lemurious reblogged
“The Constitutionnel and the Debats seem to a certain degree to have correctly understood or hit what happened, but the colour and measurements are incorrect. I have just come from the theatre of the strife of yesterday, when I convinced myself how difficult it would be to get at the truth. This theatre (Schauplatz) is one of the greatest and densely inhabited streets of Paris, i.e. the Rue Saint-Martin, which, beginning at the gate of that name on the Boulevards, ends on the Seine at the Bridge Notre Dame. At both ends of the street I heard the number of the patriots, or, as they are called today, the rebels, who fought there, esteemed at from five hundred to a thousand; but, in the middle of the street the sum became less, and in the very centre it was reduced to fifty. “What is truth?” said Pontius Pilate. The number of troops of the line is easier to give. Yesterday even the Journal de Debats declares there was forty thousand men ready for action in Paris. Add to these at least twenty thousand National Guards, and we find that a mere handful of insurgents fought with sixty thousand men! The heroism of these insanely brave men is unanimously praised; they indeed achieved miracles of bravery. They cried continually, “Viva la Republique!” but it found no echo in the breasts of the people. Had they instead cried, “Viva Napoleon!” then (as is generally declared today in all groups of the people) the line would hardly have fired on them, and the great masses of the workers would have joined them. But they scorned a lie, for they were the purest, if not the craftiest, friends of freedom. And yet people are stupid enough to declare today that they were acting in intelligence with the Carlists! Verily, he who fights unto death for the holy delusion of his heart and for the beautiful error of an ideal future, will never ally himself to that cowardly filth which the past has left us under the name of “Carlists.” I am, by God! no republican. I know that if the Republicans conquer, they will cut my throat — and that because I will not admire what they admire; but, still, the tears rose in my eyes today when I trod the place which was still wet with their blood. It would have pleased me more had I, and all my fellow moderates, have died in place of those Republicans.”
