How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Now we have noted that judges in general arrange matters so that the days when they have to perform their judicial functions are their days of ill humor, so that they may be sure to have somebody on whom they can conveniently vent in the name of the King, of the law, and of justice. (VI.I.4)
The name of justice is misused a lot in this novel—not by the narrator, but by the people who are supposed to uphold it. Justice a convenient shield to hide behind; after all, who is against justice? The problem is that the justice administered here isn't really justice.
Quote #2
It is most certain that it is quite enough for a judge to appear to listen, and this condition, the only essential one for strict justice, the venerable auditor fulfilled even more exactly since no noise could distract him. (VI.I.8)
Hugo takes incompetence to a whole new level of irony here by creating an auditor who literally cannot perform his one job function: he's deaf. Yeah, it's funny, but we sure wouldn't want to be in this courtroom. This comedic scene is symbolic of a bigger problem: justice in this novel doesn't actually "hear." Translation: there is no justice in this novel, at least in terms of a competent judicial system.
Quote #3
There was scarcely a spectator among the crowd who had either had or imagined that he had ground to complain of the malicious hunchback of Notre-Dame. His appearance in the pillory had excited universal joy; and the severe punishment that he had undergone, and the pitiful condition in which it had left him, so far from softening the populace, had only rendered their hatred more malevolent by arming it with the sting of mirth. (VI.IV.21)
Ah, public justice. What an oxymoron. His sentence aside, Quasimodo is also judged by the public, the members of which see themselves as justifiably cast in the role of punishers. Has Quasimodo actually done anything to them? Of course not. The point is that by calling Quasimodo a criminal, the public finds it a lot easier to think that Quasimodo has somehow wronged them. There is something sadistic about the whole thing.