CHAPTER V.
ORIGINALITY OF PARIS.
During the two past years Paris, as we said, had seen more than oneinsurrection. With the exception of the insurgent districts, as a rule,nothing is more strangely calm than the physiognomy of Paris duringa riot. Paris very soon grows accustomed to everything--it is only ariot; and Paris has so much to do that it does not put itself out ofthe way for such a trifle. These colossal cities alone can offer suchspectacles. These immense enclosures alone can contain simultaneouslycivil war and a strange tranquillity. Usually, when the insurrectionbegins, when the drum, the tattoo, and the assembly are heard, theshopkeeper confines himself to saying:
"Ah, there seems to be a row in the Rue St. Martin."
Or,--
"The Faubourg St. Antoine."
And he often adds, negligently,--
"Somewhere over that way."
At a later date, when the heart-rending and mournful sound of musketryand platoon fire can be distinguished, the shopkeeper says,--
"Bless me, it is growing hot!"
A moment later, if the riot approaches and spreads, he precipitatelycloses his shop and puts on his uniform; that is to say, places hiswares in safety, and risks his person. Men shoot themselves on asquare, in a passage, or a blind alley; barricades are taken, lost,and retaken, blood flows, the grape-shot pockmark the fronts of thehouses, bullets kill people in their beds, and corpses encumber thepavement. A few yards off you hear the click of the billiard-ballsin the coffee-houses. The theatres open their doors and play farces;and gossips talk and laugh two yards from these streets full of war.Hackney coaches roll along, and their fares are going to dine out,sometimes in the very district where the fighting is. In 1831 afusillade was interrupted in order to let a wedding pass. During theinsurrection of May 12, 1839, in the Rue St. Martin, a little oldinfirm man, dragging a hand-truck surmounted by a tricolor rag, andcarrying bottles full of some fluid, came and went from the barricadeto the troops, and from the troops to the barricade, impartiallyoffering glasses of cocoa, first to the Government and then to anarchy.Nothing can be stranger; and this is the peculiar character of Parisianriots, which is not found in any other capital, as two things arerequired for it,--the grandeur of Paris and its gayety, the city ofVoltaire and of Napoleon. This time, however, in the insurrection ofJune 5, 1832, the great city felt something which was perhaps strongerthan itself, and was frightened. Everywhere, in the most remote anddisinterested districts, doors, windows, and shutters were closed inbroad daylight. The courageous armed, the cowardly hid themselves,and the careless and busy passengers disappeared. Many streets were asempty as at four in the morning. Alarming details were hawked about,and fatal news spread,--that _they_ were masters of the Bank; that atthe cloisters of St. Merry alone they were six hundred, intrenchedwith loopholes in a church; that the line was not sure; that ArmandCarrel had been to see Marshal Clausel, and the latter said to him,"Have a regiment first;" that Lafayette, though ill, had said to them,"I am with you, and will follow you where-ever there is room for achair;" that people must be on their guard, for at night burglarswould plunder isolated houses in the deserted corners of Paris (inthis could be recognized the imagination of the police, that AnneRadcliffe blended with government); that a battery had been establishedin the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher; that Lobau and Bugeaud were agreed, andthat at midnight, or at daybreak at the latest, four columns wouldmarch together on the centre of the revolt, the first coming from theBastille, the second from the Porte St. Martin, the third from theGrève, and the fourth from the Halles that perhaps, too, the troopswould evacuate Paris, and retire on the Champ de Mars; that no one knewwhat would happen, but this time it was certainly very serious. Peoplewere alarmed too by the hesitation of Marshal Soult; why did he notattack at once? It is certain that he was greatly absorbed, and the oldlion seemed to scent an unknown monster in the darkness.
Night came, and the theatres were not opened, the patrols wenttheir rounds with an air of irritation, passers-by were searched,and suspected persons arrested. At nine o'clock there were morethan eight hundred persons taken up, and the Préfecture of Police,the Conciergerie, and La Force were crowded. At the Conciergerie,especially, the long vault called the Rue de Paris was strewn withtrusses of straw, on which lay a pile of prisoners, whom Lagrange, theman of Lyons, valiantly harangued. All this straw, moved by all thesemen, produced the sound of a shower. Elsewhere the prisoners slept inthe open air on lawns; there was anxiety everywhere, and a certaintrembling, not at all usual to Paris. People barricaded themselves inthe houses; wives and mothers were alarmed, and nothing else but thiswas heard, "Oh heavens! he has not come in!" Only the rolling of a fewvehicles could be heard in the distance, and people listened in thedoorways to the noises, cries, tumults, and dull, indistinct sounds,of which they said, "That is the cavalry," or, "It is the galloping oftumbrils;" to the bugles, the drums, the firing, and before all to thelamentable tocsin of St. Merry. They waited for the first artilleryround, and men rose at the corner of the streets and disappeared, aftershouting, "Go in." And they hastened to bolt their doors, saying, "Howwill it all end?" From moment to moment, as the night became darker,Paris seemed to be more lugubriously colored by the formidable flashesof the revolt.
BOOK XI.
THE ATOM FRATERNIZES WITH HURRICANE.