Les Misérables, v. 4/5: The Idyll and the Epic

  CHAPTER I.

  HISTORY OF CORINTH FROM ITS FOUNDATION.

  The Parisians, who at the present day on entering the Rue Rambuteaufrom the side of the Halles notice on their right, opposite the RueMondétour, a basket-maker's shop having for sign a basket in the shapeof Napoleon the Great, with this inscription:

  NAPOLÉON EST FAIT TOUT EN OSIER,

  do not suspect the terrible scenes which this very site saw hardlythirty years ago. Here were the Rue de la Chanvrerie, which oldtitle-deeds write Chanverrerie, and the celebrated wine-shop calledCorinth. Our readers well remember all that has been said about thebarricade erected at this spot, and eclipsed by the way by the St.Merry barricade. It is on this famous barricade of the Rue de laChanvrerie, which has now fallen into deep night, that we are going tothrow a little light.

  For the clearness of our narrative, we may be permitted to haverecourse to the simple mode which we employed for Waterloo. Thosepersons who wish to represent to themselves in a tolerably exact mannerthe mass of houses which at that day stood near Sainte Eustache atthe northeast corner of the Halles de Paris, at the spot where theopening of the Rue Rambuteau now is, need only imagine an N whose twovertical strokes are the Rue de la Grande Truanderie and the Rue dela Chanvrerie, and of which the Rue de la Petite Truanderie would bethe cross-stroke. The old Rue Mondétour intersected the three strokeswith the most tortuous angles, so that the Dædalian entanglement ofthese four streets was sufficient to make, upon a space of one hundredsquare yards, between the Halles and the Rue St. Denis on one side,between the Rue du Cygne and the Rue des Prêcheurs, on the other side,seven islets of houses, strangely cut, of different heights, standingsideways, and as if accidentally, and scarce separated by narrowcracks, like the blocks of stone in a dock. We say narrow cracks, andcannot give a fairer idea of these obscure, narrow, angular lanes,bordered by tenements eight stories in height. These houses were sodecrepit that in the Rues de la Chanvrerie and La Petite Truanderie,the frontages were supported by beams running across from one house tothe other. The street was narrow and the gutter wide; the passer-bywalked on a constantly damp pavement, passing shops like cellars,heavy posts shod with iron, enormous piles of filth, and gates armedwith extraordinarily old palings. The Rue Rambuteau has devastatedall this. The name of Mondétour exactly describes the windings of allthis lay-stall. A little farther on it was found even better expressedby the Rue Pirouette, which threw itself into the Rue Mondétour.The wayfarer who turned out of the Rue St. Denis into the Rue de laChanvrerie saw it gradually contract before him, as if he had enteredan elongated funnel. At the end of the street, which was very short,he found the passage barred on the side of the Halles by a tall rowof houses, and he might have fancied himself in a blind alley hadhe not perceived on his right and left two black cuts through whichhe could escape. It was the Rue Mondétour, which joined on one sidethe Rue des Prêcheurs, on the other the Rue du Cygne. At the end ofthis sort of blind alley, at the corner of the right-hand cutting, ahouse lower than the rest, forming a species of cape in the street,might be noticed. It is in this house, only two stories high, that anillustrious cabaret had been installed for more than three hundredyears. This inn produced a joyous noise at the very spot which oldThéophile indicated in the two lines:

  "Là branle le squelette horrible D'un pauvre amant qui se pendit."

  The spot was good, and the landlords succeeded each other from fatherto son. In the time of Mathurin Régnier, this cabaret was called the_Pot-aux-Roses,_ and as rebuses were fashionable, it had for a signa poteau (post) painted in rose-color. In the last century, worthyNatoire, one of the fantastic masters disdained at the present day bythe stiff school, having got tipsy several times in this inn at thesame table where Régnier had got drunk, painted, out of gratitude,a bunch of currants on the pink post. The landlord, in his delight,changed his sign, and had the words gilded under the bunch, _Au raisinde Corinthe_,--hence the name of Corinth. Nothing is more natural todrunkards than ellipses, for they are the zigzags of language. Corinthhad gradually dethroned the rose-pot, and the last landlord of thedynasty, Father Hucheloup, not being acquainted with the tradition, hadthe post painted blue.

  A ground-floor room in which was the bar, a first-floor room in whichwas a billiard-table, a spiral wooden staircase piercing the ceiling,wine on the tables, smoke on the walls, and candles by daylight,--suchwas the inn. A staircase with a trap in the ground-floor room ledto the cellar, and the apartments of the Hucheloups, on the secondfloor, were reached by a staircase more like a ladder, and through adoor hidden in the wall of the large first-floor room. Under the roofwere two garrets, the nests of the maid-servants, and the kitchenshared the ground-floor with the bar. Father Hucheloup might have beenborn a chemist, but was really a cook, and customers not only drankbut ate in his wine-shop. Hucheloup had invented an excellent dish,which could be eaten only at his establishment; it was stuffed carp,which he called _carpes au gras_. This was eaten by the light of atallow candle, or a lamp of the Louis XVI. style, on tables on whichoil-cloth was nailed in lieu of a table-cloth. People came from a longdistance; and Hucheloup one fine morning had thought it advisable toinform passers-by of his "speciality:" he dipped a brush in a pot ofblacking, and as he had an orthography of his own, he improvised on hiswall the following remarkable inscription:--

  CARPES HO GRAS.

  One winter the showers and the hail amused themselves with effacing the"S" which terminated the first word, and the "G" which began the last,and the following was left:--

  CARPE HO RAS.

  By the aid of time and rain a humble gastronomic notice had become aprofound counsel. In this way it happened that Hucheloup, not knowingFrench, had known Latin, had brought philosophy out of the kitchen,and while simply wishing to eclipse Carême, equalled Horace. And thestriking thing was that this also meant "enter my inn." Nothing of allthis exists at the present day; the Mondétour labyrinth was gutted andwidened in 1847, and probably is no longer to be found. The Rue dela Chanvrerie and Corinth have disappeared under the pavement of theRue Rambuteau. As we have said, Corinth was a meeting-place, if not agathering-place, of Courfeyrac and his friends, and it was Grantairewho discovered it. He went in for the sake of the _carpe ho ras_, andreturned for the sake of the carp _au gras_. People drank there, atethere, and made a row there: they paid little, paid badly, or paidnot at all, but were always welcome. Father Hucheloup was a worthyfellow. Hucheloup, whom we have just called a worthy fellow, was aneating-house keeper with a moustache,--an amusing variety. He alwayslooked ill-tempered, appeared wishful to intimidate his customers,growled at persons who came in, and seemed more disposed to quarrelwith them than serve them. And yet we maintain people were alwayswelcome. This peculiarity filled his bar, and brought to him young menwho said, "Let us go and have a look at Father Hucheloup." He had beena fencing-master, and would suddenly break out into a laugh; he had arough voice, but was a merry fellow. He had a comical background with atragical appearance; he asked for nothing better than to frighten you,something like the snuff-boxes which had the shape of a pistol,--thedetonation produces a sneeze. He had for wife a Mother Hucheloup, abearded and very ugly being. About 1830 Father Hucheloup died, andwith him disappeared the secret of the carp _au gras_. His widow, whowas almost inconsolable, carried on the business, but the cookingdegenerated and became execrable, and the wine, which had always beenbad, was frightful. Courfeyrac and his friends, however, continued togo to Corinth,--through pity, said Bossuet.

  Widow Hucheloup was short of breath and shapeless, and had rusticrecollections, which she deprived of their insipidity by herpronunciation. She had a way of her own of saying things which seasonedher reminiscences of her village and the spring: it had formerly beenher delight, she declared, to hear "the red-beasts singing in theawe-thorns."[1] The first-floor room, where the restaurant was, wasa large, long apartment, crowded with stools, chairs, be
nches, andtables, and an old rickety billiard-table. It was reached by the spiralstaircase which led to a square hole in the corner of the room, likea ship's hatchway. This apartment, lighted by only one narrow windowand a constantly-burning lamp, had a garret-look about it, and all thefour-legged articles of furniture behaved as if they had only three.The white-washed wall had for sole ornament the following quatrain inhonor of Mame Hucheloup:--

  "Elle étonne à dix pas, elle épouvante à deux, Une verrue habite en son nez hasardeux; On tremble à chaque instant qu'elle ne vous la mouche, Et qu'un beau jour son nez ne tombe dans sa bouche."

  This was written in charcoal on the wall. Mame Hucheloup, very likeher description, walked past this quatrain from morning till nightwith the most perfect tranquillity. Two servant-girls, called Mateloteand Gibelotte, and who were never known by other names, helped MameHucheloup in placing on the tables bottles of blue wine, and thevarious messes served to the hungry guests in earthenware bowls.Matelote, stout, round, red-haired, and noisy, an ex-favorite sultanaof the defunct Hucheloup, was uglier than the ugliest mythologicalmonster; and yet, as it is always proper that the servant should bea little behind the mistress, she was not so ugly as Mame Hucheloup.Gibelotte, tall, delicate, white with a lymphatic whiteness, withblue circles round her eyes, and drooping lids, ever exhausted andoppressed, and suffering from what may be called chronic lassitude,the first to rise, the last to go to bed, waited on everybody, eventhe other servant, silently and gently, and smiling a sort of vague,sleepy smile through her weariness. Before entering the restaurant thefollowing line written by Courfeyrac in chalk was legible: "Régale situ peux et mange si tu l'oses."

  [1] The original malapropism, "les loups-de-gorge chanter dans lesogrépines," is utterly untranslatable. The above is only an attempt toconvey some approximative idea.