Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

“The joiner is dear,” observed the King. “Is that all?”
“No, Sire. To a glazier for the windows of the said chamber, forty-six sols, eight deniers parisis.”
“Have mercy, Sire!” cried the voice again. “It is not enough that all my possessions have been given to
my judges—my table service to M. de Torcy, my library to Maître Pierre Doriolle, my tapestries to the
Governor of Roussillon? I am innocent. Lo, these fourteen years have I shivered in an iron cage. Have
mercy, Sire! and you shall find it in heaven!”
“Maître Olivier,” said the King, “the total?”
“Three hundred and sixty-seven livres, eight sols, three deniers parisis——”
“Notre Dame!” cried the King. “’Tis an outrageous cage!”
He snatched the paper from Olivier’s hand, and began to reckon it up himself on his fingers, examining
the schedule and the cage by turns—while the prisoner was heard sobbing within it. It was a dismal
scene in the darkness, and the bystanders paled as they looked at one another.
“Fourteen years, Sire! It is fourteen years—since April, 1469. I conjure you in the name of the Holy
Mother of God, listen to me, Sire! During all those years you have enjoyed the warmth of the sun; shall I,
feeble wretch that I am, never see the light of day again? Mercy, Sire! Show mercy! Clemency is a noble
virtue in a King, and turns aside the current of the wrath to come. Think you, your Majesty, that at the
hour of death it will be a great satisfaction to a King to know that he has never let an offence go
unpunished? Moreover, I never betrayed your Majesty—it was Monsieur of Angers. And I have a very
heavy chain on my foot with a huge iron ball attached to it—far heavier than there is any need for. Oh,
Sire, have pity on me!”
“Olivier,” said the King, shaking his head, “I observe that they charge me the bushel of plaster at
twenty sols, though it is only worth twelve. You will draw up this memorandum afresh.”
He turned his back on the cage, and began to move towards the door of the chamber. The wretched
prisoner judged by the withdrawal of the torchlight and by the sounds that the King was preparing to
depart.
“Sire! Sire!” he cried in anguish.
The door closed. He saw nothing more, and heard nothing but the raucous voice of the turnkey singing
close by:
“Maître Jean Balue
Has lost from view
His bishoprics all.
Monsieur de Verdun
Has now not got one;
They’re gone, one and all.”
The King returned in silence to his closet, followed by his train, all horror-struck at the last bitter cry of
the prisoner. Suddenly his Majesty turned to the Governor of the Bastille.
“By-the-bye,” said he, “was there not some one in that cage?”