ant. We must
not forget the famous phrase that sounded the death-knell of the July
monarchy, "La France s'ennuie." France had gone in for a revolution by
way of being entertained.

George Sand was entertained, then, by what was taking place. She went
down into the street where there was plenty to see. In the mornings
there were the various coloured posters to be read. These had been put
up in the night, and they were in prose and in verse.

Processions were also organized, and men, women and children, with
banners unfurled, marched along to music to the Hotel de Ville, carrying
baskets decorated with ribbons and flowers. Every corporation and
every profession considered itself bound in honour to congratulate the
Government and to encourage it in its well-doing. One day the procession
would be of the women who made waistcoats or breeches, another day
of the water-carriers, or of those who had been decorated in July
or wounded in February; then there were the pavement-layers, the
washerwomen, the delegates from the Paris night-soil men. There were
delegates, too, from the Germans, Italians, Poles, and most of the
inhabitants of Montmartre and of Batignolles. We must not forget the
trees of Liberty, as George Sand speaks of meeting with three of these
in one day. "Immense pines," she writes, "carried on the shoulders of
fifty working-men. A drum went first, then the flag, followed by bands
of these fine tillers of the ground, strong-looking, serious men with
wreaths of leaves on their head, and a spade, pick-axe or hatchet over
their shoulder. It was magnificent; finer than all the _Roberts_ in the
world."(41) Such was the tone of her letters.

(41) _Correspondance._

She had the Opera from her windows and an Olympic circus at every
cross-road. Paris was certainly _en fete_. In the evenings it was just
as lively. There were the Clubs, and there were no less than three
hundred of these. Society women could go to them and hear orators
in blouses proposing incendiary movements, which made them shudder
deliciously. Then there were the theatres. Rachel, draped in antique
style, looking like a Nemesis, declaimed the _Marseillaise_. And all
night long the excitement continued. The young men organized torchlight
processions, with fireworks, and insisted on peaceably-inclined citizens
illuminating. It was like a National Fete day, or the Carnival,
continuing all the week.

All this was the common, everyday aspect of Pari