Children from peasant and working-class backgrounds were highly visible in France during the nineteenth century. The street, the workshop and the farm were still very much part of their territory, where they mingled freely with the world of adults. Even the most haughty members of the bourgeoisie could hardly fail to notice several of their activities. Venturing out in a city, they risked being accosted by the local gamins: poor, scruffy children who would beg the odd coin, or offer to do little jobs, such as opening a carriage door or scraping mud off boots during bad weather. All around, they would feel the bustle of young people plying their trades. These included peasant girls on their way to food markets; hawkers shouting their wares; delivery boys doing the rounds for tradesmen; apprentice couturières and blanchisseuses shuffling back and forth between their customers and their ‘sweatshops’; saltimbanques doing street-shows with other members of their families; and sootblackened petits savoyards touting for business beside the chimney sweeps. Other sights were more disturbing for the bourgeoisie, but equally unavoidable. Passing near to a working-class quartier, they were bound to observe the spectacle of small groups of children playing in the streets. Almost invariably, these urchins would be shorter, paler and less robust than their own sons and daughters. And then there were the gangs of older lads, approaching adolescence, to be seen marauding the slums, or wandering through gardens and orchards on the outskirts of town.