THE FIRST GREAT STRUGGLE BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR BROUGHT A CARNAGE UNKNOWN UNTIL 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 22-26, 1848, 5000.
For the museum's presentation stroll past the king's desk and panel showing his abdication:
As usual, the works downplay combat. The two on the left illustrate festivities of the February Revolution's provisional government. The two on the right concern June fighting, but it fades into the background. The central painting shows army tents. For how the barricade behind them is not shown, please click and scroll down.
At the back there's a mythological painting, a proclamation, and images of right-wing officials. There's also a table on which are blocks (the next page comes to them) and the photo of a daguerreotype of a barricade:
 The museum's entire take on the June earthquake : "At the start of summer 1848 workers revolt against the government. In Paris, they build barricades:" The print is so small one can barely read it, and the rest describes the photo, not the revolt. |
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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."
A sign with details on early photography partly occupies the void on the other side of the room.
photo
The back of the panel with the king's abdication is about workers refusing to help middle-class republicans withstand Napoleon III's coup d'état.
When deputy Alphonse Baudin tried to persuade workers to resist, they said, "We won't fight for your 25 francs a day (a deputy's salary). He answered, "Here is how one dies for 25 francs a day," climbed onto a barricade and was instantly shot and killed.
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| The top-hatted bourgeois does not seem to persuade the worker. |
Since the exhibit shows nothing about privileged republicans backing the June massacre, the painting is unexplained.
The only humble fighter that the museum shows full face is the ragged boy: Insurgents resemble 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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