Paris, February 15, 1831

This is Mardi gras, the last day of the Carnival.  We were out in the carriage this morning to see the masks on the boulevards; there were a great many masks and crowds of people, whilst there were mobs and rows going on in another part of the town.  The people have quite destroyed the poor Archbishop’s house, because on Sunday night the Duc de Bordeaux’s bust was brought, and Mass was said for the Duc de Berry.  They have taken all his books, furniture, and everything, and they wanted to throw some priests in the Seine, and they are breaking the things in the churches and taking down the crosses.  All the National Guard is out.

These disturbances were the last struggles of the party who had not been satisfied by the spectacle of the son of Philippe Egalite, with the tricolor flag in one hand, embracing the ancient Lafayette on the balcony above the Place de Greve.  Their animosity against the Church was the ground-swell of the storm which had washed away Charles X himself.  The Sacrilege Law introduced in 1825 had revived the barbarous mediaeval penalty of amputating the hand of the offender.  Charles’s attempt to reintroduce primogeniture by declaring the French principle of the equal division of property to be inconsistent with the principle of monarchy had irritated the people less than the encouragement he had given to monastic corporations which were contrary to law.  The controversy which followed between the ecclesiastics and their opponents was the cause of the repeal of the freedom of the Press; and when he had stifled controversy his next step was the suspension of Parliament.  Whence followed the events which so abruptly disturbed his evening rubber at St. Cloud on July 25th.

These outbreaks of the republican anti-clerical party to which Lady Fanny refers were soon calmed; a few weeks later the soldiers had no more work to do, and a grand review was held in the Champ de Mars.

    Paris, March 27, 1831

We all went in the carriage to the heights of the Trocadero and there got out.  It was very pretty to look down at the Champ de Mars, which was quite full of soldiers, who sometimes ranged themselves in lines and sometimes in nice little bundles and squares.  In front of the Ecole Militaire was a fine tent for the Queen and Princesses.  The King and the Duc de Nemours rode about, and there were some loud cries of “Vive le Roi.”  Less than a year ago in the same place we saw old Charles X reviewing his soldiers and heard “Vive le Roi” shouted for him and saw white flags waving about the Champs de Mars instead of tricolor.  It seems so odd that it should all be changed in so short a time, and spoils the “Vive le Roi” very much, because it makes one think they do not care really for him.

    Paris, April 2, 1831