WARNING: Contains sensitive material such as domestic violence, marital abuse, forced marriage, underage marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, rape, alcohol abuse, etc.
Disclaimer: I am NOT promoting any of this at all! There are very serious topics that are not to make light of. This is all just a "what if" type of thing. This type of thing happened a lot back then and still happens today sometimes. This fanfic is not meant to be taken seriously at all. All of this belongs to Disney and Victor Hugo. I own nothing at all.
It was the middle of the night in circa 1461 Paris, France. In a fairly large house on the middle floor, lied two young girls sharing a bed, the younger one asleep, and the older one wide awake listening to her parents argue from downstairs once again. Her name? Charlotte. Charlotte La Cour. She was used to listening to this every night, she'd never had been a heavy sleeper. She had been hearing it almost every night for her short 10 years of being alive, especially after her father came home from drinking at pubs. However this time, it was much worse than what it usually was.
"No! You can't do this, Gauthier! She's only a child!" yelled a woman's voice.
"Silence woman!" yelled a man's voice while a loud slapping sound could be heard all the way from upstairs. The woman cried out in pain and the man yelled, "Shut up! You have no say in this!" The voices faded away as they walked out of ears' reach along with a door slamming. She also could had sworn that she heard someone weeping as well.
Charlotte just lied there for a long time, wandering what or who they were talking about exactly of if had anything to with her or 8 year old sister, Louise. After a while, she finally drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, her mother was making breakfast over the huge stone fireplace, when Charlotte came out, she noticed that her mother had a black eye and a red mark across her cheek.
"Good morning mother," said Charlotte as she sat down at the table.
"Good morning dear," said Charlotte's mother trying to conceal her battered eye.
"What happened to your face, mo-" Charlotte started to say but her mother abruptly interrupted her.
"We're all going to listen to the new Minister of Justice say his speech this morning."
"We are?!" said Louise as she walked downstairs into the kitchen and took a seat next to Charlotte.
"But why? I don't want to go," Louise pouted.
"We are all going as a family and that is final. All of Paris is to attend," said the mother sternly facing her two daughters, this time. Charlotte didn't want to go either, but she was not the type to complain.
"Yes mother," they both said that the same time.
Louise now noticed her mother's beat up face and ask about it, but again their mother covered it up ignoring her. She then scooped the porridge from the burning pot, poured it into the stone bowls and handed them to her two daughters. They both thanked her. "Your father and brother already ate. After you both finish breakfast and get ready for the day, we will leave," she instructed. So after the three finished eating breakfast and the two girls got dressed and ready, they raced each other downstairs and ran outside to meet up with their parents and younger brother, Olivier, who was only 6. He was sleeping in a different room last night, so he never any arguing at all. They all walked over towards courtyard of the Notre Dame Cathedral were the new Minister of Justice, Judge Claude Frollo, would be publicly speaking.
As they were doing so, Charlotte then asked her mom, "Can I talk to my friends, Marie and Odette?"
"After the speech, then yes dear." replied her mother. After a little ways, they reached the front of the cathedral. There were SO, SO many people that it was hard not to get lost. "Stay with me girls," said their mother grabbing both of their hands. Their father walked closer to the front holding Olivier's hand. He favored his son more so than any of his daughters. In fact, he hardly ever gave them the time of day at all. Her mother then stopped. This shall be good enough," she said. Charlotte saw what looked like her two best friends, Marie and Odette, in the distance waving to her. They were the same age as Charlotte. She waved back and then they both came running towards her.
"Hi Charlotte!" they both said joyfully at the same time.
"SHHH! please girls, the speech is about to be begin." said Charlotte's mother.
The girls then quieted down as the speech was starting.
While the Minister was speaking to the large crowd about the changes he would make, Charlotte and her two friends were upset that he had forbid any form of public entertainment, the only exception was the Festival of Fools once a year. Also, if anyone made suggestions to him, he'd have the guards come and arrest them right there on the spot in front of everybody. He even had ordered the gypsies arrested for not attending the event.
"I don't like where this is going," whispered Charlotte to her friends.
"I don't like HIM, he's so mean," whispered Marie. Charlotte and Odette nodded in agreement.
"He looks scary," Odette whispered back. All three girls nodded in agreement.
After he had finished, Charlotte and her friends got to speak out loud finally. "I thought it would never end, Charlotte said her two friends and they all agreed. And they soon changed the subject to talking about boys.
Meanwhile, Charlotte's father, who let his son go join his sisters, was coming towards the stage where the Minister Claude Frollo was talking. He told the guards who he was and without question, they let him go by then Frollo saw him.
"Ah, you must be Monseigneur Gauthier La Cour. Is your daughter present?" asked Frollo. "I'd like to meet her now."
"Yes my lord, she is here in the crowd somewhere," Her father said peering over to see if he could find her, but only found his wife. He quickly called her over and she running over.
"Minister Frollo, this is my wife, Blanche." Blanche nodded, hoping Frollo wouldn't notice her battered face, but Frollo just glanced at her but said nothing, ignoring her.
"Have you found your daughter yet?" Frollo asked again somewhat impatiently to Gauthier.
He looked again. "Yes, as a matter of fact I do! Right over there." he pointed towards the back of the large crowd. Charlotte was talking to her friends way in the distance.
"By what I can see, she looks like a fine child," complimented Frollo and continued to say, "She resembles you, you know. I'd like to meet her up close and in person if you don't mind."
"Of course not!" said her father with a happy tone of voice.
Blanche had had enough. She silently slipped away to go looking for her daughter, Charlotte before her father and Frollo could reach her. When she got to her, she quickly pulled her away from her friends and also grabbed her two other children who joined their older sister.
"What's going on? Why are we leaving so soon?" asked Charlotte confused and surprised.
"We're going home," replied her mother in a hurried tone of voice as if she were trying to desperately avoid something or someone.
"But I'm still talking to my friends," said Charlotte.
"You can talk to your friends later, dear." replied her mother still in that tone.
"What did we do wrong? Are we in trouble?" asked Olivier.
"Of course not, child. No one is in trouble," replied Blanche. And they continued to walk back home. She knew however, once her husband came back, she'd be in for a good beating which she was about an hour or two later when he returned.
One week later, Charlotte, Odette and Marie were running and skipping through the streets of the marketplace and looking at the shops, touching the expensive fabrics and trying on the jewelry and not putting it back in the right places. They were also trying free samples of bread without buying anything, typical 10 year old behavior. But then, some guards came by riding horses and shouted,
"Make room for the Minister!"
And just like that, everyone stepped out of the way, on the side of the road, to make room for Frollo to pass through.
"Isn't that the same man we saw last week?" asked Marie to Odette. "Yeah" she replied. Charlotte watched as he was now riding a giant monstrous black horse that looked more like a demon but as soon as he walked past her, he pulled back on the reins, the horse started backing up a couple steps, and stopped right next to her. Frollo began staring at Charlotte intently, scanning her with his eyes from head to toe repeatedly, for felt like a very very long time. Charlotte just stood there, feeling very uncomfortable and somewhat scared. She didn't know what he was going to do next. But finally, he gave his horse a light kick and it began walking away once more. He did still eye her through his side vision for a second until she was out of his sight completely. Charlotte could see that he was talking to a guard of some sort next to him and the guard even glanced back at her for a second. And when everyone went back to doing what they were doing, Charlotte just stood in the same exact spot for a bit. She has never had anyone do that nor look at her the way he did.
"Are you okay?" Marie and Odette asked Charlotte in a concerned tone of voice.
"He was looking at you!" said Odette in surprise.
"That was really really creepy," replied Charlotte looking past to see the Minister on his horse down the street in the distance. "I've never had anything like that happen to me before." she said still creeped out. Just then, they saw Clopin in the distance, putting away his puppets into his brightly colored wagon. They ran over and greeted him.
"Why are you putting everything away so soon?" asked Charlotte.
"Yeah, it's not even dark yet," said Odette.
"Ah, but the Minister won't allow me to have anymore shows, stories, or anything. He just told me moments ago before you young ladies came," replied Clopin with a saddened disappointed tone in his voice.
"But why?" asked the girls.
"Why can't you just sneak it?" asked Marie. "I sneak things from my parents all the time."
"Ah, but it's not that simple, young miss. Being the Minister of Justice, he's mostly above the law and if anyone breaks it, they would suffer severe punishment, by death even. He also does not like me nor my people at all."
"Why?" asked the girls once again. "You didn't do anything wrong at all, that's so mean," said Odette.
"Yes, but I can't do anything about it, so that's why I've been wearing this mask over my eyes ever since he became the Minister of Justice," replied Clopin.
"He was staring down at Charlotte when he came by us earlier," Marie said. "Isn't that right?" she turned towards Charlotte.
"Yeah he did," she continued, "It was really creepy, he was looking at me as if he were staring deep into my soul. He wouldn't stop. We didn't even do anything wrong."
"That's quite...disturbing," replied Clopin. "Did he say anything to you at all?" he asked.
"No," she replied.
"We don't like him very much," said Marie interrupting.
"No one does that I know of," Clopin said.
"I miss the old Minister, he was so much nicer and allowed us to have all the entertainment we wanted," said Odette. "I wish he was still alive."
"Me too, lassie, me too," agreed Clopin.
Charlotte then noticed a puppet that looked an awful lot like the Minister.
"Is that who I think it is?" pointing to the puppet with a smile. Clopin looked over, picked it up and showed it to them.
"Yes little lady, it sure is," he said smiling back. The girls all giggled.
"Lucky the Minister did not see it when he dropped by, eh? Or else I wouldn't be standing here right now, I'd be in the stalks!" Clopin chuckled feeling a little happier.
"Well, I have to get going now," he then said while he just in finished putting everything away. "See you girls later."
"Ok bye," the girls waved as they were walking off.
"He's cute, isn't he?" said Marie.
"Yep," agreed the other two. And so they went back to going through the shops.
The next day at dinner, the family was sitting at the table while Blanche was serving everyone meat stew. They all ate silently until Gauthier turned to his daughters and broke the silence.
"Have you been catching up with your studies, girls?" he asked. He very rarely referred to his daughters by their actual names. "Very few girls like you get to have an education at all, so you should be thankful for that." Being from a upper-middle class family, Charlotte and her two siblings got a fairly good education unlike most children. They had a private tutor come over 5 days a week to teach them. Charlotte was trying to learn Latin the best she could, but she found it was quite challenging. Although she knew some Latin, her two other siblings, however, picked it up quite easy probably because they were a little bit younger than her. Charlotte was far more educated than her two best friends however. They were both born into lower class peasant families, so they weren't able to get an education, unlike Charlotte was.
"Yes, father of course." replied Charlotte while finishing her dinner.
"Don't talk with your mouth full, girl!" warned her father. "You speak respectfully around here, do you hear me, girl?!" barked her father from across the table. Her mother wanted to say something, but was too afraid to do so in fear of adding on to her husband's anger which she did not want her children to witness. Instead, her mother gave her a sympathetic look.
"Now, how to you expect to be a good wife if you cannot even have good table manners?!" bellowed her father once again. His breath smelled of alcohol. He frequently went to pubs, often times cheating on his wife with other women he met there. This was also partially to blame for his angry outbursts.
"But I'm not going to get married until a long time. I haven't found the right person yet," said Charlotte after chewing up her food.
"But that is where you are wrong, girl," her father said in a now normal tone of voice. "You see, since you were a small child, I've been looking for suitors for you but I couldn't find the right one, until just last year so I've been writing to him and he has agreed to marry you. I ran into him this morning at the Cathedral and he told me that he wants to wed you as soon as possible." Upon hearing this, Charlotte dropped her spoon in her bowl in shock. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"WHAT!?" interrupted Charlotte with shock and terror in her voice. "What are you talking about!?" "EWWWWW!" laughed Olivier. Charlotte's mother buried her face into her hands and started to quietly sob. Louise didn't know what to think. And the next thing Charlotte felt was a hot, sharp, stinging, pain across her face. Her father had slapped her just like he did her mother. But this was the first time he ever hit his daughter.
"I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO TALK WITH RESPECT IN THIS HOUSEHOLD!" yelled her father at the top of his lungs, pushing the table with everything nearly fall off the table. At this, her mother couldn't take it anymore. She held her head up and shouted to her husband,
"FOR GOD'S SAKES, SHE'S JUST A CHILD!" protecting her daughter. She quickly got up from her seat and comforted Charlotte. Gauthier got up, grabbed his wife by her hair through her hat, and said in a low threatening voice, "You are a woman, and women have absolutely no say on anything whatsoever. Your kind is only meant for two things only; bearing sons and keeping house. No one wants a daughter to lug around. They are financial burdens, and they do not carry on our family name." I decide who our daughters can marry, not you. You are nothing." He then threw her down on the floor. Charlotte, however, got back up and ran to her room in fear of what might happen next. Her father unfastened his belt and followed her upstairs. Her mother was still sitting on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably when Louise and Olivier got up and started hugging her.
"Don't cry mother," said Louise. Blanche embraced her two other children in a great hug at that moment.
About 15 minutes later, Her father came back down holding the belt in his hand. He glared at his wife who was cleaning everything up with the help of Louise and Olivier, as he walked past them. He patted his son on the head though.
Meanwhile upstairs, Charlotte was lying in bed sobbing into her pillow with her back sore and bruised from the beating. It now made sense to her. The arguing she heard a week ago late that night was about her. Whom was she supposedly getting married to, she didn't know nor did it matter to her. She already was thinking about running away. But where? Where could she run to? Spain? Italy? Germany? Belgium? On the other side of France? Maybe someone who was kind and loving would adopt her somewhere far far away where her father could never ever find her. But how about her friends? Or her mother and siblings? She couldn't leave them. But she had no choice. If only they could come too. She then laid there for a while not sure what to do, but then she got an idea. She may not be able to bring her mother and siblings, but she could possibly bring to her two best friends with her. She then made her final decision; to run away with her friends.
