“No,” replied she; and those eyes which she had closed from fear she opened again from curiosity.
A tumbrel, drawn by a strong Norman cart-horse, and entirely surrounded by cavalry in violet livery with white crosses, had just entered the square from the Rue Saint Pierre aux B?ufs. The officers of the watch made a passage for it through the people with lusty blows of their whips. Beside the tumbrel rode a number of officers of justice and of police who might be known by their black dress and their awkward seat in the saddle. Master Jacques Charmolue paraded at their head. In the fatal wagon sat a young girl, her arms bound behind her, and no priest at her side. She was in her shift; her long black locks （it was the fashion then not to cut them until the foot of the gibbet was reached） fell upon her breast and over her half-naked shoulders.
Through this floating hair, glossier than the raven’s wing, a rough grey cord was twisted and knotted, chafing her delicate skin, and winding about the poor girl’s graceful neck like an earthworm around a flower. Beneath this rope glittered a tiny amulet ornamented with green glass beads, which she had doubtless been allowed to keep, because nothing is refused to those about to die. The spectators posted at the windows could see at the bottom of the tumbrel her bare legs, which she tried to hide under her, as if by a last feminine instinct. At her feet was a little goat, also bound. The prisoner held in her teeth her shift, which was not securely fastened.
Even in her misery she seemed to suffer at being thus exposed almost naked to the public gaze. Alas! it is not for such tremors that modesty is made.
“Only see, fair cousin,” said Fleur-de-Lys quickly to the captain, “it is that wicked gipsy girl with the goat.”
So saying, she turned to Ph?bus. His eyes were fixed upon the tumbrel. He was very pale.
“What gipsy girl with the goat?” he stammered.
“Why, Ph?bus!” rejoined Fleur-de-Lys; “don’t you remember—”
Ph?bus interrupted her:—
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He took a step to re-enter; but Fleur de-Lys, whose jealousy, already so deeply stirred by this same gipsy, was again revived, cast a suspicious and penetrating look at him. She now vaguely recalled having heard that there was a captain concerned in the trial of this sorceress.
“What ails you?” said she to Ph?bus; “one would think that this woman had disturbed you.”
Ph?bus tried to sneer.
“Me! Not the least in the world! Me, indeed!”
“Then stay,” returned she, imperiously; “let us see it out.”
The luckless captain was forced to remain. He was somewhat reassured when he found that the prisoner did not raise her eyes from the bottom of her tumbrel. It was but too truly Esmeralda. Upon this last round of the ladder of opprobrium and misfortune she was still beautiful; her large black eyes looked larger than ever from the thinness of her cheeks; her livid profile was pure and sublime. She resembled her former self as one of Masaccio’s Virgins resembles a Virgin by Raphael,—feebler, thinner, weaker.
Moreover, her whole being was tossed hither and thither, and save for her sense of modesty, she had abandoned everything, so utterly was she crushed by stupor and despair. Her body rebounded with every jolt of the cart, like some shattered, lifeless thing. A tear still lingered in her eye, but it was motionless, and, as it were, frozen.
Meantime the mournful cavalcade had traversed the crowd amid shouts of joy and curious stares. Still, we must confess, as faithful historians, that many, even the hardest hearted, were moved to pity at the sight of so much beauty and so much misery.
The tumbrel had entered the Parvis.
Before the central door it stopped. The escort was drawn up in line on, either side. The mob was hushed, and amidst this solemn, anxious silence the two leaves of the great door moved, as if spontaneously, upon their creaking hinges. Then the entire length of the deep, dark church was seen, hung with black, faintly lighted by a few glimmering tapers upon the high altar, and opening like the jaws of some cavern in the middle of the square, dazzling with light. At the very end, in the shadows of the chancel, a huge silver cross was dimly visible, standing out in relief against a black cloth which hung from the roof to the floor. The whole nave was empty; but heads of priests were seen moving confusedly among the distant choir-stalls, and, at the moment that the great door was thrown open, a loud, solemn, and monotonous chant proceeded from the church, casting fragments of dismal psalms, like gusts of wind, upon the prisoner’s head:— “Non timebo millia populi circumdantis me: exsurge, Domine; salvum me fac, Deus!