Sans Famille

The novel was reportedly inspired by the Italian street musicians of the 19th century, in particular the harpists from Viggiano, Basilicata.

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.

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 on the roads of France.

Vitalis is a kind man, certainly better company than Barberin, and teaches Rémi to play the harp and to read.

They travel West, via Murat (where Vitalis tells him of the prince of Naples, brother in law of Napoleon, who came from there).

The first big city going south is Bordeaux, after which they cut right through the morass of les Landes towards Pau.

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 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) but soon after the husband's death, Arthur was born.

Two months later Vitalis is released from jail, and Mrs. Milligan pays for him to take the train to Cette.

They travel via Tarascon, Montelimar, Valence, Tournon, Vienne, Lyon, Dijon, and Chalon on the way to Paris, but winter catches up to them 30 miles from Troyes, and in a snowstorm Zerbino and Dolce are attacked by wolves in the woods, and Joli-Cœur catches pneumonia.

That night, unable to find a place to stay, Vitalis and Rémi collapse in the snowstorm under a fence after fruitlessly searching for access to a stone quarry shelter.

In an attempt to discover his identity, the police officers take Rémi to Garofoli, who reveals the truth: Vitalis used to be the famous Italian singer Carlo Balzani.

Then a terrible hailstorm ruins the glass in the greenhouse, and Acquin is in debt to the man he borrowed from to buy his business.

Rémi decides to head south towards Fontainebleau but hasn't gone long when he meets a companion, Mattia, the boy from Garofoli, starving near a church on the streets of Paris.

Mattia turns out to be a gifted violinist, he plays other instruments too, and he learned some tricks while working for some time in a circus.

The boys do well in the spring at weddings and festivals, their talents are appreciated and Rémi takes up the plan to visit Mother Barberin and buy her a cow (as a replacement to the one she was forced to sell at the start of the story).

Since a cow costs a lot of money Rémi plans a route via Corbeil, Montargis, Gien, Bourges, St. Amand and Montluçon where they make a lot of money on their way to visit Alexis, who now lives with his Uncle Gaspard (Father Acquin's brother) in the mining town Varses, and works in the mine with his uncle.

First they decide to visit Clermont Ferrand, and south westerly, the mineral bath towns Saint Nectaire, Mont-Dore, Royat and Bourboule where they can make good money, towards the cow for mother Barberin.

When they pass through Ussel, not far from Chavanon, they make sure that they will not buy a bad cow, and ask a vet for help.

When Rémi is accused of a robbery committed by the Driscolls, Bob and Mattia help him escape from prison.

With the help of Bob's brother, a sailor, they return to France to search for Mrs. Milligan, in order to warn her about her brother-in-law.

When they get to the town where "the English woman with the ill boy and the mute girl" are supposed to be, they start singing near every fence.

She arranges for the boys to stay in a hotel, where they can have plenty of food, comfortable beds, and are visited by a barber and a tailor.

Mrs. Milligan happily declares that Rémi is her son, to join his "mother, brother and those who loved you in your misery (Lise and Mattia)".

With the Acquin family reunited after their father freed from deptor prison, Rémi marries Lise and they have a son named Mattia, and Mother Barberin becomes his nanny.

While the Driscoll family broke apart from crimes, Rémi was relieved that Kate's grandfather continued raising her.

[10] In 1979 he made another adaptation of the same novel, which was prepublished in the Dutch Disney weekly Donald Duck comic.