by Hugo, Victor
The oath was a formidable one. Louis XI had sworn only twice in his life by the cross of Saint-Lô.
Olivier opened his mouth to answer: ‘Sire …’
‘Down on your knees!’ the King violently interrupted. ‘Tristan, keep your eyes on this man!’
Olivier knelt down, and said coldly: ‘Sire, a witch has been condemned to death by your court of Parliament. She has taken refuge in Notre-Dame. The people are trying to recover her by force. Monsieur the Provost and Monsieur the captain of the watch, who have just come from the riot, are there to give me the lie if that is not the truth. It is Notre-Dame the people are besieging.’
‘Indeed!’ said the King in a low voice, pale and trembling with rage. ‘Notre-Dame! They are laying siege to Our Lady, my good mistress, in her own cathedral!—Get up, Olivier. You are right. I give you Simon Radin’s office. You are right—it’s me they are attacking. The witch is under the safeguard of the church, the church is under my safeguard. And there was I thinking it was all to do with the bailiff! It’s against me!’
Then, rejuvenated by fury, he began striding up and down. He was not laughing any more, he was terrible, pacing up and down, a fox turned into a hyena, he seemed to be so choked that he could not speak, his lips moved, and his bony fists clenched. Suddenly he raised his head, his sunken eyes seemed to be full of light, and his voice rang out like a bugle. ‘Cut them down, Tristan! Cut these rogues down! Go, Tristan my friend! Kill! kill!’
When this eruption was over, he sat down again, and said with cold, concentrated rage:
‘Here, Tristan!—here with us in the Bastille there are the vicomte de Gif’s fifty lances,* which makes three hundred horse; take them. There is also Monsieur de Châteaupers’ company of archers of our ordinance; take them too. You are Provost-Marshal, you have the men of your Provostry; take them. At the Hôtel Saint-Pol you will find forty archers of Monsieur the Dauphin’s new guard, take them; and with all those men hasten to Notre-Dame. Ha! messieurs, you common people of Paris! So you pit yourselves against the Crown of France, the sanctity of Notre-Dame, and the peace of this realm! Exterminate them, Tristan! exterminate them! And let not one of them get away except to the gallows of Montfaucon.’
Tristan bowed. ‘Very good, sire!’
After a silence he added: ‘And what shall I do with the witch?’
The question gave the King thought. ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘the witch!—Monsieur d’Estouteville, what were the people wanting to do with her?’
‘Sire,’ the Provost of Paris answered, ‘I suppose that as the people have come to snatch her out of her asylum in Notre-Dame, they are offended by her impunity and want to hang her.’
The King appeared to be deep in reflection, then, addressing Tristan l’Hermite: ‘Very well! Compère, exterminate the people and hang the witch.’
‘That’s right,’ Rym whispered to Coppenole, ‘punish the people for wanting, and do what they wanted.’
‘That’s enough, sire,’ Tristan answered. ‘If the witch is still in Notre-Dame, should she be seized there in spite of the asylum?’
‘Pasque-Dieu! the asylum!’ said the King, scratching his ear. ‘The woman must be hanged all the same.’
At that, as if suddenly struck by an idea, he fell hurriedly to his knees in front of his chair, took off his hat, placed it on the seat, and gazing devoutly at one of the lead amulets with which it was loaded: ‘Oh!’ he said, hands clasped together, ‘Our Lady of Paris, my gracious patroness, forgive me. I shall do it only this once. This criminal must be punished. I assure you, my Lady the Virgin, my good mistress, that she is a witch who is not worthy of your kind protection. You know, madame, that many most pious princes have trespassed against the privilege of churches for the glory of God and the needs of the state. Saint Hugh,* an English bishop, allowed King Edward to seize a magician in his church. Saint Louis of France, my master, transgressed the church of Monsieur Saint Paul* for the same purpose; and Monsieur Alphonse, the King of Jerusalem’s son, even the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Forgive me then this time, Our Lady of Paris. I shall not do it again, and I will give you a beautiful silver statue, like the one I gave last year to Our Lady of Ecouys. Amen.’
He made the sign of the cross, stood up, put on his hat again and said to Tristan: ‘Be quick about it, compère. Take Monsieur de Châteaupers with you. Have the tocsin rung. Crush the people. Hang the witch. That’s settled. And I mean the execution to be performed by you. You will give me an account of it.—Come on, Olivier, I won’t be going to bed tonight. Shave me.’
Tristan l’Hermite bowed and went out. Then the King dismissed Rym and Coppenole with a gesture: ‘God keep you, messieurs, my good friends the Flemings. Go and rest a while. The night is far advanced and we are closer to morning than evening.’
They both withdrew, and as they went to their apartments escorted by the captain of the Bastille, Coppenole said to Guillaume Rym: ‘Hm! I’ve had enough of that king and his coughing! I saw Charles of Burgundy drunk; he was not as nasty as Louis XI sick.’
‘Maître Jacques,’ Rym replied, ‘that’s because wine is less cruel to kings than tisane.’
VI
LITTLE BLADE ON THE PROWL
LEAVING the Bastille, Gringoire went down the rue Saint-Antoine with the speed of a runaway horse. When he came to the Porte Baudoyer he made straight for the stone cross standing in the middle of the square, as if he had been able to distinguish in the darkness the figure of a man dressed and hooded in black sitting on the steps of the cross. ‘Is that you, master?’ said Gringoire.
The man in black stood up. ‘Death and passion! You make me boil, Gringoire. The man on the tower at Saint-Gervais* has just called out half-past one in the morning.’
‘Oh!’ retorted Gringoire, ‘it’s not my fault, but that of the watch and the King. I have just had a very narrow escape! I always just miss being hanged. That is my predestination.’
‘You just miss everything,’ the other said. ‘But let’s go quickly. Do you have the password?’
‘Just imagine, master, I’ve seen the King. I’ve just come from there. He wears fustian breeches. It was quite an adventure.’
‘Oh! you and your word-spinning! What do I care about your adventure? Do you have the truands’ password?’
‘Yes, I have. Don’t worry. Little blade on the prowl.’
‘Good. Otherwise we’d never be able to get through to the church. The truands are blocking the streets. Fortunately they seem to have met with some resistance. We may still get there in time.’
‘Yes, master. But how will we get into Notre-Dame?’
‘I have the key to the towers.’
‘And how will we get out?’
‘Behind the cloister there’s a little door giving on to the Terrain, and from there on to the water. I’ve taken the key to it, and moored a boat there this morning.’
‘I came jolly near being hanged!’ Gringoire went on.
‘Quick! come on!’ said the other.
They both went off striding down towards the Cité.
VII
CHTEAUPERS TO THE RESCUE!
THE reader may recall the critical situation in which we left Quasimodo. The worthy deaf man, assailed on every side, had lost, if not all heart, at least all hope of saving, not himself, he had no thought of himself, but the gypsy girl. He was running about on the gallery quite distraught. Notre-Dame was about to be captured by the truands. Suddenly a great galloping of horses filled the neighbouring streets, and with a long line of torches and a dense column of riders, riding with bridles dropped and lances ready, furious sounds swept through the square like a hurricane: ‘France! France! Cut the knaves to pieces! Châteaupers to the rescue! Provostry! Provostry!’
The truands turned about in alarm.
Quasimodo, who could not hear, saw the naked swords, the torches, the pikeheads, all this cavalry, at whose head he recognized Captain Phoebus; he saw the truands, thrown into confusion, the terror of some, the agitatio
n of the best of them, and this unhoped-for aid so revived his strength that he hurled off the church the first attackers who were already stepping over the gallery.
It was in fact the King’s troops arriving.
The truands put up a brave fight. They defended themselves like desperate men. Caught on the flank by the rue Saint-Pierre-aux-Bœufs, and in the rear by the rue du Parvis, driven back against Notre-Dame, which they were still assaulting and Quasimodo was defending, at once besiegers and besieged, they were in the singular situation in which, at the famous siege of Turin in 1640, comte Henri d’Harcourt found himself, between Prince Thomas of Savoy whom he was besieging and the marquis de Leganez who was blockading him, Taurinum obsessor idem et obsessus* as his epitaph puts it.
It was a fearsome struggle. Wolfs flesh needs dogs’ teeth, as P. Matthieu* says. The King’s horsemen, in the midst of whom Phoebus de Châteaupers bore himself valiantly, gave no quarter, and the edge of the sword cut down any who escaped the thrust. The poorly armed truands foamed at the mouth and bit. Men, women, and children threw themselves at the cruppers and chests of the horses and clung on like cats with tooth and nail, by hands and feet. Others rammed torches into the archers’ faces. Others again stuck iron hooks into the riders’ necks and pulled them off. They tore to shreds those who fell.
One in particular had a great gleaming scythe for a long time mowing at the horses’ legs. He was frightening. He sang a nasal song, he swept the scythe ceaselessly out and back. With each slash he traced around him a ring of severed limbs. He advanced like that into the thick of the cavalry, with the calm, slow pace, the swaying head and regular hard breathing of a harvester cutting into a field of corn. It was Clopin Trouillefou. He was laid low by an arquebus.
Meanwhile windows had opened again. The neighbours, hearing the war cries of the royal troops, had taken a hand in the business and musket balls rained down on the truands from every storey. The Parvis was full of dense smoke which musket volleys streaked with fire. Through it the façade of Notre-Dame could dimly be made out, and the crumbling Hôtel-Dieu, with a few wan-looking patients looking down from the top of its roof, covered with dormer windows like scales.
At last the truands gave in. Exhaustion, lack of proper weapons, the fright caused by the surprise, the musketry from the windows, the stout charge of the King’s men, everything overwhelmed them. They broke through the attackers’ line, and began to flee in every direction, leaving the Parvis heaped with their dead.
When Quasimodo, who had never for a moment stopped fighting, saw this rout, he fell to his knees and raised his hands to Heaven; then, drunk with joy, he ran, he went up as swiftly as a bird to the cell whose approaches he had so dauntlessly defended. He had only one thought left now, and that was to kneel down in front of her whom he had just saved for the second time.
When he entered the cell, he found it empty.
BOOK ELEVEN
I
THE LITTLE SHOE
AT the moment when the truands launched their assault on the church, la Esmeralda was sleeping.
Soon the ever-increasing uproar round the building and the anxious bleating of her goat, which had already woken up, roused her from sleep. She sat up, listened, looked, and then, frightened by the glow and the noise, rushed out of the cell and went to look. The appearance of the square, the sight astir there, the disorder of this night attack, the hideous crowd, hopping up and down like a horde of frogs, dimly spied in the darkness, the hoarse croaking of this multitude, the few red torches speeding along and passing each other against the background of shadow, like the fires to be seen at night streaking over the misty surface of marshes, the whole scene looked to her like some mysterious battle being waged between the phantoms of a witches’ sabbath and the stone monsters of the church. Imbued from childhood with the superstitions of the Bohemian tribe, her first thought was that she had surprised at their evil spells the strange beings of the night. So she ran back in terror to cower in her cell, asking her pallet for a nightmare less full of horror.
Gradually, however, the first vapours of fear cleared away; the noise, constantly increasing, and several other signs of reality, made her realize that her besiegers were not spectres but human beings. This did not increase her fright, but transformed it. She thought about the possibility of a popular insurrection to snatch her from her refuge. The idea of yet again losing life, hope, Phoebus, whom she still glimpsed in her future, the absolute void in which her weakness left her, all escape cut off, unsupported, abandoned, isolated, all these thoughts and countless others overwhelmed her. She fell to her knees, her head on the bed, hands clasped upon her head, filled with anxiety and trembling, and though a gypsy, idolatrous and pagan, she began sobbing to beg mercy of the good Christian God and to pray to Our Lady, her hostess. For, even if one believes in nothing, there are moments in life when one always holds the religion of the temple closest to hand.
She remained prostrate like that for a very long time, trembling, in truth, rather than praying, chilled as the breath of the raging multitude came nearer and nearer, understanding nothing of their frenzy, knowing nothing of what was planned, what they were doing, what they intended, but filled with a premonition of some dreadful outcome.
Then, in the midst of her anguish she heard footsteps nearby. She turned round. Two men, one carrying a lantern, had just entered her cell. She let out a feeble cry.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ said a voice not unknown to her, ‘it’s me.’
‘Who? Who are you?’ she asked.
‘Pierre Gringoire.’
The name reassured her. She looked up, and indeed recognized the poet. But next to him was a figure dressed in black and veiled from head to foot who struck her dumb.
‘Ah!’ Gringoire went on reproachfully, ‘Djali recognized me before you did!’
The little goat had indeed not waited for Gringoire to announce his name. He had barely come in before she was fondly rubbing against his knees, covering the poet with caresses and white hairs, for she was moulting. Gringoire returned her caresses.
‘Who’s that with you?’ the gypsy said in a low voice.
‘Don’t worry,’ Gringoire answered. ‘It’s a friend of mine.’
At that the philosopher, setting his lantern on the floor, crouched down on the flagstones and exclaimed enthusiastically as he hugged Djali in his arms: ‘Oh! what a graceful animal, no doubt more notable for her cleanliness than her size, but ingenious, subtle, and as well lettered as a grammarian! Let’s see, my Djali, have you forgotten any of your pretty tricks? How does Maître Jacques Charmolue go …?’
The man in black did not let him finish. He came up to Gringoire and pushed him roughly by the shoulder. Gringoire stood up. ‘It’s true,’ he said, ‘I was forgetting that we are in a hurry—but that’s no reason, master, to rage at people so. My dear, fair child, your life is in danger, and so is Djali’s. They want to hang you again. We are your friends, and we have come to save you. Follow us.’
‘Is that true?’ she cried, quite overcome.
‘Yes, quite true. Come quickly!’
‘I will,’ she stammered. ‘But why doesn’t your friend speak?’
‘Ah!’ said Gringoire, ‘it’s because his father and mother were whimsical people who gave him a taciturn disposition.’
She had to be content with that explanation. Gringoire took her by the hand, his companion picked up the lantern and walked in front. The girl was stunned by fear. She let herself be led. The goat skipped after them, so happy to see Gringoire again that she kept making him stumble by sticking her horns between his legs. ‘That’s life!’ said the philosopher each time he just missed falling; ‘it’s often our best friends who cause our downfall!’ They hurried down the tower stairs, crossed the church, all dark and lonely, but echoing with the uproar, which made a dreadful contrast, and came out into the cloister garth by the Red Door. The cloister was abandoned, the canons had fled to the bishop’s palace to pray there together; the garth wa
s empty, with a few terrified servants hiding in dark corners. They made for the door giving on to the Terrain from this courtyard. The man in black opened it with a key he had. Our readers know that the Terrain was a spit of land enclosed by walls on the Cité side, belonging to the chapter of Notre-Dame, and it formed the eastern tip of the island behind the church. They found this enclosure completely deserted. There the noise of tumult in the air was already fainter. The sounds of the truands’ attack reached them more confusedly and with less clamour. The cool breeze blowing downstream stirred the leaves of the single tree planted at the tip of the Terrain quite audibly. However, they were still very close to danger. The nearest buildings to them were the bishop’s palace and the church. There was obviously a great commotion going on inside the palace. Its dark mass was all crisscrossed with lights hurrying from one window to another; just as, when you have been burning paper, there remains a dark pile of ash through which live sparks run in countless peculiar patterns. Next to it, the enormous towers of Notre-Dame, seen thus from behind with the long nave over which they rise, silhouetted in black against the vast, red glow filling the Parvis, looked like the two gigantic firedogs of a Cyclopean fire.
What could be seen of Paris on every side wavered as one looked in a blend of light and shade. Some of Rembrandt’s pictures have that sort of background.
The man with the lantern walked straight to the tip of the Terrain. There, at the very edge of the water, were the decaying remains of a fence made of stakes with laths laid across them to which a low vine clung with a few meagre branches sticking out like the fingers of an open hand. Behind, in the shadow cast by this trellis, a small boat lay hidden. The man beckoned to Gringoire and his companion to get into it. The goat followed. The man stepped in last. Then he cut the boat’s moorings, pushed it away from the bank with a long hook, and seizing a pair of oars, sat down in the bows, rowing with all his might towards the open water. The Seine runs very fast at that spot, and he had some trouble clearing the tip of the island.