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CHAPTER III.
WHAT HAD HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT
Previous to the fatal days of June, 1848, the esplanade of the Invalides
was divided into eight huge grass plots, surrounded by wooden railings
and enclosed between two groves of trees, separated by a street running
perpendicularly to the front of the Invalides. This street was traversed
by three streets running parallel to the Seine. There were large lawns
upon which children were wont to play. The centre of the eight grass
plots was marred by a pedestal which under the Empire had borne the
bronze lion of St. Mark, which had been brought from Venice; under the
Restoration a white marble statue of Louis XVIII.; and under Louis
Philippe a plaster bust of Lafayette. Owing to the Palace of the
Constituent Assembly having been nearly seized by a crowd of insurgents on
the 22d of June, 1848, and there being no barracks in the neighborhood,
General Cavaignac had constructed at three hundred paces from the
Legislative Palace, on the grass plots of the Invalides, several rows of
long huts, under which the grass was hidden. These huts, where three or
four thousand men could be accommodated, lodged the troops specially
appointed to keep watch over the National Assembly.
On the 1st December, 1851, the two regiments hutted on the Esplanade were
the 6th and the 42d Regiments of the Line, the 6th commanded by Colonel
Garderens de Boisse, who was famous before the Second of December, the
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2d by Colonel Espinasse, who became famous since that date.
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