The Hunchback of Notre Dame Book 2 Chapter VI - The Broken Jug

In which the hapless poet Gringoire, pursued by a crowd of cripples and beggars, finds himself ensnared in the shadowy depths of the infamous Court of Miracles, that den of thieves and vagabonds lurking beneath the city's grandeur. There, amidst a motley court of ragged sovereigns, he must prove his mettle by the strange rites of their law, teetering between gallows and grim acceptance in this eerie underworld.