 Tragedy strikes, however, when Gypsies kidnap the young baby, leaving a hideously deformed child (the infant Quasimodo) in place.The townsfolk come to the conclusion that the Gypsies have cannibalised baby Agnes; 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, Agnes—now named La Esmeralda, in reference to the paste emerald she wears around her neck—is living happily amongst the Gypsies in Paris.