 The NBC University of the Air, a public service of the national broadcasting company, and its affiliated independent stations, presents another chapter in the historical series, We Came This Way, Tonight's Story, The Second French Republic, or How the Common Man Became a Citizen. John Doe, being a sound mind, do hereby bequeath to my son John, the sum of ten thousand dollars, to my daughter Mary, my homestead, and all my properties, to my faithful servant. An old man makes his will, disposes of his worldly goods, but forget him, not many of us are lucky enough to inherit money or real estate. Our story is about another kind of legacy, one that all of us inherit. It's a legacy of pain and blood and sweat, but a legacy of triumph too. As free men, our legacy is the sum of all the struggles that all the men and all the ages have made for freedom. From generation to generation it's been handed down to us. It's our most priceless possession. Don't treat it lightly. In Paris of the year 1848, where our story opens, this legacy of struggle is the one thing the common man possesses. It has come down to him in a song, the masquerade, and in a slogan, liberty, equality, fraternity. In a passionate knowledge that twice within half a century, in 1789 and again in 1830, his countrymen have tried to establish democracy in France. Without this legacy, the lot of the common man would be unbearable, for it's a period of depression. Three years of bad harvests have been followed by a breakdown in world trade. In this year of 1848, the common man is without a job, hungry, without a vote. A weary old King Louis Philippe had the so-called constitutional monarchy, but the government is little more than a joint stock company exploiting the nation's wealth. Indifferent to his suffering, the ministers and deputies think only of legislation that will benefit the handful of privileged voters who keep them in power. Meanwhile, the common man walks the streets of Paris. Any work today, monsieur? Nothing. Perhaps tomorrow? Nothing tomorrow, not the day after. Everywhere I go it's the same. No work, no work. Lord, above us, what is a man to do? How is he to eat? You tell me, monsieur. Don't ask me. You think because I'm a little shop owner I'm well off. Listen, my friends, you are out of work. Can you buy what I have to sell? No. And there are thousands like you in Paris. They say times are bad because the crops have been bad. They say, they say, always they say, and they do nothing. All I know is a man has a right to work. That's what Monsieur Louis Blanc has been writing in the papers. He says the government should make work for the people. This Monsieur Blanc sounds like a sensible man. Why is he not in the government? Why? I will tell you why. Because you and I are not allowed to vote, my friend. Without the vote, it is impossible to change anything. And to get the vote, that is impossible too? Perhaps. But I have heard it said, monsieur, that the impossible is not a French word. I must leave you now, monsieur. I have a child at home who cries for food. Did you ever hear a child cry from hunger? It is not a good sound. Mother, I tell you, I won't sit here any longer and listen to Twanette cry. Maybe your father will come soon with food. Why do you say that? You know he won't. Where would he get it? There's no work. There's only one way to get food now. Don't even talk of such a thing. If you're afraid... I'm not. Joan, sit down. Where are you going? What are you going to do? You know what I'm going to do. I forbid you. Have you lost your mind? Come, please go away, Simo. Why do you stand there staring in that window? Simo, please. Ah, I told my con-sassages you're looking at. They're beautiful, aren't they? They make your mouth water. Are you going to buy one? Will you give me a piece? You know I haven't any money. Besides, the shop is closed. Then why do you see that? Man, have you seen the police tonight? Just old whiskers. He went into the cafe to warm his feet a minute ago. What's it to you? What are you up to? Simo, please go away now. Oh, I know. You've got to rock under your coat. Simo, hush. You know better than the rest of us you devolve. Always so quiet, so respectable. But you won't do it. You're afraid. No. I'm not. I'm not afraid. Why are you shaking? I'm cold. And if you're not afraid, throw it. Throw it. I'm going to, Simo. I'm going to. Mother and 7th, help me. There you see, it's easy. Now help yourself to what you want. Hey! Stop! It's old whiskers. Run! Here, girl. No. In here. Quick. Don't be afraid. I saw what happened. I want to help you. What is this place? Who are you? This is the other Andre's bookshop. We live upstairs. I'm going to hide you in the back. It's so dark. In here. Through this door. There's a light in here. There you are safe. Where are you? How about you? We're a child out there in the dark. I'm 17. Please, Mr. I'm not afraid. I know. Mr. The police. What do I do? Keep it very quiet. I know. A book. I'll pretend I've been reading. Give me the candle. And there's another on the table. Light it after I've closed the door. And don't be afraid. No, Mr. Yes, Andre. Why are you making all that racket? It's someone at the door. Let's see who it is. I was just going. Mr. The police. Come in, Mr. Pardon, Mr. But I am looking for a thief. A thief? But I'm a respectable bookseller. And my brother is a student at the university. Yes, Mr. Tonight I've been studying a most exciting lesson in economics. You can say that we're not thieves. You do not understand, Mr. I do not mean to accuse you. It's a girl I'm looking for. A girl. And why'd you come here? She was seen to disappear in front of your shop just a few minutes ago. It's impossible. Only my brother and I have the keys to the building. It's a mistake. Even a member of the Paris police can make a mistake. Yes, Mr. A thousand pardons, Mr. No apologies. Good night. Good night, Mr. I'm sorry to have troubled you. Well, Pierre. Where is she? And who is she? What are you talking about? The girl. Will you ever stop behaving quixotically? I prided myself that I was behaving practically. Very practically. Well? Where is she? In the back room. Come on. No, no, wait. The police may come back. Don. Tell me what happened. I was on my way home. And I see the thin, star-looking girl. No bigger than a child. I thought she was a child. She's standing in front of a butcher shop. All of a sudden she throws a rock, breaks the window, and takes a sausage. Just one sausage on her. They'd have given her five years for that. They'd have given you five for harboring a criminal, if they found it here. Well, what would you have done in my place? Minded my own business. Come home, gone to bed like any intelligent man. I believe you would. I believe that's what you would have done. Paris is starving under your nose, and you don't let the finger. Well, it's regrettable, but what can I do? We've got a dreary old king in the government of weaklings and scoundrels. Admitted. And you sit here reading your books and sipping your wine. Oh, Pierre. What would you have me do? Agitate for the vote. If we had the vote, we could change things. You're naive. Who do you think listens to your agitations? If enough of a scream they'll listen. Don't fool yourself. They don't feel too secure. They've not forgotten 1789. Nor have I forgot it. But he is surprising in the history of man. What came of it? A constitution, a republic. Betrayed by a little man in a three-quartered hat. Who put the people back to sleep. But they woke up again in 1830. And what came of that? The exchange of Charles the Tenth for a Louis Philippe. A puffy bourbon for a skinny audience. But they woke up, that's the point. And they're waking up again. Yeah. And you, bright young intellectuals, are waking them up. Unlikely they end with your heads in a basket. I think I'd rather have my head in a basket than in a sand like yours. Oh, but you're wrong. You see, we're not waking up the people. It's hunger that's doing it. That girl tonight. André, let's go and see about her. It's safe now. Well, let's admit I'm curious. What? She's gone. She's gone, André. Hmm. Must have gone out the back way. I was a fool to sit there arguing with you. Yeah. She's probably made off with an arm full of books and a bargain. Don't say that. She's not a thief. Look, André, she was reading. She's taken down a volume of beyond. It's open at one of my favorite poems, too. Oh, Todd. Girl of the streets with a taste for poetry. Tell you, she's now that sort of girl. Listen, André. White queen blanched like a queen of lilies with a voice like any mermaid. Birth of broadfoot, Beatrice Alice, an urban god, the lady of men, and that good Joan, whom Englishman it was. She underscored the name Joan. It's her way of telling me her name. It's rather a roundabout way of introducing herself. There must be 10,000 Jones in pairs. André, how will I ever find her? Find her? Yes, I want to talk to her. I might be able to help her. And she was very pretty, I mean. I thought she was pretty, you know. I feel better about you, Pierre. I thought you were only interested in her, well, sociologically. I believe. I believe there's hope for you. And in spite of the way you talk, I believe there's hope for you. André, come with me tomorrow to a meeting of the Friends of Democracy. What's that? Just a group of students who want things to be different. No, thanks. I believe a man should cultivate his own garden. You're Ms. Cordingbold here. I'll give you a better saying of his. I envy the young. They will see fine things. Anything here, Monsieur? Just a wine, thank you. I'm expecting friends. We'll order later. Well, here's one of them now. Pierre! Well, there you are, Jacques. What are the other great minds of the Friends of Democracy? Probably trying to borrow the price of a dinner. What capital? I was looking for a girl. A girl named Joan. Oh, did you find her? No, I didn't. Oh, too bad. Wine? Yes, thanks. What are we meeting about tonight? We'll talk about the mass demonstration tomorrow. What demonstration? I hadn't heard about it. Dewey Blanc and Albert and what little opposition there is in the deputies are behind it. They're asking every man in Paris who wants the vote to come out on March. How many do they count on? Oh, 10,000 at least. That many? Maybe more. Blanc's right to work slogan and his national workshop program have got the working people stirred up. And Albert's been organizing them into clubs. But it's not just working men who want the vote. It's most of the bourgeois as well. And of course the students. And I hear the universities being attacked is a seedbed of liberalism. A wiser government would have burned all the literature of the French Revolution. Then we'd never have known there was such a thing as democracy. Oh, they could have made it unconstitutional to learn to read. Joking aside, what about the demonstration? Well, we gather in front of the mad lane. March across across to the Concorde. Then across the river to the Chamber of Deputies. And the band plays the Marseillais. And we all shout, Viva France. Wait, here comes the vote. John, here. Have you heard? What? The government's forbidden the demonstration tomorrow. They can't do that. But they have. What about the opposition? What can they do? Two or three men against the whole chamber? I suppose it's a good sign, really. They're calling the demonstration off. It means they're afraid. The demonstration would have made them more so. They don't realize our strength. Claude, how do they mean to stop it? There will be a notice in the press tonight forbidding it. I won't stop it. Why not, Pierre? Did you ever stop to think that the people of Paris who want the vote and don't have work can't afford the luxury of a newspaper? No, but it's true. They'll come out all right. There'll be a demonstration. You'll see. The 22nd day of February, 1848. An ordinary winter day. Weather unpredictable. A little snow that soon turns to rain. His majesty, Louis-Elite, breakfast in bed, rises, frowns at his reflection in the mirror as he is dressed by his lackey for a sitting-to-the-portrait painter, Darnay. Out in front of the Tuileries, the guard marches back and forth, back and forth. No one pays any attention to the crowd slowly gathering outside the Marguerite. Workmen in caps and blouses, students with spectacles, a few women in decent black, a Sunday look about them. A band begins playing. The crowd increases. Louis-Blanc and Albert appear. Then La Matine, his pig tail, arise. The crowd cheers them. Banners demanding the right to vote, the right to work, grip black ink in the rain. The pavements are sprouting people now. A hundred, two, five hundred. In the Tuileries, his majesty's sitting has been interrupted by a clerk with some papers to be signed. The artist, Darnay, moves from his easel to the window and stares from behind heavy curtains at the growing mob. Then he turns in alarm. Your majesty, the crowd is becoming a mob. Does your majesty feel no uneasiness? Watch me, Darnay. I write my name. Louis-Philippe. Now I dust a little sand on the wet signature. Then I blow the sand away. That's how I should dispose of the mob when I choose to. All through that day and through the night, none into the next day, the crowd swells like flood waters in a river. And when Louis-Philippe chose to dispose of them, it was not so simple as blowing the sand away. Your majesty. Please, you know, my headache. Do not raise your voice. Your majesty, the mob. Look out of the window. All of Paris is marching in the streets. I have given the order for the National Guard to disperse them, you know. And the guards have refused to obey your order, sir. They've joined with the people in shouting for the right to vote at work. I open the window. You can hear them. No, no, no, you don't know. I don't want to hear them. I don't want to hear them. All through the day of February the 23rd, the marching feet grow stronger, beat against the brain of France's monarch. In panic, Louis dismisses his prime minister, Guiseaux, offers him as a scapegoat to the crowd. But the marching continues. Then with sweat standing out upon his forehead, he calls out the army of France. For at 9.30 in the evening, his majesty's army and the people's army, an army without arms, come face to face. The people press toward the ministry of foreign affairs. A company of dragoons bars the way. An officer advances. The crowd falls back. Fifty bodies. One of them a woman, lying before them on the ground. Slowly, cautiously, the crowd advances again to reclaim its death. In the bobbing torchlight, the student Pierre sees a young girl bending over the body of a man. Non-reserve. Non-reserve. Joan, it's you. You were here with us. I don't know what to say. It's all my heart, mademoiselle. They shot him. He's dead. Without even a blessing of a priest. We shouldn't have listened to them when they told us to join the marchers. Don't say that. It was so useless for him to die. Listen to me, mademoiselle. You must never think that your father's death was useless. He'll be remembered. Remembered? Who will remember him? It's all over. And that's it. Mademoiselle, you must believe me. It is not all over. It has just begun. Young Pierre Chabadey looks down at the body of the little terrorist Workman. Neat in his pylots and blouse and cap. And he feels anger rising in him like a tide. And the anger that he feels is the anger of all the people at that moment of that hour, along the road by which we came. It fans them like wind fans of forest fire. With deadly purpose, they begin loading the bodies of the dead into an open car. As the death wagon rumbles off, leaving its trail of blood, they fall in behind. All night, the funeral processions wind through the darkened streets. By dawn, the grim cortege has accomplished its mission. All terrorists have heard the news. And an enraged populace is pulling up cobblestones to make barricades. What began as a peaceful demonstration has become a revolution. In front of a gun shop on the Boulevard Saint-Martin, Pierre sees a group of students passing out guns. He turns to the girl, Joan, who is marched all night at his side. I'm going to leave you now. Leave me? Where are you going? To the barricades. Listen, those are our guns. I must go. Wait, Monsieur. I'm going with you. You're going with me? But, Mlle. you're a woman. I'm only an ignorant girl, Monsieur. And you're a student. Surely you know that it was the women a fan to storm the Bastille. Yes, Mlle. And that the greatest army a fan ever had was led by a woman. Oh, God. Yeah. A bullet went through his shoulder, Monsieur. He's lost much blood in his veins. Here, let me lift him. You don't open, Mlle. This way. I'll take him upstairs to his room. Yes, Monsieur. Where? How did you come to find my brother? I was with him, Monsieur. With him? Where? On the barricades, Monsieur. There were many women there. After the bullet struck him, I helped him to get away. He was able to walk a little. Only when he got to your door did he sin. I don't have to thank you. You've done my brother a great service. Don't speak of it, Monsieur. If it were not for your brother, I would be... Beware. In the jail, Monsieur. Jail? Oh, now I know. You're the girl. You're Joan. Yes, Monsieur. In here, Joan. Do you mind this couch? That does it. Look on the chess piece and hand me that bottle. This one? Yes, the brandy. This will bring him around. Lift up his head. That's good. Now I'll just pour a little between his lips. Look, he's opening his eyes. Yeah, he's coming around. I'll be. Where am I? The home. On the cell. What are you doing here? She brought you here. Don't you remember? Yes. You remember? Andre, I've got to go back. No, Pierre and I like to lie quietly. I'm going for a doctor now. And he fixed you up. I'll leave you with mademoiselle. I'm sure she's a good nurse. Leave me with mademoiselle? Do you object, Monsieur? No. No, I don't object. I'm a comrade. Only where will you be going, Andre? When I heard the sound of guns this morning, I closed the windows because I didn't want to hear it. No use, Pierre. There are sounds the man found escaped from. Andre. How are they going to take your place? Through the day of the 24th of February, there's the color sound of guns rang out. Just before sunset, the firing ceased. Then every bell in Paris began to ring. The bells are ringing. They're running and shouting like Christmas morning. Tell me my clothes. I want to go and see what it is. No, no, Pierre, you mustn't. I'll open the window and call down. As the people of Paris march in triumph through the streets, up the winding road past the Arc de Triomphe, the last king of France rides out of the city in defeat. France has been returned to the people again. Once more, they have fought and won. Won the first indispensable weapon of democracy, the right to vote. Won through the National Workshop Program established by the New Republic, the right to work. Yet the people's fight did not end there. It never ended. Three years later, Napoleon III, nephew of the emperor, engineered a coup d'etat. Then, using many of the same techniques that modern dictators have made so popular, he consolidated his power. Once again, democracy in France was destroyed. And once again, the struggle for democracy was renewed. Just as it is renewed in the France of today. A long road. A weary road. The road to freedom. But these struggles of men in the past who get it and who safeguard it are our priceless legacy. For we came this way. The NBC University of the Air has brought you Chapter 18 of the new historical series, We Came This Way. This week, We Came This Way will present freedom for every man or the story of Matzin. We feel that you will enhance your pleasure and your profit from this series if you make use of a special handbook which we are prepared to accompany it. You can obtain this handbook by sending 25 cents in cash to cover the cost of printing and mailing to We Came This Way, Box 30, Station J, New York 27, New York. Tonight's script was written by Frank Wells and directed by Homer Hanks. The original music was composed by Dr. Roy Shield and the orchestra was conducted by Joseph Galicchio. The members of the cast were Clifton Utley as narrator, Lorette Phil Brandt as Joan, Eva Clark as Pierre, and Wilms Herbert as Andre. Others in the cast were Elmo Plats, Phillip Lord, Charles Eggleston, Armand Hutter, Roy Engels and Leonard Smith.