The Arcades Project - Operi

the Stock Exchange, diverted for ten years the agricultural and industrial capital
that earns c01nparativeiy little interest. Its free-trade treaty, opening France to
English industry in 1860, ... hrought utter ruin from the outset. Normandy says
it. cannot recover. Much less the ironworks of the North.' J. Mid1elet, Nos fils
(Paris, 1879),1'1'. 300-301. [g2a,4]
A copper engraving of 1818: Xen01nania Impugned, or It's No Disgrace To Be
French. On t.he right, a column inscribed with the names of famous battles as well
as famous works of art and literature. Under it, a young man with the honor roll of
industry; his foot rests on a sheet hearing the inscription, " Products of Foreign
Manufacture."' Facing him, another Frenchman, who proudly points toward the
column. In the hackground, an English civilian dehates ·with a French soldier. All
four persons provided with captions. Floating above in the sky and blowing into a
trumpet the figure-sharply reduced in scak"--of an angel. From his horn hangs
a tablet. with the words: '''To Immortality. ' Cahinet des Estampes. [g2a,5]
"If you pass in front of the Stock Exchange at noon, you will see a long line . ...
This line is composed of men from all walks of life-bourgeois, pensioners, shopkeepers,
porters, errand boys, postmen, artists and actors-who come there to get
a place in the first row, around the circular enclosure . ... Positioned close to the
noor next to the puhlic crier, they purchase shares of stock which they sell off'
during the same session. That old white-haired fellow who offers a pinch of snuff
to the guard passing by is the dean of these speculators . ... From the general look
of the trading on the floor and off, and from the faces of the stockhrokers, he is
able to d.ivine , with a marvelous instinet, the rise, or the fall of stock:;." [Taxile
Delord] ParisBoursier (Paris, 1854.), pp. 44-46 ("Les Petits Paris"). [g3,l J
On the Stock Exdumge: "'The Bourse dates only from the time of M. de Villele.
There was more initiative and more Saint-Simonianism in the mind of this minister
from Toulouse than is generally helieved . ... Under his administration, the posi­
tion of stockbroker was sold for up to one million francs. The first wonb of
speculation, though, were harely a lisp; the meager foul' billion in Freneh deht, the
several million in Spanish and . .. Neapolitan deht, were t.he alphahet hy whieh it
learned to read . ... One put one's faith in the farm, in the house . ... Of a rich
man it was said: he has land in the sun and a house in town! ... It was not until
18:32, after the . . . sermons of SaintSimonianism, . . . that t.he {:ountry found
itself' . .. suddenly ripe for its great financial destiny. In 1837, an irresistihle force
could he observed attracting attention to the Bourse; the {nation of the railroad
added new momentum to this force . ... The petite-coulisse in the colonnade does the husiness of the petty bourgeoisie; just heyond, the
contre-petite-coulisse handles the eapital of the prolet.ariat. The one operates for
the porters, cooks, coachmen, grill-room proprietors, haberdashers, and waiters;
the other descends a notch in the social hierarchy. One day we said 1:0 ourselves:
'The Gobbler, the match seller, the hoiler cleaner, and the fried-potato vendor
know how to pul. t.heir capital to use; let's make the great market of the Bourse