During the last two years, as we have said, Paris had witnessed more than one insurrection. Nothing is, generally, more singularly calm than the physiognomy of Paris during an uprising beyond the bounds of the rebellious quarters. Paris very speedily accustoms herself to anything. It is only a riot. Paris has so many affairs on hand that she does not put herself out for so small a matter. These colossal cities alone can offer such spectacles. These immense enclosures alone can contain at the same time civil war and an odd and indescribable tranquillity. Ordinarily, when an insurrection commences, when the shop-keeper hears the drum, the call to arms, the general alarm, he contents himself with the remark that there appears to be a squabble in the Rue Saint-Martin, or in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, or somewhere in that direction. Later on, when the heart-rending and mournful hubbub of musketry and firing by platoons becomes audible, the shopkeeper says it is getting hot. A moment later, the riot approaches and gains in force, he shuts up his shop precipitately, hastily dons his uniform: that is to say, he places his merchandise in safety and risks his own person. Men fire in a square, in a passage, in a blind alley. They take and re-take the barricade. Blood flows, the grape-shot riddles the fronts of the houses, the balls kill people in their beds, corpses encumber the streets. A few streets away, the shock of billiard-balls can be heard in the cafés. The theatres open their doors and present vaudevilles. The curious laugh and chat a couple of paces distant from these streets filled with war. Hackney-carriages go their way. Passers-by are going to a dinner somewhere in town. Sometimes in the very quarter where the fighting is going on. In 1831, a fusillade was stopped to allow a wedding party to pass. At the time of another insurrection, a little infirm old man, pushing a hand-cart surmounted by a tricolored rag, went and came from barricade to troops and from troops to the barricade, offering his glasses of cocoa impartially, now to the Government, now to anarchy. Nothing can be stranger. This is the peculiar character of uprisings in Paris, which cannot be found in any other capital. To this end, two things are requisite: the size of Paris and its gaiety.
On this occasion, however, in the resort to arms of the 5th of June, the great city felt something which was, perhaps, stronger than itself. It was afraid. Closed doors, windows, and shutters were to be seen everywhere, in the most distant and most disinterested quarters. The courageous took to arms, the poltroons hid. The busy and heedless passer-by disappeared. Many streets were empty at four o'clock in the morning. Alarming details were hawked about, fatal news was disseminated: that they were masters of the Bank; that there were six hundred of them in the Cloister of Saint-Merry alone, entrenched and embattled in the church; that the line was not to be depended on; that one must be on one's guard; that at night there would be people pillaging isolated dwellings; that four columns would march simultaneously at midnight, or at daybreak at latest, on the centre of the uprising; that perhaps, also, the troops would evacuate Paris. People busied themselves over the Minister of War's hesitations. Why did not he attack at once? It is certain that he was profoundly absorbed. The old lion seemed to scent an unknown monster in that gloom.
Evening came, the theatres did not open. The patrols circulated with an air of irritation. Passers-by were searched. Suspicious persons were arrested. By nine o'clock, more than eight hundred persons had been arrested. The Prefecture of Police was encumbered with them, so was the Conciergerie, so was La Force. At the Conciergerie in particular, the long vault which is called the Rue de Paris was littered with trusses of straw upon which lay a heap of prisoners. All that straw rustled by all these men produced the sound of a heavy shower. Elsewhere prisoners slept in the open air in the meadows, piled on top of each other. Anxiety reigned everywhere, and a certain tremor which was not habitual with Paris. People barricaded themselves in their houses. Wives and mothers were uneasy. Nothing was to be heard but this: He has not come home. There was hardly even the distant rumble of a vehicle to be heard. People listened on their thresholds, to the rumors, the shouts, the tumult, the dull and indistinct sounds, to the trumpets, the drums, the firing, and, above all, to that lamentable alarm peal from Saint-Merry. They waited for the first cannon-shot. Men sprang up at the corners of the streets and disappeared, shouting: Go home. And people made haste to bolt their doors. They said: How will all this end? From moment to moment, in proportion as the darkness descended, Paris seemed to take on a more mournful hue from the formidable flaming of the revolt.
