A BURIAL GIVES OPPORTUNITY FOR A REVIVAL.
In the spring of 1832, although for three months cholera had chilled minds and cast over their agitation a species of dull calm, Paris had been for a long time ready for a commotion. As we have said, the great city resembles a piece of artillery when it is loaded,—a spark need only fall and the gun goes off. In June, 1832, the spark was the death of General Lamarque. Lamarque was a man of renown and of action, and had displayed in succession, under the Empire and the Restoration, the two braveries necessary for the two epochs,—the bravery of the battle-field and the bravery of the oratorical tribune. He was eloquent as he had been valiant, and a sword was felt in his words; like Foy, his predecessor, after holding the command erect, he held liberty erect; he sat between the Left and the extreme Left, beloved by the people because he accepted the chances of the future, and beloved by the mob because he had served the Emperor well. He was with Gérard and Drouet one of the Napoleon's marshals in petto, and the treaties of 1815 affected him like a personal insult. He hated Wellington with a direct hatred, which pleased the multitude, and for the last seventeen years, scarcely paying attention to intermediate events, he had majestically nursed his grief for Waterloo. In his dying hour he pressed to his heart a sword which the officers of the Hundred Days had given him; and while Napoleon died uttering the word army, Lamarque died pronouncing the word country. His death, which was expected, was feared by the people as a loss, and by the Government as an opportunity. This death was a mourning, and like everything which is bitter, mourning may turn into revolt. This really happened. On the previous evening, and on the morning of June 5th, the day fixed for the interment of Lamarque, the Faubourg St. Antoine, close to which the procession would pass, assumed a formidable aspect. This tumultuous network of streets was filled with rumors, and people armed themselves as they could. Carpenters carried off the bolts of their shop "to break in doors with;" one of them made a dagger of a stocking-weaver's hook, by breaking off the hook and sharpening the stump. Another in his fever "to attack" slept for three nights in his clothes. A carpenter of the name of Lombier met a mate, who asked him, "Where are you going?" "Why, I have no weapon, and so I am going to my shop to fetch my compasses." "What to do?" "I don't know," Lombier said. A porter of the name of Jacqueline arrested any workman who happened to pass, and said, "Come with me." He paid for a pint of wine, and asked, "Have you work?" "No." "Go to Filspierre's, between the Montreuil and Charonne barrières, and you will find work." At Filspierre's cartridges and arms were distributed. Some well-known chiefs went the rounds, that is to say, ran from one to the other to collect their followers. At Barthélemy's, near the Barrière du Trône, and at Capel's, the Petit Chapeau, the drinkers accosted each other with a serious air, and could be heard saying, "Where is your pistol?" "Under my blouse; and yours?" "Under my shirt." In the Rue Traversière, in front of Roland's workshop, and in the yard of the Maison Bruise, before the workshop of Bernier the tool-maker, groups stood whispering. The most ardent among them was a certain Mavot, who never stopped longer than a week at a shop, for his masters sent him away, "as they were obliged to quarrel with him every day." Mavot was killed the next day on the barricade of the Rue Ménilmontant. Pretot, who was also destined to die in the struggle, seconded Mavot, and replied to the question "What is your object?" "Insurrection." Workmen assembled at the corner of the Rue de Bercy, awaiting a man of the name of Lemarin, revolutionary agent for the Faubourg St. Marceau, and passwords were exchanged almost publicly.
On June 5, then, a day of sunshine and shower, the funeral procession of General Lamarque passed through Paris with the official military pomp, somewhat increased by precautions. Two battalions with covered drums and reversed muskets, ten thousand of the National Guard with their sabres at their side, and the batteries of the artillery of the National Guard escorted the coffin, and the hearse was drawn by young men. The officers of the Invalides followed immediately after, bearing laurel branches, and then came a countless, agitated, and strange multitude, the sectionists of the friends of the people, the school of law, the school of medicine, refugees of all nations, Spanish, Italian, German, Polish flags, horizontal tricolor flags, every banner possible, children waving green branches, stone-cutters and carpenters out of work at this very time, and printers easy to recognize by their paper caps, marching two and two, three and three, uttering cries, nearly all shaking sticks, and some sabres, without order, but with one soul, at one moment a mob, at another a column. Squads selected their chiefs, and a man armed with a brace of pistols, which were perfectly visible, seemed to pass others in review, whose files made way for him. On the sidewalks of the boulevards, on the branches of the trees, in the balconies, at the windows and on the roofs, there was a dense throng of men, women, and children, whose eyes were full of anxiety. An armed crowd passed, and a startled crowd looked at it; on its side Government was observing, with its hand on the sword-hilt. There might be seen,—all ready to march, cartridge-boxes full, guns and carbines loaded,—on the Place Louis XV., four squadrons of carbineers in the middle, with trumpeters in front; in the Pays Latin, and at the Jardin des Plantes, the municipal guard échelonned from street to street; at the Halle-aux-Vins a squadron of dragoons, at the Grève one half of the 12th light Infantry, the other half at the Bastille; the 6th Dragoons at the Célestins, and the court of the Louvre full of artillery. The rest of the troops were confined to barracks, without counting the regiments in the environs of Paris. The alarmed authorities held suspended over the threatening multitude twenty-four thousand soldiers in the city and thirty thousand in the suburbs.
Various rumors circulated in the procession, legitimist intrigues were talked about, and they spoke about the Duke of Reichstadt, whom God was marking for death at the very moment when the crowd designated him for Emperor. A person who was never discovered announced that at appointed hours two overseers, gained over, would open to the people the gates of a small arm-factory. An enthusiasm blended with despondency was visible in the uncovered heads of most of the persons present, and here and there too in this multitude, suffering from so many violent but noble emotions, might be seen criminal faces and ignoble lips, that muttered, "Let us plunder." There are some agitations which stir up the bottom of the marsh and bring clouds of mud to the surface of the water; this is a phenomenon familiar to a well-constituted police force. The procession proceeded with feverish slowness from the house of death along the boulevards to the Bastille. It rained at intervals, but the rain produced no effect on this crowd. Several incidents, such as the coffin carried thrice round the Vendôme column, stones thrown at the Duc de Fitzjames, who was noticed in a balcony with his hat on his head, the Gallic cock torn from a popular flag and dragged in the mud, a policeman wounded by a sword-thrust at the Porte St. Martin, an officer of the 12th Light Infantry saying aloud, "I am a Republican," the Polytechnic school coming up, after forcing the gates, and the cries of "Long live the Polytechnic School!" "Long live the Republic!" marked the passage of the procession. At the Bastille long formidable files of spectators, coming down from the Faubourg St. Antoine, effected their junction with the procession, and a certain terrible ebullition began to agitate the crowd. A man was heard saying to another, "You see that fellow with the red beard; he will say when it is time to fire." It seems that this red beard reappeared with the same functions in a later riot, the Quénisset affair.
The hearse passed the Bastille, followed the canal, crossed the small bridge, and reached the esplanade of the bridge of Austerlitz, where it halted. At this moment a bird's-eye view of the crowd would have offered the appearance of a comet, whose head was on the esplanade, and whose tail was prolonged upon the boulevard as far as the Porte St. Martin. A circle was formed round the hearse, and the vast crowd was hushed. Lafayette spoke, and bade farewell to Lamarque: it was a touching and august moment,—all heads were uncovered, and all hearts beat. All at once a man on horseback, dressed in black, appeared in the middle of the group with a red flag, though others say with a pike surmounted by a red cap. Lafayette turned his head away, and Excelmans left the procession. This red flag aroused a storm and disappeared in it: from the Boulevard Bourdon to the bridge of Austerlitz one of those clamors which resemble billows stirred up the multitude, and two prodigious cries were raised, "Lamarque to the Panthéon!"—"Lafayette to the Hôtel de Ville!" Young men, amid the acclamations of the crowd, began dragging Lamarque in the hearse over the bridge of Austerlitz, and Lafayette in a hackney coach along the Quai Morland. In the crowd that surrounded and applauded Lafayette people noticed and pointed out to each other a German of the name of Ludwig Snyder, who has since died a centenarian, who also went through the campaign of 1776, and had fought at Trenton under Washington, and under Lafayette at Brandywine.
The municipal cavalry galloped along the left bank to stop the passage of the bridge, while on the right the dragoons came out of the Célestins and deployed along the Quai Morland. The people who were drawing Lafayette suddenly perceived them at a turning of the quay, and cried, "The Dragoons!" The troops advanced at a walk, silently, with their pistols in the holsters, sabres undrawn, and musquetoons slung with an air of gloomy expectation. Two hundred yards from the little bridge they halted, the coach in which was Lafayette went up to them, they opened their ranks to let it pass, and then closed up again. At this moment the dragoons and the crowd came in contact, and women fled in terror. What took place in this fatal minute? No one could say, for it is the dark moment when two clouds clash together. Some state that a bugle-call sounding the charge was heard on the side of the Arsenal, others that a dragoon was stabbed with a knife by a lad. The truth is, that three shots were suddenly fired, one killing Major Cholet, the second an old deaf woman who was closing her window in the Rue Contrescarpe, while the third grazed an officer's shoulder. A woman cried, "They have begun too soon!" and all at once on the side opposite the Quai Morland, a squadron of dragoons, which had been left in barracks, was seen galloping up the Rue Bassompierre and the Boulevard Bourdon, with naked swords, and sweeping everything before it.
Now all is said, the tempest is unchained, stones shower, the fusillade bursts forth: many rush to the water's edge and cross the small arm of the Seine, which is now filled up: the timber-yards on Isle Louviers, that ready-made citadel, bristle with combatants, stakes are pulled up, pistols are fired, a barricade is commenced, the young men, driven back, pass over the bridge of Austerlitz with the hearse at the double, and charge the municipal guard: the carabineers gallop up, the dragoons sabre, the crowd disperses in all directions, a rumor of war flies to the four corners of Paris: men cry "To arms!" and run, overthrow, fly, and resist. Passion spreads the riot as the wind does fire.