The Bath Keepers Volume I Part 2

"I know that too; but to-night you played lansquenet at the Sire de Jarnonville's, and luck smiled upon you; that is why I attacked you."

"Clearly, you add to your other talents that of being a sorcerer. All Italians smell of the stake!"

"I should regret extremely, signor, to resort to my weapons; surely you must have been told that that is not my habit! I must always be driven to it. But if you do not give up your purse with a good grace----"

"No, a thousand times no! Do you expect to frighten me, I wonder?"

Giovanni gave the young count hardly time to finish his sentence; he drew his broad sword, and, leaping upon his adversary with a rapidity and address which left him no time to attack, in a few seconds he had sent Leodgard's gleaming rapier flying through the air; and placing the point of his weapon against the young n.o.bleman's breast, with his left hand he swiftly took the purse from his belt, saying, with a slight movement of the head:

"You see, my young gentleman, it was not worth while to go through so many forms!"

And in an instant the brigand had vanished.

As for Leodgard, thoroughly ashamed of his discomfiture, he stood as if stupefied, and could only mutter:

"Beaten! beaten by that Giovanni!--Ah! I will have my revenge!"

III

THE BATH KEEPERS

In the days of royal licenses, when the grocers and apothecaries formed but a single guild, it was the same with the barbers and surgeons.

In the year 1620, forty-eight patents had been granted to _barbiers-baigneurs-etuvistes_, who were perruquiers following the court. Later, their number was largely increased.

The right to keep hot or cold baths was specially attached to the guild of master perruquiers.

A fas.h.i.+onable bathing establishment, with both hot and cold baths, stood on Rue Saint-Jacques, near the corner of Rue des Mathurins. From a long distance one could see its basins, painted a light blue as the ordinance required; and over the door were these words in huge letters:

BEARDS PROPERLY SHAVED WITHIN; HOT AND COLD BATHS

At this time the price of a bath varied from six to twelve livres [francs]; and when we consider that a livre then was worth almost three times as much as to-day, we must agree that there is a vast difference between that price and the price in our modern bathing establishments, where one obtains five tickets for three francs. The result is a great improvement in respect to health and cleanliness, for everybody cannot go to the river to bathe.

What did the poor people do in those days; for six livres was an enormous sum to them?

If, in the good old times, a bath was such an expensive luxury, on the other hand, the houses where they were supplied bore a very bad reputation; they were, it is said, places of a.s.signation for lewd women, who, because of their rank or condition, were obliged to try to cloak their evil conduct.

Many preachers thundered from the pulpit against these places, which had been adorned with an honest name.

Maillard, in sermons noteworthy for their power and their crudity of expression, said, as he declaimed against the scandal caused by these establishments:

"Mesdames, do not go to the baths, and do not do there what I need not name!"

Sauval tells us that the baths continued their existence for a long time; people did not cease to frequent them until the end of the seventeenth century. They had become so common then that a person could hardly take a step without pa.s.sing one.

Let us return to our shop on Rue Saint-Jacques. It was kept by a stout old fellow of some fifty years, as strong and bright and active as a young man, whose name was Hugonnet. He was a red-faced _compere_, hasty of speech and of gesture; his round, full, rubicund face exhaled health and good humor; his little round gray eyes had a slightly mischievous expression; his chin was beginning to become double, and his hair to turn gray; but Master Hugonnet worried little about that; so long as his place was well patronized, whether it was resorted to by cavaliers, bachelors, esquires, courtiers, people from the city, or even from the country, mattered little to him, if the customers paid promptly; for after a profitable day, the bath keeper rarely failed to go to the nearest wine shop, to regale and enjoy himself, whence he commonly returned home tipsy; he called it having "a little point."

The peculiar feature of Master Hugonnet's intoxication was that it totally changed his disposition; and instead of intensifying his pa.s.sions and his vices, as wine so generally does, it endowed him with qualities of which no one would ever have suspected him when he was sober, and deprived him entirely of those which distinguished him in his normal condition.--For instance, the bath keeper was far from patient; he lost his temper easily, was quick to quarrel, would never give way, and was always ready to fight. To be sure, when blows had once been exchanged, Hugonnet bore his adversary no malice, and would soon be laughing and drinking with him. But in his cups the old fellow became as gentle and timid as a child; disposed to do what anyone desired, he was easily moved to compa.s.sion for the misfortunes of his neighbor; and if anyone told him some pitiful tale, it was no uncommon thing to see him weep, and disturb the neighborhood by his groans as he stumbled home.

That always indicated that the libations had been copious, the b.u.mpers frequent, and that the bath keeper was completely drunk.

Hugonnet was a widower and had but one child, a daughter, who, when our tale opens, had just reached her eighteenth year. Ambroisine was a fine girl, tall and strong, well set up and shapely. Her foot was not very small, but her calf was symmetrical and of good size; her hand might have been smaller, more tapering, but it was pink and white, and plump.

Her bearing and her gestures were somewhat brusque at times, and gave her rather too disdainful an air; but her smile was so frank and pleasant that it excused any possible rudeness in her manner to persons who did not know her well.

Ambroisine was very good-looking; her hair was as black as jet; her dark brown eyes were neither too large nor too small, and were amply fringed by long lashes of the color of her hair; she fastened them with perfect self-possession upon the person with whom she was speaking; but although they did not express the ordinary shyness of a girl of her years, they were so compa.s.sionate to the wretched, so amiable in joy, so fiery in wrath, that they were always fine eyes.

A mouth somewhat large, but well supplied with teeth, lips a little heavy, but ruddy and smiling, a round chin, a high, white forehead, and eyebrows clearly marked without being too thick--such was the daughter of Master Hugonnet, who was usually spoken of in the Quartier Saint-Jacques as La Belle Baigneuse.

Ambroisine's charms undoubtedly had much to do with the popularity of her father's establishment.

Master Hugonnet's house was never empty; it was the rendezvous of young n.o.blemen, of the king's arquebusiers and halberdiers, of lordlings, of country squires and students, of men of the sword and men of the pen, of law clerks of the Basoche, and sometimes of a royal princess's pages.

The ladies who came to the baths--and we have already said that there were many of them--liked to be waited upon, cared for, and dressed by Ambroisine, who was quick, active, skilful, and acquitted herself of her task with a charming good humor which made it a pleasure to employ her.

It is probable that among all the young sparks and popinjays who came to Master Hugonnet's, more than one would have been equally glad to obtain the services of the daughter of the house; but they were obliged to do without them, for La Belle Baigneuse naturally was at the orders of the ladies only. Still, when there was a crowd in the barber's shop clamoring for the good offices of his razor and his comb, Ambroisine, who could shave a beard as surely and rapidly as her father, sometimes consented to lend him a hand, and to attend to the needs of one of the cavaliers who were waiting to be put in trim. The man for whom she offered to perform that service always accepted it as a favor, and strove to impart to his face a most seductive expression; and he never failed thereafter to proclaim all over the city that he had been shaved by Master Hugonnet's daughter, while everyone gazed enviously at the chin which La Belle Baigneuse had lathered.

But such opportunities were rare. Ambroisine was too much occupied with the baths to be often in her father's shop. And he loved his daughter too well ever to require her to do anything against her will. In vain did the young c.o.xcombs, nay, even the great n.o.bles, say to the barber:

"Shall we not see your daughter to-day, Master Hugonnet?" or: "Messire barbier, I have been awaiting my turn a long while, pray send for the fair Ambroisine to shave me"; or "By my sword! I would gladly pay double to be shaved by her!"

To all these and many other like remarks, the good-natured gossip would reply simply:

"My lords, I am in despair that I am unable to gratify you; but my daughter is engaged with some ladies who are pleased to patronize my baths. I have two young men there; but to wait on the fair s.e.x I have only my daughter, who is sufficient for the task, because she is fortunately endowed; and because she does in a few moments the work that would take others an hour. Oh! she is a girl in a thousand, is my Ambroisine! And as for shaving you, I know that she would do that perfectly, too; she is my pupil! Such a sure, light, quick hand! Never has she cut the skin of any man's chin, and yet even I have sometimes done that! it may happen to the most skilful. But, I tell you again, Ambroisine is at the orders of none but the ladies of all ranks who choose to come to my establishment to take baths; and, frankly, that is more suitable. When I see her shaving a gentleman with the dexterity and self-possession which distinguish her, I am proud of my pupil! But, on the other hand, I am humiliated to see her do that work, and I say to myself: 'By Notre-Dame de Paris! this is no place for my daughter!'--Moreover, you have little hesitation in making gallant speeches to her, in saying obscene things.--However, I am not disturbed!

If Ambroisine cares to laugh sometimes,--and in our profession one would be very foolish to be too surly,--she is well able none the less to keep in their place those who presume to take too many liberties. My daughter is a determined wench, I tell you; she has a hand as quick and a fist as solid as her father's! And woe to those who take the risk of having it proved to them!"

By such harangues did Master Hugonnet reply to the young men who displayed a too ardent desire to see his daughter. As a general rule, the students, the country gentlemen, and the simple esquires listened to reason; but it was not always so with the young n.o.bles, who considered themselves at liberty to do anything, because they were received at court, and because the lieutenant of police closed his eyes too often to their escapades. When one of them had taken it into his head that he would see Ambroisine, all that the barber could say to convince him that that might not be was of no avail, and sometimes was received in bad part.

But although he was very glad to have n.o.ble customers, Master Hugonnet was not of a humor to endure the impertinences of any man whatsoever; the marquis, no less than the humble bachelor, felt the effects of his wrath. And when a young gentleman seemed disposed to take up his abode in his shop, saying:

"I will not go away until I have seen the fair Ambroisine!"

The barber would shout in stentorian tones:

"Well! you shall not see her, _triple savonnette_! there's no law to compel her to be at your beck and call!"

But the sonorous voice of Master Hugonnet would reach the ears of Ambroisine, who, divining from her father's tone that he was in a pa.s.sion, would at once leave her work and run to the shop, to put an end to the dispute.

At sight of the girl, the person who had caused all the uproar would begin to laugh and would exclaim, with a bantering glance at the barber:

"I told you that I would not go away without a sight of the charming Ambroisine! I have succeeded, you see!"

Whereupon Master Hugonnet would look sheepish; but a word or two from his daughter would speedily allay his anger, and more than one among the witnesses of the scene would resolve to employ the same method when he wished to see La Belle Baigneuse.

Now that we are acquainted with Master Hugonnet's house and household, we must pay a visit to the establishment of another bath keeper, on Rue Dauphine. That street, which had been laid out twenty years earlier, on the site of the garden of the Augustinians and of the buildings of the College Saint-Denis, was already lined by fine houses, and had an air of refinement and a cla.s.s of inhabitants in striking contrast to Quartier Saint-Jacques.