pis aller

Soh! she would secure me as a pis aller, I suppose, in case Mr Rashleigh Osbaldistone should not take compassion upon her!

1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter XII, in Rob Roy. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, pages 274–275

Love, in fact, having in this modern world-movement been denied, and its natural manifestations affected with a sense of guilt and of sin, has really languished and ceased to play its natural part in life; and a vast number of people - both men and women, finding themselves barred or derailed from the main object of existence, have turned their energies to 'business' or 'money-making' or 'social advancement' or something equally futile, as the only poor substitute and pis aller open to them.

1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 189

Mungo is on his feet, lurching with the boat, dipping into the bright tatters of his shirt for the smooth ivory grip of his secret weapon, his pis aller, the gleaming silver-plated pistol Johnson had pressed on him with a parting benediction.

1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 425