Barricade Dividing the Rue de Rivoli and The Place De La Concorde
I reach the Rue Vieille-du-Temple, where another barricade is being built up. I place a paving-stone upon it and pass on. Soon I see open shops and passengers in the streets. This tradesmen’s quarter seems to have outlived the riot of Paris. Here one might almost forget the frightful civil war which wages so near, if the conversation of those around did not betray the anguish of the speakers, and if you did not hear the cannon roaring out unceasingly, “People of Paris, listen to me! I am ruining your houses. Listen to me! I am killing your children.”
On the boulevards more barricades; some nearly finished, others scarcely commenced. One constructed near the Porte Saint Martin looks formidable. That spot seems destined to be the theatre of bloody scenes, of riot and revolution. In 1852, corpses laid piled up behind the railing, and all the pavement tinged with blood. I return home profoundly sad; I can scarcely think.—I feel in a dream, and am tired to death; my eyelids droop of themselves; I am like one of those houses there with closed shutters.
Near the Gymnase I meet a friend whom I thought was at Versailles. We shake hands sadly. “When did you come back?” I ask.—“To-day; I followed the troops.”—Then turning back with me he tells me what he has seen. He had a pass, and walked into Paris behind the artillery and the line, as far as the Trocadéro, where the soldiers halted to take up their line of battle. Not a single man was visible along the whole length of the quays. At the Champ de Mars he did not see any insurgents. The musketry seemed very violent near Vaugirard on the Pont Royal and around the Palais de l’Industrie. Shells from Montmartre repeatedly fell on the quays. He could not see much,—however only the smoke in the distance. Not a soul did he meet. Such frightful noise in such solitude was fearful. He continued his way under shelter of the parapet. In one place he saw some gamins cutting huge pieces of flesh off the dead body of a horse that was lying in the path. There must have been fighting there. Down by the water a man fishing while two shells fell in the river, a little higher up, a yard or two from the shore. Then he thought it prudent to get nearer to the Palais de l’Industrie. The fighting was nearly over then, but not quite. The Champs Elysées was melancholy in the extreme; not a soul was there. This was only too literally true; for several corpses lay on the ground. He saw a soldier of the line lying beneath a tree, his forehead covered with blood. The man opened his month as if to speak as he heard the sound of footsteps, the eyelids quivered and then there was a shiver, and all was over. My friend walked slowly away. He saw trees thrown down and bronze lamp-posts broken; glass crackled under his feet as he passed near the ruined kiosques. Every now and then turning his head he saw shells from Montmartre fall on the Arc de Triomphe and break off large fragments of stone. Near the Tuileries was a confused mass of soldiery against a background of smoke. Suddenly he heard the whizzing of a ball and saw the branch of a tree fall. From one end of the avenue to the other, no one; the road glistened white in the sun. Many dead were to be seen lying about as he crossed the Champs Elysées. All the streets to the left were full of soldiery; there had been fighting there, but it was over now. The insurgents had retreated in the direction of the Madeleine. In many places tricolor flags were hanging from the windows, and women were smiling, and waving their handkerchiefs to the troops. The presence of the soldiery seemed to reassure everybody. The concierges were seated before their doors with pipes in their mouths, recounting to attentive listeners the perils from which they had escaped; how balls pierced the mattresses put up at the windows, and how the Federals had got into the houses to hide. One said, “I found three of them in my court; I told a lieutenant they were there, and he had them shot. But I wish they would take them away; I cannot keep dead bodies in the house.” Another was talking with some soldiers, and pointing out a house to them. Four men and a corporal went into the place indicated, and an instant afterwards my friend heard the cracking of rifles. The concierge rubbed his hands and winked at the bystanders, while another was saying, “They respect nothing those Federals; during the battle they came in to steal. They wanted to take away my clothes, my linen, everything I have, but I told them to leave that, that it was not good enough for them, that they ought to go up to the first floor, where they would find clocks and plate, and I gave them the key. Well, Messieurs, you would never believe what they have done, the rascals! They took the key and went and pillaged everything on the first floor!” My friend had heard enough, and passed on. The agitation everywhere was very great. The soldiers went hither and thither, rang the bells, went into the houses; and brought out with them pale-faced prisoners. The inhabitants continued to smile politely, but grimly. Here and there dead bodies were lying in the road. A man who was pushing a truck allowed one of the wheels to pass over a corpse that was lying with its head on the curbstone. “Bah!” said he, “it won’t do him any harm.” The dead and wounded were, however, being carried away as quickly as possible.
Shell Hole—a Convenient Seat. Shot marks: en profil—In the rues—On the boulevards: Plus de lumière!! Plus d’ombre!!—Bullet hole: en face.
The cannon had now ceased roaring, and the fight was still going on close at hand—at the Tuileries doubtless. The townspeople were tranquil and the soldiery disdainful. A strange contrast; all these good citizens smiling and chatting, and the soldiers, who had come to save them at the peril of their lives, looking down upon them with the most careless indifference. My friend reached the Boulevard Haussmann; there the corpses were in large numbers. He counted thirty in less than a hundred yards. Some were lying under the doorways; a dead woman was seated on the bottom stair of one of the houses. Near the church of “La Trinité” were two guns, the reports from which were deafening; several of the shells fell on a bathing establishment in the Rue Taitbout opposite the Boulevard. On the Boulevard itself, not a person was to be seen. Here and there dark masses, corpses doubtless. However, the moment the noise of the report of a gun had died away, and while the gunners were reloading, heads were thrust out from doors to see what damage had been done—to count the number of trees broken, benches torn up, and kiosques overturned. From some of the windows rifles were fired. My friend then reached the street he lived in and went home. He was told that during the morning they had violently bombarded the Collège Chaptal, where the Zouaves of the Commune had fortified themselves; but the engagement was not a long one, they made several prisoners and shot the rest.
My friend shut himself up at home, determined not to go out. But his impatience to see and hear what was going on forced him into the streets again. The Pépinière barracks were occupied by troops of the line; he was able to get to the New Opera without trouble, leaving the Madeleine, where dreadful fighting was going on, to the right. On the way were to be seen piled muskets, soldiers sitting and lying about, and corpses everywhere. He then managed, without incurring too much danger, to reach the Boulevards, where the insurgents, who were then very numerous, had not yet been attacked. He worked for some little time at the barricade, and then was allowed to pass on. It was thus that we had met. Just as we were about to turn up the Faubourg Montmartre a man rushed up saying that three hundred Federals had taken refuge in the church of the Madeleine, followed by gendarmes, and had gone on fighting for more than an hour. “Now,” he finished up by saying, “if the curé were to return he would find plenty of people to bury!”
I am now at home. Evening has come at last; I am jotting down these notes just as they come into my head. I am too much fatigued both in mind and body to attempt to put my thoughts into order. The cannonading is incessant, and the fusillade also. I pity those that die, and those that kill! Oh! poor Paris, when will experience make you wiser?