Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

This incident—this final proof—produced a great effect. They bound the goat’s feet, and Charmolue
resumed the thread of his eloquence.
It was long indeed, but the peroration was admirable. The last sentence ran thus—let the reader add in
imagination the raucous voice and broken-winded elocution of Maître Charmolue:
Ideo, domini, coram stryga demonstrata, crimine patente, intentione criminis existente, in
nomine sanctæ ecclesiæ Nostræ-Dominæ Parisiensis, quæ est in saisina habendi
omnimodam altam et bassam, justitiam in illa hac intemerata Civitatis insula, tenore
præsentium declaramus nos requirere, primo, aliquandam pecuniariam indemnitatem;
secundo, amendationem honorabilem ante portalium maximum Nostræ-Dominæ, ecclesiæ
cathedralis; tertio, sententiam, in virtute cujus ista stryga cum sua capella, seu in trivio
vulgariter dicta ‘La Grève,’ seu in insula exeunte in fluvio Sequanæ, juxta pointam jardini
regalis, executæ sint.” 78
He resumed his cap and sat down again.
“Eheu!” groaned Gringoire, overwhelmed with grief. “Bassa latinitas.” 79
Another man in a black gown now rose near the prisoner. it was her advocate. The fasting judges began
to murmur.
“Advocate,” said the President, “be brief.”
“Monsieur the President,” replied the advocate, “since the defendant has confessed the crime, I have
but one word to say to these gentlemen. I bring to their notice the following passage of the Salic law: ‘If
a witch have devoured a man and be convicted of it, she shall pay a fine of eight thousand deniers, which
makes two hundred sous of gold.” Let the court condemn my client to the fine.”
“An abrogated clause,” said the King’s Advocate Extraordinary.
“Nego.” 80
“Put it to the vote!” suggested a councillor; “the crime is manifest, and it is late.”
The votes were taken without leaving the court. The judges gave their votes without a moment’s
hesitation—they were in a hurry. One after another their heads were bared at the lugubrious question
addressed to them in turn in a low voice by the President. The hapless prisoner seemed to be looking at
them, but her glazed eyes no longer saw anything.
The clerk then began to write, and presently handed a long scroll of parchment to the President; after
which the poor girl heard the people stirring, and an icy voice say:
“Bohemian girl, on such a day as it shall please our lord the King to appoint, at the hour of noon, you
shall be taken in a tumbrel, in your shift, barefoot, a rope round your neck, before the great door of
Notre Dame, there to do penance with a wax candle of two pounds’ weight in your hands; and from there
you shall be taken to the Place-de-Grève, where you will be hanged and strangled on the town gibbet,
and your goat likewise; and shall pay to the Office three lion-pieces of gold in reparation of the crimes,
by you committed and confessed, of sorcery, magic, prostitution, and murder against the person of the
Sieur Phœbus de Châteaupers. And God have mercy on your soul!”