Chapter I: The Little Shoe (2)

“’S death!” said the provost, “what an appetite for the rack! I
understand not this madwoman at all.”

An old, gray-haired sergeant of the guard stepped out of the
ranks, and addressing the provost,—

“Mad in sooth, monseigneur. If she released the gypsy, it was not
her fault, for she loves not the gypsies. I have been of the
watch these fifteen years, and I hear her every evening cursing
the Bohemian women with endless imprecations. If the one of whom
we are in pursuit is, as I suppose, the little dancer with the
goat, she detests that one above all the rest.”

Gudule made an effort and said,—

“That one above all.”

The unanimous testimony of the men of the watch confirmed the old
sergeant’s words to the provost. Tristan l’Hermite, in despair at
extracting anything from the recluse, turned his back on her, and
with unspeakable anxiety she beheld him direct his course slowly
towards his horse.

“Come!” he said, between his teeth, “March on! let us set out
again on the quest. I shall not sleep until that gypsy is
hanged.”

But he still hesitated for some time before mounting his horse.
Gudule palpitated between life and death, as she beheld him cast
about the Place that uneasy look of a hunting dog which
instinctively feels that the lair of the beast is close to him,
and is loath to go away. At length he shook his head and leaped
into his saddle. Gudule’s horribly compressed heart now dilated,
and she said in a low voice, as she cast a glance at her
daughter, whom she had not ventured to look at while they were
there, “Saved!”

The poor child had remained all this time in her corner, without
breathing, without moving, with the idea of death before her. She
had lost nothing of the scene between Gudule and Tristan, and the
anguish of her mother had found its echo in her heart. She had
heard all the successive snappings of the thread by which she
hung suspended over the gulf; twenty times she had fancied that
she saw it break, and at last she began to breathe again and to
feel her foot on firm ground. At that moment she heard a voice
saying to the provost: “_Corbœuf!_ Monsieur le Prevôt, ’tis no
affair of mine, a man of arms, to hang witches. The rabble of the
populace is suppressed. I leave you to attend to the matter
alone. You will allow me to rejoin my company, who are waiting
for their captain.”

The voice was that of Phœbus de Châteaupers; that which took
place within her was ineffable. He was there, her friend, her
protector, her support, her refuge, her Phœbus. She rose, and
before her mother could prevent her, she had rushed to the
window, crying,—

“Phœbus! aid me, my Phœbus!”

Phœbus was no longer there. He had just turned the corner of the
Rue de la Coutellerie at a gallop. But Tristan had not yet taken
his departure.

The recluse rushed upon her daughter with a roar of agony. She
dragged her violently back, digging her nails into her neck. A
tigress mother does not stand on trifles. But it was too late.
Tristan had seen.

“Hé! hé!” he exclaimed with a laugh which laid bare all his teeth
and made his face resemble the muzzle of a wolf, “two mice in the
trap!”

“I suspected as much,” said the soldier.

Tristan clapped him on the shoulder,—

“You are a good cat! Come!” he added, “where is Henriet Cousin?”

A man who had neither the garments nor the air of a soldier,
stepped from the ranks. He wore a costume half gray, half brown,
flat hair, leather sleeves, and carried a bundle of ropes in his
huge hand. This man always attended Tristan, who always attended
Louis XI. “Friend,” said Tristan l’Hermite, “I presume that this
is the sorceress of whom we are in search. You will hang me this
one. Have you your ladder?”

“There is one yonder, under the shed of the Pillar-House,”
replied the man. “Is it on this justice that the thing is to be
done?” he added, pointing to the stone gibbet.

“Yes.”

“Ho, hé!” continued the man with a huge laugh, which was still
more brutal than that of the provost, “we shall not have far to
go.”

“Make haste!” said Tristan, “you shall laugh afterwards.”

In the meantime, the recluse had not uttered another word since
Tristan had seen her daughter and all hope was lost. She had
flung the poor gypsy, half dead, into the corner of the cellar,
and had placed herself once more at the window with both hands
resting on the angle of the sill like two claws. In this attitude
she was seen to cast upon all those soldiers her glance which had
become wild and frantic once more. At the moment when Rennet
Cousin approached her cell, she showed him so savage a face that
he shrank back.

“Monseigneur,” he said, returning to the provost, “which am I to
take?”

“The young one.”

“So much the better, for the old one seemeth difficult.”

“Poor little dancer with the goat!” said the old sergeant of the
watch.

Rennet Cousin approached the window again. The mother’s eyes made
his own droop. He said with a good deal of timidity,—

“Madam”—

She interrupted him in a very low but furious voice,—

“What do you ask?”

“It is not you,” he said, “it is the other.”

“What other?”

“The young one.”

She began to shake her head, crying,—

“There is no one! there is no one! there is no one!”

“Yes, there is!” retorted the hangman, “and you know it well. Let
me take the young one. I have no wish to harm you.”

She said, with a strange sneer,—

“Ah! so you have no wish to harm me!”

“Let me have the other, madam; ’tis monsieur the provost who
wills it.”

She repeated with a look of madness,—

“There is no one here.”

“I tell you that there is!” replied the executioner. “We have all
seen that there are two of you.”

“Look then!” said the recluse, with a sneer. “Thrust your head
through the window.”

The executioner observed the mother’s finger-nails and dared not.

“Make haste!” shouted Tristan, who had just ranged his troops in
a circle round the Rat-Hole, and who sat on his horse beside the
gallows.

Rennet returned once more to the provost in great embarrassment.
He had flung his rope on the ground, and was twisting his hat
between his hands with an awkward air.

“Monseigneur,” he asked, “where am I to enter?”

“By the door.”

“There is none.”

“By the window.”

“’Tis too small.”

“Make it larger,” said Tristan angrily. “Have you not pickaxes?”

The mother still looked on steadfastly from the depths of her
cavern. She no longer hoped for anything, she no longer knew what
she wished, except that she did not wish them to take her
daughter.

Rennet Cousin went in search of the chest of tools for the night
man, under the shed of the Pillar-House. He drew from it also the
double ladder, which he immediately set up against the gallows.
Five or six of the provost’s men armed themselves with picks and
crowbars, and Tristan betook himself, in company with them,
towards the window.

“Old woman,” said the provost, in a severe tone, “deliver up to
us that girl quietly.”

She looked at him like one who does not understand.

“_Tête Dieu!_” continued Tristan, “why do you try to prevent this
sorceress being hung as it pleases the king?”

The wretched woman began to laugh in her wild way.

“Why? She is my daughter.”

The tone in which she pronounced these words made even Henriet
Cousin shudder.

“I am sorry for that,” said the provost, “but it is the king’s
good pleasure.”

She cried, redoubling her terrible laugh,—

“What is your king to me? I tell you that she is my daughter!”

“Pierce the wall,” said Tristan.

In order to make a sufficiently wide opening, it sufficed to
dislodge one course of stone below the window. When the mother
heard the picks and crowbars mining her fortress, she uttered a
terrible cry; then she began to stride about her cell with
frightful swiftness, a wild beasts’ habit which her cage had
imparted to her. She no longer said anything, but her eyes
flamed. The soldiers were chilled to the very soul.

All at once she seized her paving stone, laughed, and hurled it
with both fists upon the workmen. The stone, badly flung (for her
hands trembled), touched no one, and fell short under the feet of
Tristan’s horse. She gnashed her teeth.

In the meantime, although the sun had not yet risen, it was broad
daylight; a beautiful rose color enlivened the ancient, decayed
chimneys of the Pillar-House. It was the hour when the earliest
windows of the great city open joyously on the roofs. Some
workmen, a few fruit-sellers on their way to the markets on their
asses, began to traverse the Grève; they halted for a moment
before this group of soldiers clustered round the Rat-Hole,
stared at it with an air of astonishment and passed on.

The recluse had gone and seated herself by her daughter, covering
her with her body, in front of her, with staring eyes, listening
to the poor child, who did not stir, but who kept murmuring in a
low voice, these words only, “Phœbus! Phœbus!” In proportion as
the work of the demolishers seemed to advance, the mother
mechanically retreated, and pressed the young girl closer and
closer to the wall. All at once, the recluse beheld the stone
(for she was standing guard and never took her eyes from it),
move, and she heard Tristan’s voice encouraging the workers. Then
she aroused from the depression into which she had fallen during
the last few moments, cried out, and as she spoke, her voice now
rent the ear like a saw, then stammered as though all kind of
maledictions were pressing to her lips to burst forth at once.

“Ho! ho! ho! Why this is terrible! You are ruffians! Are you
really going to take my daughter? Oh! the cowards! Oh! the
hangman lackeys! the wretched, blackguard assassins! Help! help!
fire! Will they take my child from me like this? Who is it then
who is called the good God?”

Then, addressing Tristan, foaming at the mouth, with wild eyes,
all bristling and on all fours like a female panther,—

“Draw near and take my daughter! Do not you understand that this
woman tells you that she is my daughter? Do you know what it is
to have a child? Eh! lynx, have you never lain with your female?
have you never had a cub? and if you have little ones, when they
howl have you nothing in your vitals that moves?”

“Throw down the stone,” said Tristan; “it no longer holds.”

The crowbars raised the heavy course. It was, as we have said,
the mother’s last bulwark.

She threw herself upon it, she tried to hold it back; she
scratched the stone with her nails, but the massive block, set in
movement by six men, escaped her and glided gently to the ground
along the iron levers.

The mother, perceiving an entrance effected, fell down in front
of the opening, barricading the breach with her body, beating the
pavement with her head, and shrieking with a voice rendered so
hoarse by fatigue that it was hardly audible,—

“Help! fire! fire!”

“Now take the wench,” said Tristan, still impassive.

The mother gazed at the soldiers in such formidable fashion that
they were more inclined to retreat than to advance.

“Come, now,” repeated the provost. “Here you, Rennet Cousin!”

No one took a step.

The provost swore,—

“_Tête de Christ!_ my men of war! afraid of a woman!”

“Monseigneur,” said Rennet, “do you call that a woman?”

“She has the mane of a lion,” said another.

“Come!” repeated the provost, “the gap is wide enough. Enter
three abreast, as at the breach of Pontoise. Let us make an end
of it, death of Mahom! I will make two pieces of the first man
who draws back!”

Placed between the provost and the mother, both threatening, the
soldiers hesitated for a moment, then took their resolution, and
advanced towards the Rat-Hole.

When the recluse saw this, she rose abruptly on her knees, flung
aside her hair from her face, then let her thin flayed hands fall
by her side. Then great tears fell, one by one, from her eyes;
they flowed down her cheeks through a furrow, like a torrent
through a bed which it has hollowed for itself.

At the same time she began to speak, but in a voice so
supplicating, so gentle, so submissive, so heartrending, that
more than one old convict-warder around Tristan who must have
devoured human flesh wiped his eyes.

“Messeigneurs! messieurs the sergeants, one word. There is one
thing which I must say to you. She is my daughter, do you see? my
dear little daughter whom I had lost! Listen. It is quite a
history. Consider that I knew the sergeants very well. They were
always good to me in the days when the little boys threw stones
at me, because I led a life of pleasure. Do you see? You will
leave me my child when you know! I was a poor woman of the town.
It was the Bohemians who stole her from me. And I kept her shoe
for fifteen years. Stay, here it is. That was the kind of foot
which she had. At Reims! La Chantefleurie! Rue Folle-Peine!
Perchance, you knew about that. It was I. In your youth, then,
there was a merry time, when one passed good hours. You will take
pity on me, will you not, gentlemen? The gypsies stole her from
me; they hid her from me for fifteen years. I thought her dead.
Fancy, my good friends, believed her to be dead. I have passed
fifteen years here in this cellar, without a fire in winter. It
is hard. The poor, dear little shoe! I have cried so much that
the good God has heard me. This night he has given my daughter
back to me. It is a miracle of the good God. She was not dead.
You will not take her from me, I am sure. If it were myself, I
would say nothing; but she, a child of sixteen! Leave her time to
see the sun! What has she done to you? nothing at all. Nor have
I. If you did but know that she is all I have, that I am old,
that she is a blessing which the Holy Virgin has sent to me! And
then, you are all so good! You did not know that she was my
daughter; but now you do know it. Oh! I love her! Monsieur, the
grand provost. I would prefer a stab in my own vitals to a
scratch on her finger! You have the air of such a good lord! What
I have told you explains the matter, does it not? Oh! if you have
had a mother, monseigneur! you are the captain, leave me my
child! Consider that I pray you on my knees, as one prays to
Jesus Christ! I ask nothing of any one; I am from Reims,
gentlemen; I own a little field inherited from my uncle, Mahiet
Pradon. I am no beggar. I wish nothing, but I do want my child!
oh! I want to keep my child! The good God, who is the master, has
not given her back to me for nothing! The king! you say the king!
It would not cause him much pleasure to have my little daughter
killed! And then, the king is good! she is my daughter! she is my
own daughter! She belongs not to the king! she is not yours! I
want to go away! we want to go away! and when two women pass, one
a mother and the other a daughter, one lets them go! Let us pass!
we belong in Reims. Oh! you are very good, messieurs the
sergeants, I love you all. You will not take my dear little one,
it is impossible! It is utterly impossible, is it not? My child,
my child!”

We will not try to give an idea of her gestures, her tone, of the
tears which she swallowed as she spoke, of the hands which she
clasped and then wrung, of the heart-breaking smiles, of the
swimming glances, of the groans, the sighs, the miserable and
affecting cries which she mingled with her disordered, wild, and
incoherent words. When she became silent Tristan l’Hermite
frowned, but it was to conceal a tear which welled up in his
tiger’s eye. He conquered this weakness, however, and said in a
curt tone,—

“The king wills it.”

Then he bent down to the ear of Rennet Cousin, and said to him in
a very low tone,—

“Make an end of it quickly!” Possibly, the redoubtable provost
felt his heart also failing him.

The executioner and the sergeants entered the cell. The mother
offered no resistance, only she dragged herself towards her
daughter and threw herself bodily upon her. The gypsy beheld the
soldiers approach. The horror of death reanimated her,—

“Mother!” she shrieked, in a tone of indescribable distress,
“Mother! they are coming! defend me!”

“Yes, my love, I am defending you!” replied the mother, in a
dying voice; and clasping her closely in her arms, she covered
her with kisses. The two lying thus on the earth, the mother upon
the daughter, presented a spectacle worthy of pity.

Rennet Cousin grasped the young girl by the middle of her body,
beneath her beautiful shoulders. When she felt that hand, she
cried, “Heuh!” and fainted. The executioner who was shedding
large tears upon her, drop by drop, was about to bear her away in
his arms. He tried to detach the mother, who had, so to speak,
knotted her hands around her daughter’s waist; but she clung so
strongly to her child, that it was impossible to separate them.
Then Rennet Cousin dragged the young girl outside the cell, and
the mother after her. The mother’s eyes were also closed.

At that moment, the sun rose, and there was already on the Place
a fairly numerous assembly of people who looked on from a
distance at what was being thus dragged along the pavement to the
gibbet. For that was Provost Tristan’s way at executions. He had
a passion for preventing the approach of the curious.

There was no one at the windows. Only at a distance, at the
summit of that one of the towers of Notre-Dame which commands the
Grève, two men outlined in black against the light morning sky,
and who seemed to be looking on, were visible.

Rennet Cousin paused at the foot of the fatal ladder, with that
which he was dragging, and, barely breathing, with so much pity
did the thing inspire him, he passed the rope around the lovely
neck of the young girl. The unfortunate child felt the horrible
touch of the hemp. She raised her eyelids, and saw the fleshless
arm of the stone gallows extended above her head. Then she shook
herself and shrieked in a loud and heartrending voice: “No! no! I
will not!” Her mother, whose head was buried and concealed in her
daughter’s garments, said not a word; only her whole body could
be seen to quiver, and she was heard to redouble her kisses on
her child. The executioner took advantage of this moment to
hastily loose the arms with which she clasped the condemned girl.
Either through exhaustion or despair, she let him have his way.
Then he took the young girl on his shoulder, from which the
charming creature hung, gracefully bent over his large head. Then
he set his foot on the ladder in order to ascend.

At that moment, the mother who was crouching on the pavement,
opened her eyes wide. Without uttering a cry, she raised herself
erect with a terrible expression; then she flung herself upon the
hand of the executioner, like a beast on its prey, and bit it. It
was done like a flash of lightning. The headsman howled with
pain. Those near by rushed up. With difficulty they withdrew his
bleeding hand from the mother’s teeth. She preserved a profound
silence. They thrust her back with much brutality, and noticed
that her head fell heavily on the pavement. They raised her, she
fell back again. She was dead.

The executioner, who had not loosed his hold on the young girl,
began to ascend the ladder once more.