Chương Chương 157 · ECCE PARIS, ECCE HOMO

To sum it all up once more, the Paris gamin of to-day, like the

_græculus_ of Rome in days gone by, is the infant populace with the

wrinkle of the old world on his brow.

The gamin is a grace to the nation, and at the same time a disease; a

disease which must be cured, how? By light.

Light renders healthy.

Light kindles.

All generous social irradiations spring from science, letters, arts,

education. Make men, make men. Give them light that they may warm you.

Sooner or later the splendid question of universal education will

present itself with the irresistible authority of the absolute truth;

and then, those who govern under the superintendence of the French idea

will have to make this choice; the children of France or the gamins of

Paris; flames in the light or will-o’-the-wisps in the gloom.

The gamin expresses Paris, and Paris expresses the world.

For Paris is a total. Paris is the ceiling of the human race. The whole

of this prodigious city is a foreshortening of dead manners and living

manners. He who sees Paris thinks he sees the bottom of all history

with heaven and constellations in the intervals. Paris has a capital,

the Town-Hall, a Parthenon, Notre-Dame, a Mount Aventine, the Faubourg

Saint-Antoine, an Asinarium, the Sorbonne, a Pantheon, the Pantheon, a

Via Sacra, the Boulevard des Italiens, a temple of the winds, opinion;

and it replaces the Gemoniæ by ridicule. Its _majo_ is called “faraud,”

its Transteverin is the man of the faubourgs, its _hammal_ is the

market-porter, its lazzarone is the pègre, its cockney is the native of

Ghent. Everything that exists elsewhere exists at Paris. The fishwoman

of Dumarsais can retort on the herb-seller of Euripides, the discobols

Vejanus lives again in the Forioso, the tight-rope dancer.

Therapontigonus Miles could walk arm in arm with Vadeboncœur the

grenadier, Damasippus the second-hand dealer would be happy among

bric-à-brac merchants, Vincennes could grasp Socrates in its fist as

just as Agora could imprison Diderot, Grimod de la Reynière discovered

larded roast beef, as Curtillus invented roast hedgehog, we see the

trapeze which figures in Plautus reappear under the vault of the Arc of

l’Etoile, the sword-eater of Pœcilus encountered by Apuleius is a

sword-swallower on the Pont-Neuf, the nephew of Rameau and Curculio the

parasite make a pair, Ergasilus could get himself presented to

Cambacères by d’Aigrefeuille; the four dandies of Rome: Alcesimarchus,

Phœdromus, Diabolus, and Argyrippus, descend from Courtille in

Labatut’s posting-chaise; Aulus Gellius would halt no longer in front

of Congrio than would Charles Nodier in front of Punchinello; Marto is

not a tigress, but Pardalisca was not a dragon; Pantolabus the wag

jeers in the Café Anglais at Nomentanus the fast liver, Hermogenus is a

tenor in the Champs-Élysées, and round him, Thracius the beggar, clad

like Bobèche, takes up a collection; the bore who stops you by the

button of your coat in the Tuileries makes you repeat after a lapse of

two thousand years Thesprion’s apostrophe: _Quis properantem me

prehendit pallio? _ The wine on Surêne is a parody of the wine of Alba,

the red border of Desaugiers forms a balance to the great cutting of

Balatro, Père-Lachaise exhales beneath nocturnal rains the same gleams

as the Esquiliæ, and the grave of the poor bought for five years, is

certainly the equivalent of the slave’s hived coffin.

Seek something that Paris has not. The vat of Trophonius contains

nothing that is not in Mesmer’s tub; Ergaphilas lives again in

Cagliostro; the Brahmin Vâsaphantâ become incarnate in the Comte de

Saint-Germain; the cemetery of Saint-Médard works quite as good

miracles as the Mosque of Oumoumié at Damascus.

Paris has an Æsop-Mayeux, and a Canidia, Mademoiselle Lenormand. It is

terrified, like Delphos at the fulgurating realities of the vision; it

makes tables turn as Dodona did tripods. It places the grisette on the

throne, as Rome placed the courtesan there; and, taking it altogether,

if Louis XV. is worse than Claudian, Madame Dubarry is better than

Messalina. Paris combines in an unprecedented type, which has existed

and which we have elbowed, Grecian nudity, the Hebraic ulcer, and the

Gascon pun. It mingles Diogenes, Job, and Jack-pudding, dresses up a

spectre in old numbers of the _Constitutional_, and makes Chodruc

Duclos.

Although Plutarch says: _the tyrant never grows old_, Rome, under Sylla

as under Domitian, resigned itself and willingly put water in its wine.

The Tiber was a Lethe, if the rather doctrinary eulogium made of it by

Varus Vibiscus is to be credited: _Contra Gracchos Tiberim habemus,

Bibere Tiberim, id est seditionem oblivisci_. Paris drinks a million

litres of water a day, but that does not prevent it from occasionally

beating the general alarm and ringing the tocsin.

With that exception, Paris is amiable. It accepts everything royally;

it is not too particular about its Venus; its Callipyge is Hottentot;

provided that it is made to laugh, it condones; ugliness cheers it,

deformity provokes it to laughter, vice diverts it; be eccentric and

you may be an eccentric; even hypocrisy, that supreme cynicism, does

not disgust it; it is so literary that it does not hold its nose before

Basile, and is no more scandalized by the prayer of Tartuffe than

Horace was repelled by the “hiccup” of Priapus. No trait of the

universal face is lacking in the profile of Paris. The bal Mabile is

not the polymnia dance of the Janiculum, but the dealer in ladies’

wearing apparel there devours the lorette with her eyes, exactly as the

procuress Staphyla lay in wait for the virgin Planesium. The Barrière

du Combat is not the Coliseum, but people are as ferocious there as

though Cæsar were looking on. The Syrian hostess has more grace than

Mother Saguet, but, if Virgil haunted the Roman wine-shop, David

d’Angers, Balzac and Charlet have sat at the tables of Parisian

taverns. Paris reigns. Geniuses flash forth there, the red tails

prosper there. Adonaï passes on his chariot with its twelve wheels of

thunder and lightning; Silenus makes his entry there on his ass. For

Silenus read Ramponneau.

Paris is the synonym of Cosmos, Paris is Athens, Sybaris, Jerusalem,

Pantin. All civilizations are there in an abridged form, all barbarisms

also. Paris would greatly regret it if it had not a guillotine.

A little of the Place de Grève is a good thing. What would all that

eternal festival be without this seasoning? Our laws are wisely

provided, and thanks to them, this blade drips on this Shrove Tuesday.