CHAPTER VI

Three Men’s Hearts, Differently Constituted

Phœbus, however, was not dead. Men of his kind are hard to kill. When Master Philippe Lheulier, advocate extraordinary to the king, said to poor Esmeralda, “He is dying,” he was either mistaken or joking. When the archdeacon, in pronouncing her sentence, repeated, “He is dead,” the fact was that he knew nothing whatever about it, but that he supposed so, he reckoned upon it, had no doubt of it, sincerely hoped it was so. It would have been too much to expect of him, that he should carry good news of his rival to the woman he loved. Any man would have done the same in his place.

Not that Phœbus’s wound was not severe, but it was less so than the archdeacon flattered himself. The surgeon, to whose house the soldiers of the watch had at once carried him, had for a week feared for his life, and even told him so in Latin. However, youth triumphed ; and, as frequently happens, prognosis and diagnosis to the contrary, Nature amused herself by saving the patient in spite of the doctor. It was while he still lay upon his sick-bed that he underwent the first examination from Philippe Lheulier and the board of inquiry from the Bishop’s Court, which annoyed him exceedingly. Accordingly, one fine morning, feeling better, he left his golden spurs in payment of the doctor, and slipped away. This circumstance, moreover, did not at all disturb the legal proceedings. Justice in those days cared little for precision and accuracy in a criminal suit. Provided the prisoner were hanged, that was all that was necessary. Now, the judges had proof enough against Esmeralda. They believed Phoebus to be dead, and that was the end of the matter.

Phoebus, for his part, had not gone far. He simply rejoined his company, then in garrison at Queue-en-Brie, in the Ile-de-France, a few relays away from Paris.

After all, he had no desire to appear at the trial in person. He had a vague feeling that he should play a ridiculous part in it. In fact, he did not quite know what to think about the matter. Irreligious and superstitious, like most soldiers who are nothing but soldiers, when he questioned himself concerning the affair, he felt somewhat uneasy about the goat, about the strange fashion in which he first met Esmeralda, the no less strange fashion in which she had allowed him to guess her love for him, the fact of her gipsy blood, and lastly the goblin monk. He had a dim idea that there was far more magic than love in the story, that there was probably a witch, perhaps the devil, mixed up in it; it was a very disagreeable farce, or, to use the language of the day, a mystery, in which he played a most awkward part,—that of the butt for cuffs and laughter. He felt quite sheepish about it; he experienced that kind of shame which La Fontaine so admirably defines:—

“Shamefaced as a fox by timid chicken caught.”

However, he hoped that the affair would not be noised abroad, and that he being absent, his name would scarcely be mentioned, and in any case would not be known outside the court-room. In this he was not mistaken; for there was no Police Gazette then; and as a week seldom passed but there was some coiner boiled, or witch hanged, or heretic burned, by one of the innumerable justices of Paris, people were so much accustomed to seeing the old feudal Themis at every street corner, with her sleeves tucked up and her arms bare, doing her work at the gibbet, the whipping-post, or the pillory, that they hardly noticed her. The aristocracy of that day scarcely knew the name of the victim who passed them on the street, and at most it was only the mob that regaled itself with this coarse meat. An execution was a common incident in the highways, like the baker’s kneading-trough, or the butcher’s shambles. The hangman was but a kind of butcher a shade more skillful than the other.

Phœbus accordingly soon set his mind at rest in regard to the enchantress Esmeralda, or Similar, as he called her; to the stab inflicted by the gipsy or the goblin monk (to him it mattered little which); and to the issue of the trial. But no sooner was his heart vacant on that score, than the image of Fleur-de-Lys re-entered it. The heart of Captain Phoebus, like the physics of that time, abhorred a vacuum.

Besides, Queue-en-Brie was a very tedious abode,—a village of farriers, and dairymaids with chapped hands; a long string of huts and hovels bordering the high-road on either side for half a league.

Fleur-de-Lys was his last passion but one,—a pretty girl with a delightful dowry; therefore, one fine morning, completely cured of his wound, and feeling sure that after a lapse of two months the gipsy matter must be past and forgotten, the amorous knight appeared in state at the door of the Gondelaurier house.

He paid no heed to a somewhat numerous crowd which had gathered in the square in front of Notre-Dame; he recollected that it was the month of May; he supposed there was some procession, that it was Pentecost or some other holiday, fastened his horse to the ring at the porch, and went joyously upstairs to see his fair betrothed.

She was alone with her mother.

Fleur-de-Lys ever had upon her mind the scene with the sorceress, her goat, her accursed alphabet, and Phœbus’s long absence. Still, when her captain entered, he looked so handsome with his spick-and-span new uniform, his glittering baldric, and his impassioned air, that she blushed for pleasure.

The noble damsel herself was more lovely than ever. Her superb light hair was braided in the most ravishing manner; she was dressed from head to foot in that sky-blue which is so becoming to fair skins,—a piece of coquetry which Colombe had taught her; and her eyes swam in that languor of love which is still more becoming.

Phoebus, who had seen no beauties of any sort since he left the rustic wenches of Queue-en-Brie, was carried away by Fleur-de-Lys, and this lent such cordiality and gallantry to his manner that his peace was soon made. Madame de Gondelaurier herself, still seated maternally in her great arm-chair, had not the courage to scold him. As for the reproaches of Fleur-de-Lys, they died away in tender cooings.

The young girl sat by the window, still working away at her Neptune’s cave. The captain leaned against the back of her chair, and she addressed her affectionate complaints to him in an undertone.

“Where have you been for these two months, you naughty fellow?”

“I swear,” replied Phoebus, somewhat embarrassed by the question, “that you are handsome enough to disturb the dreams of an archbishop.”

She could not help smiling.

“There, there, sir! Leave my beauty out of the question, and answer me. Fine beauty, indeed!”

“Well, dear cousin, I was sent back to garrison.”

“And where, pray? And why didn’t you come and take leave of me?”

“At Queue-en-Brie.”

Phœbus was enchanted that the first question helped him to evade the second.

“But that is close by, sir. Why did you never come to see us?”

Here Phœbus was seriously embarrassed.

“Why—my duties—And then, fair cousin, I have been ill.”

“Ill!” she repeated in alarm.

“Yes,—wounded.”

“Wounded!”

The poor child was quite overcome.

“Oh, don’t be frightened about that!” said Phœbus, indifferently; “it was nothing. A quarrel, a sword-thrust; why should that trouble you?”

“Why should that trouble me?” cried Fleur-de-Lys, raising her lovely eyes bathed in tears. “Oh, you do not really mean what you say! What was this sword-thrust? I insist upon knowing everything.”

“Well, then, my dear, I had a row with Mahé Fédy,—you know whom I mean,—the lieutenant from Saint-Germain-en-Laye; and each of us ripped up a few inches of the other’s skin. That’s all there is about it.”

The lying captain was well aware that an affair of honor always exalts a man in a woman’s eyes. In fact, Fleur-de-Lys looked him in the face, quivering with terror, delight, and admiration. Still, she was not completely reassured.

“If you are sure that you are quite cured, dear Phoebus!” said she. “I don’t know your Mahé Fédy, but he is a bad man. And what did you quarrel about?”

Here Phoebus, whose imagination was only tolerably active, began to wonder how he was to get out of the scrape.

“Oh, I don’t know,—a trifle, a horse, a bit of gossip! Fair cousin,” cried he, in order to change the conversation, “what can that noise be in the square?”

He stepped to the window.

“Heavens! fair cousin, what a crowd there is in the square!”

“I don’t know,” said Fleur-de-Lys, “but I heard that a witch was to do public penance this morning before the church, and to be hanged afterwards.”

The captain felt so sure that Esmeralda’s affair was well over, that he took very little interest in Fleur-de-Lys’ words. Still he asked her one or two questions.

“What is this witch’s name?”

“I do not know,” replied she.

“And what do they claim that she has done?”

She again shrugged her white shoulders.

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, my sweet Savior!” said the mother, “there are so many sorcerers nowadays that they burn them, I verily believe, without knowing their names. You might as well try to find out the name of every cloud in the sky. After all, we may rest easy. The good God keeps his list.” Here the venerable lady rose, and came to the window. “Good Lord!” said she, “you’re right, Phoebus. What a rabble! Bless me! if they haven’t climbed upon the house-tops! Do you know, Phœbus, it reminds me of my young days. When King Charles VII entered Paris, there was exactly such a crowd. I’ve forgotten, now, just what year that was. When I talk to you of such matters, it seems to you like ancient history, doesn’t it, while to me it seems quite recent. Oh, that was a much finer-looking crowd than this is! They even hung upon the battlements of the Porte Saint-Antoine. The king had the queen on the crupper behind him, and after their Highnesses came all the ladies riding on the cruppers of all the lords. I remember people laughed well because beside Amanyon de Garlande, who was very short of stature, was my lord Matefelon, a knight of gigantic size, who had killed heaps of Englishmen. It was a splendid sight. A procession of all the gentlemen in France, with their oriflammes blazing in our very eyes. Some bore pennons and some bore banners. How can I tell you who they all were? There was the Lord of Calan, with his pennon; Jean de Châteaumorant with his banner; the Lord of Coucy, with his banner, and a showier one it was, too, than any of the others except that of the Duc de Bourbon. Alas! how sad it is to think that all that has been, and that nothing of it remains!”

The two lovers did not listen to the worthy dowager. Phœbus again leaned on the back of his sweetheart’s chair,—a charming position, whence his impudent gaze pierced every opening in Fleur-de-Lys’ neckerchief. This neckerchief gaped so opportunely, and permitted him to note so many exquisite things, and to divine so many others, that, dazzled by her skin with its satiny gloss, he said to himself, “How can anybody ever fall in love with any but a fair-skinned woman?”

Both were silent. The young girl occasionally looked up at him with rapture and affection, and their hair mingled in a spring sunbeam.

“Phœbus,” suddenly said Fleur-de-Lys in a low voice, “we are to marry in three months; swear to me that you have never loved any other woman but me.”

“I swear it, lovely angel!” replied Phœbus, and his passionate gaze combined with the truthful accent of his voice to convince Fleur-de-Lys. Perhaps he even believed himself at that instant.

Meanwhile the good mother, charmed to see the lovers on such excellent terms, had left the room to attend to some domestic detail. Phoebus perceived this, and solitude so emboldened the adventurous captain that his brain soon filled with very strange ideas. Fleur-de-Lys loved him; he was her betrothed; she was alone with him; his former fancy for her revived, not in all its freshness, but in all its ardor. After all, it is no great crime to eat some of your fruit before it is harvested. I know not whether all these thoughts passed through his mind, but certain it is that Fleur-de-Lys was suddenly frightened by the expression of his eyes. She looked about her, and saw that her mother had gone.

“Heavens!” said she, blushing and confused, “how warm I feel!”

“Indeed, I think,” said Phœbus, “that it must be almost noon. The sun is very annoying; I had better close the curtains.”

“No, no,” cried the poor girl; “on the contrary, I want air.”

And like a deer which feels the hot breath of the pack, she rose, ran to the window, opened it, and rushed out upon the balcony.

Phoebus, vexed enough, followed her.

The square before the cathedral of Notre-Dame, upon which, as we know, the balcony looked, at this moment offered a strange and painful spectacle, which quickly changed the nature of the timid Fleur-de-Lys’ fright.

A vast throng, which overflowed into all the adjacent streets, completely blocked the square. The little wall, breast-high, which surrounded the central part, known as the Parvis, would not have sufficed to keep it clear if it had not been reinforced by a thick hedge of sergeants of the Onze-Vingts and arquebusiers, culverin in hand. Thanks to this thicket of pikes and arquebusiers, it remained empty. The entrance was guarded by a body of halberdiers bearing the bishop’s arms. The wide church-doors were closed, in odd contrast to the countless windows overlooking the square, which, open up to the very gables, revealed thousands of heads heaped one upon the other almost like the piles of cannon-balls in an artillery park.

The surface of this mob was grey, dirty, and foul. The spectacle which it was awaiting was evidently one of those which have the privilege of extracting and collecting all that is most unclean in the population. Nothing could be more hideous than the noise which arose from that swarm of soiled caps and filthy headgear. In that crowd there was more laugher than shouting; there were more women than men.

Now and then some sharp, shrill voice pierced the general uproar.

“Hollo! Mahiet Baliffre. Will she be hung yonder?”

“Fool! that is where she’s to do penance in her shift. The priest will spit a little Latin at her. It’s always done here at noon. If you are looking for the gallows, you must go to the Place de Grève.”

“I’ll go afterwards.”

“I say, Boucanbry, is it true that she has refused a confessor?”

“So it seems, Bechaigne.”

“Look at that, the heathen!”

“Sir, it is the custom. The Palace bailiff is bound to deliver over the malefactor, sentence having been pronounced, for execution, if it be one of the laity, to the provost of Paris; if it be a scholar, to the judges of the Bishop’s Court.”

“I thank you, sir.”

“Oh, Heavens!” said Fleur-de-Lys, “the poor creature!”

The thought of the unfortunate victim filled with sadness the glance which she cast upon the crowd. The captain, far more absorbed in her than in that collection of rabble, amorously fingered her girdle from behind. She turned with the smiling entreaty,—

“For pity’s sake, let me alone, Phoebus! If my mother returned, she would see your hand!”

At this instant the clock of Notre-Dame slowly struck twelve. A murmur of satisfaction burst from the crowd. The last vibration of the twelfth stroke had scarcely died away, when the sea of heads tossed like the waves on a windy day, and a vast shout rose from the street, the windows, and the roofs:—

“There she is!”

Fleur-de-Lys covered her eyes with her hands that she might not see.

“My charmer,” said Phœbus, “will you go in?”

“No,” replied she; and those eyes which she had closed from fear she opened again from curiosity.

A tumbrel, drawn by a strong Norman cart-horse, and entirely surrounded by cavalry in violet livery with white crosses, had just entered the square from the Rue Saint Pierre aux Bœufs. The officers of the watch made a passage for it through the people with lusty blows of their whips. Beside the tumbrel rode a number of officers of justice and of police who might be known by their black dress and their awkward seat in the saddle. Master Jacques Charmolue paraded at their head. In the fatal wagon sat a young girl, her arms bound behind her, and no priest at her side. She was in her shift; her long black locks (it was the fashion then not to cut them until the foot of the gibbet was reached) fell upon her breast and over her half-naked shoulders.

Through this floating hair, glossier than the raven’s wing, a rough grey cord was twisted and knotted, chafing her delicate skin, and winding about the poor girl’s graceful neck like an earthworm around a flower. Beneath this rope glittered a tiny amulet ornamented with green glass beads, which she had doubtless been allowed to keep, because nothing is refused to those about to die. The spectators posted at the windows could see at the bottom of the tumbrel her bare legs, which she tried to hide under her, as if by a last feminine instinct. At her feet was a little goat, also bound. The prisoner held in her teeth her shift, which was not securely fastened.

Even in her misery she seemed to suffer at being thus exposed almost naked to the public gaze. Alas! it is not for such tremors that modesty is made.

“Only see, fair cousin,” said Fleur-de-Lys quickly to the captain, “it is that wicked gipsy girl with the goat.”

So saying, she turned to Phœbus. His eyes were fixed upon the tumbrel. He was very pale.

“What gipsy girl with the goat?” he stammered.

“Why, Phœbus!” rejoined Fleur-de-Lys; “don’t you remember—”

Phœbus interrupted her:—

“I don’t know what you mean.”

He took a step to re-enter; but Fleur de-Lys, whose jealousy, already so deeply stirred by this same gipsy, was again revived, cast a suspicious and penetrating look at him. She now vaguely recalled having heard that there was a captain concerned in the trial of this sorceress.

“What ails you?” said she to Phœbus; “one would think that this woman had disturbed you.”

Phœbus tried to sneer.

“Me! Not the least in the world! Me, indeed!”

“Then stay,” returned she, imperiously; “let us see it out.”

The luckless captain was forced to remain. He was somewhat reassured when he found that the prisoner did not raise her eyes from the bottom of her tumbrel. It was but too truly Esmeralda. Upon this last round of the ladder of opprobrium and misfortune she was still beautiful; her large black eyes looked larger than ever from the thinness of her cheeks; her livid profile was pure and sublime. She resembled her former self as one of Masaccio’s Virgins resembles a Virgin by Raphael,—feebler, thinner, weaker.

Moreover, her whole being was tossed hither and thither, and save for her sense of modesty, she had abandoned everything, so utterly was she crushed by stupor and despair. Her body rebounded with every jolt of the cart, like some shattered, lifeless thing. A tear still lingered in her eye, but it was motionless, and, as it were, frozen.

Meantime the mournful cavalcade had traversed the crowd amid shouts of joy and curious stares. Still, we must confess, as faithful historians, that many, even the hardest hearted, were moved to pity at the sight of so much beauty and so much misery.

The tumbrel had entered the Parvis.

Before the central door it stopped. The escort was drawn up in line on, either side. The mob was hushed, and amidst this solemn, anxious silence the two leaves of the great door moved, as if spontaneously, upon their creaking hinges. Then the entire length of the deep, dark church was seen, hung with black, faintly lighted by a few glimmering tapers upon the high altar, and opening like the jaws of some cavern in the middle of the square, dazzling with light. At the very end, in the shadows of the chancel, a huge silver cross was dimly visible, standing out in relief against a black cloth which hung from the roof to the floor. The whole nave was empty; but heads of priests were seen moving confusedly among the distant choir-stalls, and, at the moment that the great door was thrown open, a loud, solemn, and monotonous chant proceeded from the church, casting fragments of dismal psalms, like gusts of wind, upon the prisoner’s head:—

“Non timebo millia populi circumdantis me: exsurge, Domine; salvum me fac, Deus!

“Salvum me fac, Deus, quoniam intraverunt aquœ usque ad animam meam.

“Infixus sum in limo profundi; et non est substantia.”^de

At the same time another voice, apart from the choir, intoned from the steps of the high altar this mournful offertory:—

“Qui verbum meum audit, et credit ei qui misit me, habet vitam, æternam et in judicium non venit; sed transit a morte in vitam.”^df

This chant, sung afar off by a few old men lost in the darkness, over that beautiful being full of life and youth, caressed by the warm air of spring, bathed in sunshine, was a part of the mass for the dead.

The people listened quietly.

The wretched victim, in her terror, seemed to lose all power of sight and thought in the dark interior of the church. Her pale lips moved as if in prayer, and when the hangman’s assistant approached to help her down from the cart, he heard her murmur in an undertone the word “Phœbus.”

Her hands were untied, and she alighted, accompanied by her goat, which was also unbound, and which bleated with delight at regaining its freedom; and she was then led bare-footed over the hard pavement to the foot of the steps leading to the porch. The cord about her neck trailed behind her, like a serpent pursuing her.

Then the chanting in the church ceased. A great gold cross and a file of tapers began to move in the gloom; the halberds of the beadles in their motley dress clashed against the floor; and a few moments later a long procession of priests in chasubles and deacons in dalmatics marched solemnly towards the prisoner, singing psalms as they came. But her eyes were fixed upon him who walked at their head, immediately after the cross-bearer.

“Oh,” she whispered shudderingly, “there he is again! the priest!”

It was indeed the archdeacon. On his left was the assistant precentor, and on his right the precentor himself, armed with the wand of his office. He advanced, with head thrown back, eyes fixed and opened wide, chanting in a loud voice:—

“De ventre inferi clamavi, et exaudisti vocem meam.

“Et projecisti me in profundum in corde maris, et flumem circumdedit me.”^dg

When he appeared in full daylight under the lofty pointed arch of the portal, wrapped in a vast cope of cloth of silver embroidered with a black cross, he was so pale that more than one of the crowd thought that he must be one of those marble bishops kneeling upon the monuments in the choir, who had risen and come forth to receive on the threshold of the tomb her who was about to die.

She, no less pale and no less rigid, hardly noticed that a heavy lighted taper of yellow wax had been placed in her hand; she did not hear the shrill voice of the clerk reading the fatal lines of the penance; when she was told to answer “Amen,” she answered “Amen.” Nor was she restored to any slight sense of life and strength until she saw the priest sign to her jailers to retire, and himself advance alone towards her.

Then the blood boiled in her veins, and a lingering spark of indignation was rekindled in that already numb, cold soul.

The archdeacon approached her slowly; even in this extremity she saw him gaze upon her nakedness with eyes glittering with passion, jealousy, and desire. Then he said to her aloud, “Young girl, have you asked God to pardon your faults and failings?”

He bent to her ear and added (the spectators supposed that he was receiving her last confession). “Will you be mine? I can save you even yet!”

She gazed steadily at him: “Begone, demon! or I will denounce you!”

He smiled a horrible smile. “No one will believe you; you would only add a scandal to a crime. Answer quickly! Will you be mine?”

“What have you done with my Phœbus?”

“He is dead!” said the priest.

At this moment the miserable archdeacon raised his head mechanically, and saw at the opposite end of the square, upon the balcony of the Gondelaurier house, the captain standing beside Fleur-de-Lys. He staggered, passed his hand over his eyes, looked again, murmured a curse, and all his features were violently convulsed.

“So be it! die yourself!” he muttered. “No one else shall possess you.”

Then, raising his hand above the gipsy girl’s head, he exclaimed in funereal tones, “I nunc, anima anceps, et sit tibi Deus misericors!”^dh

This was the awful formula with which these somber ceremonies were wont to close. It was the signal agreed upon between the priest and the executioner.

The people knelt.

“Kyrie, eleison,” said the priests beneath the arch of the portal.

“Kyrie, eleison,” repeated the multitude with a noise which rose above their heads like the roar of a tempestuous sea.

“Amen,” said the archdeacon.

He turned his back upon the prisoner, his head again fell upon his breast, his hands were crossed, he rejoined his train of priests, and a moment later he disappeared, with cross, candles, and copes, beneath the dim arches of the cathedral, and his sonorous voice faded slowly down the choir, chanting these words of despair:

“Omnes gurgites tui et fluctus tui super me transierunt!”^di

At the same time the intermittent echo of the iron-bound shaft of the beadles’ halberds, dying away by degrees between the columns of the nave, seemed like the hammer of a clock sounding the prisoner’s final hour.

Meantime the doors of Notre-Dame remained open, revealing the church, empty, desolate, clad in mourning, silent and un-lighted.

The prisoner stood motionless in her place, awaiting her doom. One of the vergers was obliged to warn Master Charmolue, who during this scene had been studying the bas-relief upon the great porch, which represents, according to some, the Sacrifice of Abraham ; according to others, the great Alchemical Operation, the sun being typified by the angel, the fire by the fagot, and the operator by Abraham.

He was with some difficulty withdrawn from this contemplation; but at last he turned, and at a sign from him, two men clad in yellow, the executioner’s aids, approached the gipsy girl to refasten her hands.

The unhappy creature, as she was about to remount the fatal tumbrel and advance on her last journey, was perhaps seized by some poignant regret for the life she was so soon to lose. She raised her dry and fevered eyes to heaven, to the sun, to the silvery clouds here and there intersected by squares and triangles of azure; then she cast them down around her, upon the ground, the crowd, the houses. All at once, while the men in yellow were binding her elbows, she uttered a terrible shriek,—a shriek of joy. Upon yonder balcony, there, at the corner of the square, she had just seen him, her lover, her lord, Phœbus, the other apparition of her life.

The judge had lied! the priest had lied! It was indeed he, she could not doubt it; he was there, handsome, living, clad in his splendid uniform, the plume upon his head, his sword at his side!

“Phoebus!” she cried; “my Phoebus!”

And she strove to stretch out her arms quivering with love and rapture; but they were bound.

Then she saw the captain frown, a lovely young girl who leaned upon him look at him with scornful lip and angry eyes; then Phœbus uttered a few words which did not reach her, and both vanished hastily through the window of the balcony, which was closed behind them.

“Phœbus,” she cried in despair, “do you believe this thing?”

A monstrous idea had dawned upon her. She remembered that she had been condemned for the murder of Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers.

She had borne everything until now. But this last blow was too severe. She fell senseless upon the pavement.

“Come,” said Charmolue, “lift her into the tumbrel, and let us make an end of it!”

No one had observed, in the gallery of statues of the kings carved just above the pointed arches of the porch, a strange spectator who had until now watched all that happened with such impassivity, with so outstretched a neck, so deformed a visage, that, had it not been for his party-colored red and violet garb, he might have passed for one of those stone monsters through whose jaws the long cathedral gutters have for six centuries past disgorged themselves. This spectator had lost nothing that had passed since noon before the doors of Notre-Dame. And at the very beginning, unseen by any one, he had firmly attached to one of the small columns of the gallery a strong knotted rope, the end of which trailed upon the ground below. This done, he began to look about him quietly, and to whistle from time to time when a blackbird flew by him.

All at once, just as the hangman’s assistants were preparing to execute Charmolue’s phlegmatic order, he bestrode the balustrade of the gallery, seized the rope with his feet, knees, and hands; then he slid down the façade as a drop of rain glides down a window-pane, rushed towards the two executioners with the rapidity of a cat falling from a roof, flung them to the ground with his two huge fists, seized the gipsy girl in one hand, as a child might a doll, and with one bound was in the church, holding her above his head, and shouting in a tremendous voice,—

“Sanctuary!”

All this was done with such speed that had it been night, one flash of lightning would have sufficed to see it all.

“Sanctuary! sanctuary!” repeated the mob; and the clapping of ten thousand hands made Quasimodo’s single eye flash with pride and pleasure.

This shock restored the prisoner to her senses. She raised her eyelids, looked at Quasimodo, then closed them suddenly, as if alarmed by her savior.

Charmolue stood stupefied, and the hangman and all the escort did the same. In fact, within the precincts of Notre-Dame the prisoner was secure; the cathedral was a sure place of refuge; all human justice died upon its threshold.

Quasimodo had paused beneath the great portal, his broad feet seeming as firmly rooted to the pavement of the church as the heavy Roman pillars. His big bushy head was buried between his shoulders like the head of a lion which also has a mane and no neck. He held the young girl, trembling from head to foot, suspended in his horny hands like a white drapery; but he carried her as carefully as if he feared he should break or injure her. He seemed to feel that she was a delicate, exquisite, precious thing, made for other hands than his. At times he looked as if he dared not touch her, even with his breath. Then, all at once, he pressed her close in his arms, upon his angular bosom, as his treasure, his only wealth, as her mother might have done. His gnome-like eye, resting upon her, flooded her with tenderness, grief, and pity, and was suddenly lifted, flashing fire. Then the women laughed and wept, the mob stamped with enthusiasm, for at that instant Quasimodo was truly beautiful. He was beautiful,—he, that orphan, that foundling, that outcast; he felt himself to be august and strong; he confronted that society from which he was banished, and with whose decrees he had so powerfully interfered, that human justice from which he had wrested its prey, all those tigers with empty jaws, those myrmidons, those judges, those executioners, all that royal will which he had crushed, he,—the lowliest of creatures, with the strength of God.¹⁶

Then, too, how touching was the protection extended by so deformed a creature to one so unfortunate as the girl condemned to die, and saved by Quasimodo! It was the two extreme miseries of Nature and society meeting and mutually aiding each other.

However, after a few moments of triumph, Quasimodo plunged abruptly into the church with his burden. The people, lovers of all prowess, followed him with their eyes, regretting that he had so soon withdrawn from their plaudits. All at once he reappeared at one end of the gallery of the kings of France; he ran along it like a madman, holding his conquest aloft, and shouting, “Sanctuary!” The crowd broke into fresh applause. The gallery traversed, he again rushed into the interior of the church. A moment after, he reappeared upon the upper platform, the gipsy still in his arms, still running frantically, still shouting, “Sanctuary!” and the mob applauded. At last he appeared for the third time upon the summit of the tower of the big bell; from thence he seemed with pride to show the whole city her whom he had saved, and his thundering voice—that voice so rarely heard by any one, and never by himself—repeated thrice, with frenzy that pierced the very clouds: “Sanctuary! Sanctuary! Sanctuary!”

“Noël! Noël!” cried the people in their turn; and that vast shout was heard with amazement by the throng in the Place de Grève on the other bank of the river, and by the recluse, who still waited, her eyes riveted to the gallows.