Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/291

 numberless fragments. A cloud of dust rose for a moment and obscured the scene. When it melted away, red banners were seen floating from the base where once had stood the mighty monument. The bands struck up the Marseillaise, and the crowds rushed towards the square. Many succeeded in effecting their entrance, and mounted on the ruins of the column. A company of marines, drawn up across the Rue de la Paix, soon succeeded, however, in checking the mass.

Bergeret, meanwhile, decorated with his red scarf and tassels, mounted on the pedestal, and thus addressed the crowd:

":—The 26th of Floréal will be memorable in our history. Thus we triumph over military despotism—that bloody negation of the rights of man. The first Empire placed the collar of servitude about our necks—it began and ended in carnage, and left us a legacy of a second Empire, which was finally to end in the disgrace of Sedan."

The Emperor's statue was separated from the column, and had fallen a little beyond the heap. It lay a wreck, with the head severed from the body, and one arm broken.

The equestrian statue of Louis XIV once stood on the site of the column, but was overturned by the sans-culottes. The spot remained vacant until 1806, when Napoleon determined to consecrate it to the glories of the Austerlitz campaign. The first stone was laid on the 18th of August. The foundations were the same that served for Louis XIV's statue. The bas-reliefs were cast by Launay. The column was of Doric order, built of stone, coated with four hundred and twenty-five plaques of bronze, moulded in bas-reliefs, which wound round the shaft from pedestal to lantern. These bas-reliefs represented the history of the campaign of 1805.