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BATTLE SUMMER:
BEING
TRANSCRIPTS FROM PERSONAL OBSERVA TION
Jn Vcaris,
DURING  THF. YEAR
1848.
B Y   IK.  M  A R VE I.,
A'rUTHon OF FPRSH G.LEANINGS
*  *  Ie Monde est inlepte a se guarir!!I esl si imlpatient de ce ~ui i
presse, qu'il ne vise qu'a s'en deffaire, sais regarder A quel prix. *    I
bien ne succede pas necessairement au rnal; un autre mal luy pent succeder;
et pire.                                MIONTAiGNFE, Liv. iii.. Cap. ix.
NEW YORK:
Baker  anbh    crtibner.:1850.




Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1849, by
BAKER AND SCRIBNER.
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern
District of New York.
Stereotyped by
C. W. BENEDICT.
201 William street.




REIGN OF BLOUSE.








DEDICATORY LETTER
To MY OLD FRIEND
MY DEAR S,
SOME eight years have now passed, (they have
been to me like a wild and tangled dream,) since
our college acquaintance ended, almost as soon as it
was begun.
You are become a teacher, a husband, and a father;
while I am still the same strolling vagabond, as on




iiE D I C A T  OR   LETTER.
the day I pocketed the precious Baccalaureate, and
turned my back upon the college.
You, in the centre of your quick-growing West,
have already achieved that best of earthly enjoyments
-a home; and are fast achieving, (what your modesty will tempt you to deny,) an honored and respected name.
I, meantime, your old companion of the Vacation
rambles along the sunny shores of the Sound of Long
Island,-one time on land, and one time on water;now struggling against sickness, and now reckless
with new-gained strength;-one time following game
in the woods, and another, pleadings in the courts;now dreaming on the decks of the sleepy barges of
Holland, and again, rioting under the waving shadows
of the shrubs that fringe the Roman ruins,-am still
drifting, with memories for friends, and the world-a
home!
It was in the midst of the Forest of Fontainbleau,
— a noble old wood, full of mossy boles and silencethat the thought first came to me, of giving you some
scattered glimpses of what had been passing under




DEDICATORY LETTER.                  iii
my eye, during the eight most eventful months of
Paris Revolution.
I know not how it is with you, but in a forest my
mind seems to grow out of its stature-altogether beyond its city littleness, and pushes out lustily, right
and left, and upward, as if it belonged to a strong
man! And it was in just one of these accessions of
strength, (which after all, I count only as seductive
illusions,) that I found myself with pen and paper,
bewriting page after page-sketching men and scenes
that I thought you would be glad to see, through eyes
that were familiar to you: —stretching on and on,sheet after sheet-not weary, because of the forest
feeling, —not disheartened, because writing to you,until at length, the pages have become a book, and
the letter —a prologue!
You know that in the early Spring of 1848, I was
immured in the dim  office of a city attorney; and
that the alarum of the new-born Republicanism of
France, first came upon my ear, under the cobweb
tapestry of a lawyer's salon.




iv        DEDICATORY LETTER.
To me, with whom the memories of courts and mon.
archic splendors were still fresh and green, such sudden
news was startling. I tortured my brain with thinking-how the prince of cities was now looking;-and
how the shops;-and how the gaiety?  I conjured
up images of the New Order, and the images dogged
me in the street, and at my desk, and made my sleep
-a nightmare! They blurred the type of Blackstone, and made the mazes of Chitty ten fold greater.
The New Statutes were dull, and a dead letter; and
the New Practice worse than new. For a while I
struggled manfully with my work, but it was a heavy
schoolboy task —it was like the knottiest of the Tusculan Questions, with vacation in prospect.
The office was empty one day: I had been breaking
ground in Puffendorf;-one page-two pages-three
pages —dull, very dull, but illumined here and there
with a magic illustration of King Louis, or stately
poet Lamartine; when on a sudden, as one of these
illustrations came in, with the old Palais de Justice
in the back ground, I slammed together the heavy
book-lids, saying to myself; —Is not the time of Puffendorf, and Grotius, and even amiable, aristocratic




DEDICATORY LETTER.                 V
Blackstone gone by? And are there not new King.
dom-makers, and new law-makers, and new codemakers astir, mustering with all their souls and
voices, such measures of Government as will, by and
by, make beacons and maxims? And are not these
New-men, making, and doing, and being, what the
Old-men only wrote of?
Are not those people of France, and wide-skirted
German-land, lit up by hatred of aggression, and love
of something better, putting old law, and maxim, and
jurisprudence into the crucible of human right, and
heating them over the fire of human feeling, and pouring them into the mould of human judgment, to make up
a new casting of Constitutional Order?
And as for the New Practice, is there not a new
practice evolving over seas,-not very precise perhaps,
about costs, and demurrers, and bills of exception,but a practice of new-gained rights, new-organized
courts, new-made authorities, new-wakened mind,in short, the whole practice, not only of Courts, but of
Human Nature,' and Passion, and Power?
Are they not acting out over there in France, in the
street, in the court, and in the Assembly, palpably and




vi        DEDICATORY LETTER.
visibly, with their magnificent Labor Organizations,
and Omnibus-built barricades, and oratorio strongwords, and bayonet bloody-thrusts, a set of ideas
about Constitutional Liberty, and Right to Property,
and offences criminal, and offences civil, wider, and
newer, and richer than all preached about, in all the
pages of all these fusty Latinists?
And I threw Puffendorf, big as he was, into
the corner, and said,   I will go and see!
That very evening, under a soft summer-like. smoky
sky of early Spring, I set off to bid my few friends
adieu. It was an hour or two past midnight, when I
reached the little town; (you know it-how pretty,
and how fresh it is!) Not a soul was stirring; the
streets were silent; the houses were dark; only a little
mingled light of moon and stars was playing on the
roofs, or dappling the ground that lay under the long
lines of elms.
My dog met me, with-first, a growl, and then a
bound of welcome. I crawled in at a window —groped
my way to a chamber, and threw myself half-dressed
upon the bed, to dream of gay Paris streets.




DEDICATORY  LETTER.                vii
The birds wakened me. Then came the rich, quick
welcome,-the glad surprise —the throng of kind
inquiries
The next day I was tramping over the old farmland; sitting upon the rocks under the familiar trees;
drinking from the spring, once so grateful in the heats
of summer labor.
The morning after, I shook your hand, upon your
doorstep in Waverley Place: by noon, I was on shipboard; and at sunset, at anchor, off the Hook.
By eight, next day, I was listening in dreamy reverie, to the tug and chorus of the sailors at the windlass:-an hour, and the royals were sheeted home:another, and the Highlands of Neversink had sunk,
and I was fairly bound for France!
You know now the history of my sudden leave.
From the quick hand, wVilit which all has been set
down, you will not expect the interest of continued narrative, or the soberness of Historic data. It is but a
careless play of the lights and shadows of our stormy
summer.
I have given sketehes n,f such persons belonging to




viii      DEDICATORY LETTER.
the epoch, as I have thought least familiar to you;
and I have grouped the others by tens and twenties,
as I could best fill up my canvas.
Through all, I have tried zealously to be truthful;
you at least, will appreciate the endeavor.
As for opinions upon successive action, or upon
results, I make no apology for them; I ask no leniency for them. An opinion upon Political or Moral
Revolution, that wants either, is not worth writing
down. There never was a single political opinion
that united men, and there probably never will be.
In such opinions as I have hazarded, I have not at
all considered the chances of being praised by one set
of politicians, or of being condemned by another.
They have been expressed because they were entertained: an old-fashioned habit belongs to me of writing what I think, —a habit, which with Heaven's
help, I mean always to maintain.
But you are growing weary.- Take then the book
with all its raw reds and yellows! I hope it may
bring you in some measure to my side, and make us
companions for ever so little time.
For what is bad in it, you will pardon me-I know




DED ICATORY  LETTER.               ix
you will: and for what is good in it, you will thank
me —I know you will! And in this hope-the best I
put upon the book,
I bid you,
Adieu.
TK. MARVEL,.
FIFTH AVENUE? N. Y.
NOV. 1849.








CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTORY.
PAGE
I. The Doorkeeper who was King,.... 1
II.  Men of Bourgeoisie,.....    4
III.  Bourgeois King, is King Royal,.... 8
IV. The Clouds Thicken,.....  11
V.  Mene, Mene, Tekel,...... 15
BLOUSE IN THE STREETS.
I. Room of Pagnerre,....       21
II. Others who Wait,..                    26
III. The Twenty-Second,.          28
IV.  Down with Guizot,..  32
V.  A Check-mate,.                    34
VI,  The Dead-cart,...  36
VII.  Aux-Armes,..                         37
VIII. A Royal Breakfast,.. 40
IX.  Chateau d'Eau,......    45
X. Mob Material,........ 50
XL.  Tuilleries,...                       54




vi                      CONTENTS.
PAGn
XII.  Who is Ruler..... 56
XIII. Chamber of Deputies,....    57
XIV. An Omen,....      59
XV. Another Comer,...                60
XVI. The Talk Begins,..                         62
XVII. A New Phase,.. 64
XVIII. A New Man,..                         65
XIX. A New  President,..... 69
XX. The Power is Made and Moves,                       72
BLOUSE AND PROVISIONAL.
I. The Hotel de Ville,...      77
II. The Palace Garrison,....  78
III. A New Power Comes,....      82
IV. Night,...                        85
V. The Streets,..                           87
VI. A Wreck of the Old Time,....  90
VII.  Escape of Royalty,.                           92
VIII. The Early Decrees,..... 94
IX.  Country Feeling,....      99
X.  City Feeling,...... 102
XI. What Reformists Think,....   105
XII.  Position of Republicans,.... 108
XII. Revolutionary Phases,....   111
XIV. Western Sympathy,...               116
XV. The Revolution in Books,                           120
XVI. An Amazon of Revolution,.               123
XVII. Newspapers,                                       126




CO NTENTS.                        Vii
PAGE
XV1II. Palace of the Luxembourg,                       13
XIX. The Clubs of April,... 139
XX. Election Week,..                        143
XXI. City and Salon,..                     147
BLOUSE AND ASSEMBLY.
I. Fourth of May,..... 155
II. The Executive Power,....      162
III. Foreign Events,..... 166
IV. May Fifteenth,.....      170
V. Blouse Overturns Bourgeois,... 172
VI. Bourgeois Overturns Blouse,...     180
VII. The Victims,..... 185
VIII. The Issue of Rebellion,...      191
IX. Assembly and Constitution,.... 195
X. A Seam in the Executive,..      198
XT. A Fete,.                   202
XII. A Stranger's Thought,.... 207
XIII. A Foreign Spark,....      211
XiV. Public Workmen,.... 213
XV. The Private Workmen,..            217
BLOUSE AND BOURGEOIS.
I. Where do we Stand,.... 221
II. New Election and New Men,...      224
III. A Handsome German,... 227
IV. An Old Stager,....      229




viii                    Co NT ENTS.
PAGo
V. Almost Emeute,.                235
VI. Salon and Salon People,.   239
VII. Theatres,... 245
VIII.  The Champs Elysees,...       248
IX.  Socialism and Socialists,.... 252
X. Last Look at Lamartine,...      269
XI. Glance at the Assembly,....  253
XII. Black Clouds Gathering,...      272
XIII.  The Streets Again,..... 277
XIV. The Bourgeois Tremble,..      282
XV. Blouse Reigns,. 286




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INTRODUC  TORY.
I.
THE DOORKEEPER WHO WAS K I N G.
A    LITTLE way out of the Rue St. Honore, at Paris,
stands the new Market of St. Honore. A better market
is not to be found anywhere, either for fish, plums, or poultry.
A very different commerce belonged to the spot in 1790.
At that date, in place of market stalls, and cabbage piles,
and fountain, and new-planted poplar of Liberty, there stood
a gray-stone mass of ancient building, known by name of
Jacobin Convent; and in the Jacobin Convent, sat the Jacobin
Club.
Among the almost unnoticeable ones, who in that time loitered about this so-called Jacobin Convent, sometimes seated
on the benches of the Club, listening to Robespierre, or Prussian" Anacharsis," and sometimes standing sentry at the
door, which looked over toward the Palace Garden, might
be seen, on occasions, a young man, not over five-andtwenty, well-made, ruddy-faced, with the keen eye and heavy
1




2            T II E  BATTLE  SUMMER.
eyebrow of a trader, wearing as broad lapels to his waistcoat
as Desmoulins, and as clumsy shoe-buckles to his shoes as
Danton.
And yet this young man, unnoticed then, except by grisettes, because reputed rich, and by Jacobins, because not a
far-off cousin of the King, was destined to a career more brilliant than that of most brilliant grisette-more stormy than
that of stormiest Jacobin.
Eight years thereafter —terrible eight years-this young
man could enter no longer at Jacobin Club, if indeed, there
were Jacobin Club to enter.
His money would wheedle no palace laundry-maid; for he
was living far from palace, in a little village of mountaincountry. In place of white-lapelled waistcoat, he wore drab
surtout; and in lieu of Very's dinners, he ate such goat-milk
cheese and dried chamois flesh, as the earnings of a schoolmaster brought him.
As yet, his significance was not complete.
Later, he was in the smoky cabin of a Hambourg Trader,
cast about by the waves and winds, despondent and doubtful, and quarrelling with Destiny; but Destiny was ripeningin the hands of Him who holds waves and winds-better
things for the Jacobin; and yet, worse things.
Later still, and even now, before the young man has won
other manhood, than such as gallant battle-action can give, he
was floating on an inland river-the Mississippi —broader and
longer than the seas, in the land from which he had come,
unaccompanied, unknown, unthought-of, with no canopy but




THE DOORKEEPER WHO WAS KING.  3
the open sky, and no light for his darkness, but gleaming
boat-torch, or the host of stars.
Not yet had his fate and his name ripened.
The years, swift-winged, and heavy with great tidings, bore
on, and the man, now mature, strong, become father, had
laid hands on that wealth, which in the days of declining
monarchy, had won for him sneer of fellow Jacobin, and
smile of courtesan. He was living in that pretty palace, now
dismantled and scarred, which flanks the long drive to Neuilly; was the envy of a host of poor courtiers, and poor
courtiers' wives, who added to the fading blaze of the court of
his gentlemanly cousin Charles;-and was enrolled anew, a
new Jacobin, in a new Club of Jacobins.
Now, fate and name were ripening together.
Somewhat later-counting by months now, not years-and
he rode along Paris streets, leaning back, with one hand
resting on the crupper of his saddle, to talk with the tall,
white-cravatted, benevolent, banking Lafitte; and the crowd
which hemmed his way on either side, from the Palais Royal,
to the Hotel de Ville, and from the Hotel de Ville to the
Palace of the Tuilleries, guardsmen, and gamin, and women,
and soldiers, but most of all the Bourgeois shop-men-all huddled together pell-mell-shouted-Long live the Citizen King!
And he chaffered for vegetables in the Market of St.
Honore, on the same spot, in the same city of Paris, where
thirty odd years gone by, he had stood guard at the door of
the Jacobin Club; and the turbaned turnip-women, and the
red-faced fish girls, cried —Long live the Citizen King!




4          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
The Jacobin Club broke down the feudal Monarchy, never
more to be set up; and the feudal Monarchy (what more
feudal than the Empire?) broke down the Jacobin Club.
The Jacobin door-keeper built up. Bourgeois Monarchy;
and the Monarchy of the Bourgeois has broken down the
Jacobin door-keeper, forever!
II.
MEN  OF B oURGEOISIE.
IIT -E have seen Louis Philippe who was ruler, and
T V victim of the Bourgeois; who now were the Bourgeois,
who were the victims and destroyers of the King?
Traders make up the bulk of Bourgeois; but all traders are
not Bourgeois; and all Bourgeois are not traders. Caustic,
and property-hating Louis Blanc calls them, the men who
have money in their purse, and tools in their hands.*
Middle-class renders the term; but the rendering is only
typical, and half true. In America, all are middle-class;
in England middle-class is a Name, and not a Force; in Italy
and in Austria it is yet a question, sadly mooted, whether
such class, having sympathies, purpose, soul-exist.
For France, let us look at types.
A young man, not over earnest, and half ambitious,
who comes up from the Provinces to Paris, with all the means
~ Histoire de Dix Ans. Conclusion Historique.




E N   F  BouRG E 0osIE.               5
in his pocket, that can be spared from the pockets of two
poor, peasant parents; who struggles his way through the
heat, and dirt, and corruption of the Hospitals, so that in five
or six years he may call himself Doctor; who takes humble
chambers, and begins practice by killing, first the cat of the
Concierge, and then the Concierge himself; who makes a
paying business by visits to tradesmen; who takes his coffee,
and reads his journal every day at the Procope; who plays at
Dominoes with the women of the Cafe, and at Boston with
tradesmen's wives; who boasts a kinship with a silent Provincial Deputy, and who goes to hear the preaching of
Dominican Lacordaire-he, be assured, is one of the Bourgeolsle.
-     A short, chatty, gray-haired lady, born in Paris, and
who never journeyed ten leagues away; who rents a hotel
beyond the Seine, to be let again by piece to medical students,
and dried-up old Provincials; who thinks Paris the centre of
the world, and herself very near the centre of Paris; who
has a few funds at the bank, and a great many in shabby
furniture; who quarrels with her servants, and is all sunshine
with the lodgers who pay; who says mass at St. Sulpice, and
carries a lap-dog in her arms-she, and her son, and her husband, and her husband's son, are of the Bourgeoisie.
— A corpulent, middle-aged man, who wears the redtrimmed cap of the Natilonal Guard; who sometimes stands
sentry at the gate of the Tuilleries with a cigar in his teeth,
and other days lounges at his shop door in the Rue St. Denis;
who has one son at the school of St. Cyr, and another on the




THE  BATTLE  SUM M ER.
railway to Orleans; who has married one daughter to a wineseller, and another to a blubbering old wool-grower of Vierzon-he, too, is of this Bourgeoisie.
The priesthood, black-draped, belonging in the mass to old
fashioned, orthodox Royalty, which is first cousin to priest,craft, has also its representatives in the crowd of Bourgeois.
They will not be from Paris, but from the Provinces.
They will have pined for favors they have not received, and
hoped long for royal stipends, that have never come.  They
will have said mass, gloomily, in deserted churches.  They
will have been inmates of country Chateaus, where age or
ugliness made them  acceptable, and where the Sunday offices
have excused their presence. A citizen priesthood, they
regard as gold-fleece, Jasonic fable, the stories of the old
church-estates, and toil with small means, on stubborn ground.
They glide quietly through Paris streets, eating at humble
half-price Caf6s, visiting retired tradesmen, playing whist with
old men, who have young wives, shut up within high garden
walls, and talking alternately of Pope, and politics.
Another Bourgeois, is a man you will see rolling along the
Boulevard, in luxurious carriage; his face is round, and deepcolored; his eye gray, sluggish, yet piercing; his chin is
heavy, and his lip sensual. He wears white stiff-starched
cravat, and massy gold chain; he has shares in the Northern
Road, and in the Orleans Road, and in the Road of Bordeaux.
He dines as luxuriously as he rides.  You may see him from
time to time, at the balls, head and shoulders above the crowd)
his neck-cloth tied with the precision of a lease, and he tuln'n



M EN  OF BOURGEOISIE.                    7
ing his colossal head, to the coquettish tap of some deftlyhandled fan; and he wearies an hour with chat heavy as his
chin-made light by great gold weight-and goes home to a
palace in the Rue Lafitte.:
Rothschild, is one of the Bourgeoisie.
Such are the men, and they make up more than half of
Paris world, of whom Louis Philippe was king, by what they
called election, and of whom Casimir Perier, himself a
banker, was the Minister.
No one of those bonds, which ordinarily unite a great party,
belongs to the Bourgeoisie. It is not a religious bond; for the
most are without religion.  It is no social bond, for they are
of all, and from all. It is not even habit, for they are of all
habits; it is simply, community of wish; —wish for peace,
and wish for plenty; pacem et pecuniam.
We have seen what the Bourgeois are as men; as party,
it is not religious, nor social, nor political, and only cognizable
as wishful, or as some would say tartly, greedy party.
It is easy to see the affinity of such party for the man who
was Egalite Junior-Louis of Orleans. For Louis of Orleans
was owner, in fee simple, of the long row of Palace Royal
shops, tenanted most of them by veritable Bourgeois; he was
stock-jobber; he was citoyen simple; he had been Jacobin;
he had worn gray clothes; he had money, and he loved
money.  He was beside, a sort of Cast-away from the stock
of old feudal monarchs, whose equipage and etiquette cast
blighting shadows on the Bourgeois pride.




$s          r HE -B A Tr TL E S U M M ER.
Guillotine, and Egalite together had made a great gap
between him and ancient Kingships:-so much for Scylla.
Sans-culotte Charybdis, was even less feared: For he was
reckoned by far too shrewd a schemer, to fan any Revolutionary sparks, which once fairly lighted into flame, might
consume both Bourgeois, and Bourgeois bank.
III.
BOURGEOIS KING IS KING ROYAL.
IA THEN  the king's son, the late Duke of Orleans, had
spent the best years of his youth-hood, amid the pleasures and debaucheries of the Capital; when he had become,
as man will become, fatigued with dissipation, and lust had
grown, as lust will grow, an ennui; he bethought himself of
marrying.
With simple citizen, this is simple matter of selection, presentation, deliberation, and execution. With Prince Royal it
is far otherwise.
The prince consulted the minister;* the minister suggested
a bourgeois wife for the bourgeois prince.
The prince bit his lip, and consulted the father, and the
aunt Adelaide. A little of the old feudal leaven lingered
in royal bosoms: and the father and the aunt, with map
* Histoire de Dix Ane.




BOURGEoIS KING IS KING ROYAL.  9
before them, laid their fingers on the city of Vienna, the seat
of the most feudal of monarchies.
What a thing is life; and what a thing is pride 
Corby school keeping, nor hull of Hamburgher craft, nor
night squatting on low-lying, vast Mississippi shores, could
wholly beat out of Valmy field officer, and gallant aide-de-camp
at Jemappes, the yearning of old king-blood! Is there cure
for it on earth? Poor Louis Philippe! -the poorer, because
like all the world!
The prince hurried to the Austrian court;-flattered the
Arch-Duchess Sophia, waltzed with her royal highness of Esterhazy, and offered himself to the princess Honoria. The
Arch-Duchess would not give her daughter to a bourgeois
prince; and the prince, cursing heartily the old feudal pride,
turned his back upon Schonbrtin.
The Bourgeois at home were half glad of the defeat; and
when the gallant prince returned, with the humble but worthy scion of a German house in his train, there was a little
malicious glee in their greeting.
Was the king cured? No: one rebuff did not break
down, but only quickened the feudal feeling. Adelaide, the
royal sister, could not put it away; and Sicilian Amelia, the
queen, had brought it with her from the air of Palermo.
We are slighted-say they;-we will be royal enough
to slight.
At this, Republicanism, stifled with Lafayette's gray hairs
in 1830, grows bold and gives tongue;-not a continuous,
well-sustained, concordant bark;-but here, a shrill yelp from
1*




10          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
the wiry old terrier Lamennais; and there, an angry growl
from pugnacious Blanqui; a long, hound-howl from Lagrange
at Lyons, and a melodious baying of house-dog, from such as
Carrel and Marrast. They were all smothered in dungeons,
or silenced with sop. And the king went on marrying his
sons to princesses, and his daughters to kings.
Courtly etiquette came back.  The old race of gentilshommes were courted, and when poor, were paid.  The king
did not ride through the open street, leaning back, with a
hand upon the crupper of his saddle, chatting with white-cravated Banker.  But, instead, he rode in coach drawn by
eight horses, with English-dressed jockeys for outriders, and
a corps of lancers before, and of dragoons behind.
Thiers, who was after Perier, specially the minister of the
Bourgeois, was cast aside for cold, phlegmatic, sedate, aristocratic, proud Guizot.
The two hundred thousand voters-only so many out of a
nation of more than seven millions of able-bodied men, over
one and twenty-were bought with Royal favors. Pritchard
Indemnity, and whatever the king wishes, is carried, by strong
vote. The people, bellicose, and quick-tempered,- exclaim
against the wounded honor of the country. The Bourgeois
are not silent, but are organizing. They have grown jealous
of the power of the Bourgeois King.
Let him beware!




THE  CLOUDS  THICKEN.                    11
IV.
THE CLOUDS THICKEN.
ACOMPANY of officers in undress uniform, are in one of
the Caf6s upon the Boulevard, discussing angrily an item
in the morning's Moniteur. The Journal has passed from
one to the other; each reads with the same expression of
scorn; and at the end an angry scowl runs round the group;
-The Duc d'Aumale, son of the king, scarce turned of
twenty, has been named Governor-general of Algeria
An accusation of simony is alleged against one of the
higher officers of the crown; it is too public and notorious
not to be met. It is met, and so poorly met, that the truth
is more than proved;. and Teste retires in disgrace.
Another of crown advisers is charged with drunkenness. The rigid Queen feels scandalized by the offence. She
entreats the Minister of Justice to expostulate with the
offender.  M. Martin seems disinclined to the task; he begs
to assure her majesty that a word from the royal lips would
have more weight, than the longest harangue from Minister of
Justice.
The Queen assumes the task. The offender humiliated
seeks his revenge upon Martin, Minister of Justice. He
spies into his private life; alas, with terrible success! Ministers of Justice are mortal.
The offender goes to the Prefect of Police; he lays his




12            THE BATTLE SUMMER.
snare artfully; he tells him where an old culprit may be
taken; and of the place; and of the time.*
The eyes of Prefect glisten with expectation; and he notes
carefully with pencil stub, those data, which are to confound,
perhaps destroy, the highest Minister of Royalty.
Poor Martin du Nord! be careful; there is a line written
on your Prefect's pocket-book, who meets you with such unsuspecting reverence, which to erase, to blur over, you
would, if wise, give your right arm!
At the time appointed, the myrmidons of police are outlying around the place. Poor Martin du Nord; fate has her
clutch upon you! That sly foot-fall that for a moment startles you, is no cat-step-it is the heavy tread of Retribution!
They have entered, those myrmidons, and they have found
their prize. And now they must have the name of their culprit, even before he goes to prison.
Martin du Nord!The officers look one another in the face, startled; they
end with thinking it a sly conceit of their victim. And they
seat him in a cabriolet, to drive down the Champs Elysees, and
along the Quays to the Prefecture.   We will see,-said
they, with pleasant, ironic smile,-what Monsieur le Prefet
will say to your Excellence. And they thought it a capital
joke to say to the bystanders, that they had in charge a Minister of Justice.
$ This fatal episode of the last days of Louis Philippe, is still involved in deep
mystery. All material statements in the narrative I give, are made up from such
oral communications as seemed to me, at the time, most reliable.




TIHE  CLOUDS  THICKEN.                  13
A capital joke!
They conduct their prisoner to the Prefecture, into the
presence of the Prefect. The Prefect sees now, too late, the
snare into which he has fallen. That court of Prefecture is
held with closed doors.
A pair of greedy eyes-the accusing eyes-looked next
morning over the columns of the Tribunal of Police. But
there was nothing there of any Minister of Justice. Only a
dark hint or two was dropped in the column of Faits Divers.
One week after, and a new dignitary held the Great Seal,
and Martin du Nord was dead! Perhaps it was in mercy
that the hand of Heaven had struck down the high officer of
Justice. The King congratulated himself, that he was spared
the scandal of a public inquiry; and was glad that the dust
of the tomb choked the voice of calumny.
A group is gathered, one morning, about the gateway
of a palace, in the Rue St. Honor6. The people who compose it talk eagerly, and as the doors open from time to time,
for the passage of police, or soldiers, they look with intense
interest across the grassy court, and scan with quick eye the
brilliant windows of the palace.
Within the palace, that very morning, in a little cabinet,
whose curtained window looks upon the court, the Duchess de
Praslin has been foully murdered; and the Duc de Praslin,
of the Royal household, was the assassin.
And the angry street-crowd, mad as any Lynch mob, will
not believe that the princely assassin is in custody; and they
will not believe that justice will be done, and that the sharp



14           THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
acting guillotine will do its work upon the neck of a Duke, as
it does upon the neck of a poor man.
And in this the crowd were right; for in four days thereafter the Duke was deadly sick in his cell. The crowd said it
was the King's work; he dared not pardon; he was afraid to
condemn; therefore, he had sent him poison.
However this might be, one King was fast helping the
wretched de Praslin out of all his troubles;-it was the King
of Terrors!
-  On a sombre day of late winter, a mournful  cortege
with all the appanage of Royalty,-dark plumes of sable, and
heavy folds of silver-embroidered velvet,-was passing slowly
from the borders of the city towards the Royal mausoleum at
Dreux.
An old man, white-haired, broken in years, and broken in
spirit was chief mourner. The same, seven years before, had
witnessed the death of a son without a tear; now  he was
weeping. The King was weeping for his sister, the Princess
Adelaide.
Why should not kings mourn? above all, amid such perplexities as now thronged upon the path of Louis Philippe?
The multitude respected the Royal grief; for it had long
been said that this Princess had expostulated with the King,
upon the angry tone of his address of 1848*;-that a coolness ensued; and that it was mainly owing to this unfortu+ j.u milieu de l'agitation quefomentent des passions ennemies ou aveugles, etc.
-Speech of the king on the opening of session 1848. (Compte-rendu des
Seances: Moniteur.)




M E N E-M E N E —TE K E L.            15
nate difference, doubly unfortunate for the King, that the
death of his best friend, and most intimate councillor, had
been precipitated.
He left her reposing under Royal escutcheons, in the tomb
Royal, at Dreux.
We shall find him again at Royal Dreux; but not now, to
linger at the Royal tomb. Better for him, perhaps; certainly
better for the ends of his long-followed ambition, had he gone
there, to sleep royally beside her-a King.
Death is not the grandest misfortune of life.
V.
M E N E-M E N E-T  K E!
~W:  E have seen some of the clouds that hung ominous
over the setting dynasty of the monarch. A new
terror was rising, had risen, to face the King, and King's Ministers; it was the Banquetting, and the voices at the Banquets;
-terrible in denunciation as the hand writing at the Banquet
of Belshazzar of Babylon!
There had been in times past, other such meetings, other
such voices, voices of Republicans, of Socialists, of workmen,
of Communists, of Fourierites, of St. Simonians, but stealthily uttered, not noisy in the great noise of Bourgeois tradedin, which had been long court-music;-nor coming to the




16          THE B ATTLE SUMMER.'King's frightened sense,' like the hand of a man, writing on
palace walls.
Now, Bourgeois were Banquetters;-shop Bourgeois, banking Bourgeois, journalizing Bourgeois, deputy Bourgeois, and
even petticoated Bourgeois.
Those who had hesitated at Republicanism, and shuddered
at Fourierism, and exorcised Communism, had nothing to fear
under the new standard of Reforme. Away, then flocked the
Bourgeois, by thousands, and by tens of thousands-thinking
only to chastise their too Royal King-after the Banquet flag,
unfurled first, by that pale, cold, keen man, Duvergier de
Hauranne.
Precisely similar action did not indeed belong to all Banquets, which were called Reform Banquets. Orators at Lille,
northward, might advance propositions for which those of
river-bank Rouen were not fully prepared; and the Banquetters of Lyons might go as far beyond those of Lille, as those
of wax-lit Chateau Rouge, beyond those of loom-rattling
Lyons. But all were agreed on one or two essential points:
namely, in overthrowing the government of Guizot; in extending the elective franchise, and in curtailing the patronage
and prerogatives of the crown.
To secure these ends, even zealous Republicans were content to waive for a time open insistance on any Robespierre
dreams, and to add their full-souled ardor to the chilly, and
temporizing action of Royal Reformers. The Communists
lent not a little of their crazy frenzy to the growing Banquets;
and hopeful and thoughtful Fourierites smiled a blessing




M E N E-M E N E-T E K E L.              17
upon the large set tables of Reform. Enthusiasm was indeed
needed, and purpose exigent, to unite such men as Vivien,
Rollin, Barrot, and Flocon at a common board.
But straight our Royal Ministry, trembling, and yet strong,
with seventeen years of war-life to back it, forbids Banquets.
Away on wings of the lightning wires, go orders to Prefects of
Lyons, of Lille, of Arras, to take such measures as will defeat the new and threatening assemblages.
They are threatening; will Bourgeois King defeat them?
Government organs, with most clumsy ridicule, drive hundreds of mere reformers into ranks of earnest Republicans; so
propagand of denial, becomes propagand of faith. National
and Reform newspapers groaning under gibes, and persecutions, spurred on with vigor the stragglers of the swelling
camp, and unwittingly added the glory of martyrdom, to their
patriot faith.
-  The Chamber of 1848, the last Chamber of Deputies, is opened.
The King, feeble, hoarse, pale, makes his last Royal speech;
the guards defile under a sour winter sky. Guizot, earnest,
implacable, wears the usual air of cold asperity; his schoolmaster face is furrowed with thought, and pinched with obstinacy,
and his thin lips curl with easy scorn, at the loud rebukes of
honest Barrot, or the ductile phrases of scheming Thiers.
Mourning is on the Court for the lost Princess Adelaide;
and mourning is on the people for the lost liberties.
Banquetting, even now, is not wholly frightened down.
They have ceased quarrelling-these Banquetters-with each




18         THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
other, and quarrel, amicably, against common enemy. Common fright has scared them into a single herd; like scattered
troops of wild bison, which great danger has startled together,
they troop along under guide of their shaggy leaders, making
the ground tremble with swift tread, and uttering from time
to time a roar, which rolls over the land like mutterings of
thunder.
The ministry hears the roar, and fear is growing stern.
Sternness had provoked Banquetters into more and more of
noise; and this noise not now always the first cry of Reform,
but a low, distinctly-uttered cry, for Revolution. And criers
of this last cry were chiefest in energy, in daring, and in purpose.
Little Banquets there have been enough; and now reformers
shall try a last, great Banquet. It is arranged under the direction of the Opposition in the Chamber, for Sunday the 20th
of February. And the Banquetters have at command, nobody knows how many Guard National, beside streets-full of
men in blue work-shirts, called blouses.
But-this great Banquet is peremptorily forbidden by the
government; and the government has at command sixty
thousand of the best-disciplined, best-armed, and so far as we
know, best-minded, troops of the world.
Very soon the twentieth of February will come:-but suddenly, Banquet is adjourned by Banquet managers until the
twenty-second.
--   Only two days more; and then, Guizot, we shall see
what you and your troops are worth: and Banquetters, we
shall see, what you and your blouses are worth.




:t,m
44-4
a~
4"~4.
e
4-4.








BLOUSE IN THE STREETS.
ROOM  OF PAGNERRE.
A  SHORT way down the Rue de Seine St. Germain, and
not far behind the Palace of the Institute, there may
be seen, upon the lower floor of a tall gray stone building, a
little book-shop, with the name PAGNERRE, written over the
door. In the windows are hung gay placards, announcing
that this man, Pagnerre, is publisher, and vender, of a History of Ten Years, and of a History of Girondins, and of
other books kindred.
French authors are happily, not unfrequently the companions, and friends of their publishers. It is not strange then,
that you might have seen at times, in the back-shop, seated
about the table, over which a stout, black-eyed man, with
heavy shock of hair-Pagnerre, presides, some of those authors,
whose books are placarded in the front shop-window.
One is small; scarce five feet in height; with Southern
olive-tinted skin; forehead high and broad; eye dark blue, and




22           THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
twinkling with uneasy action; his hands are delicate as a
woman's, and yet sinewy, and possessing nervous grasp; his
toilet is unstudied and yet graceful; you would say that he
was a thoughtful, and precocious boy, and never give him the
five and thirty- years that have passed over his head, and
never imagine him to be Louis Blanc, the author of the
Organization of Labor.
Another who is there, you will see at a glance, bears the
weight, and dignity of at least eight and fifty years. His
hair, slightly silvered, lies carelessly, around a brow that it
would be hard to conceal; his features are regular; his eye
still keen and piercing as that of youth; his whole manner is
elevated and full of dignity.  He wears simple black cravat,
and black frock-coat, buttoned over the chest; one hand is
thrust into his bosom, and with the other, he gesticulates, as
he talks, (in tones clear as a silver bell,) and his gesticulations never lose their gracefulness, though ever so impassioned.
You would know him for a Poet; you would know him for
a lover of liberty.  It is Lamartine, the Historian of the
Gironde.
Both these are Republican Historians.  It is not strange,
that their talk under King-rule should be low and earnestbecause Republican.
Nor are these alone. Two others of the little Club, which
sometimes meets around the back-shop table of Pagnerre, are
worthy of description.
The first, you would scarce think belonged to such thoughtful conclave, as gathers in the Book-seller's room. True, his




RooM  OF  PAGNERRE.                     23
forehead is noble, massive; but the eye with all its light and
animation has something of a careless, heedless, pleasureloving cast; his lip too, is full, and indicates more the voluptuary, than the philosopher. His form is gross, never worn
with night watchings; his hand fat, and adorned with heavy
signet ring; his hair curls just enough to set off to advantage
a full, round face-and just so little, that you cannot object
to it, a studied coiffure. His dress is easily and well disposed.
He sits with head thrown back, and chest open —his hand
tossed carelessly over the back of his chair-the figure of a
bon vivant.  And yet you would be astonished at the richness, and copiousness of his words, and the startling earnestness of his declamation.
It is Ledru Rollin, Advocate, Deputy, at whom you are
looking, and to whom you are listening!
The other, beside Louis Blanc, where he sits, seems a giant.
His long hair, fairly and honorably gray, flows down, almost
touching his shoulders. His features are large, and firmlooking; his forehead is compact, and square; his eye is
large, cheerful, and full of deep intelligence.
He is a man whose labors have been immense; and yet,
save in the iron-gray locks, two deep furrows across the forehead, and a slight, scarce noticeable stooping of the shoulders,
you can no where see the weight of it. You would say that
his work had been comparatively, easy work-such, perhaps,
as open field labor-and that he had borne it, like the strongbacked countryman that he seems.
You would be sadly in error.




24           THIE BATTLE SUMMER.
The man before you, with the broad, brawny shoulders, on
which his long frock coat, hangs ill-fitting, and awry-with
the buoyancy of youth still gleaming in his large gray eye,
has accomplished more labor, both of body and mind, than all
of his companions together. The half of the fatigue which
those giant limbs have endured, or the half of the laborious,
continued, harrassing thought that has been elaborated in
that man's brain, would have crushed the little nervous Blanc,
or the strong Rollin, to the earth.
You see about hint none of the worried, hang-dog, Professor-like air; you see no affected astuteness of expression;
you see none of the withering effects of numbers and of calculation; you see in short none of the vanity of Science; and
yet you are looking at a man possessed of mental material
enough, properly distributed, to puff up ten ordinary Professors with conceit; —you are looking at Arago, the Astronomer.
Others there are, but after these, less noticeable-all
Republicans. With them, it is little matter that Thiers, or
Barrot replace Guizot.  These men are all-say they-of
kindred brood.
The FOUR, at the table of Pagnerre, are of the avant-garde,
not only of the movement beginning, but of the Age, in France.
They doubt if the time has ripened. They tremble at the
approaching issue. They differ even slightly, (and the difference will grow greater day by day,) among themselves.
Why should not such men envisage differently, such thing
as Republic?




ROOM OF PAGNERRE.                      25
With Arago, the new faith, is the final conviction of a
close, but abstract thinker.
With Louis Blanc, a Republic is the first step towards the
realization of an ideal, but bright philosophy.  It is the focus,
which shall radiate world-wide warmth —which by power
within, shall converge into harmonious concentralization, all
the scattered lines of human authority, and of civil order.
With Ledru Rollin, the Advocate, it is a cause to be tried,
a claim to be allowed, a culprit to be acquitted. More than
this;-it is the opening of a new, and wide, and free, and
equal, and proud pathway to human action, to civil achievement, and to what we call, political glory.
With Lamartine it is a dream; and to such dreamer, a
dream is as real, as things real, to a realist. Fancy a Painter
getting some glimpse of a firmament of Raphael's frescos; or
a Musician putting his ear to some chink, through which
floats an Hallelujah of Angels, and you have Lamartine's
thought of a Republic of Lamartine. With him it is a glorious halo-the Beautiful, and Good, and True, which the
eye of Poet, and of Prophet sees, reflected by the light of
Humanity, upon the shaking visions of the Future.
These men are of the Banquet; but their earnest talk, and
their arrangement of the coming scenes, is in the little room
of Pagnerre.
They are waiting for the Twenty-second.
2




26           THE  BATTL E SUMMER.
II.
OTHERS WHO WAIT.
EFORMERS simple, have too their quiet evenings;
one time in the Rue Poitiers, and again upon the
Place St. Georges.
Little, earnest, spectacled Thiers is always there;-nervously unquiet, angry, and hopeful in his talk, scheming ever.
He clutches the Debats in his grip, and his cheeks puff out
with ill-tempered zeal.  It needs all the cool, and placid dignity of Barrot, to calm the fidgetty leader of the Opposition.
But as the storm gathers thicker and thicker over the
devoted head of Guizot, the anxiety of Thiers changes into a
chuckle of triumph.  For once the far-seeing Statesman is
short-sighted. He counts simply, and purely on his reinstation; he makes light of Republican Banquetters; he sneers
at poetry-making Lamartine; he pities feeble Louis Blanc;
he compassionates the aged Astronomer; he defies ardent
Rollinists.
Yet what knows he, pray, of the side-currents;-of the
little room of Pagnerre;-of the cabals at Reforme office?
He is dining in the Rue Lafitte, or in the Chaussee d'Antin;
his talk is with Bourgeois bankers, and with members of the
Opposition.
Together, they have arranged the offices and the honors;
they are waiting for the Banquet of' the Twenty-Second.




OTHERS  WHO  WAIT.                    27
Nor are these all of the movers, and actors. There are
night-meetings by dim candle light, in the offices of Reforme
newspaper, in the dark Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau, at which
are met such fiery spirits as Flocon, and Albert, and noblelooking Barbes, and long-moustached, sour, David (d'Angers.)
These, set at naught the calculations of the Opposition in
the Chamber, and reckon on the concourse of the people, and
the dethronement of the King. And these men know the
Faubourgs; and you might have seen them at street corners,
feeling the pulse of that quick people, which swarms around
the dark places of the Capital.
Their reasoning is short and sharp: we were cheated in
July-now we will not be cheated: we have been weaknow we will be strong; we have been poor, we will be so no
longer.  Their strength lies in the quick people-currents,
whose drift they know. That strength is great, and it is
growing greater.
Take care Guizot;-take care Thiers!
These men are waiting with strong anxiety for the Banquet
of the Twenty-Second.
Guizot is waiting;-even the arch-offender, not without his
friends, and loving friends. For he is, as the world goes,
honorable, kind, a good father, a considerate master, a steadfast friend.  Truly a mag may be a good man, and yet a bad
man, together.  You shall find no villain so accursed, but
some spring if touched right will call up tenderness-maybe,
tears; and no man scarce, so good, but circumstance, or




28           T! E  B A I T L E S U I I E R.'thievish opportunity,' may sometimes make his excellence
stare out, like villainy.
Guizot was closeted often and long with the broken-down
King, new-nerved by the press of circumstance; and often,
with Duchatel, and Hebert.
They all, were waiting anxiously for the Twenty-Second of
February.
And time was rolling on, sure and relentless, over heads of
Reformers, and Schemers, and Workmen, and Republicans,
and Soldiers, and Beggars, and King.  The interval was
shortening, and the day was coming-the Birth-day of a
Washington.
III.
a 11 E TwENTY-S ECO N D.
iND now the day has fairly come: In Western places
over the  water-at home —Republicans born, are
dragging out cannon to fire a salvo, in honor of the man,
through whom, under God, the country was made Republican, and what is infinitely better, and more worthy of cannon
shots, —was milade Fi REE.
What buzz is going through that great crowd gathered before, and around thel Church of the Madaleine in Paris? An
angry buzz; a buzz of disappointment.
The gamin will see no fight; the hungry have lost their




T IE  rENT Y-SE C O N D.               29
Banquet dinner; the speechmakers must keep down their
speeches; the Workmen will lose their Revolution; for the
Deputies of the Opposition have published at the eleventh
hour their determination to abstain from the Banquet.
They have learned, what they might have suspected earlier,
that the authorities are determined to repress such assenmblage by force of arms; and they wish to spare the shedding
of blood. They say, too, (a true stroke of Thars' strategy,)we, in virtue of our position, would be safe from injury; we
are unwilling to expose our adherents.
But this does not satisfy-far from it-the waving, noisy,
buzzing, blue-shirted crowd. Are we not judges, reasoned
they, of the value of our own lives, and can we not count the
number and sharpness of bayonets as well as any Deputies in
tilhe land? And the crowd recoiled upon itself, aud stung
itself, almost to madness.  The Deputies were in error.  To
that crowd bread was always bread; and blood, after all,
was only blood.
Meantime a little company, Lamartine among them, persist in Banquetting; and some even urge their way up the
Champs Elysees, to the gates of General Thiars.
But the gates are closed: there is no Banquet; and no sign
of Banquet, save the straggling canvass of the Pavilion; and
even that is being pulled down by workmen, who carried the
only Banquet,-a little dry bread and cheese, —in the pockets
of their blouses.
The party turned away homeward; did Guizot think he
had triumphed 




30           T1Ie B ATTLE  SUMM E R.
Meantime, under a sombre sky, and notwithstanding the
cold wind-gusts, the streets are thronged.  The doors are filled with eager faces.
It is strange Carnival time at Paris.  Masks, dominoes,
balls, intrigue, all are forgotten, for the grand intrigue that the
people are playing with the Crown.
Mounting high over noise of throng, and tramp of feet, and
clatter of cuirassier, borne on the winter blast, even far over
to palace ears, is the chant of the never-dying Mlarseillaise.
And between the chorus, comes from fiercer voices, counting
by thousands, the sharp-uttered bark —d bas Gizot! Down
with Guizot!
Far from classic Pantheon, defiling through sordid, dim,
low-lying suburb of St. Jacques,-chanting eager with young
throats, the songs of wakened liberty-come the long, broad
cohorts of the schools... Child of Esculapius, with stains of Clamart dissecting tables yet hanging to tattered wristband; crimson collar
of Val de Grace; gold-wrought olive leaf of St. Cyr; dainty
sword of Polytechnic; manual of law-talking Dupin, tucked
in coat pocket-all are blended, and assisting at a common
course.
Now they mount like writhing, scaly, parti-colored Iguandon, Pont Neuf, and descend again in the Rue de la Monnaie;
and far on westward, join the blouse-throng around the
columns of the Madeleine.  Their chants join in chorus —an
ominous chorus;-body-labor, and soul-labor joined; workmen and scholars singing a paean to:Liberty.  And it rises




THE  TWENTY-SECOND.                     31
and swells, and floats on those strong winter-gusts, over interlying Place de la Concorde, even to the courts of the Palace
of the Deputies.
Duchatel, trembling, comes out, and stands under the
columns of Palace Colonnade.  He looks over that broad, interlying Place, toward the moving, parti-colored mass, which
is sweeping down through Royal street, that fronts the Chamber; and he turns with confidence toward the long lines of
infantry, and squads of glittering cuirassiers, that stretch at
foot of Palace steps, and beyond the Bridge;-even as a
mariner will look over the sea, long and fixedly into the teeth
of a rising wind, and then, run his eye proudly over taut cordage, and taper spars.
Taut cordage snaps; and taper spars crackle asunder, if
God but breathe in whirlwind.
But Duchatel went back with an air of confidence-They
are but chanting-said he:-vox et praterea nihil.
The Guard Municipal charges upon the throng which flows
in upon the Place de la Concorde. The dragoons too charge;
but slowly, and with swords in their scabbards. The crowd
cries in return, Long live the Dragoons! Down with the
Municipals!
As night approaches, stormy scuds drift over the plagued
city. The population is fitful and stormy as the sky. Already there are victims, over whom mourners have task-work;
but as yet they are few, and victims of their own temerity.
Everywhere it is h bas Gmizot! and that other cry, borne
like a rushing wind, —Vive la. Reforen,!




32          THE BATTL E SUMMER.
The leaders of the Opposition are chuckling at their
triumph. They lay their bill of impeachment upon the table
of the President.
But Guizot, glancing out, as Duchatel had done before
him, and seeing the Place de la Concorde silent,-the waters
dancing there in their bronze vases, as if it was gala day, read
the bill of impeachment with a cold, bitter smile.
The eddies of the troubled people are sucking away angrily
around corners, and tossing in open places. Here and there,
they throw up in their course, light barricades, which they
leave behind them, for a sign; —as Pelletan* says-Comme
des qotes inde'cises qui fottent d'abord Va et ld smr mLn orchestre-like the broken notes of an orchestra, as it begins its
play. And soon these will be attuned, and the music swell
out clear and high.
A sheet of gold blazes along the Western horizon, and
night is come.
IV.
DOWN  WITH  GuIzoT.
GUIZOT'S troops have bivouacked in open square. His
hotel has been hedged, and occupied by Companies
Municipal, and Companies of Line.  The Faubourgs have
* Les Trois Journhes. par E., Pelletan.




DOw N   - X V Ji G U I Z 0 T.          33
been the night-long in a fevered ferment.  Talk has waged
angrily in all corner wine shops.  Reform'e newspaper men
have not slept.  There have been Bourgeois strangers in the
Faubourgs this night; and there have been resolves made,
and clinched with wild oaths, which Thiers, and Barrot do not
know of-which they would be glad to know.
Barricades are set up, and torn down; the rain is falling in
torrents; musketry is cracking from hour to hour, in single
volleys.
As yet, however, with all Bourgeois, all bank-men, all
traders, all fathers of families, all in short, who dread uproar,
and who tremble at the sight of red flag-all, or most of National Guardsmen, who do not love to quit their bureau of
Commerce, the cry is still simply,-Down with Guizot!
The Rappel is beaten in every quarter, at the first blush of
morning: but these new-flocking Guards National will not
defend the TMinistry; they will not suffer-depend upon it,
Guizot!-men, women, and children, who cry' abas le ministOre,' to be shot down, like whistling thrushes.
Away they go, marching bands of Bourgeois, in dress of
Civic Guard, not to disperse the early gathered throngs on the
Boulevard, and place of Bastille, but only to mingle their cry,
with cry of others, making it come hoarser, and heavier to the
Palace-Down with Guizot!
And this stern Guizot, with the lines now a trifle longer in
his forehead, enters the Cabinet of the King, and says;-Sire, the Guard fraternize with the people; the soldiers
refuse to fire upon the Guard: I must resign.
2*




34          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
And away goes the fallen minister to the Chamber of
Deputies.
-The King has sent-says he-for M. le Comte Mole to
form a new Cabinet. And a shout of-bravo!-bursts through
the whole Chamber.  Will that bravo quiet the waves of
sedition, that are rocking heavily around the city?
The rumor runs-the Ministry is fallen.
National Guards are satisfied; shopmen open shops; even
Reformers are quiet; the People seem disposed to accept the
omen, and chant in chorus unbroken, a good-humored Marseillaise.
As the night approaches, window, balcon, door, frieze, roof
are dancing with glittering lights.  The gamin enchanted
chant-des lampions! and chiffoniers pick their two days
cleanings without ever a lantern.
Guizot is down.
V.
A CHECK MATE.
TWO gentlemen are seated at table in a salon, not far
from the Boulevard de la Madeleine, playing at chess.
It is a quiet game; for they are Bourgeois, and the news of
the fall of the Ministry has reached them. On a sudden they
are startled by a heavy discharge of musketry. —What is that?
-said one.




A  CHECK  MATE.                     35
-A salute!-said the other; and moving a piece he gave
the check-mate.
It was not the only check-mate that belonged to that
terrible discharge. By that discharge the King of the French
was check-mated.  By that discharge too, Life has been
check-mated in fifty athletic men.
They lie-the fifty corpses-weltering in their blood, in
warm, red torch-light, before the Hotel of the wretched Guizot:
their destroyers, two hundred soldiers stretch across the
street-now reloading their pieces.
But there is no need.  The officer is horror-struck at his
own work. Those soldier men, even, must, and will have
their numbers taken from their hats, and be mixed in other
numbered regiments, to save them from hot people-vengeance.
And why this sudden discharge-this check-mate salute?
Varying accounts will go down to History, as Historians
may side with the People in blouse, or the People, who for
the time, wore disguise of Soldiery.
Certain it is, that a column from far away, by black bronze
shaft of Bastille, clad most of them in working blue-shirtssome with swords, some with sticks, some with blazing torches,
and all chanting lively, liberty-praising choruses, did sweep
down, swift, and threatningly between rows of blazing tapers,
along the stately Boulevard:-Certain it is, that many kindled
by the chant, and torch-light, joined voices to the chorus, and
swelled the roaring column. So they passed, rolling, a wavy,
tortuous, shining, shouting stream-not stopping, until the




36t         TIE BATTLrE  SUMMAIER.
breasts of the foremost, were upon the muskets of two hundred
soldiers in steady line.
They asked for passage; the officer of the detachment refused. The hindermost push up: the soldiers grow alarmed.
The officer draws his sword.  A gun is discharged.  The
horse of the officer sways under him: he gives the fatal command
-   And French Royalty falls, in the lives of fifty, that
Royalty had sworn to defend.  Now, Republicans may shout,
and Reformists may tremble.
The tide has leaped the barrier.
VI.
THE DEAD CART.
Y  torch-light, the rallying crowd, terrible with groans
) of vengeance, pile a dozen of the unclaimed corpses
upon street-cart.
They tear off the linen to show the murderous wounds.
They dispose the strange freight with horrid art. The torches
flare over the stripped bodies, and wild-faced criers of
vengeance, with hideous effect.
Women look down from chamber windows, and fall, fainting.
That hoarse yell of tragedy rises awful, between the princely
houses; princely occupants rush in their night clothes to the




Aux  AR M ES.                    37
windows, to see the red flame flaring on the dead faces lying
up to the sky.
Still the street is smoking with illuminating triumph, and
the night is dark overhead. So, through a red alley of triumphal torch-light, with the harsh " Vengeance!" death-song,
the victims pass on.
Away through narrow streets, turning and winding, never
stopping, the cart of dead men passes. A gaunt torch-bearer
sits at the head; a gaunt torch-bearer sits at the foot; and
and as the interest weakens, one or the other raises the stiffened corpses, and lays his blooded finger in the bullet wound,then lets the carcass drop heavily into its place; suiting to
the action a yell of-Vengeance! —and both, wave their long,
red torches.
Sleep on, Louis Philippe! sleep while you can.
VII.
Aux  ARMES.
BUT the king cannot sleep. East and west, and north
and south, the tocsin is sounding; and the mournful
cadence, full of threatening, comes to the Royal ears.
Lights of illumination go out, and are not re-lit. Even the
torch-band of promenaders has changed to black company,
which thunders at house-doors, and demands arms. Not small




38          TIHE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
bands only, but companies of hundreds, and thousands-so
many, that strong, select municipals cannot tame them.
Republicans are busy this night-not now in club-room, or
in bureau of any newspaper, but in street, and faubourg, everywhere that combustible lies, to be set on fire. Not now, only
straight-forward Republicans, but all sorts of change-makers,
Socialists, Communists, Prudhonites, dreamy Fourierites, are
gadding from chamber to chamber, making barricade proselytes.
Nor is it hard to be done. Lights are gleaming in garret
windows; cartridges are rolled; balls are run; guns burnished; while over all the darkened city the tocsin is booming, and comes heavier, and heavier to the ears of the wakeful king.
Midnight has sounded. The King paces his cabinet, disturbed, and thoughtful.  Mole was with him at noon-now
he is gone. The hour of his rendezvous haspassed. Why
does he not come? The king can count no longer on Mole.
Away he sends-it is hard work-for Thiers.  But it is
near four in the morning when Thiers enters the cabinet of
the King. Guizot has just left it forever.
The old Bourgeois Minister has come again to his post;the man flattered, pampered, discarded, hated, and derided,
has come again to the King whom he has, in turn, flattered,
cajoled, hated, and insulted.
He demands the name of Barrot on the programme of the
new Ministry. The King says-well. It is no time to object.




Aux  A  Ii E s.                     39
IIe confirrms Bugeaud as manster of the forces, and hurries off
the announcemenrit to Constitutionnel, and Debats.
It will quiet the trouble —said Thiers, and he wip.ed
hlis pen, as a surgeon would wipe his blade after probing a dceep
abscess.
And the King, like a sick patient who experiences sudden
relief, dropped asleep.
The sleep will not be lon-, and it will not be sound.  For
the tocsin has only ceased, because the day is breaking; and
with the day, the banner of revolt will be secn, red, on every
barricade.
The storm  of the night-God's voice in whirlwind — as
swept the Boulevard of trees.  They line the barllicadcls,
which cross it at every corner.
Rich bankers hurry away in first dawn, with gold.  Happy
Bourgeois! happier than Bourgeois King 
Strange sillht it is, to see-blouse workers suddenly turnse d
into armed lmenl  with black cartridgle box, stuffed full.  Mothers with young children may well tremblle.
But what is it that armed men are pulling dolwn from street
corners, and trampling under foot, with oaths, thalt reach third
floor window?  It is M. Thiers' proclamation, that the King
has selected M. Barrot and himself to forim  a new AMiiiistrv.
The shop-keepers crowd up, honest Bourgeois, and say
loudly-let it stand.  This is whalt we wish.  This is Reforlm.
But blouse blood is up.  N'ight watching, and torchl-light,




40           TTHE  BA TTLE  SUMMER.
and communist talk have fired them. The blouse has musket,
and the blouse has ball.
N'ot in vain has the cry gone forth —Aux Armes!
Reformists waking, and' finding such proclamation, turn
over, and drowse again, saying sleepily-our work is done.
Republicans have not slept, and their eyes not dimmed with
night-watch, twinkle with smile of strange meaning, at sight
of such strange placard.  They only tighten their cartridge
belts, and look to the lock of their muskets.  Quick!-there
is need. The firing has begun,-in the Place de la Concorde,
in the Rue St. Honore, by the Porte St. Martin.
In distant quarters only, and breaking fitfully on the cool
air of February morning, the cry still reaches sleeping earsAux Armes!
VIII.
A  ROYAL BREAKFAST.
T HE King is wakened by crack of musketry.
Still Thiers is scrambling over barricades, holding
upon his spectacles, and saying, loud as the din will let him
say —me voici-I am Minister.
The National Guard listen, and hesitate; not so the throng
in blouse. The Republicans have been before the Minister;
high hopes have been quickened; they who have promise of
roast, with dessert, will not dine on stews.




A  RYA L  Ro     F A K' A S r.          41
At worst-say they-we can fall back on such as
Thiers.  En avant.' let us see the middle of the Palace of
the King.
And the paving stones clank on the rising wall, and muskets glisten alongr the lifting line.
Barrot too, earnest, honest Barrot makes his way in face of
danger; the shop-men feel re-inspired; the Guard sympathize. But there are the blouses pushing on; they will not
stop; they will not listen; and enough of epauletted Guard
are with them, to give them  confidence.  On by thousands
they push, hemming closer and closer the Palace walls.
The clock upon the tower of the Horologe strikes ten.
The King is at breakfast.  The courtly, long-faced Marie
Amelie is there; the lively, fiery little scion of the great house
of Aragon-the Princess of Montpensier is with them; and
by her side, with face that stormy events have made thoughtful and care-worn beyond his years, sits her handsome, boyfaced husband.
A tap is heard at the door; a valet announces the Deputy
R6musat; he wishes to speak with his Highness of Montpensier.  The King rises, and the Queen.
It is announced at length, that the proclamations are torn
down; that neither Thiers nor Barrot can lay the storm;that cries are becoming dangerously threatening;-that the
people-masses are hemming them round.
Now indeed the King trembles, —not unmindful of a certain
Tenth August! Measures of defence are proposed. The old




42            THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
Queen is stirred; her Sicilian hot blood mounts; she would
shoot down the canaeille.
Not so fast, good, old Queen Amelie!
Little Spanish Montpensier joins Sicilian age, fire flashing
from her Castilian eyes.  For a moment, the King waversthen commands the carriages.  But the carriages must pass
by Carousel; and Carousel is full of troops; they must not
see such Royal retreat;-nor imagine it.
Then, the King takes courage again, and puts on the grand
cordon of Legion of Honor, and coat, rich in embroidery of
gold; so he passes out, and passes in front of the thousand
troops who are in the Great Court.  It is his last ovationhis last grateful-sounding- Vive le Roi!
The Queen hears it, and kindles again; biack-skinned
princess Montpensier hears it, and her nostrils snuff the battle.
The King is in his Cabinet, still wearing broad cordon of
Legion of Honor.  Little Thiers, puffing, heated, is there
again.  He brings sad. comfort, to the now half-comfortable
Majesty.  The prestige of Thiers is gone: Barrot must be
the Illan.
— Eh bien, soit-well,-said the King.
But even at the moment, as we have said, honest, earnest
Barrot, cannot make his voice heard over the welkin of the
blouse-cries. Red banners are floating with impudent face.
Down again, from  classic Pantheon new student throngs
push on.  This time, swords and bayonets glitter; and hands
-that yesterday plied the scalpel, are chinking gun-locks. The
whole of St. Jacques, and dirty la, 1Tarpe is moving.  The




A  RoY AL  BREAKFAST.                   43
gray Sorbonne shoots out from its cavernous courts, hordes of
scholar truants, and on they sweep, over Pont Neuf, or
under angle of sombre Institute, helming the Palace, where
Royalty's breakfast lies, half-eaten.
Troops that yesterday held position in distant quarters, are
retiring disheartened.  First comes Thiers, who says-stop
fighting; it is I am Minister. Then comes Barrot, who saysit is I.  Then Lamoriciere-not unpopular, who says-it is I.
What wonder if they ground their muskets, and say-nous
verrons?
Meantime Republicans, slyly hiding bourgeois coat under
blouse, are not waiting, but pushing on the people to what
they call a people's triumnph.
Gun-shots die away in distance, and all accumulates around
the Palace.
The King is in his Cabinet with Thiers, and Queen, and
Reniusat, and others.  The fir'ing is coniing nearer.  The
Proclamation-the torn one-is under the King's hand.
The door opens, with little ceremony, and there enters a
new man; —his face all earnestness, all anxiety, and yet full
of a calm determination.
-   Sire,-he says-You lose time; a half hour more,
and Royalty in France is ended.  They pull down your proclamations; they will have none of them.
The King, perplexed, turns to his Councillors; the Councillors shake their heads..What shall be done,-que faire?-says the King.




44           TH E  BATTLE  SUMMER.
Abdicate-says Emile de Girardin, for he was the
new-comer.
The King lets his pen drop; the fingers are weak; he has
but half-breakfasted.
A dreadful volley of musketry is heard; the Queen moves
quick to the window, and clasps her hand.
-Sire, it must be-says Montpensier.
— Be it so-says the King.
And Girardin, his errand done, hurried away, breathing
quick, pushing through dense masses, laying his hand on
threatening gun-muzzles, saying-the King has abdicated!
But who of that crowd will believe one man's voice?-It is
Girardin-says one-it mrust be true.
- It is Girardin-says a Republican-who shot Armand
Carrel! We will go, and see for ourselves.
Away flies, eager, confident Girardinll; his bustle, his sweat,
his swift walking in vain: for by the time he shall have
reached Rue Montmartre, and be seated at his table once
more, his news of abdication will not be worth the paper it is
printed on.
The King lays off the cordon of Legion of Honor.
Then the Queen turns, with bitterness in her face-the
concentered bitterness of eighteen years of faded Royalty-of
disappointed motherhood-of fresh wakened wife-sympathy,
and reviles in courtly terms the poor, shrinking, trembling,
defenceless Thiers.
And the great Minister gnaws that under lip, looking vacantly through the deceiving lunettes; and the mouth thait




CI ATEAU  D' E A U.                    45
was open enough, and full enough, and pliant to excess, before
a Chamber of angry Deputies, has no words in it now.
The King and Queen pass out.  Helen, Duchess of Orleans, in black of widowhood remains behind, her hands over
her eyes.
The royal pair has gone out from the Palace: the royal
breakfast half-eaten.  France has no more a King.
IX.
C IATEAU  D   EA U.
OPPOSITE the Palais Royal, which is close upon the
Tuilleries, is an open Square, where stand day after
day, some fifteen or twenty patient-waiting hacks, sleeping in
the sun. Beyond these, and flanking the Square, is a high,
board barrier, stuck over with such parti-colored placards of
Theatre, Public Sale, Lottery, Jardin d'Iliver —as the taste
of the hour may demand.
Behind the board barrier, which is of modern date, being
not over a year old, rise the battered and smoked remnants
of a small, low, palace-like structure of stone.  It is the ruin
of the Chateau d'Eau-the Water-Palace.
In the middle of its front, from rustic-wrought alcove, used
to gush out a fountain of water, from which, dozens of stout
water-carriers filled every morning their iron-rimmed, oaken
pails.




46             EI!' E    ABATTLE   S U TI  E.
On either side, were long windows double grated; and at
corner, a door of oak studded with iron spikes.  Loop-holes,
grated with square bars were on each side this door; and other
loop-holes peeped out, here and( there, from  between the
pilasters, and fooni aditl thle  rustic work of the Fatade.
While the King was eating his last royal beaklifast, the
throng of bariicade builders had comle upon the Chateau
d'Ea u.
The Chatcau was stronh, and gLarnished with a hundred
and fifty troops, and the officer who commllanded theml  was of
stern mettle.  He fired upon the advancing streamn of blouses,
and withdrew his men belind the heavy walls of his Palace..
The people send up a slhout of Vengeance.
The Rue St. Honord traverses the Square before the Chateau, and three or four sniall streets open upon it.  Around
all the corners formed by these opening alleys, the raging
nlass lies crouched, like tiger at bay! and from  all the windows around, guns blaze, and bullets flatten on the true walls
of stone.
From  behind, -from  far down toward Castielione colonnade, and from  Market des Ielloccns, National Guard hears
the firing, and pushes up, with musket trimmled —pushes into
the crouching mass-pushes through, carrying his musket high
over his head-all hot with veng-eance, and in the outermost
line, brings the black gun-barrel to bear upon some murderous
slit of Chateau d'Ea/u.
But before the mouth blazes, the slit of wall streams firethe arm  of strcet-guardl palsics-gun-muzzle clinks on the




CHATEAU  D'EAU.                     47
pavement-the brave one reels-the outer ones catch him,
and straight-another is come to fill the dead one's place.
From time to time the mob sways angrily behind, and
pushes a wave of the mass out into open shot: the murderous
slits blaze together, each doing its dreadful work, and the
wave of people falls back with great groans, marking its outermost flow, with scattered red stains, and fallen bodies.
Thousands are pressing up, and rage conquers fear. They
march out openly, to take fair, and full aim if they see even
so much as a soldier's hand within the cruel bars.
But it is dreadfully unfair work!-One side, blouses, thin
as Kentucky jeans; and the other, walls a good yard thick.
One side, boasting Liberty, reckless and maddened, unused to
guns.  The other side, an easy working matter of Royal
mechanism. On one side, rage, King-hate, and vengeance;
on the other, coolness, life-love, and discipline.
Will Vengeance win the day, or will Discipline?
Vengeance has now gained the Palais Royal, and from upper windows, and from top of colonnade pours in its shot, upon
the grated windows of Chateau d'Eau. It is near by, not farther
than good robin-killing distance, but the bars are thick, and
it is doubtful if yet, a dozen within are disabled.
Is there no storming the place?
Some few who know not of those doors studded with spikestoo maddened to ask-rush through the firing, and beat with
stock of musket. One lays hand upon the window stanchion,
as if to wrench outgood three-inch bar of iron; but while they
look from beyond, his hand stiffens round the stout iron-his




48           TIIE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
musket clangs upon the step-his body sways inward, and the
yellow stone trickles with blood. Brother and sister in that
crouching crowd are looking on!
Well for them, if all, smitten, had died. Shoulders are
dreadfully shattered; hips broken with musket ball, are making them fools with pain. The long gallery d'Orleans is full
of wreck-wrecked humanity. Each side they lie, and surgeons, with sleeves rolled up, are passing, business-like from
one to another. The glass roof shakes with groanings.
There lie the quick-cutting saws, the bullet tongs, the long
glittering knives, the delicate tweezers for fine bone-splinters,
the nice-coiled ligaments,'the baskets of lint; and still the
work is going on.
Expensive Chateau d'Eau!
But now, from through dirty St. Thomas du, Louvre come
the royal carriages, harnessed to men in blouse. Boys set
fire to cushions, and as they come the blaze catches the varnished tops. The mass hoot, and-their invention quickened
by fury —they push the burning carriages against the oaken
doors of Chateau d'Eau. The women, from windows, throw
down bed, and bagging, and faggots. The daring ones, here
and there shot down, pile on the light combustibles; others
hid in smoke, rush up, and setting muzzle in very grating,
blaze off.
The flames rise, and dry the fountain, and lick into the
barred windows,-not fine enough to shut off flame. Oaken
shutters blister, and scorch, and crack, and smoke, and blaze
out, bright and hot.




C HA TEAU  D IEAU.                   49
Still infuriated blouses fire, through smoke and flame, at
the blazing shutters, growing thin.  Within, shots are diminishing.  The crowd taking courage, thicken over the square.
Away again, from every window, and loon hole, bursts the
murderous fire.
A new howl, a last howl of vengeance rises with the smoke.
Now, Municipals are indeed doomed.  New faggots blaze;
there is a crash within of falling timbers. The spiked door
opens;-a score of balls break into the narrow scape-hole.
Blouses crowd up with bayonets, and thrust them at the door,
if it so much as creak on heated hinges.
No guns now from Chateau d'Iau.
The burnt timbers crack; at intervals there is a light explosion, as of burning cartridges; Royal carriages are black
cinders, with wheel tires white with heat; window shutters are
gone; the lead pipe of fountain is melted off, and the water
runs into the hissing embers, and bearing ashes, and black
coal flakes, rushes down the gutters, where the blood is straggling.
Guns have stopped without, as well as within.  The Chateau is the same dreadful ruin, you see it now, but hot and
smoking; and fifty half-burnt bodies are lying on the floor of
Guard-room!
And now this barrier between populace and palace is gone;
and the crowd rolls on like great, wind-driven wave, tossing
from seaward: will it dash into foam against other rocky
rampart,-or will it spend itself on low beach-defenceless
Tuilleries-throwing up drift-wood, and wreck?
3




50           THE BATTLE SUMMER.
X.
MOB  MATERIAL.
HO now make up this nomadic horde, that comes
blackened from the battle, and which will soon be
raging through the brilliant salons of the Tuilleries?
Are their feet used to such waxed, shining floors, and are
their stomachs used to such plump Westphalia hams, as by
and by will be sticking on their bayonet tops-trophies of
the sack?
Let us see.
-   That stout man, in blue blouse, (which we might as
well call blue-shirt, except for a little plaiting and crimping
at the neck) worn over waistcoat; and such shattered breeches
as belong to gamin, is perhaps workman. Yesterday, very
likely, he was breaking stone in the yard of the new foreign
court-paid such dull pay, as kept him from starvation, by
kingly paymasters: to-day he snatched a musket from the
pile at the caserne, upon the Boulevard, and has been trying
his hand at sly-shots from behind the angle of the Caf6 de la
Regence. He is not at his work, because none are there; he
has grappled a musket, because it was offered; he has fired
at the soldiery because his brothers were shot down; he is
dashing toward the palace, because he is maddened.
-     The boy, who flanks him, in cap-scarce eighteen



MoB MATERIAL.                       51
has stolen his two-barrel twist from the shop of Lepage, and
his cartridge box was lent him by a good Republican Guard.
His home is Paris; his parentage doubtful; even his name
he owes to committee of nurses at Foundling Hospital.
Sometimes he is shop-boy; sometimes he carries a big basket
at the markets; sometimes he hawks a journal; but oftener
he is living leisurely at that wide-walled, young-man, prisonhouse of Roquette.  When sick, he is sick at La Charite;
and when dead, he will be cut up by the dirty students beyond the Musee Dupeytren.
-Another, whose blouse is black-stained, and hand hard,
is armorer. His eye is piercing; his hair thick, and matted;
his lip full, and passionate. He can read, and he can talk; ten
to one, but at the instant, wiping the perspiration and bloodspots from his face, with his musket grounded, and leaning
against his shoulder, he commences a wordy harangue.
- Another, in thread-bare black coat, which had once
been Bourgeois, and in pitable, short-brimmed hat-with long
moustache, and cravat which wholly hides shirt collar, if indeed there be shirt collar to hide —is artist.
Struggling with moderate merit, poor pay, and poor wife
pining on sixth story floor, he makes common cause with
whatever will drag down the powerful, and sides with Fourierite, or Communist, as passion may sway him. His grudge is
against society; and in shooting on yonder palace he believes
that his ball will enter society's gangrenous heart.
A black-eyed Corsican, in trim coat of Polytechnic,
pushes eagerly among the foremost, dragging his thin sword




52          T II F. BATTLE  SUMMER.
after him, and with both hands bearing a musket, ready for a
charge. Fight warms him; there is his element. He has no
great hate of kings, but immense love of glory.  He is humane at heart, but passionate, and intractable of purpose.
Tell him he must not quit his student walls, and he scales
them in face of cannon. Tell him that the King's soldiers
have shot down an inoffensive crowd, and he seizes the banner
and heads the charge. If Duchess of Orleans should come
to beg his protection for herself and her little sons, he would
turn his musket in their defence, upon fraternizing blouse, or
upon his fellows of the school.
A  stout Guard National is among them, his head
bound with bloody rag. A dragoon sabre cut has changed
him from Reformer to Republican.-En avant!-he criesto the palace!-and his gaunt figure, and bloody head disappear under the tower of the Pavilion of the clock.
-     Glazed-hatted hackman has got a gun, and his pocket
is bellied out with cartridges. His carriage is in a barricade;
and his wife strides, red-faced, and shouting at his heels.
Yonder is a blouse, in which the crimples of the shop
are not yet fairly worked out. It has a new, fresh, cottony
smell. The head above it, is white and fair; —a head that
has leaned watchful over books and bureau. Eyes are moving restlessly everywhere-they have had no sleep these three
nights; hands are white, and they pinch the gun-stock, with
nervous grip, as if they would leave their prints in the wood.
He looks with keen scorn upon the windows of the palace,
and scorn too upon the soldiery,-gross implements-sneers




Mo B MATERIAL.                      53
he —of grosser tyranny! Finer implements are pricking in
his brain, and finer tyranny! He is enthusiastic; perhaps
fanatic, from office of Refornme or Democratie Pacifique.  His
wild frenzy lights the dull ones; his zeal warms the timid:
and he himself is borne on by the tide his own extravagance
creates.  A strong feeler,-a crazy thinker; humane and
impulsive; vehement and yet kind; thoughtless, and yet
consumed with thought, he is the blazing soul, and centre, of
a mad cohort of blouses.
Vengeance has cruel representatives; —a woman is there,
with musket not awkwardly held aloft;-a white muslin cap
borders face, from which you cannot take off eyes-it is so
full, so maddened, so resolute. The thin lips tremble; the
eye shoots fire; the cheeks are bloated; the brow most
strangely drawn together;-the dress all disordered.
Her light arm. shrinks not with the weight of a heavy musket; her foot splashed with Chateau red stains, treads careless
of blood, or wounded; red cap-ribbons stream behind, as she
levels her musket, into the curtained window of a palace.
Her son's body lies stiffening in the sun, on the Square of
Chateau d'Eau, and her lips murmur audibly-Vengeance!
— Beware, Helen, Duchess of Orleans! beware, little
Count of Paris!-a tigress, whose cub is shot, is coming!




54           THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
XI.
T UILLERIES.
N empty palace! The half eaten breakfast remains on
the Royal table. Up, up, by staircase of Pavilion, by
staircase of Staff National, by staircase of the Seine, the
hooting crowd pushes on.
Now indeed abdication is certain; for there is no King,
but Barricaders, Guards National, Republicans, white-capped
women, Polytechnics, glazed-hatted cab-men-whatever you
will. Crowded four abreast, through the kingly doors, they
burst madly on, glutting their eyes on damask, and soft chairs.
The boldest shout-bravo! —a bas le Roi!-and fire their
muskets from the windows. The timid sit in corners on
Canape —their musket across their knees, watching and wondering.
Women fling down their muskets, and feel of damask table
covers.
Artists take off their bayonets, and examine curiously,
mosaic and tapestry.
The Republican smiles sternly, and marching straight to
throne room, instinct guiding him, stands boldly on cushioned
throne, and makes his musket stock ring upon the gilded frame
work.
- Away into the wing toward Rivoli-into Duchess of
Orleans' rooms, breaks a fragment of the multitude.  The




TUILLERIES.                      55
Duchess is gone; her book lies turned up upon the table,
where she read; little paper soldiers strew the carpet, where
Due de Chartres was playing at mimic war.  Dresses lie
strewed here and there; gilt-braided cap of Count of Paris,
and hussar, braid-covered jacket of the little Duke.
Within, farther on, in chamber, are the cap and epaulettes of
poor Duke of Orleans, guarded with holy reverence by the
widowed Duchess. These the crowd spares; and it pauses,
leaving the book in its place upon the table;-she will find, if
she find it at all, the page, the same; the paper soldiers lie
strewed, as the Duke strewed them, on the carpet; and even
lace-bordered mouechoir lies untouched upon the sofa.
-- But not so of King rooms. The throne passes out,
hurly-burly, borne on four stout shoulders; down go crimson
canopy and hangings; damask in long strips streams out of
the windows, and the crowds below catch them, and tearing
them, make red flags to stick in their musket muzzles.
Out go gilded tables, and statues of King and Queen, and
paintings. Above and below, the whole building is now
swarming. From cellar grating, they pass up mouldy-topped
bottles of wine; and sitting on fragments of Royal furniture
and on national drums, they drink-confusion to the Royal
runaway.
Salutes are firing from palace roof, and a drunken Marseillaise is breaking out from the wine vaults below.
Troops, all of them, with Nemours at their head, are gone,
and the people are master of court and palace.




56         1 THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
XII.
WHO IS RULER?
T HU~ far, palace-work has been easy work; the King
has easily fled; the deluge of people has flown easily
in, filling up, in their way, council chamber, and sleeping
cabinet.
If chasing away scared King, and filling up with extemporaneous, working-man's army his palace, were all-the work
is now done. Monarchy is beaten; Democracy is victor.
But is this all? Alas! no;-for even now, much of the
sinew of this populous army is reeling from the cellar, grown
stupid upon Royal wines; and so far from leading off some
twenty odd millions of Frenchmen, safely and soundly,-cannot itself go straight, and begs the arm of little girl, that it
may be led safely home!
The work of strong hands, and stout hearts has been done;
now comes temperance-work, and brain-work.
Are they equal to it? Will this great roaring horde, rocking still like an angry sea, around every palace avenue, quiet
itself, and at night, go quietly home? Can anxious-souled
mothers, and faint-hearted strangers, sleep tranquilly, after
such strong day's work?
Will merchant-palace stand, when King-palace has fallen?
Will this day's drinkers of Louis' Johannesberger, go back




CHAMBER  OF  DEPUTIES.                  57
to-morrow to sour butts of corner wine-shops? Will these
blouse-men, who sup in Tuilleries to-day, hammer stone tomorrow, at ten sous a perch?
Is man a reasonable animal, or is he not?  And if reasonable, which way will he go;-and if unreasonable, where will
he stop?
What have meant those red flags hanging so high, and
threateningly on barricades? Where lies the head that can
persuade, or the hand that can compel this stirred-up city of
Paris, to be calm, and merciful, and to sleep? Whither, in
all this Gaul-land, shall we look for it?
We will look first at that old main-spring, and regulator,
which by dint of oiling, and filing, and patching, has given a
sort of regularity to the current of events through ten years
past; and see if there be any motive force, and regulating
action left in it yet.  Failing of it there, we will look elsewhere.
XIII.
CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.
N OT a half a mile away from the south-west angle of the
Tuilleries, on the other side of the Seine, rising stately
from the river banks, and fronting the bridge, and Place de
la Concorde, and the Royal street, and the Greek portico of
the magnificent Madaleine, stands the Palace of the Deputies.
3*




8      T    THE BAT TLE SUMMER.
Within its walls, were gathered for the last time, on that
24th of February noon, the shattered remnants of the broken
machine of Government.
Eager footsteps have hurried that day to that Palace of
Deputies. Everywhere street-bands had been triumphant;
but street-triumph counted little, until that legislative heartthat lung which arterialized French blood-was right.
The street-bands crowd up, eager to learn if their work be
wholly done. Supporters of late Government are coming to
their seats made sacred by the laws, hopeful still that mere
vote-machinery may stay the storm. The Ministry alone,
wiser than their adherents, are nowhere to be seen.
The members of opposition are some of them gleeful in triumph; —others listening doubtfully to that roaring streetmusic. Republicans most eager of all, and most earnest, are
crowding in, armed and unarmed, saying under breath, through
closed teeth-we will have our will!
On the seats of the Deputies they were not indeed numerous,
but they looked with confidence upon the armed companies
which filled the tribunes, and which crowded the corridors of
the Palace.
The little faction of Legitimists, so long living in quiet,
were chuckling over the disorder, which had upset an upstart
throne. The thin face of Jesuitic Abbe Genoude was lit up
with unwonted fire; and the round, full visage of stout
Rochejacquelin, wore smile of strangely good humor.
Rumors had come of one concession after another;-of the
Thiers Ministry-of that of Barrot-of the abdication-of the




AN OMEN.                       59
flight even; but as yet nothing was certain. Even the dreadful
slaughter of the Chateau d'Eau had reached the ears of most
on the Deputy benches only as rumor, and hung over them
all, like a dark cloud-shadow.
It is the seat of a Kingdom's law-makers, but law-makers
for the Kingdom are trembling. Brawny arms clad in blue
shirts hang threatening on every range of gallery.  Stoutclawed vultures are flapping around the carcass of the dying
Power.
XIV.
AN  OMEN.
T!HIERS has come. The man strong in words,-the
great small man, the leader of July, the orator, pushes
in. A throng presses round him-hides him. What does
Thiers say? Questionings are eager, hot, and loud. —Hark,
now. The leader of July runs his eye aloft over the scowling
looks. Is there any comfort there, Monsieur Thiers?
That gray head of his shakes uncertain; he raises his white
hat, high as he can reach, and waving it, as a cockle shell
would toss on sea-waves, says,-The flood is mountingmounting-mounting!
And the gray head, and the white hat go down.




60           THE  BATTLE  S UMMER.
XV.
ANOTHER  COMER.
AUZET, last President of royal chamber rings his bell.
Barrot in dirty cab, with halloos following after him,
is rolling along the Quay to Ministry of Interior.  He is a
composed, stately man, and he fingers in his vest pocket for a
two-franc piece to pay the cab-man, as if he were going to say
mass at INotre Dame de Lorette.
That wave of clamor passes, and another little cortege
humbler, quieter, more timid, passes swift along the Quays.
First, is an officer in full dress; then, a lady in black,
leading a little boy by the hand; then, a second officer, bearing another child in his arms. The little boy who is foremost,
half runs to keep pace with the quick step of his mother.
The passers look curiously on; some whisper; some stare
idly, and pass by. They do not know they are looking at the
heir of the House of Orleans-the newly proclaimed boy-King
of France.
They are hastening to that Chamber of Deputies, but
hasten as they may, they will find the multitude before them.
The same host which drove the little Duke of Chartres from
his pasteboard soldiers in the palace of the Duchess, will drive
him from the Palace of the Deputies.
Even as the widowed Duchess, with tired step disappears
within the iron gate-way, a young girl mounted upon charger,




ANOTHER  COMER.                      61
wearing the red cap of liberty, and bearing banner on which
is written Long live the Republic, is heading a motley host,
that comes like an Eastern storm in winter, driving fast over
the Place of Concord.
Which shall win the day?-Young, red-capped, newmounted, tiring-woman, or widowed Duchess?-boastful,
hopeful, strength-ful, heart-full Republic, or starched, stiffstepping, shadowy Monarchy?
Three chairs are placed before the tribune in the Chamber
of the Assembly, for the Duchess and her sons. With eager
haste, some etiquette-loving  sergeant-at-arms-throne-mad
servitor-removes the middle chair, and sets a velvet-lined
fauteuil in its place. Poor stickler for velvet, and arm-chair!
He does not know, very likely he does not care, that at the
very moment, the crowd are whooping joyously on the wide
Place Bastille, around a blazing arm-chair-sole plunder of
the wrecked Palace-the throne of Philippe!
And now they are there. The Duchess in her fauteuil struggling hard with her woman's feelings, and bearing bravely, as
a strong-minded woman can, with weight of care, and trial, and
doubt. Little Count of Paris, in black jacket, with plaited
muslin collar, looks up, and around, with the air of a wondering, half-frightened boy. Little brother of Chartres, plies his
hand into the folds of his mother's robe for confidence: poor
boy! he had far rather be at his paste-board soldiers, on the
tapestried carpet.
Cold, court-looking Nemours is at their side, brilliant in his
dress of General officer.




62          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
Strange silence that is not meant, hangs around eager galleries of spoilers and hopers.
Shall the Duchess speak, or who shall?
XVI.
THE TALK BEGINS.
O LD Dupin, known at the desks of the Schools of Law,
and whose harsh visage had grinned over the oaken
seats of the amphitheatre by the Pantheon, in exposition of so
many, and short-lived Constitutions of France, makes himself
now the usher, and pleader for the Princess.
But Dupin has now uglier auditors than grim-faced, grisette-loving Students at Law.
A few faint' long lifes!' to Count of Paris, rise up from the
Deputy benches; but a sullen murmur runs along behind
them, and lingers after the'long lifes' are dead.
The bell of President Sauzet is with Dupin, and Prince;
but the bell of Sauzet is feeble. French gallantry is hid under blouse of gallery. The daring Duchess grows timid, and
the timid boy-king fairly frightened
They are gone now to the further range of seats, by the
further door of the Chamber.




THE  TA L K  BE GIN S.               63
M. Marie of Auxerre, has proposed a Provisional Government.
Barrot has come back from his telegraphic despatches. He
will find harder work in the Chamber than he has found in the
street. Three days ago, and his appearance at such tribune
would have been hailed with huzzas.  Men have lived fast in
those three days.
Now, his calm, dignified, cold, judge-like elocution, strikes
on the heated ears of that great company, with as little agreement, and efficacy, as a faint north-breeze, rustling over a
sea, stirred with Sahara Simoon.
And he speaks; and the Duchess bows acknowledgment;
and little Count bows;-prettily scenic, and the French love
scenes; but now consummate acting was not enough.
Fat Rochejacquelin, in white cravat, bushy hair, round red
cheeks, and eye pleasantly vermillioned with his snug Breton
wine-vaults, rolls to the Tribune. It was the voice of elder
Bourbon, of forgotten Legitimacy praying again to be heardasking appeal to the nation.




6'4         TIITE BATTLE  SUM MER.
XVII.
A  NEW  PHASE.
T  HE lower doors push open, as if the summoned nation was
-   ready with an answer,-a strong, swift-moving, not disorderly throng, in which you see mingled, coat of guardsmen,
blue-shirt of workmen, and white, red stained apron of butcherboy, whose cleaver gleams among the bayonets.
Curious eyes look on this irruption; most of all from a newspaper-reporting box, where sits keen-glancing Marrast.  He
regards suspiciously that new silk banner, which the foremost
of the throng waves out.  It is new; it is untrampled; the
silk is glossy; the fringe is rich and full.
-  It is no barricade banner-murmurs he; —the mob, is a
monarchy mob. And away he goes, searching the True People.
The brawny shoulders of Ledru Rollin loom up now in the
Tribune, and his strong voice reaches from side to side of the
shaking Chamber.
Aye, you talk plaintively-says he-of liberty and
order, and bloodshed, aye-bloodshed! Think you not that
it touches our hearts? Three thousand men are dead!
And the butcher-boy yonder, maddened at that gross number, raises his cleaver, and mounts the benches, and shakes his
weapon at the Duchess, and at the trembling boy-king.
The Deputies surround the butcher-lad, and take from him
the gleaming cleaver.




A  NEw  MAN.                     65
XVIII.
A NEW MAN.
GALLANT-LOOKING man, tall and stately and dignified, with hair silvered, whom we have seen before, in
the street of the Seine, is at the Tribune-a man destined to
more extravagant adulation, and to more undeserved calumny,
than ever overtook another, in so short space of time-the
man, LAMARTINE.
There were many reasons why he should be listened to now
with respect, and why all should be curious to see how he
bore himself in one of the most singular emergencies which
have belonged to French History.
A Politician, in the proper sense of that word he had never
been; nor had he been Advocate, —nor man of Business,nor yet Statesman. But he was known to be Poet, and Orator, and Philanthropist; and being all these, Deputies were
curious to see if he would be defender of Princess, or defender
of Republic.
His family had been titled; his bearing was noble. He
had wealth enough-talk as he will in his confidences-to
make for himT rank, with such as took rank, —as many do take
rank —from liveries and display.
He had been attached to the private service of the last
of the old Bourbon branch: he had retired, and Wandered
under the preceding, short-lived Empire: he had held di



66           THE  BATTLE SUMMER.
plomatie position afterward: he had made a Childe Harold
pilgrimage through Europe and the East, and had returned,
with name of easy verse-maker, accomplished gentleman,
warm-hearted observer, to make himself Orator, and-if the
State was willing,-Statesman.
Not attached to either of the political parties by any lien
of birth, or association, or profession, he had the confidence
of neither.
The Opposition applauded when his Sapphic periods were
directed against the tyranny of the Cabinet; and Guizot, and
Hebert looked approval when he dissented from the strategic
schemes of Thiers or Barrot. He had been listened to,
rather because of his eloquence, than because of his influence;
and he held the sympathies of the people, because he bewailed their misfortunes, and upbraided their oppressors.
Clubbists of Rue de Seine knew well his Republican views,
and welcomed him to that day's stormy Tribune, with clamor.
Even Reform Deputies lent to it an echo; for they had' a
hope that his poetic sensibilities would be touched by the
woes of fallen monarchy, and that the weeds of the Duchess
would win upon his imagination;-and to his imagination,
they were in the habit of crediting his speeches.
Legitimists may have possibly fancied that the young Aidede-camp, in the suite of Charles Tenth, bore yet pleasant
souvenirs of his Court-life, and would be happy to join his
destinies with some in-coming monarch.
The adherents of the fallen Ministry were not displeased
perhaps to welcome a poetic, and dreamy talker-as they




A  NEW   MAN.                     67
counted him-to disturb, and confuse with his speculations
the too practical current of Reform.
The galleries cheered from the beginning. Those rough
mob-men admired the tall and dignified figure of the speaker.
There was something in the benevolent expression of his face,
which touched their sympathies. His silvery tones were like
music, and when as he progressed, they found him pouring
out his eloquence, against a Regency, and in favor of a Government of their adoption, their enthusiasm burst forth like a
torrent, from the yielding frosts of Winter.
History-writers-the Orator himself among  them-will
hand down this Speech to Posterity as a great speech: yet
it was not a long speech, nor a brilliant speech, nor had it
much Rhetoric in it, except that best of Rhetoric,-adaptation; and it had the best kind of greatness in a speecheffect.
It was the hinge of Lamartine's political career.
Let us analyze it: —I pity the Princess-he began: and
the Princess, and the Princess' friends took courage; and a
slight tremor of disapprobation ran round the galleries.
-  But pity-continued he-is a passion; another wave of
feeling, kindred to that which has rolled us hither, and which
in an hour, may roll us away. Shall such rolling basis be
our basis?
And the galleries broke into applauding clamor; and the
Princess drew tight her veil; and the old white-haired man at
foot of the tribune, made his sword rattle back into its sheath.
-- Where then shall we find a basis? —and he elevated his




68            THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
tone to the highest,-only in going to the heart of the country,
and in drawing out thence, if I may so say, that grand mystery of National right, from  which springs all order, all
truth, all liberty!*
In this, the Poet had spoken dreamily, but had spoken as if
inspired; and the Poet's hymn was better for that gallery-mob
than a Statesman's reason.
Finally-said he-and now  the Expedient Man was
getting the better of the dreamy Poet-we want a government
which shall put an end to misunderstanding-which shall give
us time to see where we stand, and organize for us such elective action, as shall secure to us a Government of popular
representation.
-     That is it-that is it (c'est cela!) and bravo!-burst
forth from back-left benches and corridor, and not a dissentient voice can make itself heard in the clamor.
- The names-give us the names of the Provisional Government-shouted the House.
The Regency was dead, and a Republic was born. Lamartine was executioner; and Lamartine was accoucheur.
* Commet trouver cette base? En descendant dans le fond mmrne du pays, en
allant extraire, pour ainsi dire, ce grand mnystere du droit National, d'oi sort tout
ordre, toute vreite, toute libertY. Compte-rendu Moniteur (seance du 24 Fevrier.)




A  NEw  PRESIDENT.                   69
XIX.
A NEW  PRESIDENT.
ARRAST who had gone out to look for the true
people, has now come back, and his host break in at
doorway, and window, and spread along the gallery; and an
earnest one levels his musket at Lamartine, as he would at a
partridge. But the bystanders beat up the muzzle; and the
condemnation-for shame! it is Lamartine-comes up from
below.
The banner these men carried was no new silk one, with
heavy fringe, and tassel, but a damaged bunting that had seen
fearful barricade service. There were few dresses of general
officers in the company; but plenty of blouses, and of dusty
workmen's caps.
One of these new men has caught sight of the glittering
dress of Nemours, and levels his musket at him-but the murderous aim is again beaten off, and Duke and Duchess disturbed, creep out. Away they go-frightened, pressed, jostled, anxious, insulted, fugitives of Royalty, mindful in that
pass, only of life, more to be pitied than humblest guardsman,
-fond cherishers of that existence we all love so much-away
they go, Duke and Duchess, out of the Chamber-forever!
The Duke finds a cabinet, where a coat of a guardsman
saves him. The Duchess plunges through lower street of




70          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER'.
University, into Hotel of Invalides, and there among woodenlegged soldiers, hides Regent-pretensions until she can safely
escape.
Sauzet, meantime, last President of Royal Chamber has
put on his hat, and under growing menace has retired. The
blouses have dropped down from the galleries, upon the floor:
muskets are handed to them, —whatever the Sergeants-atarms may say-and the spaces around the tribune, are glittering with bayonets.
It is no longer Chamber of Deputies.
Thiers is gone; Barrot is gone; Sauzet is gone.
Genoude, and Rochejacquelin yet lingered-the types of the
old rule, among the masters and organizers of the new. It
was not a little singular to see thus, the strongest of feudal
monarchists acting in harmony with the most violent of Republicans. Extremes were touching. And there were those
who augured from the very fact, a state of quietude, because
of agreement, which thus far eludes hope.
A new man, and yet a man who trembles with weight of
years, makes his way to the vacant seat of the President Sauzet.
His history, more perhaps than his abilities had made this
man extraordinary. He was almost the only one of an old
race-of a generation in which lived and acted Talleyrand,
and Lafayette, and Fouche, and the brilliant Court of the
Emperor,-who was destined to belong actively to the creation, and subsistence of the new Revolution.
Even before the execution of Louis XVI.-before even the




PRESIDENT OF ASSEMBLY.                   71
famous Ninth of August, or the escape, and capture of Varennes, he had been advocate to the Parliament of Rouen. In
the time of Robespierre, he had been Judge in the old city of
Louviers; he had been member of the famous Council of Five
Hundred, President of the Court of Appeals under the Empire-had been Deputy under Louis XVIII. and had been the
senior of Louis Philippe's Ministers, as far back as 1831.
He possessed uncommon sincerity, mingled with bluntness.
He had good sense, application to business, and unwearied industry. He was not brilliant, nor was he an orator.. He had
always been Republican; and left the Dynasty of July, only
when it disappointed the hopes of its founders, and the promises of the King.
- And now, in his eighty-first year, he is seated in the chair
of Deputies, controlling as he best can, with his honest, but
feeble voice, the most boisterous assembly that France has
known for fifty years. His heavy head falls within his slouching shoulders; his features prominent, and large, are now
lank and leathern; a little brown wig covers his baldness, and
an eyebrow, bent and jagged,-half grey, half black,-shields
an eye, still piercing, and quick as youth.
They receive him with the shout,-Long live Dupont de
l'Eure!




72           THE BATTLE  SUMMER.
XX.
THE  POWER  IS MADE, AND MOVES.
HIS Dupont, an Octogenarian, is named by acclamation, first of the Provisional Government.
Then follow, fast as they can be heard, and applause sanction them,-the names of Lamartine, Ledru Rollin, of
Marie, of Cremiuux of Garnier Pagces. That of George
Lafayette is proposed; but it creates murmurs. The Assembly have in mind, thus late, the old temporising spirit of the
General, and this memory crushes the hopes of the son.
A voice is heard-to the Hotel de Ville!
And with Lamartine at the head, half of the assemblage
passes out, and follows the Quay-in the direction of Notre
Dame.
It was three o'clock of a mild February afternoon; the
sun was lighting pavement and river, and the light blue smoke
of Paris winter was hanging softly on the facade of Palace,
and on the brown Pont Neuf, and on the tiled house-tops of
the city.
Acclamations burst forth from the other side of the river,
and handkerchiefs were waved from the terrace of the Garden. Curious eyes looked down from all the windows, along
the Quay Voltaire; stray companies of soldiers grounded
their arms, and lifted their schakos. Banners were shaken
from palace balconies; guns streamed fire from the opposite




THE  PO W E R IS MADE  AND M OV E S. 73
casements of the Tuilleries, and echoed against the tall caserne
of the Dragoons.
The bridges thronged with men and women; and strangers
stood upon the parapets, waving their hats, as the new
Power passed on, begirt with its joyous people army, toward
the Palace of the City.
4








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0?
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BLOUSE AND PROVISIONAL.
THE HOTEL  DE VILLE.
THE Palace of the City is the stately Hotel de Ville.
It stands at the nucleus of long, dirty, noisy, peoplestreets.  Noisy stone-bridges join it to the Island of the
Seine, and the purlieus of N6tre Dame, and the minaretted
Palace of Justice. A long, full-peopled alley, called Rue St.
Antoine, connects it with the Place of the Bastille; and the
long roads of St. Martin, and of St. Denis, join it to the suburbs of those names.
The germ was lying there in brown, rough stone, long ago.
The rough, brown stone has now disappeared under modern yellow turrets, and highly-wrought fagade, and palatial roof, and
enormous clock-front; but still, it is the palace of the people,
-the seat of the urban government,-.-the heart of the city
life.
It was the stream of this city-life, which had borne down in
its resistless tide, king and throne; and it was therefore at the




78    TT HE BATTLE SUMMER.
Palace of this City, that the new power was to assume form,
and action.
Of this Palace the people were not jealous:-because it was
among them; because it had been the seat of all their old
organized authorities; because it had launched forth the
edicts that had destroyed a nobility and a priesthood.
II.
THE  PALACE  GARRISON.
UT how was the new coming Government to find affairs
at the Hotel de Ville:-still bristling with royal musketry, and holding out with its strong walls, and Philippian
Prefect against the street-movements, or yielding to the flow
surging around it, and clamoring a welcome?
On the morning of the 24th February, the SecretaryGeneral for Municipal Affairs, was in his little cabinet at the
Hotel de Ville. As yet, the administration was unchanged.
The soldiers of the Line, and Municipal Guard held the
Court. Angry crowds had for two days swelled around those
rich palatial walls, but as yet, force was seemingly on the
King's side, and the secretary was unsuspiciously at work at
his desk.
Presently an attendant appears, who announces the approach of a legion of the National Guard, and firing in the
direction of the Pont Neuf.




THE PALACE  GARRISON.                  79
Pooh!-said the Secretary; yet he bit the end of his
quill, and listened, nervously anxious. He went to consult
with the Prefect, but the Prefect was not to be found.
He sought for the General Sebastiani, but Sebastiani was
not to be found.
Meantime, that legion of Guard, mingled with peoplemasses, waving banners, and crying-down with the Kingis approaching.
The Secretary-General has laid down his pen, thrust his
papers into a drawer, and is hurrying through corridors, after
such members of the Municipal Council as can be found. But
no sooner has this last Municipal Council met, than a salvo
of bravos, and a crack of musketry is heard from below.
- What is it? —said the Secretary; and an attendant
replies-Alas, Monsieur, the Guard of the Palace have fraternized with the people!
The Secretary moves to a window that commands a view
of the Place. Polytechnic students, and workmen, and National Guard, with here and there a crimsoned soldier of the
Line, are crowding up pell-mell and urging their way into
the Palace gates.
Up the grand stair-case they throng, and rush along the
corridors, and break into the Salle de 7Trne. A noisy Captain of the Guard thrusts aside huissiers, and mounting a
chair, proceeds to harangue the people upon their triumph,
and the capture of the city Palace.
The poor Municipal Guard below, overcome-pass out
with hare heads, pale as death; their schakos and swords




80         THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
are trampled to the ground, amid the taunts of the throng;
they hide themselves, as they best can, along those narrow
streets which branch off from the Palace Square.
The Prefect appears for a moment in the court below; he
is too late. A few members of Municipal Council, taking
courage, and assisted by Guardsmen, force their way into
the crowded throne-room, where the stalwart Captain, selfappointed Governor of the Hotel, is haranguing his army.
The Council pushes up to Presidential chair; but the
stout Captain is not disposed to yield until a Captain stouter
than he frowns down his arrogance, and the Municipal Board,
in clamor, is installed again in its place.
There is a shout for Garnier Pages; he comes, it is said,
with a message from the Chamber. Bnt what want this
Captain-harangued people of message from any Chamber?
it is now nearly noon, and no Provisional Government, or
any sort of Government has been heard of, except that
named by the conquering Captain.
Garnier Pages announces the abdication of the King, and
the Regency of the Duchess. Such announcement will not
do at the Hotel de Ville;-unless indeed this new uproar
which now is coining up from Palace Square shall sanction
it. The report flies along corridor and crowded stairways,
that the Royal troops are rallying and coming to the attack.
They look one another in the face: the Regency is bad,
but to be shot is somehow-worse.
After all, it is not a Royal approach, but a Royal defeat
that has created the tumult.  A  last detachment of that




THE  PALACE  GARRISON.                   81
odious Municipal Guard are driven terribly by the national
soldiers, and by armed workmen across the Square, and are
chased away, wounded and bleeding, into such hospitable
doors as open to receive them.
Meantime, amid the uproar and the shouts, a new company
is organizing a new City Government in another salon of the
vast palace.  The discomfited Captain has erected for
himself a new tribune, and is girt with Polytechnic students,
and bloused workmen. Is the stout Captain to succeed, or
no?
The crowd ceases not to flow in and up: in the Salle de
Trone, Pages' voice is drowned; his long hair and mild face
are lost sight of in the crowd of shining casques, and tricornered Polytechnic hats, and slouch bonnets of the people.
In the Cabinet of the Prefect, the astounded SecretaryGeneral is again vainly busy with his pen; he sends out orders
here and there by servitors grown refractory and uncertain.
In the great salle of St. John, still another company are vociferous-are applauding speaker after speaker, and making
edict after edict, in virtue of their conquest.
Strange confusion of powers! By which shall the timid
stand?
4*




82           TH E BATTLE SUMMER.
III.
A NEW POWER COMES.
THE crowd divides upon the Square, and closes round
the procession of new comers from the Chamber of
Deputies-with Lamartine at their head.
From every window of the Hotel, even from Throne-room
and Cabinet, anxious faces are looking out, and eager ears
are listening to such bravos as float up to palace windows.
On through the gateway, sentineled now only by the musketbearing people, the deputation pushes its way up the staircase, and into the Salle de Trone. Off go hats, and military
casques, and the vaulted ceiling echoes a thousand vivats.
But at the very moment almost, a new Provisional Government has arrived from the office of.Reforme newspaper; cries
of-vive Flocon and-vive Albert, have greeted it in front
and on stairway. It would be dangerous to repel such
claimants, backed by such sea of men as is surging on the
Palace Square. A coalition is effected in the very corridors.
The names are newly announced by some stentorian
speaker in the crowd; those of Marrast, Louis Blanc, Flocon, and Albert, are added to the list of the Chamber of
Deputies.
And where are we now?
It is verging upon five o'clock. The great City-Palace is a




A NEW  POWER COM ES.                     83
hive of commotion. Every avenue, stair-way, court, is full.
Here and there a late-coming member of Government struggles through, amid curses and bravos, earnest to reach that
cabinet, where Lamartine, and Marie, and the rest, are
writing on oaken table, the decrees which are to save the city.
The poor, disappointed Captain, who in the morning had
captured Hotel de Ville, is stirring up students, and workpeople to rebellion. A Municipal Council, self-organized, is
sending up by armed messengers its propositions to the Provisional Power.
Sometimes a litter with wounded man passes through the
lower corridor, to be stretched upon the floor of the Salle of
St. John.
The most violent line the stair-ways, and at the announcement of such names as are ungrateful-such as Lamoriciere,
or even Lamartine, and Marie, the cry is-Down with the Royalists; down with the Aristocrats!-this shall be a People's
triumph! And the Babel-din spreads, and rocks from voice
to voice, filling the length of the vast Salle de Tr6'ne.
The Government, which has been driven like skulking hare,
from room to room, and whose edicts have been flying from
windows for an hour, is startled by the growing confusion.
The people must be appeased, or all is lost.
Sympathies below-around the bleeding litters, are growing
fast against the Government in closed cabinet, with military
messengers; and they are quickening in favor of the noisy,
vociferous, promising, bayonetted Government below.
The issue is more doubtful than ever.




84           THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
Lamartine goes to quell the tumult. He passes along the
corridor, his high, calm forehead, showing plain in the torchlight, (for it was now night in the Palace,) over the military
schakos, and bare heads of the throng.* His appearance inspires respect, and they only whisper as he passes. But so
soon as he is gone, the murmur begins, muskets are loaded,
and angry voices rise again.
Lamartine enters the Salle de Tr6ne: he waits long for
silence; armed men are desperately proclaiming their measures; strips of paper, bearing new names, are thrown to the
greedy crowd; lamps are burning; smoky torches are waving;
bayonets are gleaming over the heads of the multitude.
He addresses them in cool, dispassioned tones-never
swerving, never failing-his voice, all the while, firm and
manly. Twice, muskets are pointed at him; once a pistol is
held to his ear. But his courage saves him; and his courage
saves the Paris-world!
For a moment-only a moment, there was hesitation, and
then the honest face of the speaker turned the tide of feeling,
and the hall burst forth into true French shout, and greeting:
-Long live Lamartine!
And he passes back, amid huzzas, to the Cabinet of the
Government. Muskets that were pointed at him a little while
ago, are grounded. Voices that were clamorous of rebellion
are hushed.
It may be proper to state, that this narrative of events at the Hotel de Ville.
was gathered from the account of an eye-witness-to whom I am also beholden
for other information, and for many kind attentions.




NIGHT.                        85
Let those who sneer at the vanity and weakness of the
Poet consider well, if any but a Man-an Orator in the first
sense of that word-a Leader in its truest significance, could
have thus appeased the wrath of that Paris mob.
What men call practical statesmanship, and what the world
calls reason, and what politicians reckon the wisdom of
formulas, have all their places: but Eloquence, and Soul,
have their places too.
Here at least, Lamartine was strong; here, he was greatanother Horatius Coccles, to be heralded in song, and story!
IV.
NI GH T.
N IGHT is come.  Still in little corner cabinet this newmade Government is busy with their decrees.  Peace
has partially settled upon the courts of the Palace; and the
noisiest along the corridors have grown weary with shouting,
and struggles.
A big fire blazes under the elegant sculptured chimney of
the Hall of St. John, and glistens upon the schakos of tired
guard, and the bayonet of shop-boy, whom Revolution has
made a soldier. Brancards, on which the wounded are still
lying, drowsing under the reflection of the blaze, stretch along
the wall. Old men, wearied with the day's tramp, take off
their soldier-caps, and stretch themselves to sleep upon the




86           THE BATTLE SU        MMER.
oaken floor. Young men stand at the chimney-corners under
the shadow of the tall Cariatides of Goujon, and discuss, in
low, earnest manner, the events of the day, and the newproclaimed edicts of the Provisional Power.
At a half hour past midnight, old Dupont, wearied with
his eighty years, and his stormy day's work, leaves the cabinet, and pushes his night-course over the barricades, to his
distant home in the Rue de Madame.
A little water in a workman's pitcher, and a round loaf of
military bread, is all the refreshment the Government have
taken since the morning. Still, they labor on, with their
Chart of Government, and their new code of policy growing
into stature under their pen.
The guidance of Police, seized by Sobrier and Caussidiere,
had been confirmed to them by the Dupont Ministry.
Etienne Arago, named Director of Postal arrangements, by
the conclave at the office of Reform, had already entered
upon duty, and the malle-postes were galloping with the news
to the farthest borders of France.
Proclamations and edicts have been printed, and are read
by torch-light in every street of Paris.
The monarchy is proclaimed at an end; the citizens, and
army are congratulated upon their triumph. A Ministry is
formed:-Lamartine is Secretary for Foreign Affairs; Dupont
is President of Council; Cremieux, Minister of Justice;
Rollin at the head of the Interior; Goudchaux, Secretary of
Finance; Subervic at the head of War; Cavaignac is named
Governor of Algeria, and Marrast, Mayor of Paris.




THE  STREETS.                      87
The Chamber of Deputies is dissolved; the Chamber of
Peers is abolished.
Literature is not forgotten, even in Revolution; an officer
is appointed to the Library; —another to the museum, for
Art too is remembered.
At near three of the morning, the Government sought, for
the first time, a little rest; stretched on hard benches, or on
soldier's mattress, they sleep off their fatigues. And Citizen
Guard, by thousands, keep watch and ward by the bivouac
fires, that blaze upon the square.
V.
THE STREETS.
M /[EANTIME what is street-life doing? Whither tends
now the tide, that in the morning, and yester-night
rolled up rocky barricades, and glittered with sparkling arms?
It was quiet, but it was full. Before sunset, placards headed
-no more of Bourbons;-no more of Kings-and announcing
Government Provisional were posted in all Paris streets.
Then, and not till then, the workman who had forsaken
shop, or home, turned again to his pursuit, announcing joyfully, to every passer-by, the result. The omnibuses clattered
again through such streets as were free from barricades; and
the cabmen, with cockades on their shining hats, drove gaily
along the Boulevard.




88           THE BATTLE SUMMER.
The caf6s were filled with noisy companies discussing the
events of the day.  In the better quarters, eager-faced
strangers were astir; looking curiously on wreck of barricade,
and reading with intense anxiety the successive proclamations.
The shops were still, most of them closed; but a stream of
people of all classes, in which blouse of workman, and coat of
National Guard predominated, flowed down upon either side
of the great thoroughfare of the city, and dashed its eddies
about the corners of Rue Richelieu and Vivienne, like a river
swollen with rains.
At the Madaleine, the post of the soldiers was burning;the light was reflected magnificently, from the colonnade of
the temple, and the square was clouded with waves of sooty
smoke.
The Prison of the Abbaye, across the Seine, had been
taken, had been opened, and political offenders are rejoicing
with friends. The Carmagnole, and Marseillaise were chanted here and there around the corner wine shops, and by bands
of students walking in file.
Enthusiasm had caught even cold reformists, and blackcoated Bourgeois were chatting with brick-layers and masons.
As night drew on, Caf6s were illuminated, and here and
there some tall house of Bourgeois.  Still, the citizen soldiery stood guard. The barricades remained untouched; and
the sentinels upon them, stood dark and high, against the light
of the red bivouac fires blazing below.
It was a strange, a sad, a glorious night.
Mothers trembled; old men, mindful of the old republic,




T HI E S T R E ET S.              89
shuddered at those words heading the new placards-Reptblique
Franzaise.  Royalists grew timid, and gathered up their
valuables for flight.  Bankers passed the night in carrying
away papers and jewels; strangers talked of early departure.
There was something even in such names as those of
Dumoulin, and Marrast, and Carnot, to make that first Republican night-sleep, a night-mare.
There were not a few who passed that night beside stiffened
corpses, or at bed of wounded; and there were some, who
drunken by enthusiasm, or by excesses in Tuilleries' cellar,
danced fearful orgies around dead brethren.
Others, hopeful of humanity, glowed with a generous zeal
at thought of the monarchy that had been put down, and of
the popular Government that had been erected; and confiding in the good intent of the victors, slept quietly, and soundly, leaning on their fire-locks.
Ambitious heads dreamed strange dreams:-such as Blanqui,
Barbes, or Lagrange, so long the hunted victims of a dynasty,
that feared them unless chained, were awake and free,-were
plotting and rejoicing.
They were men of fierce enthusiasm, who had perilled life,
property, liberty, everything that most men hold dear, for
their idolized scheme of a Republic; and now that it had
overtaken them  half unaware, they huzzaed like fanatics,
while they trembled with apprehension.
Fierce old women in upper garrets, inflamed by poverty,
and the blood of offspring shed on that day's barricades, still




90           T  E  B A T T L   SUMMI E R.
kept their red light burning, when midnight was gone; and
still turned the molten lead into murderous ball.
In old families of St. Germain, which had begun to creep
from the shadows of the July Revolution, into the sunlight of
courtly splendor, there was wonder and fear.
T'here was no Tallyrand for terrified nobility to beg, and to
bolster itself upon; and no General Lafayette, or popular
Lafitte for Bourgeois to seek in shelter. It was not 1830, but
1848.
VI.
A  WRECK OF T HE OLD  TIME.
rT   HERE were many afoot, and astir who had seen, and
been partakers in one Revolution, in two,-perhaps
in three: but of those great names which belonged by
history and association to half a dozen Revolutions,which retained old taint of old Royalism, and to which still
attached admiration for talent, and respect for lineage,-only
one now belonged to a living man. And he, that night in a
tall house of the narrow, noisy Rue de Bac, was lying on the
edge of the grave.
The mind that had illumined the literary horizon for
nearly half a century, had sunk almost into idiocy.  Old
women took care of the man, who had been the care
of kings. He who had reveled in the splendor of every




A  WRECK OF THE OLD TIME.                   91
Court in Europe, and wandered with young feet over
American wild-lands,-who had united reputation of Poet,
Philosopher, and Statesman, wVho had belonged to the
Diplomacy of the  Age,-whose  name was attached  to
Great Treaties, and whose opinion had weighed with Imperial Cabinets-now that the Chrysalis of lingering Feudality
was breaking fibres, and a new political being stretching wings
-was but a slobbering fool, quarreling with his nurse for
gruel.
Not one of all the actors of the day, whether winners or
losers, thought it worth his while to consult now the great
CHATEAUBRIAND.
The poor Hero of Letters, and of monarchy, the failing
support of a failing cause, the last of royal poets, the lingering dreamer of royal dreams, was sinking amid the luxuries of
old-time extravagance; was listening with the irritable petulance of dotage to the guns that ushered in a Republic-was
lapping his last cordials from golden spoons, and slowly dying
on Regal Damask.
Time makes wreck of reputations, as it does of thrones.
The waves stop not; Genius tosses idly at its own old fastenings, while the world floats on.
That poor echo of a man will not reach now even to
street-window.  Voices that were babbling boys' voices, when
Chateaubriand was great, are now strong as armies.
Lie there flickering in your broidered dressing gown,
great, feeble old man-going out! You have seen your
time. The next wave will fling you into the dead pa:e of




.92' THE BATTLE SUMMER.
Biography, and some young student of St. Cyr, upon the live
page of Life.
VII.
ESCAPE  OF ROYALTY.
THE   King was again at Dreux.  He had come with the
Queen from Trianon with the fastest post-horses of Versailles. He told the magistrate when he came to pay his respects, that he would stop four days at Dreux; —he did not
know anything then of Hotel de Ville history;-he scarce
stopped at Dreux as many hours as he had counted days.
It may be that he caught time to shed a few tears more at
the Royal Mausoleum, over Sister Adelaide; but they were
stolen tears, not state tears. He had come down from Kingship,
and was now only a feeble, asthmatic old gentleman, at his sister's grave. But dignity is no measurer of grief, and sorrow
cuts as keenly through gold-cloth, as plain home-stuff.
Next we find him, in a close post-coach, with the Queen,
and her maid, and a single valet-with a black cap, and in
spectacles,-sitting far back in the carriage, and with no money
for postillions, except a bag of borrowed Napoleons.
From time to time the gens d'armnes stop the coach for
passports, and the sub-prefect, who is seated upon the coachbox, whispers the gendarmerie away.
The flowers tha,t young girls brought to throw into the fly



EscAPE  OF ROYALTY.                    93
ing carriage of Charles Tenth, were wanting, to lighten the
weight of the new King-grief.
Near the old town of Dreux, they stopped at the country
house of a friend, and the farmer-for the master was away
— was at once host and servitor to the desolate King.
Farther on, in that cold, wet, February weather, they took
shelter in an isolated house near the Cape of Honfleur.
There for a week and more, the King and his Queen -
feeble old Frenchman and his feeble wife-stayed, hiding
themselves in deserted chambers-wrapping themselves in
cloaks and shawls, lest the smoke of coal fire even, should
betray them.
A few days later, and an old man, calling himself Lebrun,
(Theodore) applied for river passage from near Rouen to
Havre. He wore black travelling cap, and spectacles, and
his feeble wife hung upon his arm. Singularly enough, the
same old gentleman had only a little time before chartered
the same steamer to add to his diversions, when King of
France. The sailors knew him, but they said nothing.
And he landed in the night on Quay of Havre, and the
next morning was tossing on Channel waters, bound for the
shores of England.
Very little sympathy followed him. He has been too selfish to create love; he has been too avaricious to make such
friends as would mourn truthfully at his fall.
There were traders who regretted a patron; there were
servants perhaps who bewailed a kind master; there were
courtiers who had lost their support. But these things make




94         T HE BATTLE  SUMMER.
no true grief: and such men make no true mourners. There
is no heart in it: it is all vanity.
And when the news came back of his safe arrival at a place
of refuge, there was no street howl of disappointment; there
was not a sigh of regret: there was not a huzza of pleasure;
there was not a shout the less, nor a smile the more.  People
talked of it in Cafes, as they would talk of a lucky escape
from accident-as having little bearing upon the weightier
matters of the day.-A.ssureoienr, en a e'chappe de bel,-and
the talker wipes his coffee from his moustache. With such
and so little coffee-house regret, is the old King followed into
his British exile.
The Bourgeois monarch is gone forever; but will there not
rise up in his stead a Bourgeois monarchy?
VTII.
THE EARLY DECREES.
T  HOUSANDS woke that morning of the 25th of February as in a dream.  The events of the three days had
been quick, and sudden, and uncertain; and the events into
which they had ripened on the evening of the 24th were as
vague and unsubstantial to the minds of many as a pleasant
story.
But on the morrow, the proclamations, the self-made soldiers standing guard at Palace gates,-the printed words




THE  EARLY  DECREE S.                  95
RpLpublique Franfaise, upon door of church, and of Caserne,
dissipated illusion, and brought the truth home. France was
indeed under a Republic. The most popular among the Provisional Government, Louis Blanc, Lamartine, Ledru Rollin,
had announced it. The proclamations bore Republican types.
And the authors of those proclamations were still at their
work in the Hotel de Ville, disturbed from hour to hour by
the hoarse outcry coming through winding corridor, and
vaulted passage,-Long live the Republic!
An address of thanks is proclaimed to the army; another
to the National Guard. An edict declares, that all moneys
accruing from the late Civil list shall be paid over to the
workmen: another, that the Palace of the King shall henceforth be a Hospital for disabled laborers: another, that all
functionaries of the late Government are absolved from their
oaths: another, (and it is the fruitful source of coming trouble, and fated to terrible revocation,) that labor shall be
guarantied to all workmen.
All these are announced, first from the windows of the
Throne-room, at Hotel de Ville, and forthwith are scattered
on white placards to every corner of Paris. The National
Guard,-and every man is now of the corps, —read these with
various emotions, as they stand sentry in idle groups at Palace
gates, or loiter at the doors of their deserted shops.
Tumult does not cease upon the Square of Hotel de Ville.
You can scarcely crowd your way through the company of
unfed Parisians, clamorous for more quick help than these
edicts promise.




96           THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
They are weary with barricade fight; they are anxious to
enjoy their triumph.  But bakers' shop-doors are closed
against them even as before; and fhe sweet-smelling pastry
shelves are under wondrous order, and protected by those
ugly corpses placarded- Volezurs!
-  We have beat down the tyranny-say they-where
now is our food and our bed: are they nearer than yesterday?
These words, loud spoken, reach to the second story windows of the Hotel de Ville. The quick eyes of Marrast, and
Louis Blanc, and the sympathetic regard of Lamartine is
upon them. Already offerings have been proclaimed for the
poor. But these gamin, strong-limbed, and eager, will never
humble themselves to vagabond claimants of alms at the
doors of MNairies; never. What then shall be done?
Lamartine leans thoughtfully, his head upon his hand, on
that round table, by which sit the Members of the Provisional
Government. He writes hastily upon a bit of brown wrapping paper; he passes it to the others. They all sign it, in
turn. And now, the edict reads:Twenty-four battalions of Garde Nationale Mobile shall be
at the instant enrolled in the city of Paris. These Garde.Mobile shall be clothed at public cost, and be paid each, thirty
sous a day. Now, twenty thousand of the noisiest are quieted,
and change their ragged blouses for blue coats, green epaulettes, and leathern hats; and by and by-so strangely works
Destiny-will save the city from just such marauders, as they
were yesterday.




THE EARLY DECREES.                      97
But with this green-epaulette enrollment, danger does not
cease.
All night long, and all the morning, shop-girls, grisettes of
easy faith, and easier virtue, have hung their caps with streaming red. The flag lifted over the old tower of the Jacquerie,
and over the Palace of Justice, is red. The mad host in and
around the Hotel de Ville bear aloft the same, and urge its
adoption upon the Provisional Government above.
Again it is Lamartine who unriddles this passion cry, and
by a bit of poesy, which then and there was eloquence, turns
the enthusiasm for the Red into a vivat for the Tri-color.
The triumph suggests another.-It was the sixth day —says
Lamartine*-that the idea came to nme-and the same as if
Heaven-sent, came the same moment to the minds of all my
colleagues-to break the force of reaction, by abolishing the
scaffold, and putting an end to punishment by death.
And again from out those windows, the new decree was
launched,-was received with plaudits, in the humane frenzy
of the moment, and carried comfort, and comparative quiet
to thousands throughout the city. Thenceforth men knew,
that this was to be no Revolution of Ninety-Three.
A Commission is named to sit, and occupy itself with the
interests of workmen.  Louis Blanc, and Albert are at its
head.
Those fearful public work-shops are organized, and idle
hands are there busied upon idlest of labor. It was not with-, Trois Mois au Pouvoir.
5S




98           THE BATTLE  SUiMMER.
out serious opposition on the part of many Members of the
Government, that this measure was carried into execution; but
the clamors of the needy population, now by the flight of
strangers, growing trebly numerous, were too strong to be
withstood.
Affairs Municipal-the soldiery, the courts, the street regulations all undergo change, and yet all passes uninterruptedly.
If sick, they will take you to the Hospital as before; if you
steal, they will take you to the old prison; if a plaintiff, you
will have the same court dues; and if you die on the street,
they will give you over to dexterous hands for dissection.
It is voted to resume public works; and as early as the
27th the hammers are busy again upon the new Hotel of Foreign Minister, and the new Palace of Stamps. The Courts,
on the 25th, have resumed their sittings and differ no way from
Royal courts, except that the culprit who yesterday went to
his cell, in the name of the King, now goes in the name of
the People.
The schools and colleges have resumed their sittings; the
Professors under Republican sanction have, resumed their
tasks, and rub their hands, and talk as deftly as before. Even
the gates of the Institute are not closed; and on the Monday
following the Revolution, the members in their green-trimmed
coats, rode along the quay, and drove under the archway into
the court, and talked of gases, and bases, as if no King had
fallen, and no Republic had been made.
Blanqui, Sobrier, Barbes, are not yet satisfied. They have
given allegiance, but they are restless spirits. The Govern



Co UNTRY FEELING.                    99
ment must beware of them. Caussidiere too, is indefatigable in
his place as Prefect, and organizing a police, that in case of
need shall serve him as Body-guard. He himself is adopting
costume-vest and hat-of Ninety-Three. Louis Blanc with
soft words, and soft voice, is winning sympathies of strongarmed workmen-of workmen who sneer at Lamartine.
-— We leave the Government still sitting in their Hotel
de Ville, not idle, but working to allay the ferment-interrupt.
ed by vociferous outcry, by Deputies coming to swear adhesion, by startling rumors of monarchic insurrection, by fear
and uncertainty, and a dim apprehension of coming trouble.
Ix.
COUNTRY  FEELING.
F OR days, public feeling has been street-feeling-too strong
to subdue, too contagious to resist. Country has caught
it from the city, and the mail carriers of Etienne Arago, going
forth on every high way bearing little tri-colored banners
stuck in their coach tops, and the cockade upon their hatbands, have propagated far as Brest, and Toulon, the wild
enthusiasm of the city.
Lingerers by provincial post-inns, ever ready for a shout,
or an item from the metropolis, bear away the tidings over
hill, and through vineyards; and the carmagnole, to music of
rude rural horn, is piped along the hedges, and under the long




100          TH  E BATT LE  SUMMER.
lines of poplars. Country girls are ready for a dance to a new
tune; country braggarts are ready for a new charge against
the Prefect, and a loud huzza to his discomfiture. Town-boys
wearied with monotone of French country life, are glad to
have a shot at the Royal arms, and to make a bon-fire of'Royal insignia.
Men of estates, and of discretion, slow to be innoculated
by the new fever, look anxiously for the Debats, and the Constitutionnel. But they dare not reason provocatively with the
glad vine-dressers, inflamed by their own shouts, and by a
pleasure, which whatever it may be, or whencesoever it may
come, they neither know how, nor care to analyze.
Therefore, it is —VIvE LA REPUBLIQUE!
It is so with soldiery, because Paris soldiery has so declared;
it is so with National Guard, because City Guard has so declared; it is so with workmen, because Albert is of the Government. It is so, soon, with sober men of property, who
thought to die good king's-men, because their standards of political faith, the old Dynastic papers of the Capital, have after
three days of doubt and trepidation, turned upon their heel,
and wheeled into Republican ranks.
There are quarters indeed where goes Genoude's Gazette
de France,-where priesthood is stronger in force, and faith,
than at the Capital, which still demur, and there is talk in
corners of the strange pranks the Prince city is witnessing.
There is-most of all-the Bordelais, always jealous of Paris
influence, which does not shout so loudlv, among the vines of
Medoc, for the Republic, as the men of Macon.




COU NTRY   EEL ING.                    101
The stiff, half-English wine-merchants too, of that region,
-cool, calculating, commercial-minded men, doubt, and wonder, and reckon issues,-not yielding themselves by impulse,
to such conclusions, as have swept, like a tornado, over Lyons, and Lille, and Rouen.
But from all this, the weight of significance is shorn by
Etienne Arago's incoming couriers, proclaiming the zeal of
Republicanism, from Bayonne to Calais.
After all, of what avail would have been opposition? The
Queen citly of the land, strong in position, population, wealth,
-above all, in an unheard-of Metropolitan influence has declared it; and who shall gainsay the declaration? With Paris
rests, and has long rested the means, and the habitude of
concentrating French action.  Without it,-for heart, for
moving spring, for regulator-French politics were a bundle of
shapeless Canton projects, without unity, harmony, or strength.
It is the solar centre of the Departmental System.
Parisian influence is so pervading, so predominant in Province, as to fix the type of feeling, not only on political matters, but on every question, whether social, moral, artistic,
scientific, or literary.
To a stranger this influence is almost inconceivable. But let
him for a moment, call to mind the History of that proud
Capital-its august Courts-its high National tribunals,-its
regal magnificence, and its riches, exhausting the wealth of
entire Provinces for their supply, and re-elaborating it into a
thousand luxurious and attractive forms; let him set the map
before him, and trace that grand net-work of artfileisl rivers-.




102         THI: BIATrTLE  SUMMER.
and of roads, converging —like the rays of a spider's webtoward that corrupt and siren centre, lying low upon the banks
of the Seine,-and he will be able to form a more definite
idea of the amazing Metropolitan influence of the Paris-World.
X.
CITY  F E ELIN G.
T  HE  first effervescence of city feeling, the entrainernent
of Republican passion, after not many days, dies away,
not so much in open street, where busy song-singers keep up
their rude glee, boisterous, and unwearied, as in Cabinet and
salon. The unceasing na-ira, and carmagnole pall on the ear;
passion is past, and reflection is busy reckoning prospective
issues.
There are not a few Republicans, disappointed of position,
who doubt if the men be equal to the task; or if the beginning has not been too feeble for the great ends to be accomplished. Clubs are noisy with this feeling: fired, doubtless,
with a hankering after the wealth, and the endowments, if not
the blood of those who have been for eighteen years fattening
on monarchic spoils.
The stiff old priesthood, made bold by the humane decrees
of Government, sneer, and launch their lampoons, spiced
with cloister learning, at the bloated Republic of the Canaille.  Many a salon of St. Germain, when the filst fiihllt




CITY  FEELING.                       103
is fairly over, is noisy with merriment at the tall hat of
Prefect Caussidiere, or the tri-colored sash of poet Lamartine,
or the stern, state-smile of editor Marrast.
The English from the first, fearful and uncertain, are
crowding to their Ambassador's palace, eager for passports,
and full of expressions of contempt for the New Powers;
and full of certainty that'our Lord John Russell'will turn his
back upon such sudden, upstart authority.
Americans, such as chance in the Capital, and as are not
tied by interest or affection to members of the defunct system, are clamorous in applause of the new Republic, and are
among the first to lay their national gratulations at the feet of
the rulers in the Hotel de Ville.
Italians are rejoicing; at least the great body of refugees;
and their Caf6 de France, behind the Palais Royal, resounds
till midnight, with a wild Tuscan Marseillaise.
The Carnival not yet wholly gone by, finds its latest spark
of gaiety flashing fun and satire upon the fallen dynasty;
and steeple crowns that make their appearance at masquerades, are flattened unceremoniously by red-capped dancers of
the ball.  In  the end, the Marsillaise blends with the
waltzes; and defiance, gay-tempered, crowns the merriment.
Vests a& la Robespierre, are not only in masquerade, but in.
street; and a new Demoiselle Theroigne, with sash, and pistols, and sabre, and love-locks, is afoot upon the Boulevard.
The theatres are rejoicing in their license; old stricture,::
are removed, and what managers will, is put upon the scene.
Som,- littlq timn pasfs, to arrange the new  plays, sinc>  all




104         THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
must go to the honor of the Republic. The interlude is
*made up by patriotic songs, chanted by singers in costume of
National Guard.
Even Madame Rachel leaves her sphere of pure classic
acting, to declaim the Marseillaise.  Clothed in white robe,
not unlike her costume in Roman story of Virginia-with a
broad tablet of gold surmounting her fair Jew brow, half
kneeling, with the banner of the country in her hand,-now
turning those dark liquid eyes intently upward, and then
flashing a glance of stirring appeal from box to pit,-she kindles her audience into such furor of resistance, that they
clench their fists unwittingly, and close tight their lips, and
look angrily at their neighbors-seeking some tyrant to crush.
The populace is now in the ascendant. The new powers
have decreed public, gratuitous representation; and blouses
take place in first gallery, one or two days in the week, listening intently, (an intentness that would surprise a Saxon
workman,) to the best acting of the classic touches in the Cid,
and to the delicate humor of Tartuffe, or the Misanthrope.
At the Porte St. Martin, the old theatre of strong Canaille, Lemaitre, the favorite of the suburbs, and the most
powerful exhibitor of melo-drama, has brought again to light
tho extinguished play of Robert Macaire, and the withering
sallies of the Chiffonier. Night after night, the benches
throng, to see the triumph of the witty highwayman over
jack-booted police, or to follow the poor rag-gatherer to his
wretched home, and to groan a sympathy with his anathemas
upon the rich.




WHAT  REFORMISTS  TH I NK.                105
Men, whose names it had been a sin to mention, are now
heralded anew. The glories of the Empire are wakened -on
the stage.  Marshal Ney goes upon the boards with new
favor, and the spot of his execution is decorated with flowers
and garlands; and a self-appointed guard stands sentry over
a banner bearing this simple and touching line:-HONNEUR
AU BRAVE DES BRAVES!
XI.
WHAT REFORMISTS THINK.
T    HE Reformists-with Thiers and Barrot at their head,- have, after long debate, determined to yield to a tide
which they cannot resist, and to declare for the Provisional
authorities and the Republic.
But how far is the declaration real and sincere?
A stranger who passed from street to street, in sight always
of red, and tri-color cockades, who saw citizens mounting
guard, who heard the Marseillaise chanted at every theatre
from Rue Lepelletier, to the Beaumarchais, might have said
that there was not another feeling but Republicanism known;
and that, single,-united,-progressive.
But the salons, the private clubs, the side-talks, would teach
him that even from the first, other opinions, strong and definite, were afloat. Out of doors they dared not appear; even
known journals of Royalism curbed their license into strange
5*




106          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
compass, and talked uneasily of monarchical rule. Other action would have been unpopular, dangerous, useless.
Most of Reformers, like Barrot, Thiers, Dufaure, counted
the step too long, too sudden, too poorly sustained. They
had reckoned solely upon a revision of the electoral system,
upon reductions of civil list, with the continuance of Royalty,
and royal functions.
They feared the Republic, not so much from apprehension
of a reaction toward Despotism, as from distrust of its power
to sustain worthily itself.
To them, reared in the old-fashioned school of politicsthe practical school —a Republic with such patrons and directors as hot-headed Rollin, speculative, poetizing, generalizing Lamartine, and strong-headed, mathematic Arago, appeared simply, absurd, and impracticable.  Any government
with such direction, would have seemed to them the same. It
was not the form, so much as the formers; it was not the
thing, so much as the means of reaching it.
-  The Republic-said they, moreover-is not a considered
matter;-not as yet subjected to calculation, to analysis, to
proper direction.  Political action has not ripened for it, or
toward it. It has nothing settled, or practical associated with
its direction. It is the result of an impulse, and not of reflection; it is the monstrous growth of a passion, and not the
normal result of regular political inquiry.
Its creatures are those of impulse; having begun with it,
they must yield to it, and where it will carry us, and the country, Heaven only knows.




WHAT  REFORMISTS THINIK.                  107
It was not a little annoying indeed, to old politicians,
and as the times had been, liberal politicians, to find
themselves-their names, and their influence-utterly supplanted by a corps of men, whom  they had been accustomed to look upon as the vainest of vain theorists;-and still
worse was it, to find that these very new-men, not only did
not seek for their counsel or their aid, but treated them with
the utmost indifference;-receiving their testimonials of adherence as a debt due to the State, and not reckoning enough
upon any concealed opposition, to give them the small honor
of a police surveillance.
They yielded only because they could not successfully oppose; and in the hope, that through election, they might be
compounded into the new political body, and so, warp its action, from unhealthy impulsive excitation, into the train-band
order of legitimate political cabal.
With monachists, such as weazen-faced old Marquis, hiding his titles because poor, or Dowager with equipage, or
sleek-faced, black-frocked, soft-gliding Jesuit, the argument
was nothing but a sneer, or a laugh.
-  As if-said they-that vulgar Hotel de Ville, with
hard-handed Albert, and puny Louis Blanc, and tall-hatted
Caussidiere, can govern la belle France!
With Bourgeois shop-keepers, bankers, National Guard,
who had thrived under the commercial tenderness of the late
King, the Republic was still doubtful, and doubt was quickening.
The eclat of the early ovation was passing, leaving their
shops empty, their books neglected. The trader would be




108         THE  BATTLE  SUMMIER.
glad to buy back the stranger, thus early, though at cost of
his freeman's vote.  He is staggered too, by the public
workshops; for at the very time, when the falling off of his
trade would naturally lead him to seek some counterpoise in
reduced rates of labor, he finds, on the contrary, that a munificent government by its gratuitous patronage, has put this
resource out of his reach.
He likes not those immense working palaces, where the idle
can live luxuriously. It galls him to listen to those repeated
decrees of aid for workingmen.
How unreasonable-he says-that the laborer should not be
content with his old crust, now that we have given him a vote!
What a strange, unreasonable creature man is to be sure!
Henceforward,-as bread is good, and money is sweet,the war will be, not between Republic and Monarchy; but
between blue workman's shirt, and black trader's coat.
XII.
POS I T ON  OF R E P U. B L I C A N S
AMONG those who rejoiced at the issue of the 25th of
February, there was no common lien, but the contagious enthusiasm of the moment, and the word-Republic.
But enthusiasm survives a hundred contre-temps of the
hour; —an enthusiasm lit up by success, and fed with the
hope of grand achievement.




POSITION  OF  REPUBLICANS.                  109
With some, political sentiment was a mere enthusiastic attachment to'a long-cherished idealism, —a vague fondness, without force, because uncertain. With others, it was a wild
liberty-loving impulse, which associated the adopted form with
all that is liberal; and such pushed on, regardless of minor
issues. With others, it was a flame, a mania, a day-dream,
to end, alas, in bitterest deception.
With others still, and these unfortunately fewest of all, the
Republic was a considered, practicable, judicious, tangible
project, requiring all prudence, and discretion, and forbearance,-uncertain indeed of success, but promising with all its
hazards, so much, and so well, that their hearts and minds
were engrossed in its development.
Even in the Provisional Corps, working together night and
day at the Hotel de Ville, there was little homogeneity of feeling. It was fortunate, perhaps, that in the compromise between the men of the Chamber, of the Reforme, and of the
Prefecture, each section of Republicans saw, or believed it
saw, a representation of its peculiar opinions.
In Dupont, Marie and Cremieux, were represented that
serious, reflecting portion grown out of Bourgeois ranks;hateful of the King because he had broken trust, and hopeful
of the Republic because formed in good faith, and approved
by popular acclaim.
Pages, Marrast, and Bastide appeased the whetted appetites of such as had labored at the columns of the National,
and had for years endured persecution, for that cause which
now owed no small measure of its success, to their advocacy.




110         THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
Ledru Rollin held the sympathies, and restrained the opposition of those still warmer in sentiment; —of those who insisted upon the Republic, and its liberties, as the sole guaranty
of individual honor;-of those to whom its declaration was more
the gratification of a cherished fierte', than a token of progress;
-to whom, in short, the license of self-government was rather
an end, than a means, and in whose philosophy, entire liberty
was entirest enjoyment.
Louis Blanc, and Albert were before the eyes, and in the
hearts of that excitable work-shop population, who had lit up
their evenings with such reading, as the History of Ten Years,
and the crude writings of Albert. They restrained their indignation at sight of stern Marie, and venerable Dupont, only
in hope of what was coming through that great Labor Commission of the Luxembourg.
The more intense feeling of the time found its guage, and
governor in the presence of Sobrier, and Caussidiere at the
Prefecture of Police.   Gamin, and coachmen, and streetorators counted on these names as security for an access of
license, and continuance of good cheer.
Lamartine stood by himself, a kind of ideal representation
of humanity at large. The streets knew that he had a big
and kind heart; the wildest Republicans knew that he had
intense hate of tyranny; the Bourgeois knew that he had
large property at stake; the Socialists knew him to be a Poet
of tender sympathies, and most lively imagination; the moderates knew him to be of ancient and honorable family, and
most ready, and captivating speech.




R F V O L UTIONARY  PHASES.              111
At the first, all worked together in harmony, uniting forces
against the common enemy-the sympathizers with the defunct power. But so soon as the fear of such was removed,
the advocates of each particular phase of Republicanism,
looked to the action of the powers at the Hotel de Ville, for
some tokens of its advance.
Strange contrariety of expectation! And yet all of it easily
narrowed down to these two grand divisions-Bourgeois interest, and Working interest.
Which shall win the day, and which shall ultimately succeed-black trader's coat, or blue workman's shirt?
XIII.
REVOLUTIONARY  PHASES.
O N Sunday succeeding the Tuesday of the Dynastic fall,
the column of Bastille is clothed in tri-color; the Square
is thronged with thousands of National Guard, and from the
pedestal, the venerable Dupont, flanked by Blanc, and Marie
addresses the assembled officers. It is a Paris sermon, of a
Paris Sunday.
The whole Boulevard meantime is thronging with shouting,
enthusiastic men. The shops are closed, not from any newwakened Sabbath reverence, but because it is the the first
great Fete-day of the Republic-a Paris Easter.
At N6tre-Dame, the bald-headed Dominican Lacordaii'e,




112   1T HE BATTLE SUMMER.
under the emblems of funeral ceremony, preaches in his burning words,-faith in the Republic; and scatters plentiful
encomiums on the heads of that wonderful people, who are
crowding up to listen, and who, he tells them-by God's help
have won a great victory.-God's anointed, surely, who have
won so great a triumph;-who have smote the city, and driven
away the Philistines that were in it, and given it for a present
to their sons and to their daughters!
At other churches, mourners in black are at side-chapels,
few and lonely. The crowd, joining voices to the anthem,
step sadly, and slowly, and reverently by the kneeling
mourners, and carry to the altar of their worship the enthusiasm of a political triumph.
At corners, old women sell cockades of red, and tri-color;
and the liquor-selling strollers are decked with little banners
streaming from cap, and tin temple.
From day to day, deputations take up their march along the
Quays, to give in their adhesion to the Provisional Power.
Americans assembling at the Hotel des Princes in Rue
Richelieu, thread the long narrow streets conducting to the
Hotel de Ville-the boy-famous Peter Parley among the
foremost-and give gratulation and national approval.  Hungarians, Italians, and Poles follow from day to day.
But the English and Russians are moving away, and not
toward this heart of the new Paris life. The office for passports at the Prefecture is besieged. Families inhabiting the
Rue Rivoli, and Place Vendome have left their quarters in
affright.




REVOLUTIONARY  PHASES.                   113
Those songs of Marseillaise, chanted at dead of night, by
men bearing muskets, sadly affect weak nerves.
Every day to the bureaux at the mint, go piles of gold and
silver vessels to be exchanged for specie.  Plate, jewels,
everything that can be turned into money, is sold.
The reports from the provinces give confidence to the Executive. The country is paralyzed by Paris action, and testimonials of adhesion come in from town, village, and city.
Armed volunteers, throng the rail-way offices to go to the
attack of those Vandals who are destroying station houses,
and burning bridges. But the wild hordes of un-Christianized country-workers-ever associating property with tyranny
-have been before them, and destroyed five millions of property.
Banquets do not die with February, but wet, blowy March
is redolent with the garlands that stretch from column to
column, over the heads of Republican talkers and eaters.
The hall of the Jeu de Paume- famous in other times —is on
the 12th March noisy with a Republican Banquet,-forerunner of other and more dangerous Banquets.
The sad solemnity of burying the dead of February has at
one time broken in upon Revolutionary glee. —From earliest
morning, funeral convoys are moving-from away toward the
Pantheon, —from the North and Montmarte, from the Bastille, and Mont Rouge-and unite in a long, sombre array of
soldiers with trailing arms, and muffled drumsr-coaches with
black cloths, and waving plumes,-wounded ones with their
arms in sling, and gigantic funeral car, on which the emr.




114         THE BATTLE  SUMIMER.
blems of Death and the Republic have been knit by artist
hand.
The martyrs are entombed beneath the column of July,
and their names are added to the list upon the magnificent
brazen scroll.
The statue of the Duke of Orleans, only four short years
ago, hung over with garlands by the people, is now torn from
its place in the Court of the Louvre, and the marble plinth
converted into a cenotaph for the dead;-yet bearing in blackpainted letters, (if the storms have not washed them out)AUX MORTS POUR LA REP UBLIQ UE.
Tall poplars of liberty are planted with religious awe in
all open places, and their scant, feeble limbs are hung with
tri-color ribands.
Clubs are open, at which are discussed the elections, and
the edicts, and which begin early to sap the influence of the
men of Hotel de Ville. Each phase of Revolutionary feeling has its tribune and committee; noisiest among them are
those under special sanction of Caussidiere, and sustained by
Blanqui and Lagrange.
Laborers out of work, throng eagerly to hear such doctrines of spoil, and annihilation of wealth, as come glowing
from the lips of Raspail and Proudhon.  The Bourgeois
tremble in passing, and leaning in their empty doorways at
evening, listening to loud Va-ira, and clamorous black-belted,
musketted blouse, they ask themselves, if even the old regime,
with its hardships, was not better than this dread of spoliation:




REVOLUTIONARY  PHASES.                   115
The Guard at the Palace-gate is an old porter of the
Bourgeois; he bears his musket carelessly and boldly; he
smokes his pipe within his sentry-lodge; he affects dirtiness;
and he shakes the offering-box for the wounded in the faces
of passing Bourgeois, as if Bourgeois wealth were at command.
They shook hands on the barricades; but that is passed.
-     Spring is fairly come; the chestnuts are budding in
Palace Garden. Groups of earnest talkers hang here and
there; not now, as at the first, black coat, and blouse mingled together; but blouse and black coat has each its own
group.
The old National Guard discontented with some police
regulations of the new powers, make a demonstration-an
idle demonstration of some twenty thousand muskets, ending
in nothing but the conviction, that things are not now as they
were.
On the next day, the workmen have demonstrations; no
muskets, but a procession of two hundred thousand stoutarmed laborers, bearing banners proclaiming-right to labor.
They throng the whole line of Boulevard, and fill up as they
reach it, the Square of Hotel de Vill-.
The Government appears, and appears with promise; and
the rustling, chanting multitude defile away before Bourgeois
shops, with banners and songs that make Bourgeois tremble.
Whose is the victory; —does it belong to workman, or to
trader? Who has prior right to such virtues, and good things
as may have sprung out of this last Paris Revolution 




116         THE B A TTLE  SUMMER.
- We —sayv the Bourgeois-have thrown down the obnoxious King, and have yielded (in fear or in generosity) to the
street cry for a Republic.
-  We-say the workmen-have spent our blood once in
July, 1830, for the Bourgeois; but this time, in February, 1848,
for ourselves.
The Government Provisional stands unsteadily, between
the shocks. Which way shall it turn?
Blanqui, and Blanqui-men are noisy in condemnation; Barrot, and Reform-men fold their arms in despair.
XIV.
WESTERN SYMPATHY.
/   LREADY American sympathy had made itself heard
from across the water.  Our country had reached a
long arm over ocean, to give a cordial shaking of hands to
France.  Nothing was more natural; nor was it the first
time America had shown such sympathy to a French Republie.
At the date of the Revolution of the last century, the
reception of the news in the Federated States was most enthusiastic.  The Marseillaise was sung; red caps were worn;
public meeetings held, and even from the pulpit, congratulations were sent over the water, to the nation, which as it
seemed, was so nobly redeeming itself from Priest-craft and




ESTERN  S Y M P A T H.                   117
King-ship. The fetes of France were renewed in Philadelphia; the tri-color cockade was worn by citizen, and schoolboy; oxen were roasted on open commons; and banners unfurled, displaying such inscriptions as-Rights of Man, and
Abolition of Feudality. Fraternization was then, as now,
the order.
Nor did the sympathy end, until the absurd conduct* of
Genet, the first French Envoy, and the bloody terrors of the
Revolution created a re-action.
American sympathy of 1848 was met with cold, and par-,ial acknowledgment on the part of the French Government.
Reasons of policy dictated this course.
The great aim of Provisional Rulers was to avoid collision
with European Powers. They wished above all to conciliate
England-not so much the English Cabinet-as British opinion. In this they comparatively succeeded. The times of'89, and the times of'48 were in sentiment a century apart.
Brougham  alone, of eminent British statesmen, ventured to
stand in the gap, for the defence of failing Feudality; and his
argument is as much inferior in eloquence, in flow, in wisdom,
and in temper, to the Reflections of Mr. Burke, as the cause
he attempted to sustain, was inferior to those wide interests
of Humanity, which found shelter under the imposing bulwark,
thrown up by the genius of the Irish statesman.
Our Minister with his congressional resolutions, was received
Diplomacy of the United States, Boston, 1826. It is not a little singular that
the first two envoys, from the two great French Republics-Genet and Poussinshould be peremptorily dismissed by the only Government, which on both occasions cordially sympathized with French action.




118          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
at the Hotel de Ville, as a debtor, who comes to liquidate an
old standing account. The vanity of not a few aspiring
Americans, who hoped to take position, by force of pure nationality, was wofully at fault.
The case was simply this:-rthe weak, new-made government of Paris, not yet balanced between opposing forces at
home, nor yet secure against difficulties from without, could
afford no sympathies;-least of all to a power too far away to
actimmediately in its diplomatic negotiations, and so kindred
in character and purposes, as to make its interference or open
sympathy, obnoxious to those feudal courts, which it was
their object to conciliate.
Moreover, this new Republic had assumed to itself a far
higher character than belonged to our own. It was initiativeas its makers hoped-to a higher progress, and a more thorough reform, than was to be found in any Western wilderness;
-as much higher, as French vanity is disposed to rate French
political philosophy above all other.  Deeper questions were
submitted to their philosophic analysis. Humanity was reduced to codification; and the teachers affected to disregard
that humble effort of our own, which was successful, only for
the poor reason, that it was practical.
A merely judicious, and safe government, having for its
basis popular representation, was by no means the end of
their wishes. New systems of labor, State finance, of criminal  policy, and a reduction of commonest affairs of life
to a nice, philosophic, pseudo-christian organization, was the
dream, as much of Lamartine, as of Louis Blanc, or Raspail.




WESTERN  SY MPATHY.                   119
Such views gained no strength, by assimilation to, or fraternization with the healthy, masculine, common-sense notions,
bywhich our system was fairly and stoutly at work.
Western-country people, looking only to the fall of Kingship, and the adopted symbols of a Republic, were loud and
earnest in greeting. French Statesmen received that greeting-such feeble echoes as reached them-as an actor receives
applause for his cleverness in a new part. They reckoned it
a rude incense of praise, coming from an open-hearted people,
to brilliant action, and in favor of a philosophy,-great, because its expounders were great.
We offered congratulations; they counted it applause. We
offered hands in greeting; they counted it am expression of
admiration.  And if we grew indifferent-as we did-they
credited it to our amazement.
-  How happy that vanity, which sees in its own shortcomings, only new sources of self-gratulation!
Blessed are the men, and blessed the nations, that can regale themselves on their own misfortunes; and shout-Bravo
-at their own fall!




.20d       Tu  E BATTLE S U MM E R.
XV.
THE REVOLUTION IN BOOKS
THE stalls along the quay-our favorite saunter-and in
the angles of the Palais Royal, are now over-run with
pamphlets, livraisons, journals, quartos, caricatures, each having its connexion, more or less decided, with the New Order.
Republics of every grade, and shade, are under discussion by
ten thousand wrarming writers.
In obscure corners, you may meet with translation of
American Constitution, and with copy of Helvetic Confederacy;-beside all the Constitutions that have been made by
this brave, Constitution-making community-France.
Discussion assumes all shades and colors,-affectations of
styles and colors. Here, in short, brisk, blue-covered small
book, you see vamped-up, the Pantagruel drollery, or the
quaintness of Montaigne. Its neighbor, in green, is sharp as
the Spirit of Laws, or oily as Rousseau.
Pictures persecute the fallen King; and begin slowly, (for
French humor knows no self-denial) to play off Solon (Lamartine) with his harp, or the Minister of the Marine (Arago)
in robe of Astrologer. Historians of the February matter
multiply by hundreds.
The Retrospective Review buys or steals a lost pacquet of




THE   REVOLUTION   IN  BooKS.                     121
Royalty, and entertains the spectacled readers of the Caf6 de
la Regence, with Royal letters.
Reybeaud* just pledged as author, with witty pursuit of
Social System, now trims his pen to set Paturot in search of
Republic.
Hugo of Notre-Dame, the fallen peer, is writing from his
rooms on the old Place Royale, Republican letters; Cormenin,
of the' Timon' portraits —shrewd, vivacious, dogmatic, with
keen eye, and long full head, is contriving Constitutional
schemes.  De Tocqueville of the Democratic Americacine, is
turning his singularly neat mind to the elaboration of a Democratie Franfaise.
Chevalier, his fellow voyageur,-once a blue-robed, redvested, shorn-pated disciple of Eufantin,t appearing with him
a culprit in court,-is discussing (the only strong pen engaged in such work) the Constitution of the United States.
Dumas has become publicist proper: his name in this time
attaches as Editor to a weekly Journal, giving history of political events; while his Chevalier de la Maison Rouge, which
has contributed not a little to existing feeling, is still sought
after, and bethumbed.  Sue too comes in for a share of triumph; and is lionized and petted by all such Socialists as
think they see, (not without reason) a thread of their philosophy running through his melo-dramatic histories.
*  Jerome Paturot i ai recherche d'une position sociale." Nothing in the
literary way that the Revolutionary epoch has furnished in Paris is better than
this work, and its sequel,-" Recherche de la Meilleure des Republiques," by
Louis Reybeaud.
f Dix Ans. I,ouis Blanc
6




122         THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
Beranger, more than all others, is the literary favorite of
the hour; the Poet of Freedom and of Republicanism.
Poetry and song are the medium  of closest communication
with that enthusiasm which belongs to fresh political existence. Faith, earnest but ill-defined, finds best expression in
the strength of song; and verse gives fitting body to the
craziest of hopes. The old man is garlanded. His nameas if the quiet, gray-clad songster could fight his way in noisy
company of political talkers-is first upon the list of Paris
candidates for the Assembly.
Lamartine, whose Gironde is yet echoing in the popular mind,
not discordant with the zeal of the hour, is turned improvisatore;-not now improvising Meditations, or bon-mots for the
mouth of fair Madame Roland, but such well-tuned harangues, as bewitch scholars of St. Cyr, as perplex Irish
Committees, and flatter the Deaf and Dumb.*
Another Litterateur, and in the emergencies of the time,
not unimportant, we must not forget.
See his address to the Deaf and Dumb. Trois Mois au Pouvoir.




AN  A  AZON  OF REVO L UTION.             12
XVI.
AN AMAZON OF REVOLUTION.
M ADAME Dudevant had been, and was still, a splendid
woman. Forty and odd years had not taken the red
fcom her cheeks, or the fulness from her form.
Her military husband had 16ng since been disabused of his
military and conjugal authority. Her tutelage, under the
mild-eyed Lamennais-a man whom we shall meet in the
Chamber-had ended.  This humane old quarreller with
church and priest,-with society and virtue, had quarrelled
with Geo. Sand. Her books, bad as they might have been,
-wild in theory, or strange in execution, yet bore marks of
deep, earnest, philosophic thought. More than this,-and it
is what has made Geo. Sand a popular name, spite of all her
vices,-they were quickened everywhere, and all of them, by
a strong sympathy with the poor and the oppressed, and by
an intense love of humanity.
There was not a gamin of the street. who so welcomed
Marseillaise singing, and Republic-cries, as Madame Dudevant. She was not, it is true, a Theroigne; nor was she any
more a Roland; but something between the two,-having all
the spirit of the first, and all the mental acumen of the last.
She lacked the courage of Theroigne;-the dignity and virtue of the Roland.




124        TlE  BAT'TLE  S UMMER.
But she was known, and admired; and her pen was quick
and vigorous.
- There was a frequent visitor in those times at her luxurious rooms in the Rue Cond6;-a man younger than herself,
but possessed of all her energy, and much of her ability. He
was a man, whose appearance at any time would have excited
a gaze upon the Champs Elysees, but the more so, now that
he was known as a favorite of the Dudevant, and that rumor
had put a slanderous edge upon the story of the friendship.
The Paris world was not content that such man as Ledru
Rollin, the young and rising advocate, the late sturdy debater
in the Chamber, should be drawn to the rooms in the Rue
de Conde for mere Republican interlocution, but must give
to the intercourse their dainty name of —liason.
But scandal died when it was found, that the Bulletins of
the Republic,-written to indoctrinate the provinces in Republican views, and which were distributed under Government
patronage by thousands,-owed not a little of their spice and
extravagance to the same pen, which painted the misty Spiridion, and the voluptuous Pulcherie.
The public grew frightened at their force, and at their bearing. The Government disowned them.
Madame Sand flew to Tours.
The storm fell, as we shall see, upon the head of the Minister, Ledru Rollin.




N EWS P A P ERS.                125
XVII.
N E W SPA P E R S.
l   EPUBLICANISM  had taken off stamp-tax and caution money.  In less than two months a hundred and
fifty new journals had seen the light; some for a day only,
some for a week, some for a month, and some still lead a precarious and uncertain existence, under the stringent hand of
Louis Napoleon.
The old Dynastic papers, rich, well established, with strong
corps of editors, and with blazing feuilletons, that the Paris
world could not spare, even in time of Revolution, were not
suspended, but reverted, after stormy discussion of stockholders, to the Republican cause.
It was not a little strange, and even ominous, when such
journal as the Debats, the avowed and conscientious apologist for Guizot, and Spanish marriages, turned its old monarchic heading into-Re]publique Franfais.
But those who remembered that the same journal had
turned from support of Empire, to advocacy of Restoration
-and from Charles X. to Louis Philippe, were not disturbed.
Change as it might, however, the journal changed with it a
vast body of the most opulent and influential of the Bourgeoisie. Of Paris papers, with a single exception, it had the




1vt26 1             31  I  r 1 AT    rE S U   MI Mi i R.
largest circulation, and was to be found in every Provincial
Caf6 of tolerable pretensions.
Its profits were enormous: its numerous stockholders were
receiving handsome incomes from  their dividends.  It had
numbered among its contributors in days past such men as
Villemain, Salvandy, Geoffroi, Hoffman and Chateaubriand.
It could still boast of Guizot, Malleville, Chevalier and
Gautier.
The Constitutionnlel, edited by Veron and MSerreau, turned
perhaps with more ease, but not with more grace, into Republican ranks. This too, was a journal of amazing influence with trading Bourgeois, merchants, capitalists and manufacturers. A single fiscal article in its columns would not
unfrequently create a difference of a million in the operations
upon'Change. Benjamin Constant had been one of its earlist supporters and writers.  M. Thiers, at the date of the
Revolution, was understood to be a large stockholder, and its
ablest contributor.
The circulation was immense; its style eminently popular;
its Feuilletons brilliant with such tales as the 3llysteries of
Paris, and the  Capital Sins.  Many a member of the
Academy, among them the polished and erudite Mignes,
were contributors to its columns.  Its literary notices, coming
into the Feuilleton, were curt, strong, and effective.  Its
praise was a living to a struggling author, and its censure
worse than robbery of his pocket.
These two journals accepted the Republic not from choice,
but policy. They defended it with firmness, but no ardor.




NE W S P A' Et S.                127
They were not the admirers of the New Order, but its apologists.  The enemies they feared, were not so much without
the camp, as within.
The Presse held ground by itself. It was principally owned
and edited by Emile Girardin, whom we have already seen
pushing his way to the Palace on the 23d of February,-a
man who had first won notoriety by his advocacy of a cheap
paper system, and by his duel-murder of the beloved Armand
Carrel. He was now enlisting attention by the recklessness
of his course, and by the extraordinary vigor of his paragraphs.
His cheap system, as much from the energy and determination of the man, as from its intrinsic value, had triumphed.
It had made Girardin and his paper rich. It had spread his
journal among sixty thousand subscribers in every quarter of
France, and had given to his articles a larger daily circulation than was commanded by any other living writer, or by
any existing journal.
He had enlisted in his columns able financial and diplomatic contributors, and such literary aids as Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Pelletan and Dumas. Not another paper had
such attractive array of Feuilleton names.
Of general news-a department in which French journals
are far inferior to either English or American,-he is fullest
and earliest expositor.
Of political discussion, he is himself chief furnisher; he
possesses the happy art of catching opinions in advance; he




.128         THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
detects and seizes at once the salient points occupying the
public mind.
His untiring industry aids him no less than his energy
and his quick perceptions.  His time is measured with
nicest economy. Hour after hour, that pale, massive, handsome forehead of his is bent over his desk in the dingy Rue
Miontmartre, at seasons when no sound stirs the street silence,
except the groaning night-carts, or the pace of the patrol.
His short, sharp sentences, easy as they seem, are carefully
wrought. His brilliant antitheses are all pointed and polished with labor.
His vigor and independence have won him a name and influence, which even his maddest vagaries cannot wholly destroy.
The paper had been a bitter opponent of the Guizot policy,
while it manifested little sympathy for Thiers or Barrot. It
accepted the Republic, while it doubted of its favorable issue
under such ministration as the Provisional Government furnished. It espoused democratic sentiment, while it sneered
at Louis Blanc and Raspail.
Girardin possesses one of those antagonistic minds which
retains its vigor and brightness only by constant collision. If
he descended to praise, he would be feeble and insipid; while
he menaces or condemns, he is strong and eloquent.
His penchant at one point, led him too far for the spirit of
the time; his office was mobbed. But to such a man a mobbing is an invigorator.  It flings new venom into his pen, and
new brilliancy into his pleadings.
He delights in proposing and advocating with infinite ad



NEW SP APERS.                      129
dress, schemes which are quite impossible.  He has all of
Rousseau's vanity of style, a great deal of his adroitness, but
none of his sensibility.  He might perhaps, have written the
" Letters from the Mountain:" but he could not by any possibility have accomplished the three first chapters of the
" Confessions."
-      An, r'este, he is as vain as Robespierre, as impetuous
as Marat, as strange as St. Just.  He prints his own placard, avows his own candidatecy, cries his own faith.
He is an odd, striking jumble of brilliancies, and errors;
~strong and headstrong; conceited, and full of glowing conceits; crying out for discipline, and setting the camp on fire;
-at once the most troublesome and truthsome man of his
time-the very embodiment of French spirit-a splendid
phantasmagoria!
Upon the whole, the paper favored the Bourgeois interests,
as opposed to the crude demands of Labor-organizers; it was
nevertheless a firm advocate for the fulfillment of all Provisionlal promises.  It disturbed more than any journal of
Paris, the balance of the public mind, and has contributed
throughout the stormy year, to add to that unfixed, hesitating,
vacillating temper, which still bides the issues of Time and
Destiny.
The Siecle, dignified, strong, but not popular-of comparatively modern date,-had for its principal supporter, and
weightiest contributor Odilon Barrot.  Its  tone reverted
with that of the Constitionznel to the advocacy of a Re
public.
6*




130          TH E  13 BA TT   E  S U At M E R.
The National, long known as the most prominent liberal
paper of Paris, had achieved its reputation under the united
labors of such men as Thiers, Guizot, Mignet, and even
Barrot, and the veteran Arago.  Later, it had acquired a
still more splendid notoriety, under the sparkling, vigorous,
soldier-like pen of Armand Carrel.  At the date of February,
Marrast was its principal editor, sustained by such friends as
Marie, Bastide, Pages; and most indeed of those Deputies,
who early declared for a Republic.
Its articles were strong, but not unfrequently dull, and
tedious.  Its correspondence was well-arranged, and of interest.  Its tone was from the first, purely and boldly Republican.
The Feuilletons of the two last-named journals, did not
form so attractive a feature as in the De'bats or the Constitmttionnel.  Their class of readers was more exclusively political.
The Reforme, the violent organ of Ledru Rollin, to which
he with Flocon were principal contributors, and within whose
bureau was arranged the Provisional Government, that at the
Hbtel de Ville blended with the previous one of the Chambers,
was the strong apologist for the Sand Circulars; and in advocacy of thorough Revolutionary doctrines, stopped only short
of the Commune of Sobrier, and the Pemeple of Prudhon.
It was written with spirit, but with little tact or taste.
For many years there has been established at Paris a newspaper, well known on the Continent and in this country, called
Galignlani's 1Messenger.  It is edited, and published in English) by an Italian. Its sympathies are anti-revolutionary,
and anti-republican, to a degree that would be odious, if it




NEWSPAPERS.                        131
were not ridiculous. Its influence is utterly inappreciable.
It is valued for its marriage and birth list-its transcripts from
British Journals, and its weak abstracts of the French.  It
has no character to maintain, and is esteemed for what it barrows.  It is the delight of such old gentlemen as cover their
ignorance of French with a sneer, and of such travelling nursery maids as love the gossip of the Post.
It is tolerated in its naughtiest abuses, as a kind of bait for
British strangers; and it is not feared or suppressed, simply
because it has not the capacity to be harmful.
Yet, strange to say, this is the organ from which more than
half of American Journalists derive ail their information in
regard to Continental affairs!
The De'mocratie Pacifiqme, edited by Victor Considerant,
now a political exile, is the accredited organ of Fourierism.
Its sympathies were naturally with the Revolution, and with
the Republic. M. Considerant is a man of ability, capable
of affecting much, if he were not the victim of that sad monomania, to which his journal stands pledged. He was early at
issue with the Provisional Government on questions involving
more or less the success of his social plans.
Among the multitude of journals established after the Revolution, the most noticeable were the Assenblee Natioqalae, the
Bien Public, and the  Representant duo Peuple, (more recently the Peumple.)
The first was high Bourgeois, assenting only to such Republican measures as disheartened street throngs-heartily favoring a monarchic return, and the strongest advocate for sever ~




132          TIlE   B3A TTLE  SUMMER.
military  rule.  Its political idol was the late Marechal
Bugeaud.
The Bien Public was established under the auspices
of Lamartine.  It sustained his views, and his reputation
throughout. It was moderate and dignified in character, and
was distinguished for the grace and finish of its articles.  It
wore, more than any of its cotemporaries, an air of honesty.
Shortly after the Presidential election it became merged in
the Presse.
The Representant du Peumple was at once the strongest and
most vehement of all respectable representatives of the Red
Republic. Prudhon was its establisher, owner, and chief contributor. It is avowedly the advocate of Labor, as opposed to
Capital. The great revolution by which capital shall be
overturned, and made subordinate to the influence of labor,
has in his view yet to be accomplished; and to the attainment
of this end, he devotes, with all the ardor of a fanatic, no
mean powers.
Prudhon is a logical reasoner, of quick wit, and most keen
satire. His articles remind one not unfrequently of the
drollery of Rabelais. He is as low, and he is as pointed.
He has been subjected to fines without number; his journal has been suspended, suppressed; and finally, he himself
is imprisoned.
He has a shuffling gait-a heavy German face, encircled by
coarse, stiff whiskers, shaved well back on face and throat,
-a huge mouth, turned up slightly at the corners, with a




N EWSP APERS.                   133
lurking humor; he wears enormous round-eyed spectacles, a
seedy hat, coarse, ill-fitting clothes-in short, you would
sooner suspect him of being a marchand d'habits from the
Temple, than the writer of such sharp, caustic paragraphs, as
used to appear morning after morning, in the little penny
journal of The People.
But we have scarcely begun with the new journals. There
was the Vieux Cordelier of poor Demoulins revived-not
now with his acuteness-and bearing for motto, this amiable
menace- Tremblez Bourgeois.'
The Pere du Chene was taken from the tomb of'93, and
resuscitated with all the fury that belonged to the paper of
Hebert.  The Cause du Peuple, edited for a time by
George Sand, was soon merged in the True Republic, under
guidance of Barb6s and Pierre Leroux.
There was beside, the MWere Duchene, and the Voix des
Femmes, each living a short life,-each succeeded by something more violent, or absurd.
A hundred and more of such were scattered over Paris, during the three months that followed the February revolt.
They can be found now, only in the vast receptacle of
the National Library or the portfolios of curious collectors.
We have given these extended notices, since the influence of
Paris Journals upon popular feeling is vast. Nor is this influence created or sustained, so much by any acquired reputation which may belong to particular Journals, as by the
spirit and force of special articles.  A brilliant and vigorous




134          TH'E  BATTLE  SUMMEtR.
appeal will be felt in every Caf —will be talked of in every
Salon.  Impulsive Parisian nature is not acted upon so much
by-memory of past dignity, as fervor of present action.
Hence it is, that talent of the first order, finds an arena
worthy of itself in the columns of the daily Journal. To be
a Journalist-successful, applauded, admired, is not second to
any French reputation whatever. The first of French Statesmen, the first in the Church, the spectacled scholars of
the Academy, the keen professors at the Sorbonne, are
contributors to the daily newspapers. The Editor, if distinguished in his profession, is courted; he makes a group
about him, in corners of princely salons; his pen will startle
Paris.
Hence too, it is, that the wealth of Paris journals is diverted from the channels of mere news-gathering-where it
naturally runs with a commercial people like Americans —
and goes to secure the highest talent of the country. No
premium is too great for an accomplished paragraphist.
Fifty, seventy, or one hundred dollars are not unfrequently
the prices for a single newspaper article.
Such vehicle of influence as a Paris press had its weight
with the new-born Republic. Without its support, all would
have been lost; and its varying tone and complex discussions have kept definitiveness of issue at bay. The suppression of a journal is equal to the suppression of an army.
Bourgeois wealth had early secured the men of talent to
the Bourgeois cause.  Labor, and Labor-organizations fought




PALACE OF THE LUXEMBOURG.                  135
at disadvantage. Single pens, like those of Prudhon, and
Louis Blanc, and even Geo. Sand, and indefatigable Lamennais, grew feeble with excess of effort. No strong corps of
Academicians behind the scenes, relieved the intensity of
their labor.
We shall find them wearying, and worrying into vehemence and rancor.
The Bourgeois journals, meantime, with consummate art,
are arraying every faculty, whether of brilliant feuilletonist,
or sagacious generalizer, or acute special pleader, to moderate
the issues of Revolution, and to warp even the enthusiasm
of the time, into respect for property, and for all vested
rights.
XVIII.
PALACE OF THE LUXEMBOURG.
IN the old Palace of the Peers-in their splendid, semicircular Assembly Hall, is met, not long after this February Revolution, a very different company.  The white
heads, and gold-tipped canes, and gentlemanly air of Peers
-Peers by birth, and Peers by adoption, are no longer to be
seen at those luxurious desks.
In their place is met, an earnest, ill-dressed, ill-satisfied corps
of working-men's Deputies. In the speaker's chair, high and
throne-like-under shadow of the tall statues of Colbert and




136         THE BATTLE  SUMMER.
d'Agousseau, is seated the small, blue-eyed man, whom we
have already seen in a book-shop of the Rue de Seine.
Busts of warriors along the frieze, and painted Gods in the
plafond of the ceiling, seem to regard with strange eyes, this
strange workingman's Assembly.
Along the desks, were to be seen brawny arms, uncovered
by blouse, and heavy shoulders stooping with the labor of
years; artisans of every character; coachmen, lookingly uneasily in their place; and smutty coal-heavers; and lank
Seine boatmen; and velveteen-jacketted porters; and bluff
water-carriers; and intelligent pale-faced, journeyman printers. And the blue-eyed man, who addresses them, in measured words, and in silver-toned voice, wears a face innocent
of all labor, except the most harassing of labors; and his hand
has known no implement of handicraft, except the smallest,
the most powerful, the most dangerous of implements-a pen.
It was theory instructing practice: a pigmy in a parliament
of giants.
Even bonnetted milliner-women were not absent, but looked
intently at the fair forehead of the speaker-won more by the
grace of his appearance, than by the force of his reasoning.
There are present too, Socialist teachers of nearly every
faith;-Raspail, and Prudhon, and Leroux, eager to see what
will be consummated under the auspices of Louis Blanc.
Nor was his reasoning on the occasion of that first assemblage, either vain, or incomplete.  It was in favor of
reducing the time of day-labor;-in order first-says he,that those without work may be provided with work; and




PA LACE OF  THE LUXEMBOURG.    137
second, that the laborer may have one hour —at least one a
day, to give to his minds-life, and to his heart.
He further advised, and planned a system of association, by
which rates of remuneration might be agreed upon, and established-not as formerly, by police-but by a committee of
artisans themselves.  This first sitting was a triumph for
Louis Blanc.
Yet at the same time, while this commission of Labor is in
session,-a crowd of boisterous workmen is at the doors, vociferating, and crying, because not admitted to a parliament
of its own advocates, —a parliament already too full for any
successful details of business.-So strange, and so unreasonable
are the demands of ignorant, infuriated masses!
But is Louis Blanc, are his delegates, and his co-operating
workers satisfied with this naming of Labor Commission? Has
the Republic, and the Provisional Power given them what
they wish, in placing them in the magnificent Chamber of
the Luxembourg;-in putting Royal huissiers at their disposal;-in permitting them to serve their table as they
choose; and giving them opportunity to discuss, long as they
choose, and with whom they choose, the doctrines so long
bruited, of helping the Labor estate?
Not at all: the Government has given them all this, it is
true, but it has placed no special funds at their disposal.  It
has not given Treasury, and Luxembourg together. A man
so thoroughly the advocate of a theory as Louis Blanc, is
never satisfied with half-measures.
Already his Commission of the Luxembourg grows jealous of




138           THE BATTLE  SUMMER.
the National workshops, organized by the Provisional Power
at large, and placed under the direction of a man, having
little claim to the position, except a loud tongue, a good appearance, and a vociferous Republicanism,-Emile Thomas.
Yet to those Public shops, gorged with the failing treasures
of the State come thronging all the unemployed, and all the
idle blouse-wearers of Paris, and the Banlieu. Brigades were
organized, and they worked by companies, at such work as
could be easiest procured. There was a rate for in-door
workers, and a rate for out-door workers; a rate for those
who did nothing, and a rate for those busied with small wheelbarrow loads of earth. It was all jovial, and spicy; workmen sang together, drank together, and danced together.
These public-shops had indeed cleared Paris streets of those
turbid night-singers of Marseillaise; but they were schooling
them for a new, and more terrible Marseillaise.
The Government had satisfied its promise; Labor was secured; Labor was organized: at least if public shop, and the
Commission at the Luxembourg might be called organization.
The Faubourgs were appeased; but how long will they remain appeased?
The History of that Commission at the Luxembourg may
thus early, in the history of the French Republic, be terminated. The Commission was the origin of a few voluntary
associations of workmen,* which are not without their utility,
and which still exist. For the rest, it was the arena for
strong, complex, angry, philosophic discussion, which the hos* A.ppel aux Honnetes Gens. Par Louis Blanc. 1849.




THE  CLUBS  OF  APRIL.                  139
tility of the rival disputants, and the antagonism of their plans
rendered utterly unavailing. No grand scheme was nearer
adoption, at the close of its labors, than at the beginning.
The laboring people, whom the pompous title of the Commission, and the august place of its sittings, and the variety,
and ability of its delegates, had led to hope great things, were
destined to reap from the measure, only most miserable disappointment.
So ended the magnificent organization of Labor, that
was to spring from the Luxembourg Commission!
XIX.
THE CLUBS OF APRIL.
T    [tE election for those representatives of the people, who
are to make for France a Constitution, approaches.  It
forms the topic of talk in Caf6, in Salon, in Journal, but most
of all, in Clubs. Early in April, no less than forty are
organized, holding their night sittings in the old Church of the
Assumption-opposite the Halle amt Ble,-in the Salle Montesquieu,-in the Hall of Spectacles,-at Montmartre, and in
the Cite.
Not like any other clubs are French clubs; the quick, impulsive nature of the people, luxuriates in the informality, the
license, and the blazing passion of those evening sessions.
The French Lecturer, at the Sorbonne, or Conservatory, is
the quietest of Lecturers; and his audience the quietest of




140          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
audiences.  His fame and knowledge will secure to him  almost breathless auditors. Yet he takes no pompous airs; his
dress is plain to a fault; he steals in at a little side-door by
the desk, and looks over his apparatus, his bones, his bottles,
or his jars, as if he were but a boy-assistant; he makes a
slight, graceful, but only half-noticeable inclination to the
audience;-he rubs his hands, and commences, as if he were
chatting with a party of friends.
He goes on softly, currently, easily as a stream-never
rustled, never disturbed, —warming here and there into a
charming bit of eloquent episode, as deftly, and carelessly
thrown in, as the sunbeam that steals through a chink of the
waving curtain;-pauses, —looks at his watch,-runs on for a
moment, —bows,-is done.
The Paris club is the reverse in every particular of Paris
lecture-room. Here the audience consists of so many lecturers, all eager, because all competent to instruct. The chairman is clanging his bell; the speaker pounding the desk in
passion; the listeners, arguing side-questions nearly as vociferously as the orator.
The election-laws, the candidates, the claims, the issues
are bruited from desk to gallery, and the inflamed, divided
mass, whose shallow political opinions are only disturbed, and
muddied by the session, goes home at one in the morning,
bawling unmeaning street-cries.
The difference between Paris Club, and American political
meeting, is eminently typical of the difference between the
two people:-The one, fresh in political discussion,-the




T HE  CLUBS  OF  APRIL.                  141
other, old: the one disposed to be philosophic, searching, —
the other, practical, utilitarian: the one dealing with dogmas
on which all political society is supposed to rest,-the other,
debating every day, matters of finance and trade: the patriotism of the first, gratifies itself in utterance of noisy sentiment,-that of the other, in imposing -array of statistics.
Finance, tariff, judicial questions, even those of police regulation have little to do with Paris Club-talk; these are all
subordinate; at the Clubs they affect deeper inquiry. Freemens' rights (meaning, by a pleasant club-instituted metonomy, French rights,) relations of man to man,-of Capital to
Labor,-these are the engrossing themes, the elements of
Club action; which being settled,-and God only knows how
long French Clubs will be in their settlement-and finance,
police, justice, order, follow on, as legal and infallible sequiturs.
Sometimes, it is true, in some Paris Clubs, where went
such as Arago,-as Lacordaire the Dominican,-Chevallier,
the old disciple of Enfantin,-Lamennais, the erudite seceder
from Church and State, these questions are discussed with a
nicety, a discriminating exactitude, that fatigue the mind, and
which would drive away most American audiences in despair.
In others, the wild, eloquently-uttered sentiments, succeeding each other in the crowded arena, like blazes of lightning
flashing over a sultry August earth, would entrance and bewilder; and you would no longer wonder at the enthusiasm
which sent hordes of fa-ira singers, tramping through bril
liant Paris streets till midnight.




142         THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
Among the most disorderly, and yet strongest of the Clubs,
was that organized and directed by Blanqui, and Bernard;
the orators chiefly old political prisoners.
Blanqui was its soul,-a man born a conspirator.  In 1839
he had been condemned to death, for his participation in the
conspiracy of the 12th of May; but the sentence had been
commuted, by efforts of friends, to imprisonment for life.
Born in the south, he had by nature a fiery, ungovernable,
irascible spirit; and he had squandered a large patrimonial inheritance by acts of noble generosity, and in affairs of reckless intrigue. Full of life and action, ten years of dungeon
confinement had in reducing fearfully his physical powers,
only rendered more febrile and excitable his keen and restless intellect.
He burst upon the Paris world of February, from the
grave of his prison house, haggard, pale,-his eye restless, his
hair fallen away, his cheeks cavernous, his breath fetid, his
limbs emaciated, his mind unstrung by reverie and self-contemplation,-yet still impatient, furious, ungovernable.
His health lay in his madness; the crazier his plans, the
more regular his action; the wilder the impossibility, the
more superhuman were his efforts. His suffering and appearance won upon popular sympathy. The people remembered
that a great estate, and the luxuries of wealth had been his:
-they remembered how youth, and youthful triumph had
been exchanged for the silence, and desolation of a dungeon;
they listened with eagerness to that voice grown tremulous at




ELECTION  WEEK.                     143
forty, and his unnatural fervor enchained them.-He was
the most dangerous man of the time.
But other Clubs were not wanting either force or friends;Clubs too, jealous of this Blanqui Club.
The party, which in the early days had been clamorous
before the Hotel de Ville for the red banner, was working in
secret. Neither Labor Commission, nor public shop, nor
universal suffrage had satisfied the more violent of Club-men.
They scowled in their St. Antoine wine-shops, and whispered
each other that twenty thousand heads must fall!
And he must have been a keen prophet, who could have
foretold in that time, whether they would, or would not.
XX.
ELECTION WEEK.
THE strife that Clubs were breeding between Bourgeois,
and Blouse has, by the 16th of April, ripened into
premature demonstration. The Government was before the
Club-leaders; the National Guard musketted kept pace with
array of incited working men. The cries-Death to Cabet,
Death to Blanqui! ran fearfully over the armed Bourgeois
ranks.
But the elections were coming. The Provisional Power,
rejoicing in its escape, had organized a sort of Fraternal Fete
to precede the election.  The Guard were to pass in review




144         THE BATTLE  SUMMER.
before the Executive Power, and banners were to be distributed.
That day,-those who saw it, will not easily forget.
Every great thoroughfare of Paris was streaming with bayonets; two hundred thousand soldiers were marching with banners and music. The Champs Elysees were thronged; the
Great Arch of Triumph was waving with banners. High
tribunes on either side, were brilliant, with the most brilliant
of Paris beauties. At night, every house along the Boulevard glittered with blazing lampions, while the streaming
troops with lighted tapers on their muskets, made the whole
length of street seem a river of waving stars.
Cries rise like hoarse gusts of wind, and rustle mile by
mile, along through the shining houses-Long live the Republic! and —long live the Army!
The walks throng with men, women and children, following fast as they can the mass of shouting civic soldiers;
every window and balcony has its burden of lookers-on, who
catch the cry, and echo it from roof to roof, and send it down
in huzza of triumph to approaching soldier-columns. The
city was drunk with the clamor, and the' light; —Paris was
reeling in unnatural glee.
- The election followed. Nothing could be freer than the
new suffrage. Every French citizen of one and twenty,
whether white, red, or black, if only not subject to judicial
sentence, was voter. Young men' of twenty-five years, could
be candidates for Representatives.
Paris walls grow white with placards;-placards addressed




ELECTION  WEEK.                       145
to Republicans, to Socialists, to Moderates, to Lyonnaise, to
Capitalists, to Workmen, to Patriots, to People, and to
Women. *
With such electioneering, the vote draws near. The Provinces are here and there disturbed by passing gusts of dissatisfaction, or revolt, but in the end all passes tranquilly.
On the evening of the 29th April, an eager, anxious, tumultuous crowd is gathered under the principal windows of
the Hotel de Ville. Men with flambeaux have mounted
upon the columns, and others appear at the little loop-holes of
the entre-sol. The light flared over blouses and bayonets,even as far as the river and the Pont Michel. The guard
who encircled the Square bore torches, and enclosed the
place with a line of fire.
Presently a member of the Provisional Power appears, and
announces, in such silence as such crowd can keep, the names
of the successful candidates for the Department of the Seine.
First, is the name of Lamartine, having 259,800 votes.
After him, comes Dupont (de l'Eure,) 245,983.
Then follow Arago, Garnier Paegs, Marrast, Marie, Cremieux, Beranger, Carnot, the General Cavaignac, book-selling Pagnerre, strange, philosophic Buchez, astute Cormenin,
Caussidiere, workman Albert, the Pole Wolowski, Ledru Rollin, Flocon, Louis  Blanc, Bastide, Protestant Coquerel,
prophet Lamennais, with others of less name and note.
More than a hundred of these placards. saved from the wreck of time, are
now laying under my eye; and these even, form but a small fraction of the
mass with which every vacant wall was covered.-Vid. Les Murs de Paris, Par
tan Garde Nationale. 1848.
7




146         THE BATTLE  SUMMER.
- And how many of these are with Bourgeois, and how
many with blouse. How many are named by those masses who
on the sixteenth were hoping for Committee of Public Safety,
and how many by those marching National Guard, who cried
-Death to Cabet! How many are sympathizers with the
Luxembourg plotters for dignity of Labor, and how many
with Emile Thomas of the Public Workshops? How many
accept the present condition of affairs as a mere guage and
promise of quick and earnest advance, and how many regard
it as only a needed tolerance of public excitation?
The members of the Provisional Power, with the exception
perhaps of Blanc, Ledru Rollin, and Albert, had commended
themselves alike to Guard and to street-mass,-to Bourgeois
and blouse. Beside these, were also Cormenin, Beranger, Bastide, Coquerel, and some twenty others, who had not rendered
themselves obnoxious to the more heated Republicans, and
who yet, by their education, position and opinion, would inevitably take rank with the defenders of property, and generally of present social usage.
Of Socialists proper, were Corbin, Blanc, Lamennais. Of
violent Republicans, gaining their election, notwithstanding
strong Bourgeois opposition, were Carnot, Vavin, Caussidiere,
Albert, Wolowski, Flocon, Recurt, and Perdiguier. A single
one, M. Berger, the friend and admirer of Thiers, was
strongly and openly anti-Republican.
The Bourgeois then were represented by a proportion of
three to one.
Thus much for Paris representation; but after all,




CITY  AND  SALON.                  147
these are but thirty-four voices in a company of nine hundred.
Blanqui-men had yet much to hope for: Bourgeois had yet
much to fear.
XXI.
CITY  AND SALON.
R EPORTS come in night after night, from the Provinces.
The Government discusses with feverish anxiety, the
political complexion of each new Representative. The quidnuncs talk with ardor; the Cafes are alive with conversationists. New names are bruited from mouth to mouth; and
lineage, education, and political bias, are ferretted out, with
all the aids of registers, and Provincial Journals. The Presse
sends out its extras, bringing down intelligence to the latest
moment.
The men of the Ateliers Nationazx, gleeful with their
easy-earned wages, are sauntering at their work in the Pare
Monceau, or along the quays; and cry-long life to the Government, that supplies us with home and bread!
But meantime commerce is sadly falling off; no strangers
are now loitering about those elegant shops of Rue de la
Paix, for trinkets and bijoux; manufactories are closed; the
Railways unable to complete their engagements for continuance of their lines, are taken in hand by the Government,
whose resources between fete-giving, and labor-payments, and
equipment of Garde Mobile, are fast failing.




148          THE BAT TIE  SUMAIER.
The projected plans of completing the Tuilleries, and extending the markets, loom over the heads of Exchequer men,
more and more gigantic. Railway shares are sadly down, and
fluctuate hour by hour. The rich man of yesterday is poor
to-day; and rich again to-morrow. The holders of houses
are refusing payment of rents; and untenanted buildings can
find neither lessees, nor buyers.
A young man of easy fortune, in Paris world, has
purchased a week before the Revolution, at the date of his
marriage, a Hotel, for which is to be paid the sum of 600,000
francs.  Of this, one half remains secured upon the property.
His creditor straitened by the exigencies of the time, is compelled to foreclose the mortgage: the Hotel realizes a week
after the Revolution, 200,000 francs only; leaving the former
rich possessor worse than bankrupt. Judge, if such worsted
Bourgeois would fling up his cap for the Republic!
Wealthy families of St. Germain, finding their incomes reduced by a third, are curtailing expenses. Horses and carriages are sold at ruinous rates. Old diners at the Caf6 de
Paris, now order humble meals of private restaurateurs. The
Theatre, that sweetest of luxuries to a Parisian is abjured.
The employees of the Opera are deserting. Except upon
free nights-another drain upon the failing treasury-the
benches are never full.
Notwithstanding, Parisian Salons are not quiet, nor dull.
The new scenes, the approaching assembly, the clubs, the
Briarian Journalism, the depth, and interest of the questions
at stake, keep the public mind strung to its utmost tensity.




CITY  AND  SALON.                    149
Nor in the discussion of such topics, does society lose that
happy grace, and ease without which, Paris society would be
no longer itself. A certain indescribable bonhommie, and
careless freedom, yet throw their charms over the most serious
of Salon talk.
-  Madame P- has disposed of her equipage; she has
even changed her quarters from the premier, to the entresol;
but she wears the same old air of cheerfulness; she disposes
such jewels as remain with double effect; she pities her friend,
who from fear, or economy, is obliged to quit Paris-la belle
Ville —even in its worst estate.
You enter her little salon of an evening; —an elegant little
salon-though scarce ten feet above the street:-she is halfreclining upon a luxurious brocade-covered chair;-her dress
is disposed with the same artless care that always belongs to
a French lady's toilette; her white hand, set off with a lace
ruffle, and ornamented by a single brilliant, lies carelessly
upon the richly carved arm of fauteuil. She receives you, half
rising, with a cheerful smile; —beckons you by a wave of the
hand, to a seat, and resumes with the most unaffected good
humor, and flow of wit, her previous talk.
She stops; —she remembers that you, as stranger, would
be glad to know on what topic the conversation is drifting in
these troublous times. She runs over in an instant the salient
points of the discussion; by a half dozen effective, short
sentences, full of color, of verve, and action, she throws the
whole burden into your hands, and puzzles you for an expression of opinion, while you are only admiring her address.




150         THE  B A TTT.LE S U M M E R.
A tall, thin-faced Colonel is of the company, —a Royalist
in feeling, but serving now in Republican army. He has been
educated to respect old-fashioned politicians; he has no faith
in Arago or Cremieux; he sneers at Lamartine, and berates
unmercifully the cowardly, truckling measures of the Provisional Power.
Another, is a young employee in an important bureau of
state;-quick, penetrating, overflowing with humor, he defends
with the good nature, and warm abandon of youth, a system
which is waking all the youthful blood in France. He would
accept the Republic even. with all its possible excesses, rather
than be the slave of that system which by force of bribery,
and corruption, and the dogmas of feudal habit and tradition,
-denied to all talent its prestige, and to youthful France, its
best and dearest hopes.
- What — says he- will you weigh lost property, or
damaged commerce, or a little night-fear, against this new
nobleness of excitation-this God-like effort for something better,purer, higher-by which intellect shall be quickened, new
faculties developed, new sympathies awakened, and every old
nation of Europe suddenly started into consciousness of those
active, and present faculties, with which heaven has blessed
them,-not for sloth, and unrest, but the most extended, possible development?
-  You see —says Madame-glancing round at her humble
entresol, with what sympathy my friends console me. But
allons, courage! You must not, my dear Colonel, bear so
hardly on our poet Lamartine.




CITY  AND S A LO N.                151
- QU'il est bien, cet homme! —murmurs the young man.
- It is the worst to say of him-continues Madame,-that
he is unused to power. But what better prestige than this for
a people with whom power is new? You cannot surely doubt
his humanity, nor his generosity, nor his devotion; and for
philosophy, what is better than that which springs out of the
hour (a true French sentiment) tempered by adversity, and
lighted with poetic ardor?
The topic changes as easily as words flow from a Frenchwoman's lips.
- And you have seen the play of Geo. Sand,-Le Roi
attend; and Mademoiselle -— is she not gracieuse? but
mafoi, what audience! Poor Madame Dudevant! they say
she is utterly disconsolate at Tours;-no wonder-so inspired
by the change;-a Lelia, at last found a pure, and loving
Stenio! But I forget, you have not been to the spectacle,
since the unfortunate night of that terrible, chanting crowd,
-quelle horreur!
- Yet how patiently, how earnestly they listened even to
Corneille?
- And who would not, with such interpreter as Rachel?
-noble in Elvira, but how like a ghost of the bloody past, in
her white robe chanting that fearful Marseillaise!
-  God save us-says an old lady in the corner-from those
terrible Canaille!
-— Thus much, to give an idea of the tone, and change of
the salon talk.
Madame P- is a quick, Parisian lady,-of more years by




152         THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
a dozen than you would credit her-whose judgment lies in
her fancy; she is a true philosopher-meaning only life philosophy-because her philosophy consoles, and forgets.
The Colonel is a stiff, austere reader of the Debats newspaper: he is of highest Bourgeois; his friends among the
bankers, and old noblesse.
The young man is of some school of St. Cyr, with cleverness and life; —some accident may give him position that will
make him great; or kill him on some June barricade.
The old lady is nurtured in the faith of the old regime,perhaps was one of the suspecte of Robespierre; with her, a
Republic is a night-mare, and all people —Canaille.




Blouse  anth 2scrmlbl.








BLOUSE AND ASSEMBLY.
FOURTH  OF MAY.
AY 4th, the expected and the dreaded day,-the day
for the opening of the National Assembly is at length
come. Timid strangers, fearful of e'meute have withdrawn
from the city; while bolder ones, wanderers many of them,
-careless of life, eager to look on, have attended this first
day of Representative assemblage, with intense interest.
The new Hall, in the rear of the old Palace of the Deputies, has risen in less than a month under the hands of Paris
architects and workmen, into a stately building. Its walls
are of heavy masonry, decorated with fresco; its ceiling of
painted canvas. Emblems of the Republic, and of France,
-fasces, liberty-caps, scales, adorn its front; and the date
of February blazes in gold, along the whole range of its interior frieze.
But the interest with which strangers, and curious ones,
regarded fresco and portal, and ceremony, was small, compar



1 3O6    tl EI ~T   B'r T   E  S U I IM E R.
ed with that deeper interest with which the various parties,
and indeed the whole world of Paris looked to the assemblage,
and first acts of a Convention, which was to new mould the
destinies of France.
The Bourgeois-those timid shop-keepers, —those old ladies
of lodging houses,-those fat, pompous bankers,-those errant
country-bred priests-were anxious to be assured by some
definite action of a normal legal authority, that enough of
Conservatism remained to secure all established rights, and to
resist effectively that spirit of mingled anarchy, and crazy humanity,-misrule, and philosophic inquiry,-conspiracy and
hope,-zeal for progress, and political infatuation, which was
raging like strong, floundering leviathan, in club, and in street.
Eager Republicans, Club-orators, St. Cyr students, Reforme
editors, were solicitous to ascertain if their hopes and efforts
would after all prove abortive;-and if what they reckoned a
true Republic, would find most friends, or foes, in the new
Convention.
Orleans men, and Reactionists, were rejoicing, and yet
trembling at the occasion they would now have for feeling the
pulse of this National patient, and for tampering-as they
knew so well how to do-with its political prejudices.
It was almost a day of fSte:-necromancers, and showmen,
and jugglers, and Sayoyard organists, were scattered all over the
Champs Elyssees. The banlieu had come in to help on the occasion.  Immense throngs lined the quays in the neighborhood of
the Assembly. Large bodies of troops-among them the new




FOURTH  OF  MAY.                   157
boy-soldiers of the Garde Mobile, and the red-vested Garde
Republicaine-were detailed to preserve order.
The members of the Government, amid shouts, passed on
foot, and bare-headed, across the Place de la Concorde,hemmed by lines of soldiers, and the soldiers were lost in a
throng of lookers and listeners.
The members of the Assembly are scanned eagerly and
fearfully. The white Robespierre lapels of not a few, are
noted-here, with a smile-there, with a stinging jewr d'esprit;
and by not a few white-haired mothers, with a shudder, or a
groan. There were those there that day looking on, who had
seen in the same square,-under orders of just such feted republic, their brothers, and fathers, and mothers slain; to these,
such memento of that black-shadowy reign, as lapeled coat,
went like a sword to the heart. The stranger, with mind full
of that past-to him only a book-past-mused wildly, yet
richly, as he looked around upon the;sea of heads, earnest
with a thousand presages of the future.
- There was one looker-on that day, —a feeble woman, far
gone in years, and clad in decent Bourgeois dress, —to whom
and probably to whom alone, the white Robespierre lapel was
a sweet souvenir,-a souvenir that called up tears, not of
terror, but of regret.  She was the daughter of that artisan
in the Rue St. Honore, where Robespierre had lived; she
had tended him in his sickness; she had cheered him in his
moments of dejection; she had befriended him when friends
had left him; she had bewailed him like a woman, at his death.
As one, or another of the passing Representatives, of happy




158          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
reputation, is recognized, the name rises with a shout and
a vivat along the lines, and a hoarse huzza of blended voices
of women and of men rolls over the square, and the bridge,
and dies away in echoes under the peri-style of the Palace.
The tribunes for strangers along each side of the Hall of
Assemblage, and the boxes of reporters are crowded to overflowing. Here and there among the elevated desks at the
Left, (now, as always the position for the violent ones,) a
group of one or two, who had entered early, scan intenrtly the
coming couples of members, and are reckoning, as they best
can, the verdict of their fate.
Cries of Vive la RBep'blique! shake the crimson hangings
of the President's desk; and there is no counter cry. But
old watchers know what to set down to enthusiasm,-what
to policy, and what to word-catching fever.
-  Fine-looking Barbes with black beard, and sparkling
black eye, stands leaning against a desk, running his glance over
opposite benches, —scowling at happy-faced Rochejacquelin,
and stern Barrot. His scowl before long, will be sadly earnest.
A gray-haired, mild-faced man is sitting near him, on those
left benches, —his age will not let him stand. His thoughtful
forehead rests upon his finger. The blaze of life, long strong
in him, is growing faint.
Magnificent ideas have wrought themselves into words, in
that brain of his, that have gone forth wherever French
speech is known.  Magnificent ideas are struggling there
still-a tempestuous struggle-to end in broken faith, wild
speculation, an irregular love of humanity, and an intense




FOURTH  OF  MAY.                     159
yearning of soul, and labor of such body as is left, toward the
unattainable.
It is the Abbe Lamennais, —a lank old wolf in lamb's skin.
Another noticeable man is near them, whose interest in the
events of the day appears intense. He is stout as a smith:
his arms and stature brawny; his face round, full, and bronzecolored. Heavy, curling hair lies tossed carelessly to one
side of his head. An eye, wearing sinister expression, is
looking out fixedly from under a heavy brow. A thick moustache conceals the expression on his lip, and adds a rueful
cast to his features.
In his hand he holds, half triumphantly, an enormous
steeple-crowned hat, the like of which you may see upon the
police agents of the Prefect. He wears red sash and Robespierre waistcoat.
If this man, whose name is Caussidiere, were as strong of
mind as of body, and if his penetration were as quick as his
passions, Reactionists might tremble.
Nature has in him wonderfully assimilated soul to sense.
You would-knowing the Paris world-look for just such face,
form, and carriage in corner wine-shop of city, or at domino
table of Provincial Caf6. —He possesses those mental faculties which would shine, and shine only, in corner wine-shop,
or at table of Provincial Caf6.  Blunt, gross, direct, not
without a rude, uncultured wit, he can laugh, joke, smoke,
declaim together. Boastful, ignorant, ambitious, not without a
native kindness, and an intense hate of tyranny, he watches the




160         THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
grouping members with apprehension —looks patronizingly on
bewildered provincials, —feels that he is Prefect of Police.
Another, though he does not appear to-day in Assembly, will soon have his place upon the Mountain; and his portrait is so essential to the group, that we anticipate his coming.
With shaggy, disordered hair, half hiding his face,
and tumbling upon the collar of his dirty, dusty palletot,
Pierre Leroux squints curiously across the chamber, with a
keen, gray eye.
Under his thin arm, he pinches his book —the work of his
soul, and that soul the strangest; he lives in a world of ideas,
and those ideas the wildest.
He preaches association, and more intimate community of
mind; yet judging from lis dress and air, you would say that
he knew nothing of Association, and nothing of Community.
He teaches social reorganization in close-writ pages, and lives
forever in his pages. His Community is all in his philosophy;
his Socialism all in his reveries; his equality all in his dress; his
Democracy all in his thoughts, and his speeches all in his books.
Once he was leagued with St. Simonians —a good St. Simonian he must have made; after it, and now, he is leagued
with Geo. Sand, —a bear leashed with a leopard!
Yet he has force, penetration, great logical acumen. Not
a man of them all will review their projected constitution with
more causticity, and astuteness of remark; not a man of
them all is less fit to graft upon it-what they most needadaptation.
The sympathies of all these, and of a vast many more,




FOURTH  OF MAY.                     161
counting Rollin, and Flocon, and Albert, of the just expiring
Provisional Power, are with the street masses-are with the
workmen, against the Bourgeois.
And who now is across the way?
- That graceful figure, still youthful, with fair hair, and
elegant countenance, is not surely unused to public Assembly;
-he seems as much at home as if he were in salon of St. Germain. Surely, Montalembert-for it is he-who bore the name
of first orator at the Chamber of Peers, will bring the weight of
his eloquence to the side of Bourgeois interest. But farther
than securing patient listeners to beautifully turned, and
studied periods-reflecting grace upon the Catholic Church,
and pleading coldly, because from high ground, for vested
rights, his influence with Revolutionary Chamber will not be
great.
Montalembert is an orator, a gentleman, and a bigot.
That fine intellectual countenance near by, full of keenness
and passion, just wrinkled with approaching age-for he
touches upon sixty-but firm, full, and commanding, belongs
to the royalist orator, M. Berryer.  His eloquent voice if it
be heard at all, will surely be against Ledru Rollin circulars;
and his eloquent voice always charms whatever audience he
addresses; but in that Assembly the voice of Berryer will
be only charming.
-     There is Rochejacquelin-you would know him from
the prints;-no great orator, it is true, but in salon, and corridor, with that easy, beneficent smile of his, and~ that captivating manner, carrying the opinions of thousands.




162         THE BATTLE  SUMMER.
Pages, Cremieux, Marie —sterling Republicans all of them
-will not, with all their Republicanism, have the club
sympathies of tbose frowning groups at the Left.
There is beside these, an army of lesser ones, and many as
great, covering all the benches of the Right-stretching
round indeed, and mingling with the Left, and joining voices
in that first day's cry, of- VIVE LA  REP UBLIQ UE!
II.
THE  EXECUTIVE POWER.
BUCHEZ, a heavy-featured man, who has been physician,
writer, and politician-not without merit, and eminence in each-is named first President of the Assembly.
The Provisional rulers, each of them by studied speech, give
up their trust.
A new Executive of Five is to be named. Who shall they
be? Europe, and America in that time, would have saidfirst-Lamartine. He had been elected by ten Departments;
his name had become a household word. Blessings were
piously called down upon his head, in the farthest hamlets of
France.
Yet the first will not be Lamartine, nor the second, nor the
third. For Lamartine has said that he will not accept power,
unless associated with his companions at the Hotel de Ville.*
* " Et c'est quand nous avons ainsi travaillh en commun, quand nous nous
sommes sep aris plenis de confiance, et de reconnaissances pour les sacrifices




THE  EXECUTIVE  POWER.                      163
The vote is taken; Arago is first; Pages second; Marie
third; Lamartine fourth; Ledru Rollin fifth.
How is it that the man, whom the world is looking to as
the chief by acclamation and popular adoption, of the new
Republic, is only fourth fifth of the new Executive?
It was plain to the Assembly that Lamartine was desirous
of continuing his association with Ledru Rollin; and it was
equally plain to them that the name of Ledru Rollin, while it
was becoming more and more the rallying cry of those unquiet spirits at the Capital, who had hitherto sustained Executive action, only as an earnest of new concession to street
clamor, was also becoming the object of reproach, and disaffection in the Provinces.  Ledru Rollin, moreover, held
popular sympathy to a degree that made him feared: therefore it was, that the desired association, on the part of Lamartine, rendered the idol of the Republic an object of suspicion.
So it was with those ranking with Bourgeois.
The Left party were not without suspicions of an opposite
nature.  Lamartine had refused concurrence in the issue of
the famous Sand Bulletins; he had deposed the red-flag; he
had organized a Garde Mobile; he had ordered the rappel to
be beaten on the date of that mammoth assemblage of the
workmen.  The most violent of the Left doubted him therefore, and refused him their votes. For the Right, he sympareciproques que nous nous sommes faits dans l'inthret du pay(s, que nous serions
rtduits a accuser a juger des collegues et des amis de la veille. C'est un role
que Vous NE.POUVEz NOUS IMePOSER." Moniteur. Speech of Lamartine.




164         THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
thized too much with the late Minister of the Interior: for
the Left,-not enough.
Thus it is ever that the speculative statesman finds himself
annoyed and circumvented by the toils which his own independence creates; while the practical man lays down a definite,
and precise course-humors his conscience —staves off his
doubts, and is sure of success. Humanity, eloquence, and
honesty may count much with a people-assemblage actuated
by impulse, or affection, or sympathy; but these are qualities
scarce known to a political body.
The truth is, Lamartine was interested by all that he held
dear to sustain the Republic. It had become so intimately
associated with his name and character, that he regarded any
prospect of its failure with a feeling akin to wounded honor.
He knew Rollin to possess a vast influence on popular action,
in the Capital; he further knew that this influence was directly and powerfully antagonistic to any reactionary dispositions, which might belong to the new Assembly, or to a new
Executive.  He desired therefore to secure this strongest of
means within his reach, to act upon the popular feeling, in
the composition of the Executive.
He also knew Ledru Rollin to be a man of great ambition,
extreme ardor, and sudden impulse; he may possibly have
feared the action of such qualities, if unrestrained by direct
association with the new Power.
Absurd stories of a league between the two for the establishment of a red Republic, as understood by such as Sobrier,
were bruited in the British papers; and equally silly rumors




T II   E XECUTIVE  POWER.              165
were current in the salons of the Reactionnaires at Paris.
Time has proved that they were both idle and malicious.
However much the action of Lamartine may affect his
reputation for political sagacity, it certainly does no discredit
to his generosity; and whatever he lost by it as a statesman,
he will add by it to the ultimate appreciation of his character
as a man.
And now the National Assembly has its President and
Vice Presidents. The nation has its new-formed Executive
Power.
The work to be done is to consolidate a Republic, by giving a con Jtitution to the people.
Will they succeed? And if so, which way is success to
turn? Will it be with those, who for eighteen years have
conspired for this issue; who have suffered prison and exile;
whose loudest voices are marshalled on the benches of the
Left; whose hands are yet hard with the stones of the barricades?-or will it be with those-more numerous in the Assembly-who half suspect a Republic impossible, while they
cry loud as any-Long live the Executive Power?
Will Blouse rule, or will Bourgeois?




166         T H E BATTLE  SUMMER.
III.
FOREIGN  EVENTS.
UT while we have followed the world as it has worked
in that strange, fluctuating Paris Capital-mind and
passion, and hope and effort have had their seasons without.
In places they have been-one or the other of them-bloody;
in others, quiet; and in all, they have had some measure of
success.
Beautiful Lombard Milan has driven out an Austrian army,
and is itself in some sort, a sister Republic with Provisional
Government; and provisional schemes for defence, and moneyraising; and provisional flag-alas, only provisional!-waving
against its violet sky, from the top of its marvellous
Duomo.
Germany-meaning all that land which dreams of German
union, from Aix la Chapelle of Prussia to Turkish Transylvania, and from Dalmatian shore to northernmost Baltic town
of Wurtemberg-is astir, making parliaments and speeches.
Kings are promising constitutions, and murdering streetcrowds; Metternich is flying; Louis of Bavaria is leaving
dancing Montes and throne together.
Little harmless Neufchatel is shaking off the last lien that
held her to Prussian province; and on the strength of it-a




FOREIGN  EVENTS.                     167
faint cause, for the lien was only nominal-is setting out vain
trees of liberty.
Venice too, has a little of the Dandolo feeling stirred, and
has driven away Austrian governor, kind though he was; and
is now once more the little island Republic, queening it in the
water streets, and wedding again in black workingman's gondola-for the blazing barge is burnt-her lost Adriatic.
Rome, with its liberalizing Pope, is thinking whither Popedom is tending; her Transteveri, and men of Piazzo Navona,
and low streets girting the Pantheon, are by turns, menacing,
praising, quarrelling.
Naples is making bloody street-work, and preparing in her
island of Sicily for bloodier matters still.  Sicilians are made
bold by Paris action, to claim a fuller representation, and
wider privilege; and the King yields, with just enough of
ugly hesitance to make them clamorous for more. Discontent crosses over from sunny Messina-a wind-borne epidemic
-and rages on the long Via Toledo. Half naked lazzaroni
shout for the King, and pillage Bourgeois houses. Paris
Italians, in their smoky Caf6 de France, there behind the
Palais Royal are all on fire. Old renegades-not all of them
political offenders-play at Briscola for strong coffee, and talk
sans-culottism.
Vienna, the princely refuge of Feudalism is disturbed; the
Emperor is called back from Inspruck, by a people whose call
has now become-for ever so little time-command.
Hungary, easily achieving Reforms, for which she had long
sued in vain, is joyous and for a time is loudest applauder of




168          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
Austrian Emperor, who is also Hungarian king. But Imperial success at home is fated to bring down revocation of
the Reforms that have been granted; and that revocation is
to be the source of a conflict-a rebellion if you pleasewhose issues will be long shrouded in darkness, and colored
with blood.
While all this, coming in by courier, and ministerial telegraph, is spread over Paris by the hundred busyfeuilletons of
the day, and is exciting talk, not only in caf6 and street, but
in salon, and provisional cabinet,-that poor fragment of a
nation, once called Poland, so much of it, at least, as shrinks
about the cheap restaurants, and hospitable salons of Paris, is
seeking to stir up popular sympathy, and erect again its eidoion of a national integrity.
Tall, melancholy-looking figures in thread-bare black, so
long the bug-bears of popular charity, and the foci of lovedreams to sentimental girls, are become on a sudden, petitioners for a kingdom.
N'or were their hopes, at first sight, altogether vain.  The
Duchy of Posen, Polish in blood, and in sympathy, had become by the changes in Prussian sway, competent to give
force, as well as utterance to its inclinations. Gallicia in the
South, had at present little to fear from the emasculated court
of Vienna, and might have lent a strong hand-far stronger
than that of Polish plotters at Paris-for the redemption of
Polish nationality.
Moreover, the ever exciteable French mind, was just now
travailing in one of those accessions of enthusiasm, which




FOREIGN  EVENTS.                   169
made it susceptible to slightest impulse-most of all such impulse as accorded with the tendency of Revolution.
La Pologne called up to the inflamed popular mind, a world
of tender memories, and terrific visions of vengeance. It was
a bleeding trophy of united Kingship-of which, Kingship must
be despoiled. Not another national name in Europe could
excite with such force, hatred of monarch-tyranny.  The
street-shout for Poland, was a sort of proud, and high bravado against Thrones. It was the vaunt of Freedom, in the
face of Monarchy!
Nor'were there wanting supporters to this new-sprung feeling, other than mere enthusiasts. Wolowski, a member of the
Chamber, was a Pole by birth;-a man of strong capacity,
and well-balanced mind. He had been lecturer at the Sorbonne, and had been vigorous opponent of many, if not most,
of the new social schemes. He united with him in opinion,
very many, not only of his own countrymen but of moderate
French minds, who had confidence in his discretion, and
abilities. The warmest of the Red Republicans, and Clubmen joined in the uproar for Poland;-with some, it was the
result of an honest, and uncontrollable enthusiasm; with
others it sprung from a deeper and less worthy purpose.
It seemed the best of cries with which to start again Paris
pavements. The Executive Power was known to be averse
to rupture with either of the triad powers, which possessed
Poland; a war-cry, therefore, if general enough, would upset
the Ministry, and the club-men had arranged, in such event,
their own accession.
8




170         THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
In this temper, and in these views, the famous petition for
Poland was set on foot.
There were thousands of eager signers;-some impelled by
a reckless love of a lost.home-land;-some actuated by a
misguided enthusiasm for whatever felt the odium of Kingrule. Others, and these fewest of all, recognized the policy
of war in behalf of Poland, as judicious, and as tending ultimately to secure on firmer basis, Continental Republicanism.
On Monday the fifteenth of May, the petition was to be
presented to the Assembly, and its demands to be discussed.
That fifteenth of May was to be an epoch, not so much
in Polish History, as in French History; it was to make political martyrs-not so much of Polish lovers of their country,
as of French lovers of themselves.
IV.
MAY  FIFTEENTH.
HE day had been intended for Fete day; but a white
placard of Saturday night, and the Moniteur of Sunday
morning has put off the Fete to the following Sabbath. If it
had been Fete, it would not have been, perhaps, so near rebellion. It is dangerous to adjourn French Fetes: it is
dangerous to change the hour of giving butcher-meat to the
lions!
Sunday night, in Paris world is a great club-night, and a




MAY FIFTEENTH.                     171
great dance-night. Effervescence is at its highest; and the
effervescence works up into rash decisions, oftentimes, for the
morrow.  It is so with grisette lovers; and it is so with
Polish lovers.
A demonstration is determined on for the following day.
The petition shall be borne to the People's Chamber, by none
other than the hands of the People.
Polish costumes have made their appearance at Chaumiere,
and at lIabil, and have won the first favors of broidering
girls in waltz and polka, until eleven at night. Polish banners have been floating on the tribunes of the clubs, and on
the tribunes of dance-orchestra.
In the morning a great crowd is gathered about the column
of Bastile.  There are flags bearing Club names,-such as
Jacobin Club; Droits de l'Homme; Droit des Femmes; and
there are flags of Poland and of Italy.
Thousands march down the long range of Boulevard, not
armed, except with hard-shouted Marseillaise, and May fervor, and not wearing other uniform than blouses,-intermingled here and there with thread-bare citizen's coat, and blue
redingote of National Guard.
The shop-keepers look on and listen; scarce knowing what
to think. Shall they join, or shall they oppose it? They
have no disposition to join, and they dare not oppose. They
slink within their shop doors, saying-Mon Dieu! quarnd
passera-t-il tout cela?   when, indeed?
But the crowd, gay, insouciant,-grisettes not forbearing to
add their quavering sopranos to Ca ira chorus,-pushes on to




172         THE BATTLE  SUMMER.
the Place of the Madaleine, and to the Place de la Concorde.
They number now not less than fifteen thousand.
A little detachment of the new-raised, half-equipped Garde
Mobile is upon the bridge, flanked by a corps of the Line;
but their bayonets are hanging at their belts, and their ranks
open to the leaders of the company.
Then the shouting of-Vive la Pologne-is ten-fold louder,
and makes itself heard even to the farthest benches of that
people's chamber, which in the Court of the Palace is legislating for the howling people without.
V.
BLOUSE OVERTURNS BOURGEOIS.
T  HAT People-Chamber is not unattended. Louis Blanc,
shivering-though it is warm May-time-on benches of
the Right, has been told* by Barbes and Blanqui, in confidence, at a certain Caf6 upon the Boulevard, that things were
approaching this; and he has advised them to restrain their
friends; perhaps honestly enough; God forbid that we should
judge harshly the pining exile!
Barbes too, knows what the cry means, and his eye flashes
fire.
A little unimportant business has been despatched by the.Appel aux Honngtes Gens, and Proces des.ccuses du 15 Mai.




BLOUSE  OV E RTU R N S BO UR GEOIS.   173
Assembly;-with the rest, a letter of resignation from the old
poet Beranger, has been read, and the resignation accepted.
Quicker work than plaintive Beranger letter is coming.
Wolowski holds the tribune: in his hand a petition for Poland; and on his tongue very eloquent apostrophes to sympathizing France. But all his eloquent apostrophes are drowned
in that thunder of clamor, which is coming nearer and nearer
to the Palace.
A questeur of the Assembly urges his way to the seat of the
President. The orders given for the defence of the Assembly,-he says-have been countermanded by the chief of the
National Guard. Even as he speaks, the doors of the
stranger galleries are broken open-a clamorous company rush
in, and a broad banner of Polish colors waves over Representative benches below.
Half start from  their seats.  The President rings, too
vainly, that little tribune bell.
Citizen Clement Thomas, of the National Workshop, has
begun from the desk a violent harangue.  Citizen Marechal
interrupts him with the cry that all deliberation is vain.
Meantime, the bearded Barbes quits his seat, and pushes
toward the speaker's tribune. Timid Louis Blanc changes his
place, and toils up toward the high benches of the Left.
The street-throng crowds up, and fills all outer courts of
the Assembly. New banners, written over with Club devices,
are appearing from moment to moment, swung by brawny
bare arms, over the edges of spectators' balcony. The cries




174         THE  BATTLE  SUMM ER.
that attend this action are noisy and loud; and the protestations from below angrier and angrier.
The ladies, such few as fill the front seats of gallery-tribunes, tremble, and cry out with fright, as the muskets now
come gleaming in at each avenue and through all the corridors.
And soon, dropping down from edge of balcony, these musketted intruders stand upon the sacred floor of the People's
Hall, where the people have delegated-how vainly!-their
sacred Constitution-makers. They press upon huissiers who
wear vainly, people's uniform of shoulder trinket, and fencing
sword, and open the main doors to their shouting brotherhood,
who grow impatient, and thunder threateningly.
The President jingles again that feeble bell; he puts on his
hat. Members shriek protests. A great, new company of
Clubbists enters, at whose head is Sobrier, famous at Palais de
Justice, and conspirator Blanqui, and a white-haired chemist
-Raspail.
Little Louis Blanc ventures a word-a demurrer for silence; and the new-come crowd give him-Bravo!-even as
Raspail mounts the tribune.
The white hair and tall figure of the chemist loom over the
pigmy philosopher of labor; and his voice full of power and
richness drowns the boy-tones of the Luxembourg orator.
Now indeed is the people in power again; the streetmass has usurped the place of Representatives. A new man
helps the President at his bell; helps the huissiers at their
shouts of —Silence!-utterly in vain.




BLOUSE  OVERTURNS  BOURGEOIS.   175
A howl of protests goes up from  Representative seats; a
howl of angry answer from street-people, says —  la porte!
Raspail begins, in the name-he says-of two hundred
thousand of his countrymen, to ask relief for Poland; and
he reduces all to three propositions: First, that the cause of
Poland be merged in that of France: Second, that a restoration of Polish nationality be effected either by peaceful
means or by arms: Third, that a division of the army be held
in readiness for instant march, on a refusal of the conditions
offered by France.
- And-concluded he, in a voice that rose over shouts,
and hisses, and curses,-so will justice triumph, and Heaven
will bless our arms!
-  Vive la Pologne!-and then follows a call for Blanqui.
A voice says-no deliberation can be had, while the chamber is thus over-run. A voice answers-it can and must.
-  A decree! a decree!-shout the people.
Blanqui, meantime, with that haggard, eager face of his
has pushed his way into the tribune. But as yet, he is quarrelling with the half dozen earnest ones who hold it in advance.
Barbes says-the petition has been read: the Assembly
has now only to decree what the people so imperatively domand; and in order that legislative action may seem* to be
free, let now the magnanimous people retire.' -"- Mais pour qu'elle ne semble pas violentre ii faut qua vous vous retiriez."
— Moniteur. Speech of Barbes.




176         THE BATTLE SUMMER.
There are angry cries of-no, no-and a stentor voice
making the tribunes shake, says-Blanqui must be heard!
-     And now it is Blanqui who begins.
Vain are all Presidents' bells, vain are all Representative
protests, against the voice of the man who yet wears the dungeon damp upon his clear, pale forehead. Not only Poland,
but suffering workmen are of his clientelle.-We ask bread for
suffering citizens; we ask recognition of those rights proclaimed in February-says he.
The tumult at length gains upon the failing voice of Blanqui, and the burly head of Ledru Rollin shows itself struggling amid the banners that shade the speaker's tribune.
But the prestige of the Rollin circulars is gone; the stormy
Republican has become a part of a government, which advance
Clubs do not recognize. They throw in his teeth that Ministry of Labor which he bad promised. Vain is all his artist
flattery; Cet admirable bon sens du peuople-the good sense
of the people, is tired of his praises; they had grown stale in
placard, and manifest; and more stale still in the heat of this
Polish fever.
Rollin is silenced; his round head goes down in the sea of
schakos, and white beards that toss around desk of tribune and
of speaker.
A stout Captain of Artillery, fit to sit for picture of murdered Marat, leaps the railing, and with his hand upon his
sword, takes position beside the President Buchez.
Barbes again in the wild uproar, reiterates new and
stronger demands.  He floats with the tide; who knows




B  ousE OVE RTURN s B oURGEOIS    177
where French popular current will bear a man?-possibly to
empire;-may be, to Vincennes!-who in that hour could
tell? Who could have told in February?
He demands-and the shouts of those Polish-mad thousands sustain him-the instant expedition of an army to Poland; the dismissal of all troops from Paris; the levy of ten
millions on the rich;-and the applauding huzzas are like
the voice of a nation.
Who would not be lit up by such thunder of enthusiasm?
Barbes had promised Louis Blanc, only the day before, that
he would discourage the movement: but Barb6s in Louis
Blanc's room of the Rue des Beaux Arts, and Barbes stimulated by those monster shouts, were different men.
And was this not as real-as virtual a Revolution, to all
appearance, as that of February? Was it not an advance
upon the times of Government Provisional?
The palace was full of earnest, enthusiastic men; and these
but the leaders of an immense host which covered the whole
Place de la Concorde. They came in behalf of suffering, halfstarved workmen, and in behalf of that unfortunate nation,
whose very name had been, for thirty years, the touch-stone
of popular sympathy.
True, they came to violate an Assembly, to which they
themselves had delegated full powers; but could not they
who had made-unmake?
It was to be sure sowing Revolutions rather thickly; yet
who was to be the umpire, as to whether this new workingman's, extemporaneous revolution, was needed? Who but
8*




178         THE BATTLE  SUMMER.
the people-with their admirable good sense? And just now
the admirable good sense of Paris people, was leading matters
its own way.
The next step is to defile before the Chamber; to show, as
Huber said, that two hundred thousand men with arms,
mean that this Polish, and working-man's matter shall be
brought to issue.
I-    t is now near three o'clock;-there is a faint sound
heard, as if drums were beating in the city. Quick ears know
it is the rappel to summon the National Guard. Ah, there
then is a body of the' people' gathering-of Bourgeois people,
which neither Blanc, nor B-lanqui have counted on!
Barbes leaps back like a tiger to the tribune, thrusting his
way through the beleaguring masses.
-  Traitors-says he-have ordered the beating of the
rappel: I demand that counter or'ders be given.
Barbes must have a strong suspicion that those other
people gathering to the drum-beat, will not be altogether
Polish-people, nor yet people who will vote the ten million
levy. It would be very odd if they were, friend Barbes.
A Questeur whispers in the ear of the President,-hold on
fifteen minutes, and you are safe; the Guard is coming.
But fifteen minutes is long enough in France to make a
Government,-or to destroy one.
Louder, and louder comes the cry from the threatening
house for counter-orders
Buchez trembles; ten minutes have hardly gone; the




BLOUSE OVERTURNS  BOURGEOIS.   179
Questeur looks at his watch, and whispers again,-Give the
counter orders; they will have no effect.
The President writes; the fierce Captain of the Guard
glances his eye over it, and chuckles; and throws it down to
his confederates below.
Meantime little Louis Blanc, in the enthusiasm of the hour
is caught up on the shoulders of four stout blouses, and goes
careering, and panting over the heads of pushing and shouting crowd. They set him upon a table, and call upon him to
speak; but the noise drowns his voice.
The upper tribunes nearly overrun, tremble with the immense weight;-the canvas paintings quiver; —the timbers
crack;-a moment's consternation prevails; but Paris artisans,
in that month of work on Palace, have done their work well.
The flag of Jacobin Club draped in crape, is flung out by
some sudden hand over the upper benches. Louis Blanc
seated again, is working with pen, and brain, crowded around
by dozens of stalwart workmen.
Huber is at the tribune;-The Chamber-says he-is dissolved!
A white butcher's cleaver shines over the head of the President. Threatening, clenched fists are advanced toward him.
A group of armed men rush on him, and hurl him from his
chair. The President, Buchez, who had written in his day
rich socialism,-not rich enough to guard him now,-struggles
out through the crowd, and the National Assembly, only ten
days old, is virtually at an end.
- Long live Barbes!-say the men in the galleries; and




180         THI E BATTLE SUMMER.
Barbes vainly struggling is borne about on four stout shoulders, his black-bearded face reeling from side to side.
A voice from the tribune declares the new Government;Barbes;-Louis Blanc;-Ledru  Rollin;-Blanqui; —Huber;-Raspail;-Caussidiere;-Etienne Arago;-Albert;Lagrange.
Another bloused, red-sashed Club-man, makes his voice
heard, with other list: —Cabet; —Louis Blanc; —Leroux;Raspail;-Considerant;-Barbes; —Blanqui;-Prudhon.
No matter which;-there is no time for talk.
A l'Hotel de Ville!-for the Guard is coming. 
VI.
BOURGEOIS OVERTURNS  BLOUSE.
TRUE enough, the Guard is coming. The drums ten
minutes ago so far away, are now sounding threateningly
in the outer courts of the Palace.
-  Voici le Garde —exclaim a half dozen at the central
door; and their heavy, regular tramp is presently heard in
the corridors. Away now through all approachable windows,
and upper doors hurry our magnanimous new Assembly, and
Club-men, and Government. Louis Blanc breathless is borne
off his legs, and twists, and writhes, and struggles in the
crowd;-nor finds himself safe upon his feet, until he is far
out of the Assembly hall, upon the quay.




BOURGEOIS OVERTURNS  BLOUSE.    181
The Bourgeois Guard has retaken the Chamber; Buchez
has entered again; again-the storm passed-the bell is heard
in the furthermost tribune.
Courtais, who had given the order to strike bayonets, enters in uniform, cheered with-Down with Courtais!-and the
maddened Guard rush upon him, as if they would do murder
even in the Assembly Chamber.
Down with Courtais, it is; his office is given to sprightly
Clement Thomas; Courtais goes away to dungeon of Vincennes;-his regimentals cast aside;-his sword broken;-his
epaulettes torn off;-his high Republicanism come to naught.
We shall meet him again, at the old city of Bourges, paled
with long months of prison-hood.
Out of doors, news has run like wild fire;-that the Assembly is dissolved, and a new power at the Hotel de Ville.
So at first it would seem: a little while more, and deputations perhaps will be taking up their march to give in adhesion to the new Provisional Power, and to chant anthems to
the glory of this glorious Paris people.
-  But if done, it must be done quickly; for this Bourgeois National Guard that has been gathering to beat of drum,
has encircled the Chamber, and is moving off in a stout
column in the direction of the Hotel de Ville.
Barb6s meantime is leading off a motley host of students,
and Polish refugees, by circuitous streets, and will arrive at
the Hotel two hours at least before the National Guard.
Here and there he has been joined by squads of club-men
with banners, and here and there been frightened by show of




182          THE BATTLE  SU  MM ER.
soldiers; but, he thinks, once at the Palace of the city, and
all the working army of Paris will sustain him. A levy of
ten millions on the rich is certainly a bright lure-a good
bounty money to make Barbes soldiers!
The Guard at the Palace gates fall back, fraternizing as
they had done in February; the Chief Secretary at his desk,
may well wonder when this fraternizing is to end! A subofficial startled from his bureau, by the uproar, passes out
into the corridor, wondering what it all may mean; he is met
by a couple of stout, black-bearded men, followed by a dozen
others, who ask for a quiet Cabinet where they can draw up
proclamations. *
- Proclamations!-says the sub-official with a stare.
- Ay, mon hontme-my good man, the Chamber is dissolved,-we are the Government; show us a salon!
And the sub-official who trimmed his pen only that morning
under reign of Assembly, and Executive power, now finds
himself unlocking doors to Barbes and Albert.  They surely
have a pleasant, Parisian way of changing matters of State!
And now Barbes is upon the table reading to the crowds
that have rushed eagerly up the stairways, the names of the
new Power; and soon again, Barbes is at a table penning
proclamations, and a new orator is declaiming a new list. For
not even among the captors of this city palace is there concord;
-so strange a thing is human pride, and so strange human jealousy! The name of Blanqui is associated with that of Barbes.
* Proces des tScausds du 15 Maci. Paris, 1849.




BOURGEOIS OVERTURNS  BLOUSE.   183
Barbes reappears and leaps upon the table;-Messieurs —says
he —choose between us; I can never serve with Blanqui.
Blanqui is not there to defend himself, in the new parliament; but he is slinking through the narrow streets by the
Marche des Innocens, seeking to hide that pale, prison face
of his from pursuit.
Barbes' philippic is interrupted by a noise upon the Square
below;-again that terrible Guard is coming! and Barbes
has after all but very few work-people to defend him.
From the windows you may see the approaching columns
as they cross the bridge, and defile along the quay: the afternoon sun is slanting over glittering bayonets, and stretches the
shadow of the masses half across the Square.-Among the
foremost you catch sight of the old hero of Revolution, Lamartine,-tall, and stately-his gray-head bowing here and
there; a little company of shouting men push their way beside
him, and open, with those huzzas of his name, a clear pathway
to the Palace gate. Lamartine fatigued with that hard May
walk, and with the jostlings of the crowd, grows faint; he
leans upon the arms of two men of the people.
Now he is strong again, and urges his way up to the
old throne-room. He gathers breath to speak. Barbes has retired to private Cabinet, with his new associates, and is making proclamations. But in outer room, Lamartine's words are
crushing the proclamations.
Battalion after battalion is coming up; the whole Place
is hemmed in by bristling bayonets. Gradually the soldier
mass draws up to the foot of the Palace;-it flows in and up.




184         THE  BA T T L E  S U A A  R.
There is a cry for Barbes. A few valorous friends throw
themselves before the door of his Cabinet; but it is in vain.
Barbes is pinioned and led away.  As he descends the
stair, and crosses the Square, his step is firm and his attitude
calm.
He had made a mistake; he took for revolution what was
only rebellion.
Again and again as he traverses the body of troops, swords
are raised against him; but he is placed safely in the dungeon of the Conciergerie; and will be safely removed to Vincennes; and thence safely transported in car guarded by
dragoons, and police to Bourges; and from Bourges safely
again to prison.
-- Poor Barbes! wild, enthusiastic, strong-minded, with
noble look; honest, very likely, at heart-loving life and
liberty much as any of us,-ten long years of dungeon life
are before you yet!
Albert follows him closely-his pinched features working
with emotion: he has played for a high stake, and lost.  In
the morning he could dine at the Luxembourg: and he will
sup at the Conciergerie. The Workman has done his last
day's work on this Revolution of 1848!
Lamartine quits the Hotel de Ville in a tumult of applause.
The National Guard stands sentry. The Mayor of the city
returns to his post. A bivouac fire blazes on the open
Square.  And as night closes in, white placards may be seen
on every corner, bearing this proclamation:" The Assembly is not dissolved.  The President yielding




Tr e. VICT1MS.                   185
"to the confusion has declared the sitting suspended. The
" brave citizens of Paris are called upon to maintain the re"spect due to the National Assembly.
" To attack the Assembly is to attack the Republic.
"VIVE L'ASSEMBLfE  NATIONALE! VIVE LA REPUBLIQUE!
" Armand Marrast, Maire de Paris."
Revolution has turned out rank rebellion. A little more
force, or a little less; —what else decides this matter between
Revolution and Rebellion?
VII.
THE VICTIMS.
BARBES was already at the Conciergerie; Courtais, the
General of the National Guard was with him. Sobrier,
a Club-man, and prime mover, who had prepared in his snug
fortress in the Rue de Rivoli, a capital array of edicts and
proclamations to guide the Republic of 15th May, was quivering the night out under two stout German dragoons with
loaded pistols, in the caserne of the Quay d'Orsay.-For
thirty-six hours-says he at Bourges, and he grew livid with
rage as he said it,* —they kept their loaded pistols to my
ears! Once he attempted to throw a letter from the window,
to his good friend Caussidibere to come and help him.
* Proces des Accuses du.15 Mai.




186         THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
-  He may come and help you-said the Colonel of Dragoons-but if he takes you away, he will take only a dead
carcass!
-     At ten, or eleven that night, a threatening-looking cavalcade with torches, drew up before a humble door in the Rue
St. Francois  There were police officers and civil functionaries, and the gleaming casques of cuirassiers. In that house
a certain Raspail, like a good father —en bon epre-as he
says, was paying a visit to his son. But he had read that day
at the bar of the Assembly the petition for Poland, and the
Polish mob in and out of the Assembly, had greeted him with
loud cries. Therefore the cavalcade had come to take him
to Vincennes.
There was no help for it; the neighbors looked from their
windows, and saw the prisoner with his long, light hair falling
from under his hat, pass out between the officers-enter the
close carriage, and disappear. Years may pass, before they
see him again.
Raspail was born in the South: he looks like a man of five
and sixty, though he lacks ten full years of that age. At
eighteen he had distinguished himself in chemical and philosophical studies, and received marks of the Emperor's favor.
In 1815, poor, unfriended, alone, he wandered from his
southern home to Paris. He took obscure chambers near the
School of Medicine, and gave private lessons in chemistry.
Working over his retorts, and his figures, he mused upon his
favorite schemes of Socialism, and a Republic.
A strong man struggling with poverty and neglect, runs




THE  VICTIMS.                     187
naturally into hatred of the rich, and of rank. The veil of
merely factitious distinctions which hides his merit, he burns
to pluck away.' He fought for it in 1830. But here the
dreamer was disappointed. A new King, a new court, a new
nobility, a new aristocracy blazed hotter and more hateful in
his eyes than galvanic flame.
The King knew of the hot soul that was sending out sparks
from the dusky chamber of the quarter of the Schools. He
sent him the Cross of Honor. Raspail refused it.
In chemical and philosophical labors, relieved by participation in an occasional conspiracy, and some years of prison,
Raspail passed the time up to the date of the February Revolution. On the afternoon of the 25th when the cry passed in
student quarters, like a heavy groan, that a Regency was declared, and when the Republic was still doubtful, Raspail left
his chambers, attended by a few companions, students-his
students-and men of blouse, and working his way over barricades, and among crowds who cheered the charity-doing
philosopher, he arrived at the Place of the Hotel de Ville.
A file of soldiers arrested his course;-on ne passe pas, —
none can pass.
-  Si-said Raspail-the people pass!-and thrusting his
way through he gained the entrance to the council chamber.
Breaking in upon the assembled Provisionary Power, followed
by a few earnest and fearless ones, he regarded for a moment
with a look of disdain, that he well knew how to assume, the
new authorities,-then lifting his voice till the vaulted ceiling
rang, he demanded, as if the soul of all that turbulent crowd




188         THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
below were in his utterance:-what'is it you do? Do you
hesitate to proclaim a Republic?-still dreaming of a Regency? Woe to you, if such is your thought! Look well
to yonder swords and muskets! If in an hour's time, Rerpublique FranFaise be not at the head of your proclamations, the
people will proclaim it for themselves!
- Who knows if you will go out hence alive!
The next proclamation was headed-Ripublique Francaise.
But even now was the philosopher unsatisfied. The visions
that hung over him at his night toil, and that multiplied into
fairy shapes in the fumes of his laboratory, were not yet made
good. His impassioned voice was heard, night after night,
under the iron colonnade of the Salle Montesquieu. The
Republic was with him but a first, faint step-but a prelude
to that entire equality of right, which would open to struggling merit and poverty, an easy road to position.
It was no slow operation of mere political and legal rights,
which he recognized as the means of righteous and complete
success. His crazed brain, scorched with furnace flames, saw
justice only in immediate and entire prostration of everything
that now lay between poverty and place,-between weakness
and power. Thrones, sceptres, liveries, palaces, must be
done away with. The man-the soul-man-must tread down
circumstance.
Suffering he sought out to relieve; and in relieving it, felt
an ecstacy in kindling a new and weightier indignation against
pomp and display. The wealth that showed itself in fetes and
triumphs, brought a scowl to his brow, black as night.




THE VICTIMS.                     189
His heart was warm, but his judgment diseased.  He was
a dangerous, good man. He was locked in Vincennes-happy
in his martyrdom.
Blanqui, the arch-plotter, was still at large.  On the third
or fourth day, the police were upon his track. A commissioner with two attendants entered a house in the Rue St.
Honore, which had been designated as one *occupied by a
friend of Blanqui, who now gave him concealment. The
officer entered the apartment upon the third floor, where the
occupant was dining with his family: a thorough search was
made, but no Blanqui was to be found. The officer retired.
The friend hears the retreating steps, and fills his glass to
the health and safety of Blanqui.
But scarce is the glass set down, before there is a new tap
at the door. That commissioner is the gentlest and quietest of observers. He has remarked a range of low windows,
above the apartments which he has entered: —and if windows
surely there must be a stairway;-but no stairway is to be
found.
He quietly asks leave to remove a heavy, old-fashioned
commode. He taps his knuckles against the wall, and has
presently opened a snug little door, from which a neat stairway leads above.
Blanqui is there, dining with a couple of friends. A long
and dismal prison-life had weakened the frame and the nerve
of Blanqui. He dreaded its return as a child dreads punishment.
He first plead with the commissioner as an old friend. It




190         THE BATTLE  SUMMER.
was in vain. He changed speedily into denunciation and
menace. The police numbered but three, only one of them
armed. Blanqui had pistols, and with his friends he might
perhaps have successfully resisted.
But the Paris Commissioner of Police rarely loses coolness.
He stepped to the window, and made a slight gesture, as if he
were beckoning to attendants below.-In three minutes-said
he-your apartment will be filled with soldiers.  Will you
go quietly, or will you wait to be dragged down?
Blanqui threw down his pistols in despair. The commissioner had no force below, but his ruse had succeeded.
A new, and long, and bitter prison-life lay before the still
young, and enthusiastic Blanqui.
Flotte, a pompier, had been from day to day reported, but
for a long time eluded capture.  On the 19th a platoon of
soldiers drew up around a wine-shop upon the corner of the
Rue de la Fontaine Moliere: a policeman entered, and asked
of the proprietor —a certain Flotte.  The proprietor objected
to a search, and to the charge of harboring a criminal.
The officer stepped up to the little table where the wineseller was drinking with a companion, and says-You were
drinking with your friends; here are three glasses; the third
is Flotte's.
And in a little cabinet down the court, the noisy pompier,
who had been among the loudest, and most violent of the
May intruders is captured. For him, too, a dungeon is made
ready at Vincennes; —to open again on the Court of Bourges;
-and the Court of Bourges upon a new and longer prison.




THE  ISSuE OF  REBELLION.                191
And now all the open plotters have exchanged club-sittings,
and Paris streets so gay and lively, for such gaiety as can be
found in the grim Chateau of Vincennes.
Louis Blanc, and Caussidiere strongly suspected, are still
at liberty; but a committee of investigation is making ready
charges. Their time will come.
VIII.
THE  ISSUE  OF  REBELLION.
A T first, strict sympathy declares strongly for that As-.A_   sembly which has been so ruthlessly violated;-for the
intrepid Buchez who so long held his place;-for the Executive
Power which came so near to annihilation. On the sixteenth
diners out, chinked their glasses together, and drank-long
life to the Executive;-long life to the Assembly;-and long
life to Buchez!
But shop, and caf6 sympathy is not long-lived. Bourgeois, recovering a little from their fright, ask themselves,
over morning absinthe, how this thing has come to pass?
They recal Ledru Rollin's pleas for Poland; they remember
that Courtais, in the confidence of the Government, had
periled everything by his sadly temporizing measures; they
talk gloomily of Caussidiere's steeple hat, and how his name
was high upon the new list; they sum up all Lamartine's humane, and fraternizing harangues to that mob-world; they




192          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
wondered-as well they might-how  Barbes with his disorderly company, had pushed his way so easily into the interior
of the Hotel de Ville.
All this was certainly very strange, and calculated to excite
distrust with those less suspicious and timid than the Bourgeois.
The madness, and the energy of those who had captured
the Chamber, did not soon pass from remembrance. The
sympathizing voices of those hordes that covered the Place
de la Concorde, make-even in the recollection-the bravest
of shop-keepers afraid.-There is disaffection,-they say;there is more Revolutionism astir than will be content with
mere suffrage,-and Republic, which of themselves would neither much harm trade or stocks. And who but Ledru Rollin
is favoring with his Reforme circulars, this mad spirit of Revolution;-and who but our poetizing Lamartine is finding
apologists for Rollin, and for Caussidiere,* and for mad
street action?  Who but these high-paid Garde Mobile,
drafted from the faubourgs, are the faubourg defenders of Revolution;-and who are growing noisier, idler, more troublous
than those seventy thousand workmen, paid day by day at
the public workshops?
And the Bourgeois, with shops empty, sighed again at the
Revolution, they had the initiative in bringing forward. Like
the Girondins who matured the decheance of the 10th
Augustt they had lost the prestige, and the eclat of victors.
* Vid. Speech of Larnartine of 16 Mai. Moniteur 17 Mai. 1848.
t Histoire des Girondins.  Vol., ii.




THE ISSUE  OF  REBELLION.                193
The people, as then, more active, persistent, reckless, had assumed both perils and rewards.
Still there had been an escape; and escape gave confidence. It was no small consolation to know that Barb's, and
Sobrier were at Vincennes; and that the Blanqui club was
silenced. True, there were not a few extenuating voices
in the Chamber, which though overruled by a large Bourgeois
majority, might yet grow strong under threat or favor of
Commune.  The Jacobins were but a handful, when the old
Legislative Assembly commenced its session; but at the 2d
of September, Jacobin votes ruled the house.
Moreover a street-army had already dispossessed one
Chamber; it had even suspended, and threatened the present; might it not have new and larger success?
There was reason then for Bourgeois to doubt;-their taxes
had increased;-their profits had diminished;-their relative
influence in the commonwealth had grown faint.
This matter of May had given tangibility to their doubts.
The Presse denounced the Government as incapable, and dilatory: Louis Blanc and Caussidiere were upbraided, and fearlessly accused in every caf6 from the Madaleine to the Porte
St. Denis.
Lamartine-strongly suspected of sympathy with insurgent
action -was certainly, so far as might be judged by his
speeches, and past political actions, opposed to the demands
of the inflamed masses of 15th May. He differed with
them, however, only in reference to time, and means. He
was drifting too near the direction of their opinions, to make
9




194        THE BATTLE  SUMMER.
his opposition effective, or to give to it an air of sincerity.
Moreover, he had too recently enjoyed the sympathy, and applause of street multitudes, to be able to doubt their action.
He had joined voice with them to mature the Republic; and
they had joined voice with him to secure the Executive. He
knew them to be wayward, and impulsive; but his doubts had
not yet ripened into distrust. They had reposed in him so
great confidence, that he could scarce avoid a large measure
of it in return.
As for Rollin, his whole life and manner, was such as to incur the odium, and suspicion of the Bourgeois. Proud and
ambitious, he had early left the dull pleadings of the minor
courts, to defend against ministerial prosecution the most virulent Journals of the Opposition. He had arrayed himself
early —partly without doubt, from sympathy, but more from
ambitious design-with those who fostered democratic sentiment.
His art at the tribune-his fine physique —his native oratory,-his enthusiasm, made his manner the most attractive
possible for a popular leader.
Living, not so humbly as did Robespierre, he yet affectedeven though his means could have allowed of other action,a disdain of all style. His rooms were in a large Hotel of the
Rue de Tournon, not far from the Palace of the Luxembourg, and but a short distance away from those centres of
popular movement,-the Place de Pantheon, and the Carrefour de Bussy.
His carriage was ordinarily a simple caleche from a neigh



ASSEMBLY  AND CONSTITUTION.    195
coring remise;-not always new or clean.  At times he rode
with his head thrown back in the corner, so as to escape observation; and at others, chatted familiarly with the coachman beside him.
His dress without being noticeably fashionable, was clearly
the product of some atelier of repute. His hat, broad brimmed, and rolled up at the sides, had a slightly jaunty air, and
was worn a little upon one side of a fine, massive head. You
might not unfrequently meet him walking with two or three
companions,-whom he overtopped by half a head,-along
the quays, or upon the narrow, slippery trottoirs of those
streets which branch from the Rue de Toirnon, or Rue de Seine.
Occasionally a group of mingled black coats of scholars,
and blouse of workmen would attend him to the door, and
leave him with an earnest shout of-Vive Ledru Rollin!
In short, he was by far too popular with those who had
rule of faubourgs, to make his presence other than odious, to
those who were already fearful of a faubourg triumph.
IX.
A s s E MBLY AND CONSTITUTION.
THE Assembly is itself again; Pages makes Report of
Executive doings to the Chamber, full of promise and of
determination.
Our brave and glorious army-says he-so long desired




196         TH EJ  BATT. E SUMMER.
by us, has orders to approach Paris: the Montagnards at the
Prefecture  are dissolved; Caussidiere has resigned  his
trust of Prefect: Clement Thomas has been named Commandant of the National Guard.
-  We believe-continues he-that in naming us to the
Executive functions, you had confidence in us. We will execute the trust imposed, or we will die in the attempt.
The Assembly seals his promise with a bravo-an idle support!
And now comes up again the old matter, for which these
nine hundred men are met together-a Constitution for
France. Twelve days and more have passed, and nothing
towards this main matter has been done. Even now the
question comes up in its simplest, and least promising shape;
-who of the nine hundred shall make this much-needed Constitution?
After long wrangling, and many days of talk, a Committee
of Constitution-makers is named. At the head of it is Cormenin, the Timon of Publicists;-a keen, shrewd, observing,
scholar-like man, who will after all labor a great deal more at
the rhetoric of his task, than its humanity.
There are beside him  de Tocqueville, the student of
American form; Lamennais, the strange-headed devot; Marrast, of the newspaper National; Dufaure, an able and accomplished politician; Coquerel, the eminent, and eloquent Rationalist preacher of the Oratoire; Dupin, the old heavyheaded law-lecturer; de Beaumont the accomplished diplomat and politician of the Salon; Barrot the lawyer; Conside



ASSEMB LY  A N D CON STI TUTION.    197
rant the mild-mannered, persuasive-tongued Fourierite,-and
others to the number of eighteen.
It was an extraordinary mixture of opinions that was here
set at work-dating from the 18th of May-to construct a
Constitution for France!
Cormenin would make it cold, classic, and Spartan; Marrast, with the tastes of the other arm of Greece, would
graft upon it the splendors, and license of Athenian rule.
Barrot and Dupin enter upon the task, as they would have
entered upon the settlement of a judicial question; with them
precedents would take the place of all Lamennais lax notions
of humanity; and analogies artfully made out, would rebut
the Fourier ideas of dreamy Considerant.
Yet this Constitution must be made; the street is eager
for it; the country is demanding it.  A sad line of precedents
runs before them; one after another —King's Constitution, and
legislative Constitution, and people's Constitution, and Charter,
and Code, and New Charter, have broken down. Shall the
New have better fate? Have fifty years made French blood
calmer, cooler, more Constitution-worthy? Shall this Dupin,
who in hall of law has dissected past Constitutions,-as coolly
and carelessly as they dissect hospital refuse at Clemart-now
leave one to future dissection that shall bear long and worthily all possible dissection:
In committee rooms they are busy; little pamphlets,
with translations of all known Constitutions, are on sale at all
the street stalls; little livraisons of plans, and studies, and
sketches of Constitutions, are trying all the politic and adroit




198         lI Ft H  A TT  E S I M M E R.
pens of such as have neither tribune nor committee room to
speak from.
Even the dramatists make vaudevilles of " Constitutions;"
Plato is set upon the stage-and Sir Thomas More-and Cabet; and pit and gallery are made to roar a clamorous applause at provisos and preambles.
- AWe will leave them for the present-committee-men,
pamphleteers, melo-dramatists, booksellers-all quietly  at
their work.
X.
A  SEAM  IN  THE EXECUTIVE.
Tr      all appearance, the Government is now doing its
bravest to keep streets quiet-to feed hungry men-to
pay the eighty thousand workers at the Public-Shop-to
hurry forward the army to Paris-to pacify the English, and
Austrian, and Belgian, and Russian courts, and —harder work
than all-to keep itself from falling.
But is there agreement even in the dozen who make up
Government?  Are there not cabinet sympathizers with
Bourgeois, and cabinet sympathizers with Blouse?  Were
there not cabinet members, who in salon and in club-where
neither Lamartine, nor Rollin, nor Blanc were attendantspushed heartily forward in their labors, that committee of investigation, whose aim it was, without doubt, to inculpate Blanc
and Caussidibre in the affair of May?




A  SEAM  IN  THE  EXECUTIVE.                199
If public rumor might be credited, there was such action;
and public rumor attributed not a little of such action to Marrast, the Mayor of Paris.
This man was a Republican, but an ambitious Republican;
he was a Democrat, but he was an aristocratic Democrat.
He could make a plea as eloquent as any one of the Vieeux
(7ordelier, for liberty of thought and expression; but he could
not like Marat inhabit a cellar, or like Desmoulins join
hands with the besotted creatures of the Faubourgs.
He had been half disappointed at the outset; he had been
editor of the leading Liberal journal,-the same journal at
whose office was arranged the programme of 1830, and which
had given two members, Lafitte and Thiers, to the cabinet of
Louis Philippe. Marrast was simply Mayor de Paris; but
not such head of Commune as Petion.
He had been subject to political persecution; he had passed much of his time in English exile; he had brought from
England an English wife. His manner and form mark the
bon-vivant; he is clearly a lover of his ease; and as clearly a
lover of luxury. He delighted in such trappings and ceremony as his office gave to him. His coat and hat were
always-if not graceful-at least ci la mode.  His moustache
was always well disposed;-his hair turned to a nicety. He
handled an eye-glass with the grace of an adept. His eye
was not unused to opera-box manoeuvre.
Sentinels in blouse were an abomination to him. He loved
the people, —but not their dirt, or their vulgarity. In matters
of art, he affected, and not without reason, the connoisseur.




200          TH E  B A'r   E:   U  M E R.
He delighted-without being a soldier-in military display.
He loved the theatres, and rumor assigned to him favorites
among the prettiest of Paris actresses.
Of Ledru Rollin he was jealous; he was afraid of the popularity of Lamartine; and he ridiculed the pretensions and
philosophy of Louis Blanc.
This man Marrast was a friend of Cavaignac; Cavaignac
had been named Minister of War, and had returned from
Algeria, where he held post of Governor, at the instance of
this friend. The tastes of Cavaignac were widely different
from those of Marrast, but it did not forbid the cementing of
a close friendship.
Cavaignac was ambitious; but his ambition was of a
healthy and honest cast.  Grave-almost to sternness-in his
manner, he was obstinately attached to his political opinions;
and those opinions were Republican Opinions.
A son of one of the murdering members of the old Commune, he had yet no cruelty, and no Jacobinismn in his nature. His habit, and education as a soldier would forbid. At
the same time he recognized none of those compromises,
which are the game of politicians, and of statesmen. He went
straight-forward to the accomplishment of whatever business
was in hand.
He could have no tolerance for the propagand views of
Ledru Rollin; and like a strict disciplinarian he could not
understand how such affair as that of May could transpire,
without leaving a stain on the character of the Minister of the
Interior.




A  SEAM  IN  THE  EXECUTIVE.              201
Still less could he pardon the action, or listen to what he
deemed the subterfuges of Louis Blanc, and of Caussidiere.
It was enough for him to know that they were boon friends
of the leaders in the Assembly, on that unfortunate day.
Nor could he understand the policy of Lamartine, in sustaining these two members of the Assembly-if indeed he had
any high opinion of the governing capacity of the great orator
of the People.
Cavaignac was without the least spark of imagination, or
enthusiasm; he could listen entranced to the speeches of Lamartine-saying to himself-C'est bea —c'est bien!.-but his
wonder would be undisguised at their effect upon popular feeling. A good speaker-he thought-may be a bad governor;
just as a good drill sergeant may make a very poor soldier.
Nor were these the only two men of the Cabinet, who spoke
freely of Executive action. But Lamartine was not the man
to take umbrage at slight disaffection. He had enlisted himself, heart and soul, in what seemed to him a great work;
men and opinions were half forgotten in the engrossing idea
which loomed before his thought, and spread out before his
life —the secure establishment of that Republic, of which he
had been virtual founder.
A vain man, in the ordinary sense of that term, he yet did
not suffer his vanity, or his prejudice to come between him,
and the end which lay at his heart. For this, he was willing
-nay anxious, to combine whatever forces were at command,
-to lay himself open to odium-to risk favor, popularity, and
life itself.
9*




202         TiTHE BATTLE  SUMMER.
His spirit was nearer than that of any man of his time, to
the spirit of the old Girondins-Brissot or Vergniaud,-who
labored, thanklessly it might be,-in danger perhaps,-alone,
if so it turned-but constantly, and fearlessly toward the issue,
which by its magnitude and beauty, had engrossed their souls.
But work as he will, with pen, and voice, and brain-enduring, suffering, wearying,-Destiny is working faster; and
Destiny will overtake him, and trip him.
But not yet.
XI.
A  F ETE.
T   HE Sunday fete of the 14th, had been put off to the
21st.  The events of Monday, and the excitement of
the week which followed, had almost driven it fromn people's
thoughts: still, however, the workmen were at their task.
By Saturday afternoon, long festoons of white, red, and blue
lanterns, stretched the whole length of the Champs Elysees on
either side; a large frame work rose from the top of the Arch
of Triumph; and the Champs de Mars, the principal scene
of the fete, was covered with spars and hangings.
Not another European city has within its circumference,
such magnificent fete-ground as the Champs de Mars. It
stretches from the great hulk of the military school, to the
bridge upon the Seine; and it is a cannon shot in breadth.
A hundred thousand troops can easily manoeuvre, with their




A F    TE.                    203
artillery, and their cavalry, upon its smooth, gravel surface.
On either side, mounds rise, running its whole length, and
covered with trees. These were thrown up, during the last
Revolution, on the occasion of the great fete de l'Etre Si,preme. On the day previous to that fete, the workmen had not
completed the necessary excavations, and the people were
invited to assist; and for five and thirty hours, night and day,
-men, women, and children, numbering not less than fifty
thousand, were at work with shovel and hoe, to complete the
great fete ground of the Capital.
The French of to-day, love fetes as well as the French of
Robespierre, and l'Etre Suprtme.
Just off the bridge, and at the entrance to the field, were
four grand crimson masts of a hundred and fifty feet in height,
with gilded bands, and bearing huge orifiammes of crimson and
gold. Beyond, were three triangular pyramids, towering some
eighty feet,-rising from circular bases, on which stood, against
each pyramidal face, a colossal, and allegorical statue.  The
pyramids were inscribed in gold, with the names of the chief
cities of France. Two statues near by, represented Agriculture and Industry.
Around the field, forty tall masts, rising from sculptured
pedestals, bore each an orifiamme, with inscriptions commemorative of the February triumph.
From mast to mast, supported by crimson lances in the
middle, were festoons of tri-colored lamps for the evening
illumination. Within the masts, on each side of the field,
swept around a range of rich Venetian candelabras.




204          T Il E  BAT' L E  S U NI M E R.
Sixteen pavilions crowned with ancient tripods, were scattered at intervals on either side; and between pavilions were
stretched the tables shielded by crimson hangings, for the
banquet of the day.
In the middle of the field was the gigantic statue of the
Republic, crowned with Phrygian cap,-with one hand on
the altar of the country, and with the other holding dagger
and olive. Four colossal lions guard the corners of the pedestal.
A rich festoon of nine banners embroidered in gold, stretches
from pyramid to pyramid over the entrance.
At the farther end, under the dome of the Military School,
and almost hiding that huge hulk of stone, is an open semicircular amphitheatre of raised seats, where the Assembly, the
Government, the Diplomatic corps, hold their places-flanked
on either side by three thousand gaily-dressed ladies.
At an early hour the rappel is beaten; the National
Guard is early astir. From various quarters gay processions
move, and by 10 o'clock, the defile commences between the
pyramids by the bridge of St. Jean.  The Champs de Mars is
thronged with spectators-who have come in from the Provinces, for a distance of thirty miles encircling Paris-and
with such troops as are stationed to preserve order.  At the
base of the pyramids, hundreds are seated in circular amphitheatres built upon the pedestals, and around the plinth of the
gigantic statue in the centre.
Tripods, and bronze urns, and vases after the antique, mingle in the distance with banners, and moving troops, and




A  FET E.                     205
waving scarfs of ladies. Music is never wanting to French
fete; and music is here, to make one shut his ears, for the
clamor of cymbals, and the bray of horns. But the fete is
not all military, nor all musical.
Eighty-four men in citizens' dress, bear banners which represent the eighty-four departments of France.  Corporations, with all their paraphernalia, and civil decorations follow.
Old members of the Old Guard, in white-faced coats, have
joined the fete, and their feeble step is greeted here and there,
with a well-meant, low-uttered, Vive I'Empereur!  Italy
has its slouch-hatted, dark-eyed corps, glancing up at waving
banners, and forward at the more than Roman splendor of
the field.
Poland has its gartered, braid-jacketted cohort, lamenting
the fate of Monday.  Ireland even shows its brogue-talking,
splay-footed company, with shamrock embroidered on their
banner.
The arts too, are represented:-here comes a great temple
of Solomon, drawn by four milk white horses; and there a
columnar palace of alabaster. Music makers have a huge
car, drawn by long array of robed horses,-with cymbals
clashing and waving in the sunlight,-with violins great and
small, half-humming in the wind,-with hundreds of trumpets
dangling from high-bannered staffs,-and with white-dressed
infants touching gently at golden harps.
After it comes the car of Agriculture, with implements and
flowers, drawn by twenty huge laboring beasts, and followed




206          THE BATTLE SUMMER.
by five hundred girls robed in white, crowned each of them
with a wreath of oak leaves.
A press is busy working off the Marseillaise, and song of
the Girondins; and girl-chants mingle with the blast of instruments, and the noise of infant fingers upon harp strings,
and the booming of the cannon by the Hotel des Invalides.
The sun is shining hot, glistening far along over the waving
banners, and on brazen instruments, and top of tripods, and
muskets, and flashing cuirass of dragoons. Drum  mingles
with bugle, and the far notes of some Carmagnole song, is
echoed again and again by the thunder of the deep-mouthed
cannon.
A balloon rises beyond, and soars for a moment over the
vast f6te ground; little parachutes drop down, bringing from
heaven to earth gold-printed Marseillaise-then pass, borne
by the wind-into distant cloud-land.
Thus f6te, and banquet, and procession,-making
Paris heart gay, roll on hour after hour.
Churches, though it be Sunday, are empty. The old worship is set aside; and a new worship is born.
Carmagnole songs are prayers; soldiers are priests; and
for altars —lo, the heathen tripods




A  STRANGER'S  THOUGHT.                  207
XII.
A  STRANGER'S THOUGHT.
H ERE and there,-it may have been-scattered in the
vast array, was some noiseless, unnoticed looker-on,
nurtured under other faith, and belonging to other soil,-who
mused with himself as the fete glided by; and who contrasted
that mirth and music, with the still air of the summer Sundays, in the other land to which he belonged.
And he would measure the matter possibly thus:
There in that land beyond seas, perhaps only across Channel
waters-all this, gay as it is, would be reckoned a heresy, a sin,
an abomination:-and if Catholic he crosses himself and looks
up; and if Protestant he sighs, and half fears to look up.
-    How is it now-is yonder education, habitude, religion-what you will-beyond waters, needless, encroaching,
wrong; or is it right, enduring, and tending to good?  Are
those Saxon-blooded men, who say, with all their king-craft,
and self-love-this day of 21st May, and all such days,
counting by seven, are sacred days, wherein no such sort of
work shall be done,-are they weak, short-sighted, ignorant in
this matter, hardly fit to be taught of fetes; or are they philosophic, right-minded, working well 
Amusements, walks, park-riding, they may wink at; but all
this clatter, and jingle, and defile of troops, and erection of




208          THE BATTLE  SUMMER.
altar-gods, and show of industry, and singing of Carmagnoles
-not individual matter, but a thing of which Government is
stay and patron-is it all tres bien-very well; or is it all
damnable sin?
And the stranger goes on musing, thus; —what if this were
there?
And if there-across the straits-what horror! what
turning away of eyes! what wondering looks! what fearful
music-listeners! And yet here, in Paris. what joy, mirth and
gladness!
How is this? The day which is here mad with gaiety, with
gun-firing, and trumpet-blowing, and banquetting,-all joining in it, from chief of command, to barege-gowned grisette,
there, only across surging Channel waters, and he is run mad
in earnest, who plays but half the gaiety. Strange truly, that
such difference should exist in the matter of a whole seventh
of what we call Time! Yonder, they assign it over with
much quiet, but very uniform worship, to a being called God;
and here they make it one time, noisy with great waters at
Versailles; at another, with Republic; at another, with soldiery, and uniformly round it, with a sort of Devil-worship at
theatre, or Bal Mabil!
Is there not something by chance, in this odd difference,
worth the noting, as much as difference in hats or gloves?
And may there not be a greater matter at the bottom of this
difference, than French priest-craft, or Constitution-makers
seem to dream of?
But the fete and Sunday are rolling on together. Dragoon




A  STRANGER'S  THOUGHT.                 209
and car —citizen and soldier —the music and the banquetting
are at length quieted. But the show of light is to come.
Not till nine, or thereabouts, in bright nig4ls of Paris
May, are the heavens dark enough for illumination. At that
hour, the front of the Hotel de Ville, and of the Chamber of
Deputies, and of the long Hotel of the Marine, are in a
blaze. And on Champs de Mars, the rich candelabras are hot
with Greek fire; and the colored banners, made of lampions,
are waving in the night wind, like brilliant-colored silks. The
front of Military School is like a forest on fire. The Champs
Elysees are an avenue of parti-colored light; the Boulevards
are a-blaze with private illumination; and crowds not yet
tired with the day's f6ting swarm under-light dresses of
summer with garlands of oak leaves,-cockades of tri-color,
and red tuft of cuirassiers brazen hemlet, waving over his
shoulder, and tossing and flaring behind, as he gallops.
There is roll of drum, and play of bugle; and they pause
-and play again, and pass together.
At ten, from the top of the Triumphal Arch, the Bouquet of
light, flings up its fire-flowers in the eye of all Paris;Five thousand brilliant-colored rockets stream up from a single
point-not dying in a moment, nor two,-nor even yet gone;
but mounting higher and higher, of all colors-one chasing
another-bursting, cracking, renewing-hotter and hotter,brighter and brighter,-higher than ever,-waving, dancing,
spreading,-lighting ten thousand faces turned up in eagerness-and now, finally-languishing-gone out!
The fete is ended. The pale, cold sky of May shows a




210          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
star or two beaming mildly over the Arch of Triumph: they
are now the only lights.
Three hundred thousand francs have been spent this day for
lampions only; how much more for drapery, for banquet, for
pyramids, for statues, for fire-works, the purveyor's book only
can show. Yet, to-morrow these clappers of hands at firebouquet, will be sour-faced, and asking for bread!
-     Surely this is a strange people!
XIII.
A  FOREIGN  SPARK.
BU Ir how, after all, is this Polish and Italian matter to be
got rid of?  Did not this French Republic say in the
beginning-plain as words could say it,-plain as the old
Girondin Chambon* said it,-whatsoever nation shakes off
fetters of Despotism is sister of France, and shall have aid?
---- Or, as Lamartine had said more guardedly; —if the
time of reconstruction of the oppressed nationalities of Europe, or elsewhere, appears by Providential decree, to have
come-if Switzerland, so long our ally is menaced;-if independent Italian States are overrun, or if limits be opposed
to their internal transformation-if their right to alliance
among themselves for the consolidation of an Italian nationality
be questioned, France will consider herself at liberty to arm
*Histoire de la Revolution. Thiers. Convention.




A  FOREIGN  SPARK.                  211
in defence of movements so legitimate, and for the people's
nationality.*
And now they have risen; they have quarrelled about
agreement; they have sent off Austrian Radetzky with brickbats, and stones flying after him. And Naples trying what
she can do in a Democratic way, is given over to king, and
lazzaroni; and Sicily is struggling, and wasting the best
blood of Messina.
But the Austrian Radetzky though eighty, and over. sits as
firmly in his saddle as ever, and is only waiting for a few
more huzzars, and grenadiers, before he will march back to
meet all Lombardy, and all Piedmont.
And French Republicans, mindful of that Hotel de Ville
proclamation; and Italians talking loud, and playing briscola,
-mindful of the same-ask what shall be done?
The question comes into the Assembly; Reactionists, moderate men, haters of Lamartine, will be glad to throw his
proclamation in his teeth, and say it was poetic folly-a
sympathy unworthy of a Statesman. Rash Republicans, on
the other hand, glad to get war,-glad to retain the sympathy of Democratic neighbors, say-go on; push the war;
send an army to Piedmont.
What shall the Executive do 
On the 23d of May, Lamartine makes reply; it was another of his eloquent harangues, full of sympathy, good feeling,
rich expression, plausibility, rhetoric,-but no war, and no
action.' Trois Mois au Pouvoir. p. 76




212          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
-  Whatever-says he-may have been the moderation,
the reason, the high intelligence which have characterized the
purely diplomatic discussion of those orators who have preceded me, it is for me a sad and irksome task to be obliged to
touch the bleeding wounds of a friendly people, without having the power either to heal, or to solace.*
To be sure, he can bestow no surgical treatment with sharp
cutting instruments, though it is what in their crisis they most
need; but such as he has —weak sister-of-Charity gruel-eloquent regrets, and God-speeds he gives, and gives cheerfully.
Home affairs indeed will allow nothing further. This Republic which has given the cue to Italy, is not yet standing strong enough to step; how then can it venture to help
neighbors?
Aristocrats and Royalists, are not, it is true, very threatening; but there is an army of some hundred thousand workers
paid day by day, and grumbling at their pay; and yet their
pay must, if the means can be contrived, be stopped. There
are ten thousand clamorous red men, and sympathizers with
Barbes, busily talking in corner wine-shop, and in St. Antoine caf6s,-making it quite necessary to keep a close eye
upon the National Assembly, and upon the Tuilleries, and
even upon the Hotel de Ville.
But all this, the men of the Caf6 de France, and of the
Rue de Beaune affect not to see:-the bravos, and adhesions
which are given to the speech of the Minister in the Chamber, do not follow it in the streets.
Trois Mois au Pouvoir, p. 222.




PuBLIC WT ORKMEN.                    213
Conmme il parle bien-say all the Faubourgs; —ntais il
faut agir!-a capital talker, but we want action!
And action shall be had, men of Faubourgs!-but not
action of Foreign Minister, and not action against Radetzky!
XIV.
PUBLIC WORKMEN.
EANTIME how goes on our magnificent Luxembourg
Congress of Labor, and how the Public Workshops?
Albert, alas, is gone early from his labors. Louis Blanc,
who with blue eyes and pleasant voice, held the throne seat
under the frowning shadow of Colbert, and 1'Hopital, is busy
making out his defence,-for he too may go to Vincennes.
With the chiefs gone, but feeble labor is done by the Labor
Commission. Strong men, who have grown into glibness of
speech, still hold on, reasoning as well as they may, and having a few coachmen and masons, for judge and jury.
The better part of the Congress have, however, taken to
hammer and chisel, or are roaming the streets crying out here
and there for a Re'publiqule Sociale:-which cry, Louis Blanc
will soon say that he never encouraged.
One thing is certain, these delegates are getting more and
more dissatisfied with such poor shadow of Republic, as cannot help them on farther and faster. Louis Blanc has had




214          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
his little grievances to complain of-not least of which wasa small supply of funds.
Certainly it has arrived at this; —either that the Labor
Commission does not work well with the Republic;-or that
the Republic, such as it is, does not work well with the Commission of Labor. No more upright milliner women will sit
at present in those rich seats of Peers, listening to talk, about
dignity of labor; and no more coachmen will lose their time
by wandering there to sit on committees, which amount to nothing-fault of funds, or fault of Louis Blanc.
But Public Workshop is thriving better,-indeed, dangerously well. They report now a hundred and fifty thousand
nen on the roll; and these all brigaded and platooned, and
keeping up fair understanding with brigade directors, and with
chief. Their work is various; —trundling wheelbarrows of
earth from one spot to another,-making very unnecessary
excavations,-carrying small trees on their backs; and within
doors, —tailoring and shirt-making.
These last indeed have paid no better than the first: shirts
and trowsers selling at wholesale, for a fraction less than the
cost of manufacture. But then these workmen are in comparatively good humor-the lazy ones in best humor of all.
It is a very gratifying thing to them, to have labor secured
to them in such very happy way.
But alas, for the Republican treasury-not yet resorting to
assignats, and with difficulty calling in its forty-five centime additional tax-these workshops are terribly expensive! With
coffers in the last stages of depletion, there is yet no resist



PU B L I C WORKMEN.                 215
ing the calls of a brigaded army, with pick-axes on their
shoulders.
The best of financial advisers-and Pages himself has been
banker-say the matter can never go on: but Emile Thomas,
still at the head of Public Shops, and not discontent with
that high responsibility, says    it had better go on.
The Government grows shy and distrustful of those one
hundred and fifty thousand, clamorous for constant pay, and
begins to talk of how the thing shall be modified,-if not wholly
done away with. One hundred and fifty thousand ears are
open, and get an inkling of this new discussion, and the workmen think of demonstration, with Emile Thomas at their head.
In this juncture, Emile Thomas has a sudden mission to
Bordeaux; but no sooner arrived at Bordeaux, than he is put
into Provisionial prison! —and the Ateliers VNationaux are
without a head.
Already one or two railways have been absorbed by failing
Government funds; and so the Government is minded to send
out some twenty thousand of these National workers, and to
see if they cannot labor to more profit in cutting Provincial
railways, than in loitering-wheelbarrow in hand-through
the shady park of Monceau.
Some are already gone;-the rest-says Trelat of the
Public Works-are going.
-  Ah, Monsieur Trelat;-your Swiss-hatted Gardiens de
Paris are not strong enough to make them go-nor your redbreasted Republican Guard! Ten to one if they go at all.
Truly, this scheme of labor furnishing, has grown into a




216          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
monstrous bug-bear! The Provisional Government is startled by the phantom it has raised;-another goblin watercarrier, deluging another Famulus!
XV.
THE PRIVATE WORKMAN.
TTHER workers are not so content as public workers.
Bread is lacking.  There is no scarcity of flour, as in
the old time, when they hung ropes and chains from the door
of the baker's house, that the starvelings might come up in
queue;-but lack of employment.
That luxury of jewel-work, and cadeau-making, which
occupied so many nimble fingers, is done. The shop-masters
can make no sales; they can employ no workers;-yet the
workers must have bread.
Carriage-makers, furniture-makers, menleusiers, gilders, artists of all shades and stamps,-poor Italian cast sellers, handorganists, florists, the best of modists, tailors,-even coiffeurs, and perfume-distillers, are losing occupation day by day.
These cast-off workers, wandering in the shadows of the Luxembourg Garden, or in that of the Tuilleries-pale and sickly,
in tattered blouse, —watch their chance, and dart upon you,
when none are looking-to beg. A poor fellow jerks off his
tattered cap, with quick motion of one hand, and with the
other held nervously trembling toward you-he says, glancing




THE PRIVATE  WORKMEN.                   217
again, that none may witness such shame of Paris ArtisanFor God's sake, Monsieur, something-anything to buy me a
bit of bread!
--- And then moves up the portly, well-fed Republican
Guard of this princely garden, who will allow no begging in
it, and motions to the tattered blouse; and the extended arm
drops, and the cap goes on again; but the eye, full of sorrow
and vengeance, glances back at the Guard.
Is there a good feeling growing up between working Republican, and Guard Republican?
And perhaps as this same tatterdemalion passes out by the
Palace, he will see within the plate glass of the Palace windows, some delegate to Labor Commission standing before the
marble mantel, a hand stuck in each armlet of waistcoat,
looking easy and happy; —and the tatterdemalion strolls ontears dropping, that he hides-and saying, under breath-Et
yportant, nous sommes en Redpubliqmue! —et nous y soemmes
heureux!-heureux? —mais, mon Diemu! que nous sommes malheureux!
10








5
a:
ro
p:3








BLOUSE AND BOURGEOIS.
I.
WHERE  DO  WE STAND?
r  HREE months of Republican rule have gone by, and
what now?
The Palaces are all standing; the clocks are keeping good
Republican time; the railway engines are puffing out of Paris,
morning after morning, in good English fashion; the Seine
current is undisturbed; and the towers of Notre Dame, hang
in the soft, blue, city haze, as misty, and dream-like, and
beautiful as ever.
The Hotel Dieu is as full of sick ones, —as full of surgeons,
-as full of groans, and as full of soft gliding sisters of Charity,
as before. The street stones are as clean;-the Restaurants
as enticing; —the wines as sparkling;-the June sun as warm;
and the Lindens in the Palace-garden shake out their tufts of
leaves, in the summer wind, as softly, and musically, as if the
King were still a King, and the people still be-Kinged!




222       1THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
But this is not all that makes Paris, nor all that makes
France.
This new matter of a Republic is not yet settled, and orderly. No Constitution is made: no officers hold by other
tenure than the pleasure of the Executive,-even streetsweepers may lose their employ to-morrow; and poor chiffoniers, who had once a monopoly of rag-gathering, find themselves out-generalled by strapping women of the Faubourg St.
Marceau.
Beggary is loud at street corners; and the new police, are
so new, as scarce to be feared, and half fearing to command.
The little stall-man, whose whole stock in trade is a dingy case
or two of worm-eaten books, trembles each morning lest his
stock may be destroyed, or an emeute prevent his gains.
The florist makes up no bouquets, which may lie idle in his
window; and the modiste of the Place Vend6me sighs over
ostrich feathers, too old by a month.
Yet the Republic has been recognized; ambassadors to the
Republic are present; —talk in English Journals runs upon
the Republic;-discussions in Foreign parliaments turn upon
the Republic;-Church doors proclaim in black letters, the
Republic; and the Garde Mobile wear the Republic, in their
schakos.
And what has the Republic done?
- It has uttered an eloquent manifest to Foreign Powers;-it has stirred all Europe into blaze;-it has showered
a world of regrets upon poor struggling Italy; —it has sent
surreptitiously, a cohort of vagabonds into Belgium;-it has




WHERE  DO  WE S$AND?                   223
exiled the King, and all the King's family; —it has bought
up a railway or two;-it has drained the Treasury;-it has
declared all men free and equal; —it has seared away strangers;-it has organized a great workshop for working, and
lazy workmen;-it has called together a stormy company of
nine hundred men to make a Constitution;-it has turned the
King-palace into a palace for wounded workmen;-it has put
a vast quantity of shirts in the market at a low price;-it has
organized a new army of twenty odd thousand soldiers;-it
has abolished death-punishment for political offences;-it has
spoiled the trade of grisettes, and Mabil goers;-it has
changed the name of Foundling Hospital, to Hospital of
Children of the Republic;-but with all, it has kept promising, and still prolmises-well!
Distrust, doubt, confusion, and the Republic reign. The
distinction between Bourgeois, and Blouse, has been drawn
closer, and closer. Instead of blending, as they did upon the
Barricades,-that demonstration of April,-those public shops,
that Commission of Luxembourg,-that affair of May,-and
the talk in clubs, have been widening very fast the gap between them.
The Blouse looks full of vengeance, as if his triumph was
lost; and the Bourgeois looks full of fear, as if his integrity,
and wealth, and station, were all at stake!




224         THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
II.
NEW   ELECTIONS AND NEW  MEN.
NEW Election days are approaching in Paris, to fill
some eight or nine places which were twice filled in
April. All sorts of names are up; and all sorts of clubs are
busy, trying to carry it their own way.
Street corners are mobbed with talkers, discussing the merits
of those names, which in green, blue, and yellow placards, are
staring one in the face from every vacant patch of wall.
Among others is that of Caussidie're, whom the suspicions
of the 15th May had deprived of his place of Prefect, and who
in an accession of virtuous indignation, had thrown up his
commission, as Member of Assembly.
-  I will appeal, said he, to the Paris people! And so,
in trim moustache, and peaked beard, wearing still, slouching
steeple-crowned hat, and plaid breeches, —a fine, heavy, table
specimen of a man-he smokes his cigar complacently in
estaminets, and tries his fat hand at billiards.
Yet this man, whom if you were to enter such place as
Estaminet de Holland where the old ship hangs out, under
corridor of the Palais Royal, and see in shirt sleeves,-you
might take for patron of the establishment, will lead the list,
and will be elected by a hundred and fifty thousand votes!




NEW  ELECTIONS  AND  NEW   MEN.  225
-     A  short-lived triumph for him; unless   but we
lust not anticipate.
The Constitutionnel and D6bats have hung out their placards, and pasted them on the Porte St. Martin, and the
Porte St. Denis; and they are torn down as fast as they can
be pasted up. Yet for all this, their candidates will be elected.
Among them, Goudchaux, a Jew by birth,-keen,
black-eyed,-an accomplished banker,-a true conservative,
-a lover of Bourgeois property, and properties.
Changarnier is another, who has fought bravely in Algiers,
-a strong, middle-aged, firm-feeling man,-too great a hater
of Canaille;-he will not fear to load with grape, if the
struggle should come to that, —and before long, it may.  He
will turn up into a sort of Duinouriez, without his victories,
and-as circumstances alone direct-without his fate.
Thiers too, though the talk is rancorous against him in all
Republican clubs, on all street-corners, and in sans-culotte
journals,-so that even his house is beset by threatening individuals in blouse, who eye askance the tall, iron palisades
of his garden;-yet he shall be elected,-not only in Paris,
but in two Departments beside.
Victor Hugo, a peer of France (of Louis Philippe's making) will also be elected, in the face of all Faubourg clubs,
and in the face of scowling St. Antoine, which is near by his
home. But Republican praise has been distilled out of his
later verse, and this it is, which has made his name popularly
passable, even in the crowded Rue St. Martin, and in the
student quarter, by the Pantheon.
10*




226          THE BATTLE  SUMMER.
Pierre Leroux too, with shock of hair, like well-used mop
dried in the sun; and Lagrange with Indian hair, like new
mop, wet, and lank-hanging, —are both elected by what they
call socialist voices-a queer, and hard-to-be-sifted compound
of influences-and both will, within the week, be sitting, strong
as any, on the high, green benches to the Left of the speaker,
which they call the Mountain.
Prudhon closes the socialist list; Prudhon, editor of the
Representant du Peuple;    who believes that property is a
humbug,-or even worse-a robbery.  And he believes too
-worse belief than that of old Jacob Dupont,* which so
shocked good Mrs. Hannah More, and turned a bright period
in Burke's " Reflections"-that Christianity is a humbug of
even worse dye.
-  Fifty years hence-says he, when fairly in his placeand Christianity and right to property will be exploded
fancies!t
This man-it is worthy to record-finds in the enlightened,
and Catholic city of Paris, seventy-seven thousand and ninetyfour voters, who say that he is the man to represent them!
* Histoire du Convention, Dec. 14, 1792.
t Moniteur. Compte-rendu Juillet 18, 1848.




A  HANDSOME G E RMAN.                  227
III.
A  HANDSOME GERMAN.
Y ET  one other-not noticeable by talent, that we know
of, as yet, or even by history very noticeable, is
among the new elect. And he is destined to make more noise
than any of them;-to stir deeper and wider this easily
stirred Paris people, and French people, than even Pierre
Leroux, or the famous Thiers.
Not one in a thousand of the eighty odd thousand,* who
vote his name, have ever seen him, —much less heard him;
-they have not even read what he may have written.
He is even a stranger in Paris, though he was born in it;
and he would lose himself in going the course of the green
omnibusses, that run from the Pantheon to the Chauss~e
d'Antin.
His accent, if he were to ask his way, would betray a touch
of foreign blood; and the street woman, whom he would ask,
would say to his sandy moustache, and his gutteral ach,-voilai
un bel Allemand — there goes a handsome German!
He has had nothing to do with setting up this Republic,
nor with pulling down the fore-gone King.  His picture
is not in any Louvre collection, or those of Versailles; and
his name is on no public record, except the criminal courtroll.
+84,420. Moniteur.




228          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
He has not lived long enough to be venerable; nor is he
young enough to be politically new. He has not been editor, nor Journalist, nor Republican conspirator, nor mad Socialist;-nor has he fought battles, or glorified France.
French himself, by accident as much as any way, he had
yet neither French father, nor French grandfather; and his
mother's line had sprung from islands, as far from France as
Labrador, or the Carribean Sea.
Though he took such hold on French sympathy, his habits
were all English habits.  At the very time they will be voting
for him pell-mell,-struggling to drop his name in first at
Paris Mairies,-he will be riding on English blooded horse, —
in English Stultzes coat, —within English city park,-chatting gaily with the most aristocratic of English Hyde-park
riders!
How came all this then?
By name, simply and purely;-name of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte! Will he be suffered to come; and if he
come, what will become of him? This is the topic in all salons, for all Paris quidnuncs.




AN  OLD  STA(EI:.                  229
IV.
A N O L D 8 1 A   1
STRANGERS in the city,-and there are rmaliny beside
the curious Western looker-on-whomi fate, and A6sembly, and Constitution-making have drawn to the great Babylon, will have been earnest to see the in-coming of the new
company of members; —most of all, to see the man Thiers,thrust aside at the first, but now, by half re-acting Republic,
drawn into the state Maelstrom.
Leaning over from your narrow seat aloft, in the gallery-tribune, you see them coming:you ask your neighbor
names:-you hear them with eager watchfulness, even to that
of wild-faced Lagrange; and your eyes cling fixedly to the
men, drinking up in swift, deep gaze, the memories and imaginations of years.
Thiers has not yet come; your pulse beats high with expectation, as with a rapid soul-effort, you run over those histories-those speeches, which in your mlind, till now, have
made the man.  All this is presently to have an end.  The
idea, belonging to the imagination, is now to be made palpable, and is to belong henceforward to the eye.
And now your complaisant neighbor whispers quickly,
touching your shoulder, and looking eagerly himself,-le voila.'
-there goes Thiers!




230         THE BATTLE  SUMMER.
What! the little sleek, bow-legged, gray-haired man,
marching in yonder, in drab breeches, with body too long for
his legs,-smiling here and there, and ducking his head all
about him!
Aye, even so! it is verily the Historian, the Politician, the
Financier, the-what you please! Feast your eyes on him
now, —the man who has carried you through old Revolution
with high, springy step, and gloriously through the campaigns
of Napoleon, at exhilarating pace, by his mere pen, is now
yonder on his own legs, backing up a host of timid Bourgeois,
and associate Deputies, and Club-men, amid the storms and
troubles of this history which is being acted!
-     A smooth, chubby face, surely, for a man of sixty, or
thereabouts! and his lips rounded into a half smile, or grimace, seem well calculated to lie around a pipe stem, or to hold
tenaciously small pieces of money.
Where is all the military aplomb, that told such grand
things of military daring, and of great captains, and that
made you think him one of them? Where is all the heavy,
denunciatory manner that has split strong cabinets like a
thunder blast?
- En etes vous stir —are you sure, my dear Sir, that the
short man yonder, with his foot now across his knee, in yellow
gaiters-rubbing his shin,-looking complacently through his
spectacles across the hall,-smiling, chatting with his neighbor,-are you sure it is the great Monsieur Thiers?
- Bien sr -there is no manner of doubt that it is he;
mais pas grand-but not after all so great; il est petit homme




AN OLD  STAGER..231
— he is a little man;-less certainly, by very much, than you
would have thought him!
Seeing him in the street, wagging his way through the
Chaussee d'Antin, in large white hat pulled over his eyes, his
head turned down, —his fingers on each side snapping and
twirling, -liable to be run down by stout fish-women, or to
be upset by large, intrusive dogs,-now and then lifting his
head, and setting back his spectacles for a good squint before
him;-you would say complacently to yourself, while you
cocked your hat with a knowing air,-there goes a dapper littie draper who knows what's what,-who has his head full of
some good tape bargain,-counting up even now the sixpences of profit on his finger ends!
So unwisely we lookers-on read men!
He is counting kings on his fingers, and reckoning armies
in his head!
Yet for all, he is a rare trader; if not draper, he would
have made a keen money-making draper. He knows of
stocks, and what to buy, and when to sell. He knows about
premium shares, and newspaper account of sale. He knows
of dividends in bond, and cash dividends. He keeps an eye
on exchanges, and is not afraid of every commercial editor's
account of a fall in consols.
More than this, he has studied the Phisiologie du Gout;
he knows Chambertin from Tonnerre, and Lafitte from base
country Medoc; and his cellars are not ill-stocked with both
one and the other.
He knows a ragout from Palais Royal stews, and he loves




232           TrI i E  BATTLE  SUMMER.
a quiet table rounded with friends from the Rue de Poitiersmany of them attracted very likely, by the winning graces of
the charming Madame Thiers.
And this is the man about whom we have heard so much,
and had so much journalizing, and so many biographic pictures, from  that of Cormenin, under shadow  of Timon, to
that of the keen tlomme de Rien!'
And what is he doing now on Republican benches? Little
as yet; but he will have his task-work. Those grinning and
scowling philosophers of the Mountain will give him taskwork; he will pound their pamphlets with his pestle of a pen.
And if he speaks, as he will do, the soul-man will stand
out from that small body, large as the largest of those Representative men. You will forget spectacles, and chubby face,
and bow-legs, and gray gaiters, as the torrent of words comes
flowing quick, and sharp, and strong, and the little fat hand,
forgetful of Bordeaux-wine glass, clutches at the cushion of
the tribune, or gathers into a hardened fist, shaken aloft with
a nervous, earnest tremor, that makes it seem  the fist of a
Cyclop!
Ungenerous, self-willed, vain, bending all things to his
economic notions of self and money, he is yet quick as lightning,-erudite as Academician, and strong as a giant!  With
* It is perhaps worth while to remark that this portrait of Thiers (par sn
Homme de Rien) is one of the best. It was translated with several others by
Robert Walsh, Jr., some years since, and published, I think, in Philadelphia.
The same portraiture was stolen by a recent contributor (1847) to the Dublin
Magazine, and the American Review.




AN  OLD  STAGER.                   233
no enthusiasm, and but little imagination, all his figures are,
as Brougham says of Burke, like sparks from the engineand very few sparks at that.  No fire is wasted overhead;no steam goes to whistle, but all to motion and to progress.
Statistics are a sport to him; he weaves them into such
fine net-work as catches every loose word of the unwary.
A question or an interruption lights him; he dashes it into
his text, and flings his analogies about it, so as to make it a
new jewel in the crowning of his argument. An ugly objection, suggested to break his connection, is disposed of like
those hard burning bodies-as platina, or stone, which chemists put between the poles of their magnetic battery;-no
sooner are the plates soused in the acid vat, than —whiff-a
blaze-and the obstruction is gone!
Yet withal he is of old, and economic sort; no warm human
sympathy lights him to charity or benevolence. He abides
by ancient formulas. He reasons from premises that the
men of progress are questioning, if not utterly denying. By
them he had his education; by them his mind, flexible, but
uniform, has moulded itself. His sympathies are to him the
promptings of his judgment; and his judgment always guides
his sympathy.
What Machiavelli was to Florence, Thiers is to France.
Lamartine he looks upon as a quick-witted poetaster.
When Lamartine talks of Government, Thiers regards him
as a pedagogue regards a precocious urchin at declamation.
When he talks of Diplomacy, Thiers trembles to see edgetools in the hand of a child. And when Lamartine talks of




234          T: B A TT L E  SUI   E R.
Finance, lie smnieIs, as a man smiles at a boy, who is trying to
set sixp-ences on cdgc!
But what scnse has he after all of the thing that is doing,
or the things to be done? Very little, if any at all.
With him, society divides itself into a great mass of hammerers of leather, and a great mass of Bourgeois coiners of
money; and Government is so to manage formulas, Ililitary
and Diplomatic, as to keep the peace, and enable these two
halves of our world to go on-the one coining money,-and
the other-poor devils-hammering leather to the end!
Republic is with him merest name —idle and harmful name
-perhaps to be tolerated, but that is to be proved. The
thing is, to govern.  Suffrage is a question of mere economic
expedients.  Bread-eating is purely a matter of bread-getting; and bread-getting a thing of hire and pay, with which
Government has little or nothing to do.
Some Queen of France was told that the laborers lacked
food.
-  Mon Diem! —said she-why do they not buy some of
those dear little buns?
--    A  remarkable Queen!-as deft a talker as M.
Thiers!
The idea that because more than half the world have been
these two or three hundred years past, living hardly,-getting
work and bread when they could,-knowing little, and hoping
less,-that now these same should step forward to get a little
vigorous help, and to lend a hand to Government (in their
own account, is to M. Thiers, a thing unprecedented, without




ALMOST  EMEUTE.                      235
analogy, not in the books, indefensible, and only to be tolerated on voluntary compliance of whoso may be concerned, or
-for that matter-not concerned!
Not in any sense is he a man for the Time,-but rather for
times gone;-a mummy-a most flexile, and India-rubber
mummy, from the old tombs!
This wide world-stir, —tending under God, to something
better as ultimatum, than was before-touches him no more
then galvanism touches a dead mass;-a stir-a shudder-a
spasmodic gesture,-and the old sluggishness comes back!
His soul with all its subtlety, and cramful, as it is of expedients, is not wide, nor expansive, nor philanthropic.
He has no reach in him. He has no love in him.
Yet is he excellent Academician-making essays that will
live, and speeches that will jingle harmoniously beside the
best of speeches. Truly mankind have all their uses!
So Thiers shall have, and does have his. But for the
present we leave him on his green seat, half way up the right
bank of benches-quiet, and smiling, and rubbing his shin!
V.
ALMOST  EMEUTE.
S it Poland again, or is it Italy that makes all the strcetworld gather, on the Monday after election, on the Place
de la Concorde, and upon Champs Elys6es, and along the




236         TH I E 1BATTL LE  SUMMER.
Boulevards, so that the omnibuses cannot pass, and the rappel
is beaten, and Emile Thomas, Chief of Guard, is out in his
dress of Generalissimo, showing himself pompous, and noisy,
and irate?
No! it is simply the old question of quid-..uncs; will the
new man Louis Napoleon be admitted to the Chamber, or will
he not? The Assembly is busy discussing it. Outside the
opinion is floating, that the vote of the eighty odd thousand
will be negatived in the worst shape; viz., by exiling the
Prince, and so condemning him to the same limbo with Louis
Philippe, and sons.
There are strong speakers within the Chamber for such
action, and strongest among them, and most eloquent, is
Ledru Rollin.
-  It is dangerous,-says he-for such a man, having such
a name to be among us; therefore let us banish him!*
But Louis Napoleon is not without his advocates; —foremost among them is his lively cousin, Napoleon Bonaparte,
son of Jerome. He is a short, brusque, quick-witted, quickspeaking man, who has forehead, and face so like his great
uncle, that you might easily believe he sat for half the pictures
of the Emperor. He speaks vigorously, and with passion,-his
hands flying about his head, or pounding vehemently upon the
cushion of the Tribune.
Another, is a singular advocate-Jule Favres-an advocate
by profession.  He has been, it is true, in the new Cabinet;' Moniteur. Seance du 13 Juin.




AL IOST  E ME U TE.                 237
but in this matter, he is firm against Ledru Rollin, and Government action.
He is the last man you would suspect of enthusiasm. He
is tall, and his figure as wiry, and graceless as a country
school-master's.  He wears black coat, thread-bare; black
pantaloons, thread-bare; black waistcoat, thread-bare; and his
face and hands are also thread-bare! Add to this, a rumpled
white cravat, and blue spectacles with enormous rims, under
which he peeps out upon the House, following his pleas with
true lawyer-like glances, and you have a portrait of one of the
ugliest, and yet one of the most nervous, and pointed speakers of the Constitutional Chamber.
His speech this day for Napoleon, is sound, direct, and
lawyer-like.
Moreover, the street is full of orators-not as lawyer-like,
or as sound, but more heated, and earnest than even the
spectacled Favres. Those eighty thousand voters, —many of
them bewhiskered veterans of the old Guard Imperial-are
clamorous for the instation of their favorite.
The Government and Chamber waver: a whiff of Lamartine's impassioned talk that told yesterday of guns, and blood,
and that stirred up a little spirit for Republicanism, and a
little jealousy of Napoleonism, has all evaporated under Jules
Favres' cutting periods.
It is decided to admit the new member; and a bravo runs
over the Place de la Concorde, nor dies wholly, until it has
reached the further end of the Faubourg St. Antoine.
The next day the President of the Chamber has a letter to




238          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
read, from the newly elected; it is somewhat dubious, but
worthy to be placed on record:"MONSIEUR LE PRESIDENT:
" I learn, as I am on the point of setting out for Paris,
" that my election is made a pretext for disorder. 1 did not
"seek the honor of being named Representative, because
" aware of the injurious suspicions that rested upon me;
" much less did I seek the power.
" If however, the people impose upon me duties, I shall
" know how to fulfil them. But I disavow all the ambitious
" designs which some attribute to me.
" My name is a symbol of order, of nationality, of glory,
" and it would be with the liveliest grief that I should see it
"made subservient to national disorder.  To avoid such
" hazard, I choose to rest in exile, and am willing to sacrifice
" everything for the happiness of France."
This is doubtfully received;-talked of in all cafes, in all
journals, in corridors of Assembly, and at evening, in all salons.
Jules Favres rubs his blue spectacles to read it over a
second time; Prudhon rubs his white ones-that broad mouth
of his growing broader and broader, until in humorsome,
good-natured contempt, it has reached from whisker to whisker.  Thiers listens, with an odd smile playing about his
nether lip-glances piteously on the bane of ministers below, and nudges his neighbor Barrot, as much as to sayVoyons ce qu'il fera, maintenant, —notre pauvre Lamartine!
-And what will our poor Lamartine be at now?




SALON  AND  SALON  PEOPLE.                239
But a new light breaks on the Assembly; for the next day,
lo, another Napoleon letter! It has not come by post, but
the President has made inquiries as to who was carrier, and
finds him to be a man of letters —a certain Briffaut, who left
this same Louis Napoleon only twenty-four hours back, and
who can be seen at the Hotel de Hollande, in the Rue de la
Paix.
In this second letter he is proud of the honor of his election; he hopes that quiet times are not far distant, when he
may return, as one of the humblest of French citizens; but
for the present, he begs leave to decline the proffered seat of
Representative.
It is a genuine letter, there can be no doubt, for Briffaut is
there at the Hotel de Hollande, ready to take oath to its
authenticity.
And now the long faces of the Executive become shorter.
It is the sixteenth day of June, and the air is warm and
mild.
Napoleon half-6meute is well got over!
VI.
SALON  AND  SALON  PEOPLE.
WTFIHAT next?-Everybody is asking, not only in corridor of Assembly, but in street, in salon, —outside,
in vineyards, in little guingettes, in banlieu caf6s, in clubs




240          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
of Palais Royal, and of Institute-even in the Institute
itself.
And yet it is strange that at this Institute, the home of such
men as Arago, and Leverrier; and at the Sorbonne where
may be heard such talkers as Michelet, and Mignet, and Girardin,-wherever in short, science is pursuing its labors,
there is no interruption.
Take your stand on the bridge of the Institute of a
Monday, and you will see drive down into the courts, between
the flimsy stalls of old map and print-sellers, those carriage loads
of green-broidered coats, which used to adorn the court of
Napoleon, and of Charles X., and of Louis Philippe; and you
will see in the hall of Assemblage, even in these unquiet times,
a sprinkling of that fashion and taste, which affected science
under the fixed reign of a King.
Yet half of those broidered coats will in three hours time
be changed for the black coats of National Assembly; and
the quiet listening to yonder mumbling reader of long scientific discourse, will be shaken off utterly, for the heat of
political action.
So in the Conservatoire of the damp, dirty Rue St. Martin, throngs of men and women of the blouse-clan, will file
around tumultuously through those intricate, winding courts,
-crowd up the stair-way-seat themselves,-talk low, and
busily, waiting with student-like patience an hour. or halfhour, for some plain, black-coated lecturer to step in below
there, among his jars, and bottles, and talk to them a full
hour of gases and elements;-then up, and out, noisy, into




SALON  AND  SALON  PEOPLE.                  241
street-life with its brag, and batter;-into political life with its
King-killing, and bread-seeking-earnest as ever once more.
Strange heart and mind of people!-analyzing quietly, intently, in face of death;-pushing minutest inquiries, with
observation nervously accurate, while the tocsin is sounding!
It was so in the old time of the blood-floods; Lavoisier, a
name hallowed by chemists, plead for an hour or two's reprieve
from death, to complete an unfinished experiment and
Chappe was making his telegraph, in a house where they kept
the guillotine!
In the Hospitals it is the same: Nurses and Doctors are
studying hard at death-beds, and put on spectacles to examine
a tongue that has ceased to vibrate. They probe coolly, with
still hands, wounds that are letting in death: they rub hands
and chuckle  at new  cases-fearing death may come before the diagnosis is made; and fearing recovery lest some
post mortem verification may escape them. Old Roux will
take off a jaw,-gesturing to his eager class with the bloody
chisel, and the next day he will move up in his round, a little
curious, to the man's bed.  But it is vacant.
-  II est mort-he is dead-says the Hospital attendant.
-  Diable! est il mort?-The D-1 he is!-says the surgeon;-and he takes snuff!
All this is happening day after day, and week after week, in
the face of such dangers, and changes, as lie dimly shadowed
in the future!-changes too, which in the salons of these so
eminent lecturers and surgeons, will be at the top of all conversation.
VOL. I.   11




242          T HE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
Government itself has to endure the halting, doubting, perplexed Salon-life.
There are the official receptions, stiff as new receptions must
be,-guarded as authorities of uncertain duration must needs
make them; split up into strange groupings,-ceremonious as
the worst of King receptions, an(l courtly as the worst of courts.
Stiff little Republicans strut about as if in togas; and as if our
world was re-made for them, and in no small degree, by them.
Here and there you see one, of honest faith, but untaught of
courtly habit, studying curiously the prim representatives of
such small King-ship, and Queen-ship, as the Paris whirlwind
has left behind it.
- You have seen a stout butcher dog, eye naively,
some little Italian puppet-hound, with Russia morocco
collar, a dainty cloth blanket;-you have seen him approach, and smell of the trappings, and the little hound
dance about, as if proud of his grace:-it is the new Republican, and the old Courtier, at the salon-receptions of June!
The most of Tuilleries etiquette remaining, obtrudes itself
in the persons of weak old women, and in servants; but the
whole is strangely mixed, even like the colors of the times.
In the Rue de l'Universit6, the porter directs vast numbers
to that receiving room on the first floor, of the man, in this
time, most besought.  Strange intruders!-a Provincial prefect come to talk of the bad tone in the Provinces;-a subofficial, to report some new annoyance at the Bureau; —a
young poet, with a letter, asking leave to dedicate to the




SALON  AND SALON  PEOPLE.                  243
host, his book;-a dashy woman come to flatter the veteran;
-a toadying stranger to curry notice, and weary the chief of
the Executive; and earnest club-men willing to win over
into healthier sans-culottism, the orator Lamartine.
For fashionable salon-alas for it!-where shall we look?
All through Rue'de Lille, and de l'Universite, so many
gates closed! and through the Rue de Bac, and Rue de Varennes-as many.
Across the river, in Chausseed'Antin, in Rue St. George,
in Rue Lavoisier, and Lafitte, so many first floors to rent!
So many servants hanging at door-ways, idle!-so few flowers
and garlands in flower merchants window;-so small array of
pates at pastry cooks;-so little rattling of equipages at
eleven and twelve at night, in this dull Paris world!
Even Madam  P    -in her Entresol, clinging still to the
beautiful city, can scarce stir up mirth.
The old gay comers enter with a shrug, and a-mon Dieu, 
-mon Die.'
This sad business of houses to let,-this strange tradestagnation,-this talked-of railway absorption-this falling off
of dividends, has forbidden gaiety. There is no money to be
spared.
Even honest, little, retired linen-draper, has closed his
rooms on a second floor of some such street as Rue de Seine,
and is off for a maisonette he has in the country —perhaps no
farther than Mont Rouge-until this strange business shall
have worked back-no matter how-from mere bread-seeking
of workmen, into house-getting of Bourgeois.




244          TtIF. BATTLE  SUMMER n.
Blouse is indeed ruling Bourgeois.
English Rue de Rivoli is full of sign-boards, in most
tempting English phrase, of —'rooms to rent.' The Hotel
itself-English Meurice, has but a beggarly list of names.
British Bedford in a retired quarter, and the Brighton are still
worse; they are thinking of closing doors altogether
Valets de Place are most sadly at discount.  They dodge,
formidable, and dinnerless, under all those colonnade arches of
Rivoli, eager to catch sight of even the most diminutive portmanteau, or hat-box; and pouncing upon every sharp-collared
adventurer in hackney-cab, with unrestrained torrent of perplexed Saxon speech. Your coupe may drive to Neuilly,
without meeting a single sister coupe; and you may venture
the tour of the Bois de Boulogne, with what company you
will,-safe from observation.
Even the brilliant Ranelagh is almost deserted ground. No
angry disputants now, for the light hand of any light-heeled
Rigolette, or Queen Pomare,-very glad all of them, poor
castaways! for any hand that may offer.  For the best of
their Cavaliers now, smack strongly of the Chaumiere; there
are damaged hats with brims rolled close,-unmistakeable
medical tie of flashy cravat, and gloves smelling strongly of
camphene!
Frequenters of Frascati, and the most elegant of Lorettes,
are understood to be winding their way by diligence, and
railroad, to Brussels, and the baths of Baden. For them,
Paris has lost its charms, in losing its strangers, and its current money.




It LE AT t' RS.               245
They adore freedom, but not a Republic!-Athens indeed, but no Sparta!-Alcibiades, but no Solon! —Angli,
sed'non Angeli!
VII.
T H EATRES.
TH EATRES, with their wire-wicketed money traps,
make a very safe guage of the pulse of Fashion, in
these days of Revolution.
There are very few calls now, for Loge au premier, or for any
ten-franc places. And if you enter such theatre as that' of
the Republic'-the old Theatre Frangais-what a sad, dreary
range of dress circle!
Yonder perhaps, some determined old widow lady
unable to shake off, even in the worst of times, her love for
the charming spectacle; she has dragged in with her, by her
dreadfully persuasive smile, some young under-officer, who
stands meekly in abeyance to the wave of her perfumed fan.
Opposite, is a stout Provincial Representative, with his red
ribbon in his button-hole, and his thumbs tucked complacently into the armlets of his waist-coat.  He is perhaps a winemaker at Macon, or Orleans, with a tribe of children rambling about a mossy, old mortar-built house: he loves the Ropublic, for the Republic has made him a member; he has
fralnd some agreeable lady-acquaintance-not hard to be found




246          T H E BATTLE  SUMMER.
by stout, full-pursed wine-maker-to fill a corner of his box;
and he runs his eye fondly over the blouses of the parterre,
and piteously over the hungry critics of the orchestre.What a delightful thing to be Representative!
He turns his lorgnette admiringly, yet half coyly, and
timidly, to a magnificent lady of the next box;-poor man!
how little he knows, fresh from the Provinces as he is, that he
is admiring-to the well-bred smile of the orchestre-some old
Aspasia, with new triumph, in the shape of a worsted Alcibiades, at her elbow!
Further on, is a happy, rubicund-faced old man, cleverly
dressed, cleverly disposed, who is there from pure love of the
play,-or the actresses-listening, and observing all-taking
snuff between the scenes, and crying-bravo!-to pretty
Mademoiselle Judith!
Everybody's eyes are on him,-eyes of full-pursed Bourgeois,-which seem to say by their look,-where can his stock
be? How comes it, that his dividends are paid? And they
turn away with an expression that means-Mon Dieu, qitel
temps affreux!
And now higher, is a Bourgeois trader's family;-Madame,
-three chubby daughters, and a ten-year old boy, who breaks
out into a soprano laugh, at the least mirth of the comedy; an
inconsiderable little husband, occupies a corner of the box,
under favor of the wife, and enjoys much as he can-for her
presence-the rare luxury of a loge au second.
But the actors are careless; they know their audicnce;
they can well distinguish those stupid listeners, from the old



THEATRES.                     247
time connoisseur.  Even the worn-out women who sell footstools to ladies, blink the bargain with an air of derision, that
says, plain as words can say it,-we have served your betters!
Old Frederick Lemaitre, prince of melo-dramatists, at
saucy Porte St. Martin-the very haunt of prince-haters —
has vainly run over his Thirty Years of Actor, his Robert
Macaire, and his intense sans-cullottism-the Chiffonnier.
Vainly has the blue-bloused old searcher of rags trimmed his
lantern in the garret,-vainly counterfeited age and hunger,vainly run over in that terrible soliloquy, the luxuries, and
monopolies of the rich, and sufferings of the poor-so that
your eyes brim with the old man's; and your neighbor, stout
as he may be, is busy with his handkerchief;-vainly, we say,
all this! Not that Lemaitre has failed, but the strangers who
wondered are gone, and the Parisians who loved, are grown
too poor.
Lemaitre has gone to the Provinces.
Bouff6 has rounded his last plaudits, over the Gamin de
Paris, and he, with old, yet ever young Dejazet, is wandering
Southward.
The stage has grown weary of its Republic-encomium taskwork. The Marseillaise has died out, except here and there,
on such lugubrious boards, as Beaumarchais, and Luxembourg. Even satiric Vaudevilles, with such titles as Republic
of Plato, and Republic of Women, have drawn down hearty
vivats. Poor Beranger's chansons with pretty Demoiselle
Page for interpreter, have failed.  Where has sentiment
gone?




248          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
Ask the old woman at the till of the Varietes;-Has the
Republic spoiled your earnings?
Ah, Mon Dieu, elleest bonne peutetre-well enough
perhaps —mais  voyez vous, un peu fatigante! —but not
after all, the thing! We humored the fancy, while it was
warm; quelle foule! —what a crowd of Republicans!
— And what now?
-  Ah, mon Die.'-  and the old woman gives such a
shrug!
VIII.
THXE  CHAMPS  E L Y S E S.
ON the Champs Elysees too, we may find symptoms of
present Paris fever.  Where indeed should we look
for indications of popular feeling-of Paris feeling-of Revolutionary feeling, if not in the street-above all such street as
Champs Elysees?
Who does not know the Champs Elysees?-gay, bright.
charming, wooded-with its magnificent Circus, and its Panoramas, and its Caf6s, and its troops of minstrels, and its little
goat-drawn phaetons, and its swings, and its long asphalte
walk, and its swarms of people, and its pleasant rendezvous,
and its broad, firm avenue sweeping away westward to the Arc
de l'Etoile?
Who has not loitered there of a sunny afternoon, watching




T   E CHAMPS  ELYS EES.                249
the passing multitudes, greeting familiar faces, gazing at the
dashing equipages, listening to pleasant chanter or harpisthis soul tossed in reveries, and his fancy busy with bright
dreams?
And who that has thus idled in such enticing luxury
of scene, and sound, but longs for such luxurious idleness
again?
What a quieter for disordered spirits!-what a cure for
fainting courage-that walk upon the Champs Elysees! If
sickness has pinioned you arm and foot in some dim chamber
of the Rue de Bac, —tell your coachman to drive you up the
sunny Champs Elysees, and you are well again! If despondency weighs you down, heavy and dank as the air of such
street as Rue de la Harpe-stroll up the Champs Elysees,
and its sights, and its sun, and its trees, and its smiles will
make you forget your sadness! If bitter news has come to
you, a stranger, in that city-where, of all cities, a stranger
is least a stranger-an hour upon that Champs Elysees, will
drive the bitter memories away!
But how is it now in this June of 1848?
Equipages are scattered; —scarce noticeable in the crowd
of hackney cabs; and those who rode before in hackney
cabs, now give a sixpence to the conductor of the omnibus.
And the omnibuses are full; economy has made French ladies
more careless than ever of hard-pushing elbows.
Those prim English riders, upon well-groomed English
cobs, coming in from the Bois de Boulogne, are no where to
be seen.




250          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
The juggler's stands, in King-times scarce allowed except on
days of Fete, are distributed in every quarter;-their stock
in trade is small; they risk nothing by their buffoonery;
and there are those unquiet spirits wandering among the
trees, whom buffoonery will amuse.
Here, a slouch-hatted card trickster, is crying at the top of
his voice,-holding up his aces of diamonds, and promising
safe fortune-telling,-with now and then a slight sneer at' our
Republic;' at this Provincials grin; and little soldiers grin;
and poor men, who do not pay the juggler, look sour.
Farther on, enterprising little banlieu boys, in jockey
jackets are shooting at the clay image of a King, at a sous a
shot; and if they strike him in the eye they can claim one of
the dwarf statues of liberty, which are ranged above the clay
king.
Punch is be-thwacking Judy, just as under the old system,
except that Judy is now coiffed with Phrygian cap, and
Egalite is printed on Punch's stand.
A huge caldron is heating in a retired quarter, under the
trees, and in it are floating all manner of stray and juicy edibles,
which by and by, after the chief cook in turban, and with
short pipe in his mouth, shall have stirred thoroughly with his
long pole, will be on sale, at two sous the ladle-full, and an
earthen bowl to eat from. The caldron is labelled Fraternite:
-cats and hares are fraternizing inside, and warming! Beggars, who have earned a sous or two, after six hours of plaintive
entreaty, crowd up to the caldron for their only meal of the
day. And workmen too proud to buy such stingy dinner,




THE  CHAM I PS EL Y S P E S.             251
snuff the fumes wishfully, and utter a disdainful sigh at' the
times.'
Tableaux vivants are announced here and there upon the
curtain of great tents; sacred pictures are profaned.  The
Virgin and Christ-we blush to record it-are represented;
and at a stroke of the fiddle, they dance, and chant the Carmagnole! Then the Virgin leaps into the crowd, pulls off
her tiara, which proves a convenient money-box, and solicits
offerings from stranger Magi!
The new Garde Mobile shuffle about here and there in
their white gaiters, and green epaulettes, and are at once the
envy and the curse of sour-looking, unfed blouses.
The old lady who guards the crimson chair in the scales,
finds few to weigh:-from time to time a fat old matron of the
suburbs, will crush herself between the elbows, or a new Republican Guard will venture a sous, curious to see how much
he has gained by his worsted epaulettes, and his cartouche
box, and his red-breasted coat.
The long range of caf6 chairs are empty, and the idle
gargons lean upon the marble-topped tables, with their napkins over their arms, looking longfully at the passers by. The
circus gate is closed, and the stone basin of the Round Point
fountain is nearly dry.
Such are the Elysian Fields of this Paris June!




252         THE BATTLE  SUMMER.
IX.
SocIALISS    M AND SOCIALIST'S.
~W      T; HAT a curse is this Socialism!-says the D6bats
newspaper, and all the DBbats readers; —and-what
an awful thing is Socialism! —says the London Standard;it is Socialism that is destroying the Republic-says the Sun:
Socialism  alone can save us,-says Pierre Leroux; —if Lamartine were only a Socialist!-say Socialist ladies: —and —
if we could only get rid of the Socialists!-say Bourgeois
wives!
And now what is this bugbear Socialism? Is there any
getting at it? Is there any saying what it is, or what it is not?
Is there any possibility of painting this great type of French
craziness, so that Western curious-ones may recognise the
features, and say-lo, the monster!
Is it a new Christianity,-or a new Philosophy, —or a new
Science, —or a new Humbug?
It is neither.  It is not a new Christianity, for the few old
Christians, who are of the faith, give it all the Christianity it
possesses; and the mass of its teachers care as little for Christianity, as they care for antiquity. It is not a new Philosophy,
since all the Philosophy there is in it, is as old as nature; and
all that there is new, is mlost unphilosophical. It is not a new
Science, because it is no Science at all, being a heterogeneous




SOCIALISM  AND  SOCIALISTS.    253
mass of opinions, without classification, order, or method;because its experiments have failed, and because such truths
as belong to it, are rather intuitive than demonstrative. Nor
is it wholly a humbug, because much reality is at the bottom
of it,-real sympathy with suffering,-real hatred of oppression,-real earnestness of endeavor, and real love of humanity!
Whatever it may be, it is made up of strange and incongruous ideas, and by a mass of strange and incongruous men;
-as different one from the other, as Enfantin from Fourier,
or St. Simon from Prudhon.
Let us then, as with the Bourgeois, look at types:
- You see that old man yonder, at the corner table, in
a second-rate Restaurant beyond the Seine,-who has ordered
stale bread,-who drinks a very little poor wine,-who has
before him a fricandeau of veal, garnished with spinage,-who
scarce lifts his eyes from the table,-who eats, as if eating
were a necessary, but unfortunate duty, soon to be got overwhose coat is very rusty, and whose hat —not taken off-is
rustier still;-who talks in monosyllables to the gargon, an 1
who reads the Democratie Pacifique with vehemence;-who
searches a long while in his pocket for the franc and a half
that pay for his dinner;-who gets out awkwardly from Iehind his table, and who passes the grisette at the counter,
without touching his hat; and who does not even saythankee, to the gargon who opens the door for him:-very
well, he is an arrant Socialist!
He knows little of world-life, exoept what meets him in the




254         THE BATTLE  SUMMER.
streets in the shape of equipages, and in the shape of beggars:-he pities th( last,-he scorns the first; and between
the pity and the scorn, there has grown up in him a hankering after an equalization, which equalization he has thought
of-dreamed of —wrote of-and calls it-Socialism!
If a man be rich, it is in his eye condemnation; if a man
be poor, it is in his eye, a glory. He has felt his way through
life, struggling with hardships, knowing nothing of pleasure
-dreaming always. There is a vague light floating over his
dreams, —a faint rainbow topping his thoughts, which promise
joy yet to come. That joy, he looks for in the establishment
of the scheme, at which he labors:-that joy and that hope
sustain him.
Poor, kind man! he will go to his grave with his joy a
rainbow,-and his Socialism a dream!
-     Now look at that red-haired, dirty-fingered young
man of five and twenty, with head uncombed, with wildness
in his eye, and a little of the sensualist upon his lip,-who
has been fighting circumstance all his life;-he is a Socialist.
Yet he regards the last as a weak, old-woman dreamer. His
creed is-   I am as good as any, therefore I have a right to
all!
He does not look down; he does not order stale bread; he
does not speak in monosyllables. Far from it! His quick
eye is glancing from side to ride; he watches that man yonder who has just ordered Bordeaux wine, as if it were a punishable offence —an insult to himself, for any one to order
Bordeaux.




SOCIALISM  AND  SOC-IALISTS.                 255
Yet he drinks his own weak wine with gusto: he goes to
the lower half of the bottle; he holds it up to the light to see
that he gets his full quota. He pockets the half roll that is
left of his bread; he begrudges the gargon the copper that is
his due.
He scowls at a man who is chatting with the grisette; he
talks loud and angrily to the servants:-he is a purely selfish,
vulgar man-dissatisfied with world-order, because his stomach
is not filled, and his self-love is not flattered. He advocates
Reform,-not to help others, but to help himself.
He wishes only, to see no one drinking better wine than he,
or wearing better coat than himself;-or riding in other carriage than such as he rides in,-or talking louder than he
talks,-or enjoying life more than he. He vainly thinks that
Socialism will bring this to pass. Poor shell of a soul!-it
was not made half-full, and it will perish empty!
Let us step now into the garden of the Palais Royal:-you
see at that little round table, before the Caf6 of the Rotonde,
a middle-aged man, with the ribbon of honor in his buttonhole; he is chatting with a companion, and occasionally sipping at a demi-tasse of coffee. There is a lurking look of
dissatisfaction in his eye; and yet a gleam of earnestness
that speaks of something better.
He is perhaps a peer of France; he has lived a long youth
of dissipation; gifted with fine feelings, he has abused them
by a thousand intrigues; he has exhausted the pleasures of a
gay life, and the strength of a vigorous constitution. Still,
his sensibilities are quick and keen; and enough of soul is




256         THE BATTLE  SUMMER.
left, to mourn over the heartlessness of society, and the vanities of the world.
His enthusiasm takes fire at the thought of a new society,
which shall have the freshness and the earnestness of nature
for basis. He longs, with such vigor as is left in him, to pull
down the Old, by which he has become corrupt, and to build
up the New, in which he dreams of a brighter and better life.
His fervor amounts to madness; and he joins eagerly with
gray-beards and bandits, to mature those vast social projects,
whose outlines lie before him like a holy vision.
He is a crazy Socialist: his enthusiam may betray him to a
dungeon; and he will find too late, that his own extravagances, and world-follies have made him the puppet of his
sensibilities.
- Another, whom we shall find, not at Caf6 table, but
in dim chamber-in old, shabby, broidered, dressing gown,
over a table piled thick with books and manuscripts, is of a
different cast. With him Socialism is not of the heart, but of
the head.
His face is thin and long; his hand withered and bony; his
eye twinkling, and moving restlessly from paper to paper:
now he rises, and moves swiftly across the chamber, and now
he sits again, and leans thoughtfully with his sinewy fore-finger to his temple.
He has lived a long life: he has been prisoned in libraries:
he had read Rosseau and Voltaire, at an age when most are
busy with Buffon or Gil Blas. He has been priest, professor,
anchorite, conspirator, author, saint, and devil.




SOCIALISM  AND  SOCI ALISTS.             257
He has made the Kingly state sacred by union with the
Church; he has made the Church a despot, by setting it
above the State; again, he has made the State a holy unity by
burning into it the heat and vigor of high Christian purpose;
and yet again he has dashed State and Church to the ground,
and has built a new society, by fusing the fragments of the
wreck, with a hot spirit of democracy, and a wild, heathen
license!
- All this in his dreams:-but his dreams have come to
naught!
With him Socialism is not a matter to bring bread to
hungry mouths, or to heal a diseased vanity, or to quiet a
longing heart,-but a subtle philosophy to propound a delightful theory to eulogize! With this man, Socialism is the
turbid residue of a life of great mental activity and unceasing
change.
It is the Abbe Lamennais; and he will go to his tomb
before long-for he is very old, and very feeble-with no better epitaph than this: —Here lies a great man, who did very
little!
- Yet another, and differing from all these, we shall
find upon the benches of the Schools. He is young; he is
earnest; he is humane; and he thinks he is honest. His life
has been comparatively even; he has had no more to struggle with than ten thousand other youths of Paris; and yet
his struggle, small as it has been, has taught him-what it
has not taught the ten thousand others-that this is a world




258         THE BATTLE  SUMMER.
of struggles. And with his humanity, and his youth stirring
him, he has asked himself-why a world of struggles?
Is there not a holy God's order somewhere, in store for the
world, which philosophy, or thought, or endeavor, by digging
and diving may arrive at? And is it not a duty we owe to
this mind that is in us, and to the humanity about us, and to
God above us, to go on digging and diving, until these struggles shall cease, and that order shall be attained?
His Socialism is not defined by names or creeds; he may
sneer at Enfantin; or he may doubt Fourier: he may scorn
St. Simon, and despise Prudhon, yet after all is he Socialist:Socialist because he is working to do away the present social
life, and to create a new social life.
Liberty and Feudality are the foci of his political philosophy. Where one gains, the other loses; where one loses, the
other gains. With Feudality he associates all present privilege; and with Liberty all possible content.
He does not hate wealth, because envious, but because it is
a type of the old Feudality; he does not smite at kings, because they wear royal robes, but because those robes cover
Liberty.  In his enthusiasm,-he would crush property,-he
would ruin States,-he would destroy family,-he would cripple
the Church, if by so doing he could arrive a step nearer to
that order, to which he believes the world predestined.
He is not selfish, but he is dangerous. He will live a troubled life, and end it perhaps on the guillotine; and yet all
the while, honestly think, that he is doing God service.
Such are Paris Socialists, and such is Socialism!




LAST  LOOK AT  LAMARTINE.                 259
X.
LAST  LOOK  AT LAMARTINE.
SOME fifty odd years ago, and in an old, slovenly-looking
country house, near the wine-making town of Macon,in a large rambling chamber, with oak floor, and most homely
furniture, sat a pretty boy (he himself has told prettily the
story,) listening to his mother, as she read such books as those
of Ossian and Tasso.
The mother was a good mother; and the boy, as times went,
a good boy. He was not a boy to go birds-egging, or to rob
vineyards.
Yet notwithstanding, we find him not many years after, dissipating in the capital,-almost breaking his mother's heart
with his spendthrift fooleries,-dipping into intrigues, so shameful that he blushes to name them-living, in short, as young
men of Paris are apt to live, and against which manner of living Ossian's and Petrarch's poetry are very weak defenders!
By and by in Italy, where he has wandered-his mother's
jewels being pawned to keep him alive-he idles for months
together beside the beautiful shores of that most beautiful bay
of Naples;-living in a fisherman's family-fishing with the
fisherman's sons,-reading poetry to the fisherman's daughter,
and in the end giving us a scene of half-boyish, half rustic,




260     T   THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
half honest, half heartless love-at once' grotesque, natural,
and Greek!'
Again in the whirl of Paris, where tears, and love-locks of
a dead one follow him, we find him making love to the young
wife of Lacepede.
This was poetic; it was natural, doubtless; perhaps honest;
it was certainly French!
But all this passes-the love, the annoyances, the heartrendings,-the bright lake of Savoy-the sickness, the letters,
the death-as a pleasant, pardonable vagary of youth: —a
mountain wild flower, that the boy cherishes, and the man
treads down!
He has gained the name of a Poet, and is one day again in
Italy, no longer a dreaming boy, but a tall, graceful gentleman of Paris.-He overhears by accident a female voice reciting one of his best loved poems; he discovers the voice to
be that of a young English lady; the Paris heart, or the Paris
vanity, is not yet proof against youth and admiration, —and
he marries her.
Some years after, with wealth at his command, he freights
a vessel for the East. He sails up the Mediterranean with
his wife and child. He wanders dreamily, with a little of the
old Ossian spirit in him, over Syria and Palestine, and comes
back with his wife-saddened. The child that had gone with
him, comes back too, a corpse!
He writcs a rich story of his voyage, and more poems.
And finally, his ambition, or his humanity leading him, he
slips into the great whirl of political life. He has no party,




LAST  LOOK  AT  LAMAR TIN E.             261
but he makes eloquent speeches. He does not talk of finance
and civil polity, so much as of right, and of principle.
He has formed vague, yet warmly-cherished notions of
something better in Government, than mere King-craft; he
believes in something better than the old rule of expedients.
With a naturally religious mind, he has blended his religion
-more poetically than wisely-with his political faith, and
dreams of Christianizing Government-of bringing down that
old, simple philosophy of the Jordan-do good to others —to
State practice.
His heart naturally warm-perhaps too warm-abets him
in his hopes, and in his schemes. He believes that man will
be better acted on by love than by fear. He is no political
Calvinist.
He writes a picture-history of the old Revolution. It
spreads, like a wind, in France. It is read, and quoted, and
translated; and from loving the book, French people come to
love its author. A humanity, a liberality, and a charity pervade it, that commend him to all who are struggling, and to
all who are in fear.
Then comes the new Revolution, sweeping Paris strangely,
and suddenly-like a flood by night!
He floats upon it to the top. We have seen him there,
and how he kept his place, by his fervor, by his eloquence, and
by his name. It was a time of enthusiasm; and there was
needed an enthusiast for orator; it was a time of wild poetic
frenzy, and it needed a poet for interpreter. We have seen




262          THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
him entrancing thousands by the spell of his voice;-saving
the city from desolation, and the world from horror!
Thanks for this, to the soul, and the voice of Lamartine!
But where does he stand now, this middle of June?
The street-world is no longer lit up with poetic frenzy,
but is dogged, and matter-of-fact. The blouse no longer
swings his red cap to chant of Carmagnole, but comes with
musket, or pick-axe, and wants bread. Government is no
longer matter of enthusiastic proclamation, and eloquent
manifesto, but of practical, dull detail.
To this he is not used, nor does he love it. Indeed, to the
Republic of his imagination, such detail would be almost superfluous. With perfect liberty guaranteed, and perfect goodwill secured, regulations of State would be reduced to mere
issue of manifestos. But that magnificent scheme of a Christianized Government, finds lacking in Paris people, the first
element of success-Christianity!
Already, Lamartine is disabused of his too fond belief;the people, after all, of these crowded faubourgs, are not one
half so good, so temperate, so reasonable, so self-denying, as
he had hoped them. Already, he has sought to warp his pure,
governmental philosophy, into a philosophy of expedients.
He has lost a great deal of that first, enthusiastic sympathy
for Blouse; and he has won over little sympathy of Bourgeois.
Still he bears up bravely-his heart leaning to those suffering
faubourgs, and his discernment teaching him, that their headstrong endeavor, if unchecked, will prostrate all.
With voice still eloquent, though half-stifled by grief, and




GLANCE AT  THE  ASSEMBLY.    263
vexation, he pleads first with one, and then with the other:
-a hard see-saw work, and he can scarce keep his own
equilibrium, while he stands there in the middle of the swaying plank, seeking still to preserve the due balance between
Blouse at the one end, and Bourgeois at the other. The
Blouse, distrustful, rail at him; and the Bourgeois chuckle,
and say-he must fall!
And so perhaps he may; but he will carry with him a good
heart, and good intentions, and the name of having done a
good, honest man's work!
His views of humanity, are too poetic for a Statesman;
they are not morbid, but glowing with his own generous intent.  He counts mankind-and French-kind specially —
better than it is. He sees no need of cautions, since he ignores the evils which those cautions are to prevent. His
kindness is his weakness; and his humanity betrays his judgment.
Such man, in our day, should not be without honor, even
when fallen!
XI.
GLANCE AT THE ASSEMBLY.
nAY after day, the nine-hundred Constitution-makers
are talking angrily in their palace chamber; day after
day, the nine hundred haulmers are clattering on the anvil,




264          THE BATTLE SUMMER.
whereat is being forged the new Code for thirty millions of
Frenchmen.
Our history will not be complete, unless we give a glimpse
of this great smithy with the laborers at their work. It is
but little satisfaction to a curious man-far away-to know
that they have arranged such and such preambles,-that they
made such and such speeches,-that they have sat for so
many hours, or days;-he wishes to know too, if a spark of
imagination ever kindles his eye, or brain,-how they have
been doing this, and the other. Even the most unimaginative, when they meet with that word-National Assemblyconjure up some image of aldermanic sitting, or American
Congress, or Religious vestry, or Park gathering: but the
images are crude, and deceptive.  French Assembly is
not made up of big-bellied Aldermen, nor tobacco-chewing
Congress-men, nor sleek clergymen, nor long-haired Bowery
orators.
Let us see then what it really is; let us come near enough
to read faces, with our opera glass; —let us lay our finger on
the pulse of this great heart of France, which is beating, and
throbbing day after day,-in sun and shade, in storm and calm
— within its sentinelled gates, upon the banks of the Seine!
-  There are lobbies-crowded lobbies-green-carpeted
lobbies, where an earnest friend of a member, has him by the
button-hole, talking sharp and earnestly. He is not an officeseeker, as you would naturally presume such man to be in a
Washington lobby, but he is interested in some great measure




GLANCE  AT  THE  ASSEMBLY.                 265
of finance, which is under discussion, and he is cramming his
friend for a speech.
Another pair is made up of two opposing politicians, who
have stolen out to discuss the question at issue between themselves: and who talk as earnestly, and vehemently, as if the
decision rested on their private pleading.
There are other lobbies where strangers are crowding up,
with their tickets, eager to secure their places in the gallery
tribunes;-wives of members, and provincial cousins, and
Stultz-coated Englishmen, and scholars of St. Cyr, and
Blouses. Gay-tempered talk flies from one to the other,
as they stand waiting, with good-humored patience, for the
doors to open.  The Englishman holds himself stiff and
erect, studying the chamber chart, not deigning to ask a
question, and wondering at the careless abandon of that Paris
speech.
Very unlike the way we do things in London!-muses
he.  Very unlike to be sure! In the corridor leading to the
House of Commons, such company would be silent and morose, and the touch of a neighbor's elbow might possibly be
deemed an insult.
But now we are fairly within; the ladies occupy the first
range of seats, and we are looking over their daintily trimmed
hats-nay, between their hats and over their shoulders, if
needs be, without fear of giving offence; —we are looking
down upon a long hall, carpeted with green, and long ranges
of green seats rising tier above tier.
It is eleven o'clock: in an hour the President is to
I v




266          THE B'ATTLE  SUMMER.
take his place under yonder painted canvas canopy. The
Tribune in front of the President's gilded  chair, with its
flattering dates of February in fresco, is silent.  A huissier or
two with long, slim swords are gliding up and down the middle
avenue, sometimes re-arranging the scattered papers upon the
desks of the members; and sometimes looking up at the galleries, which are even thus early, filling with ladies, and uniforms, and a sprinkling of blouses. These galleries, narrow,
and divided by compartments, stretch along on either side of
the house; and at the foot of the Hall, are two tiers of tribunes, cut like stage-boxes, into the wall.
They are now all full, and charts are out, and tongues are
busy, talking of what is to come, and on what benches are to
be seen the great men of the Assembly.
By twelve, a few members have sauntered in:-perhaps
among them, a stout, well-featured, rosy-cheeked man, with
head half-bald, easy, rolling walk, and eye sparkling with expectation-whom, if his portraits have not already told you
-your neighbor will have pointed out to you as the hero of
the bugbear Legitimacy —M. de la Rochejacquelin.
You will look at him with interest, with your Republican
eyes, as a relic of the old regime; and wonder that he bears
himself so stoutly, and graciously, amid the terrors of the
Revolutionary times.
The members thicken, as the hour advances. —-There is
Napoleon Bonaparte, sitting half way up upon the benches
of the Right-with face so like the pictures of his uncle;
and there, again, marching up the front, with heavy, careless




GLA N CE AT  THE ASSEMB LY.               267
step, and honest, ruddy, strongly-marked face, is the lazy
Mirabeau of the time, M. Berryer.
A mild-looking, primly-dressed, lawyer-like man has now
taken his seat under the canopy, and rung his bell. He talks
quietly with one or two about him, and drops an occasional
whisper to the huissiers below. It is M. Senard, the advocate of Rouen, and President of the Chamber.
At the end of a seat near by, upon the Left, a militarylooking man, in blue frock-coat, and with heavy, colossal forehead, has just taken a modest place  His manner has been
so quiet you would not have observed him, except for the
whisperings of those about you, and for the half dozen who
are now grouping around him. You can see the heavy head
of Rochejacquelin in the company; and can see, by the
movement of his lips, that he is addressing the new comer.
The replies seem to be earnest, though quiet; and you catch
glimpses of an occasional gesture of the hand, which is more
like a sober English gesture than a lively French one.
You wonder who it can be, who seems so young-scarce
five and forty-and yet so important; and if you ask your
neighbor, he will tell you, with a glance of pride, that it is
the soldier who has fought so bravely in Algeria-the Minister of War-the General Cavaignac.
A snug, thickly-set man, with round shoulders, short neck,
black moustache, and gray, bushy hair, chats from  time to
time gaily with the General, and those who are grouped about
him-and now is running his eye with the glance of a connoisseur over the front range of ladies:-this is the aspiring chief




268          T HHE  BATTLE  SUIMMER.
of the National, the adviser of the Ministry, the Mayor of
Paris,-the voluptuous Marrast!
A little way behind them, you catch sight of a dark, Indian
face, with long hair shading it, and lighted by a pair of piercing blood-shot eyes,-and those, in their turn, lit up with a
strange smile —the smile of Indian warrior, as he snuffs the
battle! It is Lagrange, the conspirator of Lyons:-the fearless, earnest, mad Reformer; —his mind is brimming with fancies-fancies humane, fancies rich-colored, fancies devilish!
He has come there, he feels it, with the strength of some
forty thousand Lyonnaise souls, all crowded into his own;
and he will speak for them-perhaps without hindrance-certainly without fear!
Your eye now falls upon a tall man, with silver, gray hair,
in closely-buttoned, black, frock-coat, and with dignified carriage, who walks up the hall, and places himself quietly
upon a low seat to the Left:-immediately the whisper circulates in the gallery-voila Larnartine!  And a score of opera
glasses are turned upon him.
While they are watching, he leans over to have a word with
his neighbor. The neighbor is stout, tall, broad-shouldered,
has gray hair, and a firm, honest, countryman's look.  And
who is it, you ask, that greets Lamartine so cordially, and
wears (from the gallery) such look of an honest countryman?
The lady before you turns, wondering who can be so ignorant:
— C'est Arago-she says,-Arago the philosopher!
The house is now nearly full.  Berryer is taking snuff.




GLANCE  AT  THE  ASSE MBLY.                  269
Montalembert is writing.  Ledru Rollin is speaking earnestly
with M. Pagues.
Twice the President has rung his bell, and twice the huissiers have ordered the loitering representatives to their places.
The report of yesterday's session is adopted, but in such noise
of conversation and laughter, that you can hear no word of
the proceedings.
-Thiers! Thiers!-runs round the galleries; and eyeglasses are levelled at that little, sleek, gray-headed man, in
spectacles, whom we have seen before, and who now comes
waddling up the hall, nodding to this one, and shaking hands
with that one,-till at length he is in his place, his head leaning on his hand, and the debate is about to commence.
Two or three are in waiting at the foot of the tribune, and
look appealingly for their turn, toward the President. At
length one mounts, and leaning over the desk, attempts to
make his voice heard, above the whispers and chattings, and
movements in the hall.
But if he is a dull speaker, or an unknown speaker, or an
unpopular speaker, or his topic be unimportant, the attempt
will be utterly vain. In vain the scowling Senard will put on
his look of authority; in vain the huissiers will rap upon the
railing; in vain the orator's friends will cry out for order.
His words come to the distant quarters of the hall only in fee.
ble gusts of sound; and the murmur of the talk below, and
the earnest, eager voices above, drown it altogether.
Sometimes a sentiment is caught up by some disputatious
listener in the galleries, and rebuftted,-and another comes to




270          T  I     BATTLE   U  M  E R.
the rescue, and you are relieved by a lively little debate at
your elbow. The poor orator labors on, unconscious of the
pleasant side-play, and the President relieves his conscience
by an occasional tug at the bell.
Presently, some person makes his appearance at the foot of
the tribune, more welcome than the rest.  The whisper circulates in the gallery-it is Barrot! or-it is Rollin! A little
silence gains place; the attendant places on the desk a fresh
glass of water; the representatives, who have been ceaselessly
chatting, put on air of attention. The President rings his
bell with more confidence, and the orator will begin with quiet
listeners. For a time every word will reach you. But quiet
is not the habit of the French. A word, a thought, a slip of
the tongue, a sneer, is seized upon to relieve the irksomeness
of continued listening, and the Assembly unburthens itself by
a noisy adhesion, or a noisy' hilarity.'
Again the tinkling of the bell,-again the thundering voices
of the huissiers, and a temporary silence gives new force to
the speaker, and new unrest to the Assembly.
If the speaker be very earnest, or violent, a lapse of quiet
will be followed by a storm of sensation-which means an indescribable uproar of voices, that yields only to the exhausted
lungs of the audience. Towards the close of the sensation,
you will hear the dinging of the President's bell, and the outcry of the attendants, and presently again, the violent intonations of the speaker.
So the Assembly rocks on, hour after hour, from quiet to
clamor, and from clamor back to quiet!




GLANCE  AT  THE  ASSEMBLY.                  271
If a speaker really enchain the Assembly, as Thiers, and
Lamartine, and Rollin, and Berryer, will sometimes do,-then
follows invariably a little recess, to work off the uneasy feeling of quietude, and to put on again the old habit of chat, and
clamor.
The declaration of a vote too, involves an immense amount
of forbearance; it is a matter which unfortunately every one
desires to hear; and the silence which precedes the announcement, is for a French Assembly, absolutely oppressive.
As the painted urns make their appearance over the edge of
the tribune, the talk is general.  The absent members throng
in at the door.  The tickets click within the urns.  The
huissiers glide around stealthfully as cats. Members cross,
and re-cross, and anticipate, and grow nervous; and the
galleries make bets, and dispute threateningly.
At length, the votes are all in. The committees who count,
are at their work. Talk grows noisier, and noisier. In the
midst, sounds the President's bell. The order goes forth —to
your places!
The President rings again, and grows impatient, and shrugs
his shoulders. The huissiers shout-silence.'-as if their lungs
were brazen. The cry is repeated at the foot of the tribune,
and at the foot of the hall, and in the galleries above. Newspaper reporters bend an ear over the edge of their balcon, that
nothing may escape.
Finally, the uproar subsides into noisy talk; the noisy talk
sinks into occasional chat; chat dies into murmured whispers;
the whispers grow less and less frequent.  The President




272        THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
makes a final demand for silence-taps his bell-lifts his
paper-looks around-raises his eyebrows —shrugs his shoulders-taps his bell again-and declares the vote!
A moment after, and the Assembly is itself again,-the
same noisy, stirring, restless, ever-beating heart of France!
Thus, day after day, in these warm days of June, it goes
on, throbbing, and-throbbing still, within its stone walls, and
its sentinelled gates upon the Banks of the Seine!
XII.
BLACK  CLOUDS  GATHERING.
N the Rue St. Antoine, early on a bright summer morning, a company of men and women-dirty-looking men
and women of St. Antoine-is gathered under a tall house,
and all eyes are directed to a little casement of the fourth
story. The casement is sadly shattered; they say it was done
that morning.
And who has done it.?-you ask.
-   Lui meme-the poor fellow who lived up there; he has
shot himself! And there is the wife, with her child, in the
door way, telling the story! He was a workman,-a wheelwright; he had fought well in February; he was half glad to
stack the omnibuses in the barricades, for he thought more
would be built. But he could find no work. He went once
to the Public Shops, but there were no carriages to make;



BLACIK  CLOUDS  GATHERING.                 273
he could not do other work; he was ashamed to be paid for
doing nothing.  He went back to his quarters; he hoped
work would come again; he grew sick with short food; and
this morning he cured himself with his musket!
I-  t is terrible!-say the crowd, and they look one another
in the face-faces lean with hunger-and think bitter thoughts.
If they had only the ten millions that Barbes would have given
them!-but Barbes is in prison.
-- Go now to the Morgue; there are twelve brasscovered, slanting marble tables, each with a dead body upon
it. Some have been many days in the water; some have been
fished out of the Seine that very morning; and one shattered
wreck of a man has been picked up under the column of the
Place Vend6me. -Workmen, out of work!
A crowd is at the grating looking in, scanning carefully
those blouses, and drenched caps, which hang over each, to
see if they can detect the apparel of a friend;-God only
knows if it may not be a brother!
A female figure is there, which has been newly taken from the
water. The dress is better than that belonging to most.
None seem to recognize it. Presently an eager man in
blouse comes in, and runs his eye over the dead tables,
until it rests on that figure-on that dress, —and he staggers
against the wall.
They make room for him; they give him a glass of water.
He is better now. He knows her!-he does not say how
related, but it is plain, that it was some heart relation.
— She worked at embroidery, —he says;-but there was
12*




274         THE BATTLE  SUMMER.
little to be done, and her Bourgeois shopman reduced her
pay; finally he could give her no work. She had at best a miserable chamber, but she could not pay the rent; her Bourgeois
land-lady said she must go.-And she is gone!-said the man
griping at the bars, as if they had been musket barrel-la
voil&'!
He sheds no tears, but he pulls off his cap, and runs his
gaunt hand through his matted hair,-and clenches it, —and
scowls, —and passes out. Bourgeois, beware!
-  Passing over the bridge of the Institute, not long after,
you see a sack floating in the river; it is a queer, strangely
shaped sack, as if a human body might be in it. The eyes of
the police, and of the boatmen are on it too, and it is presently brought to land.
They find in it the body of a woman who has been foully
murdered; she has not been robbed, for a ring is on her
finger. They carry the body to the Morgue, and for three
days it lies upon the table without a claimant, or a friend to
recognize it.
Five days after, and the mistress of a dingy house, in one
of those narrow streets which open on the Place de Pantheon,
reports that a young woman has been missing a week from her
chamber. The police visit the apartment, and find hidden
in the ashes upon the hearth, a bloody hatchet. The mistress knows nothing of the young woman; she does not even
recognize the clothes that are shown to her; the body is too
sadly mutilated for her to identify.
The lodger had come to Paris, apparently from the coun



BLACK  CLOUDS  GATHERIN G.                 275
try, a short time before the Revolution. She had rarely seen
her:-one visitor she remembers, a man in blouse, who frequently brought bread, or fruit to the lodger. He was a stout
man of five feet in height, with bushy beard, and very dark
eyes. She has not seen him since the disappearance of the
young woman.
On the very day of this communication, the Prefect receives
a telegraphic message from a distant provincial town, of the
arrest of a suspected criminal. He was dressed in blouse, —had
with him a small bundle of clothes, and was without passport.
As he was being conducted to the Mairie, he attempted to
make his escape. This excited suspicion, and he was examined; his answers were so unsatisfactory that he has been
committed to prison, waiting orders from Paris. He is five
feet in height, has regular features, bushy beard, and black
eyes.
He is ordered to Paris, and is confronted with the landlady;-and is recognized as the visitor. Thus far there is no
further proof of his guilt: he is brought in a few days before
the tribunal of police. The clothes found upon the body are
lying upon the table, by the bar.
The officer asks if he knows these garments? The man's
voice falters as he says,-No!
- And this ring?-says the officer, showing the one found
upon the body.
The man passes his hand across his eyes, as if he would
shut it from his sight.
The officer repeats the question.




276         T HuEi  BATTLE S I MMER.
- Mot Dieu.m —says the man-si je la connais! —it was
our marriage ring!-And he leans against the rail, with no
strength in him now for further questioning.
But presently he recovers;-does he know how she came
to her death?
- Yes! —and the fire lights his dark eye again,-I killed
her;-we were starving!
- And yet-says the officer, with the coolest French irony,
-you were journeying since, —kn voyage d'agrement, sans
doute-perhaps for pastime!
The man clenches his fist in his agony; but that passes;only journeying to bid my poor mother adieu!-then I would
have returned to throw myself beside her in the Seine!-and
the man points bitterly at the soiled bit of muslin before him,
and clasps his hands upon his forehead!
He is condemned to the guillotine.
The story spreads, and with sad faubourg comments:-condemned-they say-for his poverty; while the rich are rioting in their luxury!
Yes! it will need all Lamartine's eloquence, and all Pages'
banking sagacity to quiet the feeling that is growing!




THE STREETS  AGAIN.                   277
XIII.
THE  STREETS  AGAIN.
HE stranger coming to Paris in that month of June,
would have looked curiously along the streets-particularly if he had known Paris in its old dress-to see what
changes this Revolution, and this Republic had wrought.
At first he would be disappointed.-Why this is old Paris
-he would say —here are the old hackney cabs-the old
sticklers for a long fare; the lamps blaze along the Boulevard,
as of old; and the old valet-de-Place with his crude English,
is ready at the Hotel Mirabeau, to receive you!
But he will be shown such chamber, as the strolling bachelor, under the old regime, would have despaired of; and ten
servants will come to his call, where two years before, there
was but one.
And when he strolls out of a morning, to enliven his eye,
and his memory, along that glittering line of street, which they
call the Boulevard, he will see further change.
No fear now of jostling old dowager ladies, or treading on the toes of little satin-culotled boys! He will not see
tall English women sweeping their flounces through the shopdoors of the Rue de la Paix,-nor Germans smoking on the
balcony of the Hotel du Rhin.  Even his old friends, the
prim Sergents de Ville, with their light, trim  swords have




278         THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
vanished, and in their place go slouching couples of dirtyhanded men, in tall-crowned hats, and with short, black-handled dirk-swords.
Those little grisettes who tripped along, lithe-limbed and
gay-looking into the shop windows,-glancing at himglancing at everybody-showing a neatly chausseed foot, where
the gutter comes down from  the hotel-tripping over the
crossings without a stain above the sole,-winding-glancing
-fading-like bits of sunlight on waving grain-are more
rarely to be seen than before.
A queer, uncouth, green-epauletted, boy corps of soldiery,
will here and there meet his eye,-on whom the shopkeepers
look suspiciously-half dreading that this Garde Mobile may
rule them forever.
Blouses and workmen throng carelessly along the broad
asphalte walks, looking hungry and sourly, and with the eye
of masters.
The old, prim mlan yonder, with gold-headed cane, keeps
his cane-head covered, and hugs closely to shop windows, that
he may escape observation.
The Bourgeois women thread their way timidly through the
threatening-looking passers, and enter their hotel doors with
a sigh.  And the priests budge, three together, from mass,so close that their broad hats touch; and they sometimes kindle their sacerdotal spirit into a gesture and half angry tone,
or get into perspiration with sheer violence of talk, and take
off their broad-brimmed hats, to wipe the beads from their
foreheads.  Small proprietaires wear pinched-up faces, and




T II E  STREETS  AGAIN.               279
lo ok awry, and carry their hands deep in their trowsers pockets, and glance suspiciously at everybody.
The old crowded shops he will find empty; the blue-dressed grisette, once so constant at the counter of the Bains Chinois, he will see sitting with her knitting at the gate; and the
tailor next door, is idling among his broidered dressinggowns.
The pretty milliner girl has redressed her ribbons, for the
fortieth time, with a flirt of her dainty fingers,-in vain; in vain
she has re-arranged her hats and laces, and held that prettiest
of the coquettish caps at arms length for the hundreth time, in
intense admiration of its charms! She has not even so much
as a Sterne-like lover, to enter her shop, or to feel her pulse!
Drearily, the stranger passes on, jostled by swift-moving,
bad-dressed persons-all full of the spirit and the canker of
the change.
The Bourgeois in his shop door, with his goods unbought,
says-we have done too much!
The Blouse, dinnerless and mad, says, by his step and action,-we have not done enough!
If the stranger wander to Portes St. Denis and St. Martin,
he will find a whirl of men eddying about those gray stone
monuments, talking fast and angrily. If he pushes into the
throng, he will be stunned with a hundred loud-uttered questionings;-can the Republic stand?-must there be a President?-shall we not have our old Committee of Safety?-and
loudest among them all-where shall we find bread and work?
Such questions, our street people of June do not leave to




280         THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
Assembly, and Constitution-makers, but are earnestly busy
with themselves.
Garde Mobile, and police men, and soldiers, are drawn into
the vortex; and all, together, are noisy with-what shall be
done?
In side street, the stranger will meet here and there, a
company of Blouses, with muskets on their shoulders, and a
target borne by the foremost, riddled with balls. They have
been practising at barricade work,-if by chance there should
be any further need! The outermost ones will glance at the
passing Bourgeois, with a threatening look, and grip harder
their muskets, and throw an eye of triumph upon that riddled
target, which means-Bourgeois beware!
And if the stranger should wander into such quarter as that
of St. Marceau, with its damp, dark streets, and its houses
old and tottering, he will see groups of women and children,
with tin buckets and earthen dishes, gathering about the doors
of the soldiers' barracks, to beg a portion of the soldiers' pittance.
They range themselves in line, and wait patiently their
turn: —first, an old woman of sixty, shrivelled, dark-faced,
stooping, hideous! Next is a bright-eyed little girl of ten,
with cavernous face, blanched by the damp and darkness of
her home. There is no gaiety in her look; the children of
St. Marceau are without it. Next the girl is a crippled
man, with difficulty keeping his place on his patched-up leg,
and holding fast by his little earthen cruche. Then comes a
mother of twenty-five, with a sickly-looking babe in her arms,




TI E STREET S AGAIN.                   281
and she only smiles when her eye meets the babe's eye!a wretched desert of life before her, and around her, with no
oasis, and no cheer, but the eye of her pining child!
But these are not the worst; these may suffer, and linger,
and die, between hospitals, and public charities, and surgeons,
and make no noise!
But how is it with the hordes of unfed workmen? How,
with the stout-armed fathers of suffering families? How is it
with those tramping target-shooters? How is it with those
who fought joyfully in February, and who now find their
hopes, a wreck? Will these make no noise?
You can find an answer in the air of yonder Blouse who
marches along the walk, with musket in his hand; his cap is
thrown back; hs eye is wiild; his cheek is haggard; he looks
proudly out on Paris streets-not fearing even to pace thus
the princely Boulevard-Is not this our Revolution —says
he-and shall we not have our spoils? Have we not torn
down the Bourgeois monarch, and can we not tear down the
monarchy of Bourgeois? And he clicks the lock of his
musket, muttering with a bitter smile-voyons!-.voyons!
donc!
Which shall win the day-blouse of workman, or blacktrader's coat?




282         THE BATTLE SUMMER.
XIV.
THE  BoURGEOIS  TREMBLE.
H       OW    is it now?  Who has gained this Revolution —or
is nothing gained? We have had rejoicing, and fetes,
song-singing, and liberty-trees-whose are they all?  Do they
belong to Bourgeois, or to Blouse 
But you will say, Humanity has gained-in casting off a
King-yoke,-in making itself free,-in setting principle in
place of corruption.
Very rhetorical all this;-very true, as we count truthfulness in books, and orations. But after all, humanity is a
wide term;-let us narrow it down to French Humanity-to
those human hearts and souls, and impulses which live, and act
under cover of workingman's blouse, and black trader's-coat.
Where lies the question of gain, with this French Humanity?
With Bourgeois, the ultimatum of gain is to live easily,
happily, joyfully; with Blouse the ultimatum thus far, has
been only to secure easy bread-getting.
Sadly disappointed both of them! And strange to say,
the Bourgeois are uneasy, because the Blouse are making such
sturdy efforts to furnish themselves with bread, and-(for they
think they can do it at the same blow)-a little Bourgeois
luxury.




THE BOURGEOIS  TREM BLE.                283
Alas, for the happy equalization which our Republic was to
effect! It has equalized indeed power; but it has rendered
feeling most unequal!-It has put bayonets, and strong words
in the hands of those who before had neither; but it has not
wrought any sort of Christian, or healthful equalization. All
that may come, but it has not come yet.  So far from it,
— that great tribe of Paris men, who wear black coats, and
that othertribe who wear blue blouses, were never more fairly divided, —never more seriously set at variance.
It has been drawing to this, from the days of February, to
the middle of June; the clamorous gatherings about the Hotel
de Ville, in the time of the Provisional Power, —the array of
National Guard in April, —the sittings of the Commission of
Labor,-the outbreak of May, and the Public Workshops,
have all widened the severance.
Blouse is fierce yonder, in the street, and proud and ready
for blood, if blood is wanting-and Bourgeois is trembling
behind his counter.
Th2 great, frowning cloud of Public Workshop, is growing
blacker and blacker, and is streaked with jagged lightning. No
Lamartine paratonnerre can draw off all its fire. Its companies, and brigades, are laughing and lazing at their work, and
promenading streets by torchlight, in bands of fifty, and a hundred. They scowl on Bourgeois, and they shake hands invitingly with half-fed workmen.
But these shops, dark-looking, and threatening, and strong
as they are, the Government has decided to abolish; and the
Government has a majority in that Chamber of Representa



284          THEE BATTLE SUM.IMER.
tives, and it has the National Guard, and it has the army, and
the purse on its side. But still the brigaded workmen, persist in saying they will not be disbanded; and they have with
them, a strong and resolute faction of the Chamber,-a score
of noisy clubs, the foul, and howling Faubourgs,-the hollow
voices of the imprisoned Barbes and Blanqui, and perhaps
too-no one knows as yet-those pert twenty thousand Garde
Mobile!
They will not even go-these men of the shops-to make
Provincial railways; they love Paris better; they hold their
pick-axes in defiance, over the heads of the Chamber. Poor
Trelat, and his police force, can do nothing with them!
Lamartine with the perspiration in beads on his forehead,
and Arago in his loose, black, long coat sit over the counsel
board, worrying their brains with this sad matter of Executive
Government.
No wonder that Bourgeois tremble!-The white-cravatted
Rothschild trembles for his coffers, and wears thoughtful air at
such rare soirees as he frequents; his chat now is all earnest
talk. The gossiping lodging-house matron, who goes to mass
with her spaniel, trembles in her striped silk-for herself, and
her shabby furniture, and her lap dog!
The stout shopman of the Rue St. Denis is in a fluster of
apprehension; and the Bourgeois priest looks unquiet, and
talks nervously, and long, with the patron of his caf6,
The study even of the Constitution-makers, and the Constitution committee, has swayed off from preambles, and




T 31E B oURGEOIS TREMBLE.                 285
articles, and is turning on that great pivot of public thought
-the National work-shops.
-They must come down-say the Government, with
their sentries at the door.
-  Pull them down if you dare!-says Blouse, clicking his
musket, and brandishing his pike.
Poor Lamartine in distress goes from General to General,
asking advices; he draws street plans of defence; and Arago
lays the measure of his great mind to palace angles, and range
of batteries. A long-headed officer who has seen service in
Algeria, is of the conclave; he smiles at the fervor of Lamartine, and the mathematical arrangements of the Astronomer;
he says very little, but he thinks a great deal;-he is just the
man to bring this brewing storm to quick, and fearful issue!
It is Cavaignac, the Minister of War.
But the Blouse too is awake; and his line of battle is drawn;
his muskets are distributed; and he does not flinch at the
awkward march of the Garde Mobile, or at sight of the prim.
step of the little crimson-legged soldiery. The whole tribe of
Blouse is astir, in dirty quarter of St. Marceau, away by the
barrier de Trone, and all through the Faubourg St. Denis.
They are fierce and hot, and angered with hunger and thirst.
No wonder that Bourgeois tremble!




286          THE BATTLE SUMMER.
xv.
BLOUSE  REIGNS.
IT is the twenty-first day of June; the air is balmy and
mild. Looking off from the terrace of St. Cloud upon
Paris, and its fair, level plain-checked with vineyards,-embossed with fortresses,-dotted with country houses, and
streaked with the glittering Seine, you would never imagine
that a whirlwind was gathering in the bosom of it all! A
light-blue haze is hanging over the scene;-there is no cloud;
-there is no thunder;-there is no sound but the paddling of
the little Seine boat below, or the dash of the gushing water
in the palace fountains.
Now draw nearer; the air is sultrier as you cross the plain,
as you tramp on the low-lying wood of Boulogne, as you near
the city gates  You observe even at the barrier great companies of men, talking loud, and angrily-not talking of the
crops, of the markets, or of the day, but of the army —of the
workmen, of a new Government, and of street slaughter.
The police man slinks around them, powerless.
There are few cabs whirling this day out to Bois de Boulogne; Bourgeois are all at home; Blouses are all in the
street.
Little bodies of troops are moving here and there quietly,
but they do not at all interrupt the talk of Blouse. The




BLOUSE REIGNS.                    287
fountains of the Place de la Concorde are flinging up into the
soft, June air their glittering jets of spray; but the hum of
the murmuring voices upon the Square, is louder than the
gush of the fountains.  Thick and heavy masses of troop are
gathered like a close-growing wood around the Palace of the
Representatives; —a triple armor to defend the heart of
France from the arm, and bludgeon of the Blouse!
The garden of the Tuilleries is prettily carpeted with the
dancing shadows of its waving tree-tops; the lindens, and
the water, and the sun, and the air are summer-like, but the
sentries at the gates are wintry! They step quick and sharp,
as if they scented a battle. Throngs of Blouses choke up the
gateway. Under the Rivoli Colonnade, the Bourgeois are in
pairs, talking  dismally;-Alas-they say-these  terrible
Canaille, where will they lead us?
And the Blouse yonder, from his crowd, says-these beasts
of Bourgeois! where will they drive us?
And has it all come to this-from 20th of February, to
20th of June, four long months of good King-killing battle,
-of capital club philosophy,-of most eloquent manifestos,of magnificent labor-organizations,-of grand, joy-uttering
display,-of thrifty growing poplars,-of'admirable good
sense,'-and now no tangible result, except a schedule of unfinished articles, which they call the Constitution?-and the
two halves of this Paris world, eying each other across it, for
a new battle!
A Republic is an excellent good thing to be sure; but it will
not in four months' time fill hungry men's stomachs, nor bring




288           THE  BATTLE  SUMMER.
money into Bourgeois coffers. On the contrary, Bourgeois
money has been oozing out frightfully fast, and as for Blouse,
who by hard work, was sure of a scant pittance under the old
order, he is now dodging hungry about Restaurateurs' shops
-finding bread with difficulty, and not certain of finding itat all;-a very picture for the philosophic soliloquy of supperloving Ergasilus in the play:Miser homo est, qui ipse sibi, quod edit, quwerit, et id cegre invenit:
Sed ille est miserior, qui et cegre quaerit, et nihil invellit;
Ille miserrumu'st, qui, quom esse cupit, quod edit, non habet!
Miserable indeed!-but still, he is stanch, quick, and
brave. He is making his processions file off to a loud Marseillaise, in the dirty Rue St. Jacques; he has gathered great
groups about him at the Porte St. Denis; he has quit his
work at the Public Shop; he is running balls in his garret;
he is occupying the whole trottoir of the Boulevard; he is
frightening timid mothers; he is making all Paris tremble, as
if a June earthquake were shaking the city!
— Up to late night, he gathers strength; he marshals
his scattered forces; he collects his hungry cohorts under the
dark shadows of the Pantheon; he passes fearlessly by the
bivouac fires of out lying sentries; his hoarse Carmagnole, or
strong-shouted-Right to Labor!-disturbs the soft night air,
and passes like an ominous owl-hoot under the tall houses of
the Cite6!
To-day he rules the streets: and to-morrow perhaps,-un



BLOUSE  REIGNS.                  289
less those quick-tramping soldiery shall prevent, —he will rule
the Assembly!
And has he not virtually ruled thus far, counting from the
flight of the King? Has he not imposed on the city, and the
country, its Governors? Has he not created Commission
of Labor? Has he not built public shops,-has he not overawed Assembly,-has he not shortened his hours of work,has he not stood sentry at the Palace gates,-has not the fear
of him swayed all action?
Has he not been prince of noise, and disorder, and rioted
in everything but content, and bread?
And may we not safely call this history of the four months,
which open upon our Battle Summer-the REIGN OF BLOUSE?
-END OF THE  REIGN  OF BLOUSE.