Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

The mass of masonry that formed the base of the repulsive edifice was hollow, and an immense cavern
had been constructed in it, closed by an old battered iron grating, into which were thrown not only the
human relics that fell from the chains of Montfaucon itself, but also the bodies of the victims of all the
other permanent gibbets of Paris. To that deep charnel-house, where so many human remains and the
memory of so many crimes have rotted and mingled together, many a great one of the earth, and many
an innocent victim have contributed their bones, from Enguerrand de Martigny, who inaugurated
Montfaucon, and was one of the just, down to Admiral de Coligny—likewise one of the just—who closed
it. As for Quasimodo’s mysterious disappearance, all that we have been able to ascertain on the subject
is this:
About a year and a half or two years after the concluding events of this story, when search was being
made in the pit of Montfaucon for the body of Olivier le Daim, who had been hanged two days before,
and to whom Charles VIII granted the favour of being interred at Saint-Laurent in better company, there
were found among these hideous carcases two skeletons, the one clasped in the arms of the other. One of
these skeletons, which was that of a woman, had still about it some tattered remnants of a garment that
had once been white, and about its neck was a string of beads together with a small silken bag
ornamented with green glass, but open and empty. These objects had been of so little value that the
executioner, doubtless, had scorned to take them. The other skeleton, which held this one in so close a
clasp, was that of a man. It was observed that the spine was crooked, the skull compressed between the
shoulder-blades, and that one leg was shorter than the other. There was no rupture of the vertebræ at the
nape of the neck, from which it was evident that the man had not been hanged. He must, therefore, have
come of himself and died there.
When they attempted to detach this skeleton from the one it was embracing, it fell to dust.
. Appendix
NOTE I
On the title-page of the manuscript of Notre Dame de Paris there is the following note:
“I wrote the first three or four pages of Notre Dame de Paris on July 25, 1830. The Revolution of July
interrupted me. Then my dear little Adèle came into the world (bless her!). I recommenced writing Notre
Dame de Paris on September 1, and the work was concluded on January 15, 1831.”
NOTE II
Chapter I, “The Great Hall,” began thus in the manuscript:
“Three hundred and forty-eight years, six months, and nineteen days ago to-day, July 25, 1830.”
The words “July 25, 1830,” were scratched out.