The Aerial Valley

by Brian Stableford

  “All travelers and curiosity-seekers come to visit this column, and several have erected similar one in their own lands. Sages claim that the bases of the religion of Europe are calculated on this mysterious column; the kings of the earth have admired this simple and sublime idea. They wanted to surpass it by making use of the column as the basis for the religion of Europe; they have all adopted the religion of which he had spoken, the project of peace of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre, and agreed the liberty of commerce between nations. Since those three points have been established in Europe, the kings of the peoples have been happy; the former are filled with glory, the latter with respect and attachment for their princes.

  May 1829.

  Jacques Fabien: Paris in Dream

  (1863)

  I. Fantastic Voyage

  It was ten years since I had left Paris and France. Disembarked at Marseilles on 30 December, a single bound took me from the extinct ship to the carriage that lit up in order to take me to Lyon. It was there that I had arranged a rendezvous with a friend, a Parisian like me, who would come to meet me.

  On the platform at Lyon the first face I saw, blue with cold, was that of my man, waiting for me. We embraced two or three times, and shook hands—a momentary affair. On contact with my cheek that blue cheek reddened with pleasure.

  We dined together, as two good friends glad to see one another do; then, impatient to return home, we left that same evening by the express train that would reach Paris at five o’clock in the morning. A night in a carriage—what’s that? So many things to say to one another. We would hardly have enough time.

  The whistle blows. We pull away.

  Here we are, installed in our first class compartment, face to face, fatigued, wrapped up to the ears, legs crossed, a hot water bottle under our feet, a corner for each head.

  “You’ll be very surprised when you see Paris again.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I defy you to recognize it, my dear. It requires a no more and no less than a compass to find one’s way around.”

  “Well, if Paris is no longer the same, at least you haven’t changed. Still the eye behind a magnifying glass!”

  “I dine with a friend—very good. A week later, I set out politely to visit him—but the house, the street, everything has vanished. And many other stories too. What can I tell you? There’s a splendid change of scene by Ciceri.”46

  “Enough exaggerations. Paris is my homeland; a son has no difficulty recognizing his mother.”

  “You’ll see, you’ll see. In the meantime, I’ll take responsibility, when we arrive, for serving as your cicerone, Monsieur Stranger.”

  “Well, so be it...”

  Suddenly, a transfiguration has occurred around us.

  Our compartment is enlarged. How? I don’t know. Previously gloomy, it has become radiant. Instead of two sleeping companions, a wide awake company, select and well-dressed. One could believe oneself in an elegant boudoir in some rolling Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Over there, a notary, if I can believe his white cravat, is reading a newspaper, as he would read it in his study beside his Carcel lamp. To the side, a young couple; in front of the young couple, a mobile table, and on the table, two fuming carafes, and Bavarian cream desserts. How the devil have they been able find such a hot delicacy, not of a nature to travel, in their overnight bag?

  But there’s something else: for five minutes, the eyes of my female neighbor, a little too wide, seem to have been sighing. For whom? For me, undoubtedly. Conceited as that I am!

  The eyes are extinguished, my unconscious neighbor slumps gently into to my arms.

  “Press the button, Monsieur!” people shout at me from all directions.

  “What button?”

  “There, beside you, in the corner of the compartment.”

  Meekly, I put out my hand. Surprise! A uniformed attendant appears, disappears and reappears with a glass of water in his hand.

  People cluster around the lady. The faint resists. I’ll wager that she finds my arms softer than those of her armchair. A gentleman arrives, as neatly dressed as the lawyer, doubtless a physician. He has her carried out of the compartment. Everyone follows.

  Meanwhile, the train speeds on and on, with no concern for what is happening inside. No hold on! Not even a hesitation. The air whistles past, as before.

  I follow everyone else. My neighbor is deposited in the physician’s office. There, she decides to open her eyes. With that, reassured, I slip away, curious to know how this placid coming-and-going of passengers can be affected at top speed without risk of broken necks.

  This is what I observe:

  Our train is flanked, throughout its length, by two lateral galleries, uncovered, and lighted like the interior. They finish at the two ends. To the fore, there is a buffet, the physician’s office and the conductor’s; to the rear, seats useful on many occasions, particularly on the railways; the ladies go to on one side, the gentlemen to the other. On each gallery a kind of valet-attendant is on sentry duty, ready to respond to the appeal of a bell.

  During my admiration, the victim of the faint went back the compartment with our traveling companions. As she went past me she darted a glance at me that was not at all grateful. Why? My conscience was clear, as pure as the early morning air chilling my face, and the sky, in which the stars were vanishing one by one. I thought it as well not to follow her, so I was strolling, my cigar lit, along the cold gallery, when the conductor came to ask for my ticket.

  The train was going into a station; we were in Paris.

  II. Arrival in Paris

  In Paris, no, I’m mistaken; we’re only at the gates of Paris, within sight of the ramparts, in the place where the Château de Bercy once stood.

  The station, expelled from the Boulevard Mazas, has retreated all the way here. It is spacious and comfortable. As we are chatting, sitting casually in a well-heated and well-lit room, a uniformed employee approaches us, cap in hand. He asks us for our baggage-tickets, our instructions and our keys, arranges to have the trunks delivered, submits them to customs inspection, pays the duty, loads everything into a hired carriage, and then receives payment for himself and his assistant in accordance with a tariff displayed on the wall. He explains to us that it is forbidden for porters to enter into personal contact with travelers, and that it is forbidden for them, as for him, to accept any tip, under penalty of dismissal.

  Our nocturnal entry into Paris was affected via the new Boulevard de Lyon, a broad thoroughfare, with fresh air, as full of light as in the middle of the day, bordered to the left and the right by buildings in a uniform style. I did not even suspect the existence of that boulevard. It was nothing other than the course of a former railway track, connecting to the old Rue de Lyon.

  The public clocks chimed six. The belated and chilly dawn had not yet broken, but let us not forget that it was the thirty-first of December.

  III. Popular Progress

  “Stop here, Coachman!” cried my friend, in the middle of the Place de la Bastille. Then he turned to me.

  “I promised to be your cicerone, to show you the prettiest Parisian magic lantern slides. Let’s get down—we’ll start here.”

  “What a spectacle!”

  “Oh, don’t get excited so soon. It’s not time yet. We’ll come back here. For the moment, let’s occupy ourselves with what concerns the working classes, and only that.

  “You see those two rows of open-fronted shops that extend along the Boulevard Beaumarchais. They have for guests, from the twenty-fifth of December to the fifteenth of January, workers of both sexes, raised to the ranks of traders for the Christmas season.

  “Let’s go closer. You’ll notice that they’re all the same, picturesque in their elegance, well-covered and well-closed, illuminated by gas. The petty merchants are at their posts already. Dawn hasn’t yet broken, and the displays are ready. Look, what jolly presents, bright and tempting for the passer-by.”

  “One might think that they were rows of
Swiss chalets made of fir-wood. It’s like a child’s colored toy fresh out of its box. I can scarcely explain that elegant ensemble.

  “Nothing simpler. The city of Paris put the entire block—whose design was furnished by comic opera villages—up for auction, and the right to hire them for a certain number of years. It assumes responsibility for their storage, and furnishes the gas.

  “The entrepreneur rents each shop, fully furnished, keys in hand, for a franc a day—which is, therefore, for the duration of business, twenty francs, payable by the week. All professional tradesmen are excluded; preference is given to old men, women and households with children. As for merchandise, those who are too poor to procure any can apply to a benevolent society established in each quarter, which buys in bulk and sells them on to the unfortunates on easy terms. It is, say the poor people, our winter harvest.”

  “The city doubtless allows an annual subsidy to the entrepreneur.”

  “I don’t believe so, but all right, let’s admit, if you wish, a subsidy; it would still be economical. You can judge for yourself. At the end of January the hospital was once the rendezvous of those poor folk, exposed during the day to the wind, the rain and forced by night to go to sleep as sentinels on their meager treasury. And the hospital is expensive! Today, it’s no longer the same, as witness the faces that respire health and satisfaction.”

  With that, showing our heels to the Place de la Bastille, we took the route to the female workers’ colony, established beyond the Place du Trône.

  On the way, going along the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, I noticed a drinking-fountain at every street corner. They were all encumbered by early-rising Rachels drawing the day’s water.

  At an intersection, ten omnibuses harnessed to vigorous whinnying horses were crossing paths avoiding one another and pursuing one another competitively. On top were blouses and smocks, inside, dresses of coarse cloth, and no one else.

  In response to my bewilderment, my companion told me that between two o’clock in the morning and two in the afternoon, when workers of both sexes went to work and returned home, all the omnibuses in Paris took passengers at the reduced price of five centimes per seat, that there was no distinction between the inside and the top deck, no ostracism against packages and tools, but the same routes, the same service and the same rights of connection as during the day—which was a great relief for the artisans, their domiciles always being a long way from the city center, and also for old people and children, and that advantage was taken to collect the family’s provisions and in order to carry work back and forth from the shops.

  A few paces further on, outbursts of voices attracted our attention. We advanced. Female workers, with a few males, were forming a circle round a young man, a young woman and an organ. All three could be heard loud and clear, blending their voices or alternating them, according to how best to set the scene for the poem they were enacting. The joyful crowd knew the words by heart, and joined in enthusiastically.

  We remained silent, our ears and souls paused. Alas, why were there only six acts! Their titles were: The Baptism in the Worker’s Home; The Departure for the Flag; The Honor of the Workshop (A Song of Victory); A Sister’s Marriage; The Convalescent Child—a Mother’s Joy; and A Good Boss’s Funeral.

  Surprisingly enough, the words were touching and cheerful, always simple and poetic. The music was lively or plaintive, appropriate to the theme. Everything was suggestive of a poet and musician of genius.

  When the concert was over, the singer made a tour of the circle, offering, for a price of fifteen centimes, a rather stout volume, well-printed and well-bound, bearing the title The Popular Parisian Almanac. It included the six songs, with the music, and many other things. One was offered to me too; I accepted, but tremulously, with a kind of shame. The price seemed derisory to me compared with the value of the book.

  “You’re throwing propriety to the winds, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, this is the key to the enigma. The city of Paris publishes The Popular Parisian Almanac itself. The text is confided to writers of a proven and popular talent. It appears on the first of January every year. This is the version that expires today—that’s why you’re the only one to have bought it, as all the songs are firmly engraved in the memory of the crowd. In addition to what we’ve just heard, and a calendar, it summarizes, clearly and methodically, all the documents useful to a Parisian worker, in his professional labor, his education and that of his family, the differences between artisans and employers—in sum, all the circumstances most commonly encountered in the life of a workshop. It also contains an annotated list of charitable organizations, public and private, where a family can receive help and advice in moments of trial. Finally, there are a few well-written anecdotes and stories of courage and probity carried out the previous year within the working class, which are the parchments of nobility of the people of Paris.”

  “Very good. But that doesn’t tell me the source of those delightful songs, whose tunes are so pure in style.

  “I can’t say everything at once. Every year, the Prefect of the Seine offers the subjects half a dozen popular songs, cheerful, religious, heroic, dolorous or consoling, but always moral, not so much in the words but in the ideas and their coloration, always appropriate and always designed to interest the people of Paris. The poetry is put out to competition, and then the music. The victors in the contest receive, for the six songs, music and poetry, a dozen lovely gold medals, expressly struck, bearing their names. You would not believe how competitively those recompenses are disputed, modest as they are.”

  “In truth, the idea is admirable—and, which does no harm, inexpensive. But tell me, what is that woman selling, over there in that glazed stall. One could swear that she’s giving away her merchandise free, so eagerly are people pressing around her.”

  “That’s the Parisian Weekly Bulletin. It costs five centimes. This week’s issue has just appeared, and, as you can see, all hands are reaching out to obtain one. It’s the same idea again, following its path. The collection includes longer stories, varied, instructive, attractive and, above all, very morally uplifting. Elevated morality is the nub of the matter. You read them at your ease, and you see good and wise advice taking as much care to disguise themselves as vice and sedition once did. The unsuspecting readers, abused by the seduction of style and form, by the emotion of what they call romance, are improved without wanting to be, and, which is the apogee of success, without being aware of it. The city publishes the bulletin itself. The articles, amply remunerated, are the work of the best litterateurs in France.”

  What an explosion of joy! What a racket!

  At the door of a tavern, a number of women are clapping their hands, stamping their feet and manifesting a thousand other signs of approval at a large white poster, still damp, invading the exterior of the shop. At a signal from one of them, the tumult dies down, and silence falls. The orator in a headscarf reads aloud, while laughing:

  “Tavern-keepers have no legal right to demand from drinkers the price of the beverages consumed. If they start any argument with then, they will be arrested for disturbing the peace.”

  “That’s new!”

  “No, it’s an old measure against drunkenness found in a corner of the imperial printing shop. It dates from the time of Henri IV. The bill-poster had forgotten to stick it up for two hundred and sixty years.”

  We come to a church. To go in, parade a glance rapidly around and come out again is more rapidly done than written. We have noticed numerous heads piously bowed over joined hands.

  “Look where these ingenious levers of moralization end up,” I said. “The people commence their day with a prayer.”

  “Yes, and as you see, the solicitude of the administration follows them all the way into church. This one, although in a poor parish, has a parquet floor and is heated. There is no longer a barrier marking the enclosure reserved for the opulent, no more chairs upholstered in red, blue or green v
elvet, denouncing a privilege or a favor where none has any reason to be, wounding the dignity of the people and diminishing the church to a place almost always vacant. Equality in the republic of wicker chairs. The most noble is the one that prayer has most worn away.

  While speaking and making these observations we had arrived at the Place du Trône. On two marble columns we read the inscription: St. Antoine Workers’ Colony.

  IV. Popular Progress Continued

  Between the Place du Trône and the citadel of Vincennes, to the right and left of the road, a pretty hamlet stands, recently born, very airy and fitted out, as busy and breathless as the inside of a bee-hive. That is the St. Antoine Workers’ Colony. All the houses have façades—I almost said faces—that are welcoming and varied, with a certain resemblance, like members of a family. On the ground floor are unostentatious shops, on each floor the lodging of workers, consisting of an entrance, two rooms with fireplaces, and a little kitchen with a stove. In the common courtyard there is fresh air and drinkable water.