29 April 1720. Parisians massacred dozens of police officers accused of kidnapping of children.

 

29 April 1720. Parisians massacred dozens of police officers accused of kidnapping of children.

 

These children, but also women and vagrants are arbitrarily arrested for be consigned in the colony of Mississippi.

 

Illustration

Illustration © DR

 

 

It also happened a 29 April

    

Paris anger smolders for several weeks or even several months before bursting Monday, April 29, 1720. Hundreds of artisans, porters, servants, traders gather at intersections armed with logs, paving stones, sticks, tools and swords as weapons. The game became a hunter. Hunting archers of the watchtowers and army free is open. As soon as one of them is caught, it is butchered. Want this keypad in the mouth, would like this stick in the ribs! At the end of the day, a dozen representatives of the Act already are lining up before St. Peter, and hundreds were injured by the angry crowd. At the Sorbonne, Cohn-Bendit Jubilee... Rue Saint-Antoine and the pont Notre-Dame experienced the bloodiest clashes. Lisle, Clerk to the Parliament of Paris, gives the explanation of the popular anger: "the populace had risen up in various districts of the city against a large number of archers or people attendants to take vagrants and people without confession to lead to Mississippi (spelling of the eighteenth century, ed.) because this pretext they stop for a few days all kinds of people without distinction", men, women, girls, boys, and of all ages, for the lead also to populate the country."

 

Here are the merits of the case, the reason for the Parisian ire: the Compagnie des Indes (or company of Mississippi) belonging to the financier John Law needs of hundreds of thousands of settlers. However, the call for volunteerism does not give much. The company bribe journalists of his time to publish articles touting the lives of colon, the American dream does not. Another witness of the time, Mathieu Marais, wrote: "it seems you want to bring out all their country French to go there. It is there does not wrong to make the France a wild country and disgusting the French." If there are no volunteers, there's always the possibility of deporting the poor bastards languishing in prisons! They are not numerous enough? Not serious, it's so easy to fill the prisons. Well before Sarkozy, we already knew the recipe to track the unwanted.

 

Tens of thousands of homeless

 

Buddy like pig with Philippe d ' Orléans, regent of France, John Law Gets the publication of the Royal Decree of 10 March 1720 directing the arrest of all the poor wretches of the capital without a fixed domicile. They are tens of thousands in this case! At the time, the SDF are teeming with in the city. The archers of the watch no longer know where to give head. But this is not enough. On 28 March, a new order threatens the servants, people without confession and the artisans that hyperactive rue Quincampoix being shipped, also in Louisiana and in Mississippi if they continue to speculate at the bottom of the home of Law. It must be said that unbridled speculation takes place in the street where the spirits fevered by hope for a gain of money buying and selling shares of the Compagnie des Indes. In one day domestic become far richer than their master, while other speculators are ruined. To stimulate the zeal of the archers and free, the Compagnie des Indes offer a pistole per person delivered in addition to their daily balance of twenty floors. Needless to say that the arrests are increasing. And so much to do, so many catch kids for his. Where the anger of the Parisians.

 

The date of August 14, 1719, in the Journal of the Regency, Jean Buvat wrote: "it pulled from hospitals of Bicêtre and Salpêtrière five hundred young people of both sexes to ship them to la Rochelle and transport them to the Mississippi. The girls were in carts and boys went to foot, with an escort of thirty-two archers." These are the charters of the time, except that this time there the France exported its own nationals... In September, Buvat note yet: "it was also learned from La Rochelle as one hundred fifty girls there had sent from Paris to be transported to the Mississippi were thrown as the furies on the archers, their pulling hair, biting them and giving them some blows, which had obliged the archers to shoot their guns on these poor creatures", of which six were killed and twelve were injured; what had intimidated the others as they were boarding." Prostitutes, many at this time, are also a very popular game. Jean Buvat indicates that the Parisian authorities offered the possibility to 180 girls picked up on the pavement of Paris to choose a husband among men of the same Priory prison. "After that ceremony, was from linked a small chain two, the husband with the woman, followed by three carts loaded to their herds, and to relieve them from time to time, or for car those who would be ill en route, escorted by twenty archers, to La Rochelle and then be transported to the Mississippi"", in the hope of a better fortune."

 

Arbitrary arrests

 

We understand that these arbitrary arrests and mass deportations revolted the good people of Paris. "No one dared go out for business or to gain his life, even the tradespersons and the servants of which several were arrested, not being safety away from home", adds Buvat.

 

On Tuesday, April 30, rioting resumed. Archers are taken part street of the King of Sicily. One was killed and the others wounded. The Attorney general of the King went dare to Parliament to explain to the judges that the archers and the free were ordered "to stop the vagrants and people without confession," whose numbers increased every day in the capital. He also admitted that arbitrary arrests have been made. Suddenly, a draft Royal Ordinance is written in haste to allow the victims of arbitrary arrest to be heard in their prison by a Commissioner or police officer, every day at noon. And it is the keeper of the seals, in person, which will rule on the merits of the complaint. The order also provides for a reorganization of the conditions for arrest by the archers. The lieutenant of police finally asked the body of artisans and merchants of Paris to provide the exact list of "children, shop boys and apprentices" to avoid any errors during the upcoming arrests. These decisions are returning calm in Paris. This makes that move the problem but the archers and the free then start to skim the countryside around the capital to continue to feed colonies. On 15 June, a new order "bearing defense to stop and worry about the inhabitants of the countryside and people by profession" is published. The history of France is an eternal restarting...