I posted this word a couple weeks ago, but I'll bet few if any remember.
"The poor poet looked about him. He was, in fact, in that Cour des Miracles where never honest man penetrated at such an hour—a magic circle wherein any officer of the Châtelet or sergeant of the Provostry intrepid enough to risk entering vanished in morsels—a city of thieves, a hideous sore on the face of Paris; a drain whence flowed forth each morning, to return at night, that stream of iniquity, of mendacity, and vagabondage which flows forever through the streets of a capital; a monstrous hive to which all the hornets that prey on the social order return at night, laden with their booty; a fraudulent hospital where the Bohemian, the unfrocked monk, the ruined scholar, the good-for-nothing of every nation—Spaniards, Italians, Germans—and of every creed—Jews, Turks, and infidels—beggars covered with painted sores during the day were transformed at night into robbers; in a word, a vast GREENROOM, serving at that period for all the actors in that eternal drama of robbery, prostitution, and murder enacted on the streets of Paris.
The green room is the part of a theatre where actors change costume, etc. Goddam WindowsXP won't let me write in red.
Sorry about that. I'll go back and write it in capital letters.
OP
