FIRST HAND ACCOUNT OF THE COUP D'ETAT IN PARIS OF 1851 MAY (Edward Harrison Jr., 1824-1887, English-American Painter who spent much of his career in Paris)

Long Autograph Letter Signed to "My dear Johnson" saying that "of course you will have read the accounts of the last revolution here. Your papers will be full of it and contain probably a good an account as I good (sic) give you and perhaps a better history than I know myself as all the press here is awed into the service of Louis Napoleon and dare only give the most one sided & partial views of the occurrences that took place then. I passed over the Boulevard the day after the surrender of the barricades and found some of the horses much battered by the cannon shot & musketry. They say that the soldiers behaved more brutally than on any former occasion. Most of them were drunk & many of the officers. About every officer had a cigar in his mouth, a very unsoldier-like thing but which gave an appearance of great coolness & premeditation in the arrangement of things. At the Porte St Denis the soldiers were taken on off the Boulevard for 5 hours on purpose to allow the people time to build the barricade without molestation until it should be nearly completed that the destruction of its defenders might be more complete & inevitable. An American named Sterling happened to be on the Boulevard near the barricade when the soldiers commenced the attack. He took refuge with some 18 or 20 men & women most of them inoffensive and respectable inhabitants in a booksellers shop, which was immediately entered by the drunken soldiery & every person but himself bayonnetted, his own escape was almost miraculous & through the intervention of an officer. Dr Hunt & another American named Cagon were walking peaceably on the Boulevard des Italiens on the Tuesday evening of the day when the 'coup d'etat' took place, a crowd of boys passed singing the Marseillaise & crying 'Vive la Republique' after they had passed a party of Sargents de ville came up & arrested Hunt and his friend they neither of them attempted to resist. Hunt was seized by two of these cowardly brutes & a third came up & struck him over the head with a 'casse tete', an instrument on the principle of the sling shot of the 'bhoys', his head was cut open & in that state he was dragged before a Commissaire de Police who discharged him as nothing could be alleged against him but his wound confined him to the house twelve days and he had a narrow escape with his life. Cagon although equally innocent was sent to the Conciergerie where he was confined with twelve hundred other wretched prisoners in a miserable dungeon for 5 days and only released after great exertions on the part of Mr Rives and the consul. Numbers of people have been shot scarcely with the form of a trial on suspicion of being opposed to the government. A few days ago seventy poor wretches were shot on the 'Champ de Mars' charged with having arms in their possession. I have not heard of any Americans having been killed. Some Lieutenant Jones of the army or navy I don't know which was shot through the thigh and had two fingers shot off. I have heard of three or four English having been shot, among others Parris the druggist in the the Rue de la Paix whose shop you may remember. The Provinces are in a wretched state of disturbance and excitement, about half the cities and large towns have been .. in a state of siege. I do not apprehend however another actual outbreak in Paris as a struggle against 150,000 men (which is the number of soldiers within the walls of Paris at present) would be too unequal & hopeless. The election for President takes place next Sunday ... if that can be called an election where there is but one candidate whom people dare not & could not oppose. The election (so called) in the army was a farce of the richest character the very few officers who dared to vote against Napoleon were cashiered & I have only heard of one soldier who did not ask for him & he declared himself not sufficiently instructed to vote. This was paraded in the papers in evidence of the freedom allowed in the army! ..." he then talks about his work "I am still working in the atelier ... though I have not attempted to paint many pictures. I was disappointed that the Art Union did not purchase my Esmerelda as I am sure it was one of the best things I ever did and it was generally liked here among the artists. Etinger hss finished the two little genre pictures you saw commenced in our room ..." and the last page is devoted to more personal chat, about friends getting married, a visit to England, the weather and his departure from New York, 4 sides 4to., with a crosswritten postscript, 77 Rue Pizah, Paris, 14th December

The son of Edward Harrison May Sr., a Dutch Reformed clergyman, May was brought to America in 1834 when his father accepted a post in New York. After early training in civil engineering, May turned to art, studying for a time with Daniel Huntington. May first exhibited at the National Academy in 1844. With Joseph Kyle and others he produced a panorama representing Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress which was first exhibited in 1848, to great financial success. In 1851 May was able to move permanently to Paris.
The French coup d'état of 2 December 1851 was a self-coup staged by Prince Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (at the time President of the French Second Republic). It ended in the successful dissolution of the French National Assembly and the subsequent re-establishment of the French Empire the next year. When he faced the prospect of having to leave office in 1852, Louis-Napoléon (nephew of Napoléon Bonaparte) staged the coup in order to stay in office and implement his reform programs; these included the restoration of universal suffrage (previously abolished by the legislature). His political measures, and the extension of his mandate for 10 years, were popularly endorsed by constitutional referendum. A mere year later, the Prince-President reclaimed his uncle's throne as Emperor of the French under the regnal name Napoleon III.

Item Date:  1851

Stock No:  39552      £475

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