The Arcades Project - Operi

A la petite vertu" , 1769:
The poor woman finds, instead
Oflovers, only lampposts
In this dazzling town,
Once a second Cythera.
Where nymphs would walk.
Tender mothers of delight,
They are forced today
To squeeze themselves into a box,
In other words, an octogenarian fiacre,
Which, by way of B., or F., takes them
To where fiacres have nothing to do. , , .
Misericordia, when once the night
Will let you leave the hovel;
For life is so needy.
Not a single corner or can'efour
The street light does not reach.
It is a burning-glass that pierces through
The plans we made by day, , . .
Edonard Fournier, Les Lanternes: l:listoire de I'ancien eclair-age de Paris (Paris,
1854), p. 5 (from the specially paginated printing of the poem). [T4,l]
In 1799, an engineer installed gas lighting in his house, and thus put into practice
what previously had been known only as an experiment in the physicist's laboratory.
[T4,2]
it is possible, YOll know, to avoid these setbacks
By choosing the shelter of covered arcades;
Though, in these lanes the idler favors,
Spirals ofbine smoke rise from Havanas.
Make for us, hy yOllr efforts, a gentler life,
Clear from our path all bumps and jolts,
And ward off, for a time, the deadly volcanoes
Of reading rooms and restaurants.
At dusk, give orders to search
Those spots defiled by the odorless gas,
And to sound the alarm -with cries of fear
At the seeping in of flammable fumes,
Barthelemy, Paris: Revue satirique a M. G. Delessert (Paris, 1838), p. 16. [T4,3]
"""What a splendid invention this gas lighting is!' Gottfried Semper exclaims. "In
how may different ways has it not enriched the festive occasions of life (not to
mention its infinite importance for our practical needs)!' This striking preeminence
of the festive over the daily, or rather the nightly, imperatives-for, thanks