ry Fifteen Thousand laid down their tools, and the
eyes of onlookers turned sorrowfully of the still high Sun; when this
and the other Patriot, fire in his eye, snatches barrow and mattock,
and himself begins indignantly wheeling. Whom scores and then hundreds
follow; and soon a volunteer Fifteen Thousand are shovelling and
trundling; with the heart of giants; and all in right order, with that
extemporaneous adroitness of theirs: whereby such a lift has been
given, worth three mercenary ones;--which may end when the late twilight
thickens, in triumph shouts, heard or heard of beyond Montmartre!

A sympathetic population will wait, next day, with eagerness, till the
tools are free. Or why wait? Spades elsewhere exist! And so now bursts
forth that effulgence of Parisian enthusiasm, good-heartedness and
brotherly love; such, if Chroniclers are trustworthy, as was not
witnessed since the Age of Gold. Paris, male and female, precipitates
itself towards its South-west extremity, spade on shoulder. Streams of
men, without order; or in order, as ranked fellow-craftsmen, as natural
or accidental reunions, march towards the Field of Mars. Three-deep
these march; to the sound of stringed music; preceded by young girls
with green boughs, and tricolor streamers: they have shouldered,
soldier-wise, their shovels and picks; and with one throat are singing
ca-ira. Yes, pardieu ca-ira, cry the passengers on the streets. All
corporate Guilds, and public and private Bodies of Citizens, from the
highest to the lowest, march; the very Hawkers, one finds, have ceased
bawling for one day. The neighbouring Villages turn out: their able men
come marching, to village fiddle or tambourine and triangle, under their
Mayor, or Mayor and Curate, who also walk bespaded, and in tricolor
sash. As many as one hundred and fifty thousand workers: nay at certain
seasons, as some count, two hundred and fifty thousand; for, in the
afternoon especially, what mortal but, finishing his hasty day's work,
would run! A stirring city: from the time you reach the Place Louis
Quinze, southward over the River, by all Avenues, it is one living
throng. So many workers; and no mercenary mock-workers, but real ones
that lie freely to it: each Patriot stretches himself against the
stubborn glebe; hews and wheels with the whole weight that is in him.

Amiable infants, aimables enfans! They do the 'police des l'atelier'
too, the guidance and governance, themselves; with that