PRUSSIANS PARADE BUT GUARDS STEAL THE SHOW

THE VICTORS PREPARE AN IMPRESSIVE PARADE AND A GERMAN ARTIST IMAGINES PARISIANS LOOKING ON

In reality the public's boycott reveals guards' strength.

Prussians prepare for the march in the Tuileries gardens, photographer unknown / zoom

 

Information on preceding page.

The Prussian artist invents the crowd in this propaganda work.

The guards want to fight but when their wives say that will lead to a bloodbath and to losing the Republic as in '48, they react in another way.  

A proclamation bordered in black states that barricades will isolate the enemy and that the Guard will act "in concert with the army" — which remains on the other side of the river.

Bells toll. Black cloths hang from windows. The streets are deserted:

• "That night gave an impression of grandeur." 

-- Louise Michel

• "So Moscow must have seemed to the Grand Army. Parked between the Seine, the Louvre [...] and a cordon of barricades [...] bordering faubourg Saint-Honoré, the Germans seemed caught in a trap."

-- Lissagary

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The guards' discipline recalls that of the rebels in February and  June 1848: 

"Calmly and dutifully, the guards broke everything in a café that had served the Prussians [...] and without pity or anger, whipped the unfortunate women who had slipped through the barricades in festive dress, to view the invaders."

-- Louise Michel (underlining added)

After two days and two nights camping out in the cold, the Prussians leave without incident.

Histoire de la Révolution de 1870-1871 by Jules Claretie

The guards are in control.

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Next, 
The Assembly pours oil on the fire