“Monsieur will see the Colonne de Juillet?” said our coachman, who, as we gazed at the fountains on this day, had exchanged some words with a compatriot. “There has been an accident to” (or at) “the Colonne. Monsieur and mesdames will find it interesting, without doubt.” The wind was too sharp for bandying words. We jumped at the conclusion that the colossal Statue of Liberty, poised gingerly upon the gilt globe on the summit of the monument, had been blown down; bade him drive to the spot, and closed the window.
The Colonne de Juillet stands in the Place de la Bastille. No need to tell the story of the prison-fastness. The useless key hangs in the peaceful halls of Mount Vernon. The leveled stones are built into the Bridge de la Concorde. These “French” titles of squares, bridges, and streets, are sometimes apt, oftener fantastic, not infrequently horribly incongruous. The good Archbishop of Paris was shot upon the site of the old Bastille, in the revolution of 1848, pleading with both parties for the cessation of the fratricidal strife, and dying, like his Lord, with a prayer for his murderers upon his lips. Under the Column of July lie buried the victims of still another revolution—that of 1830,—with some who fell at the neighboring barricade, in 1848. One must carry a pocket record of wars and tumults, if he would keep the run of Parisian émeutes.
Our cocher’s information was correct. A throng gathered about the railed-in base of the column. But Liberty still tip-toed upon the gilded world, and the bronze shaft was intact.
“If Monsieur would like to get out”—said the driver at the door—“he can learn all about the accident. Le pauvre diable leaped—it is now less than an hour since.”
“Leaped!” Then the interesting accident was described. A man had jumped down from the top of the monument. They often did it.
We ought to have been shocked. But the absurdity of the misunderstanding, the man’s dramatic enjoyment of the situation, and his manner of communicating the news, rather tempted us to amusement.
“Was he killed?”
“Ah! without doubt, Madame! The colonne has one hundred and fifty-two feet of height. Perfectly killed, Monsieur!”
Impelled by a wicked spirit of perversity, or a more complex caprice, I offered another query:
“What do you suppose he thought of while falling?”