2.M.1.6. A BIT OF HISTORY
AT the epoch, nearly contemporary by the way, when the
action of this book takes place, there was not, as there is
to-day,
a policeman at the corner of every street (a benefit which there
is no time to discuss here) ; stray children abounded in Paris.
The statistics give an average of two hundred and sixty homeless
children picked up annually at that period, by the police
patrols, in unenclosed lands, in houses in process of
construction,
and under the arches of the bridges. One of these nests,
which has become famous, produced "the swallows of the
bridge of Arcola." This is, moreover, the most disastrous of
social symptoms. All crimes of the man begin in the vagabondage
of the child.
Let us make an exception in favor of Paris, nevertheless.
In a relative measure, and in spite of the souvenir which we
have just recalled, the exception is just. While in any other
great city the vagabond child is a lost man, while nearly
everywhere
the child left to itself is, in some sort, sacrificed and
abandoned to a kind of fatal immersion in the public vices
which devour in him honesty and conscience, the street boy
of Paris, we insist on this point, however defaced and injured
on the surface, is almost intact on the interior. It is a
magnificent
thing to put on record, and one which shines forth
in the splendid probity of our popular revolutions, that a
certain incorruptibility results from the idea which exists in
the air of Paris, as salt exists in the water of the ocean. To
breathe Paris preserves the soul.
What we have just said takes away nothing of the anguish
of heart which one experiences every time that one meets one
of these children around whom one fancies that he beholds
floating the threads of a broken family. In the civilization of
the present day, incomplete as it still is, it is not a very
abnormal thing to behold these fractured families pouring
themselves out into the darkness, not knowing clearly what
has become of their children, and allowing their own entrails
to fall on the public highway. Hence these obscure destinies.
This is called, for this sad thing has given rise to an
expression,
"to be cast on the pavements of Paris."
Let it be said by the way, that this abandonment of
children
was not discouraged by the ancient monarchy. A little of
Egypt and Bohemia in the lower regions suited the upper
spheres, and compassed the aims of the powerful. The hatred
of instruction for the children of the people was a dogma.
What is the use of "half-lights"? Such was the countersign.
Now, the erring child is the corollary of the ignorant child.
Besides this, the monarchy sometimes was in need of
children,
and in that case it skimmed the streets.
Under Louis XIV., not to go any further back, the king
rightly desired to create a fleet. The idea was a good one.
But let us consider the means. There can be no fleet, if,
beside the sailing ship, that plaything of the winds, and for
the purpose of towing it, in case of necessity, there is not the
vessel which goes where it pleases, either by means of oars or
of steam; the galleys were then to the marine what steamers
are to-day. Therefore, galleys were necessary; but the galley
is moved only by the galley-slave; hence, galley-slaves were
required. Colbert had the commissioners of provinces and the
parliaments make as many convicts as possible. The magistracy
showed a great deal of complaisance in the matter. A
man kept his hat on in the presence of a procession — it was a
Huguenot attitude; he was sent to the galleys. A child was
encountered in the streets; provided that he was fifteen years
of age and did not know where he was to sleep, he was sent to
the galleys. Grand reign; grand century.
Under Louis XV. children disappeared in Paris; the police
carried them off, for what mysterious purpose no one knew.
People whispered with terror monstrous conjectures as to the
king's baths of purple. Barbier speaks ingenuously of these
things. It sometimes happened that the exempts of the guard,
when they ran short of children, took those who had fathers.
The fathers, in despair, attacked the exempts. In that case,
the parliament intervened and had some one hung. Who?
The exempts? No, the fathers.