Page:Victor Hugo - Notre-Dame de Paris (tr. Hapgood, 1888).djvu/582

 CHAPTER III.

THE MARRIAGE OF PHŒBUS.

evening on that day, when the judiciary officers of the bishop came to pick up from the pavement of the Parvis the dislocated corpse of the archdeacon, Quasimodo had disappeared.

A great many rumors were in circulation with regard to this adventure. No one doubted but that the day had come when, in accordance with their compact, Quasimodo, that is to say, the devil, was to carry off Claude Frollo, that is to say, the sorcerer. It was presumed that he had broken the body when taking the soul, like monkeys who break the shell to get at the nut.

This is why the archdeacon was not interred in consecrated earth.

Louis XI. died a year later, in the month of August, 1483.

As for Pierre Gringoire, he succeeded in saving the goat, and he won success in tragedy. It appears that, after having tasted astrology, philosophy, architecture, hermetics,—all vanities, he returned to tragedy, vainest pursuit of all. This is what he called "coming to a tragic end." This is what is to be read, on the subject of his dramatic triumphs, in 1483, in the accounts of the "Ordinary:" "To Jehan Marchand and Pierre Gringoire, carpenter and composer, who have made and composed the mystery made at the Châtelet of Paris, at the 306