Page 2299 - les-miserables

through its freight, has an air of conquest. Uproar reigns in
front, tumult behind. People vociferate, shout, howl, there
they break forth and writhe with enjoyment; gayety roars;
sarcasm flames forth, joviality is flaunted like a red flag; two
jades there drag farce blossomed forth into an apotheosis; it
is the triumphal car of laughter.
A laughter that is too cynical to be frank. In truth, this
laughter is suspicious. This laughter has a mission. It is
charged with proving the Carnival to the Parisians.
These fishwife vehicles, in which one feels one knows not
what shadows, set the philosopher to thinking. There is gov-
ernment therein. There one lays one’s finger on a mysterious
affinity between public men and public women.
It certainly is sad that turpitude heaped up should give a
sum total of gayety, that by piling ignominy upon opprobri-
um the people should be enticed, that the system of spying,
and serving as caryatids to prostitution should amuse the
rabble when it confronts them, that the crowd loves to be-
hold that monstrous living pile of tinsel rags, half dung, half
light, roll by on four wheels howling and laughing, that they
should clap their hands at this glory composed of all shames,
that there would be no festival for the populace, did not
the police promenade in their midst these sorts of twenty-
headed hydras of joy. But what can be done about it? These
be-ribboned and be-flowered tumbrils of mire are insulted
and pardoned by the laughter of the public. The laughter
of all is the accomplice of universal degradation. Certain
unhealthy festivals disaggregate the people and convert
them into the populace. And populaces, like tyrants, re-

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