The Arcades Project - Operi

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breaking through walls. As soon as one has taken a street, one organizes it; lines of
communication are laid through the holes in the walls, while, to prevent the return
of the adversary, one immediately mines the conquered ground . ... Perhaps the
clearest sign of progress, here, is that one need not concern oneself at all with
sparing houses or lives. Compared with civil wars of the future, the episode of the
Rue Transnonain will seem quite . .. innocent and archaic." Dubech
and d'Espezel, Ristoire de Paris (Paris, 1926), p. 479. D Haussmann D [ala,!]
Family hudget of a Parisian ragpicker, 1849-1851, according to F. Le Play, Les
Ou.vriers europeens (Paris, 1855), pp. 274-275. An excerpt: HSection 4. Expenses
for moral improvement, recreation, and health . ... Instruction for the children:
school fees paid by employer, 48 francs; books purchased, 1 franc 45 centimes;
relief and ahns (workers at this level ordinarily give no alms at all). Recreation and
festivities: meal taken together by the entire family at one of the ba,.,.i€res of Paris
(eight excursions per year), including wine, bread, and fried potatoes, 8 francs;
meal of macaroni, with butter, cheese, and wine, taken on Christmas, Mardi Gras,
Easter, and Pentecost: expenses included in the first section; chewing tobacco for
the worker (cigar butts collected by the worker), 6.8 kilos worth 5-34 francs; snuff
for the wife (purchased), 2.33 kilos worth 18 francs 66 centimes; toys and other
gifts given to the child, 1 franc . ... Correspondence with relatives: letters from
the worker's brothers living in Italy, on average one per year . ... Note: The main
resource for the family, in case of accidents, is private charity . ... Savings for the
year (the worker-altogether incapable of prudent habits, and desirous, above
all, of giving his wife and little girl all the comforts they deserve-never manages to
save anything; he spends, day by day, all he earns)." [ala,2]
''"The damage done to the morality of the improvident worker by the substitution
of antagonism for solidarity consists precisely in the loss of all opportunity of
exercising his natural virtues in the only way that would be practicable for him.
The devotion displayed in the wish to do well, in the concern for the interests of the
employer, or in the sacrifice of needs and desires irreconcilable with the regularity
of work is, in fact, more feasible for the worker than the devotion which would
lead to assisting his comrades with a sum of money . ... The faculty of giving aid
and protection of any consequence belongs to the upper classes; it can manifest
itself among the workers as an immediate and short-lived enthusiasm, but the
virtue most within their reach is clearly the performance of their task for the
employer. " M. F. Le Play, Les Ouvriers europeens (Paris, 1855), "Printed by
authority of the Emperor and the Imperial Press," p. 278. [ala,3]
The '"'small landowners of the suburbs." '"'They cultivate vines ... that produce a
wine of inferior quality, for which the consumption tax in effect inside the capital
ensures a profitable market in the suburbs." F. Le Play, Les Ouvriers europeens
(Paris, 1855), p. 271. [ala,4]
"There is a tropical plant that for years remains unremarkable and brings forth
no blossom, until finally, one day, an explosion resounds like a rifle shot and, some