Here, certainly, was more than enough to make life happy and illustrious, and to justify in the future a memorable page in the interesting history of the provosts of Paris, wherein we learn that Oudard de Villeneuve had a house in the Rue des Boucheries, that Guillaume de Hangest bought big and little Savoy, that Guillaume Thiboust gave the nuns of Sainte-Geneviève his houses in the Rue Clopin, that Hugues Aubriot lived at Hotel du Porc-Epic, and other domestic facts.
And yet, with all these motives for taking life patiently and pleasantly, Master Robert d‘Estouteville waked on the morning of Jan. 7, 1482, in a very sulky and disagreeable mood. Whence came this ill-humor? He could not have told you himself. Was it because the sky was overcast; because the buckle of his old Montlhéry belt was fastened too tight, and girt his provostship’s goodly portliness in too military a fashion; because he had seen a band of ragamuffins march through the street below his window, mocking him as they passed in double file, wearing doublets without shirts, crownless hats, and wallet and flask at their side? Was it a vague presentiment of the three hundred and seventy pounds, sixteen pence, and eight farthings which the future king, Charles VIII, was to cut off from the revenues of the provosty? The reader can take his choice; as for us, we incline to the belief that he was out of temper simply because he was out of temper.
Besides, it was the day after a holiday,-a stupid day for everybody, and especially for the magistrate, whose duty it was to sweep away all the dirt, actual and metaphorical, caused by a popular holiday in Paris. And then, he was to hold court at the Grand-Chatelet. Now, we have noticed that judges usually so arrange matters that the day upon which they hold court is also the day on which they are out of temper, in order that they may always have some one upon whom to vent their rage, in the name of the king, law, and justice.
However, the court had opened without him. His deputies, in the civil, criminal, and private courts, were doing his work for him, as was the custom; and ever since eight o‘clock in the morning some scores of citizens, men and women, crowded and crammed into a dark corner of the lower court-room of the Chatelet, between a stout oaken railing and the wall, had blissfully looked on at the varied and attractive spectacle of administration of civil and criminal law by Master Florian Barbedienne, examining judge of the Chatelet, and provost’s deputy, whose sentences were delivered pell-mell and somewhat at random.
The hall was small and low, with a vaulted roof. A table branded with fleur-de-lis stood at the back of it, with a large carved oaken arm-chair, which belonged to the provost and was empty, and a stool on the left for Master Florian. Below sat the clerk, scribbling; opposite him were the people; and before the door and table were a number of the provost’s officers, in frocks of purple camlet, with white crosses. Two officers from the Commonalty Hall, arrayed in party-colored red and blue kersey jackets, stood sentry before a half-open door, behind the table. A single arched window, deep set in the thick wall, cast a ray of pale January sunshine upon two grotesque figures,—the comical stone demon carved as a tailpiece to the keystone of the vaulted roof, and the judge seated at the end of the hall upon the fleurs-de-lis.
Now, picture to yourself at the provost’s table, between two bundles of papers, leaning on his elbows, his feet on the train of his plain brown cloth gown, his face framed in its white lamb‘s-wool wig, of which his eyebrows seemed to be a fragment, red-faced, stern, winking and blinking, majestically bearing the burden of his fat cheeks, which met under his chin, Master Florian Barbedienne, examining judge of the Chatelet.
Now, the judge was deaf,—a slight defect for a judge. Master Florian gave judgment, nevertheless, without appeal, and very properly too. It is certainly quite enough if a judge look as if he were listening; and the venerable judge fulfilled this condition—the only one requisite to the due administration of justice—all the better for the fact that his attention was not to be distracted by any noise.
Moreover, he had a merciless comptroller of his sayings and doings, among the audience, in the person of our friend Jehan Frollo du Moulin, the little student of the previous day, that pedestrian who was sure to be found anywhere in Paris except in the lecture-room of his professors.
“Stay,” he whispered to his comrade, Robin Poussepain, who was chuckling beside him while he commented on the scenes unrolled before them, “there’s Jehanneton du Buisson,—the pretty daughter of that loafer from the New Market! Upon my soul, he has condemned her, the old wretch! Then his eyes can’t be any better than his ears. Fifteen pence and four Paris farthings, for wearing two strings of beads! That’s rather expensive. ‘Lex duri carminis.’ Who’s that fellow? Robin Chief-de-Ville, hauberk-maker,—for having been passed and received as a master of the said trade? It’s his entrance-fee. Hollo! two gentlemen among these varlets,—Aiglet de Soins, Hutin de Mailly. Two esquires, Corpus Christi! Ah, ha! they’ve been playing at dice. When shall I see our rector here? A hundred Paris pounds fine to the king! Barbedienne hits hard, like a deaf man as he is! I wish I may be my brother the archdeacon if this prevent me from gambling,—gambling by day, gambling by night, living a gambler, dying a gambler, and gambling away my soul when my last rag’s gone! Holy Virgin! what a lot of girls! One after the other, my lambs! Ambroise Lécuyère! Isabeau la Paynette! Bérarde Gironin! I know them all, by heaven! Fine ‘em! fine ’em! That’ll teach you to wear gilt belts! Ten Paris pence, coquettes! Oh, what an old dog of a judge! deaf and imbecile! Oh, Florian, you blockhead! Oh, Barbedienne, you booby! See him sit at table! He gobbles the suitor, he gobbles the suit, he minces, he munches, he stuffs himself, he fills himself full. Fines, unclaimed goods, taxes, expenses, legal costs, wages, damages, torture, prison and jail and stocks, are Christmas cakes and Saint John’s marchpane to him! Just look at him, the pig! Now, then, good! Still another amorous dame! Thibaud-la-Thibaude, and no one else,—for leaving the Rue Glatigny! Who is that fellow? Gieffroy Mabonne, bowman of the guard. He swore by the Holy Name, did he?—A fine, Thibaude! a fine, Gieffroy! Fine ‘em both! Deaf old fool! he must have mixed the two charges up! Ten to one, he’ll fine the woman for swearing, and the bowman for making love! Attention, Robin Poussepain! Whom are they bringing in now? What a lot of sergeants! By Jupiter! all the hounds in the pack are here. This must be the best head of game they’ve got,—a wild boar. It is one, Robin, it is indeed,—and a fine one too! By Hercules! it’s our yesterday’s prince, our Pope of Fools, our bell-ringer, our one-eyed, hunchbacked pet, our wry-face! It’s Quasimodo!”