The two lovers did not listen to the worthy dowager. Phoebus again leaned on the back of his sweetheart's chair,--a charming position, whence his impudent gaze pierced every opening in Fleur-de-Lys' neckerchief. This neckerchief gaped so opportunely, and permitted him to note so many exquisite things, and to divine so many others, that, dazzled by her skin with its satiny gloss, he said to himself, "How can anybody ever fall in love with any but a fair-skinned woman?"
Both were silent. The young girl occasionally looked up at him with rapture and affection, and their hair mingled in a spring sunbeam.
"Phoebus," suddenly said Fleur-de-Lys in a low voice, "we are to marry in three months; swear to me that you have never loved any other woman but me."
"I swear it, lovely angel!" replied Phoebus, and his passionate gaze combined with the truthful accent of his voice to convince Fleur-de-Lys. Perhaps he even believed himself at that instant.
Meanwhile the good mother, charmed to see the lovers on such excellent terms, had left the room to attend to some domestic detail. Phoebus perceived this, and solitude so emboldened the adventurous captain that his brain soon filled with very strange ideas. Fleur-de-Lys loved him; he was her betrothed; she was alone with him; his former fancy for her revived, not in all its freshness, but in all its ardor. After all, it is no great crime to eat some of your fruit before it is harvested. I know not whether all these thoughts passed through his mind, but certain it is that Fleur-de-Lys was suddenly frightened by the expression of his eyes. She looked about her, and saw that her mother had gone.
"Heavens!" said she, blushing and confused, "how warm I feel!"
"Indeed, I think," said Phoebus, "that it must be almost noon. The sun is very annoying; I had better close the curtains."
"No, no," cried the poor girl; "on the contrary, I want air."
And like a deer which feels the hot breath of the pack, she rose, ran to the window, opened it, and rushed out upon the balcony.
Phoebus, vexed enough, followed her.
The square before the cathedral of Notre-Dame, upon which, as we know, the balcony looked, at this moment offered a strange and painful spectacle, which quickly changed the nature of the timid Fleur-de-Lys' fright.
A vast throng, which overflowed into all the adjacent streets, completely blocked the square. The little wall, breast-high, which surrounded the central part, known as the Parvis, would not have sufficed to keep it clear if it had not been reinforced by a thick hedge of sergeants of the Onze-Vingts and arquebusiers, culverin in hand. Thanks to this thicket of pikes and arquebusiers, it remained empty. The entrance was guarded by a body of halberdiers bearing the bishop's arms. The wide church-doors were closed, in odd contrast to the countless windows overlooking the square, which, open up to the very gables, revealed thousands of heads heaped one upon the other almost like the piles of cannon-balls in an artillery park.
The surface of this mob was grey, dirty, and foul. The spectacle which it was awaiting was evidently one of those which have the privilege of extracting and collecting all that is most unclean in the population. Nothing could be more hideous than the noise which arose from that swarm of soiled caps and filthy headgear. In that crowd there was more laugher than shouting; there were more women than men.
Now and then some sharp, shrill voice pierced the general uproar.
"Hollo! Mahiet Baliffre. Will she be hung yonder?"
"Fool! that is where she's to do penance in her shift. The priest will spit a little Latin at her. It's always done here at noon. If you are looking for the gallows, you must go to the Place de Greve."
"I'll go afterwards."
"I say, Boucanbry, is it true that she has refused a confessor?"
"So it seems, Bechaigne."
"Look at that, the heathen!"
"Sir, it is the custom. The Palace bailiff is bound to deliver over the malefactor, sentence having been pronounced, for execution, if it be one of the laity, to the provost of Paris; if it be a scholar, to the judges of the Bishop's Court."
"I thank you, sir."
"Oh, Heavens!" said Fleur-de-Lys, "the poor creature!"
The thought of the unfortunate victim filled with sadness the glance which she cast upon the crowd. The captain, far more absorbed in her than in that collection of rabble, amorously fingered her girdle from behind. She turned with the smiling entreaty,--
"For pity's sake, let me alone, Phoebus! If my mother returned, she would see your hand!"
At this instant the clock of Notre-Dame slowly struck twelve. A murmur of satisfaction burst from the crowd. The last vibration of the twelfth stroke had scarcely died away, when the sea of heads tossed like the waves on a windy day, and a vast shout rose from the street, the windows, and the roofs:--
"There she is!"
Fleur-de-Lys covered her eyes with her hands that she might not see.
"My charmer," said Phoebus, "will you go in?"
"No," replied she; and those eyes which she had closed from fear she opened again from curiosity.
A tumbrel, drawn by a strong Norman cart-horse, and entirely surrounded by cavalry in violet livery with white crosses, had just entered the square from the Rue Saint Pierre aux Boeufs. The officers of the watch made a passage for it through the people with lusty blows of their whips. Beside the tumbrel rode a number of officers of justice and of police who might be known by their black dress and their awkward seat in the saddle. Master Jacques Charmolue paraded at their head. In the fatal wagon sat a young girl, her arms bound behind her, and no priest at her side. She was in her shift; her long black locks (it was the fashion then not to cut them until the foot of the gibbet was reached) fell upon her breast and over her half-naked shoulders.
Through this floating hair, glossier than the raven's wing, a rough grey cord was twisted and knotted, chafing her delicate skin, and winding about the poor girl's graceful neck like an earthworm around a flower. Beneath this rope glittered a tiny amulet ornamented with green glass beads, which she had doubtless been allowed to keep, because nothing is refused to those about to die. The spectators posted at the windows could see at the bottom of the tumbrel her bare legs, which she tried to hide under her, as if by a last feminine instinct. At her feet was a little goat, also bound. The prisoner held in her teeth her shift, which was not securely fastened.
Even in her misery she seemed to suffer at being thus exposed almost naked to the public gaze. Alas! it is not for such tremors that modesty is made.
"Only see, fair cousin," said Fleur-de-Lys quickly to the captain, "it is that wicked gipsy girl with the goat."
So saying, she turned to Phoebus. His eyes were fixed upon the tumbrel. He was very pale.
"What gipsy girl with the goat?" he stammered.
"Why, Phoebus!" rejoined Fleur-de-Lys; "don't you remember--"
Phoebus interrupted her:--
"I don't know what you mean."
He took a step to re-enter; but Fleur de-Lys, whose jealousy, already so deeply stirred by this same gipsy, was again revived, cast a suspicious and penetrating look at him. She now vaguely recalled having heard that there was a captain concerned in the trial of this sorceress.
"What ails you?" said she to Phoebus; "one would think that this woman had disturbed you."
Phoebus tried to sneer.
"Me! Not the least in the world! Me, indeed!"
"Then stay," returned she, imperiously; "let us see it out."
The luckless captain was forced to remain. He was somewhat reassured when he found that the prisoner did not raise her eyes from the bottom of her tumbrel. It was but too truly Esmeralda. Upon this last round of the ladder of opprobrium and misfortune she was still beautiful; her large black eyes looked larger than ever from the thinness of her cheeks; her livid profile was pure and sublime. She resembled her former self as one of Masaccio's Virgins resembles a Virgin by Raphael,--feebler, thinner, weaker.
Moreover, her whole being was tossed hither and thither, and save for her sense of modesty, she had
abandoned everything, so utterly was she crushed by stupor and despair. Her body rebounded with every jolt of the cart, like some shattered, lifeless thing. A tear still lingered in her eye, but it was motionless, and, as it were, frozen.
Meantime the mournful cavalcade had traversed the crowd amid shouts of joy and curious stares. Still, we must confess, as faithful historians, that many, even the hardest hearted, were moved to pity at the sight of so much beauty and so much misery.
The tumbrel had entered the Parvis.
Before the central door it stopped. The escort was drawn up in line on, either side. The mob was hushed, and amidst this solemn, anxious silence the two leaves of the great door moved, as if spontaneously, upon their creaking hinges. Then the entire length of the deep, dark church was seen, hung with black, faintly lighted by a few glimmering tapers upon the high altar, and opening like the jaws of some cavern in the middle of the square, dazzling with light. At the very end, in the shadows of the chancel, a huge silver cross was dimly visible, standing out in relief against a black cloth which hung from the roof to the floor. The whole nave was empty; but heads of priests were seen moving confusedly among the distant choir-stalls, and, at the moment that the great door was thrown open, a loud, solemn, and monotonous chant proceeded from the church, casting fragments of dismal psalms, like gusts of wind, upon the prisoner's head:--
"Non timebo millia populi circumdantis me: exsurge, Domine; salvum me fac, Deus!
"Salvum me fac, Deus, quoniam intraverunt aquoe usque ad animam meam.
"Infixus sum in limo profundi; et non est substantia."de
At the same time another voice, apart from the choir, intoned from the steps of the high altar this mournful offertory:--
"Qui verbum meum audit, et credit ei qui misit me, habet vitam, aeternam et in judicium non venit; sed transit a morte in vitam."df
This chant, sung afar off by a few old men lost in the darkness, over that beautiful being full of life and youth, caressed by the warm air of spring, bathed in sunshine, was a part of the mass for the dead.
The people listened quietly.
The wretched victim, in her terror, seemed to lose all power of sight and thought in the dark interior of the church. Her pale lips moved as if in prayer, and when the hangman's assistant approached to help her down from the cart, he heard her murmur in an undertone the word "Phoebus."
Her hands were untied, and she alighted, accompanied by her goat, which was also unbound, and which bleated with delight at regaining its freedom; and she was then led bare-footed over the hard pavement to the foot of the steps leading to the porch. The cord about her neck trailed behind her, like a serpent pursuing her.
Then the chanting in the church ceased. A great gold cross and a file of tapers began to move in the gloom; the halberds of the beadles in their motley dress clashed against the floor; and a few moments later a long procession of priests in chasubles and deacons in dalmatics marched solemnly towards the prisoner, singing psalms as they came. But her eyes were fixed upon him who walked at their head, immediately after the cross-bearer.
"Oh," she whispered shudderingly, "there he is again! the priest!"
It was indeed the archdeacon. On his left was the assistant precentor, and on his right the precentor himself, armed with the wand of his office. He advanced, with head thrown back, eyes fixed and opened wide, chanting in a loud voice:--
"De ventre inferi clamavi, et exaudisti vocem meam.
"Et projecisti me in profundum in corde maris, et flumem circumdedit me."dg
When he appeared in full daylight under the lofty pointed arch of the portal, wrapped in a vast cope of cloth of silver embroidered with a black cross, he was so pale that more than one of the crowd thought that he must be one of those marble bishops kneeling upon the monuments in the choir, who had risen and come forth to receive on the threshold of the tomb her who was about to die.
She, no less pale and no less rigid, hardly noticed that a heavy lighted taper of yellow wax had been placed in her hand; she did not hear the shrill voice of the clerk reading the fatal lines of the penance; when she was told to answer "Amen," she answered "Amen." Nor was she restored to any slight sense of life and strength until she saw the priest sign to her jailers to retire, and himself advance alone towards her.
Then the blood boiled in her veins, and a lingering spark of indignation was rekindled in that already numb, cold soul.
The archdeacon approached her slowly; even in this extremity she saw him gaze upon her nakedness with eyes glittering with passion, jealousy, and desire. Then he said to her aloud, "Young girl, have you asked God to pardon your faults and failings?"
He bent to her ear and added (the spectators supposed that he was receiving her last confession). "Will you be mine? I can save you even yet!"
She gazed steadily at him: "Begone, demon! or I will denounce you!"
He smiled a horrible smile. "No one will believe you; you would only add a scandal to a crime. Answer quickly! Will you be mine?"
"What have you done with my Phoebus?"
"He is dead!" said the priest.
At this moment the miserable archdeacon raised his head mechanically, and saw at the opposite end of the square, upon the balcony of the Gondelaurier house, the captain standing beside Fleur-de-Lys. He staggered, passed his hand over his eyes, looked again, murmured a curse, and all his features were violently convulsed.
"So be it! die yourself!" he muttered. "No one else shall possess you."
Then, raising his hand above the gipsy girl's head, he exclaimed in funereal tones, "I nunc, anima anceps, et sit tibi Deus misericors!"dh
This was the awful formula with which these somber ceremonies were wont to close. It was the signal agreed upon between the priest and the executioner.
The people knelt.
"Kyrie, eleison," said the priests beneath the arch of the portal.
"Kyrie, eleison," repeated the multitude with a noise which rose above their heads like the roar of a tempestuous sea.
"Amen," said the archdeacon.
He turned his back upon the prisoner, his head again fell upon his breast, his hands were crossed, he rejoined his train of priests, and a moment later he disappeared, with cross, candles, and copes, beneath the dim arches of the cathedral, and his sonorous voice faded slowly down the choir, chanting these words of despair:
"Omnes gurgites tui et fluctus tui super me transierunt!"di
At the same time the intermittent echo of the iron-bound shaft of the beadles' halberds, dying away by degrees between the columns of the nave, seemed like the hammer of a clock sounding the prisoner's final hour.
Meantime the doors of Notre-Dame remained open, revealing the church, empty, desolate, clad in mourning, silent and un-lighted.
The prisoner stood motionless in her place, awaiting her doom. One of the vergers was obliged to warn Master Charmolue, who during this scene had been studying the bas-relief upon the great porch, which represents, according to some, the Sacrifice of Abraham ; according to others, the great Alchemical Operation, the sun being typified by the angel, the fire by the fagot, and the operator by Abraham.
He was with some difficulty withdrawn from this contemplation; but at last he turned, and at a sign from him, two men clad in yellow, the executioner's aids, approached the gipsy girl to refasten her hands.
The unhappy creature, as she was about to remount the fatal tumbrel and advance on her last journey, was perhaps seized by some poignant regret for the life she was so soon to lose. She raised her dry and fevered eyes to heaven, to the sun, to the silvery clouds here and there intersected by squares and triangles of azure; then she cast them down around her, upon the ground, the crowd, the houses. All at once, while the men in yellow were binding her elbows, she uttered a terrible shriek,--a shriek of joy. Upon yonder balcony, there, at the corner of the square, she had just seen him, her lover, her lord, Phoebus, the other apparition of her life.
The judge had lied! the priest had lied! It w
as indeed he, she could not doubt it; he was there, handsome, living, clad in his splendid uniform, the plume upon his head, his sword at his side!
"Phoebus!" she cried; "my Phoebus!"
And she strove to stretch out her arms quivering with love and rapture; but they were bound.
Then she saw the captain frown, a lovely young girl who leaned upon him look at him with scornful lip and angry eyes; then Phoebus uttered a few words which did not reach her, and both vanished hastily through the window of the balcony, which was closed behind them.
"Phoebus," she cried in despair, "do you believe this thing?"
A monstrous idea had dawned upon her. She remembered that she had been condemned for the murder of Captain Phoebus de Chateaupers.
She had borne everything until now. But this last blow was too severe. She fell senseless upon the pavement.
"Come," said Charmolue, "lift her into the tumbrel, and let us make an end of it!"
No one had observed, in the gallery of statues of the kings carved just above the pointed arches of the porch, a strange spectator who had until now watched all that happened with such impassivity, with so outstretched a neck, so deformed a visage, that, had it not been for his party-colored red and violet garb, he might have passed for one of those stone monsters through whose jaws the long cathedral gutters have for six centuries past disgorged themselves. This spectator had lost nothing that had passed since noon before the doors of Notre-Dame. And at the very beginning, unseen by any one, he had firmly attached to one of the small columns of the gallery a strong knotted rope, the end of which trailed upon the ground below. This done, he began to look about him quietly, and to whistle from time to time when a blackbird flew by him.