Notre-Dame de Paris, Victor Hugo [i like reading TXT] 📗

Notre-Dame de Paris

By Victor Hugo.

Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood.

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