“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 Reims?”
“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,” Gervaise 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 caparisons! 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 sumptuous supper was given them by Monsieur the Provost-Merchant at the H?tel-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 H?tel-de-Ville!”
“No, it wasn’t—it was at the Petit-Bourbon.”
“I know that it was at the H?tel-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 quarts of hippocras, white, pale, and red; twenty-four boxes of gilded double marchpanes of Lyons; four-and-twenty was 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 Chatelet, 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 Mesopotamia and wore rings in their ears.”
“So true is it that they supped at the H?tel 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 H?tel-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 H?tel-de-Ville! At the H?tel-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 the boy, whom she dragged rapidly after her, stumbled and fell on his knees. She drew up breathless, and Oudarde and Gervaise 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, 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 M. Pradon, a master-brasier and tinsmith in Paris, Rue Parin-Garlin, and who died last year—so you see, she was of good family. The mother was a simple, easy-going creature, unfortunately, and never taught her anything really useful—just a little needlework and toy-making, which did not prevent her growing tall and strong, and remaining very poor. They lived together at Reims, by the river-side, in the Rue de Folle-Peine—mark that!—for I believe that is what brought trouble to Paquette. Well, in ’61—the year of the Coronation of our King Louis XI, whom God preserve!—Paquette was so gay and so fair that she was known far and wide as ’La Chantefleurie’—poor girl! She had pretty teeth, and she was fond of laughing, to show them. Now, a girl who is overfond of laughing is well on the way to tears; pretty teeth are the ruin of pretty eyes—and thus it befell Chantefleurie. She and her mother had a hard struggle to gain a living; they had sunk very low since the father’s death—their needlework brought them in barely six deniers a week, which is not quite two liards. Time was when Guybertaut had got twelve sols parisis at a coronation for a single song! One winter—it was that same year of ’61—the two women had not a log or a fagot, and it was very cold, and this gave Chantefleurie such a beautiful colour in her cheeks that the men all looked after her and she was ruined.—Eustache! just let me see you take a bite out of that cake!—We saw in a moment that she was ruined when one Sunday she came to church with a gold cross on her neck, At fourteen—what do you say to that? The first was the young Vicomte de Cormontreuil, whose castle is about three-quarters of a mile from Reims; then it was Messire Henri de Triancourt, the King’s outrider; then, coming down the scale, Chiart de Beaulion, a man-at-arms; then, still lower, Guery Aubergeon, king’s carver; then Macé de Frépus, barber to Monsieur the Dauphin; then Thévenin le Moine, one of the royal cooks; then, still going down, from the young to the old, from high to low birth, she fell to Guillaume Racine, viol player, and to Thierry de Mer, lamp-maker. After that, poor Chantefleurie, she became all things to all men and had come to her last sou. What think you, damoiselles, at the coronation, in that same year ’61, it was she who made the bed for the chief of the bawdies!—in that same year!” Mahiette sighed and wiped away a tear.
“But I see nothing so very extraordinary in this story,” said Gervaise, “and there is no word either of Egyptians or children.”
“Patience,” returned Mahiette; “as for the child, I am just coming to that. In ’66, sixteen years ago this month, on Saint-Paul’s day, Paquette was brought to bed of a little girl. Poor creature, she was overjoyed—she had long craved to have a child. Her mother, foolish woman, who had never done anything but close her eyes to what was going on, her mother was dead. Paquette had no one in the world to love or to love her. For the five years since she had fallen, poor Paquette had been a miserable creature. She was alone, all alone in the world, pointed at, shouted at through the streets, beaten by the sergeants, and jeered at by little ragged boys. Besides, she was already twenty, and twenty means old age for a courtesan. Her frailty now began to bring her in no more than did her needlework formerly: for every line in her face she lost a crown in her pocket. Winter came hard to her again, wood was growing scarce in her fire-place and bread in her cupboard. She could not work, because, by giving way to pleasure she had given way to idleness, and she felt hardships the more because by giving way to idleness she had given way to pleasure. At least, that is how Monsieur the Curé of Saint-Rémy explains why those sort of women feel cold and hunger more than other poor females do when they get old.”
“Yes,” observed Gervaise, “but about these gipsies?”
“Wait a moment, Gervaise,” said Oudarde, who was of a less impatient temperament; “what should we have at the end if everything was at the beginning? Go on, Mahiette, I pray you. Alas, poor Chantefleurie!”
“Well,” Mahiette continued, “so she was very sad and very wretched, and her cheeks grew hollow with her perpetual tears. But in all her shame, her infamy, her loneliness, she felt she would be less ashamed, less infamous, less deserted, if only there was something or somebody in the world she could love, or that would love her. She knew it would have to be a child, for only a child could be ignorant enough for that. This she had come to see after trying to love a robber—the only man who would have anything to do with her—but in a little while she found that even the robber despised her. These light-o’-loves must needs always have a lover or a child to fill their hearts, or they are most unhappy. As she could not get a lover, all her desire turned towards having a child; and, as she had all along been pious, she prayed unceasingly to God to send her one. So God took compassion on her and sent her a little girl. I will. not try to describe to you her joy—it was a passion of tears and kisses and caresses. She suckled it herself, and made swaddling-bands for it out of her coverlet—the only one she had upon her bed, but now she felt neither cold nor hunger. Her beauty came back to her—an old maid makes a young mother—and poor Chantefleurie went back to her old trade and found customers for her wares, and laid out the wages of her sin in swaddling-clothes and bibs and tuckers, lace robes, and little satin caps—without so much as a thought for a new coverlet for herself.
“Master Eustache, did I not tell you not to eat that cake? —In truth, the little Agnès, that was the child’s name—its baptismal name, for, as to a surname, it was long since Chantefleurie had lost hers—in very truth, the little one was more of a mass of ribbons and broideries than ever a dauphiness of Dauphiny! Among other things, she had a pair of little shoes such as King Louis himself never had the like. Her mother had stitched them and embroidered them herself, bestowing upon them all her art and the ornament that ought more properly to belong to a robe for Our Lady. In good sooth, they were the prettiest little rose-coloured shoes that ever were seen; no longer at most than my thumb, and unless you saw the babe’s little feet come out of them, you never would have believed that they could get in. To be sure the little feet were so small, so pretty, so rosy!—rosier than the satin of the shoes! When you have children of your own, Oudarde, you will know that there is nothing in the world so pretty as those little hands and feet.”
“I ask nothing better,” said Oudarde with a sigh; “but I must await the good pleasure of M. Andry Musnier.”
“However,” resumed Mahiette, “pretty feet were not the only beauty that Paquette’s child possessed. I saw her when she was four months old—a chuck!—with eyes bigger than her mouth, and beautiful soft, black hair that curled already. She would have made a fine brunette at sixteen! Her mother loved her more day by day. She hugged and kissed and fondled her, washed her, tricked her out in all her finery, devoured her—one moment half-crazed, the next thanking God for the gift of this babe. But its pretty rosy feet were her chief delight and wonder—a very delirium of joy! She was forever pressing her lips to them, forever marvelling at their smallness. She would put them into the little shoes, take them out again, wonder at them, hold them up to the light; she was sorry even to teach them to take a step or two on her bed, and would gladly have passed the rest of her life on her knees, covering and uncovering those little feet, like those of an Infant Jesus.”
“The tale is all very well,” said Gervaise, half to herself; “but where is Egypt in all this?”
“Here,” replied Mahiette. “One day there came to Reims some very outlandish sort of gentry—beggars and vagabonds—wandering about the country, led by their dukes and counts. Their faces were sun-burnt, their hair all curling, and they had silver rings in their ears. The women were even more ill-favoured than the men. Their faces were blacker and always uncovered, their only clothing an old woollen cloth tied over their shoulders, and a sorry rocket under that, and the hair hanging loose like a horse’s tail. The children that scrambled about between their feet would have frightened the monkeys. An excommunicated band! They had come direct from Lower Egypt to Reims by way of Poland. The Pope had confessed them, so they said, and had laid on them the penance of wandering for seven years through the world without ever sleeping in a bed. So they called themselves penitents and stank most horribly. It would seem they had formerly been Saracens, and that is why they believed in Jupiter, and demanded ten livres tournois from all Arch-bishops, Bishops, and Abbots endowed with crosier and mitre. It was a bull of the Pope that got them that. They came to Reims to tell fortunes in the name of the King of Algiers, and the Emperor of Germany. As you may suppose, that was quite enough for them to be forbidden to enter the town. Then the whole band encamped without demur near the Braine gate, upon that mound where there’s a wind-mill, close by the old chalk-pits. And of course all Reims was agog to see them. They looked in your hand, and prophesied most wonderful things—they were quite bold enough to have foretold to Judas that he would be Pope. At the same time, there were ugly stories about them—of stolen children, and cutpurses, and the eating of human flesh. The prudent warned the foolish, and said, ’Go not near them!’ and then went themselves by stealth. Everybody was carried away by it. In sober truth, they told you things to have amazed a Cardinal! The mothers made much of their children after the gipsy women had read in their hands all manner of miracles written in Pagan and in Turkish. One had an Emperor, another a Pope, a third a Captain. Poor Chantefleurie caught the fever of curiosity. She wanted to know what she had got, and whether her pretty little Agnès would not one day be Empress of Armenia or the like. So she carried her to the Egyptians, and the Egyptian women admired the child, fondled it, kissed it with their black mouths, and were lost in wonder over its little hands—alas! to the great joy of its mother. Above all, they were delighted with its pretty feet and pretty shoes. The child was not yet a year old, and was just beginning to prattle a word or two—laughed and crowed at her mother—was fat and round, and had a thousand little gestures of the angels in Paradise. The child was frightened at the black gipsy woman, and cried; but the mother only kissed her the more, and carried her away, overjoyed at the good fortune the prophetess had foretold to her Agnès. She would become a famous beauty—a wonder—a queen. So she returned to her garret in the Rue Folle-Peine, proud to bring back with her a queen. The next day she seized a moment when the child was asleep on her bed—for it always slept with her—left the door ajar, and ran to tell a neighbour in the Rue de la Séchesserie that the day would come when her daughter Agnès would be served at her table by the King of England and the Duke of Ethiopia, and a hundred other surprises. On her return, hearing no sound as she mounted her stair, she said, ’Good, the child is still asleep.’ She found the door more open than she had left it; she entered, and ran to the bed—poor mother!—the child was gone, the place empty. There was no trace left of the child, excepting one of its little shoes. She fled out of the room and down the stairs and began beating her head against the wall, crying: ’My child! Who has my child? Who has taken my child from me?’ The street was empty, the house stood by itself, no one could tell her anything. She hastened through the city, searching every street, running hither and thither the whole day, mad, distraught, terrible to behold, looking in at every door and every window like a wild beast robbed of its young. She was breathless, dishevelled, terrifying, with a flame in her eyes that dried her tears. She stopped the passers-by and cried, ’My child! my child! my pretty little girl! To him who will restore my child to me I will be a servant, the servant of his dog—and he may eat my heart if he will!’ She met Monsieur the Curé of Saint-Rémy, and to him she said: ’Monsieur the Curé, I will dig the earth with my nails, but give me back my child!’ Oudarde, it was heart-rending, and I saw a very hard man, Ma?tre Ponce Lacabre the attorney, shedding tears. Ah, the poor mother! At night she returned to her home. During her absence, a neighbour had seen two Egyptian women steal up her stair with a bundle in their arms, then come down again after closing the door, and hasten away. Afterward she had heard something that sounded like a child’s cry from Paquette’s room. The mother broke into mad laughter, sprang up the stair as if she had wings, burst open the door like an explosion of artillery, and entered the room. Horrible to relate, Oudarde, instead of her sweet little Agnès, so rosy and fresh, a gift from Heaven, a sort of hideous little monster, crippled, one-eyed, all awry, was crawling and whimpering on the floor. She covered her eyes in horror.
