Every city during the Middle Ages, and every city in France down to thetime of Louis XII. had its places of asylum. These sanctuaries, in themidst of the deluge of penal and barbarous jurisdictions which inundatedthe city, were a species of islands which rose above the level of humanjustice. Every criminal who landed there was safe. There were in everysuburb almost as many places of asylum as gallows. It was the abuse ofimpunity by the side of the abuse of punishment; two bad things whichstrove to correct each other. The palaces of the king, the hotels ofthe princes, and especially churches, possessed the right of asylum.Sometimes a whole city which stood in need of being repeopled wastemporarily created a place of refuge. Louis XI. made all Paris a refugein 1467.
His foot once within the asylum, the criminal was sacred; but he mustbeware of leaving it; one step outside the sanctuary, and he fell backinto the flood. The wheel, the gibbet, the strappado, kept good guardaround the place of refuge, and lay in watch incessantly for their prey,like sharks around a vessel. Hence, condemned men were to be seen whosehair had grown white in a cloister, on the steps of a palace, in theenclosure of an abbey, beneath the porch of a church; in this manner theasylum was a prison as much as any other. It sometimes happened thata solemn decree of parliament violated the asylum and restored thecondemned man to the executioner; but this was of rare occurrence.Parliaments were afraid of the bishops, and when there was frictionbetween these two robes, the gown had but a poor chance against thecassock. Sometimes, however, as in the affair of the assassins ofPetit-Jean, the headsman of Paris, and in that of Emery Rousseau, themurderer of Jean Valleret, justice overleaped the church and passed onto the execution of its sentences; but unless by virtue of a decree ofParliament, woe to him who violated a place of asylum with armed force!The reader knows the manner of death of Robert de Clermont, Marshalof France, and of Jean de Chalons, Marshal of Champagne; and yetthe question was only of a certain Perrin Marc, the clerk of amoney-changer, a miserable assassin; but the two marshals had broken thedoors of St. Mery. Therein lay the enormity.
Such respect was cherished for places of refuge that, according totradition, animals even felt it at times. Aymoire relates that astag, being chased by Dagobert, having taken refuge near the tomb ofSaint-Denis, the pack of hounds stopped short and barked.
Churches generally had a small apartment prepared for the reception ofsupplicants. In 1407, Nicolas Flamel caused to be built on the vaults ofSaint-Jacques de la Boucherie, a chamber which cost him four livres sixsous, sixteen farthings, parisis.
At Notre-Dame it was a tiny cell situated on the roof of the side aisle,beneath the flying buttresses, precisely at the spot where the wife ofthe present janitor of the towers has made for herself a garden, whichis to the hanging gardens of Babylon what a lettuce is to a palm-tree,what a porter's wife is to a Semiramis.
It was here that Quasimodo had deposited la Esmeralda, after his wildand triumphant course. As long as that course lasted, the young girlhad been unable to recover her senses, half unconscious, half awake, nolonger feeling anything, except that she was mounting through the air,floating in it, flying in it, that something was raising her above theearth. From time to time she heard the loud laughter, the noisy voiceof Quasimodo in her ear; she half opened her eyes; then below her sheconfusedly beheld Paris checkered with its thousand roofs of slate andtiles, like a red and blue mosaic, above her head the frightful andjoyous face of Quasimodo. Then her eyelids drooped again; she thoughtthat all was over, that they had executed her during her swoon, and thatthe misshapen spirit which had presided over her destiny, had laid holdof her and was bearing her away. She dared not look at him, and shesurrendered herself to her fate. But when the bellringer, dishevelledand panting, had deposited her in the cell of refuge, when she felt hishuge hands gently detaching the cord which bruised her arms, she feltthat sort of shock which awakens with a start the passengers of a vesselwhich runs aground in the middle of a dark night. Her thoughtsawoke also, and returned to her one by one. She saw that she was inNotre-Dame; she remembered having been torn from the hands of theexecutioner; that Phoebus was alive, that Phoebus loved her no longer;and as these two ideas, one of which shed so much bitterness over theother, presented themselves simultaneously to the poor condemned girl;she turned to Quasimodo, who was standing in front of her, and whoterrified her; she said to him,--"Why have you saved me?"
He gazed at her with anxiety, as though seeking to divine what she wassaying to him. She repeated her question. Then he gave her a profoundlysorrowful glance and fled. She was astonished.
A few moments later he returned, bearing a package which he cast ather feet. It was clothing which some charitable women had left on thethreshold of the church for her.
Then she dropped her eyes upon herself and saw that she was almostnaked, and blushed. Life had returned.
Quasimodo appeared to experience something of this modesty. He coveredhis eyes with his large hand and retired once more, but slowly.
She made haste to dress herself. The robe was a white one with a whiteveil,--the garb of a novice of the Hotel-Dien.
She had barely finished when she beheld Quasimodo returning. He carrieda basket under one arm and a mattress under the other. In the basketthere was a bottle, bread, and some provisions. He set the basket on thefloor and said, "Eat!" He spread the mattress on the flagging and said,"Sleep."
It was his own repast, it was his own bed, which the bellringer had gonein search of.
The gypsy raised her eyes to thank him, but she could not articulate aword. She dropped her head with a quiver of terror.
Then he said to her.--
"I frighten you. I am very ugly, am I not? Do not look at me; onlylisten to me. During the day you will remain here; at night you can walkall over the church. But do not leave the church either by day or bynight. You would be lost. They would kill you, and I should die."
She was touched and raised her head to answer him. He had disappeared.She found herself alone once more, meditating upon the singular words ofthis almost monstrous being, and struck by the sound of his voice, whichwas so hoarse yet so gentle.
Then she examined her cell. It was a chamber about six feet square,with a small window and a door on the slightly sloping plane of the roofformed of flat stones. Many gutters with the figures of animals seemedto be bending down around her, and stretching their necks in order tostare at her through the window. Over the edge of her roof she perceivedthe tops of thousands of chimneys which caused the smoke of all thefires in Paris to rise beneath her eyes. A sad sight for the poor gypsy,a foundling, condemned to death, an unhappy creature, without country,without family, without a hearthstone.
At the moment when the thought of her isolation thus appeared to hermore poignant than ever, she felt a bearded and hairy head glide betweenher hands, upon her knees. She started (everything alarmed her now) andlooked. It was the poor goat, the agile Djali, which had made its escapeafter her, at the moment when Quasimodo had put to flight Charmolue'sbrigade, and which had been lavishing caresses on her feet for nearlyan hour past, without being able to win a glance. The gypsy covered himwith kisses.
"Oh! Djali!" she said, "how I have forgotten thee! And so thou stillthinkest of me! Oh! thou art not an ingrate!"
At the same time, as though an invisible hand had lifted the weightwhich had repressed her tears in her heart for so long, she began toweep, and, in proportion as her tears flowed, she felt all that was mostacrid and bitter in her grief depart with them.
Evening came, she thought the night so beautiful that she made thecircuit of the elevated gallery which surrounds the church. It affordedher some relief, so calm did the earth appear when viewed from thatheight.
CHAPTER III. DEAF.