I slept; I dreamt of a locomotive engine blowing up and turning into the last scene of a pantomime, with “state of siege” displayed in colored fires. I dreamt I lived next door to an undertaker, or a trunk-maker, or a manufacturer of fire-works. I awoke to the rattle of musketry in the distance—soon, too soon, to be followed by the roar of the cannon.
I am not a fighting man. “'Tis not my vocation, Hal.” I am not ashamed to say that I did not gird my sword on my thigh, and sally out to conquer or to die; that I did not ensconce myself at a second floor window, and pick off à la Charles IX., the leaders of the enemy below.—Had I been “our own correspondent,” I might have written, in the intervals of fighting, terrific accounts of the combat on cartridge paper, with a pen made from a bayonet, dipped in gunpowder and gore. Had I been “our own artist,” I might have mounted a monster barricade—waving the flag of Freedom with one hand, and taking sketches with the other. But being neither, I did not do any thing of the kind. I will tell you what I did: I withdrew, with seven Englishmen as valorous as myself, to an apartment, which I have reason to believe is below the basement floor; and there, in company with sundry carafons of particular cognac, and a large box of cigars, passed the remainder of the day.
I sincerely hope that I shall never pass such another. We rallied each other, talked, laughed, and essayed to sing; but the awful consciousness of the horror of our situation hung over us all—the knowledge that within a few hundred yards of us God's image was being wantonly defaced; that in the streets hard by, in the heart of the most civilized city of the world, within a stone's throw of all that is gay, luxurious, splendid, in Paris, men—speaking the same language, worshiping the same God—were shooting each other like wild beasts; that every time we heard the sharp crackling of the musketry, a message of death was gone forth to hundreds; that every time the infernal artillery—“nearer, clearer, deadlier than before”—broke, roaring on the ear, the ground was cumbered with corpses. Glorious war! I should like the amateurs of sham fights, showy reviews, and scientific ball practice, to have sat with us in the cellar that same Thursday, and listened to the rattle and the roar. I should like them to have been present, when [pg 400] venturing up during a lull, about half-past four, and glancing nervously from our porte-cochère, a regiment of dragoons came thundering past, pointing their pistols at the windows, and shouting at those within, with oaths to retire from them. I should like the young ladies who waltz with the “dear Lancers,” to have seen these Lancers, in stained white cloaks, with their murderous weapons couched. I should like those who admire the Horse Guards—the prancing steeds, the shining casques and cuirasses, the massive epaulets and dangling sabres, the trim mustache, irreproachable buckskins, and dazzling jack-boots—to have seen these cuirassiers gallop by: their sorry horses covered with mud and sweat; their haggard faces blackened with gunpowder; their shabby accoutrements and battered helmets. The bloody swords, the dirt, the hoarse voices, unkempt beards. Glorious war! I think the sight of those horrible troopers would do more to cure its admirers than all the orators of the Peace Society could do in a twelve-month!
We dined—without the ladies, of course—and sat up until very late; the cannon and musketry roaring meanwhile, till nearly midnight. Then it stopped—
To recommence again, however, on the next (Friday) morning. Yesterday they had been fighting all day on the Boulevards, from the Madeleine to the Temple. To-day, they were murdering each other at Belleville, at La Chapelle St. Denis, at Montmartre. Happily the firing ceased at about nine o'clock, and we heard no more.
I do not, of course, pretend to give any account of what really took place in the streets on Thursday; how many barricades were erected, and how they were defended or destroyed. I do not presume to treat of the details of the combat myself, confining what I have to say to a description of what I really saw of the social aspect of the city. The journals have given full accounts of what brigades executed what manœuvres, of how many were shot to death here, and how many bayoneted there.
On Friday at noon, the embargo on the cabs was removed—although that on the omnibuses continued; and circulation for foot passengers became tolerably safe, in the Quartier St. Honoré, and on the Boulevards. I went into an English chemist's shop in the Rue de la Paix, for a bottle of soda-water. The chemist was lying dead up-stairs, shot. He was going from his shop to another establishment he had in the Faubourg Poissonière, to have the shutters shut, apprehending a disturbance. Entangled for a moment on the Boulevard, close to the Rue Lepelletier, among a crowd of well-dressed persons, principally English and Americans, an order was given to clear the Boulevard. A charge of Lancers was made, the men firing their pistols wantonly among the flying crowd; and the chemist was shot dead. Scores of similar incidents took place on that dreadful Thursday afternoon.—Friends, acquaintances of my own, had friends, neighbors, relations, servants, killed. Yet it was all accident, chance-medley—excusable, of course. How were the soldiers to distinguish between insurgents and sight-seers? These murders were, after all, but a few of the thorns to be found in the rose-bush of glorious war!
From the street which in old Paris times used to go by the name of the Rue Royale, and which I know by the token that there is an English pastry-cook's on the right-hand side, coming down; where in old days I used (a small lad then at the Collège Bourbon) to spend my half-holidays in consuming real English cheesecakes, and thinking of home—in the Rue Royale, now called, I think, Rue de la République; I walked on to the place, and by the Boulevard de la Madeleine, des Italiens, and so by the long line of that magnificent thoroughfare, to within a few streets of the Porte St. Denis. Here I stopped, for the simple reason that a hedge of soldiery bristled ominously across the road, close to the Rue de Faubourg Montmartre, and that the commanding officer would let neither man, woman, nor child pass. The Boulevards were crowded, almost impassable in fact, with persons of every grade, from the “lion” of the Jockey Club, or the English nobleman, to the pretty grisette in her white cap, and the scowling, bearded citizen, clad in blouse and calotte, and looking very much as if he knew more of a barricade than he chose to aver. The houses on either side of the way bore frightful traces of the combat of the previous day. The Maison Doré, the Café Anglais, the Opéra Comique, Tortoni's, the Jockey Club, the Belle Jardinière, the Hôtel des Affaires Etrangères, and scores, I might almost say hundreds of the houses had their windows smashed, or the magnificent sheets of plate-glass starred with balls; the walls pockmarked with bullets: seamed and scarred and blackened with gunpowder. A grocer, close to the Rue de Marivaux, told me that he had not been able to open his door that morning for the dead bodies piled on the step before it. Round all the young trees (the old trees were cut down for former barricades in February and June, 1848), the ground shelves a little in a circle; in these circles there were pools of blood. The people—the extraordinary, inimitable, consistently inconsistent French people—were unconcernedly lounging about, looking at these things with pleased yet languid curiosity. They paddled in the pools of blood; they traced curiously the struggles of some wounded wretch, who, shot or sabred on the curbstone, had painfully, deviously, dragged himself (so the gouts of blood showed) to a door-step—to die. They felt the walls, pitted by musket bullets; they poked their walking-sticks into the holes made by the cannon-balls. It was as good as a play to them.
The road on either side was lined with dragoons armed cap-a-pié. The poor tired horses were munching the forage with which the muddy ground was strewn; and the troopers sprawled listlessly about, smoking their short pipes, and mending their torn costume or shattered accoutrements. Indulging, however, in the dolce far niente, as they seemed to be, they were ready for [pg 401] action at a moment's notice. There was, about two o'clock, an alerte—a rumor of some tumult toward the Rue St. Denis. One solitary trumpet sounded “boot and saddle;” and, with almost magical celerity, each dragoon twisted a quantity of forage into a species of rope, which he hung over his saddle-bow, crammed his half-demolished loaf into his holsters, buckled on his cuirass; then, springing himself on his horse, sat motionless: each cavalier with his pistol cocked, and his finger on the trigger. The crowd thickened; and in the road itself there was a single file of cabs, carts, and even private carriages. Almost every moment detachments of prisoners, mostly blouses, passed, escorted by cavalry; then a yellow flag was seen, announcing the approach of an ambulance, or long covered vehicle, filled with wounded soldiers; then hearses; more prisoners, more ambulances, orderly dragoons at full gallop, orderlies, military surgeons in their cocked hats and long frock coats, broughams with smart general officers inside, all smoking.
As to the soldiers, they appear never to leave off smoking. They smoke in the guard-room, off duty, and even when on guard. An eye-witness of the combat told me that many of the soldiers had, when charging, short pipes in their mouths, and the officers, almost invariably, smoked cigars.