by Victor Hugo
And not only had Master Robert d'Estouteville his private court as provost and viscount of Paris, but he also had his share, both active and passive, in the king's own high justice. There was no head of any note but had passed through his hands before falling into those of the executioner. It was he who went to the Bastille Saint-Antoine, in search of M. de Nemours, to take him to the Halles; and he who conducted M. de Saint-Pol to the Place de Greve, the latter gentleman sulking and fretting, to the great delight of the provost, who had no love for the constable.
Here, certainly, was more than enough to make life happy and illustrious, and to justify in the future a memorable page in the interesting history of the provosts of Paris, wherein we learn that Oudard de Villeneuve had a house in the Rue des Boucheries, that Guillaume de Hangest bought big and little Savoy, that Guillaume Thiboust gave the nuns of Sainte-Genevieve his houses in the Rue Clopin, that Hugues Aubriot lived at Hotel du Porc-Epic, and other domestic facts.
And yet, with all these motives for taking life patiently and pleasantly, Master Robert d'Estouteville waked on the morning of Jan. 7, 1482, in a very sulky and disagreeable mood. Whence came this ill-humor? He could not have told you himself. Was it because the sky was overcast; because the buckle of his old Montlhery belt was fastened too tight, and girt his provostship's goodly portliness in too military a fashion; because he had seen a band of ragamuffins march through the street below his window, mocking him as they passed in double file, wearing doublets without shirts, crownless hats, and wallet and flask at their side? Was it a vague presentiment of the three hundred and seventy pounds, sixteen pence, and eight farthings which the future king, Charles VIII, was to cut off from the revenues of the provosty? The reader can take his choice; as for us, we incline to the belief that he was out of temper simply because he was out of temper.
Besides, it was the day after a holiday,-a stupid day for everybody, and especially for the magistrate, whose duty it was to sweep away all the dirt, actual and metaphorical, caused by a popular holiday in Paris. And then, he was to hold court at the Grand-Chatelet. Now, we have noticed that judges usually so arrange matters that the day upon which they hold court is also the day on which they are out of temper, in order that they may always have some one upon whom to vent their rage, in the name of the king, law, and justice.
However, the court had opened without him. His deputies, in the civil, criminal, and private courts, were doing his work for him, as was the custom; and ever since eight o'clock in the morning some scores of citizens, men and women, crowded and crammed into a dark corner of the lower court-room of the Chatelet, between a stout oaken railing and the wall, had blissfully looked on at the varied and attractive spectacle of administration of civil and criminal law by Master Florian Barbedienne, examining judge of the Chatelet, and provost's deputy, whose sentences were delivered pell-mell and somewhat at random.
The hall was small and low, with a vaulted roof. A table branded with fleur-de-lis stood at the back of it, with a large carved oaken arm-chair, which belonged to the provost and was empty, and a stool on the left for Master Florian. Below sat the clerk, scribbling; opposite him were the people; and before the door and table were a number of the provost's officers, in frocks of purple camlet, with white crosses. Two officers from the Commonalty Hall, arrayed in party-colored red and blue kersey jackets, stood sentry before a half-open door, behind the table. A single arched window, deep set in the thick wall, cast a ray of pale January sunshine upon two grotesque figures,--the comical stone demon carved as a tailpiece to the keystone of the vaulted roof, and the judge seated at the end of the hall upon the fleurs-de-lis.
Now, picture to yourself at the provost's table, between two bundles of papers, leaning on his elbows, his feet on the train of his plain brown cloth gown, his face framed in its white lamb's-wool wig, of which his eyebrows seemed to be a fragment, red-faced, stern, winking and blinking, majestically bearing the burden of his fat cheeks, which met under his chin, Master Florian Barbedienne, examining judge of the Chatelet.
Now, the judge was deaf,--a slight defect for a judge. Master Florian gave judgment, nevertheless, without appeal, and very properly too. It is certainly quite enough if a judge look as if he were listening; and the venerable judge fulfilled this condition--the only one requisite to the due administration of justice--all the better for the fact that his attention was not to be distracted by any noise.
Moreover, he had a merciless comptroller of his sayings and doings, among the audience, in the person of our friend Jehan Frollo du Moulin, the little student of the previous day, that pedestrian who was sure to be found anywhere in Paris except in the lecture-room of his professors.
"Stay," he whispered to his comrade, Robin Poussepain, who was chuckling beside him while he commented on the scenes unrolled before them, "there's Jehanneton du Buisson,--the pretty daughter of that loafer from the New Market! Upon my soul, he has condemned her, the old wretch! Then his eyes can't be any better than his ears. Fifteen pence and four Paris farthings, for wearing two strings of beads! That's rather expensive. 'Lex duri carminis.' Who's that fellow? Robin Chief-de-Ville, hauberk-maker,--for having been passed and received as a master of the said trade? It's his entrance-fee. Hollo! two gentlemen among these varlets,--Aiglet de Soins, Hutin de Mailly. Two esquires, Corpus Christi! Ah, ha! they've been playing at dice. When shall I see our rector here? A hundred Paris pounds fine to the king! Barbedienne hits hard, like a deaf man as he is! I wish I may be my brother the archdeacon if this prevent me from gambling,--gambling by day, gambling by night, living a gambler, dying a gambler, and gambling away my soul when my last rag's gone! Holy Virgin! what a lot of girls! One after the other, my lambs! Ambroise Lecuyere! Isabeau la Paynette! Berarde Gironin! I know them all, by heaven! Fine 'em! fine 'em! That'll teach you to wear gilt belts! Ten Paris pence, coquettes! Oh, what an old dog of a judge! deaf and imbecile! Oh, Florian, you blockhead! Oh, Barbedienne, you booby! See him sit at table! He gobbles the suitor, he gobbles the suit, he minces, he munches, he stuffs himself, he fills himself full. Fines, unclaimed goods, taxes, expenses, legal costs, wages, damages, torture, prison and jail and stocks, are Christmas cakes and Saint John's marchpane to him! Just look at him, the pig! Now, then, good! Still another amorous dame! Thibaud-la-Thibaude, and no one else,--for leaving the Rue Glatigny! Who is that fellow? Gieffroy Mabonne, bowman of the guard. He swore by the Holy Name, did he?--A fine, Thibaude! a fine, Gieffroy! Fine 'em both! Deaf old fool! he must have mixed the two charges up! Ten to one, he'll fine the woman for swearing, and the bowman for making love! Attention, Robin Poussepain! Whom are they bringing in now? What a lot of sergeants! By Jupiter! all the hounds in the pack are here. This must be the best head of game they've got,--a wild boar. It is one, Robin, it is indeed,--and a fine one too! By Hercules! it's our yesterday's prince, our Pope of Fools, our bell-ringer, our one-eyed, hunchbacked pet, our wry-face! It's Quasimodo!"
It was, indeed.
It was Quasimodo, bound, corded, tied, garotted, and well guarded. The squad of men who had him in charge were assisted by the captain of the watch in person, wearing the arms of France embroidered on his breast, and the city arms on his back. There was nothing, however, about Quasimodo, except his deformity, which could justify this display of halberds and arquebuses; he was somber, silent, and quiet. His solitary eye merely cast an occasional crafty, angry glance at the bonds which held him.
He gazed around him with the same expression, but so dull and sleepy was it that the women only pointed him out to each other to mock at him.
But Master Florian, the judge, was attentively turning over the brief containing the charge against Quasimodo, which the clerk had just handed him, and having examined the papers, seemed to be meditating for a moment. Thanks to this precaution, which he was always careful to take just before proceeding to an examination, he knew in advance the name, condition, and crimes of the prisoner, had his answer ready for the replies which he expected, and succeeded in ext
ricating himself from all the intricacies of the examination without making his deafness too apparent. The brief therefore was to him like the blind man's dog. If he chanced to betray his infirmity by an occasional incoherent remark or an unintelligible question, it passed with some for profundity, and with others for imbecility. In either case, the honor of the magistracy was unim peached; for it is much better that a judge should be considered stupid or profound than deaf. He accordingly took great pains to hide his deafness from all, and usually succeeded so well that he had actually come to deceive himself,--a thing, moreover, which is easier than you would think. All hunchbacks carry their heads high, all stammerers are fond of speechifying, all deaf people speak in low tones. As for him, at most he thought himself a little hard of hearing. This was the sole concession which he was willing to make to the public opinion upon this point, in his moments of perfect frankness and self-examination.
Having therefore thoroughly considered Quasimodo's case, he threw back his head and half closed his eyes, in order to look more majestic and impartial, so that for the time being he was both deaf and blind,--a twofold condition, without which there can be no perfect judge. In this magisterial attitude he began his cross-examination.
"Your name?"
Now, here was a case which had not been "provided for by the law,"--that of one deaf man questioning another.
Quasimodo, quite unconscious of the question, continued to gaze fixedly at the judge, and made no answer. The judge, deaf, and wholly unaware of the prisoner's deafness, supposed that he had answered, as all prisoners were wont to do, and went on, with his mechanical and stupid assurance,--
"Good! Your age?"
Quasimodo made no answer. The judge was satisfied, and continued, --
"Now, your business?"
Still the same silence. The audience began to whisper and look at each other.
"That will do," resumed the imperturbable judge, when he supposed that the prisoner had ended his third answer. "You are accused, before us: primo, of making a nocturnal disturbance; secundo, of an indecent assault upon the person of a light woman, in praejudicium meretricis; tertio, of rebellion and disloyalty towards the archers of the guard of our lord the king. What have you to say for yourself on all these points? Clerks, have you written down all that the prisoner has said thus far?"
At this unfortunate question a shout of laughter burst from both clerk and audience, so violent, so hearty, so contagious, so universal, that even the two deaf men could not fail to notice it. Quasimodo turned away, shrugging his hump in disdain; while Master Florian, equally surprised, and supposing the laughter of the spectators to be provoked by some irreverent reply from the prisoner, made apparent to him by that shrug, addressed him most indignantly, --
"Such an answer as that, you rascal, deserves the halter! Do you know to whom you speak?"
This sally was scarcely adapted to silence the outburst of merriment. It seemed to all so absurd and ridiculous that the contagious laughter spread to the very sergeants from the Commonalty Hall, the kind of men-at-arms whose stupidity is their uniform. Quasimodo alone preserved his gravity, for the very good reason that he understood nothing of what was going on around him. The judge, more and more indignant, felt obliged to proceed in the same strain, hoping in this way to strike the prisoner with a terror which would react upon the audience and restore them to a due sense of respect for him.
"So then, perverse and thievish knave, you venture to insult the judge of the Chatelet, the chief magistrate of the police courts of Paris, appointed to inquire into all crimes, offences, and misde meanors; to control all trades and prevent monopoly; to keep the pavements in repair; to put down hucksters of poultry, fowl, and wild game; to superintend the measuring of logs and firewood; to cleanse the city of mud and the air of contagious diseases,--in a word, to watch continually over the public welfare, without wages or hope of salary! Do you know that my name is Florian Barbedienne, and that I am the lord provost's own deputy, and, moreover, commissary, comptroller, and examiner with equal power in provosty, bailiwick, court of registration, and presidial court?"
There is no reason why a deaf man talking to a deaf man should ever cease. Heaven knows when Master Florian, thus launched on the full flood of his own eloquence, would have paused, if the low door at the back of the room had not suddenly opened and admitted the provost himself.
At his entrance Master Florian did not stop short, but turning half round on his heel and abruptly addressing to the provost the harangue with which but a moment before he was overwhelming Quasimodo, he said: "My lord, I demand such sentence as it may please you to inflict upon the prisoner here present, for his grave and heinous contempt of court."
And he sat down again quite out of breath, wiping away the big beads of moisture which ran down his face like tears, wetting the papers spread out before him. Master Robert d'Estouteville frowned, and commanded Quasimodo's attention by a sign so imperious and significant that even the deaf man understood something of his meaning.
The provost addressed him severely: "What brings you here, scoundrel?"
The poor wretch, supposing that the provost asked his name, broke his habitual silence, and answered in a hoarse and guttural voice, "Quasimodo."
The answer had so little to do with the question that an irresistible laugh again ran round the room, and Master Robert cried out, red with rage,--
"Would you mock me too, you arrant knave?"
"Bell-ringer of Notre-Dame," replied Quasimodo, fancying himself called upon to explain to the judge who he was.
"Bell-ringer, indeed!" responded the provost, who, as we have already said, had waked in an ill enough humor that morning not to require any fanning of the flames of his fury by such strange answers. "Bell-ringer! I'll have a peal of switches rung upon your back through all the streets of Paris! Do you hear me, rascal?"
"If you want to know my age," said Quasimodo, "I believe I shall be twenty on Saint Martin's Day."
This was too much; the provost could bear it no longer.
"Oh, you defy the provost's office, do you, wretch! Vergers, take this scamp to the pillory in the Place de Greve; beat him well, and then turn him for an hour. He shall pay me for this, tete-Dieu! And I order this sentence to be proclaimed, by the aid of four sworn trumpeters, throughout the seven castellanies of the jurisdiction of Paris."
The clerk at once wrote down the sentence.
"A wise sentence, by God!" exclaimed the little student, Jehan Frollo du Moulin, from his corner.
The provost turned, and again fixed his flashing eyes upon Quasimodo: "I believe the scamp said 'By God!' Clerk, add a fine of twelve Paris pence for swearing, and let half of it go to the Church of Saint Eustache; I am particularly fond of Saint Eustache."
In a few moments the sentence was drawn up. It was simple and brief in tenor. The common law of the provosty and viscounty of Paris had not yet been elaborated by the president, Thibaut Baillet, and by Roger Barmue, the king's advocate; it was not then obscured by that mass of quirks and quibbles which these two lawyers introduced at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Everything about it was clear, expeditious, and explicit. It went straight to the mark, and at the end of every path, unconcealed by brambles or briers, the wheel, the gallows, or the pillory were plainly to be seen from the very outset. At least, you knew what was coming.
The clerk handed the sentence to the provost, who affixed his seal to it, and left the room to continue his round of the courts, in a state of mind which must have added largely that day to the population of the jails of Paris. Jehan Frollo and Robin Poussepain laughed in their sleeves. Quasimodo looked on with indifference and surprise.