#Bruneseau

[empirearchives]

Napoleon and Sewers and Sanitation

Excerpt from the book Aaron Burr in Exile: A Pariah in Paris, 1810-1811, by Jane Merrill and John Endicott

Napoleon began in 1805 to build a modern vaulted underground sewer system in Paris, following the topography of the streets. Practical changes for the better were already in place when Burr was in Paris. Sewer floors were lowered and new lines were created everywhere between 1805 and 1812, while at the same time the existing sewers were disinfected and the flow of water purified.

During the Enlightenment there was a movement for improved hygiene in France, and investigations of public health. Napoleon was a forerunner of hygiene for his armies and for Paris. In the first place he paved streets and did away with the flowing gutters in the middle of the road. Second, he wanted to give Parisians clean water. In 1802, he commissioned Pierre-Emmanuel Bruneseau as his inspector of works for the City of Paris to chart the sewer system and also keep them clean. Under Napoleon, the existing network was extended, 19 new miles of sewers were added. By 1812, vast improvements had been made.

Bruneseau died in 1819, but Baron Haussmann studied Bruneseau’s maps in the mid-century, rebuilding, constructing new gas-lit and vented sewers. The sanitation models of Paris were adopted by other cities in France and around the world.

A survey of 50 kilometers took seven years. It was dangerous as well as putrid work. While Bruneseau was hailed as an intrepid adventurer, he had difficulty all along with hiring assistants to keep up with him. Victor Hugo was Bruneseau’s friend and hailed him as an adventurer. The engineer inspired Hugo to write the portion of Les Misérables in which Jean Valjean carries Marius, wounded at the Barricades in 1832, through the sewers to safety. Hugo called the sewers “the conscience of the city” and created a whole metaphor around the sewer system: “A sewer is a cynic. It tells everything.” It wouldn’t have been possible for Jean Valjean to make his way carrying Marius through the sewers before the curage methods introduced by Bruneseau. The rushing water when gates are opened to clean the sewers with great hydraulic force, as well as the manholes and dripping pipes, are well described in the novel.

[Bold italics for quotations by me]

[shitpostingfromthebarricade]

I get that the word for an animal "cloaca" comes from the original sewer "cloaca." I still really wish he'd stop calling it that.

[ueinra]

The whole army of that day was present there, in the court-yard of the Tuileries, represented by a squadron or a platoon, and guarding Napoleon in repose; and that was the splendid epoch when the grand army had Marengo behind it and Austerlitz before it.—“Sire,” said the Minister of the Interior to Napoleon, “yesterday I saw the most intrepid man in your Empire.”—“What man is that?” said the Emperor brusquely, “and what has he done?”—“He wants to do something, Sire.”—“What is it?”—“To visit the sewers of Paris.” This man existed and his name was Bruneseau.

— Les Misérables, V.II.III Illustrated by Adriano Minardi (Italian Edition, 1930)

[cliozaur]

It's amusing how Hugo portrays the sewers as a terra incognita, implying that the sewer system somehow emerged naturally and remained unknown until 1805 (but he will write about the history of sewers in the next chapters).

He provides such a detailed description of the filth inundation of 1802 that I immediately wanted to see how it correlates with the map of Paris (there are many good maps available of the Paris sewer system). Then there's the intricate description of sewer openings from which various pestilences were believed to spread. And when I read this "The popular imagination seasoned the sombre Parisian sink with some indescribably hideous intermixture of the infinite," it reminded me of the Infinite from the convent digression, and I couldn't help but start giggling.

And now, a man ironically named Bruneseau is about to venture into the sewers. I'm intrigued.

[black-rabbit-razumikhin]

Raz Reads Les Mis (XXXIX)

Jean Valjean - The Intestine of Leviathan

Paris has a sewage system

If this is setting the scene for Marius and Valjean doing a Shawshank Redemption away from the barricades, I don't want to read it

Hugo talks about the sewer having abandoned riches sitting in it

Both fertilizer and literal coins and stuff

A very excited man by the name of Bruneseau wants to map the sewer

And he does, right down in the dirt

He transforms the Old Sewer into the New Sewer

At the time of the barricade insurrections, it is still mainly the Old Sewer

At least Hugo admits that going down into a sewage system is not what someone considers a "dream job"

I don't know how much I wanted to read about poo while I'm in mourning. I'm sure Hugo has a good reason for all of this, but there's a reason the sewer isn't mentioned in the conversation of the everyday and I'd like to keep it as such.

[dolphin1812]

“Still another resemblance between Paris and the sea. As in the ocean, the diver may disappear there.”

Hugo’s never one to shy away from a drowning metaphor, and they’re never good signs. At the beginning of the novel, Jean Valjean was drowning in the negligence of society; now, he’s at a similar crisis point, but in the sewers instead of the French countryside.

(It’s also not great that the sewer is a sepulchre, both because of the general association with death and the link between this description and the convent. It’s “freedom” in that he’s escaped the troops, but the sewer might be another prison that he’s stuck in, choosing an awful form of confinement over dealing with law enforcement once again. As usual, there’s a rational element to this - especially here, where he would be killed or captured otherwise - but it’s still sad to see.)

“The truth is, that they were less safe than Jean Valjean fancied. Perils of another sort and no less serious were awaiting them, perchance. After the lightning-charged whirlwind of the combat, the cavern of miasmas and traps; after chaos, the sewer. Jean Valjean had fallen from one circle of hell into another.”

I just really love this paragraph! I think the sewer is a very fun setting (except for Valjean and Marius, of course).

“He said to himself that he was probably in the sewer des Halles; that if he were to choose the path to the left and follow the slope, he would arrive, in less than a quarter of an hour, at some mouth on the Seine between the Pont au Change and the Pont-Neuf, that is to say, he would make his appearance in broad daylight on the most densely peopled spot in Paris. Perhaps he would come out on some man-hole at the intersection of streets. Amazement of the passers-by at beholding two bleeding men emerge from the earth at their feet. Arrival of the police, a call to arms of the neighboring post of guards. Thus they would be seized before they had even got out. It would be better to plunge into that labyrinth, to confide themselves to that black gloom, and to trust to Providence for the outcome.”

I love this insight into Valjean’s thought process, as it highlights his intelligence in escaping (the image of Valjean and Marius emerging to the astonishment of random Parisians is also a bit funny). He’s very quickly able to reason through a navigation process that calls back Bruneseau’s mapping attempts, and that’s considering that this is his first time in a sewer and that he’s been deprived of the senses he would normally rely on. He makes a mistake, but his reasoning isn’t completely wrong, illustrating his cleverness.

The suspense is this chapter is also well-done. Hugo’s great at conveying the eeriness of the sewer, and watching Valjean panic over something that isn’t the police always underscores how scary it is. If even he’s unnerved by its dark and labyrinthine nature, then it really has to be horrible. And of course, leaving us on a cliffhanger with the light of the police in the distance raises the tension considerably.

[fluentisonus]

has anyone ever done any art of bruneseau & co in the sewers btw

[junojams]

random thought: have bruneseau's expedition of the sewers ever been turned into a horror game

[crackspinewornpages]

Les Misérables 330/365 -Victor Hugo

321

The National Guard found the only one left alive, Enjorlas, with a broken rifle and he said to shoot him he accepted death. They start to take aim when Grantaire regains consciousness from his drinking binge. (if you drank enough to pass out for several days and not wake up as literal war happened outside you’d probably be dead from alcohol poisoning) The silence sobered him (yeah being surrounded by your dead friends with one of them cornered as the police have their guns aimed at him would be pretty sobering) and Enjorlas’s presence shocked him, he was perfectly informed by all around him what happened. (no shit) The soldiers didn’t notice him on the other side of the room (they thought the dude was dead) he shouted “long live the Republic’ he is one and stands besides Enjorlas who allows it and both are shot dead. The soldiers fish out any hiding and fling the bodies out the window and smaller conflicts as the barricade fell a soldier and insurgent fought on the roof and both fell off in an embrace.  

322

Marius was a prisoner of Valjean, he didn’t take part in the insurgency but to carry away the wounded. He never took his eyes off of Marius and when he was shot Valjean leaped for him and carried him away. No one saw Valjean with Marius in the attack as they disappeared behind Corinthe. They were sheltered behind a wall but how to escape the massacre, his escape from Rue Polonceau was difficult, now this was impossible. Troops were watching and at the barricade he would be a target, the fighting was getting closer. He stared at the ground in agony and saw a metal grating and the paving stones torn up around it. His art of escape rose up and he raised the grating and descended with Marius much like he did with Cosette years ago and he could vaguely hear the assault on the wine shop above.

BOOK SECOND THE INTESTINE OF THE LEVIATHAN

323

Paris cast 25 million into the water a year by means of the intestine sewer, cast into the abyss but if manure was restored to the land it would nourish the world. (no no no nope I draw the line at fertilizing the fields with human sourced manure) France deposits half a million a year and man prefers to get rid of five hundred million in the gutter into the sewer into the ocean tainting the water. The Thames is poisoning London (look up the Great Stink of London) and so Paris transports it downstream, a process that does evil trying to do good. The sewer is a myth, leaking public wealth away. Paris has a quarter population of France and spends the twenty-five millions worth on the sewer system to flush away. If you imitate Paris, you will be ruined, Rome did the same and set the example. (Rome is still known for its sewers)

324

A subterranean network of sewers branching off, the history of man reflected in it. All sorts of phantoms haunt it, a putrance of miasma. “The sewer in ancient Paris in the rendezvous of all exhaustions and of all attempts.”p.801 Everything of the city converges there, no longer any secrets, all uncleanliness of civilization falls there coming to an end. A sewer tells everything, terrible stream where bloody hands had been washed, nothing escapes.

325

In the middle ages, Paris’s sewer system was legendary, but the capital didn’t know how to manage its affairs and couldn’t sweep filth. Sometimes the sewer slowed and backed up into the city, a warning it didn’t admit to. 1802 the muds flowed over two hundred meters over three feet deep, the cleaning was left to the rains. (so in summary Paris is a shithole) No one thought to explore the sewers until 1805, Bruneseau, as pestilence rose.

326

One of the survivors of the expedition told a detail Bruneseau let out, disinfection was rudimentary, after a ways eight of the twenty refused to go further, it was complicated to clean, one notes the paths of water currents time to time, one fainted and the ground would collapse. (and they’re not wearing any breathing or protection gear and you know they’re not getting any hazard pay) Two water conduits dates to 1550, the drains halted here and there, different centuries of sewer vaults. Beneath the Court House they thought they found dungeons, a person missing from 1800, everywhere in the mire a treasure or souvenir from above. At the entrance to the Grand Sewer hung a ragged shroud of Marat. (a political theorist during the Revolution who was murdered in his bathtub) This visit to the sewers lasted seven years to have the network disinfected, this was the sewer of the past.

327

Today the sewer is straightened, cleaned almost like a subterranean corridor used by fleeing monarchs and princes. This network now has more prowlers and rats than ever while rain washes it, miasma still inhabits it, the commission of health did their best, it still exhales suspicious odor. The sewers of Paris had been improved, a transmutation between ancient and present, a revolution Bruneseau brought.

328

Cleaning the sewer was no easy task, ten centuries of Paris growth, twenty-three thousand three hundred meters of sewer. Napoleon, Louis XVIII, Charles X, Louis Philippe, the Republic ect. all built a section of Paris, today it is ten times what it was with much difficulty and bravery of matinence. Even in 1832 the sewers aren't what they are today, Bruneseau began it but cholera brought vast reconstruction, open cesspools, wells discharging. Thirty years ago the June insurrection was nearly the same sewer streets were sunken and many streets just had maws of catch basins. With progress public hygiene brought up the question of the sewers. Paris is under two sheets, water from heaven and air from the sewer, the miasma mingled in the city. In time, with progress, water will purify air, for ten centuries it has been a cesspool of disease for Paris even with high pay, sewer men were hesitant to plunge. (that’s it that was what everyone was going on about with the sewer chapters I actually didn’t mind reading it I enjoyed it more than the Waterloo chapters and much more than the convent chapters the way people go on about the Paris sewer system you’d think it was half the book)

BOOK THIRD MUD BUT THE SOUL

329

Valjean was in the sewers from peril to obscurity, Marius didn’t stir and he didn’t know if he was carrying a corpse. For a moment he was blind and deaf, cautiously feeling himself forward as his eyes grew accustomed. It was up to chance the soldiers would find the grate and investigate, so he plunged into the gloom. They were less safe than he thought, he fell from one hell into another with miasmas and traps, navigating the labyrinth and danger of emerging in front of people drawing police. (out of the fryer and into the fire or in France Mettre de l’huile sur le feu) He dragged Marius on his back, his breathing meant life as he chose a course. He got lost, how was he to get out, would Marius die, was he descending into the Siene, he went on. He was in a watershed, a culminating point and continued avoiding a trap of tunnels and into the path of police. (literally out of the fryer and into the fire)

330

On June 6, Prefect Gisquet swept the sewers looking for the vanquished insurgents that might have fled. Valjean took a narrow path, he stood still as the lantern passed his shadow when the patrol heard nothing they consulted. They separated into two squads to check the water shed and Siene, had they continued on they would have found Valjean who only saw their passing lantern. Only to acquit his conscience the Sergeant fired in Valjean’s direction, hitting a few paces from his head. The slow steps died away and once more he was deaf and blind, not moving for a long time.

NEXT

[breadvidence]

Propaganda for crawling through the sewers:

It's basically tourism! I speak as an American: why do my people feel the need to endure experiences they will inevitably bitch about (long plane ride, jet lag, being asked to walk places, neophobic reactions to benign unfamiliar everyday objects, the international tendency towards lukewarm beverages)? Let's list some off, and Hugo can back me up on why the Parisian sewers check the boxes.

Seeing places with centuries of history: "all that human laws persecute or have persecuted, is hidden in that hole; the maillotins in the fourteenth century, the tire-laine of the fifteenth, the Huguenots in the sixteenth, Morin’s illuminated in the seventeenth, the chauffeurs [brigands] in the eighteenth."

Visiting sites associated with historical figures: "Louis XI. is there with Tristan, François I. with Duprat, Charles IX. is there with his mother, Richelieu is there with Louis XIII., Louvois is there, Letellier is there, Hébert and Maillard are there, scratching the stones, and trying to make the traces of their actions disappear."

Experiencing the thrill of possible danger: "To try that unknown thing, to cast the plummet into that shadow, to set out on a voyage of discovery in that abyss—who would have dared? It was alarming."

The chance to find and bring home a souvenir: "If a giant had filtered this cesspool, he would have had the riches of centuries in his lair. [. . .] Bruneseau held his lantern close to this rag and examined it. It was of very fine batiste, and in one of the corners, less frayed than the rest, they made out a heraldic coronet and embroidered above these seven letters: LAVBESP"

We love a beach vacay—no chance to make it to the coast? The sewers got you: "Still another resemblance between Paris and the sea. As in the ocean, the diver may disappear there."

Concerned about venturing into shadier areas? No worries, the sewers are patrolled (ACAB): "It was the gloomy star of the police which was rising in the sewer."

Eating novel and regionally unique snack, such as: "the roll which had been forgotten there on the preceding evening"

Encountering unfamiliar geological features: "This crevice, the hiatus of a gulf of mire, was called a fontis, in the special tongue. What is a fontis? It is the quicksands of the seashore suddenly encountered under the surface of the earth; it is the beach of Mont Saint-Michel in a sewer."

Finally, as any who have read Les Misérables know, you can never predict: fate loves a coincidence, and you might meet an old friend while spelunking who will be happy to share a bit of local lore and a helping hand (or bit of rope and key, as the situation demands).

The grave is a fine and private place, but the sewers have history, thrills, souvenirs, snacks, and pals! Crawl through them today!

I think I'll do some "would you rather" questions (as per @permetutotheworld's suggestion) next!

Would you rather crawl through the Parisian sewers or be temporarily buried alive to get out of the convent?

[pilferingapples]

Les Miserables Daily: 5.2.4, Details Ignored

Today in the chronological read-through of Les Miserables,we’re finishing up with Bruneseau’s adventures in 1805!  Be sure to join us for the next chapter in 2032, when we’ll meet Bishop Myriel!

The visit took place. It was a formidable campaign; a nocturnal battle against pestilence and suffocation. It was, at the same time, a voyage of discovery. One of the survivors of this expedition, an intelligent workingman, who was very young at the time, related curious details with regard to it, several years ago, which Bruneseau thought himself obliged to omit in his report to the prefect of police, as unworthy of official style. The processes of disinfection were, at that epoch, extremely rudimentary. Hardly had Bruneseau crossed the first articulations of that subterranean network, when eight laborers out of the twenty refused to go any further. The operation was complicated; the visit entailed the necessity of cleaning; hence it was necessary to cleanse and at the same time, to proceed; to note the entrances of water, to count the gratings and the vents, to lay out in detail the branches, to indicate the currents at the point where they parted, to define the respective bounds of the divers basins, to sound the small sewers grafted on the principal sewer, to measure the height under the key-stone of each drain, and the width, at the spring of the vaults as well as at the bottom, in order to determine the arrangements with regard to the level of each water-entrance, either of the bottom of the arch, or on the soil of the street. They advanced with toil. The lanterns pined away in the foul atmosphere. From time to time, a fainting sewerman was carried out. At certain points, there were precipices. The soil had given away, the pavement had crumbled, the sewer had changed into a bottomless well; they found nothing solid; a man disappeared suddenly; they had great difficulty in getting him out again. On the advice of Fourcroy, they lighted large cages filled with tow steeped in resin, from time to time, in spots which had been sufficiently disinfected. In some places, the wall was covered with misshapen fungi,--one would have said tumors; the very stone seemed diseased within this unbreathable atmosphere.

Bruneseau, in his exploration, proceeded down hill. At the point of separation of the two water-conduits of the Grand-Hurleur, he deciphered upon a projecting stone the date of 1550; this stone indicated the limits where Philibert Delorme, charged by Henri II. with visiting the subterranean drains of Paris, had halted. This stone was the mark of the sixteenth century on the sewer; Bruneseau found the handiwork of the seventeenth century once more in the Ponceau drain of the old Rue Vielle-du-Temple, vaulted between 1600 and 1650; and the handiwork of the eighteenth in the western section of the collecting canal, walled and vaulted in 1740. These two vaults, especially the less ancient, that of 1740, were more cracked and decrepit than the masonry of the belt sewer, which dated from 1412, an epoch when the brook of fresh water of Menilmontant was elevated to the dignity of the Grand Sewer of Paris, an advancement analogous to that of a peasant who should become first valet de chambre to the King; something like Gros-Jean transformed into Lebel.

Here and there, particularly beneath the Court-House, they thought they recognized the hollows of ancient dungeons, excavated in the very sewer itself. Hideous in-pace. An iron neck-collar was hanging in one of these cells. They walled them all up. Some of their finds were singular; among others, the skeleton of an ourang-outan, who had disappeared from the Jardin des Plantes in 1800, a disappearance probably connected with the famous and indisputable apparition of the devil in the Rue des Bernardins, in the last year of the eighteenth century. The poor devil had ended by drowning himself in the sewer.

Beneath this long, arched drain which terminated at the Arche-Marion, a perfectly preserved rag-picker's basket excited the admiration of all connoisseurs. Everywhere, the mire, which the sewermen came to handle with intrepidity, abounded in precious objects, jewels of gold and silver, precious stones, coins. If a giant had filtered this cesspool, he would have had the riches of centuries in his lair. At the point where the two branches of the Rue du Temple and of the Rue Sainte-Avoye separate, they picked up a singular Huguenot medal in copper, bearing on one side the pig hooded with a cardinal's hat, and on the other, a wolf with a tiara on his head.

The most surprising rencounter was at the entrance to the Grand Sewer. This entrance had formerly been closed by a grating of which nothing but the hinges remained. From one of these hinges hung a dirty and shapeless rag which, arrested there in its passage, no doubt, had floated there in the darkness and finished its process of being torn apart. Bruneseau held his lantern close to this rag and examined it. It was of very fine batiste, and in one of the corners, less frayed than the rest, they made out a heraldic coronet and embroidered above these seven letters: LAVBESP. The crown was the coronet of a Marquis, and the seven letters signified Laubespine. They recognized the fact, that what they had before their eyes was a morsel of the shroud of Marat. Marat in his youth had had amorous intrigues. This was when he was a member of the household of the Comte d'Artois, in the capacity of physician to the Stables. From these love affairs, historically proved, with a great lady, he had retained this sheet. As a waif or a souvenir. At his death, as this was the only linen of any fineness which he had in his house, they buried him in it. Some old women had shrouded him for the tomb in that swaddling-band in which the tragic Friend of the people had enjoyed voluptuousness. Bruneseau passed on. They left that rag where it hung; they did not put the finishing touch to it. Did this arise from scorn or from respect? Marat deserved both. And then, destiny was there sufficiently stamped to make them hesitate to touch it. Besides, the things of the sepulchre must be left in the spot which they select. In short, the relic was a strange one. A Marquise had slept in it; Marat had rotted in it; it had traversed the Pantheon to end with the rats of the sewer. This chamber rag, of which Watteau would formerly have joyfully sketched every fold, had ended in becoming worthy of the fixed gaze of Dante.

The whole visit to the subterranean stream of filth of Paris lasted seven years, from 1805 to 1812. As he proceeded, Bruneseau drew, directed, and completed considerable works; in 1808 he lowered the arch of the Ponceau, and, everywhere creating new lines, he pushed the sewer, in 1809, under the Rue Saint-Denis as far as the fountain of the Innocents; in 1810, under the Rue Froidmanteau and under the Salpetriere; in 1811 under the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Peres, under the Rue du Mail, under the Rue de l'Echarpe, under the Place Royale; in 1812, under the Rue de la Paix, and under the Chaussee d'Antin. At the same time, he had the whole net-work disinfected and rendered healthful. In the second year of his work, Bruneseau engaged the assistance of his son-in-law Nargaud.

It was thus that, at the beginning of the century, ancient society cleansed its double bottom, and performed the toilet of its sewer. There was that much clean, at all events.

Tortuous, cracked, unpaved, full of fissures, intersected by gullies, jolted by eccentric elbows, mounting and descending illogically, fetid, wild, fierce, submerged in obscurity, with cicatrices on its pavements and scars on its walls, terrible,--such was, retrospectively viewed, the antique sewer of Paris. Ramifications in every direction, crossings, of trenches, branches, goose-feet, stars, as in military mines, coecum, blind alleys, vaults lined with saltpetre, pestiferous pools, scabby sweats, on the walls, drops dripping from the ceilings, darkness; nothing could equal the horror of this old, waste crypt, the digestive apparatus of Babylon, a cavern, ditch, gulf pierced with streets, a titanic mole-burrow, where the mind seems to behold that enormous blind mole, the past, prowling through the shadows, in the filth which has been splendor.

This, we repeat, was the sewer of the past.

[josephfalzon]

1/2 - Déambulations à Bruneseau 👞👢👟 Le groupement Hardel Le Bihan, Youssef Tohmé, Adjaye Associates, Buzzo Spinelli est lauréat de l'appel à projets "Inventer Bruneseau à Paris Rive Gauche". J'ai eu le plaisir de réaliser cette bande dessinée pour accompagner le dossier, afin de montrer les usages sur le site. Merci et bravo à eux.

[fulgararchitects]

Jean Nouvel Wins Approval for Leaning "Tours Duo" Project in Paris. Upon their completion in 2021, the mixed-use Tours DUO project will rise on a former industrial site on the edge of the Seine in the Paris Rive Gauche district. Leaning to form an asymmetrical "V," DUO 1 will rise 180 meters and 39 stories, while DUO 2 will be 122 meters and 27 stories tall. They are positioned so as to be seen from the Avenue de France as well as from the entrance of the National Library. This creates a visually-striking gateway to the city for both trains and cars, with their inclined façades to reflect on those arriving. The two towers will house a hotel, office space, retail, a top floor restaurant-bar, gardens, green terraces, as well as a "renewed access" to the Seine. ~ follow @fulgararchitects @metamodernarch 👍 Tag ➡️ https://bit.ly/3c8zFJr 📌 Tag a friend! posted on Instagram - https://instagr.am/p/CAQavCfBvn7/

[captious-solarian]

Okay yeah this is a great infodump (hurr hurr, dump). It really has "buckle in tumblroos imma learn u a thing!!" energy (which you might or might not think is a compliment to your favourite writer ever).

I would prefer something that's more, like, integrated with the plot — if the main character was Pierre Bruneseau struggling to draw his map, all that detail would land better than here where it's followed up with "but Jean knew fuck all about any of this". But y'know it's already more technical than most books so I can't complain about it. I can, however, complain that he's way too optimistic about nightsoil as a fertiliser.

People complain about film snobs being like the best movie of the year was this three-hour Serbian movie about wastewater control systems but then people will ignore how boardgame snobs will be like the best game this year was this ten-hour Serbian game about wastewater control systems.

[cliozaur]

It appears that Hugo harbours conflicting feelings about the modernization of sewers. As a proponent of Progress, he should find it gratifying: well-organized, straightened, and no longer dark. Even the police reports show increased respect towards it. My favourite image depicting the present 'respectable' state of the sewer is that of contented, well-fed rats peering through its windows: “This network of cellars has its immemorial population of prowlers, rodents, swarming in greater numbers than ever; from time to time, an aged and veteran 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.”

However, Hugo as a Romantic writer seems to feel nostalgic for the previous state of affairs. My dear Villon is mentioned again: he would hardly recognize this place now that it's lost its former sombre mystery.

Hugo uses the term 'transmutation' from alchemy (the same in the original French text) to describe these changes, highlighting the magical aspect of this process. He also labels it a revolution, likening old man Bruneseau to a revolutionary in this transformation.

[secretmellowblog]

Another fun thing about rereading Les Mis is discovering all the Secret Bonus Content I’d completely forgotten existed

Since I rarely have time to reread the Entire Book, I usually just end up rereading the chapters featuring whatever characters I’m interested in or obsessed with at the moment (or whatever someone doing BrickClub is talking about)

But that means when I reread the book, I discover the Secret Chapters I haven’t seen in years!!

This all to say the Sewer Digression is actually great you guys, despite some usual Hugo-ness it really is fascinating how manmade architecture/infrastructure can so quickly turn into a labyrinth that even its “creators” don’t have a map to. That’s wild and Hugo’s right, it’s symbolic