The plot of the novel is like this:
The story takes place in the Middle Ages. "On April Fool's Day, wandering gypsies performed songs and dances in the square, and a gypsy girl named Esmeralda attracted the passers-by with her beautiful face and graceful dance.
At that moment, Claude Frollo, the deputy bishop of Notre Dame de Paris, was instantly enamored of the beautiful Melada, and, with the fire of lust burning within him, fell madly in love with her. So he ordered the church bell-ringer, the strangely ugly-looking Quasimodo, to snatch Esmeralda. As it turned out, Fabi, the captain of the French king's bow, saved Esmeralda and captured Quasimodo. He takes the bell-ringer to the square to be flogged, and the kind Gypsy girl brings water to Quasimodo to drink instead of forgetting her former grudge.
The bell-ringer, who was ugly on the outside but pure and noble on the inside, was very grateful to Esmeralda and fell in love with her. Naive Esmeralda falls in love with Fabi at first sight, and when the two go out on a date, Frollo quietly follows behind and out of jealousy, he stabs Fabi with a knife and escapes. Esmeralda, however, was sentenced to death for murder.
Casimodo snatched Esmeralda from under the gallows and hid her in Notre Dame de Paris, where Frollo took advantage of the situation to threaten the Gypsy girl to fulfill his lust, and when he was refused, handed her over to the king's army, and the innocent girl was hanged. Enraged, Quasimodo pushes Frollo off the church and falls to his death, and he embraces Esmeralda's body and dies as well.
The novel Notre Dame de Paris artfully reproduces the historical reality of the reign of King Louis XI more than four hundred years ago, how the court and the church were in collusion to oppress the people, and how the people fought bravely against the two forces. In the novel, the rebel gypsy Esmeralda and the ugly disabled man Gazimodo are shown in front of the readers as the embodiment of true beauty, while what people see in the vice bishop Foulouleau and the aristocratic soldier Fombis is cruelty, empty heart and sinful lust. The author organically connects the singable stories and vivid and rich dramatic scenes to make this novel highly readable. The novel is strongly romanticized and uses the writing technique of contrast, which is an artistic example of using the Romantic principle of contrast. The publication of the novel made Hugo's reputation even more widespread.
In Notre Dame de Paris, the author depicts the lowest class of Parisian people, vagabonds and beggars with great sympathy. They were ragged and rough in their manners, but possessed virtues far superior to those of the so-called educated and civilized world. The virtues of mutual love, integrity, courage and self-sacrifice. The scene in the novel in which the Parisian vagabonds attack Notre Dame to rescue Esmeralda is tragic, intense, generous and thrilling, and obviously incorporates to some extent the bravery shown by the people of Paris in the July Revolution and the destruction by the people of Paris of the Church of St. Germain and the Archbishop's Palace in Paris. The novel also hints at the outbreak of the 1789 Revolution by predicting, through the mouths of the characters in the book, that the people will rise up and destroy the Bastille.
The novel exposes the hypocrisy of religion, proclaims the bankruptcy of asceticism, and celebrates the kindness, love, and self-sacrifice of the lower class of working people, reflecting Hugo's humanitarian thinking.