went by busy streets or quiet ones, Victor headed north.
When he came to the river Seine, perhaps he stopped to look at brightly painted laundry boats where women washed clothes in the water and hung them, flapping, on lines in the breeze. Maybe he watched as men with poles guided long, narrow barges downstream.
A stone bridge, the Pont de la Tournelle, arched over the river to an island in the Seine. To reach the island, Victor would have joined a stream of carriages, carts, animals, and people on foot swarming across the bridge.
Just upstream, on another island, rose the famous cathedral of Notre Dame, with its two great stone towers, taller even than the cathedral of Rodez.
A second bridge, and Victor would have crossed the Seine to the narrow, crowded streets on the other side.
When night came, he had to find a place to sleep. Perhaps he bedded down in the straw in one of the horse stables that could be found throughout the city, for runaways often took shelter there. Maybe he slept on the streets, but in any case, no one seems to have noticed him, as no news of his whereabouts reached Madame Guérin or Dr. Itard. All alone, he made his way through a city of half a million people.
Somehow, after starting from the Barrière d’Enfer on the very southern and western end of Paris, he managed to travel all the way to the other end of the city, to its far northeast edge. And somehow, by a means known only to himself, Victor passed through the city gates to the open country beyond.
T HE ROADS THAT LED OUT OF P ARIS were wide and smoothly paved, passing through countryside dotted with villages. After a time — perhaps one day, perhaps several days and nights — Victor reached a forest named after a village called Senlis.
The road that ran through it was perfectly straight, for it happened that the forest of Senlis had once been the king’s hunting preserve. It was pierced through with roads, built so that the king and his horsemen could chase their prey with ease. In places, many roads came together; signposts bristled with arrows pointing in all directions.
So no matter how far into the trees Victor ventured, he couldn’t avoid roads. And even if he
could
find a hiding place in those woods, then what?
At night, there was no fire to warm him, no light but the stars and the cold, distant moon. When he was hungry, he could search for bitter acorns or raw chestnuts, but he’d never find a warm meal or sit at a table with people who cared about him.
Perhaps now he also felt a different kind of hunger: a kind of loneliness he never knew in his old, wild days.
If he had a home in the world, it wasn’t here.
He left the forest and made his way back across the open fields.
By the time he came out of the woods, Victor’s clothes were muddy and torn. The next thing he knew, the police had mistaken him for a vagabond and arrested him.
They threw him into a country jail, perhaps into a dark cell with only a shred of sky glimpsed through a barred window. Day after day he languished there. Two weeks passed before, by some lucky chance, someone realized who he was: the strange, wild Savage of Aveyron.
He was taken back to Paris and held in a vast, castle-like prison called the Temple. In its stone towers, King Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette, had once been held captive before they were sent to the guillotine during the French Revolution.
And it was there that Madame Guérin came to rescue him.
When he saw her, Victor turned pale and almost fainted. Madame Guérin hugged and caressed him, and “he suddenly revived and showed his delight by sharp cries, convulsive clenching of his hands, and a radiant expression,” Dr. Itard wrote.
Dr. Itard wasn’t there himself, but he heard about it later from people who were. “In the eyes of all,” Itard wrote, “he appeared less like a fugitive obliged to return to the supervision of his keeper, than like an affectionate son who, of his own free will, comes and
When he came to the river Seine, perhaps he stopped to look at brightly painted laundry boats where women washed clothes in the water and hung them, flapping, on lines in the breeze. Maybe he watched as men with poles guided long, narrow barges downstream.
A stone bridge, the Pont de la Tournelle, arched over the river to an island in the Seine. To reach the island, Victor would have joined a stream of carriages, carts, animals, and people on foot swarming across the bridge.
Just upstream, on another island, rose the famous cathedral of Notre Dame, with its two great stone towers, taller even than the cathedral of Rodez.
A second bridge, and Victor would have crossed the Seine to the narrow, crowded streets on the other side.
When night came, he had to find a place to sleep. Perhaps he bedded down in the straw in one of the horse stables that could be found throughout the city, for runaways often took shelter there. Maybe he slept on the streets, but in any case, no one seems to have noticed him, as no news of his whereabouts reached Madame Guérin or Dr. Itard. All alone, he made his way through a city of half a million people.
Somehow, after starting from the Barrière d’Enfer on the very southern and western end of Paris, he managed to travel all the way to the other end of the city, to its far northeast edge. And somehow, by a means known only to himself, Victor passed through the city gates to the open country beyond.
T HE ROADS THAT LED OUT OF P ARIS were wide and smoothly paved, passing through countryside dotted with villages. After a time — perhaps one day, perhaps several days and nights — Victor reached a forest named after a village called Senlis.
The road that ran through it was perfectly straight, for it happened that the forest of Senlis had once been the king’s hunting preserve. It was pierced through with roads, built so that the king and his horsemen could chase their prey with ease. In places, many roads came together; signposts bristled with arrows pointing in all directions.
So no matter how far into the trees Victor ventured, he couldn’t avoid roads. And even if he
could
find a hiding place in those woods, then what?
At night, there was no fire to warm him, no light but the stars and the cold, distant moon. When he was hungry, he could search for bitter acorns or raw chestnuts, but he’d never find a warm meal or sit at a table with people who cared about him.
Perhaps now he also felt a different kind of hunger: a kind of loneliness he never knew in his old, wild days.
If he had a home in the world, it wasn’t here.
He left the forest and made his way back across the open fields.
By the time he came out of the woods, Victor’s clothes were muddy and torn. The next thing he knew, the police had mistaken him for a vagabond and arrested him.
They threw him into a country jail, perhaps into a dark cell with only a shred of sky glimpsed through a barred window. Day after day he languished there. Two weeks passed before, by some lucky chance, someone realized who he was: the strange, wild Savage of Aveyron.
He was taken back to Paris and held in a vast, castle-like prison called the Temple. In its stone towers, King Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette, had once been held captive before they were sent to the guillotine during the French Revolution.
And it was there that Madame Guérin came to rescue him.
When he saw her, Victor turned pale and almost fainted. Madame Guérin hugged and caressed him, and “he suddenly revived and showed his delight by sharp cries, convulsive clenching of his hands, and a radiant expression,” Dr. Itard wrote.
Dr. Itard wasn’t there himself, but he heard about it later from people who were. “In the eyes of all,” Itard wrote, “he appeared less like a fugitive obliged to return to the supervision of his keeper, than like an affectionate son who, of his own free will, comes and
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