Does anyone have any insight into how Galois made the mental leap to his solution? Everything I've read says (or implies) that his solution came completely out

Does anyone have any insight into how Galois made the mental leap to his solution? Everything I've read says (or implies) that his solution came completely out of left-field--i.e. it wasn't really related to anything that had come before him. And along those lines, does anyone know of an English translation of Galois' paper?