Читать книгу Paris under the Commune - John Leighton - Страница 18

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It is ten o'clock in the evening, and if I were not so tired I would go to the Hôtel de Ville, which, I am told, has been taken possession of by the National Guards; the 18th of March is continuing the 31st of October. But the events of this day have made me so weary that I can hardly write all I have seen and heard. On the outer boulevards the wine shops are crowded with tipsy people, the drunken braggarts who boast they have made a revolution. When a stroke succeeds there are plenty of rascals ready to say: I did it. Drinking, singing, and talking are the order of the day. At every step you come upon "piled arms." At the corner of the Passage de l'Elysée-des-Beaux-Arts I met crowds of people, some lying on the ground; here a battalion standing at ease but ready to march; and at the entrance of the Rue Blanche and the Rue Fontaine were some stones, ominously posed one on the other, indicating symptoms of a barricade. In the Rue des Abbesses I counted three cannons and a mitrailleuse, menacing the Rue des Martyrs. In the Rue des Acacias, a man had been arrested, and was being conducted by National Guards to the guard-house: I heard he was a thief. Such arrests are characteristic features in a Parisian émeute. Notwithstanding these little scenes the disorder is not excessive, and but for the multitude of men in uniform one might believe it the evening of a popular fête; the victors are amusing themselves.

[Illustration: Sentinels, Rue Du Val De Grâce and Boulevard St. Michel.]

Among the Federals this evening there are very few linesmen; perhaps they have gone to their barracks to enjoy their meal of soup and bread.

Upon the main boulevards noisy groups are commenting upon the events of the day. At the corner of the Rue Drouot an officer of the 117th Battalion is reading in a loud voice, or rather reciting, for he knows it all by heart, the proclamation of M. Picard, the official poster of the afternoon.

"The Government appeals to you to defend your city, your home, your

children, and your property.

"Some frenzied men, commanded by unknown chiefs, direct against

Paris the guns defended from, the Prussians.

"They oppose force to the National Guard and the army.

"Will you suffer it?

"Will you, under the eyes of the strangers ready to profit by our

discord, abandon Paris to sedition?

"If you do not extinguish it in the germ, the Republic and France

will be ruined for ever.

"Their destiny is in your hands.

"The Government desires that you should hold your arms energetically to maintain the law and preserve the Republic from anarchy. Gather round your leaders; it is the only means of escaping ruin and the domination of the foreigner.

"The Minister of the Interior,