________________________________________________
_ Phoebus was not dead, however. Men of that stamp die
hard. When Master Philippe Lheulier, advocate extraordinary
of the king, had said to poor Esmeralda; "He is dying,"
it was an error or a jest. When the archdeacon had repeated
to the condemned girl; "He is dead," the fact is that he
knew nothing about it, but that he believed it, that he
counted on it, that he did not doubt it, that he devoutly
hoped it. It would have been too hard for him to give
favorable news of his rival to the woman whom he loved.
Any man would have done the same in his place.
It was not that Phoebus's wound had not been serious, but
it had not been as much so as the archdeacon believed. The
physician, to whom the soldiers of the watch had carried him
at the first moment, had feared for his life during the space
of a week, and had even told him so in Latin. But youth
had gained the upper hand; and, as frequently happens, in
spite of prognostications and diagnoses, nature had amused
herself by saving the sick man under the physician's very
nose. It was while he was still lying on the leech's pallet
that he had submitted to the interrogations of Philippe
Lheulier and the official inquisitors, which had annoyed him
greatly. Hence, one fine morning, feeling himself better,
he had left his golden spurs with the leech as payment, and
had slipped away. This had not, however, interfered with
the progress of the affair. Justice, at that epoch, troubled
itself very little about the clearness and definiteness of a
criminal suit. Provided that the accused was hung, that was
all that was necessary. Now the judge had plenty of proofs
against la Esmeralda. They had supposed Phoebus to be
dead, and that was the end of the matter.
Phoebus, on his side, had not fled far. He had simply
rejoined his company in garrison at Queue-en-Brie, in the
Isle-de-France, a few stages from Paris.
After all, it did not please him in the least to appear in
this suit. He had a vague feeling that be should play a
ridiculous figure in it. On the whole, he did not know
what to think of the whole affair. Superstitious, and not
given to devoutness, like every soldier who is only a soldier,
when he came to question himself about this adventure, he
did not feel assured as to the goat, as to the singular fashion
in which he had met La Esmeralda, as to the no less strange
manner in which she had allowed him to divine her love, as
to her character as a gypsy, and lastly, as to the surly monk.
He perceived in all these incidents much more magic than
love, probably a sorceress, perhaps the devil; a comedy,
in short, or to speak in the language of that day, a very
disagreeable mystery, in which he played a very awkward part,
the role of blows and derision. The captain was quite put
out of countenance about it; he experienced that sort of
shame which our La Fontaine has so admirably defined,--
Ashamed as a fox who has been caught by a fowl.
Moreover, he hoped that the affair would not get noised
abroad, that his name would hardly be pronounced in it,
and that in any case it would not go beyond the courts of the
Tournelle. In this he was not mistaken, there was then no
"Gazette des Tribunaux;" and as not a week passed which had
not its counterfeiter to boil, or its witch to hang, or its
heretic to burn, at some one of the innumerable justices of Paris,
people were so accustomed to seeing in all the squares the
ancient feudal Themis, bare armed, with sleeves stripped up,
performing her duty at the gibbets, the ladders, and the
pillories, that they hardly paid any heed to it. Fashionable
society of that day hardly knew the name of the victim who
passed by at the corner of the street, and it was the populace
at the most who regaled themselves with this coarse fare. An
execution was an habitual incident of the public highways,
like the braising-pan of the baker or the slaughter-house of
the knacker. The executioner was only a sort of butcher of
a little deeper dye than the rest.
Hence Phoebus's mind was soon at ease on the score of the
enchantress Esmeralda, or Similar, as he called her, concerning
the blow from the dagger of the Bohemian or of the surly
monk (it mattered little which to him), and as to the issue of
the trial. But as soon as his heart was vacant in that
direction, Fleur-de-Lys returned to it. Captain Phoebus's
heart, like the physics of that day, abhorred a vacuum.
Queue-en-Brie was a very insipid place to stay at then, a
village of farriers, and cow-girls with chapped hands, a long
line of poor dwellings and thatched cottages, which borders
the grand road on both sides for half a league; a tail (queue),
in short, as its name imports.
Fleur-de-Lys was his last passion but one, a pretty girl, a
charming dowry; accordingly, one fine morning, quite cured,
and assuming that, after the lapse of two months, the
Bohemian affair must be completely finished and forgotten,
the amorous cavalier arrived on a prancing horse at the
door of the Gondelaurier mansion.
He paid no attention to a tolerably numerous rabble which
had assembled in the Place du Parvis, before the portal of
Notre-Dame; he remembered that it was the month of May;
he supposed that it was some procession, some Pentecost, some
festival, hitched his horse to the ring at the door, and gayly
ascended the stairs to his beautiful betrothed.
She was alone with her mother.
The scene of the witch, her goat, her cursed alphabet, and
Phoebus's long absences, still weighed on Fleur-de-Lys's heart.
Nevertheless, when she beheld her captain enter, she thought
him so handsome, his doublet so new, his baldrick so shining,
and his air so impassioned, that she blushed with pleasure.
The noble damsel herself was more charming than ever. Her
magnificent blond hair was plaited in a ravishing manner, she
was dressed entirely in that sky blue which becomes fair
people so well, a bit of coquetry which she had learned from
Colombe, and her eyes were swimming in that languor of love
which becomes them still better.
Phoebus, who had seen nothing in the line of beauty, since
he left the village maids of Queue-en-Brie, was intoxicated
with Fleur-de-Lys, which imparted to our officer so eager and
gallant an air, that his peace was immediately made. Madame
de Gondelaurier herself, still maternally seated in her big arm-
chair, had not the heart to scold him. As for Fleur-de-Lys's
reproaches, they expired in tender cooings.
The young girl was seated near the window still embroidering
her grotto of Neptune. The captain was leaning over the
back of her chair, and she was addressing her caressing
reproaches to him in a low voice.
"What has become of you these two long months, wicked man?"
"I swear to you," replied Phoebus, somewhat embarrassed
by the question, "that you are beautiful enough to set an
archbishop to dreaming."
She could not repress a smile.
"Good, good, sir. Let my beauty alone and answer my
question. A fine beauty, in sooth!"
"Well, my dear cousin, I was recalled to the garrison.
"And where is that, if you please? and why did not you
come to say farewell?"
"At Queue-en-Brie."
Phoebus was delighted with the first question, which helped
him to avoid the second.
"But that is quite close by, monsieur. Why did you not
come to see me a single time?"
Here Phoebus was rather seriously embarrassed.
"Because--the service--and then, charming cousin, I have
been ill."
"Ill!" she repeated in alarm.
"Yes, wounded!"
"Wounded!"
She poor child was completely upset.
"Oh! do not be frightened at that," said Phoebus, carelessly,
"it was nothing. A quarrel, a sword cut; what is that to you?"
"What is that to me?" exclaimed Fleur-de-Lys, raising her
beautiful eyes filled with tears. "Oh! you do not say what
you think when you speak thus. What sword cut was that?
I wish to know all."
"Well, my dear fair one, I had a falling out with Mahè Fédy,
you know? the lieutenant of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and we
ripped open a few inches of skin for each other. That is all."
The mendacious captain was perfectly well aware that an
affair of honor always makes a man stand well in the eyes of a
woman. In fact, Fleur-de-Lys looked him full in the face, all
agitated with fear, pleasure, and admiration. Still, she was
not completely reassured.
"Provided that you are wholly cured, my Phoebus!" said
she. "I do not know your Mahè Fédy, but he is a villanous
man. And whence arose this quarrel?"
Here Phoebus, whose imagination was endowed with but
mediocre power of creation, began to find himself in a
quandary as to a means of extricating himself for his prowess.
"Oh! how do I know?--a mere nothing, a horse, a remark!
Fair cousin," he exclaimed, for the sake of changing the
conversation, "what noise is this in the Cathedral Square?"
He approached the window.
"Oh! ~Mon Dieu~, fair cousin, how many people there are on
the Place!"
"I know not," said Fleur-de-Lys; "it appears that a witch
is to do penance this morning before the church, and thereafter
to be hung."
The captain was so thoroughly persuaded that la Esmeralda's
affair was concluded, that he was but little disturbed by Fleur-
de-Lys's words. Still, he asked her one or two questions.
"What is the name of this witch?"
"I do not know," she replied.
"And what is she said to have done?"
She shrugged her white shoulders.
"I know not."
"Oh, ~mon Dieu~ Jesus!" said her mother; "there are so
many witches nowadays that I dare say they burn them without
knowing their names. One might as well seek the name
of every cloud in the sky. After all, one may be tranquil.
The good God keeps his register." Here the venerable dame
rose and came to the window. "Good Lord! you are right,
Phoebus," said she. "The rabble is indeed great. There are
people on all the roofs, blessed be God! Do you know,
Phoebus, this reminds me of my best days. The entrance of
King Charles VII., when, also, there were many people. I no
longer remember in what year that was. When I speak of this
to you, it produces upon you the effect,--does it not?--the
effect of something very old, and upon me of something very
young. Oh! the crowd was far finer than at the present day.
They even stood upon the machicolations of the Porte Sainte-
Antoine. The king had the queen on a pillion, and after
their highnesses came all the ladies mounted behind all the
lords. I remember that they laughed loudly, because beside
Amanyon de Garlande, who was very short of stature, there
rode the Sire Matefelon, a chevalier of gigantic size, who had
killed heaps of English. It was very fine. A procession of
all the gentlemen of France, with their oriflammes waving
red before the eye. There were some with pennons and some
with banners. How can I tell? the Sire de Calm with a
pennon; Jean de Châteaumorant with a banner; the Sire de
Courcy with a banner, and a more ample one than any of the
others except the Duc de Bourbon. Alas! 'tis a sad thing
to think that all that has existed and exists no longer!"
The two lovers were not listening to the venerable
dowager. Phoebus had returned and was leaning on the back
of his betrothed's chair, a charming post whence his libertine
glance plunged into all the openings of Fleur-de-Lys's gorget.
This gorget gaped so conveniently, and allowed him to see so
many exquisite things and to divine so many more, that
Phoebus, dazzled by this skin with its gleams of satin, said
to himself, "How can any one love anything but a fair skin?"
Both were silent. The young girl raised sweet, enraptured
eyes to him from time to time, and their hair mingled in a
ray of spring sunshine.
"Phoebus," said Fleur-de-Lys suddenly, in a low voice, "we
are to be married three months hence; swear to me that you
have never loved any other woman than myself."
"I swear it, fair angel!" replied Phoebus, and his passionate
glances aided the sincere tone of his voice in convincing
Fleur-de-Lys.
Meanwhile, the good mother, charmed to see the betrothed
pair on terms of such perfect understanding, had just quitted
the apartment to attend to some domestic matter; Phoebus
observed it, and this so emboldened the adventurous captain
that very strange ideas mounted to his brain. Fleur-de-Lys
loved him, he was her betrothed; she was alone with him;
his former taste for her had re-awakened, not with all its fresh-
ness but with all its ardor; after all, there is no great harm
in tasting one's wheat while it is still in the blade; I do not
know whether these ideas passed through his mind, but one
thing is certain, that Fleur-de-Lys was suddenly alarmed by
the expression of his glance. She looked round and saw that
her mother was no longer there.
"Good heavens!" said she, blushing and uneasy, "how very warm
I am?"
"I think, in fact," replied Phoebus, "that it cannot be far
from midday. The sun is troublesome. We need only lower
the curtains."
"No, no," exclaimed the poor little thing, "on the contrary,
I need air."
And like a fawn who feels the breath of the pack of
hounds, she rose, ran to the window, opened it, and rushed
upon the balcony.
Phoebus, much discomfited, followed her.
The Place du Parvis Notre-Dame, upon which the balcony
looked, as the reader knows, presented at that moment a
singular and sinister spectacle which caused the fright of the
timid Fleur-de-Lys to change its nature.
An immense crowd, which overflowed into all the neighboring
streets, encumbered the Place, properly speaking. The
little wall, breast high, which surrounded the Place, would
not have sufficed to keep it free had it not been lined with
a thick hedge of sergeants and hackbuteers, culverines in
hand. Thanks to this thicket of pikes and arquebuses, the
Parvis was empty. Its entrance was guarded by a force of
halberdiers with the armorial bearings of the bishop. The
large doors of the church were closed, and formed a contrast
with the innumerable windows on the Place, which, open to their
very gables, allowed a view of thousands of heads heaped up
almost like the piles of bullets in a park of artillery.
The surface of this rabble was dingy, dirty, earthy. The
spectacle which it was expecting was evidently one of the
sort which possess the privilege of bringing out and calling
together the vilest among the populace. Nothing is so hideous
as the noise which was made by that swarm of yellow caps
and dirty heads. In that throng there were more laughs than
cries, more women than men.
From time to time, a sharp and vibrating voice pierced
the general clamor.
"Ohé! Mahiet Baliffre! Is she to be hung yonder?"
"Fool! t'is here that she is to make her apology in her
shift! the good God is going to cough Latin in her face!
That is always done here, at midday. If 'tis the gallows that
you wish, go to the Grève."
"I will go there, afterwards."
"Tell me, la Boucanbry? Is it true that she has refused
a confessor?"
"It appears so, La Bechaigne."
"You see what a pagan she is!"
"'Tis the custom, monsieur. The bailiff of the courts is
bound to deliver the malefactor ready judged for execution if
he be a layman, to the provost of Paris; if a clerk, to the
official of the bishopric."
"Thank you, sir."
"Oh, God!" said Fleur-de-Lys, "the poor creature!"
This thought filled with sadness the glance which she cast
upon the populace. The captain, much more occupied with
her than with that pack of the rabble, was amorously rumpling
her girdle behind. She turned round, entreating and smiling.
"Please let me alone, Phoebus! If my mother were to return,
she would see your hand!"
At that moment, midday rang slowly out from the clock of
Notre-Dame. A murmur of satisfaction broke out in the
crowd. The last vibration of the twelfth stroke had hardly
died away when all heads surged like the waves beneath a
squall, and an immense shout went up from the pavement,
the windows, and the roofs,
"There she is!"
Fleur-de-Lys pressed her hands to her eyes, that she might
not see.
"Charming girl," said Phoebus, "do you wish to withdraw?"
"No," she replied; and she opened through curiosity, the
eyes which she had closed through fear.
A tumbrel drawn by a stout Norman horse, and all surrounded
by cavalry in violet livery with white crosses, had
just debouched upon the Place through the Rue Saint-Pierre-
aux-Boeufs. The sergeants of the watch were clearing a passage
for it through the crowd, by stout blows from their clubs.
Beside the cart rode several officers of justice and police,
recognizable by their black costume and their awkwardness in
the saddle. Master Jacques Charmolue paraded at their head.
In the fatal cart sat a young girl with her arms tied behind
her back, and with no priest beside her. She was in her shift;
her long black hair (the fashion then was to cut it off only at
the foot of the gallows) fell in disorder upon her half-bared
throat and shoulders.
Athwart that waving hair, more glossy than the plumage of
a raven, a thick, rough, gray rope was visible, twisted and
knotted, chafing her delicate collar-bones and twining round
the charming neck of the poor girl, like an earthworm round
a flower. Beneath that rope glittered a tiny amulet ornamented
with bits of green glass, which had been left to her no
doubt, because nothing is refused to those who are about to
die. The spectators in the windows could see in the bottom
of the cart her naked legs which she strove to hide beneath
her, as by a final feminine instinct. At her feet lay a little
goat, bound. The condemned girl held together with her
teeth her imperfectly fastened shift. One would have said
that she suffered still more in her misery from being thus
exposed almost naked to the eyes of all. Alas! modesty is
not made for such shocks.
"Jesus!" said Fleur-de-Lys hastily to the captain. "Look
fair cousin, 'tis that wretched Bohemian with the goat."
So saying, she turned to Phoebus. His eyes were fixed on
the tumbrel. He was very pale.
"What Bohemian with the goat?" he stammered.
"What!" resumed Fleur-de-Lys, "do you not remember?"
Phoebus interrupted her.
"I do not know what you mean."
He made a step to re-enter the room, but Fleur-de-Lys,
whose jealousy, previously so vividly aroused by this same
gypsy, had just been re-awakened, Fleur-de-Lys gave him a
look full of penetration and distrust. She vaguely recalled at
that moment having heard of a captain mixed up in the trial
of that witch.
"What is the matter with you?" she said to Phoebus, "one
would say, that this woman had disturbed you."
Phoebus forced a sneer,--
"Me! Not the least in the world! Ah! yes, certainly!"
"Remain, then!" she continued imperiously, "and let us
see the end."
The unlucky captain was obliged to remain. He was somewhat
reassured by the fact that the condemned girl never removed
her eyes from the bottom of the cart. It was but too
surely la Esmeralda. In this last stage of opprobrium and
misfortune, she was still beautiful; her great black eyes
appeared still larger, because of the emaciation of her cheeks;
her pale profile was pure and sublime. She resembled what
she had been, in the same degree that a virgin by Masaccio,
resembles a virgin of Raphael,--weaker, thinner, more delicate.
Moreover, there was nothing in her which was not shaken
in some sort, and which with the exception of her modesty,
she did not let go at will, so profoundly had she been broken
by stupor and despair. Her body bounded at every jolt of
the tumbrel like a dead or broken thing; her gaze was dull and
imbecile. A tear was still visible in her eyes, but motionless
and frozen, so to speak.
Meanwhile, the lugubrious cavalcade has traversed the crowd
amid cries of joy and curious attitudes. But as a faithful
historian, we must state that on beholding her so beautiful,
so depressed, many were moved with pity, even among the hardest
of them.
The tumbrel had entered the Parvis.
It halted before the central portal. The escort ranged
themselves in line on both sides. The crowd became silent,
and, in the midst of this silence full of anxiety and solemnity,
the two leaves of the grand door swung back, as of themselves,
on their hinges, which gave a creak like the sound of
a fife. Then there became visible in all its length, the
deep, gloomy church, hung in black, sparely lighted with a
few candles gleaming afar off on the principal altar, opened
in the midst of the Place which was dazzling with light, like
the mouth of a cavern. At the very extremity, in the gloom of
the apse, a gigantic silver cross was visible against a black
drapery which hung from the vault to the pavement. The
whole nave was deserted. But a few heads of priests could
be seen moving confusedly in the distant choir stalls, and, at
the moment when the great door opened, there escaped from
the church a loud, solemn, and monotonous chanting, which
cast over the head of the condemned girl, in gusts, fragments
of melancholy psalms,--
"~Non timebo millia populi circumdantis me: exsurge, Domine;
salvum me fac, Deus~!"
"~Salvum me fac, Deus, quoniam intraverunt aquoe usque ad
animam meam~.
"~Infixus sum in limo profundi; et non est substantia~."
At the same time, another voice, separate from the choir,
intoned upon the steps of the chief altar, this melancholy
offertory,-
"~Qui verbum meum audit, et credit ei qui misit me, habet
vitam oeternam et in judicium non venit; sed transit a morte
im vitam~*."
* "He that heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me,
hath eternal life, and hath not come into condemnation; but is
passed from death to life."
This chant, which a few old men buried in the gloom sang
from afar over that beautiful creature, full of youth and life,
caressed by the warm air of spring, inundated with sunlight
was the mass for the dead.
The people listened devoutly.
The unhappy girl seemed to lose her sight and her
consciousness in the obscure interior of the church. Her white
lips moved as though in prayer, and the headsman's assistant
who approached to assist her to alight from the cart, heard
her repeating this word in a low tone,--"Phoebus."
They untied her hands, made her alight, accompanied by her
goat, which had also been unbound, and which bleated with
joy at finding itself free: and they made her walk barefoot on
the hard pavement to the foot of the steps leading to the door.
The rope about her neck trailed behind her. One would have
said it was a serpent following her.
Then the chanting in the church ceased. A great golden
cross and a row of wax candles began to move through the
gloom. The halberds of the motley beadles clanked; and, a
few moments later, a long procession of priests in chasubles,
and deacons in dalmatics, marched gravely towards the condemned
girl, as they drawled their song, spread out before her
view and that of the crowd. But her glance rested on the one
who marched at the head, immediately after the cross-bearer.
"Oh!" she said in a low voice, and with a shudder, "'tis
he again! the priest!"
It was in fact, the archdeacon. On his left he had the sub-
chanter, on his right, the chanter, armed with his official
wand. He advanced with head thrown back, his eyes fixed
and wide open, intoning in a strong voice,--
"~De ventre inferi clamavi, et exaudisti vocem meam~.
"~Et projecisti me in profundum in corde mans, et flumem
circumdedit me~*."
* "Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest
my voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep in the
midst of the seas, and the floods compassed me about."
At the moment when he made his appearance in the full
daylight beneath the lofty arched portal, enveloped in an
ample cope of silver barred with a black cross, he was so pale
that more than one person in the crowd thought that one of
the marble bishops who knelt on the sepulchral stones of the
choir had risen and was come to receive upon the brink of
the tomb, the woman who was about to die.
She, no less pale, no less like a statue, had hardly noticed
that they had placed in her hand a heavy, lighted candle of
yellow wax; she had not heard the yelping voice of the clerk
reading the fatal contents of the apology; when they told her
to respond with Amen, she responded Amen. She only recovered
life and force when she beheld the priest make a sign to her
guards to withdraw, and himself advance alone towards her.
Then she felt her blood boil in her head, and a remnant of
indignation flashed up in that soul already benumbed and cold.
The archdeacon approached her slowly; even in that extremity,
she beheld him cast an eye sparkling with sensuality, jealousy,
and desire, over her exposed form. Then he said aloud,--
"Young girl, have you asked God's pardon for your faults
and shortcomings?"
He bent down to her ear, and added (the spectators supposed
that he was receiving her last confession): "Will you
have me? I can still save you!"
She looked intently at him: "Begone, demon, or I will
denounce you!"
He gave vent to a horrible smile: "You will not be believed.
You will only add a scandal to a crime. Reply quickly! Will
you have me?"
"What have you done with my Phoebus?"
"He is dead!" said the priest.
At that moment the wretched archdeacon raised his head
mechanically and beheld at the other end of the Place, in the
balcony of the Gondelaurier mansion, the captain standing
beside Fleur-de-Lys. He staggered, passed his hand across
his eyes, looked again, muttered a curse, and all his features
were violently contorted.
"Well, die then!" he hissed between his teeth. "No one
shall have you." Then, raising his hand over the gypsy, he
exclaimed in a funereal voice:--"~I nunc, anima anceps, et
sit tibi Deus misenicors~!"*
* "Go now, soul, trembling in the balance, and God have mercy
upon thee."
This was the dread formula with which it was the custom
to conclude these gloomy ceremonies. It was the signal
agreed upon between the priest and the executioner.
The crowd knelt.
"~Kyrie eleison~,"* said the priests, who had remained beneath
the arch of the portal.
* "Lord have mercy upon us."
"~Kyrie eleison~," repeated the throng in that murmur which
runs over all heads, like the waves of a troubled sea.
"Amen," said the archdeacon.
He turned his back on the condemned girl, his head sank
upon his breast once more, he crossed his hands and rejoined
his escort of priests, and a moment later he was seen to
disappear, with the cross, the candles, and the copes, beneath
the misty arches of the cathedral, and his sonorous voice was
extinguished by degrees in the choir, as he chanted this verse
of despair,--
"~Omnes gurgites tui et fluctus tui super me transierunt."*
* "All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me."
At the same time, the intermittent clash of the iron butts
of the beadles' halberds, gradually dying away among the
columns of the nave, produced the effect of a clock hammer
striking the last hour of the condemned.
The doors of Notre-Dame remained open, allowing a view
of the empty desolate church, draped in mourning, without
candles, and without voices.
The condemned girl remained motionless in her place, waiting
to be disposed of. One of the sergeants of police was
obliged to notify Master Charmolue of the fact, as the latter,
during this entire scene, had been engaged in studying the
bas-relief of the grand portal which represents, according to
some, the sacrifice of Abraham; according to others, the
philosopher's alchemical operation: the sun being figured forth
by the angel; the fire, by the fagot; the artisan, by Abraham.
There was considerable difficulty in drawing him away from
that contemplation, but at length he turned round; and, at a
signal which he gave, two men clad in yellow, the executioner's
assistants, approached the gypsy to bind her hands once more.
The unhappy creature, at the moment of mounting once
again the fatal cart, and proceeding to her last halting-place,
was seized, possibly, with some poignant clinging to life.
She raised her dry, red eyes to heaven, to the sun, to the
silvery clouds, cut here and there by a blue trapezium or
triangle; then she lowered them to objects around her, to the
earth, the throng, the houses; all at once, while the yellow
man was binding her elbows, she uttered a terrible cry, a cry
of joy. Yonder, on that balcony, at the corner of the Place,
she had just caught sight of him, of her friend, her lord,
Phoebus, the other apparition of her life!
The judge had lied! the priest had lied! it was certainly he,
she could not doubt it; he was there, handsome, alive, dressed
in his brilliant uniform, his plume on his head, his sword by
his side!
"Phoebus!" she cried, "my Phoebus!"
And she tried to stretch towards him arms trembling with
love and rapture, but they were bound.
Then she saw the captain frown, a beautiful young girl who
was leaning against him gazed at him with disdainful lips and
irritated eyes; then Phoebus uttered some words which did
not reach her, and both disappeared precipitately behind the
window opening upon the balcony, which closed after them.
"Phoebus!" she cried wildly, "can it be you believe it?"
A monstrous thought had just presented itself to her. She
remembered that she had been condemned to death for murder
committed on the person of Phoebus de Châteaupers.
She had borne up until that moment. But this last blow
was too harsh. She fell lifeless on the pavement.
"Come," said Charmolue, "carry her to the cart, and make
an end of it."
No one had yet observed in the gallery of the statues of the
kings, carved directly above the arches of the portal, a strange
spectator, who had, up to that time, observed everything with
such impassiveness, with a neck so strained, a visage so
hideous that, in his motley accoutrement of red and violet,
he might have been taken for one of those stone monsters
through whose mouths the long gutters of the cathedral have
discharged their waters for six hundred years. This spectator
had missed nothing that had taken place since midday in
front of the portal of Notre-Dame. And at the very beginning
he had securely fastened to one of the small columns a
large knotted rope, one end of which trailed on the flight of
steps below. This being done, he began to look on tranquilly,
whistling from time to time when a blackbird flitted past.
Suddenly, at the moment when the superintendent's assistants
were preparing to execute Charmolue's phlegmatic order,
he threw his leg over the balustrade of the gallery, seized the
rope with his feet, his knees and his hands; then he was seen
to glide down the façade, as a drop of rain slips down a window-
pane, rush to the two executioners with the swiftness of a
cat which has fallen from a roof, knock them down with two
enormous fists, pick up the gypsy with one hand, as a child
would her doll, and dash back into the church with a single
bound, lifting the young girl above his head and crying in a
formidable voice,--
"Sanctuary!"
This was done with such rapidity, that had it taken place at
night, the whole of it could have been seen in the space of a
single flash of lightning.
"Sanctuary! Sanctuary!" repeated the crowd; and the
clapping of ten thousand hands made Quasimodo's single eye
sparkle with joy and pride.
This shock restored the condemned girl to her senses. She
raised her eyelids, looked at Quasimodo, then closed them
again suddenly, as though terrified by her deliverer.
Charmolue was stupefied, as well as the executioners and the
entire escort. In fact, within the bounds of Notre-Dame, the
condemned girl could not be touched. The cathedral was a
place of refuge. All temporal jurisdiction expired upon
its threshold.
Quasimodo had halted beneath the great portal, his huge
feet seemed as solid on the pavement of the church as the
heavy Roman pillars. His great, bushy head sat low between
his shoulders, like the heads of lions, who also have a mane
and no neck. He held the young girl, who was quivering all
over, suspended from his horny hands like a white drapery;
but he carried her with as much care as though he feared
to break her or blight her. One would have said that he felt
that she was a delicate, exquisite, precious thing, made for
other hands than his. There were moments when he looked as if
not daring to touch her, even with his breath. Then, all at
once, he would press her forcibly in his arms, against his angular
bosom, like his own possession, his treasure, as the mother of
that child would have done. His gnome's eye, fastened upon
her, inundated her with tenderness, sadness, and pity, and was
suddenly raised filled with lightnings. Then the women
laughed and wept, the crowd stamped with enthusiasm, for,
at that moment Quasimodo had a beauty of his own. He was
handsome; he, that orphan, that foundling, that outcast, he
felt himself august and strong, he gazed in the face of that
society from which he was banished, and in which he had so
powerfully intervened, of that human justice from which he
had wrenched its prey, of all those tigers whose jaws were
forced to remain empty, of those policemen, those judges,
those executioners, of all that force of the king which he,
the meanest of creatures, had just broken, with the force
of God.
And then, it was touching to behold this protection which
had fallen from a being so hideous upon a being so unhappy,
a creature condemned to death saved by Quasimodo. They
were two extremes of natural and social wretchedness, coming
into contact and aiding each other.
Meanwhile, after several moments of triumph, Quasimodo
had plunged abruptly into the church with his burden. The
populace, fond of all prowess, sought him with their eyes,
beneath the gloomy nave, regretting that he had so speedily
disappeared from their acclamations. All at once, he was
seen to re-appear at one of the extremities of the gallery of
the kings of France; he traversed it, running like a madman,
raising his conquest high in his arms and shouting: "Sanctuary!"
The crowd broke forth into fresh applause. The gallery
passed, he plunged once more into the interior of the
church. A moment later, he re-appeared upon the upper
platform, with the gypsy still in his arms, still running
madly, still crying, "Sanctuary!" and the throng applauded.
Finally, he made his appearance for the third time upon the
summit of the tower where hung the great bell; from that
point he seemed to be showing to the entire city the girl
whom he had saved, and his voice of thunder, that voice
which was so rarely heard, and which he never heard himself,
repeated thrice with frenzy, even to the clouds: "Sanctuary!
Sanctuary! Sanctuary!"
"Noel! Noel!" shouted the populace in its turn; and that
immense acclamation flew to astonish the crowd assembled
at the Grève on the other bank, and the recluse who was
still waiting with her eyes riveted on the gibbet. _
Read next: VOLUME II: BOOK NINTH: Chapter 1 - Delirium
Read previous: VOLUME II: BOOK EIGHTH: Chapter 5 - The Mother
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