thought it very simple on the part of
people who had, like herself, nothing else in prospect but Charmolue and
Torterue, and who, unlike himself, did not gallop through the regions
of imagination between the wings of Pegasus. From their remarks, he
had learned that his wife of the broken crock had taken refuge in
Notre-Dame, and he was very glad of it. But he felt no temptation to
go and see her there. He meditated occasionally on the little goat, and
that was all. Moreover, he was busy executing feats of strength during
the day for his living, and at night he was engaged in composing a
memorial against the Bishop of Paris, for he remembered having been
drenched by the wheels of his mills, and he cherished a grudge against
him for it. He also occupied himself with annotating the fine work of
Baudry-le-Rouge, Bishop of Noyon and Tournay, _De Cupa Petrarum_, which
had given him a violent passion for architecture, an inclination which
had replaced in his heart his passion for hermeticism, of which it was,
moreover, only a natural corollary, since there is an intimate relation
between hermeticism and masonry. Gringoire had passed from the love of
an idea to the love of the form of that idea.

One day he had halted near Saint Germain-l'Auxerrois, at the corner of
a mansion called "For-l'Eveque" (the Bishop's Tribunal), which stood
opposite another called "For-le-Roi" (the King's Tribunal). At this
For-l'Eveque, there was a charming chapel of the fourteenth century,
whose apse was on the street. Gringoire was devoutly examining its
exterior sculptures. He was in one of those moments of egotistical,
exclusive, supreme, enjoyment when the artist beholds nothing in the
world but art, and the world in art. All at once he feels a hand laid
gravely on his shoulder. He turns round. It was his old friend, his
former master, monsieur the archdeacon.

He was stupefied. It was a long time since he had seen the archdeacon,
and Dom Claude was one of those solemn and impassioned men, a meeting
with whom always upsets the equilibrium of a sceptical philosopher.

The archdeacon maintained silence for several minutes, during which
Gringoire had time to observe him. He found Dom Claude greatly changed;
pale as a winter's morning, with hollow eyes, and hair almost white. The
priest broke the silence at length, by saying, in a tranquil but glacial
tone,--

"How do you do, Master Pierre?"

"My health?" replied Gringoire. "Eh! eh! one can say