Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 1

by H. Sutherland Edwards

A great number of students were initiated into freemasonry and the other secret fraternities which preceded the Revolution. They saluted the era of political emancipation with enthusiasm. The first actor in the great drama, Camille Desmoulins, had sat on the benches of the École de Droit. Most of the orators or politicians of the great Assemblies were old students. In 1789 the students of law and medicine in the departments fraternised with those of Paris, so as to march hand-in-hand in the exploration of liberty and truth. Many scholars hastened to the menaced frontiers. On the 9th Thermidor a medical student named Soubervielle rallied around him the patriots of the schools, a large number of whom prepared, in insurrection, to fly to the assistance of those sacred principles which threatened to perish with the last of the Montaguards.

Under the Directory the generous impulses of a section of the studious youth were lost in the orgies of libertinism. The Imperial despotism weighed upon the students as upon the rest of the citizens. Nevertheless the Republican sentiment was by no means extinguished within them, nor did it fail to find expression amid those events which were the development of the vast revolutionary tradition.

The defence of Paris against the foreign invasion, in 1814, offered the students of the various schools, with those of the Polytechnic as leaders, an opportunity of proving their patriotism. In presence of the peril into which the insatiable ambition of Napoleon had thrown the nation, the Polytechnic students, with those of law and medicine, made up twelve batteries of artillery for the National Guard. The pupils of the veterinary school of Alfort particularly distinguished themselves by their splendid defence of Charenton. These, however, were but isolated examples. “History,” writes Louis Blanc, “which soars high above the lies of party, will tell us that in 1814 Paris did not care to protect itself; that the National Guard, with the exception of a few true men, {358} failed to do their duty; that the townspeople, with the exception of a small number of valorous students and of devoted citizens, fled before the invasion.” In 1815 the students, called anew to the defence of the capital, were reconstituted into companies of artillery, and served beneath the walls of Paris.

At political junctures the students of Paris have seldom failed to assert themselves. The opposition of the younger generation to the Restoration had its origin in the Polytechnic School, which in 1816 refused to conform to certain religious observances. Fifteen pupils were expelled on the 12th of April, and next day the school was dissolved by the king.

In 1819, when the cry of “Liberty” was resounding through more than one European country, the Paris schools responded to the agitation. The lectures delivered by Nicholas Bavoux, professor of criminal law, caused between the Liberal students and certain Royalist auditors discussions which, but for the intervention of the dean and of armed force, would have degenerated into sanguinary conflicts. Bavoux’s professorship was suspended and the school of law closed. Prosecuted in a criminal court, Bavoux was acquitted by the jury and found himself the hero of the hour. At Grenoble, on 8th May, 1820, the law students profited by the arrival of the Duke of Angoulême to make a public manifestation, in which they endeavoured to drown the cry of “Vive le roi!” with that of “Vive la charte!” Every day large groups of students stationed themselves outside the Palais-Bourbon to cheer the deputies of the Opposition, defenders of electoral liberty. Driven back from the Quai d’Orsay by the gendarmerie, they reassembled on the Place Louis XV., still shouting for the charter. Again forcibly displaced, they repaired in a mass to the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, where they fraternised with the working men. Thirty-five were arrested. On Saturday, the third of June, new gatherings took place at the approaches to the Chamber in which the deputies sat. A descent was made upon them by the police. The students, who wore as their sign of recognition a white cravat as well as a buckle in front of their hats, rescued those of their friends who were taken prisoners. On the Place du Carrousel they snatched from the hands of the body-guards by whom he had been seized one of their comrades named Lallemand. This young man, a law student of three-and-twenty, was at the selfsame instant struck by a bullet and killed. The death of Lallemand fanned the flame of rebellion. His corpse was transported to the Church of Bonne-Nouvelle, guarded by the scholars themselves. Next day it was borne to Père-Lachaise by the two schools of medicine and law. Within the cemetery accents of vengeance and of liberty could be heard. The friends of the victim determined to raise a monument to his honour, and the subscription-lists which for this purpose were instantly opened by the schools, not only of Paris but of the provinces, showed that enough money could have been procured to erect to Lallemand a statue nearly as big as the Colossus of Rhodes. These incidents produced a burning discussion in the Chamber, where the schools found at least one eloquent champion in the person of M. Demarcay. “These youths,” he said, “who, by their studies, their occupations, their emulation, would seem to belong to a ripe age of life, fill our schools and surrender themselves to the ardour of work and science. They have fire, you say, in their nature; they love liberty: and at what age would you wish men to love liberty and defend it with courage? Is it not the same fire and courage which you demand when you summon such youths to defend the country? Cease, then, to impute to them those disorders of which they have been the victim.” Foy and Benjamin Constant spoke in the same strain. But the Commission of Public Instruction passed a measure which excluded from the schools thirteen students of law and medicine; and one of these, Robert Lailavoix, suffered an imprisonment of two months. The indignation thus excited amongst the scholars of Paris found an echo in the provinces. Not long afterwards some six hundred students were secretly formed into a military corps styled the Free Company of the Schools. For two months they were instructed in the use of arms. The students, however, were Republican, whilst their leaders were Bonapartist; and the latter, seized at the last moment with a fit of discretion, refused to act. Otherwise the fiery youths who looked to them for guidance, and who had numerous sympathisers in the military, would have carried out their programme to the letter.

The first anniversary of the death of Lallemand reunited the Paris students into an enthusiastic federation. The funeral service having been forbidden, they affected to fix their rendezvous at the Buttes Chaumont; where at the price of their blood they had defended the capital against invasion seven years before. Forming themselves into a long file, they silently descended towards the cemetery of {359} Père-Lachaise. They found the gates shut. Then a remarkable scene occurred. A certain student, acting as orator, was hoisted by his comrades on to one of the highest walls in the cemetery, and spoke from this elevation as from an improvised tribunal. He invoked the shade of Lallemand, and called upon him to witness both the odious persecution which pursued his memory and the solemn oath which everyone took, in presence of his tomb, to avenge him or die as he had died. An electric thrill ran through the crowd; all fell on their knees in the dusty road, and bent their heads while the orator, turning towards the cemetery, bade Lallemand a last adieu. The column returned to Paris and defiled, bareheaded, along the Rue des Petits-Carreaux, past the house of Lallemand. The victim’s father appeared at one of the windows, with his hand pressed to his heart, to show how deeply he was affected by this public protestation.

Constantly engaged in political agitation, the students of Paris bore a formidable part in the Revolution of 1830. On the 26th of July the famous Ordonnances were issued. The same day secret meetings were held by the students, at which they resolved to take up arms. In the evening, at the Chaumière ball, the quadrilles were stopped in virtue of the new decrees. A thrill of indignation ran through the assembly. The orchestra played the Marseillaise, and all present sang it in chorus. Hands were grasped, and vows uttered to conquer or die for liberty. The day afterwards intrepid students denounced the ordonnances in the public streets and called the citizens to arms. The pupils of the Polytechnic School passed the night in improvising implements of war, and with Vanneau, a bold spirit, at their head, scaled the walls and hurried to the barricades, where the students of the capital were mingled with the people. Already several had fallen dead. One student of medicine, named Papu, seeing his column, composed of youths and working men, disperse before a murderous musketry fire, sprang forward and cried—“I will show you how to die!” He was almost shattered to pieces, though he managed before expiring to gasp an exhortation to his comrades to continue the struggle. Rennes, his native town, honoured him with a monument. At the attack on the Hôtel de Ville another medical student, Labarbe, had both his legs broken, dying two days afterwards from the effects of the amputation, which he had undergone with a pipe in his mouth. Many a deed of heroism was done at this juncture by the Paris students, fighting like the populace for a Republic, which they did not obtain, and for which a disappointing compromise was furnished in the person of Louis Philippe.

The political history, however, of the Paris students is too formidable to trace in anything like detail. In modern times these once ardent youths have shown themselves comparatively indifferent to politics, and have sought diversion from their studies rather in the cigar than in the sword or musket.

The Paris student’s general history, like that of everyone and everything French, consists largely of anecdotes. One of the best is a legend of a medical student who was not accustomed to pay his landlady. Tired at length of waiting for her money, she paid him a visit at his rooms. The student, forewarned, received her with perfect self-composure. “Sir,” she exclaimed without circumlocution, as she crossed his threshold, “pay me or go.” “I prefer to go,” was the reply. “Very well then; go at once.” “Precisely, madame; and I shall go all the faster if you will consent to assist me.” Thereupon he went to his chest of drawers, and from the top drawer took out a large skeleton. “Would you,” he said, “be kind enough to place this at the bottom of my portmanteau?” “What is it?” cried the lady, retreating a few paces. “What is it? Why, it is my first landlady. She had the indiscretion to demand three quarters’ rent which I owed her, and then—mind you don’t break it. It is No. 1 in my collection.” “Sir!” exclaimed the lady, turning pale. The student, without replying, opened another drawer, and extracted a second skeleton. “This,” he said quietly, “is my landlady of the Rue de l’École-de-Médecine, a most admirable woman, who, in like manner, had applied to me for two quarters’ rent. Place it carefully on the other—it is No. 2. This,” continued the student, “is No. 3, an excellent woman, whom I had ceased to pay. Let us now pass on to No. 4.” The landlady fled, and her tenant was never thenceforth inconvenienced with applications for rent.{360}