The occasion chosen for the outbreak was the funeral of General Lamarque—equally popular with Bonapartists and Republicans. A number of enthusiastic young men drew the funeral car, which was followed by exiles from all parts of Europe. Among the pall-bearers were General Lafayette, Marshal Clausel, and M. Laffitte. Of the insurgents, some took part in the procession, while others looked on in expectation of events that were inevitable. The crowd broke into several gunsmiths’ shops, and finally into the arsenal. Many, too, had brought arms with them; and after a few hours’ fighting the insurgents had gained several important positions, and determined to attack the bank, the post-office, and some neighbouring barracks. Their chief object at this moment was to render inaccessible the Rue Saint-Martin and the surrounding streets. Here they intended to establish the head-quarters of their insurrection, without having the slightest notion that at that very instant M.M. Thiers, Miguet, and other members of the Government were dining together at the Rocher de Cancale, fifty yards only from the camp wherein the Republicans were fortifying themselves with the firm resolution of proclaiming a Republic or dying in the attempt. A remarkable example was given towards the evening of this day of what M. Louis Blanc calls the sympathy of the Paris National Guard for heroism, though most persons would regard it as a proof of incapacity and cowardice.
Eight insurgents, returning from the Place Maubert, presented themselves towards the decline of day at one of the bridges of the city which was occupied by a battalion of the National Guard. They authoritatively claimed their right to go over and join their friends who were fighting on the other side of the river, and as the guards hesitated to let them pass, they advanced resolutely towards the bridge at half charge, with fixed bayonets. The soldiers instantly ranged themselves on either side, and gave unimpeded passage to these eight men, whose infatuated heroism they at once admired and, reflecting upon its inevitable result, deplored.
The enthusiasm of the insurgents at this period is shown by many a curious incident, such as that of their moulding bullets from lead stripped off the roofs of houses; whilst boys, too young to bear weapons, loaded the guns, using for wadding the police notices they had torn off the walls, or, when that resource failed, taking the shirts off their own backs to tear to shreds for the purpose. It was all, however, a forlorn hope; and the rising was destined to be crushed by superior force.
More than one reference to the defence of the Cloître St.-Méry will be found in the novels of Balzac, and a dramatic description of it occurs in the memoirs of Alexandre Dumas.
CHAPTER IX.
THE BOULEVARDS (continued).
The Porte St.-Martin—Porte St.-Denis—The Burial Place of the French Kings—Funeral of Louis XV.—Funeral of the Count de Chambord—Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle—Boulevard Poissonnière—Boulevard Montmartre—Frascati.
JUST beyond the Porte Saint-Martin the Boulevard Saint-Denis crosses the great thoroughfare, which is called on one side Boulevard de Sébastopol, on the other, Boulevard de Strasbourg. The Boulevard de Strasbourg was so designated (long before the Franco-German war, which suggests quite another origin for the name) in honour of the city where Prince Louis Napoleon made his first attempt to restore the Empire in France. The circumstances of the rash enterprise, represented at the time by the Government newspapers as merely ridiculous, were sufficiently romantic to deserve a few words of mention. Quitting his mother, with whom he had been living at the Castle of Arenberg, in Switzerland, he went as if to take the waters at Baden-Baden, a place he found suitable to his purpose from its vicinity to Alsace, and from the opportunity it afforded him of covering his ambitious views under the mask of pleasure. It was there that the prince gained the co-operation of Colonel Vaudrey, who commanded the 4th regiment of artillery at Strasburg, in which frontier city the prince had resolved to proclaim the restoration of the Empire before marching towards the capital. The Alsacian democrats were to be gained over by holding out to them a prospect of a fair representation of the people, while the garrison of Strasburg was to be captivated by the cry of “Vive l’Empereur!” The citizens were to be summoned to liberty, and the young men of the schools to arms. The ramparts were then to be entrusted to the keeping of the national guards, and the prince was to march to Paris at the head of the troops. “And then,” says Louis Blanc, in his sketch of the project, “the pictures that naturally presented themselves to the mind of Louis Napoleon were towns surprised, garrisons carried away by the movement, young men eagerly enlisting among his adventurous followers, old soldiers quitting the plough from all quarters to salute the eagle borne aloft, amidst acclamations, caught up by echo after echo along the roads; bitter recollections of the invasion, proud memories of the great wars, reviving, meanwhile, in every part of the Vosges, Lorraine, and Champagne.” The ardour of the conspirators steadily increased, and had they not possessed resolution and daring of their own, there was a woman in their midst who would have set them a bold example. Madame Gordon, the daughter of a captain of the Imperial Guard, had been initiated at Lille into the projects of Louis Napoleon without the knowledge of the prince himself, and entering impetuously into the conspiracy, she hastened to Strasburg, or rather to Baden-Baden in the immediate neighbourhood, and, appearing there as a professional singer, gave a series of concerts. Prince Louis was charmed with the lady’s talents, and, on expressing his admiration, was astonished to find that she had come to Baden-Baden with no object but to help him in the attempt he was about to make on the other side of the Rhine.
The Strasburg expedition having failed, it pleased the enemies of the prince to cast ridicule upon it; and he was accused of having exhibited himself in his uncle’s boots, just as some years afterwards, in connection with the Boulogne expedition, he was said to have carried with him a trained eagle which at a given moment was to fly to the top of the Boulogne Column in memory of the Great Army. Both at Boulogne, however, and at Strasburg the prince had considerable chances of success: a fact sufficiently proved (apart from any demonstration in detail) by the popularity he was seen to possess when, in 1848, he appeared as candidate for the Presidency of the French Republic. At Strasburg, as afterwards at Boulogne, he did not make his attack until after he had had the ground thoroughly reconnoitred, and had ascertained that the troops before whom he was about to present himself were largely composed of his partisans.