pacificus

Pauline Léon took part in the demonstration. On her way home from there, she used her fists to defend a friend against the family of a national guard. This is the first conserved trace of any militant activities from her side. (Pauline Léon, une républicaine révolutionnaire (2006) by Claude Guillon).

Manon Roland wrote in her memoirs that she on the day in question had been at the jacobins ”where I had witnessed the agitations caused by the sad events on Champ-de-Mars.” Manon remembers walking home eleven o’clock in the evening and bumping into François and Louise Robert. Louise (who it might be worth mentioning would have been seven months pregnant at this point) explains that ”my husband was writing the petition on the altar of the homeland, I was at his side. We escaped the slaughter without daring to retire neither to our house nor that of one of friends.” She therefore asks if they can take shelter at Manon’s place. Manon happily agrees, and brings them over to hôtel Britannique, rue Guénégaud. The next morning, the Roberts start talking through the window with an acquaintance by the name of Vachard, whom they invite up. Vachard speaks loudly about yesterday’s events, boasting about having run his sabre through a National Guardsman. Manon finds this conduct to be careless, and asks the Roberts to tell their friend to leave, which they do. The Roberts themselves leave around noon.

[The insurgents] began at the wrong time, too, to prophesy, and the sight of the red flag must, like a magic spell, have turned their senses. There was indeed some mysterious influence in this red flag with the black-fringed border, in which were in black the words "La Liberté ou la Mort!"and which rose like a banner of consecration to death above all heads on the Pont d'Austerlitz. Many people who closely beheld this mysterious bearer of this standard declare that he was a very tall, lean, and haggard man, with a long corpse-like face, staring eyes, a firmly-closed mouth, above which a black Old-Spanish moustache* stuck forth its tips far out on either side — an uncanny figure, which sat like a moveless spectre on a great black pony while the battle raged furiously round him. *It may be worth noting here that wearing the moustache, the frock-coat, also the smoking-cigars, all date from the year 1830. That is to say, it was about that time they all became fashionable in Paris, and spread thence over Europe. The Havannah cigar, had, however, been for a long time well-known in the United States. The earliest use of them in the latter, according to advertisements, appears to have been in Philadelphia about a century ago, when they were announced as a novelty. When Heine wrote in 1832, the moustache was, however, remarkable among any save "swells." —Translator.

(Heinrich Heine, "French Affairs," trans. Charles Godfrey Leland)

The translator's note is especially useful for the characterization of Théodule Gillenormand: that man is a SWELL!

The idea of the man and the banner is certainly compelling, but should be taken with a grain of salt. Heine has a fanciful spirit and is apt to mistake things. Another reason I really like Leland's translation is that he goes out of his way to correct Heine in footnotes whenever he sees fit, and there's a great example of this when Heine claims the uprising was spontaneous:

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