Chapter 329 5. Current progress

The sewer today is clean, cool, straight, and regular, and it almost achieves that ideal of the sewer that England calls "respect."It's decent, light gray, held together by straight lines, almost straight.It is like a businessman becoming a government consultant.It was almost bright inside.The sludge also behaves in the inside.At first glance it might well be regarded as an underground corridor for the escape of monarchs and princes, which was quite common in the old days, when "the common people loved their kings" in good times.The sewer of today is a handsome sewer, simple in style, and the straight twelve-syllable classical poetry that has been driven out of the poetry world seems to have taken refuge in this building, and seems to have merged with every piece of the long dark and white arcade. The stones became one, each scupper was an arcade, and the rue de Rivoli became a model quarter in terms of sewers.Besides, if there is ever a place where geometric lines are appropriate, it is in the cesspool of a big city.There, everything is subject to the shortest route.Today's sewers have a somewhat formal appearance.Even the police are no longer disrespectful when they mention it in their reports.The wording for it in official documents is elegant and solemn, what used to be called intestines is now called a corridor; what people used to call holes are now called eyeholes.Villon would not recognize his temporary home.This network of cellars still, of course, still has its immemorial rodent inhabitants, now more than ever; from time to time a mouse with an old beard ventures out of the ditch window to spy on the Parisians; Yes, it is satisfied with its underground palace.The dirty ditch is no longer as violent as it used to be. The rainwater used to pollute the gutter, but now it has been washed clean.But don't worry too much, the miasma is still entrenched inside.It's more appropriately hypocritical than justifiable.The Police and the Board of Public Health couldn't fix it either, and despite all efforts to improve sanitation, the gutters gave off a vague, suspicious smell, like that of a confessed Dartuffe.

In any case, we have to admit that cleaning is the sewer to pay tribute to civilization. From this point of view, Dartuffe's conscience has gone a step further than Augeas' cowshed, and the sewers of Paris have undoubtedly been improved. This is not only progress, but transformation. There was a revolution between the ancient sewer and today's sewer.Who made this revolution? It is Brunesseau whom everyone has forgotten and whom we have mentioned.