Chapter 849 An Unimagined Road (Part 1)
Louis Philippe had three generals under his command: Lesaire, the Paris police chief, General Sebastian, the commander of the Paris garrison, and Jacqueminot, the commander-in-chief of the National Guard. The total force in their hands was as high as 60,000.
It was precisely because of such a powerful force that Louis Philippe felt that everything was under his control. Of course, General Sebastian also had the credit for lying about the military situation.
In fact, this is also due to Police Chief Russell. He has the smallest number of troops, but they are all elite.
At that time, the Paris police were the most elite force in Paris. These people were selected from experienced and physically strong soldiers.
They have the best equipment, the best training, and the most generous treatment in France, so they are extremely loyal and disciplined.
It was precisely because of this that Lesser wanted to take all the credit. He ignored General Sebastian's garrison and chose to directly send cavalry to disperse the crowd.
That’s right! At that time, the police in Paris had a cavalry system, and as the defenders of the dynastic order and those who performed police functions, they would inevitably have some conflicts with ordinary people.
This long-term and protracted conflict created hatred between the two sides, so some Paris police officers gave them a few harsh blows while performing their official duties.
Someone had several bones broken by the Paris police, and some unlucky people fell down during the pushing and were trampled to death.
This may not be a big deal in normal times, but at this time the anger of the people of Paris has been ignited. Moreover, those college students and nationalists will not be arbitrarily manipulated by the Paris police like ordinary people.
“Paris police killed someone!”
The Paris police have long been used to this kind of talk, but today it was an order from the Superintendent, with the king's backing, so they became even more ruthless.
As an old district of Paris, people have a strong sense of resistance, and with nationalists and student parties taking the lead, the conflict soon turned into armed fighting.
The first shot of gunfire declared that the conflict was out of control. When General Sebastian and his Paris garrison arrived, they faced heavily armed people and barricades everywhere.
In order to obtain weapons, people began to attack weapons stores and lone military policemen. The result was that the scale of chaos became increasingly uncontrollable.
Faced with such a chaotic situation, both Lessel and General Sebastian had no idea. They wanted to ask the old Marshal Soult to come out.
However, the old prime minister, who was about to retire in a few months, chose to resign at the speed of light. He did not want to be involved in the whirlpool of the French Revolution again.
After all, the paper could not cover the fire, and Baron Pasquière reported to Louis Philippe everything that happened in the outside world.
However, the former still chose to distort the facts in favor of his colleagues, which shocked the latter, but Louis Philippe felt that he still had a trump card, which was the National Guard.
The National Guard was actually a bourgeois army composed of taxpayers. Louis Philippe felt that he was one with the Orleans bourgeoisie and shared weal and woe.
The National Guard had a total strength of over thirty-five thousand men and was commanded by Jacques Minaud, one of Louis Philippe's most trusted ministers.
However, doing business at a loss is not something that businessmen would do. Almost all the National Guards turned a deaf ear to Jacques Minault's orders.
In the end, Jacques Minault only summoned less than a thousand people. These people were a drop in the bucket for the current situation in Paris.
And soon these people also shouted "Long live reform" and joined the other side's camp.
Nothing could be worse than the Prime Minister resigning (deserting), the army mutinying, and if anything, it must be the situation in Paris at this time.
After Jacques Minault became the polished commander, he immediately took his family on a cruise to the United States.
Lesser and his police force were besieged by the Parisians. After a day of fierce fighting, the Paris police force surrendered. Lesser was lynched and his body was dismembered into countless pieces, with only his head hanging in front of the Palais Bourbon.
While Lesser and his police force were under siege, General Sebastian and his garrison plunged into the barricades.
This general obviously lacked actual combat experience and courage. After 30 hours of attacking, he still did not dismantle a single barricade.
At this time, Louis Philippe could only choose to sacrifice his ministers. He first dismissed General Sebastian, the commander of the Paris garrison, but the Paris people were obviously not satisfied. After that, he dismissed more than a dozen ministers in succession to satisfy the people's representatives. .
February 23, 1848, night.
The streets of Paris were decorated with lights and colorful decorations as if to welcome the New Year. Crowds waved tricolor flags and sang "La Marseillaise" through the streets of Paris.
However, the Paris garrison and the personal bodyguards of those big shots did not relax their vigilance. Similar to the historical Lafontaine incident, a mysterious gunshot broke the happy atmosphere when a parade passed near the mansion of a big shot. atmosphere.
The guards who were frightened by the gunshots instinctively fired back at the crowd. Gunshots rang out one after another. In the end, dozens of people were killed or injured, and the sounds of wailing, crying, and cursing were heard.
After the commotion subsided, people used the light of torches to see clearly the appearance of the deceased. Among them was a young woman with a good-looking face. She was shot twice. The clothes on her chest were torn open, and there was a bright red stain on the exposed large piece of white grout. color.
People's anger was ignited again, and people returned to the barricades again and vowed to fight the Orleans Dynasty to the end.
While Louis Philippe was trying to make greater concessions, he resurrected Thiers, who had been deposed because of the Turkish-Egyptian war, and Otilon Barrot, who had shown favor to the dynasty.
At this time, Barrow was still trying to persuade the people to abandon the war, but his reputation had been disgraced and he had no appeal at this time.
Thiers continued his usual tough style, and he immediately ordered "Butcher" Biraud to take charge of all military affairs in Paris.
Thomas Robert Birjo de La Bigonli was the governor-general mentioned earlier who carried out a policy of massacre in Algeria.
He was equally merciless towards the French. As soon as he took over, he immediately ordered the soldiers to bombard the barricades with cannons. Thirty minutes later, "Butcher" Bijo used the most cruel and efficient method to conquer the barricades that General Sebastian had used three times before. A barricade that could not be conquered in ten hours.
However, at this time, Louis Philippe panicked. He was afraid that the tragedy would happen again, so he forced Bijoux to treat the French citizens in a more reasonable and gentle way and give the other party a chance to negotiate.
This behavior of Louis Philippe directly shook the morale of the army, because the soldiers at the grassroots level clearly felt that the top brass had no determination.
Even a famous general could not lead a team that had lost military morale, so the Paris government troops began to retreat steadily.
Seeing that the situation was over, Thiers asked Louis-Philippe to immediately withdraw from Paris and take refuge in Orleans to avoid repeating the mistakes of Louis XVI. He would mobilize large armies from other parts of France to quell the rebellion.
However, at the critical moment, Louis Philippe once again backed down, and Odillon Barrot also opposed his strategy.
In desperation, Thiers could only take out the letter written by Franz and fled to Alsace-Lorraine with Louis Philippe and his family.