France in the Nineteenth Century eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 555 pages of information about France in the Nineteenth Century.

France in the Nineteenth Century eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 555 pages of information about France in the Nineteenth Century.
ages, grades, and uniforms,—­boys of fifteen and old men, general officers covered with gold lace, and beggars in rags:  Avengers of Flourens, Children of Pere Duchene, Chasseurs and Zouaves, Lascars, Turcos, and Hussars.  We halted a little farther in the city.  We were very hungry, but all the shops were closed.  I got some milk, but some of my comrades, who wanted wine, made a raid into the cellar of an abandoned house, and were jumped upon by an immense negro dressed like a Turco, whom they took for the devil.  Glad as we all were to be in Paris, the sight as we marched on was most melancholy.  Fighting seemed going on in all directions, especially near the Tuileries and the Place de la Concorde.  The Arch of Triumph was not seriously injured.  On the top of it were two mortars, and the tricolored flag had been replaced by the drapeau rouge.  Detachments were all the time passing us with prisoners.  They were thrust for safe-keeping wherever space could be found.  I am sorry to say that they were cruelly insulted, and, as usual, those who had fought least had the foulest tongues.  There was one party of deserters still in uniform, with their coats turned inside out.  I saw one of the prettiest girls I have ever seen, among the prisoners.  She was about fourteen, dressed as a cantiniere, with a red scarf round her waist.  A smile was on her lips, and she carried herself proudly.

“That morning, May 22, I saw nobody shot.  I think they wanted to take all the prisoners they could to Versailles as trophies of victory.  About one o’clock we received orders to march, and went down the Boulevard Malesherbes.  All the inhabitants seemed to be at their windows, and in many places we were loudly welcomed.  It was strange to me to be marching with arms in my hands, powder-stained and dirty, along streets I had so often trodden gay, careless, and in search of pleasure.

“On the march we passed the Carmelite Convent, where my sister was at school; and as we halted, I was able to run in a moment and see her.  Only an hour or two before; the nuns had had a Communist picket in their yard.

“We marched on to the Parc Monceau [once Louis Philippe’s private pleasure-garden].  There our men were shooting prisoners who had been taken with arms in their hands.  I saw fifteen men fall,—­and then a woman.

“That night volunteers were called for to defend an outlying barricade which had been taren from the insurgents, and of which they were endeavoring to regain possession.  Our captain led a party to this place, and in a tall house that overlooked the barricade he stationed three of us.  There, lying flat on our faces on a billiard-table, we exchanged many shots with the enemy.  A number of National Guards came up and surrendered to us as prisoners.  As soon as one presented himself with the butt of his musket in the air, we made him come under the window, where two of us stood ready to fire in case of treachery, while the third took him to the lieutenant.  In the course of the night I was slightly wounded in the ear.  A surgeon pinned it up with two black pins.

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France in the Nineteenth Century from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.