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ECCE PARIS, ECCE HOMO
To sum it all up once more, the Paris gamin of to-day, like
the graeculus 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 Gemoniae 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 pegre, 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 Vadeboncoeur
the grenadier, Damasippus the second-hand dealer would be happy
among bric-a-brac merchants, Vincennes could grasp Socrates in
its fist as just as Agora could imprison Diderot, Grimod de la
Reyniere 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 Poecilus
encountered by Apuleius is a sword-swallower on the PontNeuf,
the nephew of Rameau and Curculio the parasite make a pair, Ergasilus
could get himself presented to Cambaceres by d'Aigrefeuille; the
four dandies of Rome:
Alcesimarchus, Phoedromus, 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 Cafe Anglais at
Nomentanus the fast liver, Hermogenus is a tenor in the Champs-Elysees,
and round him, Thracius the beggar, clad like Bobeche, 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 Surene is
a parody of the wine of Alba, the red border of Desaugiers forms
a balance to the great cutting of Balatro, Pere Lachaise exhales
beneath nocturnal rains same gleams as the Esquiliae, 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 Vasaphanta
become incarnate in the Comte de Saint-Germain; the cemetery of
Saint-Medard works quite as good miracles as the Mosque of Oumoumie
at Damascus.
Paris has an AEsop-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 Barriere du Combat is not the Coliseum, but people are
as ferocious there as though Caesar 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. Adonai 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 Greve 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.
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