 6 The Broken Jug After having run for some time at the top of his speed, without knowing wither, knocking his head against many a street corner, leaping many a gutter, traversing many an alley, many a court, many a square, seeking flight and passage through all the meanderings of the ancient passages of the All, exploring in his panic terror what the fine Latin of the maps calls totavia, ceminum et viaria, our poet suddenly halted for lack of breath in the first place and in the second because he had been collared after a fashion by a dilemma which had just occurred to his mind. It strikes me, Master Pierre Gringois, he said to himself, placing his finger to his brow, that you are running like a madman. The little scamps are no less afraid of you than you are of them. It strikes me, I say, that you heard the clatter of their wooden shoes fleeing southward, while you were fleeing northward. Now one of two things. Either they have taken flight, and the pallet, which they must have forgotten in their terror, is precisely that hospitable bed in search of which you have been running ever since morning, and which Madame the Virgin miraculously sends you in order to recompense you for having made a morality in her honour, accompanied by triumphs and mummeries, or the children have not taken flight, and in that case they have put the brand to the pallet, and that is precisely the good fire which you need to cheer, dry, and warm you. In either case, good fire, or good bed, that straw pallet is a gift from heaven. The blessed Virgin Marie, who stands at the corner of the room au concierge, could only have made Eustache Mauban die for that express purpose. And it is folly on your part to flee thus zigzag, like a Picard before a Frenchman, leaving behind you what you seek before you, and you are a fool. Then he retraced his steps, and feeling his way and searching, with his nose to the wind and his ears on the alert, he tried to find the blessed pallet again but in vain. There was nothing to be found but intersections of houses, closed courts, and crossings of streets, in the midst of which he hesitated and doubted incessantly, being more perplexed and entangled in this medley of streets than he would have been even in the labyrinth of the Hotel du Tournel. At length he lost patience, and exclaimed solemnly, Cursed be crossroads, just the devil who has made them in the shape of his pitchfork. This exclamation afforded him a little solace, and a sort of reddish reflection which he caught sight of at that moment, at the extremity of a long and narrow lane, completed the elevation of his moral tone. "'God be praised,' said he, "'there it is yonder, there is my pallet burning,' and comparing himself to the pilot who suffers shipwreck by night. "'Salve,' he added piously, "'salve, Marie Stella!' Did he address this fragment of litany to the Holy Virgin or to the pallet? We are utterly unable to say.' He had taken but a few steps in the long street which sloped downwards, was unpaved, and more and more muddy and steep, when he noticed a very singular thing. It was not deserted. Here and there along its extent crawled certain vague and formless masses, all directing their course towards the light which flickered at the end of the street, like those heavy insects which drag along by night, from blade to blade of grass, towards the shepherd's fire. Nothing renders one so adventurous as not being able to feel the place where one's pocket is situated. Gringoire continued to advance, and had soon joined that one of the forms which dragged along most indolently behind the others. On drawing near he perceived that it was nothing else than a wretched legless cripple in a bowl, who was hopping along on his two hands like a wounded field-spider which has but two legs left. At the moment when he passed close to this species of spider with a human countenance it raised towards him a lamentable voice. La buona mancia, signore! La buona mancia! Deuce take you, said Gringoire, and me with you, if I know what you mean!" And he passed on. He overtook another of these itinerant masses and examined it. It was an impotent man, both halts and crippled, and halts and crippled to such a degree that the complicated system of crutches and wooden legs which sustained him gave him the air of a mason scaffolding on the march. Gringoire, who liked noble and classical comparisons, compared him in thought to the living tripod of Vulcan. This living tripod saluted him as he passed, but stopping as had on a level with Gringoire's chin like a shaving dish, while he shouted in the latter's ears, Signore Caballero, para comprar un potaso de pan! It appears, said Gringoire, that this one can also talk, but is a rude language and he is more fortunate than I if he understands it. Then, smiting his brow in a sudden transition of ideas, by the way, what deduce did they mean this morning with their Esmeralda? He was minded to augment his pace, but for the third time something barred his way. This something, or rather some one, was a blind man, a little blind fellow with a bearded, Jewish face, who, rowing away in the space about him with a stick and towed by a large dog, droned through his nose with a Hungarian accent. Well now, said Gringoire, here's one at last who speaks a Christian tongue. I must have a very charitable aspect, since they ask alms of me in the present lean condition of my purse. My friend, and he turned towards the blind man, I sold my last shirt last week. That is to say, since you understand only the language of Cicero, Vendidi Hebdomade Nupère Transita Miam Atimam Chemisan. That said, he turned his back upon the blind man, and pursued his way. But the blind man began to increase his stride at the same time, and behold, the cripple and the legless man in his bowl came up on their side in great haste, and with great clamour of bowl and crutches upon the pavement. Then all three, jostling each other at poor Gringoire's heels, began to sing their song to him. Caritatum, chanted the blind man, Le buonomancia, chanted the cripple in the bowl, and the lame man took up the musical phrase by repeating, Un patasso de pein. Gringoire stopped up his ears. Oh, tower of babble, he exclaimed. He set out to run. The blind man ran, the lame man ran, the cripple in the bowl ran. And then, in proportion as he plunged deeper into the street, cripples and bowls, blind men and lame men, swarmed about him, and men with one arm and with one eye, and the leprous with their sores, some emerging from little streets adjacent, some from the air-holes of cellars, howling, bellowing, yelping, all limping and halting, all flinging themselves towards the light, and humped up in the mire, like snails after a shower. Gringoire, still followed by his three persecutors, and not knowing very well what was to become of him, marched along in terror among them, turning out for the lame, stepping over the cripples and bowls, with his feet embedded in that anthill of lame men, like the English captain who got caught in the quicksand of a swarm of crabs. The idea occurred to him of making every effort to retrace his steps, but it was too late. This whole legion had closed in behind him, and his three beggars held him fast. So he proceeded, impelled both by this irresistible flood, by fear, and by a vertigo which converted all this into a sort of horrible dream. At last he reached the end of the street. It opened upon an immense place, where a thousand scattered lights flickered in the confused mists of night. Gringoire flew thither, hoping to escape, by the swiftness of his legs, from the three infirm specters who had clutched him. —Onde vas, hombre? Where are you going, my man? cried the cripple, flinging away his crutches, and running after him with the best legs that ever traced a geometrical step upon the pavements of Paris. In the meantime the legless man, erect upon his feet, crowned Gringoire with his heavy iron bowl, and the blind man glared in his face with flaming eyes. —Where am I? said the terrified poet. —In the court of miracles! replied a fourth specter who had accosted them. —Upon my soul! resumed Gringoire. I certainly do behold the blind who see, and the lame who walk, but where is the Saviour? —They replied by a burst of sinister laughter. The poor poet cast his eyes about him. It was, in truth, that redoubtable court of miracles, wither an honest man had never penetrated at such an hour. The magic circle where the officers of the Châtelet and the sergeants of the provost ship who ventured thither disappeared in morsels. A city of thieves, a hideous wart on the face of Paris. A sewer from which escaped every morning and wither returned every night to crouch that stream of vices of mendicancy and vagabondage which always overflows in the streets of capitals. A monstrous hive to which returned at nightfall, with their booty, all the drones of the social order. A lying hospital where the Bohemian, the disfrocked monk, the ruined scholar, the ne'er-do-wells of all nations, Spaniards, Italians, Germans, of all religions, Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, idolaters, covered with painted sores, beggars by day were transformed by night into brigands. An immense dressing-room in a word where, at that epic, the actors of that eternal comedy, which theft, prostitution, and murder play upon the pavements of Paris, dressed and undressed. It was a vast place, irregular and badly paved, like all the squares of Paris at that date. Fires, around which swarmed strange groups, blazed here and there. Everyone was going, coming, and shouting. Shrill laughter was to be heard, the wailing of children, the voices of women. The hands and heads of this throng, black against the luminous background, outlined against it a thousand eccentric gestures. At times, upon the ground, where trembled the light of the fires, mingled with large, indefinite shadows, one could behold a dog passing, which resembled a man, a man who resembled a dog. The limits of races and species seemed to feast in this city as in a pandemonium. Men, women, beasts, age, sex, health, maladies, all seemed to be in common among these people. All went together. They mingled, confounded, superposed. Each one there participated in all. The poor and flickering flames of the fire permitted Gringoire to distinguish, amid his trouble, all around the immense place a hideous frame of ancient houses, whose worm-eaten, shriveled, stunted facades, each pierced with one or two lighted attic windows, seemed to him, in the darkness, like enormous heads of old women, ranged in a circle, monstrous and crabbed, winking as they looked on the witch's sabbath. It was like a new world, unknown, unheard of, misshapen, creeping, swarming, fantastic. Gringoire, more and more terrified, clutched by the three beggars as by three pairs of tongs, dazed by a throng of other faces which Fraud then yelped around him, unhappy Gringoire endeavored to summon his presence of mind in order to recall whether it was a Saturday. But his efforts were in vain. The thread of his memory and of his thought was broken, and, doubting everything, wavering between what he saw and what he felt, he put to himself this unanswerable question. If I exist, does this exist? If this exists, do I exist? At that moment a distinct cry arose in the buzzing throng which surrounded him. Let's take him to the king! Let's take him to the king! Holy Virgin, murmured Gringoire, the king here must be a ram! To the king! To the king! repeated all the voices. They dragged him off, each vied with the other in laying his claws upon him. But the three beggars did not loose their hold and tore him from the rest howling, He belongs to us! The poets already sickly doublet yielded its last sigh in this struggle. While traversing the horrible place his vertigo vanished. After taking a few steps the sentiment of reality returned to him. He began to become accustomed to the atmosphere of the place. At the first moment there had arisen from his poet's head, or simply and prosaically from his empty stomach, a mist of vapor so to speak, which, spreading between objects and himself, permitted him to catch a glimpse of them only in the incoherent fog of nightmare, in those shadows of dreams which distort every outline, agglomerating objects into unwieldy groups, dilating things into chimeras, and men into phantoms. Little by little this hallucination was succeeded by a less bewildered and exaggerating view. Reality made its way to the light around him, struck his eyes, struck his feet, and demolished, bit by bit, all that frightful poetry with which he had at first believed himself to be surrounded. He was forced to perceive that he was not walking in the sticks, but in mud, that he was elbowed not by demons, but by thieves, that it was not his soul which was in question, but his life, since he lacked that precious conciliator which places itself so effectually between the bandit and the honest man, a purse. In short, on examining the orgy more closely, and with more coolness, he fell from the witch's sabbath to the dram shop. The Cour de Miracles was, in fact, merely a dram shop, but a brigand's dram shop, reddened quite as much with blood as with wine. The spectacle which presented itself to his eyes, when his ragged escort finally deposited him at the end of his trip, was not fitted to bear him back to poetry, even to the poetry of hell. It was more than ever the prosaic and brutal reality of the tavern. Were we not in the fifteenth century, we would say that Gringoire had descended from Michelangelo to Callot. Around a great fire which burned on a large, circular flagstone, the flames of which had heated red hot the legs of a tripod, which was empty for the moment, some were meat and tables replaced here and there, haphazard, no lackey of a geometrical turn having deigned to adjust their parallelism, or to see to it that they did not make two unusual angles. Upon these tables gleamed several dripping pots of wine and beer, and around these pots were grouped many backic visages, purple with the fire and the wine. There was a man with a huge belly and a jovial face, noisily kissing a woman of the town, thick-set and brawny. There was a sort of sham soldier, a naquah, as the slang expression runs, who was whistling as he undid the bandages from his fictitious wound, and removing the numbness from his sound and vigorous knee, which had been swathed since morning in a thousand ligatures. On the other hand, there was a wretched fellow, preparing with selendine and beef's blood his leg of God for the next day. Two tables further on, a palmer, with his pilgrim's costume complete, was practicing the lament of the holy queen, not forgetting the drone and the nasal drawl. Further on, a young scamp was taking a lesson in epilepsy from an old pretender, who is instructing him in the art of foaming at the mouth by chewing a morsel of soap. Beside him, a man with a dropsy was getting rid of his swelling and making four or five female thieves, who were disputing at the same table over a child who had been stolen that evening, hold their noses. All circumstances which, two centuries later, seemed so ridiculous to the court, as Soval says, that they served as a pastime to the king, and as an introduction to the royal ballet of night, divided into four parts and danced on the theatre of the Petit Bourbon. Never, as an eyewitness of 1653, have the sudden metamorphoses of the court of miracles been more happily presented. Bensarad prepared us for it by some very gallant verses. Loud laughter everywhere and obscene songs. Each one held his own course, carping and swearing without listening to his neighbor. Pots clinked and quarrels sprang up at the shock of the pots, and the broken pots made wrents in the rags. A big dog, seated on his tail, gazed at the fire. Some children were mingled in this orgy. The stolen child wept and cried. Another, a big boy, four years of age, seated with legs dangling upon a bench that was too high for him, before a table that reached to his chin was uttering not a word. A third, gravely, spreading out upon the table with his finger the melted tallow which dripped from a candle. Last of all, a little fellow crouching in the mud, almost lost in a cauldron which he was scraping with a tile, and from which he was evoking a sound that would have made Strativarius swoon. Near the fire was a hog's head, and on the hog's head a beggar. This was the king on his throne. The three who had Gringois in their clutches led him in front of this hog's head, and the entire Bacchanal route fell silent for a moment, with the exception of the cauldron inhabited by the child. Gringois dared neither breathe nor raise his eyes. "'Hombre, quita tu sombrero,' said one of the three naves, in whose grasp he was, and before he had comprehended the meaning the other had snatched his hat, a wretched headgear it is true, but still good on a sunny day or when there was but little rain.' Gringois sighed. Meanwhile the king addressed him from the summit of his cask. "'Who is this rogue?' Gringois shuddered. That voice, although accentuated by menace, recalled to him another voice, which that very morning had dealt the death-blow to his mystery, by drawling nasally in the midst of the audience. "'Charity, please!' he raised his head. It was indeed Clopan Trifot. Clopan Trifot, a raid in his royal insignia, wore neither one rag more nor one rag less. The sore upon his arm had already disappeared. He held in his hand one of those whips made of thongs of white leather, which police sergeants then used to repress the crowd, and which were called Boyets. On his head he wore a sort of headgear, bound round and closed at the top. But it was difficult to make out whether it was a child's cap or a king's crown, the two things bore so strong a resemblance to each other. Meanwhile Gringois, without knowing why, had regained some hope on recognizing in the king of the Cour de Miracles his accursed mendicant of the Grand Hall. "'Master,' stammered he, Monsignor, seer, how ought I to address you?' he said at length, having reached the culminating point of his crescendo, and knowing neither how to mount higher nor to descend again. "'Monsignor, His Majesty, or Comrade, call me what you please, and make haste. What have you to say in your own defence?' "'In your own defence,' thought Gringois. That displeases me.' He resumed, stuttering, "'I am he, who, this morning, by that devil's claws!' interrupted Clopan. Your name, Nave, and nothing more. Listen, you are in the presence of three powerful sovereigns. Myself, Clopan Trefo, king of Tune, successor to the Grand Quassé, supreme suzerain of the realm of Argo, Mathias Hunyari Spicali, Duke of Egypt and of Bohemia, the old yellow fellow whom you see yonder with a dish clout round his head. Gayo Mressot, Emperor of Galilee, that fat fellow who is not listening to us but caressing a winch. We are your judges. You have entered the kingdom of Argo without being an Argotir. You have violated the privileges of our city. You must be punished unless you are a capone, a franc, mytho, orrifo de, that is to say in the slang of honest folks, a thief, a beggar, or a vagabond. Are you of anything of that sort? Justify yourself. Announce your titles. Alas, said Gringoire, I have not that honour. I am the author. That is sufficient, resumed Trefo, without permitting him to finish. You are going to be hanged. It is a very simple matter. Gentlemen, an honest bourgeois, as you treat our people in your abode, so we treat you in hours. The law which you apply to vagabonds, the vagabonds apply to you. Tiss your fault if it is harsh. One really must behold the grimace of an honest man above the hempen collar now and then, that renders the thing honourable. Come, friend, divide your rags gaily among these damsels. I am going to have you hanged to amuse the vagabonds, and you are to give them your purse to drink your health. If you have any mummery to go through with, there is a very good god the father in that mortar yonder in stone, which we stole from the Sampiero buffs. You have four minutes in which to fling your soul at his head." The harangue was formidable. Well said, upon my soul, clopantry foe preaches like the holy father the pope, exclaimed the emperor of gaily, smashing his pot in order to prop up his table. Monsignors, emperors, and kings, said Gringoire Cooley, for I know not how firmness had returned to him, and he spoke with resolution. Don't think of such a thing. My name is Pierre Gringoire. I am the poet whose morality was presented this morning in the grand hall of the courts. Ah, so it was you, master, said Clopan. I was there, set de Deus. Well, comrade, is that any reason, because you bored us to death this morning, that you should not be hung this evening? I shall find difficulty in getting out of it, said Gringoire to himself. Nevertheless, he made one more effort. I don't see why poets are not classed with vagabonds, said he. Vagabond, he sawp as certainly was. Humaris was a beggar. Mercurius was a thief. Clopan interrupted him. I believe that you are trying to blarney us with your jargon. Zounds, let yourself be hung, and don't kick up such a row over it. Pardon me, Monsignor, the king of Tune, replied Gringoire, disputing the ground foot by foot. It is worth trouble. One moment, listen to me. You are not going to condemn me without having heard me. His unlucky voice was, in fact, drowned in the uproar which rose around him. The little boy scraped away at his cauldron with more spirit than ever, and, to crown all, an old woman had just placed on the tripod a frying pan of grease, which hissed away on the fire with a noise similar to the cry of a troop of children in pursuit of a massacre. In the meantime, Clopan Trifot appeared to hold a momentary conference with the Duke of Egypt and the Emperor of Galilee, who was completely drunk. Then he shouted shrily, Silence! And as the cauldron and the frying pan did not heed him, and continued their duet, he jumped down from his hog's head and gave a kick to the boiler, which rolled ten paces away bearing the child with it, a kick to the frying pan which upset in the fire with all its grease and gravely remounted his throne, without troubling himself about the stifled tears of the child, or the grumbling of the old woman, whose supper was wasting away in a fine white flame. Trifot made a sign, and the Duke, the Emperor, and the past masters of pickpockets and the isolated robbers, came and raged themselves around him in a horseshoe, of which Gringoire, still roughly held by the body, formed the center. It was a semi-circle of rags, tatters, tinsel, pitchforks, axes, legs staggering with intoxication, huge, bare arms, faces, sordid, dull, and stupid. In the midst of this round table of beggary, Clopan Trifot, as the doge of this Senate, as the king of this peerage, as the pope of this conclave, dominated. First by virtue of the height of his hog's head, and next by virtue of an indescribable haughty, fierce, and formidable air, which caused his eyes to flash, and corrected in his savage profile, the bestial type of the race of vagabonds. One would have pronounced him a boar amid a herd of swine. "'Listen,' said he to Gringoire, fondling his misshapen chin with his horny hand. I don't see why you should not be hung. It is true that it appears to be repugnant to you, and it is very natural, for you bourgeois are not accustomed to it. You form for yourselves a great idea of the thing. After all, we don't wish you any harm. Here is a means of extricating yourself from your predicament for the moment. Will you become one of us?' The reader can judge of the effect which this proposition produced upon Gringoire, who beheld life slipping away from him, and who was beginning to lose his hold upon it. He clutched it again with energy. "'Certainly I will, and right heartily,' said he. "'Do you consent,' resumed Clopan, to enroll yourself among the people of the Knife?' "'Of the Knife, precisely,' responded Gringoire. "'You recognize yourself as a member of the Free Bourgeoisie,' added the King of Tune. "'Of the Free Bourgeoisie, subject of the Kingdom of Argo, of the Kingdom of Argo. A vagabond, a vagabond, in your soul, in my soul.' "'I must call your attention to the fact,' continued the King, "'that you will be hung all the same.' "'The devil,' said the poet. "'Only,' continued Clopan imperturbably, "'you will be hung later on, with more ceremony, at the expense of the good city of Paris, on a handsome stone jibbit and by honest men. That is a consolation.'" Just so, responded Gringoire. "'There are other advantages. In your quality of a high-toned sharper, you will not have to pay the taxes on mud, or the poor, or lanterns to which the bourgeois of Paris are subject.' "'So be it,' said the poet. "'I agree. I am a vagabond, a thief, a sharper, a man of the life, anything you please. And I am all that already, Monsieur King of Tune, for I am a philosopher. Et omnia in filosofia, omnis in filosofo continentur. All things are contained in philosophy, all men in the philosopher, as you know.' The King of Tune scowled. "'What do you take me for, my friend? What Hungarian Jew patter, are you jabbering at us? I don't know Hebrew. One isn't a Jew because one is a bendit. I don't even steal any longer. I am above all that. I kill. Cut the rote, yes. Cut purse, no.'" Gringoire tried to slip in some excuse between these curt words, which Rath rendered more and more jerky. "'I ask your pardon, Monsignor. It is not Hebrew, it is Latin.' "'I tell you,' resumed Clopane angrily, that I am not a Jew, and that I'll have you hung belly of the synagogue like that little shopkeeper of Judea, who is by your side, and whom I entertain strong hopes of sealing nail to a counter one of these days, like the counterfeit coin that he is.'" So saying, he pointed his finger at the little bearded Hungarian Jew, who had accosted Gringoire with his facitote keretatum, and who, understanding no other language, beheld with surprise the king of Tunaise ill-humour overflow upon him. At length, Monsignor Clopane calmed down. "'So you will be a vagabond, you nave,' he said to our poet. "'Of course,' replied the poet. "'Willing is not all,' said the surly Clopane. "'Goodwill doesn't put one onion the more into the soup, and is good for nothing except to go to paradise with. Now, paradise and the thieves' band are two different things. In order to be received among the thieves, you must prove that you are good for something, and for that purpose you must search the mannequin.' "'I'll search anything you like,' said Gringoire.' Clopane made a sign. Several thieves detached themselves from the circle and returned a moment later. They brought two thick posts, terminated at their lower extremities in spreading timber supports, which made them stand readily upon the ground. To the upper extremity of the two posts they fitted a cross-beam, and the hole constituted a very pretty, portable gibbet, which Gringoire had the satisfaction of beholding rise before him in a twinkling. Nothing was lacking, not even the rope, which swung gracefully over the cross-beam. "'What are they going to do?' Gringoire asked himself with some uneasiness. "'A sound of bells, which he heard at that moment, put an end to his anxiety. It was a stuffed mannequin, which the vagabonds were suspending by the neck from the rope, a sort of scarecrow dressed in red, and so hung with mule bells and larger bells that one might have tricked out thirty Castilian mules with them. These thousand tiny bells quivered for some time with the vibration of the rope, then gradually died away, and finally became silent when the mannequin had been brought into a state of immobility by that law of the pendulum which has dethroned the water-clock and the hour-glass. Then Clopin, pointing out to Gringoire a rickety old stool placed beneath the mannequin, "'Climb up there!' "'Death of the devil!' objected Gringoire. "'I shall break my neck. Your stool limps like one of Marshall's districts. It has one hexameter leg and one pentameter leg.' "'Climb!' repeated Clopin. Gringoire mounted the stool and succeeded, not without some oscillations of head and arms in regaining his centre of gravity. "'Now!' went on the king of Tune, "'twist your right foot round your left leg and rise on the tip of your left foot.' "'Monsignor,' said Gringoire, "'so you absolutely insist on my breaking some of my limbs?' Clopin tossed his head. "'Hark ye, my friend, you talk too much. Here's the gist of the matter in two words. You are to rise on tiptoe, as I tell you. In that way you will be able to reach the pocket of the mannequin. You will rummage it, you will pull out the purse that is there. And if you do all this without our hearing the sound of a bell, all is well. You shall be a vagabond. All we shall then have to do will be to thrash you soundly for the space of a week. "'Ventre-de, I will be careful,' said Gringoire, "'and suppose I do make the bell sound? Then you will be hanged. Do you understand?' "'I don't understand at all,' replied Gringoire. "'Listen once more. You are to search the mannequin and take away its purse. If a single bell stirs during the operation, you will be hung. Do you understand that?' "'Good,' said Gringoire. "'I understand that. And then?' "'If you succeed in removing the purse without our hearing the bells, you are a vagabond, and you will be thrashed for eight consecutive days. You understand now, no doubt?' "'No, Monsignor, I no longer understand. Where is the advantage to me, hanged in one case, cuddled in the other?' "'And a vagabond,' resumed Clopan. "'And a vagabond. Is that nothing? It is for your interest that we should beat you, in order to harden you to blows.' "'Many thanks,' replied the poet. "'Come, make haste,' said the king, stamping upon his cask, which resounded like a huge drum. "'Search the mannequin, and let there be an end to this. I warn you, for the last time, that if I hear a single bell, you will take the place of the mannequin.'" The band of thieves applauded Clopan's words and arranged themselves in a circle round the gibbet, with a laugh so pitiless that Gringoire perceived that he amused them too much not to have everything to fear from them. No hope was left for him, accordingly, unless it were the slight chance of succeeding in the formidable operation which was imposed upon him. He decided to risk it, but it was not without first having addressed a fervent prayer to the mannequin he was about to plunder, and who would have been easier to move to pity than the vagabonds. These myriad bells, with their little copper tongues, seemed to him like the mouths of so many asps, open and ready to sting and to hiss. "'Oh,' he said in a very low voice, is it possible that my life depends on the slightest vibration of the least of these bells? "'Oh,' he added with clasped hands, bells, do not ring, hand-bells do not clang, mu-bells do not quiver.' He made one more attempt upon trefo. "'And if there should come a gust of wind?' "'You will be hanged,' replied the other, without hesitation. Perceiving that no respite nor reprieve nor subterfuge was possible, he bravely decided upon his course of action. He wound his right foot round his left leg, raised himself on his left foot, and stretched out his arm. But at the moment when his hand touched the mannequin, his body, which was now supported upon one leg only, wavered on the stool which had but three. He made an involuntary effort to support himself by the mannequin, lost his balance, and fell heavily to the ground, deafened by the fatal vibration of the thousand bells of the mannequin, which, yielding to the impulse imparted by his hand, described first a rotary motion, and then swayed majestically between the two posts. "'Malediction,' he cried as he fell, and remained as though dead with his face to the earth. Meanwhile he heard the dreadful peel above his head, the diabolical laughter of the vagabonds and the voice of Trophie saying, "'Pick me up that nave and hang him without ceremony.' He rose. They had already detached the mannequin to make room for him. The thieves made him mount the stool. Klopan came to him, passed the rope about his neck, and tapping him on the shoulder. "'Do, my friend, you can't escape now, even if you digested with the pope's guts.' The word mercy died away upon Gringoire's lips. He cast his eyes about him, but there was no hope. All were laughing. "'Belleveen de la Toie,' said the king of Tuenay, to an enormous vagabond, who stepped out from the ranks. Climb upon the cross beam.' "'Belleveen de la Toie' nimbly mounted the traverse beam, and in another minute, Gringoire, on raising his eyes, beheld him, with terror, seated upon the beam above his head. "'Now,' resumed Klopan Trifot, "'as soon as I clap my hands, you, André the Red, will fling the stool to the ground with the blow of your knee. You, François Chanteprune, will cling to the feet of the rascal, and you, Belleveen, will fling yourself on his shoulders, and all three at once, do you hear?' Gringoire shuddered. "'Are you ready?' said Klopan Trifot to the three thieves, who held themselves in readiness to fall upon Gringoire. A moment of horrible suspense ensued for the poor victim, during which Klopan tranquilly thrust into the fire with the tip of his foot some bits of vineshoots which the flame had not caught. "'Are you ready?' he repeated, and opened his hands to clap. One second more, and all would have been over. But he paused, as though struck by a sudden thought. "'One moment,' said he, "'I forgot. It is our custom not to hang a man without inquiring whether there is any woman who wants him. Comrade, this is your last resource. You must wed either a female vagabond or the noose.' "'This law of the vagabonds, singular as it may strike the reader, remains to-day written out at length in ancient English legislation.' Gringoire breathed again. This was the second time that he had returned to life within an hour, so he did not dare to trust to it too implicitly. "'Olá!' cried Klopan, mounted once more upon his cask. "'Olá, women, females, is there among you, from the sorceress to her cat, a wench who wants this rascal? "'Olá!' called at the charan. "'Elisabeth Trovin, c'est mon jordan. Meryl Pédébault, tonnée le long, Beirard Fanouy, M. Jean-Jeanet, Claude Rangeauré, M. Gérirot. "'Olá, is a beau la théorie. Come and see, a man for nothing. Who wants him?' Gringoire, no doubt, was not very appetizing in his miserable condition. The female vagabonds did not seem to be much affected by the proposition. The unhappy wretch heard them answer, "'No, no, hang him. There'll be more fun for us all.'" Nevertheless, three emerged from the throng and came to smell of him. The first was a big wench with a square face. She examined the philosopher's deplorable doublet attentively. His garment was worn and more full of holes than a stow for roasting chestnuts. The girl made a writhe face. "'Old rag,' she muttered, and addressing Gringoire. "'Let's see your cloak!' "'Let's see your cloak!' "'I have lost it,' replied Gringoire. "'Your hat?' "'They took it away from me.' "'Your shoes?' "'They have hardly any souls left.' "'Your purse?' "'Alas!' stammered Gringoire. "'I have not even a shoe.' "'Let them hang you, then, and say, thank you,' retorted the vagabond wench, turning her back on him. The second, old, black, wrinkled, hideous, with an ugliness conspicuous even in the court of miracles, trotted round Gringoire. He almost trembled, lest she should want him. But she mumbled between her teeth. "'He's too thin,' and went off. The third was a young girl, quite fresh, and not too ugly. "'Save me,' said the poor fellow to her in a low tone. She gazed at him for a moment with an air of pity, then dropped her eyes, made a plate in her petticoat, and remained in indecision. He followed all these movements with his eyes. It was the last gleam of hope. "'No,' said the young girl at length. "'No, Gaillom Langgé would beat me.' She retreated into the crowd. "'You are unlucky, comrade,' said Clopin. Then, rising to his feet upon his hog's head. "'No one wants him,' he exclaimed, imitating the accent of an auctioneer, to the great delight of all. "'No one wants him! Once, twice, three times!' And, turning towards the gibbet with a sign of his hand, gone. "'Belleveen de la Tois, André the Red, François Chanteprunet, stepped up to Gringoire. At that moment a cry arose among the thieves. "'La Esmeralda, la Esmeralda!' Gringoire shuddered and turned towards the side once the clamour proceeded. The crowd opened and gave passage to a pure and dazzling form. It was the gypsy. "'La Esmeralda,' said Gringoire, stupefied in the midst of his emotions by the abrupt manner in which that magic word nodded together all his reminiscences of the day. This rare creature seemed, even in the cour de miracles, to exercise her sway of charm and beauty. The vagabonds, male and female, ranged themselves gently along her path, and their brutal faces beamed beneath her glance. She approached the victim with her light step. Her pretty jolly followed her. Gringoire was more dead than alive. She examined him for a moment in silence. "'You are going to hang this man?' she said gravely to Klopan. "'Yes, sister,' replied the king of Tune, "'unless you will take him for your husband.' She made her pretty little pout with her underlip. "'I'll take him,' said she. Gringoire firmly believed that he had been in a dream ever since morning, and that this was the continuation of it. The change was, in fact, violent, though a gratifying one. They undid the noose and made the poet step down from the stool. His emotion was so lively that he was obliged to sit down. The Duke of Egypt brought an earthenware crock without uttering a word. The gypsy offered it to Gringoire. "'Fling it on the ground,' said she. The crock broke into four pieces. "'Brother,' then said the Duke of Egypt, laying his hands upon their foreheads. "'She is your wife. Sister, he is your husband for four years. Go!' End of Chapter 6 Book 2 Chapter 7 Of the Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Book 2 Chapter 7 A Bridal Night A few moments later our poet found himself in a tiny arched chamber. Very cozy, very warm, seated at a table which appeared to ask nothing better than to make some loans from a larder hanging nearby, having a good bed in prospect and a loan with a pretty girl. The adventure smacked of enchantment. He began seriously to take himself for a personage in a fairy tale. He cast his eyes about him from time to time to time, as though to see if the chariot of fire, harnessed to two-winged chimeras which alone could have so rapidly transported him from Tartarus to Paradise, were still there. At times also he fixed his eyes obstinately upon the holes in his doublet in order to cling to reality and not lose the ground from under his feet completely. His reason, paused about in imaginary space, now hung only by this thread. The young girl did not appear to pay any attention to him. She went and came, displaced a stool, talked to her goat, and indulged in a pout now and then. At last she came and seated herself near the table, and Gringoire was able to scrutinize her at his ease. You have been a child, reader, and you would, perhaps, be very happy to be one still. It is quite certain that you have not, more than once, and for my part, I have passed whole days the best employed of my life at it, followed from thicket to thicket by the side of running water on a sunny day, a beautiful green or blue dragonfly breaking its flight in abrupt angles and kissing the tips of all the branches. You recollect with what amorous curiosity your thought and your gaze were riveted upon this little whirlwind, hissing and humming with wings of purple and azure, in the midst of which floated an imperceptible body, veiled by the very rapidity of its movement. The aerial being which was dimly outlined amid this quivering of wings appeared to you comirical, imaginary, impossible to touch, impossible to see. But then, at length, the dragonfly alighted on the tip of a reed, and, holding your breath the while, you were able to examine the long gauze wings, the long enamel robe, the two globes of crystal, what astonishment you felt, and what fear, lest you should again behold the form disappear into a shade, and the creature into a chimera. Recall these impressions, and you will readily appreciate what Gringoire felt on contemplating beneath her visible and palpable form, that Esmeralda of whom, up to that time, he had only caught a glimpse amidst a whirlwind of dance, song, and tumult. Sinking deeper and deeper into his reverie, so this, he said to himself, following her vaguely with his eyes, is La Esmeralda, a celestial creature, a street dancer, so much and so little, to a she who dealt the death blow to my mystery this morning, to she who saves my life this evening, my evil genius, my good angel, a pretty woman on my word, and who must needs love me madly to have taken me in that fashion. By the way, said he, rising suddenly, with that sentiment of the true which formed the foundation of his character and his philosophy, I don't know very well how it happens, but I am her husband. With this idea in his head, and in his eyes, he stepped up to the young girl in a manner so military and so gallant that she drew back. What do you want of me? said she. Can you ask me, adorable Esmeralda? replied Gringoire, with so passionate an accent that he was himself astonished at it on hearing himself speak. The gypsy opened her great eyes. I don't know what you mean. What! resumed Gringoire, growing warmer and warmer, and supposing that, after all, he had to deal merely with a virtue of the cur de miracles. Am I not thine, sweet friend? Are thou not mine? And, quite ingenuously, he clasped her waist. The gypsy's corsage slipped through his hands like the skin of an eel. She bounded from one end of the tiny room to the other, stooped down, and raised herself again, with a little poignard in her hand, before Gringoire had even had time to see whence the poignard came, proud and angry, with swelling lips and inflated nostrils, her cheeks as red as an api-apple, and her eyes darting lightnings. At the same time the white goat placed itself in front of her, and presented to Gringoire a hostile front, bristling with two pretty horns, gilded and very sharp. All this took place in the twinkling of an eye. The dragonfly had turned into a wasp and asked nothing better than to sting. Our philosopher was speechless and turned his astonished eyes from the goat to the young girl. Holy virgin, he said at last, when surprise permitted him to speak, here are two hearty dames. The gypsy broke the silence on her side. You must be a very bold nave. Pardon, mademoiselle, said Gringoire with a smile, but why did you take me for your husband? Should I have allowed you to be hanged? So, said the poet, somewhat disappointed in his amorous hopes, you had no other idea in marrying me than to save me from the gibbet? And what other idea did you suppose that I had? Gringoire bit his lips. Come, said he, I am not yet so triumphant in Cupido as I thought. But then what was the good of breaking that poor jug? Meanwhile, Esmeralda's dagger and the goat's horns were still upon the defensive. Mademoiselle, Esmeralda, said the poet, let us come to terms. I am not a clerk of the court, and I shall not go to law with you for thus carrying a dagger in Paris, in the teeth of the ordinances and the prohibitions of Monsieur the Provost. Nevertheless, you are not ignorant of the fact that Noël Lasgrivan was condemned a week ago to pay ten Parisian sews for having carried a cutlass. But this is no affair of mine, and I will come to the point. I swear to you, upon my share of paradise, not to approach you without your leave and permission, but do give me some supper. The truth is, Gringoire was, like Monsieur Despro, not very voluptuous. He did not belong to that chivalier and musketeer species who take young girls by assault. In the matter of love, as in all other affairs, he willingly assented to temporizing and adjusting terms. And a good supper, and an amiable tete-a-tete, appeared to him, especially when he was hungry, and excellent interlude between the prologue and the catastrophe of a love-adventure. The gypsy did not reply. She made her disdainful little grimace, drew up her head like a bird, then burst out laughing, and the tiny pognure disappeared as it had come, without Gringoire being able to see where the wasp concealed its sting. A moment later there stood upon the table a loaf of rye bread, a slice of bacon, some wrinkled apples, and a jug of beer. Gringoire began to eat eagerly. One would have said, to hear the furious clashing of his iron fork and his earthenware plate, that all his love had turned to appetite. The young girl seated opposite him, watched him in silence, visibly preoccupied with another thought, at which she smiled from time to time, while her soft hand caressed the intelligent head of the goat, gently pressed between her knees. A candle of yellow wax illuminated this scene of voracity and reverie. Meanwhile, the first cravings of his stomach having been stilled, Gringoire felt some false shame at perceiving that nothing remained but one apple. You do not eat, mademoiselle Esmeralda? She replied by a negative sign of the head, and her pensive glance fixed itself upon the vault of the ceiling. What the deuce is she thinking of, thought Gringoire, staring at what she was gazing at? Tis impossible that it can be that stone dwarf carved in the keystone of that arch, which thus absorbs her attention. What the deuce! I can bear the comparison! He raised his voice. Mademoiselle, she seemed not to hear him. He repeated, still more loudly. Mademoiselle Esmeralda! Trouble wasted. The young girl's mind was elsewhere, and Gringoire's voice had not the power to recall it. Fortunately, the goat interfered. She began to pull her mistress gently by the sleeve. What dost thou want, jolly? said the gypsy hastily, as though suddenly awakened. She is hungry, said Gringoire, charmed to enter into conversation. Esmeralda began to crumble some bread, which jolly ate gracefully from the hollow of her hand. Moreover, Gringoire did not give her time to resume her reverie. He hazarded a delicate question. So you don't want me for your husband? The young girl looked at him intently and said, No. For your lover? went on Gringoire. She pouted and replied, No. For your friend? pursued Gringoire. She gazed fixedly at him again and said, after a momentary reflection, Perhaps. This perhaps so dear to philosophers emboldened Gringoire. Do you know what friendship is? he asked. Yes, replied the gypsy. It is to be brother and sister, two souls which touch without mingling, two fingers on one hand. And love, pursued Gringoire? Oh, love, said she, and her voice trembled, and her eye beamed. That is to be two and to be but one. A man and a woman mingled into one angel. It is heaven. The street dancer had a beauty, as she spoke thus, that struck Gringoire singularly, and seemed to him in perfect keeping with the almost oriental exaltation of her words. Her pure red lips half smiled. Her serene and candid brow became troubled at intervals under her thoughts like a mirror under the breath. And from beneath her long, drooping black eyelashes there escaped a sort of ineffable light, which gave to her profile that ideal serenity which Raphael found at the mystic point of intersection of virginity, maternity, and divinity. Nevertheless, Gringoire continued, What must one be then in order to please you? A man. And I, said he, what then am I? A man has a helmet on his head, a sword in his hand, and golden spurs on his heels. Good, said Gringoire, without a horse, no man. Do you love anyone? As a lover? Yes. She remained thoughtful for a moment, then said with a peculiar expression, That I shall know soon. Why not this evening, resume the poet tenderly? Why not me? She cast a grave glance upon him and said, I can never love a man who cannot protect me. Gringoire coloured and took the hint. It was evident that the young girl was alluding to the slight assistance which he had rendered her in the critical situation in which she had found herself two hours previously. This memory, effaced by his own adventures of the evening, now recurred to him. He smote his brow. By the way, mademoiselle, I ought to have begun there. Pardon my foolish absence of mind. How did you contrive to escape from the claws of Quasimodo? This question made the gypsy shudder. Oh, the horrible hunchback, said she, hiding her face in her hands, and she shuddered as though with a violent cold. Horrible in truth, said Gringoire, who clung to his idea. But how did you manage to escape him? La, as Moralda smiled, sighed, and remained silent. Do you know why he followed you? Began Gringoire again, seeking to return to his question by a circuitous route. I don't know, said the young girl, and she added hastily, but you were following me also. Why were you following me? In good faith, responded Gringoire, I don't know either. Silence ensued. Gringoire slashed the table with his knife. The young girl smiled, and seemed to be gazing through the wall at something. All at once she began to sing in a barely articulate voice. She broke off abruptly, and began to caress Jolly. That's a pretty animal of yours, said Gringoire. She is my sister, she answered. Why are you called La, as Moralda? asked the poet. I do not know. But why? She drew from her bosom a sort of little oblong bag, suspended from her neck by a string of a dresarac beads. This bag exhaled a strong odor of camphor. It was covered with green silk, and bore in its center a large piece of green glass, and imitation of an emerald. Perhaps it is because of this, said she. Gringoire was on the point of taking the bag in his hand. She drew back. Don't touch it, it is an amulet. You would injure the charm, or the charm would injure you. The poet's curiosity was more and more aroused. Who gave it to you? She laid one finger on her mouth and concealed the amulet in her bosom. He tried a few more questions, but she hardly replied. What is the meaning of the words La, as Moralda? I don't know, said she. To what language do they belong? They are Egyptian, I think. I suspect it as much, said Gringoire. You are not a native of France? I don't know. Are your parents alive? She began to sing to an ancient air. Good, said Gringoire. At what age did you come to France? When I was very young. And when to Paris? Last year. At the moment when we were entering the papal gate, I saw a reed warbler flit through the air. That was at the end of August. I said it will be a hard winter. And so it was, said Gringoire, delighted at this beginning of a conversation. I passed it in blowing my fingers. So you have the gift of prophecy? She retired into her laconics again. Is that man whom you call the Duke of Egypt, the chief of your tribe? Yes. But it was he who married us, remarked the poet timidly. She made her customary pretty grimace. I don't even know your name. My name? If you want it, here it is. Pierre Gringoire. I know a prettier one, said she. Naughty girl! retorted the poet. Never mind. You shall not provoke me. Wait! Perhaps you will love me more when you know me better, and then you have told me your story with so much confidence that I owe you a little of mine. You must know, then, that my name is Pierre Gringoire, and that I am the son of the farmer of the notary's office of Gonesse. My father was hung by the Burgundians, and my mother disemboweled by the Picards at the Siege of Paris twenty years ago. At six years of age, therefore, I was an orphan, without a soul to my foot except the pavements of Paris. I do not know how I passed the interval from six to sixteen. A fruit-dealer gave me a plum here, a baker flung me across there. In the evening I got myself taken up by the watch, who threw me into prison, and there I found a bundle of straw. All this did not prevent my growing up and growing thin as you see. In the winter I warmed myself in the sun, under the porch of the hôté de Sands, and thought it very ridiculous that the fire on St. John's Day was reserved for the dog-days. At sixteen I wished to choose a calling. I tried all in succession. I became a soldier, but I was not brave enough. I became a monk, but I was not sufficiently devout. And then I'm a bad hand at drinking. In despair I became an apprentice of the woodcutters, but I was not strong enough. I had more of an inclination to become a schoolmaster. It is true that I did not know how to read, but that's no reason. I perceived at the end of a certain time that I lacked something in every direction, and seeing that I was good for nothing, of my own free will, I became a poet and a rhymester. That is a trade which one can always adopt when one is a vagabond, and it's better than stealing, as some young brigands of my acquaintance advised me to do. One day I met by luck Dom Claude Frollo, the Reverend Archdeacon of Notre-Dame. He took an interest in me, and it is to him that I today owe it that I am a veritable man of letters, who knows Latin from the Diofesis of Cicero to the mortuology of the Celestine Fathers, and a barbarian neither in scholastics nor in politics nor in rhythmics, that sophism of sophisms. I am the author of the mystery which was presented to-day with great triumph and a great concourse of populace in the Grand Hall of the Palastre Justice. I have also made a book which will contain six hundred pages on the wonderful comet of 1465 which sent one man mad. I have enjoyed still other successes. Being somewhat of an artillery carpenter, I lent a hand to Jean-Manguet's great bombard, which burst, as you know, on the day when it was tested, on the Pont de Charenton, and killed four and twenty curious spectators. You see that I am not a bad match in marriage. I know a great many sorts of very engaging tricks which I will teach your goat. For example, to mimic the Bishop of Paris, that cursed Pharisee whose mill-wheel splashed passers by the whole length of the Pont de Monnier. And then my mystery will bring me in a great deal of coined money, if they will only pay me. And finally I am at your orders. I and my wits and my science and my letters ready to live with you, damsel, as it shall please you, chastely or joyously. Husband and wife, if you see fit, brother and sister, if you think that better. Gringoise ceased, awaiting the effect of his harangue on the young girl. Her eyes were fixed on the ground. Fibas, she said in a low voice. Then, turning towards the poet, Fibas, what does that mean? Gringoise, without exactly understanding what the connection could be between his address and this question, was not sorry to display his erudition. Assuming an air of importance, he replied, It is a Latin word which means son. Son, she repeated. It is the name of a handsome marcher who was a god, added Gringoise. A god, repeated the gypsy, and there was something pensive and passionate in her tone. At that moment one of her bracelets became unfastened and fell. Gringoise stooped quickly to pick it up. When he straightened up, the young girl and the goat had disappeared. He heard the sound of a bolt. It was a little door, communicating no doubt with a neighboring cell which was being fastened on the outside. Has she left me a bed at least? said our philosopher. He made a tour of his cell. There was no piece of furniture adapted to sleeping purposes, except a tolerably long wooden coffer, and its cover was carved to boot. Which afforded Gringoise, when he stretched himself out upon it, a sensation somewhat similar to that which Macromegos would feel if he were to lie down on the Alps. Come, said he, adjusting himself as well as possible. I must resign myself. But here's a strange nuptial night. Tisapiti. There was something innocent and antediluvian about that broken crock which quite pleased me. End of Chapter 7 Book III. CHAPTER I OF THE HUNCHBRACK OF NOTREDAM by Victor Hugo This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Book III. CHAPTER I. NOTREDAM The Church of Notre-Dame-de-Paris is still no doubt a majestic and sublime edifice. But, beautiful as it has been preserved in growing old, it is difficult not to sigh, not to wax indignant before the numberless degradations and mutilations which time and men have both caused the venerable monument to suffer, without respect for Charlemagne, who laid its first stone, or for Philip Augustus, who laid the last. On the face of this aged queen of our cathedrals, by the side of a wrinkle, one always finds a scar. Tempos edex homo edecior, which I should be glad to translate thus, Time is blind, Man is stupid. If we had leisure to examine with the reader, one by one, the diverse traces of destruction imprinted upon the old church, Time's share would be the least, the share of men the most, especially the men of art, since there have been individuals who assumed the title of architects during the last two centuries. And in the first place, to cite only a few leading examples, there certainly are few finer architectural pages than this façade, where, successively, and at once, the three portals hollowed out in an arch, the broidered and dentated cordon of the eight and twenty royal niches, the immense central rose window, flanked by its two lateral windows, like a priest by his deacon and sub-deacon, the frail and lofty gallery of tree-foil arcades, which supports a heavy platform above its fine, slender columns, and lastly, the two black and massive towers with their slate penthouses, harmonious parts of a magnificent whole, superposed in five gigantic stories. Developed themselves before the eye, in a mass and without confusion, with their innumerable details of statuary, carving, and sculpture, joined powerfully to the tranquil grandeur of the whole, a vast symphony and stone, so to speak, the colossal work of one man and one people, altogether one and complex, like the Iliads and the Romanceros, whose sister it is. Prodigious product of the grouping together of all the forces of an epic, where, upon each stone, one sees the fancy of the workmen, disciplined by the genius of the artist, start forth in a hundred fashions. A sort of human creation, in a word, powerful and fecund as the divine creation of which it seems to have stolen the double character, variety, eternity. And what we hear say of the façade must be said of the entire church, and what we say of the Cathedral Church of Paris must be said of all the churches of Christendom in the Middle Ages. All things are in place in that art, self-created, logical, and well proportioned. To measure the great toe of the foot is to measure the giant. Let us return to the façade of Notre-Dame, as it still appears to us, when we go piously to admire the grave and purest and cathedral, which inspires terror so its chronicles assert. Coe, mole, sua, tererum, incutit, spectantibus. Three important things are today lacking in that façade. In the first place, the staircase of eleven steps, which formerly raised it above the soil. Next the lower series of statues, which occupy the niches of the three portals. And lastly the upper series, of the twenty-eight most ancient kings of France, which garnished the gallery of the first story, beginning with Childbert and ending with Philippe Augustus, holding in his hand the imperial apple. Time has caused the staircase to disappear, by raising the soil of the city with a slow and irresistible progress. But, while thus causing the eleven steps, which added to the majestic height of the edifice to be devoured, one by one by the rising tide of the pavements of Paris, time has bestowed upon the church perhaps more than it has taken away. For it is time which has spread over the façade that somber hue of the centuries which makes the old age of monuments the period of their beauty. But who has thrown down the two rows of statues? Who has left the niches empty? Who has cut, in the very middle of the central portal, that new and bastard arch? Who has dared to frame therein that common place and heavy door of carved wood, à la Louis XV, beside the arabesques of Biscournet? The men, the architects, the artists of our day. And if we enter the interior of the edifice, who has overthrown that colossus of St. Christopher, proverbial for magnitude among statues as the grand hall of the Palais de Justice was among halls, as the spire of Strasbourg among spires, and those myriads of statues which peopled all the spaces between the columns of the nave and the choir, kneeling, standing, equestrian, men, women, children, kings, bishops, gendarmes in stone, in marble, in gold, in silver, and copper, in wax even? Who has brutally swept them away? It is not time. And who substituted for the ancient Gothic altar, splendidly encumbered with shrines and reliquaries, that heavy marble sarcophagus, with angels' heads and clouds, which seems a specimen pillaged from the Val de Grasse or the Invalidae? Who stupidly sealed the heavy anachronism of stone in the Carlovingian pavement of Hercundus? Was it not Louis XIV fulfilling the request of Louis XIII? And who put the cold white panes in the place of those windows high in color, which caused the astonished eyes of our fathers to hesitate between the rows of the grand portal and the arches of the apse? And what would a sub-chanter of the 16th century say, on beholding the beautiful yellow wash with which our arch-episcopal vandals have desmeared their cathedral? He would remember that it was the color with which the hangmen smeared accursed edifices. He would recall the Hotel de Petit Bourbon all smeared thus on account of the Constable's treason. Yellow, after all, of so good a quality, said Soval, and so well recommended that more than a century has not yet caused it to lose its color. He would think that the sacred place had become infamous and would flee. And if we ascend the cathedral without mentioning a thousand barbarisms of every sort, what has become of that charming little bell tower which rested upon the point of the intersection of the cross-roofs, and which, no less frail and no less bold than its neighbor, also destroyed, the spire of the Saint Chapelle, buried itself in the sky, farther forward than the towers, slender, pointed, sonorous, carved in open work. An architect of good taste amputated it, 1787, and considered it sufficient to mask the wound with that large leaden plaster which resembles a pot cover. Tis thus that the marvellous art of the Middle Ages has been treated in nearly every country, especially in France. One can distinguish on its ruins three sorts of lesions, all three of which cut into it at different depths. First time, which has insensibly notched its surface here and there, and gnawed it everywhere. Next, political and religious revolution, which, blind and wrathful by nature, have flung themselves tumultuously upon it, torn its rich garment of carving and sculpture, burst its rose windows, broken its necklace of arabesques and tiny figures, torn out its statues, sometimes because of their mitres, sometimes because of their crowns. Lastly, fashions, even more grotesque and foolish, which, the anarchical and splendid deviations of the Renaissance, have followed each other in the necessary decadence of architecture. Fashions have wrought more harm than revolutions. They have cut to the quick. They have attacked the very bone and framework of art. They have cut, slashed, disorganized, killed the edifice, in form as in the symbol, in its consistency as well as in its beauty. And then they have made it over, a presumption of which neither time nor revolutions at least have been guilty. They have audaciously adjusted, in the name of good taste, upon the wounds of Gothic architecture, their miserable gigas of a day, their ribbons of marble, their pompons of metal, a veritable leprosy of egg-shaped ornaments, volutes, whirls, draperies, garlands, fringes, stone flames, bronze clouds, pudgy cupids, chubby cheeked cherubim, which begin to devour the face of art in the oratory of Catherine de Medici, and cause it to expire two centuries later, tortured and grimacing in the Boudoir of the Duberi. Thus to sum up the points which we have just indicated, three sorts of ravages today disfigure Gothic architecture. Wrinkles and warts on the epidermis, this is the work of time. Deeds of violence, brutalities, contusions, fractures, this is the work of the revolutionaries, from Luther to Maribor. Mutilations, amputations, dislocation of the joints, restorations, this is the Greek, Roman and barbarian work of professors according to Vitruvius and Vignol. This magnificent art produced by the vandals has been slain by the academies. The centuries, the revolutions, which at least devastate with impartiality and grandeur, have been joined by a cloud of school architects, licensed, sworn, and bound by oath. Facing with the discernment and choice of bad taste, substituting the chicories of Louis XV for the Gothic lace for the greater glory of the Parthenon. It is the kick of the ass at the dying lion. It is the old oak crowning itself, and which, to heap the measure full, is stung, bitten, and gnawed by caterpillars. How far it is from the epic when Robert Saint-Ali, comparing Notre-Dame de Paris to the famous temple of Diana at Ephesus. So much lauded by the ancient pagans, which aerostatus has immortalized from the Gallic temple, more excellent in length, breadth, height, and structure. Notre-Dame is not, moreover, what can be called a complete, definite, classified monument. It is no longer a Romanesque church, nor is it a Gothic church. This edifice is not a type. Notre-Dame de Paris has not, like the Abbey of Tornu, the grave and massive frame, the large and round vault, the glacial bareness, the majestic simplicity of the edifices which have the rounded arch for their progenitor. It is not, like the Cathedral of Bourges, the magnificent, light, multi-form, tufted, bristling, efflorescent product of the pointed arch. Impossible to class it in that ancient family of somber, mysterious churches, low and crushed as it were by the round arch, almost Egyptian, with the exception of the ceiling. All hieroglyphics, all sacerdotal, all symbolical, more loaded in their ornaments, with lozenges and zigzags than with flowers, with flowers than with animals, with animals than with men. The work of the architect less than of the bishop. First transformation of arts, all impressed with theocratic and military discipline, taking root in the lower empire and stopping with the time of William the Conqueror. Impossible to place our cathedral in that other family of lofty aerial churches, rich in painted windows and sculpture. Pointed in form, bold in attitude. Communal and bourgeois as political symbols. Free, capricious, lawless as a work of art. Second transformation of architecture, no longer hieroglyphic, immovable and sacerdotal. But artistic, progressive, and popular. Which begins at the return of the Crusades and ends with Louis the Ninth. Notre-Dame to Paris is not of pure Romanesque, like the first, nor of pure Arabian race, like the second. It is an edifice of the transition period. The Saxon architect completed the erection of the first pillars of the nave when the pointed arch, which dates from the Crusade, arrived and placed itself as a conqueror upon the large Romanesque capitals which should support only round arches. The pointed arch, mistress since that time, constructed the rest of the church. Nevertheless, timid and inexperienced at the start, it sweeps out, grows larger, restrains itself, and dares no longer dart upwards in spires and lancet windows, as it did later on in so many marvelous cathedrals. One would say that it were conscious of the vicinity of the heavy Romanesque pillars. However, these edifices of the transition from the Romanesque to the Gothic are no less precious for study than the pure types. They express a shade of the art which would be lost without them. It is the graft of the pointed upon the round arch. Notre-Dame to Paris is in particular a curious specimen of this variety. Each face, each stone of the venerable monument, is a page not only of the history of the country, but of the history of science and art as well. Thus, in order to indicate here only the principal details, while the little red door almost attains to the limits of the Gothic delicacy of the fifteenth century, the pillars of the nave, by their size and weight, go back to the carlovingian abbey of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés. One would suppose that six centuries separated these pillars from that door. There is no one, not even the Hermetics, who does not find in the symbols of the grand portale a satisfactory compendium of their science, of which the Church of Saint Jacques de la Boucherie was so complete a hieroglyph. Thus the Roman abbey, the Philosopher's Church, the Gothic art, Saxon art, the heavy round pillar which recalls the same as the one that was in the church of Saint-Geregory VII, the Hermetic symbolism with which Nicholas Flamel played the prelude de Luther, papal unity, schism, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, all are mingled, combined, amalgamated in Notre-Dame. This central mother-church is, among the ancient churches of Paris, a sort of chimera. It has the head of one, the head of another, something of all. We repeat it. These hybrid constructions are not the least interesting for the artists, for the antiquarian, for the historian. They make one feel to what a degree architecture is a primitive thing. By demonstrating, what is also demonstrated by the Cyclope investiges, the pyramids of Egypt, the gigantic Hindu pagodas, that the greatest products of architecture are less the works of individuals than of society. Rather, the offspring of a nation's effort than the inspired flash of a man of genius, the deposit left by a whole people, the heaps accumulated by centuries, the residue of successive evaporations of human society, in a word, species of formations. Each wave of time contributes its alluvium, each race deposits its layer on the monument, each individual brings his stone. Thus do the beavers, thus do the bees, thus do men. The great symbol of architecture, Babel, is a hive. Great edifices, like great mountains, are the work of centuries. Art often undergoes a transformation while they are pending. Pendent Alpira Interrupta. They proceed quietly in accordance with the transformed art. The new art takes the monument where it finds it, encrusts itself there, assimilates it to itself, develops it according to its fancy, and finishes it if it can. The thing is accomplished without trouble, without effort, without reaction, following a natural and tranquil law. It is a graft which shoots up, a sap which circulates, a vegetation which starts forth anew. Certainly there is matter here for many large volumes, and often the universal history of humanity in the successive engrafting of many arts at many levels upon the same monument. The man, the artist, the individual is effaced in these great masses, which lack the name of their author. Human intelligence is there summed up and totalized. Time is the architect. The nation is the builder. Not to consider here anything except the Christian architecture of Europe, that younger sister of the great masonrys of the Orient, it appears to the eyes as an immense formation divided into three well-defined zones, which are superposed, the one upon the other. The Romanesque zone, the Gothic zone, the zone of the Renaissance, which we would gladly call the Greco-Roman zone. The Roman lair, which is the most ancient and deepest, is occupied by the round arch, which reappears, supported by the Greek column in the modern and upper layer of the Renaissance. The pointed arch is found between the two. The edifices which belong exclusively to any of these three layers are perfectly distinct, uniform, and complete. There is the Abbey of Jumejet. There is the Cathedral of Rhymes. There is the Sainte-Croix of Orleans. But the three zones mingle and amalgamate along the edges, like the colours in the solar spectrum. Hence complex monuments, edifices of gradation and transition. One is Roman at the base, Gothic in the middle, Greco-Roman at the top. It is because it was six hundred years in building. This variety is rare. The Dungeon Keep of D'Atomp is a specimen of it. But monuments of two formations are more frequent. There is Notre-Dame-de-Paris, a pointed arch edifice, which is embedded by its pillars in that Roman zone, in which are plunged the portal of Saint-Denis and the nave of Saint-Germain-de-Prix. There is the charming, half-Gothic chapter-house of Beauchervie, where the Roman lair extends halfway up. There is the Cathedral of Rouen, which would be entirely Gothic if it did not bathe the tip of its central spire in the zone of the Renaissance. However, all these shades, all these differences, do not affect the surfaces of edifices only. It is art which has changed its skin. The very Constitution of the Christian Church is not attacked by it. There is always the same internal woodwork, the same logical arrangement of parts. Whatever may be the carved and embroidered envelope of a cathedral, one always finds beneath it, in the state of a germ, and of a rudiment at the least, the Roman basilica. It is eternally developed upon the soil according to the same law. There are, invariably, two naves, which intersect in a cross, and whose upper portion, rounded into an apse, forms the center. There are always the side aisles for interior processions, for chapels. A sort of lateral walks or promenades where the principal nave discharges itself through the space between the pillars. That settled, the number of chapels, doors, bell-towers, and pinnacles are modified to infinity, according to the fancy of the century, the people, and art. The service of religion once assured and provided for, architecture does what she pleases. Statues, stained glass, rose windows, arabesques, denticulations, capitals, ba reliefs, she combines all of these imaginings according to the arrangement which best suits her. Hence, the prodigious exterior variety of these edifices, at whose foundation dwells so much order and unity. The trunk of a tree is immovable, the foliage is capricious. End of chapter one.