Hunchback of Notre Dame (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

Gringoire and the entire Court of Miracles were in a terrible state of anxiety. Esmeralda had not been heard from for a whole long month, which greatly grieved the Duke of Egypt and his friends the Vagrants; nor did any one know what had become of her goat, which redoubled Gringoire’s grief. One night the gipsy girl had disappeared, and since then had given no sign of life. All search for her was vain. Some malicious sham epileptics told Gringoire that they had met her that same evening near the Pont Saint-Michel, walking with an officer; but this husband, after the fashion of Bohemia, was an incredulous philosopher, and besides, he knew better than any one else how chaste his wife was. He had been able to judge what invincible modesty resulted from the two combined virtues of the amulet and the gipsy, and he had made a mathematical calculation of the resistance of that chastity multiplied into itself. He was therefore quite easy on this point.

But he could not explain her disappearance. It was a great grief to him, and he would have grown thin from fretting had such a thing been possible. He had, forgotten everything else,—even his literary tastes, even his great work, “De figuris regularibus et irregularibus,”^cy which he intended to have printed with the first money which he might have (for he raved about printing ever since he had seen the Didascalon of Hugues de Saint-Victor printed with the celebrated types of Wendelin de Spire).

One day, as he was walking sadly by the Tournelle, he noticed a crowd before one of the doors of the Palace of Justice.

“What’s the matter?” he asked a young man who was just coming out.

“I don’t know, sir,” replied the young man. “I hear that they are trying a woman who .murdered a man-at-arms. As it seems that there was witchcraft about it, the bishop and the judge of the Bishop’s Court have interfered in the matter; and my brother, who is archdeacon of Josas, spends his entire time here. Now, I wanted to speak to him; but I could not get at him on account of the crowd, which annoys me mightily, for I am in need of money.”

“Alas! sir,” said Gringoire, “I wish I could lend you some; but if my breeches are full of holes, it is not from the weight of coins.”

He dared not tell the young man that he knew his brother the archdeacon, whom he had not revisited since the scene in the church,—a neglect which embarrassed him.

The student went his way, and Gringoire followed the crowd, going up the stairs to the Great Hall. He considered that there was nothing like the sight of a criminal trial to dispel melancholy, the judges being generally most delightfully stupid. The people with whom he had mingled walked on and elbowed one another in silence. After a slow and tiresome progress through a long dark passage which wound through the Palace like the intestinal canal of the ancient edifice, he reached a low door opening into a hall, which his tall figure enabled him to examine over the moving heads of the mob.

The hall was huge and ill-lighted, which made it seem still larger. Evening was coming on; the long-pointed windows admitted but a faint ray of daylight, which faded before it reached the vaulted ceiling,—an enormous lattice-work of carved beams, whose countless figures seemed to move confusedly in the shadow. There were already several lighted candles here and there on the tables, and shining upon the heads of clerks bending over musty papers. The front of the hall was occupied by the crowd; to the right and left there were lawyers in their robes, and tables; in the background, upon a dais, a number of judges, the last rows of whom were lost in the darkness; their faces were forbidding and unmoved. The walls were plentifully sprinkled with fleurs-de-lis. A huge crucifix was dimly visible over the heads of the judges, and everywhere there were pikes and halberds tipped with fire by the light of the candles.

“Sir,” asked Gringoire of one of his neighbors, “who are all those people drawn up in line yonder, like prelates in council?”

“Sir,” said the neighbor, “those are the councillors of the High Chamber on the right, and the councillors of inquiry on the left,—the referendaries in black gowns, and the masters in scarlet ones.”

“Yonder, above them,” added Gringoire, “who is that big red-faced fellow in such a perspiration?”

“That is the president.”

“And those sheep behind him?” continued Gringoire, who, as we have already said, did not love the magistracy. This was perhaps partly due to the grudge which he had borne the Palace of Justice ever since his dramatic misadventure.

“Those are the masters of requests of the king’s household.”

“And that boar in front of them?”

“That is the clerk to the Court of Parliament.”

“And that crocodile on the right?”

“Master Philippe Lheulier, advocate extraordinary to the king.”

“And that big black cat on the left?”

“Master Jacques Charmolue, king’s proxy to the Ecclesiastical Court, with the officials.”

“Now, then, sir,” said Gringoire, “what are all these worthy men doing here?”

“They are trying a case.”

“Whom are they trying? I do not see the prisoner.”

“It’s a woman, sir. You cannot see her. She has her back to us, and is hidden from us by the crowd. Stay; there she is, where you see that group of halberds.”

“Who is the woman?” asked Gringoire. “Do you know her name?”

“No, sir; I have only just got here. I merely suppose that there is sorcery in the case, because the judge of the Bishop’s Court is present at the trial.”

“Well,” said our philosopher, “we will see all these men of the gown devour human flesh. It is as good a sight as any other.”

“Sir,” remarked his neighbor, “doesn’t it strike you that Master Jacques Charmolue has a very amiable air?”

“Hum!” replied Gringoire. “I always suspect an amiability with pinched nostrils and thin lips.”

Here their neighbors demanded silence from the two chatterers; an important piece of evidence was being heard.

“Gentlemen,” said an old woman in the middle of the hall, whose face was so lost in the abundance of her garments that she looked like a walking rag-bag,—“gentlemen, the thing is as true as it is true that my name is La Falourdel, and that I have lived for forty years on the Pont Saint-Michel, paying my rent, lord’s dues, and quit-rents punctually; and the door is just opposite the house of Tassin-Caillart the dyer, which is on the side looking up stream; a poor old woman now, a pretty girl once, gentlemen. Some one said to me only a few days ago, ‘La Falourdel, don’t sit at your wheel and spin too much of an evening; the devil loves to comb old women’s distaffs with his horn. It is very certain that the spectre monk who roamed about the Temple last year now haunts the City. La Falourdel, beware lest he knock at your door.’ One evening I was spinning at my wheel; there was a knock at the door. I asked who was there. Some one swore roundly. I opened. Two men came in,—one in black, with a handsome officer. I could only see the eyes of the one in black,—two burning coals; all the rest was hat and cloak. This is what they said to me: ‘The Saint Martha room.’ That is my upstairs room, gentlemen,—my nicest one. They gave me a crown piece. I put the crown in my drawer, and I said, ‘That shall be to buy tripe tomorrow at the Gloriette shambles.’ We went up. When we got to the upper room, while my back was turned the black man disappeared. This startled me a little. The officer, who was as handsome as any great lord, went downstairs again with me. He left the house. By the time I had spun a quarter of a skein he was back with a lovely young girl,—a puppet who would have shone like the sun if her hair had been well dressed. She had with her a goat,—a big goat. I have forgotten now whether it was black or white. That bothered me. As for the girl, she was none of my business; but the goat! I don’t like those animals; they have a beard and horns. They look like men. And then, they savor of sorcery. However, I said nothing. I had the crownpiece. That was right, my lord judge, wasn’t it? I took the captain and the girl to the upper room, and I left them alone,—that is, with the goat. I went down and began to spin again. You must know that my house has a ground-floor and a floor above; it overlooks the river at the back, like all the rest of the houses on the bridge, and the window on the ground-floor and the one above both open upon the water. As I say, I was spinning. I don’t know how I fell to thinking of the goblin monk, of whom the goat had reminded me; and then, that pretty girl was so queerly rigged out. All at once I heard a scream upstairs, and something fell on the floor, and the window opened. I ran to my window, which is just under it, and I saw a dark mass fall past me into the water. It was a phantom dressed like a priest. It was bright moonlight. I saw as plainly as possible. He swam away towards the City. Then, all in a tremble, I called the watch. Those gentlemen entered, and being somewhat merry, and not knowing what the matter was, they fell to beating me. But I soon explained things to them. We went upstairs, and what did we find? My poor room all stained with blood, the captain stretched out at full length with a dagger in his throat, the girl pretending to be dead, and the goat in a terrible fright. ‘Well done!’ said I; ‘it will take me more than a fortnight to scrub up these boards. I shall have to scrape them; it will be a dreadful piece of work!’ They carried off the officer,—poor young man!—and the girl, all disheveled and in disorder. But stay; the worst of all is that next day, when I went to get the crown to buy my tripe, I found a withered leaf in its place.”

The old woman paused. A murmur of horror ran round the room.

“The phantom, the goat, and all that, savor of sorcery,” said one of Gringoire’s neighbors.

“So does that withered leaf!” added another.

“No doubt,” continued a third, “the girl was a witch, who was in league with the goblin monk to plunder officers.”

Gringoire himself was inclined to consider the whole story both terrible and probable.

“La Falourdel,” said the president, majestically, “have you nothing more to tell the court?”

“No, my lord,” replied the old woman, “except that in the report my house was called a dirty, rickety hut, which is an outrageous way to talk. The houses on the bridge are not much to look at, because there are so many people there; but all the same even butchers don’t scorn to live there, and some of them are rich folks, and married to very neat, handsome women.”

The magistrate who had reminded Gringoire of a crocodile now rose.

“Silence!” said he. “I beg you, gentlemen, not to lose sight of the fact that a dagger was found upon the prisoner. La Falourdel, did you bring that leaf into which the crownpiece which the evil spirit gave you was changed?”

“Yes, my lord,” replied she; “I found it. Here it is.”

An usher handed the dead leaf to the crocodile, who shook his head mournfully, and passed it to the president, who sent it on to the king’s proxy to the Ecclesiastical Court; and in this way it went the round of the room.

“It is a birch-leaf,” said Master Jacques Charmolue. This was a fresh proof of magic.

A councillor next took up the word.

“Witness, two men went upstairs together in your house. The black man,—whom you first saw disappear, and afterwards swim the Seine in a priest’s gown,—and the officer. Which of the two gave you the money?”

The old woman thought for a moment, and said, “It was the officer.”

A confused clamor ran through the crowd.

“Ah!” thought Gringoire, “that shakes my conviction.”

However, Master Philippe Lheulier, advocate extraordinary to the king, interfered afresh.

“I must remind you, gentlemen, that in his deposition, written at his bedside, the murdered officer, while he declares that he had a vague idea at the instant the man in black accosted him that it might easily be the goblin monk, added that the phantom had urged him to keep his rendezvous with the prisoner; and upon his remarking that he had no money, gave him the crown, which the said officer paid away to La Falourdel. Therefore, the crown was a coin from hell.”

This conclusive observation seemed to dispel all the doubts of Gringoire and the other skeptics in the audience.

“Gentlemen, you have the brief,” added the king’s advocate, sitting down; “you can consult the statement of Phoebus de Châteaupers.”

At the sound of this name the prisoner rose; her head appeared above the crowd. The terrified Gringoire recognized Esmeralda.

She was pale; her hair, once so gracefully braided and spangled with sequins, fell about her in disorder; her lips were livid; her hollow eyes were horrible. Alas!

“Phœbus!” said she, wildly, “where is he? Oh, gentlemen, before you kill me, in pity tell me if he still lives!”

“Be silent, woman!” replied the president; “that does not con cern us.”

“Oh, have mercy! Tell me if he is alive!” she repeated, clasping her beautiful but emaciated hands; and her chains rattled as she moved.

“Well,” said the king’s advocate, drily, “he is dying! Are you satisfied?”

The wretched girl fell back upon her seat, voiceless, tearless, white as a waxen image.

The president leaned towards a man standing at his feet, with a golden cap and a black gown, a chain about his neck, and a wand in his hand.

“Usher, bring in the other prisoner.”

All eyes were turned upon a small door which opened, and to Gringoire’s great dismay a pretty goat, with gilded horns and hoofs, appeared. The dainty creature paused a moment on the threshold, stretching her neck as if, perched on the point of a rock, she had a vast horizon before her. All at once she saw the gipsy girl, and leaping over the table and the head of a clerk with two bounds, she was at her knees; then she curled herself gracefully at the feet of her mistress, imploring a word or a caress; but the prisoner remained motionless, and even poor Djali could not win a look from her.

“Why, but—That is the ugly beast I told you about,” said La Falourdel; “and I recognize the pair of them well enough!”

Jacques Charmolue interrupted her.

“If it please you, gentlemen, we will proceed to examine the goat.”

Such was indeed the other prisoner. Nothing was simpler at that time than to bring a suit for witchcraft against an animal. Among other details, we find in the provost’s accounts for 1466 a curious item of the costs of the trial of Gillet-Soulart and his sow, “executed for their demerits,” at Corbeil. Everything is set down,—the cost of the pen in which the sow was imprisoned, the five hundred bundles of short fagots brought from the port of Morsant, the three pints of wine and the bread for the victim’s last repast, fraternally shared by the executioner; even the eleven days’ feeding and keep of the sow, at eight Paris pence each. Sometimes they went even beyond animals. The capitularies of Charlemagne and Louis the Debonair inflict severe penalties upon those fiery phantoms who take the liberty of appearing in mid-air.

Meantime the king’s proxy to the Ecclesiastical Court cried aloud, “If the devil possessing this goat, and which has resisted every exorcism, persist in his evil deeds, if he terrify the court with them, we warn him that we shall be compelled to send him to the gibbet or the stake.”

Gringoire was in a cold perspiration. Charmolue took from a table the gipsy girl’s tambourine, and presenting it to the goat in a particular way, he asked the creature:

“What time is it?”

The goat looked at him with an intelligent eye, lifted her gilded hoof, and struck seven blows. It was indeed seven o‘clock. A movement of terror ran through the crowd.

Gringoire could not restrain himself.

“She is lost!” he cried aloud; “you see that she doesn’t know what she is doing.”

“Silence among the people at the end of the hall!” said the usher, sharply.

Jacques Charmolue, by the aid of the same maneuvers with the tambourine, made the goat perform various other tricks as to the day of the month, the month of the year, etc., which the reader has already witnessed. And, by an optical illusion common to judicial debates, those same spectators who had perhaps more than once applauded the innocent pranks of Djali in the public streets, were terrified by them within the walls of the Palace of Justice. The goat was clearly the devil.

It was still worse when, the king’s proxy having emptied out upon the floor a certain leather bag full of movable letters, which Djali wore about her neck, the goat selected with her foot the separate letters spelling out the fatal name “Phœbus.” The spells to which the captain had fallen a victim seemed to be irresistibly demonstrated; and, in all eyes, the gipsy girl—that enchanting dancer who had so often dazzled the passers-by with her grace—was nothing but a horrible witch.

Moreover, she gave no sign of life; neither the pretty pranks of Djali, nor the threats of the magistrates, nor the muttered curses of the audience seemed to reach her ear.

In order to rouse her, an officer was forced to shake her most unmercifully, the president raising his voice solemnly as he said:—

“Girl, you are of the gipsy race, addicted to sorceries. You, with your accomplice, the bewitched goat involved in the charge, did, upon the night of the 29th of March last, murder and stab, in league with the powers of darkness, by the aid of charms and spells, a captain of the king’s troops, one Phoebus de Châteaupers. Do you persist in denying this?”

“Horrible!” cried the young girl, hiding her face in her hands. “My Phœbus! oh, this is indeed hell!”

“Do you persist in your denial?” coldly asked the president.

“Certainly I deny it!” said she, in terrible accents; and she rose to her full height, her eyes flashing.

The president continued bluntly:—

“Then how do you explain the facts alleged against you?”

She answered in a broken voice,—

“I have told you already. I do not know. It was a priest,—a priest whom I do not know; an infernal priest who has long pursued me!”

“There it is,” said the judge; “the goblin monk.”

“Oh, my lords, have pity! I am only a poor girl.”

“A gipsy,” said the judge.

Master Jacques Charmolue said gently,—

“In view of the prisoner’s painful obstinacy, I demand that she be put to the rack.”

“Agreed,” said the president.

The wretched girl shuddered. Still, she rose at the order of the halberdiers, and walked with quite firm step, preceded by Charmolue and the priests of the Bishop’s Court, between two rows of halberds, towards a low door, which suddenly opened and closed behind her, making the unhappy Gringoire feel as if she had been devoured by some awful monster.

As she disappeared, a plaintive bleat was heard. It was the little goat mourning for her.

The hearing was over. A councillor remarked that the gentlemen were tired, and that it would be a long time for them to wait until the torture was over; and the president replied that a magistrate should be ever ready to sacrifice himself to his duty.

“What a disagreeable, tiresome jade,” said an old judge, “to force us to send her to the rack when we have not supped!”