Crowds in the streets and promenades. This evening all the theatres
will be re-opened. In the meantime the voting is going on. The weather
is delightful, so I take a stroll along the promenades. Under the
colonnade of the Châtelet there is a long line of electors awaiting
their turn. I fancy that in this quarter the candidates of the Central
Committee will be surely elected. Women, in bright-coloured dresses and
fresh spring bonnets, are walking to and fro. I hear some one say that
there are a great many cannon at the Hôtel de Ville. Two friends meet
together in the square of the Arts et Métiers.—“Are you alone, madame?”
says one lady to another.—“Yes, madame; I am waiting for my husband,
who is gone to vote.”
A child, who is skipping, cries out, “Mama, mama, what is the Commune?”
The fiacre drivers make the revolution an excuse for asking extravagant
fares; this does not prevent their having very decided political
opinions. One who, drove one would scarcely have been approved of by
the Central Committee.—“_Cocher_, what is the fare?” I ask.—“Five
francs, monsieur.”—“All right; take me to the mairie Place
Saint-Sulpice.”—“Beg pardon, monsieur, but if you are going to vote, it
will be ten francs!”
On the Boulevard de Strasbourg there are streams of people dressed in
holiday attire; itinerant dealers in tops, pamphlets, souvenirs of the
siege—bits of black bread, made on purpose, and framed and glazed, also
bits of shells—and scented soap, and coloured pictures; crowds of
beggars everywhere. In this part of the town the revolution looks very
much like a fair.
At the mairie of the 6th Arrondissement there are very few people. I
enter into conversation with one of the officials there. He tells me he
has never seen voting carried on with greater spirit.
I meet a friend who has just returned from Belleville, and ask him the
news, of course.—“The voting is progressing in capital order,” he tells
me; “the men go up to the poll as they would mount the breach. They
have no choice but to obey blindly.”—“The Central Committee?” I
inquire.—“Yes, but the Committee itself only obeys
orders.”—“Whose?”—“Why those of the International, of course.”
At a corner near the boulevards, a compact little knot of people is
stationed in front of a poster. I fancy they are studying the
proclamation of one of the candidates, but it turns out only to be a
play-bill. The crowd continues to thicken; the cafés are crammed; gold
chignons are plentiful enough at every table; here and there a red
Garibaldi shirt is visible, like poppies amongst the corn. Every now
and then a horseman gallops wildly past with dispatches from one
section to another. The results of some of the elections are creeping
out. At Montrouge, Bercy, Batignolles, and the Marais, they tell us the
members of the Central Committee are elected by a very large majority.
Here the hoarse voice of a boy strikes in,—“Buy the account of the
grand conspiracy of Citoyen Thiers against the Republic!” Then another
chimes in with wares of a less political and more vulgar nature. The
movement to and fro and the excitement is extraordinary. While the
populace basks in the sun the destiny of the city is being decided.—“M.
Desmarest is elected for the 9th Arrondissement,” says some one close
to me.—“Lesueur is capital in the ‘Partie de Piquet,’” says another.
Oh! people of Paris!