Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 144 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

a ee eee ee ee NS 89°: a = on =. — ™ et eee Ee ee eS a ee ee ee ee eee 20 By Jupiter, there are all the hounds in the pack! That must be a fine head of game! A wild boar surely! And soit is, Robin, so itis! And a rare one, too, God wot! Grammercy ! ‘tis our prince, our Pope of Fools, our bell-ringer, our one-eyed, hunchbacked, bandylegged Quasimodo !”’ Sure enough it was Quasimodo, bound, corded, pinioned. The party of the provost’s men who sur- rouuded him were accompanied by the captain of the watch in person, having the arms of France em- broidered on the breast of his coat and those of the city on the back. At the same time there was nothing about Quasimodo, save and except his deformity, which could justify this display of halberts and arque- busses ; he wae silent, sullen, and quiet. His only eye merely gave from time to time an angry glance at the bonds which confined him. Meanwhile Master Florian was intently perusing the indorsement of 6 gt containing the charges alleged against Quasimodo, which had been handed to him by the clerk. By means of this precaution, which he was accustomed to take before he to an examination, he acquainted himself beforehand with the name, condition, and offense, of the prisoner; was enabled to haye in readiness replies to expected answers; and succeeded in extricating himself from all the sinuosities of the interrogatory, without too grosely exposing his infirmity. To him, therefore, the indorsement was the dog to the blind man. If, however, his infirmity chan to betray itselfnow and then by # incoherent apostrophe or some unintel- ligible qu n, with the it passed for profound- ness, with some few for im ity. In either cabe the honor of the magistracy remained unimpeached ; forit is better that a judge should be reputed profound or imbecile than deaf. Accordingly he hook apes pains to conceal his deatness from observation, and in general he was s0 successfnl as at last to deceive himself on this point. This.ie more easily done than it may be imag- ined. Every hunchback holds his head erect, every stammerer is fond of making speeches, every deaf per- son talks inalow tone. For hia part he believed that he was. somewhat hard of hearing ; and this was the only concession that he made on this point to public omni in moments of perfect frankness and self-exam- nation, After , aap nas awhile on Quasimeddo’s affair, he threw - his head and half closed his eyes, to give himeelf a look of the more majesty and impartiality, so that at that moment he was both deaf and blind—a two-fold condition without which there is no perfect judge. In this magisterial attitude he commenced his examination. ‘* Your name ?”’ Now, heré was a case which the law had not provided for—the deaf interrogating the deaf. Quasimodo, uns of the question addressed to him, continued to look steadfastly at the judge without answering. The deaf judge, equally unaware of the deafness of the. conceiving that he had an- ewered, as ns in his situation generally did, went on, y to his mechanical routine: -‘ Very well ; Qu Oo maintained the same silence as before. The judge supposing that he had answered his question, continued: “‘ Now your business ?” Still Quasimodo was silent. The people who wit- nessed the curious scene bégan to whisper and to look at one another. . “That will do,” rejoined the imperturbable auditor, when he presumed that. the accused had finished his third answer. ‘ You are accused before us, in the first place, of making a nocturnal disturbance ; secondly, of an assault upon the person of a lewd woman ; thirdly, of disloyalty, sedition, and resistance tothe archers of the guard of our lord the king. What have you to say for yourself on these pointd? Clerk, have you taken down the prisoner's answers thus far ?”’ At this unlucky question, a roar of laughter burst from both clerk and audience, so vehement, so loud, 80 contagious, so universal, that neither of the deaf men could helpnoticing it. Quasimodo merely turned about and shrugged his hump with disdain; while Master Florian, equally astonished, and supposing that the mirth of the spectators had been provoked by some disrespectful reply of the prisoner's, rendered visible to him by the rising of his shoulders, indignantly ex- claimed: “For that answer, fellow, you deserve a bal- ter. Know you to whom you speak ?”’ This sally was not likely to check the explosion of the general mirth. So odd and so ridiculous did it ap- pear to all, that the fit of laughter spread to the very sergeants of the Parloir aux Bourgeois, a sort of knave of spades, verbial for stupidity. Quasimodo alone reserved his gravity, for this very sufficient reason, hat he had not the least notion of what waa passing around him. The judge, more and more exasperated, thought fit to peceeed in the same strain, hoping there- by to strike the eres with a terror that should re- act upon the audience. “How dare you thus insult the auditor of the Chatelet, the repay superintendent of the police of Paris, ap- pointed to inquire into crimes, offenses, and misde- meanors ; to control all trades ; to prevent forestalling and re ; te cleanse the city of filth and the air of con diseases ; to repair the pavements; in short, to pay continual attention to the public w 4 and that, too, without wages or hope of salary! you know that I am Florian Barbedienne, own lieuten- ant of Monsieur the provost, and, moreover, commis- sary, comptroller, examiner '’—— The Lord knows whem’ Master Florian would have finished that Sigot of eloquence had not the low door behind him ¢@ y pened gee moaned goemge te the provost himeelf. r Flerian did net stop short at hie entramce, but turming half round upon. his heel, and abruptl directing te. he provost the harangue which a Quasimodo—' —— —— — — t before he was launching forth against | noisy scene which is performing al Momscignueur,”’ said he, ‘I demand such turns his eye toward the ancient half-Gothe half THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE-DAME. —_- oe — — —————— — - -- - — | punishment as it shall please you to pronounce upon | Roman building, calied Roland's Tower, which forme | the prisoner here present for audacious and heinous contempt of justice.’’ Out of breath with the exertion, he sat down and _ began to wipe the perspiratron which trickled from | his forehead and tell in big drops upon the parch- ments spread out before him. Messire Robert d’Estouteville knitted his brows and commanded at- tention with a gesture so imperious and expressive that Quasimodo had some inkling of what was. meant. “ What hast thou done to be brought hither, var- let ?”’ said the provost, sternly. The prisoner, supposing that the provost was in- | quiring his name, broke his habitual silence, andin a harsh and guttural voice replied, “‘ Quasimodo.” | .The answer was so incongruous with the question | as once more to excite the risibility of the bystanders, | when Messire Robert, flushed with rage, exclaimed: “ Art thou making thy game of me, too, thou arrant knave ?’’ “ Bell-ringer at Notre-Dame,” replied Quasimodo, conceiving thet the judge had inquired his profession. ‘* Bell-ringer!’’ roared the provost, who had got up that morning, a8 we have observed, in such an ill- humor as not to need the further provoctaion of these cross-grained answers; ‘‘bell-ringer! 1'll have sucha _pea]l rung on thy back as shall make thee rue thy im- pertinence. Dost thou hear, varlet ?’’ “If you want to know my age,” said Quasimodo, ‘I believe I shall be twenty, next Martinmas.” This was too provoking—the provost lost all pa- tience. ‘‘ What, wretch! dost thou defy the provost! Here vergers, take this fellow to the pillory of the Greve; let him be flogged and then turn him for an hour: S8’death, he shall pay for his insolence, and my- pleasure is that this sentence be proclaimed by four trumpeters in the seven castellanies of the viscounty of Paris.” , The clerk instantly fell to work to record the sen- ence. “Ventre Dieu! but that’s a just sentemce!’’ cried Jehan Frollo du Moulin, from his corner. The provost turned about, and again fixing his flash- ine on Quasimodo, “I verily believe,’ said he, ‘that the knave has dared to swearfn our presence. Clerk, add a fine of twelve deniers Parisis for the oath, and let half of it be given to the Church of St. Eus- tache.”’ In a few minutes the sentence was drawn up. The language was simple and concise, The practice of the provosty and viscounty of Paris had not then been laid down by the president Thibaut Baillet, aud Roger Bammo, king’s advocate; it was not then obstructed by that forest of quirks, cavils,and quibbles, which these two lawyers planted before it at the commence- ment of the sixteenth ceptury. Everything about it was clear, explicit, expeditious. It was al mg | F forward work, and you perceive at once at the end of every path, uninterrupted by bushes or roundabout ways, the pillory, the gibbet, and the wheel. You knew at least what you had toexpect. _ 7 The clerk handed the sentence to the provost, who affixed his seal, and left the hall to continue his round: of the courte; in a mood which was likely to increase the population of the jails of Paris. Jehan Frollo and Robin Poussepain laughed in their sleeve ; while Quas- imodo looked on with an air of calm indifference, While Master Florain Barbedienne was in his turn reading the sentence, previously to his signing ijt, the clerk, feeling compassion for the wretched victim and hoping to obtain some mitigation of his punishment, rrronee as near as he could to theear of the ayiditor, d said, pointing at the same time to Quasimodo, *‘ the ' poor fellow is deaf.’’ Hé conceived that this community of infirmity might awaken Master Florian’s lenity in behalf of the culprit. But, in the first place, as we have already’ mentioned, Master Florian was by no means anxious to have it known that he was deaf; and, in thenext, he was so hard of hearing as not to catch asingle syllable of what the clerk said tohim. Pretending, nevertheless, to hear, he replied: ‘Aha! that is a different thing, I did not know that. In this case let him have another hour in the pillory ;" and he signed the sentence with this alteration. “That's right!" cried Robin Poussepain, who owed Quasimodo a grudge ; ‘‘this will teach him to handle people roughly.” CHAPTER II. THE TROU AUX BRATS, . Wirs the reader's permission, we shall conduct him back to the Place de Greve, which we yesterday quitted with Gringoire to follow La Esmeralda. It is the hour of ten in the morning ; the appearance of the Place indicates the morrow of a festival. The pavement is strewed with wrecks — rags, ribbons, teathers, drops of wax from the torches, fragments of the public banquet. A goodmany citizens are loung- ing about, kicking the half-consumed cases of the fire- works, admiring the Maison aux Pillers, extolling the beautiful hangings of the preceding day, and looking et the naila which had held them. The venders of cider and beer are trundling their barrels ma Se groups. A few pedestrians, urged by business, bustle along at a gnien rate. The shopkeepers are calling to one another om their doors and conversi her. The jfele, the ambassadots, Coppenole, the Pope of Fools, were in every mouth ; each striving to crack the me = pare er to laugh the loudest. And yet four sergeants om horse- back, who have just posted themselves at the foursides of thepillory, have a gathered around them 4 consi le portion of th — who were kicking their heele about the Place hopes of enjoying the amusement of an execution. Now, if the reader, after surveyin over the Place, the corner of the quay to the west, he may perceive at the angle of the tacade a large public breviary, richly illuminated, sheltered from the rain by a small pent- | house, and secured from thieves by an iron grating, over the leaves. ; this lively and | parle which, nevertheless, does not prevent your turning Beside this breviary is a narrow- pointed, unglazed window, looking out upon the Place, and defended by two cross-bars of iron—the only aper- ture for the admission of air and light toa small cel}. without door, formed in the basement of the wall ef the old builling, and full of a quiet the more profound. & silence the more melancholy, trom its very contiguity to a public place, and that the most populous and the most noisy in Paris, This cell had been noted in Paris for three centuries, ever since Madame Roland of Roland’s Tower, from af- fection for her father, who had fallen in the Crusades caused it to be cut out ot the wall of her own house, for the purpose of shutting hersélf up in it forever, keeping no part of her mansion but this hole, the door of which was walledup and the window open winter and summer, and giving all the rest to the poor aud to God. In this anttcipated tomb, the disconsolate lady had awaited death for twenty years, praying night and day for the soul of her father, lying upon ashes, without so much as astone for a pillow, habited in black sackcloth, and subsisting soley wpon the bread and water which the pity of the passengers induced them to deposit on her window-sill, thus living upon charity, after giving away herall. At her death, at the moment of quitting thisfor her last sepulchre, she be- queathed it forever to afflicted females, maids, wives, or widows, wWhoshould have occasion to pray much for thiémselves or others, and who should wish to bury theriisel ves alive on account of some heavy calamity or some extraordinary pr per The tears and blessings of the poor embalmed her memory, but to their gréat dis- a tomy aye their pious benefactres# could not be can- onized for want of patronage sufficiently powerful. Such of them as were not most ously disposed had hoped that’ the thing would be more easiFy accom- plished in Paradise than at Rome, and had tlterefore at once prayed to God insteatl ot the Pope, in behalf of the deceased. Most of them had been content to hold her memory sacred and to maké reliés of her rage. The city, secohiling the intentions of the lady, had founded a public breviary, which was attached to"the wall near the window of the cell, that passengers might stop from time to time, were it only that they might be induced to recite s prayer, that thé prayer might make them think of alms; avd shit the poor reclusés, the successive inmates of ce Rolahd’s cell, might not absolutely perish of hunger and neglect. In the eities of the Middle Ages tombe of this sort wére not rare. In the most,frequented street, in the most crowded and noisy. t, in the znidst of the | highways, almost under the horses’ feet and the cart- wheels, you frequently met with a cellar, & cave, a well, a walled and grated cabin, in. which a human being, self-deyoted to some everlasting sorrow, to some signal cae ae apent night and in prayer. And none of these tions which would be awakened in us at the preseht time by this strange sight, this horrid cell, a sort of intermediate link be- tween & house and a grave, between the cemetery and the city; that being cut off trom all communion with mankind, and henceforth numbered among the dead ; that lamp consuming its last drop of oil in obscurity; that spark of life glimmering in 4 grave; that yoice of incessant prayer in a cage of stone; that face forever turned toward-the next world; that eye already lit by another sun; that ear pressed against the side of the tomb ; that soul 4 prisoner in this body ; this body a. prisoner in this dungeon and the moaning of that afflicted soul, within this twofold envelope of flesh and granite—none of these teas presented themselves to the multitude inthose days. The unreasoning and far from subtle piety of that period could not see 80 many facts in areligious act, She took the thing in the lump; and honored, venerated, upon oecasion sanctified, the sacrifice, but without’analyzing the sufferings, or be- stowing en them only a moderate degree of pity. She carried from time to time a pittance to the wretched nitent, peeping through the hole to see if he were still alive; but she knew not his name; she scarcely knew how many years it was since he had begun te die;. and to the inquiries of the stranger respecting the liy- ing skeleton, who was rotting in such a cabin, eave, or cellar, the neighbors merely replied, ‘It is the re cluse. Thus at that day people saw everything with the. naked eye, without magnifying glass, without ger ation, without metaphysics. The microscope not. et been invented either for material or for spiritual hings. Inatances of this kind of seclusion in the heart of cities, though they raised but little wonder, were yet. frequent, as we have just observed. In Paris there was a considerable number of these cells for praying to God and doing penance; and almost all of them were occu- pied. e clergy, it is true, disliked to see them empty as that implied lukewarmness in their flock#: and lepers were placed in them when no penitents offered them- selves. Besides the cell of the Greve, there was one ut Montfaucon, another at the charnel+house of the Innvo- cents: a third, I do not exactly remember where, att). - logis Clichon, I beliéve; and others at varions places. where you still find traces ot them in traditions, thoug!: the buildings have been swept away. On the hill of St. Genevieve a kind of Job of the: e Ages sany for thirty years the seven peneteéntial psalms, upon a dtung- hill, at the bottom of a cistern, beginning atresh as soem as he had finished, and his voice highest at night; and to this day the i that he hears his voice, as he enters the street Pris gee But to return totheesllof Roland's Tower. It te: right to mention that ever since the death of Madame, e€om (E| OJ) (EO)