why Quasimodo probably really existed?
Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre-Dame, is the hero of Victor Hugo’s novel and Walt Disney’s cartoon. The character of this bell ringer with an ungrateful physique, madly in love with the beautiful gypsy Esmeralda, Victor Hugo undoubtedly met him in person before writing his masterpiece because there was indeed a Hunchback in Our Lady.
This is what we discovered by chance in 1999 in the memoirs ofHenry Sibsonan English sculptor who participated in the renovation of Notre Dame of Paris in the 1820s. This Briton had been hired on the site of the Ile de la Cité and he says that he had met another sculptor there who did not like mixing with other stonemasons. Besides the fact that he was solitary, he had above all a physical particularity which had earned him the nickname of “Monsieur Hunchback”.
And like Victor-Hugo then lived in Saint-Germain des Prés and represented the building site of the cathedral, he is very probable that he met there the one who was inspired by Quasimodo. We are around 1820 and the author began to write his work in 1828 to publish it 3 years later.
Even more, Henry Sibson recounts in his memoirs that he worked on this famous Hunchback on a construction site in Dreux, right at the time when Victor Hugo had gone there to ask for the hand of his first wife, Adele. With Henry Sibson and the Hunchback, another sculptor was revealed, also present during the renovation of Notre-Dame de Paris. Her name ? Trajan. And it turns out that the first name of the hero of the miserableit was not Jean Valjean, but Jean Tréjean…Tréjean, Trajan, it’s too close to be a coincidence, isn’t it?
>> Oh yeah? From Monday to Friday, Florian Gazan responds in one minute to all the essential, existential, completely absurd questions that cross your mind. Very useful or totally useless knowledge to shine in society, absolutely incredible anecdotes to share, amazing stories to tell. And each time, you say to yourself “Ah yeah?”. An RTL Originals podcast.