Les Miserables, Wilbour Translation

As to the people of Paris, even when grown to manhood, it is, always, the gamin ; to depict the child is to depict the city, and therefore it is that we have studied this eagle in this openhearted sparrow.

It is in the suburbs especially, we insist, that the Parisian race is found ; there is the pure blood ; there is the true physiognomy; there this people works and suffers, and suffering and toil are the two forms of men. There are vast numbers of unknown beings teeming with the strangest types of humanity, from the stevedore of the Rape"e to the horsekiller of Montfaucon. Fex urbis, exclaims Cicero; mob, adds the indignant Burke; the herd, the multitude, the populace. Those words are quickly said. But if it be so, what matters it? What is it to me that they go barefoot? They cannot read. So much the worse. Will you abandon them for that? Would you make their misfortune their curse? Cannot the light penetrate these masses? Let us return to that cry: Light! and let us persist in it! Light! light!