Perhaps the first impression of any reader who is not merely not an expert in criticism, but who has not yet learnt its first, last, and hardest lesson, shirked by not a few who seem to be experts--to suspend judgment till the case is fully heard--may be unfavourable. It is true that the title _Notre-Dame de Paris_, so stupidly and unfairly disguised by the addition-substitution of "_The Hunchback_ of Notre Dame" in English translations--quite honestly and quite legitimately warns any intelligent reader what to expect. It is the cathedral itself, its visible appearance and its invisible _aura_, atmosphere, history, spirit, inspiration which gives the author--and is taken by him as giving--his real subject. Esmeralda and Quasimodo, Frollo and Gringoire are almost as much minors and supers in comparison with It or Her as Phoebus de Chateaupers and the younger Frollo and the rest are in relation to the four protagonists themselves. The most ambitious piece of _dianoia_--of thought as contrasted with incident, character, or description--is that embodied in the famous chapter, _Ceci tuera cela_, where the fatal effect of literature (at least printed literature) on architecture is inculcated. The situation, precincts, construction, constitution of the church form the centre of such action as there is, and supply by far the larger part of its scene. Therefore nobody has a right to complain of a very large proportion of purely architectural detail. [Sidenote: The working out of the one under the other.]