Thus, at the corner of the Street of the Old Temple, and another which led into it, a beautiful and elaborate niche with a baldachin of fretted stone, and a richly-carved pediment, offered to the eyes of the passers-by a very-well executed figure of the Virgin, holding in her arms the infant Savior, and from this image the house on which it was affixed obtained the name of the Hôtel de Nôtre Dame. Notwithstanding the sanctity of the emblem, and the beauty of the building--for it was of the finest style of French architecture, then in its decay--the house had been very little inhabited for some twenty or thirty years. It had been found too small and incommodious for modern taste. Men had built themselves larger dwellings, and, although this had not been suffered to become actually dilapidated, there were evident traces of neglect about it--casements broken and distorted, doors and gates on which unforbidden urchins carved grotesque faces and letters hardly less fantastical, moldings and cornices time-worn and moldering, and stones gathering lichen and soot with awful rapidity.
All was darkness along the front of that house. No torches blazed before it; no window shot forth a ray; and the sinking moon cast a black shadow across the street, and half way up the wall on the other side.
Nevertheless, in one room of that house there were lamps lighted, and a blazing fire upon the hearth. Wine, too, was upon the table, rich, and in abundance; but yet it was hardly tasted; for there were passions busy in that room, more powerful than wine. It was low in the ceiling, the walls covered with hangings of leather which had once been gilt, and painted with various devices but from which all traces of human handiwork had nearly vanished, leaving nothing but a gloomy, dark drapery on the wall, which seemed rather to suck in than return the rays. It was large and well proportioned, however. The great massy beams which, any one could touch with their hand, were supported by four stout stone pillars, and the whole light centered in the middle of the room, leaving a fringe, as it were, of obscurity all round. If numbers could make any place gay, that room or hall would have been cheerful enough; for not less than seventeen or eighteen persons were collected there, and many of them appeared persons of no inferior degree. Each was more or less armed, and battle-axes, maces, and heavy swords lay around; but a solemn, gloomy stillness hung upon the whole party. It was evidently no festal occasion on which they met. The wine, as I have said, had no charms for them; conversation had as little.
One tall powerful man sat before the chimney with his mailed arms crossed upon his chest, and his eyes fixed upon the flickering blaze in the fire-place. Another was seated near the table, drawing, with the end of a straw, wild, fantastic figures on the board with some wine which had been spilled. Some dull men at a distance nodded, and others, with their hands upon their brows, and eyes bent down, remained in heavy thought.
At length one of them spoke, "Tedious work this," he said. "Action suits me best. I love not to lie like a spider at the bottom of his web, waiting till the fly buzzes into his nest. Here we have been five or six long days, and nothing done. I will not wait longer than to-morrow's sunrise, whatever you may say, Ralph."
The other, who was gazing into the fire, turned his head a little, answering in a gruff tone, "I tell you he is now in Paris. He arrived this very evening. We shall hear more anon."
The conversation ceased; for no one else took it up, and each of the speakers fell into silence again.
Some quarter of an hour passed, and then the one who was at the table started and seemed to listen.
There was certainly a step in the passage without, and the moment after there was a knock at the door. One of those within advanced, and inquired who was there.
"Ich Houde," answered a voice, and immediately the door was unlocked, and a ponderous bolt withdrawn.