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Book IV Chapter 2

Summary
Claude Frollo had been born into a family of middle rank that had inherited the fief of Tirechappe with 21 houses providing income. Claude's father had marked him for the clergy at an early age and the boy was cloistered in the college of Torchi in the University and grew up studious and serious. By age sixteen Frollo was a master of mystical theology, canonical theology and scholastic theology. He then engaged in a thorough study of the decretals, medicine and the liberal arts. He became a master of herbs and healing and learned the languages - Latin, Greek and Hebrew - so that by age eighteen he had completed the four faculties. In 1466 a great plague exploded in the city and Claude rushed to his parent's home only to find them dead and his infant brother Jehan crying in his cradle. He took in his younger brother and developed a singular and passionate affection for his only surviving relative and in time he became more than a brother he became Jehan's mother. He resolved to never have any other spouse or offspring and redoubled his clerical labors. At age twenty he was made a priest. His reputation for devotedness, seriousness and learning filtered to the common people who often surmised that he was a sorcerer. When he had witnessed the poor deformed infant being threatened by the mob his natural feelings of pity had been awakened and he had borne away the unfortunate creature. Upon closer inspection he found the child to be very deformed with a lump covering its left eye, the head compressed between the shoulders, the spine crooked, the breast-bone prominent and the legs bowed but it seemed to be full of life and strength. He vowed to raise the child in the name of his brother and thereby purchase divine forgiveness for whatever faults Jehan might develop. He named the child Quasimodo.