canaille

He knew nothing of that silent middle class that struggled between genteel poverty and the impossible desire of emulating the golden canaille to which he himself belonged.

From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende

The canaille that had crouched for a century seemed in some unaccountable way to be changing its posture!

From The Red Cockade by Stanley John Weyman

"Yet, monsieur," said the priest, "when you arrested him first, it was not as one of the canaille, but as the son of the outlawed Count de Montresor."

From The Lily and the Cross A Tale of Acadia by James De Mille

Mon cher,' said the other, 'you and I were once gentlemen—we talked, ate, drank, and dressed as such; we have now the canaille life, and the past is scarcely even a dream.'

From Gerald Fitzgerald The Chevalier by Charles James Lever

"And am I to see my father's name insulted, and his house dishonored by such a canaille crew as this?"

From That Boy Of Norcott's by Charles James Lever