THE BOAT-MILL ON THE RIVER
At last the sun went down, and twilight fell upon the towers and
pointed roofs of the old chatelet. The loiterers gradually disappeared
from the place and bridge. The rough _voitures de place_, which
clattered incessantly over a pavement so rude and uneven that it
became a wonder how they were enabled to progress at all, one by one
withdrew from the thoroughfares, carrying a great portion of the
general noise with them, not more proceeding from the hoarse voices of
the drivers than from the ceaseless cracking of their long whips,
which was thus always going on. The cries of those who sold things in
the streets was also hushed, as well as the tolling and chiming of the
innumerable bells in the steeples of the churches, which until dusk
never knew rest, but tried to outclang each other as noisily as the
supporters of the different sects, whose hour of meeting they
announced. One or two lanterns were already glimmering from the
windows of private houses; for by this means only were the streets of
Paris preserved from utter darkness throughout the night: and the full
moon began to rise slowly behind the turrets of Notre Dame.
There was little security, then, in the most public places, and few
cared to be about after dusk, except in the immediate company of the
horse or foot patrol, save those who only stalked abroad with the
night, so that it was not long before the _carrefour_ was nearly
deserted. Two persons alone remained there. One was the assistant to
the physician, who had left him in charge of the platform; and he was
now occupied in harnessing two miserable mules to the waggon, in which
the platform and the apparatus had been stowed away. The other was the
girl whom we have before spoken of, and who had remained at the cross
in almost the same attitude--one of deep sorrow and despondency.
The fool had nearly finished his labours, and was preparing to leave
the square, when the young female quitted her resting-place, and
advanced towards him with a timid and faltering step. Believing her to
be some wretched wanderer of the _carrefour_ proceeding to her home
before the curfew sounded, he took but little notice of her, and was
about to seize the mules by the bridle and lead them onwards, when she
placed her hand upon his arm and implored him to stop.
‘Now, good mistress--your business,’ said the assistant; ‘for I have
little time to spare. A sharp appetite hurries labour more than a
sharp overseer; and my stomach keeps time better than the bell of
Notre Dame.’
‘I wished to purchase something,’ returned the girl.
‘Ah! you are too late--we have nought left but holy pebbles to keep
steeds from the nightmare, and philtres for the court dames to retain
their butterfly lovers. Good-night, _ma belle_. Hir-r-r-r! Jacquot!
hir-r-r-r!’
The last expression was addressed to his mules, as they rattled the
old bells upon their head-pieces, and moved forwards. Again the girl
seized the upraised hand of the mountebank, as he was about to use the
whip, and begged him to desist.
‘I am sure you have what I want,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I will pay you
for it--all that I have left from my wages is yours. Is not your
master the doctor St. Antonio?’
‘Well--and suppose he is?’
‘They talk strangely of his art about Paris, as being able to play
with life and death as he chooses. They say that he can enchant
medicines; and with a little quicksilver so prepared destroy a whole
family--nay, an army.’
‘Were you to believe an hundredth part of the lies they tell daily
about Paris, your credulity would find time for nothing else,’
returned the other. ‘What should one so young and fair as you want
with poison, beyond keeping the rats from your _mansarde_?--for to
that end alone does my master prepare it, and even then in small
quantities.’
‘I wanted it for myself,’ replied the girl. ‘I have nothing left in
this world to care about. I wish to die.’
Her head drooped, and her voice faltered as she spoke these words, so
that they were almost inaudible; more so than the deep and weary sigh
that followed them.
‘Die--sweetheart!’ cried the mountebank cheeringly, as he turned
towards her, and raised her chin with his hand. ‘Die!--St. Benoit, who
rules my fete day, prevent it! You must not die this half-century.
Besides, although the doctors can’t yet find poisons in the stomach,
like witches’ nails and pins, yet the stones can whisper, in Paris,
all they hear. And what should we get--I and my master--for thus
serving you?’
‘All that I possess in the world,’ answered the girl.
‘Ay--that would come first, without doubt; and next, a short shrift, a
long cord, and a dry faggot, on the Place de Grêve. No, no,
sweetheart: if you brought as much gold as my mules could drag home,
we could not do it.’
‘Then you will not let me have it?’
‘Why, you silly pigeon, I have told you so. With that pretty face and
those dark eyes be sure you have much yet in store to live for. Or if
you must die, don’t make any one your murderer. The Seine is wide and
deep enough for all; and, besides, will cost you nothing.’
He spoke these words less in a spirit of levity than the wish to cheer
the poor applicant by his good-humoured tones. But the girl clasped
her hands together, and looked round with a shudder towards the quays.
‘The river!’ she exclaimed. ‘I have gazed upon it often, but my heart
failed me. I shrank from the cold black water as it tore and struggled
through those dark arches: I could not bear to think that its foul
polluted current would be my only winding-sheet. I would sooner die in
my little room; and then in the morning the sun would fall upon me as
it does now, but it would not awaken me to another day of weeping--the
same sun that shines in Languedoc, only there it is brighter.’
‘Are you from Languedoc, then?’ inquired the man.
‘I was born near Béziers,’ she replied sadly.
‘Mass! why that is my own country. What is your name?’
‘Louise Gauthier.’
‘I don’t remember to have heard it. I ought to have known, though,
that you were from the south by your accent. And what brought you to
Paris?’
‘There has been much misery and persecution amongst us,’ answered the
girl; ‘for we are Protestant; almost all our homes have been broken
up, for that reason, and so,’--and she hesitated--‘and so I came up to
seek work.’
‘Was there no other reason?’ asked the man. ‘I think there must have
been.’
‘I went to the Gobelins,’ continued Louise, avoiding the question,
‘and got employment. I heard that others had gained money there.’
‘And rank too,’ said the fool. ‘My master had a customer this
afternoon--an officer in the King’s army, who is better known as the
Marquis of Brinvilliers than by his proper name of Antoine Gobelin.
The water of the Bièvre has rather enriched his blood; he has besides
a fair income, and a fairer wife. And are you there still?’
‘I am not. I was discharged from the atelier this morning for
resisting the importunities of the superintendent Lachaussée, and I
am now alone--alone!’
She hid her face in her hands, and burst into tears.
‘And why not return to Languedoc, my poor girl?’ said the mountebank,
in a kind voice, which associated but oddly with his quaint dress.
‘They would scarcely care to persecute such a gentle thing as
yourself--Protestant though you be.’
‘No, no, I cannot leave Paris. There is another object that keeps me
here; or rather it did--for all hope is gone. There is now nothing
left for me but death. I could have remained unheeded in the country;
but in this great city the solitude is fearful: those who are alone,
alone can tell how terrible it is.’
Although the duty of the charlatan was to impose upon the public in
every fashion that they were likely to bite at most readily, yet there
was a kind heart under his motley attire. He threw his whip over the
backs of the two mules, and taking the weeping girl kindly by the
hands, said to her:
‘Come, come, countrywoman: I shall not leave you to your loneliness
this night at least. If aught were to happen to you, I should feel
that I myself had brought your body on the Grêve. My wife and myself
live in a strange abode, but there is room for you; and you shall go
with me.’
The girl looked at him with an expression of mistrust which his
calling might well have occasioned; and murmured out a few faint words
of refusal.
‘Bah!’ exclaimed the other. ‘You are from Languedoc, like myself, and
therefore we are neighbours. I would wager that we have sat under the
same trees, within a short half-league of Béziers.’
And he commenced humming the refrain of a ballad in the old Provençal
dialect. It was evidently well known to Louise. She shook her head,
and pressed her hand before her eyes as if to shut out some sad image
that her ideas had conjured up.
‘You have heard that before?’ asked the man.
‘Very often--I know it well.’
‘You heard it from a man, then, I will be sworn; and perhaps a
faithless one. He wrote well, long, long ago, who said that those who
were gifted with music and singing loved our Languedocian romances,
and travelled about the earth that they might betray women. My
_marotte_ to an old sword-belt that the tune sang itself in your ears
all the way to Paris. Was it not so?’
The girl returned no answer, but remained silent, with her eyes fixed
upon the ground.
‘Well, well--we will not press for a reply. But you shall come with me
this night, _ma bonne_, for I will not leave you so. Only let me take
you to where our mules’ lodging is situated, and then I will bring you
back to my own.’
He scarcely waited for her acquiescence, but lifting her gently in his
arms, placed her on the waggon. And then he gave his signal to the
mules, and they moved along the _carrefour_, over which the darkness
was now stealing.
They passed along the quays and the Port au Foin, now dimly lighted by
the few uncertain and straggling lanterns before alluded to, until the
mules turned of their own accord into a court of the Rue St. Antoine.
A peasant in wooden shoes clamped forward to receive them, with whom
the charlatan exchanged a few words previously to conducting his
companion back again, nearly along the same route by which they had
arrived at the stables.
‘You may call me Benoit,’ he said, as he perceived that the girl was
sometimes at a loss how to address him. ‘Benoit Mousel. Do not stand
upon adding _maître_ to it. We are compatriots, as I have told you,
and therefore friends. The quays are dark at night, but the river is
darker still. You made a good choice of two evils in keeping out of
it.’
They walked on, barely lighted through the obscurity, until they came
to the foot of the Pont Notre Dame--the most ancient of those still
existing at Paris. It is now, as formerly, on the line of thoroughfare
running from the Rue St. Jacques, in the Quartier Latin, to the Rue
St. Martin. The modern visitor may perhaps recall it to mind by a
square tower built against its western side, flanked by two small
houses raised upon piles, beneath which are some wheels, by whose
working some thirty of the fountains in the streets of Paris are
supplied with water. This mechanism was not constructed until a few
years after the date of our story. Before that, the Pont Notre Dame,
in common with the other bridges we have mentioned, was covered with
houses, which remained in excellent condition, to the number of
sixty-eight or seventy, up to the commencement of the last century.
They were then destroyed; and now the parapets are covered with boxes
of old books ranged in graduated prices; whilst shoe-blacks,
lucifer-merchants, and beautifiers of lap-dogs occupy the kerb of the
pavement.
Benoit descended some rude steps leading from the quay to the river,
guiding Louise carefully by the hand; and dragging a boat towards
them, which was lying there in readiness, embarked with his trembling
companion, as if to cross the river. But he stopped half-way, close to
the pier of the bridge, and then the girl saw that they had touched a
long low range of what appeared to be houses, which looked as if they
floated on the water. And, in effect, they did so; their continuous
vibration and the rushing of the river between certain divisions in
their substructure, showing that they were boat-mills.
‘Where are you taking me?’ asked Louise timidly.
‘To our house,’ replied Benoit. ‘You have nothing to fear. I told you
it was an odd dwelling. Now mind how you place your foot on the
timber. So: gallantly done.’
He assisted her from the boat, which was rocking on the dark stream of
the river as it rushed through the arches, on to a few frail steps of
wood which hung down from one of the buildings to the water. Then
making it fast to one of the piles, he passed with her along a small
gallery of boards, and, pushing a door open, entered the floating
house.
They were in a small apartment, forming one of a long range which had
apparently been built in an enormous lighter; and in one of these the
large shaft of a mill-wheel could be seen turning heavily round, as it
shook the building, whilst the whole mass oscillated with the peculiar
vibration of a floating structure. At a small table in the middle of
this chamber, a buxom-looking female, in a half-rustic, half-city
attire, was busily at work with her needle, at a rude table. There was
little other furniture in this ark. A small stove, some seats, and a
few hanging shelves, on which were placed some bottles of coloured
fluids, retorts, and little earthenware utensils, used in chemical
analysis, completed the list of all that was movable in the room. But
the circumstance that struck Louise most upon entering, was the sharp,
pungent atmosphere which filled the floating apartment--so noxious
that it produced a violent fit of coughing as soon as she inhaled it.
Nor was her conductor much less affected.
‘_Paff!_’ he exclaimed, as soon as he could speak; ‘our master is at
his work again, brewing devil’s drinks and fly-powder. Never mind, _ma
pauvrette_: you will be used to it directly.’
The woman had risen from her seat when they entered, and was now
casting a suspicious glance at Louise and an inquiring one at her
husband alternately.
‘Oh! you have nothing to be jealous of, Bathilde,’ he continued,
addressing his better half. ‘Here is a countrywoman from Béziers,
without a friend, and dying for love, for aught I know to the
contrary. We must give her a lodging for to-night at least.’
‘Do not let me intrude,’ said Louise, turning to the female. ‘I fear
that I am already doing so. Let me be taken on shore again, and I will
not put you to inconvenience.’
‘Not a word of that again, or I shall swear that your are no
Languedocian. A pretty journey you would have, admitting you went to
your lodgings, from here to the Rue Mouffetard--for I suppose you live
near the Gobelins. There are dangerous vagabonds at night in the
Faubourg Saint Marcel; and they say the young clerks of Cluny study
more graceless things in the streets than learned ones at their
college. A woman, young and comely like yourself, was found in the
Bièvre the other morning. I saw them carrying the body to the Val de
Grace myself.’
While Benoit was thus talking his wife had been doing the humble
honours of their floating establishment towards their new guest. She
had placed her own seat near the fire for Louise--for the evening was
chilly, the more so on the river--and next proceeded to lay their
frugal supper on the table, consisting of dried apples, a long log of
bread, and a measure of wine.
‘You will not incommode us, _petite_,’ said Bathilde. ‘You can sleep
with me, and Benoit will make his bed amongst the sacks, where he
dozes when he has to keep up the doctor’s fires all night long.’
Bathilde was not two years older than Louise; yet she felt that, being
married, she had the position of a matron, and so she patronised her.
But it was done with an innocent and good heart.
‘Ay, I could sleep anywhere near the old mill-wheel,’ said Benoit.
‘Its clicking sends me off like a cradle. The only time I never close
my eyes is at the Toussaint; and that is because I’ve stopped it. Look
at it there! plodding on just as if it were a living thing.’
The charlatan’s assistant looked affectionately at the beam which was
working at the end of the chamber; and then wishing to vent the loving
fulness of his heart upon something more sensible of it, he pinched
his wife’s round chin, and kissed her rosy face with a smack that
echoed again.
‘Hush!’ cried Bathilde; ‘you will disturb the doctor.’ And she pointed
to a door leading from the apartment.
‘Is there any one else here, then?’ asked Louise.
‘Only my master,’ replied Benoit. ‘He came to lodge here when he first
arrived in Paris, because he did not want to be disturbed, as he said.
Well, he has his wish. His rent pays ours, and I get a trifle for
playing his fool. Mass! think of this attire in Languedoc!’
They proceeded with their supper. Benoit fell to it as though he had
fasted for a week, but Louise tasted nothing, in spite of all the
persuasions of her honest entertainers. She sipped some wine which
they insisted on her taking; and then remained sad and pale, in the
deepest despondency.
Her gloom appeared to affect the others. The charlatan looked but
sadly for his calling; and every now and then Bathilde turned her
large bright eyes from Benoit to Louise, and then back again to
Benoit, as if more fully to comprehend the unwonted introduction of
her young guest. And sometimes she would assume a little grimace,
meant for jealousy, until her husband reassured her with a
pantomimical kiss blown across the table.
At last Benoit and his helpmate thought it would be kinder to leave
her to her sorrow; and they began, as was their custom, to talk about
the events of the day. The interruption of the two young cavaliers was
of course mentioned, and was exciting the earnest attention of Louise,
when the conversation was broken by the door opening suddenly at the
end of the apartment, and the physician of the Carrefour du Châtelet
passed hastily out and approached the table.
‘Hist! Benoit!’ he exclaimed, in a low and somewhat flurried tone;
‘some one has gained the mills besides ourselves. Who is that girl?’
he said sharply, as his eye fell upon Louise.
‘A poor countrywoman whom I have given a lodging to for the night. She
works at the Gobelins.’
The physician moved towards Louise, and clutching her arm with some
force, glared at her with terrible earnestness, as he continued:
‘You know how this has come about. Who is it?--answer on your sacred
soul.’
The terrified girl, for a minute, could scarcely reply, until the
others repeated his question, when she exclaimed--
‘I do not understand you, monsieur. I have no one in Paris with whom I
can exchange a word--none, but these good people.’
‘I do not see how any one could have got to the mill,’ said Benoit. ‘I
brought over the boat myself from the quay.’
‘And you have not moved from this room?’
‘Never, since I disembarked with this maiden.’
‘It is strange,’ said the physician. ‘I had put out my lamp, the
better to watch the colour of a lambent violet flame that played about
the crucible. The lights from the bridge fell upon the window, and I
distinctly saw the shadow of a human being, if human it were, pass
across the curtain on the outside. Hark! there is a noise above!’
There could be now no doubt; the shuffling of feet was plainly audible
on the roof of the floating house; but of feet evidently moved with
caution.
‘I will go and see,’ cried Benoit, taking down the lamp, which was
suspended from one of the beams. ‘If they are intruders, I can soon
warn them off.’
‘No, no!’ cried the chemist eagerly; ‘do not leave the room; barricade
the door; no one must enter.’
‘We have nothing to barricade it with,’ replied Benoit, getting
frightened himself at the anxiety of his master. ‘Oh dear! oh dear! we
shall be burnt for witches on the Grêve. I see it all.’
‘Pshaw! imbecile,’ cried the other. ‘Here, you have the table, these
chairs. Bring sacks, grain, anything!’
The women had risen from their seats, and retreated into a corner of
the apartment near the stove. The physician seized the table, and,
implicitly followed by Benoit, was moving towards the door, when there
was a violent knocking without, and a command to open it immediately.
‘It is by the king’s order,’ said Benoit: ‘we cannot resist.’
He reached the door, and unfastened it before the physician could pull
him back, although he attempted to do so. It flew open, and a party of
the Guet Royal entered the room, headed by the chief of the marching
watch of Paris.
‘Antonio Exili,’ said the captain, pointing his sword towards the
physician, ‘commonly known as the Doctor St. Antonio, I arrest you in
the king’s name!’
‘_Exili!_’ ejaculated Benoit, gazing half aghast at his master.