have succeeded in emptying the cup of disgrace to the
dregs by dragging down the monument of their military glory, amid hoots
and hisses, and toppling over the effigy of their greatest soldier-hero
on to a bed of mire, at the same time publicly tearing the tricoloured
national flag which has for so many years led their armies to victory.
Upon the official announcement some days back that the Vendome Column
was to be sacrificed as an insult to the principles of fraternity,
everybody laughed and thought it a good joke, never believing that the
plan would be carried out, even in spite of the ominous scaffoldings and
curtains which rose around its base. A few days later we were told that
it had been sawn through, and that a solemn Festival would be held to
commemorate this new display of liberty. We thought the party of Order
would protest; that the veterans of the Invalides would make a movement;
that the mass of the population would insist upon the abandonment of
such a piece of folly. But we forgot the state of coma into which
respectable Paris has fallen, and that those who had allowed themselves
to be ground down by a tyrannical few would scarcely bestir themselves
in defence of their public monuments. It became apparent that the column
was really doomed, and the Rue de la Paix was crowded by an expectant
multitude at about 3 o'clock on Monday afternoon; the balconies were
filled with ladies; all the windows were pasted with paper to neutralize
the expected concussion, while cake and newspaper vendors and _marchands
de coco_ plied a busy trade, and elbowed their way about among the
people down below. Three ropes had been fastened round the top of the
column beneath the statue, communicating with a crazy-looking windlass
and anchor placed in the centre of the road at the entrance of the Rue
Neuve des Capucines, and a long narrow dung heap filled with sand and
branches had been spread in the square to deaden the shock of the
falling mass. Public excitement was at its height, and the strangest
surmises went from mouth to mouth as to how far the statue would be
thrown, whether balconies would fall and slates be shuffled down, and
whether the great weight would or would not crash through the vaulted
arch into the sewers under the road. Still the crowd increased in
numbers, when at about 4 o'clock a cordon of National Guards was formed,
who pushed back the people as far as the Rue des Augustins, leaving an
empty space along th