Such a tumult, such a panic in Paris! Houses searched by the police, and hundreds of suspected persons arrested. And in the midst of the panic the good Bohemians of the Latin Quarter also rise, and march with sticks and lanterns to the house of Senator Bérenger, and smash his windows, and groan, and call upon him to come out and be slain on the spot.
Unhappy Senator Bérenger, who deemed that the Quat-z-Arts ball—the great annual ball of the students—was improper!
“It was Art,” shout the students.
“It was a shocking spectacle,” pronounces the Senator.
“Come out and be slain,” shout the students.
“Arrest them,” orders the Senator. And then—O then—a revolution in the Quarter; then, the wild, terrifying “Seven Days’ Bagarre.”
There blaze bonfires; there, arise barricades; there, lie omnibuses overturned on the Boul’ Mich’; there, march furious bands of students who charge and are charged by the police. Mercy, how we march and how we run! On the fifth day, we are bandaged, and we limp, but we resume our manifestations.
“Come out and be slain,” we yell, below the Senator’s window.
“Arrest them,” orders the Senator. “It was Art,” we almost sob, in the ear of the interviewer.