'The pear is on that also.'[19]The gamin loves uproar.A certain state of violence pleases him.
He execrates'the cures.'One day，in the Rue de l'Universite，one of these scamps was putting his thumb to his nose at the carriage gate of No.69.
'Why are you doing that at the gate？'a passer-by asked.
The boy replied：'There is a cure there.'
It was there，in fact，that the Papal Nuncio lived.
[19]Louis XVIII.
is represented in comic pictures of that day as having a pear-shaped head.
Nevertheless，whatever may be the Voltairiani** of the small gamin，if the occasion to become a chorister presents itself，it is quite possible that he will accept，and in that case he serves the mass civilly.
There are two things to which he plays Tantalus，and which he always desires without ever attaining them：to overthrow the government，and to get his trousers sewed up again.
The gamin in his perfect state possesses all the policemen of Paris，and can always put the name to the face of any one which he chances to meet.
He can tell them off on the tips of his fingers.He studies their habits，and he has special notes on each one of them.
He reads the souls of the police like an open book.He will tell you fluently and without flinching：
'Such an one is a traitor；such another is very malicious；such another is great；such another is ridiculous.'
（All these words：traitor，malicious，great，ridiculous，have a particular meaning in his mouth.）That one imagines that he owns the Pont-Neuf，and he prevents people from walking on the cornice outside the parapet；that other has a mania for pulling person's ears；etc.，etc.
BOOK FIRST.——PARIS STUDIED IN ITS ATOM
Ⅸ THE OLD SOUL OF GAUL
There was something of that boy in Poquelin，the son of the fish-market；Beaumarchais had something of it.
Gaminerie is a shade of the Gallic spirit.
Mingled with good sense，it sometimes adds force to the latter，as alcohol does to wine.
Sometimes it is a defect.Homer repeats himself eternally，granted；one may say that Voltaire plays the gamin.
Camille Desmoulins was a native of the faubourgs.
Championnet，who treated miracles brutally，rose from the pavements of Paris；he had，when a small lad，inundated the porticos of Saint-Jean de Beauvais，and of Saint-Etienne du Mont；he had addressed the shrine of Sainte-Genevieve familiarly to give orders to the phial of Saint Januarius.
The gamin of Paris is respectful，ironical，and insolent.
He has villainous teeth，because he is badly fed and his stomach suffers，and handsome eyes because he has wit.
If Jehovah himself were present，he would go hopping up the steps of paradise on one foot.He is strong on boxing.
All beliefs are possible to him.He plays in the gutter，and straightens himself up with a revolt；his effrontery persists even in the presence of grape-shot；he was a scapegrace，he is a hero；like the little Theban，he shakes the skin from the lion；Barra the drummer-boy was a gamin of Paris；he Shouts：'Forward！'as the horse of Scripture says'Vah！'and in a moment he has passed from the small brat to the giant.
This child of the puddle is also the child of the ideal.Measure that spread of wings which reaches from Moliere to Barra.
To sum up the whole，and in one word，the gamin is a being who amuses himself，because he is unhappy.
BOOK FIRST.——PARIS STUDIED IN ITS ATOM
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 populace 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 manners and living manners.
He who sees Paris thinks he sees the bottom of all history with heaven and constellations in the intervals.
Paris has a capital，the Town-Hall，a Parthenon，Notre-Dame，a Mount Aventine，the Faubourg Saint-Antoine，an Asinarium，the Sorbonne，a Pantheon，the Pantheon，a Via Sacra，the Boulevard des Italiens，a temple of the winds，opinion；and it replaces the Gemoniae by ridicule.Its majo is called'faraud，'its Transteverin is the man of the faubourgs，its hammal is the market-porter，its lazzarone is the pegre，its cockney is the native of Ghent.
Everything that exists elsewhere exists at Paris.
The fishwoman of Dumarsais can retort on the herb-seller of Euripides，the discobols Vejanus lives again in the Forioso，the tight-rope dancer.
Therapontigonus Miles could walk arm in arm with Vadeboncoeur the grenadier，Damasippus the second-hand dealer would be happy among bric-a-brac merchants，Vincennes could grasp Socrates in its fist as just as Agora could imprison Diderot，Grimod de la Reyniere discovered larded roast beef，as Curtillus invented roast hedgehog，we see the trapeze which figures in Plautus reappear under the vault of the Arc of l'Etoile，the sword-eater of Poecilus encountered by Apuleius is a sword-swallower on the PontNeuf，the nephew of Rameau and Curculio the parasite make a pair，Ergasilus could get himself presented to Cambaceres by d'Aigrefeuille；the four dandies of Rome：