The Arcades Project - Operi

ourgeoisie, and ending with the people. And the initiative for that end, in Les
Serruriers, had to reach its basic principle, its very center of gravity, in Le Chiffonnier.
For while bourgeois art . .. displayed its radiance in Hernani, Ruy BIas, and
other lovers of queens, ... republican art ... was announcing another dynasty,
that of the ragpickers . ... On February 24, 1848, at noon, after the victory over
the monarchy of Louis Philippe, the drama of 'rags and tatters' was performed
gratis before the armed and triumphant populace. It was duriug tlns memorable
performance that the actor ... recovered the crown in the basket. What a historic
day! What an indescribable effect! Author, actors, director, and spectators, all
standing together and clapping their hands to the singing of La Marseillaise, to
the sound of cannon . ... I have spoken of the birth and the life ofJean. As for his
death:Jean was crushed, like the Republic, beneath the landslide of December.""
The play had the honor of being condemned together with its author, who had
seen it applauded in London, in Brussels, everywhere except Paris. Thus, in a
society based on the family-and at a time when ... the rights of incest, in Rene,
the rights of adultery, in Antony, the rights of the brothel, in Rolla, all enjoyed an
open field-Jean, representing the rights of the family, was proscribed by the
saviors of family and society;' Felix Pyat, Le Chiffonnier de Paris, drama in five
acts (Paris, 1884), pp. iv-viii. [J88;J88a,1]
It would appear that Baudelaire has given no thought to the classical corso of
fl&nerie-the arcade. But in tl,e lyric design of "Le Crepuscule du matin;' which
concludes "Tableaux parisiens;' the canon of the arcade can be recognized. The
central portion of tllls poem is composed of nine couplets which, while chiming
one with another, remain well sealed off from the preceding as well as the follow­
ing pairs of lines. The reader moves through tllls poem as through a gallery lined
with showcases. In each one, the inmlaculate inlage of naked misery is on display.
The poem closes with two quatrains that, in their presentation of tllings earthly
and celestial, match each other like pilasters. [J88a,2]
The infernal time of ganring is sometlling Baudelaire got to know less through
tl,e actual practice of gambling than through those seasons when he was prey to
spleen. [J88a,3]
(,Paris . when seen in a ragpicker's hamper. is nothing much . ... To think that I
have all Paris here in this wicker basket . .. !" From Pyat. Le Chlffonnier, cited in
Cassou, Quarante-huit (Paris