الفصل الفصل 59 · THE MARRIAGE OF QUASIMODO.

. THE MARRIAGE OF QUASIMODO.

We have just said that Quasimodo disappeared from Notre-Dame on

the day of the gypsy’s and of the archdeacon’s death. He was not

seen again, in fact; no one knew what had become of him.

During the night which followed the execution of la Esmeralda,

the night men had detached her body from the gibbet, and had

carried it, according to custom, to the cellar of Montfaucon.

Montfaucon was, as Sauval says, “the most ancient and the most

superb gibbet in the kingdom.” Between the faubourgs of the

Temple and Saint Martin, about a hundred and sixty toises from

the walls of Paris, a few bow shots from La Courtille, there was

to be seen on the crest of a gentle, almost imperceptible

eminence, but sufficiently elevated to be seen for several

leagues round about, an edifice of strange form, bearing

considerable resemblance to a Celtic cromlech, and where also

human sacrifices were offered.

Let the reader picture to himself, crowning a limestone hillock,

an oblong mass of masonry fifteen feet in height, thirty wide,

forty long, with a gate, an external railing and a platform; on

this platform sixteen enormous pillars of rough hewn stone,

thirty feet in height, arranged in a colonnade round three of the

four sides of the mass which support them, bound together at

their summits by heavy beams, whence hung chains at intervals; on

all these chains, skeletons; in the vicinity, on the plain, a

stone cross and two gibbets of secondary importance, which seemed

to have sprung up as shoots around the central gallows; above all

this, in the sky, a perpetual flock of crows; that was

Montfaucon.

At the end of the fifteenth century, the formidable gibbet which

dated from 1328, was already very much dilapidated; the beams

were wormeaten, the chains rusted, the pillars green with mould;

the layers of hewn stone were all cracked at their joints, and

grass was growing on that platform which no feet touched. The

monument made a horrible profile against the sky; especially at

night when there was a little moonlight on those white skulls, or

when the breeze of evening brushed the chains and the skeletons,

and swayed all these in the darkness. The presence of this gibbet

sufficed to render gloomy all the surrounding places.

The mass of masonry which served as foundation to the odious

edifice was hollow. A huge cellar had been constructed there,

closed by an old iron grating, which was out of order, into which

were cast not only the human remains, which were taken from the

chains of Montfaucon, but also the bodies of all the unfortunates

executed on the other permanent gibbets of Paris. To that deep

charnel-house, where so many human remains and so many crimes

have rotted in company, many great ones of this world, many

innocent people, have contributed their bones, from Enguerrand de

Marigni, the first victim, and a just man, to Admiral de Coligni,

who was its last, and who was also a just man.

As for the mysterious disappearance of Quasimodo, this is all

that we have been able to discover.

About eighteen months or two years after the events which

terminate this story, when search was made in that cavern for the

body of Olivier le Daim, who had been hanged two days previously,

and to whom Charles VIII. had granted the favor of being buried

in Saint Laurent, in better company, they found among all those

hideous carcasses two skeletons, one of which held the other in

its embrace. One of these skeletons, which was that of a woman,

still had a few strips of a garment which had once been white,

and around her neck was to be seen a string of adrézarach beads

with a little silk bag ornamented with green glass, which was

open and empty. These objects were of so little value that the

executioner had probably not cared for them. The other, which

held this one in a close embrace, was the skeleton of a man. It

was noticed that his spinal column was crooked, his head seated

on his shoulder blades, and that one leg was shorter than the

other. Moreover, there was no fracture of the vertebrae at the

nape of the neck, and it was evident that he had not been hanged.

Hence, the man to whom it had belonged had come thither and had

died there. When they tried to detach the skeleton which he held

in his embrace, he fell to dust.

NOTE

ADDED TO THE DEFINITIVE EDITION.

It is by mistake that this edition was announced as augmented by

many _new_ chapters. The word should have been _unpublished_. In

fact, if by new, _newly made_ is to be understood, the chapters

added to this edition are not new. They were written at the same

time as the rest of the work; they date from the same epoch, and

sprang from the same thought, they have always formed a part of

the manuscript of “Notre-Dame-de-Paris.” Moreover, the author

cannot comprehend how fresh developments could be added to a work

of this character after its completion. This is not to be done at

will. According to his idea, a romance is born in a manner that

is, in some sort, necessary, with all its chapters; a drama is

born with all its scenes. Think not that there is anything

arbitrary in the numbers of parts of which that whole, that

mysterious microcosm which you call a drama or a romance, is

composed. Grafting and soldering take badly on works of this

nature, which should gush forth in a single stream and so remain.

The thing once done, do not change your mind, do not touch it up.

The book once published, the sex of the work, whether virile or

not, has been recognized and proclaimed; when the child has once

uttered his first cry he is born, there he is, he is made so,

neither father nor mother can do anything, he belongs to the air

and to the sun, let him live or die, such as he is. Has your book

been a failure? So much the worse. Add no chapters to an

unsuccessful book. Is it incomplete? You should have completed it

when you conceived it. Is your tree crooked? You cannot

straighten it up. Is your romance consumptive? Is your romance

not capable of living? You cannot supply it with the breath which

it lacks. Has your drama been born lame? Take my advice, and do

not provide it with a wooden leg.

Hence the author attaches particular importance to the public

knowing for a certainty that the chapters here added have not

been made expressly for this reprint. They were not published in

the preceding editions of the book for a very simple reason. At

the time when “Notre-Dame-de-Paris” was printed the first time,

the manuscript of these three chapters had been mislaid. It was

necessary to rewrite them or to dispense with them. The author

considered that the only two of these chapters which were in the

least important, owing to their extent, were chapters on art and

history which in no way interfered with the groundwork of the

drama and the romance, that the public would not notice their

loss, and that he, the author, would alone be in possession of

the secret. He decided to omit them, and then, if the whole truth

must be confessed, his indolence shrunk from the task of

rewriting the three lost chapters. He would have found it a

shorter matter to make a new romance.

Now the chapters have been found, and he avails himself of the

first opportunity to restore them to their place.

This now, is his entire work, such as he dreamed it, such as he

made it, good or bad, durable or fragile, but such as he wishes

it.

These recovered chapters will possess no doubt, but little value

in the eyes of persons, otherwise very judicious, who have sought

in “Notre-Dame-de-Paris” only the drama, the romance. But there

are perchance, other readers, who have not found it useless to

study the æsthetic and philosophic thought concealed in this

book, and who have taken pleasure, while reading

“Notre-Dame-de-Paris,” in unravelling beneath the romance

something else than the romance, and in following (may we be

pardoned these rather ambitious expressions), the system of the

historian and the aim of the artist through the creation of the

poet.

For such people especially, the chapters added to this edition

will complete “Notre-Dame-de-Paris,” if we admit that

“Notre-Dame-de-Paris” was worth the trouble of completing.

In one of these chapters on the present decadence of

architecture, and on the death (in his mind almost inevitable) of

that king of arts, the author expresses and develops an opinion

unfortunately well rooted in him, and well thought out. But he

feels it necessary to say here that he earnestly desires that the

future may, some day, put him in the wrong. He knows that art in

all its forms has everything to hope from the new generations

whose genius, still in the germ, can be heard gushing forth in

our studios. The grain is in the furrow, the harvest will

certainly be fine. He merely fears, and the reason may be seen in

the second volume of this edition, that the sap may have been

withdrawn from that ancient soil of architecture which has been

for so many centuries the best field for art.

Nevertheless, there are to-day in the artistic youth so much

life, power, and, so to speak, predestination, that in our

schools of architecture in particular, at the present time, the

professors, who are detestable, produce, not only unconsciously

but even in spite of themselves, excellent pupils; quite the

reverse of that potter mentioned by Horace, who dreamed amphoræ

and produced pots. _Currit rota, urcens exit_.

But, in any case, whatever may be the future of architecture, in

whatever manner our young architects may one day solve the

question of their art, let us, while waiting for new monument,

preserve the ancient monuments. Let us, if possible, inspire the

nation with a love for national architecture. That, the author

declares, is one of the principal aims of this book; it is one of

the principal aims of his life.

“Notre-Dame-de-Paris” has, perhaps opened some true perspectives

on the art of the Middle Ages, on that marvellous art which up to

the present time has been unknown to some, and, what is worse,

misknown by others. But the author is far from regarding as

accomplished, the task which he has voluntarily imposed on

himself. He has already pleaded on more than one occasion, the

cause of our ancient architecture, he has already loudly

denounced many profanations, many demolitions, many impieties. He

will not grow weary. He has promised himself to recur frequently

to this subject. He will return to it. He will be as

indefatigable in defending our historical edifices as our

iconoclasts of the schools and academies are eager in attacking

them; for it is a grievous thing to see into what hands the

architecture of the Middle Ages has fallen, and in what a manner

the botchers of plaster of the present day treat the ruin of this

grand art, it is even a shame for us intelligent men who see them

at work and content ourselves with hooting them. And we are not

speaking here merely of what goes on in the provinces, but of

what is done in Paris at our very doors, beneath our windows, in

the great city, in the lettered city, in the city of the press,

of word, of thought. We cannot resist the impulse to point out,

in concluding this note, some of the acts of vandalism which are

every day planned, debated, begun, continued, and successfully

completed under the eyes of the artistic public of Paris, face to

face with criticism, which is disconcerted by so much audacity.

An archbishop’s palace has just been demolished, an edifice in

poor taste, no great harm is done; but in a block with the

archiepiscopal palace a bishop’s palace has been demolished, a

rare fragment of the fourteenth century, which the demolishing

architect could not distinguish from the rest. He has torn up the

wheat with the tares; ’tis all the same. They are talking of

razing the admirable chapel of Vincennes, in order to make, with

its stones, some fortification, which Daumesnil did not need,

however. While the Palais Bourbon, that wretched edifice, is

being repaired at great expense, gusts of wind and equinoctial

storms are allowed to destroy the magnificent painted windows of

the Sainte-Chapelle. For the last few days there has been a

scaffolding on the tower of Saint Jacques de la Boucherie; and

one of these mornings the pick will be laid to it. A mason has

been found to build a little white house between the venerable

towers of the Palais de-Justice. Another has been found willing

to prune away Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the feudal abbey with three

bell towers. Another will be found, no doubt, capable of pulling

down Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois. All these masons claim to be

architects, are paid by the prefecture or from the petty budget,

and wear green coats. All the harm which false taste can inflict

on good taste, they accomplish. While we write, deplorable

spectacle! one of them holds possession of the Tuileries, one of

them is giving Philibert Delorme a scar across the middle of his

face; and it is not, assuredly, one of the least of the scandals

of our time to see with what effrontery the heavy architecture of

this gentleman is being flattened over one of the most delicate

façades of the Renaissance!

PARIS, October 20, 1832.

FOOTNOTES:

1 (return) The word Gothic, in the sense in which it is generally

employed, is wholly unsuitable, but wholly consecrated. Hence we accept

it and we adopt it, like all the rest of the world, to characterize the

architecture of the second half of the Middle Ages, where the ogive is

the principle which succeeds the architecture of the first period, of

which the semi-circle is the father.

2 (return) _Faire le diable à quatre_.

3 (return) _Thibaut au des_,—Thibaut of the dice.

4 (return) An old French coin, equal to the two hundred and fortieth

part of a pound.

5 (return) Got the first idea of a thing.

6 (return) The ancient French _hurrah_.

7 (return) A chamber of the ancient parliament of Paris.

8 (return) A blank: an old French coin; six blanks were worth two sous

and a half; targe, an ancient coin of Burgundy, a farthing.

9 (return)

A coffer of great richness

In a pillar’s heart they found,

Within it lay new banners,

With figures to astound.

10 (return) Alms.

11 (return) Give me the means to buy a bit of bread, sir.

12 (return) A high-toned sharper.

13 (return) Thieves.

14 (return) L’argot.

15 (return) A small dessert apple, bright red on one side and

greenish-white on the other.

16 (return) When the gay-plumaged birds grow weary, and the earth—

17 (return)

My father is a bird,

my mother is a bird.

I cross the water without a barque,

I cross the water without a boat.

My mother is a bird,

my father is a bird.

18 (return) Time is a devourer; man, more so.

19 (return) _Histoire Gallicane_, liv. II. Periode III. fo. 130, p. 1.

20 (return) This is the same which is called, according to locality,

climate, and races, Lombard, Saxon, or Byzantine. There are four sister

and parallel architectures, each having its special character, but

derived from the same origin, the round arch.

_Facies non omnibus una,

Non diversa tamen, qualem_, etc.

Their faces not all alike, nor yet different, but such as the faces of

sisters ought to be.

21 (return) This portion of the spire, which was of woodwork, is

precisely that which was consumed by lightning, in 1823.

22 (return) The wall walling Paris makes Paris murmur.

23 (return) We have seen with sorrow mingled with indignation, that it

is the intention to increase, to recast, to make over, that is to say,

to destroy this admirable palace. The architects of our day have too

heavy a hand to touch these delicate works of the Renaissance. We still

cherish a hope that they will not dare. Moreover, this demolition of

the Tuileries now, would be not only a brutal deed of violence, which

would make a drunken vandal blush—it would be an act of treason. The

Tuileries is not simply a masterpiece of the art of the sixteenth

century, it is a page of the history of the nineteenth. This palace no

longer belongs to the king, but to the people. Let us leave it as it

is. Our revolution has twice set its seal upon its front. On one of its

two façades, there are the cannon-balls of the 10th of August; on the

other, the balls of the 29th of July. It is sacred. Paris, April 7,

1831. (_Note to the fifth edition._)

24 (return) The tenth month of the French republican calendar, from the

19th of June to the 18th of July.

25 (return) An official of Notre-Dame, lower than a beneficed

clergyman, higher than simple paid chanters.

26 (return) Hugo II. de Bisuncio, 1326-1332.

27 (return) This comet against which Pope Calixtus, uncle of Borgia,

ordered public prayers, is the same which reappeared in 1835.

28 (return) Comptes du domaine, 1383.

29 (return) A _Queue_ was a cask which held a hogshead and a half.

30 (return) A captain of fifty men.

31 (return) Ox-eye daisy.

32 (return) Easter daisy.

33 (return) A rope for the gallows bird! A fagot for the ape.

34 (return) An ancient Burgundian coin.

35 (return) An ancient French coin.

36 (return) Truly, these roastings are a stupendous thing!

37 (return) Peter the Slaughterer; and Baptist Crack-Gosling.

38 (return) An ancient copper coin, the forty-fourth part of a sou or

the twelfth part of a farthing.

39 (return) Une vielle qui _scie_ une _anse_

40 (return) Cut-Weazand Street.

41 (return) Cut-Throat Street.

42 (return) The children of the Petits Carreaux let themselves be hung

like calves.

43 (return) When the rats eat the cats, the king will be lord of Arras;

when the sea which is great and wide, is frozen over at St. John’s

tide, men will see across the ice, those who dwell in Arras quit their

place.

44 (return) Varieties of the crossbow.

45 (return) The substance of this exordium is contained in the

president’s sentence.

46 (return) “He that heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me,

hath eternal life, and hath not come into condemnation; but is passed

from death to life.”

47 (return) “Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my

voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep in the midst of the seas,

and the floods compassed me about.”

48 (return) “Go now, soul, trembling in the balance, and God have mercy

upon thee.”

49 (return) “Lord have mercy upon us.”

50 (return) “All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me.”

51 (return) Bark, Grève, grumble, Grève! Spin, spin, my distaff, spin

her rope for the hangman, who is whistling in the meadow. What a

beautiful hempen rope! Sow hemp, not wheat, from Issy to Vanvre. The

thief hath not stolen the beautiful hempen rope. Grumble, Grève, bark,

Grève! To see the dissolute wench hang on the blear-eyed gibbet,

windows are eyes.

52 (return) Look not at the face, young girl, look at the heart. The

heart of a handsome young man is often deformed. There are hearts in

which love does not keep. Young girl, the pine is not beautiful; it is

not beautiful like the poplar, but it keeps its foliage in winter.

Alas! What is the use of saying that? That which is not beautiful has

no right to exist; beauty loves only beauty; April turns her back on

January. Beauty is perfect, beauty can do all things, beauty is the

only thing which does not exist by halves. The raven flies only by day,

the owl flies only by night, the swan flies by day and by night.

53 (return) _Sols neufs: poulets tués_.

54 (return) An arrow with a pyramidal head of iron and copper spiral

wings, by which a rotatory motion was communicated.

55 (return) A game played on a checker-board containing three

concentric sets of squares, with small stones. The game consisted in

getting three stones in a row.

56 (return) Good night, father and mother, the last cover up the fire.

57 (return) That I will drink no spiced and honeyed wine for a year, if

I am lying now.

58 (return) And by the blood of God, I have neither faith nor law, nor

fire nor dwelling-place, nor king nor God.

59 (return) Men of the brotherhood of slang: thieves.

60 (return) Cut-throat. Coupe-gueule being the vulgar word for

cut-weazand.

61 (return) The representation of a monstrous animal solemnly drawn

about in Tarascon and other French towns.

62 (return) An arrow with a pyramidal head of iron and copper spiral

wings by which a rotatory motion was communicated.

63 (return) The city of Cambrai is well dressed. Marafin plundered it.

64 (return) An ancient long measure in France, containing six feet and

nearly five inches English measure.

65 (return) Master Jean Balue has lost sight of his bishoprics.

Monsieur of Verdun has no longer one; all have been killed off.

66 (return) One in charge of the highways.

67 (return) A lord having a right on the woods of his vassals.

68 (return) When thou shalt find its mate, thy mother will stretch out

her arms to thee.