May 1968 in France

May 1968 in France enters the narrative as a street-level upheaval that Casaubon witnesses while trying to return to the Conservatoire. Its significance lies not only in the disorder around him but in the contrast between public revolt and his own retreat to the position of a spectator—a pattern he recognizes from an earlier demonstration in Milan and measures against his lifelong anxiety about courage and opportunity.

The city in revolt

After waking in Paris, Casaubon learns from the desk clerk that the city is in turmoil: Metro stations are closed, police are dispersing crowds, and students are pressing beyond what the authorities will tolerate. On his way through the Latin Quarter, he sees groups shouting and waving flags. A police barricade blocks the Île de la Cité; shots sound in the distance, and near Sainte-Chapelle he encounters what seems to be a confrontation, with tear gas in the air and people charging through the streets.

The confusion leaves him unable to tell whether those rushing toward him are students or policemen. He and others take refuge behind a fence, sheltered by a police cordon, while a scuffle continues outside. The shelter is also a social position: Casaubon finds himself among the aging bourgeoisie, waiting for the revolution to subside, and registers the shame of that passivity rather than imagining himself among the demonstrators.

A return to the Conservatoire

Once the route clears, Casaubon avoids the disturbance by taking back streets around the old Halles and returning to rue Saint-Martin. The Conservatoire is open, and its white forecourt and facade notice identify the institution as established by decree of the Convention in the former priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs. Inside, the Sunday crowd, guards, visitors, and Pendulum appear as they had the previous afternoon. Casaubon searches for evidence of what may have happened there, but finds no visible trace; if an event occurred, someone has cleaned the place thoroughly.

The uneventful appearance of the museum sharpens the episode’s uncertainty. Outside, the city’s conflict is unmistakable, yet inside the Conservatoire ordinary Sunday routines seem intact. Casaubon cannot establish what happened during his absence, and the scene gives no confirmation that the apparent violence has left a mark on the place he has returned to investigate.

The earlier Milan demonstration

The Paris episode recalls an earlier demonstration in Milan against fascist conspiracies. That march had no permit, but police were expected to watch rather than intervene so long as the demonstrators stayed within tacit territorial boundaries: protesters operated beyond Largo Augusto, while fascists held Piazza San Babila and nearby streets. The narrator compares the arrangement to a lion and its tamer: calm depended on respecting the lion’s space, while a deliberate step across the boundary provoked a roar and a retreat. The arrangement makes political conflict seem at once real and carefully contained, a simulated revolution with rules.

Casaubon attended that march but did not join any group. He stood at the edge of Piazza Santo Stefano among reporters, editors, artists, and the familiar clientele of Pilade’s Bar. Later, he questions whether his absence came from a moral choice or from having been born in the wrong generation. He tells himself that the conflict was not his, yet admits that he could have accepted the risk to prove he would have chosen rightly in a genuine crisis. His reflection turns the idea of opportunity against itself: a deliberately contrived test cannot substitute for the moment one fails to recognize until it has passed.

Political memory and the spectator

The contrast between the two demonstrations illuminates Casaubon’s recurring difficulty. In Milan, he watched from the margin of a conflict whose boundaries appeared understood; in Paris, he takes refuge behind a police cordon as unrest surrounds him. The settings and circumstances differ, but both episodes leave him confronting the distance between witnessing political action and taking part in it.

That distance also frames Jacopo Belbo’s memories of the partisan period. Belbo remembers the time before his later immersion in the Diabolicals’ falsehoods as an interval of clarity: a bullet was simply a bullet, and the opposing sides seemed distinguishable by red and black. Casaubon understands why those memories remain precious to him. They recall a world in which danger and allegiance appeared legible, unlike the ambiguous disappearance of Colonel Ardenti and the proliferating interpretations of the present. Against that remembered clarity, May 1968 becomes another test that Casaubon watches from outside, uncertain whether the decisive opportunity has arrived or whether he is once again excusing his absence.