Notre-Dame de Paris: reading level, length and free edition

Name: Notre-Dame de Paris
Author: Victor Hugo

Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo is a novel in French. Our team rates it C1. It runs to 175,812 words with 16,676 different word forms, about 15–29 h of reading at 200 to 100 words per minute, and it is free from Project Gutenberg.

By the Readlang Mobile team (an independent app, not affiliated with readlang.com). Updated 31 October 2026.

Author: Victor Hugo
Language: French
Level: C1
Form: novel
Words: 175,812
Different word forms: 16,676
Forms for 95% / 98%: 8,142 / 13,160
Reading time: 15–29 h
Free edition: Project Gutenberg

Roman historique sur Quasimodo, Esmeralda et la cathédrale au cœur du Paris médiéval.

Is Notre-Dame de Paris right for your level?

To recognise 95% of the running words in Notre-Dame de Paris, you need its 8,142 most frequent word forms; for 98%, the share at which most readers manage a novel without a dictionary, 13,160. The median French C1 book in our table needs 5,122 forms for 95%, so by this measure the book is harder than most for its level: number 7 of 7, easiest first.

A word form is any spelling that appears in the text, so “walk” and “walked” count twice, and names count too. These numbers are a guide to how much vocabulary the book asks for, not a test. The level itself was set by hand by our team. Before you commit, read one page of the free edition and count the words you do not know: the one-page test takes two minutes.

Which words should you know before you start?

These are the words that Notre-Dame de Paris uses most often but that are not among the 2,000 most common word forms across all 37 French books in our library; the number is how many times each appears. Names of people and places are left out. Learning a handful of them first makes the opening chapters easier.

architecture 96
bohémienne 84
édifice 69
écolier 65
lucarne 61
prévôt 56
compère 52
truands 51
recluse 49
gibet 48
cathédrale 46
lecteur 43
sonneur 42
pilori 41
portail 40

How does it begin?

Il y a quelques années qu’en visitant, ou, pour mieux dire, en furetant Notre-Dame, l’auteur de ce livre trouva, dans un recoin obscur de l’une des tours ce mot, gravé à la main sur le mur:

From the Project Gutenberg edition, which is in the public domain. If this paragraph already feels slow, try a book one level lower.

How long does it take to read?

Hours to read *Notre-Dame de Paris* (175,812 words) at four reading speeds.
Words	100 wpm	150 wpm	200 wpm	250 wpm
175,812	29 h	20 h	15 h	12 h

Learners reading a book at their level often manage 100 to 150 words per minute, and readers in their first language 200 to 250. Where these speeds come from, and a calculator for your own: How long does it take to read a book?

Where can you read it for free?

The free edition is Project Gutenberg eBook #19657. Project Gutenberg publishes books that are in the public domain in the United States, as EPUB, Kindle and plain text, free and without an account. Copyright terms differ by country: if you live outside the United States, check that the book is out of copyright where you are before you download it.

To read it with a translation over every word you tap, open it in Readlang Mobile on iPhone or iPad.