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From medieval to modern love in Paris: who would love Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre-Dame, now?

… love in Gothic times and now, what now? …

MARTINA NICOLLS

Feb 14

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This Valentine’s Day, I am in the shadowed bell towers of Paris, reading Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, a novel that is, beneath its Gothic drama, a meditation on love in all its fragile, distorted, but radiant forms.

Quasimodo, the bellringer of Notre-Dame Cathedral, is described as deformed, deafened by bells, and feared by crowds. Yet within him lives one of literature’s purest hearts and the most famous, albeit fictional, bellringer in the world. Published in 1831, the novel is set in 1482, medieval times during the reign of King Louis XI.

Quasimodo was raised in the Notre-Dame Cathedral by its archdeacon Claude Frollo after being abandoned as an infant. He began bellringing at the age of fourteen, and by the end of the novel he is about twenty years old, rising to the position of ringer-general. Hugo writes, “Notre-Dame had been to him successively, as he grew up, the egg, the nest, his house, his country, the world.”

Quasimodo serves his cathedral with reverence. It is his home; its bells are his voice. He is devoted, almost blindly, to the man who raised him. He loves Esmeralda with tenderness. She was a gypsy girl who showed Quasimodo kindness. In a society that shunned him, a cup of water that she offered in mercy felt like love to him. That single act becomes his constant thoughts. But, who loved Quasimodo back?

In medieval Paris, difference was destiny. To be physically different was to be morally judged as well. Deformity was seen as divine punishment, evil, or something to laugh at.

If Quasimodo lived in Paris in 2026, he would not be paraded in public stocks in the village square but he might still be stared at on the Metro. Modern Paris would protect his rights and uphold the principle of inclusivity. He would likely have a diagnosis such as spinal curvature, hearing impairment, and facial difference. He might still struggle on dating apps where he is judged by first impressions based on appearance. But would modern Paris offer him love?

We live in an age more tolerant and yet often more obsessed with perfection. Quasimodo today might be included but inclusion is not the same as intimacy. Who would love him now? Perhaps someone who understands being unseen, someone who values loyalty over aesthetics, someone who looks beyond appearances, someone who recognizes the beauty of gentleness, or someone who admires his skills as a bellringer.

Love is not always returned. Love is not always rewarded. But love is never wasted. Perhaps the real measure of a society, medieval or modern, is how it loves. The tragedy of Quasimodo wasn’t his body. It’s that the world was too cruel, and too shallow, to recognize his extraordinary soul.

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Can’t see the whole article? Want to view the original article? Want to view more articles? Go to Martina’s Substack: The Stories in You and Me

More Paris articles are in my Paris website The Paris Residences of James Joyce

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