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Updated: May 29, 2025
"We are provisional," returned Ledru-Rollin, "but the Republic is not!" M. Cremieux took the pen from Lamartine's hands, scratched out the word "provisional" at the end of the third line and wrote beside it: "actual." "The actual government? Very well!" said Ledru-Rollin, with a slight shrug of the shoulder. The seal of the City of Paris was on the table.
Upon these grounds, Ledru-Rollin submitted on June 11, 1849, a motion impeaching Bonaparte and his Ministers. Instigated by the wasp-stings of Thiers, he even allowed himself to be carried away to the point of threatening to defend the Constitution by all means, even arms in hand. The Mountain rose as one man, and repeated the challenge.
Ledru-Rollin, Louis Blanc, and Flocon tried to lead the way to ill, but Lamartine, whose heroism passes belief and activity passes human power, won the victory over them, found himself on Sunday, and again yesterday, sustained by all Paris, and has not only conquered but CONCILIATED them, and everybody is now firmly of opinion that the Republic will be established quietly." . . . "But while there are no difficulties from the disorderly but what can easily be overcome, the want of republican and political experience, combined with vanity and self-reliance and idealism, may throw impediments in the way of what the wisest wish, VIZ., two elected chambers and a president."
While a debate was going on ten days after it assembled, an alarm was raised that a fierce crowd was about to pour into its place of meeting. Lamartine harangued the mob, but this time without effect. His day was over. He was received with shouts of "You have played long enough upon the lyre! A bas Lamartine!" Ledru-Rollin tried to harangue in his turn, but with no better effect.
Five per cents are at 74, potatoes cost 8 cents the bushel, at the market a pike can be bought for 20 sous. M. Ledru-Rollin is trying to force the country into war, M. Prudhon is trying to force it into bankruptcy. General Cavaignac takes part in the sessions of the Assembly in a grey waist-coat, and passes his time gazing at the women in the galleries through big ivory opera-glasses.
Ledru-Rollin read aloud the phrase: "The Provisional Government declares that the Provisional Government of France is the Republican Government " "The word 'provisional' occurs twice," he commented. "That is so," said the others. "One of them at least must be effaced," added Ledru-Rollin.
Ledru-Rollin, after a terrible night of vacillation, resolved to throw himself on Lamartine's generosity. He went to him at daybreak and told him of the impending danger. At once Lamartine sent him to call out the National Guard, while he himself summoned the Garde Mobile.
All three remained silent, thus failing in their duty and destiny. From all sides came shouts of: "The closure!" The Assembly had reached a state in which it would not listen and could no longer hear. M. Ledru-Rollin appeared in the tribune. From every bench the cry arose: "At last!" Silence ensued. Ledru-Rollin's speech had a physical effect as it were; it was coarse, but powerful.
Ranville Ranville of the Foreign Office, who might give some news of the Spanish squabble; and Botherby, who has suddenly sprung up into note because he is intimate with the French Revolution, and visits Ledru-Rollin and Lamartine. And these, with a couple more who are amis de la maison, made up the twenty, whom Mrs. Timmins thought she might safely invite to her little dinner.
This, too, was invaded, and for more than two hours I remained there. The spectacle was a curious one everybody was shouting, everybody was writing a list of a new Government and reading it aloud. In one corner a man incessantly blew a trumpet, in another a patriot beat a drum. At one end was a table, round which the mayors had been sitting, and from this vantage ground Felix Pyat and other virtuous citizens harangued, and, as I understood, proclaimed the Commune and themselves, for it was impossible to distinguish a word. The atmosphere was stifling, and at last I got out of a window on to the landing in the courtyard. Here citizens had established themselves everywhere. I had the pleasure to see the "venerable" Blanqui led up the steps by his admirers. This venerable man had, horresco referens, been pushed up in a corner, where certain citizens had kicked his venerable frame, and pulled his venerable white beard, before they had recognised who he was. By this time it appeared to be understood that a Government had been constituted, consisting of Blanqui, Ledru-Rollin, Delescluze, Louis Blanc, Flourens, and others. Flourens, whom I now perceived for the first time, went through a corridor, with some armed men, and I and others followed him. We got first into an antechamber, and then into a large room, where a great row was going on. I did not get farther than close to the door, and consequently could not well distinguish what was passing, but I saw Flourens standing on a table, and I heard that he was calling upon the members of the Government of National Defence, who were seated round it, to resign, and that Jules Favre was refusing to do so. After a scene of confusion, which lasted half an hour, I found myself, with those round me, pushed out of the room, and I heard that the old Government had been arrested, and that a consultation was to take place between it and the new one. Feeling hungry, I now went to the door of the Hôtel to get out, but I was told I could not do so without a permission from the citizen Blanqui. I observed that I was far too independent a citizen myself to ask any one for a permit to go where I liked, and, as I walked on, the citizen sentinel did not venture to stop me. As I passed before Trochu's headquarters at the Louvre I spoke to a captain of the Etat-Major, whom I knew, and whom I saw standing at the gate. When he heard that I had just come from the Hôtel de Ville, he anxiously asked me what was going on there, and whether I had seen Trochu. General Schmitz, he said, had received an order signed by the mayors of Paris to close the gates of the town, and not on any pretext to let any one in or out. At the Louvre he said all was in confusion, but he understood that Picard had escaped from the Hôtel de Ville, and was organizing a counter-movement at the Ministry of Finance. Having dined, I went off to the Place Vendôme, as the generale was beating. The National Guards of the quarter were hurrying there, and Mobile battalions were marching in the same direction. I found on my arrival that this had become the headquarters of the Government; that an officer who had come with an order to Picard to go to the Hôtel de Ville, signed by Blanqui, had been arrested. General Tamisier was still a prisoner with the Government. Soon news arrived that a battalion had got inside the Hôtel de Ville and had managed to smuggle Trochu out by a back door. Off I went to the Louvre. There Trochu, his uniform considerably deteriorated, was haranguing some battalions of the Mobiles, who were shouting "Vive Trochu!" Other battalions were marching down the Rue Rivoli to the Hôtel de Ville. I got into a cab and drove there. The Hôtel was lit up. On the "place" there were not many persons, but all round it, in the streets, were Mobiles and Bourgeois National Guards, about 20,000 in all. The Hôtel was guarded, I heard, by a Belleville battalion, but I could not get close in to interview them. This lasted until about two o'clock in the morning, when the battalions closed in, Trochu appeared with his staff, and in some way or other, for it was so dark, nothing could be seen, the new Government was ejected; M. Jules Favre and his colleagues were rescued. M. Delescluze, who was one of the persons there, thus describes what took place: "A declaration was signed by the new Government declaring that on the understanding that the Commune was to be elected the next day, and also the Provisional Government replaced by an elected one, the citizens designed at a public meeting to superintend these elections withdrew." This was communicated first to Dorian, who appears to have been half a prisoner, half a friend; then to the members of the old Government, who were in honourable arrest; then to Jules Ferry outside. A general sort of agreement appears then to have been made, that bygones should be bygones. The Revolutionists went off to bed, and matters returned to the point where they had been in the morning. Yesterday evening a decree was placarded, ordering the municipal elections to take place to-day, signed Etienne Arago; and to-day a counter-decree, signed Jules Favre, announces that this decree appeared when the Government was gardé
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