It seems at first
sight an awful destruction of property, this work of demolition, but I
believe it has been proved that the rise in value of the real estate
thus regenerated more than compensates for the losses sustained, in
the long run. All the blousard cares about the matter, however, is
that it gives him work, and that is what he craves.
To see gangs of brawny fellows tearing down walls, ripping off doors,
carrying away timbers on their shoulders when a street is in its
decaying stage, is to see a most interesting sight. At the entrance of
the street a sign is put up: "RUE BARREE." The front walls of
buildings torn away, winding staircases are seen climbing up with all
their burden of years upon them and all their secret weaknesses
exposed. Sometimes these stairways are of stone, sometimes of wood:
when the latter, if in a fair state of preservation, they are taken
away bodily, to be put up again in some remote quarter of the town.
Shop-windows are offered for sale for like purposes. At night the
scene is made lurid by the glare of triangular lanterns, which throw
out their warning red light, and the entrance to the street is
carefully guarded. Gradually the old buildings are taken to pieces and
removed, bit by bit. New walls of creamy stone, with modern windows,
handsomely carved cornices, stone piazzas, and the like, are built up.
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