p, that immense diminutive
of the fatherland, with Lacedaemonian enthusiasm.

At bottom, we will observe, there was nothing in all this that was not
extremely serious. It was social elements entering into strife, while
awaiting the day when they should enter into equilibrium.

Another sign of the times was the anarchy mingled with governmentalism
[the barbarous name of the correct party]. People were for order in
combination with lack of discipline.

The drum suddenly beat capricious calls, at the command of such or
such a Colonel of the National Guard; such and such a captain went into
action through inspiration; such and such National Guardsmen fought,
"for an idea," and on their own account. At critical moments, on "days"
they took counsel less of their leaders than of their instincts. There
existed in the army of order, veritable guerilleros, some of the sword,
like Fannicot, others of the pen, like Henri Fonfrede.

Civilization, unfortunately, represented at this epoch rather by an
aggregation of interests than by a group of principles, was or thought
itself, in peril; it set up the cry of alarm; each, constituting himself
a centre, defended it, succored it, and protected it with his own head;
and the first comer took it upon himself to save society.

Zeal sometimes proceeded to extermination. A platoon of the National
Guard would constitute itself on its own authority a private council of
war, and judge and execute a captured insurgent in five minutes. It
was an improvisation of this sort that had slain Jean Prouvaire. Fierce
Lynch law, with which no one party had any right to reproach the rest,
for it has been applied by the Republic in America, as well as by the
monarchy in Europe. This Lynch law was complicated with mistakes. On one
day of rioting, a young poet, named Paul Aime Garnier, was pursued
in the Place Royale, with a bayonet at his loins, and only escaped by
taking refuge under the porte-cochere of No. 6. They shouted:--"There's
another of those Saint-Simonians!" and they wanted to kill him. Now, he
had under his arm a volume of the memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon.
A National Guard had read the words Saint-Simon on the book, and had
shouted: "Death!"

On the 6th of June, 1832, a company of the National Guards from the
suburbs, commanded by the Captain Fannicot, above mentioned, had itself
decimated in the Rue de la Chanvrerie out of caprice and its own good
pleasure. This fact, singular though