Editing Volume 4/Book 7/Chapter 3

Les Mis&eacute;rables, Volume 4: The Idyll of the Rue Plumet & The Epic of the Rue Saint-Denis, Book Seventh: Slang, Chapter 3: Slang which weeps and Slang which laughs<br />
(Tome 4: L'idylle rue Plumet et l'&eacute;pop&eacute;e rue Saint-Denis, Livre septi&egrave;me:  L'argot, Chapitre 3: Argot qui pleure et argot qui rit)

==General notes on this chapter==

==French text==

 
Comme on le voit, l'argot tout entier, l'argot d'il y a quatre cents ans
comme l'argot d'aujourd'hui, est p&eacute;n&eacute;tr&eacute; de ce sombre esprit symbolique
qui donne &agrave; tous les mots tant&ocirc;t une allure dolente, tant&ocirc;t un air
mena&ccedil;ant. On y sent la vieille tristesse farouche de ces truands de la
Cour des Miracles qui jouaient aux cartes avec des jeux &agrave; eux, dont
quelques-uns nous ont &eacute;t&eacute; conserv&eacute;s. Le huit de tr&egrave;fle, par exemple,
repr&eacute;sentait un grand arbre portant huit &eacute;normes feuilles de tr&egrave;fle,
sorte de personnification fantastique de la for&ecirc;t. Au pied de cet arbre
on voyait un feu allum&eacute; o&ugrave; trois li&egrave;vres faisaient r&ocirc;tir un chasseur &agrave;
la broche, et derri&egrave;re, sur un autre feu, une marmite fumante d'o&ugrave;
sortait la t&ecirc;te du chien. Rien de plus lugubre que ces repr&eacute;sailles en
peinture, sur un jeu de cartes, en pr&eacute;sence des b&ucirc;chers &agrave; r&ocirc;tir les
contrebandiers et de la chaudi&egrave;re &agrave; bouillir les faux monnayeurs. Les
diverses formes que prenait la pens&eacute;e dans le royaume d'argot, m&ecirc;me la
chanson, m&ecirc;me la raillerie, m&ecirc;me la menace, avaient toutes ce caract&egrave;re
impuissant et accabl&eacute;. Tous les chants, dont quelques m&eacute;lodies ont &eacute;t&eacute;
recueillies, &eacute;taient humbles et lamentables &agrave; pleurer. Le p&egrave;gre
s'appelle ''le pauvre p&egrave;gre'', et il est toujours le li&egrave;vre qui se cache,
la souris qui se sauve, l'oiseau qui s'enfuit. &Agrave; peine r&eacute;clame-t-il, il
se borne &agrave; soupirer; un de ses g&eacute;missements est venu jusqu'&agrave; nous:&mdash;''Je
n'entrave que le dail comment meck, le daron des orgues, peut atiger ses
m&ocirc;mes et ses momignards et les locher criblant sans &ecirc;tre atig&eacute;
lui-m&ecirc;me''.&mdash;Le mis&eacute;rable, toutes les fois qu'il a le temps de penser, se
fait petit devant la loi et ch&eacute;tif devant la soci&eacute;t&eacute;; il se couche &agrave;
plat ventre, il supplie, il se tourne du c&ocirc;t&eacute; de la piti&eacute;; on sent qu'il
se sait dans son tort.

 
Vers le milieu du dernier si&egrave;cle, un changement se fit. Les chants de
prisons, les ritournelles de voleurs prirent, pour ainsi parler, un
geste insolent et jovial. Le plaintif ''malur&eacute;'' fut remplac&eacute; par
''larifla''. On retrouve au dix-huiti&egrave;me si&egrave;cle, dans presque toutes les
chansons des gal&egrave;res, des bagnes et des chiourmes, une ga&icirc;t&eacute; diabolique
et &eacute;nigmatique. On y entend ce refrain strident et sautant qu'on dirait
&eacute;clair&eacute; d'une lueur phosphorescente et qui semble jet&eacute; dans la for&ecirc;t par
un feu follet jouant du fifre:

 
''Mirlababi, surlababo,''<br> ''Mirliton ribon ribette,''<br> ''Surlababi, mirlababo,''<br> ''Mirliton ribon ribo.''<br>

 
Cela se chantait en &eacute;gorgeant un homme dans une cave ou au coin d'un
bois.

 
Sympt&ocirc;me s&eacute;rieux. Au dix-huiti&egrave;me si&egrave;cle l'antique m&eacute;lancolie de ces
classes mornes se dissipe. Elles se mettent &agrave; rire. Elles raillent le
grand meg et le grand dab. Louis XV &eacute;tant donn&eacute;, elles appellent le roi
de France &laquo;le marquis de Pantin&raquo;. Les voil&agrave; presque gaies. Une sorte de
lumi&egrave;re l&eacute;g&egrave;re sort de ces mis&eacute;rables comme si la conscience ne leur
pesait plus. Ces lamentables tribus de l'ombre n'ont plus seulement
l'audace d&eacute;sesp&eacute;r&eacute;e des actions, elles ont l'audace insouciante de
l'esprit. Indice qu'elles perdent le sentiment de leur criminalit&eacute;, et
qu'elles se sentent jusque parmi les penseurs et les songeurs je ne sais
quels appuis qui s'ignorent eux-m&ecirc;mes. Indice que le vol et le pillage
commencent &agrave; s'infiltrer jusque dans des doctrines et des sophismes, de
mani&egrave;re &agrave; perdre un peu de leur laideur en en donnant beaucoup aux
sophismes et aux doctrines. Indice enfin, si aucune diversion ne surgit,
de quelque &eacute;closion prodigieuse et prochaine.

 
Arr&ecirc;tons-nous un moment. Qui accusons-nous ici? est-ce le dix-huiti&egrave;me
si&egrave;cle? est-ce sa philosophie? Non certes. L'&oelig;uvre du dix-huiti&egrave;me
si&egrave;cle est saine et bonne. Les encyclop&eacute;distes, Diderot en t&ecirc;te, les
physiocrates, Turgot en t&ecirc;te, les philosophes, Voltaire en t&ecirc;te, les
utopistes, Rousseau en t&ecirc;te, ce sont l&agrave; quatre l&eacute;gions sacr&eacute;es.
L'immense avance de l'humanit&eacute; vers la lumi&egrave;re leur est due. Ce sont les
quatre avant-gardes du genre humain allant aux quatre points cardinaux
du progr&egrave;s, Diderot vers le beau, Turgot vers l'utile, Voltaire vers le
vrai, Rousseau vers le juste. Mais, &agrave; c&ocirc;t&eacute; et au-dessous des
philosophes, il y avait les sophistes, v&eacute;g&eacute;tation v&eacute;n&eacute;neuse m&ecirc;l&eacute;e &agrave; la
croissance salubre, cigu&euml; dans la for&ecirc;t vierge. Pendant que le bourreau
br&ucirc;lait sur le ma&icirc;tre-escalier du palais de justice les grands livres
lib&eacute;rateurs du si&egrave;cle, des &eacute;crivains aujourd'hui oubli&eacute;s publiaient,
avec privil&egrave;ge du roi, on ne sait quels &eacute;crits &eacute;trangement
d&eacute;sorganisateurs, avidement lus des mis&eacute;rables. Quelques-unes de ces
publications, d&eacute;tail bizarre, patronn&eacute;es par un prince, se retrouvent
dans la ''Biblioth&egrave;que secr&egrave;te''. Ces faits, profonds mais ignor&eacute;s,
&eacute;taient inaper&ccedil;us &agrave; la surface. Parfois c'est l'obscurit&eacute; m&ecirc;me d'un fait
qui est son danger. Il est obscur parce qu'il est souterrain. De tous
ces &eacute;crivains, celui peut-&ecirc;tre qui creusa alors dans les masses la
galerie la plus malsaine, c'est Restif de la Bretonne.

 
Ce travail, propre &agrave; toute l'Europe, fit plus de ravage en Allemagne que
partout ailleurs. En Allemagne, pendant une certaine p&eacute;riode, r&eacute;sum&eacute;e
par Schiller dans son drame fameux des ''Brigands'', le vol et le pillage
s'&eacute;rigeaient en protestation contre la propri&eacute;t&eacute; et le travail,
s'assimilaient de certaines id&eacute;es &eacute;l&eacute;mentaires, sp&eacute;cieuses et fausses,
justes en apparence, absurdes en r&eacute;alit&eacute;, s'enveloppaient de ces id&eacute;es,
y disparaissaient en quelque sorte, prenaient un nom abstrait et
passaient &agrave; l'&eacute;tat de th&eacute;orie, et de cette fa&ccedil;on circulaient dans les
foules laborieuses, souffrantes et honn&ecirc;tes, &agrave; l'insu m&ecirc;me des chimistes
imprudents qui avaient pr&eacute;par&eacute; la mixture, &agrave; l'insu m&ecirc;me des masses qui
l'acceptaient. Toutes les fois qu'un fait de ce genre se produit, il est
grave. La souffrance engendre la col&egrave;re; et tandis que les classes
prosp&egrave;res s'aveuglent, ou s'endorment, ce qui est toujours fermer les
yeux, la haine des classes malheureuses allume sa torche &agrave; quelque
esprit chagrin ou mal fait qui r&ecirc;ve dans un coin, et elle se met &agrave;
examiner la soci&eacute;t&eacute;. L'examen de la haine, chose terrible!

 
De l&agrave;, si le malheur des temps le veut, ces effrayantes commotions qu'on
nommait jadis ''jacqueries'', pr&egrave;s desquelles les agitations purement
politiques sont jeux d'enfants, qui ne sont plus la lutte de l'opprim&eacute;
contre l'oppresseur, mais la r&eacute;volte du malaise contre le bien-&ecirc;tre.
Tout s'&eacute;croule alors.

 
Les jacqueries sont des tremblements de peuple.

 
C'est &agrave; ce p&eacute;ril, imminent peut-&ecirc;tre en Europe vers la fin du
dix-huiti&egrave;me si&egrave;cle, que vint couper court la R&eacute;volution fran&ccedil;aise, cet
immense acte de probit&eacute;.

 
La R&eacute;volution fran&ccedil;aise, qui n'est pas autre chose que l'id&eacute;al arm&eacute; du
glaive, se dressa, et, du m&ecirc;me mouvement brusque, ferma la porte du mal
et ouvrit la porte du bien.

 
Elle d&eacute;gagea la question, promulgua la v&eacute;rit&eacute;, chassa le miasme,
assainit le si&egrave;cle, couronna le peuple.

 
On peut dire qu'elle a cr&eacute;&eacute; l'homme une deuxi&egrave;me fois, en lui donnant
une seconde &acirc;me, le droit.

 
Le dix-neuvi&egrave;me si&egrave;cle h&eacute;rite et profite de son &oelig;uvre, et aujourd'hui
la catastrophe sociale que nous indiquions tout &agrave; l'heure est simplement
impossible. Aveugle qui la d&eacute;nonce! niais qui la redoute! la r&eacute;volution
est la vaccine de la jacquerie.

 
Gr&acirc;ce &agrave; la r&eacute;volution, les conditions sociales sont chang&eacute;es. Les
maladies f&eacute;odales et monarchiques ne sont plus dans notre sang. Il n'y a
plus de moyen &acirc;ge dans notre constitution. Nous ne sommes plus aux temps
o&ugrave; d'effroyables fourmillements int&eacute;rieurs faisaient irruption, o&ugrave; l'on
entendait sous ses pieds la course obscure d'un bruit sourd, o&ugrave;
apparaissaient &agrave; la surface de la civilisation on ne sait quels
soul&egrave;vements de galeries de taupes, o&ugrave; le sol se crevassait, o&ugrave; le
dessus des cavernes s'ouvrait, et o&ugrave; l'on voyait tout &agrave; coup sortir de
terre des t&ecirc;tes monstrueuses.

 
Le sens r&eacute;volutionnaire est un sens moral. Le sentiment du droit,
d&eacute;velopp&eacute;, d&eacute;veloppe le sentiment du devoir. La loi de tous, c'est la
libert&eacute;, qui finit o&ugrave; commence la libert&eacute; d'autrui, selon l'admirable
d&eacute;finition de Robespierre. Depuis 89, le peuple tout entier se dilate
dans l'individu sublim&eacute;; il n'y a pas de pauvre qui, ayant son droit,
n'ait son rayon; le meurt-de-faim sent en lui l'honn&ecirc;tet&eacute; de la France;
la dignit&eacute; du citoyen est une armure int&eacute;rieure; qui est libre est
scrupuleux; qui vote r&egrave;gne. De l&agrave; l'incorruptibilit&eacute;; de l&agrave; l'avortement
des convoitises malsaines; de l&agrave; les yeux h&eacute;ro&iuml;quement baiss&eacute;s devant
les tentations. L'assainissement r&eacute;volutionnaire est tel qu'un jour de
d&eacute;livrance, un 14 juillet, un 10 ao&ucirc;t, il n'y a plus de populace. Le
premier cri des foules illumin&eacute;es et grandissantes c'est: mort aux
voleurs! Le progr&egrave;s est honn&ecirc;te homme; l'id&eacute;al et l'absolu ne font pas
le mouchoir. Par qui furent escort&eacute;s en 1848 les fourgons qui
contenaient les richesses des Tuileries? par les chiffonniers du
faubourg Saint-Antoine. Le haillon monta la garde devant le tr&eacute;sor. La
vertu fit ces d&eacute;guenill&eacute;s resplendissants. Il y avait l&agrave;, dans ces
fourgons, dans des caisses &agrave; peine ferm&eacute;es quelques-unes m&ecirc;me
entr'ouvertes, parmi cent &eacute;crins &eacute;blouissants, cette vieille couronne de
France toute en diamants, surmont&eacute;e de l'escarboucle de la royaut&eacute;, du
r&eacute;gent, qui valait trente millions. Ils gardaient, pieds nus, cette
couronne.

 
Donc plus de jacquerie. J'en suis f&acirc;ch&eacute; pour les habiles. C'est l&agrave; de la
vieille peur qui a fait son dernier effet et qui ne pourrait plus
d&eacute;sormais &ecirc;tre employ&eacute;e en politique. Le grand ressort du spectre rouge
est cass&eacute;. Tout le monde le sait maintenant. L'&eacute;pouvantail n'&eacute;pouvante
plus. Les oiseaux prennent des familiarit&eacute;s avec le mannequin, les
stercoraires s'y posent, les bourgeois rient dessus.

 
==English text==


As the reader perceives, slang in its entirety, slang of four hundred
years ago, like the slang of to-day, is permeated with that sombre,
symbolical spirit which gives to all words a mien which is now mournful,
now menacing. One feels in it the wild and ancient sadness of those
vagrants of the Court of Miracles who played at cards with packs of their
own, some of which have come down to us. The eight of clubs, for instance,
represented a huge tree bearing eight enormous trefoil leaves, a sort of
fantastic personification of the forest. At the foot of this tree a fire
was burning, over which three hares were roasting a huntsman on a spit,
and behind him, on another fire, hung a steaming pot, whence emerged the
head of a dog. Nothing can be more melancholy than these reprisals in
painting, by a pack of cards, in the presence of stakes for the roasting
of smugglers and of the cauldron for the boiling of counterfeiters. The
diverse forms assumed by thought in the realm of slang, even song, even
raillery, even menace, all partook of this powerless and dejected
character. All the songs, the melodies of some of which have been
collected, were humble and lamentable to the point of evoking tears. The
pegre is always the poor pegre, and he is always the hare in hiding, the
fugitive mouse, the flying bird. He hardly complains, he contents himself
with sighing; one of his moans has come down to us: "I do not understand
how God, the father of men, can torture his children and his grandchildren
and hear them cry, without himself suffering torture."[[43]] The
wretch, whenever he has time to think, makes himself small before the low,
and frail in the presence of society; he lies down flat on his face, he
entreats, he appeals to the side of compassion; we feel that he is
conscious of his guilt.

 
Towards the middle of the last century a change took place, prison songs
and thieves' ritournelles assumed, so to speak, an insolent and jovial
mien. The plaintive malure was replaced by the larifla. We find in the
eighteenth century, in nearly all the songs of the galleys and prisons, a
diabolical and enigmatical gayety. We hear this strident and lilting
refrain which we should say had been lighted up by a phosphorescent gleam,
and which seems to have been flung into the forest by a will-o'-the-wisp
playing the fife:&mdash;

 
<pre>
                    Miralabi suslababo
                    Mirliton ribonribette
                    Surlababi mirlababo
                    Mirliton ribonribo.

</pre>
 
This was sung in a cellar or in a nook of the forest while cutting a man's
throat.

 
A serious symptom. In the eighteenth century, the ancient melancholy of
the dejected classes vanishes. They began to laugh. They rally the grand
meg and the grand dab. Given Louis XV. they call the King of France "le
Marquis de Pantin." And behold, they are almost gay. A sort of gleam
proceeds from these miserable wretches, as though their consciences were
not heavy within them any more. These lamentable tribes of darkness have
no longer merely the desperate audacity of actions, they possess the
heedless audacity of mind. A sign that they are losing the sense of their
criminality, and that they feel, even among thinkers and dreamers, some
indefinable support which the latter themselves know not of. A sign that
theft and pillage are beginning to filter into doctrines and sophisms, in
such a way as to lose somewhat of their ugliness, while communicating much
of it to sophisms and doctrines. A sign, in short, of some outbreak which
is prodigious and near unless some diversion shall arise.

 
Let us pause a moment. Whom are we accusing here? Is it the eighteenth
century? Is it philosophy? Certainly not. The work of the eighteenth
century is healthy and good and wholesome. The encyclopedists, Diderot at
their head; the physiocrates, Turgot at their head; the philosophers,
Voltaire at their head; the Utopians, Rousseau at their head,&mdash;these
are four sacred legions. Humanity's immense advance towards the light is
due to them. They are the four vanguards of the human race, marching
towards the four cardinal points of progress. Diderot towards the
beautiful, Turgot towards the useful, Voltaire towards the true, Rousseau
towards the just. But by the side of and above the philosophers, there
were the sophists, a venomous vegetation mingled with a healthy growth,
hemlock in the virgin forest. While the executioner was burning the great
books of the liberators of the century on the grand staircase of the
court-house, writers now forgotten were publishing, with the King's
sanction, no one knows what strangely disorganizing writings, which were
eagerly read by the unfortunate. Some of these publications, odd to say,
which were patronized by a prince, are to be found in the Secret Library.
These facts, significant but unknown, were imperceptible on the surface.
Sometimes, in the very obscurity of a fact lurks its danger. It is obscure
because it is underhand. Of all these writers, the one who probably then
excavated in the masses the most unhealthy gallery was Restif de La
Bretonne.

 
This work, peculiar to the whole of Europe, effected more ravages in
Germany than anywhere else. In Germany, during a given period, summed up
by Schiller in his famous drama The Robbers, theft and pillage rose up in
protest against property and labor, assimilated certain specious and false
elementary ideas, which, though just in appearance, were absurd in
reality, enveloped themselves in these ideas, disappeared within them,
after a fashion, assumed an abstract name, passed into the state of
theory, and in that shape circulated among the laborious, suffering, and
honest masses, unknown even to the imprudent chemists who had prepared the
mixture, unknown even to the masses who accepted it. Whenever a fact of
this sort presents itself, the case is grave. Suffering engenders wrath;
and while the prosperous classes blind themselves or fall asleep, which is
the same thing as shutting one's eyes, the hatred of the unfortunate
classes lights its torch at some aggrieved or ill-made spirit which dreams
in a corner, and sets itself to the scrutiny of society. The scrutiny of
hatred is a terrible thing.

 
Hence, if the ill-fortune of the times so wills it, those fearful
commotions which were formerly called jacqueries, beside which purely
political agitations are the merest child's play, which are no longer the
conflict of the oppressed and the oppressor, but the revolt of discomfort
against comfort. Then everything crumbles.

 
Jacqueries are earthquakes of the people.

 
It is this peril, possibly imminent towards the close of the eighteenth
century, which the French Revolution, that immense act of probity, cut
short.

 
The French Revolution, which is nothing else than the idea armed with the
sword, rose erect, and, with the same abrupt movement, closed the door of
ill and opened the door of good.

 
It put a stop to torture, promulgated the truth, expelled miasma, rendered
the century healthy, crowned the populace.

 
It may be said of it that it created man a second time, by giving him a
second soul, the right.

 
The nineteenth century has inherited and profited by its work, and to-day,
the social catastrophe to which we lately alluded is simply impossible.
Blind is he who announces it! Foolish is he who fears it! Revolution is
the vaccine of Jacquerie.

 
Thanks to the Revolution, social conditions have changed. Feudal and
monarchical maladies no longer run in our blood. There is no more of the
Middle Ages in our constitution. We no longer live in the days when
terrible swarms within made irruptions, when one heard beneath his feet
the obscure course of a dull rumble, when indescribable elevations from
mole-like tunnels appeared on the surface of civilization, where the soil
cracked open, where the roofs of caverns yawned, and where one suddenly
beheld monstrous heads emerging from the earth.

 
The revolutionary sense is a moral sense. The sentiment of right, once
developed, develops the sentiment of duty. The law of all is liberty,
which ends where the liberty of others begins, according to Robespierre's
admirable definition. Since '89, the whole people has been dilating into a
sublime individual; there is not a poor man, who, possessing his right,
has not his ray of sun; the die-of-hunger feels within him the honesty of
France; the dignity of the citizen is an internal armor; he who is free is
scrupulous; he who votes reigns. Hence incorruptibility; hence the
miscarriage of unhealthy lusts; hence eyes heroically lowered before
temptations. The revolutionary wholesomeness is such, that on a day of
deliverance, a 14th of July, a 10th of August, there is no longer any
populace. The first cry of the enlightened and increasing throngs is:
death to thieves! Progress is an honest man; the ideal and the absolute do
not filch pocket-handkerchiefs. By whom were the wagons containing the
wealth of the Tuileries escorted in 1848? By the rag-pickers of the
Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Rags mounted guard over the treasure. Virtue
rendered these tatterdemalions resplendent. In those wagons in chests,
hardly closed, and some, even, half-open, amid a hundred dazzling caskets,
was that ancient crown of France, studded with diamonds, surmounted by the
carbuncle of royalty, by the Regent diamond, which was worth thirty
millions. Barefooted, they guarded that crown.

 
Hence, no more Jacquerie. I regret it for the sake of the skilful. The old
fear has produced its last effects in that quarter; and henceforth it can
no longer be employed in politics. The principal spring of the red spectre
is broken. Every one knows it now. The scare-crow scares no longer. The
birds take liberties with the mannikin, foul creatures alight upon it, the
bourgeois laugh at it.


==Translation notes==

==Textual notes==

==Citations==
<references />