THAT ANOTHER TOPIC DROWNS OUT
The first great struggle between capital and labor brought a three-day carnage whose intensity was unknown before that time. The estimates do not include wounded: Many were cared for at home and we do not know their fates.
- 1830, 1500 dissidents dead.
- Lyons 1834, 600.
- February 1848, 350.
- June 1848, 5000.
For the museum's presentation stroll past a panel, passing small paintings in which violence is erased (please click back):
The two works on the left illustrate festivities of the February Revolution's provisional government. The two on the right are of June fighting, whose combats fade into the background. The central painting shows army tents, not the distant barricade.
At the back there's a mythological painting, a proclamation, and images of right-wing officials. In front of them is a table...
 On it is the daguerreotype of a barricade with text in tiny print: |
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"At the start of the summer of 1848, workers revolt against the government. At Paris, they build barricades. This daguerreotype is a photograph on copper plaque covered with silver. It shows the barricades at Faubourg du Temple. The first, at the intersection of rue Saint-Maur is an accumulation of beams, ladders, a wheel, a wagon, paving stones. Alone on the right, a woman wearing a white cap leans out of the window."
"In the beginning of summer 1848 workers revolt against the government. In Paris, they build barricades," it says, then mentions details in the picture.
Information on early photography fills the void on the other side of the room.
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Turn around to find a huge painting behind the panel with the king's abdication.
It is about underclass insurrection — or rather, since it shows workers' refusing to help middle-class republicans resist Napoleon III's coup d'état — about its absence.
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Alphonse Baudin à la barricade du fb. Saint-Antoine le 2 décembre 1851 ("Alphonse Baudin on the Barricade of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine on December 3, 1851") by Ernest Pichio / zoom |
Deputy Alphonse Baudin tried to persuade workers to resist. When they said, "We won't fight for your 25 francs a day (a deputy's salary), Baudin stated "Here is how one dies for 25 francs a day" and climbed onto a barricade, where he was instantly shot and killed.
The top-hatted republican the skeptical worker to resist. .
Since the exhibit shows nothing about privileged republicans backing the June massacre, the popular rejection is unexplained.
As well, the stone-throwing boy is the only humble fighter that the museum shows full face. The choice suggests that insurgents are like teenagers who do not think.
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The room has no seats.
But the ballroom...
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Next,
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