Dark was the night when our tale was begun near the docks of Notre Dame.
A band of four frightened gypsies quietly proceeded down the Seine, hoping to avoid detection. A baby in a beautiful woman's arms begins to cry, his wails breaking the stillness of the night around them.
"Shut it up, will you!" One of the men hissed at her.
"We'll be spotted!"
The gypsy mother looked down and cradled her child closer to her chest, trying to sooth him down. "Hush, little one!"
The boatman held out his hand. He was a grizzled looking man with crooked fingers and beady eyes.
"Four guilders for safe passage into Paris," he said.
Little did they know that a trap had been laid for the innocent gypsies. As the pounding of horse hooves echoed through the streets coldly, they gazed up with fear and alarm. Who they saw sent chills through their bodies as they locked eyes with a figure who's clutches were as iron and cold as those of the bells of Notre Dame.
The figure belonged to none other than Judge Claude Frollo.
Frollo longed for nothing more than to purge the world of vice and sin. He saw corruption everywhere in the streets of Paris. It crept in every nook and cranny and poisoned the hearts of the peasant folk. It glittered like cold hard stones in the eyes of every foul creature who dared to call himself gypsy. Their beliefs were wicked, wrong, and they must be stopped before they endangered everyone in the world. It was Frollo's duty to snuff them out, just as the Lord would have done.
Frollo was an aging man defined by his wrinkled face and white hair. As the Minister of Justice and a high-ranking public official, he was most frequently dressed in black robes, a purple and black striped hat with a red ribbon attached, and shoulder pads with red stripes. He also wears rings on his fingers, two on the right and one on the left, with the jewels colored red, green, and blue.
"Bring these gypsy vermin to the Palace of Justice," he ordered his men.
One of the guards immediately turned to the female gypsy as she cradled her precious baby, desperate to keep him from harm.
"You there! What are you hiding?" the guard hissed, stomping towards her.
Frollo looked upon the small woman coldly. "Stolen goods, no doubt. Take them from her."
Not about to just hand her only child over straight to the hands of death, she did the only thing she could do.
She ran.
As the gypsy mother tries to escape with her baby, Judge Frollo gave chase on horseback. After a long run through the twisting city streets, she finally reached the grand doors of Notre Dame and pounded on them desperately.
"Sanctuary! Please give us sanctuary!"
Frollo finally catches up to her on the steps of the cathedral as she tried to make another break for it, knowing there was no time to wait for someone to open the doors.
With violence and anger raging through him, he ripped the still covered bundle from her arms, and kicks her, sending her crashing to the cement steps, where she is knocked unconscious.
The baby begins to cry.
Frollo was mildly surprised by this. "A baby?"
He uncovered the baby's head, only to see the deformed infant hidden inside. The sheer shock of the creature nearly caused him to drop it onto the hard cold ground. Only such a foul and hideous...demon...as he could possibly come from none other than a gypsy.
"A monster!" Frollo gasped.
Knowing that the deformed baby would need to be destroyed, he quickly looked around for someway to dispose of it. He turned around, spotting a well, and rode over to it. He was about to drop the baby down the well when a voice shouted out, breaking the stillness of the night.
"Stop!," cried the archdeacon as he dashed forward, cradling the fallen woman on the ground.
"This is an unholy demon. I'm sending it back to hell, where it belongs!" Frollo growled, trying to justify his murderous intent.
"Look at the innocent blood you have spilt on the steps of Notre Dame, and now you would add this child's as well?" the archdeacon continued, furious and appalled at Frollo's actions.
"I am guiltless-she ran, I pursued. My conscience is clear!" the judge replied, nonchalant about the entire event. These people were no concern to him...they were a lowly people.
The archdeacon stood, holding the woman still. His eyes were cold and angry as he fixed Frollo with a cold and almost pitying gaze. "You can lie to yourself and your minions and claim that you have no qualm. But you, Claude Frollo, will never be able to successfully hide nor run what you have done. The very eyes of Notre Dame have seen it all, and they will never forget."
For the first time in his life, a life that had always been filled with control and ultimate power, Frollo began to feel a sliver of fear for his immortal soul. The archdeacon was right. The eyes of Notre Dame had seen all, and as he gazed up into the eyes of the statues, he felt as if they were piercing his soul, pinning him to the ground as they wordlessly burned him.
"What must I do?" he asked, almost desperately.
"Care for the child, raise it as your own," the archdeacon said simple as he began back towards his church.
Frollo was shocked. Care for the monster of a witch? This had to be some cruel joke.
"What? I'm to be saddled with this misshapen-" He paused as a thought crept through his mind and across his face. "Very well. Let him live with you, in your church."
"Live here? But where?"
"Anywhere. Just so he's kept away where no one else will lay eyes on him. The bell tower, perhaps. And who knows-our Lord works in mysterious ways. Even this foul creature may prove to be of use to me someday."...
….And with that Frollo, took him in and gave the child a cruel name. A name that meant half-formed…
Quasimodo.