This article is about the location in the film; you may also be looking for the song, "The Court of Miracles".
“I believe that they have a safe haven within the walls of this very city. A nest, if you will. They call it the...'Court of Miracles.'”
―Frollo tells Captain Phoebus about the Court of Miracles
The Court of Miracles is a place and one of the locations of Disney's 1996 animated feature film The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It is located under the city of Paris in the old catacombs (the secret entrance being found in a graveyard), where it serves as a safe haven for the gypsies in order to hide from Frollo.
Role in the film[]
In his obsessive desire to destroy the Roma residing inside Paris, Judge Claude Frollo seeks to find and destroy the Court of Miracles, and for twenty years searched tirelessly for it without success. The Roma have shared their knowledge of the place with very few outside their clans and will execute intruders if it becomes necessary by hanging them before the entire court. One of the few outsiders entrusted with its secrecy is Quasimodo. While escaping Notre Dame, Esmeralda entrusts a woven necklace to Quasimodo, only explaining, "When you wear this woven band, you hold the city in your hand." It was Esmeralda's hope that Quasimodo would join them and escape the tyrannical judge's hold over him.
The following evening, while hiding a wounded Phoebus from the authorities on Esmeralda's request, Frollo confronts Quasi on his part in freeing Esmeralda. Vowing to "free" him from her enchantment, he claims to know where the Court of Miracles is and that he intends to attack the next morning with a thousand soldiers. Fearing for Esmeralda's safety, Phoebus and Quasi set out to find the Court of Miracles before Frollo (unaware that this is actually a trick to lead him there). Realizing his woven band is actually a secret map to the Court, Quasi and Phoebus find the symbol leading to the Court in a graveyard. While venturing through the catacombs, they are ambushed by Clopin and the Roma, many of whom are initially hidden among the skeletons lining the walls of the catacombs. The two men are set to be hanged until Esmeralda intervenes and assures Clopin that the intruders are on their side. Phoebus warns and urges everybody to escape, as Frollo would soon be upon them "at dawn with a thousand men."
At that moment, Frollo and his men completely take over the Court of Miracles, having followed Quasi and Phoebus to its secret entrance. Frollo immediately takes all the Roma prisoner, intending to kill them all and to force them to watch Esmeralda's public execution in the square of Notre Dame. Phoebus, Djali, and Quasi are also taken captive, setting the stage for their final confrontation with Frollo at the cathedral.
Real life[]
The Court of Miracles was really a French term which referred to slum districts of Paris, where the unemployed migrants from rural areas resided.
