As I arrived at the Chamber of Peers--it was 3 o’clock
precisely--General Rapatel came out of the cloak-room and said: “The
session is over.”
I went to the Chamber of Deputies. As my cab turned into the Rue de
Lille a serried and interminable column of men in shirt-sleeves, in
blouses and wearing caps, and marching arm-in-arm, three by three,
debouched from the Rue Bellechasse and headed for the Chamber. The
other extremity of the street, I could see, was blocked by deep rows of
infantry of the line, with their rifles on their arms. I drove on ahead
of the men in blouses, with whom many women had mingled, and who
were shouting: “Hurrah for reform!” “Hurrah for the line!” “Down
with Guizot!” They stopped when they arrived within rifle-shot of the
infantry. The soldiers opened their ranks to let me through. They were
talking and laughing. A very young man was shrugging his shoulders.
I did not go any further than the lobby. It was filled with busy and
uneasy groups. In one corner were M. Thiers, M. de Rémusat, M. Vivien
and M. Merruau (of the “Constitutionnel”); in another M. Emile de
Girardin, M. d’Alton-Shée and M. de Boissy, M. Franck-Carré, M.
d’Houdetot, M. de Lagrenée. M. Armand Marrast was talking aside with M.
d’Alton. M. de Girardin stopped me; then MM. d’Houdetot and Lagrenée.
MM. Franck-Carré and Vignier joined us. We talked. I said to them:
“The Cabinet is gravely culpable. It forgot that in times like ours
there are precipices right and left and that it does not do to govern
too near to the edge. It says to itself: ‘It is only a riot,’ and it
almost rejoices at the outbreak. It believes it has been strengthened by
it; yesterday it fell, to-day it is up again! But, in the first
place, who can tell what the end of a riot will be? Riots, it is true,
strengthen the hands of Cabinets, but revolutions overthrow dynasties.
And what an imprudent game in which the dynasty is risked to save the
ministry! The tension of the situation draws the knot tighter, and now
it is impossible to undo it. The hawser may break and then everything
will go adrift. The Left has manoeuvred imprudently and the Cabinet
wildly. Both sides are responsible. But what madness possesses the
Cabinet to mix a police question with a question of liberty and oppose
the spirit of chicanery to the spirit of revolution? It is like sending
process-servers with stamped paper to serve upon a lion. The quibbles of
M. Hébert in presence of a riot! What do they amount to!”
As I was saying this a deputy passed us and said:
“The Ministry of Marine has been taken.”
“Let us go and see!” said Franc d’Houdetot to me.
We went out. We passed through a regiment of infantry that was guarding
the head of the Pont de la Concorde. Another regiment barred the other
end of it. On the Place Louis XV. cavalry was charging sombre and
immobile groups, which at the approach of the soldiers fled like swarms
of bees. Nobody was on the bridge except a general in uniform and on
horseback, with the cross of a commander (of the Legion of Honour) hung
round his neck--General Prévot. As he galloped past us he shouted: “They
are attacking!”
As we reached the troops at the other end of the bridge a battalion
chief, mounted, in a bernouse with gold stripes on it, a stout man with
a kind and brave face, saluted M. d’Houdetot.
“Has anything happened?” Franc asked.
“It happened that I got here just in time!” replied the major.
It was this battalion chief who cleared the Palace of the Chamber, which
the rioters had invaded at six o’clock in the morning.
We walked on to the Place. Charging cavalry was whirling around us. At
the angle of the bridge a dragoon raised his sword against a man in a
blouse. I do not think he struck him. Besides, the Ministry of Marine
had not been “taken.” A crowd had thrown a stone at one of the windows,
smashing it, and hurting a man who was peeping out. Nothing more.
We could see a number of vehicles lined up like a barricade in the broad
avenue of the Champs-Elysées, at the rond-point.
“They are firing, yonder,” said d’Houdetot. “Can you see the smoke?”
“Pooh!” I replied. “It is the mist of the fountain. That fire is water.”
And we burst into a laugh.
An engagement was going on there, however. The people had constructed
three barricades with chairs. The guard at the main square of the
Champs-Elysées had turned out to pull the barricades down. The people
had driven the soldiers back to the guard-house with volleys of stones.
General Prévot had sent a squad of Municipal Guards to the relief of the
soldiers. The squad had been surrounded and compelled to seek refuge
in the guard-house with the others. The crowd had hemmed in the
guard-house. A man had procured a ladder, mounted to the roof, pulled
down the flag, torn it up and thrown it to the people. A battalion had
to be sent to deliver the guard.
“Whew!” said Franc d’Houdetot to General Prévot, who had recounted this
to us. “A flag taken!”
“Taken, no! Stolen, yes!” answered the general quickly.
M. Pèdre-Lacaze came up arm-in-arm with Napoleon Duchatel. Both were in
high spirits. They lighted their cigars from Franc d’Houdetot’s cigar
and said:
“Do you know? Genoude is going to bring in an impeachment on his own
account. They would not allow him to sign the Left’s impeachment. He
would not be beaten, and now the Ministry is between two fires. On the
left, the entire Left; on the right, M. de Genoude.”
Napoleon Duchâtel added: “They say that Duvergier de Hauranne has been
carried about in triumph on the shoulders of the crowd.”
We had returned to the bridge. M. Vivien was crossing, and came up to
us. With his big, old, wide-brimmed hat and his coat buttoned up to his
cravat the ex-Minister Of Justice looked like a policeman.
“Where are you going?” he said to me. “What is happening is very
serious!”
Certainly at this moment one feels that the whole constitutional machine
is rocking. It no longer rests squarely on the ground. It is out of
plumb. One can hear it cracking.
The crisis is complicated by the disturbed condition of the whole of
Europe.
The King, nevertheless, is very calm, and even cheerful. But this game
must not be played too far. Every rubber won serves but to make up the
total of the rubber lost.
Vivien recounted to us that the King had thrown an electoral reform bill
into his drawer, saying as he did so: “That is for my successor!” “That
was Louis XV.’s _mot_,” added Vivien, “supposing reform should prove to
be the deluge.”
It appears to be true that the King interrupted M. Salandrouze when he
was laying before him the grievances of the “Progressists,” and asked
him brusquely: “Are you selling many carpets?” *
* M. Salandrouze was a manufacturer of carpets.
At this same reception of the Progressists the King noticed M. Blanqui,
and graciously going up to him asked:
“Well, Monsieur Blanqui, what do people talk about? What is going on?”
“Sire,” replied M. Blanqui, “I ought to tell the King that in the
departments, and especially at Bordeaux, there is a great deal of
agitation.”
“Ah!” interrupted the King. “More agitation!” and he turned his back
upon M. Blanqui.
While we were talking Vivien exclaimed: “Listen! I fancy I can hear
firing!”
A young staff officer, addressing General d’Houdetot with a smile,
asked: “Are we going to stay here long?”
“Why?” said Franc d’Houdetot.
“Well, I am invited out to dinner,” said the officer.
At this moment a group of women in mourning and children dressed in
black passed rapidly along the other pavement of the bridge. A man held
the eldest child by the hand. I looked at him and recognized the Duke de
Montebello.
“Hello!” exclaimed d’Houdetot, “the Minister of Marine!” and he ran over
and conversed for a moment with M. de Montebello. The Duchess had become
frightened, and the whole family was taking refuge on the left bank of
the river.
Vivien and I returned to the Palace of the Chamber. D’Houdetot quitted
us. In an instant we were surrounded. Said Boissy to me:
“You were not at the Luxembourg? I tried to speak upon the situation
in Paris. I was hooted. At the _mot_, ‘the capital in danger,’ I was
interrupted, and the Chancellor, who had come to preside expressly for
that purpose, called me to order. And do you know what General Gourgaud
said to me? ‘Monsieur de Boissy, I have sixty guns with their caissons
filled with grape-shot. I filled them myself.’ I replied: ‘General, I
am delighted to know what is really thought at the Château about the
situation.’”
At this moment Durvergier de Hauranne, hatless, his hair dishevelled,
and looking pale but pleased, passed by and stopped to shake hands with
me.
I left Duvergier and entered the Chamber. A bill relative to the
privileges of the Bank of Bordeaux was being debated. A man who was
talking through his nose occupied the tribune, and M. Sauzet was reading
the articles of the bill with a sleepy air. M. de Belleyme, who was
coming out, shook hands with me and exclaimed: “Alas!”
Several deputies came up to me, among them M. Marie, M. Roger (of
Loiret), M. de Rémusat, and M. Chambolle. I related to them the incident
of the tearing down of the flag, which was serious in view of the
audacity of the attack.
“What is even more serious,” said one of them, “is that there is
something very bad behind all this. During the night the doors of more
than fifteen mansions were marked with a cross, among the marked houses
being those of the Princess de Liéven, in the Rue Saint Florentin, and
of Mme. de Talhouët.”
“Are you sure of this?” I asked.
“With my own eyes I saw the cross upon the door of Mme. de Liéven’s
house,” he replied.
President Franck-Carré met M. Duchâtel this morning and said: “Well, how
goes it?”
“All is well,” answered the Minister.
“What are you going to do about the riot?”
“I am going to let the rioters alone at the rendezvous they arranged
for themselves. What can they do in the Place Louis XV. and the
Champs-Elysées? It is raining. They will tramp about there all day.
To-night they will be tired out and will go home to bed.”
M. Etienne Arago entered hastily at this juncture and said: “There are
seven wounded and two killed already. Barricades have been erected in
the Rue Beaubourg and in the Rue Saint Avoye.”
After a suspension of the session M. Guizot arrived. He ascended the
tribune and announced that the King had summoned M. Mole, to charge him
with the formation of a new Cabinet.
Triumphant shouts from the Opposition, shouts of rage from the majority.
The session ended amid an indescribable uproar.