324 



PRANCE. 



and M. Clemenceau for 20,000. When he had 

 read this M. Millevoye was hooted down, and 

 the Chamber, by 389 votes to 4, passed to the 

 order of the day, " stigmatizing the odious and 

 ridiculous calumnies brought forward at the 

 tribune, and regretting to have wasted the time 

 of the country for a whole sitting." Millevoye 

 and Deroulede, whom M. Develle described as 

 victims of an abominable mystification, left the 

 Chamber in dudgeon, announcing the resigna- 

 tion of their seats. Norton and Ducret were 

 tried in August under the press law for publish- 

 ing false news and fabricated documents, and 

 were sentenced, the forger to three years' im- 

 prisonment and the editor for one year. 



The Labor Exchange. M. Dupuy as Minis- 

 ter of the Interior pursued a more repressive 

 policy toward Labor agitators than his prede- 

 cessors, thereby inviting the hostility of the 

 Parisian populace. On May day the Govern- 

 ment closed the Labor Exchange, the hall 

 erected at public expense as a general employ- 

 ment bureau and meeting-place for trade unions 

 in Paris. M. Baudin, one of the most prominent 

 Labor leaders, attempted to make a violent 

 speech on the steps, and was stopped by the 

 police after a struggle. Leave was asked of the 

 Chamber to prosecute him, which was granted 

 by 250 votes to 191, and he was convicted of 

 disorderly conduct and sentenced. The Munici- 

 pal Council having voted 50,000 francs toward 

 supporting the Labor Exchange, double the sub- 

 vention of the previous year, the Government ve- 

 toed the grant, and refused to allow the trade un- 

 ions to receive public money unless they complied 

 with the act of 1884 requiring societies to regis- 

 ter a copy of their rules and list of members. 

 The Radicals demanded to know why religious 

 congregations were not registered ; the Catholics, 

 why Freemason lodges were not. Some of the 

 unions obeyed the Government decree. The ma- 

 jority did not, and were given a month to sub- 

 mit; otherwise the Exchange would be closed. 

 The Municipal Council upheld its vote, but the 

 prefect of the Seine would not allow money to be 

 paid to the Labor Exchange after July 1. A 

 vote of 10,000 francs to the cabmen on strike was 

 also vetoed. The officers of the Labor Exchange 

 protested against the dissolution of the trades 

 unions by administrative authority, claiming 

 that under the statutes of incorporation, and 

 under the act of 1884 itself, judicial authority 

 alone had the power. The question was after- 

 ward judicially determined, and the court fined 

 the 'recalcitrant unions, and ordered the dissolu- 

 tion of these and of the executive committee of 

 the Labor Exchange unless they registered, 

 which they eventually did. 



Riots in Paris. Senator Berenger, the au- 

 thor of an act whereby sentence is suspended in 

 the case of any person convicted of a first offense, 

 carried through Parliament a bill to check licen- 

 tiousness and indecent exhibitions, and after it 

 became law watched its execution and interpel- 

 lated the Government when the police were re- 

 miss. The art students in their annual " bal de 

 quatr'-z-arts" in which models masquerade in 

 artistic pageants, took pains, out of contempt for 

 Berenger's crusade, to have the costumes more 

 startlingly immodest than usual. Although it 

 was a private entertainment, attended only by 



artists and their friends on invitation, the Gov- 

 ernment, spurred on by Senator Berenger, in- 

 stituted proceedings against the managers of the 

 ball and the models who had shown themselves 

 half naked. They were condemned, and the 

 students of the Latin Quarter broke forth in 

 noisy demonstrations. When the police tried to 

 stop them they resisted, and annoyed and ex- 

 asperated the police. On July 1 the police were 

 for a time powerless to quell a riotous disturb- 

 ance near the Sorbonne, and when at last they 

 gained the upper hand and proceeded to clear 

 the streets and cafes, a young man named Nu- 

 ger was struck on the back of the head by a 

 matchbox thrown by a policeman, and so injured 

 that on the following morning he died. This 

 aroused the quarter to the highest pitch of ex- 

 citement. A deputation of students went around 

 to several Deputies to ask them to interpellate 

 the Government. M. Millerand undertook to 

 present the ease against the police. He made 

 the most of the facts in arguing for a resolution 

 expressing confidence in the Government, but 

 condemning practices introduced at the prefec- 

 ture of police. Crowds of students thronged the 

 place in front of the Chamber, who in their meet- 

 ings had called for the resignation of M. Loze, 

 the prefect, or of the Prime Minister. The 

 Chamber passed without a count of votes a reso- 

 lution to rely on the purpose of the Government 

 to ascertain where the responsibility lay for the 

 deplorable events. After that the disturbances 

 were renewed. Students hissed the police, 

 smashed the windows of the Prefecture and the 

 Palais de Justice, and tore down kiosks and lamp 

 posts. In the Place St. Michel they overcame a 

 platoon of police that made a charge, and be- 

 labored them with their own swords wrenched 

 out of their hands, wounding some so that they 

 were taken to the hospital. 



The police had betrayed such want of disci- 

 pline and fortitude, and committed so many out- 

 rages besides the homicide of Nuger, that the 

 citizens of Paris were generally incensed. The 

 Radical and Socialistic majority that sided with 

 the municipality in its' quarrel with the Prefec- 

 ture was inclined to seize the opportunity to gain 

 a political advantage and make the most of the 

 blunders and excesses of the police to advance 

 the cause of the commune against the Govern- 

 ment. In the first serious collision the students 

 were led or encouraged by more experienced dis- 

 turbers, and after it occurred excited mobs filled 

 the streets, while the students began to retire 

 from the contest that they had stirred up, and 

 their committees placarded manifestoes recom- 

 mending them to cease demonstrating and fo re- 

 main quiet on the occasion of Nuger's funeral. 

 When the Parisian mob took up the combat and 

 the throngs in the streets increased, the police 

 took harsher and rougher measures to maintain 

 their authority, and arrested and injured on- 

 lookers as well as disturbers. A procession that 

 was marching late at night to the Ministry of 

 the Interior was stopped in the Faubourg St. 

 Honore and driven back to the boulevards, after 

 a fierce struggle in which upward of 100 per- 

 sons received bodily injuries. Policemen who 

 patrolled the streets singly or in squads were pelt- 

 ed and maltreated. By early morning on July 4 

 a vast concourse was assembled round the Charite 



