She is the love child of Paquette Guybertaut, nicknamed "la Chantefleurie", an orphaned minstrel's daughter who lives in Rheims.

Tragedy strikes, however, when Romani (in the novel called Gypsies) kidnap the young baby, leaving a child which they consider hideously deformed (the infant Quasimodo) in place.

The townsfolk come to the conclusion that the Gypsies have cannibalised baby Agnès; the mother flees Rheims in despair, and the deformed child is exorcised and sent to Paris, to be left on the foundling bed at Notre-Dame.

Fifteen years later, Agnès – now named La Esmeralda, in reference to the paste emerald she wears around her neck – is living happily amongst the Gypsies in Paris.

Her pet goat Djali also performs counting tricks with a tambourine, an act later used as courtroom evidence that Esmeralda is a witch.

There, Paquette la Chantefleurie, now known as Sister Gudule, an anchoress, curses Esmeralda, claiming she and the other Gypsies ate her lost child.

Esmeralda passes out at the sight of Frollo, and when she comes to, she finds herself framed for murder, for a miscommunication makes the jury believe that Phoebus is in fact dead.

The next day, minutes before she is to be hanged, Quasimodo dramatically arrives from Notre-Dame, takes Esmeralda, and runs back in while crying, "Sanctuary!".

Frollo finds Gringoire and informs him that the Parliament has voted to remove Esmeralda from the sanctuary, and intends to order soldiers to forcibly accomplish the task.

Mistakenly responding to this, Quasimodo retaliates and uses Notre-Dame's defenses to fight the Gypsies, thinking that these people want to turn in Esmeralda.

News of this soon comes to King Louis XI, and he sends soldiers (including Phoebus) to end the riot and hang Esmeralda.

They reach Notre-Dame in time to save Quasimodo, who is outnumbered and unable to prevent the Gypsies from storming the Gallery of Kings.

During the attack, Gringoire and a cloaked stranger slip into Notre-Dame and find Esmeralda about to sneak out of the cathedral (she had feared that soldiers were trying to take her away when she heard the battle).

Quasimodo notes Frollo's demented appearance and follows his gaze, where he sees Esmeralda in a white dress, dangling in her death throes from the scaffold.

After Quasimodo pushes Frollo off the tower in a moment of rage, it is all but explicitly stated that he tracks Esmerelda's body to the mass graveyard where she was left after her execution and starves himself to death while embracing her corpse.

[1][2] Lollobrigida was also the first actress to portray Esmeralda barefoot, in contrast to Hugo's novel; all these details made their way into a number of subsequent adaptations, including Disney's 1996 animated version.

Esmeralda is a very rare meetable character at the Disney Parks and Resorts, but can be seen as a figure inside Clopin's Music Box in Fantasyland.

[4] When the Disney Princess franchise was first formed in the early 2000s Esmeralda was also officially part of the original line-up, but she was soon removed along with Tinker Bell as it was decided that they did not suit the brand.