Châteaupers to the Rescue explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• The Power of the Crowd

  The vagabonds, though poorly armed, fight desperately as a mob, but are ultimately overwhelmed by organized royal troops.

• Social Injustice and Class

  The outcasts' rebellion against authority is brutally suppressed by the king's forces, highlighting class conflict.

Characters to notice

• Quasimodo

  Defends Notre-Dame desperately; after the king's troops arrive and rout the vagabonds, he runs to Esmeralda's cell but finds it empty.

• La Esmeralda

  The gypsy Quasimodo was trying to save; her cell is found empty after the battle.

• Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers

  Leads the king's cavalry in the rescue, bearing himself valiantly.

• Clopin Trouillefou

  Fights fiercely with a scythe during the battle, but is killed by an arquebus shot.

Key passages

• “The reader will, perhaps, recall the critical situation in which we left Quasimodo. The brave deaf man, assailed on all sides, had lost, if not all courage, at least all hope of saving, not himself (he was not thinking of himself), but the gypsy.”

  Quasimodo, surrounded and overwhelmed, had given up hope of saving Esmeralda, though he remained fearless for himself.

  Sets the desperate tone before the rescue arrives.

• “All at once, a great galloping of horses filled the neighboring streets, and, with a long file of torches and a thick column of cavaliers, with free reins and lances in rest, these furious sounds debouched on the Place like a hurricane — 'France! France! cut down the louts! Châteaupers to the rescue! Provostship! Provostship!'”

  Suddenly, the king's cavalry thundered into the square, shouting battle cries and led by Captain Phoebus.

  Dramatic entrance of the royal forces turning the tide.

• “One was noticed who had a large, glittering scythe, and who, for a long time, mowed the legs of the horses. He was frightful. He was singing a ditty, with a nasal intonation, he swung and drew back his scythe incessantly. At every blow he traced around him a great circle of severed limbs. He advanced thus into the very thickest of the cavalry, with the tranquil slowness, the lolling of the head and the regular breathing of a harvester attacking a field of wheat. It was Clopin Trouillefou. A shot from an arquebus laid him low.”

  Clopin Trouillefou fought savagely with a scythe, cutting down horses and riders, until he was killed by a gunshot.

  Vivid depiction of Clopin's ferocity and death.

• “When Quasimodo, who had not ceased to fight for a moment, beheld this rout, he fell on his knees and raised his hands to heaven; then, intoxicated with joy, he ran, he ascended with the swiftness of a bird to that cell, the approaches to which he had so intrepidly defended. He had but one thought now; it was to kneel before her whom he had just saved for the second time. When he entered the cell, he found it empty.”

  Seeing the vagabonds flee, Quasimodo joyfully rushed to Esmeralda's cell, only to discover she was gone.

  Irony and tragedy: his victory is hollow.