The Rue Mouffetard, which in old times was a continuation of the Place
Maubert from the river Seine, then extended in an unbroken line to the
Barriere d'Italie, at the remote southern limit of the city of Paris.
The Haussmannizing reform which set in under the Empire went at the
horrible neighborhood with a sort of sublime fury of destruction.
Whole blocks of dark, forbidding buildings were obliterated by the
pickaxes of the blousards, who thus assisted at their own
regeneration. The result is, that there is a long and wide avenue now
stretching its lines of lamps into the distance from the point where
the Rue Mouffetard stops and the Avenue Gobelins begins. The old
street--the portion of it which remains--looks with a dazed and dirty
sorrowfulness up the broad, clean avenue which once was dirty and
narrow like itself. The work of transformation ceased with the
breaking out of the war with Germany. So did the like work in numerous
other quarters of the town which needed it quite as badly as the Rue
Mouffetard. But under the government of the Septennat the work has
been resumed in some degree. The double purpose is hereby served of
letting in light on the dark spots of the town, and of giving
employment to the needy blousards, who might get into obstreperous
moods again if crowded too hard by poverty and want.
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