Read more about Esmeralda (Disney) at: Wikipedia Official Site: Disney Esmeralda, or La Esmeralda ( ), born Agnes, is a fictional character in Victor Hugo's 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (or Notre Dame de Paris). She is a French Gypsy girl (near the end of the book, it is revealed that her biological mother was a French woman). She constantly attracts men with her seductive dances, and is rarely seen without her clever goat Djali. She is around 16 years old. Esmeralda's birth-name was Agnes. She is the illegitimate daughter of Paquette Guybertaut, nicknamed 'la Chantefleurie', an orphaned minstrel's daughter who lives in Rheims. Paquette has become a prostitute after being seduced by a young nobleman, and lives a miserable life in poverty and loneliness. Agnes's birth makes Paquette happy once more, and she lavishes attention and care upon her adored child: even the neighbours begin to forgive Paquette for her past behaviour when they watch the pair. Tragedy strikes, however, when Gypsies kidnap the young baby, leaving a hideously deformed child (the infant Quasimodo) in place. The townsfolk come to the conclusion that the Gypsies have cannibalised baby Agnes; the mother flees Reims in despair, and the Gypsy child is exorcised and sent to Paris, to be left on the foundling bed at Notre-Dame. Fifteen years later, Agnes—now named La Esmeralda, in reference to the paste emerald she wears around her neck—is living happily amongst the Gypsies in Paris. She serves as a public dancer. Her pet goat Djali also performs counting tricks with a tambourine, an act later used as courtroom evidence that Esmeralda is a witch. When Quasimodo is sentenced to the pillory for his attempted kidnapping, it is Esmeralda, his victim, who pities him and serves him water. There, Paquette la Chantefleurie, now known as Sister Gudule, an anchoress, curses Esmeralda, claiming she and the other Gypsies ate her lost child.
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Esmeralda (Disney)
