The Miracle of Notre Dame
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
Part 1
“There he stood, grave, motionless, absorbed in one look and one thought. All Paris lay at his feet, with a thousand spires of its edifices, and its circular horizon of gentle hills, with its river winding under its bridges, and its people moving to and fro through its streets, with the clouds of its smoke, with the mountainous chain of its roofs which presses Notre Dame in its doubled folds…” ”
Paris: the City of Light, the fashion capital of the world, home the Eiffel Tower and the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and I was done with it. Or so I thought.
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It may seem odd, but France was never high on my list of places I wanted to visit. I had lists of bookish sites I wanted to see in England and historical sites I ached to see in Italy and Greece, but besides seeing the famed Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, there wasn’t much I had wanted to see in France. As fate would have it, my friends wanted to add a few days in Paris on our itinerary while we were in Europe instead of going to Scotland. This was my first trip to Europe, and though we were just college Sophomores on a tight budget, I wanted us to experience as much as we could. So, I put all research on Scotland aside and dove into Paris travel guides. I planned for us to see it all, and we did: the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, a walk down the Champs-Élysées, Notre- Dame, and Versailles. If there’s anything I do well, it’s research, and all my hard work had paid off: we had seen what felt like all of Paris. So as type-A list-makers love to do, I checked France off the travel wish list, and that was that.
They say when God -or life- closes a door, a window opens, but I’m here to say that’s not always true. Sometimes, the same door opens. Maybe it’s like the door in my hall closet where I swear I’ve closed it, but I turn around and it’s mysteriously open again. And no matter how I rearrange the items inside so they won’t push the door back open, the door opens on its own, regardless of all my effort. Problematic closet doors and magical doors to Narnia aside, doors always give you another chance, a new chance, because each time you open one, you’re a different person. It doesn’t matter if it’s a few seconds or several years, time has elapsed and you have somehow changed, even if it’s just the tiniest change, so small you probably don’t even notice. But just think, how much I could have changed over the years of finishing college, moving from city to city and getting a few years under my belt at my first full-time job. Had I noticed? Not really.
The existence of a hunchbacked man lurking in the shadows of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, caring for and ringing the glorious bells high up in the towers, is a well-known story. However, most would not know the original version Victor Hugo penned in 1831. Instead, they’d know of the Disney film where everyone sings, stone gargoyles come to life and give you advice, and despite all the evil and chaos that ensues, there is always a happy ending. Hugo’s version does portray Quasimodo, a man afflicted with deformities who finds his place in the bell tower of Notre Dame, but there are other characters- some you’d recognize and some you won’t. There is Phoebus, the stereotypical soldier who falls for the gypsy Esmerelda even though he is already promised to be married. He parts with his fiancé, but after Esmerelda is accused of murdering Phoebus and is sentenced to hang, it is revealed that Phoebus was simply wounded and he returns to his fiancé with seemingly little hesitations. Poor Esmerelda, the beauty whose dancing enchants everyone who sees it, including Quasimodo. And Archdeacon Claude Frollo, a priest who falls in love with Esmerelda, but when she rejects him, -spoiler alert- his plot to win her over directly and indirectly causes the deaths of most of characters.
“‘So, this,’ he said to himself, following her vaguely with his eyes, ‘…is La Esmerelda. A celestial creature, a street dancer, so much and so little.’” ”
But what about the others? Pierre Gringoire, the down-on-his-luck poet who strays into the Court of Miracles and is rescued when Esmerelda agrees to marry him. Sister Gudule, a crazy shut-in who is later revealed to be Esmerelda’s long -lost mother. Jehan Frollo, Claude Frollo’s good-for-nothing brother. Fleur-De-Lys De Gondelaurier, Phoebus’s self-centered, superficial fiancé and eventual wife. These may not be the most well-known characters, but they each have a role in the fate of Esmerelda and Quasimodo, and without their existence, Hugo’s novel wouldn’t be as intricate, iconic, and moving.
To me, however, all the characters in books are important, especially those in the books on the Rory Gilmore Reading List. I do feel a deeper connection to some characters, but every character is created specifically by the author for a specific purpose. And I was reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame for a specific purpose too: I was going back to Paris.
As the fashion capital, and the origin of Lingerie, Paris holds the international Lingerie show in January every year. We do an exhibition show twice a year in New York, but it’s nothing like what’s in Paris. It was explained to me like this: The country comes to New York; the world comes to Paris. I plan and organize all the setup for our New York shows, so this year, I asked to accompany my boss to Paris so I could see what the Paris show does differently and how I could implement some of those strategies to our brands and their presentation in New York. And a few months later, I was on an airplane, heading to the biggest Lingerie show in the world and to the city I thought I’d never see again.
And so the door to France opened once again, and this time, Victor Hugo and his famous novel would be coming with me. This time, I was going to see the one thing I had missed during my first trip: the bell towers of Notre Dame.
““Ordinarily the sound which escapes from Paris by day is the city speaking. By night, it is the city breathing. In this case, it is the city singing. Lend an ear then to this concert of bell towers.” ”
This post is important to me because it’s the first book that I’ve featured on the site that I’ve actually been able to visit the places described in the novel, to stand where the author would have stood as he looked upon his subject, and to experience what it could have been like to really be in that book. I’ve been planning these posts and photos for several months, but recent events have added a bittersweet sentiment to this subject.
As I wrote this, I was struggling to comprehend the events of the day as if I’ll wake up and it will have all been a dream, the day Notre Dame was engulfed in flames. Even as I watched the grand spiral collapse and the building succumb to the blaze, I kept pulling out my phone to look at pictures. I kept thinking, “I was standing right there, just a few months ago. I have pictures of that spiral, of those towers, of the famous bells. And my favorite gargoyle, who appears to be lost in thought, he’s no longer there watching over the city of Paris. I’m heartbroken to think of the devastation this iconic monument has endured, the priceless history that was lost and can never be regained, the grief of all those who hold a special place for Notre Dame in their hearts. Though historical artifacts and works of art were saved and the cathedral will be rebuilt, the effects of the fire will be felt for years to come.
This post is my tribute to Notre Dame, and though it pales in comparison next to a volume so iconic and beloved as Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, my writings will stand as the novel’s companion, for Notre Dame brought us both the inspiration of a lifetime, and for that, I’ll be forever grateful.
Continue to Part 2
Rory Reading Recommendations
If you liked this book and this blog post, here’s what to read next.
from the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge
if you want to know more about the author
if you want to read more by Victor Hugo
if you’re interested in 19th Century French Literature
*quotes based on the time mark in the audiobook
