But this morality is interrupting the thread of my story. As the king and his escort approached the east end of the Boulevards, a deadly machine, prepared by a man named Fieschi, (infernal machine maker to his Majesty,) was discharged from the window of a small wine store, and made havoc of the crowd; the king, with his two sons, by a special Providence, standing unhurt amidst the slaughter—not a hair was singed, not a garment was rent!—He continued to the end of the line, and returned over the scene of the murder. His cool and undaunted countenance gave a favourable opinion of his courage; and his danger, accompanied by such cruel circumstances, has turned the sympathies of a great many in his favour, who cared not a straw for him yesterday. Of the twelve persons killed, Marshal Mortier, Duke of Treviso, is the most distinguished. Eighteen persons were wounded. I was so near as to smell the gunpowder, which was quite near enough for a foreigner. I have since visited the battle ground—what an atrocious spectacle!
The author of this murder is a Corsican, who has served a long time his apprenticeship to villainy in the French army. I have seen his machine: it is composed of a series of gun-barrels, and is a bungling contrivance. The French, with all their experience, don’t shine in this kind of manufacture. It would seem a most contemptible thing in the eyes of a Kentucky rifleman. This fellow’s fame, however, is assured; he will stand conspicuous in the catalogue of regicide villains. The others have all aimed at a single bird, but he at the whole flock. One is almost tempted to regret that Ravaillac’s boots are out of fashion. He attempted to escape through a back window, but the bursting of one of his guns disabled him. His head is fractured and mangled; they expect, however, that, by the care of his physician, he may get well enough to be hanged.
The last scene, the dismissal of the troops, was in the Place Vendôme, where I procured a convenient view of the ceremony. I must not forget, that in this place I lost my faithful guide, who had borne the fatigues and adventures of the day with me. Whether she had wandered from the way, or wearied had sat down, or had stopped to garter up her stockings, is uncertain—certain it is that she was lost here in the crowd, nec post oculis est reddita nostris.
On the west of the great column, the statue of Bonaparte all the while peering over him, sat the king on horseback, saluting the brigades as they passed by. His three sons attended him, and some of his generals and foreign ambassadors; and the queen and her daughters, and Madame Adelaide, the sister, and such like fine people, were on a gallery overhead, fanned by the national flags. As the queen descended, there was a shout from the multitude more animated than any during the whole day. The king sat here several hours, and received the affection of his troops bareheaded, bow following bow in perpetual succession, and each bow accompanied by a smile—just such a smile as one is obliged to put on when one meets an amiable and pretty woman whom one loves, in a fit of the cholic.
July 29th.
All Paris was so overwhelmed with grief for the death of General Mortier, and the “narrow escape of the king,” that it blighted entirely the immense enjoyment we had expected for this day—the last and best of the “three glorious days.” Ball-rooms and theatres were erected with extraordinary preparation all over the Champs Elysées, and the fireworks were designed to be the most brilliant ever exhibited in Europe. Multitudes had come from distant countries to see them. I say nothing of the private losses and disappointments; of the booths and fixtures put up and now to be removed, and the consequent ruin of individuals; or of the sugar-plums, candies, gingerbread-nuts, barley-sugar, and all the rancid butter of Paris bought up to make short cakes—all broken up by this one man; and the full cup of pleasure dashed from our very lips to the ground. We were to have such an infinite feast, too, furnished by the government. As for me, I was delighted a whole week in advance, and now—I am very sorry.
Under the Empire, and before, and long after, it was a common part of a great festival here to have thrown to the people bread and meat, and wine, and to set them to scramble for the possession, as they do ravens, or hounds in a kennel, or the beasts at the Menagerie. To put the half-starved population up as an amusement for their better-fed neighbours; to pelt them with pound loaves and little pies; to set a hurricane of sausages to rain over their heads; and to see the hungry clowns gape with enormous mouths, and scramble for these eatables, and to see the officers,—facetious fellows, employed to heave out these provisions,—deceive the expectant mouths by feints and tricks, by throwing sometimes a loaf of leather, or of cork, to leap from one skull to another—what infinite amusement! One of the benefits of the last Revolution was to put an end to this dishonour of the French nation. This is all I have to say of the “three glorious days.” I must trust to-morrow to furnish me something for this blank space. Good night.
Rue St. Anne, August 2nd.
Louis Philippe has had nothing but trouble with these French people ever since he undertook their government. He has about the same enjoyment of his royalty, as one sea-sick, has of the majesty of the ocean. He is lampooned in the newspapers, caricatured in the print-shops, hawked about town, placarded upon the walls of every street, and gibbeted upon every gateway and lamp-post of the city. In 1831, a revolt was suppressed by Marshal Soult at Lyons; another was got up in the same place in 1834, in which there were six days’ fighting, six thousand slain, and eighteen hundred crammed into the prisons. In Paris, there were three days’ skirmishing at the Cloister St. Merri, in which were five hundred arrests in one night; and one hundred and fifty are on trial (the “Procès Monstre,” so much talked of,) in the Chamber of Peers; and now we have, superadded, this affair of Fieschi, with great expectations for the future.