Page:Victor Hugo - Notre-Dame de Paris (tr. Hapgood, 1888).djvu/365

Rh the harsh hands of executioners and pincers, was that gentle, white, fragile creature, a poor grain of millet which human justice was handing over to the terrible mills of torture to grind.

Meanwhile, the callous hands of Pierrat Torterue's assistants had bared that charming leg, that tiny foot, which had so often amazed the passers-by with their delicacy and beauty, in the squares of Paris.

"'Tis a shame!" muttered the tormentor, glancing at these graceful and delicate forms.

Had the archdeacon been present, he certainly would have recalled at that moment his symbol of the spider and the fly. Soon the unfortunate girl, through a mist which spread before her eyes, beheld the boot approach; she soon beheld her foot encased between iron plates disappear in the frightful apparatus. Then terror restored her strength.

"Take that off!" she cried angrily; and drawing herself up, with her hair all dishevelled: "Mercy!"

She darted from the bed to fling herself at the feet of the king's procurator, but her leg was fast in the heavy block of oak and iron, and she sank down upon the boot, more crushed than a bee with a lump of lead on its wing,

At a sign from Charmolue, she was replaced on the bed, and two coarse hands adjusted to her delicate waist the strap which hung from the ceiling.

"For the last time, do you confess the facts in the case?" demanded Charmolue, with his imperturbable benignity.

"I am innocent."

"Then, mademoiselle, how do you explain the circumstance laid to your charge?"

"Alas, monseigneur, I do not know."

"So you deny them?"

"All!"

"Proceed," said Charmolue to Pierrat.

Pierrat turned the handle of the screw-jack, the boot was contracted, and the unhappy girl uttered one of those horrible cries which have no orthography in any human language.

"Stop!" said Charmolue to Pierrat. "Do you confess?" he said to the gypsy.