Page 1001 - les-miserables

CHAPTER X

ECCE PARIS, ECCE HOMO

To sum it all up once more, the Paris gamin of to-day, like
the graeculus of Rome in days gone by, is the infant popu-
lace with the wrinkle of the old world on his brow.
The gamin is a grace to the nation, and at the same time a
disease; a disease which must be cured, how? By light.
Light renders healthy.
Light kindles.
All generous social irradiations spring from science,
letters, arts, education. Make men, make men. Give them
light that they may warm you. Sooner or later the splendid
question of universal education will present itself with the
irresistible authority of the absolute truth; and then, those
who govern under the superintendence of the French idea
will have to make this choice; the children of France or the
gamins of Paris; flames in the light or will-o’-the-wisps in
the gloom.
The gamin expresses Paris, and Paris expresses the
world.
For Paris is a total. Paris is the ceiling of the human race.
The whole of this prodigious city is a foreshortening of dead

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