While the pensioner of Ghent and his eminence were
exchanging very low bows and a few words in voices still
lower, a man of lofty stature, with a large face and broad
shoulders, presented himself, in order to enter abreast with
Guillaume Rym; one would have pronounced him a bull-dog
by the side of a fox. His felt doublet and leather jerkin
made a spot on the velvet and silk which surrounded him.
Presuming that he was some groom who had stolen in, the
usher stopped him.
"Hold, my friend, you cannot pass!"
The man in the leather jerkin shouldered him aside.
"What does this knave want with me?" said he, in stentorian
tones, which rendered the entire hall attentive to this
strange colloquy. "Don't you see that I am one of them?"
"Your name?" demanded the usher.
"Jacques Coppenole."
"Your titles?"
"Hosier at the sign of the 'Three Little Chains,' of Ghent."
The usher recoiled. One might bring one's self to announce
aldermen and burgomasters, but a hosier was too much. The
cardinal was on thorns. All the people were staring and
listening. For two days his eminence had been exerting his
utmost efforts to lick these Flemish bears into shape, and to
render them a little more presentable to the public, and this
freak was startling. But Guillaume Rym, with his polished
smile, approached the usher.
"Announce Master Jacques Coppenole, clerk of the aldermen
of the city of Ghent," he whispered, very low.
"Usher," interposed the cardinal, aloud, "announce Master
Jacques Coppenole, clerk of the aldermen of the illustrious
city of Ghent."
This was a mistake. Guillaume Rym alone might have
conjured away the difficulty, but Coppenole had heard the
cardinal.
"No, cross of God?" he exclaimed, in his voice of thunder,
"Jacques Coppenole, hosier. Do you hear, usher? Nothing
more, nothing less. Cross of God! hosier; that's fine enough.
Monsieur the Archduke has more than once sought his ~gant~*
in my hose."
* Got the first idea of a timing.
Laughter and applause burst forth. A jest is always understood
in Paris, and, consequently, always applauded.
Let us add that Coppenole was of the people, and that the
auditors which surrounded him were also of the people. Thus
the communication between him and them had been prompt,
electric, and, so to speak, on a level. The haughty air of the
Flemish hosier, by humiliating the courtiers, had touched in
all these plebeian souls that latent sentiment of dignity still
vague and indistinct in the fifteenth century.
This hosier was an equal, who had just held his own before
monsieur the cardinal. A very sweet reflection to poor fellows
habituated to respect and obedience towards the underlings
of the sergeants of the bailiff of Sainte-Genevi¨¨ve, the
cardinal's train-bearer.
Coppenole proudly saluted his eminence, who returned the
salute of the all-powerful bourgeois feared by Louis XI.
Then, while Guillaume Rym, a "sage and malicious man," as
Philippe de Comines puts it, watched them both with a smile
of raillery and superiority, each sought his place, the cardinal
quite abashed and troubled, Coppenole tranquil and haughty,
and thinking, no doubt, that his title of hosier was as good as
any other, after all, and that Marie of Burgundy, mother to
that Marguerite whom Coppenole was to-day bestowing in
marriage, would have been less afraid of the cardinal than of
the hosier; for it is not a cardinal who would have stirred up
a revolt among the men of Ghent against the favorites of the
daughter of Charles the Bold; it is not a cardinal who could
have fortified the populace with a word against her tears and
prayers, when the Maid of Flanders came to supplicate her
people in their behalf, even at the very foot of the scaffold;
while the hosier had only to raise his leather elbow, in order
to cause to fall your two heads, most illustrious seigneurs,
Guy d'Hymbercourt and Chancellor Guillaume Hugonet.
Nevertheless, all was over for the poor cardinal, and he was
obliged to quaff to the dregs the bitter cup of being in such
bad company.
The reader has, probably, not forgotten the impudent beggar
who had been clinging fast to the fringes of the cardinal's
gallery ever since the beginning of the prologue. The arrival
of the illustrious guests had by no means caused him to relax
his hold, and, while the prelates and ambassadors were packing
themselves into the stalls--like genuine Flemish herrings--he
settled himself at his ease, and boldly crossed his legs
on the architrave. The insolence of this proceeding was
extraordinary, yet no one noticed it at first, the attention of
all being directed elsewhere. He, on his side, perceived nothing
that was going on in the hall; he wagged his head with
the unconcern of a Neapolitan, repeating from time to time,
amid the clamor, as from a mechanical habit, "Charity,
please!" And, assuredly, he was, out of all those present,
the only one who had not deigned to turn his head at the
altercation between Coppenole and the usher. Now, chance
ordained that the master hosier of Ghent, with whom the
people were already in lively sympathy, and upon whom all
eyes were riveted--should come and seat himself in the front
row of the gallery, directly above the mendicant; and people
were not a little amazed to see the Flemish ambassador, on
concluding his inspection of the knave thus placed beneath
his eyes, bestow a friendly tap on that ragged shoulder. The
beggar turned round; there was surprise, recognition, a lighting
up of the two countenances, and so forth; then, without
paying the slightest heed in the world to the spectators, the
hosier and the wretched being began to converse in a low
tone, holding each other's hands, in the meantime, while the
rags of Clopin Trouillefou, spread out upon the cloth of gold
of the dais, produced the effect of a caterpillar on an orange.
The novelty of this singular scene excited such a murmur
of mirth and gayety in the hall, that the cardinal was not
slow to perceive it; he half bent forward, and, as from the
point where he was placed he could catch only an imperfect
view of Trouillerfou's ignominious doublet, he very naturally
imagined that the mendicant was asking alms, and, disgusted
with his audacity, he exclaimed: "Bailiff of the Courts, toss
me that knave into the river!"
"Cross of God! monseigneur the cardinal," said Coppenole,
without quitting Clopin's hand, "he's a friend of mine."
"Good! good!" shouted the populace. From that moment,
Master Coppenole enjoyed in Paris as in Ghent, "great favor
with the people; for men of that sort do enjoy it," says
Philippe de Comines, "when they are thus disorderly."
The cardinal bit his lips. He bent towards his neighbor,
the Abb¨¦ of Saint Genevi¨¦ve, and said to him in a low
tone,--"Fine ambassadors monsieur the archduke sends here, to
announce to us Madame Marguerite!"
"Your eminence," replied the abb¨¦, "wastes your politeness
on these Flemish swine. ~Margaritas ante porcos~, pearls
before swine."
"Say rather," retorted the cardinal, with a smile, "~Porcos
ante Margaritam~, swine before the pearl."
The whole little court in cassocks went into ecstacies over
this play upon words. The cardinal felt a little relieved; he
was quits with Coppenole, he also had had his jest applauded.
Now, will those of our readers who possess the power of
generalizing an image or an idea, as the expression runs in
the style of to-day, permit us to ask them if they have formed
a very clear conception of the spectacle presented at this
moment, upon which we have arrested their attention, by the
vast parallelogram of the grand hall of the palace.
In the middle of the hall, backed against the western wall,
a large and magnificent gallery draped with cloth of gold, into
which enter in procession, through a small, arched door, grave
personages, announced successively by the shrill voice of an
usher. On the front benches were already a number of venerable
figures, muffled in ermine, velvet, and scarlet. Around
the dais--which remains silent and dignified--below, opposite,
everywhere, a great crowd and a great murmur. Thousands
of glances directed by the people on each face upon the
dais, a thousand whispers over each name. Certainly, the
spectacle is curious, and well deserves the attention of the
spectators. But yonder, quite at the end, what is that sort
of trestle work with four motley puppets upon it, and more
below? Who is that man beside the trestle, with a black
doublet and a pale face? Alas! my dear reader, it is Pierre
Gringoire and his prologue.
We have all forgotten him completely.
This is precisely what he feared.
From the moment of the cardinal's entrance, Gringoire had
never ceased to tremble for the safety of his prologue. At
first he had enjoined the actors, who had stopped in suspense,
to continue, and to raise their voices; then, perceiving that
no one was listening, he had stopped them; and, during the
entire quarter of an hour that the interruption lasted, he had
not ceased to stamp, to flounce about, to appeal to Gisquette
and Li¨¦narde, and to urge his neighbors to the continuance
of the prologue; all in vain. No one quitted the cardinal,
the embassy, and the gallery--sole centre of this vast circle
of visual rays. We must also believe, and we say it with
regret, that the prologue had begun slightly to weary the
audience at the moment when his eminence had arrived,
and created a diversion in so terrible a fashion. After all,
on the gallery as well as on the marble table, the spectacle
was the same: the conflict of Labor and Clergy, of Nobility
and Merchandise. And many people preferred to see them
alive, breathing, moving, elbowing each other in flesh and
blood, in this Flemish embassy, in this Episcopal court,
under the cardinal's robe, under Coppenole's jerkin, than
painted, decked out, talking in verse, and, so to speak, stuffed
beneath the yellow amid white tunics in which Gringoire had
so ridiculously clothed them.
Nevertheless, when our poet beheld quiet reestablished
to some extent, he devised a stratagem which might have
redeemed all.
"Monsieur," he said, turning towards one of his neighbors,
a fine, big man, with a patient face, "suppose we begin
again."
"What?" said his neighbor.
"H¨¦! the Mystery," said Gringoire.
"As you like," returned his neighbor.
This semi-approbation sufficed for Gringoire, and, conducting
his own affairs, he began to shout, confounding himself
with the crowd as much as possible: "Begin the mystery
again! begin again!"
"The devil!" said Joannes de Molendino, "what are they
jabbering down yonder, at the end of the hall?" (for Gringoire
was making noise enough for four.) "Say, comrades,
isn't that mystery finished? They want to begin it all over
again. That's not fair!"
"No, no!" shouted all the scholars. "Down with the
mystery! Down with it!"
But Gringoire had multiplied himself, and only shouted
the more vigorously: "Begin again! begin again!"
These clamors attracted the attention of the cardinal.
"Monsieur Bailiff of the Courts," said he to a tall, black
man, placed a few paces from him, "are those knaves in a
holy-water vessel, that they make such a hellish noise?"
The bailiff of the courts was a sort of amphibious magistrate,
a sort of bat of the judicial order, related to both the
rat and the bird, the judge and the soldier.
He approached his eminence, and not without a good deal
of fear of the latter's displeasure, he awkwardly explained to
him the seeming disrespect of the audience: that noonday
had arrived before his eminence, and that the comedians had
been forced to begin without waiting for his eminence.
The cardinal burst into a laugh.
"On my faith, the rector of the university ought to have
done the same. What say you, Master Guillaume Rym?"
"Monseigneur," replied Guillaume Rym, "let us be content
with having escaped half of the comedy. There is at least
that much gained."
"Can these rascals continue their farce?" asked the bailiff.
"Continue, continue," said the cardinal, "it's all the same
to me. I'll read my breviary in the meantime."
The bailiff advanced to the edge of the estrade, and cried,
after having invoked silence by a wave of the hand,--
"Bourgeois, rustics, and citizens, in order to satisfy those
who wish the play to begin again, and those who wish it
to end, his eminence orders that it be continued."
Both parties were forced to resign themselves. But the
public and the author long cherished a grudge against the
cardinal.
So the personages on the stage took up their parts, and
Gringoire hoped that the rest of his work, at least, would be
listened to. This hope was speedily dispelled like his other
illusions; silence had indeed, been restored in the audience,
after a fashion; but Gringoire had not observed that at the
moment when the cardinal gave the order to continue, the
gallery was far from full, and that after the Flemish envoys
there had arrived new personages forming part of the cortege,
whose names and ranks, shouted out in the midst of his dialogue
by the intermittent cry of the usher, produced considerable
ravages in it. Let the reader imagine the effect in the
midst of a theatrical piece, of the yelping of an usher, flinging
in between two rhymes, and often in the middle of a line,
parentheses like the following,--
"Master Jacques Charmolue, procurator to the king in the
Ecclesiastical Courts!"
"Jehan de Harlay, equerry guardian of the office of chevalier
of the night watch of the city of Paris!"
"Messire Galiot de Genoilhac, chevalier, seigneur de Brussac,
master of the king's artillery!"
"Master Dreux-Raguier, surveyor of the woods and forests
of the king our sovereign, in the land of France, Champagne
and Brie!"
"Messire Louis de Graville, chevalier, councillor, and
chamberlain of the king, admiral of France, keeper of the
Forest of Vincennes!"
"Master Denis le Mercier, guardian of the house of the
blind at Paris!" etc., etc., etc.
This was becoming unbearable.
This strange accompaniment, which rendered it difficult to
follow the piece, made Gringoire all the more indignant because
he could not conceal from himself the fact that the interest
was continually increasing, and that all his work required
was a chance of being heard.
It was, in fact, difficult to imagine a more ingenious and
more dramatic composition. The four personages of the
prologue were bewailing themselves in their mortal embarrassment,
when Venus in person, (~vera incessa patuit dea~) presented
herself to them, clad in a fine robe bearing the heraldic
device of the ship of the city of Paris. She had come herself
to claim the dolphin promised to the most beautiful. Jupiter,
whose thunder could be heard rumbling in the dressing-room,
supported her claim, and Venus was on the point of carrying
it off,--that is to say, without allegory, of marrying monsieur
the dauphin, when a young child clad in white damask, and
holding in her hand a daisy (a transparent personification of
Mademoiselle Marguerite of Flanders) came to contest it with
Venus.
Theatrical effect and change.
After a dispute, Venus, Marguerite, and the assistants
agreed to submit to the good judgment of time holy Virgin.
There was another good part, that of the king of Mesopotamia;
but through so many interruptions, it was difficult to
make out what end he served. All these persons had ascended
by the ladder to the stage.
But all was over; none of these beauties had been felt nor
understood. On the entrance of the cardinal, one would have
said that an invisible magic thread had suddenly drawn all
glances from the marble table to the gallery, from the southern
to the western extremity of the hall. Nothing could disenchant
the audience; all eyes remained fixed there, and the
new-comers and their accursed names, and their faces, and their
costumes, afforded a continual diversion. This was very
distressing. With the exception of Gisquette and Li¨¦narde, who
turned round from time to time when Gringoire plucked them
by the sleeve; with the exception of the big, patient neighbor,
no one listened, no one looked at the poor, deserted morality
full face. Gringoire saw only profiles.
With what bitterness did he behold his whole erection of
glory and of poetry crumble away bit by bit! And to think
that these people had been upon the point of instituting a
revolt against the bailiff through impatience to hear his work!
now that they had it they did not care for it. This same
representation which had been begun amid so unanimous an
acclamation! Eternal flood and ebb of popular favor! To
think that they had been on the point of hanging the bailiff's
sergeant! What would he not have given to be still at that
hour of honey!
But the usher's brutal monologue came to an end; every
one had arrived, and Gringoire breathed freely once more;
the actors continued bravely. But Master Coppenole, the
hosier, must needs rise of a sudden, and Gringoire was forced
to listen to him deliver, amid universal attention, the
following abominable harangue.
"Messieurs the bourgeois and squires of Paris, I don't
know, cross of God! what we are doing here. I certainly do
see yonder in the corner on that stage, some people who appear
to be fighting. I don't know whether that is what you
call a "mystery," but it is not amusing; they quarrel with their
tongues and nothing more. I have been waiting for the first
blow this quarter of an hour; nothing comes; they are cowards
who only scratch each other with insults. You ought to
send for the fighters of London or Rotterdam; and, I can tell
you! you would have had blows of the fist that could be
heard in the Place; but these men excite our pity. They
ought at least, to give us a moorish dance, or some other
mummer! That is not what was told me; I was promised a feast
of fools, with the election of a pope. We have our pope of
fools at Ghent also; we're not behindhand in that, cross of
God! But this is the way we manage it; we collect a crowd
like this one here, then each person in turn passes his head
through a hole, and makes a grimace at the rest; time one who
makes the ugliest, is elected pope by general acclamation;
that's the way it is. It is very diverting. Would you like to
make your pope after the fashion of my country? At all
events, it will be less wearisome than to listen to chatterers.
If they wish to come and make their grimaces through the
hole, they can join the game. What say you, Messieurs les
bourgeois? You have here enough grotesque specimens of
both sexes, to allow of laughing in Flemish fashion, and there
are enough of us ugly in countenance to hope for a fine grinning
match."
Gringoire would have liked to retort; stupefaction, rage,
indignation, deprived him of words. Moreover, the suggestion
of the popular hosier was received with such enthusiasm
by these bourgeois who were flattered at being called
"squires," that all resistance was useless. There was nothing
to be done but to allow one's self to drift with the torrent.
Gringoire hid his face between his two hands, not being so
fortunate as to have a mantle with which to veil his head,
like Agamemnon of Timantis.
CHAPTER V.
QUASIMODO.
In the twinkling of an eye, all was ready to execute Coppenole's
idea. Bourgeois, scholars and law clerks all set to
work. The little chapel situated opposite the marble table
was selected for the scene of the grinning match. A pane
broken in the pretty rose window above the door, left free a
circle of stone through which it was agreed that the competitors
should thrust their heads. In order to reach it, it was
only necessary to mount upon a couple of hogsheads, which
had been produced from I know not where, and perched one
upon the other, after a fashion. It was settled that each
candidate, man or woman (for it was possible to choose a female
pope), should, for the sake of leaving the impression of his
grimace fresh and complete, cover his face and remain concealed
in the chapel until the moment of his appearance. In less than
an instant, the chapel was crowded with competitors, upon whom
the door was then closed.
Coppenole, from his post, ordered all, directed all, arranged
all. During the uproar, the cardinal, no less abashed than
Gringoire, had retired with all his suite, under the pretext of
business and vespers, without the crowd which his arrival had
so deeply stirred being in the least moved by his departure.
Guillaume Rym was the only one who noticed his eminence's
discomfiture. The attention of the populace, like the sun,
pursued its revolution; having set out from one end of the
hall, and halted for a space in the middle, it had now reached
the other end. The marble table, the brocaded gallery had each
had their day; it was now the turn of the chapel of Louis XI.
Henceforth, the field was open to all folly. There was no one
there now, but the Flemings and the rabble.
The grimaces began. The first face which appeared at the
aperture, with eyelids turned up to the reds, a mouth open
like a maw, and a brow wrinkled like our hussar boots of the
Empire, evoked such an inextinguishable peal of laughter
that Homer would have taken all these louts for gods.
Nevertheless, the grand hall was anything but Olympus, and
Gringoire's poor Jupiter knew it better than any one else. A
second and third grimace followed, then another and another;
and the laughter and transports of delight went on increasing.
There was in this spectacle, a peculiar power of intoxication
and fascination, of which it would be difficult to convey to the
reader of our day and our salons any idea.
Let the reader picture to himself a series of visages presenting
successively all geometrical forms, from the triangle
to the trapezium, from the cone to the polyhedron; all human
expressions, from wrath to lewdness; all ages, from the
wrinkles of the new-born babe to the wrinkles of the aged
and dying; all religious phantasmagories, from Faun to Beelzebub;
all animal profiles, from the maw to the beak, from
the jowl to the muzzle. Let the reader imagine all these
grotesque figures of the Pont Neuf, those nightmares petrified
beneath the hand of Germain Pilon, assuming life and breath,
and coming in turn to stare you in the face with burning
eyes; all the masks of the Carnival of Venice passing in succession
before your glass,--in a word, a human kaleidoscope.
The orgy grew more and more Flemish. Teniers could have
given but a very imperfect idea of it. Let the reader picture
to himself in bacchanal form, Salvator Rosa's battle. There
were no longer either scholars or ambassadors or bourgeois or
men or women; there was no longer any Clopin Trouillefou,
nor Gilles Lecornu, nor Marie Quatrelivres, nor Robin Poussepain.
All was universal license. The grand hall was no
longer anything but a vast furnace of effrontry and joviality,
where every mouth was a cry, every individual a posture;
everything shouted and howled. The strange visages which
came, in turn, to gnash their teeth in the rose window, were
like so many brands cast into the brazier; and from the whole
of this effervescing crowd, there escaped, as from a furnace,
a sharp, piercing, stinging noise, hissing like the wings of a
gnat.
"Ho h¨¦! curse it!"
"Just look at that face!"
"It's not good for anything."
"Guillemette Maugerepuis, just look at that bull's muzzle;
it only lacks the horns. It can't be your husband."
"Another!"
"Belly of the pope! what sort of a grimace is that?"
"Hola h¨¦! that's cheating. One must show only one's face."
"That damned Perrette Callebotte! she's capable of that!"
"Good! Good!"
"I'm stifling!"
"There's a fellow whose ears won't go through!" Etc., etc.
But we must do justice to our friend Jehan. In the midst
of this witches' sabbath, he was still to be seen on the top of
his pillar, like the cabin-boy on the topmast. He floundered
about with incredible fury. His mouth was wide open, and
from it there escaped a cry which no one heard, not that it
was covered by the general clamor, great as that was but
because it attained, no doubt, the limit of perceptible sharp
sounds, the thousand vibrations of Sauveur, or the eight
thousand of Biot.
As for Gringoire, the first moment of depression having
passed, he had regained his composure. He had hardened
himself against adversity.---"Continue!" he had said for the
third time, to his comedians, speaking machines; then as he
was marching with great strides in front of the marble table,
a fancy seized him to go and appear in his turn at the aperture
of the chapel, were it only for the pleasure of making a
grimace at that ungrateful populace.--"But no, that would
not be worthy of us; no, vengeance! let us combat until the
end," he repeated to himself; "the power of poetry over
people is great; I will bring them back. We shall see which
will carry the day, grimaces or polite literature."
Alas! he had been left the sole spectator of his piece.
It was far worse than it had been a little while before. He
no longer beheld anything but backs.
I am mistaken. The big, patient man, whom he had already
consulted in a critical moment, had remained with his face
turned towards the stage. As for Gisquette and Li¨¦narde,
they had deserted him long ago.
Gringoire was touched to the heart by the fidelity of his
only spectator. He approached him and addressed him, shaking
his arm slightly; for the good man was leaning on the
balustrade and dozing a little.
"Monsieur," said Gringoire, "I thank you!"
"Monsieur," replied the big man with a yawn, "for what?"
"I see what wearies you," resumed the poet; "'tis all this
noise which prevents your hearing comfortably. But be at
ease! your name shall descend to posterity! Your name,
if you please?"
"Renauld Chateau, guardian of the seals of the Chatelet of
Paris, at your service."
"Monsieur, you are the only representive of the muses
here," said Gringoire.
"You are too kind, sir," said the guardian of the seals at
the Chatelet.
"You are the only one," resumed Gringoire, "who has listened
to the piece decorously. What do you think of it?"
"He! he!" replied the fat magistrate, half aroused, "it's
tolerably jolly, that's a fact."
Gringoire was forced to content himself with this eulogy;
for a thunder of applause, mingled with a prodigious acclamation,
cut their conversation short. The Pope of the Fools had
been elected.
"Noel! Noel! Noel!"* shouted the people on all sides.
That was, in fact, a marvellous grimace which was beaming
at that moment through the aperture in the rose window.
After all the pentagonal, hexagonal, and whimsical faces, which
had succeeded each other at that hole without realizing the
ideal of the grotesque which their imaginations, excited by
the orgy, had constructed, nothing less was needed to win their
suffrages than the sublime grimace which had just dazzled the
assembly. Master Coppenole himself applauded, and Clopin
Trouillefou, who had been among the competitors (and God
knows what intensity of ugliness his visage could attain),
confessed himself conquered: We will do the same. We
shall not try to give the reader an idea of that tetrahedral
nose, that horseshoe mouth; that little left eye obstructed
with a red, bushy, bristling eyebrow, while the right eye disappeared
entirely beneath an enormous wart; of those teeth
in disarray, broken here and there, like the embattled parapet
of a fortress; of that callous lip, upon which one of these
teeth encroached, like the tusk of an elephant; of that forked
chin; and above all, of the expression spread over the whole;
of that mixture of malice, amazement, and sadness. Let the
reader dream of this whole, if he can.
* The ancient French hurrah.
The acclamation was unanimous; people rushed towards
the chapel. They made the lucky Pope of the Fools come
forth in triumph. But it was then that surprise and admiration
attained their highest pitch; the grimace was his face.
Or rather, his whole person was a grimace. A huge head,
bristling with red hair; between his shoulders an enormous
hump, a counterpart perceptible in front; a system of thighs
and legs so strangely astray that they could touch each other
only at the knees, and, viewed from the front, resembled the
crescents of two scythes joined by the handles; large feet, monstrous
hands; and, with all this deformity, an indescribable
and redoubtable air of vigor, agility, and courage,--strange
exception to the eternal rule which wills that force as well as
beauty shall be the result of harmony. Such was the pope
whom the fools had just chosen for themselves.
One would have pronounced him a giant who had been
broken and badly put together again.
When this species of cyclops appeared on the threshold of
the chapel, motionless, squat, and almost as broad as he was
tall; squared on the base, as a great man says; with his doublet
half red, half violet, sown with silver bells, and, above all,
in the perfection of his ugliness, the populace recognized him
on the instant, and shouted with one voice,--
"'Tis Quasimodo, the bellringer! 'tis Quasimodo, the hunchback
of Notre-Dame! Quasimodo, the one-eyed! Quasimodo, the
bandy-legged! Noel! Noel!"
It will be seen that the poor fellow had a choice of surnames.
"Let the women with child beware!" shouted the scholars.
"Or those who wish to be," resumed Joannes.
The women did, in fact, hide their faces.
"Oh! the horrible monkey!" said one of them.
"As wicked as he is ugly," retorted another.
"He's the devil," added a third.
"I have the misfortune to live near Notre-Dame; I hear
him prowling round the eaves by night."
"With the cats."
"He's always on our roofs."
"He throws spells down our chimneys."
"The other evening, he came and made a grimace at me
through my attic window. I thought that it was a man.
Such a fright as I had!"
"I'm sure that he goes to the witches' sabbath. Once he
left a broom on my leads."
"Oh! what a displeasing hunchback's face!"
"Oh! what an ill-favored soul!"
"Whew!"
The men, on the contrary, were delighted and applauded.
Quasimodo, the object of the tumult, still stood on the
threshold of the chapel, sombre and grave, and allowed them
to admire him.
One scholar (Robin Poussepain, I think), came and laughed
in his face, and too close. Quasimodo contented himself with
taking him by the girdle, and hurling him ten paces off amid
the crowd; all without uttering a word.
Master Coppenole, in amazement, approached him.
"Cross of God! Holy Father! you possess the handsomest
ugliness that I have ever beheld in my life. You would
deserve to be pope at Rome, as well as at Paris."
So saying, he placed his hand gayly on his shoulder. Quasimodo
did not stir. Coppenole went on,--
"You are a rogue with whom I have a fancy for carousing,
were it to cost me a new dozen of twelve livres of Tours.
How does it strike you?"
Quasimodo made no reply.
"Cross of God!" said the hosier, "are you deaf?"
He was, in truth, deaf.
Nevertheless, he began to grow impatient with Coppenole's
behavior, and suddenly turned towards him with so formidable
a gnashing of teeth, that the Flemish giant recoiled, like
a bull-dog before a cat.
Then there was created around that strange personage, a
circle of terror and respect, whose radius was at least fifteen
geometrical feet. An old woman explained to Coppenole that
Quasimodo was deaf.
"Deaf!" said the hosier, with his great Flemish laugh.
"Cross of God! He's a perfect pope!"
"He! I recognize him," exclaimed Jehan, who had, at
last, descended from his capital, in order to see Quasimodo at
closer quarters, "he's the bellringer of my brother, the archdeacon.
Good-day, Quasimodo!"
"What a devil of a man!" said Robin Poussepain still all
bruised with his fall. "He shows himself; he's a hunchback.
He walks; he's bandy-legged. He looks at you; he's one-eyed.
You speak to him; he's deaf. And what does this Polyphemus do
with his tongue?"
"He speaks when he chooses," said the old woman; "he became
deaf through ringing the bells. He is not dumb."
"That he lacks," remarks Jehan.
"And he has one eye too many," added Robin Poussepain.
"Not at all," said Jehan wisely. "A one-eyed man is far
less complete than a blind man. He knows what he lacks."
In the meantime, all the beggars, all the lackeys, all the cutpurses,
joined with the scholars, had gone in procession to
seek, in the cupboard of the law clerks' company, the cardboard
tiara, and the derisive robe of the Pope of the Fools. Quasimodo
allowed them to array him in them without wincing, and
with a sort of proud docility. Then they made him seat
himself on a motley litter. Twelve officers of the fraternity
of fools raised him on their shoulders; and a sort of bitter
and disdainful joy lighted up the morose face of the cyclops,
when he beheld beneath his deformed feet all those heads of
handsome, straight, well-made men. Then the ragged and
howling procession set out on its march, according to custom,
around the inner galleries of the Courts, before making the
circuit of the streets and squares.
CHAPTER VI.
ESMERALDA.
We are delighted to be able to inform the reader, that during
the whole of this scene, Gringoire and his piece had stood
firm. His actors, spurred on by him, had not ceased to spout
his comedy, and he had not ceased to listen to it. He had
made up his mind about the tumult, and was determined to
proceed to the end, not giving up the hope of a return of
attention on the part of the public. This gleam of hope acquired
fresh life, when he saw Quasimodo, Coppenole, and the
deafening escort of the pope of the procession of fools quit
the hall amid great uproar. The throng rushed eagerly after
them. "Good," he said to himself, "there go all the mischief-
makers." Unfortunately, all the mischief-makers constituted
the entire audience. In the twinkling of an eye, the grand
hall was empty.
To tell the truth, a few spectators still remained, some scattered,
others in groups around the pillars, women, old men, or
children, who had had enough of the uproar and tumult. Some
scholars were still perched astride of the window-sills, engaged
in gazing into the Place.
"Well," thought Gringoire, "here are still as many as are
required to hear the end of my mystery. They are few in
number, but it is a choice audience, a lettered audience."
An instant later, a symphony which had been intended to
produce the greatest effect on the arrival of the Virgin, was
lacking. Gringoire perceived that his music had been carried
off by the procession of the Pope of the Fools. "Skip it," said
he, stoically.
He approached a group of bourgeois, who seemed to him to
be discussing his piece. This is the fragment of conversation
which he caught,--
"You know, Master Cheneteau, the H?tel de Navarre, which
belonged to Monsieur de Nemours?"
"Yes, opposite the Chapelle de Braque."
"Well, the treasury has just let it to Guillaume Alixandre,
historian, for six hivres, eight sols, parisian, a year."
"How rents are going up!"
"Come," said Gringoire to himself, with a sigh, "the others
are listening."
"Comrades," suddenly shouted one of the young scamps
from the window, "La Esmeralda! La Esmeralda in the
Place!"
This word produced a magical effect. Every one who was
left in the hall flew to the windows, climbing the walls in
order to see, and repeating, "La Esmeralda! La Esmeralda?"
At the same time, a great sound of applause was heard from
without.
"What's the meaning of this, of the Esmeralda?" said
Gringoire, wringing his hands in despair. "Ah, good heavens!
it seems to be the turn of the windows now."
He returned towards the marble table, and saw that the
representation had been interrupted. It was precisely at
the instant when Jupiter should have appeared with his
thunder. But Jupiter was standing motionless at the foot of
the stage.
"Michel Giborne!" cried the irritated poet, "what are you
doing there? Is that your part? Come up!"
"Alas!" said Jupiter, "a scholar has just seized the ladder."
Gringoire looked. It was but too true. All communication
between his plot and its solution was intercepted.
"The rascal," he murmured. "And why did he take that ladder?"
"In order to go and see the Esmeralda," replied Jupiter
piteously. "He said, 'Come, here's a ladder that's of no
use!' and he took it."
This was the last blow. Gringoire received it with resignation.
"May the devil fly away with you!" he said to the comedian,
"and if I get my pay, you shall receive yours."
Then he beat a retreat, with drooping head, but the last
in the field, like a general who has fought well.
And as he descended the winding stairs of the courts: "A
fine rabble of asses and dolts these Parisians!" he muttered
between his teeth; "they come to hear a mystery and don't
listen to it at all! They are engrossed by every one, by
Chopin Trouillefou, by the cardinal, by Coppenole, by Quasimodo,
by the devil! but by Madame the Virgin Mary, not at
all. If I had known, I'd have given you Virgin Mary; you
ninnies! And I! to come to see faces and behold only backs!
to be a poet, and to reap the success of an apothecary! It is
true that Homerus begged through the Greek towns, and that
Naso died in exile among the Muscovites. But may the devil
flay me if I understand what they mean with their Esmeralda!
What is that word, in the first place?--'tis Egyptian!"