The Arcades Project - Operi

Diderot's (,'How beautiful the street!" is a favorite phrase of the chroniclers of
fliinerie. [M7,7]
Regarding the legend of the flaneur: (,With the aid of a word I overhear in passing,
I reconstruct an entire conversation, an entire existence. The inflection of a voice
sufftees for me to attach the name of a deadly sin to the man whom I have just
jostled and whose proftle I glimpsed." Victor Fournel, Ce qu'on voit dans les rues
de Paris (Paris, 1858), p. 270. [M7,8]
In 1857 there was still a coach departing from the Rue Pavee-Saint-Andre at 6 A.M.
for Venice; the trip took six weeks. See Fournel, Ce qu 'on voit dans les rues de
Paris (Paris), p. 273. [M7,9]
In omnibuses, a dial that indicated the number of passengers. Why? As a control
for the conductor who distributed the tickets. [M7,lO]
··It is worth remarking . .. that the omnibus seems to subdue and to still all who
approach it. Those who make their living from travelers . . . can he recognized
ordinarily hy their coarse rowdiness . .. , hut omnihus employees, virtually alone
among transit workers, display no trace of such behavior. It seems as though a
calming, drowsy influence emanates from this heavy machine, like that which
sends marmots and turtles to sleep at the onset of winter." Victor Fournel, Ce
qu'on voit dans les rues de Paris (Paris, 1858), p. 283 C('Cochers de Haeres,
cochers de remise et cochers d'omnibus"). [M7a,1]
r,"At the time Eugene Sue's Mysteres de Paris was published, no one, in certain
neighborhoods of the capital, doubted the existence of a Tortillard, a Chouette, a
Prince Rodolphe." Charles Louandre, Les Idees subversives de notre temps
(Paris, 1872), p. 44. [M7a,2]
The first proposal for an omnibus system came from Pascal and was realized
under Louis XIV, with the characteristic restriction ';'that soldiers, pages, footmen,
and other livery, including laborers and hired hands, were not permitted
entry into said coaches." In 1828, introduction of the omnibuses, about which a
poster tells us: '"These vehicles ... warn of their approach by sounding specially
designed horns." Eugene d'Auriac, Histoire anecdotique de l'industriefraru;aise
(Paris, 1861), pp. 250, 281. [M7a,3]
Among the phantoms of the city is "Lambert" -an invented figure, a flaneur
perhaps. In any case, he is allotted the boulevard as the scene of his apparitions.
There is a famous couplet with the refrain, "Eh, Lambert!" Delvau, in his Lions
dujour , devotes a paragraph to him (p. 228). [M7a,4]
A rustic figure in the urban scene is described by Delvau in his chapter "Le
Pauvre a cheval" , in Les Lions du jour. "This horsenlan