THE 15TH OF MAY 1848.
The revolutionary party had not dared to oppose the meeting of the
Assembly, but it refused to be dominated by it. On the contrary, it well
understood how to keep the Assembly in subjection, and to obtain from it
by constraint what it refused to grant from sympathy. Already the clubs
rang with threats and insults against the deputies. And as the French,
in their political passions, are as argumentative as they are insensible
to argument, these popular meeting-places were incessantly occupied in
manufacturing theories that formed the ground-work of subsequent acts of
violence. It was held that the people always remained superior to its
representatives, and never completely surrendered its will into their
hands: a true principle from which the false conclusion was drawn that
the Paris workmen were the French people. Since our first sitting, a
vague and widespread agitation had never ceased to reign in the town.
The mob met every day in the streets and squares; it spread aimlessly,
like the swell of the waves. The approaches to the Assembly were always
filled with a gathering of these redoubtable idlers. A demagogic party
has so many heads, chance always plays so great, and reason so small, a
part in its actions that it is almost impossible to say, either before
or after the event, what it wants or what it wanted. Nevertheless, my
opinion then was, and has since remained, that the leading demagogues
did not aim at destroying the Assembly, and that, as yet, they only
sought to make use of it by mastering it. The attack directed against it
on the 15th of May seemed intended rather to frighten than to overthrow
it; it was at least one of those equivocal enterprises which so
frequently occur in times of popular excitement, in which the promoters
themselves are careful not to trace or define precisely their plan or
their aim, so as to remain free to limit themselves to a peaceful
demonstration or force on a revolution, according to the incidents of
the day.
Some attempt of this kind had been expected for over a week; but the
habit of living in a continual state of alarm ends in rendering both
individuals and assemblies incapable of discerning, amid the signs
announcing the approach of danger, that which immediately precedes it.
We only knew that there was a question of a great popular demonstration
in favour of Poland, and we were but vaguely disturbed at it. Doubtless
the members of the Government were better informed and more alarmed than
we, but they kept their own counsel, and I was not sufficiently in touch
with them to penetrate into their secret thoughts.
Thus it happened that, on the 15th of May, I reached the Assembly
without foreseeing what was going to happen. The sitting began as any
other sitting might have begun; and what was very strange, twenty
thousand men already surrounded the chamber, without a single sound from
the outside having announced their presence. Wolowski was in the
tribune: he was mumbling between his teeth I know not what commonplaces
about Poland, when the mob at last betrayed its approach with a terrible
shout, which penetrated from every side through the upper windows, left
open because of the heat, and fell upon us as though from the sky. Never
had I imagined that a number of human voices could together produce so
immense a volume of sound, and the sight of the crowd itself, when it
surged into the Assembly, did not seem to me so formidable as that first
roar which it had uttered before showing itself. Many members, yielding
to a first impulse of curiosity or fear, sprang to their feet; others
shouted violently, "Keep your seats!" Everyone sat down again firmly on
his bench, and kept silence. Wolowski resumed his speech, and continued
it for some time. It must have been the first time in his life that he
was listened to in silence; and even now it was not he to whom we
listened, but the crowd outside, whose murmurs grew momentarily louder
and nearer.
Suddenly Degousee, one of our questors, solemnly mounted the steps of
the tribune, silently pushed Wolowski aside, and said, "Contrary to the
wishes of the questors, General Courtais has ordered the Gardes Mobiles
guarding the doors of the Assembly to sheathe their bayonets."
After uttering these few words he stopped. This Degousee, who was a very
good man, had the most hang-dog look and the hollowest voice imaginable.
The news, the man and the voice combined to create a curious impression.
The Assembly was roused, but immediately grew calm again; it was too
late to do anything: the chamber was forced.
Lamartine, who had gone out at the first noise, returned to the door
with a disconcerted air; he crossed the central gangway and regained his
seat with great strides, as though pursued by some enemy invisible to
us. Almost immediately, there appeared behind him a number of men of the
people, who stopped still on the threshold, surprised at the sight of
this immense seated assembly. At the same moment, as on the 24th of
February, the galleries were noisily opened and invaded by a flood of
people, who filled and more than filled them. Pressed forward by the mob
who followed and pushed them without seeing them, the first comers
climbed over the balustrades of the galleries, trusting to find room in
the Chamber itself, the floor of which was not more than ten feet
beneath them, hung down along the walls, and dropped the distance of
four or five feet into the Chamber. The fall of each of these bodies
striking the floor in succession produced a dull concussion which at
first, amid the tumult, I took for the distant sound of cannon. While
one part of the mob was thus falling into the house, the other, composed
principally of the club-leaders, entered by every door. They carried
various emblems of the Terror, and waved flags of which some were
surmounted by a red cap.
In an instant the mob had filled the large empty space in the centre of
the Assembly; and finding itself pressed for room, it climbed all the
little gangways leading to our benches, and crowded more and more into
these narrow spaces without ceasing its agitation. Amid this tumultuous
and incessant commotion, the dust became very thick and the heat so
oppressive that perhaps I would have gone out to breathe some fresh air,
had it been merely a question of the public interest. But honour kept us
glued to our seats.
Some of the intruders were openly armed, others showed glimpses of
concealed weapons, but none seemed to entertain a fixed intention of
striking us. Their expression was one of astonishment and ill-will
rather than enmity; with many of them a sort of vulgar curiosity in
course of gratifying itself seemed to dominate every other sentiment;
for even in our most sanguinary insurrections there are always a number
of people half scoundrels, half sight-seers, who fancy themselves at the
play. Moreover, there was no common leader whom they seemed to obey; it
was a mob of men, not a troop. I saw some drunken men among them, but
the majority seemed to be the prey of a feverish excitement imparted to
them by the enthusiasm and shouting without and the stifling heat, the
close packing and general discomfort within. They dripped with sweat,
although the nature and condition of their clothing was not calculated
to make the heat very uncomfortable for them, for several were quite
bare-breasted. There rose from this multitude a confused noise from the
midst of which one sometimes heard very threatening observations. I
caught sight of men who shook their fists at us and called us their
agents. This expression was often repeated; for several days the
ultra-democratic newspapers had done nothing but call the
representatives the agents of the people, and these blackguards had
taken kindly to the idea. A moment after, I had an opportunity of
observing with what vivacity and clearness the popular mind receives and
reflects images. I heard a man in a blouse, standing next to me, say to
his fellow, "See that vulture down there? I should like to twist its
neck." I followed the movement of his arm and his eyes and saw without
difficulty that he was speaking of Lacordaire, who was sitting in his
Dominican's frock on the top bench of the Left. The sentiment struck me
as very unhandsome, but the comparison was admirable; the priest's long,
bony neck issuing from its white cowl, his bald head surrounded only
with a tuft of black hair, his narrow face, his hooked nose and his
fixed, glittering eyes really gave him a striking resemblance to the
bird of prey in question.
During all this disorder in its midst, the Assembly sat passive and
motionless on its benches, neither resisting nor giving way, silent and
firm. A few members of the Mountain fraternized with the mob, but
stealthily and in whispers. Raspail had taken possession of the tribune
and was preparing to read the petition of the clubs; a young deputy,
d'Adelsward, rose and exclaimed, "By what right does Citizen Raspail
claim to speak here?" A furious howling arose; some men of the people
made a rush at d'Adelsward, but were stopped and held back. With great
difficulty, Raspail obtained a moment's silence from his friends, and
read the petition, or rather the orders, of the clubs, which enjoined us
to pronounce forthwith in favour of Poland.
"No delay, we're waiting for the answer!" was shouted on every side. The
Assembly continued to give no sign of life; the mob, in its disorder and
impatience, made a horrible noise, which by itself alone saved us from
making a reply. Buchez, the President, whom some would make out to be a
rascal and others a saint, but who undoubtedly, on that day, was a great
blockhead, rang his bell with all his might to obtain silence, as though
the silence of that multitude was not, under the present circumstances,
more to be dreaded than its cries.
It was then that I saw appear, in his turn, in the tribune a man whom I
have never seen since, but the recollection of whom has always filled me
with horror and disgust. He had wan, emaciated cheeks, white lips, a
sickly, wicked and repulsive expression, a dirty pallor, the appearance
of a mouldy corpse; he wore no visible linen; an old black frock-coat
tightly covered his lean, withered limbs; he seemed to have passed his
life in a sewer, and to have just left it. I was told it was Blanqui.[9]
[9: Auguste Blanqui, brother to Jerome Adolphe Blanqui the
economist.--A.T. de M.]
Blanqui said one word about Poland; then, turning sharply to domestic
affairs, he asked for revenge for what he called the massacres of Rouen,
recalled with threats the wretchedness in which the people had been
left, and complained of the wrongs done to the latter by the Assembly.
After thus exciting his hearers, he returned to Poland and, like
Raspail, demanded an immediate vote.
The Assembly continued to sit motionless, the people to move about and
utter a thousand contradictory exclamations, the President to ring his
bell. Ledru-Rollin tried to persuade the mob to withdraw, but nobody was
now able to exercise any influence over it. Ledru-Rollin, almost hooted,
left the tribune.
The tumult was renewed, increased, multiplied itself as it were, for the
mob was no longer sufficiently master of itself to be able even to
understand the necessity for a moment's self-restraint in order to
attain the object of its passion. A long interval passed; at last Barbes
darted up and climbed, or rather leapt, into the tribune. He was one of
those men in whom the demagogue, the madman and the knight-errant are so
closely intermingled that it is not possible to say where one ends or
the other commences, and who can only make their way in a society as
sick and troubled as ours. I am inclined to believe that it was the
madman that predominated in him, and his madness became raging when he
heard the voice of the people. His soul boiled as naturally amid popular
passion as water does on the fire. Since our invasion by the mob, I had
not taken my eyes from him; I considered him by far the most formidable
of our adversaries, because he was the most insane, the most
disinterested, and the most resolute of them all. I had seen him mount
the platform on which the President sat, and stand for a long time
motionless, only turning his agitated gaze about the Assembly; I had
observed and pointed out to my neighbours the distortion of his
features, his livid pallor, the convulsive excitement which caused him
each moment to twist his moustache between his fingers; he stood there
as the image of irresolution, leaning already towards an extreme side.
This time, Barbes had made up his mind; he proposed in some way to sum
up the passions of the people, and to make sure of victory by stating
its object in terms of precision:
"I demand," said he, in panting, jerking tones, "that, immediately and
before rising, the Assembly shall vote the departure of an army for
Poland, a tax of a milliard upon the rich, the removal of the troops
from Paris, and shall forbid the beating to arms; if not, the
representatives to be declared traitors to the country."
I believe we should have been lost if Barbes had succeeded in getting
his motion put to the vote; for if the Assembly had accepted it, it
would have been dishonoured and powerless, whereas, if it had rejected
it, which was probable, we should have run the risk of having our
throats cut. But Barbes himself did not succeed in obtaining a brief
space of silence so as to compel us to take a decision. The huge clamour
that followed his last words was not to be appeased; on the contrary, it
continued in a thousand varied intonations. Barbes exhausted himself in
his efforts to still it, but in vain, although he was powerfully aided
by the President's bell, which, during all this time, never ceased to
sound, like a knell.
This extraordinary sitting had lasted since two o'clock; the Assembly
held out, its ears pricked up to catch any sound from the outside,
waiting for assistance to come. But Paris seemed a dead city. Listen as
we might, we heard no rumour issue from it.
This passive resistance irritated and incensed the people; it was like a
cold, even surface upon which its fury glided without knowing what to
catch hold of; it struggled and writhed in vain, without finding any
issue to its undertaking. A thousand diverse and contradictory clamours
filled the air: "Let us go away," cried some.... "The organization of
labour.... A ministry of labour.... A tax on the rich.... We want Louis
Blanc!" cried others; they ended by fighting at the foot of the tribune
to decide who should mount it; five or six orators occupied it at once,
and often all spoke together. As always happens in insurrections, the
terrible was mingled with the ridiculous. The heat was so stifling that
many of the first intruders left the Chamber; they were forthwith
replaced by others who had been waiting at the doors to come in. In this
way I saw a fireman in uniform making his way down the gangway that
passed along my bench. "We can't make them vote!" they shouted to him.
"Wait, wait," he replied, "I'll see to it, I'll give them a piece of my
mind." Thereupon he pulled his helmet over his eyes with a determined
air, fastened the straps, squeezed through the crowd, pushing aside all
who stood in his way, and mounted the tribune. He imagined he would be
as much at his ease there as upon a roof, but he could not find his
words and stopped short. The people cried, "Speak up, fireman!" but he
did not speak a word, and they ended by turning him out of the tribune.
Just then a number of men of the people caught Louis Blanc in their arms
and carried him in triumph round the Chamber. They held him by his
little legs above their heads; I saw him make vain efforts to extricate
himself: he twisted and turned on every side without succeeding in
escaping from their hands, talking all the while in a choking, strident
voice. He reminded me of a snake having its tail pinched. They put him
down at last on a bench beneath mine. I heard him cry, "My friends, the
right you have just won...." but the remainder of his words were lost in
the din. I was told that Sobrier was carried in the same way a little
lower down.
A very tragic incident nearly put an end to these saturnalia: the
benches at the bottom of the house suddenly cracked, gave way more than
a foot, and threatened to hurl into the Chamber the crowd which
overloaded it, and which fled off in affright. This alarming occurrence
put a momentary stop to the commotion; and I then first heard, in the
distance, the sound of drums beating the call to arms in Paris. The mob
heard it too, and uttered a long yell of rage and terror. "Why are they
beating to arms?" exclaimed Barbes, beside himself, making his way to
the tribune afresh. "Who is beating to arms? Let those who have given
the order be outlawed!" Cries of "We are betrayed, to arms! To the Hotel
de Ville!" rose from the crowd.
The President was driven from his chair, whence, if we are to believe
the version he since gave, he caused himself to be driven voluntarily. A
club-leader called Huber climbed to his seat and hoisted a flag
surmounted by a red cap. The man had, it seemed, just recovered from a
long epileptic swoon, caused doubtless by the excitement and the heat;
it was on recovering from this sort of troubled sleep that he came
forward. His clothes were still in disorder, his look scared and
haggard. He exclaimed twice over in a resounding voice, which, uttered
from aloft, filled the house and dominated every other sound, "In the
name of the people, betrayed by its representatives, I declare the
National Assembly dissolved!"
The Assembly, deprived of its President, broke up. Barbes and the bolder
of the club politicians went out to go to the Hotel de Ville. This
conclusion to the affair was far from meeting the general wishes. I
heard men of the people beside me say to each other, in an aggrieved
tone, "No, no, that's not what we want." Many sincere Republicans were
in despair. I was first accosted, amid this tumult, by Tretat, a
revolutionary of the sentimental kind, a dreamer who had plotted in
favour of the Republic during the whole existence of the Monarchy.
Moreover, he was a physician of distinction, who was at that time at the
head of one of the principal mad-houses in Paris, although he was a
little cracked himself. He took my hands effusively, and with tears in
his eyes:
"Ah, monsieur," he said, "what a misfortune, and how strange it is to
think that it is madmen, real madmen, who have brought this about! I
have treated or prescribed for each one of them. Blanqui is a madman,
Barbes is a madman, Sobrier is a madman, Huber is the greatest madman of
them all: they are all madmen, monsieur, who ought to be locked up at my
Salpetriere instead of being here."
He would certainly have added his own name to the list, had he known
himself as well as he knew his old friends. I have always thought that
in revolutions, especially democratic revolutions, madmen, not those so
called by courtesy, but genuine madmen, have played a very considerable
political part. One thing at least is certain, and that is that a
condition of semi-madness is not unbecoming at such times, and often
even leads to success.
The Assembly had dispersed, but it will be readily believed that it did
not consider itself dissolved. Nor did it even regard itself as
defeated. The majority of the members who left the House did so with the
firm intention of soon meeting again elsewhere; they said so to one
another, and I am convinced that they were, in fact, quite resolved upon
it. As for myself, I decided to stay behind, kept back partly by the
feeling of curiosity that irresistibly retains me in places where
anything uncommon is proceeding, and partly by the opinion which I held
then, as I did on the 24th of February, that the strength of an assembly
in a measure resides in the hall it occupies. I therefore remained and
witnessed the grotesque and disorderly, but meaningless and
uninteresting, scenes that followed. The mob set itself, amid a
thousand disorders and a thousand cries, to form a Provisional
Government. It was a parody of the 24th of February, just as the 24th of
February was a parody of other revolutionary scenes. This had lasted
some time, when I thought that among all the noise I heard an irregular
sound coming from the outside of the Palace. I have a very quick ear,
and I was not slow in distinguishing the sound of a drum approaching and
beating the charge; for in our days of civil disorder, everyone has
learnt to know the language of these warlike instruments. I at once
hurried to the door by which these new arrivals would enter.
It was, in fact, a drum preceding some forty Gardes Mobiles. These lads
pierced through the crowd with a certain air of resolution, although one
could not clearly say at first what they proposed to do. Soon they
disappeared from sight and remained as though submerged; but a short
distance behind them marched a compact column of National Guards, who
rushed into the House with significant shouts of "Long live the National
Assembly!" I stuck my card of membership in my hat-band and entered with
them. They first cleared the platform of five or six orators, who were
at that moment speaking at once, and flung them, with none too great
ceremony, down the steps of the little staircase that leads to it. At
the sight of this, the insurgents at first made as though to resist; but
a panic seized them. Climbing over the empty benches, tumbling over one
another in the gangways, they made for the outer lobbies and sprang into
the court-yards from every window. In a few minutes there remained only
the National Guards, whose cries of "Long live the National Assembly"
shook the walls of the Chamber.
The Assembly itself was absent; but little by little the members who had
dispersed in the neighbourhood hastened up. They shook the hands of the
National Guards, embraced each other, and regained their seats. The
National Guards cried, "Long live the National Assembly!" and the
members, "Long live the National Guard! and long live the Republic!"
No sooner was the hall recaptured, than General Courtais, the original
author of our danger, had the incomparable impudence to present himself;
the National Guards received him with yells of fury; he was seized and
dragged to the foot of the rostrum. I saw him pass before my eyes, pale
as a dying man among the flashing swords: thinking they would cut his
throat, I cried with all my might, "Tear off his epaulettes, but don't
kill him!" which was done.
Then Lamartine reappeared. I never learnt how he had employed his time
during the three hours wherein we were invaded. I had caught sight of
him during the first hour: he was seated at that moment on a bench below
mine, and he was combing his hair, glued together with perspiration,
with a little comb he drew from his pocket; the crowd formed again and
I saw him no more. Apparently he went to the inner rooms of the Palace,
into which the mob had also penetrated, with the intention of haranguing
it, and was very badly received. I was given, on the next day, some
curious details of this scene, which I would have related here if I had
not resolved to set down only what I have myself observed. They say
that, subsequently, he withdrew to the palace then being built, close at
hand, and destined for the Foreign Office. He would certainly have done
better had he placed himself at the head of the National Guards and come
to our release. I think he must have been seized with the faintness of
heart that overcomes the bravest (and he was one of these) when
possessed of a restless and lively imagination.
When he returned to the Chamber, he had recovered his energy and his
eloquence. He told us that his place was not in the Assembly, but in the
streets, and that he was going to march upon the Hotel de Ville and
crush the insurrection. This was the last time I heard him
enthusiastically cheered. True, it was not he alone that they applauded,
but the victory: those cheers and clappings were but an echo of the
tumultuous passions that still agitated every breast. Lamartine went
out. The drums, which had beat the charge half-an-hour before, now beat
the march. The National Guards and the Gardes Mobiles, who were still
with us in crowds, formed themselves into order and followed him. The
Assembly, still very incomplete, resumed its sitting; it was six
o'clock.
I went home an instant to take some food; I then returned to the
Assembly, which had declared its sitting permanent. We soon learnt that
the members of the new Provisional Government had been arrested. Barbes
was impeached, as was that old fool of a Courtais, who deserved a sound
thrashing and no more. Many wished to include Louis Blanc, who, however,
had pluckily undertaken to defend himself; he had just escaped with
difficulty from the fury of the National Guards at the door, and still
wore his torn clothes, covered with dust and all disordered. This time
he did not send for the stool on which he used to climb in order to
bring his head above the level of the rostrum balustrade (for he was
almost a dwarf); he even forgot the effect he wished to produce, and
thought only of what he had to say. In spite of that, or rather because
of that, he won his case for the moment. I never considered him to
possess talent except on that one day; for I do not call talent the art
of polishing brilliant and hollow phrases, which are like finely chased
dishes containing nothing.
For the rest, I was so fatigued by the excitement of the day that I have
retained but a dull, indistinct remembrance of the night sitting. I
shall therefore say no more, for I wish only to record my personal
impressions: for facts in detail it is the _Moniteur_, not I, that
should be consulted.