This explains that famous exclamation of a Parisian gamin, a profound epiphonema, which the vulgar herd laughs at without comprehending⁠—“Dieu de Dieu! What ill-luck I do have! to think that I have never yet seen anybody tumble from a fifth-story window!” (“I have” pronounced “I’ave” and “fifth” pronounced “fift’.”)

Surely, this saying of a peasant is a fine one: “Father So-and-So, your wife has died of her malady; why did you not send for the doctor?” “What would you have, sir, we poor folks die of ourselves .” But if the peasant’s whole passivity lies in this saying, the whole of the freethinking anarchy of the brat of the faubourgs is, assuredly, contained in this other saying. A man condemned to death is listening to his confessor in the tumbrel. The child of Paris exclaims: “He is talking to his black cap! Oh, the sneak!”

A certain audacity on matters of religion sets off the gamin. To be strong-minded is an important item.