Notre-Dame De Paris

  CHAPTER I. FROM CHARYBDIS TO SCYLLA.

  Night comes on early in January. The streets were already dark whenGringoire issued forth from the Courts. This gloom pleased him; he wasin haste to reach some obscure and deserted alley, in order there tomeditate at his ease, and in order that the philosopher might place thefirst dressing upon the wound of the poet. Philosophy, moreover, was hissole refuge, for he did not know where he was to lodge for the night.After the brilliant failure of his first theatrical venture, hedared not return to the lodging which he occupied in the RueGrenier-sur-l'Eau, opposite to the Port-au-Foin, having dependedupon receiving from monsieur the provost for his epithalamium, thewherewithal to pay Master Guillaume Doulx-Sire, farmer of the taxes oncloven-footed animals in Paris, the rent which he owed him, that isto say, twelve sols parisian; twelve times the value of all that hepossessed in the world, including his trunk-hose, his shirt, and hiscap. After reflecting a moment, temporarily sheltered beneath the littlewicket of the prison of the treasurer of the Sainte-Chappelle, as to theshelter which he would select for the night, having all the pavements ofParis to choose from, he remembered to have noticed the week previouslyin the Rue de la Savaterie, at the door of a councillor of theparliament, a stepping stone for mounting a mule, and to have said tohimself that that stone would furnish, on occasion, a very excellentpillow for a mendicant or a poet. He thanked Providence for having sentthis happy idea to him; but, as he was preparing to cross the Place,in order to reach the tortuous labyrinth of the city, where meanderall those old sister streets, the Rues de la Barillerie, de laVielle-Draperie, de la Savaterie, de la Juiverie, etc., still extantto-day, with their nine-story houses, he saw the procession of the Popeof the Fools, which was also emerging from the court house, and rushingacross the courtyard, with great cries, a great flashing of torches, andthe music which belonged to him, Gringoire. This sight revived thepain of his self-love; he fled. In the bitterness of his dramaticmisadventure, everything which reminded him of the festival of that dayirritated his wound and made it bleed.

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  He was on the point of turning to the Pont Saint-Michel; children wererunning about here and there with fire lances and rockets.

  "Pest on firework candles!" said Gringoire; and he fell back on the Pontau Change. To the house at the head of the bridge there had been affixedthree small banners, representing the king, the dauphin, and Margueriteof Flanders, and six little pennons on which were portrayed the Duke ofAustria, the Cardinal de Bourbon, M. de Beaujeu, and Madame Jeanne deFrance, and Monsieur the Bastard of Bourbon, and I know not whom else;all being illuminated with torches. The rabble were admiring.

  "Happy painter, Jehan Fourbault!" said Gringoire with a deep sigh;and he turned his back upon the bannerets and pennons. A street openedbefore him; he thought it so dark and deserted that he hoped to thereescape from all the rumors as well as from all the gleams of thefestival. At the end of a few moments his foot came in contact with anobstacle; he stumbled and fell. It was the May truss, which the clerksof the clerks' law court had deposited that morning at the door ofa president of the parliament, in honor of the solemnity of the day.Gringoire bore this new disaster heroically; he picked himself up, andreached the water's edge. After leaving behind him the civic Tournelle*and the criminal tower, and skirted the great walls of the king'sgarden, on that unpaved strand where the mud reached to his ankles, hereached the western point of the city, and considered for some timethe islet of the Passeur-aux-Vaches, which has disappeared beneath thebronze horse of the Pont Neuf. The islet appeared to him in the shadowlike a black mass, beyond the narrow strip of whitish water whichseparated him from it. One could divine by the ray of a tiny light thesort of hut in the form of a beehive where the ferryman of cows tookrefuge at night.

  * A chamber of the ancient parliament of Paris.

  "Happy ferryman!" thought Gringoire; "you do not dream of glory, andyou do not make marriage songs! What matters it to you, if kings andDuchesses of Burgundy marry? You know no other daisies (_marguerites_)than those which your April greensward gives your cows to browse upon;while I, a poet, am hooted, and shiver, and owe twelve sous, and thesoles of my shoes are so transparent, that they might serve as glassesfor your lantern! Thanks, ferryman, your cabin rests my eyes, and makesme forget Paris!"

  He was roused from his almost lyric ecstacy, by a big double Saint-Jeancracker, which suddenly went off from the happy cabin. It was the cowferryman, who was taking his part in the rejoicings of the day, andletting off fireworks.

  This cracker made Gringoire's skin bristle up all over.

  "Accursed festival!" he exclaimed, "wilt thou pursue me everywhere? Oh!good God! even to the ferryman's!"

  Then he looked at the Seine at his feet, and a horrible temptation tookpossession of him:

  "Oh!" said he, "I would gladly drown myself, were the water not socold!"

  Then a desperate resolution occurred to him. It was, since he could notescape from the Pope of the Fools, from Jehan Fourbault's bannerets,from May trusses, from squibs and crackers, to go to the Place de Greve.

  "At least," he said to himself, "I shall there have a firebrand of joywherewith to warm myself, and I can sup on some crumbs of the threegreat armorial bearings of royal sugar which have been erected on thepublic refreshment-stall of the city."

  CHAPTER II. THE PLACE DE GREVE.