CHAPTER X--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 thewrinkle of the old world on his brow.

  The gamin is a grace to the nation, and at the same time a disease; adisease 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 warmyou. Sooner or later the splendid question of universal education willpresent itself with the irresistible authority of the absolute truth;and then, those who govern under the superintendence of the French ideawill have to make this choice; the children of France or the gamins ofParis; 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 wholeof this prodigious city is a foreshortening of dead manners and livingmanners. He who sees Paris thinks he sees the bottom of all history withheaven and constellations in the intervals. Paris has a capital, theTown-Hall, a Parthenon, Notre-Dame, a Mount Aventine, the FaubourgSaint-Antoine, an Asinarium, the Sorbonne, a Pantheon, the Pantheon, aVia 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 themarket-porter, its lazzarone is the pègre, its cockney is the native ofGhent. Everything that exists elsewhere exists at Paris. The fishwomanof Dumarsais can retort on the herb-seller of Euripides, thediscobols Vejanus lives again in the Forioso, the tight-rope dancer.Therapontigonus Miles could walk arm in arm with Vadeboncour thegrenadier, Damasippus the second-hand dealer would be happy amongbric-à-brac merchants, Vincennes could grasp Socrates in its fist asjust as Agora could imprison Diderot, Grimod de la Reynière discoveredlarded roast beef, as Curtillus invented roast hedgehog, we see thetrapeze which figures in Plautus reappear under the vault of the Arcof l'Etoile, the sword-eater of Pocilus encountered by Apuleius is asword-swallower on the Pont-Neuf, the nephew of Rameau and Curculiothe parasite make a pair, Ergasilus could get himself presented toCambacères by d'Aigrefeuille; the four dandies of Rome: Alcesimarchus,Phodromus, Diabolus, and Argyrippus, descend from Courtille in Labatut'sposting-chaise; Aulus Gellius would halt no longer in front of Congriothan would Charles Nodier in front of Punchinello; Marto is not atigress, but Pardalisca was not a dragon; Pantolabus the wag jeers inthe Café Anglais at Nomentanus the fast liver, Hermogenus is a tenorin the Champs-Élysées, and round him, Thracius the beggar, clad likeBobèche, takes up a collection; the bore who stops you by the buttonof your coat in the Tuileries makes you repeat after a lapse of twothousand years Thesprion's apostrophe: _Quis properantem me prehenditpallio? _ The wine on Surêne is a parody of the wine of Alba, the redborder of Desaugiers forms a balance to the great cutting of Balatro,Père Lachaise exhales beneath nocturnal rains same gleams as theEsquiliæ, and the grave of the poor bought for five years, is certainlythe equivalent of the slave's hived coffin.

  Seek something that Paris has not. The vat of Trophonius containsnothing that is not in Mesmer's tub; Ergaphilas lives again inCagliostro; the Brahmin Vâsaphantâ become incarnate in the Comte deSaint-Germain; the cemetery of Saint-Médard works quite as good miraclesas the Mosque of Oumoumié at Damascus.

  Paris has an Æsop-Mayeux, and a Canidia, Mademoiselle Lenormand. It isterrified, like Delphos at the fulgurating realities of the vision; itmakes tables turn as Dodona did tripods. It places the grisette on thethrone, as Rome placed the courtesan there; and, taking it altogether,if Louis XV. is worse than Claudian, Madame Dubarry is better thanMessalina. Paris combines in an unprecedented type, which has existedand which we have elbowed, Grecian nudity, the Hebraic ulcer, and theGascon pun. It mingles Diogenes, Job, and Jack-pudding, dresses upa spectre in old numbers of the _Constitutional_, and makes ChodrucDuclos.

  Although Plutarch says: _the tyrant never grows old_, Rome, under Syllaas under Domitian, resigned itself and willingly put water in its wine.The Tiber was a Lethe, if the rather doctrinary eulogium made of itby Varus Vibiscus is to be credited: _Contra Gracchos Tiberim habemus,Bibere Tiberim, id est seditionem oblivisci_. Paris drinks a millionlitres of water a day, but that does not prevent it from occasionallybeating 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 andyou may be an eccentric; even hypocrisy, that supreme cynicism, doesnot disgust it; it is so literary that it does not hold its nose beforeBasile, and is no more scandalized by the prayer of Tartuffe than Horacewas repelled by the "hiccup" of Priapus. No trait of the universal faceis lacking in the profile of Paris. The bal Mabile is not the polymniadance of the Janiculum, but the dealer in ladies' wearing apparel theredevours the lorette with her eyes, exactly as the procuress Staphylalay in wait for the virgin Planesium. The Barrière du Combat is not theColiseum, but people are as ferocious there as though Cæsar were lookingon. The Syrian hostess has more grace than Mother Saguet, but, if Virgilhaunted the Roman wine-shop, David d'Angers, Balzac and Charlet have satat the tables of Parisian taverns. Paris reigns. Geniuses flash forththere, the red tails prosper there. Adonaï passes on his chariot withits twelve wheels of thunder and lightning; Silenus makes his entrythere 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 barbarismsalso. 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 thateternal festival be without this seasoning? Our laws are wiselyprovided, and thanks to them, this blade drips on this Shrove Tuesday.