The Shadow of Great Britain

Of course, occasionally mixed in were a few faces whose language was crude, resembling those of bandits, saying: “Let’s go rob!”

As the hearse rounded the Vendome Monument, someone noticed the die-hard Royalist representative, Duke Fitz-James, standing on a balcony with his hat on, and hurled several stones at him.

A rooster on one of the flagpoles was torn down and dragged through the mud. At the Saint-Martin Gate, a constitutional soldier was injured by a sword, and an officer from the 12th Light Cavalry shouted loudly: “I am a republican.”

The students from the Polytechnic School, who had been ordered to stay on campus, suddenly appeared, and people shouted: “Long live the Republic!”

The aggressive crowd, like a river in flood, with the waves behind pushing those in front, merged with the funeral procession from the suburb of Saint-Antoine to the Bastille, stirring the atmosphere even more.

The crowd covered the square from the bridgehead to the Bourdon River, filling the Bastille Square and extending along the boulevard all the way to the Saint-Martin Gate.

The funeral commenced; the noisy crowd suddenly fell silent as Lafayette stepped onto the stage to bid farewell to Lamarck. At this solemn moment, everyone took off their hats, and every heart was pounding.

Suddenly, a black-clad rider appeared in the crowd, holding a red flag high. This red flag sparked a storm, with voices roaring like the tide from Bourdon Boulevard to the Austerlitz Bridge.

A group of young men, amid cheers, pushed Lamarck’s hearse towards the Austerlitz Bridge, accompanying Lafayette’s carriage along the Morland River.

On the left bank of the Morland River, the city government’s cavalry blocked the path at the bridgehead, while Dragon Cavalry emerged from Celle Saint-Cernin on the right side. The youths following Lafayette spotted them and shouted: “Dragon Cavalry! Dragon Cavalry!”

The Dragon Cavalry advanced slowly in silence, their handguns in their holsters, their sabers sheathed, and their carbines in their gun-racks, observing the crowd with somber expressions.

Lafayette, seated in his carriage, approached them, and the Dragon Cavalry parted to let the carriage pass, then closed ranks again. They stood two hundred paces apart from the crowd, the thick smell of gunpowder causing women to scatter in fear.

Thereafter, opinions varied widely in Paris. Some said the arsenal’s bugle sounded the charge, others that a child handed the Dragon Cavalry a dagger. But regardless, the fact remains that three gunshots suddenly rang out.

The first shot killed Captain Reille of the Dragon Cavalry, the second shot killed a deaf old woman closing her window on Rue Contrescarpe, and the third grazed an officer’s epaulet.

A woman in the crowd screamed: “It’s too early to make a move!”

But it was too late now; the sound of hooves followed, and an entire squadron of Dragon Cavalry charged from the barracks by the Morland River, raising their sabers like a violent hurricane, sweeping through everything.

Stones flew, gunfire erupted, many jumped off the riverside, some pulled up wooden stakes, others fired pistols, and thus a barricade formed. The youths, pressed back, pulled the hearse, running swiftly through the Austerlitz Bridge towards the security police.

Four carbine-wielding cavalry squads charged forward, the Dragon Cavalry slashing and killing anyone in their path. People scattered in all directions, and within moments, Paris was set ablaze with fury and screams all around.

In June 1832, revolution broke out once more.

Victor Hugo, June 5, 1832, in Paris.

…

Since the cholera epidemic began, the death toll in Paris has reached seventeen to eighteen thousand.

Under the threat of death and disease, amid the background of a poor agricultural harvest, the tense atmosphere in Paris continued to rise. There was a flame of anger and hatred in everyone’s eyes; recently, I dared not go out in my police uniform alone, as common people firmly believed the rumors of police poisoning.

I knew that if they spotted an isolated policeman on the street, a beating would be a fortunate escape granted by God.

Yet, even in such extraordinary times, with the police force stretched to its limit, we still had to carry out many other orders, cooperating with the National Guard and the army. Under such circumstances, facing superior numbers, we often had to make concessions in group incidents.

Privately, we all joked: “Cholera has claimed so many lives, and it might even end up burying Louis Philippe’s new dynasty as well.”

All perceptive people knew that General Lamarck’s funeral could very well be the spark of the uprising.

On June 5th, my lads and I mingled with the funeral crowd in plain clothes, and sure enough, I gleaned much unexpected information and relayed it promptly. Among all the bad news, the most fortunate was learning that the Legitimate Dynasty faction did not participate. This time, it was just the republicans and Bonapartists closely aligned.

That the republicans and Bonapartists would unite, ha! What a peculiar thing.

They seemed to believe that Napoleon’s name stood for democracy and freedom and that the signal for this democracy and freedom emanated from Napoleon’s exile on Saint Helena Island.

I followed them to the funeral site and saw a black-clad rider holding a red flag appearing on the square; at that moment, I realized the seriousness of the situation. As expected, the crowd started chanting thunderously, “Long live the Republic!”