its vast historical task, comprises two revolutionary classes, the

middle-class" and the "people." And to these two combatants correspond

two places of combat; the Porte Saint Martin when the middle-class are

revolting, the Bastille when the people are revolting. The eye of the

politician should always be fixed on these two points. There, famous in

contemporary history, are two spots where a small portion of the hot

cinders of Revolution seem ever to smoulder.

When a wind blows from above, these burning cinders are dispersed, and

fill the city with sparks.

This time, as we have already explained, the formidable Faubourg

Antoine slumbered, and, as has been seen, nothing had been able to

awaken it. An entire park of artillery was encamped with lighted

matches around the July Column, that enormous deaf-and-dumb memento of

the Bastille. This lofty revolutionary pillar, this silent witness of

the great deeds of the past, seemed to have forgotten all. Sad to say,

the paving stones which had seen the 14th of July did not rise under

the cannon-wheels of the 2d of December. It was therefore not the

Bastille which began, it was the Porte Saint Martin.

From eight o'clock in the morning the Rue Saint Denis and the Rue Saint

Martin were in an uproar throughout their length; throngs of indignant

passers-by went up and down those thoroughfares. They tore down the

placards of the coup d'état; they posted up our Proclamations; groups

at the corners of all the adjacent streets commented upon the decree of

outlawry drawn up by the members of the Left remaining at liberty; they

snatched the copies from each other. Men mounted on the kerbstones read

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The History of a Crime