الفصل الفصل 37 · THE CROWN CHANGED INTO A DRY LEAF.

. THE CROWN CHANGED INTO A DRY LEAF.

Gringoire and the entire Court of Miracles were suffering mortal

anxiety. For a whole month they had not known what had become of

la Esmeralda, which greatly pained the Duke of Egypt and his

friends the vagabonds, nor what had become of the goat, which

redoubled Gringoire’s grief. One evening the gypsy had

disappeared, and since that time had given no signs of life. All

search had proved fruitless. Some tormenting bootblacks had told

Gringoire about meeting her that same evening near the Pont

Saint-Michel, going off with an officer; but this husband, after

the fashion of Bohemia, was an incredulous philosopher, and

besides, he, better than any one else, knew to what a point his

wife was virginal. He had been able to form a judgment as to the

unconquerable modesty resulting from the combined virtues of the

amulet and the gypsy, and he had mathematically calculated the

resistance of that chastity to the second power. Accordingly, he

was at ease on that score.

Still he could not understand this disappearance. It was a

profound sorrow. He would have grown thin over it, had that been

possible. He had forgotten everything, even his literary tastes,

even his great work, _De figuris regularibus et irregularibus_,

which it was his intention to have printed with the first money

which he should procure (for he had raved over printing, ever

since he had seen the “Didascalon” of Hugues de Saint Victor,

printed with the celebrated characters of Vindelin de Spire).

One day, as he was passing sadly before the criminal Tournelle,

he perceived a considerable crowd at one of the gates of the

Palais de Justice.

“What is this?” he inquired of a young man who was coming out.

“I know not, sir,” replied the young man. “’Tis said that they

are trying a woman who hath assassinated a gendarme. It appears

that there is sorcery at the bottom of it, the archbishop and the

official have intervened in the case, and my brother, who is the

archdeacon of Josas, can think of nothing else. Now, I wished to

speak with him, but I have not been able to reach him because of

the throng, which vexes me greatly, as I stand in need of money.”

“Alas! sir,” said Gringoire, “I would that I could lend you some,

but, my breeches are worn to holes, and ’tis not crowns which

have done it.”

He dared not tell the young man that he was acquainted with his

brother the archdeacon, to whom he had not returned after the

scene in the church; a negligence which embarrassed him.

The scholar went his way, and Gringoire set out to follow the

crowd which was mounting the staircase of the great chamber. In

his opinion, there was nothing like the spectacle of a criminal

process for dissipating melancholy, so exhilaratingly stupid are

judges as a rule. The populace which he had joined walked and

elbowed in silence. After a slow and tiresome march through a

long, gloomy corridor, which wound through the court-house like

the intestinal canal of the ancient edifice, he arrived near a

low door, opening upon a hall which his lofty stature permitted

him to survey with a glance over the waving heads of the rabble.

The hall was vast and gloomy, which latter fact made it appear

still more spacious. The day was declining; the long, pointed

windows permitted only a pale ray of light to enter, which was

extinguished before it reached the vaulted ceiling, an enormous

trellis-work of sculptured beams, whose thousand figures seemed

to move confusedly in the shadows, many candles were already

lighted here and there on tables, and beaming on the heads of

clerks buried in masses of documents. The anterior portion of the

hall was occupied by the crowd; on the right and left were

magistrates and tables; at the end, upon a platform, a number of

judges, whose rear rank sank into the shadows, sinister and

motionless faces. The walls were sown with innumerable

fleurs-de-lis. A large figure of Christ might be vaguely descried

above the judges, and everywhere there were pikes and halberds,

upon whose points the reflection of the candles placed tips of

fire.

“Monsieur,” Gringoire inquired of one of his neighbors, “who are

all those persons ranged yonder, like prelates in council?”

“Monsieur,” replied the neighbor, “those on the right are the

counsellors of the grand chamber; those on the left, the

councillors of inquiry; the masters in black gowns, the messires

in red.”

“Who is that big red fellow, yonder above them, who is sweating?”

pursued Gringoire.

“It is monsieur the president.”

“And those sheep behind him?” continued Gringoire, who as we have

seen, did not love the magistracy, which arose, possibly, from

the grudge which he cherished against the Palais de Justice since

his dramatic misadventure.

“They are messieurs the masters of requests of the king’s

household.”

“And that boar in front of him?”

“He is monsieur the clerk of the Court of Parliament.”

“And that crocodile on the right?”

“Master Philippe Lheulier, advocate extraordinary of the king.”

“And that big, black tom-cat on the left?”

“Master Jacques Charmolue, procurator of the king in the

Ecclesiastical Court, with the gentlemen of the officialty.”

“Come now, monsieur,” said Gringoire, “pray what are all those

fine fellows doing yonder?”

“They are judging.”

“Judging whom? I do not see the accused.”

“’Tis a woman, sir. You cannot see her. She has her back turned

to us, and she is hidden from us by the crowd. Stay, yonder she

is, where you see a group of partisans.”

“Who is the woman?” asked Gringoire. “Do you know her name?”

“No, monsieur, I have but just arrived. I merely assume that

there is some sorcery about it, since the official is present at

the trial.”

“Come!” said our philosopher, “we are going to see all these

magistrates devour human flesh. ’Tis as good a spectacle as any

other.”

“Monsieur,” remarked his neighbor, “think you not, that Master

Jacques Charmolue has a very sweet air?”

“Hum!” replied Gringoire. “I distrust a sweetness which hath

pinched nostrils and thin lips.”

Here the bystanders imposed silence upon the two chatterers. They

were listening to an important deposition.

“Messeigneurs,” said an old woman in the middle of the hall,

whose form was so concealed beneath her garments that one would

have pronounced her a walking heap of rags; “Messeigneurs, the

thing is as true as that I am la Falourdel, established these

forty years at the Pont Saint Michel, and paying regularly my

rents, lord’s dues, and quit rents; at the gate opposite the

house of Tassin-Caillart, the dyer, which is on the side up the

river—a poor old woman now, but a pretty maid in former days, my

lords. Some one said to me lately, ‘La Falourdel, don’t use your

spinning-wheel too much in the evening; the devil is fond of

combing the distaffs of old women with his horns. ’Tis certain

that the surly monk who was round about the temple last year, now

prowls in the City. Take care, La Falourdel, that he doth not

knock at your door.’ One evening I was spinning on my wheel,

there comes a knock at my door; I ask who it is. They swear. I

open. Two men enter. A man in black and a handsome officer. Of

the black man nothing could be seen but his eyes, two coals of

fire. All the rest was hat and cloak. They say to me,—‘The

Sainte-Marthe chamber.’—’Tis my upper chamber, my lords, my

cleanest. They give me a crown. I put the crown in my drawer, and

I say: ‘This shall go to buy tripe at the slaughter-house of la

Gloriette to-morrow.’ We go up stairs. On arriving at the upper

chamber, and while my back is turned, the black man disappears.

That dazed me a bit. The officer, who was as handsome as a great

lord, goes down stairs again with me. He goes out. In about the

time it takes to spin a quarter of a handful of flax, he returns

with a beautiful young girl, a doll who would have shone like the

sun had she been coiffed. She had with her a goat; a big

billy-goat, whether black or white, I no longer remember. That

set me to thinking. The girl does not concern me, but the goat! I

love not those beasts, they have a beard and horns. They are so

like a man. And then, they smack of the witches, sabbath.

However, I say nothing. I had the crown. That is right, is it

not, Monsieur Judge? I show the captain and the wench to the

upper chamber, and I leave them alone; that is to say, with the

goat. I go down and set to spinning again—I must inform you that

my house has a ground floor and story above. I know not why I

fell to thinking of the surly monk whom the goat had put into my

head again, and then the beautiful girl was rather strangely

decked out. All at once, I hear a cry upstairs, and something

falls on the floor and the window opens. I run to mine which is

beneath it, and I behold a black mass pass before my eyes and

fall into the water. It was a phantom clad like a priest. It was

a moonlight night. I saw him quite plainly. He was swimming in

the direction of the city. Then, all of a tremble, I call the

watch. The gentlemen of the police enter, and not knowing just at

the first moment what the matter was, and being merry, they beat

me. I explain to them. We go up stairs, and what do we find? my

poor chamber all blood, the captain stretched out at full length

with a dagger in his neck, the girl pretending to be dead, and

the goat all in a fright. ‘Pretty work!’ I say, ‘I shall have to

wash that floor for more than a fortnight. It will have to be

scraped; it will be a terrible job.’ They carried off the

officer, poor young man, and the wench with her bosom all bare.

But wait, the worst is that on the next day, when I wanted to

take the crown to buy tripe, I found a dead leaf in its place.”

The old woman ceased. A murmur of horror ran through the

audience.

“That phantom, that goat,—all smacks of magic,” said one of

Gringoire’s neighbors.

“And that dry leaf!” added another.

“No doubt about it,” joined in a third, “she is a witch who has

dealings with the surly monk, for the purpose of plundering

officers.”

Gringoire himself was not disinclined to regard this as

altogether alarming and probable.

“Goody Falourdel,” said the president majestically, “have you

nothing more to communicate to the court?”

“No, monseigneur,” replied the crone, “except that the report has

described my house as a hovel and stinking; which is an

outrageous fashion of speaking. The houses on the bridge are not

imposing, because there are such multitudes of people; but,

nevertheless, the butchers continue to dwell there, who are

wealthy folk, and married to very proper and handsome women.”

The magistrate who had reminded Gringoire of a crocodile rose,—

“Silence!” said he. “I pray the gentlemen not to lose sight of

the fact that a dagger was found on the person of the accused.

Goody Falourdel, have you brought that leaf into which the crown

which the demon gave you was transformed?

“Yes, monseigneur,” she replied; “I found it again. Here it is.”

A bailiff handed the dead leaf to the crocodile, who made a

doleful shake of the head, and passed it on to the president, who

gave it to the procurator of the king in the ecclesiastical

court, and thus it made the circuit of the hall.

“It is a birch leaf,” said Master Jacques Charmolue. “A fresh

proof of magic.”

A counsellor took up the word.

“Witness, two men went upstairs together in your house: the black

man, whom you first saw disappear and afterwards swimming in the

Seine, with his priestly garments, and the officer. Which of the

two handed you the crown?” The old woman pondered for a moment

and then said,—

“The officer.”

A murmur ran through the crowd.

“Ah!” thought Gringoire, “this makes some doubt in my mind.”

But Master Philippe Lheulier, advocate extraordinary to the king,

interposed once more.

“I will recall to these gentlemen, that in the deposition taken

at his bedside, the assassinated officer, while declaring that he

had a vague idea when the black man accosted him that the latter

might be the surly monk, added that the phantom had pressed him

eagerly to go and make acquaintance with the accused; and upon

his, the captain’s, remarking that he had no money, he had given

him the crown which the said officer paid to la Falourdel. Hence,

that crown is the money of hell.”

This conclusive observation appeared to dissipate all the doubts

of Gringoire and the other sceptics in the audience.

“You have the documents, gentlemen,” added the king’s advocate,

as he took his seat; “you can consult the testimony of Phœbus de

Châteaupers.”

At that name, the accused sprang up, her head rose above the

throng. Gringoire with horror recognized la Esmeralda.

She was pale; her tresses, formerly so gracefully braided and

spangled with sequins, hung in disorder; her lips were blue, her

hollow eyes were terrible. Alas!

“Phœbus!” she said, in bewilderment; “where is he? O

messeigneurs! before you kill me, tell me, for pity sake, whether

he still lives?”

“Hold your tongue, woman,” replied the president, “that is no

affair of ours.”

“Oh! for mercy’s sake, tell me if he is alive!” she repeated,

clasping her beautiful emaciated hands; and the sound of her

chains in contact with her dress, was heard.

“Well!” said the king’s advocate roughly, “he is dying. Are you

satisfied?”

The unhappy girl fell back on her criminal’s seat, speechless,

tearless, white as a wax figure.

The president bent down to a man at his feet, who wore a gold cap

and a black gown, a chain on his neck and a wand in his hand.

“Bailiff, bring in the second accused.”

All eyes turned towards a small door, which opened, and, to the

great agitation of Gringoire, gave passage to a pretty goat with

horns and hoofs of gold. The elegant beast halted for a moment on

the threshold, stretching out its neck as though, perched on the

summit of a rock, it had before its eyes an immense horizon.

Suddenly it caught sight of the gypsy girl, and leaping over the

table and the head of a clerk, in two bounds it was at her knees;

then it rolled gracefully on its mistress’s feet, soliciting a

word or a caress; but the accused remained motionless, and poor

Djali himself obtained not a glance.

“Eh, why—’tis my villanous beast,” said old Falourdel, “I

recognize the two perfectly!”

Jacques Charmolue interfered.

“If the gentlemen please, we will proceed to the examination of

the goat.” He was, in fact, the second criminal. Nothing more

simple in those days than a suit of sorcery instituted against an

animal. We find, among others in the accounts of the provost’s

office for 1466, a curious detail concerning the expenses of the

trial of Gillet-Soulart and his sow, “executed for their

demerits,” at Corbeil. Everything is there, the cost of the pens

in which to place the sow, the five hundred bundles of brushwood

purchased at the port of Morsant, the three pints of wine and the

bread, the last repast of the victim fraternally shared by the

executioner, down to the eleven days of guard and food for the

sow, at eight deniers parisis each. Sometimes, they went even

further than animals. The capitularies of Charlemagne and of

Louis le Débonnaire impose severe penalties on fiery phantoms

which presume to appear in the air.

Meanwhile the procurator had exclaimed: “If the demon which

possesses this goat, and which has resisted all exorcisms,

persists in its deeds of witchcraft, if it alarms the court with

them, we warn it that we shall be forced to put in requisition

against it the gallows or the stake. Gringoire broke out into a

cold perspiration. Charmolue took from the table the gypsy’s

tambourine, and presenting it to the goat, in a certain manner,

asked the latter,—

“What o’clock is it?”

The goat looked at it with an intelligent eye, raised its gilded

hoof, and struck seven blows.

It was, in fact, seven o’clock. A movement of terror ran through

the crowd.

Gringoire could not endure it.

“He is destroying himself!” he cried aloud; “You see well that he

does not know what he is doing.”

“Silence among the louts at the end of the hall!” said the

bailiff sharply.

Jacques Charmolue, by the aid of the same manœuvres of the

tambourine, made the goat perform many other tricks connected

with the date of the day, the month of the year, etc., which the

reader has already witnessed. And, by virtue of an optical

illusion peculiar to judicial proceedings, these same spectators

who had, probably, more than once applauded in the public square

Djali’s innocent magic were terrified by it beneath the roof of

the Palais de Justice. The goat was undoubtedly the devil.

It was far worse when the procurator of the king, having emptied

upon a floor a certain bag filled with movable letters, which

Djali wore round his neck, they beheld the goat extract with his

hoof from the scattered alphabet the fatal name of _Phœbus_. The

witchcraft of which the captain had been the victim appeared

irresistibly demonstrated, and in the eyes of all, the gypsy,

that ravishing dancer, who had so often dazzled the passers-by

with her grace, was no longer anything but a frightful vampire.

However, she betrayed no sign of life; neither Djali’s graceful

evolutions, nor the menaces of the court, nor the suppressed

imprecations of the spectators any longer reached her mind.

In order to arouse her, a police officer was obliged to shake her

unmercifully, and the president had to raise his voice,—

“Girl, you are of the Bohemian race, addicted to deeds of

witchcraft. You, in complicity with the bewitched goat implicated

in this suit, during the night of the twenty-ninth of March last,

murdered and stabbed, in concert with the powers of darkness, by

the aid of charms and underhand practices, a captain of the

king’s arches of the watch, Phœbus de Châteaupers. Do you persist

in denying it?”

“Horror!” exclaimed the young girl, hiding her face in her hands.

“My Phœbus! Oh, this is hell!”

“Do you persist in your denial?” demanded the president coldly.

“Do I deny it?” she said with terrible accents; and she rose with

flashing eyes.

The president continued squarely,—

“Then how do you explain the facts laid to your charge?”

She replied in a broken voice,—

“I have already told you. I do not know. ’Twas a priest, a priest

whom I do not know; an infernal priest who pursues me!”

“That is it,” retorted the judge; “the surly monk.”

“Oh, gentlemen! have mercy! I am but a poor girl—”

“Of Egypt,” said the judge.

Master Jacques Charmolue interposed sweetly,—

“In view of the sad obstinacy of the accused, I demand the

application of the torture.”

“Granted,” said the president.

The unhappy girl quivered in every limb. But she rose at the

command of the men with partisans, and walked with a tolerably

firm step, preceded by Charmolue and the priests of the

officiality, between two rows of halberds, towards a medium-sized

door which suddenly opened and closed again behind her, and which

produced upon the grief-stricken Gringoire the effect of a

horrible mouth which had just devoured her.

When she disappeared, they heard a plaintive bleating; it was the

little goat mourning.

The sitting of the court was suspended. A counsellor having

remarked that the gentlemen were fatigued, and that it would be a

long time to wait until the torture was at an end, the president

replied that a magistrate must know how to sacrifice himself to

his duty.

“What an annoying and vexatious hussy,” said an aged judge, “to

get herself put to the question when one has not supped!”