Chapter III: History of a Leavened Cake of Maize

At the epoch of this history, the cell in the Tour-Roland was
occupied. If the reader desires to know by whom, he has only to
lend an ear to the conversation of three worthy gossips, who, at
the moment when we have directed his attention to the Rat-Hole,
were directing their steps towards the same spot, coming up along
the water’s edge from the Châtelet, towards the Grève.

Two of these women were dressed like good _bourgeoises_ of Paris.
Their fine white ruffs; their petticoats of linsey-woolsey,
striped red and blue; their white knitted stockings, with clocks
embroidered in colors, well drawn upon their legs; the
square-toed shoes of tawny leather with black soles, and, above
all, their headgear, that sort of tinsel horn, loaded down with
ribbons and laces, which the women of Champagne still wear, in
company with the grenadiers of the imperial guard of Russia,
announced that they belonged to that class wives which holds the
middle ground between what the lackeys call a woman and what they
term a lady. They wore neither rings nor gold crosses, and it was
easy to see that, in their ease, this did not proceed from
poverty, but simply from fear of being fined. Their companion was
attired in very much the same manner; but there was that
indescribable something about her dress and bearing which
suggested the wife of a provincial notary. One could see, by the
way in which her girdle rose above her hips, that she had not
been long in Paris. Add to this a plaited tucker, knots of ribbon
on her shoes—and that the stripes of her petticoat ran
horizontally instead of vertically, and a thousand other
enormities which shocked good taste.

The two first walked with that step peculiar to Parisian ladies,
showing Paris to women from the country. The provincial held by
the hand a big boy, who held in his a large, flat cake.

We regret to be obliged to add, that, owing to the rigor of the
season, he was using his tongue as a handkerchief.

The child was making them drag him along, _non passibus æquis_,
as Virgil says, and stumbling at every moment, to the great
indignation of his mother. It is true that he was looking at his
cake more than at the pavement. Some serious motive, no doubt,
prevented his biting it (the cake), for he contented himself with
gazing tenderly at it. But the mother should have rather taken
charge of the cake. It was cruel to make a Tantalus of the
chubby-cheeked boy.

Meanwhile, the three demoiselles (for the name of _dames_ was
then reserved for noble women) were all talking at once.

“Let us make haste, Demoiselle Mahiette,” said the youngest of
the three, who was also the largest, to the provincial, “I
greatly fear that we shall arrive too late; they told us at the
Châtelet that they were going to take him directly to the
pillory.”

“Ah, bah! what are you saying, Demoiselle Oudarde Musnier?”
interposed the other Parisienne. “There are two hours yet to the
pillory. We have time enough. Have you ever seen any one
pilloried, my dear Mahiette?”

“Yes,” said the provincial, “at Reims.”

“Ah, bah! What is your pillory at Reims? A miserable cage into
which only peasants are turned. A great affair, truly!”

“Only peasants!” said Mahiette, “at the cloth market in Reims! We
have seen very fine criminals there, who have killed their father
and mother! Peasants! For what do you take us, Gervaise?”

It is certain that the provincial was on the point of taking
offence, for the honor of her pillory. Fortunately, that discreet
damoiselle, Oudarde Musnier, turned the conversation in time.

“By the way, Damoiselle Mahiette, what say you to our Flemish
Ambassadors? Have you as fine ones at Reims?”

“I admit,” replied Mahiette, “that it is only in Paris that such
Flemings can be seen.”

“Did you see among the embassy, that big ambassador who is a
hosier?” asked Oudarde.

“Yes,” said Mahiette. “He has the eye of a Saturn.”

“And the big fellow whose face resembles a bare belly?” resumed
Gervaise. “And the little one, with small eyes framed in red
eyelids, pared down and slashed up like a thistle head?”

“’Tis their horses that are worth seeing,” said Oudarde,
“caparisoned as they are after the fashion of their country!”

“Ah my dear,” interrupted provincial Mahiette, assuming in her
turn an air of superiority, “what would you say then, if you had
seen in ’61, at the consecration at Reims, eighteen years ago,
the horses of the princes and of the king’s company? Housings and
caparisons of all sorts; some of damask cloth, of fine cloth of
gold, furred with sables; others of velvet, furred with ermine;
others all embellished with goldsmith’s work and large bells of
gold and silver! And what money that had cost! And what handsome
boy pages rode upon them!”

“That,” replied Oudarde dryly, “does not prevent the Flemings
having very fine horses, and having had a superb supper yesterday
with monsieur, the provost of the merchants, at the
Hôtel-de-Ville, where they were served with comfits and
hippocras, and spices, and other singularities.”

“What are you saying, neighbor!” exclaimed Gervaise. “It was with
monsieur the cardinal, at the Petit Bourbon that they supped.”

“Not at all. At the Hôtel-de-Ville.

“Yes, indeed. At the Petit Bourbon!”

“It was at the Hôtel-de-Ville,” retorted Oudarde sharply, “and
Dr. Scourable addressed them a harangue in Latin, which pleased
them greatly. My husband, who is sworn bookseller told me so.”

“It was at the Petit Bourbon,” replied Gervaise, with no less
spirit, “and this is what monsieur the cardinal’s procurator
presented to them: twelve double quarts of hippocras, white,
claret, and red; twenty-four boxes of double Lyons marchpane,
gilded; as many torches, worth two livres a piece; and six
demi-queues[29] of Beaune wine, white and claret, the best that
could be found. I have it from my husband, who is a
cinquantenier[30], at the Parloir-aux Bourgeois, and who was this
morning comparing the Flemish ambassadors with those of Prester
John and the Emperor of Trebizond, who came from Mesopotamia to
Paris, under the last king, and who wore rings in their ears.”

“So true is it that they supped at the Hôtel-de-Ville,” replied
Oudarde but little affected by this catalogue, “that such a
triumph of viands and comfits has never been seen.”

“I tell you that they were served by Le Sec, sergeant of the
city, at the Hôtel du Petit-Bourbon, and that that is where you
are mistaken.”

“At the Hôtel-de-Ville, I tell you!”

“At the Petit-Bourbon, my dear! and they had illuminated with
magic glasses the word _Hope_, which is written on the grand
portal.”

“At the Hôtel-de-Ville! At the Hôtel-de-Ville! And Husson-le-Voir
played the flute!”

“I tell you, no!”

“I tell you, yes!”

“I say, no!”

Plump and worthy Oudarde was preparing to retort, and the quarrel
might, perhaps, have proceeded to a pulling of caps, had not
Mahiette suddenly exclaimed,—“Look at those people assembled
yonder at the end of the bridge! There is something in their
midst that they are looking at!”

“In sooth,” said Gervaise, “I hear the sounds of a tambourine. I
believe ’tis the little Esmeralda, who plays her mummeries with
her goat. Eh, be quick, Mahiette! redouble your pace and drag
along your boy. You are come hither to visit the curiosities of
Paris. You saw the Flemings yesterday; you must see the gypsy
to-day.”

“The gypsy!” said Mahiette, suddenly retracing her steps, and
clasping her son’s arm forcibly. “God preserve me from it! She
would steal my child from me! Come, Eustache!”

And she set out on a run along the quay towards the Grève, until
she had left the bridge far behind her. In the meanwhile, the
child whom she was dragging after her fell upon his knees; she
halted breathless. Oudarde and Gervaise rejoined her.

“That gypsy steal your child from you!” said Gervaise. “That’s a
singular freak of yours!”

Mahiette shook her head with a pensive air.

“The singular point is,” observed Oudarde, “that _la sachette_
has the same idea about the Egyptian woman.”

“What is _la sachette_?” asked Mahiette.

“Hé!” said Oudarde, “Sister Gudule.”

“And who is Sister Gudule?” persisted Mahiette.

“You are certainly ignorant of all but your Reims, not to know
that!” replied Oudarde. “’Tis the recluse of the Rat-Hole.”

“What!” demanded Mahiette, “that poor woman to whom we are
carrying this cake?”

Oudarde nodded affirmatively.

“Precisely. You will see her presently at her window on the
Grève. She has the same opinion as yourself of these vagabonds of
Egypt, who play the tambourine and tell fortunes to the public.
No one knows whence comes her horror of the gypsies and
Egyptians. But you, Mahiette—why do you run so at the mere sight
of them?”

“Oh!” said Mahiette, seizing her child’s round head in both
hands, “I don’t want that to happen to me which happened to
Paquette la Chantefleurie.”

“Oh! you must tell us that story, my good Mahiette,” said
Gervaise, taking her arm.

“Gladly,” replied Mahiette, “but you must be ignorant of all but
your Paris not to know that! I will tell you then (but ’tis not
necessary for us to halt that I may tell you the tale), that
Paquette la Chantefleurie was a pretty maid of eighteen when I
was one myself, that is to say, eighteen years ago, and ’tis her
own fault if she is not to-day, like me, a good, plump, fresh
mother of six and thirty, with a husband and a son. However,
after the age of fourteen, it was too late! Well, she was the
daughter of Guybertant, minstrel of the barges at Reims, the same
who had played before King Charles VII., at his coronation, when
he descended our river Vesle from Sillery to Muison, when Madame
the Maid of Orleans was also in the boat. The old father died
when Paquette was still a mere child; she had then no one but her
mother, the sister of M. Pradon, master-brazier and coppersmith
in Paris, Rue Parin-Garlin, who died last year. You see she was
of good family. The mother was a good simple woman,
unfortunately, and she taught Paquette nothing but a bit of
embroidery and toy-making which did not prevent the little one
from growing very large and remaining very poor. They both dwelt
at Reims, on the river front, Rue de Folle-Peine. Mark this: For
I believe it was this which brought misfortune to Paquette. In
’61, the year of the coronation of our King Louis XI. whom God
preserve! Paquette was so gay and so pretty that she was called
everywhere by no other name than _la Chantefleurie_—blossoming
song. Poor girl! She had handsome teeth, she was fond of laughing
and displaying them. Now, a maid who loves to laugh is on the
road to weeping; handsome teeth ruin handsome eyes. So she was la
Chantefleurie. She and her mother earned a precarious living;
they had been very destitute since the death of the minstrel;
their embroidery did not bring them in more than six farthings a
week, which does not amount to quite two eagle liards. Where were
the days when Father Guybertant had earned twelve sous parisian,
in a single coronation, with a song? One winter (it was in that
same year of ’61), when the two women had neither fagots nor
firewood, it was very cold, which gave la Chantefleurie such a
fine color that the men called her Paquette![31] and many called
her Pâquerette![32] and she was ruined.—Eustache, just let me see
you bite that cake if you dare!—We immediately perceived that she
was ruined, one Sunday when she came to church with a gold cross
about her neck. At fourteen years of age! do you see? First it
was the young Vicomte de Cormontreuil, who has his bell tower
three leagues distant from Reims; then Messire Henri de
Triancourt, equerry to the King; then less than that, Chiart de
Beaulion, sergeant-at-arms; then, still descending, Guery
Aubergeon, carver to the King; then, Macé de Frépus, barber to
monsieur the dauphin; then, Thévenin le Moine, King’s cook; then,
the men growing continually younger and less noble, she fell to
Guillaume Racine, minstrel of the hurdy-gurdy and to Thierry de
Mer, lamplighter. Then, poor Chantefleurie, she belonged to every
one: she had reached the last sou of her gold piece. What shall I
say to you, my damoiselles? At the coronation, in the same year,
’61, ’twas she who made the bed of the king of the debauchees! In
the same year!”

Mahiette sighed, and wiped away a tear which trickled from her
eyes.

“This is no very extraordinary history,” said Gervaise, “and in
the whole of it I see nothing of any Egyptian women or children.”

“Patience!” resumed Mahiette, “you will see one child.—In ’66,
’twill be sixteen years ago this month, at Sainte-Paule’s day,
Paquette was brought to bed of a little girl. The unhappy
creature! it was a great joy to her; she had long wished for a
child. Her mother, good woman, who had never known what to do
except to shut her eyes, her mother was dead. Paquette had no
longer any one to love in the world or any one to love her. La
Chantefleurie had been a poor creature during the five years
since her fall. She was alone, alone in this life, fingers were
pointed at her, she was hooted at in the streets, beaten by the
sergeants, jeered at by the little boys in rags. And then, twenty
had arrived: and twenty is an old age for amorous women. Folly
began to bring her in no more than her trade of embroidery in
former days; for every wrinkle that came, a crown fled; winter
became hard to her once more, wood became rare again in her
brazier, and bread in her cupboard. She could no longer work
because, in becoming voluptuous, she had grown lazy; and she
suffered much more because, in growing lazy, she had become
voluptuous. At least, that is the way in which monsieur the curé
of Saint-Remy explains why these women are colder and hungrier
than other poor women, when they are old.”

“Yes,” remarked Gervaise, “but the gypsies?”

“One moment, Gervaise!” said Oudarde, whose attention was less
impatient. “What would be left for the end if all were in the
beginning? Continue, Mahiette, I entreat you. That poor
Chantefleurie!”

Mahiette went on.

“So she was very sad, very miserable, and furrowed her cheeks
with tears. But in the midst of her shame, her folly, her
debauchery, it seemed to her that she should be less wild, less
shameful, less dissipated, if there were something or some one in
the world whom she could love, and who could love her. It was
necessary that it should be a child, because only a child could
be sufficiently innocent for that. She had recognized this fact
after having tried to love a thief, the only man who wanted her;
but after a short time, she perceived that the thief despised
her. Those women of love require either a lover or a child to
fill their hearts. Otherwise, they are very unhappy. As she could
not have a lover, she turned wholly towards a desire for a child,
and as she had not ceased to be pious, she made her constant
prayer to the good God for it. So the good God took pity on her,
and gave her a little daughter. I will not speak to you of her
joy; it was a fury of tears, and caresses, and kisses. She nursed
her child herself, made swaddling-bands for it out of her
coverlet, the only one which she had on her bed, and no longer
felt either cold or hunger. She became beautiful once more, in
consequence of it. An old maid makes a young mother. Gallantry
claimed her once more; men came to see la Chantefleurie; she
found customers again for her merchandise, and out of all these
horrors she made baby clothes, caps and bibs, bodices with
shoulder-straps of lace, and tiny bonnets of satin, without even
thinking of buying herself another coverlet.—Master Eustache, I
have already told you not to eat that cake.—It is certain that
little Agnès, that was the child’s name, a baptismal name, for it
was a long time since la Chantefleurie had had any surname—it is
certain that that little one was more swathed in ribbons and
embroideries than a dauphiness of Dauphiny! Among other things,
she had a pair of little shoes, the like of which King Louis XI.
certainly never had! Her mother had stitched and embroidered them
herself; she had lavished on them all the delicacies of her art
of embroideress, and all the embellishments of a robe for the
good Virgin. They certainly were the two prettiest little pink
shoes that could be seen. They were no longer than my thumb, and
one had to see the child’s little feet come out of them, in order
to believe that they had been able to get into them. ’Tis true
that those little feet were so small, so pretty, so rosy! rosier
than the satin of the shoes! When you have children, Oudarde, you
will find that there is nothing prettier than those little hands
and feet.”

“I ask no better,” said Oudarde with a sigh, “but I am waiting
until it shall suit the good pleasure of M. Andry Musnier.”

“However, Paquette’s child had more that was pretty about it
besides its feet. I saw her when she was only four months old;
she was a love! She had eyes larger than her mouth, and the most
charming black hair, which already curled. She would have been a
magnificent brunette at the age of sixteen! Her mother became
more crazy over her every day. She kissed her, caressed her,
tickled her, washed her, decked her out, devoured her! She lost
her head over her, she thanked God for her. Her pretty, little
rosy feet above all were an endless source of wonderment, they
were a delirium of joy! She was always pressing her lips to them,
and she could never recover from her amazement at their
smallness. She put them into the tiny shoes, took them out,
admired them, marvelled at them, looked at the light through
them, was curious to see them try to walk on her bed, and would
gladly have passed her life on her knees, putting on and taking
off the shoes from those feet, as though they had been those of
an Infant Jesus.”

“The tale is fair and good,” said Gervaise in a low tone; “but
where do gypsies come into all that?”

“Here,” replied Mahiette. “One day there arrived in Reims a very
queer sort of people. They were beggars and vagabonds who were
roaming over the country, led by their duke and their counts.
They were browned by exposure to the sun, they had closely
curling hair, and silver rings in their ears. The women were
still uglier than the men. They had blacker faces, which were
always uncovered, a miserable frock on their bodies, an old cloth
woven of cords bound upon their shoulder, and their hair hanging
like the tail of a horse. The children who scrambled between
their legs would have frightened as many monkeys. A band of
excommunicates. All these persons came direct from lower Egypt to
Reims through Poland. The Pope had confessed them, it was said,
and had prescribed to them as penance to roam through the world
for seven years, without sleeping in a bed; and so they were
called penancers, and smelt horribly. It appears that they had
formerly been Saracens, which was why they believed in Jupiter,
and claimed ten livres of Tournay from all archbishops, bishops,
and mitred abbots with croziers. A bull from the Pope empowered
them to do that. They came to Reims to tell fortunes in the name
of the King of Algiers, and the Emperor of Germany. You can
readily imagine that no more was needed to cause the entrance to
the town to be forbidden them. Then the whole band camped with
good grace outside the gate of Braine, on that hill where stands
a mill, beside the cavities of the ancient chalk pits. And
everybody in Reims vied with his neighbor in going to see them.
They looked at your hand, and told you marvellous prophecies;
they were equal to predicting to Judas that he would become Pope.
Nevertheless, ugly rumors were in circulation in regard to them;
about children stolen, purses cut, and human flesh devoured. The
wise people said to the foolish: “Don’t go there!” and then went
themselves on the sly. It was an infatuation. The fact is, that
they said things fit to astonish a cardinal. Mothers triumphed
greatly over their little ones after the Egyptians had read in
their hands all sorts of marvels written in pagan and in Turkish.
One had an emperor; another, a pope; another, a captain. Poor
Chantefleurie was seized with curiosity; she wished to know about
herself, and whether her pretty little Agnès would not become
some day Empress of Armenia, or something else. So she carried
her to the Egyptians; and the Egyptian women fell to admiring the
child, and to caressing it, and to kissing it with their black
mouths, and to marvelling over its little band, alas! to the
great joy of the mother. They were especially enthusiastic over
her pretty feet and shoes. The child was not yet a year old. She
already lisped a little, laughed at her mother like a little mad
thing, was plump and quite round, and possessed a thousand
charming little gestures of the angels of paradise.

“She was very much frightened by the Egyptians, and wept. But her
mother kissed her more warmly and went away enchanted with the
good fortune which the soothsayers had foretold for her Agnès.
She was to be a beauty, virtuous, a queen. So she returned to her
attic in the Rue Folle-Peine, very proud of bearing with her a
queen. The next day she took advantage of a moment when the child
was asleep on her bed, (for they always slept together), gently
left the door a little way open, and ran to tell a neighbor in
the Rue de la Séchesserie, that the day would come when her
daughter Agnès would be served at table by the King of England
and the Archduke of Ethiopia, and a hundred other marvels. On her
return, hearing no cries on the staircase, she said to herself:
‘Good! the child is still asleep!’ She found her door wider open
than she had left it, but she entered, poor mother, and ran to
the bed.—The child was no longer there, the place was empty.
Nothing remained of the child, but one of her pretty little
shoes. She flew out of the room, dashed down the stairs, and
began to beat her head against the wall, crying: ‘My child! who
has my child? Who has taken my child?’ The street was deserted,
the house isolated; no one could tell her anything about it. She
went about the town, searched all the streets, ran hither and
thither the whole day long, wild, beside herself, terrible,
snuffing at doors and windows like a wild beast which has lost
its young. She was breathless, dishevelled, frightful to see, and
there was a fire in her eyes which dried her tears. She stopped
the passers-by and cried: ‘My daughter! my daughter! my pretty
little daughter! If any one will give me back my daughter, I will
be his servant, the servant of his dog, and he shall eat my heart
if he will.’ She met M. le Curé of Saint-Remy, and said to him:
‘Monsieur, I will till the earth with my finger-nails, but give
me back my child!’ It was heartrending, Oudarde; and I saw a very
hard man, Master Ponce Lacabre, the procurator, weep. Ah! poor
mother! In the evening she returned home. During her absence, a
neighbor had seen two gypsies ascend up to it with a bundle in
their arms, then descend again, after closing the door. After
their departure, something like the cries of a child were heard
in Paquette’s room. The mother, burst into shrieks of laughter,
ascended the stairs as though on wings, and entered.—A frightful
thing to tell, Oudarde! Instead of her pretty little Agnès, so
rosy and so fresh, who was a gift of the good God, a sort of
hideous little monster, lame, one-eyed, deformed, was crawling
and squalling over the floor. She hid her eyes in horror. ‘Oh!’
said she, ‘have the witches transformed my daughter into this
horrible animal?’ They hastened to carry away the little
club-foot; he would have driven her mad. It was the monstrous
child of some gypsy woman, who had given herself to the devil. He
appeared to be about four years old, and talked a language which
was no human tongue; there were words in it which were
impossible. La Chantefleurie flung herself upon the little shoe,
all that remained to her of all that she loved. She remained so
long motionless over it, mute, and without breath, that they
thought she was dead. Suddenly she trembled all over, covered her
relic with furious kisses, and burst out sobbing as though her
heart were broken. I assure you that we were all weeping also.
She said: ‘Oh, my little daughter! my pretty little daughter!
where art thou?’—and it wrung your very heart. I weep still when
I think of it. Our children are the marrow of our bones, you
see.—My poor Eustache! thou art so fair!—If you only knew how
nice he is! yesterday he said to me: ‘I want to be a gendarme,
that I do.’ Oh! my Eustache! if I were to lose thee!—All at once
la Chantefleurie rose, and set out to run through Reims,
screaming: ‘To the gypsies’ camp! to the gypsies’ camp! Police,
to burn the witches!’ The gypsies were gone. It was pitch dark.
They could not be followed. On the morrow, two leagues from
Reims, on a heath between Gueux and Tilloy, the remains of a
large fire were found, some ribbons which had belonged to
Paquette’s child, drops of blood, and the dung of a ram. The
night just past had been a Saturday. There was no longer any
doubt that the Egyptians had held their Sabbath on that heath,
and that they had devoured the child in company with Beelzebub,
as the practice is among the Mahometans. When La Chantefleurie
learned these horrible things, she did not weep, she moved her
lips as though to speak, but could not. On the morrow, her hair
was gray. On the second day, she had disappeared.

“’Tis in truth, a frightful tale,” said Oudarde, “and one which
would make even a Burgundian weep.”

“I am no longer surprised,” added Gervaise, “that fear of the
gypsies should spur you on so sharply.”

“And you did all the better,” resumed Oudarde, “to flee with your
Eustache just now, since these also are gypsies from Poland.”

“No,” said Gervais, “’tis said that they come from Spain and
Catalonia.”

“Catalonia? ’tis possible,” replied Oudarde. “Pologne, Catalogne,
Valogne, I always confound those three provinces, One thing is
certain, that they are gypsies.”

“Who certainly,” added Gervaise, “have teeth long enough to eat
little children. I should not be surprised if la Smeralda ate a
little of them also, though she pretends to be dainty. Her white
goat knows tricks that are too malicious for there not to be some
impiety underneath it all.”

Mahiette walked on in silence. She was absorbed in that revery
which is, in some sort, the continuation of a mournful tale, and
which ends only after having communicated the emotion, from
vibration to vibration, even to the very last fibres of the
heart. Nevertheless, Gervaise addressed her, “And did they ever
learn what became of la Chantefleurie?” Mahiette made no reply.
Gervaise repeated her question, and shook her arm, calling her by
name. Mahiette appeared to awaken from her thoughts.

“What became of la Chantefleurie?” she said, repeating
mechanically the words whose impression was still fresh in her
ear; then, making an effort to recall her attention to the
meaning of her words, “Ah!” she continued briskly, “no one ever
found out.”

She added, after a pause,—

“Some said that she had been seen to quit Reims at nightfall by
the Fléchembault gate; others, at daybreak, by the old Basée
gate. A poor man found her gold cross hanging on the stone cross
in the field where the fair is held. It was that ornament which
had wrought her ruin, in ’61. It was a gift from the handsome
Vicomte de Cormontreuil, her first lover. Paquette had never been
willing to part with it, wretched as she had been. She had clung
to it as to life itself. So, when we saw that cross abandoned, we
all thought that she was dead. Nevertheless, there were people of
the Cabaret les Vantes, who said that they had seen her pass
along the road to Paris, walking on the pebbles with her bare
feet. But, in that case, she must have gone out through the Porte
de Vesle, and all this does not agree. Or, to speak more truly, I
believe that she actually did depart by the Porte de Vesle, but
departed from this world.”

“I do not understand you,” said Gervaise.

“La Vesle,” replied Mahiette, with a melancholy smile, “is the
river.”

“Poor Chantefleurie!” said Oudarde, with a shiver,—“drowned!”

“Drowned!” resumed Mahiette, “who could have told good Father
Guybertant, when he passed under the bridge of Tingueux with the
current, singing in his barge, that one day his dear little
Paquette would also pass beneath that bridge, but without song or
boat.

“And the little shoe?” asked Gervaise.

“Disappeared with the mother,” replied Mahiette.

“Poor little shoe!” said Oudarde.

Oudarde, a big and tender woman, would have been well pleased to
sigh in company with Mahiette. But Gervaise, more curious, had
not finished her questions.

“And the monster?” she said suddenly, to Mahiette.

“What monster?” inquired the latter.

“The little gypsy monster left by the sorceresses in
Chantefleurie’s chamber, in exchange for her daughter. What did
you do with it? I hope you drowned it also.”

“No.” replied Mahiette.

“What? You burned it then? In sooth, that is more just. A witch
child!”

“Neither the one nor the other, Gervaise. Monseigneur the
archbishop interested himself in the child of Egypt, exorcised
it, blessed it, removed the devil carefully from its body, and
sent it to Paris, to be exposed on the wooden bed at Notre-Dame,
as a foundling.”

“Those bishops!” grumbled Gervaise, “because they are learned,
they do nothing like anybody else. I just put it to you, Oudarde,
the idea of placing the devil among the foundlings! For that
little monster was assuredly the devil. Well, Mahiette, what did
they do with it in Paris? I am quite sure that no charitable
person wanted it.”

“I do not know,” replied the Rémoise, “’twas just at that time
that my husband bought the office of notary, at Beru, two leagues
from the town, and we were no longer occupied with that story;
besides, in front of Beru, stand the two hills of Cernay, which
hide the towers of the cathedral in Reims from view.”

While chatting thus, the three worthy _bourgeoises_ had arrived
at the Place de Grève. In their absorption, they had passed the
public breviary of the Tour-Roland without stopping, and took
their way mechanically towards the pillory around which the
throng was growing more dense with every moment. It is probable
that the spectacle which at that moment attracted all looks in
that direction, would have made them forget completely the
Rat-Hole, and the halt which they intended to make there, if big
Eustache, six years of age, whom Mahiette was dragging along by
the hand, had not abruptly recalled the object to them: “Mother,”
said he, as though some instinct warned him that the Rat-Hole was
behind him, “can I eat the cake now?”

If Eustache had been more adroit, that is to say, less greedy, he
would have continued to wait, and would only have hazarded that
simple question, “Mother, can I eat the cake, now?” on their
return to the University, to Master Andry Musnier’s, Rue Madame
la Valence, when he had the two arms of the Seine and the five
bridges of the city between the Rat-Hole and the cake.

This question, highly imprudent at the moment when Eustache put
it, aroused Mahiette’s attention.

“By the way,” she exclaimed, “we are forgetting the recluse! Show
me the Rat-Hole, that I may carry her her cake.”

“Immediately,” said Oudarde, “’tis a charity.”

But this did not suit Eustache.

“Stop! my cake!” said he, rubbing both ears alternatively with
his shoulders, which, in such cases, is the supreme sign of
discontent.

The three women retraced their steps, and, on arriving in the
vicinity of the Tour-Roland, Oudarde said to the other two,—

“We must not all three gaze into the hole at once, for fear of
alarming the recluse. Do you two pretend to read the _Dominus_ in
the breviary, while I thrust my nose into the aperture; the
recluse knows me a little. I will give you warning when you can
approach.”

She proceeded alone to the window. At the moment when she looked
in, a profound pity was depicted on all her features, and her
frank, gay visage altered its expression and color as abruptly as
though it had passed from a ray of sunlight to a ray of
moonlight; her eye became humid; her mouth contracted, like that
of a person on the point of weeping. A moment later, she laid her
finger on her lips, and made a sign to Mahiette to draw near and
look.

Mahiette, much touched, stepped up in silence, on tiptoe, as
though approaching the bedside of a dying person.

It was, in fact, a melancholy spectacle which presented itself to
the eyes of the two women, as they gazed through the grating of
the Rat-Hole, neither stirring nor breathing.

The cell was small, broader than it was long, with an arched
ceiling, and viewed from within, it bore a considerable
resemblance to the interior of a huge bishop’s mitre. On the bare
flagstones which formed the floor, in one corner, a woman was
sitting, or rather, crouching. Her chin rested on her knees,
which her crossed arms pressed forcibly to her breast. Thus
doubled up, clad in a brown sack, which enveloped her entirely in
large folds, her long, gray hair pulled over in front, falling
over her face and along her legs nearly to her feet, she
presented, at the first glance, only a strange form outlined
against the dark background of the cell, a sort of dusky
triangle, which the ray of daylight falling through the opening,
cut roughly into two shades, the one sombre, the other
illuminated. It was one of those spectres, half light, half
shadow, such as one beholds in dreams and in the extraordinary
work of Goya, pale, motionless, sinister, crouching over a tomb,
or leaning against the grating of a prison cell.

It was neither a woman, nor a man, nor a living being, nor a
definite form; it was a figure, a sort of vision, in which the
real and the fantastic intersected each other, like darkness and
day. It was with difficulty that one distinguished, beneath her
hair which spread to the ground, a gaunt and severe profile; her
dress barely allowed the extremity of a bare foot to escape,
which contracted on the hard, cold pavement. The little of human
form of which one caught a sight beneath this envelope of
mourning, caused a shudder.

That figure, which one might have supposed to be riveted to the
flagstones, appeared to possess neither movement, nor thought,
nor breath. Lying, in January, in that thin, linen sack, lying on
a granite floor, without fire, in the gloom of a cell whose
oblique air-hole allowed only the cold breeze, but never the sun,
to enter from without, she did not appear to suffer or even to
think. One would have said that she had turned to stone with the
cell, ice with the season. Her hands were clasped, her eyes
fixed. At first sight one took her for a spectre; at the second,
for a statue.

Nevertheless, at intervals, her blue lips half opened to admit a
breath, and trembled, but as dead and as mechanical as the leaves
which the wind sweeps aside.

Nevertheless, from her dull eyes there escaped a look, an
ineffable look, a profound, lugubrious, imperturbable look,
incessantly fixed upon a corner of the cell which could not be
seen from without; a gaze which seemed to fix all the sombre
thoughts of that soul in distress upon some mysterious object.

Such was the creature who had received, from her habitation, the
name of the “recluse”; and, from her garment, the name of “the
sacked nun.”

The three women, for Gervaise had rejoined Mahiette and Oudarde,
gazed through the window. Their heads intercepted the feeble
light in the cell, without the wretched being whom they thus
deprived of it seeming to pay any attention to them. “Do not let
us trouble her,” said Oudarde, in a low voice, “she is in her
ecstasy; she is praying.”

Meanwhile, Mahiette was gazing with ever-increasing anxiety at
that wan, withered, dishevelled head, and her eyes filled with
tears. “This is very singular,” she murmured.

She thrust her head through the bars, and succeeded in casting a
glance at the corner where the gaze of the unhappy woman was
immovably riveted.

When she withdrew her head from the window, her countenance was
inundated with tears.

“What do you call that woman?” she asked Oudarde.

Oudarde replied,—

“We call her Sister Gudule.”

“And I,” returned Mahiette, “call her Paquette la Chantefleurie.”

Then, laying her finger on her lips, she motioned to the
astounded Oudarde to thrust her head through the window and look.

Oudarde looked and beheld, in the corner where the eyes of the
recluse were fixed in that sombre ecstasy, a tiny shoe of pink
satin, embroidered with a thousand fanciful designs in gold and
silver.

Gervaise looked after Oudarde, and then the three women, gazing
upon the unhappy mother, began to weep.

But neither their looks nor their tears disturbed the recluse.
Her hands remained clasped; her lips mute; her eyes fixed; and
that little shoe, thus gazed at, broke the heart of any one who
knew her history.

The three women had not yet uttered a single word; they dared not
speak, even in a low voice. This deep silence, this deep grief,
this profound oblivion in which everything had disappeared except
one thing, produced upon them the effect of the grand altar at
Christmas or Easter. They remained silent, they meditated, they
were ready to kneel. It seemed to them that they were ready to
enter a church on the day of Tenebræ.

At length Gervaise, the most curious of the three, and
consequently the least sensitive, tried to make the recluse
speak:

“Sister! Sister Gudule!”

She repeated this call three times, raising her voice each time.
The recluse did not move; not a word, not a glance, not a sigh,
not a sign of life.

Oudarde, in her turn, in a sweeter, more caressing
voice,—“Sister!” said she, “Sister Sainte-Gudule!”

The same silence; the same immobility.

“A singular woman!” exclaimed Gervaise, “and one not to be moved
by a catapult!”

“Perchance she is deaf,” said Oudarde.

“Perhaps she is blind,” added Gervaise.

“Dead, perchance,” returned Mahiette.

It is certain that if the soul had not already quitted this
inert, sluggish, lethargic body, it had at least retreated and
concealed itself in depths whither the perceptions of the
exterior organs no longer penetrated.

“Then we must leave the cake on the window,” said Oudarde; “some
scamp will take it. What shall we do to rouse her?”

Eustache, who, up to that moment had been diverted by a little
carriage drawn by a large dog, which had just passed, suddenly
perceived that his three conductresses were gazing at something
through the window, and, curiosity taking possession of him in
his turn, he climbed upon a stone post, elevated himself on
tiptoe, and applied his fat, red face to the opening, shouting,
“Mother, let me see too!”

At the sound of this clear, fresh, ringing child’s voice, the
recluse trembled; she turned her head with the sharp, abrupt
movement of a steel spring, her long, fleshless hands cast aside
the hair from her brow, and she fixed upon the child, bitter,
astonished, desperate eyes. This glance was but a lightning
flash.

“Oh my God!” she suddenly exclaimed, hiding her head on her
knees, and it seemed as though her hoarse voice tore her chest as
it passed from it, “do not show me those of others!”

“Good day, madam,” said the child, gravely.

Nevertheless, this shock had, so to speak, awakened the recluse.
A long shiver traversed her frame from head to foot; her teeth
chattered; she half raised her head and said, pressing her elbows
against her hips, and clasping her feet in her hands as though to
warm them,—

“Oh, how cold it is!”

“Poor woman!” said Oudarde, with great compassion, “would you
like a little fire?”

She shook her head in token of refusal.

“Well,” resumed Oudarde, presenting her with a flagon; “here is
some hippocras which will warm you; drink it.”

Again she shook her head, looked at Oudarde fixedly and replied,
“Water.”

Oudarde persisted,—“No, sister, that is no beverage for January.
You must drink a little hippocras and eat this leavened cake of
maize, which we have baked for you.”

She refused the cake which Mahiette offered to her, and said,
“Black bread.”

“Come,” said Gervaise, seized in her turn with an impulse of
charity, and unfastening her woolen cloak, “here is a cloak which
is a little warmer than yours.”

She refused the cloak as she had refused the flagon and the cake,
and replied, “A sack.”

“But,” resumed the good Oudarde, “you must have perceived to some
extent, that yesterday was a festival.”

“I do perceive it,” said the recluse; “’tis two days now since I
have had any water in my crock.”

She added, after a silence, “’Tis a festival, I am forgotten.
People do well. Why should the world think of me, when I do not
think of it? Cold charcoal makes cold ashes.”

And as though fatigued with having said so much, she dropped her
head on her knees again. The simple and charitable Oudarde, who
fancied that she understood from her last words that she was
complaining of the cold, replied innocently, “Then you would like
a little fire?”

“Fire!” said the sacked nun, with a strange accent; “and will you
also make a little for the poor little one who has been beneath
the sod for these fifteen years?”

Every limb was trembling, her voice quivered, her eyes flashed,
she had raised herself upon her knees; suddenly she extended her
thin, white hand towards the child, who was regarding her with a
look of astonishment. “Take away that child!” she cried. “The
Egyptian woman is about to pass by.”

Then she fell face downward on the earth, and her forehead struck
the stone, with the sound of one stone against another stone. The
three women thought her dead. A moment later, however, she moved,
and they beheld her drag herself, on her knees and elbows, to the
corner where the little shoe was. Then they dared not look; they
no longer saw her; but they heard a thousand kisses and a
thousand sighs, mingled with heartrending cries, and dull blows
like those of a head in contact with a wall. Then, after one of
these blows, so violent that all three of them staggered, they
heard no more.

“Can she have killed herself?” said Gervaise, venturing to pass
her head through the air-hole. “Sister! Sister Gudule!”

“Sister Gudule!” repeated Oudarde.

“Ah! good heavens! she no longer moves!” resumed Gervaise; “is
she dead? Gudule! Gudule!”

Mahiette, choked to such a point that she could not speak, made
an effort. “Wait,” said she. Then bending towards the window,
“Paquette!” she said, “Paquette le Chantefleurie!”

A child who innocently blows upon the badly ignited fuse of a
bomb, and makes it explode in his face, is no more terrified than
was Mahiette at the effect of that name, abruptly launched into
the cell of Sister Gudule.

The recluse trembled all over, rose erect on her bare feet, and
leaped at the window with eyes so glaring that Mahiette and
Oudarde, and the other woman and the child recoiled even to the
parapet of the quay.

Meanwhile, the sinister face of the recluse appeared pressed to
the grating of the air-hole. “Oh! oh!” she cried, with an
appalling laugh; “’tis the Egyptian who is calling me!”

At that moment, a scene which was passing at the pillory caught
her wild eye. Her brow contracted with horror, she stretched her
two skeleton arms from her cell, and shrieked in a voice which
resembled a death-rattle, “So ’tis thou once more, daughter of
Egypt! ’Tis thou who callest me, stealer of children! Well! Be
thou accursed! accursed! accursed! accursed!”