<P> Il existe à cette époque, pour la pensée écrite en pierre, un privilège tout - à - fait comparable à notre liberté actuelle de la presse . C'est la liberté de l'architecture . There exists in this era, for thoughts written in stone, a privilege absolutely comparable to our current freedom of the press . It is the freedom of architecture . </P> <P> With the recent introduction of the printing press, it became possible to reproduce one's ideas much more easily on paper, and Hugo considered this period to represent the last flowering of architecture as a great artistic form . As with many of his books, Hugo was interested in a time which seemed to him to be on the cusp between two types of society . </P> <P> The major theme of the third book is that over time the cathedral has been repaired, but the repairs and additions have made the cathedral worse: "And who put the cold, white panes in the place of those windows" and "...who substituted for the ancient Gothic altar, splendidly encumbered with shrines and reliquaries, that heavy marble sarcophagus, with angels' heads and clouds" are a few examples of this . This chapter also discusses how, after repairs to the cathedral after the French Revolution, there was not a significant style in what was added . It seems as if the new architecture is actually now uglier and worse than it was before the repairing . </P> <P> Hugo introduced with this work the concept of the novel as Epic Theatre . A giant epic about the history of a whole people, incarnated in the figure of the great cathedral as witness and silent protagonist of that history . The whole idea of time and life as an ongoing, organic panorama centered on dozens of characters caught in the middle of that history . It is the first novel to have beggars as protagonists . </P>

The hunchback of notre dame by victor hugo plot