CHAPTER VII

Châteaupers to the Rescue
THE reader probably remembers the critical situation in which we left Quasimodo. The doughty hunchback, assailed on all sides, had lost, if not his courage, at least all hope of saving, not himself — for of that he took no thought — but the Egyptian. He ran distractedly along the gallery. Notre Dame was on the point of being carried by the truands. Suddenly the thunder of galloping hoofs filled the adjacent streets, and with a long file of torches and a dense column of horsemen, lances down and bridles hanging loose, the furious sound swept into the Place like a hurricane.
“France! France! Cut down the rabble! Châteaupers to the rescue ! Provostry ! Provostry !”
These were, of course, the troops despatched by the King.
The startled truands faced about.
Quasimodo, though he heard nothing, saw the naked swords, the torches, the lances, the mass of cavalry, at the head of which he recognized Captain Phcebus. He saw the confusion of the trxiands, the terror of some, the consterna¬ tion of the stoutest-hearted among them, and the unexpected succour so revived his energy that he hurled back the fore¬ most of the assailants who had already gained a footing on the gallery.
The truands bore themselves bravely, defending them¬ selves with the energy of despair. Attacked on the flank from the Rue Saint-Pierre-aux-Bœufs, and in the rear from the Rue du Parvis, jammed against Notre Dame, which they were attacking and Quasimodo still defending — at once be¬ siegers and besieged — they were in the peculiar position in which Count Henry d’Harcourt found himself at the famous siege of Turin in 1640, between Prince Thomas of Savoy, whom he was besieging, and the Marquis de Langane, *.ho,
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in turn, was blockading him — Taurinum obsessor idem et obsessus1 — as his epitaph expresses it.
The mêlée was terrific. “To wolves’ flesh dogs’ teeth,” says Father Mathieu. The King’s horsemen, among whom Phœbus de Châteaupers displayed great valour, gave no quarter, and they that escaped the lance fell by the sword. The truands, ill-armed, foamed and bit in rage and despair. Men, women, and children fastened themselves on the flanks and chests of the horses, clinging to them tooth and nail, like cats; others battered the faces of the archers with their torches; others, again, caught the horsemen by the neck in their iron bill-hooks, striving to pull them down. Those who fell, they tore to pieces.
One among them had a long and glittering scythe, with which, for a long time, he mowed the legs of the horses. It was an appalling sight. On he came, singing a droning song and taking long sweeping strokes with his deadly scythe.
At every stroke he laid around him a circle of severed limbs. He advanced in this manner into the thickest of the cavalry, calm and unhasting, with the even swing of the head and regular breathing of a reaper cutting a field of corn. It was Clopin Trouillefou. A volley of musketry laid him low.
In the meantime the windows had opened again. The burghers, hearing the war-cry of the King’s men, had taken