ation an
indescribable and gloomy pacification, Paris had already long been ripe
for commotion. As we have said, the great city resembles a piece of
artillery; when it is loaded, it suffices for a spark to fall, and the
shot is discharged. In June, 1832, the spark was the death of General
Lamarque.

Lamarque was a man of renown and of action. He had had in succession,
under the Empire and under the Restoration, the sorts of bravery
requisite for the two epochs, the bravery of the battle-field and the
bravery of the tribune. He was as eloquent as he had been valiant; a
sword was discernible in his speech. Like Foy, his predecessor, after
upholding the command, he upheld liberty; he sat between the left and
the extreme left, beloved of the people because he accepted the chances
of the future, beloved of the populace because he had served the
Emperor well; he was, in company with Comtes Gerard and Drouet, one
of Napoleon's marshals in petto. The treaties of 1815 removed him as
a personal offence. He hated Wellington with a downright hatred which
pleased the multitude; and, for seventeen years, he majestically
preserved the sadness of Waterloo, paying hardly any attention to
intervening events. In his death agony, at his last hour, he clasped to
his breast a sword which had been presented to him by the officers of
the Hundred Days. Napoleon had died uttering the word army, Lamarque
uttering the word country.

His death, which was expected, was dreaded by the people as a loss, and
by the government as an occasion. This death was an affliction. Like
everything that is bitter, affliction may turn to revolt. This is what
took place.

On the preceding evening, and on the morning of the 5th of June, the day
appointed for Lamarque's burial, the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, which the
procession was to touch at, assumed a formidable aspect. This tumultuous
network of streets was filled with rumors. They armed themselves as best
they might. Joiners carried off door-weights of their establishment
"to break down doors." One of them had made himself a dagger of a
stocking-weaver's hook by breaking off the hook and sharpening the
stump. Another, who was in a fever "to attack," slept wholly dressed
for three days. A carpenter named Lombier met a comrade, who asked him:
"Whither are you going?" "Eh! well, I have no weapons." "What then?"
"I'm going to my timber-yard to get my compasses." "What for?" "I don't
know," said Lombier. A certain J