Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 144 — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

enter yo -~—_— - ———_-—— ~~ ear 1417, and which, having been ever since uninhab- ' ited, was beginning to fall to ruin, 30 worn were the walls by the alchemists and the professors of the | ‘cult scienee from all countries, who resorted thither | 1 seratched their names upon them. Some of the ighbors even aflirmed that they had omce seen ‘ wough a hole the archdeacon digging and turning over the mold in the two cellars, the jambs of which had been covered with verses and hieroglyphics by Flamel himself. It was supposed that.Master Nicolas had buried’ the -philosopher’s stone in one of these cellars; and for two centuries the alchymists, from Magistri to Father Pacifique, never ceased Sdelving and rummaging, till the house, weakened ani undermined , by their researches, at last tumbled about their ears. [It is, certain, moreover, that the archdeacon was smitten with a strange passion for the embalmatic | porch of Notre-Dame, that page of conjuration writ- | ten in stone by Bishop William of Paris, who has no| doubt repented for having. prefixed so infernal a frontispiece to the sacred poem everlastingly chanted by the rest of the edifice. It was also believed that | the archdeacon had discovered the hidden meaning of | the colossal St. Christopher, and.of the other tall enig- | matical statue which then stood at the entrance of the | Paryis, and which the people. called in derision Mon- | sieur Legris. But a circumstance which everybody might have remarked was his sitting hours without number on the parapet of the Parvis, contemplating the sculptures of the porch, sometimes examining the foolish virgins with their lamps reversed, sometimes the wise virgins with their lamps upright; at others calculating the angle of vision of the rayen on the left- hand side of the porch, looking at some mysterious spot in the church, where the philosopher's stone is certainly concealed, if it is notin Nicolas Flamel’s cellar. It was, be it observed by the way, a singular destiny for the Church of Notre-Dame.at.that period to be thus loved in different degrees and with such ardor by two beings so dissimilar as Claude and Quasimodo—loved by the one, scarcely more than half-man, for its beauty, the utmost and a glowing imagination, for its mystic signification, for its hidden meaning, for the symbol concéaled beneath the sculptures of its facade, like the first text under the second of palimpsest, in short, for the riddle which it incessantly proposes to the under- Lastly, it is certain that the archdeacon had fitted up for himself in the tower nearest to the Greve, close.to the belfry, a.small and secret cell, which none, it was said, but the bishop durst enter without his permission. Thiscell had been made of old almost at the top of the tower, among the ravens’ nests, by Bishop Hugo, of Besancon, who had there practiced the black art in his time. None knew what that cell contained ; but from , the Terrain theré had often been seen at night, through a small window at the back of the tower, a strange, red, irtermitting light, appearing, disappearing, and reap- pearing at short and equal intervals, apparently gov- erned by the blast of a bellows, and eeding rather from the flame of a fire than that of a lamp or candle. In the dark this had a singular effect at that height, aud the good wives would say, “There’s the archdea- con puffing away again ; hell is crackling up yonder !” These, after ail, were no very strong proofs of sor- cery ; still there was sufficient smoke to authorize the conclusion that there must be some fire ; at any rate the archdeacon had that formidable reputation. It is, nevertheless, but just to state that the sciences ot t, c, even the whitest and the most_in- nocent, had not amore inveterate enemy, a more pitiless accuser, before the officials of Notre-Dame. Whether this horror was sincere or merely the game played by the rogue who is the first to ery, ‘Stop thief!’ it did not prevent his being considered by the learned heads of the chapter as a soul lost in the mazes of the Cabala, groping in the darkness of the occult sciences, and al- readyin the vestibule of hed. The people held much the same opinion; all who possessed auy Sagacity re- garde] Quasimodo as the demon and Clande Frolle as the conjuror. It was evident that the bell-ringer had engaged to serye the archdeacon for aspecific time, at the expiration of which he would be sure to carry off his soul by way of payment, Accordingly, tle areh- deacon, in spite of the extreme austerity of his liie was in bad odor with all good Christians, and there was not a devout nose among them but.could smell the magi- <1an, And if, as he grew older, chasms were formed in his science, neitfier had his,heart remained free from them; at least there was good reason to believe soon survey- ing that face in whieh the workings of his spirit were discernible only through a. dark cloud. Whence was that broad, bald brow, that head always bent down, that bosom forever heaved by sighs? Whatsecret thought caused his lips to smile with such a bitter expression, at the very moment when his knitted brows approached one another like. two bulls preparing for the fight? Why was the remnant of his hair already gray? hat inward fire was it that at times burst from bis eyes, so as to make them look like holes perforated in the wall | of a furnace ? : These symptoms of a violent morat preoccupation had acquired an unusual degree of intensity at the period of the occurrences related in this history. More than one of the -boys had fled affrighted on meeting him alone in the church, so strange and alarm- ing were his looks. More than once, during'the service in the choir, the priest in the next stall to bis had heard necromancy, m mingle unintelligible parentheses with the responses. More than once the laundress of the Terrain, employed to washfor the-chapter, had observed, not without horror, marks ag if s¢ratched claws or finger-naila upon the surplice of Monsieur the Archdeacontt of Josas: In other respects his austerity was redoubled, and never had he led a More exem life, From di i- tion as wellas proféssion he had always kept aloof old or young, mistress or servant.” ‘to the king’s household. .And how many presidents, eee i tt NESE THE HUNCHBACK NOTRE-DAME. OF oe ee = —_— —COC—O”t—‘“‘—SCS women; he seemed now todislike them more than ever. | At the mere rustling of a silk petticoat his hood was over his eyes. On this point he was so strict that when the king’s daughter, the lady of Beaujeu, came in the month of December, 1481, to see the’cloisters of Notre- Dame, he seriously opposed her admission, reminding the bishop of the statute of the black-book, dated on the vigil of St. Bartholomew, 1334, which forbids access to the cloister toevery woman “ whatsoever, whether Whereupon the bishop was forced to appeal to the ordinance of Otho the legate, which excepts “certain ladies of quality, who cannot be refused without scandal”’ a/ique mag- nates ‘mutieres qua sine scandalo evitari non possunt. Still | the archdeacon protested, alleging that the ordinance of | thé legate, whith dated from 1207, was anterior by one. hundred and twenty-seven years tothe black-book, and | consequently annulled in point of fact by the latter ; and he actually refused toappear before the princess. It was, moreover, remarked that his horror of the*| Egyptians and Zingari seemed to have become more | vehement for some time past. He had solicited from | the bishop an edict expressly prohibiting the Bohe-— mians to come and dance and ‘play inthe area of the | Parvis; and he had recently taken the pains to search through the musty archives of the official for cases ‘of | | provostship’s goodly + We bene 13 Sn i Not only had Messire Robert de |’ Estputeville his pars ticular court as provost and viscount of Paris,'bnut he had also a finger in the infliction of the sentences de- creed by the king himself. There was not a head of any distinetion but passed through his hands befvre it was delivered up to the executioner. It wasihe who fetched the Duke de Nemonrs from the Bastile St. An- toine to convey him to the -Halles, and M. de St. Pol, who, on his way to the Greve, exclaimed loudly and bitterly against his fate, to the great delight of the pro- vost, who was no friend to the constables Here, certes, were reasons more than sufficient to make @wman satisfied with his life, and yet on themorn- ing of January 7th, 1482, Messire Robert «i"Estouteville awoke in a dogged ill-humor. And thecause of this ill- humor he would bave been puzzled to tell himsel’. Was it because the sky was gloomy ?» Did his old belt of *Montlhery constrict with too military a pressure his corporation ? ai he seen a troupe of raganiuffins in doublets without shirfs, in hats without crowns, with Wallet an@ flask at theirside, passing along the street unde? his window, and get- ting him atUefiance? Was it that vague presentiment of the three hundred and seventy li¥rés, sixteen sols, eight deniers, of which the future Kiny Charles VHT. in the following year docke@ the revenues of thé proévost- wizards and witches sentenced to the flames or the gal- | ship? . The reader has his ehoice; for our own “part we lows for practicing the blaek art in association with cats, swine, or goats. BOOK: V. “CHAPTER I. ANCIENT ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. A VERY lucky wight was, in the year of free 1482, that doughty personage Robert d’Estouteville, knight, sieur of Beyne, Baron ot Ivry and St. Andryin La its majesty, the harmonies resulting from its grand Marche, councillor and chamberlain to the king, and whole: loved by the other, with a mind cultivated to keeper of the provosty of Paris. It was then nearly seventeen years agone that the king had on the 7th of November, 1465, the year.of the great comet, conferred | on him. the impor‘ant appointment of provost of | Paris, which was considered rather asa dignity than an office. It was a marvelous thing that in "52 there should be agentleman holding a commission under the — king whose appointment dated from the time of the ae ay of the natural daughter of Louis XI. with the Bastard of Bourbon. On. the samb day that Robert d’Estoutville had succeeded Jacques de Villiers in the rovostship of Paris, Master Jean Dauvet superseded lessire Helye de Thorrettes as first president of the Court.of Parliament, Jean Jouvenal Ursins sup- planted Pierre de Morvillers in the office of chancellor of France, and Regnault des Dormahs turned to Pierre Puy out of the post of master of requests in ordinary chancellors, and masters, had Robert d’Estouteville seen.since he had held the provostship of Puirs? . It was “given to him to keep,” said the letters-patent,, and well had he kept it forsooth. So closely had he clung to it, s9 completely had he incorporated, identi. | fled himself with it, that he had eseaped than mania for changing his servants which possessed Louis XL., a jealous, niggardly, and toiling sovereign, .who thought to keep up the elasticity of his power by frequent removals and. appointments. . Nay, more, the gallant knight haLobtained the reversion of his place for bis son, and, fortwo years past, the name of the noble J&eques d’Estouteville, Esquire, figured be- side his own at the head of the register of the ordinary of the provoaty. et Paris., e, indead, and signal fayor! It is true that Robert d'Estouteville was a good soldier, that he had loyally raised the banner against the league of the pyblic welfare, and that he had presented the queen with a most Wwonder- ful stag made of aweetmeats, on .the day of her entry into Paris. He was, moreover, on terms of friendship. with Messire Tristant tlie Hermit, provost. of marshals. of the king's household, The situation | of Messire Robert was, of course, rather epyiable. | In the first place he .enjoyed a handsome salary, to which hung, like supernumerary bunches of grapes to his vine, the revenues of his civil and crimnal regis-_. tries of the provostship, and also thé civil and criminal | reventes of the court of the Chatelet, to say noth- | ing of the tolls collected at the bridge of Mante | and Corbeil, and other minor perquisities. Add to this the pleasure of riding in the city cavyal- | cades aud processions, and showing off among the halt-scarlet, hali-tawny robes of the city officers his fine military armor, which yon may still admire, seulp- | tured on his tomb.in the abbey of Valmont in Nor- | mandy, and his morion embossed all over at Montlhery. And then, was it nothing to have theentire supremacy over the keeper; the warden, the jailer, and the two audi- tors of the Chatelet, the sixteen commissiries of the six- teen quarters, the hundred and twenty horse-patrole, | the hundred and twenty vergers; and the whole of the. watch of the city? Was it nothing to administer jus- tice, civil and criminal, to have a right to burn, to hang; to-draw, besides: the inferior jurisdiction ‘‘ in the first instance,” as the charters express it; in the viscounty | of Paris and the seven noble bailiwicks thereto apper- | taining? Can you conceive anything more gratifying than to issue orders and sentence, as, Messire Robert d’Estouteville daily did in the Grand Chatélet beneath the wide elliptic arches of Phillip Augustus? or to go, as he was accustomed, every evening to that charming house situate in the Rue Galilee, in the purlieus of the Palais Royal, which he held in right ot his wife Madame Ambroise de Lore, to rest from the fatigue of having sent some poor, devil to pass the night in “ that little lodge in the Rue de l'Escorcherie, ch the provosts echevins were wont to make their prison; the same being eleven feet long, seven feét-four inches in width and eleven feet high.” — are inclined to believe that We Was in an ill-ininror merelysbecause he was in an ill-humor. ~_ Besides, it was the morrow of a public festivity, a day of annoyanee to everybody, and more especially*to the magistrate whose duty it was to clear away all the filth, material and figurative, made by a fete at Paris. And, then, too, he had to sit for the trial of offenders at the grand Chatelet. Now we have remarked that judges in — arrange matters so that the days on which they ave torvperform their judical functions are their days of ill-humor, that they may be sure’to have somébody on whom they can conveniently vent it in the name of the king, of the law, and of justice: a . Meanwhile the proceedings commenced without him His deputies*did. the business for Mim, aécording to custom; and ever since the hour of eight in the morn- | ing some scores of citizens of both sexes, crowded into a dark corner of the court of the Chatelet, between a strong oaken barrier and the wall, gazed with great edie © fication at the spectacle of civil and criminal justice ad- ministered somewhat’ pell-mell and quite at random by Master Florian Barbidienne, auditor to the Chatelet, and lieutenant of Monsieur the provost, s ’ It was a small, low hall,’ with céved ceiling; at the further end stood a table. studded with fleurs-de-lis.'a large empty arm-chair of carved oak, reserved for the: | ! provost, and on the left a stool for the auditor) Master Florian. Below was theclerk busily writing. © Imtront were the people, and before the door’ and the table a posse of the provost’s men in frocks’of purple Gamler with white crosses. Two seargents of the Parleir aux Bourgeois, in their kersey jackets, half scarlet dnd Walf blue, stood sentry before a low, closed door, which was seen behind the table. A single pdinted “window, of scarty dimensions, encased in the thick wall, threw the faint light of a January morning on two grotesque figures—the fantastic demon of stone sculptufed by way of ormament to the groinifg of the ceiling, and the judge seated at the extremity of the hall. ' Figure to yourself seated at the provost’s table, loll- ing upon his elbows between two piles of rs; his feet upon the skirt of his plain brown cloth robe; furred with white lamb-skin, which encircled his olly rubicund visage and double chin, Master Florian . bedienne, auditor to the Chatelet. Now, the said anditor was. deaf. A trifling defect this in an auditor. ment without appeal, and very consistently, most certain that itis quite sufficient for ajudge. to appéar to listen; and this condition, the ouly-esgential one for strict justice, the venerable auditor fulfilled the more exactly imasmuch as no nolse could divert hig attention. . ; For the rest, he had among the auditory a merciless comptroller of his sayings and, doings in the of our young frend, Jehan Frello du;Moulin, who owas sure to be seen everywhere in Paris except before the professors’ chairs. ve ; “ Look you,”’ said.he, in a low tone to his companion, Robin Poussepain, who was yrinning beside him. while he commented on therseenes that were passing, before them—* there is the pretty Jehanneton du B n of the Marche Neuf! the old brute! He must have no more eyes than ears: fteen sous four deniers Parisis, for haying worn two strings of beads |. "Tis paying rather (lear, though»Soho! two gentlemen among. these variets! Aiglet deSoina, and Hutin de Mailly —two esquires, Corpus Christé! Hab Upon my sonl he condemns her too, * Master Florian, nevertheless, geve Judge ‘; they have been dicing. When shall. we see our rector . here? To pay a fine of.one hundred livres.tothe king! Brayo Barbedienne! May Lbe my brother the arehdeacon ifthis shall prevent me from gaming; . gaming’ by day, gaming by night, gaming while! live, gaming till I die, and staking my soul after my shirt! By't dy, what damsels! one after another, pretty lambs! Ambroise Lecuyere, Isabeau la Paynette, Berarde Gironin, I know them ‘all, by my fay! Fined, fined, fined! That will teach you to wear gilt belts! Tén sons Parisis, coquettes! Oh’! the olf deafimbécile! Oh?! Florian! the blockhead! Oh! Barbedienne, the booby! There he is at his feats! Fines, costs,.. charges, damages, stocks, pillory, imprisonment, are to him Ohristmas cakes and St. John’s marchpane! Look at him; the hog! Geton! what! another lewd woman! Thibaud la Thibaude, I declare! For being seen “out of th Rue Glatigny! Who is that young fellow! Gieffroy Mabonne, one of the bowmien of the guard—for swear- — oath, forsootly! A fine for you IA Thibaude f a for you Gieffroy / But ten to one the old stupid will contound the two charges and ‘make = woman pay for the oath, and the soldier for ucet Look, look, Robin ! what are they bringing in now?