The Arcades Project - Operi

Edme Champion: self-made man/l philanthropist (1764-1352). (,Whenever he
had occasion to go across town, he would never forget to look into the morgue"-so
reports Charles-Louis Chassin, La Legende du Petit Manteau Bleu (Paris, ca.
1360), p. 15. Champion had been a goldsmith and, during the Revolution, protected
noble-horn former customers-which endangered his own life. [a12a,1]
Balzac, in Engenie Grande!, with reference to the miser's dreams of the future:
"That future which once awaited us beyond the requiem has been transported
into the present:'l5 This is still more true with reference to poor people's fears of
the future. [aI2a,2]
From an analysis of the situation around 1330, hy police prefect Gisquet. At issue
are the workers: (,Unlike the well-to-do classes of the bourgeoisie, they have no
fear that, through a broader extension of liberal principles, they will be compromising
an established fortune . ... Just as the Third Estate profited from the suppression
of the nobility's privileges . .. , the working class would profit today from
all that the bourgeoisie would lose in its turn." Cited in Charles Benoist,
L'Homme de 134,3," part 1, Revue des deux mondes (July 1, 1913), p. 138.
[aI2a,3]
(" The great mob and the holy rabble / Made a rush at immortality." From a revolutionary
song around 1830. Cited in Charles Benoist, "L'Homme de 184,8,"
part 1, Revue de, deux monde, (July 1, 1913), p. 143. [aI2a,4]
Rumford, in his eeonomic essays, assembled recipes designed to lower the cost of
soup-kitchen fare by using substitute ingredients. 'His soups are not too expensive,
seeing that for 11 francs 16 centimes, one has enough to feed 115 persons
twice a day. The only question is whether they are being properly fed." Charles
Benoist, ('('De PApologie du travail it Papotheose de l'ouvrier," Revue des deux
nwndes (January 15, 1913), p. 384·. Charity soups were variously introduced by
French industries at the time of the great Revolution. (a12a,5]
1837-the first banquets for universal suffrage and the petition with 240,000 signatures
(equivalent to the number of registered voters at that time). [a12a,6]
Around 1840, suicide is familiar in the mental world of the workers. "People are
talking about copies of a lithograph representing the suicide of an English worker
in despair at not being able to earn a living. At the house of Sue himself, a worker
comes to commit suicide with this note in his hand: 'I am killing myself out of
despair. It seemed to me that death would be easier for me if! died under the roof
of one who loves us and defends us.' The working-class author of a little book
much read by otl,er workers, the typographer Adolphe Boyer, also takes his own
life in despair." Charles Benoist, "l}Hornrne de 1848." part 2, Revne des deux
?nandes (Febmary 1, 1914), p. 667. [aI2a,7]