The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Book 3, Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

The history of Paris and the way in which the city developed (where people chose to build things and why) can be read and interpreted through the study of its architecture. Notre Dame is at the heart of this study, as it is one of the oldest, tallest, and grandest buildings in Paris.

Kings have tried to exert control over the spread of Paris—by building walls around it—and have failed. Hugo uses this fact to illustrate that cities are living organic things, build by and for the people who inhabit them. Although kings can control the populace to an extent, Hugo suggests that the huge variation in buildings and the continual expansion of the city shows that kings have limited power over the people, who continue to live and change society even under oppressive rulers. Kings’ reigns are also temporary and are limited by the mortality of the monarch. In this sense, no king can keep the city the same for long.

Like an organism or ecosystem, the different parts of the city rely on each other and cannot survive alone. This suggests that, like a natural environment, cities are interconnected, living things which support the people who live there in a variety of diverse ways.

The way that the city is divided up gives modern readers an idea of what was important to people in medieval society and which institutions had power. The Church was one of the most powerful institutions in medieval society and, therefore, an entire district of the city is made up of churches. The University is also a powerful institution because it was a center of knowledge, like the Church. Students and members of the Church were among the few groups who were educated and could read in the medieval period and this gave these groups power in society, when many people lacked knowledge. In this sense, historical knowledge of the city’s architecture can allow modern people to read the city like a book and discover facts about medieval life.

Capital punishment is clearly used frequently in medieval Paris and all parts of the city collude in making this possible. This suggests that medieval society is unjust and that those sentenced to death cannot turn anywhere for help. But Hugo implies that, although monarchs are extremely powerful and will oppress the people to hang on to their power, it is possible for people to overthrow the king if they organize in large numbers to “force” power from him.

The description of the walls of the city shows that, unlike modern cities, medieval cities were equipped like fortresses to keep invaders out. This gives the modern reader information about the historical city that they could only learn from examining its architecture and suggests that architecture is a valuable tool for learning about history. Hugo personifies the city and suggests that Paris is like a body and the people are like its soul—they are shaped by the city, but they also help shape it to suit their own needs.

Hugo takes the reader on a historical tour of Paris by describing its medieval architecture. The island is the oldest part of Paris and reflects the style of the period in which it was built. Hugo strengthens this idea when he says that the view of the island would reminds the reader of medieval “blazonry.” Blazonry refers to designs and crests that medieval families wore to represent their different houses. The symbols used in blazonry cannot easily be understood by modern people because they reflect their historical context. But just like architecture, blazonry can be read and studied to provide knowledge about the past.

Medieval Paris clearly has an active and organized justice system; it contains both a court and several places of public punishment—such as the pillory, where people were publicly beaten. However, although the courts are active in the city, the image of the pillory undermines the idea of medieval “justice” and suggests, instead, that a society which beats its citizens is unjust and cruel.

Even in 1482, when people were generally very poor and kings and nobles kept most of the wealth, the merchants were a wealthy middle class who made their money in trade. Trades continued to flourish as the medieval period gave way to the Renaissance and then the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, which had produced a large, wealthy middle-class population by the 19th century, when Hugo was writing. However, Hugo points out that the poor still exist in the 19th century, despite the progress society has made, and this can be seen on the banks of the Seine in modern Paris in the figures of the poor washerwomen.

Gothic architecture was often seen as grotesque and ugly after the medieval period because of its apparent lack of symmetry. After the medieval period, Neo-classicist architecture (which featured rounded, harmonious shapes, in contrast to the Gothic’s extreme and jagged shapes) became popular and was considered high art, whereas Gothic art was considered barbarous. Hugo contradicts this view by highlighting the “harmony” of Paris and suggests that Neo-classicist architects are narrow-minded. They do not see the whole picture, which Hugo shows the reader with his comprehensive view of Paris from above.

Hugo presents medieval Paris as lively and bustling, as opposed to a dead, historical site. Napoleon was the general who took charge of France during the French Revolution, which took place in 1789 when the people overthrew King Louis XVI. Napoleon was an extremely popular political figure in this period and is still associated with democracy and liberty today. The reference to Napoleon’s storehouse suggests that the historical architecture of Paris is also part of its political and cultural history and, therefore, is something that people should preserve.

The Town is less unified than the University and the City because it represents the gradual disintegration of the medieval system, which was largely dominated by the Church. Unlike the University and the Church, which were centers of knowledge and wealth in the medieval period (but which kept this knowledge and wealth to themselves and did not share it among the people), the Town is where tradespeople and merchants live. Towards the end of the medieval period, as western society entered the Renaissance and then the Enlightenment, trades grew more important and wealth spread from the Church to the middle classes. With the invention of the printing press in the late 1400s, these tradespeople also learned to read and this meant that knowledge, and therefore power, was no longer kept exclusively in the hands of the Church and society became more diverse and individualistic.

After the end of the medieval period, Gothic architecture fell out of fashion and more symmetrical styles, such as Neo-classicism, became popular. In contrast to these modern styles, Gothic architecture was considered ugly and barbarous because it was not picturesque or harmonious in design. Hugo contradicts this with his image of the Gothic palace as a chess set. The two sides of a chess board are symmetrical, so Hugo suggests that Gothic architecture does the same. A chess set is also an appropriate metaphor because Gothic architecture often features extremes of design—such as great heights—and this is evoked by the colors of a chess set, which are extreme opposites: black and white.

The description of the city as a “sea” links back to Hugo’s earlier description of the Parisian crowds as a “sea.” This suggests that the people of Paris are like the architecture of Paris because they live among it, shape it, and are shaped by it. The presence of Gothic monuments among poor houses suggests that Gothic architecture is an architecture of the people and a part of their daily lives. Hugo contradicts the idea that modern developers are “tasteful” and, instead, suggests they are vulgar because they destroy important historical artifacts. The presence of the pillory and the gallows reminds the reader that medieval society is unjust, and that people are often sentenced to death or public punishment on minor charges.

Gothic architecture is full of extremes—extreme height, extremely thin or pointed towers—and this is mirrored in Hugo’s novel, which is a Gothic work of fiction and contains many extremes of behavior and emotion. Hugo suggests that it is appropriate to write in a Gothic style about a Gothic society (medieval society) because it is a society of extremes, in which beggars live alongside wealth and luxury.

The loss of the churches in Montmartre suggests that 19th-century society (which Hugo writes from) does not value religion in the same way that medieval society did and that the power of the Church has waned significantly since then. And again, this passage indicates that architecture provides important information about culture and what the society that built it valued.

Voltaire was a French philosopher and a proponent of rationalism and Enlightenment thought, which focused on scientific knowledge and careful observation of the natural world. The Enlightenment also considered Gothic art barbarous, because of its extremes and ugly features, compared with art in the classical style, which prioritized beauty and harmony. Hugo suggests that, despite Voltaire’s reputation as a rationalist, he is irrational in his claim about Gothic architecture because Gothic architecture is clearly beautiful in its own way and worthy of historical note.

Romanesque architecture refers to early Christian, pre-medieval architecture which used techniques from ancient Rome. Over time, these techniques developed into the Gothic style. The two styles merge and show the development of society. Hugo suggests that Renaissance architecture, which imitated Romanesque architecture and bypassed the Gothic, looks out of place because it is not authentic and does not say anything about society, other than that it tries to artificially recreate a historical period. This suggests that, in the medieval period, architecture was a spontaneous and expressive art form, so now it can tell modern readers something about the society that built it.

Since kings controlled most of the wealth until the late 1700s, when the monarchy in France was overthrown during the French Revolution, their personal taste was reflected in the buildings that they paid for. However, architecture is still an art form of the people, since it is laborers who construct these buildings and who go on to recreate and develop these styles elsewhere in the city.

Modern conveniences, such as plumbing and ventilation, which became more common in the 19th century with the new technologies of the Industrial Revolution, improved life for people in cities. However, Hugo argues that they reflect a society which is more focused on convenience than on beauty. The image of the building that looks like a temple but is really a stock exchange, suggests that current architecture reflects modern values—the importance of money and trade in 19th-century capitalism—just as medieval architecture reflects the values of its society.

The church bells are a relic of the medieval period. Hugo suggests that, when one hears the bells in Paris, one is connected to medieval society because one gets a sense of what medieval people’s daily lives were like. The bells were an important symbol in the lives of medieval Parisians—they symbolized the Church’s power, acted as a call to worship, and helped organize time—and it is through architecture that modern readers can experience this past for themselves.