Paris begins with the lounger and ends with the street Arab, two beings
of which no other city is capable; the passive acceptance, which
contents itself with gazing, and the inexhaustible initiative;
Prudhomme and Fouillou. Paris alone has this in its natural history.
The whole of the monarchy is contained in the lounger; the whole of
anarchy in the gamin.
This pale child of the Parisian faubourgs lives and develops, makes
connections, “grows supple” in suffering, in the presence of social
realities and of human things, a thoughtful witness. He thinks himself
heedless; and he is not. He looks and is on the verge of laughter; he
is on the verge of something else also. Whoever you may be, if your
name is Prejudice, Abuse, Ignorance, Oppression, Iniquity, Despotism,
Injustice, Fanaticism, Tyranny, beware of the gaping gamin.
The little fellow will grow up.
Of what clay is he made? Of the first mud that comes to hand. A handful
of dirt, a breath, and behold Adam. It suffices for a God to pass by. A
God has always passed over the street Arab. Fortune labors at this tiny
being. By the word “fortune” we mean chance, to some extent. That pigmy
kneaded out of common earth, ignorant, unlettered, giddy, vulgar, low.
Will that become an Ionian or a Bœotian? Wait, _currit rota_, the
Spirit of Paris, that demon which creates the children of chance and
the men of destiny, reversing the process of the Latin potter, makes of
a jug an amphora.