Notre-Dame de Paris

Notre-Dame de Paris

By Victor Hugo.

Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Preface
4. Notre-Dame de Paris
   1. Book I
      1. I: The Grand Hall
      2. II: Pierre Gringoire
      3. III: Monsieur the Cardinal
      4. IV: Master Jacques Coppenole
      5. V: Quasimodo
      6. VI: Esmeralda
   2. Book II
      1. I: From Charybdis to Scylla
      2. II: The Place de Grève
      3. III: Kisses for Blows
      4. IV: The Inconveniences of Following a Pretty Woman Through the Streets in the Evening
      5. V: Result of the Dangers
      6. VI: The Broken Jug
      7. VII: A Bridal Night
   3. Book III
      1. I: Notre-Dame
      2. II: A Bird’s-Eye View of Paris
   4. Book IV
      1. I: Good Souls
      2. II: Claude Frollo
      3. III: Immanis Pecoris Custos, Immanior Ipse
      4. IV: The Dog and His Master
      5. V: More About Claude Frollo
      6. VI: Unpopularity
   5. Book V
      1. I: Abbas Beati Martini
      2. II: This Will Kill That
   6. Book VI
      1. I: An Impartial Glance at the Ancient Magistracy
      2. II: The Rat-Hole
      3. III: History of a Leavened Cake of Maize
      4. IV: A Tear for a Drop of Water
      5. V: End of the Story of the Cake
   7. Book VII
      1. I: The Danger of Confiding One’s Secret to a Goat
      2. II: A Priest and a Philosopher Are Two Different Things
      3. III: The Bells
      4. IV: Ἀνάγκη
      5. V: The Two Men Clothed in Black
      6. VI: The Effect Which Seven Oaths in the Open Air Can Produce
      7. VII: The Mysterious Monk
      8. VIII: The Utility of Windows Which Open on the River
   8. Book VIII
      1. I: The Crown Changed Into a Dry Leaf
      2. II: Continuation of the Crown Which Was Changed Into a Dry Leaf
      3. III: End of the Crown Which Was Turned Into a Dry Leaf
      4. IV: Lasciate Ogni Speranza—Leave All Hope Behind, Ye Who Enter Here
      5. V: The Mother
      6. VI: Three Human Hearts Differently Constructed
   9. Book IX
      1. I: Delirium
      2. II: Hunchbacked, One-Eyed, Lame
      3. III: Deaf
      4. IV: Earthenware and Crystal
      5. V: The Key to the Red Door
      6. VI: Continuation of the Key to the Red Door
   10. Book X
       1. I: Gringoire Has Many Good Ideas in Succession.—Rue des Bernardins
       2. II: Turn Vagabond
       3. III: Long Live Mirth
       4. IV: An Awkward Friend
       5. V: The Retreat in Which Monsieur Louis of France Says His Prayers
       6. VI: Little Sword in Pocket
       7. VII: Châteaupers to the Rescue
   11. Book XI
       1. I: The Little Shoe
       2. II: “La Creatura Bella Bianco Vestita”
       3. III: The Marriage of Phoebus
       4. IV: The Marriage of Quasimodo
5. Note
6. Endnotes
7. Colophon
8. Uncopyright

Imprint

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Preface

A few years ago, while visiting or, rather, rummaging about Notre-Dame, the author of this book found, in an obscure nook of one of the towers, the following word, engraved by hand upon the wall:⁠—

ΆΝÁΓΚΗ.

These Greek capitals, black with age, and quite deeply graven in the stone, with I know not what signs peculiar to Gothic caligraphy imprinted upon their forms and upon their attitudes, as though with the purpose of revealing that it had been a hand of the Middle Ages which had inscribed them there, and especially the fatal and melancholy meaning contained in them, struck the author deeply.

He questioned himself; he sought to divine who could have been that soul in torment which had not been willing to quit this world without leaving this stigma of crime or unhappiness upon the brow of the ancient church.

Afterwards, the wall was whitewashed or scraped down, I know not which, and the inscription disappeared. For it is thus that people have been in the habit of proceeding with the marvellous churches of the Middle Ages for the last two hundred years. Mutilations come to them from every quarter, from within as well as from without. The priest whitewashes them, the archdeacon scrapes them down; then the populace arrives and demolishes them.

Thus, with the exception of the fragile memory which the author of this book here consecrates to it, there remains today nothing whatever of the mysterious word engraved within the gloomy tower of Notre-Dame⁠—nothing of the destiny which it so sadly summed up. The man who wrote that word upon the wall disappeared from the midst of the generations of man many centuries ago; the word, in its turn, has been effaced from the wall of the church; the church will, perhaps, itself soon disappear from the face of the earth.

It is upon this word that this book is founded.

March, 1831.

Notre-Dame de Paris

Book I

I

The Grand Hall

Three hundred and forty-eight years, six months, and nineteen days ago today, the Parisians awoke to the sound of all the bells in the triple circuit of the city, the university, and the town ringing a full peal.

The sixth of January, 1482, is not, however,