Barricades

Barricades, defence-works formed in streets and roads of beams, chains, chevaux-de-frise, and other obstacles, as a defence against besiegers, or as a shelter to insurgents. As early as 1358 the streets of Paris were barricaded against the Dauphin, afterwards Charles V. In 1588 a body of 4000 Swiss soldiers, meant to overawe the Council of Sixteen, were marched into Paris by Henry III., and would have been utterly destroyed by the populace, firing from behind barricades, had the court not consented to negotiation. During the three days of the revolution of 1830, the number of barricades erected across the streets amounted to several thousands. They were formed of the most heterogeneous materials—overturned vehicles, trees, scaffolding-poles, planks, building-materials, and street paving-stones—men, women, and children taking part in their erection. In February 1848, the insurrection against Louis-Philippe commenced with the erection of barricades; but the most celebrated and bloody barricade-fight was that between the populace and the Provisional Government, 23d–26th June 1848, which ended in the defeat of the people. The national losses by this fight were estimated at 30,000,000 francs; 16,000 persons were killed and wounded, and 8000 taken prisoners. Napoleon III. widened and macadamised many of the principal streets of Paris, partly with the express purpose of rendering the successful erection of barricades next to impossible; but in the second siege of Paris (1871), the Communists threw up numbers of strong barricades. There was a remarkable barricade-erection in London in 1821. The ministry desired that the body of Queen Caroline should be conveyed out of the country to Germany, for interment, without the populace having the opportunity of making any demonstration. On the matter becoming known, a vast barricade was erected at the point where the Hampstead Road joins the New Road; and as nothing but the use of artillery could have forced the way, the officer in charge of the funeral changed his course. In 1848 and 1849, barricades were successfully carried in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Dresden, by taking the defenders in the rear.