Classic from the year 2009 in the subject Romance Languages - French Literature, language: English, abstract: BOOK FOURTH. THE GORBEAU HOVEL*** CHAPTER I. MASTER GORBEAU*** Forty years ago, a rambler who had ventured into that unknown country of the Salpetriere, and who had mounted to the Barriere d'Italie by way of the boulevard, reached a point where it might be said that Paris disappeared. It was no longer solitude, for there were passers-by; it was not the country, for there were houses and streets; it was not the city, for the streets had ruts like highways, and the grass grew in them;...

Classic from the year 2009 in the subject Romance Languages - French Literature, language: English, abstract: BOOK SIXTH - LE PETIT-PICPUS*** CHAPTER I. NUMBER 62 RUE PETIT-PICPUS*** Nothing, half a century ago, more resembled every other carriage gate than the carriage gate of Number 62 Rue Petit-Picpus. This entrance, which usually stood ajar in the most inviting fashion, permitted a view of two things, neither of which have anything very funereal about them, --a courtyard surrounded by walls hung with vines, and the face of a lounging porter. Above the wall, at the bottom of the court,...

Classic from the year 2009 in the subject Romance Languages - French Literature, language: English, abstract: BOOK EIGHTH. CEMETARIES TAKE THAT WHICH IS COMMITED THEM*** CHAPTER I. WHICH TREATS OF THE MANNER OF ENTERING A CONVENT*** It was into this house that Jean Valjean had, as Fauchelevent expressed it, "fallen from the sky." He had scaled the wall of the garden which formed the angle of the Rue Polonceau. That hymn of the angels which he had heard in the middle of the night, was the nuns chanting matins; that hall, of which he had caught a glimpse in the gloom, was the chapel. That...

Hugo's grand medieval melodrama tells the story of the beautiful Esmeralda, a gypsy girl loved by three men: Archdeacon Frollo, his adoptive son Quasimodo, bell-ringer of Notre-Dame cathedral, and Captain Phoebus. Falsely accused of trying to murder Phoebus, who attempts to rape her, Esmeralda is sentenced to death and rescued from the gallows by Quasimodo who defends her to the last.
The subject of many adaptations for stage and screen, this remains perhaps one of the most romantic yet gripping stories ever told.
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is an epic of a whole people, with a...

This is not a diary of events arranged in chronological order, nor is it a continuous autobiography. It is less and it is more, or rather, it is better than these. It is a sort of haphazard chronique in which only striking incidents and occurrences are brought out, and lengthy and wearisome details are avoided. Victor Hugo's long and chequered life was filled with experiences of the most diverse character-literature and politics, the court and the street, parliament and the theatre, labour, struggles, disappointments, exile and triumphs. Hence we get a series of pictures of infinite variety.