Government composed of Dupont, Arago, Lamartine, the Jew Crémieux, Ledru-Rollin and Garnier-Pagès.
The news of the outbreak reached Pau, and the mob there rose and paraded the town, smashing windows that were not illuminated in honour of the Republic. We put a few dips in our windows, and heard the tramp of the wild bloods through the streets and along the road, bellowing the Marseillaise. We were not molested. A few trees of liberty were set up and some red caps were worn, but no harm was done to life and property in Pau.
It soon became manifest that the Provisional Government was unable to control the people, and inspired no confidence. My father, foreseeing that there would be fresh disturbances, resolved on returning to England.
On the 16th and 17th March there had been fresh riots in Paris. The National Assembly met on the 23rd after a renewed manifesto of the revolutionary party which was put down on April 16th; then a Feast of Fraternity was held on April 21st which reconciled none.
We left Pau in the second week of June, and had not proceeded far before we heard that there was fighting in the streets of Paris. On the 22nd barricades had been thrown up in the faubourgs and in half of Paris. The executive had at its disposal only twenty thousand men, the Garde mobile, and a portion of the National Guard.
We had not chosen a happy time for our journey home.
The National Assembly, aware of the egregious blunder that had been made in establishing the National Workshops, was resolved on closing them. The treasury was drained to support a host of idle men and to encourage idleness. The Assembly ordered the men to join the army or to leave Paris and seek work elsewhere.
The people at once set up the cry of "Bread or bullets," and the most terrible street fighting ensued that Paris had ever witnessed. Mr. Nassau Senior tells how boys armed with guns hid in houses, and firing through the windows shot down the officers. The streets of the districts inhabited by the artisans were again torn up to form barricades, and from Friday, June 23, until the following Monday a desperate conflict raged.
General Cavaignac, Minister of War since May 18th, planted
