Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 391, May, 1848Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 391, May, 1848
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Now again comes pouring down from the Rue du Faubourg St Denis,
another host of men, women, and children, howling the "_Ca Ira_." They
have got a great placard among them, declaring, that if their
landlords do not remit to them their rents, for two quarters at least,
they will burn down their masters' houses over their heads: and,
unobstructed, this screeching mob invades the streets. But this is
rather too much, even amidst the license due to King People in
Republican Paris. To-morrow will be posted on the walls of the
capital, a notice from the Prefet de Police, appealing to the _good
sense_ of the mob not to burn houses, and containing a half-concealed
under-current, but an under-current only, of threat.
Now again you may be witness to a grotesque scene of a high
revolutionary tone. We are in the purlieus of one of the great public
schools of Paris--the _colléges_, as they are termed. Suddenly the
street is invaded by several hundred boys: they rush along uttering
hideous vociferations; before them flies a well-dressed middle-aged
man: he flies as if for his life, and is pursued by showers of stones
from the young revolutionary insurgents. This flying man, these
screaming and pursuing children--what a lesson there is in it! Let us
catch hold of one of the little urchins, and ask what all the uproar
means. He tells us that the object of all his schoolboy hate, is a
tyrant--a tyrant like Louis Philippe; and that, like Louis Philippe,
they are driving him forth with scorn. "What has he done then?" we
ask. "He was too strict," is the only reply; and on rushes again the
young revolutionist to join in the general pursuit, with a big oath,
and the cry of "_Vive la Republique! à bas les tyrans!_"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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