Esméralda (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)

Esmeralda
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame character
Illustration of Esmeralda and Djali from 'Victor Hugo and His Time'. 1882.
Created by	Victor Hugo
Information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Dancer
Spouse(s)	Pierre Gringoire
Relatives	Paquette "la Chantefleurie" Guybertaut (mother)
Nationality	Romani, French

Esmeralda [ɛs.me.ʁɑl.da], born Agnès, is a fictional character in Victor Hugo's 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (or Notre Dame de Paris). She is a French Roma girl (near the end of the book, it is revealed that her biological mother was a French woman). She constantly attracts men with her seductive dances, and is rarely seen without her clever goat Djali. She is around 16 years old and has a kind and generous heart.

Esmeralda's birth-name was Agnes. She is the love child of Paquette Guybertaut, nicknamed 'la Chantefleurie', an orphaned minstrel's daughter who lives in Rheims. Paquette has become a prostitute after being seduced by a young nobleman, and lives a miserable life in poverty and loneliness. Agnes's birth makes Paquette happy once more, and she lavishes attention and care upon her adored child: even the neighbours begin to forgive Paquette for her past behaviour when they watch the pair. Tragedy strikes, however, when Gypsies kidnap the young baby, leaving a hideously deformed child (the infant Quasimodo) in place. The townsfolk come to the conclusion that the Gypsies have cannibalised baby Agnes; the mother flees Rheims in despair, and the deformed child is exorcised and sent to Paris, to be left on the foundling bed at Notre-Dame.

Fifteen years later, Agnes—now named La Esmeralda, in reference to the paste emerald she wears around her neck—is living happily amongst the Gypsies in Paris. She serves as a public dancer. Her pet goat Djali also performs counting tricks with a tambourine, an act later used as courtroom evidence that Esmeralda is a witch.

Claude Frollo sends his adopted son Quasimodo to kidnap Esmeralda from the streets. Esmeralda is rescued by Captain Phoebus, with whom she instantly falls in love to the point of obsession. Later that night, Clopin Trouillefou, the King of the Trunads, prepares to execute a poet named Pierre Gringoire for trespassing the Trunads' territory known as The Court of Miracles. In a compassionate act to save his life, Esmeralda agrees to marry Gringoire.