Le pierrot je ne sais pas ... Mais la pierrette, pour etre la femme c'est la femme et c'est une canaille. C'est a toi a voir si la vieux cogner ou filer. Moi je cognesais ...

He came from a poor family. He worked in a factory while studying at a free art school. He was noticed by Emile Girardin and began to publish in his weekly fashion magazine "Fashion", and was also published in Charivari, Artiste, Illustración and other popular press of the time. He illustrated novels by Balzac and Eugène Su and short stories by Hoffmann. He chose a pseudonym from the name of a picturesque village in the Haute Pyrénées on the border with Spain, where he had worked for a time in his youth. Together with Granville, he participated in the collective collection of satirical stories and essays "The Devil in Paris", published by Pierre-Jules Etzel, in which Balzac, George Sand and Charles Nodier were also printed. One of Gavarni's favourite subjects was the Paris carnival and, among other things, girls dressed as debarers - sleeveless telnics with low necklines and tight pantaloons (outside the framework of carnival women in France, who wished to appear in public in pantaloons had to obtain special permission from the police). Gavarni published an album of engravings under this title (1848); the girl in the debarderie is depicted on the pedestal of his monument erected in Paris on the Place Saint-Georges.