บทที่ บทที่ 39 · END OF THE CROWN WHICH WAS TURNED INTO A DRY LEAF.

. END OF THE CROWN WHICH WAS TURNED INTO A DRY LEAF.

When she re-entered the audience hall, pale and limping, she was

received with a general murmur of pleasure. On the part of the

audience there was the feeling of impatience gratified which one

experiences at the theatre at the end of the last entr’acte of

the comedy, when the curtain rises and the conclusion is about to

begin. On the part of the judges, it was the hope of getting

their suppers sooner.

The little goat also bleated with joy. He tried to run towards

his mistress, but they had tied him to the bench.

Night was fully set in. The candles, whose number had not been

increased, cast so little light, that the walls of the hall could

not be seen. The shadows there enveloped all objects in a sort of

mist. A few apathetic faces of judges alone could be dimly

discerned. Opposite them, at the extremity of the long hall, they

could see a vaguely white point standing out against the sombre

background. This was the accused.

She had dragged herself to her place. When Charmolue had

installed himself in a magisterial manner in his own, he seated

himself, then rose and said, without exhibiting too much

self-complacency at his success,—“The accused has confessed all.”

“Bohemian girl,” the president continued, “have you avowed all

your deeds of magic, prostitution, and assassination on Phœbus de

Châteaupers.”

Her heart contracted. She was heard to sob amid the darkness.

“Anything you like,” she replied feebly, “but kill me quickly!”

“Monsieur, procurator of the king in the ecclesiastical courts,”

said the president, “the chamber is ready to hear you in your

charge.”

Master Charmolue exhibited an alarming note book, and began to

read, with many gestures and the exaggerated accentuation of the

pleader, an oration in Latin, wherein all the proofs of the suit

were piled up in Ciceronian periphrases, flanked with quotations

from Plautus, his favorite comic author. We regret that we are

not able to offer to our readers this remarkable piece. The

orator pronounced it with marvellous action. Before he had

finished the exordium, the perspiration was starting from his

brow, and his eyes from his head.

All at once, in the middle of a fine period, he interrupted

himself, and his glance, ordinarily so gentle and even stupid,

became menacing.

“Gentlemen,” he exclaimed (this time in French, for it was not in

his copy book), “Satan is so mixed up in this affair, that here

he is present at our debates, and making sport of their majesty.

Behold!”

So saying, he pointed to the little goat, who, on seeing

Charmolue gesticulating, had, in point of fact, thought it

appropriate to do the same, and had seated himself on his

haunches, reproducing to the best of his ability, with his

forepaws and his bearded head the pathetic pantomine of the

king’s procurator in the ecclesiastical court. This was, if the

reader remembers, one of his prettiest accomplishments. This

incident, this last proof, produced a great effect. The goat’s

hoofs were tied, and the king’s procurator resumed the thread of

his eloquence.

It was very long, but the peroration was admirable. Here is the

concluding phrase; let the reader add the hoarse voice and the

breathless gestures of Master Charmolue,

“_Ideo, domni, coram stryga demonstrata, crimine patente,

intentione criminis existente, in nomine sanctæ ecclesiæ

Nostræ-Dominæ Parisiensis quæ est in saisina habendi omnimodam

altam et bassam justitiam in illa hac intemerata Civitatis

insula, tenore præsentium declaremus nos requirere, primo,

aliquamdam pecuniariam indemnitatem; secundo, amendationem

honorabilem ante portalium maximum Nostræ-Dominæ, ecclesiæ

cathedralis; tertio, sententiam in virtute cujus ista styrga cum

sua capella, seu in trivio vulgariter dicto_ la Grève, _seu in

insula exeunte in fluvio Secanæ, juxta pointam juardini regalis,

executatæ sint!_”[45]

He put on his cap again and seated himself.

“_Eheu!_” sighed the broken-hearted Gringoire, “_bassa

latinitas_—bastard latin!”

Another man in a black gown rose near the accused; he was her

lawyer. The judges, who were fasting, began to grumble.

“Advocate, be brief,” said the president.

“Monsieur the President,” replied the advocate, “since the

defendant has confessed the crime, I have only one word to say to

these gentlemen. Here is a text from the Salic law; ‘If a witch

hath eaten a man, and if she be convicted of it, she shall pay a

fine of eight thousand deniers, which amount to two hundred sous

of gold.’ May it please the chamber to condemn my client to the

fine?”

“An abrogated text,” said the advocate extraordinary of the king.

“_Nego_, I deny it,” replied the advocate.

“Put it to the vote!” said one of the councillors; “the crime is

manifest, and it is late.”

They proceeded to take a vote without leaving the room. The

judges signified their assent without giving their reasons, they

were in a hurry. Their capped heads were seen uncovering one

after the other, in the gloom, at the lugubrious question

addressed to them by the president in a low voice. The poor

accused had the appearance of looking at them, but her troubled

eye no longer saw.

Then the clerk began to write; then he handed a long parchment to

the president.

Then the unhappy girl heard the people moving, the pikes

clashing, and a freezing voice saying to her,—

“Bohemian wench, on the day when it shall seem good to our lord

the king, at the hour of noon, you will be taken in a tumbrel, in

your shift, with bare feet, and a rope about your neck, before

the grand portal of Notre-Dame, and you will there make an

apology with a wax torch of the weight of two pounds in your

hand, and thence you will be conducted to the Place de Grève,

where you will be hanged and strangled on the town gibbet; and

likewise your goat; and you will pay to the official three lions

of gold, in reparation of the crimes by you committed and by you

confessed, of sorcery and magic, debauchery and murder, upon the

person of the Sieur Phœbus de Châteaupers. May God have mercy on

your soul!”

“Oh! ’tis a dream!” she murmured; and she felt rough hands

bearing her away.