Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 8, 2025
I have just returned from the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville. When I got there at about two o'clock six or seven thousand manifesters had already congregated there. They were all, as is the nature of Frenchmen in a crowd, shouting their political opinions into their neighbours' ears. Almost all of them were Nationaux from the Faubourgs, and although they were not armed, they wore a kepi, or some other distinctive military badge. As well as I could judge, nine out of ten were working men. Their object, as a sharp, wiry artizan bellowed into my ear, was to force the Government to consent to the election of a Commune, in order that the Chassepots may be more fairly distributed between the bourgeois and the ouvriers, and that Paris shall no longer render itself ridiculous by waiting within its walls until its provisions are exhausted and it is forced to capitulate. There appeared to be no disposition to pillage; rightly or wrongly, these men consider that the Government is wanting in energy, and that it is the representative of the bourgeoisie and not of the entire population. Every now and then, some one shouted out "Vive la Commune!" and all waved their caps and took up the cry. After these somewhat monotonous proceedings had continued about half an hour, several bourgeois battalions of National Guards came along the quay, and drew up in line, four deep, before the Hôtel de Ville. They were not molested except with words. The leading ranks of the manifesters endeavoured by their eloquence to convince them that they ought not to prevent citizens peacefully expressing their opinions; but the grocers stood stolidly to their arms, and vouchsafed no reply. At three o'clock General Trochu with his staff rode along inside the line, and then withdrew. General Tamisier then made a speech, which of course no one could hear. Shortly afterwards there was a cry of "Voil
"I think so; if not, I obey. What we ouvriers want is what we have not got a head to dictate action to us." "See to this, then. Rouse the men you can command. I will take care that you have plentiful aid from foreigners. We may trust to the confreres of our council to enlist Poles and Italians; Gaspard le Noy will turn out the volunteer rioters at his command.
All these denizens of a higher world were introduced by a saturnine clerk into M. Lebeau's reception-room, very quickly and in precedence of the ouvriers and grisettes. "What can this mean?" thought Graham; "is it really that this humble business avowed is the cloak to some political conspiracy concealed, the International Association?"
"Yet I believe the association to which most of those ouvriers belong had its origin in England." "Indeed! what association?" "The International." "Ah, I have heard of that." Lebeau turned his green spectacles full on Graham's face as he said slowly, "And what do you think of it?"
"All very true," said De Breze, with a shrug of the shoulders and in a tone of levity that seemed to ridicule the assertion he volunteered; "Virtue and Honour banished from courts and salons and the cabinet of authors ascend to fairer heights in the attics of ouvriers." "The ouvriers, ouvriers of Paris!" cried this terrible German. "Ay, Monsieur le Comte, what can you say against our ouvriers?
The fall of the Empire put an end to the society he had joined: Lebeau dissolved it. During the siege Monnier was a sort of leader among the ouvriers; but as it advanced and famine commenced, he contracted the habit of intoxication. His children died of cold and hunger. The woman he lived with followed them to the grave.
"All very true," said De Breze, with a shrug of the shoulders and in a tone of levity that seemed to ridicule the assertion he volunteered; "Virtue and Honour banished from courts and salons and the cabinet of authors ascend to fairer heights in the attics of ouvriers." "The ouvriers, ouvriers of Paris!" cried this terrible German. "Ay, Monsieur le Comte, what can you say against our ouvriers?
What is the American opinion of that great experiment; or, rather, what is yours? We hear the flourish of trumpets through all the fine phrases of the orators, and indeed it is difficult to imagine what they will do with their soi-disant ouvriers, workmen who have lost the habit of labor, unless they make soldiers of them.
At last it was matured, and the working-classes were invited to come and test it gratuitously of course. A few accepted the invitation; but their success and delight in the new art thus opened up to them, was so great, that the 'two or three' pioneers soon swelled into an army of 3000 ouvriers!
I fully recognise the fact that the leaders of the ouvriers talk a great deal of nonsense, and that they are actuated as much by personal ambition as by patriotism; but it is certain that the individual working man is the only reality in this population of corrupt and emasculated humbugs; everyone else is a windbag and a sham.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking