Page 1675 - les-miserables

CHAPTER III

SLANG WHICH WEEPS AND

SLANG WHICH LAUGHS

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 melan-
choly 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

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