Preface
A few years ago, while visiting or, rather, rummaging about Notre-Dame, the author of this book found, in an obscure nook of one of the towers, the following word, engraved by hand upon the wall:—
ἈΝÁΓΚΗ.
These Greek capitals, black with age, and quite deeply graven in the stone, with I know not what signs peculiar to Gothic caligraphy imprinted upon their forms and upon their attitudes, as though with the purpose of revealing that it had been a hand of the Middle Ages which had inscribed them there, and especially the fatal and melancholy meaning contained in them, struck the author deeply.
He questioned himself; he sought to divine who could have been that soul in torment which had not been willing to quit this world without leaving this stigma of crime or unhappiness upon the brow of the ancient church.
Afterwards, the wall was whitewashed or scraped down, I know not which, and the inscription disappeared. For it is thus that people have been in the habit of proceeding with the marvellous churches of the Middle Ages for the last two hundred years. Mutilations come to them from every quarter, from within as well as from without. The priest whitewashes them, the archdeacon scrapes them down; then the populace arrives and demolishes them.
Thus, with the exception of the fragile memory which the author of this book here consecrates to it, there remains to-day nothing whatever of the mysterious word engraved within the gloomy tower of Notre-Dame,—nothing of the destiny which it so sadly summed up. The man who wrote that word upon the wall disappeared from the midst of the generations of man many centuries ago; the word, in its turn, has been effaced from the wall of the church; the church will, perhaps, itself soon disappear from the face of the earth.
It is upon this word that this book is founded.
March, 1831.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER III. MONSIEUR THE CARDINAL.
CHAPTER IV. MASTER JACQUES COPPENOLE.
CHAPTER I. FROM CHARYBDIS TO SCYLLA.
CHAPTER II. THE PLACE DE GRÈVE.
CHAPTER III. KISSES FOR BLOWS.
CHAPTER IV. THE INCONVENIENCES OF FOLLOWING A PRETTY WOMAN THROUGH THE STREETS IN THE EVENING.
CHAPTER V. RESULT OF THE DANGERS.
CHAPTER II. A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS.
CHAPTER III. IMMANIS PECORIS CUSTOS, IMMANIOR IPSE.
CHAPTER IV. THE DOG AND HIS MASTER.
CHAPTER V. MORE ABOUT CLAUDE FROLLO.
CHAPTER I. ABBAS BEATI MARTINI.
CHAPTER II. THIS WILL KILL THAT.
CHAPTER I. AN IMPARTIAL GLANCE AT THE ANCIENT MAGISTRACY.
CHAPTER III. HISTORY OF A LEAVENED CAKE OF MAIZE.
CHAPTER IV. A TEAR FOR A DROP OF WATER.
CHAPTER V. END OF THE STORY OF THE CAKE.
CHAPTER I. THE DANGER OF CONFIDING ONE’S SECRET TO A GOAT.
CHAPTER II. A PRIEST AND A PHILOSOPHER ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.
CHAPTER V. THE TWO MEN CLOTHED IN BLACK.
CHAPTER VI. THE EFFECT WHICH SEVEN OATHS IN THE OPEN AIR CAN PRODUCE.
CHAPTER VII. THE MYSTERIOUS MONK.
CHAPTER VIII. THE UTILITY OF WINDOWS WHICH OPEN ON THE RIVER.
CHAPTER I. THE CROWN CHANGED INTO A DRY LEAF.
CHAPTER II. CONTINUATION OF THE CROWN WHICH WAS CHANGED INTO A DRY LEAF.
CHAPTER III. END OF THE CROWN WHICH WAS TURNED INTO A DRY LEAF.
CHAPTER IV. LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA—LEAVE ALL HOPE BEHIND, YE WHO ENTER HERE.
CHAPTER VI. THREE HUMAN HEARTS DIFFERENTLY CONSTRUCTED.
CHAPTER II. HUNCHBACKED, ONE EYED, LAME.
CHAPTER IV. EARTHENWARE AND CRYSTAL.
CHAPTER V. THE KEY TO THE RED DOOR.
CHAPTER VI. CONTINUATION OF THE KEY TO THE RED DOOR.
CHAPTER I. GRINGOIRE HAS MANY GOOD IDEAS IN SUCCESSION.—RUE DES BERNARDINS.
CHAPTER IV. AN AWKWARD FRIEND.
CHAPTER V. THE RETREAT IN WHICH MONSIEUR LOUIS OF FRANCE SAYS HIS PRAYERS.
CHAPTER VI. LITTLE SWORD IN POCKET.
CHAPTER VII. CHATEAUPERS TO THE RESCUE.
CHAPTER II. THE BEAUTIFUL CREATURE CLAD IN WHITE. (Dante.)
CHAPTER III. THE MARRIAGE OF PHOEBUS.
CHAPTER IV. THE MARRIAGE OF QUASIMODO.
VOLUME I.
