Popular intolerance had, after a farcical civil trial overawed by military authority, driven the foremost writer of France into exile, as it had Voltaire and Rousseau and many thousands of the best blood of the French before him.
The many noble monuments of the Paris carrefours, representing the élite of France, the heroes, the apostles of letters and liberty, who were murdered, exiled, denied Christian burial or dragged through the streets after death by Frenchmen, stand morally united in one grand monumental fane commemorative of French intolerance.
Wherever is reared a monument to French personal worth, there also is a mute testimonial of collective French infamy.
"Dans la rue!" was now the battle-cry.
All of these student "manifestations" were seized upon by the worst elements of Paris. The estimable character of these elements found in the Place Maubert and vicinity may be surmised from the fact that a few days previous to the event about to be herein recorded twenty men of the neighborhood were chosen to maintain its superiority to the Halles Centrales against a like number selected by the latter.
The contending factions were drawn up in order of battle in Place Maubert, on Boulevard St. Germain, in broad afternoon, each man being armed with a knife, and precipitated an engagement that required one hundred police reserves to quell.
"If we could only keep that pestiferous gang out of our manifestations," said Jean now to Monsieur de Beauchamp,—"they disgrace us always!"
"Oh, but they are good fighters; and there is to be fighting pretty soon," observed the artist.
"Vive l'armée!" cried Mlle. Fouchette, flourishing a salad-spoon. Mlle. Fouchette had a martial spirit.
"Whenever a student is arrested he turns out to be one of the roughs of Place Maubert or a hoodlum of Rue Monge, or a cutthroat of Rue Mouffetard. It is disgraceful!"