by Hugo, Victor
‘That doesn’t alter the fact,’ Damoiselle Oudarde replied drily,’ that the Flemings have very fine horses, and they had a magnificent supper yesterday, given by the Provost of Merchants at the Hôtel de Ville, and were served sugared almonds, hippocras, spices and other delicacies.’
‘What are you talking about, neighbour?’ exclaimed Gervaise; ‘it was with Monsieur the Cardinal, at the Petit-Bourbon, that the Flemings had supper.’
‘No, they didn’t. At the Hôtel de Ville!’
‘Yes they did. At the Petit-Bourbon.’
‘It was quite certainly at the Hôtel de Ville,’ Oudarde retorted tartly, ‘because Doctor Scourable gave them a Latin oration which pleased them greatly. My husband, who’s a sworn bookseller, told me so.’
‘It was certainly at the Petit-Bourbon,’ Gervaise replied just as sharply, ‘because this is what Monsieur the Cardinal’s procurator gave them: 12 double quarts of hippocras, white, clairet,* and red; two dozen boxes of double gilt Lyons marzipan; the same number of torches of 2 pounds weight each, and 6 demi-queues* of the best Beaune wine to be had, white and red. I hope that settles it. I have it from my husband, who is a cinquantenier* at the Parloir-aux-Bourgeois, and this morning he was comparing the Flemish ambassadors with the ones from Prester John and the Emperor of Trebizond who came from Mesopotamia to Paris in our late King’s time, and wore rings in their ears.’
‘So true is it that they had supper at the Hôtel de Ville,’ Oudadre rejoined, unmoved by this display, ‘that there was such an array of viands and sugared sweets as has never been seen before.’
‘I tell you that they were served by Le Sec, the town sergeant, at the Hôtel du Petit-Bourbon, and that’s what misled you.’
‘The Hôtel de Ville, I tell you.’
‘The Petit-Bourbon, my dear! Because the word Espérance* which is written over the great doorway was all lit up with magic glasses.’
‘The Hôtel de Ville! The Hôtel de Ville! Husson le Voir even played the flute there.’
‘I tell you it wasn’t!’
‘I tell you it was!’
‘I tell you it wasn’t!’
Good fat Oudarde was getting ready to reply, and the quarrel might have led to blows, if Mahiette had not suddenly cried out: ‘Just look at all those people flocking together there at the end of the bridge! There is something in the middle of them that they are all looking at.’
‘Indeed,’ said Gervaise, ‘I can hear the sound of a tambourine. I think it’s young Smeralda doing her mummeries with her goat. Quick, Mahiette! Hurry up there and pull your boy along. You came here to see the curiosities of Paris. Yesterday you saw the Flemings; today you must see the gypsy girl.’
‘Gypsy girl!’ said Mahiette, abruptly turning back and gripping her son’s arm tightly. ‘God preserve me! She would steal my child—come along, Eustache!’
And she began running along the quay towards the Grève until she had left the bridge far behind. However, the child she was dragging along fell over on his knees; she stopped, out of breath. Oudarde and Gervaise caught her up.
‘That gypsy steal your child!’ said Gervaise. ‘That’s a peculiar fancy you have.’
Mahiette shook her head thoughtfully.
‘What is peculiar,’ Oudarde observed, ‘is that the sachette has the same idea about gypsies.’
‘Who’s the sachette?’ asked Mahiette.
‘Why!’ said Oudarde, ‘Sister Gudule.’
‘Who’s Sister Gudule?’ Mahiette went on.
‘Anyone can see you are from Reims if you don’t know that!’ Oudarde replied. ‘She’s the recluse in the Rat-hole.’
‘What?’ asked Mahiette, ‘the poor woman we are taking the cake to?’
Oudarde nodded assent.
‘Exactly. You’ll see her in a minute or two at her little window on the Grève. She thinks the same as you about these gypsy vagabonds who play their tambourines and tell fortunes. No one knows why she has such a horror of Zingari and gypsies. But what about you, Mahiette, why do you run away like that at the mere sight of them?’
‘Oh!’ said Mahiette, clutching her son’s round head in both hands, ‘I didn’t want what happened to Paquette la Chantefleurie to happen to me.’
‘Ah! that’s a story you’ll have to tell us, my good Mahiette,’ said Gervaise, taking her by the arm.
‘I don’t mind doing so,’ replied Mahiette, ‘but you must be real Parisians not to know it! Let me tell you then—but there’s no need to stop while I tell you the tale—that Paquette la Chantefleurie was a pretty girl of 18 when I was the same age, that is eighteen years ago, and it’s her own fault if she’s not like me today, a good, healthy mother of 36, with a man and a boy. Besides, from the time she was 14 it was too late for that! Well, then, she was the daughter of Guybertaut, a minstrel on the boats at Reims, the same who played before King Charles VII at his coronation, when he went down our river Vesle from Sillery to Muison, and Madame the Maid* herself was in the boat. Her old father died while Paquette was still a small child; so all she had was her mother, the sister of Monsieur Mathieu Pradon, master brazier and coppersmith in Paris, in the rue Parin-Garlin, who died last year. So you can see that she came of good family. Her mother was a good, simple soul, unfortunately, and taught Paquette nothing but a bit of sewing, haberdashery and mercery, which didn’t stop the little girl growing very tall and remaining very poor. The two of them lived in Reims by the riverside, in the rue de Folle-Peine. Note that; I think that’s what brought misfortune on Paquette. In ‘61, the year of the coronation of our King Louis XI, whom God preserve, Paquette was so gay and pretty that she was known everywhere just as la Chantefleurie. Poor girl!—she had beautiful teeth, and liked to laugh to show them off. Now, a girl who likes to laugh is on the way to tears: beautiful teeth are the ruin of beautiful eyes. So she was la Chantefleurie. She and her mother just scraped a living. They had fallen on hard times since the minstrel’s death. Their haberdashery brought them in scarcely more than 6 deniers a week, that’s not quite 2 liards-à-l’aigle. Where were the days when father Guybertaut could earn 12 sols parisis with a song at a single coronation? One winter—it was that same year, ‘61—when the two women hadn’t a stick of wood to burn, and it was very cold, it gave la Chantefleurie such a pretty colour that men would call out to her: “Paquette!” and more than one called “Pâquerette!”,* and she was lost.—Eustache don’t let me see you biting that cake!—We could see straight away she was lost one Sunday when she came to church with a gold cross round her neck—at 14, just imagine! First it was the young vicomte de Cormontreuil, whose church tower is three-quarters of a league from Reims; then Messire Henri de Triancourt, the King’s master of horse; then, going down, Chiart de Beaulion, sergeant-at-arms; then, still going down, Guery Aubergeon, the king’s carver; then Macé de Frépus, Monsieur le Dauphin’s barber; then Thévenin Le Moine, the king’s cook; then, going down all the time, less and less young, less and less noble, she fell as low as Guillaume Racine, fiddler, and Thierry de Mer, lamplighter. By then, poor Chantefleurie, she was fair game for anyone. She was down to the last sou of her gold piece. What more can I say, mesdamoiselles? At the coronation, that same year, ‘61, it was she who made the king of the ribalds’ bed! That same year.’
Mahiette sighed and wiped a tear from her eye.
‘That’s not such a very unusual story,’ said Gervaise, ‘and I don’t see anything in it to do with gypsies or children.’
‘Patience!’ Mahiette went on; ‘as for a child, you are going to see one. In ‘66—it will be sixteen years ago* this month come St Paul’s day—Paquette gave birth to a little girl. Poor wretch! She was overjoyed. She had been wanting a child for a long time. Her mother, a simple soul who had never known anything better than to keep her eyes closed, her mother was dead. Paquette had no one left in the world to love, no one to love her. In the five years since she had gone astray la Chantefleurie had become a poor creature. She was alone, all alone in the world, pointed
at, shouted at in the street, beaten by the sergeants, jeered at by ragged little boys. And then, she had reached the age of 20; and 20 is old age for loose women. Her wantonness was beginning to bring her in no more than the haberdashery used to; each new wrinkle meant a crown lost; she was finding winter hard again, once more she seldom had wood in her grate or bread in her bin. She couldn’t work any more, because her life of sensual pleasure had made her idle, and she suffered much more, because as she became idle she had become more sensual—at least that’s how Monsieur le curé of Saint-Remy explains why such women feel the cold and hunger more than other poor women when they grow old.’
‘Yes,’ observed Gervaise, ‘but what about the gypsies?’
‘Just a moment, Gervaise!’ said Oudarde, whose attention was not so impatient. ‘What would there be at the end if everything came at the beginning? Go on, Mahiette, please. Poor Chantefleurie!’
Mahiette continued:
‘So she was very unhappy, very miserable, and her cheeks were furrowed with tears. But in her shame, her wantonness, and her abandonment, it seemed to her that she could be less shameful, less wanton, less abandoned if there was something or someone in the world whom she could love and who could love her. It had to be a child, because only a child could be innocent enough. She had realized that after trying to love a robber, the only man who might have wanted her; but after a little while she saw that the robber despised her. These women who live by love need a lover or a child to fill their hearts. Otherwise they are very unhappy. Since she could not have a lover, she turned completely to wanting a child, and as she had never stopped being devout, that was what she constantly prayed God for. So God took pity on her and gave her a little girl. I won’t tell you how delighted she was. She was in a frenzy, crying, fondling, kissing it. She fed the child herself, made it swaddling clothes out of her blanket, the only one she had on her bed, and no longer felt cold or hunger. It brought back her beauty. An old maid becomes a young mother. Men took an interest again, Chantefleurie once more had callers, she found customers for her wares, and from all these horrors she made baby clothes, bonnets, and bibs, lace vests and little satin caps, without even a thought of buying herself another blanket.—Monsieur Eustache, I’ve already told you once not to eat the cake.—Little Agnès—that was the child’s name, her baptismal name, for Chantefleurie hadn’t had a family name for a long while—for sure and certain was wrapped up in more ribbons and embroidery than a dauphiness of Dauphiné! Among other things she had a pair of little shoes! King Louis XI has certainly never had the like! Her mother had sewn and embroidered them herself, she had put into it all her needleworking skills and enough spangles for a Holy Virgin’s robe. They were certainly the two daintiest little pink shoes you ever saw. At most they were as long as my thumb, and you had to see the baby’s little feet come out of them to believe that they could ever have got them on. It’s true that those little feet were so tiny, so pretty, so pink! pinker than the satin shoes! When you have children, Oudarde, you will know that there’s nothing prettier than such tiny hands and feet.’
‘I ask for nothing better,’ said Oudarde with a sigh, ‘but I’m waiting on the good pleasure of Monsieur Andry Musnier.’
‘Besides,’ Mahiette went on, ‘Paquette’s baby didn’t only have pretty feet. I saw her when she was only four months old. She was a real darling! Her eyes were bigger than her mouth. And she had the sweetest fine dark hair, which was already curling. She would have been a lovely brunette at 16! Her mother doted on her more fondly every day. She would caress her, kiss her, tickle her, dress her up, almost eat her! She was crazy about her, and kept thanking God for her. The pretty pink feet especially never ceased to amaze her and send her into transports of delight! She was always pressing her lips to them and couldn’t get over how tiny they were. She would slip them into the little shoes, take them out, admire them, marvel at them, look at the light through them, feel sorry when she tried walking them across her bed, and would gladly have spent the rest of her life on her knees covering and uncovering those feet as if they had belonged to a baby Jesus.’
‘The story is all very fine,’ Gervaise said in an undertone, ‘but where does Egypt come in?’
‘Now,’ Mahiette replied. ‘There came to Reims one day a very odd lot of riders. They were beggars and truands travelling through those parts, led by their duke and their counts. They were swarthy, with crinkly hair and silver rings in their ears. The women were even uglier than the men. Their faces were even darker, and always uncovered, they wore a ragged sort of smock over their body, an old cloth woven from cord tied on their shoulders, and their hair done up in horsetails. The children sprawling about their legs would have scared a monkey. A band of excommunicates! The whole lot came straight from Lower Egypt to Reims by way of Poland. The Pope had confessed them, so it was said, and as a penance had told them to travel around for seven years without stopping, and never sleeping in a bed. So they were called Penitents and they stank. It seems that they had formerly been Saracens, which means they believed in Jupiter, and they claimed 10 livres tournois from all archbishops, bishops, and abbots with cross and mitre. A papal bull granted them that right. They had come to Reims to tell fortunes in the name of the King of Algiers and the Emperor of Germany. You can imagine that that was all it took for them to be forbidden entry into the town. So the whole band cheerfully pitched camp near the Porte de Braine, on that hill where there’s a windmill, next to the old chalkpits. And everyone in Reims raced off to see them. They read your hand and told you the most amazing prophecies. They were quite capable of telling Judas he would become pope. But there were nasty rumours going round about them stealing children and cutting purses and eating human flesh. Sensible folk told foolish ones “Don’t go,’ and secretly went themselves. So it was all the rage. The fact is that they said things to make a cardinal gasp. Mothers made a great to-do over their children once the gypsy women had read in their hands all manner of miracles written in heathen or Turkish. One mother had an emperor, another a pope, another a captain. Poor Chantefleurie was seized with curiosity. She wanted to know what she had, and whether her pretty little Agnès might not one day be Empress of Armenia or something. So she took her to the gypsies; and the gypsy women were all over the child, admiring her, fondling her, kissing her with their black mouths, and marvelling over her little hand. Alas! to the great delight of the mother. They made a special fuss over the pretty feet and the pretty shoes. The child was not yet one year old. She was already lisping, laughed at her mother like a little mad thing, was plump and chubby, and had lots of sweet little gestures like an angel from paradise. She was very frightened by the gypsy women and cried. But her mother only kissed her the more and went off delighted by the fortune the soothsayers foretold for her Agnès. She would be a beauty, a virtue, a queen. So she returned to her garret in the rue Folle-Peine, full of pride at bringing home a queen. Next day she took advantage of a moment when the child was asleep on her bed, for she always put it to sleep with her, very quietly left the door ajar, and hurried to tell one of the neighbours 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 lots of other surprising things. On her return, hearing no crying as she went up the stairs, she said to herself: “Good! the child is still asleep.” She found the door open wider than she had left it, but went in all the same, the poor mother, and ran to the bed.… The child was not there any more, the place was empty. There was no trace of the baby left, except for one of her pretty little shoes. She rushed out of the room, hurtled down the stairs, and began banging her head against the wall as she cried: “My baby! Who has got my baby? Who’s taken my baby?” The street was deserted, the house isolated; no one could tell her anything. She went round the town, searched all the streets, ran to and fro all day long, crazy, distraught, terrible, sniffing at doors and windows like a wild animal that has lost its young. She was panting, dishevelled, a
frightening sight, and the fire blazing in her eyes dried up any tears. She stopped people passing by and cried: “My daughter! my daughter! my pretty little daughter! If anyone gives me back my daughter I’ll be his servant, his dog’s servant, and he can eat my heart if he wants to.” She met Monsieur le curé of Saint-Rémy and told him: “Monsieur le curé, I’ll plough the earth with my fingernails, but give me back my child!”—It was heart-rending, Oudarde; and I saw one very hard man, Maître Ponce Lacabre, the prosecutor, weeping. Ah! the poor mother! In the evening she returned home. During her absence a neighbour had seen two gypsy women sneak up there with a bundle in their arms, then come down again, closing the door behind them, and run away. Since they had gone, something like a child crying had been heard coming from Paquette’s room. The mother burst out laughing, flew up the stairs as if she had wings and crashed the door open as though with a cannonball, and went in. … Something awful, Oudarde! Instead of her sweet little Agnès, so rosy and fresh, who was a gift from God, a kind of little monster, hideous, lame, one-eyed, misshapen, was dragging itself across the floor squawking. She covered her eyes in horror. “Oh!” she said, “can the sorceresses have changed my daughter into this dreadful animal?” They hastily took the little clubfoot away. He would have driven her mad. It was the monstrous child of some gypsy woman who had given herself to the devil. He seemed to be about 4 years old, and spoke in what was no human language; the words were just not possible. Chantefleurie had pounced on the little shoe, all that remained to her of everything she had loved. She stayed so long without moving, without speaking, without breathing, that they thought she was dead. Suddenly she trembled in every limb, covered the relic with frantic kisses, and burst out sobbing as though her heart had broken. I assure you that we were all weeping too. She kept saying: “Oh! my little daughter! my pretty little daughter! where are you?”—It was heart-rending. I still weep when I think of it. Our children, you see, are the very marrow of our bones.—My poor Eustache! you are such a lovely boy! If you only knew what a good boy he is! Yesterday he told me: “I want to be a soldier.” Oh Eustache! if I were to lose you!—Chantefleurie got up all of a sudden and began running round Reims crying: “To the gypsy camp! to the gypsy camp! Sergeants to burn the witches!” The gypsies had gone. It was pitch dark. They couldn’t go after them. Next day, two leagues from Reims, on a heath between Gueux and Tilloy, they found the remains of a big fire, some ribbons which had belonged to Paquette’s child, some drops of blood, and some goat droppings. The night just past was precisely a Saturday. There was no more room for doubt; the gypsies had held their sabbath on that heath, and had devoured the child in the company of Beelzebub, as the Mohammedans do. When Chantefleurie learned these horrible details she did not weep, she moved her lips as though to speak, but could not. Next day her hair had gone grey. The day after that she had disappeared.’
