Hugo goes into a lot of detail in the book about this. The medieval stained glass panels for example found in the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris had their medieval stained glass panels removed and this was replaced by white glass some more light could get into the church.

He wanted to make his contemporaries aware of Gothic architecture which was being neglected, destroyed and replaced with other buildings. Victor Hugo started writing the Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1829.

The book came about because of Victor Hugo’s love of Gothic architecture. It’s pretty clear, with the dedication of the people of France, that same thing is going to happen once more. Written with the hopes of saving an irreplaceable historic landmark of Paris that was on death’s doorstep, The Hunchback of Notre Dame instead was able to bring it new life. In his book, he ends the preface of Hunchback with predicting that “the church will, perhaps, itself soon disappear from the face of the earth.” But instead, he managed to save it. As a result of Hugo’s book and effort, the king ordered a restoration in 1844.Īt the time of his writing, the church was a wreck from years of being ignored and even vandalized. When it came out in 1831 and was a major literary success, The Hunchback of Notre Dame the news and attention it created at the time brought attention to the Cathedral which had been in a terrible state of disrepair. It reminds us almost two centuries later that the has already been saved and rebuilt before. The famous book by Victor Hugo is more relevant than ever when it comes to the recent events at the cathedral.

Victor hugo notre dame