STRANGER THAN FICTION

Since the 1810s, little girls have been forced to be demure.
However, there have always been exceptions to the rule, and I was one of them.
I am glad to see that, nowadays, caregivers are less disciplined than their Victorian predecessors.
There was a cautionary tale, "Romping Polly", in which a restless and active little girl was, after sustaining an injury, forced to lean on crutches.

I should be said that I once learned a similar lesson myself when I grew out of skipping in my teens.
Back then, such behaviour in me was regarded not as tomboyish, but as immature (it was a matter of age, not of gender).
It happened in Sweden, the day after Christmas Day. I was either 14 or 15 when, merrily and distractedly sauntering down the stairs to our cellar, I fell down on the floor. Luckily, I had only sprained my left foot. It took a lot of rest to recover.
And that is the reason why I limp when running.

FACT AND FICTION

As a matter of fact, fact and fiction tend to overlap.

Victor Hugo drew from contemporary (19th-century) criminal records when he created the Valjean plot of Les Misérables: anti-hero Jean Valjean is condemned to five years of imprisonment for stealing a loaf of bread to survive, mirroring then-ocurring real-life scenarios.

In our days' Spain, the beggar that broke into a Barcelona supermarket on the 9th of September 2009 (09-09-09!), and stole a French bread, was sentenced to half a year of imprisonment.

The current crisis was only dawning, and incidents such as this one were only the tip of the iceberg.
Nothing has changed in Catholic Europe since Hugo's days: the wealthy and powerful get away with all the money, while the poor lose their freedom for stealing their daily bread.