The Hunchback of Notre Dame (29 page)

CHAPTER III

The Story of a Wheaten Cake

A
t the time of which this story treats, the cell in the Tour-Roland was occupied. If the reader wishes to know by whom, he has but to listen to the conversation of three worthy gossips, who, at the moment when we drew his attention to the Rat-Hole, were walking directly that way, going from the Châtelet towards the Place de Grève, along the water’s edge.

Two of these women were dressed like good citizens of Paris. Their fine white gorgets; their petticoats of striped linsey-woolsey, red and blue; their white knitted stockings, with colored clocks, pulled well up over the leg; their square-toed shoes of tan-colored leather with black soles; and above all their head-dress,—a sort of tinsel horn overloaded with ribbons and lace, still worn by the women of Champagne and by the grenadiers of the Russian Imperial Guard,—proclaiming that they belonged to that class of rich tradesfolk occupying the middle ground between what servants call “a woman” and what they call “a lady.” They wore neither rings nor gold crosses; and it was easy to see that this was not from poverty, but quite simply from fear of a fine. Their companion was attired in much the same style; but there was something in her appearance and manner which bespoke the country notary’s wife. It was evident by the way in which her girdle was arranged high above her hips, that she had not been in Paris long; add to this a pleated gor get, knots of ribbon on her shoes, the fact that the stripes of her petticoat ran breadthwise and not lengthwise, and a thousand other enormities revolting to good taste.

The first two walked with the gait peculiar to Parisian women showing Paris to their country friends. The country-woman held by the hand a big boy, who grasped in his hand a large wheaten cake. We regret that we must add that, owing to the severity of the season, his tongue did duty as a pocket-handkerchief.

The child loitered (“non
passibus œquis,”
as Virgil has it), and stumbled constantly, for which his mother scolded him well. True, he paid far more attention to the cake than to the pavement. Undoubtedly he had some grave reason for not biting it (the cake), for he contented himself with gazing affectionately at it. But his mother should have taken charge of the cake. It was cruel to make a Tantalus of the chubby child.

But the three damsels (for the term “dame” was then reserved for noble ladies) were all talking at once.

“Make haste, Damoiselle Mahiette,” said the youngest of the three, who was also the biggest, to the country-woman. “I am mightily afraid we shall be too late; they told us at the Châtelet that he was to be taken directly to the pillory.”

“Nonsense! What do you mean, Damoiselle Oudarde Musnier?” replied the other Parisian. “He is to spend two hours in the pillory. We have plenty of time. Did you ever see any one pilloried, my dear Mahiette?”

“Yes,” said the country-woman, “at Rheims.”

“Pooh! What’s your pillory at Rheims? A miserable cage, where they turn nothing but peasants! A fine sight, truly!”

“Nothing but peasants!” said Mahiette, “in the Clothmarket! at Rheims! We’ve seen some very fine criminals there,—people who had killed both father and mother! Peasants, indeed! What do you take us for, Gervaise?”

The country-lady was certainly on the verge of losing her temper in defense of her pillory. Fortunately the discreet Damoiselle Oudarde Musnier changed the subject in time:—

“By-the-bye, Damoiselle Mahiette, what do you say to our Flemish ambassadors? Have you any as fine at Rheims?”

“I confess,” answered Mahiette, “that there is no place like Paris for seeing such Flemings as those.”

“Did you see among the embassy that great ambassador who is a hosier?” asked Oudarde.

“Yes,” responded Mahiette. “He looks like a regular Saturn.”

“And that fat one with the smooth face?” added Gervaise. “And that little fellow with small eyes and red lids, as ragged and hairy as a head of thistle?”

“Their horses were the finest sight,” said Oudarde, “dressed out in the fashion of their country.”

“Oh, my dear,” interrupted the rustic Mahiette, assuming an air of superiority in her turn, “what would you say if you had seen, in 1461, at the coronation at Rheims, now eighteen years ago, the horses of the princes and of the king’s escort? Housings and trappings of every description: some of damask cloth, of fine cloth of gold, trimmed with sable; others, of velvet, trimmed with ermines’ tails; others, loaded down with goldsmiths’ work and great gold and silver bells! And the money that it must have cost! And the lovely page-boys that rode on them!”

“That does not alter the fact,” drily responded Damoiselle Oudarde, “that the Flemings have very fine horses, and that they had a splendid supper last night given them by the Provost at the Hôtel-de-Ville, where they were treated to sugar-plums, hippocras, spices, and other rarities.”

“What are you talking about, neighbor!” cried Gervaise. “It was at the Petit-Bourbon, with the Cardinal, that the Flemings supped.”

“Not at all. At the Hôtel-de-Ville!”

“Yes, indeed. At the Petit-Bourbon!”

“So surely was it at the Hôtel-de-Ville,” returned Oudarde, sharply, “that Doctor Scourable made them a speech in Latin with which they seemed mightily pleased. It was my husband, who is one of the licensed copyists, who told me so.”

“So surely was it at the Petit-Bourbon,” replied Gervaise, with no whit less of animation, “that I can give you a list of what the Cardinal’s attorney treated them to: Twelve double quarts of hippocras, white, yellow, and red; twenty-four boxes of double-gilt Lyons marchpane; as many wax torches of two pounds each, and six half-casks of Beaune wine, red and white, the best to be found. I hope that’s decisive. I have it from my husband, who is captain of fifty men in the Commonalty Hall, and who was only this morning comparing the Flemish ambassadors with those sent by Prester John and the Emperor of Trebizond, who came from Mesopotamia to Paris during the reign of the last king, and who had rings in their ears.”

“It is so true that they supped at the Hôtel-de-Ville,” replied Oudarde, but little moved by this display of eloquence, “that no one ever saw such an exhibition of meats and sugar-plums before.”

“But I tell you that they were served by Le Sec, one of the city guard, at the Petit-Bourbon, and that’s what misled you.”

“At the Hôtel-de-Ville, I say!”

“At the Petit-Bourbon, my dear! For didn’t they illuminate the word ‘Hope,’ which is written over the great entrance, with magical glasses?”

“At the Hôtel-de-Ville! at the Hôtel-de-Ville! Don’t I tell you that Husson-le-Voir played the flute?”

“I tell you, no!”

“I tell you, yes!”

“And I tell you, no!”

The good fat Oudarde was making ready to reply, and the quarrel might have come to blows, if Mahiette had not suddenly exclaimed, “Only see those people crowding together at the end of the bridge! There’s something in the midst of them, at which they’re all looking.”

“Truly,” said Gervaise, “I do hear the sound of a tambourine. I verily believe it’s that little Smeralda playing her tricks with her goat. Come quick, Mahiette! Make haste and pull your boy along faster. You came here to see all the sights of Paris. Yesterday you saw the Flemings; today you must see the gipsy girl.”

“The gipsy,” said Mahiette, turning back abruptly, and grasping her son’s arm more firmly. “Heaven preserve us! She might steal my child! -Come, Eustache!”

And she set out running along the quay towards the Place de Grève, until she had left the bridge far behind her. But the child, whom she dragged after her, stumbled, and fell upon his knees; she stopped, out of breath. Oudarde and Gervaise rejoined her.

“That gipsy girl steal your child!” said Gervaise. “What a strange idea!”

Mahiette shook her head with a pensive air.

“The queer part of it is,” observed Oudarde, “that the sachette has the same opinion of the gipsies.”

“What do you mean by the sachette?” said Mahiette.

“Why!” said Oudarde, “Sister Gudule.”

“And who,” returned Mahiette, “is Sister Gudule?”

“You must indeed be from Rheims, not to know that!” replied Oudarde. “She is the recluse of the Rat-Hole.”

“What!” asked Mahiette, “the poor woman to whom we are carrying this cake?”

Oudarde nodded.

“Exactly so. You will see her presently at her window on the Place de Grève. She feels just as you do about those gipsy vagabonds who go about drumming on the tambourine and telling people’s fortunes. No one knows what gave her such a horror of gipsies. But you, Mahiette,—why should you take to your heels in such haste at the mere sight of them?”

“Oh,” said Mahiette, clasping her child to her bosom, “I could not bear to have the same thing happen to me that happened to Paquette la Chantefleurie.”

“Oh, do tell us the story, my dear Mahiette,” said Gervaise, taking her arm.

“Gladly,” answered Mahiette; “but you must indeed be from Paris, not to know that! You must know, then,—but we need not stand here to tell the tale,—that Paquette la Chantefleurie was a pretty girl of eighteen when I was one too; that is to say, some eighteen years ago, and it is her own fault if she is not now, like me, a happy, hale, and hearty mother of six-and-thirty, with a husband and a son. However, from the time she was fourteen, it was too late! She was the daughter of Guybertaut, minstrel to the boats at Rheims, the same who played before King Charles VII, at his coronation, when he sailed down the river Vesle from Sillery to Muison, and, more by token, the Maid of Orleans was in the boat with him. Her old father died when Paquette was still a mere child; then she had no one but her mother, a sister to Pradon, the master brazier and coppersmith at Paris, in the Rue Parin-Garlin, who died last year. You see that she came of an honest family. The mother was a good, simple woman, unfortunately, and taught Paquette nothing but a little fringe-making and toy-making, which did not keep the child from growing very tall and remaining very poor. The two lived at Rheims, on the water’s edge, in the Rue Folle-Peine. Note this. I think this was what brought ill-luck to Paquette. In ‘61, the year of the coronation of our King Louis XI,—may Heaven preserve him!—Paquette was so merry and so pretty that every one knew her as Chantefleurie.
^cd
Poor girl! She had lovely teeth, and she liked to laugh, so that she might show them. Now, a girl who likes to laugh is on the high-road to weep; fine teeth spoil fine eyes. Such was Chantefleurie. She and her mother had hard work to earn a living; they were greatly reduced after the father’s death; their fringe-making did not bring them in more than six farthings a week, which doesn’t make quite two pence. Where was the time when Father Guybertaut earned twelve Paris pence at a single coronation for a single song? One winter (it was that same year of ’61), when the two women had not a stick of firewood and it was bitterly cold, the cold gave Chantefleurie such a fine color that the men called her Paquette,—some called her Pâquerette,
^ce
—and she went to the bad.—Eustache! don’t you let me see you nibble that cake!—We soon saw that she was ruined, when she came to church one fine Sunday with a gold cross on her neck. At fourteen years of age! Think of that! First it was the young Vicomte de Cormontreuil, whose castle is about three quarters of a league away from Rheims; then M. Henri de Triancourt, the king’s equerry; then something lower, Chiart de Beaulin, sergeant-at-arms; then, still lower, Guery Aubergeon, the king’s carver; then, Mace de Frépus, the dauphin’s barber; then, Thévenin-le-Moine, the king’s cook; then, still descending to older and meaner men, she fell into the hands of Guillaume Racine, viol-player, and of Thierry-de-Mer, the lantern-maker. Then—poor Chantefleurie!—she became common property; she had come to the last copper of her gold piece. How shall I tell you, ladies? At the time of the coronation, in that same year ‘61, it was she who made the king of ribalds’ bed,—that self-same year!”

Mahiette sighed, and wiped a tear from her cheek.

“No very uncommon story,” said Gervaise; “and I don’t see that it has anything to do with gipsies, or with children.”

“Patience!” replied Mahiette: “we shall soon come to the child. In ‘66, sixteen years ago this very month, on Saint Paula’s Day, Paquette gave birth to a little girl. Poor thing! Great was her joy; she had long wished for a child. Her mother, good woman, who never knew how to do anything but shut her eyes to her daughter’s faults,—her mother was dead. Paquette had no one left to love, no one to love her. Five years had passed since her fall, and Chantefleurie was but a miserable creature. She was alone, alone in the world, pointed at, hooted after in the street, beaten by the police, mocked by little ragged boys. And then, she was now twenty years old; and twenty is old age to such women. Vice had ceased to bring her in much more than her fringe-making used to do; every fresh wrinkle took away another coin. Winter was once more a hard season for her; wood was again scarce upon her hearth, and bread in her cupboard. She could no longer work; for when she took to a life of pleasure she learned to be lazy, and she suffered far more than before, because in learning to be lazy she became accustomed to pleasure,—at least, that’s the way the priest of Saint-Remy explains it to us that such women feel cold and hunger more than other poor folks do when they are old.”

“Yes,” remarked Gervaise; “but the gipsies?”

“One moment, Gervaise!” said Oudarde, whose attention was less impatient. “What would there be left for the end, if everything came at the beginning? Go on, Mahiette, please. Poor Chantefleurie!”

Mahiette continued:—

“So she was very wretched, very unhappy, and her tears wore deep furrows in her cheeks. But in her shame, her disgrace, and her misery, it seemed to her that she should feel less ashamed, less disgraced, and less miserable, if she had something to love or some one to love her. It must be a child; for only a child could be innocent enough for that. She recognized this after trying to love a thief,—the only man who would have anything to say to her; but after a little she saw that even the thief despised her. Women of that sort must have a lover or a child to fill up their hearts, otherwise they are very unhappy. As she could not have a lover, she gave herself up to longing for a child; and as she had never given over being pious, she prayed night and day that the good God would give her one. The good God had pity on her, and gave her a little girl. I cannot describe to you her delight; she covered it with a perfect rain of tears, kisses, and caresses. She nursed her child herself, made swaddling-clothes for it of her own coverlet,—the only one she had on her bed,—and no longer felt cold or hungry. She grew handsome again. An old maid makes a young mother.
⁹
She took to her former trade; her old friends came back to see her, and she readily found customers for her wares, and with the price of all these iniquities she bought baby linen, caps, and bibs, lace gowns and little satin bonnets, without ever thinking of buying herself another coverlet.—Master Eustache, didn’t I tell you not to eat that cake?—It is certain that little Agnès,—that was the child’s name, her given name; for as to a surname, Chantefleurie had long since ceased to have one,—it is certain that the little thing was more tricked out with ribbons and embroidery than a dauphiness from Dauphiny! Among other things, she had a pair of tiny shoes, the like of which even King Louis XI himself surely never had! Her mother sewed and embroidered them herself; she put all the dainty arts of her fringe-making into them, and as many intricate stitches as would make a gown for the Holy Virgin. They were the two sweetest little pink shoes imaginable. They were no longer than my thumb, and you must have seen the child’s tiny feet slip out of them, or you would never have believed they could have gone in. To be sure, those little feet were so small, so pink, and so pretty!—pinker than the satin of the shoes!—When you have children of your own, Oudarde, you will know that there is nothing prettier than those little feet and hands!”