The inviolability of the temple of the Mother of God is violated by royal arrows only on the orders of Louis XI, who prayed for permission from his heavenly patroness and promised to donate a beautiful silver statue to her for this act. The spiritual authority of the Catholic Church is so great that it easily turns into a refuge for Esmeralda, who is accused of witchcraft. Notre Dame de Paris, like most ancient architectural monuments, according to Hugo, is embodied in stone by the Word – the only restraining force for rude, uneducated people in Paris. Paris in the novel becomes a natural continuation of the Cathedral, towering over the city and protecting its spiritual and social life. The chronotope of the novel, organized around Notre Dame de Paris – a unique architectural monument that combines the features of Romanesque and Gothic architecture – includes Paris streets, squares and districts running from it in all directions (Cathedral and Grevskaya Square, University, “Courtyard of Miracles”, etc.). He combined the features of the historical epic, romantic drama and psychological novel, telling the reader the incredible private life of different people, taking place against the background of specific historical events of the XV century. “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” became exactly the novel the French writer dreamed of. According to Victor Hugo, it should have been “… at the same time a novel, drama and epic, of course, picturesque, but at the same time poetic, real, but at the same time perfect, truthful, but at the same time the same time majestic ”(magazine French Muse, 1823). At the same time, the French classic already understood that society needs something more lively than its English colleague could offer, operating with typical characters and historical events. In the work on the book, Victor Hugo was repelled by the literary experience of Walter Scott, a recognized master of historical novels. That is why we can say that one of the main characters of the novel, on a par with Esmaralda’s gypsy woman, Quasimodo ringer, archdeacon Claude Frollo, captain of the royal shooters Phoebus de Chateaupers and poet Pierre Gringoire himself is Notre Dame de Paris key events of the work. The prerequisites for creating an epochal work were natural cultural processes that took place in France in the first third of the 19th century: historical literature was popular in literature, writers turned to the romantic atmosphere of the Middle Ages, and the public struggle for the protection of ancient architectural monuments in which Hugo took direct part. The idea of the novel “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” arose from Hugo in the early 20th century and finally took shape by the middle of 1828.

Novel notre dame de paris