Esmeralda

The gypsy girl Esmeralda was the hunchback Quasimodo’s love interest in Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a book so popular that it made a hero out of its author. In the novel, Esmeralda is the victim of a coward’s rage and sentenced to death by hanging, and only the love of the deformed Quasimodo can save her. The story ends when he dies, defending Esmeralda from an angry mob.