daisy in the world, and flitting about it was a charming
microscopical gnat.

This flower of the fields was growing peaceably and in
accordance with the sweet law of nature, in the open, in the
centre of Paris, between a couple of streets, two paces from
the Palais-Royal, four paces from the Carrousel, amid
passers-by, omnibuses and the King's carriages.

This wild flower, neighbour of the pavement, opened up
a wide field of thought. Who could have foreseen, two
years ago, that a daisy would be growing on this spot! If, as
on the ground adjoining, there had never been anything but
houses, that is to say, proprietors, tenants, and hail porters,
careful residents extinguishing candle and fire at night
before going to sleep, never would there have been a wild
flower here.

How many things, how many plays that failed or were
applauded, how many ruined families, how many incidents,
how many adventures, how many catastrophes were
summed up in this flower! To all those who lived upon the
crowd that was nightly summoned here, what a spectre
this flower would have been had it appeared to them two
years ago! What a labyrinth is destiny and what
mysterious combinations there were that led up to the advent
of this enchanting little yellow sun with its white rays.
It required a theatre and a conflagration, which are the
gaiety and the terror of a city, one of the most joyous
inventions of man and one of the most terrible visitations of