3: Sackcloth & Ashes

"C'est d'umaine beaulté l'issue!
Le bras cours et les mains contraites,
Les espaulles toutes bossues;
Mamelles, quoy? toutes retraites;
Telles les hanches que les tetes;
Du sadinet, fy! Quant des cuisses
Cuisses ne sont plus, mais cuissetes
Grivelees come saulcisses."

("This is human beauty's fate!
The wizened arms, the clenched-up hands,
The shoulders bent and humped;
Breasts, what breasts? All shrivelled up;
The hips the same state as the tits;
The sex? – Hah! And as for the thighs,
Shrunk down, no longer worth the name,
And mottled just like sausages.")

François Villon, Les Regrets de la Belle Heaulmière, from Le Grand Testament

"Pierre, I don't care whether that man is on this earth or in Hell where he belongs, so long as he's well away from me!" Esméralda said. "Where should we go from here?"

"I have family in the city," said her mother, then corrected herself: "We have family. Ask for Pradon, Rue Perrin-Gasselin* – brazier and coppersmith. I think he died not long ago – my uncle. But there are cousins…"

"Somehow I don't think this is the best time for meeting long-lost relatives," Pierre observed.

"Why?"

"It's far too close to the Châtelet for my liking! Besides, look at us! I mean, look at you!"

The anchoress had not washed for years; and her black sackcloth gown – her only garment, which slid rather too far off her bony shoulders for decency – was lively with vermin.

"I hope you haven't given Djali fleas!"

"Pah! You and that goat!"

"He is right, though," said Esméralda. "I doubt they'd thank us for turning up on their doorstep in this state! But still… Where can we go?"

"The eye of a storm is always calmest, so I've heard," Pierre said, as if to himself. He began to direct the women, and Djali, on to the Pont Notre Dame. Like so many bridges of those days, it was a street, lined with houses and shops, which were already opening for business.

"What are you doing?" asked Esméralda. "Not there! No!" She had last seen the archdeacon running towards the bridge from the Grève, to alert the sergeants. She did not want to face that madman again this side of Hell.

"It's the best place! If they do have a change of heart, the last place they'll think to look is the place from which we fled! That is, unless they think that's what we'll be thinking, in which case… Or, on the other hand, they may think we'd think that, but that we'd then think they'd think that out, and so they'd think we'd…"

Pâquette sighed. "Perhaps you should stop thinking so hard."

Esméralda looked at her mother, and smiled in amused recognition: she had already got the measure of Gringoire.

"Trust me, please! I'll protect you!" he insisted, with a show of confidence that was more to convince himself than the women.

They crossed the bridge and, without directly approaching the cathedral, wandered aimlessly for a while through the narrow streets on its north side.

"I can't go much further," said Pâquette, sinking down beside the arcaded front of a baker's shop. She had walked no further than up and down her cell for fifteen years: she was exhausted and disorientated, and her bare feet hurt.

"Do you need help, dearie?" asked an old woman.

"We need shelter and food," Pierre answered. "My mother-in-law is tired and ill. And my goat needs grooming."

"There's the Hôtel-Dieu… Mind, after t'other night's riot, I doubt there's room! And I don't think they take animals!"

"She's not an animal! She's family!"

"Hm! Well, you could try the Widow Dorel's. The Vowesses might help."

"Nuns?" asked Esméralda nervously. They would not approve of her, she thought: a dancing-girl with a performing goat some deemed demonic.

"Well, avowed widows. They collect waifs and strays. She gives herself airs like an abbess, mind – calls herself Mother!"

"It's worth a try," said Pierre. He had heard a little of her reputation, but not much more.

The type was not uncommon in the cities of the day. Sixteen years ago, Hugues Dorel was a wealthy cloth-merchant; his wife, Sibylle, a plain and pious dame of forty, housekeeper and mother to eight living children, aged from twenty to four. When pestilence had struck that August – the same visitation that had orphaned the Frollo brothers, and killed tens of thousands beside – the good lady was robbed in the space of a week of her husband and all her children, and came close to death herself. She might have lost her wits, but decided instead that her own life had been spared for a purpose. Her husband's death had left her with a fine town-house, in the shadow of Notre Dame. Over the years, she gathered several other widows about her. They devoted themselves to practical piety: making soup for the poor and for pilgrims; collecting and mending old clothes to be given to the poor; taking in and tending a few old folk or invalids. However, unlike the Béguines, then common in the Low Countries, they had taken vows. Their patroness was St Anne, the mother of the Virgin, and the Widow Dorel could not have been more lofty in manner had she herself been Christ's grandmother.

The house was tall and narrow, stone-built, with a projecting, timber-framed upper floor. It did not appear particularly welcoming, but Pierre knocked all the same.

The door was opened by a stout middle-aged woman, habited and veiled in black. "What do you want?"

"Is this Widow Dorel's? The Sisterhood of St Anne?"

"It is."

"We are poor and hungry, and in distress. I was told you gave help to such as us."

"Well, come in, then! – But not the goat!"

"If the goat goes, we go."

"No, no! I meant, she can be tethered in the yard." She gestured to a servant lad, a sprightly, freckled scamp of about twelve, to take charge of Djali. "Simon, feed her some kitchen scraps, and don't let her eat the herbs! – You three, come in! I'm Sister Geneviève. You must excuse us – we're awfully busy this morning!"

She led them down a passageway into a stone-flagged kitchen at the back of the house. They passed a few other women, all middle-aged to elderly, in the same black gowns and veils, bustling about.

"What a stink…! It's like the pit of hell in here!" Pierre said. Although it was a warm summer morning, the fire was burning under a large cauldron of water. There were smaller pots brewing foul-smelling sulphur concoctions that were surely medical rather than culinary.

"Bad eggs," Pâquette muttered. "You've been cooking bad eggs. Children used to throw them sometimes, through the bars…"

"No, my dear, it's not eggs, it's brimstone for poultices. As if last night wasn't bad enough, there was such a frightful accident… I didn't see – I was in the laundry when they brought him in, but – Poor young man! Oh, if you'd heard the cries when the surgeon – Oh, awful! Awful!"

"I see. You mean it's not convenient for us…?"

"Oh, no! Far from it! That's all in hand! Mother Sibylle's put him in her own room, and he's had the Viaticum… But where have you come from in such a state?"

"It's hard to explain," said Pierre.

"The Grève," said Pâquette.

Sister Geneviève looked at them through narrowed eyes. "The Grève?" She scrutinised Esméralda. "You're that gypsy dancer, aren't you? With that goat? They were going to hang–"

Pierre cleared his throat. "Ah! That's all been sorted out with the authorities! A case of mistaken identity! She's definitely not a gypsy! Although the goat is a goat."

"Indeed, my name is Esmér– I mean, Agnès. And these are my mother and my… husband."

Pierre bowed: "Pierre Gringoire, philosopher and man of letters, at your service."

"Yes," the good sister said sceptically. "You used to do that trick with the chair and the cat, didn't you? Very philosophical! Well, as long as you don't try it indoors!" She then looked at Pâquette: "And where were you hiding, my girl? Buried alive in the Innocents?"

"No: in the Tour Roland these fifteen years."

She gaped. "You are the anchoress? Sister Gudule? Then how did you…?"

"I did penance for the loss of my daughter. And now my daughter is lost no longer."

Geneviève, herself a mother, softened at this. "Oh, you poor dear!" She reached out to embrace her, but then drew back, noticing tiny creatures moving on the surface of her hair-shirt. "Ah! I see! I do believe some cleaning is required! – Messire Gringoire, I suggest that for the sake of modesty, you step outside and attend to your goat. Simon will draw some water from the well for her; please tell him, too, to bring more in here."

He obeyed.

As soon as he had disappeared through the back door, Sister Geneviève dragged a steep-sided wash-tub into the middle of the stone floor. She tested the water that was heating over the fire, and poured a pitcher of it into the tub.

"Sister, will you please stand in this? Now, arms up, there's a good girl!"

Pâquette did as she was told, exchanging a puzzled look with her child, who was starting to scratch her shoulder. Esméralda plucked off the exploratory louse, and crushed it.

Now Geneviève swooped down like a somewhat overweight bird of prey, whisked the sackcloth gown over Pâquette's head: the latter yelped in pain as it tore off some of her scabs with it. She hurled it into the heart of the fire, where it hissed and crackled.

"That is where it belongs!" Geneviève said. "So much for hair-shirts! My second today! Crawling!"

Stark naked, save for her matted grey hair falling past her hips, the anchoress felt as if she were drowning as jugs of hot water were thrown over her.

"Keep still, dear! Oh, you're filthy! I'd scrub you, but your skin…! Oh, my poor girl! – At least I've strong nails for cracking lice!"

"Don't be afraid, mother; I'll help," Esméralda said, reassuringly. "Oh, whatever have you done to yourself…?"

For, as Sister Geneviève had said, the poor woman resembled nothing so much as a figure from the Danse Macabre in the cloister of the Innocents, or one of those fashionable tomb effigies that represented the deceased as a desiccated corpse (or, to twenty-first century eyes, a catwalk model). Her arms and legs were sticks. Her shoulder-blades and collarbones jutted out sharply as the pauldrons of Nuremburg armour. Her paps hung in wrinkles, like empty leather purses, against skeletal ribs. And yet one could still see that she had been a beauty, with the same fine profile and large, lovely eyes as her daughter. In her ruin, Villon's Plaint of the Helmet-Maker's Wench was made flesh again. But he had described a decrepit old whore of four-score years: the former 'Damsel of the Flowery Song' was still a young woman in her mid-thirties.

Hot tears fell from Esméralda's eyes as she washed the years of engrained grime and caked blood from her mother's body. She found dense scars on the shoulders, bosom and thighs – recognisable in those days as the marks of a penitent's knotted scourge. Fifteen years of the hair-shirt had chafed some into weeping ulcers, on the prominent bones of her back, and on and, most severely, under her pendulous breasts. Tenderly, she helped Sister Geneviève salve and dress them. Pity and love mingled with girlish vanity – that grief for her had driven the poor woman to this!

Meanwhile, in the yard, Djali was refusing to be groomed. One bucket of water had already gone over young Simon and a couple of squawking hens, as the frisky little goat had trotted about. However, as it was turning into a hot day, the boy only laughed aloud, prompting a veiled head, with hatchet face, to emerge from an upstairs casement and issue a loud: "Shhhh!"

"Who's that?" Pierre asked.

"Mother Sibylle. She's always crabby! Mind, that fellow's takin' his time dyin' up there!"

"Perhaps he'll get better."

"The priest's been, so I bet he won't. I'll bet you a grand blanc if you've got one!"

"Now, now! That's not something to wager on, young man! Do you know what happened?"

The boy shrugged. "My Mam said it was one of the lads from the big fight last night at Notre Dame – been stuck on a roof all night, or somethin'." Then his face lit up: "Did you see it, messire? I looked out of the window, an' there was hot lead and rocks flyin', like in a real, proper battle!"

"No," Pierre said. "I had other things on my mind… Now, my boy – if you run that way, and I run this, perhaps we can corner our little friend! She's normally much better behaved than this, but she has had a lot of excitement this morning!"

Within minutes, Djali was being held down firmly and washed back to her usual soft whiteness. She bleated sulkily. The hens glared.

Sister Geneviève's shears sliced off Pâquette's hair until it just brushed her shoulders, like a man's, and combed out the lice with a bone comb. Live ones and eggs she cracked in her fingernails.

"This is a clean house; we can't have you spreading that sort of thing in here," she said firmly.

Next, she brought both women some clothes. "Now, these are from the chest we have for giving to the poor. They're laundered and mended," she said, "so I hope you'll keep them that way."

Esméralda certainly felt better for having a clean chemise, kirtle and gown upon her. They were patched and darned – servants' clothes, certainly duller attire she would have chosen – but she felt less conspicuous than in her white novice's gown. Besides, she wished to put behind her the memories attached to her time in the habit…

Her mother looked – and sat – like a wooden doll, her emaciated body stiff with bandages. Her clean clothes were drab and far too big for her. She fiddled with the chopped ends of her hair, which stuck out untidily beneath the linen coif she had been given (as if she had ever been a married woman to wear such headgear!). She had forgotten how it felt to be clean, to have her sores soothed and tended. Bewildered by so much attention, she retreated inside herself, trying to make sense of the past few hours that had overturned her world. The wild, burning eyes of the Archdeacon of Josas, when he had given her the gypsy to hold; the recognition of the embroidered shoe; how close she had come to seeing her daughter hanged in front of her; the sweet, silly, brave young man with the goat… It seemed as fantastical as a dream, from which she feared she would wake and find herself back in her damp, dark cell, alone.

Another vowess, haggard-looking, even more so because she was anxious, scuttled into the room and snatched up a bowl of poultice mixture.

"Ah – Catherine – how goes it?"

"Very bad," said the other, grimly. "We'll be needing yarrow, lots of it, infused and cooled, for drinking. His fever's worsening."

"Is there hope?"

"We must pray. Pray hard." She hurried out again.

"Can I help?" asked Esméralda. "I know a little of herbs, and –"

"Oh, no! Mother Sibylle hates anyone to get in her way! It's crowded enough up there, anyway – she's got Catherine, Louise, and Isabeau running about at her beck and call. Besides," – and she looked at Pâquette – "your duty lies closer to home."

Pierre came back in. "My goat is duly washed and groomed, dear sister," he said, "and so, I see, is my mother-in-law!"

He bowed and kissed her grazed, bony hand. "You look charming, dear lady." It was a blatant lie, but he said it kindly, because she was fragile and wounded, with eyes were as frightened as a trapped bird's.

"There's probably a pot of barley broth somewhere hereabouts," said Sister Geneviève. "I just hope the smell of the brimstone hasn't ruined the taste… Ah yes, I had covered it! Now, I daresay you're all hungry?"

Pierre tucked in heartily, while Esméralda coaxed her mother into taking a little bread dipped in the soup. She knew from her experience of travelling life on the roads that half-starved people should not eat too much, too quickly when they next find food in abundance.

For the rest of the day, they recovered from their trials, and tried to avoid getting in the way of the vowesses as they went about their duties. Djali was settled comfortably into straw with the hens in their house – and the hens made it quite clear, with much clucking, that it was theirs – in the yard.

Her humans were to sleep in the downstairs room usually kept for elderly paupers. There were two beds, one on each side of a partition which divided the room from floor to ceiling, separating men from women. Sister Louise, a short, red-faced woman, was very firm on that: "Married or not, that's how it is here! Nothing of that sort under this roof!"

Esméralda smiled sweetly: "It's quite all right!"

Pierre was resigned to his fate, but still he thought how he had saved her life that morning… Honestly, what would it take to make her look at him as more than merely an amusing friend, assistant mountebank, or Djali's keeper?

And so mother and daughter shared a bed. It was a warm night, but they snuggled close to each other, as if the past fifteen years had been erased, and they were, once again, a young girl with her infant. There were so many years of desolate separation to make up.

Pierre had to sleep with the current resident pauper, know as Old Geoffroi, who was at least eighty and completely toothless.

"'S all right, son," he said. "Sometimes there's been four of us in this one bed… T'others have all died off…"

The old man snored and mumbled all night, keeping the poor poet awake. He envied Djali's snug straw, even among the bossy chickens, who struck him as the vowesses transformed, by Ovidian metamorphosis, into bird-form. Still… They were safe for the time being.

At least he got more sleep than the good sisters. Candles and oil-lamps flickered all night in the panelled bedchamber upstairs, where a man lay fighting for his life.

* Mahiette, after fifteen years, and not being a native of Paris, had either misremembered it, or garbled it in Champenois pronunciation, as "Rue Parin-Garlin" when she related Pâquette's story to her friends. See Max Bach, "Le Vieux Paris dans Notre Dame", PMLA, vol. 8, no. 4, Sept. 1965 (pp. 321-24), p. 324, on Hugo's error with this street name. It was behind the Châtelet, between the Rue Saint-Denis and Rue Chevalier-du-Guet.

To be continued: Claude's life is in the balance….