The fireworks were splendid, and their effect enhanced by a sky which threatened storm. The troops, ranged along both quays of the Saône, kept up a harmless fire of those brilliant white stars which momentarily lighted up the hills and the city with a lustre of the purity, but more than the brightness, of moonshine. They were answered by other soldiers posted on the height, and at intervals by the cannon from the fort of Fourvières and the town; the country and the old cathedral appeared and vanished by turns through the smoke and in the varying light. On the bridge opposite was a palace of diamonds; it brought to my memory one I saw at Rosny, at a fête given in honour of the young Duke of Bordeaux, it was so like; there was only the change of cypher: and last night the “L.” burned brightly, but the P. went totally out. The bouquet went up almost beneath our windows, and sprang, as it seemed to the clouds, a sheet of fire, each branch as it burst scattering a shower, variously and gorgeously coloured, and illuminating the town, during the few moments it lasted, more perfectly than did the day’s sunshine. The crowd uttered an exclamation of applause. I had no idea, at the time, that the cries of the dying were mingled with it. Twelve persons of the working-class, to see the feu-d’artifice better, went out on the Saône in one of their narrow and dangerous batelets. They made a sudden movement as the bouquet rose, and the boat overturned! Their cries were heard, and attempts to rescue them made, which proved vain in the confusion and partial darkness. Eight contrived to reach the shore—the remaining four went down; they formed an entire family—mother, son, daughter, and the husband, to whom she had been lately married.
3rd May.
As we were standing at the window yesterday morning, the two expected battalions of the 66th regiment passed under it, and D—— ran down stairs to ask news of his friend. As it happened, he accosted a soldier of Capt. de ——’s own company. He is still on leave in Paris, and the man did not know the precise time of his return. This morning we started on an expedition we failed to accomplish; for I wished to see the Isle Barbe, and the quays on this side the Saône which lead thither become very narrow, and are high above the water without curb stone or parapet, and therefore too perilous for Fanny, who full of spirit started round from each individual we met, we took the first narrow road which led up the hill; but, ere we did so, passed the site of a romantic story, whose exact date is unknown to me.
Nearly opposite the diminished rock on which the fortress of Pierre Scise or Encise once stood advanced into the water, there is still a tower, which with the remains of a moat and drawbridge belongs to a house called, from its present owner, “Maison Vouti.” A French nobleman, a native of Lyons, had quitted it to seek his fortunes in Germany, where he became not only rich, but placed and favoured at court.
In the midst of his prosperity he contracted an unfortunate attachment to a low-born maiden, whose grace and beauty did not, in German eyes, excuse her origin. He married her; but, unable to bear the disgrace and contempt which fell upon him, he broke all the ties which attached him to her country, and conveyed her to Lyons, where it was his will to live in almost perfect solitude. The bride pined in her lonely habitation, rendered sadder by the now morose temper of the disappointed noble. She seemed to recover a portion of her former gaiety only during the visits of a young man, her husband’s sole friend and intimate. These visits became by degrees more frequent, and at last excited unpleasant feelings in the husband’s mind. His jealousy once roused, intrigues and false political accusations enclosed his former associate within the fortress walls, while his young wife was conducted to the tower, which still bears the name of “Tour de la Belle Allemande.”
Whether she too felt the love with which she had inspired the prisoner, or whether indignation at her own fate and pity for his only prompted her, the chronicler does not tell; but from the summit of her gaol-tower she constantly looked towards Pierre Encise. At last the day came on which the young man, profiting by a moment in which the usual watchfulness had failed, threw himself from a window, of which he had sawed the bar, into the river. The current of the Saône is not strong, and he was a skilful swimmer, and arrived at the opposite shore in safety. She had watched his progress in hope and agony; uttering cries he could not hear, and making signs of encouragement he failed to see during his strife with the water. At length he was near, approaching to free her, and she repeated her signs; and her husband’s guards, who had watched her strange motions in wonder, now at last discovered their object. As he arrived at the foot of the tower, and stretched forth his arms to her,—as she stooped over the battlement to greet him—he fell—the shot had been faithfully and fatally aimed.
The steep stony road (up which D—— led Grizzle, and little Fanny gaily carried me) led among winding lanes and stone walls to the summit of the hill, and the Croix Rousse, which is the Faubourg of Lyons, exclusively occupied by silk weavers, and the head-quarters of the insurrection. Pauche the landlord said, when we returned, that those who knew the town and its inhabitants better than ourselves would scarcely venture there. We met with no incivility: a few squalid faces looked out in wonder, for the descent to the quay for foot passengers is by flights of twenty or thirty steps each; and between these the horse-road winds, still so steep, that we had some difficulty in leading the horses. As we passed the operatives’ dwellings we agreed that the temptation of seeing their work in progress was not sufficiently strong to lead us within; most were employed with their doors open, to admit as much air as the narrow street and hot day suffered to circulate: that which issued forth was infected; and within, besides the heavy loom and its pale master, there seemed barely room for the few articles of wretched furniture. On the relative position of manufacturer and workman, my informant is Mons. Pauche the landlord, who, besides the revenues of this hôtel, now possesses a landed property worth about 60,000 francs a-year, and whose vineyards yield 300 hogsheads of wine annually. He began life as a workman in the silk trade, so that his two conditions of operative and proprietor are likely to make him impartial. At this moment the purchaser finds silk dear, both in Paris and Lyons; but precisely in the proportion that the head manufacturer’s profits increase, those of the workman decline. The former takes advantage of the latter’s necessities; offers reduced prices, and can afford the delay, if the workman demurs, which the wants of his family prevent his doing long, and, having food to buy and rent to pay, he will accept fifteen or even twelve sous for his long day’s labour. At present, the usual remuneration is twenty-two sous, the wife earns twelve, the children so little that they do not lighten the burthen; but supposing no incumbrances, thirty-four sous, the price of the man and woman’s work, can hardly enable them to exist and pay house-rent, which is dear in Lyons.
The disturbances of November 1831 had in their commencement no reference to politics. The workmen, whose wages were miserably low, demanded an augmentation. Their masters summoned them before the Préfet, and the increase was agreed on in his presence. The day of payment arrived; the manufacturers, in greater part, refused to adhere to their engagements, and the workmen, meeting in groups of four, had in a short time in various parts of the city gathered to the number of many thousands; bearing on their banners the motto, “Vivre en travaillant ou mourir en combattant.”
In the conflict which followed, the 66th, then the only regiment in Lyons, lost two hundred men and thirteen officers. It was almost totally unsupported; as the greater part of the National Guard, taken from the class of which were the insurgents, refused to act against them.
You know that Lyons is famous for its black and crimson dyes; it is strange that this superiority should depend on the waters of the Rhone, all parts of which, as it flows through Lyons, have not a similar effect. In one place, for instance, the black dye attains its perfection; a hundred yards further it fails. The workmen attribute this to peculiar properties of springs in the bed of the river.