2-798-671 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Fireworks at Paris - sketched by Harrison, 1845. Bastille Day celebrations: '...the fairy-like scene, just at the moment when the fireworks appeared above the bridge as a vast forest of palm-trees...On the lake of light, into which the Seine was changed, boats floated, bearing bands of music, and ladies. Fancy this scene, animated by magnificent fireworks, helped out by cannon, which did not cease a moment to peal, and you have it all, as well as pen, ink, and paper, can give it to you...Swimmers, wearing drawers, their heads disguised in plumes, so as to look like angry swans, dived about each other...Battles were fought between dandy crews, calling themselves 'Paris Marines'...But at night the scene was beautiful. The steamers and bathing-houses on the river, were converted into fairy castles, built of variegated lamps'. From "Illustrated London News", 1845, Vol VII.