had
slipped away. This had not, however, interfered with the progress of the
affair. Justice, at that epoch, troubled itself very little about the
clearness and definiteness of a criminal suit. Provided that the accused
was hung, that was all that was necessary. Now the judge had plenty of
proofs against la Esmeralda. They had supposed Phoebus to be dead, and
that was the end of the matter.

Phoebus, on his side, had not fled far. He had simply rejoined his
company in garrison at Queue-en-Brie, in the Isle-de-France, a few
stages from Paris.

After all, it did not please him in the least to appear in this suit.
He had a vague feeling that he should play a ridiculous figure in it.
On the whole, he did not know what to think of the whole affair.
Superstitious, and not given to devoutness, like every soldier who is
only a soldier, when he came to question himself about this adventure,
he did not feel assured as to the goat, as to the singular fashion in
which he had met La Esmeralda, as to the no less strange manner in which
she had allowed him to divine her love, as to her character as a gypsy,
and lastly, as to the surly monk. He perceived in all these incidents
much more magic than love, probably a sorceress, perhaps the devil;
a comedy, in short, or to speak in the language of that day, a very
disagreeable mystery, in which he played a very awkward part, the role
of blows and derision. The captain was quite put out of countenance
about it; he experienced that sort of shame which our La Fontaine has so
admirably defined,--

Ashamed as a fox who has been caught by a fowl.

Moreover, he hoped that the affair would not get noised abroad, that his
name would hardly be pronounced in it, and that in any case it would
not go beyond the courts of the Tournelle. In this he was not mistaken,
there was then no "Gazette des Tribunaux;" and as not a week passed
which had not its counterfeiter to boil, or its witch to hang, or its
heretic to burn, at some one of the innumerable justices of Paris,
people were so accustomed to seeing in all the squares the ancient
feudal Themis, bare armed, with sleeves stripped up, performing her duty
at the gibbets, the ladders, and the pillories, that they hardly paid
any heed to it. Fashionable society of that day hardly knew the name
of the victim who passed by at the corner of the street, and it was the
populace at the most who regaled themselves with this coarse fare. An
execut