The Sun.
London, England, 1848-02-25 00:00:00

311114

LONDON, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1848.

CONTINUED
INSURRECTION AT PARIS.

FRIGHTFUL LOSS OF LIFE.

GuizoT has fallen, and yet the insurrectionary move-
ment rages with redoubled fury in the streets of
Paris. Count MOLE is installed as Prime Minister,
and yet the insurgents are more than ever irate, are
more than ever enthusiastic, are more than ever
resclute in bearding the military strength of the
SOVEREIGN. The revolt of a faction has dilated into
the revolution of a people, the disturbance of a day
into the convulsion of an epoch, the peril of a
Cabinet into the endangerment of a Monarchy.
Nor can this be any matter of astonishment. Con-
servatism has so long tampered with the personal
rights of Frenchmen, and has so flagrantly outraged
the national liberties of France, that some prolonged
struggle for their reclamation, their vindication, and
(if possible) for their permanent consolidation, has
become inevitable. Louis PHILIPPE has trifled with
the dearest and, holiest aspirations of a great people,
and must consequently anticipate a lengthened crisis
when once the passions of that people have been
fairly aroused, and especially now that their phy-
sical puissance has been so signally displayed in the
face of a standing army of nearly 100,000 of the
best disciplined soldiers in Europe, supplied with an
almost inexhaustible ammunition, furnished with an
abundance of provisions, shielded at once by the
constitutional aegis of the law, and by the stone
defences of immense and almost impregnable forti-
fications.

Without any outrage beyond that of destroying a
stray omnibus, overturning a fiacre, pillaging a gun
factory, breaking the doors of a guard-house,
liberating a few prisoners, and heaping the
stones of the pavements into barricades, the
Parisians have conquered the despotic force
which had of late years enthroned itself
in the Tuileries, and have driven a Ministry of eight
years' duration from authority, amidst the igno-
minious execrations of the Opposition. The Pari-
sians had accomplished all this without as many arms
as would go into the quiver of a Paphian huntress ;
they had subjugated the flatterers of the Orleans
Dynasty without the clink of a bludgeon or the
detonation of an ounce of gunpowder. Has any
city, 'under such infuriating circumstances, ever
evinced a more sublime and undeniable moderation ?
; not one ! History is its witness. After
such testimonies of magnanimity, therefore, after
so many noble evidences of the popular wish
to combine legality with innovation, it is not
surprising that the citizens of that splendid capital
should be driven into the commission of excesses, now
that their farbearance has been repaid by such tardive
and insufficient concessions. GUIZOT, it is true,
has been compelled to deliver in his resignation, but
then that resignation has been succeeded by the
formation of a Cabinet quite unfitted for the emer-
gency, under the presidency of a statesman whose
energies are unstrung by extreme age, and of whom
it must be confessed, notwithstanding his integrity,
that his genius is quite inadequate to the occasion.
Not only is this inefficiency of the new Adminis-
tration an ample reason for the renewed excitement
of the insurgents, but it must be recollected that this
aggravation has been coincident with a very me-
morable and animating occurrence. The National
Guards have fraternised with the people, they have
declared for reform, they have joined their voices
with those of the multitude in crying out, "A Las
Guizor!" they have chaunted with the mob the
heroic couplets of the Marseillaise, they have
been saluted with that most glorious of all
titles, " Les Vrais defenseurs de la Patric !" Now
that the vast and organized army of the National
Guard has declared itself in favour of the populace
it is impossible to put any limits whatever to the
results of the ;present insurrection, or rather to the
new phase in that great French Revolution which
virtually commenced in the middle of the eighteenth
century.

Extraordinary results, in eztenso of the revolt,
have already taken place—results so extraordinary as
to betoken in a conspicuous manner the increased
agitation and reanimated daring of the already victo-
rious Parisians. Several of the railway stations conti-
guous to the metropolis have been seized by the in-
surgents, and the iron rails torn up so as to preclude
the possibility of any very speedy reinforcements of
troops to the Government. Severe conflicts have also
occurred in different quarters between the mob and
the Municipal Guards, who, from the commencement
of the outbreak, have been treated with jealous ab-
horrence. On the other hand, the regular troops
have reeeived every token of friendship from the
people, and have evidently fulfilled the directions
of their superiors with an excessive re-
luctance. In the Faubourg St. Martin and
the Faubourg St. Antoine—localities already
famous for the conflicts they have witnessed under
the championship of HENRIOT—the fury of the in-
surrection appears to have attained its acme. Not
only were platoons of infantry posted before the
Hotel des Affaires Etrangeres, not only were squa-
drons of cavalry placed in the Champs Elyseea and
the Place de Carrousel, not only were forty
pieces of cannon on the esplanade of the Invalides,
not only did the troops of the line bivouac
in the Boulevards during the night of Wed-
❑esday, but formidable bodies of infantry, cavalry,
Chasseurs cheval, cuirassiers, dragoons, and
Municipal Guards were clearing the streets at inter-
vals, occasionally charging down upon the dense
masses of the people, and sometimes alarming the
more pacific civilians by the roar of cannon and the
rattling fire of musketry. According to the vague
reports which have arrived, the bloodshed in several
directions has been frightful, although every exertion
has been made and every device resorted to by the
insurgents to prevent a needless expenditure of life.
Glass, for example, was scattered over the causeways
to impede the movements of the cavalry; and the
National Guard, in like manner, co-operated with the
multitude in striving to hinder as much as possible
any very serious coilision.

Altogether, Paris is in a deplorable state of panic
and agitation. If we may credit some of the most
recent intelligence which has been received, more
barricades have been now raised in the streets of the
capital than were erected in the revolutionary days
of 1830. Traffic was impeded—most of the shops
were closed —and, as during the Great Plague
of London, the ejaculation " Loup have mercy
upon us ! " was chalked upon the doors of
those houses where the inhabitants were stricken
with the pestilence, so it would seem that the
doors of several of the tenements in the Rue St.
wove are marked with the inscription, " Ici oni