ROOTS.

Slang is the language of the dark. Thought is affected in its gloomiest depths, and social philosophy is harassed in its most poignant undulations, in the presence of this enigmatical dialect, which is at once branded and in a state of revolt. There is in this a visible chastisement, and each syllable looks as if it were marked. The words of the common language appear in it, as if branded and hardened by the hangman's red-hot irons, and some of them seem to be still smoking; some phrases produce in you the effect of a robber's fleur-de-lysed shoulder suddenly exposed, and ideas almost refuse to let themselves be represented by these convict substantives. The metaphors are at times so daring that you feel that they have worn fetters. Still, in spite of all this, and in consequence of all this, this strange patois has by right its compartment in that great impartial museum, in which there is room for the oxydized sou as well as the gold medal, and which is called toleration. Slang, whether people allow it or no, has its syntax and poetry. It is a language. If, by the deforming of certain vocables, we perceive that it has been chewed by Mandrin, we feel from certain metonyms that Villon spoke it. That line so exquisite and so celebrated,—

"Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?
(But where are the snows of yester-year?)"

is a line of slang. Antan, ante annum, is a slang word of Thunes, which signified the past year, and, by extension, formerly. Five-and-thirty years ago, on the departure of the great chain-gang, in 1827, there might be read in one of the dungeons of Bicêtre this maxim, engraved with a nail upon the wall by a king of Thunes condemned to the galleys, "Les dabs d'antan trimaient siempre pour la pierre du Coësre," which means, "The kings of former days used always to go to be consecrated." In the thought of that king, the consecration was the galleys. The word décarade, which expresses the departure of a heavy coach at a gallop, is attributed to Villon, and is worthy of him. This word, which strikes fire, contains in a masterly onomatopœia the whole of Lafontaine's admirable line,—

"Six forts chevaux tiraient un coche."

From a purely literary point of view, few studies would be more curious or fertile than that of slang. It is an entire language within a language, a sort of sickly grafting which has produced a vegetation, a parasite which has its roots in the old Gaulish trunk, and whose sinister foliage crawls up the whole of one side of the language. This is what might be called the first or common notion of slang, but to those who study the language as it should be studied, that is to say, as geologists study the earth, slang appears like a real alluvium. According as we dig more or less deeply, we find in slang, beneath the old popular French, Provençal, Spanish, Italian, Levantine, that language of the Mediterranean ports, English, and German, Romanic,—in its three varieties of French, Italian, and Roman,—Latin, and finally, Basque and Celtic. It is a deep and strange formation, a subterranean edifice built up in common by all scoundrels. Each accursed race has deposited its stratum, each suffering has let its stone fall, each heart has given its pebble. A multitude of wicked, low, or irritated souls who passed through life, and have faded away in eternity, are found there almost entire, and to some extent still visible, in the shape of a monstrous word.

Do you want Spanish? The old Gothic slang swarms with it. Thus we have boffette, a box on the ears, which comes from bofeton; vantane, a window (afterwards vanterne), from vantana; gat, a cat, from gato; acite, oil, from aceyte. Do you want Italian? We have spade, a sword, which comes from spada, and carvel, a boat, which comes from caravella. From the English we have bichot, the bishop; raille, a spy, from rascal, rascalion, roguish; and pilche, a case, from pitcher, a scabbard. Of German origin are caleur, the waiter, from kellner; hers, the master, from herzog, or duke. In Latin we find frangir, to break, from frangere; affurer, to steal, from fur; and cadène, a chain, from catena. There is one word which is found in all continental language with a sort of mysterious power and authority, and that is the word magnus: Scotland makes mac of it, which designates the chief of the clan, Mac Farlane, Mac Callumore, the great Farlane, the great Callumore; slang reduces it to meck, afterwards meg, that is to say, the Deity. Do you wish for Basque? Here is gahisto, the devil, which is derived from gaiztoa, bad, and sorgabon, good-night, which comes from gabon, good-evening. In Celtic we find blavin, a handkerchief, derived from blavet, running water; ménesse, a woman (in a bad sense), from meinec, full of stones; barant, a stream, from baranton, a fountain; goffeur, a locksmith, from goff, a blacksmith; and guédouze, death, which comes from guenn-du, white and black. Lastly, do you wish for history? Slang calls crowns "the Maltese," in memory of the coin which was current aboard the Maltese galleys.

In addition to the philological origins which we have indicated, slang has other and more natural roots, which issue, so to speak, directly from the human mind. In the first place, there is the direct creation of words, for it is the mystery of language to paint with words which have, we know not how or why, faces. This is the primitive foundation of every human language, or what might be called the granite. Slang swarms with words of this nature, immediate words created all of one piece; it is impossible to say when, or by whom, without etymologies, analogies, or derivatives,—solitary, barbarous, and at times hideous words, which have a singular power of expression, and are alive. The executioner, le taule (the anvil's face); the forest, le sabri (cudgels); fear or flight, taf; the footman, le larbin; the general, prefect, or minister, pharos (head man); and the devil, le rabouin (the one with the tail). Nothing can be stranger than these words, which form transparent masks; some of them, le rabouin, for instance, are at the same time grotesque and terrible, and produce the effect of a Cyclopean grimace. In the second place, there is metaphor, and it is the peculiarity of a language which wishes to say everything and conceal everything, to abound in figures. Metaphor is an enigma in which the robber who is scheming a plot, or the prisoner arranging an escape, takes the refuge. No idiom is more metaphorical than slang; dévisser (to unscrew) le coco (the cocoa-nut), to twist the neck; tortiller (to wind up), to eat; être gerbé (sheaved), to be tried; un rat, a stealer of bread; il lansquine, it rains,—an old striking figure, which bears to some extent its date with it, assimilates the long oblique lines of rain to the serried sloping pikes of the lansquenets, and contains in one word the popular adage, "It is raining halberts." At times, in proportion as slang passes from the first to the second stage, words pass from the savage and primitive state to the metaphorical sense. The devil ceases to be le rabouin, and becomes "the baker," or he who puts in the oven. This is wittier but not so grand; something like Racine after Corneille, or Euripides after Æschylus. Some slang phrases which belong to both periods, and have at once a barbarous and a metaphorical character, resemble phantasmagorias: Les sorgueurs vont sollicer des gails à la lune (the prowlers are going to steal horses at night). This passes before the mind like a group of spectres, and we know not what we see. Thirdly, there is expediency: slang lives upon the language, uses it as it pleases, and when the necessity arises limits itself to denaturalizing it summarily and coarsely. At times, with the ordinary words thus deformed and complicated with pure slang, picturesque sentences are composed, in which the admission of the two previous elements, direct creation and metaphor, is visible,—le cab jaspine, je marronne que la roulotte de Pantin trime dans le sabri, (the dog barks, I suspect that the Paris diligence is passing through the wood); le dab est sinve, la dabuge est merloussière, la fée est bative, (the master is stupid, the mistress is cunning, and the daughter pretty). Most frequently, in order to throw out listeners, slang confines itself to adding indistinctly to all the words of the language, a species of ignoble tail, a termination in aille, orgue, iergue, or uche. Thus: Vouziergue trouvaille bonorgue ce gigotmuche? (Do you find that leg of mutton good?) This was a remark made by Cartouche to a jailer, in order to learn whether the sum offered him for an escape suited him. The termination in mar has been very recently added.

Slang, being the idiom of corruption, is itself quickly corrupted. Moreover, as it always tries to hide itself so soon as it feels that it is understood, it transforms itself. Exactly opposed to all other vegetables, every sunbeam kills what it falls on in it. Hence slang is being constantly decomposed and re-composed; and this is an obscure and rapid labor which never ceases, and it makes more way in ten years than language does in ten centuries. Thus larton (head) becomes lartif; gail (horse) gaye; fertanche (straw) fertille; momignard (the child) momacque; fiques (clothes) frusques; chique (the church) l'égrugeoir; and colabre (the neck) colas. The devil is first gahisto, then le rabouin, and next "the baker;" a priest is the ratichon, and then the sanglier; a dagger is the vingt-deux, next the surin, and lastly the lingre; the police are railles, then roussins, then marchands de lacet (handcuff dealers), then coqueurs, and lastly cognes; the executioner is the taule, then Charlot, then the atigeur, and then the becquillard. In the seventeenth century to fight was to "take snuff;" in the nineteenth it is "to break the jaw;" but twenty different names have passed away between these two extremes, and Cartouche would speak Hebrew to Lacenaire. All the words of this language are perpetually in flight, like the men who employ them. Still, from time to time, and owing to this very movement, the old slang reappears and becomes new again. It has its headquarters where it holds its ground. The Temple preserved the slang of the seventeenth century, and Bicêtre, when it was a prison, that of Thunes. There the termination in anche of the old Thuners could be heard: Boyanches-tu? (do you drink?); il croyanche (he believes). But perpetual motion does not the less remain the law. If the philosopher succeeds in momentarily fixing, for the purpose of observation, this language, which is necessarily evaporating, he falls into sorrowful and useful meditations, and no study is more efficacious, or more fertile and instructive. There is not a metaphor or an etymology of slang which does not contain a lesson.

Among these men "fighting" means "pretending:" they "fight" a disease, for cunning is their strength. With them the idea of man is not separated from the idea of a shadow. Night is called la sorgue and man l'orgue: man is a derivative of night. They have formed the habit of regarding society as an atmosphere which kills them, as a fatal force, and they speak of their liberty as one speaks of his health. A man arrested is a "patient;" a man sentenced is a "corpse." The most terrible thing for the prisoner within the four stone walls which form his sepulchre is a sort of freezing chastity, and hence he always calls the dungeon the castus. In this funereal place external life will appear under its most smiling aspect. The prisoner has irons on his feet, and you may perhaps fancy that he thinks how people walk with their feet; no, he thinks that they dance with them, hence, if he succeed in cutting through his fetters, his first idea is that he can now dance, and he calls the saw a bastringue. A name is a centre, a profound assimilation. The bandit has two heads,—the one which revolves his deeds and guides him through life, the other which he has on his shoulders on the day of his death; he calls the head which counsels him in crime, the sorbonne, and the one that expiates it the tronche. When a man has nothing but rags on his body and vices in his heart, when he has reached that double moral and material degradation which the word gueux characterizes in its two significations, he is ripe for crime; he is like a well-sharpened blade; he has two edges, his distress and his villany, and hence slang does not call him a gueux but a réguisé. What is the bagne? A furnace of damnation, a hell, and the convict calls himself a "fagot." Lastly, what name do malefactors give to the prison? The "college." A whole penitentiary system might issue from this word.

Would you like to know whence came most of the galley songs,—those choruses called in the special vocabularies the lirlonfa? Listen to this:

There was at the Châtelet of Paris a large long cellar, which was eight feet below the level of the Seine. It had neither windows nor gratings, and the sole opening was the door; men could enter it, but air not. This cellar had for ceiling a stone arch, and for floor ten inches of mud; it had been paved, but, owing to the leakage of the water, the paving had rotted and fallen to pieces. Eight feet above the ground, a long massive joist ran from one end to the other of this vault; from this joist hung at regular distances chains, three feet long, and at the end of these chains were collars. In this cellar men condemned to the galleys were kept until the day of their departure for Toulon; they were thrust under this beam, where each had his fetters oscillating in the darkness and waiting for him. The chains, like pendant arms, and the collars, like open hands, seized these wretches by the neck; they were riveted and left there. As the chain was too short, they could not lie down; they remained motionless in this cellar, in this night, under this beam, almost hung, forced to make extraordinary efforts to reach their loaf or water-jug, with the vault above their heads and mud up to their knees, drawn and quartered by fatigue, giving way at the hips and knees, hanging on by their hands to the chain to rest themselves, only able to sleep standing, and awakened every moment by the choking of the collar—some did not awake. To eat they were compelled to draw up their bread, which was thrown into the mud, with the heel all along the thigh to their hand. How long did they remain in this state? One month, two months, sometimes six months; one man remained a year. It was the antechamber of the galleys, and men were put in it for stealing a hare from the king. In this hellish sepulchre what did they? They died by inches, as people can do in a sepulchre, and sang, which they can do in a hell; for when there is no longer hope, song remains,—in the Maltese waters, when a galley was approaching, the singing was heard before the sound of the oars. The poor poacher Survincent, who passed through the cellar-prison of the Châtelet, said, "Rhymes sustained me." Poetry is useless; what is the good of rhymes? In this cellar nearly all the slang songs were born, and it is from the dungeon of the Great Châtelet of Paris that comes the melancholy chorus of Montgomery's galley: Timaloumisaine, timoulamison. Most of the songs are sad, some are gay, and one is tender:—

"Icicaille est le théâtre
Du petit dardant."[1]

Do you what you will, you cannot destroy that eternal relic of man's heart, love.

In this world of dark deeds secrets are kept; for secrets are a thing belonging to all, and with these wretches secrecy is the unity which serves as the basis of union. To break secrecy is to tear from each member of this ferocious community something of himself. To denounce is called in the energetic language of slang "to eat the piece," as if the denouncer took a little of the substance of each, and supported himself on a piece of the flesh of each. What is receiving a buffet? The conventional metaphor answers, "It is seeing six-and-thirty candles." Here slang interferes and reads camoufle for candle; life in its ordinary language takes camouflet as a synonym for a box on the ears. Hence, by a sort of penetration from bottom to top, and by the aid of metaphor, that incalculable trajectory, slang ascends from the cellar to the academy, and Poulailler saying, "I light my camoufle" makes Voltaire write, "Langleviel la Beaumelle deserves a hundred camouflets." Searching in slang is a discovery at every step, and the study and investigation of this strange idiom lead to the point of intersection of regular with accursed society. The robber has also his food for powder, or stealable matter in you, in me, in the first passer-by, the pantre (pan, everybody). Slang is the word converted into a convict. It produces a consternation to reflect that the thinking principle of man can be hurled down so deep that it can be dragged there and bound by the obscure tyranny of fatality, and be fastened to some unknown rivets on this precipice. Alas! will no one come to the help of the human soul in this darkness? Is it its destiny ever to await the mind, the liberator, the immense tamer of Pegasuses and hippogriffs, the dawn-colored combatant, who descends from the azure sky between two wings, the radiant knight of the future? Will it ever call in vain to its help the lance of the light of idealism? Is it condemned always to look down into the gulf of evil and see closer and closer to it beneath the hideous water the demoniac head, this slavering mouth, and this serpentine undulation of claws, swellings, and rings? Must it remain there without a gleam of hope, left to the horror of this formidable and vaguely smelt approach of the monster, shuddering, with dishevelled hair, wringing its arms, forever chained to the rock of night, a sombre Andromeda white and naked in the darkness?

CHAPTER III.