Whether this helped them much we saw by the Versailles trial.14 Everyone wanted to do something, but no one dared; the most foresight was shown by some young men who hoped for a new order-they bespoke themselves prefects' uniforms, which they declined to take after the failure of the movement, and the tailor was obliged to hang them up for sale.
When the hurriedly rigged-up government was installed at the Arts et Nletiers the workmen, after walking about the streets with inquiring faces and finding neither advice nor leadership, 1 2 Guinard. Aug-uste-Joseph (born 1 799) , had been one of the first to proclaim thP republic in Fehru<� ry \ 848, and at the head of the 8th Legion had occupied the Hotel de Ville. (Tr.) class="underline" l Forestier, Henri-Joseph ( born 1 78 7 ) , was a painter of merit. He was colow•l of the 8th Legion of the National Guard. ( Tr. ) 1 1 Aftpr th(' crushing of the dC'monstration of 1 3 June 1 849, in Paris, and of a series of manifestations in the provinces. the government of Odilon I3arrot dPprived thJrty-thre(' Montagnards of their status as deputies. declared them to he enPmies of the state and delivered them over for tria l . Those who had emigrated were tried in ab5entia. (A.S.)
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went horne, convinced once more of the bankruptcy of the Montagnard fathers of the country: perhaps they gulped down their tears like the man who said to us, 'All is lost! '-or perhaps laughed in their sleeves at the way the Montagne had been tousled.
But the dilatoriness of Ledru-Rollin, the pedantry of Guinard
-these wen• the external causes of the failure, and were just as a propos as are decisive characters and fortunate circumstances when they are needed. The internal cause was the poverty of the republican idea in which the movement originated. Ideas that have outlived their day may hobble about the vvorld for yearsmay even, like Christ, appear after death once or twice to their devotees; but it is hard for them ever again to lead and dominate life. Such ideas never gain complete possession of a man, or gain possession only of incomplete people. If the Montagne had been victorious on the 1 3th of June, what would it have done? There was nothing new they could call their own. It would have been a photograph in black and white of the grim, glO\ving Rembrandt or Salvator Rosa picture of 1 793 without the Jacobins, without the war, without even the naive guillotine . . . .
After the 1 3th of June [ 1 849] and the attempted rising at Lyons, arrests began. The mayor came to us with the police at Ville d'Avray to look for Karl Blind15 and Arnold Ruge; some of our acquaintances were seized. The Conciergerie was full to overflowing. In one small room there were as many as sixty men; in the middle stood a large slop-bucket, which was emptied once in the twenty-four hours-and all this in civilised Paris, with the cholera ;aging. Having not the least desire to spend some two months among those comforts, fed on rotten beans and putrid meat, I got a passport from a Moldo-Wallachian and went to Geneva. 16
15 Blind, Karl ( 1 826-1 907) , a writer and revolutionary, was for the part he took in the insurrections in South Germany sentenced to eight years'
imprisonment. but was rescued by the mob. He settled in England, where he continued journalistic and propaganda work up to the time of his death. ( Tr.)
16 How well founded my apprehensions were was shown by a police search of my mother's house at Ville d'Avray two days after my departure. They seized all the papers, even the correspondence of her maid with my cook. I thought it inopportune to publish my account of the 1 3th of June at the time.
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lrt Gerteva witlz
the Exiles of 1 848
THERE WAS A TIME when in a fit of irritation and bitter mirth I intended to vHite a pamphlet in the style of Grandville's! illustrations: Les refugies peints par eux-memes. I am glad I did not do it. !\'ow I look at things more calmly and I am less moved to laughter and indignation. Besides, exile is both lasting too long and is weighing too heavily on people . . . .
Nevertheless I do say even now that exile, not undertaken
•vith any definite object, but forced upon men by the triumph of the opposing party, checks development and draws men away from the activities of life into the domain of phantasy. Leaving their native land with concealed anger, with the continual thought of going back to it once more on the morrow, men do not move forwards but are continual ly thrown back upon the past; hope prevents them from settling down to any permanent work; irritation and trivial but exasperated disputes prevent their escaping from the familiar circle of questions, thoughts and memories which make up an oppressive, binding tradition. Men in general, and especially men in an exceptional position, have such a passion for formalism, for the guild spirit, for looking their part, that they immediately fall into a professional groove and acquire a doctrinaire stamp.
All emigres, cut off from the l iving environment to which they have belonged, shut their eyes to avoid seeing b itter truths, and grow more and more acclimatised to a closed, fantastic circle consisting of inert memot·ies and hopes that can never be realised.
If we add to this an a loofness from all who are not exiles and 1 Grandville, Jean Ignace Isidore ( 1 803-47) , was one of the most celebrated book-illustrators of his time. Pt•rhaps his most famous book is Les animaur pPints par Pur-memes. He was deeply interested in animals, insects, and fishes, and d rPw them wonderfully. He edited La Caricature, in which all the most eminent people of his time in Paris are depicted.
He died insane. ( Tr.)
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an element of exasperation, suspiciOn, exclusiveness and jealousy, this new, stiff-necked Israel becomes perfectly comprehensible.
The exiles of 1 849 did not yet believe in the permanence of their enemies' triumph; the intoxication of their recent successes had not yet passed off, the applause and songs of the exultant people were still ringing in their ears. They firmly believed that their defeat was a momentary reverse, and did not move their clothes from their trunks to a wardrobe. Meamvhile Paris was under police supervision, Rome had fallen under the onslaught of the French,2 the brother of the Prussian King was brutally triumphing in Baden,3 and Paskevich in the Russian style had outwitted Gorgei4 in Hungary by bribes and promises. Geneva was full to overflowing with refugees; it became the Coblenz5 of the revolution of 1 848. There were Italians from all parts; Frenchmen escaping from the Bauchart6 inquiry and from the Versailles trial; Baden militiamen, who entered Geneva marching in regular formation with their officers and with Gustav Struve; men who had taken part in the rising of Vienna; Bohemians and Poles from Posen and Galicia. All these people were crowded together between the Hotel des Bergues and the Cafe de la Poste. The more sensible of them began to guess that this exile would not be over soon, talked of America, and went away. With the majority it was just the opposite, especially with the French who, true to their temperament, were in daily expectation of the death of Napoleon and the birth of a republic-2 French troops under General Oudinot entered Rome on 3rd July, 1849.