The Aerial Valley

by Brian Stableford

  “Here and there, police-cicerones are on sentry duty, informing foreigners in French, English and German.

  “Around us, everything is neat, cheerful and uniform: the tables in front of the lemonade-sellers, the awnings, the chairs, the displays, and even the hand-carts of the street-traders-in a word, everything that has the right, granted by the Prefect, to be stationed or to circulate along the sidewalk and paved areas. Look at these small circular redoubts, so useful for passers-by. For the sake of greater decency and sanitation, the daylight comes to them from above, accompanied by forceful ventilation. They’re closed in all directions and equipped with doors that close of their own accord. A particular sign outside indicates which station is occupied; it’s the occupant himself who posts that indication, without being aware of it, by means of a mechanism placed beneath his feet.”

  At that moment a group of people blocked out way. They were clustered around a wooden carriage stopped by a policeman, who was arguing with the driver.

  “You’re looking at some poor devil caught in default. A legal document is being drawn up. Paris is provisioned and cleaned during the night and morning, until midday. When noon chimes, the carts of suppliers of food, services and materials, and those of cleaners, no longer dare show themselves. Look—the agent is pointing at the public clock; it shows fifteen minutes past noon; the poor fellow is lowering his head.

  “Examine that vehicle. It’s neatly painted and maintained; it’s the model prescribed for heavy transport—and what an ingenious disposition! It serves itself as a balance to measure the weight and volume of the merchandise it carries. The operation can be carried out easily, anywhere. Can you see? The policeman is bringing the mechanism into play, and the cart is telling him whether the weight or the volume is incorrect.

  “The authority has extended that honest system to its ultimate limits. Every jar, bottle or cask, and every item of merchandise, no matter what, is stamped, no matter how difficult it might be, with a device indicating its capacity, its weight and its dimensions, and in order that nothing escape its control, the stamp is subject to a fiscal duty.”

  The scene involving the policeman and the carters was unfolding between the Place Saint Martin and the Place Saint-Denis. I noticed, to my surprise, that the two gates had disappeared.

  “You’re looking for the two monuments that were erected here and there aren’t you? What do you expect, my dear? Those two glories of Louis XIV have been moved. They haven’t been lost; they can still be admired at the summits of the Faubourgs Saint-Martin and Saint-Denis.”

  “It’s a great pity, in truth, to have perched the radiant face of the sun and the handsome Hercules felling people with his club so high. They’re so ingenious—and most of all, so naïve!”

  “Personally, I think it’s well done. The hero was planted there, blocking the traffic, no doubt in order to be better admired; there were two centuries of that. Meanwhile, the neighboring ground swelled up, year by year, in accordance with the eternal law of cities; imperceptible, successive, silent deposits were superimposed. The two giants, incapable of rising up, saw their heels, then their feet, buried alive; then two damp craters were hollowed out around them. Finally, uniquely in order to conserve those stones and foundations, it became necessary to cut to the quick, through the heart of the boulevards, a road in the fashion of a ditch, between two masonry escarpments—a ugly and unhealthy affair. Once the two gates had gone, the two squares were simply raised to the height of the neighboring levels; now one can circulate there dry-footed; the sunlight penetrates them—the true sunlight—and there’s no longer any danger of breaking one’s neck there.

  “Don’t believe, please, that these two isolated points are alone in benefiting from the clearance; its benefits extend by degrees, all the way to the Bastille. Once, no feminine costume dared to venture here. It was—no pun intended—the Pillars of Hercules of elegant society. To any stroller coming from the direction of the Madeleine, they cried from afar: “Halt there!”—and people stopped, meekly, and turned back. Today they’re no long here, thank God. Everything is forgotten and forgiven. The boulevards beyond, like those within, share the same prosperity, because they share the same splendor. Sometimes, trivial things lead to great ones.

  “Since we’re on the subject of public squares, the time has come to tell you about the system adopted by the committee of artists for the ornamentation of the most celebrated. Those which bear the cachet of an epoch or a reign of the monarchy are enriched with statues appropriate to the situation. Thus, Napoléon I, on his colossal pedestal in the Place Vendôme, Louis XIII in the Place Royale, Louis XIV in the Place des Victoires, and good old Henri IV at the top of the Pont Neuf, now live in company with the warriors, ministers, scientists and artists that made their reigns illustrious. The square has been restored in the styles of those epochs. At the feet of those men of bronze and marble one reads brief captions reminding the people of the services they rendered to France.

  X. Material Progress Continued

  “Our beautiful city, thus adorned, but tastefully adorned, was enthusiastic to receive, at least once a year, her sisters the provinces, in order to show them her costume and its jewels. She asked for her festival and obtained it, as was only just, since the most obscure hamlet has one. The fifteenth of August, already dear by virtue of the touching memories of the faith, became the festival of Paris, the sovereign and all France.

  “It lasts from the Assumption to the second Sunday thereafter, so it can never extend longer than a fortnight, but the only days truly celebrated in a popular fashion—I mean, illustrated by lanterns open air games and fireworks—are the fifteenth of August and the two following Sundays.

  “High society willingly stood aside from those kinds of enjoyments; they were not required, said its members, and there was nothing for them there. It was a lacuna in their prejudice. Provision was made for them by composing a program of entertainments familiar to all classes of society. Even the mind is tempted by good fortunes that are not found in any other epoch. Thus, they mingle, albeit in an orderly fashion:

  “Horse races in the Bois de Boulogne and Vincennes, with prizes for the winners;

  “Premieres of first-rate lyric and dramatic works;

  “Symphonies by the Societé du Conservatoire, with the collaboration of the choral societies of Paris and the départements;

  “Attractive exhibitions of useful and agreeable arts;

  “Academic and political ostentations;

  “Shooting ranges for firearms and bows, organized in all the quarters of Paris, with recompenses and distinctions appropriate to stimulate competition;

  “Simulated battles on the Champ-de-Mars;

  “Vast open circuses in the Bois de Boulogne and Vincennes, for scenic exercises in equitation;

  “Balls in the administrative palaces and under marquees;

  “Scrutiny for prizes accorded to women in all the quarters; the distribution of the prizes; the marriages of young women endowed by the city;

  “The inauguration of great national enterprises, etc;

  “Add pleasure trains spreading through Paris like a spring tide;

  “All of it composes a varied, lively and national picture. One finds there, alongside the hubbub of the people, the delicate intoxications of which men of the world and thinkers are the gourmets.

  XI. Material Progress Concluded

  “The best guarantee of calm for a capital is the wise administration of the Head of State. You know that, and you also know that today, more than in any other epoch, we have it. At any rate, the government has judged it appropriate, and no one takes it ill, to place the metropolis out of range of any explosion or attack. To do that, it has devised an ingenious telegraph network, which can be summarized thus: Electric wires profoundly buried underground, defying any destructive hand, linking together, among others, the Ministries of the Interior and War, the houses of the Prefects of the Seine and the Police, and the principal military post
s in Paris. Hence they can all, in unison, receive orders from the sovereign in his study.

  “Protective forces are, therefore, scattered throughout Paris, and, at a given moment, combined in the hand of the authority.”

  “I admire that combination; it’s truly fortunate and reassuring. But you have better things than that to tell me, have you not? Everyone is at the limit of astonishment when they talk about electricity, the invisible child of magic. You could tell me that the Institut exchanges dispatches with the angels on high, or with the fallen angels down below, and I swear that I’d take you at your word. Come on, where are we up to? What are the latest results that have been observed?”

  “Oh, you want results? Well, so be it—you shall have them, my dear. I kept silent in that matter, curious as I was to show you Paris in its most luminous facets, but finally, since you want it, here it is...”

  “How you catch fire!”

  “Transport yourself in thought, in order to spare your legs and mine, to the heart of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, a little above the Église Saint-Philippe du Roule. You’ll find two buildings in front of you. One of them, a vast building with a severe physiognomy, encloses a hospice of the Quatre-Vingts. The other, which one might take for the Florentine abode of Lorenzo the Magnificent, of the Medicis, is a madhouse, neither more nor less.

  “Push the door of the former and you will find yourself in the heart of the republic of the quasi-blind: men, women, children, old people, the rich and the poor mingling pell-mell, all making impotent efforts to hold on to a little of the light that still reaches them. Now ask the attendant on duty to introduce you into the palace next door; go into its rooms decorated with frescos and you will see people there well-dressed, holding their heads high and speaking loudly, but struck by idiocy at the age when reason is ordinarily in full flowers.”

  “God forgive me, that’s the preface of a fantastic novel.”

  “I’m getting to the facts. Light springing from electricity served, first of all, to illuminate the subterranean galleries of mines; the day after, public square and streets; the day after that, factories, workshops, department stores, theaters, barracks; the day after that, domestic interiors. In the presence of that radiant enemy, the eyes initially stood firm, but dazzlement followed by degrees, ephemeral at first, then periodic, and, in the final count, obstinate. That was the first result.”

  “I understand—but what about the madness of the great lords?”

  “Our bigwigs of finance, industry and business thought it good, since the opportunity was offered, to steal a march of Mother Nature—who, let it be said in passing, had treated them meanly, in enclosing them between oceans and mountains. They told themselves that those shackles, acceptable at the most for matter, were unworthy of their genius; that they ought to be able to go around the globe in thought, while remaining at repose.”

  “Now it’s a lecture in philosophy.”

  “No, the game would be too beautiful. I’ll finish. For that, each of them had attached in his study, at a corner of his desk, the electrical wires that attached his coffers to our colonies in Africa, Asia and America. Comfortably seated at his table, he chatted by means of his fingers with the distant correspondents at his counters strewn over the Earth’s surface. One told him, at ten o’clock in the morning, about the wreck of a millionaire ship, lost with all hands and cargo, in the seas of Oceania; another, and five past ten, about the sudden collapse of the most solid company in the Americas; a third, at ten past ten, about the radiant entry into the port of Marseille of a ship laden with everything harvested in the vicinity of San Francisco—all one after another. Those poor heads, robust as they were, buckled, as the shoulders of a Hercules of the marketplace would if he loaded them with ten sacks of wheat instead of one. Hence the second result. So you want more.”

  “Thank you—that’s heart-rending.

  “Don’t despair too quickly. In the chapters of the intellectual and moral, Paris has great compensations to offer you. Come this way; consoling pictures await you on the banks of the Seine.”

  “Go on—I’ll follow you.”

  XII. Moral Progress

  “Why have you brought me here, to the main courtyard of the Palais de Justice? I’ve been familiar with this monument of Old Paris, the ancient residence of our kings, for a long time.”

  “Leave the edifice to one side; it’s not that with which I want to occupy you, but the beneficent innovations to which it gives shelter. Hold on, there’s no need to go any further; let’s approach these two Messieurs coming down the step, smiling at one another affectionately.”

  “They’re certainly not antagonists.”

  “We’ll see—ask them yourself.”

  “You seem happy, Messieurs,” I said to them. “If it’s not an indiscretion, be so kind as to allow us to share your joy, which is overflowing, and tell us the reason for it.”

  “No indiscretion, Monsieur; to satisfy your kind curiosity is a pleasure for us. We’re brothers, heirs of two estates separates by a paltry dividing wall. When I say brothers, we have only been that for a quarter of an hour. To list all the follies that that devil disguises as old stonework put into our heads would be impossible. We’ve been fighting for thirty years, Monsieur—thirty years! And we’d still be fighting now if this palace, the arena of our hatreds, hadn’t opened its adjustment chambers to us.

  “I can see in your eyes that you don’t understand. I’ll explain it to you.

  “When a difficulty arises—and know that the current proceedings certainly belong to the category of difficulties arisen—it is sorted out in the study or before the tribunal of a justice of the peace. There’s no innovation in that, except that the two contestants are obliged to meet face to face. If the difference is not ironed out or, as a last resort, judged, it goes into the Palais de Justice, but only by the door to the adjustment chambers.

  “Each of those chambers is made up of a president and two assessors. The adversaries appear there in person, without citation, on a simple letter from the president. They each explain their case, with the aid of their advocates; the advocates plumb the legal questions, bringing to light each individual’s rights; then the session is adjourned. In the second session, a plan of adjustment prepared by the judges is waiting for them. It is discussed, amended, and, if possible, signed during the same session. All that happened quietly, in private, behind closed doors. The contract is signed by the advocates, and the solicitors; the president adds the final signature.”

  “It seems to me that the person who raises the difficulty has no great interest in appearing.”

  “If he abstains from coming, not supporting his claim, he places himself in the wrong and it is rejected. If it is the other who defaults, he condemns himself by his refusal to defend himself, and loses his case.”

  “What if one of the adversaries is absent through illness?”

  “There’s an answer for everything; he’s granted a delay before presenting himself, or one of the magistrates is delegated to go to him, with the adverse party. In brief, the adjustment judge has full powers to make peace. He acts as the father of a family would act when constituted as an arbiter between his two children.

  “Believe me. Monsieur, it’s less difficult than one might think for men of authority and good will, calm and enlightened, to reconcile two adversaries. For us, it required a quarter of an hour, no more.”

  “Yes, a quarter of an hour—but preceded by thirty years, if my memory serves me right. After thirty years and a quarter of an hour of quibbling, one has run out of summonses, recourses, appeals, etc.”

  “Perhaps not, Monsieur, but in any case, I’m glad that a time has come when the law has said its last word. Two adversaries put in accord by an immutable verdict, doubtless good but not accepted, are still enemies, as before. War has ceased, but the hatred survives. Far from that, in signing an adjustment, people smile at one another, esteem one another, begin loving one another again in new circumstances. So mu
ch time has been wasted! That’s the difference. Do you understand?”

  “Perfectly.”

  That said, the two brotherly friends, after a cordial salute, went down the staircase arm in arm.

  “Those Messieurs lost me on the way, in their explanations, but you can substitute for them. Tell me, if two adversaries answer all the summonses, but in the end they resist the logic and appeasement of their solicitors, their advocates and the pontiffs of adjustment, what happens then?”

  “The affair wins its right of entry into the litigious court, and follows its course in the first, second, and sometimes the third instance.

  “What? In the third instance?”

  “Of course. It goes without saying that our magistracy is out of the affair, in what will follow: impeccable probity, long experience and objectivity are its familiar environment. It isn’t a matter of that now.

  “That reserve made, let’s debate, if you wish.

  “In principle and in logic, so far as I know, only inferior and superior tribunals exist, If one assumes, among the magistrates of appeal, more enlightenment and more aptitude for judgment than those of the first instance, the latter are unnecessary. What is the man who loses in the first instance but has the upper hand in the appeal the victor? It’s a contingency. He would be vanquished if the court and the tribunal had exchanged magistrates. Of two battles, he has lost the first and won the second. I cannot see there, in good conscience, anything but a man half-vanquished and half-victorious. If two champions have wounded one another, one triumph each; they wait for the deciding pass of arms, to settle matters, that’s all. Can anyone tell me why, of two judges having two different opinions, the one who speaks last is fatally the oracle of the truth?”