Of Rats and Men.

Le Rat du Châtelet spoke slang.

The slang testimony of a rat: «Was there any regout?» asks a prisoner to a newcomer. «Yes,» answers the latter, «I was fait while working the bauche; the mistringues arrived, they rapiote me, but poitou; I didn’t reconnoblé!» I beg your pardon?

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Le Rat du Châtelet, 

Of Rats  and Men

    Just the other day, I came across an unusual book: 51 pages only, complete though incomplete, almost unknown but enjoying a certain popularity among a circle of connoisseurs and, last but not least, written by an anonymous rat.

This book is a political satire entitled Le Rat du Châtelet, or The Rat of Le Châtelet. It was published in 1790 by an anonymous writer—the title page doesn’t mention any printer either. A few months after the French Revolution (July the 14th, 1789), it was probably safer this way. Our writer transforms himself into a rat to crawl inside Le Châtelet, the scariest jail of Paris. At the time, this prison—now a mere square—sheltered the most vicious criminals; to such an extent that when the outraged people of Paris freed all prisoners on July the 13th, they made an exception for the 350 inmates of Le Châtelet. Famous people had been incarcerated (some even tortured) there before the Révolution, including François Villon—who allegedly wrote his masterpiece Frères humains inside—, Clément Marot or Louis-Dominique Cartouche. During the troubled times of 1789, the most virulent prisoners were still taken there, so our rat was crawling on thin ice. Let’s follow him into the dark underworld of Le Châtelet.

Le Châtelet before it was destroyed.

The bottomless pit

Traveling Le Châtelet with our rat is like visiting the kingdom of Hades: here, a lamenting ghostly Bankrupt lost in a remorseful loneliness; there, a stinking dormitory full of petty thieves with scabies; over there, some innocent citizens, victims of the guilty zeal of some newly converted revolutionaries. “Alas!” cries out our rat. “In which hands have we left the guides of our peace, liberty and rights? Who are those people, responsible for our safety?” Meet this man who, standing in a public gathering, carelessly uttered a word that sounded offending to the new Parisian Guard. He was called an aristocrat, arrested by a patrol and sent to Le Châtelet where Judge Dubois condemned him to suffer “three days of yoke,” and “to be whipped and marked, then sent to the galleys.” Fortunately, our inmate had connections, his sentence was commuted to a two-year imprisonment—lucky him! These stories might be true, or not. Names quoted in the book do not seem to fit reality, apart from the one Nicolas de Satou, identified as the aforementioned Judge Dubois.

It was dangerous to criticize the revolutionary government but crawling rats seldom bite. Refusing to be seen as a petty slanderer, our rat promises to name some monsters of infamy and others freedom mongers... shortly—meaning, in the second part of his diary. “If this first part happily entertains the reader, then his curiosity shall be rewarded by a second part.” Thus speaks the rat in the author’s note. But this second part never saw the light. Why? God only—and probably a little wet rat— knows the answer. Satirical writings were common at the time. Many were printed that were much more virulent. Let’s admit it, our rat wasn’t the most outspoken rodent of his time. But he knew what he was talking about as far as slang was concerned; and that’s the reason why this book is still sought-after nowadays.

Slang from Villon to Cartouche

At one point, our rat crawls among the rabble. “Was there any regout (problem)?” asks a prisoner to a newcomer. “Yes,” answers the other, “ I was fait (caught) while working the bauche (breaking a house); the marque (housemaid) crible au charron (shouted ‘thief’), bride the lourde of the longue (closed the door of the room), the mistringues (police) aboulent (arrived), they trimbalent (took me) to the cardeuil (police commissioner), they rapiote me (questioned me), but poitou (in vain); I had hidden my peignes (false keys) and my camelotte (booty). I did not reconnoblé (speak).” Some parts of this discussion remain unintelligible nowadays, even to a French-speaking person— and that was exactly the point. “Slang is the language of the purse robbers,” wrote Pierre Richelet in the 1706 Elzevir’s edition of his dictionary. “They express themselves in a way that made them unintelligible to anyone outside their cabal.” As soon as the 13^th century, the police identified several slang words such as mouche (fly) for spy, or rossignol (nightingale) for picklock. In 1455, a bunch of criminals called the Coquillards (Scallopers, as they usually wore a scallop to join the pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela in order to cheat and steal them), were arrested. They revealed some of their secret words such as envoyeur (sender) for murderer, or vendangeur (grape-picker) for thief. François Villon had some acquaintances with the Coquillards from whom he borrowed the slang words of Le jargon et jobellin dudit Villon, first published in 1498.

Closer to our book, slang enjoyed a peak of popularity after Louis-Dominique Cartouche* was arrested in 1721. A few books were written about the life of this notorious gang leader of Paris that featured slang—the most significant one being the poem Le Vice Puni ou Cartouche (1725), a parody of Voltaire’s La Pucelle by an anonymous author later identified as Nicolas Racot de Grandval, who appended a slang dictionary of some 300 terms to his work. Cartouche was eventually sent to the Abbey-of-climb-it-with-regrets (the gallows, according to the said dictionary), but slang had become fashionable in the Parisian salons, and was more and more used until it was fully recognized by linguists in the 19^th century.

Since the days of Cartouche, slang has been thoroughly studied and Le Rat du Châtelet is quoted in many serious works on the subject. Was our rat a thief himself? Did he serve some time at Le Châtelet? We will probably never know. The passage of his book related to slang is only four pages long, but happens to be well documented. It also features words such as abouler (to come quickly—still in use nowadays) or loffe (fool, that sounds like the backward-slang for fol—mad). These testimonies are here used in their historical context—that’s what makes them unique, and so valuable.

La Capucinade? A weird custom.

La Capucinade

Our book features a peculiar frontispiece, illustrating another slang word: capucinade. Two inmates are lying on the ground in the middle of a dormitory, with their trousers around their ankles. They embrace each other in front of dozens of inmates who look at them. On the right, two characters have also dropped their trousers, showing their naked bottoms. The caption reads, La Capucinade. Our rat explains that this is a violent way to extort newcomers: the inmates, pretending to start a ritual, drop their trousers and kiss a lying and half-naked man one by one. When the newcomer lies down on the naked man, some inmates jump on him and beat his naked bottom with rolled handkerchiefs until he reveals where he has put his money (sometimes he has left it with a trustworthy friend, says our rat—as if such a man was ever to be found in such a place). If he has no money, he has to empty the faeces barrel of the dormitory (another character, on the left of the engraving, is obviously filling up the said barrel). Now, what a weird engraving! Half-naked men embracing each other in a prison cell? Come on... “Honi soit qui mal y pense!” laughs our rat. But this capucinade—no explanation given for the name (a capucin is a monk)—makes no sense. Could it be a slang drawing, giving information than only certain rats can fully interpret? Why don’t they simply corner newcomers and beat them up until they speak? That sounds reasonably more efficient. But honi soit moi! After all, criminals may just need some human warmth, from time to time—why shouldn’t they combine business with pleasure?

Rats’ massacre

Our rat crawled away on a promise he never fulfilled. The second part of Le Rat du Châtelet was never published and the names of the monsters of infamy never revealed. What happened to him? Was he fait (caught) while trying to débiner (run away)? Or was he coltiné (arrested) by a newly converted revolutionary who had him marrying the widow (hanged)? Or was he still incarcerated in Le Châtelet when, in September 1792, the Revolutionaries decided to put most prisoners to death? They accused them of plotting with foreign monarchies against the Republic, so they murdered 1,300 of them in Paris alone—and some 150 in the rest of the country. In his Histoire de la Révolution (1848), Jules Michelet wrote: “A dreadful mob swarms the abbey of Le Châtelet at seven in the evening; they start to blindly massacre the prisoners with their swords and rifles. They don’t spare forty out of two hundred.” The bodies were later carried to a nearby town, and buried in a common grave. Who knows? There might have been, among the dead, a little wet rat nobody took notice of? If so, may Havre (God) have mercy on his wicked rat soul.

© Thibault Ehrengardt

* see the article Cartouche & the Peddlers’ Books on this website.

- Le Rat du Châtelet, (anonymous), no place, no printer. 1790 / 1 in-8° volume: frontispiece, title page (author’s note at the back), 48pp (numbered from 3 to 51). Read it here: http://books.google.fr/books?id=Ed1BAAAAcAAJ

- Le Vice Puni ou Cartouche, (anonymous / Nicolas Racot de Grandval), Anvers. 1725 / 1 in-8°volume: frontispiece, title page, avertissement (2pp), 105pp, Dictionaire Argot-François (6pp).