Then he hastily put on his cassock with furred shoulder-pads, picked up his cap, and dashed out of the room.
He went down the Rue de la Harpe towards the City. As he passed the Rue de la Huchette, the smell of those wonderful spits perpetually revolving there tickled his olfactories, and he cast an affectionate glance at the gigantic cookshop which once drew from the Franciscan friar Calatagirone the pathetic exclamation,—“Veramente, queste rotisserie sono cosa stupenda!”cj But Jehan had no money to pay for breakfast; and with a deep sigh he entered the door of the Petit-Chatelet,—that huge double trefoil of massive towers which guarded the entrance to the City.
He did not even take time to throw a stone as he passed, as was customary, at the wretched statue of that Périnet Leclerc who delivered over the Paris of Charles VI to the English,—a crime which his effigy, its surface defaced by stones and covered with mud, has expiated for three centuries, at the corner of the Rues de la Harpe and de Buci, as in a perpetual pillory.
Crossing the Petit-Pont, and striding down the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève, Jehan de Molendino found himself face to face with Notre-Dame. Then his former indecision overcame him, and he walked around the statue of Monsieur Legris for several moments, repeating in agony, “The lecture is a certainty; the crown piece is doubtful!”
He stopped a beadle as he came from the cloister.
“Where is the archdeacon of Josas?”
“I think that he is in his cell in the tower,” said the beadle; “and I don’t advise you to disturb him, unless you come from some such person as the pope or the king.”
Jehan clapped his hands.
“The devil! what a splendid opportunity to see the famous abode of sorceries!”
Strengthened by this thought, he boldly entered the little black door, and began to climb the winding staircase of Saint-Gilles, which leads to the upper stories of the tower. “We’ll see!” said he as he climbed. “By the Holy Virgin’s shoestrings! it must be something very queer which my reverend brother keeps so closely hidden. They say that he lights the fires of hell up there, and cooks the philosopher’s stone over the blaze. My word! I care no more for the philosopher’s stone than for any common pebble; and I should rather find a good omelet of Easter eggs over his fire than the biggest philosopher’s stone in the world!”
Reaching the gallery of little columns, he stopped a moment to take breath, and to swear at the interminable staircase by I know not how many millions of cartloads of devils; then he resumed his ascent by the little door of the north tower, now closed to the public. A few moments later, after passing the belfry cage, he reached a small landing-place built in a lateral recess, and under the arch, a low pointed door,—an opening cut through the circular wall of the staircase enabling him to see its enormous lock and strong iron framework. Persons desirous of visiting this door at the present time may recognize it by the inscription in white letters on the black wall, “I adore Coralie. 1823. Signed, Eugène.” The word “signed” is in the original.
“Oho!” said the student; “this must be the place.”
The key was in the lock. The door was ajar; he pushed it gently, and put his head through the opening.
The reader has doubtless seen the admirable works of Rembrandt, that Shakspeare of painting. Among many marvelous engravings, there is one special etching which is supposed to represent Doctor Faustus, and at which it is impossible to look without being dazzled. It represents a dark cell; in the foreground is a table covered with hideous objects,—skulls, globes, alembics, compasses, hieroglyphic parchments. The Doctor is at this table, dressed in his coarse great-coat, a furred bonnet pulled down to his eyebrows. He is painted at half-length. He has half risen from his vast arm-chair, his clinched fists rest on the table, and he stares with curiosity and terror at a large luminous circle, composed of magical letters, which gleams on the opposite wall like the solar spectrum in the camera obscura. This cabalistic sun seems to shimmer as we look, and fills the gloomy cell with its mysterious radiance. It is horrible, and the same time beautiful.
Something very similar to Faust’s cell appeared to Jehan when he ventured to put his head in at the half-open door. This, too, was a dark and dimly lighted dwelling. Here, too, were the large chair and large table, the compasses and alembics, skeletons of animals hanging from the roof, a globe rolling over the floor, hippocamps pell-mell with glass jars in which quivered leaf gold, death‘s-heads lying on vellum scrawled over with figures and letters, thick manuscripts, open, and piled one upon another, without regard to the fragile corners of the parchment,—in short, all the rubbish of science, and over all this litter, dust and cobwebs; but there was no circle of luminous letters, no rapt doctor gazing at the flaming vision as the eagle looks upon the sun.