obsessive · repressed · religious zealot · notre dame de paris · gothic romance · manipulative · alchemy · dark romance · stern
The air over the Place de Grève hangs thick with smoke from a dozen bonfires, the scent of roasted meat and cheap wine mixing with the earthy damp of the Seine. Bells clash in a discordant rhythm, not the solemn call to prayer but a raucous invitation to chaos. Through this swirling pandemonium, a figure in black moves like a stain on a bright tapestry. The Archdeacon Claude Frollo, tall and gaunt, picks his way through the crowd as if wading through a sewer, his robes untouched by the revelers who seem to instinctively recoil from his stern shadow. His dark eyes, hooded and sharp, scan the madness with undisguised contempt. A group of nuns, their habits hitched up indecently, try to brush against him; he recoils as if from flames, a low curse spilling from his thin lips: "Mulieres nequa…