Chapter 9: The Porte Saint Martin

Important deeds had been already achieved during the morning.

“It is taking root,” Bastide had said.

The difficulty is not to spread the flames but to light the fire.

It was evident that Paris began to grow ill-tempered. Paris does not get angry at will. She must be in the humor for it. A volcano possesses nerves. The anger was coming slowly, but it was coming. On the horizon might be seen the first glimmering of the eruption.

For the Elysée, as for us, the critical moment was drawing nigh. From the preceding evening they were nursing their resources. The coup d’état and the Republic were at length about to close with each other. The Committee had in vain attempted to drag the wheel; some irresistible impulse carried away the last defenders of liberty and hurried them on to action. The decisive battle was about to be fought.

In Paris, when certain hours have sounded, when there appears an immediate necessity for a progressive movement to be carried out, or a right to be vindicated, the insurrections rapidly spread throughout the whole city. But they always begin at some particular point. Paris, in 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.