The quote is from Norman Glass's translation of "To the Slaughterhouse" (Le Grand Troupeau)

It's harissa

If you didn't understand the quote, well happy halloween to you, and also here's a literal translation:

I've got eyes, real eyes
Living eyes, eyes of flame,
Wonderful eyes
That touch the bottom of the soul
And in many a case
Can even lend one to those who don't have one.

The word "pick-pocket" appears in the first Rocambole story, but:
- The story was published in 1857
- The word appears in a sentence that establishes Sir Williams as a former "leader of the pick-pockets" in... London.
Rocambole himself is a teenager who works for Sir Williams.

It was translated in 1858, but regardless of whether the French read it in English or in French, I like to think that, because Dickens gave names and a faces to a bunch of fictional English pickpockets, while the French "tireurs" remained nameless and faceless, one word ended up replacing the other.

In 1837, Vidocq published a book about thieves. In it, pickpockets are called "tireurs". In 1900, another chief of police, Rossignol, published his memoir, in which the favored word is "pickpocket". So what happened in between? Well, Oliver Twist was published in 1838...

Hard to say exactly. The article quoted above insists on how organized the London pickpockets are. They "hold meetings in taverns, manage a collective safety fund, take care of the sick and the emprisoned". Perhaps this was what fascinated the French. The stories they heard, be they real or made-up.

Much earlier. This is from the "Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIXe siècle", specifically from the twelfth volume, published in 1874. The word became more and more common in the following years. In 1908, it was mainstream enough for Clémenceau to use it in official letters.

My favorite sundial inscriptions are the ominous ones, the ones that remind me that any hour could be my last. Like "ultima multis", "ultima latet", "una tibi" or "forte tua".

I'm afraid it's just a dumb pun on the guy's name:
Le Général Oku --> Le Général aux culs (the general with the butts)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oikos_(...

You can go to the art museum, see the mustachioed ghost and the hurdy gurdy man.

I usually don't reply with my own last four albums, but in this case I have a nice colour scheme going.

Other word plays that come to mind :
- "Tirer un trait sur mes années" could mean both "strike them off" (with a pen) and "shoot an arrow at them" (which would cause them to flee)
- coche/coche (a notch on a stick or a tick on a list/a horse carriage)
Probably not helpful but who knows!

It seems you made a play on the double meaning of "ticked off", so there's a chance that the original line had word play in it too.
Something like: j'ai barré (crossed out) les années et elles se sont barrées (took off)
Obviously not that, but remembering the pun might help you remember the line.

The original French:

Et, puisque tes lentes cadences
Rythment le pouls des soirs d'été,
Fais-nous croire que les cieux dansent
Parce qu'un aveugle a chanté.

L'Avenir du Prolétariat was a pension fund, created in the 1890s. The buildings housed bourgeois families, but they belonged to the workers through the fund. Forty such buildings were enough to provide revenues to tens of thousands of retired workers.