ad been prepared for
him: a shapeless mass of shattered metal and stone lying in uneven coils
like some mighty serpent. The wooden sentry-boxes in the square reeled
round and fell, while a cloud of filth and dust obscured the fallen
monster, and men looked awe-struck at one another like naughty children
who had broken something which they ought not to have dared to touch.
The moment of compunction was a short one, and a howling throng rushed
with one accord into the noisome cloud, fighting and quarrelling for
bits of bronze and stone, and a man near me drew back, half stifled for
an instant, saying, with disgust, "See what a stench the Empire has!"
The statue had fallen beyond the heap, and, having smashed the pavement
into splinters, lay a wreck, with one arm broken and the head severed
from the body, while women kicked and spat upon it, waving their arms
wildly, and shouting, "_Vive la Republique!_" "_Vive la Commune!_" All
the bands struck on the _Marseillaise_ in different keys, a few people
crowded on the remnants of the pedestal waving red flags and shrieking
in their excitement, and a sergeant who endeavoured to unburden himself
of an oration was speedily gagged and hustled down to make way for the
great "Bergeret _lui-meme_," who, in all the glory of a red scarf and
tassels, waved his hat and struggled to be heard above the general
hubbud of music, voices, and battering of bronze. "Citizens," he said,
"the 26th of Floreal will be memorable in our history. Thus we triumph
over military despotism, that bloody negation of the rights of man. The
First Empire placed the collar of servitude about our necks--it began
and ended in carnage--and left us a legacy of a Second Empire, which was
finally to end in the disgrace of Sedan." Much more he said, but his
voice was drowned in the continued hammering of metal, while our
attention was distracted by peremptory orders to "move on." Such an
order at such a moment was particularly exasperating, and led to many
little tussles with citizens, who refused to consider this a pleasant
opening to the era of liberty, an exasperation very considerably
increased at the different exits from the square by an uncompromising
search into the contents of pockets, and a consequent disgorging of
trophies and remembrances. A fight was going on meantime in the Rue de
la Paix between a company of Marines and the multitude of people
gathered in the street, who struggled and fought with an energy w