Frankenstein vs The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

by Charles Nodier; Victor Hugo

  The story was dramatized in 1850 by Paul Foucher and Paul Meurice. It is that version that we translated here.

  Victor Hugo:

  Victor Hugo (1802-1885) was born in Besançon in Eastern France. His father was a Bonapartist General, his mother a strong Monarchist. Young Hugo was something of a child prodigy, turning out translations of Latin and Greek when he was 13 and winning literary prizes when he was still in his teens. By the time he was 20, Hugo had already become not only a published poet, but one whom many regarded as France’s greatest living poet. At 14, he is reputed to have said, “I want to be Chateaubriand or nothing.” Three years later, Chateaubriand himself was calling Hugo an “enfant sublime.” By 1823, he had already received Royal subsidies for his writings.

  Hugo came to Paris and fell under the influence of Charles Nodier and the first Cenacle. With Alexandre Dumas, he became the leader of the Romantic Movement in the theater. In 1823 and 1824, he published two lurid, Gothic novels, Han d'Islande (Han of Iceland) and Bug-Jargal (1824). In 1827, he published his play, Cromwell, and the more influential, Preface to Cromwell. In it, he developed his theatrical ideas, which he derived in part from Shakespeare, advocating the mixing of the grotesque with the sublime. His next play, Marion DeLorme, based on the life of a famous 17th century courtesan, fell victim to censorship for political reasons.

  In 1830, Hugo brought out Hernani, which was performed by the Comédie Française. Supported by his friends Dumas, Theophile Gautier, Alfred de Vigny and others, the first performance became a veritable battle between Hugo’s friends and the outraged Classicists. The curious thing about the so-called “Battle of Hernani” was that, while the Romanticists tended to be politically sympathetic to Republicanism, the Republicans themselves tended to be very hostile to Romanticism in the theatre, and were actually strong supporters of Classicism. The reverse was the case with the Monarchists. Politically conservative, they were more open to theatrical innovation. But for the time being, for a period of about five years, the Romanticists were in the ascendant.

  The next decade was the most prolific in Hugo’s life. Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) made him immensely popular and, ultimately, got him a seat at the prestigious Académie Française in 1841. His dramatic successes included Le Roi s'amuse (The King Amuses Himself, 1832), adapted by Giuseppe Verdi for the opera Rigoletto (1851), the prose drama Lucrèce Borgia (1833) and the melodrama Ruy Blas (1838). However, in 1843, due to the twin blows of the failure of his latest play, Les Burgraves, and the drowning of one of his daughters and her husband, Hugo bid the theatre adieu.

  Hugo’s plays were not box office successes. He often envied Dumas who, though a lesser poet, enjoyed far greater popular success. The reason for his relative failure was, as an admirer, André Breton, observed, “taken as a whole the theatre of Hugo is monotonous and artificial.” Honoré de Balzac, also an admirer and friend, remarked, “the characters are not created according to good sense.” And after seeing Les Burgraves, “Victor Hugo has decidedly remained the “enfant sublime,” and that’s all he will ever be.”

  Hugo then decided to become more involved in politics. After escaping the early influence of his mother’s Monarchism, he had became a lifelong Republican, even though he had been made a peer of France by King Louis Philippe in 1845. In particular, Hugo became a sworn enemy of Louis Napoleon, the future Emperor Napoleon III. His opposition to the coup d’état of 1852 eventually resulted in a 15-year-long exile to the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey. It was there that he wrote his epic poem La Légende des Siècles (The Legend of the Ages, 1859-1883) and completed his longest and most famous novel, Les Misérables (1862).

  After the fall of the Second Empire in 1870, Hugo returned to Mainland France and was elected to the National Assembly and, later, to the Senate. His latest works include the swashbuckling historical novel about the French Revolution, Quatre-Vingt-Treize (Ninety-Three, 1874) and a collection of beautiful poems about his grand-children entitled L’Art d'être Grand-Père (The Art of Being a Grandfather, 1877).

  While Hugo will always be remembered as a novelist and poet, his contributions to the theatre, and especially the monumental adaptations of his novels, should not be neglected.

  If Hugo may have been said to have had no sense of theatre when he wrote plays, the reverse was true when he wrote novels. These abound in vivid characters and scenes, which are both striking and seemingly real. When we come to the theatrical adaptations of his novels by Paul Foucher and Paul Meurice, we are presented with stunning plays that exhibit none of the faults usually associated with Hugo’s original dramatic efforts.

  Paul Foucher:

  Foucher (1810-1875) was Hugo’s brother-in-law. He attended the prestigious Lycée Henry IV in Paris with Alfred de Musset and the Duke of Orléans. From childhood, he was a friend of Victor Hugo and became his brother-in-law when Hugo married his sister in 1822.

  Foucher was a sincere admirer of Hugo. When he was 19, Hugo, looking for easy money, had written a play, Kenilworth, based upon a Walter Scott novel, in collaboration with another dramatist, Alexandre Soumet (1786-1845). However, the two authors did not see eye to eye, Hugo favoring melodrama and Soumet comedy. Failing to reach an agreement, they each took the parts that they had written. Soumet went on to reuse his material to create Emilia which had a successful run at the Théâtre Français in 1827. For his part, Hugo produced his own play, which he entitled Amy Robsart, but never succeeded in getting it produced.

  Six years later, in 1827, Foucher, by then the younger of Hugo’s two brothers-in-law, begged him to let him read the shelved play (which had in fact, been recommended to him by Soumet himself!) with an eye to producing it himself. But Hugo was understandably reluctant to let what he considered to be an imperfect work written when he was 19 be exhumed. Foucher insisted and prevailed only by convincing Hugo to let Amy Robsart appear under Foucher’s name, thus helping the latter’s budding career. But Hugo was not the type of man to let things rest. He considerably rewrote the play.

  Still, the rewritten Amy Robsart, which opened on February 13, 1828, at the Odéon, proved a total failure. Hugo, ever the honorable man, saved his brother-in-law from public humiliation by fessing up to it, writing to the newspapers: “Since the success of Amy Robsart, the first essay of a young poet whose fortune is dearer to me than my own, has met with such bitter opposition, I hasten to declare that I am not altogether a stranger to the work. There are, in the drama, some passages, some fragments of scenes, which were written by me, and I ought to say that they are the passages which were, perhaps, most loudly hissed.”

  Whatever negative impression Amy Robsart might have left, it did not hurt Foucher’s career. He earnestly began writing plays in 1830, and in 1832, novels as well. He was supposedly of a middling intelligence but those who wanted to get close to Hugo found it useful to be friends with him. Others fled this spoiled “child of romanticism” as he was called. His gaffes were legendary; at one time, calling Lamartine M. Prat. He was closely linked to Saint-Beuve who was an admirer (or lover) of Madame Hugo. Foucher’s literary output was considerable, but only two were notably successful: his original libretto of Le Vaisseau Fantôme (The Flying Dutchman, 1842), based on Richard Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer, and Le Pacte de Famine (Hunger’s Pact, 1839).

  Foucher may have been guilty of some gaucheries but he managed to write one almost perfect play, Notre-Dame de Paris, first performed at L’Ambigu Comique in 1850. His first adaptation actually gave the novel a happy ending! But, some years later, he and Paul Meurice rewrote it to conform to the novel.

  Paul Meurice:

  A graduate of the Charlemagne College, Paul Meurice (1820-1905) was introduced to Victor Hugo by Charles Vacquerie in 1836 and quickly became his friend. He was also on friendly terms with Alexandre Dumas père and must have been a fairly good diplomat to remain on good terms with two men who were often at odds due to their professional jealousy.

  A prolific playwright, Meurice produced at
least one work of note every year: Benvenuto Cellini (1852), which later became the basis for the libretto of Saint-Saens’ eponymous opera, Schamyl (1854), La Famille Aubry (1857), the classic swashbuckler Fanfan la Tulipe (1858), Le Maître d’école (1858), François-les-bas-bleus (1863), Les Chevaliers de l’esprit (1869), Le Songe de l’amour (1869), etc. With Dumas, Meurice collaborated on a French adaptation of Hamlet (1848) and Les Deux Dianes (The Two Dianas, 1845).

  About the latter, Gothic author Jules Janin told this story to the Goncourts, and Paul Foucher retold a similar version in his memoirs:

  One day, Meurice came to see Dumas in need of money. If he could only have 40,000 francs by the next day, he could make a brilliant marriage. Dumas was willing, but unable.

  “I don’t have ten percent of that sum available at the moment,” he said.

  “But your signature on a new novel can easily command an advance on royalties worth 50,000 francs,” retorted Meurice.

  “But,” lamented Dumas, “I don’t have anything ready at the moment.”

  Whereupon, Meurice smiled, having foreseen that possibility, and pulled out a manuscript box containing the novel The Two Dianas, which he later would dramatize.

  Dumas thought for a moment and said:

  “Leave it here, come back in the morning.”

  The next day, Meurice had his 40,000 francs and went on to be richly, and hopefully happily, married.

  Meurice was a staunch Republican and wound up spending ten months in prison in 1848 for printing an article on the right of asylum in his newspaper, L’Evenement. The article was by Charles Victor Hugo, Victor Hugo’s son. In 1869, he co-founded the journal Rappel, and handled literary and theatrical criticism. There, he worked with the young Emile Zola.

  During Hugo’s exile to the Channel Islands, Meurice was his “man in Paris,” taking care of all his business. He wrote (or co-wrote) stage adaptations of Hugo’s famous works: Notre-Dame de Paris (with Paul Foucher), Les Misérables (with Charles Victor Hugo) and Quatre-Ving Treize. All three plays are very faithful and powerful dramatic works.

  Between 1880 and 1885, Meurice directed the publication of Hugo’s collected works. After Hugo’s death, as his literary executor, he edited and published The Love Letters of Victor Hugo (1896) and set up the Victor Hugo Museum on the Place de Vosges in Paris.

  The Hunchback of Notre-Dame:

  The play that Foucher and Meurice drew from the novel is quite extraordinary. It tracks the novel carefully, never betraying it, and yet is enormously effective as a play. This perhaps reflects the theatricality of Hugo’s works in the novel form. Like Shakespeare, Hugo has a way of drawing characters that makes them unforgettable from their first appearance. And the two adaptors bring this out. It’s not just Quasimodo who is unforgettable, so is Esmeralda, and so, in his twisted way, is Claude Frollo, and the Beggar-King in the Court of Miracles.

  Thanks to Lon Chaney, Charles Laughton and Walt Disney, Quasimodo has become almost a household word for humpbacked, animal ugliness. But beneath the ugly exterior, he is, in a retarded sort of way, desperate for love and affection, and many generations of readers and moviegoers have loved this character. His very inability to articulate his feelings makes him sympathetic.

  It is possible that Quasimodo owes something to Shakespeare’s Caliban, but unlike Caliban, he is good. Shakespeare would have loved this work.

  Characters

  Quasimodo the Hunchback, bell-ringer of Notre-Dame

  Esmeralda, a Gypsy dancing girl

  Dom Claude Frollo, Archdeacon of Notre-Dame

  Phoebus de Chateaupers, Captain of the King’s Guards

  Pierre Gringoire, a poet

  Jehan Frollo, a student and Claude’s younger brother

  Robin Poussepain, another student and Jehan’s friend

  Clopin Trouillefou, a beggar and King of the Court of Miracles

  Madame de Gondelaurier, a wealthy Parisienne

  Fleurs-de-Lys de Gondelaurier, her oldest daughter, engaged to Captain Phoebus

  Colombe de Gondelaurier, her second daughter

  Diane de Gondelaurier, her third daughter

  Berangere de Gondelaurier, her youngest daughter

  Gervaise, the wife of a Parisian armorer

  Oudarde, Gervaise’s friend

  Mahiette, Gervaise’s friend, visiting from Reims

  Eustache, Mahiette’s son

  Jacques Coppenole, a bourgeois of Ghent

  François Chanteprune, a beggar

  Bellevigne de l’Etoile, another beggar

  La Sachette, the Recluse of the Tour Roland

  Tristan L’Hermite, Provost of the King’s Guards

  Pierrat Torterue, Official Torturer and Executioner

  La Falourdel, a landlady

  Various Students, Guards, Monks, Vagabonds, Beggars and other Parisians.

  Paris, 1482.

  Act I

  Scene I

  The Grand Hall

  To the left is a dais in gold brocade. To the right is a marble table supported by a carpenter’s frame, the upper surface of which serves as a theater stage. A tall tapestry hides the interior vestry. A ladder is placed against the table. At the back, there is a small door surmounted by a round window. A large crowd of students and bourgeois already fill the hall. Students enter tumultuously from the back.

  STUDENTS: Students! All of you, make room for the students.

  JEHAN FROLLO (above at the cornice of a pillar): Ho! Friends. Ho! Robin Poussepain!

  ROBIN POUSSEPAIN: Heavens! Is that Jehan Frollo? What the Devil are you doing perched there on that cornice?

  JEHAN FOLLO: I like to be on top of things.

  (Enter from the left, Mahiette, Gervaise and Oudarde.)

  MAHIETTE: Oh! What a crowd! What an uproar! Gervaise, what’s this enormous table made of marble?

  GERVAISE: It’s there for the Morality Play.

  MAHIETTE: The Morality Play? What’s the Morality Play?

  GERVAISE: You don’t know what a Morality Play is, my poor Mahiette? What have you been learning at your University in Reims?

  OUDARDE: A Morality Play is a Mystery.

  MAHIETTE: A Mystery?

  GERVAISE: Yes, a play for speaking characters. The one they’re going to give is for the marriage of Monseigneur the Dauphin. It’s called The Good Judgment of Madame the Virgin.

  MAHIETTE: And when is it going to start?

  OUDARDE: Anytime now. They’re waiting until noon and for the arrival of the Flemish Ambassador.

  MAHIETTE: Oh, noon will arrive on time, but the Ambassador? I’m not so sure... Look, the dais is still empty.

  OUDARDE: Look! Someone is starting to arrive.

  (Enter from the left, Madame de Gondelaurier and her daughter, Fleur-de-Lys, followed by Captain Phoebus.)

  MAHIETTE: Ah, the magnificent attire!

  GERVAISE: It’s Madame de Gondelaurier with her daughter, Fleur-de-Lys.

  MAHIETTE: And that handsome Captain accompanying them? Do you know his name?

  GERVAISE: I do indeed. He bought his arms at my husband’s shop. He’s Captain of the King’s Guards, Monsieur Phoebus de Chateaupers.

  PHOEBUS (turning): Did I hear my name? Heavens! Gervaise, the pretty armorer.

  JEHAN FROLLO: Hello there, Captain! Hello, friend Phoebus.

  PHOEBUS (aside): It’s that sly devil, Jehan Frollo.

  JEHAN FROLLO: Captain! Say, you look like you are on fatigue duty. (laughter in the crowd)

  MADAME DE GONDELAURIER (to Phoebus): Nephew, why do you force us to pass through these jeering students and all these braying, ill-bred men?

  MAHIETTE: They seem to like taking him down a notch, that friend of Gervaise!

  OUDARDE: He’s a gallant and joyous soldier, but completely broke! The money-lenders won’t leave him anything but his name.

  GERVAISE (sighing): And even that, he’s going to be forced to give up, in exchange for a rich dowry from his cousin, Fleur-de-Lys.

  MAHIETTE:
You call that giving up, my poor Gervaise? You really are naive!

  (The clock strikes noon. There is uproar and movement in the hall.)

  OUDARDE: Ah! Noon at last.

  (A great, expectant silence ensues.)

  JEHAN FROLLO: Well, what about the Mystery? Isn’t it going to start?

  ALL: The Mystery! The Mystery!

  GRINGOIRE (beaming, putting his head through the fold of the curtain): O intelligent people! O generous impatience! How they know to sniff out a masterpiece.

  JEHAN FROLLO (shouting): The Mystery now! Or else, I think we should hang the Provost from the top of the rafters–in lieu of comedy and morality.

  CROWD: Well said! And burn down the theater, too!

  GRINGOIRE (uneasy): Ay! Their ardor is going a bit too far.

  ROBIN POUSSEPAIN (shouting): Burn it down! And bring a rope for the Provost!

  JEHAN FROLLO: And for the actors! (rumblings of approval)

  GRINGOIRE: A rope for the actors! What about my play then? Let’s put an end to this nonsense.

  (He comes out from behind the curtain and climbs up the ladder.)

  CROWD: Silence! Silence!

  GRINGOIRE (on the marble table, with energetic bows): Mesdames and Messieurs of the bourgoisie...

  JEHAN FROLLO: Who the Hell are you? Yes, you, the one doing all the talking.