After ascending and descending several steps in the corridors, whichwere so dark that they were lighted by lamps at mid-day, La Esmeralda,still surrounded by her lugubrious escort, was thrust by the police intoa gloomy chamber. This chamber, circular in form, occupied the groundfloor of one of those great towers, which, even in our own century,still pierce through the layer of modern edifices with which modernParis has covered ancient Paris. There were no windows to this cellar;no other opening than the entrance, which was low, and closed by anenormous iron door. Nevertheless, light was not lacking; a furnace hadbeen constructed in the thickness of the wall; a large fire was lightedthere, which filled the vault with its crimson reflections and depriveda miserable candle, which stood in one corner, of all radiance. The irongrating which served to close the oven, being raised at that moment,allowed only a view at the mouth of the flaming vent-hole in the darkwall, the lower extremity of its bars, like a row of black and pointedteeth, set flat apart; which made the furnace resemble one of thosemouths of dragons which spout forth flames in ancient legends. By thelight which escaped from it, the prisoner beheld, all about the room,frightful instruments whose use she did not understand. In the centrelay a leather mattress, placed almost flat upon the ground, over whichhung a strap provided with a buckle, attached to a brass ring in themouth of a flat-nosed monster carved in the keystone of the vault.Tongs, pincers, large ploughshares, filled the interior of the furnace,and glowed in a confused heap on the coals. The sanguine light of thefurnace illuminated in the chamber only a confused mass of horriblethings.
This Tartarus was called simply, The Question Chamber.
On the bed, in a negligent attitude, sat Pierrat Torterue, the officialtorturer. His underlings, two gnomes with square faces, leather aprons,and linen breeches, were moving the iron instruments on the coals.
In vain did the poor girl summon up her courage; on entering thischamber she was stricken with horror.
The sergeants of the bailiff of the courts drew up in line on one side,the priests of the officiality on the other. A clerk, inkhorn, and atable were in one corner.
Master Jacques Charmolue approached the gypsy with a very sweet smile.
"My dear child," said he, "do you still persist in your denial?"
"Yes," she replied, in a dying voice.
"In that case," replied Charmolue, "it will be very painful for us tohave to question you more urgently than we should like. Pray take thetrouble to seat yourself on this bed. Master Pierrat, make room formademoiselle, and close the door."
Pierrat rose with a growl.
"If I shut the door," he muttered, "my fire will go out."
"Well, my dear fellow," replied Charmolue, "leave it open then."
Meanwhile, la Esmeralda had remained standing. That leather bed on whichso many unhappy wretches had writhed, frightened her. Terror chilled thevery marrow of her bones; she stood there bewildered and stupefied. Ata sign from Charmolue, the two assistants took her and placed her ina sitting posture on the bed. They did her no harm; but when thesemen touched her, when that leather touched her, she felt all her bloodretreat to her heart. She cast a frightened look around the chamber. Itseemed to her as though she beheld advancing from all quarters towardsher, with the intention of crawling up her body and biting and pinchingher, all those hideous implements of torture, which as compared to theinstruments of all sorts she had hitherto seen, were like what bats,centipedes, and spiders are among insects and birds.
"Where is the physician?" asked Charmolue.
"Here," replied a black gown whom she had not before noticed.
She shuddered.
"Mademoiselle," resumed the caressing voice of the procucrator of theEcclesiastical court, "for the third time, do you persist in denying thedeeds of which you are accused?"
This time she could only make a sign with her head.
"You persist?" said Jacques Charmolue. "Then it grieves me deeply, but Imust fulfil my office."
"Monsieur le Procureur du Roi," said Pierrat abruptly, "How shall webegin?"
Charmolue hesitated for a moment with the ambiguous grimace of a poet insearch of a rhyme.
"With the boot," he said at last.
The unfortunate girl felt herself so utterly abandoned by God and men,that her head fell upon her breast like an inert thing which has nopower in itself.
The tormentor and the physician approached her simultaneously. Atthe same time, the two assistants began to fumble among their hideousarsenal.
At the clanking of their frightful irons, the unhappy child quiveredlike a dead frog which is being galvanized. "Oh!" she murmured, so lowthat no one heard her; "Oh, my Phoebus!" Then she fell back once moreinto her immobility and her marble silence. This spectacle would haverent any other heart than those of her judges. One would have pronouncedher a poor sinful soul, being tortured by Satan beneath the scarletwicket of hell. The miserable body which that frightful swarm of saws,wheels, and racks were about to clasp in their clutches, the beingwho was about to be manipulated by the harsh hands of executionersand pincers, was that gentle, white, fragile creature, a poor grain ofmillet which human justice was handing over to the terrible mills oftorture to grind. Meanwhile, the callous hands of Pierrat Torterue'sassistants had bared that charming leg, that tiny foot, which had sooften amazed the passers-by with their delicacy and beauty, in thesquares of Paris.
"'Tis a shame!" muttered the tormentor, glancing at these graceful anddelicate forms.
Had the archdeacon been present, he certainly would have recalled atthat moment his symbol of the spider and the fly. Soon the unfortunategirl, through a mist which spread before her eyes, beheld the bootapproach; she soon beheld her foot encased between iron plates disappearin the frightful apparatus. Then terror restored her strength.
"Take that off!" she cried angrily; and drawing herself up, with herhair all dishevelled: "Mercy!"
She darted from the bed to fling herself at the feet of the king'sprocurator, but her leg was fast in the heavy block of oak and iron, andshe sank down upon the boot, more crushed than a bee with a lump of leadon its wing.
At a sign from Charmolue, she was replaced on the bed, and two coarsehands adjusted to her delicate waist the strap which hung from theceiling.
"For the last time, do you confess the facts in the case?" demandedCharmolue, with his imperturbable benignity.
"I am innocent."
"Then, mademoiselle, how do you explain the circumstance laid to yourcharge?"
"Alas, monseigneur, I do not know."
"So you deny them?"
"All!"
"Proceed," said Charmolue to Pierrat.
Pierrat turned the handle of the screw-jack, the boot was contracted,and the unhappy girl uttered one of those horrible cries which have noorthography in any human language.
"Stop!" said Charmolue to Pierrat. "Do you confess?" he said to thegypsy.
"All!" cried the wretched girl. "I confess! I confess! Mercy!"
She had not calculated her strength when she faced the torture. Poorchild, whose life up to that time had been so joyous, so pleasant, sosweet, the first pain had conquered her!
"Humanity forces me to tell you," remarked the king's procurator, "thatin confessing, it is death that you must expect."
"I certainly hope so!" said she. And she fell back upon the leather bed,dying, doubled up, allowing herself to hang suspended from the strapbuckled round her waist.
"Come, fair one, hold up a little," said Master Pierrat, raising her."You have the air of the lamb of the Golden Fleece which hangs fromMonsieur de Bourgogne's neck."
Jacques Charmolue raised his voice,
"Clerk, write. Young Bohemian maid, you confess your participation inthe feasts, witches' sabbaths, and witchcrafts of hell, with ghosts,hags, and vampires? Answer."
"Yes," she said, so low that her words were lost in her breathing.
"You confess to having seen the ram which Beelzebub causes to appear inthe clouds to call together the witches'
sabbath, and which is beheld bysocerers alone?"
"Yes."
"You confess to having adored the heads of Bophomet, those abominableidols of the Templars?"
"Yes."
"To having had habitual dealings with the devil under the form of a goatfamiliar, joined with you in the suit?"
"Yes."
"Lastly, you avow and confess to having, with the aid of the demon, andof the phantom vulgarly known as the surly monk, on the night of thetwenty-ninth of March last, murdered and assassinated a captain namedPhoebus de Chateaupers?"
She raised her large, staring eyes to the magistrate, and replied, asthough mechanically, without convulsion or agitation,--
"Yes."
It was evident that everything within her was broken.
"Write, clerk," said Charmolue. And, addressing the torturers, "Releasethe prisoner, and take her back to the court."
When the prisoner had been "unbooted," the procurator of theecclesiastical court examined her foot, which was still swollen withpain. "Come," said he, "there's no great harm done. You shrieked in goodseason. You could still dance, my beauty!"
Then he turned to his acolytes of the officiality,--"Behold justiceenlightened at last! This is a solace, gentlemen! Madamoiselle will bearus witness that we have acted with all possible gentleness."
CHAPTER III. END OF THE CROWN WHICH WAS TURNED INTO A DRY LEAF.