SELLERS OF CHANSONS

“They teach their motley audiences to sing
the songs they have the wit to sell them.”

PARIS AND THE
SOCIAL REVOLUTION

A STUDY OF
THE REVOLUTIONARY ELEMENTS IN THE
VARIOUS CLASSES OF PARISIAN SOCIETY
BY
ALVAN FRANCIS SANBORN
With Illustrative Drawings By
VAUGHAN TROWBRIDGE

BOSTON
SMALL MAYNARD & COMPANY
MCMV

Copyright, 1905, by
Small Maynard & Company
Incorporated

Entered at Stationers’ Hall

Press of
Geo. H. Ellis Co.
Boston, U.S.A.

TO THE
PROLETARIAT OF AMERICA
THIS BOOK IS
REVERENTLY INSCRIBED

vii

PREFACE

IT was the author’s original intention to let this book make shiftwithout the conventional preface, as befitted the unconventionalityof its theme. But he has learned since it was begun—whatit was very stupid of him not to have known at the outset—that inthe matter of heresies, ethical, social, and political as well as theological,interest is bound to pass for approval, explanation foradvocacy, and sympathy, be it ever so slight, for profound belief:as if a man who showed a curiosity about and appreciation of dogsshould, by that very fact, become a dog; or as if (since there mayseem to be an unfortunate implication of contempt in this illustration)a German who attempted to expound honestly English temperament,opinions, and traditions should, by that very fact, become anEnglishman.

Once for all, then, the author is not a revolutionist, though thereare moments when he fancies he would like to be one, it appearssuch an eminently satisfying state. It takes faith to be a revolutionist;and he is, alas! mentally incapable of faith. He isnot an anarchist, not a socialist, not a radical, not a “red republican,”nor a “mangeur de prêtres.” His affiliations have notbeen even Dreyfusard in France, nor even Bryanite in America.He is a conservative of the conservatives, only prevented from beinga reactionary by the fact that reaction is but another form of revolution,and the most hopeless and faith-exacting of them all. Sofar from being a revoluti