Secret origin of Hunchback of Notre Dame is found in Cornish attic

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View attachment 163The real-life inspiration behind the tragic hero of Victor Hugo's novel The Hunch Back Of Notre Dame has emerged from an unlikely source: an attic in Cornwall.
The deaf Parisian bell- ringer and his unrequited love for the gypsy girl Esmeralda has long been considered a fictional creation.
But documents discovered in the former Penzance home of Henry Sibson, who was employed at the cathedral at around the time the book was written, suggest he actually existed.
Papers belonging to the 19th-century British sculptor were acquired by the Tate Archive in 1999 after they were discovered when the owner prepared to move out.


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Tuesday, August 17, 2010, 09:00
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Secret origin of Hunchback of Notre Dame is found in Cornish attic

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The real-life inspiration behind the tragic hero of Victor Hugo's novel The Hunch Back Of Notre Dame has emerged from an unlikely source: an attic in Cornwall.
The deaf Parisian bell- ringer and his unrequited love for the gypsy girl Esmeralda has long been considered a fictional creation.
But documents discovered in the former Penzance home of Henry Sibson, who was employed at the cathedral at around the time the book was written, suggest he actually existed.
Papers belonging to the 19th-century British sculptor were acquired by the Tate Archive in 1999 after they were discovered when the owner prepared to move out.

However, the references to a "hunchback sculptor" working at Notre Dame have only just been discovered, as the memoirs are catalogued ahead of the archive's 40th anniversary this year.
Adrian Glew, the Tate archivist who made the discovery, said: "When I saw the references to the humpbacked sculptor at Notre Dame, and saw that the dates matched the time of Hugo's interest in the Cathedral, the hairs on the back of my neck rose and I thought I should look into it."
The seven-volume memoirs document Sibson's time in Paris during the 1820s, when he was employed by contractors to work on repairs to Notre Dame Cathedral.
In one entry, he wrote about a Monsieur Trajan, describing him as "a most worthy, fatherly and amiable man as ever existed.
"He was the carver under the Government sculptor whose name I forget as I had no intercourse with him, all that I know is that he was humpbacked and he did not like to mix with carvers," it said.
In a later entry, Sibson writes about working with the same group of sculptors on another project outside Paris, where he again mentions the reclusive government sculptor, this time recalling his name as "Mon Le Bossu" – French for "the hunchback".
Hugo began writing The Hunch Back Of Notre Dame in 1828 and the book was published three years later. He had a strong interest in the restoration of the cathedral, with architecture featuring as a major theme in the book.
 
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