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ECCE PARIS, ECCE HOMO
TO sum up all once more, the gamin of Paris of the present day, is as the graeculus of Rome was in ancient times, the people as a child, with the wrinkles of the old world on its brow.
The gamin is a beauty and, at the same time, a disease of the nation- a disease that must be cured. How? By light.
Light makes whole.
Light enlightens.
All the generous irradiations of society spring from science, letters, the arts, and instruction. Make men, make men. Give them light, that they may give you warmth. Soon or late, the splendid question of universal instruction will take its position with the irresistible authority of 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 is the expression of Paris, and Paris is the expression of the world.
For Paris is a sum total. Paris is the ceiling of the human race. All this prodigious city is an epitome of dead and living manners and customs. He who sees Paris, seems to see all history through with sky and constellations in the intervals. Paris has a Capitol, the Hotel de Ville; a Parthenon, Notre Dame; a Mount Aventine, the Faubourg St. Antoine; an Asinarium, the Sorbonne; a Pantheon, the Pantheon; a Via Sacra, the Boulevard des Italiens; a tower of the Winds; public opinion- and supplies the place of the Gemoniae by ridicule. Its majo is the "faraud," its Trasteverino is the suburban; its hammal is the strong man of the market-place; its lazzarone is the pegre; its cockney is the gandin . All that can be found anywhere can be found in Paris. The fish-woman of Dumarsais can hold her own with the herb-woman of Euripides, the discobolus Vejanus lives again in Forioso the rope-dancer, Therapontigonus Miles might go arm in arm with the grenadier Vadeboncoeur, Damasippus the curiosity broker would be happy among the old curiosity shops, Vincennes would lay hold of Socrates just as the whole Agora would clap Diderot into a strong box; Grimod de la Reyniere discovered roast-beef cooked with its own fat as Curtillus had invented roast hedgehog; we see, again, under the balloon of the Arc de l’Etoile the trapezium mentioned in Plautus; the sword-eater of the Poecilium met with by Apuleius is the swallower of sabres on the Pont-Neuf; the nephew of Rameau and Curculion the parasite form a pair; Ergasilus would get himself presented to Cambaceres by d’Aigrefeuille; the four dandies of Rome, Alcesimarchus, Phoedromus, Diabolus, and Argyrippe, may be seen going down la Courtille in the Labutat post-coach; Aulus Gellius did not stop longer in front of Congrio than Charles Nodier before Punch and Judy; Marton is not a tigress, but Pardalisca was not a dragon; Pantolabus the buffoon chaffs Nomentanus the fast-liver at the Cafe Anglais; Hermogenus is a tenor in the Champs Elysees, and, around him, Thrasius the beggar in the costume of Bobeche plies his trade; the bore who buttonholes you in the Tuileries makes you repeat, after the lapse of two thousand years, the apostrophe of Thesprion: quis properantem me prehendit pallio? The wine of Surene parodies the wine of Alba; the red rim of Desaugiers balances the huge goblet of Balatron, Pere Lachaise exhales, under the nocturnal rains, the same lurid emanations that were seen in the Esquilies, and the grave of the poor purchased for five years, is about the equivalent of the hired coffin of the slave.
Ransack your memory for something which Paris has not. The vat of Trophonius contains nothing that is not in the washtub of Mesmer; Ergaphilas is resuscitated in Cagliostro; the Brahmin Vasaphanta is in the flesh again in the Count Saint Germain; the cemetery of St. Medard turns out quite as good miracles as the Oumoumie mosque at Damascus.
Paris has an Aesop in Mayeux, and a Canidia in Mademoiselle Lenormand. It stands aghast like Delphos at the blinding realities of visions; it tips tables as Dodona did tripods. It enthrones the grisette as Rome did the courtesan; and, in fine, if Louis XV. is worse than Claudius, Madame Dubarry is better than Messalina. Paris combines in one wonderful type which has had real existence, and actually elbowed us, the Greek nudity, the Hebrew ulcer, the Gascon jest. It mingles Diogenes, Job, and Paillasse, dresses up a ghost in old numbers of the "Constitutionnel," and produces Shadrac Duclos.
Although Plutarch may say: the tyrant never grows old , Rome, under Sylla as well as under Domitian, resigned herself and of her own accord put water in her wine. The Tiber was a Lethe, if we may believe the somewhat doctrinal eulogy pronounced upon it by Varus Vibiscus: Contra Gracchos Tiberim habemus. Bibere Tiberim, id est seditionem oblivisci . Paris drinks a quarter of a million of gallons of water per day, but that does not prevent it upon occasion from beating the alarm and sounding the tocsin.
With all that, Paris is a good soul. It accepts everything right royally; it is not difficult in the realms of Venus; its Callipyge is of the Hottentot stamp; if it but laughs, it pardons, ugliness makes it merry; deformity puts it in good humour, vice diverts its attention; be droll and you may venture to be a scamp; even hypocrisy, that sublimity of cynicism, it does not revolt at; it is so literary that it does not hold its nose over Basilius, and is no more shocked at the prayer of Tartuffe than Horace was at the hiccough of Priapus. No feature of the universal countenance is wanting in the profile of Paris. The Mabile dancing garden is not the polyhymnian dance of the Janiculum, but the costume-hirer devours the lorette there with her eyes exactly as the procuress Staphyla watched the virgin Planesium. The Barriere du Combat is not a Coliseum, but there is as much ferocity exhibited as though Caesar were a spectator. 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 down in the drinking-places of Paris. Paris is regnant. Geniuses blaze on all sides, and red perukes flourish. Adonais passes by in his twelve-wheeled car of thunder and lightning; Silenus makes his entry upon his tun. For Silenus read Ramponneau.
Paris is a synonym of Cosmos. Paris is Athens, Rome, Sybaris, Jerusalem, Pantin. All the eras of civilisation are there in abridged edition, all the epochs of barbarism also. Paris would be greatly vexed, had she no guillotine.
A small admixture of the Place de Greve is good. What would all this continual merrymaking be without that seasoning? Our laws have wisely provided for this, and, thanks to them, this relish turns its edge upon the general carnival.