June 23

* We still have a multitude of circumstances concerning the struggle of the 23rd to be added. The material before us is inexhaustible; time, however, permits us to give only the most essential and characteristic.

The June revolution offers the spectacle of an embittered struggle such as Paris, such as the world has never seen. Of all previous revolutions, the March days in Milan exhibit the hottest fighting. An almost disarmed population of 170,000 souls defeated an army of 20 to 30,000 men. But the March days of Milan are child’s play compared with the June days of Paris.

What distinguishes the June revolution from all previous revolutions is the absence of all illusions, of all enthusiasm.

The people do not stand on the barricades singing *Mourir pour la patrie* as in February – the workers of 23 June fight for their existence, the fatherland has lost all meaning for them. The *Marseillaise* and all memories of the great revolution have vanished. People and bourgeoisie sense that the revolution they are entering is greater than that of 1789 and 1793.

The June revolution is the revolution of despair, and it is fought with silent rancour, with the sombre cold-bloodedness of despair; the workers know that they are waging a life-and-death struggle, and before the fearful earnestness of this struggle even the cheerful French wit falls silent.

History offers only two moments that bear any resemblance to the struggle probably still being waged in Paris at this moment: the Roman slave war and the Lyon insurrection of 1834. The old Lyon motto: Live working or die fighting! has also suddenly reappeared after fourteen years and been inscribed on the banners.

The June revolution is the first that really splits the whole of society into two great hostile camps, represented by East Paris and West Paris. The unanimity of the February Revolution has vanished, that poetic unanimity full of dazzling illusions, full of beautiful lies, which was so worthily represented by the fine-talking traitor Lamartine. Today the inexorable earnestness of reality tears to shreds all the hypocritical promises of 25 February. The February fighters are today fighting one another themselves, and what has never happened before, there is no more indifference, every man capable of bearing arms really does fight, on the barricade or in front of the barricade.

The armies fighting each other in the streets of Paris are as strong as the armies that fought the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig. That alone proves the enormous significance of the June revolution.

But let us pass on to the description of the struggle itself.

From our yesterday’s news we had to believe that the barricades had been erected quite without any plan. The detailed reports of today prove the contrary. Never have the workers’ defence works been carried out with such cold-bloodedness, with such methodical planning.

The city was divided into two armed camps. At the north-eastern edge of the city, from Montmartre down to Porte St. Denis, from there down the Rue St. Denis, across the Île de la Cité, along the Rue St. Jacques to the barrier, ran the dividing line. What lay to the east was occupied and fortified by the workers; from the western part the bourgeoisie attacked and received its reinforcements.

From early morning the people began silently to erect their barricades. They were higher and more solid than ever before. On the barricade at the entrance of the Faubourg St. Antoine a colossal red flag was waving.

Boulevard St. Denis was very strongly fortified. The barricades of the boulevard, of the Rue de Cléry, and the surrounding houses, transformed into complete fortresses, formed a complete system of defence. Here, as we reported yesterday, the first significant fighting broke out. The people fought with indescribable contempt for death. A flank attack was made on the barricade in the Rue de Cléry by a strong detachment of the National Guard. Most of the defenders of the barricade withdrew. Only seven men and two women, two young, beautiful grisettes, remained at their post. One of the seven stepped onto the barricade, flag in hand. The others opened fire. The National Guard replied, the flag-bearer fell. Then one of the grisettes, a tall, beautiful girl in tasteful clothes, with bare arms, seized the flag, climbed over the barricade and advanced on the National Guard. The firing continued, and the bourgeois of the National Guard shot down the girl just as she had come right up to their bayonets. Immediately the other grisette sprang forward, seized the flag, lifted the head of her comrade, and finding her dead, furiously hurled stones at the National Guard. She too fell under the bullets of the bourgeois. The fire became more and more lively, shooting came from the windows, from the barricade, the ranks of the National Guard were thinning, at last reinforcements arrived and the barricade was stormed. Of the seven defenders of the barricade only one was still alive, who was disarmed and taken prisoner. It was the Lions and the stock-exchange wolves of the Second Legion who performed this heroic deed against seven workers and two grisettes.

After the union of both corps and the capture of the barricade, a momentary, anxious silence set in. But it is soon broken. The brave National Guard opens a well-sustained platoon fire upon the unarmed and quiet masses of people who are occupying a part of the boulevard. They scatter in terror. But the barricades were not taken. Only when Cavaignac himself advanced with the troops of the line and with cavalry, after a long struggle and not until three o’clock, was the boulevard taken as far as Porte Saint Martin.

In the Faubourg Poissonnière several barricades were erected, and particularly at the corner of the Allée Lafayette, where several houses also served the insurgents as a fortress. An officer of the National Guard led them. The 7th light infantry regiment, the Mobile Guard and the National Guard advanced against them. The struggle lasted half an hour, finally the troops were victorious, but only after they had lost some 100 dead and wounded. This fight took place after 3 o’clock in the afternoon.

Before the Palais de Justice barricades were also erected, in the Rue Constantine and the surrounding streets, as well as on the Pont Saint Michel, where the red flag was waving. After a longer struggle these barricades too were taken.

The dictator Cavaignac had his artillery drawn up at the Pont Notre-Dame. From here he bombarded the streets of Planche Mibray and the Cité, and was easily able to have them brought up against the barricades in the Rue Saint Jacques.

This latter street was cut through by numerous barricades and the houses transformed into veritable fortresses. Only artillery could be effective here, and Cavaignac did not hesitate for a moment to employ it. All afternoon the thunder of cannon resounded. The grape-shot swept the street. By 7 o’clock in the evening only one more barricade remained to be taken. The number of dead was very great.

At the Pont Saint Michel and in the Rue Saint-André des Arts there was also cannon fire. Right at the north-eastern extremity of the city, Rue du Château Landon, where a detachment of troops ventured forward, a barricade was likewise shot to pieces with cannon balls.

During the afternoon the fighting in the north-eastern faubourgs became more and more lively. The inhabitants of the suburbs of La Villette, Pantin etc. came to the aid of the insurgents. The barricades were erected again and again, and in very great numbers.

In the Cité a company of Republican Guard, under the pretext of wanting to fraternise with the insurgents, crept between two barricades and then opened fire. The people furiously fell upon the traitors and struck them to the ground man for man. Barely 20 found an opportunity to escape.

The violence of the struggle increased at all points. As long as it was light, cannon were fired everywhere; later the firing was restricted to musketry, which was kept up far into the night. Even at 11 o’clock the general call to arms was sounding throughout Paris, and at midnight there was still shooting in the direction of the Bastille. The Place de la Bastille, together with all its approaches, was entirely in the power of the insurgents. The Faubourg Saint Antoine, the centre of their strength, was strongly fortified. On the boulevard from the Rue Montmartre to the Rue du Temple, cavalry, infantry, National Guard and Mobile Guard stood in dense masses.

At 11 o’clock in the evening more than 1,000 dead and wounded were already counted.

That was the first day of the June revolution, a day without equal in the revolutionary annals of Paris. The workers of Paris fought entirely alone against the armed bourgeoisie, against the Mobile Guard, the newly organised Republican Guard, and against the troops of the line of all arms. They withstood the struggle with unparalleled bravery, equalled only by the equally unparalleled brutality of their opponents. One will be indulgent towards a Hüser, a Radetzky, a Windisch-Grätz, when one sees how the Paris bourgeoisie throws itself with real enthusiasm into the massacres arranged by Cavaignac.

On the night of 23 to 24 June the Society of the Rights of Man, which had been re-established on 11 June, resolved to utilise the insurrection for the benefit of the red flag and accordingly to take part in it. It therefore held a meeting, decided on the necessary measures, and appointed two permanent committees.