Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/69

 which party the son of the General Dumas belonged, hoped to see a second Republic rise out of the ruins of the discredited monarchy, and the story of "the days of July" is told in Dumas's Mémoires," by himself as an eye-witness. M. Parigot, commenting on this description, in his study of our author, says:—

"If you have any desire to breathe a little of the atmosphere which heated all brains at that moment you need only read 'the three days of July' in Volume VI. There the different means are described, as well as the concentration of sentiments, which united to make the throne of Charles X. totter. Turn over the leaves of Louis Blanc and compare. Dumas is a magician for demonstrating the picturesque. The ever-growing enthusiasm which cut the streets into barricades, uprooted the trees on the boulevards and burnt the guard-house of the Exchange, to the cry of 'Vive la Charte!'; the indecision of journalists and politicians, the discontent of the public, who wished to 'avenge Waterloo in the streets of Paris'; the excitement of the young collegians, Lafayette domiciled at the Town Hall—and along with all this the opposition which was beginning against the Provisional Government—all is painted with the exactitude of an eye-witness who has a fine sense of spectacular effect. And, moreover, Dumas