À les comparer aux avortons d’aujourd’hui, on aurait raison de les appeler lions, les terribles gaillards de ma jeunesse !... Il y avait aussi des faibles, mais de ceux-là personne ne s’occupait, leur existence ne comptait pas.
Comparing them to today's runts, we would be right to call them lions, those terrible fellows of my youth!... There were also weaklings, but nobody cared about them, their existence didn't matter.