A Residence in France. James Fenimore Cooper

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СКАЧАТЬ of all diseases, and, for a moment, we found ourselves running with the rest. A jump or two sufficed, however, and we stopped. Two soldiers, one a National Guard, and the other a young conscript, belonging to the line, caught my eye, and knowing there was no danger, we had time to stop and laugh at them. The National Guard was a little Mayeux-looking fellow, with an abdomen like a pumpkin, and he had caught hold of his throat, as if it were actually to prevent his heart from jumping out of his mouth. A caricature of fright could scarcely be more absurd. The young conscript, a fair red-haired youth, was as white as a sheet, and he stood with his eyes and mouth open, like one who thought he saw a ghost, immoveable as a statue. He was sadly frightened, too. The boy would probably have come to, and proved a good soldier in the end; but as for Mr. Mayeux, although scarcely five feet high, he appeared as if he could never make himself short enough. He had evidently fancied the whole affair a good joke, up to that precise moment, when, for the first time, the realities of a campaign burst upon his disordered faculties. The troops in general, while they pricked up their ears, disdained even to shoulder their arms. For those on the bridge, there was, in truth, no danger, although the nearness of the volley, and the suddenness of the alarm, were well adapted to set a crowd in motion. The papers next day, said one or two had been slain by this discharge, which actually came from the revolters.

      You will probably be surprised, when I tell you that I had an engagement to dine to-day, with a gentleman who fills a high situation near the person of the King. He had sent me no notice of a postponement, and as I had seen him pass in the cortège, I was reminded that the hour to dress was near. Accordingly, I returned home, in order to prove to him that I was as indifferent as any Frenchman could be, to the events we had all just witnessed. I found a dozen people assembled in the drawing-room of Madame——, at six o'clock precisely, the same as if Paris were quite tranquil. The General had not yet returned, but I was enabled to report that he had entered the palace in safety. A moment before the dinner was announced, he returned, and brought the information that the revolt was virtually suppressed, a few desperate individuals, who had thrown themselves into a church, alone holding out. He was in high spirits, and evidently considered the affair a triumph to Louis-Philippe.

LETTER V.

       Table of Contents

      National Guards in the Court of the Palace.—Unclaimed Dead in the Morgue.—View of the Scene of Action.—A blundering Artillerist.—Singular Spectacle.—The Machinations of the Government—Martial Law.—Violations of the Charter.—Laughable Scene in the Carrousel.—A refractory Private of the National Guard.

      Dear——,

      The day after the contest was closed, I went to the Louvre, where I usually met Mr. M——, who was busy copying. He was almost alone, in the long and gorgeous galleries, as in the days of the cholera; but we got a view of the National Guards that had been concerned in the affair of the previous day, who were drawn up in the court of the palace to receive the thanks of the King. There could not have been five thousand of them, but all might not have been present.

      From the Louvre I went to took at the principal scene of action. A collection of some of the unclaimed dead was in the Morgue, and every one was allowed to enter. There were fifty or sixty bodies in this place, and among them were a few women and children, who had probably been killed by accident. Nearly all had fallen by gun-shot wounds, principally musket-balls; but a few had been killed by grape. As the disaffected had fought under cover most of the time, I fancy the cavalry did little in this affair. It was whispered that agents of the police were present to watch the countenances and actions of the spectators, with a view to detect the disaffected.

      As we had several of Napoleon's soldiers at dinner yesterday, and they had united to praise the military character of the position taken by the revellers, I was curious to examine it. The Rue St. Méry is narrow, and the houses are high. The tower of the church is a little advanced, so as to enfilade it, in a manner, and the paving-stones had been used to make barricades, as in 1830. These stones are much larger than our own, are angular, and of a size that works very well into a wall; and the materials being plenty, a breastwork, that is proof against everything but artillery, is soon formed by a crowd. Two streets entered the Rue St. Méry near each other, but not in a right line, so that the approach along each is commanded by the house that stands across its end. One of these houses appears to have been a citadel of the disaffected, and most of the fighting was at and near this spot. Artillery had been brought up against the house in question, which was completely riddled, though less injured by round-shot than one could have thought possible. The windows were broken, and the ceilings of the upper rooms were absolutely torn to pieces by musket-balls, that had entered on the rise. Some twenty or thirty dead were found in this dwelling.

      I had met Col.—, in the course of the morning, and we visited this spot together. He told me that curiosity had led him to penetrate as far as this street, which faces the citadel of the revolters, the previous day, and he showed me a porte-cochère, under which he had taken shelter, during a part of the attack. The troops engaged were a little in advance of him, and he described them as repeatedly recoiling from the fire of the house, which, at times, was rather sharp. The troops, however, were completely exposed, and fought to great disadvantage. Several hundreds must have been killed and wounded at and near this spot.

      There existed plain proof of the importance of nerve in battle, in a shot that just appeared sticking in the wall of one of the lateral buildings, nearly opposite the porte-cochère, where Col.—had taken shelter. The artillerist who pointed the gun from which it had been discharged, had the two sides of the street to assist his range, and yet his shot had hit one of the lateral buildings, at no great distance from the gun, and at a height that would have sent it far above the chimneys of the house at which it was fired! But any one in the least acquainted with life, knows that great allowances must be made for the poetry, when he reads of "charges," "free use of the bayonet," and "braving murderous discharges of grape." Old and steady troops do sometimes display extraordinary fortitude, but I am inclined to think that the most brilliant things are performed by those who have been drilled just long enough to obey orders and act together, but who are still so young as not to know exactly the amount of the risk they run. Extraordinary acts of intrepidity are related of the revolters on this occasion, which are most probably true, as this desperate self-devotion, under a state of high excitement, enters fully into the composition of the character of the French, who are more distinguished for their dashing than for their enduring qualities.

      The Rue St. Méry exhibited proofs of the late contest, for some distance, but nowhere had the struggle been so fierce as at the house just mentioned. The church had been yielded the last, but it did not strike me that there had been as sharp fighting near it, as at the other place.

      It was a strange spectacle to witness the population of a large town crowding through its streets, curious to witness the scene of a combat that so nearly touched their own interests, and yet apparently regarding the whole with entire indifference to everything but the physical results. I thought the sympathies of the throng were with the conquered rather than with their conquerors, and this more from admiration of their prowess, than from any feeling of a political character, for no one appeared to know who the revolters were.

      In the course of the morning I met—in the street. He is one of the justest-minded men of my acquaintance, and I have never known him attempt to exaggerate the ill conduct of his political opponents, or to extenuate the errors of those to whom he belongs. Speaking of this affair, he was of opinion that the government had endeavoured to bring it on, with the certainly that success would strengthen them, but, at the same time, he thought it useless to deny that there was a plot to overturn the present dynasty. According to his impressions, the spontaneous movements of the disaffected were so blended with those that proceeded from the machinations of the government to provoke a premature explosion, that it was not easy to say which predominated, or where the line СКАЧАТЬ