"The mud of Paris," thought he (for he now believed it to be decided that the kennel was to be his lodging,

"Et que faire en un gîte, à moins que l'on ne songe?") "the mud of Paris is particularly offensive. It must contain a large proportion of volatile and nitrous salts. Such too is the opinion of Maître Nicholas Flamel and the hermetics."

This word "hermetics" reminded him of the Archdeacon Claude Frollo. He reflected on the scene of violence of which he had just before had a glimpse; that he had seen the gypsy struggling between two men; that Quasimodo had a companion with him; and the sullen and haughty countenance of the archdeacon floated confusedly in his recollection. “That would be strange," thought he; and then, with this datum and upon this basis, he began to rear the fantastic framework of hypothesis, that house of cards of the philosophers; then suddenly returning once more to reality, "Oh, I freeze!" he cried.

The position was in fact becoming less and less tenable. Each particle of water in the channel carried off a particle of caloric from the loins of Gringoire; and an equality of temperature between his body and the fluid that ran under it was beginning to establish itself without mercy.

All at once he was assailed by an annoyance of quite a different nature. A troop of children, of these little barefooted savages that have in all times run about the streets of Paris, with the everlasting name of gamins, and who, when we were children also, used to throw stones at us all as we were leaving school in the evening, because our trousers were not torn, - a swarm of these young rogues ran to the crossway where Gringoire was lying, laughing and shouting in a manner that showed very little concern about the sleep of the neighbors. They were dragging after them some sort of a shapeless pack; and the noise of their wooden shoes alone was enough to waken the dead. Gringoire, who was not quite dead yet, half raised himself up.

"Hollo! Hennequin Dandèche! Hollo! Jehan Pincebourde!" cried they as loud as they could bawl; "old Eustache Moubon, the old ironseller at the corner, is just dead. We've got his straw mattress, and we're going to make a bonfire with it. This is the Flamings' day!"

And so saying, they threw down the mattress precisely upon Gringoire, whom they had come up to without perceiving him. At the same time one of them took a handful of straw, and went to light it at the Blessed Virgin's torch.

"Mort-Christ!" muttered Gringoire, “am I now going to be too hot?"

The moment was critical. He was about to be fixed between fire and water. He made a supernatural effort, such as a coiner might have made in trying to escape when they were going to boil him to death. He rose up, threw back the mattress upon the gamins, and took to his heels.

"Holy Virgin!" cried the boys, "it's the old ironseller's ghost!" And they too ran away.

The mattress remained master of the field. Those judicious historians, Belleforêt, Father Le Juge, and Corrozet, assure us that the next morning it was taken up with great solemnity by the clergy of that part of the town, and carried in great pomp to the treasury of Sainte-Opportune's church; where, until the year 1789, the sacristan drew a very handsome income from the great miracle worked by the statue of the virgin at the corner of the Rue Mauconseil, which, by its presence alone, in the memorable night between the 6th and the 7th of January, 1482, had exorcised the deceased Eustache Moubon, who, to cheat the devil, had, when dying, slyly hidden his soul within his mattress.

CHAPTER VI.

THE BROKEN PITCHER.

AFTER running for some time as fast as his legs would carry him, without knowing whither, whisking round many a corner, striding over many a gutter, traversing many a court and alley, seeking flight and passage through all the meanders of the old pavement of the Halles, exploring what are called in the elegant Latin of the charters, tota via, cheminum, et viaria, our poet all at once made a halt; first, because he was out of breath, and then because a dilemma had suddenly arisen in his mind. "It seems to me, Maître Pierre Gringoire," said he to himself, applying his finger to his forehead, "that you are running all this while like a brainless fellow that you are. The little rogues were no less afraid of you than you were of them; it seems to me, I say, that you heard the clatter of their wooden shoes running away southward while you were running away northward. Now, one of two things must have taken place: either they have run away, and then the mattress which they must have forgotten in their fright is precisely that hospitable couch after which you have been hunting ever since the morning, and which the Lady Virgin miraculously sends you, to reward you for having composed, in honor of her, a morality, accompanied with triumphs and mummeries, or the boys have not run away; and in that case they will have set a light to the mattress, and that will be exactly the excellent fire that you're in want of, to comfort, warm, and dry you. In either case, good bed or good fire, the mattress is a present from heaven. The ever-blessed Virgin Mary that stands at the corner of the Rue Mauconseil perhaps caused Eustache Moubon to die for the very purpose; and 't is folly in you to scamper away at such a rate, like a Picard running from a Frenchman, leaving behind you what you are running forward to seek, - blockhead that you are!"

Then he began to retrace his steps, and ferreting about to discover where he was, snuffing the wind, and laying down his ears, he strove to find his way back to the blessed mattress, but in vain. All was intersections of houses, courts, and clustering streets, among which he incessantly doubted and hesitated, more entangled in that strange network of dark alleys than he would have been in the labyrinth of the Hôtel des Tournelles itself. At length he lost patience, and vehemently exclaimed, "A curse upon the crossings! the devil himself has made them after the image of his pitchfork!"

This exclamation relieved him a little; and a sort of reddish reflection, which he at that moment discovered at the end of a long and very narrow street, completed the restoration of his courage. "God be praised," said he, "there it is! There is my blazing mattress!" And, likening himself to the pilot foun