The life and times of three children of the 19th century, in a France terrorized by the cholera pandemic.

This book reconstructs the journeys of three lower-class 19th-century children who moved to Paris with their parents and were orphaned by cholera. Taken in by institutions, placed in separate homes, and mistreated, these victims of the chaos caused by the pandemic struggled to survive and escape poverty. Through these "little lives," Laurence Giordano details the torments devised by society and suffered by poor, who adapt, resist, and all too often, succumb.