XLV. CHAP. precautions brought on a collision and provoked a struggle. On the morning of the 27th the police proceeded to breaking the presses of the Temps and National by order of the Prefect, and orders were issued to arrest the 41 gentlemen of the press who had signed the courageous protest. The police were unable to lay their hands upon any. But the presses of the Temps and National, which had printed the protest, were broken after a long and stubborn opposition offered by M. Baude. A crowd gathered in the Rue de Richelieu, before the office of the Temps, when the police were engaged breaking the presses; but there was no resistance. The people then hurried to the Palais Royal, and being expelled from the garden, thronged in the streets and passages around. Yet, had no soldiers appeared, it is probable that the mob, not knowing what to be at, would have separated on the Tuesday as on the Monday. But Marmont had brought the Swiss regiments to the Place Louis Quinze, and filled the Carrousel with troops, which in the evening were ordered to clear the environs of the Palais Royal. The Lancers charged up the Rue de Richelieu, the mob retreating to a heap formed by the ruins of a house near the Théâtre Français, and pelted the Lancers with bricks.* The infantry sent to clear the Place du Palais Royal were pelted too, and at last lost patience and fired. Some of the crowd were killed; and their deaths became the signal for insurrection. The bodies were placed on biers, and transported into different quarters, words and tears of rage being vociferated and shed over them. Every vehicle caught in the streets around the Palais Royal was thrown down-paving stones rooted up and heaped round them so as to form a barricade. These obstructions, when raised in the face of the soldiers, were soon destroyed. But the constructors, thus defeated, withdrew to more *The writer was on the spot. distant parts of the town, where they could build barricades and strengthen them at leisure. The chief business of the evening was, however, the search for arms and procuring of ammunition. The shops which sold them were broken open and soon emptied. Several depôts of powder were obtained possession of, and the people immediately began to make cartridges. The arms of the National Guard were all forthcoming, whether in the hands of the owners or of others. The night of the 27th passed in comparative quiet, the preparations being carried on for the greater part indoors. The darkness, indeed, consequent upon the universal smashing of the lamps prevented circulation, and, save the burning of a wooden guardhouse near the Bourse, no act of violence took place that night. But the agitation was far from allayed. From the people it had gained the shopkeeping classes, and a proclamation to the National Guard to assemble having been placarded, the civic uniform made its appearance everywhere on the morrow. The young men of even the higher classes began to take part in the enthusiasm, and crowds of them might be seen with fowling-pieces on the Boulevards, where the fallen trees protected them from charges of horse. The people, however, as day broke, re-manned the barricades, or gathered in the central squares. The first act of the morning of the 28th was an attack upon the Hôtel de Ville by the people, who easily overcame the slender guard that held it. The object was not to instal any insurgent committee or municipality, but simply to replace the white flag on the summit by the tricolor. Similar was the object at Notre Dame, where moreover the great bell or bourdon, better known as the tocsin, was set in motion, informing all Paris that the insurrection was flagrant and victorious in its centre. Marmont awoke at the sound to the gravity of the insurrection; and reports soon came to explain the CHAP. XLV. CHAP. XLV. ominous sounds, telling that the suburbs, left as well as right of the Seine, were pouring down combatants, with the pupils of the Polytechnic School acting as officers and leading them. The Marshal's first impulse was to forward to St. Cloud an advice of pacification, in other words, a submission on the part of the Crown. This recommendation found King and Ministers deaf or obstinate. It was answered by orders to act with energy, and put down the tumult by force. Paris was declared in a state of siege. Marmont prepared to obey the command, and directed three corps to advance into the insurgent portion of the city. One was to follow the quays and take possession of the Hôtel de Ville, another to the left of it was to occupy the Marché des Innocents, whilst a third was to follow and clear the Boulevards from the Madeleine to the Bastille. The divisions having fulfilled their first tasks, were to open communications with each other, clearing the Rue St. Denis and the principal streets between the Hôtel de Ville, the Marché, and the Boulevards. Other corps, smaller in number, were charged with the less important mission of patrolling and keeping quiet the western quarters of the city. The first division, under General Talon, achieved the task of taking possession of the Hôtel de Ville and its Place. This was not done without a fierce struggle and some loss. The mob stood firm before the musketry, but a discharge of grape infallibly dispersed the groups, and left a large portion of them dead. The second division, which proceeded by the Rue St. Honoré, succeeded in occupying the great market des Innocens, not without having had several barricades to overcome, whilst a heavy fire from all the windows that look on the market rendered the position perilous. The third division had also some encounters, especially at the Porte St. Martin; but it too succeeded in reaching the Bastille, and even pushed a detachment to the gate of St. Antoine. But the three divisions, however successful so far, were unable to communicate with each other. The Rue St. Antoine was impassable from barricades and armed crowds. The soldiers on the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, after a vain combat, seemed more inclined to come to an armistice with the people than attack them. Their commander therefore made no attempt to clear the neighbouring streets, or open communications. The division occupying the market were obliged to attempt this, galled as it was by the fire of musketry. Colonel Plainselves led a battalion to traverse the long and narrow Rue St. Denis to the Boulevard. It was more than a battalion could effect, there being a barricade at every hundred paces, high as the second story, and insurgent muskets at every window. Nevertheless the battalion succeeded after much delay in emerging from the street upon the Boulevard, but not till it had left the greater part of its soldiers wounded as well as the Colonel. To have effected the passage was moreover idle, for the barricades rose again, and the street filled with the insurgents behind the column as it passed. Whilst the several divisions of the army were engaged in this perilous task, the Deputies, to the number of thirty, met at M. Audry de Puyraveau's, to consider the question of a protest. That gentleman kept a kind of roulage, and whilst the Deputies discussed the object of their meeting in a saloon on the ground floor, the workmen in the court joined in and made it a very democratic meeting. Laffitte and Lafayette, just come to town, soon attended. They would hear of no lame protest. What had taken place, they said, was a revolution, and what was wanting was a Provisional Government to be at the head of it.* Alarmed at such an extreme measure, the more moderate proposed a deputation to *Lafayette's Memoirs. CHAP. XLV. СНАР. XLV. Marmont to suspend hostilities. This was agreed to. |