Chapter VII.

The Festival Of Fools

Soon after arriving in Paris, it was January 6th, the first day of Epiphany, and the day of the Festival of Fools. I couldn't wait!

We had all become quite at home in the new city, and we lived in an underground catacomb, near Notre Dame. That was the headquarters of the Court of Miracles, and no one else was allowed to know about it, because it preserved our safety. Carmen and Wolfen also seemed to enjoy their new home in France. It was so much different than Turkey, but in a good way.

We all gathered in the square beneath Notre Dame for the day's festivities. There were people everywhere, wearing colorful striped clothes, masks, and hats with large colorful feathers. It was like a masquerade ball.

First, was the dancing and singing. Some of the other gypsies we knew were playing away at violins, and wooden flutes. We all danced to the rhythm, and some of us tied bells to our feet, or tapped on tambourines. Every so often, somebody would shoot confetti into the air, and it would shower down on all of us. There were several people balancing on stilts, and some jugglers with knives.

Next, was the epiphany play. We all watched as some stage actors performed on a tall wooden makeshift stage above the crowd so we could all see. The play was about the three kings, the wise men from the East.

After that was the feasting. (And drinking, for the adults of course). Today this day however, I can't stand the awful stench of alcohol, and I vowed ever since then to never drink it. The food was good though. There was bread, fruit, pasta imported from Italy, tomatoes, and lots of other delicious foods. I gorged myself like a wild boar. It was the most food I had ever eaten in my entire life.

The partying went on late into the afternoon, when everyone hushed.

"What happened?" I asked Marcel.

Marcel didn't answer, just pointed to a tall man in a long black cloak. He was rather old, at least over forty or fifty, and crossed his arms in front of him as though he were carrying something like a book. He had a strange hat with a tassel on it, and the crowds parted to let him get through.

"That's Claude Frollo," Marcel whispered to me. "He's the archdeacon of Notre Dame."

So that's why everyone was showing him so much respect. I nodded to Marcel to show that I understood. Eventually, Claude Frollo made his way to our part of the crowd. He stopped and paused when he saw us in our ragged clothes, holding tambourines and castanets, and gave us a contemptuous look.

"Gypsies," he sniffed to himself, and continued on his way, to a tent at the end of the square, where he seated himself behind a tall pedestal with a group of priestly looking men wearing red cloaks. They must be the cardinals, I reasoned.

After he sat down, the long silence ceased as a man somewhere in the crowd jumped onto the wooden stage where the epiphany performers had been. "And now it is the moment you have all been waiting for," he announced, "it is time to crown the ugliest fool of us all to be king for a day."

Everyone in the square cheered loudly, and at one point I had to cover my ears.

Immediately, people from the crowd began to fight their way up to get on the stage. It seemed as though everyone wanted to sit on the thrown for the rest of the day, regardless of how ugly they were.

Finally, the man who had made the announcement allowed no further contestants to enter the stage and ordered the ones already on it to get in a line. They did, and he began to walk down the line, turning to the audience after each one to see their opinion. The first man was booed off almost immediately, and thrown back into the crowd. The same happened for the second, and the third, until finally it was down to two contestants. One was a homely old lady who looked like the prototypical witch, snaggle tooth and wart nose and all. The other was a short man, who had a physical deformity that caused his back to be bent over. His eyes were swollen shut, and his arms were long, like a gorilla. He was defiantly far uglier than the witch lady, the audience decided, and so she was hurled back into the crowd, landing with a thud on the cobblestones below.

"I now pronounce, Quasimodo, the bell ringer of Notre Dame, the King of Fools!" the man announced to the crowd.

Everyone cheered again, just as loud as before the contest had begun.

The hunchbacked man, apparently named Quasimodo jumped off the stage and a group of people hoisted him onto their shoulders. Clopin, who was in charge of some of the events that went on during the festivities, placed a crown on Quasimodo's head. Some of the other gypsies began to play music again, and everyone in the crowd started a procession, with Quasimodo in the front. We then left the square and began to parade through the streets of the city.

Our masquerade procession winded through the alleys of Paris, off the island, and through some of the neighborhoods and suburbs. The parade ended later at night when we returned to the square. By then, many people had branched off procession to go home, wince it was getting late. The day of festivities was seemingly coming to a close.

But when we returned and Quasimodo was returned to where he belonged, I noticed that Frollo was still there, and he didn't seem pleased.

"Quasimodo, come here at once," he ordered.

Like a dog, the hunchback nervously approached the Archdeacon.

"Quasimodo," Frollo said sternly. "What was one of things I told you that you could never do?"

Timidly, Quasimodo answered, "to never leave the cathedral."

"So then, why may I ask, did you disobey me the way you did?" Frollo demanded.

When Quasimodo couldn't come up with an answer, Frollo raised his arm and backhanded the poor hunchback across the face. Quasimodo fell to the ground on impact, and blood began to stream from his face, where the large ring that Frollo was wearing had hit him. But Frollo wasn't done yet, he began to kick him as he lay there on the ground, and then began to whip him with the cord tied around his waist.

He was about to do something more, when a gypsy girl that I recognized from the Court of Miracles, but had never personally talked to, rushed over to Frollo.

"Please hurt him no more!" she begged him. "I can't stand to see a living thing be tortured this way."

"Insolent girl!" Frollo cried, pushing her aside. "I can have you hung for that!"

"Esmeralda," Clopin ordered. "It's time we'd left."

Before anything else could happen, Clopin ushered the rest of us out of the square, leaving the unfortunate bell ringer by himself to be tortured by his cruel master.