Blockade

Every traveller knows that Paris is four hours from the sea. Fewer travellers know that commercially its traffic comes from the thousands of long black barges with vast rudders and gaily painted strakes that nose slowly up & down the Seine, the Aisne, Marne and Oise bringing goods to the long city quays where hypnotized fishermen sit over their long bamboo poles. For nearly a day last week no barges reached the Paris quays from either Seine or Oise. Fifteen miles down the river where Seine meets Oise at the village of Conflans-Ste-Honorine, the barges were tied straight across the stream. Bargemen spat in the water and waited.

Cause of the blockade was the rage of old-fashioned bargemen, whose boats are towed by horses, mules, and not infrequently by women, at advanced competitors who motorize their ships. Motorized barges can travel at night. Motorized barges have bought or wheedled precedence from French lock keepers.

The Minister of Public Works, bearded Joseph Paganon, sympathized, invited the strikers to arbitrate. Not for an instant would he allow the Port of Paris to become even partially stagnant. No sooner did the embattled bargemen drop their mudhooks at Conflans than he struck.

Under his orders the Prefect of Seine-et-Oise called out troops. Some 200 gendarmes, backed by blue-clad Injanterie de-Marine, piled into fire boats and sailed up stream. At dawn they met the bargemen, brandishing boathooks. With a swish high pressure hoses were turned on, washed the boatmen off their decks and into the river while wives and children screamed imprecations through the portholes. The Seine was cleared. Twoscore of the ringleaders, most of them Belgian subjects, were arrested, charged with the extremely serious offense of Rebellion.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.