My Days of Adventure: The Fall of France, 1870-71Vizetelly, Ernest Alfred
History
My Days of Adventure: The Fall of France, 1870-71
Vizetelly, Ernest Alfred
Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871 -- Personal narratives
This kind of thing did not appeal to the many frequenters of the public
clubs which were established in the different quarters of Paris. All
theatrical performances had ceased there, and there was no more dancing.
Even the concerts and readings given in aid of the funds for the wounded
were few and far between. Thus, if a Parisian did not care to while away
his evening in a cafe, his only resource was to betake himself to one of
the clubs. Those held at the Folies-Bergere music-hall, the Valentino
dancing-hall, the Porte St. Martin theatre, and the hall of the College de
France, were mostly frequented by moderate Republicans, and attempts were
often made there to discuss the situation in a sensible manner. But folly,
even insanity, reigned at many of the other clubs, where men like Felix
Pyat, Auguste Blanqui, Charles Delescluze, Gustave Flourens, and the three
Ms--Megy, Mottu, and Milliere--raved and ranted. Go where you would, you
found a club. There was that of La Reine Blanche at Montmartre and that of
the Salle Favie at Belleville; there was the club de la Vengeance on the
Boulevard Rochechouart, the Club des Montagnards on the Boulevard de
Strasbourg, the Club des Etats-Unis d'Europe in the Rue Cadet, the Club du
Preaux-Clercs in the Rue du Bac, the Club de la Cour des Miracles on the
Ile Saint Louis, and twenty or thirty others of lesser note. At times the
demagogues who perorated from the tribunes at these gatherings, brought
forward proposals which seemed to have emanated from some madhouse,
but which were nevertheless hailed with delirious applause by their
infatuated audiences. Occasionally new engines of destruction were
advocated--so-called "Satan-fusees," or pumps discharging flaming
petroleum! Another speaker conceived the brilliant idea of keeping all the
wild beasts in the Jardin des Plantes on short commons for some days, then
removing them from Paris at the next sortie, and casting them adrift among
the enemy. Yet another imbecile suggested that the water of the Seine and
the Marne should be poisoned, regardless of, the fact that, in any such
event, the Parisians would suffer quite as much as the enemy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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