As we see, the whole of slang, the slang of four hundred years ago, as well as that of the present day, is penetrated by that gloomy symbolic spirit which gives to every word at one moment a suffering accent, at another a menacing air. We see in it the old ferocious sorrow of those mumpers of the Cour des Miracles, who played at cards with packs of their own, some of which have been preserved for us. The eight of clubs, for instance, represented a tall man bearing eight enormous clover leaves, a sort of fantastic personification of the forest. At the foot of this tree could be seen a lighted fire, at which three hares were roasting a game-keeper on a spit, and behind, over another fire, a steaming caldron from which a dog's head emerged. Nothing can be more lugubrious than these reprisals in painting upon a pack of cards, in the face of the pyres for smugglers, and the caldron for coiners. The various forms which thought assumed in the kingdom of slang, singing, jests, and menaces, all had this impotent and crushed character. All the songs of which a few melodies have come down to us were humble and lamentable enough to draw tears. The _pègre_ (thief) calls himself the poor _pègre_; for he is always the hare that hides itself, the mouse that escapes, or the bird that flies away. He hardly protests, but restricts himself to sighing, and one of his groans has reached us: _Je n'entrave que le dail comment meck, le daron des orgues, peut atiger ses mômes et ses momignards, et les locher criblant sans être agité lui même_. (I do not understand how God, the Father of men, can torture His children and His grandchildren, and hear them cry, without being tortured Himself.) The wretch, whenever he has time to think, makes himself little before the law and paltry before society; he lies down on his stomach, supplicates, and implores pity, and we can see that he knows himself to be in the wrong. Toward the middle of the last century a change took place; the person, songs, and choruses of the robbers assumed, so to speak, an insolent and jovial gesture. The _larifla_ was substituted for the plaintive _maluré_, and we find in nearly all the songs of the galleys, the hulks, and the chain-gangs, a diabolical and enigmatical gayety. We hear in them that shrill and leaping chorus which seems illumined by a phosphorescent gleam, and appears cast into the forest by a will-o'-the-wisp playing the fife:-- "Mirlababi surlababo Mirliton ribonribette Surlababi mirlababo Mirliton ribonribo."