Real-life Quasimodo uncovered

LONDON - A British archivist believes he has uncovered the real-life inspiration for French novelist Victor Hugo's mysterious character Quasimodo, the deformed bell ringer of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.

Adrian Glew, who works on the Tate collection's archives in London, was studying the seven-volume handwritten autobiography of 19th century British sculptor Henry Sibson when he came across a reference to a Frenchman whose nickname was "Le Bossu", or hunchback.

Sibson had been employed in the 1820s to carve stone as part of the renovation of Notre Dame in Paris that was damaged during the French Revolution in the 1790s.