Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

“Superb tapestries!” repeated Mme. de Gondelaurier. “So much so, indeed, that they are accounted
absolutely unique.”
At this moment Berangère de Champchevrier, a slip of a little girl of seven, who had been looking down
into the Place through the carved trefoils of the balcony, cried out: “Oh, godmother Fleur-de-Lys, do
look at this pretty girl dancing and playing the tambourine in the street in the middle of that ring of
people!”
The penetrating rattle of a tambourine rose up to them from the square.
“Some gipsy of Bohemia,” said Fleur-de-Lys, turning her head carelessly towards the square.
“Let us look—let us look!” cried her companions, eagerly running to the balustrade, while she followed
more slowly, musing on the coldness of her betrothed. The latter, thankful for this incident, which cut
short an embarrassing conversation, returned to the other end of the apartment with the well-contented air
of a soldier relieved from duty.
Yet it was an easy and pleasant service, that of being on duty at the side of the fair Fleur-de-Lys, and
time was when he had thought it so. But the captain had gradually wearied of it, and the thought of his
approaching marriage grew more distasteful to him every day. Moreover, he was of inconstant
disposition, and, we are bound to confess, of somewhat vulgar proclivities. Although of very noble birth,
he had with his uniform adopted many of the low habits of the common soldier. The tavern and all that
belongs to it delighted him; and he was never at his ease but amid gross language, military gallantries,
facile beauties, and easy conquests. Nevertheless, he had received from his family a certain amount of
education and polish, but he had too early been allowed to run loose, had been thrust too young into
garrison life, and the varnish of polite manner had not been sufficiently thick to withstand the constant
friction of the soldier’s harness. Though still visiting her occasionally, from some last remnant of kindly
feeling, he felt himself increasingly constrained in the presence of Fleur-de-Lys; partly because by dint of
dividing his love so freely on all sides, he had very little left for her; partly because in the presence of
these stiff, decorous, and well-bred beauties, he went in constant fear lest his tongue, accustomed to the
great oaths of the guard-room, should suddenly get the better of him and rap out some word that would
appal them.
And yet with all this he combined great pretensions to elegance, to sumptuous dress, and noble bearing.
Let the reader reconcile these qualities for himself. I am merely the historian.
He had been standing for some moments, in silence, leaning against the chimney-piece, thinking of
something or perhaps of nothing at all, when Fleur-de-Lys suddenly turning round addressed him. After
all, it went very much against the poor girl’s heart to keep up any show of coldness towards him.
“Cousin, did you not tell us of a little gipsy girl you had rescued out of the hands of a band of robbers
about two months ago, when you were going the counter-watch at night?”
“I believe I did, fair cousin,” answered the captain.
“Well,” she resumed, “perhaps this is the very girl dancing now in the Parvis. Come and see if you
recognise her, Cousin Phœbus.”
A secret desire for reconciliation sounded through this gentle invitation to her side, and in the care she
took to call him by his name. Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers (for it is he whom the reader has had