Paris at the XXe century

Paris at the XXe century is a Romance of Jules Verne, written in 1863. The editor Hetzel at the time had refused this novel; it was published only more than one century after, in 1994 by Hachette.

This Romance describes an young man, Michel, prize winner of a price of Latin poetry, in the world of 1960 where science triumphed, whereas the Littérature, the Musique, the Peinture are scorned. One discovers in this work of Jeunesse a very pessimistic Jules Verne; in its others Romance S, it will reveal this aspect of its Personnalité only at the end of its life.

This Romance is enthralling with reading, one finds the usual Talent there Jules Verne, even if the opinions of Jules Verne on his contemporaries can shock.

A scatologic joke on the painter Billhook

(Chapter XIII): One even tells that some Courbet, to one of the last exposures, were exposed, vis-a-vis the wall, in the achievement of the one of the most hygienic acts, but least elegant of the life! It was to be made flee the birds of Zeuxis "

A dared joke: " Button-therefore your pants "

Jules Verne allows a dared joke: in chapter XIV, he speaks about a part entitled " Button-therefore your pants ". It is one of the passages which the editor critical Pierre-Jules Hetzel most sharply. Jules Verne will not allow any more this kind of joke.

Contempt for the musicians Wagner and Verdi

Chapter VIII, in connection with Richard Wagner " of its time, one removed already the melody, it considered it suitable to also put the harmony at the door "

" One is not introduced with impunity during a century of the Verdi or the Wagner into the ears without the auditive body not feeling any. "

In another of its novels, the Island with Propeller appeared in 1895, it is also shown very scorning towards the music of Wagner.

A feminist Jules Verne not very

Chapter XII is devoted to the women: for Jules Verne; in the future, there will not be any more but very little of true women.

" (...) mothers showing itself opposed to see their daughters too promptly pregnant, and young desperate husbands to have made such an awkwardness. Also, nowadays, the number of the legitimate children it singularly fell with the profit of the natural children. "

In chapter X, Jules Verne is eulogistic for a woman writer, George Sand, but its goal was perhaps only to flatter Hetzel by saying good of one of the writers whom the editor admired.

Quotations of the text

" Involved here me is on the open sea; where one would need the aptitudes of a fish, I bring the instincts of a bird; I like to live in space, in the ideal areas where one does not go any more, with the country of the dreams, from where one hardly returns! " (page 50)

" The important thing, indeed, is not to nourish themselves, but well to gain what nourrir"

" It was awfully commun" (page 64)

" For better pointing out my words to you, have care of never the oublier" (page 69)

" Everyone grows rich, except the humain" spirit; (page 178)

" to prophesy on the basis of this principle, that if prophecy is not carried out, the prophet will be forgotten, and that, if it is realized, he will pride himself well high on his perspicacité" (page 205)

references of the pages given according to the edition France Leisures - May 1995

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