THE DAYS OF JUNE.
I come at last to the insurrection of June, the most extensive and the
most singular that has occurred in our history, and perhaps in any
other: the most extensive, because, during four days, more than a
hundred thousand men were engaged in it; the most singular, because the
insurgents fought without a war-cry, without leaders, without flags, and
yet with a marvellous harmony and an amount of military experience that
astonished the oldest officers.
What distinguished it also, among all the events of this kind which have
succeeded one another in France for sixty years, is that it did not aim
at changing the form of government, but at altering the order of
society. It was not, strictly speaking, a political struggle, in the
sense which until then we had given to the word, but a combat of class
against class, a sort of Servile War. It represented the facts of the
Revolution of February in the same manner as the theories of Socialism
represented its ideas; or rather it issued naturally from these ideas,
as a son does from his mother. We behold in it nothing more than a blind
and rude, but powerful, effort on the part of the workmen to escape from
the necessities of their condition, which had been depicted to them as
one of unlawful oppression, and to open up by main force a road towards
that imaginary comfort with which they had been deluded. It was this
mixture of greed and false theory which first gave birth to the
insurrection and then made it so formidable. These poor people had been
told that the wealth of the rich was in some way the produce of a theft
practised upon themselves. They had been assured that the inequality of
fortunes was as opposed to morality and the welfare of society as it was
to nature. Prompted by their needs and their passions, many had believed
this obscure and erroneous notion of right, which, mingled with brute
force, imparted to the latter an energy, a tenacity and a power which it
would never have possessed unaided.
It must also be observed that this formidable insurrection was not the
enterprise of a certain number of conspirators, but the revolt of one
whole section of the population against another. Women took part in it
as well as men. While the latter fought, the former prepared and carried
ammunition; and when at last the time had come to surrender, the women
were the last to yield. These women went to battle with, as it were, a
housewifely ardour: they looked to victory for the comfort of their
husbands and the education of their children. They took pleasure in this
war as they might have taken pleasure in a lottery.
As to the strategic science displayed by this multitude, the warlike
nature of the French, their long experience of insurrections, and
particularly the military education which the majority of the men of the
people in turn receive, suffice to explain it. Half of the Paris workmen
have served in our armies, and they are always glad to take up arms
again. Generally speaking, old soldiers abound in our riots. On the 24th
of February, when Lamoriciere was surrounded by his foes, he twice owed
his life to insurgents who had fought under him in Africa, men in whom
the recollection of their military life had been stronger than the fury
of civil war.
As we know, it was the closing of the national workshops that occasioned
the rising. Dreading to disband this formidable soldiery at one stroke,
the Government had tried to disperse it by sending part of the workmen
into the country. They refused to leave. On the 22nd of June, they
marched through Paris in troops, singing in cadence, in a monotonous
chant, "We won't be sent away, we won't be sent away...." Their
delegates waited upon the members of the Committee of the Executive
Power with a series of arrogant demands, and on meeting with a refusal,
withdrew with the announcement that next day they would have recourse to
arms. Everything, indeed, tended to show that the long-expected crisis
had come.
When this news reached the Assembly it caused the greatest alarm.
Nevertheless, the Assembly did not interrupt its order of the day; it
continued the discussion of a commercial act, and even listened to it,
despite its excited condition; true, it was a very important question
and a very eminent orator was speaking. The Government had proposed to
acquire all the railways by purchase. Montalembert opposed it; his case
was good, but his speech was excellent; I do not think I ever heard him
speak so well before or since. As a matter of fact, I thought as he did,
this time; but I believe that, even in the eyes of his adversaries, he
surpassed himself. He made a vigorous attack without being as peevish
and outrageous as usual. A certain fear tempered his natural insolence,
and set a limit to his paradoxical and querulous humour; for, like so
many other men of words, he had more temerity of language than stoutness
of heart.
The sitting concluded without any question as to what was occurring
outside, and the Assembly adjourned.
On the 23rd, on going to the Assembly, I saw a large number of omnibuses
grouped round the Madeleine. This told me that they were beginning to
erect barricades in the streets; which was confirmed on my arrival at
the Palace. Nevertheless, a doubt was expressed whether it was seriously
contemplated to resort to arms. I resolved to go and assure myself of
the real state of things, and, with Corcelles, repaired to the
neighbourhood of the Hotel de Ville. In all the little streets
surrounding that building, I found the people engaged in making
barricades; they proceeded in their work with the cunning and regularity
of an engineer, not unpaving more stones than were necessary to lay the
foundations of a very thick, solid and even neatly-built wall, in which
they generally left a small opening by the side of the houses to permit
of ingress and egress. Eager for quicker information as to the state of
the town, Corcelles and I agreed to separate. He went one way and I the
other; and his excursion very nearly turned out badly. He told me
afterwards that, after crossing several half-built barricades without
impediment, he was stopped at the last one. The men of the lower orders
who were building it, seeing a fine gentleman, in black clothes and very
white linen, quietly trotting through the dirty streets round the Hotel
de Ville and stopping before them with a placid and inquisitive air,
thought they would make use of this suspicious onlooker. They called
upon him, in the name of the brotherhood, to assist them in their work.
Corcelles was as brave as Caesar, but he rightly judged that, under these
circumstances, there was nothing better to be done than to give way
quietly. See him therefore lifting paving-stones and placing them as
neatly as possible one atop the other. His natural awkwardness and his
absent-mindedness fortunately came to his aid; and he was soon sent
about his business as a useless workman.
To me no such adventure happened. I passed through the streets of the
Saint-Martin and Saint-Denis quarters without coming across any
barricades to speak of; but the excitement was extraordinary. On my
return I met, in the Rue des Jeuneurs, a National Guard covered with
blood and fragments of brain. He was very pale and was going home. I
asked him what was happening; he told me that his battalion had just
received the full force of a very murderous discharge of musketry at the
Porte Saint-Denis. One of his comrades, whose name he mentioned to me,
had been killed by his side, and he was covered with the blood and
brains of this unhappy man.
I returned to the Assembly, astonished at not having met a single
soldier in the whole distance which I had traversed. It was not till I
came in front of the Palais-Bourbon that I at last perceived great
columns of infantry, marching, followed by cannon.
Lamoriciere, in full uniform and on horseback, was at their head. I have
never seen a figure more resplendent with aggressive passion and almost
with joy; and whatever may have been the natural impetuosity of his
humour, I doubt whether it was that alone which urged him at that
moment, and whether there was not mingled with it an eagerness to avenge
himself for the dangers and outrages he had undergone.
"What are you doing?" I asked him. "They have already been fighting at
the Porte Saint-Denis, and barricades are being built all round the
Hotel de Ville."
"Patience," he replied, "we are going there. Do you think we are such
fools as to scatter our soldiers on such a day as this over the small
streets of the suburbs? No, no! we shall let the insurgents concentrate
in the quarters which we can't keep them out of, and then we will go and
destroy them. They sha'n't escape us this time."
As I reached the Assembly, a terrible storm broke, which flooded the
town. I entertained a slight hope that this bad weather would get us out
of our difficulties for the day, and it would, indeed, have been enough
to put a stop to an ordinary riot; for the people of Paris need fine
weather to fight in, and are more afraid of rain than of grape-shot. But
I soon lost this hope: each moment the news became more distressing. The
Assembly found difficulty in resuming its ordinary work. Agitated,
though not overcome, by the excitement outside, it suspended the order
of the day, returned to it, and finally suspended it for good, giving
itself over to the preoccupations of the civil war. Different members
came and described from the rostrum what they had seen in Paris. Others
suggested various courses of action. Falloux, in the name of the
Committee of Public Assistance, proposed a decree dissolving the
national workshops, and received applause. Time was wasted with empty
conversations, empty speeches. Nothing was known for certain; they kept
on calling for the attendance of the Executive Commission, to inform
them of the state of Paris, but the latter did not appear. There is
nothing more pitiful than the spectacle of an assembly in a moment of
crisis, when the Government itself fails it; it resembles a man still
full of will and passion, but impotent, and tossing childishly amid the
helplessness of his limbs. At last appeared two members of the Executive
Commission; they announced that affairs were in a perilous condition,
but that, nevertheless, it was hoped to crush the insurrection before
night. The Assembly declared its sitting permanent, and adjourned till
the evening.
When the sitting was resumed, we learnt that Lamartine had been received
with shots at all the barricades he attempted to approach. Two of our
colleagues, Bixio and Dornes, had been mortally wounded when trying to
address the insurgents. Bedeau had been shot through the thigh at the
entrance to the Faubourg Saint-Jacques, and a number of officers of
distinction were already killed or dangerously wounded. One of our
members, Victor Considerant, spoke of making concessions to the workmen.
The Assembly, which was tumultuous and disturbed, but not weak, revolted
at these words: "Order, order!" they cried on every side, with a sort of
rage, "it will be time to talk of that after the victory!" The rest of
the evening and a portion of the night were spent in vaguely talking,
listening, and waiting. About midnight, Cavaignac appeared. The
Executive Commission had since that afternoon placed the whole military
power in his hands. In a hoarse and jerky voice, and in simple and
precise words, Cavaignac detailed the principal incidents of the day. He
stated that he had given orders to all the regiments posted along the
railways to converge upon Paris, and that all the National Guards of the
outskirts had been called out; he concluded by telling us that the
insurgents had been beaten back to the barriers, and that he hoped soon
to have mastered the city. The Assembly, exhausted with fatigue, left
its officials sitting in permanence, and adjourned until eight o'clock
the next morning.
When, on quitting this turbulent scene, I found myself at one in the
morning on the Pont Royal, and from there beheld Paris wrapped in
darkness, and calm as a city asleep, it was with difficulty that I
persuaded myself that all that I had seen and heard since the morning
had existed in reality and was not a pure creation of my brain. The
streets and squares which I crossed were absolutely deserted; not a
sound, not a cry; one would have said that an industrious population,
fatigued with its day's work, was resting before resuming the peaceful
labours of the morrow. The serenity of the night ended by over-mastering
me; I brought myself to believe that we had triumphed already, and on
reaching home I went straight to sleep.
I woke very early in the morning. The sun had risen some time before,
for we were in the midst of the longest days of the year. On opening my
eyes, I heard a sharp, metallic sound, which shook the window-panes and
immediately died out amid the silence of Paris.
"What is that?" I asked.
My wife replied, "It is the cannon; I have heard it for over an hour,
but would not wake you, for I knew you would want your strength during
the day."
I dressed hurriedly and went out. The drums were beating to arms on
every side: the day of the great battle had come at last. The National
Guards left their homes under arms; all those I met seemed full of
energy, for the sound of cannon, which brought the brave ones out, kept
the others at home. But they were in bad humour: they thought themselves
either badly commanded or betrayed by the Executive Power, against which
they uttered terrible imprecations. This extreme distrust of its leaders
on the part of the armed force seemed to me an alarming symptom.
Continuing on my way, at the entrance to the Rue Saint-Honore, I met a
crowd of workmen anxiously listening to the cannon. These men were all
in blouses, which, as we know, constitute their fighting as well as
their working clothes; nevertheless, they had no arms, but one could see
by their looks that they were quite ready to take them up. They
remarked, with a hardly restrained joy, that the sound of the firing
seemed to come nearer, which showed that the insurrection was gaining
ground. I had augured before this that the whole of the working class
was engaged, either in fact or in spirit, in the struggle; and this
confirmed my suspicions. The spirit of insurrection circulated from one
end to the other of this immense class, and in each of its parts, as the
blood does in the body; it filled the quarters where there was no
fighting, as well as those which served as the scene of battle; it had
penetrated into our houses, around, above, below us. The very places in
which we thought ourselves the masters swarmed with domestic enemies;
one might say that an atmosphere of civil war enveloped the whole of
Paris, amid which, to whatever part we withdrew, we had to live; and in
this connection I shall violate the law I had imposed upon myself never
to speak upon the word of another, and will relate a fact which I learnt
a few days later from my colleague Blanqui.[11] Although very trivial, I
consider it very characteristic of the physiognomy of the time. Blanqui
had brought up from the country and taken into his house, as a servant,
the son of a poor man, whose wretchedness had touched him. On the
evening of the day on which the insurrection began, he heard this lad
say, as he was clearing the table after dinner, "Next Sunday [it was
Thursday then] _we_ shall be eating the wings of the chicken;" to which
a little girl who worked in the house replied, "And _we_ shall be
wearing fine silk dresses." Could anything give a better idea of the
general state of minds than this childish scene? And to complete it,
Blanqui was very careful not to seem to hear these little monkeys: they
really frightened him. It was not until after the victory that he
ventured to send back the ambitious pair to their hovels.
[11: Of the Institute, a brother of Blanqui of the 15th of May.]
At last I reached the Assembly. The representatives were gathered in
crowds, although the time appointed for the sitting was not yet come.
The sound of the cannon had attracted them. The Palace had the
appearance of a fortified town: battalions were encamped around, and
guns were levelled at all the approaches leading to it.
I found the Assembly very determined, but very ill at ease; and it must
be confessed there was enough to make it so. It was easy to perceive
through the multitude of contradictory reports that we had to do with
the most universal, the best armed, and the most furious insurrection
ever known in Paris. The national workshops and various revolutionary
bands that had just been disbanded supplied it with trained and
disciplined soldiers and with leaders. It was extending every moment,
and it was difficult to believe that it would not end by being
victorious, when one remembered that all the great insurrections of the
last sixty years had triumphed. To all these enemies we were only able
to oppose the battalions of the _bourgeoisie_, regiments which had been
disarmed in February, and twenty thousand undisciplined lads of the
Garde Mobile, who were all sons, brothers, or near relations of
insurgents, and whose dispositions were doubtful.
But what alarmed us most was our leaders. The members of the Executive
Commission filled us with profound distrust. On this subject I
encountered, in the Assembly, the same feelings which I had observed
among the National Guard. We doubted the good faith of some and the
capacity of others. They were too numerous, besides, and too much
divided to be able to act in complete harmony, and they were too much
men of speech and the pen to be able to act to good purpose under such
circumstances, even if they had agreed among themselves.
Nevertheless, we succeeded in triumphing over this so formidable
insurrection; nay more, it was just that which rendered it so terrible
which saved us. One might well apply in this case the famous phrase of
the Prince de Conde, during the wars of religion: "We should have been
destroyed, had we not been so near destruction." Had the revolt borne a
less radical character and a less ferocious aspect, it is probable that
the greater part of the middle class would have stayed at home; France
would not have come to our aid; the National Assembly itself would
perhaps have yielded, or at least a minority of its members would have
advised it; and the energy of the whole body would have been greatly
unnerved. But the insurrection was of such a nature that any commerce
with it became at once impossible, and from the first it left us no
alternative but to defeat it or to be destroyed ourselves.
The same reason prevented any man of consideration from placing himself
at its head. In general, insurrections--I mean even those which
succeed--begin without a leader; but they always end by securing one.
This insurrection finished without having found one; it embraced every
class of the populace, but never passed those limits. Even the
Montagnards in the Assembly did not dare pronounce in its favour.
Several pronounced against it. They did not even yet despair of
attaining their ends by other means; they feared, moreover, that the
triumph of the workmen would soon prove fatal to them. The greedy, blind
and vulgar passions which induced the populace to take up arms alarmed
them; for these passions are as dangerous to those who sympathize with
them, without utterly abandoning themselves to them, as to those who
reprove and combat them. The only men who could have placed themselves
at the head of the insurgents had allowed themselves to be prematurely
taken, like fools, on the 15th of May; and they only heard the sound of
the conflict through the walls of the dungeon of Vincennes.
Preoccupied though I was with public affairs, I continued to be
distressed with the uneasiness which my young nephews once more caused
me. They had been sent back to the Little Seminary, and I feared
that the insurrection must come pretty near, if it had not already
reached, the place where they lived. As their parents were not in
Paris, I decided to go and fetch them, and I accordingly again traversed
the long distance separating the Palais-Bourbon from the Rue
Notre-Dame-des-Champs. I came across a few barricades erected during the
night by the forlorn hope of the insurrection; but these had been either
abandoned or captured at daybreak.
All these quarters resounded with a devilish music, a mixture of drums
and trumpets, whose rough, discordant, savage notes were new to me. In
fact, I heard for the first time--and I have never heard it since--the
rally, which it had been decided should never be beaten except in
extreme cases and to call the whole population at once to arms.
Everywhere National Guards were issuing from the houses; everywhere
stood groups of workmen in blouses, listening with a sinister air to the
rally and the cannon. The fighting had not yet reached so far as the Rue
Notre-Dame-des-Champs, although it was very near it. I took my nephews
with me, and returned to the Chamber.
As I approached, and when I was already in the midst of the troops which
guarded it, an old woman, pushing a barrow full of vegetables,
obstinately barred my progress. I ended by telling her pretty curtly to
make way. Instead of doing so, she left her barrow and flew at me in
such a frenzy that I had great difficulty in protecting myself. I was
horrified at the hideous and frightful expression of her face, on which
were depicted all the fury of demagogic passion and the rage of civil
war. I mention this little fact because I beheld in it, and with good
cause, an important symptom. In violently critical times, even actions
which have nothing to do with politics assume a singular character of
anger and disorder, which does not escape the attentive eye, and which
is an unfailing index of the general state of mind. These great public
excitements form a sort of glowing atmosphere in which all private
passions seethe and bubble.
I found the Assembly agitated by a thousand sinister reports. The
insurrection was gaining ground in every direction. Its head-quarters,
or, so to speak, its trunk, was behind the Hotel de Ville, whence it
stretched its long arms further and further to right and left into the
suburbs, and threatened soon to hug even us. The cannon was drawing
appreciably nearer. And to this correct news were added a thousand lying
rumours. Some said that our troops were running short of ammunition;
others, that a number of them had laid down their arms or gone over to
the insurgents.
M. Thiers asked Barrot, Dufaure, Remusat, Lanjuinais and myself to
follow him to a private room. There he said:
"I know something of insurrections, and I tell you this is the worst I
have ever seen. The insurgents may be here within an hour, and we shall
be butchered one and all. Do you not think that it would be well for us
to agree to propose to the Assembly, so soon as we think necessary and
before it becomes too late, that it should call back the troops around
it, in order that, placed in their midst, we may all leave Paris
together and remove the seat of the Republic to a place where we could
summon the army and all the National Guards in France to our
assistance?"
He said this in very eager tones and with a greater display of
excitement than is, perhaps, advisable in the presence of great danger.
I saw that he was pursued by the ghost of February. Dufaure, who had a
less vivid imagination, and who, moreover, never readily made up his
mind to associate himself with people he did not care about, even to
save himself, phlegmatically and somewhat sarcastically explained that
the time had not yet come to discuss a plan of this kind; that we could
always talk of it later on; that our chances did not seem to him so
desperate as to oblige us to entertain so extreme a remedy; that to
entertain it was to weaken ourselves. He was undoubtedly right, and his
words broke up the consultation. I at once wrote a few lines to my wife,
telling her that the danger was hourly increasing, that Paris would
perhaps end by falling entirely into the power of the revolt, and that,
in that case, we should be obliged to leave it in order to carry on the
civil war elsewhere. I charged her to go at once to Saint-Germain by
the railroad, which was still free, and there to await my news; told my
nephews to take the letter; and returned to the Assembly. I found them
discussing a decree to proclaim Paris in a state of siege, to abolish
the powers of the Executive Commission, and to replace it by a military
dictatorship under General Cavaignac.
The Assembly knew precisely that this was what it wanted. The thing was
easily done: it was urgent, and yet it was not done. Each moment some
little incident, some trivial motion interrupted and turned aside the
current of the general wish; for assemblies are very liable to that sort
of nightmare in which an unknown and invisible force seems always at the
last moment to interpose between the will and the deed and to prevent
the one from influencing the other. Who would have thought that it was
Bastide who should eventually induce the Assembly to make up its mind?
Yet he it was.
I had heard him say--and it was very true--speaking of himself, that he
was never able to remember more than the first fifteen words of a
speech. But I have sometimes observed that men who do not know how to
speak produce a greater impression, under certain circumstances, than
the finest orators. They bring forward but a single idea, that of the
moment, clothed in a single phrase, and somehow they lay it down in the
rostrum like an inscription written in big letters, which everybody
perceives, and in which each instantly recognizes his own particular
thought. Bastide, then, displayed his long, honest, melancholy face in
the tribune, and said, with a mournful air:
"Citizens, in the name of the country, I beseech you to vote as quickly
as possible. We are told that perhaps within an hour the Hotel de Ville
will be taken."
These few words put an end to debate, and the decree was voted in the
twinkling of an eye.
I protested against the clause proclaiming Paris in a state of siege; I
did so by instinct rather than reflection. I have such a contempt and so
great a natural horror for military despotism that these feelings came
rising tumultuously in my breast when I heard a state of siege
suggested, and even dominated those prompted by our peril. In this I
made a mistake in which I fortunately found few to imitate me.
The friends of the Executive Commission have asserted in very bitter
terms that their adversaries and the partisans of General Cavaignac
spread ominous rumours on purpose to precipitate the vote. If the latter
did really resort to this trick, I gladly pardon them, for the measures
they caused to be taken were indispensable to the safety of the country.
Before adopting the decree of which I have spoken, the Assembly
unanimously voted another, which declared that the families of those who
should fall in the struggle should receive a pension from the Treasury
and their children be adopted by the Republic.
It was decided that sixty members of the Chamber, appointed by the
committees, should spread themselves over Paris, inform the National
Guards of the different decrees issued by the Assembly, and re-establish
their confidence, which was said to be uncertain and discouraged. In the
committee to which I belonged, instead of immediately appointing
commissioners, they began an endless discussion on the uselessness and
danger of the resolution adopted. In this manner a great deal of time
was lost. I ended by stopping this ludicrous chatter with a word.
"Gentlemen," I said, "the Assembly may have been mistaken; but permit me
to observe that, having passed a two-fold resolution, it would be a
disgrace for it to draw back, and a disgrace for us not to submit."
They voted on the spot; and I was unanimously elected a commissioner, as
I expected. My colleagues were Cormenin and Cremieux, to whom they added
Goudchaux. The latter was then not so well known, although in his own
way he was the most original of them all. He was at once a Radical and a
banker, a rare combination; and by dint of his business occupations, he
had succeeded by covering with a few reasonable ideas the foundation of
his mind, which was filled with mad theories that always ended by making
their way to the top. It was impossible to be vainer, more irascible,
more quarrelsome, petulant or excitable than he. He was unable to
discuss the difficulties of the Budget without shedding tears; and yet
he was one of the valiantest little men it was possible to meet.
Thanks to the stormy discussion in our committee, the other deputations
had already left, and with them the guides and the escort who were to
have accompanied us. Nevertheless, we set out, after putting on our
scarves, and turned our steps alone and a little at hazard towards the
interior of Paris, along the right bank of the Seine. By that time the
insurrection had made such progress that one could see the cannon drawn
up in line and firing between the Pont des Arts and the Pont Neuf. The
National Guards, who saw us from the top of the embankment, looked at us
with anxiety; they respectfully took off their hats, and said in an
undertone, and with grief-stricken accents, "Long live the National
Assembly!" No noisy cheers uttered at the sight of a king ever came more
visibly from the heart, or pointed to a more unfeigned sympathy. When we
had passed through the gates and were on the Carrousel, I saw that
Cormenin and Cremieux were imperceptibly making for the Tuileries, and I
heard one of them, I forget which, say:
"Where can we go? And what can we do of any use without guides? Is it
not best to content ourselves with going through the Tuileries gardens?
There are several battalions of the reserve stationed there; we will
inform them of the decrees of the Assembly."
"Certainly," replied the other; "I even think we shall be executing the
Assembly's instructions better than our colleagues; for what can one say
to people already engaged in action? It is the reserves that we should
prepare to fall into line in their turn."
I have always thought it rather interesting to follow the involuntary
movements of fear in clever people. Fools coarsely display their
cowardice in all its nakedness; but the others are able to cover it with
a veil so delicate, so daintily woven with small, plausible lies, that
there is some pleasure to be found in contemplating this ingenious work
of the brain.
As may be supposed, I was in no humour for a stroll in the Tuileries
gardens. I had set out in none too good a temper; but it was no good
crying over spilt milk. I therefore pointed out to Goudchaux the road
our colleagues had taken.
"I know," he said, angrily; "I shall leave them and I will make public
the decrees of the Assembly without them."
Together we made for the gate opposite. Cormenin and Cremieux soon
rejoined us, a little ashamed of their attempt. Thus we reached the Rue
Saint-Honore, the appearance of which was perhaps what struck me most
during the days of June. This noisy, populous street was at this moment
more deserted than I had ever seen it at four o'clock on a winter
morning. As far as the eye could reach, we perceived not a living soul;
the shops, doors and windows were hermetically closed. Nothing was
visible, nothing stirred; we heard no sound of a wheel, no clatter of a
horse, no human footstep, but only the voice of the cannon, which seemed
to resound through an abandoned city. Yet the houses were not empty; for
as we walked on, we could catch glimpses at the windows of women and
children who, with their faces glued to the panes, watched us go by with
an affrighted air.
At last, near the Palais-Royal, we met some large bodies of National
Guards, and our mission commenced. When Cremieux saw that it was only a
question of talking, he became all ardour; he told them of what had
happened at the National Assembly, and held forth to them in a little
_bravura_ speech which was heartily applauded. We found an escort there,
and passed on. We wandered a long time through the little streets of
that district, until we came in front of the great barricade of the Rue
Rambuteau, which was not yet taken and which stopped our further
progress. From there we came back again through all those little
streets, which were covered with blood from the recent combats: they
were still fighting from time to time. For it was a war of ambuscades,
whose scene was not fixed but every moment changed. When one least
expected it, one was shot at through a garret window; and on breaking
into the house, one found the gun but not the marksman: the latter
escaped by a back-door while the front-door was being battered in. For
this reason the National Guards had orders to have all the shutters
opened, and to fire on all those who showed themselves at the windows;
and they obeyed these orders so literally that they narrowly escaped
killing several merely inquisitive people whom the sight of our scarves
tempted to put their noses outside.
During this walk of two or three hours, we had to make at least thirty
speeches; I refer to Cremieux and myself, for Goudchaux was only able to
speak on finance, and as to Cormenin, he was always as dumb as a fish.
To tell the truth, almost all the burden of the day fell upon Cremieux.
He filled me, I will not say with admiration, but with surprise. Janvier
has said of Cremieux that he was "an eloquent louse." If only he could
have seen him that day, jaded, with uncovered breast, dripping with
perspiration and dirty with dust, wrapped in a long scarf twisted
several times in every direction round his little body, but constantly
hitting upon new ideas, or rather new words and phrases, now expressing
in gestures what he had just expressed in words, then in words what he
had just expressed in gestures: always eloquent, always ardent! I do not
believe that anyone has ever seen, and I doubt whether anyone has ever
imagined, a man who was uglier or more fluent.
I observed that when the National Guards were told that Paris was in a
state of siege, they were pleased, and when one added that the Executive
Commission was overthrown, they cheered. Never were people so delighted
to be relieved of their liberty and their government. And yet this was
what Lamartine's popularity had come to in less than two months.
When we had done speaking, the men surrounded us; they asked us if we
were quite sure that the Executive Commission had ceased to act; we had
to show them the decree to satisfy them.
Particularly remarkable was the firm attitude of these men. We had come
to encourage them, and it was rather they who encouraged us. "Hold on at
the National Assembly," they cried, "and we'll hold on here. Courage! no
transactions with the insurgents! We'll put an end to the revolt: all
will end well." I had never seen the National Guard so resolute before,
nor do I think that we could rely upon finding it so again; for its
courage was prompted by necessity and despair, and proceeded from
circumstances which are not likely to recur.
Paris on that day reminded me of a city of antiquity whose citizens
defended the walls like heroes, because they knew that if the city were
taken they themselves would be dragged into slavery. As we turned our
steps back towards the Assembly, Goudchaux left us. "Now that we have
done our errand," said he, clenching his teeth, and in an accent half
Gascon and half Alsatian, "I want to go and fight a bit." He said this
with such a martial air, so little in harmony with his pacific
appearance, that I could not help smiling.
He did, in fact, go and fight, as I heard the next day, and so well that
he might have had his little paunch pierced in two or three places, had
fate so willed it. I returned from my round convinced that we should
come out victorious; and what I saw on nearing the Assembly confirmed my
opinion.
Thousands of men were hastening to our aid from every part of France,
and entering the city by all the roads not commanded by the insurgents.
Thanks to the railroads, some had already come from fifty leagues'
distance, although the fighting had only begun the night before. On the
next and the subsequent days, they came from distances of a hundred and
two hundred leagues. These men belonged indiscriminately to every class
of society; among them were many peasants, many shopkeepers, many
landlords and nobles, all mingled together in the same ranks. They were
armed in an irregular and insufficient manner, but they rushed into
Paris with unequalled ardour: a spectacle as strange and unprecedented
in our revolutionary annals as that offered by the insurrection itself.
It was evident from that moment that we should end by gaining the day,
for the insurgents received no reinforcements, whereas we had all France
for reserves.
On the Place Louis XV., I met, surrounded by the armed inhabitants of
his canton, my kinsman Lepelletier d'Aunay, who was Vice-President of
the Chamber of Deputies during the last days of the Monarchy. He wore
neither uniform nor musket, but only a little silver-hilted sword which
he had slung at his side over his coat by a narrow white linen
bandolier. I was touched to tears on seeing this venerable white-haired
man thus accoutred.
"Won't you come and dine with us this evening?"
"No, no," he replied; "what would these good folk who are with me, and
who know that I have more to lose than they by the victory of the
insurrection--what would they say if they saw me leaving them to take it
easy? No, I will share their repast and sleep here at their bivouac. The
only thing I would beg you is, if possible, to hurry the despatch of the
provision of bread promised us, for we have had no food since morning."
I returned to the Assembly, I believe at about three, and did not go out
again. The remainder of the day was taken up by accounts of the
fighting: each moment produced its event and its piece of news. The
arrival of volunteers from one of the departments was announced; they
were bringing in prisoners; flags captured on the barricades were
brought in. Deeds of bravery were described, heroic words repeated; each
moment we learnt of some person of note being wounded or killed. As to
the final issue of the day, nothing had yet occurred to enable us to
form an opinion.
The President only called the Assembly together at infrequent intervals
and for short periods; and he was right, for assemblies are like
children, and idleness always makes them say or do a number of foolish
things. Each time the sitting was resumed, he himself told us all that
had been learnt for certain during the adjournment. This President, as
we know, was Senard, a well-known Rouen advocate and a man of courage;
but in his youth he had contracted so deep-seated a theatrical habit in
the daily comedy played at the bar that he had lost the faculty of
truthfully giving his true impressions of a thing, when by accident he
happened to have any. It seemed always necessary that he should add some
turgidity or other of his own to the feats of courage he described, and
that he should express the emotion, which I believe he really felt, in
hollow tones, a trembling voice, and a sort of tragic hiccough which
reminded one of an actor on the stage. Never were the sublime and the
ridiculous brought so close together: for the facts were sublime and the
narrator ridiculous.
We did not adjourn till late at night to take a little rest. The
fighting had stopped, to be resumed on the morrow. The insurrection,
although everywhere held in check, had as yet been stifled nowhere.