Pencillings by the Way: Written During Some Years of Residence and Travel in Europe — John Shaqi
Pencillings by the Way: Written During Some Years of Residence and Travel in EuropeWillis, Nathaniel Parker
General
Pencillings by the Way: Written During Some Years of Residence and Travel in Europe
Willis, Nathaniel Parker
Europe -- Description and travel
Paris, of course, is rife with politics. There is but one opinion on
the subject of another pending revolution. The "people's king" is
about as unpopular as he need be for the purposes of his enemies; and
he has aggravated the feeling against him very unnecessarily by his
late project in the Tuileries. The whole thing is very characteristic
of the French people. He might have deprived them of half their civil
rights without immediate resistance; but to cut off a strip of the
public garden to make a play ground for his children--to encroach a
hundred feet on the pride of Paris, the daily promenade of the idlers,
who do all the discussion of his measures, it was a little too
venturesome. Unfortunately, too, the offence is in the very eye of
curiosity, and the workmen are surrounded, from morning till night, by
thousands of people, of all classes, gesticulating, and looking at the
palace windows and winding themselves gradually up to the
revolutionary pitch.
In the event of an explosion, the liberal party will not want
partizans, for France is crowded with refugees from tyranny, of every
nation. The Poles are flocking hither every day, and the streets are
full of their melancholy faces! Poor fellows! they suffer dreadfully
from want. The public charity for refugees has been wrung dry long
ago, and the most heroic hearts of Poland, after having lost
everything but life, in their unavailing struggle, are starving
absolutely in the streets. Accident has thrown me into the confidence
of a well-known liberal--one of those men of whom the proud may ask
assistance without humiliation, and circumstances have thus come to my
knowledge, which would move a heart of stone. The fictitious
sufferings of "Thaddeus of Warsaw," are transcended in real-life
misery every day, and by natures quite as noble. Lafayette, I am
credibly assured, has anticipated several years of his income in
relieving them; and no possible charity could be so well bestowed as
contributions for the Poles, starving in these heartless cities.
I have just heard that Chodsko, a Pole, of distinguished talent and
learning, who threw his whole fortune and energy into the late
attempted revolution, was arrested here last night, with eight others
of his countrymen, under suspicion by the government. The late serious
insurrection at Lyons has alarmed the king, and the police is
exceedingly strict. The Spanish and Italian refugees, who receive
pensions from France, have been ordered off to the provincial towns,
by the minister of the interior, and there is every indication of
extreme and apprehensive caution. The papers, meantime, are raving
against the ministry in the most violent terms, and the king is abused
without qualification, everywhere.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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