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XXV.

41.

ruption into

system of

tion had sunk France.

CHAP. the republican historians: "Centralisation, introduced by the Convention, and carried to its highest point by 1831. Napoleon, had for a quarter of a century constituted the State of cor- power and glory of France. The unity of the Mountain which the had conquered Europe. But from the moment that it was centralisa- no longer necessary that France should be one soldier, the excess of centralisation had become a source of weakness. At the epoch of the first year of Louis Philippe, the greater part of the rural districts of France vegetated in a state of ignorance, egotism, languor, and misery, which is scarcely credible. There was no longer any trace of esprit de corps, common passion, or prescriptive usage. The blood had been drawn from all parts of the social body to the surcharged heart. What was the consequence? A marvellous ardour, ending in impotence and scepticism in the capital; the concentration of all power, inferring that of all ambition; the desire to shine carried to effrontery; an immense absorption to produce a little intelligence; talents the most original perverted by the mania of imitation, the thirst for gain, the despotism of fashion, or the impatient desire of success; competition with its frauds; rascality and its opprobrium ; excitement without end, but for evil rather than good; immense resources, but these rather fitted to nourish vain illusions than to satisfy legitimate hopes; civilisation exhausting its frauds and illusions to render man unhappy or guilty. Such was life in the capital under the influence of centralisation. France around Paris was the void around chaos." 1

1 Louis

Blanc, ii. 279.

42.

tistics of Paris at

this period.

Under the influence of this unbounded chaos of passion, Moral sta licentiousness, and ambition, the moral corruption of Paris rapidly increased. The natural births in the department of the Seine, in 1831, amounted to 11,044, and the foundlings to 5803, while the legitimate births were only 24,391. In other words, the foundlings and natural children taken together were two-thirds of the number of the legitimate! The births, both legitimate and illegiti

XXV.

1831.

mate, increased considerably in 1831, though the misery CHAP. of the people was at its height,—a sure proof of the spread of reckless habits and physical indulgence among a squalid and excited population.* In the same year, the persons admitted into the public hospitals, in the department of the Seine, including Paris, were 84,957, of whom 10,910 died in them, and 30,118 remained in them on January 1, 1832. The expense of these hospitals was 10,054,000 francs in the year (£404,000). The persons relieved at home in Paris, in that year, were 70,503, and the sums expended on them 2,041,000 francs (£82,000). It is hard to say whether these figures attest most strongly the seeds of evil which the Revolution had implanted in the country, or the admir- la Franceable spirit with which their effects were combated by the tration benevolent feelings and incomparable powers of adminis- 28, 29, 99. tration by which France has always been characterised.1

1 Stat. de

Adminis

Publique,

the church

l'Auxerrois.

To a people in this extraordinary state of excitement, 43. passion, and suffering, there was nothing so hateful as the Tumult in restraint which religion imposed on their indulgences. of St GerThis soon appeared. The 14th February was the anniver- main sary of the death of the Duke de Berri; and the Roy- Feb. 14. alists, with more courage than prudence, were preparing to celebrate a funeral service in memory of that unhappy prince. The ceremony was originally designed for the church of St Roch, in the Rue St Honoré; but the Minister of the Interior, having received intelligence of the intention, applied to the Archbishop of Paris, by whose authority it was prohibited there, as likely to lead to disturbances. Upon this it was determined to celebrate it in the church of St Germain l'Auxerrois, that beautiful monument of the revival of taste after the middle

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1831.

CHAP. ages, and which was universally admired as one of the finest specimens of that style of architecture in the world. On the day appointed the Royalist nobility flocked there in great numbers. Long lines of carriages, with handsome liveries, were seen waiting at the doors; and in the interior of the church the service for the dead was performed with all the magnificence which the Roman Catholic religion so well knows how to display on such occasions. The Miserere and Dies Ira melted the audience, great part of which was composed of ladies, to tears; and in the enthusiasm of the moment some ardent Royalists passed a crowned miniature of the Duke de Bordeaux from hand to hand, and even had the imprudence to place it on the coffin, that the child might seem to share in the prayers offered up for the soul of the father.1

Cap. iv. Ann. Hist.

295, 297;

xiv. 80, 81;
Louis
Blanc, ii.
284, 285.

44.

church.

Intelligence of what was going on in the interior of Sack of the the church speedily spread abroad, and the crowd, whom curiosity had attracted to the doors, immediately swelled to a most alarming degree. The police interfered, and the young man who had put the image on the coffin was arrested; but this was far from satisfying the public fury. No sooner was the service concluded than a furious multitude broke into the sanctuary of the church, and the house of the curé adjoining, and in the twinkling of an eye everything was sacked or tossed out of the windows. The splendid decorations and ornaments with which the piety of the Bourbon princes had adorned the sanctuary, where they had listened to the eloquence of Bourdaloue and Massillon, were torn down and destroyed. The cross, the symbol of salvation, was in an especial manner the object of popular fury. Under the pretence that the cross at the west end of the church had fleurs-de-lis carved on its stones, the multitude demanded that it should be pulled down. The mayor of the fourth arrondissement of Paris, who was present, gave his consent. In a few minutes the cross was torn down, and fell with

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1831.

a tremendous crash, and in its fall brought down with it CHAP. a part of the organ, the fragments of which strewed the pavement of the church. This achievement excited the people to the utmost fury all the crosses, both on the outside and inside of the church, were speedily torn down, the ornaments disappeared, and this once splen- xiv. 82, 83; did interior exhibited only a melancholy heap of ruins. Cap. iv. The national guard were present with the magistrates Louis the whole time, but they remained passive spectators 284, 285. of the devastation.1

was not

1

298, 301;

Blanc, ii.

Arch

Nôtre

Dame.

No sooner was the work of destruction completed at 45. St Germain l'Auxerrois than the cry arose "A Nôtre Sack of Dame!" and instantly the crowd rushed in that direc- bishop's tion with such rapidity that the national guard, which place at anxious to arrive at the scene of ruin, was very unable to keep pace with them. Part broke into the cathedral, which had stood erect and unshaken amidst all the storms of the first Revolution, and immediately began pulling down the crosses and defacing the ornaments, as they had done at St Germain l'Auxerrois. But the greater part fastened on the Archbishop's palace adjoining the Hôtel Dieu, in the square in front of the cathedral. In a few minutes it was surrounded; but as it was by this time dark, the crowds separated, after vowing to return the following morning to complete the work of destruction. They were as good as their word. Early on the following morning a furious crowd returned to the Feb. 15. Archbishop's palace, which, by negligence or design, had only been left under the care of a hundred men of the national guard, and immediately broke in through the doors and windows. The civic force made no resistance; and so speedy was the work of destruction that before noon not only was the whole palace sacked and pillaged, but it was pulled down from top to bottom, and not one stone was left upon another. The noble library of the Archbishopric, containing a great number of rare and valuable manuscripts, with all the precious

XXV.

1831.

CHAP. movables and furniture which the palace contained, were taken out and thrown from the little bridge into the Seine amidst horrid imprecations and shouts of laughter. From Nôtre Dame the mob moved to the churches of St Roch and of the Assumption, in order to destroy the crosses on those sacred edifices; but "happily," says the French annalist," the promptitude of the Government had anticipated them, and the crosses were already destroyed." Next day a royal ordinance was published, ordering the 1 Ann. Hist. removal of the crosses from all the churches in Paris, and Cap. iv. directing the formation of a new State seal, without the 309; Louis emblem of salvation which had hitherto appeared on it, 285, 286. and the erasure of the fleur-de-lis from the arms of the royal family.1

xiv. 83, 85;

302, 304,

Blanc, ii.

46.

Not content with these disgraceful outrages against Attacks on religion, which went far to discredit the Revolution in the eyes of foreign nations, the mob in Paris endeavoured able weak- to wreak their vengeance on obnoxious individuals. On

individuals,

and deplor

ness of

Govern

ment.

the night of the 14th, two hundred savage wretches repaired to the house of M. Dupin, a member of the Chamber of Deputies, and a most distinguished man, and demanded he should be given up to them. Already were heard the cries, "La mort! la mort!-à la lanterne!" and it was only by the courage of one man, who defended the doorway, that he escaped by a back window. A second band attacked the Posts on the Petit Pont and the Rue St André du Ares, and disarmed them; and a third invaded Conflans, the country residence of the Archbishop of Paris, a prelate known only by his unwearied deeds of beneficence, and sacked it from top to bottom. Another band broke into Nôtre Dame, tossed about and profaned the sacred vases beyond what had been seen in the days of Chaumette and Robespierre, and even devastated the sepulchres of the dead beneath that sacred fane. What rendered these outrages the more alarming was the evident and pitiable weakness of Government. A few lines in the Moniteur, a proclamation against the Carlists, and the arrest of some of their leaders, and a proclamation from

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