Jean-Francois Champollion Reads the Stone
Jean-Francois Champollion Reads the Stone — a biography. 10 illustrated pages, narrated, on the kids shelf, free to read on Wonder People.
Page 1
Up on the Montmartre hilltop, the windmill sails creaked round against the grey sweep of Paris below, and Zoé's kite climbed on the wind, its paper belly covered in her chalky copied birds and zigzags. She hauled on the string, laughing, running backwards through the vineyard rows. Then the kite dove, snapped against a turning sail, and the string whipped loose from her fingers. The gust that freed it slammed straight into the leather portfolio under Champollion's arm, ripping the buckle open. Forty sheets of tracing paper burst out at once, spinning up and away over the slope. "Catch them! Catch them!" he shouted, scrambling after the nearest sheet on his knees, grabbing at air. Zoé dropped the broken kite and flung herself downhill too, snatching at the papers skittering through the vine leaves toward the rooftops of Paris far below. One after another the sheets sailed past their reaching hands, tumbling faster than either of them could run.
Page 2
The papers skimmed low over the cobbles and Zoé went after them, clogs clattering between the stalls, braids flying out behind her. She lunged for a sheet sliding under a cart and her shoulder caught a barrel taller than her waist — it toppled with a hollow boom and apples bounced away in every direction, rolling under feet and awnings. Champollion scrambled after the last tracing sheet, arms outstretched, shouting for it to stop, but the wind flicked it further down the lane of market stalls, past oyster barrels and baskets of cabbages. Just as it skated toward the open gutter, a long cane shot out and its ivory knob came down flat on the paper, pinning it fast to the stones. Champollion looked up, startled, at the very tall stranger who had stopped it, while a fishmonger laughed and tossed an escaped apple back onto its cart. Zoé, red-faced and panting, was still chasing a runaway apple in a wide circle round a cabbage cart, scooping two more into her pinafore as she went, and a boy with a broom swept rolling apples out of the lane.
Page 3
A gust off the river flipped the boxed engraving clean off the bookstall's sloping shelf, and Zoé lunged for it with both arms, missing by a hand's width as it tumbled over the stone parapet into the Seine. 'No, no, no!' she shrieked, already scrambling up onto the ledge. Jacques-Joseph hauled her back down by her pinafore strings before she could follow the print into the water. Below, the box bobbed, spinning in the current. A passing boatman swung his long iron hook across, and Champollion grabbed the shaft with him, both of them leaning out over the low wall, dragging the dripping box back hand over hand until it slapped onto the cobbles. Water sheeted off the glass. Jacques-Joseph snapped open a bookseller's awning rope strung between two posts and the three of them pegged the soaked engraving up by its corners like laundry, Zoé standing on tiptoe on an upturned crate to reach the highest peg, chalk-dust smearing her wet fingers as she worked.
Page 4
The doors banged wide and a cloud of dust rolled in with the sunburnt wide man, paper rolls clattering across his back. He didn't pause for the hush of the reading room but strode straight to the long table, hip-high and stretching the length of the gallery, and heaved his bundle onto it. One tug of blue tape and a four-metre scroll of Abu Simbel drawings went rattling down the whole table and off the far end, unrolling like a carpet. An inkpot, jolted loose, went bowling along the wood towards the edge. Zoé dropped her slate on its cord and scrambled after it, skidding on her clogs, cupping both hands just as it toppled over the lip. Jacques-Joseph lunged with his cane to catch the tail of the scroll before it slid to the floor, while Champollion seized the near end, flattening it under his inky palms, already bending close to read.
Page 5
The rope round the stone block hissed and slipped, and the crate lurched sideways on the cart with a groan that echoed round the whole stone courtyard. 'It's going!' shouted Zoé, scrambling back out of the way. Huyot was already hauling a plank from the pile against the wall, shoving it under the sliding block's edge with both broad arms braced and his boots dug into the gravel. The block settled with a thud, safe. Jacques-Joseph grabbed the loose rope end and lashed it twice round the cart wheel to hold the whole load steady. Meanwhile Champollion had dropped straight to his knees before the stone, paying no mind to the commotion, pressing a sheet of paper flat against a carved cartouche and rubbing charcoal across it in quick dark strokes, catching the royal name before anyone could think to move the block again. Zoé crouched beside him, holding the paper's corner flat with both hands so the wind would not lift it, watching the shapes bloom under the charcoal like magic rising out of the stone.
Page 6
The attic study was a tower of books from floor to the slanted skylight, stacks waist-high, chest-high, higher still, a washing line of cartouche strips strung wall to wall above them. Zoé scrambled up the swaying tower, clogs knocking volumes loose, one hand gripping the line, the other pegging the last strip with her chalk-knotted cord swinging. 'Nearly there!' she called, and the whole stack lurched. Jacques-Joseph lunged with his cane to brace it, too late — books thundered down and the strips of paper rained loose through the air. Champollion dove across the table, scattering ink pots, and snatched one falling strip out of the air before it touched the floor. He stared at it, eyes wide, and shouted the sounds aloud, already turning for the stairs. Huyot caught Zoé as she tumbled off the collapsing tower, swinging her safely down onto a cushion of fallen books. 'You have it?' he bellowed after the fleeing scholar, dust still settling around them all like snow.
Page 7
Champollion ran, papers clamped flat against his chest with both ink-stained hands, his trailing striped scarf whipping behind him across the iron footbridge. Zoé clattered alongside in her wooden clogs, shouting directions, while Jacques-Joseph strode after them, cane swinging, and Huyot lumbered last, his paper rolls bouncing on his back. A gust snatched Champollion's hat clean off and sent it tumbling over the railing toward the river below. He skidded to a stop, grabbing the iron rail with one hand, papers nearly slipping from the other. Below, a laundry barge glided past, its washing lines strung with dripping sheets. A bargewoman spotted the floating hat, hooked it deftly on the end of a long wooden pole, and hoisted it high. Zoé leaned dangerously over the rail, reaching down with both arms, and Jacques-Joseph caught her pinafore strap to hold her steady while Huyot braced his wide shoulder against the railing as an anchor. The hat swung up, dripping, and Champollion grabbed it, jamming it crookedly back onto his curls, laughing with relief as the whole bridge rattled with their scrambling footsteps.
Page 8
Standing balanced on a chair at one end of the domed hall, Huyot hauled the top edge of the great pasted banner over his head, while across the room Zoé climbed up onto another chair, gripping the far end in both fists. 'Let go together!' shouted Jacques-Joseph, waving his cane like a conductor's baton. Huyot dropped his end and Zoé flung hers outward, and the long banner of pasted cartouches came unrolling down the tiers of seats, tumbling over armrests and cascading to the marble floor in a slow paper waterfall. Scholars scrambled up from their benches to see, robes catching on each other's elbows. Champollion ran along beside the unrolling banner, pointing with an ink-stained finger at each cartouche, calling out names as they appeared. Jacques-Joseph steadied a toppling chair with his cane so Huyot could climb down safely, while Zoé jumped from her own chair and landed clattering in her clogs, grinning up at the rising murmur of the hall.
Page 9
The tray of metal type, waist-high on its wooden stand, tips sideways with a crash that scatters hundreds of tiny hieroglyph blocks across the floorboards. Everyone drops to their knees at once. Zoé scrambles under the press itself, chasing a rolling seated-figure block, while Jacques-Joseph braces his cane against the floor and leans down, sweeping blocks into his long palm with careful fingers. Huyot hauls the empty tray upright, grunting with the effort, and holds it steady as Champollion crawls on hands and knees, sorting bird-signs from zigzags by eye and dropping each into its proper slot. When the last block clicks home, Champollion himself hauls the lever that lowers the press plate, and together he and Huyot peel the first damp sheet free with careful tugging fingers. Jacques-Joseph takes one corner, Zoé stands on tiptoe for the other, and they pin it dripping to the drying line strung across the room, the wet ink still glistening under the hanging lamps.
Page 10
Six years had sanded down the ink stains but not the scarf. At Toulon harbour the crane groaned, hauling a net of crates up past the ship's rail, each crate waist-high and stencilled EMPTY NOTEBOOKS. The small man with black curls climbed the gangplank last, clutching one final crate against his chest with both arms, boots sliding on the salt-slicked wood. Behind him the very tall grey-coated man braced the gangplank rope, hooking it steady with his cane so the planks would not buck. Nearby the wide bald man heaved a strapped bundle of paper rolls higher onto his own shoulders, grunting under the weight, steadying a loose crate with his boot before it tipped off the quay edge. Down on the stones the freckled girl crouched, scraping a stub of chalk across the warm quayside wall, drawing a wobbly cartouche twice her own height's worth of care, though small itself. Gulls wheeled over the forest of masts as the ship's bell rang the hour.
About this story
- Audience: kids (ages 6–12)
- Format: 10 illustrated pages, narrated, on the kids shelf, free to read on Wonder People
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