Present Progress — Les Misérables

Today the sewer is clean, cold, straight, correct. It almost realises the ideal of what is understood by the word respectable. It is proper and greyish, laid out by rule and line. One might almost say as though it came out of a bandbox. It resembles a tradesman who has become a councillor of state. One can almost see distinctly there. The mire there comports itself with decency. The present sewer is a beautiful sewer. The pure style reigns there. Each outlet is an arcade. A famous street serves as pattern even in the sewer. If the geometrical line is in place anywhere, it is certainly in the drainage trench of a great city. There, everything should be subordinated to the shortest road. The sewer has, nowadays, assumed a certain official aspect. The very police reports no longer are wanting in respect towards it. What used to be called a gut is now called a gallery. What used to be called a hole is now called a surveying orifice. An old poet would no longer meet with his ancient temporary lodging.

This network of cellars has its immemorial population of prowlers. From time to time an aged rat risks his head at the window of the sewer and surveys the Parisians. But even these vermin grow tame, so satisfied are they with their subterranean palace. The cesspool no longer retains anything of its primitive ferocity. The rain, which in former days soiled the sewer, now washes it. Nevertheless, do not trust yourself too much to it. Miasmas still inhabit it. It is more hypocritical than irreproachable. The prefecture of police and the commission of health have done their best. But, in spite of all the processes of disinfection, it exhales a vague, suspicious odour like a hypocrite after confession.

Let us confess that this sweeping is a homage which the sewer pays to civilisation. It is more than progress. It is transmutation. Between the ancient and the present sewer there is a revolution. What has effected this revolution. The man whom all the world forgets, and whom we have mentioned, Bruneseau.