"Gil Blas" is mentioned in Thomas Flanagan's 1979 novel "The Year of the French", in which poet Owen MacCarthy mentions having it with him "on ramblings, years ago." Flanagan uses the book to connect the poor Irish citizens and their French allies in the 1798 Rebellion, illustrating that the Irish may not all be as simple as Arthur Vincent Broome, the loyalist narrator, presumes. This allusion to "Gil Blas" also connects the somewhat roguish MacCarthy to the picaresque protagonist Gil Blas.