POPULAR DISCIPLINE TERRIFIES

THE CROWD INVADES THE PALACE, MOCKS OR DESTROYS THE FURNISHINGS, BURNS THE THRONE, CONTROLS THE STREET

BUT DOES NOT LOOT

The People at the Tuileries, February 24 1848 by Victor Adam and Jean-Baptiste Arnout, 1848 / zoom

Burning the Royal Carriage during the Paris Revolution of 1848, February 25 1848  by Nathaniel Currier, 1848 / zoom

     Detail of the painting Lamartine at City Hall

No pillaging, since treasure is taken to City Hall. The hand that stealthily reaches for a teapot hammers home the point. 

"The common people alone bore arms, protected public sites, stood guard, punished.

It was extraordinary and terrifying to see the whole of this immense town, full of so many riches, in the hands of people who possessed nothing..."

-- Rodolphe Apponyi, cousin of the Austrian ambassador

Thiers "gesticulated, sobbed, spoke incoherently." 

-- As reported by the deputy who took him home,

in Thiers by Georges Valence 

Middle-class people "wore a compulsive smile of adhesion while their knees shook." 

-- George Sand

 The current texts that I have read mention

 neither the discipline nor the fear.

*    *    *

The Parisian upheaval overwhelms Europe