Sans Famille

Sans Famille (Translation: Without Family English title: Nobody's Boy) is an 1878 French novel by Hector Malot. The most recent English translation is Alone in the World by Adrian de Bruyn, 2007. The novel was reportedly inspired by the Italian street musicians of the XIX century, in particular the harpists from Viggiano, Basilicata.

Jerome Barberin lives with his wife in a little French town, Chavanon (on the edge of the Central Massif, near the origins of the river Loire). He usually works in Paris as a mason. One day he finds a baby boy in Paris. The boy wears very fine clothes, so apparently his parents are rich. Barberin offers to take care of the child, hoping to get a good reward. He gives the boy to his wife, and calls him Rémi.

Barberin gets injured in an accident. He blames his employer and hopes to receive financial compensation in a trial. The trial costs a lot of money, and Barberin tells his wife to sell her cow (her main source of wealth) and to get rid of Rémi. She does the former.

When Rémi is eight years old, and this is where the story starts, Barberin comes home unexpectedly, bitter and penniless, having lost his trial. He sees that Rémi is still there and decides to get rid of him when he meets a travelling artist, Signor Vitalis, in the local pub, who travels with three dogs - Capi, Zerbino and Dolce - and a monkey, Joli-Cœur. Vitalis offers to take Rémi on as apprentice for money.

Rémi leaves his childhood home, without even a chance to say goodbye to his foster mother (who would have done anything to prevent the transaction) and starts a journey of the roads of France. Vitalis is a kind man, certainly better company than Barberin and teaches Rémi to play the harp and to read. Often both go hungry and without a roof over their heads; but in the animals, especially in Capi, Rémi gains dear friends, and in Vitalis the father he lacks. Together they earn a living by giving musical and stage performances in villages, towns and cities.

They travel West, via Murat (where Vitalis tells him of the prince of Naples, brother in law of Napoleon, who came from there). Next stop is Ussel where Rémi is outfitted for his new life, including shoes, which he has never owned before. The first big city going south is Bordeaux after which they cut right through the morass of Les landes towards Pau.

When they are in Toulouse, Vitalis is put in jail after an incident with a policeman who is rough with Rémi. It is not easy for a ten-year-old to feed himself and four animals under his care, and they nearly starve, when they meet the "Swan" - a little river ship owned by Mrs. Milligan and her ill son Arthur. Rémi is taken in to entertain the sick boy, and he becomes almost part of the family. They travel towards Montpellier and the Mediterranean on the Canal du Sud. Rémi learns the story about her dead husband and brother-in-law, who under the English law, was to inherit all of his brother's fortune if he died childless. An earlier child had disappeared and was never found (under the charge of this James Milligan) however soon after the husband’s death, Arthur was born.

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