Frollo's Soldiers

Frollo's Soldiers are the tertiary antagonists of Disney's 34th full-length animated feature film, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. They are thugs serving for Judge Claude Frollo, aiding him in his goals to track down gypsies around Paris.

Role
The soldiers are first seen when they spot several gypsies illegally entering into Paris. Arriving to the scene, Judge Frollo orders his soldiers to arrest the gypsies and detain them in the Palace of Justice, except for one woman (who ends up being killed by Frollo while attempt to flee to the Notre Dame cathedral with her deformed infant son). Upon looking at the infant, Frollo was pressured by the Archdeacon into adopting the boy (naming him Quasimodo) out of retribution for killing the woman.

20 years later, Frollo gets his new captain of the guard Phoebus to lead the soldiers, as he plans to infiltrate the gypsy hideout known as the Court of Miracles. During the Festival of Fools, the soldiers are watching the celebrations just as Quasimodo (who had become the bell-ringer) is declared the King of Fools. At first, Quasimodo receives an outstanding ovation, but the soldiers throw produce at him to egg the citizens to humiliate him more, to which Frollo allows. However, a young gypsy girl named Esmeralda comes to the rescue by freeing Quasimodo from this cruelty and made the soldiers pay for their actions by subjecting them to humiliation, much to the audience's amusement. This results an angry Frollo to arrest Esmeralda, though she escapes arrest by taking refuge in the cathedral. Regardless of this, Frollo sets his soldiers to surround the cathedral in case Esmeralda would try to escape, though this failed when Quasimodo helped her escape by climbing down through the rooftop.

The next morning, the soldiers receive their orders from Frollo to raid all of Paris to capture Esmeralda, detaining many more gypsies in the process. It wasn't until Frollo order an innocent family to be burned inside their mill under suspicions that they harbored gypsies, which incited an outraged Phoebus to rebel against Frollo and save the family from being killed. As Phoebus attempts to escape by stealing Frollo's horse, Frollo orders his soldiers to kill Phoebus with their arrows. Though Phoebus ends up being struck in the chest and falls into a river, he is saved by Esmeralda. Frollo then promotes the Brutish & Oafish Guards to fill in as the new Captains of the Guards as they continue their siege of Paris.

However, Frollo soon deduces that Quasimodo let Esmeralda escape, so he mislead Quasimodo into believing that he knows of the location of the Court of Miracles and that he's attacking at dawn with his soldiers. This leads Quasimodo and Phoebus to find the gypsy hideout hidden in the catacombs in an attempt to warn Esmeralda and the others of Frollo's plans. However, it turns out to be a ruse, as Frollo was secretly following Quasimodo to lead him to the hideout. With that in mind, Frollo set his soldiers to raid the hideout, detaining all of the gypsies (including Phoebus and Esmeralda) and chaining up Quasimodo in the bell tower.

With the entire gypsy population under his grasp, Frollo enacts his plan to execute them all, starting up with Esmeralda. Much of the citizens angrily oppose to this, but the soldiers hold them back, even prevent the Archdeacon from interfering when he is about to object. However, Quasimodo escapes from his confinement and rescues Esmeralda from being burned by bringing her back to the cathedral before declaring sanctuary, much to the citizens' delight. Losing what's left of his sanity, Frollo orders his soldiers to seize the cathedral by force, but Phoebus frees himself and incites the citizens to free the gypsies and fight against Frollo and his men. This resulted a battle between the citizens and the soldiers, which later ends when Quasimodo pours molten copper to stop the soldiers from infiltrating the cathedral, forcing them and everyone else to flee.

It is unknown what happened to the soldiers after Frollo fell to his death in the molten copper, though it can be presumed that they would be arrested for their crimes.