________________________________________________
_ Sixteen years previous to the epoch when this story takes
place, one fine morning, on Quasimodo Sunday, a living creature
had been deposited, after mass, in the church of Notre-
Dame, on the wooden bed securely fixed in the vestibule on
the left, opposite that great image of Saint Christopher,
which the figure of Messire Antoine des Essarts, chevalier,
carved in stone, had been gazing at on his knees since 1413,
when they took it into their heads to overthrow the saint and
the faithful follower. Upon this bed of wood it was customary
to expose foundlings for public charity. Whoever cared
to take them did so. In front of the wooden bed was a copper
basin for alms.
The sort of living being which lay upon that plank on the
morning of Quasimodo, in the year of the Lord, 1467, appeared
to excite to a high degree, the curiosity of the numerous
group which had congregated about the wooden bed. The
group was formed for the most part of the fair sex. Hardly
any one was there except old women.
In the first row, and among those who were most bent over
the bed, four were noticeable, who, from their gray ~cagoule~,
a sort of cassock, were recognizable as attached to some devout
sisterhood. I do not see why history has not transmitted to
posterity the names of these four discreet and venerable
damsels. They were Agnes la Herme, Jehanne de la Tarme,
Henriette la Gaultière, Gauchère la Violette, all four widows,
all four dames of the Chapel Etienne Haudry, who had quitted
their house with the permission of their mistress, and in
conformity with the statutes of Pierre d'Ailly, in order to
come and hear the sermon.
However, if these good Haudriettes were, for the moment,
complying with the statutes of Pierre d'Ailly, they certainly
violated with joy those of Michel de Brache, and the Cardinal
of Pisa, which so inhumanly enjoined silence upon them.
"What is this, sister?" said Agnes to Gauchère, gazing at
the little creature exposed, which was screaming and writhing
on the wooden bed, terrified by so many glances.
"What is to become of us," said Jehanne, "if that is the
way children are made now?"
"I'm not learned in the matter of children," resumed Agnes,
"but it must be a sin to look at this one."
"'Tis not a child, Agnes."
"'Tis an abortion of a monkey," remarked Gauchère.
"'Tis a miracle," interposed Henriette la Gaultière.
"Then," remarked Agnes, "it is the third since the Sunday
of the ~Loetare~: for, in less than a week, we had the miracle
of the mocker of pilgrims divinely punished by Notre-Dame
d'Aubervilliers, and that was the second miracle within
a month."
"This pretended foundling is a real monster of abomination,"
resumed Jehanne.
"He yells loud enough to deafen a chanter," continued Gauchère.
"Hold your tongue, you little howler!"
"To think that Monsieur of Reims sent this enormity
to Monsieur of Paris," added la Gaultière, clasping
her hands.
"I imagine," said Agnes la Herme, "that it is a beast, an
animal,--the fruit of--a Jew and a sow; something not Christian,
in short, which ought to be thrown into the fire or into
the water."
"I really hope," resumed la Gaultière, "that nobody will
apply for it."
"Ah, good heavens!" exclaimed Agnes; "those poor nurses
yonder in the foundling asylum, which forms the lower end of
the lane as you go to the river, just beside Monseigneur the
bishop! what if this little monster were to be carried to them
to suckle? I'd rather give suck to a vampire."
"How innocent that poor la Herme is!" resumed Jehanne; "don't
you see, sister, that this little monster is at least four years
old, and that he would have less appetite for your breast than
for a turnspit."
The "little monster" we should find it difficult
ourselves to describe him otherwise, was, in fact, not a new-born
child. It was a very angular and very lively little mass,
imprisoned in its linen sack, stamped with the cipher of Messire
Guillaume Chartier, then bishop of Paris, with a head
projecting. That head was deformed enough; one beheld only a
forest of red hair, one eye, a mouth, and teeth. The eye
wept, the mouth cried, and the teeth seemed to ask only to
be allowed to bite. The whole struggled in the sack, to the
great consternation of the crowd, which increased and was
renewed incessantly around it.
Dame Aloise de Gondelaurier, a rich and noble woman, who
held by the hand a pretty girl about five or six years of
age, and dragged a long veil about, suspended to the golden horn
of her headdress, halted as she passed the wooden bed, and gazed
for a moment at the wretched creature, while her charming little
daughter, Fleur-de-Lys de Gondelaurier, spelled out with her
tiny, pretty finger, the permanent inscription attached to the
wooden bed: "Foundlings."
"Really," said the dame, turning away in disgust, "I thought that
they only exposed children here."
She turned her back, throwing into the basin a silver florin,
which rang among the liards, and made the poor goodwives of
the chapel of Etienne Haudry open their eyes.
A moment later, the grave and learned Robert Mistricolle,
the king's protonotary, passed, with an enormous missal under
one arm and his wife on the other (Damoiselle Guillemette la
Mairesse), having thus by his side his two regulators,--spiritual
and temporal.
"Foundling!" he said, after examining the object; "found,
apparently, on the banks of the river Phlegethon."
"One can only see one eye," observed Damoiselle Guillemette;
"there is a wart on the other."
"It's not a wart," returned Master Robert Mistricolle, "it
is an egg which contains another demon exactly similar, who
bears another little egg which contains another devil, and
so on."
"How do you know that?" asked Guillemette la Mairesse.
"I know it pertinently," replied the protonotary.
"Monsieur le protonotare," asked Gauchère, "what do you
prognosticate of this pretended foundling?"
"The greatest misfortunes," replied Mistricolle.
"Ah! good heavens!" said an old woman among the spectators,
"and that besides our having had a considerable pestilence
last year, and that they say that the English are going
to disembark in a company at Harfleur."
"Perhaps that will prevent the queen from coming to Paris
in the month of September," interposed another; "trade is so
bad already."
"My opinion is," exclaimed Jehanne de la Tarme, "that it
would be better for the louts of Paris, if this little magician
were put to bed on a fagot than on a plank."
"A fine, flaming fagot," added the old woman.
"It would be more prudent," said Mistricolle.
For several minutes, a young priest had been listening to
the reasoning of the Haudriettes and the sentences of the
notary. He had a severe face, with a large brow, a profound
glance. He thrust the crowd silently aside, scrutinized the
"little magician," and stretched out his hand upon him. It was
high time, for all the devotees were already licking their chops
over the "fine, flaming fagot."
"I adopt this child," said the priest.
He took it in his cassock and carried it off. The spectators
followed him with frightened glances. A moment later, he had
disappeared through the "Red Door," which then led from the
church to the cloister.
When the first surprise was over, Jehanne de la Tarme
bent down to the ear of la Gaultière,--
"I told you so, sister,--that young clerk, Monsieur Claude
Frollo, is a sorcerer." _
Read next: VOLUME I: BOOK FOURTH: Chapter 2 - Claude Frollo
Read previous: VOLUME I: BOOK THIRD: Chapter 2 - A Bird's-eye View of Paris
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