LATENT IN THE PEOPLE

As for the Parisian populace, even when a man grown, it is always the
street Arab; to paint the child is to paint the city; and it is for that
reason that we have studied this eagle in this arrant sparrow. It is in
the faubourgs, above all, we maintain, that the Parisian race appears;
there is the pure blood; there is the true physiognomy; there this
people toils and suffers, and suffering and toil are the two faces of
man. There exist there immense numbers of unknown beings, among whom
swarm types of the strangest, from the porter of la Rapee to the knacker
of Montfaucon. Fex urbis, exclaims Cicero; mob, adds Burke, indignantly;
rabble, multitude, populace. These are words and quickly uttered. But
so be it. What does it matter? What is it to me if they do go barefoot!
They do not know how to read; so much the worse. Would you abandon them
for that? Would you turn their distress into a malediction? Cannot the
light penetrate these masses? Let us return to that cry: Light! and let
us obstinately persist therein! Light! Light! Who knows whether
these opacities will not become transparent? Are not revolutions
transfigurations? Come, philosophers, teach, enlighten, light up, think
aloud, speak aloud, hasten joyously to the great sun, fraternize with
the public place, announce the good news, spend your alphabets lavishly,
proclaim rights, sing the Marseillaises, sow enthusiasms, tear green
boughs from the oaks. Make a whirlwind of the idea. This crowd may
be rendered sublime. Let us learn how to make use of that vast
conflagration of principles and virtues, which sparkles, bursts forth
and quivers at certain hours. These bare feet, these bare arms, these
rags, these ignorances, these abjectnesses, these darknesses, may be
employed in the conquest of the ideal. Gaze past the people, and you
will perceive truth. Let that vile sand which you trample under foot be
cast into the furnace, let it melt and seethe there, it will become a
splendid crystal, and it is thanks to it that Galileo and Newton will
discover stars.

CHAPTER XIII--LITTLE GAVROCHE

[Illustration: Little Gavroche 3b1-13-gavroche]

Eight or nine years after the events narrated in the second part of this
story, people noticed on the Boulevard du Temple, and in the regions of
the Chateau-d'Eau, a little boy eleven or twelve years of age, who would
have realized with tolerable accuracy that ideal of the gamin sketched
out above, if,