THE RAT-HOLE.
The reader must permit us to take him to the Place de Grève, which we yesterday with Gringoire, in order to la Esmeralda.
It is ten o’clock in the morning; is of the day after a festival. The is with rubbish; ribbons, rags, from of plumes, of from the torches, of the public feast. A number of are “sauntering,” as we say, here and there, over with their the of the bonfire, going into in of the Pillar House, over the memory of the of the day before, and to-day at the that them a last pleasure. The of and are their among the groups. Some passers-by come and go. The merchants and call to each other from the of their shops. The festival, the ambassadors, Coppenole, the Pope of the Fools, are in all mouths; they with each other, each trying to it best and laugh the most. And, meanwhile, four sergeants, who have just posted themselves at the four of the pillory, have already around themselves a of the on the Place, who themselves to and in the of a small execution.
If the reader, after having this and noisy which is being in all parts of the Place, will now transfer his that demi-Gothic, demi-Romanesque house of the Tour-Roland, which the on the to the west, he will observe, at the of the façade, a large public breviary, with rich illuminations, protected from the rain by a little penthouse, and from by a small grating, which, however, of the being turned. Beside this is a narrow, window, closed by two iron in the of a cross, and looking on the square; the only opening which a small quantity of light and air to a little without a door, on the ground-floor, in the of the of the old house, and with a peace all the more profound, with a all the more gloomy, a public place, the most and most noisy in Paris and around it.
This little had been in Paris for nearly three centuries, since Madame Rolande de la Tour-Roland, in for her father who died in the Crusades, had it to be out in the of her own house, in order to herself there forever, of all her only this door was up, and window open, winter and summer, all the to the and to God. The had, in fact, waited twenty years for death in this tomb, praying night and day for the of her father, sleeping in ashes, without a for a pillow, in a black sack, and on the and water which the of the passers-by them to deposit on the of her window, thus after having it. At her death, at the moment when she was to the other sepulchre, she had this one in to women, mothers, widows, or maidens, who should wish to pray much for others or for themselves, and who should to themselves alive in a great or a great penance. The of her day had her a funeral, with and benedictions; but, to their great regret, the had not been canonized, for of influence. Those among them who were a little to impiety, had that the might be in Paradise more easily than at Rome, and had God, of the pope, in of the deceased. The majority had themselves with the memory of Rolande sacred, and her into relics. The city, on its side, had in of the damoiselle, a public breviary, which had been near the window of the cell, in order that passers-by might there from time to time, were it only to pray; that prayer might them of alms, and that the recluses, of Madame Rolande’s vault, might not die of and forgetfulness.
Moreover, this of was not so very a thing in the of the Middle Ages. One often in the most street, in the most and noisy market, in the very middle, under the of the horses, under the of the carts, as it were, a cellar, a well, a and cabin, at the of which a being prayed night and day, to some lamentation, to some great expiation. And all the which that would in us to-day; that cell, a of link a house and the tomb, the and the city; that being cut off from the community, and among the dead; that lamp its last of oil in the darkness; that of life in the grave; that breath, that voice, that prayer in a box of stone; that the other world; that already with another sun; that ear pressed to the of a tomb; that a in that body; that a in that cell, and that of and granite, the of that in pain;—nothing of all this was by the crowd. The of that age, not very much to reasoning, did not see so many in an act of religion. It took the thing in the block, honored, venerated, the at need, but did not the sufferings, and but for them. It some to the from time to time, looked through the to see he were still living, his name, how many years ago he had to die, and to the stranger, who questioned them about the who was in that cellar, the neighbors simply, “It is the recluse.”
Everything was then viewed without metaphysics, without exaggeration, without glass, with the eye. The had not yet been invented, either for of or for of the mind.
Moreover, although people were but little by it, the examples of this of in the of were in truth frequent, as we have just said. There were in Paris a number of these cells, for praying to God and doing penance; they were nearly all occupied. It is true that the did not like to have them empty, since that in believers, and that were put into them when there were no on hand. Besides the on the Grève, there was one at Montfaucon, one at the Charnier Innocents, another I know where,—at the Clichon House, I think; others still at many where of them are in traditions, in of memorials. The University had also its own. On Mount Sainte-Geneviève a of Job of the Middle Ages, for the space of thirty years, the seven on a at the of a cistern, when he had finished, at night, umbras, and to-day, the that he his voice as he enters the Rue du Puits-qui-parle—the of the “Speaking Well.”
To ourselves to the in the Tour-Roland, we must say that it had recluses. After the death of Madame Roland, it had for a year or two, though rarely. Many had come to mourn, until their death, for relatives, lovers, faults. Parisian malice, which its into everything, into which it the least, that it had but there.
In with the fashion of the epoch, a Latin on the to the learned passer-by the purpose of this cell. The was until the middle of the sixteenth century of an by a device above the door. Thus, one still reads in France, above the of the prison in the of Tourville, Sileto et spera; in Ireland, the which the door to Fortescue Castle, Forte scutum, ducum; in England, over the entrance to the of the Earls Cowper: Tuum est. At that time every was a thought.
As there was no door to the of the Tour-Roland, these two had been in large Roman over the window,—
TU, ORA.
And this the people, good not so much in things, and to Ludovico Magno by Porte Saint-Denis, to give to this dark, gloomy, cavity, the name of “The Rat-Hole.” An less sublime, perhaps, than the other; but, on the other hand, more picturesque.
