by Hugo, Victor
One evening, just as the curfew was ringing out from all the belfries in Paris, the sergeants of the watch, had they been granted admission to the fearsome Court of Miracles, might have noticed that the uproar in the truands’ tavern was even greater than usual, that there was more drinking and more swearing. Outside in the square a good number of groups were talking together in low tones, as when some great scheme is afoot, and here and there a rascal squatted down, sharpening some sorry iron blade on a paving-stone.
Meanwhile in the tavern itself, wine and gambling provided so powerful a distraction from the thoughts occupying the minds of the truanderie that evening, that it would have been hard to guess from the drinkers’ remarks what it was all about. They just looked merrier than usual, and all of them could be seen polishing up some weapon held between their legs, a billhook, an axe, a big two-edged sword, or the hook of an old arquebus.
The room, circular in shape, was very spacious, but the tables were so crowded together and the drinkers so numerous, that the whole contents of the tavern, men, women, benches, beer jugs, those drinking, sleeping, gambling, the fit and the cripples, seemed all to be piled up one on top of the other in as orderly and harmonious a fashion as a heap of oyster shells. There were a few tallow candles burning on the tables; but the real source of light in the tavern, fulfilling there the role of a chandelier in an opera house, was the fire. This cellar was so damp that the fire in the hearth was never allowed to go out, even at the height of summer; an immense fireplace with a carved mantel, bristling with heavy iron firedogs and cooking equipment, with one of those huge fires of mixed wood and peat, which in village streets at night cast on the walls opposite so red a reflection from the windows of the forge. A large dog, solemnly sitting in the ashes, was turning a spit laden with meat before the glowing embers.
Great as the confusion was, after the first glance you could distinguish in the throng three main groups, crowding round three personages whom the reader has already met. One of these, garishly attired in much oriental glittering finery, was Mathias Hungadi Spicali, Duke of Egypt and Bohemia. The rogue was sitting on a table, with legs crossed, finger raised, loudly imparting his knowledge of magic, white and black, to many of those standing around him with mouths agape. Another crowd was growing around our old friend the valiant King of Tunis, who was armed to the teeth. Clopin Trouillefou, looking very serious and keeping his voice down, was controlling the plundering of an enormous cask full of weapons, which stood smashed wide open in front of him, and from which spilled a mass of axes, swords, bassinets, coats of mail, plate armour, spear and pike heads, arrows and bolts for crossbows, like apples and grapes from a horn of plenty. Everyone took something from the pile, one a helmet, another a rapier, a third a misericord, a dagger with a cross-shaped hilt. The very children were arming themselves, and even the legless cripples, in bard and cuirass, scuttled between the drinkers’ legs like huge beetles.
Lastly, a third audience, the noisiest, jolliest, and most numerous, jammed the benches and tables in the midst of which a shrill voice was perorating and swearing from beneath a set of heavy armour, complete from helmet to spurs. The individual who had thus screwed a whole panoply on to his body was so completely hidden beneath his battle order that nothing could be seen of him but an impudent, snub, red nose, a lock of fair hair, a pink mouth and bold eyes. His belt was crammed with daggers and poniards, he had a great sword by his side, a rusty crossbow on his left, and a huge jug of wine in front of him, not to mention a thick-set, dishevelled girl on his right. All the mouths around him were laughing, swearing, and drinking.
Add a score of secondary groups, serving maids and lads rushing about with jugs on their head, gamblers squatting over their billiards, marbles, dice, vachettes, the exciting game of tringlet, quarrels in one corner, kisses in another, and you will have some idea of the whole scene, over which the brightness of a great blazing fire flickered, making a thousand distorted and grotesque shadows dance over the tavern walls.
As for the noise, it was like being inside a bell in full peal.
A shower of fat crackled in the dripping pan, filling up with its constant sputtering the gaps in the hundreds of dialogues going on across the room from one end to the other.
Amid all the noise, at the far end of the tavern, on the seat inside the fireplace, a philosopher was meditating, his feet in the ashes and his eyes on the burning brands. It was Pierre Gringoire.
‘Come along, quick there! Hurry up, arm yourselves! We’re off in an hour!’ Clopin Trouillefou was saying to his argoteers.
A girl was humming:
Good-night father, good-night mother!
Last to go put out the fire.
Two card-players were arguing: ‘Knave!’ cried the more rubicund of the two, shaking his fist at the other, ‘I’il mark you in clubs. You’ll be able to replace Mistigri,* as an extra knave of clubs in our lord the King’s pack of cards.’
‘Ugh!’ shouted a Norman, recognizable by his nasal accent, ‘we are as closely packed here as the saints at Caillouville!’*
‘Lads,’ the Duke of Egypt was telling his audience in falsetto tones, ‘the witches in France go to their sabbath without a broomstick, without any grease, without anything to ride on, just with a few magic words. The witches in Italy always have a he-goat waiting at their door. They are all obliged to go out up the chimney.’
The voice of the young rascal armed from head to foot rose over the hubbub. ‘Noël! Noël!’ he cried. ‘My first arms to day! Truand! I’m a truand, Christ’s belly! Pour me a drink! My friends, my name is Jehan du Moulin, and I’m a gentleman. It’s my opinion that if God were a soldier, he’d become a looter. Brothers, we are going off on a fine expedition. We are a valiant lot. Lay siege to the church, smash down the doors, take out the beautiful girl, save her from the judges, save her from the priests, wreck the cloister, burn the bishop in his palace, we’ll do it in less time than it takes a burgomaster to eat a spoonful of soup. Our cause is just, we’ll sack Notre-Dame, and that will be that. We’ll hang Quasimodo. Do you know Quasimodo, mesdemoiselles? Have you ever seen him panting upon the great bell on some high Whitsun holiday? Corne du Père! It’s a very fine sight! like a devil astride a gaping muzzle. My friends, listen to me, I am a truand to the bottom of my heart, I’m an argoteer in my very soul, I was born a cagou. I was once very rich, and I spent all I had. My mother wanted to make me an officer, my father a sub-deacon, my aunt a counsellor at the appeal court, my grandmother a royal protonotary, my great-aunt a treasurer of the short robe. As for me, I’ve become a truand! I told my father, who spat his curse in my face, my mother, and the old lady fell to weeping and drooling like that log on the firedog. Three cheers for pleasure! I’m a proper wrecker! Landlady, my love, some other wine! I’ve still got enough to pay for it. I don’t want any more of that wine from Suresnes. It upsets my throat. I’d just as soon, corbœuf, gargle with a basket!’
Meanwhile the crowd applauded, with roars of laughter, and seeing the tumult increasing around him, the student exclaimed: ‘Oh! what a lovely noise! Populi debacchantis populosa debacchatio! [popular revelry of a people revelling!]’ Then he began to sing, with a faraway look as if in ecstasy, in the tones of a canon chanting vespers: ‘Quae cantica! quae organa! quae cantilena! quae melodiae hie sine fine decantantur! Sonant melliflua hymnorum organa, suavissima angelorum melodia, cantica canticorum mira! [What canticles! what instruments! what songs, what melodies are endlessly sung here! The mellifluous instruments of the hymns sound out, the angels’ sweetest melodies, the wondrous song of songs!] ‘*
He broke off: ‘You, you devil’s own barmaid, bring me some supper!’
There was a moment of near silence during which the shrill voice of the Duke of Egypt rose in its turn, instructing his gypsies: ‘… the weasel is called Aduine, the fox Blue-Foot or Wood-Ranger, the wolf Grey-Foot or Gold-Foot, the bear the Old Man or Grandfather. A gnome’s cap makes you invisible, and shows up invisible objects. Every toad t
hat is baptized should be dressed in red or black velvet, with a little bell round its neck and another on its feet. The godfather holds its head, the godmother its rump. It is the demon Sidragasum who has the power to make girls dance stark naked.’
‘By the mass!’ Jehan interrupted, ‘I’d like to be the demon Sidragasum.’
Meanwhile the truands went on arming themselves and whispering at the other end of the tavern.
‘That poor Esmeralda!’ one gypsy said. ‘She’s our sister;—we must get her out of there.’
‘Is she still in Notre-Dame then?’ went on a Jewish-looking marcandier.
‘Yes, by God.’
‘Very well, comrades,’ cried out the marcandier, ‘on to Notre-Dame! It makes it even better that in the chapel of Saints Ferreol and Ferrution there are two statues, one of Saint John the Baptist and the other of Saint Antony, of solid gold, weighing altogether 17 gold marcs 15 esterlins, and the silver-gilt pedestals 17 marcs 5 ounces. I know. I’m a goldsmith.’
Here they served Jehan his supper. He shouted, sprawled over the bosom of the girl beside him:
‘By the Holy Face of Lucca, which the people call Saint Goguelu,* I am completely happy. There’s an idiot in front of me looking at me with a face as hairless as an archduke. There’s another on my left with such long teeth that they hide his chin. And then I’m like the maréchal de Gié at the siege of Pontoise, my right is resting on a little bulge in the contours. Mahomet’s belly, comrade! You look like a tennis-ball pedlar, and you come and sit next to me! I am a noble, my friend. Trade is incompatible with nobility. Off with you!—Hey! you there! don’t fight! What, Baptiste Croque-Oison, with your fine nose, are you going to risk it against that lout’s great fists! Idiot! Non cuiquam datum est habere nasum [It is not given to everyone to have a nose]—you’re truly divine, Jacqueline Ronge-Oreille! a pity you haven’t any hair—hallo! my name’s Jehan Frollo, and my brother is an archdeacon. May the devil take him! Everything I’m telling you is the truth. By becoming a truand I cheerfully gave up half of a house in paradise that my brother promised me—dimidiam domum in paradiso* [half a house in paradise/the Parvis]. I quote from the text. I own a fief in the rue Tirechappe, and all the women are in love with me, as true as it’s true that Saint Eloy was an excellent goldsmith, and that the five trades of the good town of Paris are the tanners, the tawers, the baldric makers, the purse makers, and the cordwainers, and that Saint Lawrence was grilled on eggshells. I swear to you, comrades:
Spiced wine won’t pass my lips
For one full year if now I lie.
My charmer, the moon shines bright, just look through the vent up there at the wind ruffling the clouds. As I’m doing with your gorget—Girls! snuff out the children and the candles. Christ and Mahomet! Whatever am I eating, Jupiter! Hey! you old trull! The hairs that are missing from your whores’ heads we find in your omelettes. Old woman! I like my omelettes bald. May the devil squash your nose!—This is a fine Beelzebub’s tavern where the wenches use the forks for combs!’
So saying he smashed his plate on the floor and began singing at the top of his voice:
I’m a man, by God’s blood,
who has no faith, no law,
no hearth, no home,
no king, no God!
Meanwhile Clopin Trouillefou had finished distributing the arms. He came up to Gringoire, who seemed to be sunk in profound reverie, his feet up on a firedog. ‘Pierre, my friend,’ said the King of Tunis, ‘what the devil are you thinking about?’
Gringoire turned round with a melancholy smile. ‘I like fire, my dear lord. Not for the banal reason that fire warms our feet or cooks our soup, but because it gives off sparks. I discover countless things in those stars sprinkled over the black fireback. Those stars are worlds too.’
‘Blast it if I understand you!’ said the truand. ‘Do you know what time it is?’
‘No, I don’t,’ Gringoire replied.
Clopin then went up to the Duke of Egypt. ‘Comrade Mathias, we’ve chosen a bad time. They say King Louis XI is in Paris.’
‘All the more reason for getting our sister out of his clutches,’ the old gypsy answered.
‘Spoken like a man, Mathias,’ said the King of Tunis. ‘Besides, we’ll be quick about it. We’ve no resistance to fear in the church. The canons are as timid as hares, and we’ll be there in force. The men from the Parliament will be properly caught tomorrow when they come to fetch her! By the Pope’s bowels! I don’t want them to hang that pretty girl!’
Clopin left the tavern.
During this time, Jehan was crying hoarsely: ‘I’m drinking, I’m eating, I’m drunk, I’m Jupiter!—Hey! Pierre l’Assommeur, if you give me another look like that, I’ll give your nose a dusting with a few flicks of my fingers.’
For his part Gringoire, torn from his meditations, had begun observing the scene of clamorous excitement around him, muttering between his teeth: ‘Luxuriosa res vinum el tumultuosa ebrietas [Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging].* Alas! how right I am not to drink and how excellently Saint Benedict puts it: Vinum apostatare facit enim sapientes [Wine makes even wise men go astray].’* At that moment Clopin came back and cried in a thunderous voice: ‘Midnight!’
At that word, which had the same effect as the order to mount on a halted regiment, all the truands, men, women, children, rushed in a body out of the tavern with a great clatter of arms and old iron.
The moon had gone in.
The Court of Miracles lay in total darkness. There was not a light to be seen. It was, however, far from being deserted. A crowd of men and women, talking together in low tones, could be made out. One could hear them murmuring and see the gleam of all kinds of arms in the darkness. Clopin climbed on to a big stone. ‘Fall in, Argot!’ he cried. ‘Fall in, Egypt! Fall in, Galilee!’ There was movement in the shadows. The immense multitude seemed to be forming itself into a column. After a few minutes, the King of Tunis spoke up again: ‘Now, silence as we cross Paris! The password is: Little blade on the prowl! No torches to be lit until we reach Notre-Dame! Forward, march!’
Ten minutes later the horsemen of the watch were fleeing in terror before a long procession of dark, silent men going down towards the Pont-au-Change, through the winding streets which cut in every direction through the dense quarter of les Halles.
IV
AN AWKWARD FRIEND
THAT same night Quasimodo was not asleep. He had just done his last rounds in the church. He had not noticed, as he closed its doors, the archdeacon passing close by him and showing some annoyance when he saw him carefully bolt and padlock the enormous iron armature which made their broad panels as solid as a wall. Dom Claude looked even more preoccupied than usual. Besides, ever since the nocturnal incident in the cell, he had been continually harsh to Quasimodo; but no matter how he abused him, sometimes even striking him, nothing could shake the submissiveness, patience, devoted resignation of the faithful bell-ringer. From the archdeacon he would endure anything, insults, threats, blows, with no murmur of reproach, without complaint. At the very most he would watch anxiously when Dom Claude went up the tower staircase, but the archdeacon had of his own accord refrained from appearing again before the gypsy’s eyes.
That night, then, Quasimodo, after glancing at his poor neglected bells, Jacqueline, Marie, Thibault, had gone right up to the top of the north tower, and there, putting down on the leads his firmly closed dark lantern, had begun looking out over Paris. The night, as already mentioned, was extremely dark. Paris which had, so to speak, no lighting at that period, offered to the eye a confused collection of dark masses, broken here and there by the whitish curve of the Seine. The only light that Quasimodo could see was at the window of a distant building, whose vague and sombre profile stood out well above the roof-tops, over towards the Porte Saint-Antoine. There too someone was awake.
While he let his solitary eye drift over this misty, dark horizon, the bell-ringer felt within himself an inexpressible disquiet. For several day
s now he had been on his guard. He kept seeing, prowling ceaselessly around the church, sinister-looking men who never took their eyes off the girl’s place of refuge. He thought that some plot was being hatched against the unfortunate refugee. He imagined that there was a feeling of popular hatred against her as there was against himself, and that it might well be that something was soon about to happen. So he kept to his bell tower, on the alert, ‘musing in his musery’ as Rabelais has it, his eye alternately on the cell and on Paris, keeping careful watch, like a faithful dog, his mind filled with mistrust. Suddenly, as he swept the great city with that one eye which, by way of compensation, nature had made so piercing that it could almost make up for the other organs which Quasimodo lacked, it seemed to him that there was something odd about the outline of the Quai de la Vieille Pelleterie, that something was moving at that point, that the line of the parapet, standing out black against the whiteness of the water, was not straight and still like that of the other quays, but rippling as he watched like waves on a river or the heads of a marching crowd.
That seemed odd. He looked even more intently. The movement seemed to be coming towards the Cité. No lights though. It lasted for a while on the quay, then gradually disappeared, as if whatever it was was going into the interior of the island, then it ceased altogether, and the line of the quay became once more straight and motionless.
Just as Quasimodo was exhausting himself in conjectures, he seemed to see the movement reappear in the rue du Parvis, which runs into the Cité at right angles to the front of Notre-Dame. At length, dense though the darkness was, he saw the head of a column debouching from that street, and in an instant a crowd spreading out over the square, of which all that could be made out in the darkness was that it was a crowd.
This sight had its own terror. It is likely that this strange procession, which seemed so keen to conceal itself in profound darkness, was observing an equally profound silence. However, some sort of noise must have issued from it, even if it were no more than the tramp of feet. But not even that sound reached our deaf man, and that great multitude which he could barely see and could not hear at all, moving and marching none the less so close to him, gave him the impression of a concourse of the dead, mute, impalpable, lost in a vapour. He seemed to see advancing towards him a fog full of men, shades moving in the shadows.