The Real Latin Quarter

by F. Berkeley Smith

A TYPE OF THE QUARTER
By Helleu.—Estampe Moderne

Often after an annual dinner of one of the ateliers, the entire body of students will march into the “Bullier,” three hundred strong, and take a good-natured possession of the place. There have been some serious demonstrations in the Quarter by the students, who can form a small army when combined. But as a rule you will find them a good-natured lot of fellows, who are out for all the humor and fun they can create at the least expense.

But in June, 1893, a serious demonstration by the students occurred, for these students can fight as well as dance. Senator Beranger, having read one morning in the “Courrier Français” an account of the revelry and nudity of several of the best-known models of the Quarter at the “Quat’z’ Arts” ball, brought a charge against the organizers of the ball, and several of the models, whose beauty unadorned had made them conspicuous on this most festive occasion. At the ensuing trial, several celebrated beauties and idols of the Latin Quarter were convicted and sentenced to a short term of imprisonment, and fined a hundred francs each. These sentences were, however, remitted, but the majority of the students would not have it thus, and wanted further satisfaction. A mass meeting was held by them in the Place de la Sorbonne. The police were in force there to stop any disturbance, and up to 10 o’clock at night the crowd was held in control.

It was a warm June night, and every student in the Quarter was keyed to a high state of excitement. Finally a great crowd of students formed in front of the Café d’Harcourt, opposite the Sorbonne; things

were at fever heat; the police became rough; and in the row that ensued, somebody hurled one of the heavy stone match-safes from a café table at one of the policemen, who in his excitement picked it up and hurled it back into the crowd. It struck and injured fatally an innocent outsider, who was taken to the Charity Hospital, in the rue Jacob, and died there.

On the following Monday another mass meeting of students was held in the Place de la Sorbonne, who, after the meeting, formed in a body and marched to the Chamber of Deputies, crying: “Conspuez Dupuy,” who was then president of the Chamber. A number of deputies came out on the portico and the terrace, and smilingly reviewed the demonstration, while the students hurled their anathemas at them, the leaders and men in the front rank of this howling mob trying to climb over the high railing in front of the terrace, and shouting that the police were responsible for the death of one of their comrades.

The Government, fearing further trouble and wishing to avoid any disturbance on the day of the funeral of the victim of the riot in the Place Sorbonne, deceived the public as to the hour when it would occur. This exasperated the students so that they began one of those demonstrations for which Paris is famous. By 3 P.M. the next day the Quartier Latin was in a state of siege—these poets and painters and sculptors and musicians tore up the rue Jacob and constructed barricades near the hospital where their comrade had died. They tore up the rue Bonaparte, too, at the Place St. Germain des Prés, and built barricades, composed of overturned omnibuses and tramcars and newspaper booths. They smashed windows and everything else in sight, to get even with the Government and the smiling deputies and the murderous police—and then the troops came, and the affair took a different turn. In three days thirty thousand troops were in Paris—principally cavalry, many of the regiments coming from as far away as the center of France.