Details on June 23, 1848

Special Supplement  
Details on June 23.  
No. 26, June 26, 1848.  
Neue Rheinische Zeitung.  

* The insurrection is a purely workers’ insurrection. The workers’ resentment has erupted against the government and the Assembly, which have disappointed their hopes, which have daily taken new measures in the interest of the bourgeoisie against the workers, which have dissolved the Workers’ Commission in the Luxembourg, restricted the National Workshops, issued the law against assemblies. The decidedly proletarian character of the insurrection is evident from all the details.

The boulevards, the great artery of Parisian life, were the scene of the first assemblies. From the Porte Saint-Denis down to the old Rue du Temple everything was jam-packed. Workers from the national workshops declared they would not go to the Sologne to the National Workshops there; others said they had set off yesterday but had already waited in vain at the Barrière de Fontainebleau for the marching orders and the order to depart, which had been promised to them the evening before.

Towards ten o’clock there were calls for barricades. The eastern and south-eastern part of Paris, from the Quartier and Faubourg Poissonnière onwards, was rapidly but, as it seems, still fairly irregularly and disconnectedly barricaded. The streets Rue Saint-Denis, Rue Saint-Martin, Rue Rambuteau, Faubourg Poissonnière, and on the left bank of the Seine the approaches to the Faubourgs Saint-Jacques and Saint-Marceau – Rue Saint-Jacques, Rue de La Harpe, Rue de la Huchette and the adjacent bridges – were more or less heavily fortified. On the barricades were planted banners bearing the inscription: Bread or Death, or: Work or Death!

The insurrection was thus decidedly based on the eastern part of the city, predominantly inhabited by workers; first on the faubourgs Saint-Jacques, Saint-Marceau, Saint-Antoine, du Temple, Saint-Martin and Saint-Denis, on the “aimables faubourgs”, then on the city quarters lying between them (Quartiers Saint-Antoine, du Marais, Saint-Martin and Saint-Denis).

Barricades were followed by attacks. The guard post on the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle, which in almost every revolution is the first to be stormed, was occupied by the Mobile Guard. It was disarmed by the people.

But soon afterwards the bourgeois guard of the western parts of the city advanced to its relief. It reoccupied the post. A second detachment occupied the high pavement in front of the Théâtre du Gymnase, which commands a long stretch of the boulevards. The people attempted to disarm the posts that had advanced; but for the time being no use of weapons was made on either side.

At last came the order to take the barricade across the boulevard, at the Porte Saint-Denis. The National Guard advanced, the police commissioner at its head; negotiations took place; a few shots fell, from which side is not clear, and the fire quickly became general. Immediately, the Bonne-Nouvelle post also opened fire; a battalion of the second legion, which was occupying the Boulevard Poissonnière, likewise advanced with loaded guns. The people were surrounded on all sides. From their advantageous and in part secure positions, the National Guard opened a heavy cross-fire on the workers. These defended themselves for half an hour; finally the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle and the barricades up to the Porte Saint-Martin were taken. Here too, towards eleven o’clock, the National Guard, coming from the side of the Temple, had taken the barricades and occupied the approaches to the boulevard.

The heroes who stormed these barricades were the bourgeois of the second arrondissement, which extends from the Palais-Royal over the whole Faubourg Montmartre. Here live the rich boutiquiers of the Rue Vivienne, Rue de Richelieu and the Boulevard des Italiens, the great bankers of the Rue Laffitte and Rue Bergère, and the pleasure-loving rentiers of the Chaussée d’Antin. Here live Rothschild and Fould, Rougemont de Lowemberg and Ganneron. Here, in a word, are located the Bourse, Tortoni and all that hangs together with it.

These heroes, first and foremost threatened by the Red Republic, were also the first on the scene. It is significant that the first barricade of June 23 was taken by the vanquished of February 24. They advanced three thousand strong; four companies captured an overturned omnibus at the double. The insurgents, however, seem to have re-established themselves at the Porte Saint-Denis, for towards midday General Lamoricière had to advance with strong detachments of the Mobile Guard, regular troops, cavalry and two cannon, in order, together with the 2nd Legion (the National Guard of the 2nd Arrondissement), to take a strong barricade. One platoon of the Mobile Guard was forced to retreat by the insurgents.

The fighting on the Boulevard Saint-Denis was the signal for engagement in all the eastern districts of Paris. It was bloody. Over 30 insurgents were killed or wounded. The enraged workers swore to break out on all sides the next night and to fight the “Municipal Guard of the Republic” to the death.

At eleven o’clock there was also fighting in the Rue Planche-Mibray (the continuation of the Rue Saint-Martin towards the Seine), one man was killed.

In the neighbourhood of the Halles, Rue Rambuteau, etc., there were likewise bloody collisions. Four to five dead remained on the spot.

At one o’clock an engagement took place in the Rue du Paradis-Poissonnière; the National Guard fired, the result is unknown. In the Faubourg Poissonnière, after a bloody clash, two non-commissioned officers of the National Guard were disarmed.

The Rue Saint-Denis was cleared by cavalry charges.

In the Faubourg Saint-Jacques there was heavy fighting in the afternoon. In the Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue de La Harpe, on the Place Maubert, barricades were stormed with varying success and heavy firing of grapeshot took place. In the Faubourg Montmartre too, the troops fired cannon.

On the whole, the insurgents were forced back. The Hôtel de Ville remained free; by three o’clock the insurrection was confined to the faubourgs and the Marais.

Incidentally, few National Guardsmen without uniform (i.e., workers who have no money for the purchase of the uniform) were to be seen under arms. On the other hand, there were among them people carrying luxury weapons, hunting rifles, etc. Even mounted National Guardsmen (always the young men of the richest families) had gone on foot into the ranks of the infantry. On the Boulevard Poissonnière, National Guardsmen calmly allowed themselves to be disarmed by the people and then took to their heels.

At five o’clock the struggle was still continuing, when a downpour of rain suddenly suspended it.

In isolated places, however, fighting went on until late in the evening. At nine o’clock musketry was still to be heard in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the centre of the worker population.

Up to now, the struggle had not yet been waged with the full vehemence of a decisive revolution. The National Guard, with the exception of the second legion, seems for the most part to have hesitated to attack the barricades. The workers, enraged as they were, limited themselves, as is understandable, to defending their barricades.

Thus they parted in the evening, after both parties had given each other a rendezvous for the next morning. The first day of the struggle gave the government no advantages; the insurgents, having been forced back, were able during the night, as they actually did, to reoccupy the lost posts. On the other hand, the government had two important facts against it: it had fired grapeshot, and it had not defeated the insurrection on the first day. But with grapeshot, and with a night not of victory but of mere armistice, the insurrection ceases and the revolution begins.

— As evening approached, General Cavaignac was riding through the streets and commanding the troops, with Louis Napoleon and Pierre Bonaparte on horseback at his side, to prove that their family was in no way involved in the insurrection.

— There is talk of a serious split that has broken out between the line troops and the Mobile Guard in the barracks in the Rue du Foin-Saint-Jacques. Officers of the Mobile Guard are said to have admitted a fairly large number of workers into the barracks, who called upon the Guard to fraternise with them. A line regiment happened to be passing by, and the officers of the two corps are said to have come to heated words and threats against one another.

Session of the National Assembly of June 23.

— The Indépendance belge brings us the session of the National Assembly of June 23, which our readers will read in tomorrow’s number. The Assembly adopted the order of the day against the proposal of General Le Breton, who demanded that it should send a commission from its midst to the troops, to take an active part in the events. The report of the Workers’ Commission on the measures for the immediate dissolution of the National Workshops and the discussion on the purchase of the railways by the state occupy the main part of the session. But every moment the order of the day is interrupted by reports on the day’s events reaching the president. At half past six, Cavaignac, upon whom the supreme command of all the troops assembled in Paris has been conferred, announces to the Assembly that fighting is only still going on in the Rue Saint-Antoine and Rue Saint-Jacques, and he expressed the hope that the insurrection would soon be completely suppressed. Garnier-Pagès gives a report on the measures taken by the Executive Commission, and he announces that even more energetic measures will be put into effect. The mysterious solemnity with which he wrapped his words suggested that Paris would be placed under a state of siege and that numerous and important arrests would be carried out that evening. Lamartine took the floor to declare that he would confront the insurrection face to face; and indeed he mounted his horse at 6 o’clock and made his way to the Quartier Saint-Antoine. The rumour was spread that several members of the executive power had handed in their resignations. The words uttered by Garnier-Pagès did not imply that. The National Assembly declared itself in permanent session. — The detailed report on the National Assembly of June 23 will show our readers that the scene of the Chamber of Deputies of February 23 was re-enacted in the so-called National Assembly only with a newly replenished personnel.

— Half past nine. The insurgents, driven back on all sides to the heights of the faubourgs, are spreading into the banlieue. Meanwhile, a lively fusillade is still to be heard in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Despite the suppression of the insurrection in Paris, serious fears are entertained for the night and the following day. There is a great number of regiments in Paris; the majority of those not up to strength will be brought up to strength.

— Cavaignac is to be President of the Republic, Marrast President of the Ministry without portfolio. In this latter rumour it is evident that the most wretched and anti-popular party of the parvenus of February intends, after the suppression of the insurrection, to confiscate state power. But we believe that the people will be victorious. An insurrection that lasts two days and is brought to reason with grapeshot is, in Paris, always the overthrow of the existing power. If the people were defeated, its victory would only be postponed, but much heroic blood would have been shed in vain, and a brief orgy