Much as I love to wallow in a good tragedy, I always thought the principal characters of Notre Dame de Paris (and one young man especially!) deserved happier fates, so here is my alternative ending, a sort of education sentimentale for two women, three men and, of course, a goat.

Last Year's Snows: An 'Education Sentimentale'

1: 'Maître' Gringoire, Advocate & Logician

…Et de la corde d'une toise
Sçaura mo col que mon cul poise.

(…And on two yards of hempen tow
My neck my arse's weight shall know.)

François Villon, Quatrain in Expectation of Execution (1462)

The anchoress, once called 'La Chantefleurie', had told her pathetic tale, but Tristan L'Hermite remained unmoved. The hangman, Henriet Cousin, began to drag the two women out from the ruins of her cell towards the gallows in the Place de Grève. Provost d'Estouteville looked on, holding back his assembled troops.

"No!" shrieked Pâquette, clinging desperately to Esméralda. "She is my child! My Agnès! My daughter!"

There seemed no hope of reprieve. Then, they heard the clatter of dainty cloven hooves on the cobbles, and running footsteps. It was Djali, galloping as fast as her legs could carry her, tugging Gringoire breathlessly behind on the other end of her leading-string.

"Pierre!" Esméralda cried.

He stopped, and paused to recover himself. He absorbed the scene before him. Quick-witted, he calculated…

He cleared his throat. "Would you gentlemen kindly explain what you are doing with my wife?"

"Your wife?"

"The old witch or the young one?"

Pâquette stared. "Agnès – you're married? To that long, skinny–?"

"I'll explain later!" Esméralda whispered.

"Who are you, anyway?" asked the hangman.

He bowed flamboyantly. "Pierre Gringoire, poet, tragedian, and philosopher; Magister Artium, late of the University of Paris." (This last was not strictly true, but he thought it was worth a try.)

Tristan nodded. "Ah yes: you!" he said gruffly. "The mountebank philosopher! We met but a few hours past at the Bastille. If you hold up this execution, you'll definitely be the late –"

Gringoire drew himself up to his full height: tall and gangling, he resembled a stork in human guise. He raised his hand, assuming an air of authority. "Silence, messires! You cannot execute this woman!"

"Why not? It's the King's will! She's caused enough trouble in this city!"

"Primo: she is innocent. The chief capital charge against her was the murder of Captain de Châteaupers: the very same Captain de Châteaupers whom I passed in the street just now as he rode from here."

"And?"

"Do you not see that, since the Captain was here this very morning, and assuredly not a ghost, then he cannot have been murdered in the first place by anyone?"

"The attempt's as good as the dead in the eyes of the law! Besides, there's the witchcraft!"

Pierre hesitated for a moment. "Secundo: that might be the case, but for another matter!"

"And what is that?"

"Can you be certain you have the right woman?"

"What do you mean?"

"I could not help but hear this lady" – he indicated Pâquette – "who is known to all as the most devout Sister Gudule, and thus, I think, may be regarded as trustworthy, address her as Agnès."

"So?"

"What is the name of the woman whom you are to execute? It must be on the warrant!"

"La Esméralda."

"A gypsy?"

"Aye!"

"Sister Gudule," Gringoire said to the anchoress, "on what grounds do you believe that this young woman – my wife – is named Agnès?"

"Because I bore her! She is my own daughter, my Agnès. She was stolen from me! I have told them! I have told them this! See?"

She showed him the little embroidered shoe; Esméralda held out the other.

"As these shoes match each other, she is my child. There's a note, too, with hers. Read it!"

She gave him the slip of paper, which bore the inscription:

Quand le pareil retrouveras,
Ta mère te tendra les bras.

(When you find the matching shoe,
Your mother will reach out to you.)

He studied it closely, and nodded. He then passed it to Tristan, who in turn handed it to Robert d'Estouteville for scrutiny. The provost, too, nodded.

"And are you a gypsy?" Pierre asked.

Pâquette raised her head, her big dark eyes – so like her daughter's – blazing in her gaunt face. "Certainly not! They stole my baby!"

"So your daughter is not a gypsy, either?"

"No!"

"So can you tell me what her name is in full?"

"Agnès Guybertaut. On my life, I swear it! By the Holy Virgin, I swear it! I am Pâquette Guybertaut, once called 'La Chantefleurie'. We are from Reims, both of us."

"So you see," Pierre said, "you do not have the woman named on your warrant! She is neither a gypsy, nor is she named Esméralda. You must, therefore, in all conscience release her."

"You chop logic like a butcher!" said Tristan.

"Or a lawyer!" added the provost.

Pierre decided to take this as a compliment, and bowed low. "Thank you kindly, messires! For that, you must thank my master, who has surely the greatest intellect in all Paris: I'm sure you're familiar with Dom Clau–"

"– But then there's the matter of the goat… Sorcery again… Does the beast have diabolical powers? Henriet, what do you think?"

Djali, at that moment, was nuzzling into one of Henriet's big, rough hands with practised winsomeness. "What a sweet little thing!" He stroked the soft white fur of her head.

"Don't look into its eyes, man! It may bewitch you!"

"Ah! –Tertio: this charming creature is likewise as innocent as –"

Realising that Gringoire would continue for hours if he could, Tristan sighed. "Oh… damn you! Get out of my sight, all of you! And out of range of my nose! I don't know which smells worse – the scabby old hag or the goat!"

"Djali does not smell, messire!" Pierre retorted. "She is usually bathed daily! And as for calling my mother-in-law a hag –"

Esméralda raised a finger to her lips. He took the hint, and, for once, fell silent.

Henriet laughed. "Well, my mother-in-law certainly is!"

"Now be off with you before I hang the lot of you!"

"What will the King say?" asked the provost.

"I think," said Tristan, "that he will say we would be more usefully employed mopping up the last dregs of the Cour des Miracles… This gypsy trollop is a trivial distraction! And, if we let him, that idiot philosopher husband would keep us here all day, talking the hind legs off a donkey!"

"– Or, indeed, off a goat!"

Pierre hurriedly dragged the two young women (and the goat) around a street corner and then into a smaller side-alley. "Quickly, get out of sight before they change their minds! – Pasque-Dieu! But that was close-run!"

They pressed themselves close to the wall. Pâquette's eyes darted about fearfully. After fifteen years in one cell, she had forgotten how big and noisy was the outside world when one was in it, not merely observing. Even here, she felt afraid. Djali lay down in the dirt: she would need another bath after this, her master thought.

"You came back for me! I didn't know you'd be so brave!" Esméralda exclaimed. "When you left with Djali –"

He wondered for a moment if gratitude might, at last, make her truly his wife. Then he shuffled, and looked at the ground. "Actually, it was Djali's doing. She didn't want me to leave you! I just hung on, for fear she'd get lost!"

"Still, it was cleverly done!"

He whistled. "By the skin of my teeth, my sweet! The skin of my teeth! Thinking on my feet! But then, as I said, I was taught logic by the most erudite of masters, Dom Claude Frollo de Tirechappe, and keeping up with him in argument is –"

"Don't mention that devil of a priest to me again!"

"Devil? But it was he who helped us –"

"– And gave you back to me, my child," said Pâquette softly, smoothing her daughter's hair with bruised and bloodied fingers. Her exertions in wrenching out the window bars had exhausted her. "After all these years!"

"Mother, he only gave me to you to hold while he called the guards! – Pierre, your master betrayed me!"

"What?"

"He led the troops to us! He forced me to choose – the gallows or his bed! The gallows or…him."

"You didn't help yourself, calling 'Phœbus!'" her mother muttered under her breath.

Pierre struggled to comprehend Esméralda's words. She had said it simply, plainly; but he could scarcely believe it. Not his master – his wise, kind master…

"Then where is he now?" he asked.

Since a one-eyed (and far less intellectually acute) observer on a tower of Notre Dame had been unable to interpret clearly the events in the Place de Grève, the answer was more alarming than Gringoire could have imagined. Indeed, at that very moment, high above the city, a black-robed figure was struggling to cling on to the cathedral's guttering…

To be continued: The archdeacon has a practical lesson in ærodynamics.