In a mass grave full of convicted criminals and headless nobles, a lone figure searches for the body of an innocent gypsy girl. With arms like a brutish rope-pulling sailor, he moves the bodies aside with little effort. The sight and smell of death do not vex him, for his eyes are blinded by tears, and his nose is clogged by the poor weather he has endured since leaving his home, his sanctuary. He does not hear the voice call to him. He does not see the figure half-hidden in the dark evening fog.
“Find her!” he blubbers in his grief.
He digs deeper, throwing bodies aside as though they were dolls. His good eye widens as he beholds a patch of dark skin.
“Esmeralda,” he whimpers. With the utmost care he removes the remaining corpses atop her. Just as he reveals her face, he feels a hand fall upon his mountainous shoulder.
“Quasimodo!” a voice calls out.
He does not hear it. He spins around with mad rage at whoever dares disturb him. His heavy arm bashes into the form of a strongly built military officer. The officer’s size means nothing. The force of the furious Hunchback’s blow knocks him off his feet onto the headless corpse of a fat aristocrat. The Hunchback sneers as he looks at the soldier’s uniform. “Like Phoebus!” he thinks.
“Go away! Leave us!” the Hunchback bellows. “Leave us in peace! I have come to die in her arms!”
The stunned officer looks up in sheer terror at the face of Quasimodo. It is a harshly contorted mass of disjointed features, a left eye displaced by a massive wart, a crooked collection of teeth framed by flabby lips, and an unmatched contempt the seasoned officer has never before encountered in an enemy. The abysmal brute is a hunched mountain of solid muscle, a distorted hump upon on his back. The ugliness of the man is itself terrifying, let alone the anger displayed in his crooked, blood-shot eyes.
A blonde woman emerges from the fog. “He cannot hear you,” she tells the prone soldier. “The bells of Notre Dame have rendered him deaf.” The Hunchback sees her as she continues to approach and speak. “But I am sure he can at least read lips. Can’t you, Quasimodo?”
The Hunchback grits his teeth and nods.
The woman smiles. “We were sent here by the First Consul Napoleon. Do you know who he is?”
Quasimodo thinks for a moment and shakes his head.
“He is a man who needs your help. Indeed, all of France needs your help.”
The Hunchback narrows his good eye. “All…of France…can go to Hell!”
The soldier rises up and cautiously backs away as the blonde woman advances a few steps. The Hunchback grimaces and looks back down at the marred face of the woman he loved.
The blonde woman waits for him to look at her again before speaking. “We can give her a proper burial. I can arrange to have her laid to rest in any cemetery in Paris, if you wish. Neither she, nor you, deserves a fate such as this, Quasimodo. Please, my informants have told me your story. Allow me to buy a funeral for this innocent.”
At this, the Hunchback falls to his knees and weeps. “She…She was not a witch!”
“I know. She was a victim of ignorance and tyranny.”
“She was…kind to me.”
“My commander, First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, will also show you kindness and justice as he has all of France. The King that condemned your mistress is dead. The mad, superstitious crowds have been tamed. A new era of freedom and tolerance is beginning in our country, Quasimodo. And you—even you—can take part in this rebirth. In exchange for a proper burial for your dear Esmeralda, will you come with me to meet Napoleon? Please, Quasimodo. Will you come?”