another demon exactly similar, who bears another little
egg which contains another devil, and so on."

"How do you know that?" asked Guillemette la Mairesse.

"I know it pertinently," replied the protonotary.

"Monsieur le protonotare," asked Gauchere, "what do you prognosticate of
this pretended foundling?"

"The greatest misfortunes," replied Mistricolle.

"Ah! good heavens!" said an old woman among the spectators, "and that
besides our having had a considerable pestilence last year, and that
they say that the English are going to disembark in a company at
Harfleur."

"Perhaps that will prevent the queen from coming to Paris in the month
of September," interposed another; "trade is so bad already."

"My opinion is," exclaimed Jehanne de la Tarme, "that it would be better
for the louts of Paris, if this little magician were put to bed on a
fagot than on a plank."

"A fine, flaming fagot," added the old woman.

"It would be more prudent," said Mistricolle.

For several minutes, a young priest had been listening to the reasoning
of the Haudriettes and the sentences of the notary. He had a severe
face, with a large brow, a profound glance. He thrust the crowd silently
aside, scrutinized the "little magician," and stretched out his hand
upon him. It was high time, for all the devotees were already licking
their chops over the "fine, flaming fagot."

"I adopt this child," said the priest.

He took it in his cassock and carried it off. The spectators followed
him with frightened glances. A moment later, he had disappeared through
the "Red Door," which then led from the church to the cloister.

When the first surprise was over, Jehanne de la Tarme bent down to the
ear of la Gaultiere,--

"I told you so, sister,--that young clerk, Monsieur Claude Frollo, is a
sorcerer."

CHAPTER II. CLAUDE FROLLO.

In fact, Claude Frollo was no common person.

He belonged to one of those middle-class families which were called
indifferently, in the impertinent language of the last century, the high
_bourgeoise_ or the petty nobility. This family had inherited from the
brothers Paclet the fief of Tirechappe, which was dependent upon the
Bishop of Paris, and whose twenty-one houses had been in the thirteenth
century the object of so many suits before the official. As possessor of
this fief, Claude Frollo was one of the twenty-seven seigneurs keeping
claim to a manor in fee in Paris and its suburbs; and for a long t