MADEMOISELLE’S SLIPPERS
The first day of the week Petit Bossu set his house in order. He swept
the floor of the shop and put a cold dinner on the kitchen table that
his guest might eat in his absence. Then he hung up his apron and
blouse and, putting on his worn brown coat, slipped the leather strap
of his wallet over his shoulder. Last he took a pair of slippers out of
a cupboard and examined them with loving care and honest pride in their
workmanship. They were small, high-heeled, blue slippers, daintily
lined with white silk, and with rosettes of blue ribbon on the square
toes. The little cobbler stroked them tenderly, fastened one bow more
securely, and putting them carefully in his green bag, set out on his
journey. It was early, and few people lounged in the streets, and le
Bossu passed unheeded through the Rue St. Antoine, and went out at
last at the Porte de France. His pace was always slow, and to-day he
limped a little, but he kept cheerfully on, turning his face toward St.
Césaire.
The highroad, white with dust, unrolled like a ribbon through a rugged
plain which lay southwest of Nîmes, stretching from the low range of
limestone mountains--the foothills of the Cévennes--on the north to
the salt marshes of the Mediterranean on the south. Rocks cropped up
on either side of the road; the country was wild and barren-looking,
although here and there were fig trees and vineyards, and farther west
was the fertile valley of the Vaunage. North of those limestone hills
lay the Cévennes, where since the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes the
poor Huguenot peasants were making their desperate fight for liberty
of conscience, against the might and the bigotry of Louis XIV. Their
leader, Laporte, was dead, but he had been succeeded by Jean Cavalier
and Roland, and revolt still raged in the caves and fastnesses of
the upper Cévennes, though Maréchal Montrevel and the Intendant of
Languedoc assured the king that they had wiped out the insurrection.
But the “Barbets” or “Camisards,” as they were called in derision,
though naming themselves “Enfants de Dieu,” kept up the fierce
death-struggle. Meanwhile the city of Nîmes was judiciously orthodox in
the presence of the dragoons, and many Huguenots went to mass rather
than suffer torture and death. Not every man is made for a martyr,
and there were terrors enough to awe the most heroic. The bodies of
Protestants who died in prison were exposed at fairs for a fee, or
dragged through the streets on hurdles to be burned, as a warning and
example to the misguided who still lived.
Yet the busy life of every day went on; people bought and sold and
got gain; others married and made feasts; children were born, to be
snatched from Huguenot parents and baptized into the old religion;
some men died and were buried, others were cast from the galleys, at
Marseilles, into the sea. Such was life in Nîmes in those old days when
the sign of Two Shoes hung over the humble shop on the Rue St. Antoine.
All this while le Bossu was trudging along the white road. He met many
country people now, bringing their vegetables and poultry to town,
and more than once he was saluted with the mocking cry, “Petit Bossu!”
He kept steadily on, however, taking no heed, his face pale from the
exertion, or the repression of his natural temper, which resented
insults and injury more keenly than most people of his condition, in an
age when the poor were as the beasts of the field to the upper classes.
Many thoughts were passing in the hunchback’s mind, but he dwelt
most upon the little blue slippers, and when he did, his brown eyes
softened, the drawn expression on his thin face relaxed.
“The _bon Dieu_ bless her,” he murmured; “to her I am not the hunchback
or the cobbler--to her I am poor Charlot, her humble friend. _Ciel!_ I
would die for mademoiselle.”
He toiled slowly on; passing the village of St. Césaire, he turned
sharply to the north, and walking through a grove of olive trees, came
in sight of a château that nestled on the crest of a little eminence
looking west toward the Vaunage. The sun shone on its white walls and
sloping roof, and sparkled on its window panes. The building was not
large, and it had a long, low wing at one side, the whole thrown
into sharp relief by its background of mulberry trees. The house was
partially closed, the wing showing green-shuttered windows, but the
main part was evidently occupied. On the southern side was the garden,
with high hedges of box, and toward this the cobbler turned his steps.
As he approached the wicket-gate, which was set in a lofty part of the
hedge, a dog began to bark furiously, and a black poodle dashed toward
him as he entered, but recognizing the visitor, she ceased barking and
greeted le Bossu with every demonstration of friendship.
“Ah, Truffe,” said the cobbler, gently, “where is your mistress? I have
brought her the blue slippers at last.”
As if she understood the question, the poodle turned and, wagging her
tail, led the way back between two rows of box toward the centre of
the garden. The dog and the cobbler came out into an open circle well
planted with rose bushes, that grew in wild profusion around the old
sundial. Here were white roses and pink, yellow and red, large and
small; and sweet and fragile they looked in the old garden, which was
but poorly kept despite the neat hedges. On a rustic seat in the midst
of the flowers sat a young girl, the sun shining on her fair hair, and
tingeing with brown the red and white of her complexion. Her face and
figure were charming, and she had almost the air of a child, dressed as
she was in white, her flaxen hair falling in two long braids over her
shoulders.
The dog began to bark again at the sight of her, running to her and
back to the hunchback to announce the arrival of a friend. She looked
up with a bright smile as the cobbler lifted his cap and laid down the
green bag on the seat at her side.
“Ah, Charlot, you have my slippers at last,” she exclaimed gayly, her
blue eyes full of kindness as she greeted her humble visitor.
“I have them, Mademoiselle Rosaline,” he replied, his worn face
lighting up, “and they are almost worthy of the feet that will wear
them.”
“Almost!” laughed mademoiselle, “you are a born courtier, Charlot--oh,
what dears!”
Le Bossu had opened his bag and drawn out the blue slippers, holding
them up for her admiration.
“They are pretty enough for a queen!” said Rosaline, taking them in her
hands and looking at them critically, with her head on one side.
“Oh, Charlot, I shall never forgive you if they do not fit!”
“They will fit like gloves, mademoiselle,” the shoemaker replied
complacently; “let me try them on for you.”
But she was not yet done with her examination.
“Where did you get the pattern for the rosettes?” she asked eagerly;
“truly, they are the prettiest I have seen.”
“I copied them after a pair from Paris, mademoiselle,” he replied, as
pleased as she at his own success. “The heels too are just like those
worn at Versailles.”
Mademoiselle Rosaline laughed softly.
“I told you that you were a courtier, Charlot,” she said; “but they say
that the king wears high red heels, because he is not tall.”
“But red heels would not please mademoiselle on blue shoes,” remarked
the hunchback, smiling.
“But, Charlot,” said she, with a mischievous gleam of fun in her eyes,
“if we must all be of the king’s religion, must we not all also wear
his red heels?”
The cobbler’s pale face grew sad again.
“Alas, mademoiselle,” he said, with a sigh, “to you ’tis a jest, but
to some--” he shook his head gravely, looking down at the little blue
slippers in her lap.
“What is the matter?” she asked quickly, the smile dying on her lips.
“Have they--been burning any one lately in Nîmes?”
“Nay, mademoiselle,” he replied, kneeling on one knee in the gravel
path, and taking the slippers off her small feet to try on the new ones.
“Come, come, Charlot--tell me,” persisted his patroness, scarcely
heeding the shoe that he was drawing on her right foot. “You are as
solemn as an owl this morning.”
“I will tell mademoiselle,” he rejoined, reverently arranging the
rosette and smoothing the white silk stocking around the slender ankle.
“Then she must not blame me if she is horrified.”
“She is often horrified,” interrupted Rosaline, with a soft little
laugh. “Go on, Charlot.”
“There was a fair on Saturday--mademoiselle knows, for I saw Babet
there buying a silk handkerchief--”
“Babet cannot stay away from a fair for her life,” mademoiselle
interpolated again.
“’Twas a very fine fair,” continued le Bossu, putting on the other
slipper. “There were many attractions, and the jailer--Zénon--had the
body of a damned woman there; Adolphe, the showman, exhibited it for
half a crown. She, the dead woman, was, they say, one of the Huguenot
prisoners from the Tour de Constance, and she died on her way here;
she was to be examined by M. de Bâville for some reason,--what, I know
not,--but she died on the road, and Zénon made much by the exhibition.”
Rosaline shuddered, the color fading from her cheeks.
“And you went to see that horrible, wicked spectacle, Charlot?” she
demanded, in open disgust.
“Mademoiselle knows I am a good Catholic,” replied the cobbler, meekly,
his eyes drooping before her look of disdain. “’Tis done for the good
of our souls--to show us the fate of these misguided people.”
“_Mon Dieu!_” ejaculated mademoiselle, softly.
Silence fell between them unbroken save by the soft sounds of summer,
the humming of the honey-bees, the murmur of the mulberry leaves
stirred by a light wind. Mademoiselle sat looking vacantly at her new
slippers, while the shoemaker still knelt on one knee watching her face
with that pathetic expression in his eyes that we see only in the look
of sufferers.
“That was not all I saw at the fair,” he went on at last. “In the tent
there was also--”
Rosaline made a gesture of disgust.
“I will hear no more!” she cried indignantly.
“This will not horrify you, mademoiselle,” he replied gently; “’tis
only the story of my new guest.”
Her face relaxed, partly because she saw that she had hurt the
hunchback’s feelings.
“Well, you may tell me,” she said reluctantly.
“There was a young man there--in that tent-- Nay, mademoiselle, I
will say nothing more of it.” Le Bossu broke off, and then went on
carefully: “He was in great anguish, and I saw that he was watched by
a wicked old woman and one of the dragoons. I got him away to my house,
and there I found he had no money, except one piece, and was in great
trouble. He is--” the cobbler looked about keenly at the hedges, then
he lowered his voice, “a Huguenot.”
“And what did you do with him?” Rosaline demanded eagerly.
“He is in my upper room now,” replied the hunchback, “but I do not
know where he will go. He is not safe in Nîmes. I think he wants
to join the Barbets, but, of course, he tells me nothing. He is a
gentleman, mademoiselle, le Bossu knows, and very poor, like many of
the Huguenots, and proud. I know no more, except that he was reckless
enough to tell me his name.”
“What is it?” she asked, all interest now, and more than ever forgetful
of her new slippers.
“François d’Aguesseau,” he answered, in an undertone, with another
cautious glance behind him.
“’Tis all very strange,” remarked mademoiselle, regarding the worn
face thoughtfully. “You are a good Catholic, Charlot, yet you imperil
yourself to shelter a Huguenot.”
“The risk to me is very little,” he replied with great simplicity. “I
am too humble for M. de Bâville, and how could I give him up? He is
a kind young man, and in trouble; ah, mademoiselle, I also have had
troubles. May the _bon Dieu_ forgive me if I do wrong.”
“I do not think you do wrong, Charlot,” she said gently, “and I am sure
the _bon Dieu_ forgives you; but M. de Bâville will not.”
“I can die but once, mademoiselle,” he rejoined smiling.
“Why is it you always smile at death?” she asked.
“Ah, mademoiselle, you are not as I am,” he said quietly. “Death to
me--the gates of Paradise stand open--suffering over--poverty no more!”
Tears gathered in Rosaline’s blue eyes.
“Do you suffer much now?” she asked.
“Nearly always,” he replied.
Again there was a painful silence. Then le Bossu recollected the
slippers and rearranged the rosettes.
“They fit like gloves, mademoiselle,” he said calmly, “do they give you
comfort?”
The girl roused herself.
“They are beautiful, Charlot,” she replied, standing up and pacing to
and fro before the bench, to try them. “They do not even feel like new
shoes. You are a magician.”
She had lifted her white skirts to show the two little blue feet. Le
Bossu stood up too, admiring not only the slippers, but the beautiful
face and the golden hair, as fair as the sunshine. Even Truffe, the
poodle, danced about in open approval. Then they heard a sharp voice
from the direction of the house.
“Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle Rosaline!” it called; “the dinner grows
cold, and Madame de St. Cyr is waiting. _Viens donc!_”
“Poor Babet!” laughed Rosaline; “I am her torment. Come to the house,
Charlot; she will have a dinner for you also, and grandmother will be
delighted with these beautiful slippers. Come, Truffe, you at least are
hungry, you little _gourmande_.”