A Residence in France. James Fenimore Cooper
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do not remember to have alluded to the change produced in this particular, by the cholera, in the streets of Paris. It is supposed that at least ten thousand of those who have no other abodes, except the holes into which they crept at night, were swept out of them by this fell disease.
About five o'clock, I had occasion to go to the Rue de Rivoli, and I found the streets and the garden with much fewer people in them than was usual at that hour. There I heard a rumour that a slight disturbance had taken place on the Boulevard des Italiens, in consequence of a refusal of the Duc de Fitzjames, a leading Carlist, to take off his hat to the body of Lamarque, as he stood at a balcony. I had often met M. de Fitzjames in society, and, although a decided friend of the old regime, I knew his tone of feeling and manners to be too good, to credit a tale so idle. By a singular coincidence, the only time I had met with General Lamarque in private was at a little dinner given by Madame de M——, at which Monsieur de Fitzjames was also a guest. We were but five or six at table, and nothing could be more amicable, or in better taste, than the spirit of conciliation and moderation that prevailed between men so widely separated by opinion. This was not long before Gen. Lamarque was attacked by his final disease, and as there appeared to me to be improbability in the rumour of the affair of the Boulevards, I quite rightly set it down as one of the exaggerations that daily besiege our ears. It being near six, I consequently returned home to dinner, supposing that the day would end as so many had ended before.
We were at table, or it was about half-past six o'clock, when the drum beat the rappel. At one period, scarcely a day passed that we did not hear this summons; indeed, so frequent did it become, that I make little doubt the government resorted to it as an expedient to strengthen itself, by disgusting the National Guards with the frequency of the calls; but of late, the regular weekly parades excepted, we had heard nothing of it. A few minutes later, François, who had been sent to the porte-cochère, returned with the intelligence that a soldier of the National Guard had just passed it, bleeding at a wound in the head. On receiving this information, I left the hotel and proceeded towards the river. In the Rue du Bac, the great thoroughfare of the faubourg, I found a few men, and most of the women, at their shop-doors, and portes-cochères, but no one could say what was going on in the more distant quarters of the town. There were a few people on the quays and bridges, and, here and there, a solitary National Guard was going to his place of rendezvous. I walked rapidly through the garden, which, at that hour, was nearly empty, as a matter of course, and passing under the arch of the palace, crossed the court and the Carrousel to la Rue de Richelieu. A profound calm reigned in and about the chateau; the sentinels and loungers of the Guards seeming as tranquil as usual. There was no appearance of any coming and going with intelligence, and I inferred that the royal family was either at St. Cloud, or at Neuilly. Very few people were in the Place, or in the streets; but those who were, paused occasionally, looking about them with curiosity, and almost uniformly in a bewildered and inquiring manner.
I had reached the colonnade of the Théâtre Français, when a strong party of gendarmes à cheval went scouring up the street, at a full gallop. Their passage was so swift and sudden, that I cannot say in which direction they came, or whither they went, with the exception that they took the road to the Boulevards. A gendarme à pied was the only person near me, and I asked him, if he could explain the reason of the movement. "Je n'en sais rien," in the brusque manner that the French soldiers are a little apt to assume, when it suits their humours, was all the reply I got.
I walked leisurely into the galleries of the Palais Royal, which I had never before seen so empty. There was but a single individual in the garden, and he was crossing it swiftly, in the direction of the theatre. A head was, now and then, thrust out of a shop-door, but I never before witnessed such a calm in this place, which is usually alive with people. Passing part of the way through one of the glazed galleries, I was started by a general clatter that sprung up all around me in every direction, and which extended itself entirely around the whole of the long galleries. The interruption to the previous profound quiet, was as sudden as the report of a gun, and it became general, as it were, in an instant. I can liken the effect, after allowing for the difference in the noises, to that of letting fly sheets, tacks, and halyards, on board a vessel of war, in a squall, and to a sudden call to shorten sail. The place was immediately filled with men, women, and children, and the clatter proceeded from the window-shutters that were going up all over the vast edifice, at the same moment. In less than five minutes there was not a shop-window exposed.
Still there was no apparent approach of danger. The drums had almost ceased beating, and as I reached the Carrousel, on my way back to the Rue St. Dominique, I saw nothing in the streets to justify all this alarm, which was either the result of a panic, or was calculated for political effect; artifice acting on apprehension. A few people were beginning to collect on the bridges and quays, and there was evidently a greater movement towards the Pont Neuf, than in the lower parts of the town. As I crossed the Pont Royal, a brigade of light artillery came up the quays from the Ecole Militaire, the horses on the jump, and the men seated on the carriages, or mounted, as belongs to this arm. The noise and hurry of their passage was very exciting, and it gave an impulse to the shopkeepers of the Rue du Bac, most of whom now began to close their windows. The guns whirled across the bridge, and dashed into the Carrousel, on a gallop, by the guichet of the Louvre.
Continuing down the Rue du Bac, the street was full of people, chiefly females, who were anxiously looking towards the bridge. One garçon, as he aided his master in closing the shop-window, was edifying him with anathemas against "ces messieurs les républicains," who were believed to be at the bottom of the disturbance, and for whom he evidently thought that the artillery augured badly. The next day he would be ready to shout vive la république under a new impulse; but, at present, it is "vive le commerce!"
On reaching the hotel, I gave my account of what was going on, pacified the apprehensions that had naturally been awakened, and sallied forth a second time, to watch the course of events.
By this time some forty or fifty National Guards were collected on the quay, by the Pont Royal, a point where there ought to have been several hundreds. This was a sinister omen for the government, nor was the appearance of the crowd much more favourable. Tens of thousands now lined the quays, and loaded the bridges; nor were these people rabble, or sans culottes, but decent citizens, most of whom observed a grave, and, as I thought, a portentous silence. I make no manner of doubt that had a thousand determined men appeared among them at that moment, headed by a few leaders of known character, the government of Louis-Philippe would have dissolved like melting snow. Neither the National Guard, the army, nor the people were with it. Every one evidently waited the issue of events, without manifesting much concern for the fate of the present regime. Indeed it is not easy to imagine greater apathy, or indifference to the result, than was nearly everywhere visible. A few shopkeepers alone seemed troubled.
On the Pont Royal a little crowd was collected around one or two men of the labouring classes, who were discussing the causes of the disturbance. First questioning a respectable-looking by-stander as to the rumours, I mingled with the throng, in order to get an idea of the manner in which the people regarded the matter. It would seem that a collision had taken place between the troops and a portion of the citizens, and that a charge had been made by a body of cavalry on some of the latter, without having observed the formalities required by the law. Some of the people had raised the cry "aux arms;" several corps de garde had been disarmed, and many thousands were rallying in defence of their liberties. In short everything wore the appearance of the commencement of another revolution. The point discussed by the crowd, was the right of the dragoons to charge a body of citizens without reading the riot act, or making what the French call, the "sommations." I was struck with the plain common sense of one or two of the speakers, who were of the class of artisans, and who uttered more good reason, and displayed more right feeling, in the five minutes I listened, than one is apt to meet with, on the same subjects, in a year, in the salons of Paris. I was the more struck by this circumstance, in consequence of the manner in which the same topic had been broached, quite lately, in the Chamber of Deputies.
In one of the recent affairs in the east of France, the troops had fired on a crowd, without the previous sommations, in consequence, as was alleged, of some stones being hurled