The French have turned to the pages of fiction to help them mourn the devastating Notre-Dame blaze.
Victor Hugo’s 19th-century literary classic The Hunchback of Notre-Dame has soared to the top of France’s online bestseller list after the fire that ravaged the 850-year-old Paris cathedral on Monday night.
By Wednesday morning, different editions of the 1831 novel - which was originally titled Notre-Dame De Paris - occupied the first, third, fifth, seventh and eighth slots in Amazon France’s bestseller list, with a history of the gothic building taking sixth place.
In the early 1800s, Notre Dame was half-ruined when Hugo used the crumbling structure as the setting for one of his greatest works, setting in motion a rescue operation nearly as grand as its original construction.
The 1831 novel tells the story of of Quasimodo, the deformed bell ringer of the cathedral, who becomes obsessed with the beautiful Esmeralda in medieval Paris and was the inspiration for Disney's animated film of the same name.
It also inspired a classic 1923 silent movie.
Hugo wrote two chapters just describing the cathedral.
He wrote: “[I]t is difficult not to sigh, not to wax indignant, before the numberless degradations and mutilations which time and men have both caused the venerable monument to suffer.”
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