royal chime of
the palace scatters on all sides, and without relaxation, resplendent
trills, upon which fall, at regular intervals, the heavy strokes from
the belfry of Notre-Dame, which makes them sparkle like the anvil under
the hammer. At intervals you behold the passage of sounds of all forms
which come from the triple peal of Saint-Germaine des Pres. Then, again,
from time to time, this mass of sublime noises opens and gives passage
to the beats of the Ave Maria, which bursts forth and sparkles like
an aigrette of stars. Below, in the very depths of the concert, you
confusedly distinguish the interior chanting of the churches, which
exhales through the vibrating pores of their vaulted roofs.

Assuredly, this is an opera which it is worth the trouble of listening
to. Ordinarily, the noise which escapes from Paris by day is the city
speaking; by night, it is the city breathing; in this case, it is the
city singing. Lend an ear, then, to this concert of bell towers; spread
over all the murmur of half a million men, the eternal plaint of the
river, the infinite breathings of the wind, the grave and distant
quartette of the four forests arranged upon the hills, on the horizon,
like immense stacks of organ pipes; extinguish, as in a half shade,
all that is too hoarse and too shrill about the central chime, and
say whether you know anything in the world more rich and joyful, more
golden, more dazzling, than this tumult of bells and chimes;--than
this furnace of music,--than these ten thousand brazen voices chanting
simultaneously in the flutes of stone, three hundred feet high,--than
this city which is no longer anything but an orchestra,--than this
symphony which produces the noise of a tempest.

BOOK FOURTH.

CHAPTER I. GOOD SOULS.

Sixteen years previous to the epoch when this story takes place, one
fine morning, on Quasimodo Sunday, a living creature had been deposited,
after mass, in the church of Notre-Dame, on the wooden bed securely
fixed in the vestibule on the left, opposite that great image of Saint
Christopher, which the figure of Messire Antoine des Essarts, chevalier,
carved in stone, had been gazing at on his knees since 1413, when
they took it into their heads to overthrow the saint and the faithful
follower. Upon this bed of wood it was customary to expose foundlings
for public charity. Whoever cared to take them did so. In front of the
wooden bed was a copper basin for alms.