Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (Vol. 2)Trollope, Frances Milton
History
Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (Vol. 2)
Trollope, Frances Milton
Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
I am quite sure she was the wife of a doctrinaire; for nothing
affronts the whole party, from the highest to the lowest, so much as
to breathe a hint that you think it possible any riot should arise to
disturb their dear tranquillity. On this occasion, however, I really
had no such matter in my thoughts, and sinned only by a blundering
phrase.
I returned home to look for an escort; and having enlisted one, set
forth again for the Marché des Innocens, which I reached this time
without any other adventure than being splashed twice, and nearly run
over thrice. Having made my purchases, I was setting my face towards
home again, when my companion proposed that we should go across the
market to look at the monuments raised over some half-dozen or
half-score of revolutionary heroes who fell and were buried on a spot
at no great distance from the fountain, on the 29th July 1830.
When we reached the little enclosure, we remarked a man, who looked, I
thought, very much like a printer's devil, leaning against the rail,
and haranguing a girl who stood near him with her eyes wide open as if
she were watching for, as well as listening to, every word which
should drop from his oracular lips. A little boy, almost equally
attentive to his eloquence, occupied the space between them, and
completed the group.
I felt a strong inclination to hear what he was saying, and stationed
myself doucement, doucement at a short distance, looking, I believe,
almost as respectfully attentive as the girl for whose particular
advantage he was evidently holding forth. He perceived our approach,
but appeared nowise annoyed by it; on the contrary, it seemed to me
that he was pleased to have an increased audience, for he evidently
threw more energy into his manner, waved his right hand with more
dignity, and raised his voice higher.
I will not attempt to give you his discourse verbatim, for some of
his phrases were so extraordinary, or at least so new to me, that I
cannot recall them; but the general purport of it made an impression
both on me and my companion, from its containing so completely the
very soul and essence of the party to which he evidently belonged. The
theme was the cruel treatment of the amiable, patriotic, and
noble-minded prisoners at the Luxembourg. "What did we fight for?" ...
said he, pointing to the tombs within the enclosure: "was it not to
make France and Frenchmen free?... And do they call it freedom to be
locked up in a prison ... actually locked up?... What! can a slave be
worse than that? Slaves have got chains on ... qu'est-ce que cela
fait?... If a man is locked up, he cannot go farther than if he was
chained--c'est clair ... it is all one, and Frenchmen are again
slaves.... This is what we have got by our revolution...."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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