Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo (best electronic book reader TXT) 📕

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