CHAPTER III

The Story of a Wheaten Cake
the time at which the events of this story occurred,
the cell of the Tour-Roland was occupied, and if the
reader desires to know by whom, he has only to listen to the conversation of three worthy gossips, who, at the moment when we attracted his attention to the Rat-Hole, were directing their steps to that very spot, going along the river-side from the Châtelet towards the Place de Grève.
Two of these women were dressed after the fashion of the good burgher wives of Paris; their fine white gorgets, striped red and blue woollen kirtles, white knitted hose with embroidered clocks, trimly pulled up over their legs, their square-toed shoes of tan-coloured leather with black soles, and above all, their head-dress — a sort of tinsel-covered horn, loaded with ribbons and lace, still worn by the women of Champagne, and the Grenadiers of the Russian imperial guard — proclaimed them to belong to that class of rich tradeswomen who hold the medium between what servants call “a woman” and what they call “a lady.” They wore neither rings nor gold crosses; but it was easy to perceive that this was owing not to poverty, but simply out of fear of the fine incurred by so doing. Their companion’s dress was very much the same ; but there was in her appearance and manner an indefinable something which betrayed the wife of the country notary. Her way of wearing her girdle so high above her hips would alone have proved that it was long since she had been in Paris, without mentioning that her gorget was plaited, that she wore knots of ribbon on her shoes, that the stripes of her kirtle ran round instead of down and a dozen other crimes against the prevailing mode.
The first two walked with that air peculiar to Parisiennes showing the town to country cousins. The countrywoman
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held by the hand a chubby little boy, who in his hand held a big wheaten cake — and we regret to have to add that, owing to the inclemency of the weather, he was using his tongue as a pocket-handkerchief.
The boy let himself be dragged along — non passîbus œquis, as Virgil says — with uneven steps, stumbling every minute, to the great annoyance of his mother. It is true that he looked oftener at the cake than on the ground. Some very serious reason must have prevented him from biting into the cake, for he contented himself with merely gazing at it affectionately. But the mother would have done better to take charge of the tempting morsel herself. It was cruel to make a Tantalus of poor chubby-cheeks.
Meanwhile, the three “damoiselles” (for the title of “dame” was reserved then for the women of noble birth) were all talking at once.
“We must hasten, Damoiselle Mahiette,” said the youngest of the three, who was also the fattest, to their country friend. “I fear me we shall be too late. They told us at the Châtelet that he was to be carried to the pillory immediately.”
“Ah — bah ! What are you talking about, Damoiselle Oudarde Musnier?” returned the other Parisienne. “He will be a good two hours on the pillory. We have plenty of time. Have you ever seen anybody pilloried, my dear Mahiette ?”
“Yes,” said Mahiette, “at Reims.”
“Pooh ! what’s your pillory at Reims ? A paltry cage where they put nobody but clowns ! That’s not worth calling a pillory !”
“Nobody but clowns !” cried Mahiette. “In the Cloth- Market at Reims ! Let me tell you, we have had some very fine criminals there — who had killed father and mother ! Clowns indeed ! What do you take me for, Gervaise ?”
And there is no doubt the country lady was on the point of flying into a rage for this disparagement of her pillory, but fortunately the discreet Damoiselle Oudarde Musnier turned the conversation in time.
“By-the-bye, Damoiselle Mahiette, what think you of our Flemish Ambassadors? Have you any as grand at Rein ?”
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“I must confess,” answered Mahiette, “that it's only in Paris you see such Flemings as these.”
“Did you see among the embassy that great Ambassador who’s a hosier ?” asked Oudarde.
“Yes,” said Mahiette, “he looks like a Saturn.”
“And that fat one, with a face like a bare paunch,” Ger- vaise went on; “and the little one, with small, blinking eyes and red eye-lids with half the lashes pulled out like a withered thistle?”
“But their horses are a treat to look at,” said Oudarde, “all dressed after the fashion of their country !”
“Ah, my dear,” interrupted country Mahiette, assuming in her turn an air of superiority, “what would you have said then, if you had seen the horses of the Princess and the whole retinue of the King at the coronation at Reims in ’61 — twenty-one years ago ! Such housings and capari¬ sons ! Some of Damascus cloth, fine cloth of gold, and lined with sable fur; others of velvet and ermine; others heavy with goldsmith’s work and great tassels of gold and silver ! And the money that it must all have cost ! And the beautiful pages riding them !”
“But for all that,” replied Damoiselle Oudarde dryly, “the Flemings have splendid horses; and yesterday a sump¬ tuous supper was given them by Monsieur the Provost- Merchant at the Hôtel-de-Ville, at which sweetmeats, and hippocras, and spices, and the like delicacies, were set before them.”
“What are you saying, neighbour !” exclaimed Gervaise. “Why, it was with the Lord Cardinal, at the Petit-Bourbon, that the Flemings supped.”
“Not at all ! At the Hôtel-de-Ville !”
“No, it wasn’t — it was at the Petit-Bourbon.”
“I know that it was at the Hôtel-de-Ville,”' retorted Oudarde sharply, “for the very good reason that Doctor Scourable made them a speech in Latin, with which they were very well satisfied. My husband told me, and he is one of the sworn booksellers.”
“And I know that it was at the Petit-Bourbon,” responded Gervaise no less warmly, “for I can tell you exactly what my Lord Cardinal’s purveyor set before them: twelve double
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quarts of hippocras, white, pale, and red; twenty-four boxes of gilded double marchpanes of Lyons; four-and-twenty wax torches of two pounds apiece; and six demi-hogsheads of Beaune wine, both white and yellow, the best that could be procured. I hope that’s proof enough ! I have it from my husband, who’s Captain of the fifty guards at the Châtelet, who only this morning was making a comparison between the Flemish Ambassadors and those of Prester John and the Emperor of Trebizonde, who came to Paris from Meso¬ potamia and wore rings in their ears.”
“So true is it that they supped at the Hôtel-de-Ville,” replied Oudarde, quite unmoved by this string of evidence, “that never was seen so fine a show of meats and delicacies.”
“I tell you they were served by Le Sec, the town sergeant at the Petit-Bourbon, and that is what has put you wrong.”
“At the Hôtel-de-Ville, I say.”
“At the Petit-Bourbon, my dear ! And what’s more, they lit up the word ‘Hope,’ which stands over the great doorway, with fairy glasses.”
“At the Hôtel-de-Ville! At the Hôtel-de-Ville !— for Husson le Voir played the flute to them.”
“I tell you, no !”
“I tell you, yes !”
“I tell you, no !”
The good, fat Oudarde was preparing to reply, and the quarrel would no doubt have ended in the pulling of caps, had not Mahiette suddenly made a diversion by exclaiming:
“Look at those people gathered over there at the end of the bridge. There’s something in the middle of the crowd that they’re looking at.”
“True,” said Gervaise. “I hear a tambourine. I think it must be little Esmeralda doing tricks with her goat. Quick» Mahiette, mend your pace and bring your boy! You came to see the sights of Paris. Yesterday you saw the Flemings; to-day you must see the gipsy.”
“The gipsy !” cried Mahiette, turning round and clutching her boy by the arm. “God preserve us ! She might steal my child! Come, Eustache !”
And she set off running along the quay towards the Grève till she had left the bridge far behind her. Presently tb‘* boy,
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whom she dragged rapidly after her, stumbled and fell on his knees. She drew up breathless, and Oudarde and Ger- vaise were able to join her.
“That gipsy steal your child !” said Gervaise. “What a very strange notion !”
Mahiette shook her head thoughtfully.
“The strange thing about it,” observed Oudarde, “is that the sachette has the same notion about the Egyptian women.”
“The sachette?” asked Mahiette. “What is that?”
“Why, Sister Gudule, to be sure,” answered Oudarde.
“And who is Sister Gudule?”
“It is very evident that you have lived in Reims not to know that !” exclaimed Oudarde. “That is the nun in the Rat-Hole.”
“What?” said Mahiette, “not the poor woman we are taking this cake to?”
Oudarde nodded. “Yes, the very one. You will see her directly at her window looking on the Grève. She thinks the same as you about these vagabonds of Egypt that go about with their tambourines and fortune-telling. Nobody knows why she has this abhorrence of Zingari and Egyptians. But you, Mahiette, why should you run away at the mere sight of them?”
“Oh,” answered Mahiette, clasping her boy’s fair head to her bosom, “I would not have that happen to me that happened to Paquette la Chantefleurie.”
“Oh, you must tell us that story, my good Mahiette,” said Gervaise, taking her arm.
“Willingly,” returned Mahiette, “but it is very evident that you have lived in Paris not to know it ! Well, you must know — but there is no need for us to stand still while I tell you the story — that Paquette la Chantefleurie was a pretty girl of eighteen when I too was one — that is to say, eighteen years ago — and has had only herself to blame if she’s not, like me, a buxom, hearty woman of six-and-thirty, with a husband and a fine boy. But there ! — from the time she was fourteen it was too late ! I must tell you, then, that she was the daughter of Guybertaut, a boat-minstrel at Reims, the same that played before King Charles VII at his coronation.
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when he went down our river Vesle from Sillery to Muison, and had Mme. la Pucelle — the Maid of Orleans — in the same boat with him. The old father died when Paquette was quite little, so she had only her mother, who was sister to