A couple years passed, and Isabelle grew into a toddler. She was a very well behaved child unlike most children at that age. He already had begun giving her lessons too.
One morning, Frollo took Isabelle to get a view of Paris on the giant balcony of the Palace of Justice that overlooked the whole city. He picked her up so she could get a good look at the view.
"You see them?" he asked pointing down below.
"mhm," she nodded with a smile.
"Those are gypsies, my dear child. They live outside the normal order. Their heathen ways inflame the peoples' lowest instincts, and they must be stopped." he told her with a sneer in his voice.
"Why?" she asked. Isabelle didn't quite understand what he was trying to say.
"Because they are spawns of the devil. They are sorcerers and witches of the sort, " Frollo sneered once again, trying to make it where she could understand. He continued.
"Now tell me Isabelle, where does God live?"
"Even," she answered, trying to say heaven.
"Heaven," Frollo corrected her speech.
"And where is heaven?" he again asked her.
"Up," she pointed her finger up towards the sky.
"Now where is hell?" he asked once more.
"Down," Isabelle pointed her finger down towards the floor this time.
"Who lives in hell?" Frollo asked once again.
"Devil," she answered. He smirked.
"That's right! You're a smart little one," he praised her.
"The gypsies come from hell and their souls will go back there after death," Frollo went on. "I have been sent here by God to send each and every one of them back there and will do so until I breathe my very last breath," he said with pride. He then changed the subject as he put her back down and she followed behind him.
"Come now child, it's time to begin lessons."
Another year or two passed and Isabelle was now 4 years old. One day, while wandering around the palace, she comes across an unlocked door opened ajar to a part of the palace that she had never been in. Curiosity got the best of her and she walked right inside. There were steps going down to what looked like a basement.
She carefully climbed each step down to the bottom only to find more hallways with many doors on each side with bars on them. It was a dungeon. Isabelle walked down the halls looking around curiously, until she came across a room with several large devices in it. Some of them had large spikes on them.
There was large table with restraints, *a chair with spikes all over and a wooden horse with what looked like a large blade on top of it. She also saw a triangle on a table with pulleys above it* along with a table full of plyers and other small devices she had never seen before. Unknown to her, this was a torture chamber. Not to mention an iron maiden, rack, and a fireplace inside as well.
*A Spanish donkey, iron chair and Judas cradle*
She looked around curiously at the torture devices, not knowing what they actually were. And just then, a noise was heard from the distance along with someone yelling. She quickly looked around and hid under the table with the small devices laying on top. In came two guards, dragging in two men with tan complexion wearing brightly colored clothing and gold jewelry. They were both barefoot and begging for mercy.
One man was strapped to the table while the other one was chained to the wall. Both were stripped naked right in front of Isabelle. She just sat there and watched in confusion.
"Get the rats!" called Henriet Cousin, one of the torturers.
"Now tell us where The Court of Miracles is!" he shouted at the prisoner.
"Never!" he shouted back.
Just then the second torturer came back with an iron cage full of rats trying to escape. The cage was then put on top of the prisoner's abdomen. Cousin used some tongs to pick up a piece of hot burning coal to put on top of the cage.
"Last chance! Where is The Court of Miracles!?" he shouted. The prisoner just spat in the torturer's face. He wiped it off, put the burning coal on the top of the cage, and took a step back.
WARNING! SENITIVE CONTENT! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK
Soon the prisoner started to scream in pain as the rats began tearing at and burrowing in his flesh in order to escape the heat. Blood came pouring out of his body as a couple of the rats found their way out by digging a hole from the inside near his hip. The torturers watched and laughed in delight.
Isabelle started to sob into her knees in terror, but she was not heard due to the prisoner's screams drowning her out. One of the torturers even forced the other prisoner chained to the wall to watch his friend slowly and painfully die in front of him. It took hours until he finally died. Then Isabelle's sniffling could be heard.
"You hear that?" asked Pierreat Torturue, the other torturer.
"It's just one of the other pri-" he then heard it too. It sounded too close. They both followed the sound and found Isabelle burying in face into her knees crying.
"Hey look, it's Frollo's kid," Torturue called out to Cousin. "Hey, how did you get in here? he asked crying Isabelle.
"Did you see all of that, sweetheart?" asked Cousin. Isabelle just continued to sob and didn't answer.
"Come on out kiddo, let's go see daddy," Torturue said trying console her as he tried crawling underneath the table the get Isabelle. She quickly crawled further under the table in fear.
"No, no, no! Go away!" she cried out, scared to death. Torturue turned to Cousin getting back up.
"I'll go get the Minister. You stay here and watch her," he ordered as he was leaving to go to the courtroom on the first floor of the Palace of Justice, full of people where Frollo was sentencing someone.
He walked in and went over to Frollo and whispered about finding Isabelle hiding in the torture room and that she had saw what he they done and wouldn't come out of her hiding place. Frollo rolled his eyes and replied in an annoyed tone of voice,
"Then drag her out! You dare disrupt me for this?! he barked at Torturue.
"But she won't come out, Sir," he replied back. "Each time one of us tries to pull or make her come out, she just dives deeper under the table. She's scared to death." Frollo sighed again and rolled his eyes and called out to the courtroom,
"If you excuse me, I must depart temporarily for a short time. I will be back shortly to continue the sentencing," he said stoically as he left the room with the torturer.
The whole way back, he was explaining to Frollo that he and Cousin had no idea Isabelle was even there nor how she got there to begin with. Frollo was pissed off to be interrupted over something like this. Then they reached the torture room. Isabelle had still not come out and could still be heard sniffling. Cousin was still standing next to the table. He also apologized to Frollo. Ignoring him, Frollo angerly demanded,
"Isabelle! You come out at once!"
Recognizing his voice, Isabelle slowly began to emerge from under the table. When she got back up and saw he glaring at her, she walked over still in tears and hugged him tight. He then picked her up as she buried her face in his tunic continuing to sniffle. He then turned over and looked at the mutilated corpse of the prisoner strapped to the table and the other prisoner chained to the wall who had fainted from the sight of the torture, then to the torturers and asked,
"Did you extract any information from him?"
"No Sir, we haven't even started on that one yet," answered Cousin pointing towards the prisoner chained to the wall still unconscious.
"When he wakes up, do what you want to him. As long as you get some kind of information out of him," ordered Frollo stoically while leaving the dungeon with Isabelle.
" Yes Sir," they both said at the same time.
While Frollo was leaving with Isabelle still clinging on to his black velvet tunic, she could hear whipping and screams coming from the torture room that she was in seconds earlier now echoing throughout the dungeons. This only made her cry more.
When Frollo had gotten out of the dungeons, he brought Isabelle upstairs to his prayer room with a big huge fireplace and a huge iron cross mounted on the wall. He then sat her on a hall bench leaning against the wall of the room and knelt to her level.
"There are some things in this world that children, like yourself, that should always remain unknown to them," Frollo said stoically to her. He went on, "It is all part of God's will, and He has sent me down to perform this duty. I can assure you, my dear girl, those guards won't hurt you, I will not allow it." Isabelle continued to sniffling and crying, but calmed down a little after Frollo finished talking.
"Please don't whip me!" she begged him still in tears, scared of being punished. Frollo began drying her tears with his handkerchief.
"I will not this time, dear girl, but next time you do something I don't approve of, you shall not only be whipped, but also spend the night down in the dungeons. Do you understand?" he asked her sternly this time. She nodded yes still looking at the floor.
"That's a good little girl. Now I'm going back to performing my duties." Just stay of out trouble while I'm gone," he said patting her head before he left to go back to the courtroom.
Still traumatized, Isabelle sat there and continued crying, now curled in a ball on the bench. From then on, she had nightmares about it every single night and would wake up screaming on the top of her little lungs.
One month later, Frollo took Isabelle out to the cathedral and unknown to her, go see Quasimodo. He would take her every so often for educational purposes as part of her lessons. They were walking up the steps and Isabelle was pointing out all of the paintings and statues to him.
"What's that?" she asked pointing to a stone figure above outside the cathedral.
"That is a gargoyle, darling," Frollo replied stoically.
"What's a gargoyle?" she asked.
"A grotesque carved human or animal face or figure from the gutter of a building," he answered coldly.
"What does that supposed to mean?" she asked.
"They protect us from evil spirits, my dear child," he replied stoically once again.
They then entered the cathedral. There was a chanting session going on. Isabelle continued pointing out more statues and paintings and asked who they were, bothering Frollo even more. And she would stop him each time. He even told her to be quiet, only making her whisper happily asking more questions.
Then she noticed the basket he had in his other hand.
"Why do you have that with you?" she asked curiously.
"That's none of your concern!" Frollo shouted this time, taking Isabelle aback. The monks and the Archdeacon abruptly stopped chanting and looked over towards them. They both stopped at a door leading to the bell tower right then.
"I must depart for the time of being. Just wait for me to come back and do not wander around the place like you did last time," Frollo ordered.
"Can I come too?" she asked him.
"No Isabelle," he responded coldly.
"But why not?" she asked.
"Because this is no place for children. Remember what you witnessed in the dungeons?" he said with a smirk. She gasped, stepped back, and nodded.
"We don't want that to happen again, now do we?" he smirked once again. She shook her head in fear. Just then the Archdeacon came over.
"Frollo, I can watch her again if you wish," he interrupted.
"Fine," said Frollo rolling his eyes as he shut and locked the door and ascended up the stairs towards the bell tower.
"What's up there and why does Daddy go up there all the time?" Isabelle asked the Archdeacon as he led her away by her hand.
"Just storage, my child. Nothing much to see up there," he nicely replied. Frollo had forbid him from telling Isabelle about Quasimodo.
"Oh," she said. The Archdeacon then asked her,
"Do you wish to look at more paintings and such to pass the time?"
"Yeah!" she said excitedly. The Archdeacon showed her all of the paintings and statues and showed her the outside view of Paris from the second floor. Frollo came out of the bell tower about an hour later.
"Come along, Isabelle, it's time to leave," he stoically said once again to her grabbing her hand. She and the Archdeacon were now standing outside the door next to the bell tower. She waved bye to the Archdeacon as Frollo went back to the Palace of Justice with her.