—­coarse faces reeking of mud, hoarse voices, reddened and bulbous noses, mouths devoid of teeth but menacing; humble yet terrible beings, in whom a profound intelligence shining in their eyes seems like a contradiction.  Some of these bold vagabonds have blotched, cracked, veiny skins; their foreheads are covered with wrinkles, their hair scanty and dirty, like a wig thrown on a dust-heap.  All are gay in their degradation, and degraded in their joys; all are marked with the stamp of debauchery, casting their silence as a reproach; their very attitude revealing fearful thoughts.  Placed between crime and beggary they have no compunctions, and circle prudently around the scaffold without mounting it, innocent in the midst of crime, and vicious in their innocence.  They often cause a laugh, but they always cause reflection.  One represents to you civilization stunted, repressed; he comprehends everything, the honor of the galleys, patriotism, virtue, the malice of a vulgar crime, or the fine astuteness of elegant wickedness.  Another is resigned, a perfect mimer, but stupid.  All have slight yearnings after order and work, but they are pushed back into their mire by society, which makes no inquiry as to what there may be of great men, poets, intrepid souls, and splendid organizations among these vagrants, these gypsies of Paris; a people eminently good and eminently evil—­like all the masses who suffer—­accustomed to endure unspeakable woes, and whom a fatal power holds ever down to the level of the mire.  They all have a dream, a hope, a happiness,—­cards, lottery, or wine.

There was nothing of all this in the personage who now leaned carelessly against the wall in front of Monsieur de Maulincour, like some fantastic idea drawn by an artist on the back of a canvas the front of which is turned to the wall.  This tall, spare man, whose leaden visage expressed some deep but chilling thought, dried up all pity in the hearts of those who looked at him by the scowling look and the sarcastic attitude which announced an intention of treating every man as an equal.  His face was of a dirty white, and his wrinkled skull, denuded of hair, bore a vague resemblance to a block of granite.  A few gray locks on either side of his head fell straight to the collar of his greasy coat, which was buttoned to the chin.  He resembled both Voltaire and Don Quixote; he was, apparently, scoffing but melancholy, full of disdain and philosophy, but half-crazy.  He seemed to have no shirt.  His beard was long.  A rusty black cravat, much worn and ragged, exposed a protuberant neck deeply furrowed, with veins as thick as cords.  A large brown circle like a bruise was strongly marked beneath his eyes, He seemed to be at least sixty years old.  His hands were white and clean.  His boots were trodden down at the heels, and full of holes.  A pair of blue trousers, mended in various places, were covered with a species of fluff which made them offensive to the eye.  Whether it was that his damp clothes exhaled a fetid