CHAPTER VI.

ESMERALDA.

We are delighted to have to inform our readers that during all this scene Gringoire and his piece had held out. His actors, goaded on by himself, had not discontinued the enacting of his play, nor had he ceased to listen to it; he had taken his part in the uproar, and was determined to go to the end, not despairing of a return of public attention. This gleam of hope revived when he saw Quasimodo, Coppenole, and the deafening train of the fools' pope march with great clamor out of the hall, while the rest of the crowd rushed eagerly after them. "Good!" said he to himself; "there go all the disturbers at last!" But unfortunately all the disturbers made the whole assemblage; and in a twinkling the great hall was empty.

It is true there still remained a few spectators, some scattered about, and others grouped around the pillars, - women, old men, and children, weary and exhausted with the squeezing and the clamor. A few of the scholars, too, still remained, mounted on the entablature of the windows and looking out into the Place.

"Well," thought Gringoire, "here are still enow of them to hear the end of my mystery. They are few, but they are a chosen, a lettered, audience."

But a moment afterwards, a symphony which was to have had the greatest effect at the arrival of the Holy Virgin was missing. Gringoire discovered that his music had been carried off by the procession of the fools' pope. "Pass it over," said he, stoically.

He approached a group of townspeople who seemed to him to be talking about his piece, and caught the following fragment of their conversation.

"Maître Cheneteau, you know the Hôtel de Navarre, which belonged to Monsieur de Nemours?" "Oh, yes, opposite to the Chapelle de Braque." "Well, the Government have just let it to Guillaume Alixandre, heraldry-painter, for six livres eight sols parisis a year."

"How rents are rising!"

"So!" said Gringoire, with a sigh; "but the others are listening."

"Comrades!" suddenly cried one of the young fellows at the windows, "La Esmeralda! La Esmeralda in the Place!"

This word produced a magical effect. All who remained in the hall rushed towards the windows, climbing up the walls to see, and repeating, "La Esmeralda! la Esmeralda!" At the same time was heard a great noise of applauses outside.

"What is the meaning of La Esmeralda?” said

"Ah,

Gringoire, clasping his hands in despair. my God! it seems to be the turn of the windows now!"

He returned towards the marble table, and saw that the performance was interrupted. It was precisely the moment at which Jupiter was to enter with his thunder. But Jupiter remained motionless at the foot of the stage.

"Michel Giborne!" cried the irritated poet, "what are you doing there? Is that your part? Go up, I say."

"Alas!" exclaimed Jupiter, “ one of the scholars has just taken away the ladder!"

Gringoire looked. It was but too true. All communication between his plot and his catastrophe was cut off. "The fellow!" muttered he; "and why did he take that ladder?”

"To go and see La Esmeralda," cried Jupiter, in a piteous tone. "He came and said, 'Here's a ladder that nobody's using;' and away he went with it."

This was the finishing blow. Gringoire received it with resignation. "The devil take you all!" said he to the players; "and if they pay me, I'll pay you."

Then he made his retreat, hanging his head, indeed, but still the last in the field, like a general who has fought well. And as he descended the winding stairs of the Palace, "What a fine drove of asses and dolts are these Parisians!" grumbled he. "They come to hear a mystery, and pay no attention to it. They've attended to everybody else, Clopin Trouillefou, to the cardinal, to Coppenole, to Quasimodo, to the devil! -- but to Our Lady the Virgin, not at all. If I'd known it, I'd have given

to

you Virgin Mary, I dare say, you wretched cockneys! And then, for me to come here to see faces, and see nothing but backs! to be a poet, and have the success of an apothecary! True it is that Homerus begged his bread through the villages of Greece, and that Naso died in exile among the Muscovites. But the devil flay me if I understand what they mean with their Esmeralda. Of what language can that word be? It must be Egyptian!"

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

FROM CHARYBDIS INTO SCYLLA.

THE night comes on early in January. The streets were already growing dark when Gringoire quitted the Palace. This nightfall pleased him; he longed to reach some obscure and solitary alley, that he might there meditate at his ease, and that the philosopher might lay the first unction to the wound of the poet. Besides, philosophy was now his only refuge; for he knew not where to find a lodging for the night. After the signal miscarriage of his first dramatic attempt, he dared not return to that which he occupied in the Rue Grenier-sur-l'Eau, opposite to the Port-au-Foin; having relied upon what the provost was to give him for his epithalamium, to enable him to pay to Maître Guillaume Doulx-Sire, farmer of the duty upon cloven-footed beasts brought into Paris, the six months' rent which he owed him, that is to say, twelve sols parisis, twelve times the value of all he possessed in the world, including his breeches, his shirt, and his bicoquet hat. After considering, then, for a moment, provisionally sheltered

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