Pass pay

“ Passez pay ” is the currency and the cry of the root-cleaners Paris iens which, during the years which follow the Révolution, each time it rains, pose a board through the roadway for the passers by which wish to cross without being inserted in mud and want to pour a right-of-way n the other hand well to them.

At the end of, there exist two kinds of root-cleaners: those which are charged to remove mud when it rained, and those which, sedentary or travelling, clean or wax the shoes of the passers by. The shortly after the Revolution and wars which followed it, the capital shelters a crowd of the poor and uprooted in the search of means of remaining. Thus towards the Years 1800, some of them imagine, using a simple board provided with the one with its ends with two wheels, a new service to offer to the members easy classes.

The paved streets are still rare at the time. Here how Parisian describes the consequences of the rain in 1781:

“It is amusing to see Parisian crossing or jumping a muddy brook with a wig with three hammers, bottoms white and a braided dress, running in unpleasant streets on the point of the foot, to receive the river of the gutters on a parasol of taffeta. What a gambades does not do that which undertook to go from the suburb Saint-Jacob to dine with the suburb Saint-Honore, while being denied of droppings and the roofs which drip! Mud heaps, a slipping paving stone, of the fatty axles, that shelves to be avoided! It approaches nevertheless; with each corner of street, it called a root-cleaner; it is free for some flies with its bottoms. By which miracle has it crossed without other encumbers the city of the dirtiest world? How to go in mud by preserving its escarpins? Oh! it is a secrecy particular to Parisian and I do not advise with others to want to imitate them. ”

Confronted with the same problem, the Parisian one of the news Bourgeoisie has additional resources:

“It is as swift as in a hurry. He is played of the embarrassments in the street, which are large: the streets are often transformed into ponds; some are cut into two by a brook, which inflates with the first storm and which one passes on trembling boards, offered by a root-cleaner; or, as in the engraving of Garnier, the passage of the brook per stormy weather , on the back of Savoyard; all are muddy with the least rain; but nothing stops it. ”

“The Downpour”

This table of Louis Léopold Boilly, subtitle Passez Pay , watch the passage on a board of a whole family: the father, the mother, three children, the servant, the nurse and two puppies. On the left of the table, the root-cleaner tightens the hand to receive the part which the servant slips to him. One distinguishes one from the wheels of the board to his feet. One sees on the line an old woman who chose another means of also preserving mud while rising on the back of Savoyard, to which it will give, it, a remuneration for her sorrow. In the center, with the background, a man in Phrygian cap is satisfied with simple a Parapluie. It is noticed that the umbrellas, many and coloured, are provided with metal whales, whose invention is very recent. Another recent innovation is that of the port of the pants, whose mother reveals an end under her skirts.

Maora Puren adds this to the analysis of the table: “This last, painted the year when Napoleon car-sacring emperor, made contrast with the revolutionary ideal very quickly put under the bushel; social cleavages are stronger than ever: on the one hand the middle-class family order, on the other hand, the social hierarchy. The perenniality of the traditional order continues in the treatment of the middle-class family. The women walk behind the men to which they do nothing but give children. In addition - it was said - the social barriers are reinforced. Symbolically, there are those which are always under the downpour (some succeed in passing through the drops) and those which succeed in not “being wet”. ”

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