DiesFrollo doesn't try to drop the deformed baby down a well like in the Disney movie. In Victor Hugo's dark original Frollo actually rescues the baby from being burned alive by four women who think it is a demon. Frollo adopts the baby and names him Quasimodo. Frollo is eventually driven mad with lust to dominate a beautiful fifteen year old gypsy girl called Esmeralda and makes Quasimodo kidnap her. Quasimodo is caught in the act and arrested by the handsome soldier Phoebus, whom Esmeralda falls in love with. Quasimodo is publicly tortured and left exposed in the pillory. Phoebus (who's already engaged but he's a total slut) arranges a 'private rendezvous' between him and Esmeralda, but Frollo pays Phoebus to let him hide in the shadows and spy on them. Esmeralda, overcome by lust, gives up her vow of chastity to Phoebus, who gets right down to business. Overcome with jealousy, Frollo emerges from the shadows, stabs Phoebus in the back and flees into the night. Esmeralda is charged with the attempted murder, tortured into giving a false confession in a subterranean dungeon, and sentenced to hang. Quasimodo rescues her as she is led to the gibbet and hides her in Notre Dame, where Frollo tries to rape her. After Quasimodo again intervenes, Frollo gives Esmeralda up and there is a brief and bloody battle during which Frollo tells her he will rescue her if she will 'give her love' to him. She refuses and he hands her over to the troops. Frollo watches as Esmeralda is executed, and laughs hysterically as she writhes at the end of the rope. Quasimodo then throws Frollo from the heights of Notre Dame.Quasimodo then crawls into the crypt where the corpses of executed criminals are left to rot and wraps himself around Esmeralda's decaying cadaver. Eventually their two skeletons are found, wrapped in an eternal embrace.
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The true fairy tales
General FictionDisney had it way wrong, this is just the short story's telling you what really happened.
