uated, ill-adapted to prevailing
customs; it formerly suited, and still suits, the feudal, scattered, and
militant way of living; hence it no longer suits the unity and repose
of modern life. New-born rights obtain no place in it alongside of
established rights; it is either not sufficiently transformed or it
has been transformed in an opposite sense, in such a way as to be
inconvenient or unhealthy, badly accommodating people who are useful and
giving good accommodations to useless people, costing too much to
keep up and causing discomfort and discontent to nearly all its
occupants.--In France, in particular, the best apartments, especially
that of the King, are for a century past too high and too large, too
sumptuous and too expensive. Since Louis XIV. these have imperceptibly
ceased to be government and business bureaus; they have become in
their disposition, decoration, and furnishing, saloons for pomp and
conversation, the occupants of which, for lack of other employment,
delight in discussing architecture and in tracing plans on paper for an
imaginary edifice in which everybody will find himself comfortable. Now,
underneath these, everybody finds himself uncomfortable, the bourgeoisie
in its small scanty lodgings on the ground-floor and the people in their
holes in the cellar, which are low and damp, wherein light and air never
penetrate. Innumerable vagabonds and vagrants are still worse off, for,
with no shelter or fireside, they sleep under the stars, and as they
are without anything to care for, they are disposed to pull everything
down.--Under the double pressure of insurrection and theory the
demolition begins, while the fury of destruction goes on increasing
until nothing is left of the razed edifice but the soil it stood on.

The new one rises on this cleared ground and, historically as well as
structurally, it differs from all the others.--In less than ten years
it springs up and is finished according to a plan which, from the first
day, is definite and complete. It forms one unique, vast, monumental
block, in which all branches of the service are lodged under one roof;
in addition to the national and general services belonging to the public
power, we find here others also, local and special, which do not belong
to it, such as worship, education, charity, fine arts, literature,
departmental and communal interests, each installed in a distinct
compartment. All the compartments are ordered and arranged alike