THE CROWD INVADES THE PALACE, MOCKS OR DESTROYS THE FURNISHINGS, BURNS THE THRONE, CONTROLS THE STREET
BUT DOES NOT LOOT
Le Peuple au Tuileries 24 février 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 No pillaging, since treasure is taken to City Hall. The hand that stealthily reaches for a teapot makes the point. |
Detail of the painting Lamartine at City Hall
"It is remarkable that the army of bandits forbidden from stealing at the Tuileries put to death without pity those whom they surprised taking something from the château.
-- George Rudé, The Crowd in the French Revolution, French version pp. 223 and 262, based on police records and accounts of the time, including from opponents.
The same discipline characterized the French Revolution and that of 1830. The humble men who seized the Tuileries palace made it a point of honor to take valuable items they had found to their Guard commander, and those who did not were "given over to a summary and expeditive justice." In 1830 pillaging was "pitilessly repressed."
La Commune was also a time of very little crime.
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"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."
Middle-class people "wore a compulsive smile of adhesion while their knees shook."
-- As reported by the deputy who took him home,
in Thiers by Georges Valence
-- George Sand
Today's texts that I have read mention
neither the discipline nor the fear.
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