On every story there was the same destitution, dirt, and promiscuity.

Many windows were paneless, and in swept the wind howling, and the rain pouring torrentially.

Many of the inmates slept on the bare tiled floors, never unclothing themselves.

There was neither furniture nor linen, the life led there was essentially an animal life, a commingling of either sex and of every age--humanity lapsing into animality through lack of even indispensable things, through indigence of so complete a character that men, women, and children fought even with tooth and nail for the very crumbs swept from the tables of the rich.

And the worst of it all was the degradation of the human being; this was no case of the free naked savage, hunting and devouring his prey in the primeval forests; here civilised man was found, sunk into brutishness, with all the stigmas of his fall, debased, disfigured, and enfeebled, amidst the luxury and refinement of that city of Paris which is one of the queens of the world.
In every household Pierre heard the same story.