Stories Behind Art on Instagram: "Luc-Olivier Merson’s “Esmeralda and Quasimodo” (1905) captures one of the most moving scenes in Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Quasimodo, the deformed bell-ringer of Notre-Dame, has just been flogged and tied to a public pillory. The crowd laughs as his back bleeds under the whip. When the punishment ends, he’s left alone , thirsty, broken, and shamed before all of Paris. No one steps forward. No one… except her. Esmeralda , a young Romani dancer, ac