The History of a Crime: The Testimony of an Eye-WitnessHugo, Victor
History
The History of a Crime: The Testimony of an Eye-Witness
Hugo, Victor
France -- History -- 1789-1900
After some fifty steps Schoelcher said, "Where are we going? We are
turning our backs on the Bastille. We are turning our backs upon the
conflict."
They returned towards the Faubourg.
They shouted, "To arms!" They Where answered by "Long live our
Representatives!" But only a few young men joined them. It was evident
that the breeze of insurrection was not blowing.
"Never mind," said De Flotte, "let us begin the battle. Let us achieve
the glory of being the first killed."
As they reached the point where the Streets Ste. Marguerite and de Cotte
open out and divide the Faubourg, a peasant's cart laden with dung
entered the Rue Ste. Marguerite.
"Here," exclaimed De Flotte.
They stopped the dung-cart, and overturned it in the middle of the
Faubourg St. Antoine.
A milkwoman came up.
They overturned the milk-cart.
A baker was passing in his bread-cart. He saw what was being done,
attempted to escape, and urged his horse to a gallop. Two or three
street Arabs--those children of Paris brave as lions and agile as
cats--sped after the baker, ran past his horse, which was still
galloping, stopped it, and brought back the cart to the barricade which
had been begun.
They overturned the bread-cart.
An omnibus came up on the road from the Bastille.
"Very well!" said the conductor, "I see what is going on."
He descended with a good grace, and told his passengers to get
down, while the coachman unharnessed his horses and went away shaking
his cloak.
They overturned the omnibus.
The four vehicles placed end to end barely barred the street of the
Faubourg, which in this part is very wide. While putting them in line
the men of the barricade said,--
"Let us not injure the carts more than we can help."
This formed an indifferent barricade, very low, too short, and which
left the pavements free on either side.
At this moment a staff officer passed by followed by an orderly, saw the
barricade, and fled at a gallop.
Schoelcher calmly inspected the overturned vehicles. When he reached the
peasant's cart, which made a higher heap than the others, he said, "that
is the only good one."
The barricade grew larger. They threw a few empty baskets upon it, which
made it thicker and larger without strengthening it.
They were still working when a child came up to them shouting, "The
soldiers!"
In truth two companies arrived from the Bastille, at the double, through
the Faubourg, told off in squads at short distances apart, and barring
the whole of the street.
The doors and the windows were hastily closed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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