France in the Nineteenth Century

by Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer

A French mob at the present day is very different. It has the modern grudge of laborer against employer, it has memories of the license of the Commune, and above all it has learned the use of absinthe. There is a hatred and a contempt for all things that should command men's reverence, which did not display itself in 1848.

May I here be permitted to relate a little story connected with this day's events? I was with my family in Paris during those days of revolution. Our nurse,—an Englishwoman who had then been with us twenty-five years, and who died recently, at the age of ninety-eight, still a member of our family,—when we returned home from viewing the devastation at the Tuileries, expressed strongly her regret at not having accompanied us. She was consoled, however, by an offer from our man-servant to escort her down the Champs Elysées. They made their way to the Place du Carrousel, at the back of the palace, where a dense crowd was assembled, and the good lady became separated from her protector. The National Guard and the servants in the palace had just succeeded in getting the crowd out of the rooms and in closing the doors. This greatly disappointed our good nurse. She had counted on seeing the interior of the king's abode, and above all, the king's throne. She could speak very little French, but she must in some way have communicated her regrets to the crowd around her. "Does Madame desire so much to pass in?" said a big man in a blouse, girt with a red sash, and carrying a naked sword; "then Madame shall pass in!" Thereupon he and his followers in the front rank of the crowd so bepummelled the door with the hilts of their swords and the stocks of their muskets that those within were forced to throw it open. In marched our dear nurse beside her protector. They passed through room after room until they reached the throne-room; there she indicated her wish to obtain a relic of departed royalty. Instantly her friend with the bare sword sliced off from the throne a piece of red velvet with gold embroidery. She kept it ever after, together with a delicate china cup marked L. P.; but the cup was much broken. "You see, dears," she would say to us, "there was lots of things like these lying about, but there were men standing round with naked swords ready to cut your head off if you stole anything. So I took this cup and broke it. It was not stealing to carry off a broken cup, you know." And she would add, when winding up her narrative: "Those Frenchmen was so polite to me that they did n't even tread on my corns."

That night there was a brilliant conflagration in the Carrousel. It was a bonfire of those very carriages which eighteen years before the mob had brought in triumph to Louis Philippe from the stables of Charles X. at Rambouillet.

All the next day not a newspaper was to be had. The "Presse," indeed, brought out a half sheet, mainly taken up in returning thanks to two compositors "who, between two fires," had been "so considerate" as to set up the type. But their consideration could not have lasted long, for the news broke off abruptly in the middle of a sentence on the first page. Events worked faster than compositors.

By noon on Friday, February 25, the entire population of Paris was in the streets. From the flags on public offices, the blue and white strips had been tom away. On that day—but on that day only—every man wore a red ribbon in his button-hole. Many did so very unwillingly, for red was understood to be the badge of Red Republicanism.

On the Boulevards the iron railings had been tom up, and most of the trees had been cut down. They were replanted, however, not long after, to the singing of the "Marseillaise" and the firing of cannon. For more than a week there was a strange quiet in Paris: no vehicles were in the streets, for the paving-stones had been torn up for barricades; no shops were open; on the closed shutters of most of them appeared the words "Armes données," Everywhere a paintbrush had been passed over the royal arms. Even the words "roi," "reine," "royal," were effaced. The patriots were very zealous in exacting these removals. Two gamins with swords hacked patiently for two hours at a cast-iron double-headed Austrian eagle.

Change (small money, I mean) was hardly to be had in Paris. For a month it was necessary, in order to obtain it, to apply at the Mairie of the Arrondissement, and to stand for hours in a queue. Other money could be had only from the bankers in thousand-franc notes. Shopping was of course at an end, and half Paris was thrown out of employment. Gold and silver were hidden away.

Louis Philippe and his family drove in their two cabriolets to Versailles. There they found great difficulty in getting post-horses. Indeed, they would have procured none, had there not been some cavalry horses in the place, which were harnessed to one of the royal carriages. About midnight of their second day's journey they reached Dreux. There Louis Philippe found himself without money, and had to borrow from one of his tenants. He had left behind him in his haste three hundred and fifty thousand francs on a table in the Tuileries.

The Provisional Government, which was kept well informed as to his movements, forwarded to him a supply of money. At Dreux the king's party was joined by the Duke of Montpensier with news that the king's attempt to save the monarchy by abdication had failed.

The old man seemed stupefied by his sudden fall. Over and over again he was heard to repeat: "Comme Charles X.! Comme Charles X.!" The next day, travelling under feigned names, the royal party pushed on to Evreux, where they were hospitably received by a farmer in the forest, who harnessed his work-horses to their carriage. Thence they went on to their own Château d'Eu. The danger to which during this journey they were exposed arose, not from the new Government at Paris, but from the excited state of the peasantry.