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Arthur's household rejoiced beyond measure; but those of the city wept, making great sorrow for Frollo, their champion. Nevertheless, the citizens of Paris ran to their gates. They set the doors wide, and welcomed Arthur, his meinie, and company within their walls.
"I told you so, sister, that young clerk, Monsieur Claude Frollo, is a sorcerer." In fact, Claude Frollo was no common person. He belonged to one of those middle-class families which were called indifferently, in the impertinent language of the last century, the high bourgeoise or the petty nobility.
That immense body is empty; it is a skeleton; the spirit has quitted it, one sees its place and that is all. It is like a skull which still has holes for the eyes, but no longer sight. Nevertheless, there was one human creature whom Quasimodo excepted from his malice and from his hatred for others, and whom he loved even more, perhaps, than his cathedral: this was Claude Frollo.
Captain Phoebus, having invited Esmeralda to meet him at a wineshop, the priest followed the couple, and when the captain, to whom the girl was the merest diversion, began to make love, Claude Frollo, unable to contain himself, rushed in unobserved and stabbed him. Captain Phoebus was taken up for dead, and the priest vanished as silently as he had come.
Frollo had full assurance of Arthur's rectitude In the simplicity of his heart he sent urgent messages to the king, praying him to enter in the Island, that body to body they might bring their quarrel to an end. He who prevailed over his fellow, and came living from the battle, should take the whole realm as his own and receive all France for his guerdon.
Neither were the people deceived thereby; with any one who possessed any sagacity, Quasimodo passed for the demon; Claude Frollo, for the sorcerer. It was evident that the bellringer was to serve the archdeacon for a given time, at the end of which he would carry away the latter's soul, by way of payment.
He rushed furiously upon the archdeacon, and with his great fists he hurled Claude Frollo into the abyss over which he leaned. The archdeacon caught at a gutter, and hung suspended for a few minutes, and then fell more than two hundred feet. Quasimodo raised his eyes to the gypsy, whose body still swung from the gibbet; and then lowered them to the shapeless mass on the pavement beneath.
He took rent and tribute of the people, and in due season caused the treasure to be delivered to the emperor at Rome. Thus had it been since the time of Caesar, that mighty emperor, who brought into subjection France and Germany, and all the land of Britain. Frollo was a very worthy lord, come of a noble Roman race, fearful of none, however hardy.
We will say then, that Quasimodo loved the archdeacon as never a dog, never a horse, never an elephant loved his master. In 1482, Quasimodo was about twenty years of age; Claude Frollo, about thirty-six. One had grown up, the other had grown old.
And, from the profound immobility of his whole body, barely agitated at intervals by an involuntary shiver, as a tree is moved by the wind; from the stiffness of his elbows, more marble than the balustrade on which they leaned; or the sight of the petrified smile which contracted his face, one would have said that nothing living was left about Claude Frollo except his eyes.
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