The Paris Sketch Book of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh; and the Irish Sketch Book. William Makepeace Thackeray

OF THE DAYS OF JULY

      ‘To-day (Saturday), funeral ceremonies, in honour of the victims of July, were held in the various edifices consecrated to public worship.

      ‘These edifices, with the exception of some churches (especially that of the Petits-Pères), were uniformly hung with black on the outside; the hangings bore only this inscription: 27, 28, 29 July 1830—surrounded by a wreath of oak-leaves.

      ‘In the interior of the Catholic churches, it had only been thought proper to dress little catafalques, as for burials of the third and fourth class. Very few clergy attended; but a considerable number of the National Guard.

      ‘The Synagogue of the Israelites was entirely hung with black; and a great concourse of people attended. The service was performed with the greatest pomp.

      ‘In the Protestant temples there was likewise a very full attendance: apologetical discourses on the Revolution of July were pronounced by the pastors.

      ‘The absence of M. de Quélen (Archbishop of Paris), and of many members of the superior clergy, was remarked at Nôtre Dame.

      ‘The civil authorities attended service in the several districts.

      ‘The poles, ornamented with tricoloured flags, which formerly were placed on Nôtre Dame, were, it was remarked, suppressed. The flags on the Pont Neuf were, during the ceremony, only half-mast high, and covered with crape.’

      Et cætera, et cætera, et cætera.

      ‘The tombs of the Louvre were covered with black hangings, and adorned with tricoloured flags. In front and in the middle was erected an expiatory monument of a pyramidical shape, and surmounted by a funeral vase.

      ‘These tombs were guarded by the Municipal Guard, the Troops of the Line, the Sergens de Ville (town patrol), and a Brigade of Agents of Police in plain clothes, under the orders of peace-officer Vassal.

      ‘Between eleven and twelve o’clock, some young men, to the number of 400 or 500, assembled on the Place de la Bourse, one of them bearing a tricoloured banner with an inscription, “To the Manes of July:” ranging themselves in order, they marched five abreast to the Marché des Innocens. On their arrival, the Municipal Guards of the Halle aux Draps, where the post had been doubled, issued out without arms, and the town-sergeants placed themselves before the market to prevent the entry of the procession. The young men passed in perfect order, and without saying a word—only lifting their hats as they defiled before the tombs. When they arrived at the Louvre they found the gates shut and the Garden evacuated. The troops were under arms, and formed in battalion.

      ‘After the passage of the procession, the Garden was again open to the public.’

      And the evening and the morning were the first day.

      There’s nothing serious in mortality: is there, from the beginning of this account to the end thereof, aught but sheer, open, monstrous, undisguised humbug? I said, before, that you should have a history of these people by Dickens or Theodore Hook, but there is little need of professed wags;—do not the men write their own tale with an admirable Sancho-like gravity and naïveté, which one could not desire improved? How good is that touch of sly indignation about the little catafalques! how rich the contrast presented by the economy of the Catholics to the splendid disregard of expense exhibited by the devout Jews! and how touching the ‘apologetical discourses on the Revolution,’ delivered by the Protestant pastors! Fancy the profound affliction of the Gardes Municipaux, the Sergens de Ville, the police-agents in plain clothes, and the troops with fixed bayonets, sobbing round the ‘expiatory monuments of a pyramidical shape, surmounted by funeral vases,’ and compelled, by sad duty, to fire into the public who might wish to indulge in the same woe! O ‘Manes of July!’ (the phrase is pretty and grammatical), why did you with sharp bullets break those Louvre windows? Why did you bayonet redcoated Swiss behind that fair white facade, and, braving cannon, musket, sabre, prospective guillotine, burst yonder bronze gates, rush through that peaceful picture-gallery, and hurl royalty, loyalty, and a thousand years of Kings, head-over-heels out of yonder Tuileries windows?

      It is, you will allow, a little difficult to say:—there is, however, one benefit that the country has gained (as for liberty of press or person, diminished taxation, a juster representation, who ever thinks of them?)—one benefit they have gained, or nearly—abolition de la peine-de-mort, namely pour délit politique—no more wicked guillotining for revolutions. A Frenchman must have his revolution—it is his nature to knock down omnibuses in the street, and across them to fire at troops of the line—it is a sin to balk it. Did not the King send off Revolutionary Prince Napoleon in a coach-and-four? Did not the jury, before the face of God and Justice, proclaim Revolutionary Colonel Vaudrey not guilty?—One may hope, soon, that if a man shows decent courage and energy in half a dozen émeutes, he will get promotion and a premium.

      I do not (although, perhaps, partial to the subject) want to talk more nonsense than the occasion warrants, and will pray you to cast your eyes over the following anecdote, that is now going the round of the papers, and respects the commutation of the punishment of that wretched, foolhardy Barbès, who, on his trial, seemed to invite the penalty which has just been remitted to him. You recollect the braggart’s speech: ‘When the Indian falls into the power of the enemy, he knows the fate that awaits him, and submits his head to the knife:—I am the Indian!’

      ‘Well——’

      ‘M. Victor Hugo was at the Opera on the night the sentence of the Court of Peers, condemning Barbès to death, was published. The great poet composed the following verses:

      ‘ “Par votre ange envolé, ainsi qu’une colombe,

       Par le royal enfant, doux et frêle roseau,

       Grâce, encore une fois! Grâce, au nom de la tombe!

       Grâce, au nom du berçeau!”[1]

      ‘M. Victor Hugo wrote the lines out instantly on a sheet of paper, which he folded, and simply despatched them to the King of the French by the penny-post.

      ‘That truly is a noble voice which can at all hours thus speak to the throne. Poetry, in old days, was called the language of the gods—it is better named now—it is the language of the kings.

      ‘But the clemency of the King had anticipated the letter of the poet. The pen of his Majesty had signed the commutation of Barbès, while that of the poet was still writing.

      ‘Louis Philippe replied to the author of Ruy Blas most graciously, that he had already subscribed to a wish so noble, and that the verses had only confirmed his previous disposition to mercy.’

      Now in countries where fools most abound, did one ever read of more monstrous palpable folly? In any country; save this, would a poet who chose to write four crack-brained verses comparing an angel to a dove, and a little boy to a reed, and calling upon the chief magistrate, in the name of the angel, or dove (the Princess Mary), in her tomb, and the little infant in his cradle, to spare a criminal, have received a ‘gracious answer’ to his nonsense? Would he have ever despatched the nonsense? and would any journalist have been silly enough to talk of ‘the noble voice that could thus speak to the throne,’ and the noble throne that could return such a noble answer to the noble voice? You get nothing done here gravely and decently. Tawdry stage-tricks are played, and braggadocio claptraps uttered, on every occasion, however sacred or solemn; in the face of death, as by Barbès with his hideous Indian metaphor; in the teeth of reason, as by M. Victor Hugo with his twopenny-post poetry; and of justice, as by the King’s absurd reply to this absurd demand! Suppose the Count of Paris to be twenty times a reed, and the Princess Mary a host of angels, is that any reason why the law should not have its course? Justice is the God of our lower world, our great omnipresent guardian: as such it moves, or should move on, majestic, awful, irresistible, having no passions—like a God: but, in the very midst of the path across which it is to pass, lo! M. Victor Hugo trips forward, smirking, and says, O divine Justice! I will trouble you to listen to the following trifling effusion