Part 73 (1/2)

”It is old, and its gristles have become bony,” said another. ”Courage, comrades!” resumed Clopin. ”I wager my head against a dipper that you will have opened the door, rescued the girl, and despoiled the chief altar before a single beadle is awake. Stay! I think I hear the lock breaking up.”

Clopin was interrupted by a frightful uproar which re-sounded behind him at that moment. He wheeled round. An enormous beam had just fallen from above; it had crushed a dozen vagabonds on the pavement with the sound of a cannon, breaking in addition, legs here and there in the crowd of beggars, who sprang aside with cries of terror. In a twinkling, the narrow precincts of the church parvis were cleared. The locksmiths, although protected by the deep vaults of the portal, abandoned the door and Clopin himself retired to a respectful distance from the church.

”I had a narrow escape!” cried Jehan. ”I felt the wind, of it, _tete-de-boeuf_! but Pierre the Slaughterer is slaughtered!”

It is impossible to describe the astonishment mingled with fright which fell upon the ruffians in company with this beam.

They remained for several minutes with their eyes in the air, more dismayed by that piece of wood than by the king's twenty thousand archers.

”Satan!” muttered the Duke of Egypt, ”this smacks of magic!”

”'Tis the moon which threw this log at us,” said Andry the Red.

”Call the moon the friend of the Virgin, after that!” went on Francois Chanteprune.

”A thousand popes!” exclaimed Clopin, ”you are all fools!” But he did not know how to explain the fall of the beam.

Meanwhile, nothing could be distinguished on the facade, to whose summit the light of the torches did not reach. The heavy beam lay in the middle of the enclosure, and groans were heard from the poor wretches who had received its first shock, and who had been almost cut in twain, on the angle of the stone steps.

The King of Thunes, his first amazement pa.s.sed, finally found an explanation which appeared plausible to his companions.

”Throat of G.o.d! are the canons defending themselves? To the sack, then!

to the sack!”

”To the sack!” repeated the rabble, with a furious hurrah. A discharge of crossbows and hackbuts against the front of the church followed.

At this detonation, the peaceable inhabitants of the surrounding houses woke up; many windows were seen to open, and nightcaps and hands holding candles appeared at the cas.e.m.e.nts.

”Fire at the windows,” shouted Clopin. The windows were immediately closed, and the poor bourgeois, who had hardly had time to cast a frightened glance on this scene of gleams and tumult, returned, perspiring with fear to their wives, asking themselves whether the witches' sabbath was now being held in the parvis of Notre-Dame, or whether there was an a.s.sault of Burgundians, as in '64. Then the husbands thought of theft; the wives, of rape; and all trembled.

”To the sack!” repeated the thieves' crew; but they dared not approach.

They stared at the beam, they stared at the church. The beam did not stir, the edifice preserved its calm and deserted air; but something chilled the outcasts.

”To work, locksmiths!” shouted Trouillefou. ”Let the door be forced!”

No one took a step.

”Beard and belly!” said Clopin, ”here be men afraid of a beam.”

An old locksmith addressed him--

”Captain, 'tis not the beam which bothers us, 'tis the door, which is all covered with iron bars. Our pincers are powerless against it.”

”What more do you want to break it in?” demanded Clopin.

”Ah! we ought to have a battering ram.”

The King of Thunes ran boldly to the formidable beam, and placed his foot upon it: ”Here is one!” he exclaimed; ”'tis the canons who send it to you.” And, making a mocking salute in the direction of the church, ”Thanks, canons!”

This piece of bravado produced its effects,--the spell of the beam was broken. The vagabonds recovered their courage; soon the heavy joist, raised like a feather by two hundred vigorous arms, was flung with fury against the great door which they had tried to batter down. At the sight of that long beam, in the half-light which the infrequent torches of the brigands spread over the Place, thus borne by that crowd of men who dashed it at a run against the church, one would have thought that he beheld a monstrous beast with a thousand feet attacking with lowered head the giant of stone.

At the shock of the beam, the half metallic door sounded like an immense drum; it was not burst in, but the whole cathedral trembled, and the deepest cavities of the edifice were heard to echo.