CHAPTER I

The Little Shoe

When the Vagrants attacked the church, Esmeralda was asleep.

Soon the ever-increasing noise about the building, and the anxious bleating of her goat, which waked before she did, roused her from her slumbers. She sat up, listened, looked about; then, alarmed by the light and commotion, hurried from her cell to see what it all meant. The aspect of the square, the vision which she beheld, the disorder and confusion of this night attack, the hideous rabble bounding hither and thither like an army of frogs half seen in the darkness, the croaking of the hoarse mob, the few red torches moving and dancing in the darkness like will-o‘-the-wisps sporting on the misty surface of a marsh,—the whole scene produced upon her the effect of a weird battle waged by the phantoms of the Witches’ Sabbath and the stone monsters of the church. Imbued from infancy with the superstitious notions of the gipsy tribe, her first thought was that she had surprised the strange beings of the night in their sorceries. Thus she ran back to her cell in affright to hide her head, and implore her pillow to send her some less horrid nightmare.

Little by little, however, the first fumes of fear vanished; from the ever-increasing tumult, and from various other tokens of reality, she felt that she was beset, not by specters, but by human beings. Then her terror, without being augmented, changed its nature. She reflected upon the possibility of a popular revolt to tear her from her refuge. The idea of again losing life, hope, and Phoebus, whom she still hoped to win in the future, her own absolute defenselessness, all flight cut off, no help at hand, her forlorn condition, her isolation,—these thoughts and countless others overwhelmed her. She fell upon her knees, her face buried in the bed-clothes, her hands clasped above her head, full of agony and apprehension, and, gipsy, pagan, and idolater though she was, she began with sobs to entreat mercy of the good Christian God, and to pray to her hostess, Our Lady. For, believe in nothing though one may, there are moments in life when one belongs to the creed of whatever church is nearest.

She lay thus prostrate for a very long time, trembling indeed, far more than she prayed, chilled by the ever-advancing breath of that frantic mob, wholly ignorant of the meaning of their unbridled rage, knowing not what was on foot, what was being done, what object that throng had in view, but foreseeing some terrible issue.

In the midst of her anguish she heard steps close at hand. She turned. Two men, one of whom carried a lantern, entered her cell. She uttered a faint shriek.

“Fear nothing,” said a voice which was not unknown to her; “it is I.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Pierre Gringoire.”

That name calmed her fears. She raised her eyes, and saw that it was indeed the poet; but beside him stood a black figure veiled from head to foot, which silenced her.

“Ah!” replied Gringoire in reproachful tones, “Djali knew me before you did!”

The little goat, in fact, did not wait for Gringoire to pronounce his name. He had no sooner entered, than she rubbed herself fondly against his knees, covering the poet with caresses and white hairs,—for she was shedding her coat. Gringoire returned her caresses.

“Who is that with you?” said the gipsy in a low voice.

“Never fear,” replied Gringoire; “it’s a friend of mine.”

Then the philosopher, placing his lantern on the ground, crouched upon the flagstones, and enthusiastically exclaimed, as he clasped Djali in his arms,—

“Oh, ‘tis a pretty creature, doubtless more remarkable for her neatness than her size, but ingenious, subtle, and learned as any grammarian of them all! Come, my Djali, let us see if you have forgotten any of your cunning tricks! Show us how Master Jacques Charmolue does—”

“The man in black would not let him finish. He stepped up to him and gave him a rude shove on the shoulder. Gringoire rose.

“True,” said he; “I forgot that we are in haste. Still, that’s no reason, master mine, for handling people so roughly. My dear child, your life is in danger, and Djali’s too. They want to hang you again. We are your friends, and are come hither to save you. Follow us.”

“Is it true?” cried she, distractedly.

“Yes, quite true. Come quickly!”

“I will,” she stammered. “But why doesn’t your friend speak?”

“Ah!” said Gringoire, “that’s because his father and mother were queer people, and brought him up to be silent.”

She was forced to rest content with this explanation. Gringoire took her by the hand; his companion picked up the lantern and went on before. The girl was dizzy with dread. She let them lead her away. The goat followed them with leaps of delight, so rejoiced to see Gringoire once more that she made him stumble every moment by thrusting her horns between his legs.

“Such is life,” said the philosopher at each escape from falling; “it is often our best friends who cause our downfall!”

They rapidly descended the tower stairs, traversed the church, full of solitude and gloom, but echoing with the din without in frightful contrast to the peace within, and came into the cloister courtyard by the Porte-Rouge. The cloister was deserted; the clergy had fled to the bishop’s palace to pray together; the court was empty, save for a few timid lackeys hiding in dark corners. They made their way towards the door which led from this courtyard to the Terrain. The man in black opened it with a key which he had about him. Our readers know that the Terrain was a strip of ground enclosed with walls on the City side, and belonging to the Chapter of Notre-Dame, which formed the extreme eastern end of the island in the rear of the church. They found this enclosure quite forsaken. Here there was already less noise in the air. The sound of the Vagrants’ assault reached them more faintly, less harshly. The fresh wind which followed the course of the stream stirred with a perceptible rustle the leaves of the one tree planted at the tip of the Terrain. However, they were still very close to the danger. The nearest buildings were the Episcopal palace and the church. There was plainly great commotion within the palace. The gloomy mass was furrowed with lights, which flew from one window to another, as when you burn paper a dark structure of ashes remains, upon which bright sparks trace countless grotesque figures. Beside it the huge towers of Notre-Dame, thus viewed from the rear with the long nave upon which they are built, outlined in black against the vast red light which filled the square, looked like two monstrous andirons for a fire of the Cyclops.

In all directions, so much of Paris as could be seen shimmered in blended light and shade. Rembrandt has just such backgrounds in some of his pictures.

The man with the lantern walked straight to the end of the Terrain. There, on the very edge of the water, were the worm-eaten remains of a picket-fence with laths nailed across, to which a few withered branches of a low vine clung like the fingers of an open hand. Behind, in the shadow of this trellis, a small boat was hidden. The man signed to Gringoire and his companion to enter it. The goat followed them. The man stepped in last; then he cut the hawser, shoved off from the shore with a long boat-hook, and seizing a pair of oars, seated himself in the bow, rowing with all his strength towards the middle of the stream. The Seine runs very swiftly at this point, and he had some difficulty in clearing the end of the island.

Gringoire’s first care on entering the boat, was to take the goat upon his knees. He sat down in the stern; and the young girl, whom the stranger inspired with indescribable fears, took her place close beside the poet.

When our philosopher felt the boat moving, he clapped his hands, and kissed Djali between her horns.

“Oh,” said he, “here we are all four saved!”

He added, with the look of a deep thinker, “One is sometimes indebted to fortune, sometimes to cunning, for the happy issue of a great undertaking.”

The boat proceeded slowly towards the right bank. The young girl watched the stranger with secret dread. He had carefully covered the light of his dark-lantern, and was but dimly visible, in the gloom, like a ghost in the bow of the boat His cowl, still drawn down, formed a sort of mask over his face; and every time that he opened his arms, with their wide hanging black sleeves, in rowing, they looked like the broad wings of a bat. Moreover, he had not yet breathed a word. The only sound in the boat was that of the oars, mingled with the ripple of the water against the side of the boat.

“By my soul!” suddenly exclaimed Gringoire, “we are as gay and lively as so many owls! We’re as silent as Pythagoreans or fishes! By the Rood! my friends, I wish one of you would speak to me. The human voice is music to the human ear. I am not the author of that remark, but Didymus of Alexandria is, and famous words they are. Certes, Didymus of Alexandria is no mean philosopher. One word, my pretty child,—say one word to me, I implore. By the way, you used to make a queer, funny little face; do you still make it? Do you know, my darling, that Parliament holds jurisdiction over all sanctuaries, and that you ran great risks in your cell in Notre-Dame? Alas! the little bird trochylus builds its nest in the jaws of the crocodile. Master, there’s the moon peeping out again. How I hope they won’t see us! We are doing a laudable deed in saving the damsel, and yet we should be hanged in the king’s name if we were caught. Alas! human actions may be taken two ways. I am condemned for the same thing for which you are rewarded. Some admire Cæsar and blame Catiline. Isn’t that so, master mine? What do you say to that philosophy? For my part, I possess the philosophy of instinct, of Nature (ut apes geometriam).^dz— What! nobody answers me! What disagreeable tempers you both have! I must needs talk to myself. That’s what we call in tragedy a monologue. By the Rood!—I must tell you that I’ve just seen King Louis XI, and that I caught that oath from him,—by the Rood, then, they’re still keeping up a fine howling in the City! He’s a wicked old villain of a king. He’s all muffled up in furs. He still owes me the money for my epithalamium, and he came precious near hanging me tonight, which would have bothered me mightily. He is very stingy to men of merit. He really ought to read the four books by Salvien of Cologne, ‘Adversus avaritiam.’^ea In good sooth, he is a very narrow-minded king in his dealings with men of letters, and one who commits most barbarous cruelties. He’s a sponge to soak up money squeezed from the people . His economy is like the spleen, which grows fat upon the leanness of all the other members. Thus, complaints of the hardness of the times become murmurs against the sovereign. Under the reign of this mild and pious lord, the gallows crack with their weight of victims, the headsman’s blocks grow rotten with blood, the prisons are filled to bursting. This king takes in money with one hand and hangs men with the other. He is pander to my lady Taxes and my lord Gibbet. The great are stripped of their dignities, and the small are ceaselessly loaded with new burdens. ‘Tis an extravagant prince. I do not love this monarch. And how say you, my master?”

The man in black suffered the babbling poet to prate his fill. He continued to struggle against the strong and angry current which divides the prow of the City from the stern of the Ile Notre-Dame, which we now know as the Ile Saint-Louis.

“By the way, master,” suddenly observed Gringoire, “just as we made our way into the square through the angry Vagabonds, did your reverence note that poor little devil whose brains your deaf friend was about dashing out against the railing of the gallery of kings? I am near-sighted, and did not recognize him. Do you know who it could be?”²⁰

The stranger made no answer, but he ceased rowing; his arms fell powerless; his head drooped upon his breast, and Esmeralda heard him heave a convulsive sigh. She shuddered; she had heard similar sighs before.

The boat, left to itself, drifted with the current for some moments. But finally the man in black drew himself up, again seized the oars, and began again to pull against the stream. He rounded the end of the Ile Notre-Dame, and bent his course towards the landing-place of the Hay-Market.

“Ah!” said Gringoire, “there’s the Logis Barbeau. There, master, look: that collection of black roofs which form such strange angles; there, beneath that mass of low, stringy, streaked, and dirty clouds, where the moon looks like the yolk of a broken egg. ‘Tis a handsome house. It contains a chapel capped by a tiny dome full of daintily wrought decorations. Above it you may see the bell-tower with its delicate tracery. There is also a pleasant garden, consisting of a fish-pond, an aviary, an echo, a mall, a labyrinth, a house for wild beasts, and a quantity of shady alleys most agreeable to Venus. There is also a rascally tree, which goes by the name of the Lovers’ Retreat, because it once hid the meetings of a famous French princess and a gallant and witty constable of France. Alas! we poor philosophers are to a constable what a bed of cabbages and radishes is to the gardens of the Louvre. What does it matter, after all? Human life, for the great as well as for us, is made up of mingled good and ill. Grief goes ever hand in hand with gladness, as the spondee with the dactyl. Master, I must tell you the story of this Logis Barbeau. It ends in tragic fashion. It was in 1319, during the reign of Philip V, the longest of all the French kings. The moral of the story is, that the temptations of the flesh are hurtful and pernicious. Do not look too often at your neighbor’s wife, much as your senses may be tickled by her beauty. Fornication is a very libertine thought. Adultery is curiosity about another’s pleasure. Hollo! The noise seems to be growing louder over yonder!”

The din around Notre-Dame was indeed increasing rapidly. They paused and listened. They distinctly heard shouts of victory. All at once a hundred torches, which lit up the glittering helmets of men-at-arms, appeared upon all parts of the church,—upon the towers, galleries, and flying buttresses. These torches seemed searching for some one or something; and soon distant cries of, “The gipsy! The witch! Death to the gipsy!” fell plainly on the ears of the fugitives.

The wretched girl hid her face in her hands, and the unknown boatman began to row frantically for the shore. Meantime our philosopher reflected. He hugged the goat in his arms, and edged very gently away from the gipsy, who nestled closer and closer to him, as her only remaining protector.

Gringoire was certainly cruelly perplexed. He considered that the goat too, “according to the existing law,” would be hanged if she were recaptured, which would be a great pity,—poor Djali! that it was quite too much of a good thing to have two condemned prisoners clinging to him at once; and, finally, that his companion asked nothing better than to take sole charge of the girl. A violent conflict went on within him, in which, like Jupiter in the Iliad, he alternately weighed the merits of the gipsy and the goat; and he gazed first at the one, then at the other, with tearful eyes, muttering, “After all, I cannot save you both!”

A shock warned them that the boat had reached shore. The ominous uproar still pervaded the City. The stranger rose, approached the gipsy, and tried to take her by the arm to help her to land. She repulsed him, and clung to Gringoire’s sleeve, while he, in his turn, absorbed in the goat, almost pushed her from him. Then she sprang from the boat unaided. She was so distressed that she knew not what she was doing, or where she was going. She stood thus stupefied an instant, watching the water as it glided by. When she had somewhat recovered her senses, she was alone upon the wharf with the stranger. It seems that Gringoire had taken advantage of the moment of their landing, and stolen away with the goat into the throng of houses in the Rue Grenier-sur-l‘Eau.²¹

The poor gipsy shuddered when she found herself alone with this man. She tried to speak, to cry out, to call Gringoire; her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, and no sound issued from her lips. All at once she felt the hand of the unknown upon her arm. It was a cold, strong hand. Her teeth chattered, she turned paler than the moonbeams which illumined her face. The man said not a word. He strode rapidly towards the Place de Grève, holding her firmly by the hand. At that moment she vaguely felt that fate is an irresistible power. She had lost all control of her limbs; she suffered him to drag her along, running while he walked. The quay at this point rises abruptly from the river, but it seemed to her as if she were going down hill.

She looked in every direction. Not a single passer. The quay was absolutely deserted. She heard no sound, she perceived no stir save in the tumultuous and blazing City from which she was separated only by an arm of the Seine, and whence her name came to her joined with threats of death. The rest of Paris lay spread around her in great masses of shadow.

Meantime, the stranger drew her on in the same silence and with the same speed. She recognized none of the places through which she passed. As she went by a lighted window she made an effort, suddenly resisted him, and cried, “Help!”

The owner of the house opened the window, appeared in his shirt with his lamp, looked out upon the quay with a drowsy face, pronounced a few words which she did not catch, and closed the shutter. Thus her last glimmer of hope faded.

The man in black did not utter a syllable; he held her fast, and began to increase his speed. She resisted no longer, but followed him helplessly.

From time to time she mustered a little strength, and said in a voice broken by the unevenness of the pavement and the breathless haste with which she was borne along: “Who are you? Who are you?” He made no reply.

In this way they proceeded along the edge of the quay to an open square of considerable size. The moon shone faintly. They were in the Place de Grève. In the middle stood a sort of black cross; it was the gallows. She recognized all this, and knew where she was.

The man stopped, turning to her, and lifted his cowl.

“Oh!” stammered she, frozen with fear; “I was sure that it must be he.”

It was the priest. He looked like the ghost of himself. This was due to the moonlight. It seems as if by that light one could see only the specters of things.

“Listen!” said he; and she trembled at the sound of that fatal voice which she had not heard for so long a time. He went on, with the short, quick gasps which betray deep mental emotion: “Listen! We have reached our goal. I must speak with you. This is the Place de Grève. This is a decisive point in our lives. Fate has delivered us over to each other. Your life is in my hands; my soul rests in yours. Beyond this place and this night all is dark. Hear me, then. I am going to tell you—But first, speak not to me of your Phœbus.” (As he said this he came and went, like a man who cannot remain quietly in one place, dragging her after him.) “Speak not of him. If you but mention his name, I know not what I shall do, but it will be something terrible.”

This said, like a body which has found its center of gravity, he again stood still, but his words revealed no less emotion. His voice grew lower and lower.

“Do not turn away your head. Listen to me. It is a serious business. In the first place, I will tell you what has happened. It is no laughing matter, I assure you. What was I saying? Remind me! Ah! There is an order from Parliament which returns you to the scaffold. I have rescued you from the hangman’s hands; but even now they are in pursuit of you. See!”

He stretched his arm towards the City. The search did indeed seem to be continued. The noise drew nearer; the tower of the lieutenant’s house, directly facing the Place de Grève, was full of light and bustle, and soldiers were seen running along the opposite quay with torches, shouting: “The gipsy! Where is the gipsy? Death! Death!”

“You see that they are in pursuit of you, and that I do not lie. I love you. Do not open your lips; rather, do not speak to me, if it be to tell me that you hate me. I am resolved never again to hear that. I have saved you.—Let me finish first.—I can save you wholly. Everything is ready. It is for you to choose. I can do as you would have me.”

He interrupted himself excitedly: “No, that is not what I meant to say.”

Then, running, and making her run after him,—for he did not loose his hold,—he went straight to the gibbet, and pointed to it.

“Choose between us,” said he, coldly.

She tore herself from his grasp, and fell at the foot of the gibbet, throwing her arms about that dismal support; then she half turned her lovely head, and looked at the priest over her shoulder. She seemed a Holy Virgin at the foot of the cross. The priest remained motionless, his finger still raised to the gallows, his gesture unchanged as if he were a statue.

At last the gipsy said,—

“It is less horrible to me than you are.”

Then he let his arm drop slowly, and gazed at the pavement in deep dejection.

“If these stones could speak,” he murmured, “yes, they would say, ‘There is a very miserable man.’”

He went on. The girl, kneeling before the gibbet, and veiled by her long hair, let him speak without interruption. He had now assumed a gentle, plaintive tone, in painful contrast with the proud severity of his features.

“I love you. Oh, it is indeed true! Is there then no visible spark of that fire which burns my soul? Alas! girl, night and day; yes, night and day,—does this deserve no pity? It is a love which consumes me night and day, I tell you; it is torture. Oh, my suffering is too great to be endured, my poor child! It is a thing worthy of compassion, I assure you. You see that I speak gently to you. I would fain have you cease to feel such horror of me. After all, if a man love a woman, it is not his fault! Oh, my God! What! will you never forgive me? Will you always hate me? Is this the end? It is this that makes me wicked, I tell you, and horrible in my own sight! You do not even look at me! You are thinking of other things, perhaps, while I stand and talk to you, and both of us are trembling on the verge of eternity! But do not talk to me of your soldier! What; I might throw myself at your knees; what! I might kiss, not your feet, for that you would not suffer, but the ground beneath your feet; what! I might sob like a child: I might tear from my bosom, not words, but my heart and my very life, to show you how I love you; all would be in vain,—all! And yet your soul is full of gentleness and tenderness; you are radiant with the most beauteous mildness; you are all sweetness, goodness, mercy, and charm. Alas! you are unkind to me alone! Oh, what a freak of fate!”

He buried his face in his hands. The young girl heard his sobs. It was the first time she had seen him weep. Standing thus, shaken by sobs, he appeared more miserable and more suppliant than had he been on his knees. He wept thus for some time.

“Ah, well!” he added, his first tears over, “I can find no words to express my feelings; and yet I pondered well what I should say to you. Now, I tremble and shudder; I give way at the decisive moment; I feel that some superior power surrounds us, and I stammer. Oh, I shall fall to the ground if you do not take pity upon me, upon yourself! Do not condemn us both! If you knew how much I love you; what a heart mine is! Oh, what an abandonment of all virtue! what a desperate desertion of myself! A scholar, I scoff at science; a gentleman, I disgrace my name; a priest, I make my missal a pillow of foul desires, grossly insult my God! All this for your sake, enchantress! to be worthy of your hell! And you reject the damned soul! Oh, let me tell you all! more still, something yet more horrible, oh, far more horrible—”

As he pronounced these last words, his look became quite wild. He was silent an instant, then resumed as if talking to himself, and in a firm voice,—

“Cain, what hast thou done with thy brother?”

There was another pause, and he added,—

“What have I done with him, Lord? I took him in my arms, I brought him up, I fed him, I loved him, I idolized him, and I killed him! Yes, Lord, for they have just now dashed his head, before my very eyes, against the stones of your temple, and it was because of me, because of this woman, because of her—”

His eye was haggard. His voice died away; he still repeated mechanically, over and over, at considerable intervals, like a bell prolonging its last vibration, “Because of her; because of her—”

Here his tongue ceased to articulate any distinct sound, although his lips still moved. All at once he gave way, and sank in a heap, lying motionless upon the ground, his head upon his knees.

A slight movement made by the girl to pull her foot from under him revived him. He slowly drew his hand over his hollow cheeks, and looked in amazement at his fingers, which were wet. “What!” he muttered, “have I wept?”

And turning quickly to the gipsy with indescribable anguish:—

“Alas! and you could coldly see me weep! Child, do you know that those tears are burning lava? Is it then really true,—in the man we hate, nothing moves us? You would see me die, and still laugh! One word,—only one word of pardon! Do not tell me that you love me, only tell me that you will try; that shall suffice, and I will save you. If not,—oh, time passes. I conjure you! by all that you hold sacred, do not wait until I am once more turned to stone, like that gibbet which also claims you! Think, that I hold the destinies of both in my hand; that I am mad,—it is terrible!—that I may let all fall; and that beneath us yawns a bottomless pit, wretched girl, wherein my fall shall follow yours through all eternity! One word of kindness,—but a single word!”

She opened her mouth to answer him. He threw himself upon his knees before her, to receive with adoration the words, perhaps relenting, which were about to fall from her lips. She said to him, “You are an assassin!”

The priest caught her fiercely in his arms, and began to laugh an abominable laugh.

“Well, yes, an assassin!” said he; “and you shall be mine. You will not have me for your slave, you shall have me for your master. You shall be mine! You shall be mine! I have a den whither I will drag you. You must follow me, you must needs follow me, or I will give you up to justice! You must die, my beauty, or be mine,—be the priest‘s, the apostate’s, the assassin‘s! and that this night; do you hear me? Come! rejoice; come, kiss me, foolish girl! The tomb, or my bed!”

His eyes flashed with rage and desire. His impure lips reddened the neck of the young girl. She struggled in his arms. He covered her with frantic kisses.

“Do not bite me, monster!” she shrieked. “Oh, the hateful, poisonous monk! Let me go! I will tear out your vile grey hair, and throw it by handfuls in your face!”

He flushed, then paled, then released her, and looked at her gloomily. She thought herself victorious, and went on:—

“I tell you that I belong to my Phœbus, that ‘tis Phoebus I love, that Phœbus alone is handsome! You priest, are old! you are ugly! Begone!”

He uttered a violent cry, like the wretch to whom a red-hot iron is applied. “Then die!” he said, gnashing his teeth. She saw his frightful look, and strove to fly. He overtook her, shook her, threw her down, and walked rapidly towards the corner of the Tour-Roland, dragging her after him over the pavement by her fair hands.

Reaching it, he turned to her:—

“For the last time, will you be mine?”

She answered emphatically,—

“No!”

Then he called in a loud voice,—

“Gudule! Gudule! here is the gipsy girl! Avenge yourself!”

The young girl felt herself suddenly seized by the elbow. She looked. A fleshless arm was thrust from a loop-hole in the wall, and held her with an iron grip.

“Hold her fast!” said the priest; “it’s the runaway gipsy. Do not let her go. I will fetch the officers. You shall see her hanged.”

A guttural laugh from the other side of the wall replied to these bloody words: “Ha! ha! ha!” The gipsy saw the priest depart in the direction of the Pont Notre-Dame. The tramp of horses was heard coming from that quarter.

The girl recognized the spiteful recluse. Panting with terror, she tried to release herself. She writhed, she twisted herself in agony and despair; but the woman held her with unnatural strength. The thin bony fingers which bruised her flesh fastened about her arm like a vise. That hand seemed riveted to her wrist. It was stronger than any chain, stronger than any pillory or iron ring; it was a pair of intelligent and living pincers issuing from a wall.

Exhausted, she sank back, and the fear of death took possession of her. She thought of the beauty of life, of youth, of the sight of the sky, of the various aspects of Nature, of the love of Phœbus, of all that was behind her and of all that was rapidly coming upon her, of the priest who would denounce her, of the hangman who would soon arrive, of the gallows which was already there. Then terror rose to the very roots of her hair, and she heard the melancholy laugh of the recluse, as she whispered in her ear,—

“Ha! ha! ha! You shall be hanged!”

She turned, almost fainting, to the window, and saw the savage face of the sachette through the bars.

“What have I done to you?” she asked feebly.

The recluse made no answer; she began to mumble in angry, mocking sing-song, “Gipsy girl! gipsy girl! gipsy girl!”

The luckless Esmeralda veiled her face with her hair, seeing that it was no human being with whom she had to deal.

All at once the recluse exclaimed, as if the gipsy’s question had taken all this time to penetrate her troubled brain:—

“What have you done to me, do you say? Ah! What have you done to me, indeed, you gipsy! Well, listen, and I will tell you. I had a child, even I! Do you hear? I had a child,—a child, I say! A pretty little girl! My Agnès,” she repeated, her wits wandering for a moment, and kissing something in the gloom. “Well, are you listening, gipsy? They stole my child; they took my child from me; they ate my child! That is what you have done to me.”

The young girl answered, as innocently as the lamb in the fable,—

“Alas! I probably was not even born then!”

“Oh, yes!” rejoined the recluse, “you must have been born. You had a hand in it. She would have been about your age! There! For fifteen years I have been in this hole; for fifteen years I have suffered; for fifteen years I have prayed; for fifteen years I have dashed my head against these four walls. I tell you, ‘twas the gipsies who stole her from me,—do you hear?—and who gnawed her bones. Have you a heart? Fancy what it is to have a child who plays at your knee; a child who sucks your breast; a child who sleeps in your arms. It is such a helpless, innocent thing! Well, that,—that’s what they took from me, what they killed for me! The good God knows it well! Now it is my turn; I will slaughter the Egyptians. Oh, how I would bite you, if the bars did not prevent me! My head is too big to pass through them! Poor little thing! they took her while she slept! And if they waked her when they snatched her up, all her shrieks were vain; I was not there! Ah, gipsy mothers, you ate my child! Come, look at yours!”

Then she began to laugh, or gnash her teeth, for the two things were much the same in that frenzied face. Dawn was at hand. An ashen light faintly illumined the scene, and the gallows became more and more distinctly visible in the center of the square. From the other side, towards the Pont Notre-Dame the poor prisoner imagined she heard the tramp of approaching horsemen.

“Madame,” she cried, clasping her hands and falling on her knees, disheveled, frantic, mad with fright,—“Madame, have pity! they are coming. I never harmed you. Would you see me die so horrible a death before your very eyes? You are merciful, I am sure. It is too awful! Let me save myself! Let me go! Have mercy! I cannot die thus!”

“Give me back my child!” said the recluse.

“Mercy! mercy!”

“Give me back my child!”

“Let me go, in Heaven’s name!”

“Give me back my child!”

Upon this, the girl sank down, worn out and exhausted, her eyes already having the glazed look of one dead.

“Alas!” she stammered forth, “you seek your child, and I seek my parents.”

“Give me my little Agnès!” continued Gudule. “You know not where she is? Then die! I will tell you all. I was a prostitute; I had a child; they took my child from me. It was the gipsies who did it. You see that you must die. When your gipsy mother comes to claim you, I shall say, ‘Mother, look upon that gibbet!—Or else restore my child!’ Do you know where she is,—where my little girl is? Stay, I will show you. Here’s her shoe,—all that is left me. Do you know where the mate to it is? If you know, tell me, and if it is only at the other end of the world, I will go on my knees to get it.”

So saying, with her other hand, stretched through the bars, she showed the gipsy the little embroidered shoe. It was already light enough to distinguish the shape and colors.

“Show me that shoe,” said the gipsy shuddering. “My God! my God!”

And at the same time with her free hand she hastily opened the little bag adorned with green glass beads, which she wore about her neck.

“That’s it! that’s it!” growled Gudule; “search for your devilish spells!”

All at once she stopped short, trembled from head to foot, and cried out in a voice which came from her inmost soul, “My daughter!”

The gipsy had drawn from the bag a tiny shoe, precisely like the other. A strip of parchment was fastened to the little shoe, upon which these verses were written:

“When the mate to this you find,

Thy mother is not far behind.”

Quick as a flash of lightning the recluse compared the two shoes, read the inscription on the parchment, and pressed her face, beaming with divine rapture, to the window-bars exclaiming,—

“My daughter! my daughter!”

“Mother!” replied the gipsy.

Here we must forbear to set down more.

The wall and the iron grating parted the two. “Oh, the wall!” cried the recluse. “Oh, to see her and not to kiss her! Your hand! your hand!”

The girl put her arm through the window; the recluse threw herself upon the hand, pressed her lips to it, and stood lost in that kiss, the only sign of life being an occasional sob which heaved her bosom. Yet she wept torrents of tears in silence, in the darkness, like rain falling in the night. The poor mother poured out in floods upon that idolized hand the dark, deep fountain of tears within her heart, into which all her grief had filtered, drop by drop, for fifteen years.

Suddenly she rose, flung her long grey hair back from her face, and without a word began to shake the bars of her cell more fiercely than a lioness. They held firm. Then she brought from one corner a large paving-stone which served her as a pillow, and hurled it against them with such violence that one of them broke, flashing countless sparks. A second blow utterly destroyed the old iron cross which barricaded her window. Then with both hands she pulled out and demolished the rusty fragments. There are moments when a woman’s hands seem endowed with supernatural strength.

A passage being cleared,—and it took less than a minute to do the work,—she seized her daughter by the waist and dragged her into the cell. “Come, let me draw you out of the abyss!” she murmured.

When her daughter was in the cell, she placed her gently on the ground, then took her up again, and bearing her in her arms as if she were still her little Agnès, she paced to and fro in the narrow space, frantic, mad with joy, singing, shouting, kissing her daughter, talking to her, bursting into laughter, melting into tears, all at once, and with the utmost passion.

“My daughter! my daughter!” she cried. “I’ve found my daughter! Here she is! The good God has restored her to me. Come, all of you! Is there no one here to see that I’ve found my daughter? Lord Jesus, how beautiful she is! You made me wait fifteen years, my good God, but it was to make her more beautiful for me! Then the gipsies did not eat her! Who told me so? My little girl! my little girl! kiss me. Those good gipsies! I love gipsies. It is really you. Then that was why my heart leaped within me every time you passed; and I thought it was hate! Forgive me, Agnès, forgive me. You thought me very cruel, didn’t you? I love you. Have you still the same little mark on your neck? Let us see. She has it still. Oh, how beautiful you are! It was I who gave you those big eyes, miss. Kiss me. I love you. I care not now if other mothers have children; I can laugh them to scorn. They may come. Here is mine. Here’s her neck, her eyes, her hair, her hand. Find me another as lovely! Oh, I tell you she’ll have plenty of lovers, this girl of mine! I have wept for fifteen years. All my beauty has left me and gone to her. Kiss me.”

She made her a thousand other extravagant speeches, their only merit being in the tone in which they were uttered, disordered the poor girl’s dress until she made her blush, smoothed her silken hair with her hand, kissed her foot, her knee, her forehead, her eyes, went into ecstasies over each and all. The young girl made no resistance, but repeated ever and anon, in a low tone and with infinite sweetness, “Mother!”

“Look you, my little one,” went on the recluse, interrupting each word with kisses,—“look you; I shall love you dearly. We will go away; we shall be very happy. I have inherited something at Rheims, in our native country. You know, at Rheims? Oh, no! you don’t remember; you were too little. If you only knew how pretty you were at four months old! Tiny feet, which people, out of curiosity, came all the way from Epernay, full seven leagues off, to see! We will have a field and a house. I will put you to sleep in my bed. My God! my God! who would ever have believed it? I’ve found my daughter!”

“Oh, mother!” said the girl, at last recovering sufficient strength to speak in spite of her emotion, “the gipsy woman told me it would be so. There was a kind gipsy woman of our tribe who died last year, and who always took care of me as if she had been my nurse. It was she who hung this bag about my neck. She always said to me, ‘Little one, guard this trinket well. It is a precious treasure; it will help you to find your mother. You wear your mother around your neck.’ The gipsy foretold it!”

The sachette again clasped her daughter in her arms.

“Come; let me kiss you! You said that so prettily. When we are in our own country, we will give these little shoes to the Child Jesus in the church; we surely owe that much to the kind Blessed Virgin. Heavens! what a sweet voice you have! When you spoke to me just now, it was like music. Oh, my Lord God, I have found my child! But is it credible,—all this story? Nothing can kill one, for I have not died of joy.”

And then she again began to clap her hands, to laugh, and cry,

“How happy we shall be!”

At this moment the cell rang with the clash of arms and the galloping feet of horses, which seemed to come from the Pont Notre-Dame, and to be advancing nearer and nearer along the quay. The gipsy threw herself into the arms of the sachette in an agony.

“Save me! save me, mother! I hear them coming!”

The recluse turned pale.

“Heavens! What do you say? I had forgotten; you are pursued! Why, what have you done?”

“I know not,” replied the unhappy child; “but I am condemned to die.”

“To die!” said Gudule, tottering as if struck by lightning. “To die!” she repeated slowly, gazing steadily into her daughter’s face.

“Yes, mother,” replied the desperate girl, “they mean to kill me. They are coming now to capture me. That gallows is for me! Save me! save me! They come! Save me!”

The recluse stood for some moments motionless, as if turned to stone; then she shook her head doubtingly, and all at once burst into loud laughter; but her former frightful laugh had returned:—

“Ho! ho! No; it is a dream! Oh, yes; I lost her, I lost her for fifteen years, and then I found her again, and it was but for an instant! And they would take her from me again! Now that she is grown up, that she is so fair, that she talks to me, that she loves me, they would devour her before my eyes,—mine, who am her mother! Oh, no; such things cannot be! The good God would not suffer them.”

Here the cavalcade seemed to pause, and a distant voice was heard, saying,—

“This way, Master Tristan; the priest says that we shall find her at the Rat-Hole!” The tramp of horses began again.

The recluse sprang up with a despairing cry.

“Save yourself! save yourself, my child! I remember now! You are right; it is your death! Horror! Malediction! Save yourself!”

She thrust her head from the window, and rapidly withdrew it.

“Stay!” she said in a low, curt, and mournful tone, convulsively clasping the hand of the gipsy, who was more dead than alive. “Stay! do not breathe! There are soldiers everywhere. You cannot go; it is too light.”

Her eyes were dry and burning. She stood for a moment speechless; then she strode up and down the cell, pausing at intervals to tear out handfuls of her grey hair. Suddenly she said: “They are coming; I will speak to them. Hide yourself in this corner; they will not see you. I will tell them that you have escaped; that I let you go, by my faith!”

She laid her daughter—for she still held her in her arms—in a corner of the cell which was not visible from without. She made her crouch down, carefully arranged her so that neither hand nor foot protruded beyond the shadow, loosened her black hair, which she spread over her white gown to hide it, put before her her jug and paving-stone,—the only articles of furniture which she had,—imagining that they would conceal her; and when this was done, feeling calmer, she knelt and prayed. Day, which was but just breaking, still left many shadows in the Rat-Hole.

At that instant the voice of the priest—that infernal voice—passed very close to the cell, shouting,—

“This way, Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers!”

At that name, at that voice, Esmeralda, huddling in her corner, made a movement.

“Do not stir!” said Gudule.

She had hardly finished speaking when a riotous crowd of men, swords, and horses, halted outside the cell. The mother rose hastily, and placed herself before the window in such a way as to cut off all view of the room. She saw a numerous band of armed men, on foot and on horseback, drawn up in the Place de Grève. The officer in command sprang to the ground and came towards her.

“Old woman,” said this man, who had an atrocious face, “we are looking for a witch, that we may hang her. We were told that you had her.”

The poor mother assumed the most indifferent air that she could, and answered,—

“I don’t know what you mean.”

The other replied, “Zounds! Then what was that frightened archdeacon talking about? Where is he?”

“Sir,” said a soldier, “he has disappeared.”

“Come, now, old hag,” resumed the commanding officer, “don’t lie! A witch was left in your care. What have you done with her?”

The recluse dared not deny everything, lest she should rouse suspicion, and answered in a surly but seemingly truthful tone,—

“If you mean a tall girl who was thrust into my hands just now, I can only tell you that she bit me, and I let her go. There. Now leave me in peace.”

The officer pulled a wry face.

“Don’t lie to me, old scarecrow!” he replied. “I am Tristan l‘Hermite, and I am the friend of the king. Tristan l’Hermite, do you hear?” he added looking round the Place de Grève, “‘Tis a name familiar here.”

“You might be Satan l‘Hermite,” responded Gudule, whose hopes began to rise, “and I could tell you nothing more, and should be no more afraid of you.”

“Odds bodikins!” said Tristan, “here’s a vixen for you! Ah, so the witch girl escaped! And which way did she go?”

Gudule answered indifferently,—

“Through the Rue du Mouton, I believe.”

Tristan turned his head, and signed to his troop to prepare to resume their march. The recluse breathed more freely.

“Sir,” suddenly said an archer, “pray ask this old sorceress how the bars of her window came to be so twisted and broken.”

This question revived the miserable mother’s anguish. Still, she did not lose all presence of mind.

“They were always so,” she stammered.

“Nonsense!” rejoined the archer; “only yesterday they formed a beautiful black cross which inspired pious thoughts in all who looked upon it.”

Tristan cast a side-glance at the recluse.

“It seems to me that our friend looks embarrassed.”

The unfortunate woman felt that everything depended upon her putting a good face on the matter, and, with death in her soul, she began to laugh. Mothers have such courage.

“Pooh!” said she, “that man is drunk. ‘Twas more than a year ago that the tail of a cart full of stones was backed into my window and destroyed the grating. And, what’s more, I scolded the carter roundly.”

“That’s true,” said another archer; “I was here at the time.”

There are always people everywhere who have seen everything. This unexpected testimony from the archer encouraged the recluse, who during this interrogatory felt as if she were crossing a precipice on the sharp edge of a knife.

But she was condemned to a continual alternation between hope and fear.

“If it was done by a cart,” returned the first soldier, “the broken ends of the bars would have been driven inward; but they are bent outward.”

“Ho! ho!” said Tristan; “your nose is as sharp as that of any inquisitor at the Châtelet. Answer him, old woman!”

“Good heavens!” she cried, at her wits’ end, and in a voice which despite all her efforts was tearful, “I swear, sir, that it was a cart which broke those bars. You heard that man say he saw it; and besides, what has that to do with your gipsy?”

“Hum!” growled Tristan.

“The devil!” added the soldier, flattered by the provost’s praises; “the fractures in the iron are quite fresh!”

Tristan shook his head. She turned pale.

“How long ago did you say this affair of the cart occurred?”

“A month,—perhaps a fortnight, sir. I’m sure I don’t remember.”

“She said it was a year, just now,” observed the soldier.

“That looks queer!” said the provost.

“Sir,” she cried, still pressing close to the window, and trembling lest their suspicions should lead them to put in their heads and examine the cell,—“sir, I swear it was a cart that broke these bars; I swear it by all the angels in paradise! If it was not a cart, may I be damned forever: and may God renounce me.”

“You seem very ready to swear!” said Tristan, with his searching glance.

The poor woman felt her courage sink. She was in a state to commit any folly, and with terror she realized she was saying what she ought not to say.

Here another soldier ran up, shouting,—

“Sir, the old fagot lies. The witch did not escape through the Rue du Mouton. The chain has been stretched across the street all night, and the chain-keeper has seen no one pass.”

Tristan, whose face grew more forbidding every instant, addressed the recluse:—

“What have you to say to this?”

She still strove to brave this fresh contradiction.

“I don’t know, sir; I may have been mistaken. I dare say, indeed, that she crossed the water.”

“That is in the opposite direction,” said the provost. “However, it is not very likely that she would wish to return to the City, where she was closely pursued. You lie, old woman!”

“And then,” added the first soldier, “there is no boat either on this side of the water or on the other.”

“Perhaps she swam across,” replied the recluse, disputing the ground inch by inch.

“Can women swim?” said the soldier.

“Odds bodikins! old woman! you lie! you lie!” angrily rejoined Tristan. “I have a great mind to let the witch go, and hang you in her stead. A quarter of an hour of the rack may wring the truth from your lips. Come! follow us!”

She seized eagerly upon his words:—

“As you like, sir. So be it, so be it! The rack. I am willing. Take me. Be quick; be quick. Let us be off at once. Meantime,” thought she, “my daughter may escape.”

“Zounds!” said the provost; “so greedy for the rack! I don’t understand this mad-woman!”

An old grey-headed sergeant of the watch stepped from the ranks, and addressing the provost, said,—

“Mad, indeed, sir! If she let the gipsy go, it was not her fault, for she has no liking for gipsies. For fifteen years I have done duty on the watch, and I have heard her curse the gipsy women nightly with endless execrations. If the girl of whom we are in search is, as I suppose, the little dancer with the goat, she particularly detests her.”

Gudule made an effort, and said,—

“Particularly.”

The unanimous testimony of the men belonging to the watch confirmed the old sergeant’s statement. Tristan l‘Hermite, despairing of learning anything from the recluse, turned his back upon her, and with unspeakable anxiety she saw him move slowly towards his horse.

“Come,” he muttered, “we must be off. Let us resume our search. I shall not sleep until this gipsy girl be hanged.”

Still, he hesitated some time before mounting his horse. Gudule trembled between life and death as she saw him glance about the square with the restless air of a hunting-dog, which scents the lair of the wild beast and refuses to depart. At last he shook his head and leaped into his saddle. Gudule’s terribly overladen heart swelled, and she said in a low voice, with a glance at her daughter, at whom she had not dared to look while the soldiers were there, “Saved!”

The poor girl had crouched in her corner all this time, without moving or breathing, staring death in the face. She had lost none of the scene between Gudule and Tristan, and each of her mother’s pangs had found an echo in her own soul. She had heard the successive snappings of the thread which held her suspended over the abyss; twenty times she had felt that it must break, and now at last she began to breathe freely, and to hope that her footing was secure. At this instant she heard a voice say to the provost,—

“‘Sblood! Mr. Provost, it is no business for a soldier to hang witches. The mob still rages yonder. I must leave you to your own devices. You will not object to my rejoining my company, who are left without a captain.”

This voice was that of Phœbus de Châteaupers. She underwent an indescribable revulsion of feeling. So he was there,—her friend, her protector, her stay, her refuge, her Phoebus! She rose, and before her mother could prevent her, flew to the window, crying,—

“Phœbus! help, my Phoebus!”

Phœbus was no longer there.²² He had just galloped round the corner of the Rue de la Coutellerie. But Tristan was not yet gone.

The recluse flung herself upon her daughter with a roar. She dragged her violently back, digging her nails into her neck. A tigress does not look twice when the safety of her young is in question. But it was too late. Tristan had seen her.

“Ha! ha!” cried he, with a laugh which bared all his teeth, and made his face look like the muzzle of a wolf, “two mice in the trap!”

“I thought as much,” said the soldier.

Tristan clapped him on the shoulder, “You are a famous cat! Come,” he added, “where is Henriet Cousin?”

A man who had neither the dress nor the manner of a soldier stepped from the ranks. He wore a motley garb of brown and grey, his hair was smooth and lank, his sleeves were of leather, and in his huge hand was a bundle of rope. This man always accompanied Tristan, who always accompanied Louis XI.

“My friend,” said Tristan l‘Hermite, “I presume that this is the witch we are seeking. You will hang her for me. Have you your ladder?”

“There is one yonder under the shed of the Maison-aux-Piliers,” replied the man. “Are we to do the business on this gallows?” he continued, pointing to the stone gibbet.

“Yes.”

“Ho! ho!” rejoined the man, with a coarse laugh even more bestial than that of the provost; “we sha‘n’t have far to go.”

“Despatch!” said Tristan; “you can laugh afterwards.”

Meantime, since Tristan had seen her daughter, and all hope was lost, the recluse had not spoken a word. She had cast the poor gipsy, almost lifeless, into the corner of the cell, and resumed her place at the window, her hands clinging to the sides of the frame like two claws. In this position her eyes wandered boldly over the soldiers, the light of reason having once more faded from them. When Henriet Cousin approached her refuge, she glared so savagely at him that he shrank back.

“Sir,” said he, returning to the provost, “which am I to take?”

“The young one.”

“So much the better; for the old one seems hard to manage.”

“Poor little dancer with the goat!” said the old sergeant of the watch.

Henriet Cousin again advanced to the window. The mother’s eye made his own fall. He said somewhat timidly,—

“Madame,—”

She interrupted him in very low but furious tones:

“What do you want?”

“Not you,” said he; “it is the other.”

“What other?”

“The young one.”

She began to wag her head, crying,—

“There’s nobody here! there’s nobody here! there’s nobody here!”

“Yes, there is!” rejoined the hangman, “and you know it well. Let me have the young one. I don’t want to harm you.”

She said with a strange sneer,—

“Ah! you don’t want to harm me!”

“Let me have the other, madame; it is the provost’s will.”

She repeated with a foolish look,—

“There’s nobody here!”

“I tell you there is!” replied the hangman; “we all saw that there were two of you.”

“Look then!” said the recluse, with a sneer. “Put your head in at the window.”

The hangman scrutinized the mother’s nails, and dared not venture.

“Despatch!” cried Tristan, who had ranged his men in a ring around the Rat-Hole, and himself sat on horseback near the gibbet.

Henriet returned to the provost once more, utterly out of countenance. He had laid his rope on the ground, and awkwardly twirled his hat in his hands.

“Sir,” he inquired, “how am I to get in?”

“Through the door.”

“There is none.”

“Through the window.”

“It is too small.”

“Then make it bigger,” angrily exclaimed Tristan. “Have you no pickaxes?”

From the back of her den, the mother, ever on the alert, watched them. She had lost all hope, she knew not what she wished, but they should not have her daughter.

Henriet Cousin went to fetch his box of tools from the shed of the Maison-aux-Piliers. He also brought out the trestles, which he at once set up against the gibbet. Five or six of the provost’s men armed themselves with picks and levers, and Tristan moved towards the window with them.

“Old woman,” said the provost in a stern voice, “surrender that girl with a good grace.”

She looked at him like one who does not understand.

“‘Sblood!” added Tristan, “why should you prevent that witch from being hanged, as it pleases the king?”

The wretched woman began to laugh wildly.

“Why? She is my daughter!”

The tone in which she uttered that word made even Henriet Cousin shudder.

“I am sorry,” replied the provost, “but it is the king’s good plea sure”.

She shrieked with redoubled laughter,—

“What is your king to me? I tell you she is my daughter!”

“Make a hole in the wall,” said Tristan.

It was only necessary to remove one course of stones under the window, in order to make an opening of sufficient size. When the mother heard the picks and levers undermining her fortress, she uttered an awful scream; then she began to pace her cell with frightful speed,—one of the habits of a wild beast which she had acquired in her cage. She said no more, but her eyes flamed. The soldiers were chilled to the marrow.

All at once she caught up her paving stone, laughed, and hurled it with both hands at the workmen. The stone, ill aimed (for her hands trembled), struck no one and fell at the feet of Tristan’s horse. She ground her teeth.

Meantime, although the sun had not yet risen, it was broad daylight; a lovely pink tint illumined the worm-eaten old chimneys of the Maison-aux-Piliers. It was the hour when the windows of the earliest risers in the great city open joyously upon the roofs. Some few country people, some fruiterers going to market on their donkeys, began to pass through the Place de Grève; they paused a moment at sight of this cluster of soldiers huddled in front of the Rat-Hole, looked at them in surprise, then went their way.

The recluse had seated herself beside her daughter, covering her with her body, her eye fixed, listening to the poor girl, who never stirred, but murmured softly the one word, “Phœbus! Phœbus!” As the work of the destroyers progressed, the mother mechanically moved back, pressing the young girl closer and closer against the wall. All at once she saw the stones (for she was on the watch and never took her eyes from them) quiver, and she heard Tristan’s voice urging the laborers on. Then she woke from the stupor into which she had sunk, exclaiming,—and, as she spoke, her voice now pierced the ear like a saw, then stammered as if all the curses which she uttered crowded to her lips at once:

“Ho! ho! ho! But this is horrible! You are robbers! Do you really mean to take my daughter from me? I tell you it is my daughter! Oh, cowards! Oh, base hangmen! Vile assassins! Help! help! Fire! Will they thus take my child? Then, what is he whom men call the good God?”

Then turning to Tristan, with foaming mouth, haggard eyes, on all fours like a panther, and bristling with rage:—

“Come and take my daughter! Do you not understand that this woman tells you it is her daughter? Do you know what it is to have a child of your own? Have you no mate, O lynx? Have you never had a cub? And if you have little ones, when they howl does nothing stir within you?”

“Down with the stones,” said Tristan; “they are loosened.”

The levers lifted the ponderous course of stone. It was, as we have said, the mother’s last bulwark.

She threw herself upon it, tried to hold it up. She scratched it with her nails; but the heavy block, set in motion by six men, escaped from her grasp and slid gently to the ground along the iron levers.

The mother, seeing that an entrance was effected, fell across the opening, barricading the breach with her body, wringing her hands, beating her head against the flagstones, and shrieking in a voice hoarse with fatigue and scarcely audible,—

“Help! Fire! fire!”

“Now, seize the girl,” said Tristan, still unmoved.

The mother glared at the soldiers in so terrible a fashion they would much rather have retreated than advanced.

“Come, come,” repeated the provost. “Here, Henriet Cousin!”

No one stirred a step.

The provost swore:—

“By the Cross! my soldiers! Afraid of a woman!”

“Sir,” said Henriet, “do you call that a woman?”

“She has a lion’s mane!” said another.

“Come!” resumed the provost, “the gap is broad enough. Go in three abreast, as at the breach of Pontoise. Have done with it, by the head of Mahomet! The first who recoils I’ll cut in two!”

Thus placed between the provost and the mother, both alike menacing, the soldiers hesitated an instant; then, making their choice, they advanced upon the Rat-hole.

When the recluse saw this, she rose suddenly to her knees, shook her hair back from her face, then let her thin, bleeding hands fall upon her thighs. Great tears started one by one from her eyes; they trickled down a wrinkle in her cheeks, like a torrent down the bed which it has worn for itself. At the same time she spoke, but in a voice so suppliant, so sweet, so submissive, and so full of pathos, that more than one old fire-eater about Tristan wiped his eyes.

“Gentlemen! soldiers! one word. I must say one thing to you. She is my daughter, you see,—my dear little daughter whom I lost! Listen. It is quite a story. You must know that I was once very friendly with the soldiers. They were always kind to me in the days when little boys threw stones at me because I led a light life. Do you see? You will leave me my child, when you know all! I am a poor woman of the town. The gipsies stole her away from me. I kept her shoe for fifteen years. Stay; here it is. That was the size of her foot. Paquette Chantefleurie, at Rheims.—Rue Folle-Peine! Perhaps you knew her once. That was I. When you were young, you led a merry life; there were fine doings then. You will take pity on me, won’t you, gentlemen? The gipsies stole her from me; they kept her hidden from me for fifteen years. I thought she was dead. Only fancy, my kind friends, I thought she was dead. I have spent fifteen years here, in this cave, with never a spark of fire in winter. That was hard to bear, that was. The poor, dear little shoe! I have shed so many tears that the good God heard me. Last night he gave me back my girl. The good God wrought a miracle. She was not dead. You will not take her from me, I am sure. If it were only myself, I would not complain; but for her, a child of sixteen! Let her have time to see the sun! What has she done to you? Nothing at all. No more have I. If you only knew that I have nobody but her, that I am old, that she is a blessing sent down to me by the Holy Virgin! And then, you are all so kind! You did not know that she was my daughter; now you know it. Oh, I love her! Mr. Provost, I would rather have a hole through my heart than a scratch on her finger. You look like a good, kind gentleman! What I tell you, explains the whole thing, doesn’t it? Oh, if you ever had a mother, sir! You are the captain; leave me my child! Remember that I pray to you on my knees, as one prays to Jesus Christ! I ask nothing of any one; I am from Rheims, gentlemen; I have a little field there, left me by my uncle, Mahiet Pradon. I am not a beggar. I want nothing, but I must have my child! Oh, I must keep my child! The good God, who is master of us all, never gave her back to me for nothing! The king! you say the king! It can’t give him much pleasure to have my little girl killed! And besides, the king is good! It’s my daughter! It’s my daughter, my own girl! She is not the king‘s! she is not yours! I will go away! we will both go away! After all, they will let two women pass,—a mother and her daughter! Let us pass! we are from Rheims! Oh, you are very kind, sergeants! I love you all. You will not take my dear little one from me; it is impossible, isn’t it? Utterly impossible! My child, my child!”

We will not try to give any idea of her gestures, of her accent, of the tears which she swallowed as she spoke, of her hands which she clasped and then wrung, of the heartrending smiles, the pathetic glances, the groans, the sighs, the agonizing and piercing cries which she mingled with her wild, incoherent, rambling words. When she ceased, Tristan l‘Hermite frowned, but it was to hide a tear that dimmed his tigerish eye. However, he conquered this weakness, and said curtly,—

“It is the king’s command.”

Then he bent down to Henriet Cousin and said in a low voice,—

“Put an end to this!”

Perhaps the terrible provost himself felt his heart fail him.

The hangman and his men entered the cell. The mother made no resistance. She only dragged herself towards her daughter and threw herself heavily upon her.

The gipsy saw the soldiers coming. The horror of death revived her.

“My mother!” she cried in tones of unspeakable distress; “my mother! They are coming! Defend me!”

“Yes, my love. I will defend you!” replied her mother, in a feeble voice; and clasping her closely in her arms, she covered her with kisses. The two, prostrate on the ground, mother and daughter, were a sight worthy of pity.

Henriet Cousin seized the girl just below her beautiful shoulders. When she felt his hand, she shrieked and fainted. The hangman, whose big tears fell drop by drop upon her, tried to raise her in his arms. He strove to loose her mother’s hold, she having, as it were, knotted her hands about her daughter’s waist; but she clung so closely to her child that it was impossible to part them. Henriet Cousin therefore dragged the girl from the cell, and her mother after her. The mother’s eyes were also closed.

At this moment the sun rose, and there was already a considerable crowd of people in the square, looking on from a little distance to see who was being thus dragged over the pavement to the gallows,—for this was Provost Tristan’s way at hangings. He had a mania for hindering the curious from coming too close.

There was no one at the windows. Only, far off, on the top of the Notre-Dame tower overlooking the Place de Grève, two men were to be seen darkly outlined against the clear morning sky, apparently watching the proceedings.

Henriet Cousin paused with his burden at the foot of the fatal ladder, and, scarcely breathing so strongly was he moved to pity, he passed the rope around the girl’s beautiful neck. The unhappy creature felt the horrible contact of the hemp. She raised her eyelids, and saw the fleshless arm of the stone gibbet stretched above her head. Then she shook off her torpor, and cried in a sharp, shrill voice, “No, no, I will not!” Her mother, whose head was buried and lost in her child’s garments, did not speak a word; but her entire body was convulsed by a shudder, and she lavished redoubled kisses upon her child. The hangman took advantage of this moment quickly to unclasp her arms from the prisoner. Whether from exhaustion or despair, she submitted. Then he took the girl upon his shoulder, over which the charming creature fell gracefully, bent double over his large head. Then he put his foot upon the ladder to ascend.

At this instant the mother, crouching on the pavement, opened wide her eyes. Without a cry, she sprang up with a terrible look; then, like a wild beast leaping upon its prey, she threw herself upon the hangman’s hand, and bit it. It was a flash of lightning. The hangman yelled with pain. They ran to his aid. With some difficulty they withdrew his bleeding hand from between the mother’s teeth. She maintained a profound silence. The men pushed her away with some brutality, and observed that her head fell heavily on the pavement. They lifted her up; she fell back again. She was dead.

The hangman, who had not let go his hold of the girl, resumed his ascent of the ladder.