Notre-Dame de Paris · Chapter
VII: The Mysterious Monk explained
Captain Phoebus and the scholar Jehan Frollo leave the tavern 'Eve's Apple' late in the evening.
What happens
Captain Phoebus and the scholar Jehan Frollo leave the tavern 'Eve's Apple' late in the evening. Phoebus, needing money for a rendezvous with a woman, abandons the drunken Jehan in the street. A mysterious man in a cloak follows Phoebus, eventually offering him a coin on the condition that he be hidden in the room where Phoebus meets the woman. Phoebus agrees, and the man is locked into a dark chamber at the house of Goody Falourdel on the Pont Saint-Michel.
Themes in this chapter
Obsession and Destructive Love
The mysterious monk (Claude Frollo) follows Phoebus and arranges to spy on his rendezvous, foreshadowing his obsessive and destructive fixation on Esmeralda.
Appearance and Identity
The man in the mantle conceals his identity and costume, using the cloak to hide his true self while he stalks Phoebus.
Characters to notice
- Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers
Leaves the tavern with Jehan, abandons him drunk in the street, and proceeds to a rendezvous with a woman, accepting money from a mysterious stranger.
- Jehan Frollo du Moulin
Drunk and rambling, he is left by Phoebus to sleep on a rubbish-heap near the Rue Saint-André-des-Arcs.
- Dom Claude Frollo
Implied to be the mysterious man in the mantle who follows Phoebus, offers him money, and is hidden in the Sainte-Marthe chamber to spy on the rendezvous.
- Goody Falourdel
The old crone who keeps the house on the Pont Saint-Michel; she lets Phoebus and the stranger into the Sainte-Marthe chamber.
Key passages
“I have an appointment with a woman.”
Phoebus tells Jehan he is meeting a woman at seven o'clock.
Phoebus reveals his planned rendezvous, which the mysterious monk overhears.
“Hide me in some corner whence I can see whether this woman is really the one whose name you uttered.”
The stranger asks Phoebus to conceal him so he can observe the woman Phoebus is meeting.
The mysterious monk demands to be hidden in order to spy on the rendezvous.