Then mounting her carriage, she placed them opposite to her, and giving the order to her attendants, ‘A Vaugirard’—they drove off rapidly along the Rue d’Enfer.
CHAPTER XI.
MAÎTRE PICARD PROSECUTES A SUCCESSFUL CRUSADE AGAINST THE STUDENTS
There are very few portions of Paris which have retained their physiognomy of the moyen âge with less change than the Quartier Latin. The narrow tortuous streets have undergone little alteration since they were first built; few new thoroughfares have intersected the dense cluster of tall gloomy houses that bound them; in fact, as far as the line of the Rue des Fosses, whereon the ramparts were still partly situated at the time of this romance, everything has remained nearly in the same state for centuries. The humble nature of the articles exposed for sale in the different shop windows, and the small prices attached thereunto, were the same formerly as now. For the denizens of this learned pays have been, time out of mind, the members of the different schools; and poverty and clerkship ever wandered hand-in-hand together about its venerable streets, or ruminated in its cloistered quietudes.
Yet have not the livelier parts of the city, most known to passing sojourners, a fiftieth part of the interest which is attached to the dirty old quartier wherein our scene now passes, although money has ever been the scarcest article to be found within its limits, since the days when the ‘Cloistre St. Benoyt’ and ‘Hostel de Clugny’ were newly erected buildings. We ourselves have lived merrily therein, in small cabins at the extreme summits of houses, where carnival irregularities drove us to restrict our expenses, literally to a few sous a-day—when three hard eggs, some bread, and a cruet of wine formed a jovial dinner; and a pair of bright eyes could sometimes be found to laugh in company over such an humble meal as this, and desire none better. Certainly if such a thing as disinterested affection exists in the world—which at times we feel inclined to doubt—it is to be found in the Quartier Latin. And then its associations! It conjures up no visions of English parvenus, vulgar tourists, and Meurice’s Table d’Hôte; you would not find a Galignani’s Messenger, or a cake of Windsor soap throughout its entire range. No; all your thoughts would be of doublets and pointed shoes—of rapiers and scholars of Cluny; of anything, in fact, the reverse to what would suggest itself on the other side of the river.
But our hobby is fairly running away with us over a course we have before traversed; we must return once more to that which has long past. In 1665 there stood at the corner of the Rue des Mathurins and Rue de la Harpe, in the very heart of this venerable division of Paris, the shop of ‘Maître Picard, chapelier.’ It was a modest edifice, with one large window, in which were displayed hats and caps of every age and style. For the students then, as now, held prevalent fashions in great contempt, and dressed according to their whims and finances, or in whatever they contrived to capture in night skirmishes from the persons of the bourgeoisie.
To advertise his calling Maître Picard had erected a sign in front of his house, over and above the intimation just mentioned. It was a huge hat of red tin, gaily adorned with gilt edges, from which, on certain festivals, bright ribbons floated in the draughts of wind that whisked round the corner of the streets, to the great admiration of the passers-by in general, coupled with wonder that it had remained so long unmolested in such a precarious locality as the neighbourhood of the Hôtel Dieu and Sorbonne. But this was because it was a little too high up for them to clutch it; a few feet lower, and long ago, Maître Picard would have been horrified some fine morning at perceiving his sign had vanished: for, as we have seen, the rotund little patrol was one of the marching watch; and the same antipathie vouée which the student of the Quartier Latin at the present time exhibits towards the Sergent de ville, existed quite as forcibly two hundred years ago between the scholar of Cluny and the Garde Bourgeois.
Since the rude treatment which Maître Picard had received from the hands of his sworn persecutors at the ‘Lanterne,’ in the Rue Mouffetard, he had neglected no opportunity of interfering with their enjoyments, and various had been the schemes which Camille Theria and Phillipe Glazer had planned for revenge. But they had all failed; especially every enterprise against the hat, to which their designs were principally directed. For they knew that the gigantic metal sign was the pride of Maître Picard’s heart, and the glory of the Rue des Mathurins—that its abstraction would crush his public spirit; and that as such, no stone should be left unturned in effecting its destruction. And indeed, as far as that went, they tried to carry out their intentions in a very literal spirit, as the broken state of the rude pavement below, and several large dents in the enormous hat above, fully testified.
At last, by what appeared to be a fortunate chance for the marauders, Jean Blacquart, the Gascon, took a lodging on the upper floor of the house; being principally led to such a step by a feeling of gratitude for the timely intercession of Maître Picard, when his fellow-students were about to hang him. The instant this became known, it was resolved that advantage should be taken of his occupancy to carry off the hat. Blacquart, at first, plumply refused to assist in such an irregular proceeding; but after Theria had assured him that in the event of his non-compliance he would be dropped in the Bièvre, or slowly roasted before the fire of the cabaret in the Rue Mouffetard, the Gascon assented. A particular night was fixed upon for the attempt, and a meeting of the ‘Gens de la Courte Epée’ called at a tavern in the Rue des Cordeliers—the site of the present Rue de l’École de Médecine—to effect this object.
That night Maître Picard, not being on guard, resolved upon indulging in potent drinks and toothsome viands in his little parlour behind the shop. He had closed his wareroom at an early hour; and having invited Jean Blacquart to join him—for the Gascon was not of the marauding party, although he had an indirect part to perform in the outrage—was discussing hot wine with his lodger a little after curfew, and listening to his rhodomontades connected with his profession and deeds and actions generally.
Jean had told a great many narratives about encounters he had won (which had never taken place) and enemies he had killed (who were still alive), increasing the marvels of each with each cup of wine, until the fulness of his heart, coupled with his fear of being mixed up in the affair, led him to inform Maître Picard of the intended attempt upon his hat to be made that very evening. The apartment occupied by the Gascon was at the top of the house; it had formerly been a granary—such as may still be seen in Paris—and outside a small but strong wooden crane was fixed, hanging over the doomed sign. To the rope of this a loop was to be made, and then Camille Theria, who had taken the danger and the glory of the enterprise to himself, was to be hauled up until he came within reach of the hat, which he was to take from its fixings and bear off in triumph.