Frollo's Adopted Daughter

The Begining of the Hunt

Dissolve to morning. Frollo is exiting his carriage. Waiting for him is Phoebus.

Phoebus: (To Guards) "Attention!"

Phoebus: (To Frollo) "Morning, sir."

Frollo, with baggy and pink eyes, moans.

Phoebus: "Are you feeling all right?"

Frollo: "I had a little trouble with the fireplace."

Phoebus: "I see. Your orders, sir?"

Frollo: "Find the gypsy girl."

Fast music, cut to troops ransacking a home, eventually finding a group of gypsies hidden in a trap door. They gypsies are lined up outside, with Frollo looking down at them.

Frollo: "Ten pieces of silver for the gyspy Esmeralda. "

He shoves a handful of coins out, but there are no takers.

Frollo: (To Guards) "Lock them up!"

We now watch Frollo's men push a carriage into the Seine. As it begins to sink, gypsies come floating to the surface. Once again, they're lined up, with Frollo surveying them.

Frollo: "Twenty pieces of silver for the gypsy Esmeralda!"

Again, no takers.

Frollo: (To Guards) "Take them away!"

Cut to a house with a large windmill. Frollo's guards have found gypsies there. Frollo is interrogating the miller. Music lower.

Frollo: "We found this gypsy talisman on your property. Have you been harbouring gypsies?"

Miller: "Our home is always open to the weary traveler. Have mercy, my lord."

Frollo: "I am placing you and your family under house arrest until I get to the bottom of this. If what you say is true, you are innocent and you have nothing to fear."

Miller: "But we are innocent, I assure you! We know nothing of these gypsies!"

Frollo pulls their door shut, then bars it shut with a guard's staff. He turns to Phoebus.

Frollo: "Burn it."

Phoebus: "What!?!?"

Frollo: "Until it smolders. These people are traitors and must be made examples of."

Frollo hands him a torch.

Phoebus: "With all due respect, sir, I was not trained to murder the innocent."

Frollo: "But you were trained to follow orders."

Phoebus takes the torch and douses it in a bucket of water.

Frollo: "Insolent coward."

Frollo grabs another torch and touches the flame to the windmill. The entire structure is quickly engulfed in flame. Phoebus crashes through the window and brings the family outside to safety. As the building continues to burn, guards grab Phoebus.

Frollo: "The sentence for insubordination is death. Such a pity-- you threw away a promising career."

Phoebus: "Consider it my highest honor, sir."

A guard raises a sword and is about to kill Phoebus, when Esmeralda throws a rock at Frollo's horse. The horse bucks, and Frollo is thrown off. Phoebus punches the guards, hops on Frollo's horse and is off.

Frollo: "Get him! And don't hit my horse!"

As Phoebus rides off, he is showered with arrows. One of them goes through his shoulder, and he falls off the horse, off the bridge that he's riding over, and into the river. A volley of arrows follow him in. Esmeralda, who has witnessed the entire spectacle in disguise, gasps.

Frollo: "Don't waste your arrows. Let the traitor rot in his watery grave! Find the girl! If you have to burn the city to the ground, so be it!"

Esmeralda and Vali run down the hill to the river, keeping under cover. Vali wades into the water, then dives under. He comes back up with the unconscious Phoebus. He pulls him out of the water and Esmeralda rushes closer to them as we dissolve to a long shot of Paris burning. Frollo is approached by a guard.

Guard 7: "Sir! We've looked everywhere, and still no sign of the gypsy girl."

Frollo: "I had the entire cathedral surrounded, guards at every door. There was no way she could have escaped, unless..."

He looks up to the cathedral's bell tower, and Quasimodo's home. In the tower, the gargoyles talking.