ORIGINALITY OF PARIS.
During the two past years Paris, as we said, had seen more than one insurrection. With the exception of the insurgent districts, as a rule, nothing is more strangely calm than the physiognomy of Paris during a riot. Paris very soon grows accustomed to everything—it is only a riot; and Paris has so much to do that it does not put itself out of the way for such a trifle. These colossal cities alone can offer such spectacles. These immense enclosures alone can contain simultaneously civil war and a strange tranquillity. Usually, when the insurrection begins, when the drum, the tattoo, and the assembly are heard, the shopkeeper 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 musketry and platoon fire can be distinguished, the shopkeeper says,—
"Bless me, it is growing hot!"
A moment later, if the riot approaches and spreads, he precipitately closes his shop and puts on his uniform; that is to say, places his wares in safety, and risks his person. Men shoot themselves on a square, in a passage, or a blind alley; barricades are taken, lost, and retaken, blood flows, the grape-shot pockmark the fronts of the houses, bullets kill people in their beds, and corpses encumber the pavement. A few yards off you hear the click of the billiard-balls in 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 a fusillade was interrupted in order to let a wedding pass. During the insurrection of May 12, 1839, in the Rue St. Martin, a little old infirm man, dragging a hand-truck surmounted by a tricolor rag, and carrying bottles full of some fluid, came and went from the barricade to the troops, and from the troops to the barricade, impartially offering glasses of cocoa, first to the Government and then to anarchy. Nothing can be stranger; and this is the peculiar character of Parisian riots, which is not found in any other capital, as two things are required for it,—the grandeur of Paris and its gayety, the city of Voltaire and of Napoleon. This time, however, in the insurrection of June 5, 1832, the great city felt something which was perhaps stronger than itself, and was frightened. Everywhere, in the most remote and disinterested districts, doors, windows, and shutters were closed in broad daylight. The courageous armed, the cowardly hid themselves, and the careless and busy passengers disappeared. Many streets were as empty as at four in the morning. Alarming details were hawked about, and fatal news spread,—that they were masters of the Bank; that at the cloisters of St. Merry alone they were six hundred, intrenched with loopholes in a church; that the line was not sure; that Armand Carrel 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 a chair;" that people must be on their guard, for at night burglars would plunder isolated houses in the deserted corners of Paris (in this could be recognized the imagination of the police, that Anne Radcliffe blended with government); that a battery had been established in the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher; that Lobau and Bugeaud were agreed, and that at midnight, or at daybreak at the latest, four columns would march together on the centre of the revolt, the first coming from the Bastille, the second from the Porte St. Martin, the third from the Grève, and the fourth from the Halles that perhaps, too, the troops would evacuate Paris, and retire on the Champ de Mars; that no one knew what would happen, but this time it was certainly very serious. People were alarmed too by the hesitation of Marshal Soult; why did he not attack at once? It is certain that he was greatly absorbed, and the old lion seemed to scent an unknown monster in the darkness.
Night came, and the theatres were not opened, the patrols went their rounds with an air of irritation, passers-by were searched, and suspected persons arrested. At nine o'clock there were more than 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 with trusses of straw, on which lay a pile of prisoners, whom Lagrange, the man of Lyons, valiantly harangued. All this straw, moved by all these men, produced the sound of a shower. Elsewhere the prisoners slept in the open air on lawns; there was anxiety everywhere, and a certain trembling, not at all usual to Paris. People barricaded themselves in the houses; wives and mothers were alarmed, and nothing else but this was heard, "Oh heavens! he has not come in!" Only the rolling of a few vehicles could be heard in the distance, and people listened in the doorways to the noises, cries, tumults, and dull, indistinct sounds, of which they said, "That is the cavalry," or, "It is the galloping of tumbrils;" to the bugles, the drums, the firing, and before all to the lamentable tocsin of St. Merry. They waited for the first artillery round, and men rose at the corner of the streets and disappeared, after shouting, "Go in." And they hastened to bolt their doors, saying, "How will it all end?" From moment to moment, as the night became darker, Paris seemed to be more lugubriously colored by the formidable flashes of the revolt.