monkeys. a band of excommunicates.all these persons came direct from lower egypt to reims through poland. the pope had confessed them, it was said,and had prescribed to them as penance to roam through the world for seven years,without sleeping in a bed; and so they were called penancers, and smelt horribly. it appears that they had formerly beensaracens, which was why they believed in jupiter, and claimed ten livres of tournayfrom all archbishops, bishops, and mitred abbots with croziers.

a bull from the pope empowered them to dothat. they came to reims to tell fortunes in thename of the king of algiers, and the emperor of germany. you can readily imagine that no more wasneeded to cause the entrance to the town to be forbidden them. then the whole band camped with good graceoutside the gate of braine, on that hill where stands a mill, beside the cavities ofthe ancient chalk pits. and everybody in reims vied with hisneighbor in going to see them. they looked at your hand, and told youmarvellous prophecies; they were equal to

predicting to judas that he would becomepope. nevertheless, ugly rumors were incirculation in regard to them; about children stolen, purses cut, and humanflesh devoured. the wise people said to the foolish: "don'tgo there!" and then went themselves on the sly.it was an infatuation. the fact is, that they said things fit toastonish a cardinal. mothers triumphed greatly over their littleones after the egyptians had read in their hands all sorts of marvels written in paganand in turkish. one had an emperor; another, a pope;another, a captain.

poor chantefleurie was seized withcuriosity; she wished to know about herself, and whether her pretty littleagnes would not become some day empress of armenia, or something else. so she carried her to the egyptians; andthe egyptian women fell to admiring the child, and to caressing it, and to kissingit with their black mouths, and to marvelling over its little band, alas! tothe great joy of the mother. they were especially enthusiastic over herpretty feet and shoes. the child was not yet a year old. she already lisped a little, laughed at hermother like a little mad thing, was plump

and quite round, and possessed a thousandcharming little gestures of the angels of paradise. "she was very much frightened by theegyptians, and wept. but her mother kissed her more warmly andwent away enchanted with the good fortune which the soothsayers had foretold for heragnes. she was to be a beauty, virtuous, a queen. so she returned to her attic in the ruefolle-peine, very proud of bearing with her a queen. the next day she took advantage of a momentwhen the child was asleep on her bed, (for

they always slept together), gently leftthe door a little way open, and ran to tell a neighbor in the rue de la sechesserie, that the day would come when her daughteragnes would be served at table by the king of england and the archduke of ethiopia,and a hundred other marvels. on her return, hearing no cries on thestaircase, she said to herself: 'good! the child is still asleep!' she found her door wider open than she hadleft it, but she entered, poor mother, and ran to the bed.---the child was no longerthere, the place was empty. nothing remained of the child, but one ofher pretty little shoes.

she flew out of the room, dashed down thestairs, and began to beat her head against the wall, crying: 'my child! who has mychild? who has taken my child?' the street was deserted, the houseisolated; no one could tell her anything about it. she went about the town, searched all thestreets, ran hither and thither the whole day long, wild, beside herself, terrible,snuffing at doors and windows like a wild beast which has lost its young. she was breathless, dishevelled, frightfulto see, and there was a fire in her eyes

which dried her tears. she stopped the passers-by and cried: 'mydaughter! my daughter! my pretty little daughter! if any one will give me back my daughter,i will be his servant, the servant of his dog, and he shall eat my heart if he will.' she met m. le cure of saint-remy, and saidto him: 'monsieur, i will till the earth with my finger-nails, but give me back mychild!' it was heartrending, oudarde; and il saw avery hard man, master ponce lacabre, the procurator, weep.ah! poor mother!

in the evening she returned home. during her absence, a neighbor had seen twogypsies ascend up to it with a bundle in their arms, then descend again, afterclosing the door. after their departure, something like thecries of a child were heard in paquette's room. the mother, burst into shrieks of laughter,ascended the stairs as though on wings, and entered.--a frightful thing to tell,oudarde! instead of her pretty little agnes, so rosyand so fresh, who was a gift of the good god, a sort of hideous little monster,lame, one-eyed, deformed, was crawling and

squalling over the floor. she hid her eyes in horror.'oh!' said she, 'have the witches transformed my daughter into this horribleanimal?' they hastened to carry away the littleclub-foot; he would have driven her mad. it was the monstrous child of some gypsywoman, who had given herself to the devil. he appeared to be about four years old, andtalked a language which was no human tongue; there were words in it which wereimpossible. la chantefleurie flung herself upon thelittle shoe, all that remained to her of all that she loved.

she remained so long motionless over it,mute, and without breath, that they thought she was dead. suddenly she trembled all over, covered herrelic with furious kisses, and burst out sobbing as though her heart were broken.i assure you that we were all weeping also. she said: 'oh, my little daughter! mypretty little daughter! where art thou?'-- and it wrung your very heart.i weep still when i think of it. our children are the marrow of our bones,you see.---my poor eustache! thou art so fair!--if you only knew how nice he is!yesterday he said to me: 'i want to be a gendarme, that i do.'

oh! my eustache! if i were to lose thee!--all at once la chantefleurie rose, and set out to run through reims, screaming: 'tothe gypsies' camp! to the gypsies' camp! police, to burn the witches!' the gypsies were gone.it was pitch dark. they could not be followed. on the morrow, two leagues from reims, on aheath between gueux and tilloy, the remains of a large fire were found, some ribbonswhich had belonged to paquette's child, drops of blood, and the dung of a ram. the night just past had been a saturday.

there was no longer any doubt that theegyptians had held their sabbath on that heath, and that they had devoured the childin company with beelzebub, as the practice is among the mahometans. when la chantefleurie learned thesehorrible things, she did not weep, she moved her lips as though to speak, butcould not. on the morrow, her hair was gray. on the second day, she had disappeared."'tis in truth, a frightful tale," said oudarde, "and one which would make even aburgundian weep." "i am no longer surprised," added gervaise,"that fear of the gypsies should spur you

on so sharply." "and you did all the better," resumedoudarde, "to flee with your eustache just now, since these also are gypsies frompoland." "no," said gervais, "'tis said that theycome from spain and catalonia." "catalonia?'tis possible," replied oudarde. "pologne, catalogue, valogne, i alwaysconfound those three provinces, one thing is certain, that they are gypsies.""who certainly," added gervaise, "have teeth long enough to eat little children. i should not be surprised if la smeraldaate a little of them also, though she

pretends to be dainty. her white goat knows tricks that are toomalicious for there not to be some impiety underneath it all."mahiette walked on in silence. she was absorbed in that revery which is,in some sort, the continuation of a mournful tale, and which ends only afterhaving communicated the emotion, from vibration to vibration, even to the verylast fibres of the heart. nevertheless, gervaise addressed her, "anddid they ever learn what became of la chantefleurie?" mahiette made no reply.gervaise repeated her question, and shook

her arm, calling her by name.mahiette appeared to awaken from her thoughts. "what became of la chantefleurie?" shesaid, repeating mechanically the words whose impression was still fresh in herear; then, ma king an effort to recall her attention to the meaning of her words, "ah!" she continued briskly, "no one everfound out." she added, after a pause,-- "some said that she had been seen to quitreims at nightfall by the flechembault gate; others, at daybreak, by the old baseegate.

a poor man found her gold cross hanging onthe stone cross in the field where the fair is held.it was that ornament which had wrought her ruin, in '61. it was a gift from the handsome vicomte decormontreuil, her first lover. paquette had never been willing to partwith it, wretched as she had been. she had clung to it as to life itself. so, when we saw that cross abandoned, weall thought that she was dead. nevertheless, there were people of thecabaret les vantes, who said that they had seen her pass along the road to paris,walking on the pebbles with her bare feet.

but, in that case, she must have gone outthrough the porte de vesle, and all this does not agree. or, to speak more truly, i believe that sheactually did depart by the porte de vesle, but departed from this world.""i do not understand you," said gervaise. "la vesle," replied mahiette, with amelancholy smile, "is the river." "poor chantefleurie!" said oudarde, with ashiver,--"drowned!" "drowned!" resumed mahiette, "who couldhave told good father guybertant, when he passed under the bridge of tingueux withthe current, singing in his barge, that one day his dear little paquette would also

pass beneath that bridge, but without songor boat. "and the little shoe?" asked gervaise."disappeared with the mother," replied mahiette. "poor little shoe!" said oudarde.oudarde, a big and tender woman, would have been well pleased to sigh in company withmahiette. but gervaise, more curious, had notfinished her questions. "and the monster?" she said suddenly, tomahiette. "what monster?" inquired the latter. "the little gypsy monster left by thesorceresses in chantefleurie's chamber, in

exchange for her daughter.what did you do with it? i hope you drowned it also." "no." replied mahiette."what? you burned it then?in sooth, that is more just. a witch child!" "neither the one nor the other, gervaise. monseigneur the archbishop interestedhimself in the child of egypt, exorcised it, blessed it, removed the devil carefullyfrom its body, and sent it to paris, to be exposed on the wooden bed at notre-dame, asa foundling."

"those bishops!" grumbled gervaise,"because they are learned, they do nothing like anybody else. i just put it to you, oudarde, the idea ofplacing the devil among the foundlings! for that little monster was assuredly thedevil. well, mahiette, what did they do with it inparis? i am quite sure that no charitable personwanted it." "i do not know," replied the remoise,"'twas just at that time that my husband bought the office of notary, at bern, twoleagues from the town, and we were no longer occupied with that story; besides,

in front of bern, stand the two hills ofcernay, which hide the towers of the cathedral in reims from view." while chatting thus, the three worthybourgeoises had arrived at the place de greve. in their absorption, they had passed thepublic breviary of the tour-roland without stopping, and took their way mechanicallytowards the pillory around which the throng was growing more dense with every moment. it is probable that the spectacle which atthat moment attracted all looks in that direction, would have made them forgetcompletely the rat-hole, and the halt which

they intended to make there, if big eustache, six years of age, whom mahiettewas dragging along by the hand, had not abruptly recalled the object to them:"mother," said he, as though some instinct warned him that the rat-hole was behindhim, "can i eat the cake now?" if eustache had been more adroit, that isto say, less greedy, he would have continued to wait, and would only havehazarded that simple question, "mother, can i eat the cake, now?" on their return to the university, to master andry musnier's,rue madame la valence, when he had the two arms of the seine and the five bridges ofthe city between the rat-hole and the cake.

this question, highly imprudent at themoment when eustache put it, aroused mahiette's attention."by the way," she exclaimed, "we are forgetting the recluse! show me the rat-hole, that i may carry herher cake." "immediately," said oudarde, "'tis acharity." but this did not suit eustache. "stop! my cake!" said he, rubbing both earsalternatively with his shoulders, which, in such cases, is the supreme sign ofdiscontent. the three women retraced their steps, and,on arriving in the vicinity of the tour-

roland, oudarde said to the other two,--"we must not all three gaze into the hole at once, for fear of alarming the recluse. do you two pretend to read the dominus inthe breviary, while i thrust my nose into the aperture; the recluse knows me alittle. i will give you warning when you canapproach." she proceeded alone to the window. at the moment when she looked in, aprofound pity was depicted on all her features, and her frank, gay visage alteredits expression and color as abruptly as though it had passed from a ray of sunlight

to a ray of moonlight; her eye becamehumid; her mouth contracted, like that of a person on the point of weeping. a moment later, she laid her finger on herlips, and made a sign to mahiette to draw near and look. mahiette, much touched, stepped up insilence, on tiptoe, as though approaching the bedside of a dying person. it was, in fact, a melancholy spectaclewhich presented itself to the eyes of the two women, as they gazed through thegrating of the rat-hole, neither stirring nor breathing.

the cell was small, broader than it waslong, with an arched ceiling, and viewed from within, it bore a considerableresemblance to the interior of a huge bishop's mitre. on the bare flagstones which formed thefloor, in one corner, a woman was sitting, or rather, crouching. her chin rested on her knees, which hercrossed arms pressed forcibly to her breast. thus doubled up, clad in a brown sack,which enveloped her entirely in large folds, her long, gray hair pulled over infront, falling over her face and along her

legs nearly to her feet, she presented, at the first glance, only a strange formoutlined against the dark background of the cell, a sort of dusky triangle, which theray of daylight falling through the opening, cut roughly into two shades, theone sombre, the other illuminated. it was one of those spectres, half light,half shadow, such as one beholds in dreams and in the extraordinary work of goya,pale, motionless, sinister, crouching over a tomb, or leaning against the grating of aprison cell. it was neither a woman, nor a man, nor aliving being, nor a definite form; it was a figure, a sort of vision, in which the realand the fantastic intersected each other,

like darkness and day. it was with difficulty that onedistinguished, beneath her hair which spread to the ground, a gaunt and severeprofile; her dress barely allowed the extremity of a bare foot to escape, whichcontracted on the hard, cold pavement. the little of human form of which onecaught a sight beneath this envelope of mourning, caused a shudder. that figure, which one might have supposedto be riveted to the flagstones, appeared to possess neither movement, nor thought,nor breath. lying, in january, in that thin, linensack, lying on a granite floor, without

fire, in the gloom of a cell whose obliqueair-hole allowed only the cold breeze, but never the sun, to enter from without, shedid not appear to suffer or even to think. one would have said that she had turned tostone with the cell, ice with the season. her hands were clasped, her eyes fixed. at first sight one took her for a spectre;at the second, for a statue. nevertheless, at intervals, her blue lipshalf opened to admit a breath, and trembled, but as dead and as mechanical asthe leaves which the wind sweeps aside. nevertheless, from her dull eyes thereescaped a look, an ineffable look, a profound, lugubrious, imperturbable look,incessantly fixed upon a corner of the cell

which could not be seen from without; a gaze which seemed to fix all the sombrethoughts of that soul in distress upon some mysterious object. such was the creature who had received,from her habitation, the name of the "recluse"; and, from her garment, the nameof "the sacked nun." the three women, for gervaise had rejoinedmahiette and oudarde, gazed through the window. their heads intercepted the feeble light inthe cell, without the wretched being whom they thus deprived of it seeming to pay anyattention to them.

"do not let us trouble her," said oudarde,in a low voice, "she is in her ecstasy; she is praying." meanwhile, mahiette was gazing with ever-increasing anxiety at that wan, withered, dishevelled head, and her eyes filled withtears. "this is very singular," she murmured. she thrust her head through the bars, andsucceeded in casting a glance at the corner where the gaze of the unhappy woman wasimmovably riveted. when she withdrew her head from the window,her countenance was inundated with tears. "what do you call that woman?" she askedoudarde.

oudarde replied,-- "we call her sister gudule.""and i," returned mahiette, "call her paquette la chantefleurie." then, laying her finger on her lips, shemotioned to the astounded oudarde to thrust her head through the window and look. oudarde looked and beheld, in the cornerwhere the eyes of the recluse were fixed in that sombre ecstasy, a tiny shoe of pinksatin, embroidered with a thousand fanciful designs in gold and silver. gervaise looked after oudarde, and then thethree women, gazing upon the unhappy

mother, began to weep.but neither their looks nor their tears disturbed the recluse. her hands remained clasped; her lips mute;her eyes fixed; and that little shoe, thus gazed at, broke the heart of any one whoknew her history. the three women had not yet uttered asingle word; they dared not speak, even in a low voice. this deep silence, this deep grief, thisprofound oblivion in which everything had disappeared except one thing, produced uponthem the effect of the grand altar at christmas or easter.

they remained silent, they meditated, theywere ready to kneel. it seemed to them that they were ready toenter a church on the day of tenebrae. at length gervaise, the most curious of thethree, and consequently the least sensitive, tried to make the recluse speak:"sister! sister gudule!" she repeated this call three times, raisingher voice each time. the recluse did not move; not a word, not aglance, not a sigh, not a sign of life. oudarde, in her turn, in a sweeter, morecaressing voice,--"sister!" said she, "sister sainte-gudule!"the same silence; the same immobility.

"a singular woman!" exclaimed gervaise,"and one not to be moved by a catapult!" "perchance she is deaf," said oudarde."perhaps she is blind," added gervaise. "dead, perchance," returned mahiette. it is certain that if the soul had notalready quitted this inert, sluggish, lethargic body, it had at least retreatedand concealed itself in depths whither the perceptions of the exterior organs nolonger penetrated. "then we must leave the cake on thewindow," said oudarde; "some scamp will take it. what shall we do to rouse her?"

eustache, who, up to that moment had beendiverted by a little carriage drawn by a large dog, which had just passed, suddenlyperceived that his three conductresses were gazing at something through the window, and, curiosity taking possession of him inhis turn, he climbed upon a stone post, elevated himself on tiptoe, and applied hisfat, red face to the opening, shouting, "mother, let me see too!" at the sound of this clear, fresh, ringingchild's voice, the recluse trembled; she turned her head with the sharp, abruptmovement of a steel spring, her long, fleshless hands cast aside the hair from

her brow, and she fixed upon the child,bitter, astonished, desperate eyes. this glance was but a lightning flash. "oh my god!" she suddenly exclaimed, hidingher head on her knees, and it seemed as though her hoarse voice tore her chest asit passed from it, "do not show me those of others!" "good day, madam," said the child, gravely.nevertheless, this shock had, so to speak, awakened the recluse. a long shiver traversed her frame from headto foot; her teeth chattered; she half raised her head and said, pressing herelbows against her hips, and clasping her

feet in her hands as though to warm them,-- "oh, how cold it is!""poor woman!" said oudarde, with great compassion, "would you like a little fire?"she shook her head in token of refusal. "well," resumed oudarde, presenting herwith a flagon; "here is some hippocras which will warm you; drink it."again she shook her head, looked at oudarde fixedly and replied, "water." oudarde persisted,--"no, sister, that is nobeverage for january. you must drink a little hippocras and eatthis leavened cake of maize, which we have baked for you."

she refused the cake which mahiette offeredto her, and said, "black bread." "come," said gervaise, seized in her turnwith an impulse of charity, and unfastening her woolen cloak, "here is a cloak which isa little warmer than yours." she refused the cloak as she had refusedthe flagon and the cake, and replied, "a sack." "but," resumed the good oudarde, "you musthave perceived to some extent, that yesterday was a festival." "i do perceive it," said the recluse; "'tistwo days now since i have had any water in my crock."she added, after a silence, "'tis a

festival, i am forgotten. people do well.why should the world think of me, when i do not think of it?cold charcoal makes cold ashes." and as though fatigued with having said somuch, she dropped her head on her knees again. the simple and charitable oudarde, whofancied that she understood from her last words that she was complaining of the cold,replied innocently, "then you would like a little fire?" "fire!" said the sacked nun, with a strangeaccent; "and will you also make a little

for the poor little one who has beenbeneath the sod for these fifteen years?" every limb was trembling, her voicequivered, her eyes flashed, she had raised herself upon her knees; suddenly sheextended her thin, white hand towards the child, who was regarding her with a look ofastonishment. "take away that child!" she cried."the egyptian woman is about to pass by." then she fell face downward on the earth,and her forehead struck the stone, with the sound of one stone against another stone.the three women thought her dead. a moment later, however, she moved, andthey beheld her drag herself, on her knees and elbows, to the corner where the littleshoe was.

then they dared not look; they no longersaw her; but they heard a thousand kisses and a thousand sighs, mingled withheartrending cries, and dull blows like those of a head in contact with a wall. then, after one of these blows, so violentthat all three of them staggered, they heard no more. "can she have killed herself?" saidgervaise, venturing to pass her head through the air-hole."sister! "sister gudule!" repeated oudarde."ah! good heavens! she no longer moves!" resumed gervaise; "is she dead?gudule!

gudule!" mahiette, choked to such a point that shecould not speak, made an effort. "wait," said she. then bending towards the window,"paquette!" she said, "paquette le chantefleurie!" a child who innocently blows upon the badlyignited fuse of a bomb, and makes it explode in his face, is no more terrifiedthan was mahiette at the effect of that name, abruptly launched into the cell ofsister gudule. the recluse trembled all over, rose erecton her bare feet, and leaped at the window

with eyes so glaring that mahiette andoudarde, and the other woman and the child recoiled even to the parapet of the quay. meanwhile, the sinister face of the recluseappeared pressed to the grating of the air- hole. "oh! oh!" she cried, with an appallinglaugh; "'tis the egyptian who is calling me!"at that moment, a scene which was passing at the pillory caught her wild eye. her brow contracted with horror, shestretched her two skeleton arms from her cell, and shrieked in a voice whichresembled a death-rattle, "so 'tis thou

once more, daughter of egypt! 'tis thou who callest me, stealer ofchildren! well!be thou accursed! accursed! accursed! accursed!" -book sixth.chapter iv. a tear for a drop of water. these words were, so to speak, the point ofunion of two scenes, which had, up to that time, been developed in parallel lines atthe same moment, each on its particular theatre; one, that which the reader has

just perused, in the rat-hole; the other,which he is about to read, on the ladder of the pillory. the first had for witnesses only the threewomen with whom the reader has just made acquaintance; the second had for spectatorsall the public which we have seen above, collecting on the place de greve, aroundthe pillory and the gibbet. that crowd which the four sergeants postedat nine o'clock in the morning at the four corners of the pillory had inspired withthe hope of some sort of an execution, no doubt, not a hanging, but a whipping, a cropping of ears, something, in short,--that crowd had increased so rapidly that

the four policemen, too closely besieged,had had occasion to "press" it, as the expression then ran, more than once, by sound blows of their whips, and thehaunches of their horses. this populace, disciplined to waiting forpublic executions, did not manifest very much impatience. it amused itself with watching the pillory,a very simple sort of monument, composed of a cube of masonry about six feet high andhollow in the interior. a very steep staircase, of unhewn stone,which was called by distinction "the ladder," led to the upper platform, uponwhich was visible a horizontal wheel of

solid oak. the victim was bound upon this wheel, onhis knees, with his hands behind his back. a wooden shaft, which set in motion acapstan concealed in the interior of the little edifice, imparted a rotatory motionto the wheel, which always maintained its horizontal position, and in this manner presented the face of the condemned man toall quarters of the square in succession. this was what was called "turning" acriminal. as the reader perceives, the pillory of thegreve was far from presenting all the recreations of the pillory of the halles.nothing architectural, nothing monumental.

no roof to the iron cross, no octagonallantern, no frail, slender columns spreading out on the edge of the roof intocapitals of acanthus leaves and flowers, no waterspouts of chimeras and monsters, on carved woodwork, no fine sculpture, deeplysunk in the stone. they were forced to content themselves withthose four stretches of rubble work, backed with sandstone, and a wretched stonegibbet, meagre and bare, on one side. the entertainment would have been but apoor one for lovers of gothic architecture. it is true that nothing was ever lesscurious on the score of architecture than the worthy gapers of the middle ages, andthat they cared very little for the beauty

of a pillory. the victim finally arrived, bound to thetail of a cart, and when he had been hoisted upon the platform, where he couldbe seen from all points of the place, bound with cords and straps upon the wheel of the pillory, a prodigious hoot, mingled withlaughter and acclamations, burst forth upon the place.they had recognized quasimodo. it was he, in fact. the change was singular. pilloried on the very place where, on theday before, he had been saluted, acclaimed,

and proclaimed pope and prince of fools, inthe cortege of the duke of egypt, the king of thunes, and the emperor of galilee! one thing is certain, and that is, thatthere was not a soul in the crowd, not even himself, though in turn triumphant and thesufferer, who set forth this combination clearly in his thought. gringoire and his philosophy were missingat this spectacle. soon michel noiret, sworn trumpeter to theking, our lord, imposed silence on the louts, and proclaimed the sentence, inaccordance with the order and command of monsieur the provost.

then he withdrew behind the cart, with hismen in livery surcoats. quasimodo, impassible, did not wince. all resistance had been rendered impossibleto him by what was then called, in the style of the criminal chancellery, "thevehemence and firmness of the bonds" which means that the thongs and chains probably cut into his flesh; moreover, it is atradition of jail and wardens, which has not been lost, and which the handcuffsstill preciously preserve among us, a civilized, gentle, humane people (thegalleys and the guillotine in parentheses). he had allowed himself to be led, pushed,carried, lifted, bound, and bound again.

nothing was to be seen upon his countenancebut the astonishment of a savage or an idiot.he was known to be deaf; one might have pronounced him to be blind. they placed him on his knees on thecircular plank; he made no resistance. they removed his shirt and doublet as faras his girdle; he allowed them to have their way. they entangled him under a fresh system ofthongs and buckles; he allowed them to bind and buckle him. only from time to time he snorted noisily,like a calf whose head is hanging and

bumping over the edge of a butcher's cart. "the dolt," said jehan frollo of the mill,to his friend robin poussepain (for the two students had followed the culprit, as wasto have been expected), "he understands no more than a cockchafer shut up in a box!" there was wild laughter among the crowdwhen they beheld quasimodo's hump, his camel's breast, his callous and hairyshoulders laid bare. during this gayety, a man in the livery ofthe city, short of stature and robust of mien, mounted the platform and placedhimself near the victim. his name speedily circulated among thespectators.

it was master pierrat torterue, officialtorturer to the chatelet. he began by depositing on an angle of thepillory a black hour-glass, the upper lobe of which was filled with red sand, which itallowed to glide into the lower receptacle; then he removed his parti-colored surtout, and there became visible, suspended fromhis right hand, a thin and tapering whip of long, white, shining, knotted, plaitedthongs, armed with metal nails. with his left hand, he negligently foldedback his shirt around his right arm, to the very armpit. in the meantime, jehan frollo, elevatinghis curly blonde head above the crowd (he

had mounted upon the shoulders of robinpoussepain for the purpose), shouted: "come and look, gentle ladies and men! they are going to peremptorily flagellate masterquasimodo, the bellringer of my brother, monsieur the archdeacon of josas, a knaveof oriental architecture, who has a back like a dome, and legs like twistedcolumns!" and the crowd burst into a laugh,especially the boys and young girls. at length the torturer stamped his foot. the wheel began to turn.quasimodo wavered beneath his bonds. the amazement which was suddenly depictedupon his deformed face caused the bursts of

laughter to redouble around him. all at once, at the moment when the wheelin its revolution presented to master pierrat, the humped back of quasimodo,master pierrat raised his arm; the fine thongs whistled sharply through the air, like a handful of adders, and fell withfury upon the wretch's shoulders. quasimodo leaped as though awakened with astart. he began to understand. he writhed in his bonds; a violentcontraction of surprise and pain distorted the muscles of his face, but he uttered nota single sigh.

he merely turned his head backward, to theright, then to the left, balancing it as a bull does who has been stung in the flanksby a gadfly. a second blow followed the first, then athird, and another and another, and still others.the wheel did not cease to turn, nor the blows to rain down. soon the blood burst forth, and could beseen trickling in a thousand threads down the hunchback's black shoulders; and theslender thongs, in their rotatory motion which rent the air, sprinkled drops of itupon the crowd. quasimodo had resumed, to all appearance,his first imperturbability.

he had at first tried, in a quiet way andwithout much outward movement, to break his bonds. his eye had been seen to light up, hismuscles to stiffen, his members to concentrate their force, and the straps tostretch. the effort was powerful, prodigious,desperate; but the provost's seasoned bonds resisted.they cracked, and that was all. quasimodo fell back exhausted. amazement gave way, on his features, to asentiment of profound and bitter discouragement.

he closed his single eye, allowed his headto droop upon his breast, and feigned death.from that moment forth, he stirred no more. nothing could force a movement from him. neither his blood, which did not cease toflow, nor the blows which redoubled in fury, nor the wrath of the torturer, whogrew excited himself and intoxicated with the execution, nor the sound of the horrible thongs, more sharp and whistlingthan the claws of scorpions. at length a bailiff from the chatelet cladin black, mounted on a black horse, who had been stationed beside the ladder since thebeginning of the execution, extended his

ebony wand towards the hour-glass. the torturer stopped.the wheel stopped. quasimodo's eye opened slowly.the scourging was finished. two lackeys of the official torturer bathedthe bleeding shoulders of the patient, anointed them with some unguent whichimmediately closed all the wounds, and threw upon his back a sort of yellowvestment, in cut like a chasuble. in the meanwhile, pierrat torterue allowedthe thongs, red and gorged with blood, to drip upon the pavement. all was not over for quasimodo.

he had still to undergo that hour ofpillory which master florian barbedienne had so judiciously added to the sentence ofmessire robert d'estouteville; all to the greater glory of the old physiological and psychological play upon words of jean decumene, surdus absurdus: a deaf man is absurd. so the hour-glass was turned over oncemore, and they left the hunchback fastened to the plank, in order that justice mightbe accomplished to the very end. the populace, especially in the middleages, is in society what the child is in the family.

as long as it remains in its state ofprimitive ignorance, of moral and intellectual minority, it can be said of itas of the child,-- 'tis the pitiless age. we have already shown that quasimodo wasgenerally hated, for more than one good reason, it is true. there was hardly a spectator in that crowdwho had not or who did not believe that he had reason to complain of the malevolenthunchback of notre-dame. the joy at seeing him appear thus in thepillory had been universal; and the harsh punishment which he had just suffered, andthe pitiful condition in which it had left

him, far from softening the populace had rendered its hatred more malicious byarming it with a touch of mirth. hence, the "public prosecution" satisfied,as the bigwigs of the law still express it in their jargon, the turn came of athousand private vengeances. here, as in the grand hall, the womenrendered themselves particularly prominent. all cherished some rancor against him, somefor his malice, others for his ugliness. the latter were the most furious. "oh! mask of antichrist!" said one."rider on a broom handle!" cried another. "what a fine tragic grimace," howled athird, "and who would make him pope of the

fools if to-day were yesterday?" "'tis well," struck in an old woman."this is the grimace of the pillory. when shall we have that of the gibbet?" "when will you be coiffed with your bigbell a hundred feet under ground, cursed bellringer?""but 'tis the devil who rings the angelus!" "oh! the deaf man! the one-eyed creature!the hunch-back! the monster!" "a face to make a woman miscarry betterthan all the drugs and medicines!" and the two scholars, jehan du moulin, androbin poussepain, sang at the top of their lungs, the ancient refrain,--

"une hart pour le pendard!un fagot pour le magot!"* *a rope for the gallows bird!a fagot for the ape. a thousand other insults rained down uponhim, and hoots and imprecations, and laughter, and now and then, stones. quasimodo was deaf but his sight was clear,and the public fury was no less energetically depicted on their visagesthan in their words. moreover, the blows from the stonesexplained the bursts of laughter. at first he held his ground. but little by little that patience whichhad borne up under the lash of the

torturer, yielded and gave way before allthese stings of insects. the bull of the asturias who has been butlittle moved by the attacks of the picador grows irritated with the dogs andbanderilleras. he first cast around a slow glance ofhatred upon the crowd. but bound as he was, his glance waspowerless to drive away those flies which were stinging his wound. then he moved in his bonds, and his furiousexertions made the ancient wheel of the pillory shriek on its axle.all this only increased the derision and hooting.

then the wretched man, unable to break hiscollar, like that of a chained wild beast, became tranquil once more; only atintervals a sigh of rage heaved the hollows of his chest. there was neither shame nor redness on hisface. he was too far from the state of society,and too near the state of nature to know what shame was. moreover, with such a degree of deformity,is infamy a thing that can be felt? but wrath, hatred, despair, slowly loweredover that hideous visage a cloud which grew ever more and more sombre, ever more andmore charged with electricity, which burst

forth in a thousand lightning flashes fromthe eye of the cyclops. nevertheless, that cloud cleared away for amoment, at the passage of a mule which traversed the crowd, bearing a priest. as far away as he could see that mule andthat priest, the poor victim's visage grew gentler. the fury which had contracted it wasfollowed by a strange smile full of ineffable sweetness, gentleness, andtenderness. in proportion as the priest approached,that smile became more clear, more distinct, more radiant.it was like the arrival of a saviour, which

the unhappy man was greeting. but as soon as the mule was near enough tothe pillory to allow of its rider recognizing the victim, the priest droppedhis eyes, beat a hasty retreat, spurred on rigorously, as though in haste to rid himself of humiliating appeals, and not atall desirous of being saluted and recognized by a poor fellow in such apredicament. this priest was archdeacon dom claudefrollo. the cloud descended more blackly than everupon quasimodo's brow. the smile was still mingled with it for atime, but was bitter, discouraged,

profoundly sad.time passed on. he had been there at least an hour and ahalf, lacerated, maltreated, mocked incessantly, and almost stoned. all at once he moved again in his chainswith redoubled despair, which made the whole framework that bore him tremble, and,breaking the silence which he had obstinately preserved hitherto, he cried in a hoarse and furious voice, which resembleda bark rather than a human cry, and which was drowned in the noise of the hoots--"drink!" this exclamation of distress, far fromexciting compassion, only added amusement

to the good parisian populace whosurrounded the ladder, and who, it must be confessed, taken in the mass and as a multitude, was then no less cruel andbrutal than that horrible tribe of robbers among whom we have already conducted thereader, and which was simply the lower stratum of the populace. not a voice was raised around the unhappyvictim, except to jeer at his thirst. it is certain that at that moment he wasmore grotesque and repulsive than pitiable, with his face purple and dripping, his eyewild, his mouth foaming with rage and pain, and his tongue lolling half out.

it must also be stated that if a charitablesoul of a bourgeois or bourgeoise, in the rabble, had attempted to carry a glass ofwater to that wretched creature in torment, there reigned around the infamous steps of the pillory such a prejudice of shame andignominy, that it would have sufficed to repulse the good samaritan. at the expiration of a few moments,quasimodo cast a desperate glance upon the crowd, and repeated in a voice still moreheartrending: "drink!" and all began to laugh. "drink this!" cried robin poussepain,throwing in his face a sponge which had

been soaked in the gutter."there, you deaf villain, i'm your debtor." a woman hurled a stone at his head,-- "that will teach you to wake us up at nightwith your peal of a dammed soul." "he, good, my son!" howled a cripple,making an effort to reach him with his crutch, "will you cast any more spells onus from the top of the towers of notre- dame?" "here's a drinking cup!" chimed in a man,flinging a broken jug at his breast. "'twas you that made my wife, simplybecause she passed near you, give birth to a child with two heads!"

"and my cat bring forth a kitten with sixpaws!" yelped an old crone, launching a brick at him."drink!" repeated quasimodo panting, and for the third time. at that moment he beheld the crowd giveway. a young girl, fantastically dressed,emerged from the throng. she was accompanied by a little white goatwith gilded horns, and carried a tambourine in her hand.quasimodo's eyes sparkled. it was the gypsy whom he had attempted tocarry off on the preceding night, a misdeed for which he was dimly conscious that hewas being punished at that very moment;

which was not in the least the case, since he was being chastised only for themisfortune of being deaf, and of having been judged by a deaf man. he doubted not that she had come to wreakher vengeance also, and to deal her blow like the rest.he beheld her, in fact, mount the ladder rapidly. wrath and spite suffocate him. he would have liked to make the pillorycrumble into ruins, and if the lightning of his eye could have dealt death, the gypsywould have been reduced to powder before

she reached the platform. she approached, without uttering asyllable, the victim who writhed in a vain effort to escape her, and detaching a gourdfrom her girdle, she raised it gently to the parched lips of the miserable man. then, from that eye which had been, up tothat moment, so dry and burning, a big tear was seen to fall, and roll slowly down thatdeformed visage so long contracted with despair. it was the first, in all probability, thatthe unfortunate man had ever shed. meanwhile, he had forgotten to drink.

the gypsy made her little pout, fromimpatience, and pressed the spout to the tusked month of quasimodo, with a smile.he drank with deep draughts. his thirst was burning. when he had finished, the wretch protrudedhis black lips, no doubt, with the object of kissing the beautiful hand which hadjust succoured him. but the young girl, who was, perhaps,somewhat distrustful, and who remembered the violent attempt of the night, withdrewher hand with the frightened gesture of a child who is afraid of being bitten by abeast. then the poor deaf man fixed on her a lookfull of reproach and inexpressible sadness.

it would have been a touching spectacleanywhere,--this beautiful, fresh, pure, and charming girl, who was at the same time soweak, thus hastening to the relief of so much misery, deformity, and malevolence. on the pillory, the spectacle was sublime.the very populace were captivated by it, and began to clap their hands, crying,--"noel! noel!" it was at that moment that the reclusecaught sight, from the window of her bole, of the gypsy on the pillory, and hurled ather her sinister imprecation,-- "accursed be thou, daughter of egypt!

accursed! accursed!" -book sixth.chapter v. end of the story of the cake. la esmeralda turned pale and descended fromthe pillory, staggering as she went. the voice of the recluse still pursuedher,-- "descend! descend! thief of egypt! thou shalt ascend it oncemore!" "the sacked nun is in one of her tantrums,"muttered the populace; and that was the end of it.

for that sort of woman was feared; whichrendered them sacred. people did not then willingly attack onewho prayed day and night. the hour had arrived for removingquasimodo. he was unbound, the crowd dispersed. near the grand pont, mahiette, who wasreturning with her two companions, suddenly halted,--"by the way, eustache! what did you do with that cake?" "mother," said the child, "while you weretalking with that lady in the bole, a big dog took a bite of my cake, and then i bitit also."

"what, sir, did you eat the whole of it?"she went on. "mother, it was the dog.i told him, but he would not listen to me. then i bit into it, also." "'tis a terrible child!" said the mother,smiling and scolding at one and the same time."do you see, oudarde? he already eats all the fruit from thecherry-tree in our orchard of charlerange. so his grandfather says that he will be acaptain. just let me catch you at it again, mastereustache. come along, you greedy fellow!"end of volume 1.