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I was reading 'A Policeman's Lot Is Not A Happy One' by Salatrel the other day. In the beginning, before the story, she warns: "If you don't understand the argot, let that be a lesson to you--never skip book the seventh. Best part of the whole behemoth, is book the seventh. Ninteenth century vulgarity is good for confusing French teachers, whereas the modern variety gets one sent to the principal." Therefore, I composed this list, to help us understand it when we run across it in fan fic, or to use when we are writing such fic (or in the presence of French teachers :-)).

Argot is the language of the streets, the language used by the thieves, etc. of Les Miz, like Patron Minette. It's useful to know a bit if you plan to write a fic involving them, or if you're writing about Nôtre-Dame de Paris, in which it is used in the scenes involving the Court of Miracles, I believe. It helps you to write interesting phrases that no one understands, like "Le cab jaspine," (the dog barks) and "We are going to go picter a rouillarde encible," or something like that (we are going to go drink a bottle of wine together), both of which, by the way, are in the book.

So, I went through the book and collected as much as I could find. In bits and pieces the translation is difficult to decipher, so I believe I left out two or three of the words actually used in LM, but this is otherwise as complete as possible.

All of the argot below comes from Book Six: Little Gavroche, II, through Book Seven: Argot, II, or Cosette, as well as the robbery scene.

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