Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 144 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

——— the top of his pillar, espied the mendicant and his grimaces. Ani Sutraqsote fit’ of laughter seized the young wag, who, caring little about interruptifig the performance and dis urbing the profound attention of if you have ever thrown astone into a pond swarming with frogs, or fired a gun into a covey of birds, you may form some conception of ,the effect produced by this incongruous exclamation, amidst the general silence and attentien, Gringoire started as at an electric shock ; the. prologue stopped short, and every head turned tumultuously toward the mendicant, who, so far from being disconcerted, regarded this incident.as a favorable opportunity for making a har- vest, to drawl out, in adoleful tone, and with halt closed eyes, ‘* Charity, if you please !"’ “Why, upon my soul,”’ resumed Joannes, ‘tis Clopin Trouillefou! Hoho! my fine fellow, you found the wound on your legin the way, and so you've clapped it on your arm, have you ?” As he thus spoke, he threw, with the dexterity of a monkey, a piece of small cbin into the greasy hat which the beggar held with his ailing arm. The latter pocketed, without wincing, both the money and the sarcasm, and continued, in alamentable tone, *“‘ Charity, if yon please !”’ : j ; This episode considerably distracted the attention of jhe audience; and a number of the spectators with obin Poussepain and all the clerks at their head, loudly applauded this extempore duet, performed in Reader, the middle of the prologue, by the scholar with bis _ ms a om voice and the mendicant witli his monoto- nous descant. Gringoire was sorely displeased. On recovering from | his first stupefaction, he bawled out lustily to the four | actors ov the stage, ““ Why the devil do ye stop? Go on!” without even condescending to cast a look of dis- dain at the two interru At this moment he felt a twitch at the skirt of his | surtout; he turned round in an ill huwor, and hal some difficulty to raise a smile, which, however, he could not suppress. It was the plump, handsome arm of Gisquette la Gencienne, thrust through the balus- , Which thus solicited his attention. | ' Sir,’ said the damsel, “will they go on with the mystery e Most certainly,” replied Gringoire, not a little | find it to be composed of one part interest and nine | no ti shocked at the question. “In that case, Messire,’’ she resumed, “‘ will you haye the courtesy to explain to me’”’—— _ “What they are going to say?” asked Gringoire, in- terrupting her. “ Well, listen.” . ? ' “No.” rejoined Gisquette, “ but what they have been saying so far.” ft igoire startedlike a person with a wound which you have touched in the quick. - | “A plague on the stupid wench !” muttered he, be- tween liis teeth. | > tte had completely ruined herself in his good ve actors had, meanwhile, obeyed his injunction; and the public, seeing that they had resumed the per- ance, began again to listen, but not without. los- fing’ « great many bew ~ ties, from the abrupt division tke piece into two’parts, and the species of solder- which ha to undergo. Such, at least, was . painful ction TASHA made by Gringoire. nqgu , however, was gl adually restored; the &écholar held his tongue, the beggar counted the money in his hat, and tith piece proceeded swimmingly. ‘It -was, in truth, masterly work ; and we verily be- lieve that managers might avail themselves of it at the present day, with some modifications. The plot was simple; and Gringoire, in the candid sanctuary of his Own bosom, admired its clearness. As the “may easily conceive, the four allegorical char- were somewhat fatigued with their tour through Be ae of the world, Without finding an op- ay eir golden dolphin. ‘Thereupon followed a pane- ph he marvelous fish, with @ thousand delicate : ‘to the young Dridegroom of Margaret of ders, at that moment sadly shut up at Amboise, fe in and never dreaming that Labor and Clergy,” Nobility and ,had been mwakinga tour ofthe world on his t. The said dolphin, then was young, handsome, bold, and, above all—magnificent origin of every royal virtue—the son of the lion of France, i declare that this bold metaphor is truly admirable ; and that the natural history of the theater is not all ‘startled on an occasion. of this kind, at a dolphin, the of a lion. It is precisely these ont-of-the- way and Pindaric medleys that are evidences of en- thusiasm. Critical justice nevertheless requires the admissions that the poet ought to have developed this nal idea in somewhat less than the compass of ‘two hundred verses, Itis true that the mystery was to last from the hour of twelve till that of four, ac- oe to the ordinance of Monsieur the Provost, and that it was absolutely necessary to say something or other. Besides, the audience listened very patiently. ' All at once, in the midst of a quarrel between Made- moiselle Trade ani| Madame Nobility, at the moment when Master Labor was delivering this emphatic line : “More stately beast was ne’er in forest seen, the door of the Lope hg popoen ene ee hithert remained so unreasonably closed, was s more un- reasonably thrown open, and the sonorous voiee of Eminence » usher abruptly announced, “ His M Saghr the of Bourbon. sal CHAPTER III. MONSEIGNEDR THE CARDINAL. | Pook Grinaome! the noise of all the big double petards of St. John’s, the discharge of a hundred matchlocks, the detonation of that famous serpentine the audience, merrily cried, “Only look at that rap- scallion sens yonder !’’ t sing, agreeably to their intentions, | Chari cepa THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE-DAME. 7 t of the Tower of Billy, which, at the siege of Paris, on and boon companions, the 29th ot September, 1465, killedseven Burgundians _by one shot, nay the explosion of all the gundpowder in the magazine at the gute of the Temple, would not | have so shocked his ear at that solemn and dramatic moment as these words from the lips of an néher: |“ His Eminence Monseigneur the Cardinal of Bourton.” Not that Pierre Gringoire either feared or sdained ter of glasses, the bacchanalian son | abbots of high families, wenche | who had no objection bo join in | than once the pious souls ot St. Germain, d’Auxerre, as ‘they passed in ‘the ve under th dituminga win- ‘dows of the Cardinal’s residence, had en scundalized on hearing the same voices which had,chapted vespers | to them a few hours before lustily singing, to tlie clat- | x of Be edict XII, ‘that Pope who added 4 third crown tc mus papaliter. a G¢arolise ; and more } Monsieur the Cardinal ; he had neither that weaknéss the Tiara —Biba- nor that arrogance. A genuiue ecectic, as we would , —— say nowadays, Gringoire possessed one of those firm | It was no doubt'this popularity, to which he was sv and elevated, calm and moderate minds, which always | justly entitled, that preseryed him at his entrance | know how to steer a middle course, and are tull of rea- from any unfavorable demonstrations on the part of the son and liberal philosophy, at the same time that they | crowd, which a moment before had been so dissatisfied, -make much of cardinals—an admirable. race, widely | and by tio means disposed to pay respect to a Cardinal | Separated from that of the philosophérs; to whom Wis- | on the yery day that they were going to elect a Pope. dom, like another Ariadne, seems to have ‘given @ ball | But the Parisians are not apt to bear malice, and be- ofthread which they keep winding up from the com- sides, by insisting ‘on the commencement of the per- 'mencement of the world, through the labyrinth of | formance, the honest citizens had gained a victory over human affairs. We find them always and everywhere | the Cardinal, and this triumph Was enough for them. | the same, that is to say, ever accommodating them-{ Moreover, Monsieur the Cardinal of Bourbon was a selves to the times,.And, without reckoning our | comely man; he liad a stiperb scarlet robe, which he | Pierre Gringoire, who might be their representative | wore very Lurorirsy of course he had in his favor all in the fifteenth century, if we were to bestow on him | the,women, that is to say, the better half of the audi | that illustration which he deserves, it was certainly | ence. would be decidedly unjust and fn baditaste to | their spirit that animated Father Du Breul, when he | hoot a Cardinal for coming to the play a little after the | wrote, in the sixteenth, these simply sublime words, | time prescribed, when he is a handsome nian and wears Worthy of all ages: “Iam a Parisian by nation, and a/| his scarlet robe in a graceful manner. | Parrhisian by speech ; for Parrhisia, in Greek, signifies| He entered, therefore, bowed to the audience with liberty of speech, the which I haye used unto Mes- | that hereditary smile which thé great have for the peo- seigneurs the cardinals, uncle and brother of Monsig- | ple, and proceeded slowly toward hia arm-chair covered neur the Prince of Conty; at the same time with re- | with scarlet velvet, apparently thinking of something spect for their high dignily, and without giving offense | very different from the scene before him. His train, to any one of their retinue, which, methinks, is saying | which we should mowadays call his staff, of abbots ana a great deal, . bishops, followed him as he adyanced to the frout of There was, then, neither hatred of the Cardinal nor | the platform, to the no small increase of the tumult disdain of his presence in the disagreeable impres- | ahd curiosity of the spectators. Each was eager to sion which it made on Pierre Gringoire. On the con- | point, them out, to tel their names, to recognize at trary, our poet had too much good sense, and too Jeast one of them—Monsieur the Rishop ot Marseilles, threadbare a frock, not to feel eo ert | anxious Alaudet, it I recollect rightly : or the Dean of St. Denis; that many an allusion in his prologue, and particu- | or the Abbot of St. Germain des Pres, that libertine ‘larly the eulogy on the dolphin, the son of the lion of | Lrother of oue of the mistresses of Lonis XI.; but, as | France, shoula find its way to the ear ofa most emi- it may be supposed, with abundance of blunders and | nent personage. But it is not interest that predomi- mistakes, As for the scholars, they swore lustily. It. | nates in the noble nature of poets. Supposing the was their day, their feast ot foals, their saturnalia, the entity of the poet to be represented by the number | annual orgies of the Bazoche (the comp EaY of clerks of 10 ; | ols. ere Wak itis certain that a chemist, on analyzing it, would | the dhe ma, of Paris) and of the ae rpitude but was authorized on that day. Was it. not then the least they could do to swear at their ease, and to curse a little in the name of God; on so fine & day, in the good company of chur me Ps d Jewd * <e e parts vanity. Now, at the moment when the door) opened for the Cardinal, the nine parts of Gringoire’s vanity, swollen and inflated by the breath of popular admiration, were in a state of such prodigious en-| women? Accordingly bythe me x good us ense, largement as completely to smother that 1mpercepti- | and amidst the general uproar, horrible w elanior of the blasphemies and meat pire ¢ ye om tlie , 7 . s let loose—t ble particle of interest which we net now discovered t valuable ingredi- tongues » tong ties in the constitution of oets; @ m ent, hevertheless, the ballast eality of human- | scholars, restrained duri oy ity, withont which they would never d te this lower world. Gringoire was delighted to see, to fee), in some measure, a whole assem varieties, it is true—but what does that signify—stupefied, petri- and hg tbe rest of tl y the fear of the red-hot irono , tone. ~ Poor St. Louis !: how they set him at nought in his fa ee of Jus- tice? Each of them had | n a black, grey, thes white, or purple cassock for his butt fied, and strickén as it were ingen gids by the im- | oceupants of the platform. As for Joanne ae measurable speeches which succeeded mea other in | Molendino, he, as brother of an ar y every part of his epithalamium. . L affirm that he Der attacked the scarlet ; and, fixing his © is eyes sicineted in ge general happiness, and that, unlike ou the Cardinal, he sang at the top of his voice Cappa ontaine, who, on the first representation of his pear repleta mero, ° of ‘' The Florentine,” ing “What paltry scribbler All these circumstances, which we here reveal for the: edification of the reader, were so smothered by the gen- eral tumult as to pass unnoticed by the reverend party on the platform ; had it, ndead, been otherwise, the Cardinal would not have heeded them, 80 deeply were the liberties of that day engrafted on the manners of the age. He, was,aoreover, wholly preoccupied—and his countenance showed it~by another solicitude, which closely pursued him, and, indeed, entered the platform almost at the same time with him, namely, the Fiandersembassy,. . + 44s wig he Not that he was a profound politi d was cal- culating the possible consequences ‘the marriage of 8 cousin wroté this rhapsody ?” Gringoire would gladly have asked his neighbor,,‘* Who is the author of this master- piece?’ Now imagine what must have been the eflect produced upon him by the abrupt and unseasonable arrival of the Cardina). , : What he had reason to apprehend was but too soon realized. The entry of his Eminence upsét tlie audi- tory. All heads turned mechanically toward the plat- form. Not another word was to be heard. “The Car- dival! the Cardinal!’ was upon every tongue. The unlucky prologue was cut short a second time, cian, The Cardinal paused fora moment on the threshold aft of the platform, with supercilious looks surveying the | his cousin Margaret of .Burgunda ° n of Vienne; or how long, the good un- auditory. Meanwhile the tumult increased; each | Charles, Diu | , striving to raise his head above his neighbor's to ob- | derstan mepersye mp between the Duke of Austria tain a better view of his Eminence. and the King o ance was likely to last; or how the King of England would take the slight off to his He was, in tact, a very distinguished’ personage, the mi , . danghter; these matters gave Aim no uneasiness, and sivht of whom was well worth any other comedy. Ybarles, Cardinal of Bourbon, Archbishop ‘aud Count | he enjoyed himself every evening over the royal gro. ‘th of Lyons, Primate of the Gauls, Was at once allied to | of Chaillot, without ev amd g that a few bottles ouis XI, through his brother Pierre, Lord of Beaujeu, | of the sane e—first Dr a littl iti true, a war who was married to the king’s eldest daughter, aud to the Bold by his mother, Agnes of Burgundy, Now the predominant, the distinctive, trait in the character of the Primate of the Gauls was a courtier- e, Coictier, tle phys —cordially presented,to IV, by Louis, XI.,,.would one rid Louis XI. ot ard IV. The most honorable the embassy of Monsieur the Duke of Austria brought upon the’C noue of LT eee eee ee, spirit and deyotedness to power, The reader may form | these cares; but it vexed him in another way. It was some conception of the numberless embarrassments in | in truth rather hard, as we have already served at which he had been involved by this two-fold relation- | the beginning of this book, that he, Charles ot Bour- ship,and of the temporal rocks — whieh his | bon, should be obliged to give hearty ee Age ood spiritual bark had been obli ed to luff, that it mght , entertainment to paltry citizens; he, a Ca 1al to bur- on to not be wrecked either against Louis or against Charles, that Charybais and Scylla which had engulted the Duke of Nemours and the Constable of St. Pol. bee to heaven, he had contrived ‘pretty well to escape the dangers of the voyage, and had arrived at Rome with- out obstruction. But, though he was in port, aud pre- clea] y because he was in port, he could never call te mind without agitation the various chances his political life, so long h d by labors aid alarms. Accordingly, he was accustomed to say that the year 1476 had been to him both black and white; thereby gomasters; he, a Frenchman, a boon co Flemings fond of beer—and that, too. Bis was certainly one of the.moatdisngrocable teak he had ong undertaken to please the king. e turned, therefore, toward the door, and with the best, grace in the world—so well had he studied his part—when the usher, with his sonorous voice,, an- nounced Messieurs the Envoys.of Monsieur the, Duke of Austria, It is scarcely necessary to remark ‘that all jan of Ans- the spectators did the same " . The ferty-eight ambassadors of eaniny that lost in t r his mother the | tria, headed by the reverend father in Jehan, Ab- Diiolices AY nocttohaee, and Th Stacia the Duke of | bot of St. Bertin, Chancellor of the we : eece, and Burgundy, and that one morning had consoled him | Jacques de Goy, & ~ Dauby, High-b of Ghent, In other respects he was a good sort of man ; he led | a remarkable ¢ontrast amidst the vol ecclesinetical a jovial life as Cardinal, loved to make merry*with the | retinue of Charles of Bourbo ace pervaded wth of the royal vineyard of Chaillot, did not hate hter at the the gamesome h a Garmoise and Thomasse la petty titles Safllarde, bestowed alms on ng damsels rather than with im on wrinkled hags, and for al] these reasons was a great favorite with the populace of Paris. Wherever he went he was surrounded by a little court of bishops and mention of the uncouth names and which each of these personages turbable solemnity to the usher, whe names and gnalities pell-mell an among the crowd, There was Master « Deeps the assembly, broken only by ried 4 TT _/—Ssrce | S (E(@) fs Pe r Eboo