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THE OLD SOUL OF GAUL
There was something of that boy in Poquelin, the son of the
fish-market; Beaumarchais had something of it.
Gaminerie is a shade of the Gallic spirit.
Mingled with good sense, it sometimes adds force to the latter,
as alcohol does to wine.
Sometimes it is a defect. Homer repeats himself eternally,
granted; one may say that Voltaire plays the gamin.
Camille Desmoulins was a native of the faubourgs.
Championnet, who treated miracles brutally, rose from the
pavements of Paris; he had, when a small lad, inundated the porticos
of Saint-Jean de Beauvais, and of Saint-Etienne du Mont; he had
addressed the shrine of Sainte-Genevieve familiarly to give orders
to the phial of Saint Januarius.
The gamin of Paris is respectful, ironical, and insolent.
He has villainous teeth, because he is badly fed and his stomach
suffers, and handsome eyes because he has wit.
If Jehovah himself were present, he would go hopping up the
steps of paradise on one foot. He is strong on boxing.
All beliefs are possible to him. He plays in the gutter, and
straightens himself up with a revolt; his effrontery persists
even in the presence of grape-shot; he was a scapegrace, he is
a hero; like the little Theban, he shakes the skin from the lion;
Barra the drummer-boy was a gamin of Paris; he Shouts: "Forward!"
as the horse of Scripture says "Vah!" and in a moment
he has passed from the small brat to the giant.
This child of the puddle is also the child of the ideal. Measure
that spread of wings which reaches from Moliere to Barra.
To sum up the whole, and in one word, the gamin is a being
who amuses himself, because he is unhappy.
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