Virginia Free Press & Farmers' Repository

INTELLIGENCE.

EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM PARIS.

At six, finding the Rue St. Dennis unobstructed, I traversed that quarter of the town, in my way to the Boulevards. The people were carrying off in brancards killed or wounded bourgeois; whilst here and there you turned aside to avoid a puddle of blood, or the stark corpse of some unhappy veteran that lay covered only by the grey military cloak. It is said that in the pockets of the slain soldiers was found a quantity of money much greater than the private can at ordinary times command; which countenances the report that the Garde Royale and the Swiss had been presented with a gratuity of ten francs a man on the morning of the strife—a paternal way of disposing of the taxes paid by the people. I noticed a deserted corpse that lay in a corner with a label attached to the breast. It was evidently one of the humblest citizens, and the address was 'Rue St. Antoine.' Honour to whom it is due! The Hampdens who saved Paris and probably all France from the paternal ordinances of his Most Christian Majesty, were the canaille of St. Antoine, St. Denis, and St. Martin—men whom Sir Walter Scott would term the 'brutal populace of a great town.' His 'high-born and high-bred' warriors never achieved a victory more beneficial to mankind. The freedom not only of France, but of all the Continent, was weighed in the balance against despotism, and prevailed by the efforts of soiled and swarthy artisans.
In every street the people were employed in digging up the large stones with which Paris is paved, and constructing rude barricades, at successive distances of about fifty paces. In the rough way in which they were then thrown up, they would probably afford little protection; but nothing can be conceived more effective for the defence of a large open town like Paris, traversed in every direction by long narrow streets, overlooked by houses of six, seven, and eight stories, than such barriers scientifically constructed. The Boulevards, usually so gay, presented a curious scene of desolation. Numbers of fine trees were thrown across the road, and formed green barricades, at short intervals. Fiacres and diligences have contributed to fill up the gaps. The Menageries Royales and Lafitte, Galliard, and Co., were never before so honourably employed.
Not a single lamp gave its light in support of the day: (a lamp, indeed, was no where extant in Paris—all were demolished the preceding night); and the cafes, in happy times brilliant with reflected lustres, were closely bolted and barred. On my return, I was at a loss to regain the bridge. I had lost my way in the dark, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Rue St. Honore: and 'on ne passe ici,' 'on tire pas ici,' called out from windows above, did not contribute to remove my perplexity, more particularly as these friendly warnings were occasionally enforced by a shot fired at the other end of the street. I observed several groups of four or five sansculottish figures, lurking with fusils at the corners of streets to get a shot at some neighbouring post of the military.
At length, perfectly bewildered in a part of the town with which I am not well acquainted, I had recourse to some of the musket-men for information, and before I succeeded in extricating myself, was obliged to inquire my way some five or six times. These figures of ill omen gave me the best possible directions, though vulgar gossip had infected me with an idea that the English were in extremely bad odour. A rough fellow with a musket, who had cried 'Qui va la!' and rudely pushed me back without waiting an answer, replied, on my asking if he would not allow his friends to pass, that I might go on if I pleased, and be shot for my pains. A by stander undertook to put me on my way, and observed, as we crept along the bottom of the Rue St. Honore, that the English were perfectly safe at Paris, though he had heard they themselves considered it an insecure residence.
There is one thing that might render it unpleasant at least—if the British Ambassador, consulting the etiquette that prescribes a residence aupres du Roi more than the interests of his fifteen thousand countrymen, should leave Paris to rejoin Charles Dix at Compiegne or St. Cloud, or wherever else his second James the Second is at present in hiding. I have not heard what the Ambassadors intend to do. The Prussian and Austrian will not improbably act as becomes the envoys of despotism; but a British Ambassador, under the liberal William, whose Parliamentary speech has conciliated even the French, in spite of 'Wellington,' ought to know that his place is with the upholders of constitutional government, and not with the violators of oaths and charters.
Reports of fire-arms continued to be heard from time to time till midnight; which with the deep knell of the tocsin that sounded at intervals were threatening intimations that the mischief only slumbered till day-light. In fact, at 4 o'clock the business was as brisk as ever; and the firing began again, and continued for hours, loud and incessant; but with what success on either side, was not clear, till, on issuing from the Hotel, a scene that was passing in the adjacent Place, plainly told that the cause of the oppressed was triumphant. Two or three bodies of citizens were drawn up in something like order, armed with gun and bayonet, pike, sabre, or bludgeon, having each a tri-coloured flag at its head. Among these I observed some muskets, not rusty like the rest, but bright and in good condition. This was a favourable omen. But a transaction going on in a corner of the Place was convincing. A detachment of the Garde Royale were busily handing out from their caserne, muskets to the populace below. Twenty hands grasped at each in succession. It affected me somewhat to see stout veterans taking the bayonet from their sides, to deliver it to striplings that had clambered up to the window, then, with hands pressed on their breasts, protesting in dumb-show to the still unsatisfied multitude, that more were not forthcoming. An officer from a window above, with a face worn with fatigue, looked down on the transaction.
When I considered that the armed men below were in number sufficient to exterminate the whole detachment, it was no slight indication of a moderate spirit, that no violence was offered to disarmed soldiers, who the day before had been firing on the friends and brothers of the multitude. The tri-coloured detachments moved off, headed by young men of the Ecole Polytechnique, and preceded by a cart conveying sundry barrels of powder. The Louvre was understood to be their destination. In fact, the troops having been dislodged from the Hotel de Ville, had found it necessary to evacuate the quarters they had occupied the day before in St. Denis, St. Martin, St. Antoine, and retire to the Louvre, which, in its turn, was fiercely attacked by the people, who fired from the Pont Neuf, and the quays and streets fronting either side of the building: The facade of the Institute testified that the besieged of to-day and the besiegers of yesterday were not idle. I found a station nearly fronting the Louvre, in a sort of piazza, where, ensconced behind a column, I could with safety observe what was going on. The firing at length grew so slack on the part of the besieged, that the assailants were emboldened to plant a rude sort of ladder against the building, by which one of the windows was scaled. A moment after, one large body with sword and bayonet glittering in the sun, forced its way by one gate of the Louvre, whilst another hastened round and entered by that which fronts the river. The enemy fired his retreat, for a boom! boom! resounded from the interior of the court: and the entering multitude bore precipitately back, and communicated the panic to such of the spectators as had advanced on the Pont des Arts, on the strength of the tri-coloured flag seen waving from a window.
I noted the progress of this flag, accompanied with the waving of hats and swords from window to window. The same signal at last announced the occupation of the Tuilleries.
The people on my side of the water were emboldened to advance along with the flag, till it reached the Pont Royal, across which the spectators ventured, after having been sent back precipitately by one or two false alarms. As I traversed the bridge, a flight of papers from the windows of the Tuileries that look on the bridge, showed that the sanctuary of Majesty was in the act of being invaded. The gate of the garden was open—I ventured in with the rest. The smashing of glass and window-panes gave me to fear that the work of destruction was beginning. At last, I found myself in the hall
Of the Tuileries. Men, armed and unarmed, were rapidly ascending the staircase. I stood hesitating: the troops had just retired hastily to the Champs Elysees, and some were still firing on the besiegers at one corner of the Carousel. It was like venturing into the lion's den, with a possibility of his return. A young Frenchman passed me, saying aloud, that it was an occasion not to be let slip. I thought so too, and mounted with the rest. I beheld vast and magnificent rooms, to which the grandest apartments of newly-furnished Windsor are not comparable. Trod by men armed and unarmed, artisans, simple blue-frocked peasants, who had never, except as workmen, perhaps set foot on floors parquetted and waxed before. The most private recesses of royalty were laid open to the vulgar gaze. I observed a party curiously examining the toilette-table of a splendid bed-chamber understood to be that of S. A. R. Madame la Duchesse de Berri. Her perfumed soaps were submitted in turn to sundry noses, and the other particulars of a lady's toilette were scrutinized, with various reflections. The state-bed, with its rich silken draperies, was gazed on by profane eyes, and touched by profane hands.

In my progress through the apartments, I remarked the originals of several well known prints. There was Louis Seize distributing alms on a winter's day, on one side of the room, and on the other gazing on a map of the world. There too was Louis Dix-huit, a crafty old gentleman, reposing in his arm-chair, and looking at once, as a soldier termed him to an English party in 1814, "both the pere and the mere of his people." These were portraits that awakened no animosity. But in the Salle des Marechaux, one portrait—only one—was no sooner seen than it was torn out of the frame and rent in tatters. It was "Raguse"—the double traitor Marmont."

The vast magnificent apartment with the throne, the state bed-chamber of majesty, the royal cabinet, were successively explored. On the floor of the latter, they scattered sundry fragments of books and half torn papers. I picked up two at hazard: one was in print, the other manuscript: both related to priests—it was a song Virginiana, that told the character of the imbecile Monarch, his folly and his fate. I was more curious to observe the conduct of the multitude on the occasion, than inquisitive after the details of sumptuous and costly royalty. The thought that first led me into the Tuileries was this: I will go in with the rest, that there may be at least one impartial evidence of the conduct of a French mob under circumstances of strong temptation and peculiar aggravation. I cannot say that I observed a single act of downright plunder. One or two men, whom I remarked looking up and down a solitary apartment, wore that sinister air which betokens an intended unlawful appropriation. But this was only surmise; they took nothing whilst I remained. An elderly artisan, who had picked up some trifling matter, and had apparently been charged therewith by some of his comrades, was exclaiming loudly against their injustice, and drawing a distinction between the appropriation of something by way of memorial, and the baseness of plundering. Neither was the spirit of destruction abroad. It is true, the silk curtains whose couleur rouge stimulated the beholders, were not respected. The armed men were busy hewing them with their swords into portions convenient to wear as scarfs, and several had already arrayed themselves in this one of the three popular colours. Chandeliers were also a little damaged: but this was done inadvertently, by men carrying musket and bayonet with too little deference to those superb ornaments. The simplicity of a blue-frocked peasant had nearly caused the destruction of the plate glass which fills one of the large compartments at the end of the throne-room. He was walking hastily along, as through an empty doorway, and seemed not a little astounded at being violently repelled by what had appeared to him empty space.

The only instance of plundering I witnessed, was one of the least representable, though in its consequences, likely to have proved the most pernicious. His Majesty's private stock of wines had been discovered: the day was hot—every throat was parched. I myself had a little before envied a draught of the Seine water, which a man was handing round in a wooden bowl to the droughty conquerors of the Louvre. The bottles were no sooner detected, than, without the trouble of drawing corks, they were decanted and the rich contents poured down the throats of grimy citizens, in such contiguous streams as threatened the subversion of what intellect the bottle-drainer possessed. I cannot, however, be severe on a fault in which I participated. The temptation proffered me by a polite tri-coloured warrior, who presented me with a bottle he had just broached, was not to be resisted on a day when every thing exhorted to drink. It was some of the finest Madeira I ever tasted. In another room, I remarked other partisans busily satisfying the cravings of an insatiate thirst; but not always with equal good fortune.