Well might General Marmont tremble. From the remote sections and narrow streets the populace were thronging to central points. The boulevards, from the Place de la Bastile to the Madeleine, presented a dense mass, whose angry looks, loud words, and violent gestures indicated that they would fight with desperation should the struggle once commence. Many of them were skilled in the use of arms. They knew how to construct barricades. Every house was a fortress from whose windows and roof the populace could hurl destruction upon the heads of the troops, wedged in the narrow streets. And General Marmont had reason to fear that of the small force under his command six thousand would fraternize with the people upon the report of the first musket.
The war-worn marshal skillfully arranged his forces, evidently copying the operations of Napoleon in his famous repulse of the attack of the sections upon the Convention. Three battalions were placed at the Carrousel, which might be regarded as a vast fortress in the centre of the city, walled in by the Tuileries and the Louvre. Three battalions were stationed in the Place de la Concorde, with two pieces of artillery. Three battalions of the line were ranged along the boulevards from the Place of the Bastile to the Madeleine. General Marmont did not wait for an attack to be made upon him. He sent out detachments to scour the streets and to prevent the erection of barricades. Reports had reached him that several were in process of construction in the most narrow streets.
Incidents of the battle.
The first barricade encountered was in the Rue St. Honoré, nearly in front of the Palais Royal. The troops endeavored to disperse the defenders by a volley in the air. As this produced no effect, they opened upon them with a point-blank discharge, by which several were wounded, and one man was killed. The other detachments met with no opposition, but removed several barricades, and dispersed tumultuous gatherings. The agitation was hourly on the increase. Random shots were heard in different parts of the city. The dead body of the man shot while defending the barricade was paraded in blood-stained ghastliness through the streets, exciting frenzied passions. The troops of the line, so called, who were known to be in sympathy with the people, and whom General Marmont distrusted, were received with shouts of applause wherever they appeared.
Fraternization of the troops and the populace.
Retreat of the king.
A vast concourse of the people had assembled in front of the Palais Royal. A detachment of the line was sent to guard the palace. The troops and the populace mingled together, talking and laughing. As the multitude pressed the troops, they opened their ranks and let the living torrent pass through, amidst loud cheers. Several armorers' shops were broken open, and it was manifest that vigorous preparations were going on in anticipation of the struggle of the succeeding day. Still the king, with an infatuation which is inexplicable, took no measures to add to the military strength at the disposal of General Marmont. Thus passed the day of the 27th. It seems that at night the king became somewhat alarmed, for at eleven o'clock he issued an ordinance from his retreat at St. Cloud declaring Paris to be in a state of siege.
During all the hours of the night of the 27th there reigned the calm which precedes the storm. The leaders of the Liberal party—among whom were to be found many of the most intelligent men, the wisest statesmen, and the most accomplished generals in France—had fully decided to submit their cause to the arbitrament of battle. Calm deliberation, organization, carefully matured plans, were requisite to meet the marshalled forces of the monarchy. It was no longer a mere street insurrection, but a kingdom was to be revolutionized. Immediately a new and tremendous impulse was secretly given to the movement. Committees were busy. Agents were active, invested with authority which the populace instinctively recognized without inquiring into the source from which it emanated.
With the early light of the next morning—the 28th—the result of the operations of the night was manifest. In the vicinity of the Place of the Bastile there is a portion of the city densely populated, called the Faubourg St. Antoine. It is inhabited by a class in a humble condition of life, who have ever taken a very prominent part in all the insurrections which have agitated Paris. Reckless of their own lives as well as of the lives of others, they have ever been the most desperate and the most dreaded fighters in every conflict in the streets.
All Paris in arms.
With the morning dawn the faubourg seemed to be swarming. Guided by some mysterious but common impulse, a huge and disorderly mass—ever increasing—of maddened men and equally maddened women, armed with swords, muskets, pickaxes, and every other conceivable weapon of offense or defense, surged along through the Rue St. Denis and along the crowded boulevards towards the Place of the Madeleine, which was occupied by the military. At the same time, at several important points along the boulevards, the people were busy—men, women, and boys—tearing up the pavements, seizing and overturning omnibuses and carts, cutting down the trees, pitching heavy articles of furniture out of the windows of the houses, and thus constructing barricades.