The Arcades Project - Operi

interior. Events having brusquely removed him from active politics, he devoted
himself to letters, making his debut with several newspaper articles . . . . In Le
Journal amusant, Le Figaro, and some other journals, he published articles deal­
ing mainly with Parisian customs and practices. For some time, at Le Siecle, his
special assignment was t.he Paris town council." During the second half of the
1850s, he was in exile in Belgium, where he had fled to escape a prison sentence
incurred while he was editor of Le Rabelais. Later, he would endure prosecutions
for plagiarism. Information in Pierre Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire universel du
XIX' siec/e, voL 6 (Paris, 1870), p, 385 (article: "Delvau"), [dll,3]
During the reign of Napoleon III, Benjamin Gastineau had already been twice
deported to Algeria. "Under the Paris Commune. M. Gastineau was named inspector
of communal libraries. The twent.ieth council of war, charged with t.rying his
case, could find no evidence of any breach of common law. He was nevertheless
condemned to deportation in a fortified cell. " Pierre Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire
universel du XIX" siecle, vol. 8 (Paris, 1872), p. 1062.-Gastineau had be­
gun his career as a typesetter. [dllA]
Pierre Dupont: ""Ine poet, as he says in one of his little poems, 'listens, by turns,
to the forests and the crowd.' And in fact it is the great mstic symphonies, the
voices through which nature in its entirety speaks, as well as the clamor, the
griefs, the aspirations and lamentations of the crowd, that make for his double
inspiration. The song such as our fathers knew it ... , the drinking song or even
the simple ballad, is utterly foreigo to him." Pierre Larousse, < Grand> Dictionnaire
universe! du XIX' siecie, voL 6 (Paris, 1870), p. 1413 (article: "Dupont"). Hence,
with Baudelaire, hatred for Beranger is an element of his love for Dupont.
[dUa,l]
Gustave Simon descrihes the scenes that took place in front of Paguerre's hook­
shop when the second and t.hird parts of Les iWiserables were delivered: '''On May
15, 1862,' he writes, 'a little before 6:00 in the morning, a dense crowd was gather­
ing on the Rue de Seine before a shop that was still closed. The crowd kept growing
larger and, impatient with waiting, hecame noisy, even riotous . ... The pavement
was obstructed by an impassable jumble of delivery carts, private carriages, cabs,
carioles, and even wheelbarrows. People had empty baskets on their hacks . ... It
was not yet 6:30 when the crowd, hecoming more unruly by the minute, started
pushing against the shopfront, while those in the vanguard knocked with redou­
bled force on the door. Suddenly, a window was opened on the second fioor; a lady
appeared and exhorted the assemhled citizens to be more patient. ... The shop to
which they were preparing to lay siege was quite inoffensive; only hooks were sold
there. It was Paguerre's hookshop. The people hurling t.hemselves at the building
were bookstore clerks, agents, huyers, and hrokers. The lady who spoke from her
second-floor window was Madame Paguerre. '" Alhert de Besancourt, Les Pamphlets
contre Victor Hugo (Paris), pp. 227-228; cited in Gustave Simon, '''Les