Page:Victor Hugo - Notre-Dame de Paris (tr. Hapgood, 1888).djvu/567

Rh sins! Help! help! fire! Will they take my child from me like this? Who is it then who is called the good God?"

Then, addressing Tristan, foaming at the mouth, with wild eyes, all bristling and on all fours like a female panther,—

"Draw near and take my daughter! Do not you understand that this woman tells you that she is my daughter? Do you know what it is to have a child? Eh! lynx, have you never lain with your female ? have you never had a cub? and if you have little ones, when they howl have you nothing in your vitals that moves?"

"Throw down the stone," said Tristan; "it no longer holds."

The crowbars raised the heavy course. It was, as we have said, the mother's last bulwark.

She threw herself upon it, she tried to hold it back; she scratched the stone with her nails, but the massive block, set in movement by six men, escaped her and glided gently to the ground along the iron levers.

The mother, perceiving an entrance effected, fell down in front of the opening, barricading the breach with her body, beating the pavement with her head, and shrieking with a voice rendered so hoarse by fatigue that it was hardly audible,—

"Help! fire! fire!"

"Now take the wench," said Tristan, still impassive.

The mother gazed at the soldiers in such formidable fashion that they were more inclined to retreat than to advance.

"Come, now," repeated the provost. "Here you, Henriet Cousin!"

No one took a step.

The provost swore,—

"Tête de Christ! my men of war! afraid of a woman!"

"Monseigneur," said Henriet, "do you call that a woman?"

"She has the mane of a lion," said another.

"Come!" repeated the provost, "the gap is wide enough. Enter three abreast, as at the breach of Pontoise. Let us make an end of it, death of Mahom! I will make two pieces of the first man who draws back!"