Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 144 — page 32: what you’re looking at

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

—— —— —- 32 THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE-DAME. there is sorcery in the case, as the official attends the | and gentlemen, that the officer, in his deposition, taken trial,”’ in writing by his bedside, while admitting that he had “Come on!” said our philosopher, “ let us watch all | a confused idea, at the moment when he was accosted these lawyers banqueting on human flesh! sight as well as any other.” ere the bystanders imposed silence on the inter- loeutors. An important witness was under examina- tion. ‘‘Gentlemen,” said an old woman in the middle of the hall, who was so muffled up as to look likes walking bundle of rags, “gentlemen, it is as true as that my name is Falo l, and that I have kept house for forty years at the Pont St. Michel, and regu- larly paid rent, taxes, and rates. A poor old woman now, gentlemen, but once reckoned handsome, though I say it. One night, I was “ ero when there comes a knock at my door. I asked, ‘Who's there?’ andthere was euch a swearing! I opened the door; two men came in; a manin black, with a comely officer. Noth- ing wae to be seen of the man in Diack but his eyes, for all the world like two burning coals; all the rest of him was cloak and hat. ‘St. Martha’s room|!’ said they to me. Thatis my room upstairs, gentlemen, my best room. They gavemeacrown. I putit into my drawer, saying to myself, ‘ It will serve to-morrow to buy tripe with at the shambles of the Gloriette.’ Well, we went upstairs, and while my back was turned, the man in black was gone. This staggered mea little. The officer, as handsome a gentleman as you would wish to set eyes on, went downstairs with me, and outhe goes. By the time I had spun a quarter of a bobbin, in he comes ayain with a pretty poppet of adamsel, who would have duzzled you like the sun if she had been properly ‘tired. She had with her a goat, a large goat; it might be black, it might be white, I don’t recollect now. ‘Tis a | by the man in black, that it might be the goblin-monk, added, that the phantom had strongly pressed bim to keep his appointment with the accused; and, when the said captain observed that he had no money, he gave bim the crown with which the officer paid the witness Falourdel. The crown therefore is a coin of hell.” This conclusive observation appeared to dispel all the lingering doubts of Gringoire and the other skep- tics among the audience. “Gentlemen are in possession of the papers,”’ added the king’s advocate, sitting down; ‘‘they can refer to the deposition. of Captain Phcebus de Chateaupers.” At that name the accused rose. Her head was seen above the crowd. To his horror, Gringoire recognized La Esmeralda. She was pale; her hair, once so gracefully plaited, and studded with sequins, was disheveled ; her lips were livid, her eyes hollow. Alas! what a change! “Phebus!” exclaimed she wildly, “ where is he? Oh my lords, before you put me to death, for mercy’s sake tell me if ‘he still lives !”’ “Silence, prisoner!” replied the president; “we have nothing to do with that.” “If you have any pity, tell me if he is alive!” she resumed, clasping her attenuated hands; and her chains were heard to rustle along her dress. ‘* Well,” said the king’s advocate, dryly, “‘ he is dying. Are you satisfied 7?” The unhappy girl sank down again upon her seat, voiceless, tearless, white as a waxen image. The president stooped toward aman placed at his feet, who had @ gold-laced cap, a biack gown, a chain The girl—that was no concern of mine—but the goat'| about his neck, and a wand in his hand. “ Usher, bring put me out, I must say—I don’t like those animals; | in the second prisoner.” they have got a beard and horns—too like & man—and then the thing smells of witchcraft. However, I said nothing, and why should 1? Had not 1 got the crown? And all right, too, my lord, wasn’t it? So I took the captain and the girl to the room upstairs and lett them alone, that is sosay, with the goat. I went down, and fell to spinning again. But I ought to tell you that my house was 4 ground floor and a floor above; the back of it looks to the river, like all the other houses on fhe bridge, and the windows, both on the ground floor and the chamber open toward the water. Well, as Ixaid just now,I began spirning again. I can’t tell, not I, why I thought of the goblin-monk which the goat had put into my head— and then the girl was dressed in such a strange fashion! Well, allat once I heard such a scmam up- stairs, and something fall on the floor, and the win- dow open. Iranto mine, which is below, and saw 6 black figure drop before. my eyes, and tumble into the water. It was a specter in the habit of a priest. The moon was shining bright, so I saw it as plain as I see you now. It swam away toward the city. I was all over of a tremble, and called the watch. When those gentlemen came in, they did not know what to make of it at first, and, being rather fuddled, they fell to beating me. Isoon set them right We went up, and what should we find but my best cham- ber drenehed with blood, the captain laid at full length with a dagger in his bosom, and the girl sham- ming ,and the an frightened out of ite wits! ‘A pretty job!’ said I, ‘it will take me a fortnight to ge the floor cléan again—scour and scrub it as I will. ey carried away the officer—poor young man—and the girl with her bosom all bare. But, worse than all, next day, whén I went tothe drawer tor the crown to bny es 6 lo and behold! I found notbing buts withe leat where I had left it!” The old woman ceased speaking. A murmur of horror srose from the audi . “ The specter, the goat, and al) that, look very like sorcery,’’ said Grin- goire to a neighbor. “Ay, and the withered leaf,” added another. ‘No doubt,’ observed a third, “it wae a witch colleagued with the goblin monk to rob the officer.” Gringoire himself could scarcely help thinking that there was some probability in the con- jecture. * Witness,”’ said the president in s dignified man- ner, “have you nothing further to communicate to the court ?” “No, my lor&” replied the old woman, “ only that in the report my house is called s crary, Althy hovel, which is a scandalous falsehodd, To be sure the houses on the bridge are not so Neth « some, but yet the butchers like to live in them, and they are people well todo in the world, and their wives are as proper, comely women as you would wish to see.” The magistrate whom oire had likened to a crocodile now arose. “ Bilence!’ saidhe. “I beg you, my lord and gentlemen, to bear in mind that a dagger wes found upon the accused. Witness, have you brought with you the leaf into which the crown given you by the demon was changed ?” ** You, sir,”’ she replied, “ here it is.’’ An usher handed the dead leaf to the crocodile, who geve « sinister shake of the head, and passed it to the prosident ; and the president sent it to the king’s proc- tor in the ecclesiastical court; so that it went the round of the hall. “Upon my word, a birch leaf!"’ ejaculated Master Jacques Charmolue ; fresh proof of " and spoke. “ Witnesa,”’ said he, ‘‘ two men went tairs together at your house ; a man in bieck, who@immediately diss ed, and whom you afterward Saw swimming tn the Seine, in the habit of a priest, and the officer. Which of the two gave you the crown ?”” The old woman considered for » moment. “It was the officer,”’ ‘aid she.. . A murmur a omg n through the court. ‘‘Aha!” thought Gringoire, ‘that alters the case materially.” Master Philip Pheulier, advocate extraordinary to the king, again interposed, “Let me remind you, my lord A counselor then All eyes turned toWard a small door which opened, and, to the extreme agitation of Gringoire, in walked a pretty goat with horns and hoofs. The elegant creature stopped tor @ moment on the threshold, poem hye her neck, asif, perched on the point of some rock, she was overlooking 4 vast plain beneath her. All at once she descried the Bohemian, and, springing over the table and the head of a clerk of the court, in two leaps she was at her knees; she then nestled gracefully on the feet of her mistress, solicit- ing @ word or & caress ; but the prisoner remained mo- monet, and poor Djali herself could not obtain even as look. “ Nay, by my fay! ‘tis the same nasty beast,” cried Se “I could swear positively to them “If it so pleaseth you, my lord and gentlemen,” be- Charmdolue, “we will proceed to the examination of the second prisoner.” The second prisoner was the goat, sure saough Nothing was more common in those days than to indic animals for sorcery. In the accounts of the provosty for 1466, we find, among others, the curious details of the costs of the trial of Gillet-Soulart and his sow, “executed for their crimes at Corbeil,’” Every item is there; the charge for the place of confinement made for the sow, the five hundred bundles of wood carried to the port of Morsant, the three quarts of wine and the bread, the last meal of the sufferer, fraternally shared by the executéoner, even to the eleven days’ keep and-subbistence of the sow at eight deniers Parisis deck Sometimes, indeed, our ‘pious ancestors went still further than animals. The capitularies of Charle- magne and Louis le Debonnaire decreed the infliction of severe punishments upon those luminous phantoms which have the audacity to appear in the air. The proctor of the ecclesiastical court then pro- nounced this solemn denunciation: “If the demon which possesses this goat, and which has withstood all the exorcisms that have been tried, persists in his wicked courses, and shocks the court with them, we forewarn him that we shall be forced to demand that he be sentenced to the gallows or the stake.”’ Cold perspiration covered the face of Gringoire. Charmolue took from a table the tambourine of the Egyptian, held it in a — way to the goat, and asked, “ What hour is it?’ The ~ eyed him with intelligent look, raised her gilt footandstruck seven strokes. It was actually seven o'clock. A shudder of terror thrilled the crowd. Grin- geire could no longer contain himself. “The creature will be her own destruction!” he exclaimed aloud. “See you not that she knows not what she does ?’’ “Bilence among the lieges in the court!” cried the usher, aternly. Jacques Charmolue, by shifting the tambourine in various ways, made the goat exhibit several other tricks reapecting the day of the month, the month of the year, and so forth, which the reader has already wit- nessed; and, from an optical delusion peculiar to judi- cial proceedings, the very same spectators, who had perhaps a Oy time applauded the innocent pranks of Djali in the streets, were horror-stricken at them within the walls of the Palace of Justice. The goat was decidedly the devil. But when the king's proctor had emptied out upon the table a little leathern bag filled with detached let- ters which Djali had about her neck, and the goat was seen sorting out with her foot the separate letters of the fatal name PHasvs, the apella to which the cap- tain had fallen a victim ap to be irresistibly demonatrated, in the opinion of all; and the Bohemian, that exquisite dancer, who had so often enchanted the gazere with her graceful performances, was ap odious witch. The poor girl, meanwhile, exhibited not the least nor the threats of the judges, nor the muttered impre- cations of the audience, were noticed by her. : had writhed in agony, frighten sign of life; neither the fond evolutions of her Djali, | the ve served that the judges must be fatigued, and that they uld be detained « long time if they waited for the | ' voice In a solemn tone, thus spoke: Bohemian race, addicted to unrighteous deeds. In company with the bewitched goat, your accomplice, implicated in this indictment, you did, on the night of the 29th of March last, in concert with the powers of | darkness, and by the aid of charms and unlawful prac | tises, stab and slay Phabus de Chateaupers, captain of | the archers of the kings ordnance. Do you persist in denying this ?’’ “ O horror of horrors !’’ exclaimed the prisoner, cover- ing her face with her hands. “O my Phebus! This is hell indeed !” a you persist in denying it ?”’ asked the president, coldly. “TI do deny it!" said she in a fearful tone, and with flashing eyes, ag she rose from her seat. “Girl, you are of i “Then,’’ proceeded the president, calmly, '‘ how do you explain the facts laid to your charge ?” In broken accents, she replied: “J have already told you.. Iknow not. It wasa priest—apriest, astranger to me—an infernal priest who haunts me ?’”’ “There it is!” rersumed the judge—“the goblin monk.” WA sirs, have pity upon me! I am but a poor g r * “ Of Egypt,’ continued the judge. Master Jacques Charmolue, in bis gentlest, softest tone, then said, * In consequence of the painful obstincy of the prisoner, I demand the application of the torture.’” “Granted,” said the president. The unhappy girl shook all over. She rose, how- ever, at the order of the halberdiers, and, preceded by Charmolue and the officers of the officiality, walked with tolerably firm step, between two files of partisans, toward a low door, which suddenly opened, and closed after her. To Gringoire it seemed as though she had been swallowed up by the gaping jaws of some mon- ster. As soon as she had disappeared, a plaintive bleat- ing was heard. It was the poor goat bewailing the loss of her mistress. The proceedings were suspended. A counselor ob- conclusion of the torture; to which the president re plied, that a magistrate ought to have learned to sacri- fice personal convenience to his duty. “The provoking hussy!” said an old judge, '*te bring the torture upon herself just now, when we ought to be at supper !”’ CHAPTER II. | CROWN TRANSFORMED INTO 4, DRY Luar. HAVING ascended and descended some steps in pas- were lighted in broad day by still surroynded by BEQUEL TO THE sages 80 dark that the lamps, La Esmeral her dismal escort, was thrust by the sergeants of the | Palace into a room of sinister aspect. is room, of circular ahepe, occupied the ground floor of one of the towers thatat the present day still perforate the stratum of modern edifices with which. New Paris has covered the old city. There were no windows in thie dungeon, neither was there any other aperture thap the low entrance closed by a strong iron door. At the same time there was no want of light; in the massive substance of the wall there was a furnace, in which burned a large fire that threw a red glare over the den, and quite eclipsed the light of s miserable candle placed ina corner. The iron portcullis, which sery as & door to the furnace, was drawn up at that moment, so that at ite flaming mouth there was to be-seen only the lower extremities of its bars, resembling arow of black, sharp, parted teeth, which made the furnace look like the mouth of one of those dragons of the legends, vomiting fire and smoke. By the light which it dif- fused, the prisoner perceived around the room a variety of instruments, the uses of which were unknown to her. In the middle was a leathern mattress laid al. most flat upon the floor, on which hung & thong with a buckle, fastened to a copper ring, which a grotesque monater sculptured in the keystone of the vaulted ceiling held between his teeth. Tongs, pincers, broad ploughshares, lay pell-mell, heating in the fire in the interior of the furnace. Ite blood-red flare presented to the eye in the whole circumference of the chamber naught but an assemblage of fearful objects. Thie Tartarus was merely called The Chamber of the Question. On the bed was carelessly seated Pierrat Torterue, the ‘sworn tormentor.’’ His assistants, two square faced gnomes, with leathern aprons and linen breeches, were stirring the coals under the iron implements. The poor girl had need to muster her ¢ ; on entering this den she waa struck with horror. The serjeante of the bailiff of the Palace od themselves on one side, and the priests of the officiality on the other. In one corner wax a table, at which sat a clerk with pen, ink, and paper. Master Jacques Charmolue approached the Egyptian with one of his kindest smiles. “My dear girl,” eaid he, “do you persist in your denial ?’ “ Yes,”’ she replied in a yoice scarcely audible. ‘In that case,” replied Charmolne, it will be very pain ul to us to question you more urgently then we would. Take the trouble to sit down on thie bed. Master Pierrat give place to this young woman, and shut the door.” tered he, “‘ my fire wil “Well then, my g fellow,’’ replied Charmelue, “leave it open,” ; Meanwhile La Esmeralda remained standing. That leathern bed, on which so many wretched creatures her. Horror thrilled marrow of her bones; there she stood, be- stupefied. At a sign from Charmolue, the Pierrat rose poe “If I shut the door,’’ mut j o out.” wilder In order | two assistante laid hold of her, and placed her im a to rouse her, a sergeant went to her, and shook her sitting posture on the bed. Those men did not hurt most unmercifully, while the president, raising hie ber, but when they grasped her, when the leather CORNICE DOO € (E@) ”