Les Miserables, Wilbour Translation

THERE was something of this urchin in Poquelin, the son of the market-place; there was something of him in Beaumarchais. The gamin style of life is a shade of the Gallic mind. Mingled with good sense, it sometimes gives it additional strength, as alcohol does to wine. Sometimes, it is a defect; Homer nods; one might say Voltaire plays gamin. Camille Desmoulins was a suburban. Championnet, who brutalised miracles, was a child of the Paris streets; he had when a little boy besprinkled the porticoes of St. Jean de Beauvais and St. Etienne du Mont; he had chatted with the shrine of St. Genevieve enough to throw into convulsions the sacred vial of St. Januarius.

The Paris gamin is respectful, ironical, and insolent. He has bad teeth, because he is poorly fed, and his stomach suffers and fine eyes because he has genius. In the very presence of Jehovah, he would go hopping and jumping up the steps of Paradise. He is very good at boxing with both hands and feet. Every description of growth is possible to him. He plays in the gutter and rises from it by revolt; his effrontery is not cured by grape ; he was a blackguard, lo! he is a hero! like the little Theban, he shakes the lion's skin; Barra the drummer was a Paris gamin ; he shouts " Forward! " as the charger of Holy Writ says " Ha! ha! " and in a moment, he passes from the urchin to the giant.