I became a monk; but I was not sufficiently devout; and then I'm a bad hand at drinking.

In despair, I became an apprentice of the woodcutters, but I was not strong enough; I had more of an inclination to become a schoolmaster; 'tis true that I did not know how to read, but that's no reason.

I perceived at the end of a certain time, that I lacked something in every direction; and seeing that I was good for nothing, of my own free will I became a poet and rhymester.

That is a trade which one can always adopt when one is a vagabond, and it's better than stealing, as some young brigands of my acquaintance advised me to do.

One day I met by luck, Dom Claude Frollo, the reverend archdeacon of Notre-Dame.