The Daily Crescent

The Parisian Revolt—Its Causes.
"Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens,
Tis just the fashion: Wherefore do you look
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?
* Thou mak'st a testament
To that which had too much.'"—As You Like It.
As workings do, and give thy sum of more
In previous numbers of our paper, we have said that in our opinion the causes which led to the late revolt of the Parisian workmen seemed generally to be misunderstood, if not wilfully misrepresented.
It is too true that our information of French affairs comes to us almost entirely through English channels, and in this manner everything receives the coloring of the medium through which it has passed. It is for this reason that it is so difficult to form any accurate opinion, deceived as we are by the direct falsehoods, and specious reasoning of the British press.
In order to account for the last Parisian insurrection, it is necessary to go back to the causes which produced the revolution of February, for those engaged in this revolt were the same men contending for the same principle, who accomplished the overthrow of Louis Philippe. The people were at that time not struggling merely for a change in the form of government—they were not aiming only at a political revolution by which they would be transferred from a few masters to many; but they wished a great and radical change in the social system. All must admit that it makes but little difference to the working classes, whether the ruling power be styled a Monarchy, a Republic, or an Aristocracy, if their physical condition be the same under each. The same power which governed under Louis Philippe has continued to govern since his fall, and its influence has steadily been employed to prevent those reforms which are so necessary, and which the laboring classes hoped and expected they would obtain from the Republic.
It is the moneyed power to which we allude. It is true that "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity," were adopted as the motto of the new Republic, and equally true that universal suffrage was granted to the people, in the first ardor of revolutionary excitement. But universal suffrage becomes a jest, a mockery, when the tremendous power of capital is left free to control the popular will. That this is true has been exemplified by the course of events in France. It was believed that the Assembly to be elected for the purpose of forming a constitution being chosen by the whole people, would contain a radical majority. This result was dreaded by the property-holders, and immediately the whole machinery of the moneyed power was put in operation to defeat it. The effort was successful, for the very first consequence of universal suffrage was the return of a Conservative, or Aristocratic Chamber. But even before this, the same means were resorted to, in order to thwart the great objects of the revolutionists of February. The brilliant eloquence of Lamartine was employed to seduce the people into a false security until the time for the election of the Assembly. The theories of Louis Blanc were ridiculed, as, perhaps, they deserved to be, and by this means discredit was thrown upon the whole mass of social reformers, while the sincere and well directed effort of Ledru Rollin, the most far-seeing of all the members of the Provisional Government, to crush in time the designs of the conservatives, drew upon him such a torrent of aristocratic abuse that he was only enabled to maintain his station by the interposition of Lamartine. In what, then, is the condition of the workmen improved by the establishment of this ideal Republic? So far from being bettered, they are now actually worse off than before, and this not only as the inevitable effect of a great political convulsion, but as a consequence of the attempt of the property-holders themselves to produce this very state of things that they might retain their power unimpaired, and then taunt Republicanism with its failure to achieve what it had promised. These are the causes which produced the revolt of the Parisian workmen, and they are amply sufficient to explain all. That the insurgents are not the mere idle rabble or cannaille of Paris, is proved by the fact that that portion of the population of the capital was most energetic in quelling the insurrection. The men who were most violent against the insurgents were the Garde Mobile, which is known to be composed of the very dregs of society.
The insurrectionists, on the contrary, in all accounts, are designated as emphatically the workmen. It is possible that many acts of barbarity may have been committed by them, but their opponents are not by any means exempt from the same imputation. Yet we should be slow to believe that the men could be guilty of such crimes who refused to imbrue their hands in the blood of a tyrant, but told him to go—they were not assassins.
We have no intention of justifying to the utmost the desperate measures of the workmen; but we think there are many extenuating circumstances which have not been properly considered. Neither do we advocate their peculiar views, although we should not lightly condemn, without a hearing, doctrines which propose to effect such a vast improvement in the condition of mankind. Whether the insurgents, had they been successful, would have established a second Reign of Terror, we cannot now determine; but we know that the present Government sustains itself by that very principle. The deliberate murder of five hundred unarmed men, who were taken prisoners by the Government forces, and shot down, like wild beasts, without the formality of a trial, surpasses the worst excesses of Jacobinism, and shows to which side applies the stigma of Terrorism.