Wait, perhaps you will love me more when you know me better; and then, you have told me your story with so much confidence, that I owe you a little of mine.

You must know, then, that my name is Pierre Gringoire, and that I am a son of the farmer of the notary's office of Gonesse.

My father was hung by the Burgundians, and my mother disembowelled by the Picards, at the siege of Paris, twenty years ago.
At six years of age, therefore, I was an orphan, without a sole to my foot except the pavements of Paris.

I do not know how I passed the interval from six to sixteen.

A fruit dealer gave me a plum here, a baker flung me a crust there; in the evening I got myself taken up by the watch, who threw me into prison, and there I found a bundle of straw.