The High Court of Justice
While all this was taking place on the left bank of the river, towards noon a man was noticed walking up and down the great Salles des Pas Perdus of the Palace of Justice. This man, carefully buttoned up in an overcoat, appeared to be attended at a distance by several possible supporters — for certain police enterprises employ assistants whose dubious appearance renders the passers-by uneasy, so much so that they wonder whether they are magistrates or thieves. The man in the buttoned-up overcoat loitered from door to door, from lobby to lobby, exchanging signs of intelligence with the myrmidons who followed him; then came back to the great Hall, stopping on the way the barristers, solicitors, ushers, clerks, and attendants, and repeating to all in a low voice, so as not to be heard by the passers-by, the same question. To this question some answered “Yes,” others replied “No.” And the man set to work again, prowling about the Palace of Justice with the appearance of a bloodhound seeking the trail.
He was a Commissary of the Arsenal Police.
What was he looking for?
The High Court of Justice.
What was the High Court of Justice doing?
It was hiding.
Why? To sit in Judgment?
Yes and no.
The Commissary of the Arsenal Police had that morning received from the Prefect Maupas the order to search everywhere for the place where the High Court of Justice might be sitting, if perchance it thought it its duty to meet. Confusing the High Court with the Council of State, the Commissary of Police had first gone to the Quai d’Orsay. Having found nothing, not even the Council of State, he had come away empty-handed, at all events had turned his steps towards the Palace of Justice, thinking that as he had to search for justice he would perhaps find it there.
Not finding it, he went away.
The High Court, however, had nevertheless met together.
Where, and how? We shall see.
At the period whose annals we are now chronicling, before the present reconstruction of the old buildings of Paris, when the Palace of Justice was reached by the Cour de Harlay, a staircase the reverse of majestic led thither by turning out into a long corridor called the Gallerie Mercière. Towards the middle of this corridor there were two doors; one on the right, which led to the Court of Appeal, the other on the left, which led to the Court of Cassation. The folding-doors to the left opened upon an old gallery called St. Louis, recently restored, and which serves at the present time for a Salle des Pas Perdus to the barristers of the Court of Cassation. A wooden statue of St. Louis stood opposite the entrance door. An entrance contrived in a niche to the right of this statue led into a winding lobby ending in a sort of blind passage, which apparently was closed by two double doors. On the door to the right might be read “First President’s Room;” on the door to the left, “Council Chamber.” Between these two doors, for the convenience of the barristers going from the Hall to the Civil Chamber, which formerly was the Great Chamber of Parliament, had been formed a narrow and dark passage, in which, as one of them remarked, “every crime could be committed with impunity.”
Leaving on one side the First President’s Room and opening the door which bore the inscription “Council Chamber,” a large room was crossed, furnished with a huge horse-shoe table, surrounded by green chairs. At the end of this room, which in 1793 had served as a deliberating hall for the juries of the Revolutionary Tribunal, there was a door placed in the wainscoting, which led into a little lobby where were two doors, on the right the door of the room appertaining to the President of the Criminal Chamber, on the left the door of the Refreshment Room. “Sentenced to death!— Now let us go and dine!” These two ideas, Death and Dinner, have jostled against each other for centuries. A third door closed the extremity of this lobby. This door was, so to speak, the last of the Palace of Justice, the farthest off, the least known, the most hidden; it opened into what was called the Library of the Court of Cassation, a large square room lighted by two windows overlooking the great inner yard of the Concièrgerie, furnished with a few leather chairs, a large table covered with green cloth, and with law books lining the walls from the floor to the ceiling.
This room, as may be seen, is the most secluded and the best hidden of any in the Palace.
It was here,— in this room, that there arrived successively on the 2d December, towards eleven o’clock in the morning, numerous men dressed in black, without robes, without badges of office, affrighted, bewildered, shaking their heads, and whispering together. These trembling men were the High Court of Justice.
The High Court of Justice, according to the terms of the Constitution, was composed of seven magistrates; a President, four Judges, and two Assistants, chosen by the Court of Cassation from among its own members and renewed every year.
In December, 1851, these seven judges were named Hardouin, Pataille, Moreau, Delapalme, Cauchy, Grandet, and Quesnault, the two last-named being Assistants.
These men, almost unknown, had nevertheless some antecedents. M. Cauchy, a few years previously President of the Chamber of the Royal Court of Paris, an amiable man and easily frightened, was the brother of the mathematician, member of the Institute, to whom we owe the computation of waves of sound, and of the ex-Registrar Archivist of the Chamber of Peers. M. Delapalme had been Advocate-General, and had taken a prominent part in the Press trials under the Restoration; M. Pataille had been Deputy of the Centre under the Monarchy of July; M. Moreau (de la Seine) was noteworthy, inasmuch he had been nicknamed “de la Seine” to distinguish him from M. Moreau (de la Meurthe), who on his side was noteworthy, inasmuch as he had been nicknamed “de la Meurthe” to distinguish him from M. Moreau (de la Seine). The first Assistant, M. Grandet, had been President of the Chamber at Paris. I have read this panegyric of him: “He is known to possess no individuality or opinion of his own whatsoever.” The second Assistant, M. Quesnault, a Liberal, a Deputy, a Public Functionary, Advocate-General, a Conservative, learned, obedient, had attained by making a stepping-stone of each of these attributes, to the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation, where he was known as one of the most severe members. 1848 had shocked his notion of Right, he had resigned after the 24th of February; he did not resign after the 2d December.
M. Hardouin, who presided over the High Court, was an ex-President of Assizes, a religious man, a rigid Jansenist, noted amongst his colleagues as a “scrupulous magistrate,” living in Port Royal, a diligent reader of Nicolle, belonging to the race of the old Parliamentarians of the Marais, who used to go to the Palais de Justice mounted on a mule; the mule had now gone out of fashion, and whoever visited President Hardouin would have found no more obstinacy in his stable than in his conscience.
On the morning of the 2d December, at nine o’clock, two men mounted the stairs of M. Hardouin’s house, No. 10, Rue de Condé, and met together at his door. One was M. Pataille; the other, one of the most prominent members of the bar of the Court of Cassation, was the ex-Constituent Martin (of Strasbourg). M. Pataille had just placed himself at M. Hardouin’s disposal.
Martin’s first thought, while reading the placards of the coup d’état, had been for the High Court. M. Hardouin ushered M. Pataille into a room adjoining his study, and received Martin (of Strasbourg) as a man to whom he did not wish to speak before witnesses. Being formally requested by Martin (of Strasbourg) to convene the High Court, he begged that he would leave him alone, declared that the High Court would “do its duty,” but that first he must “confer with his colleagues,” concluding with this expression, “It shall be done to-day or to-morrow.” “To-day or to-morrow!” exclaimed Martin (of Strasbourg); “Mr. President, the safety of the Republic, the safety of the country, perhaps, depends on what the High Court will or will not do. Your responsibility is great; bear that in mind. The High Court of Justice does not do its duty to-day or to-morrow; it does it at once, at the moment, without losing a minute, without an instant’s hesitation.”
Martin (of Strasbourg) was right, Justice always belongs to To-day.
Martin (of Strasbourg) added, “If you want a man for active work, I am at your service.” M. Hardouin declined the offer; declared that he would not lose a moment, and begged Martin (of Strasbourg) to leave him to “confer” with his colleague, M. Pataille.
In fact, he called together the High Court for eleven o’clock, and it was settled that the meeting should take place in the Hall of the Library.
The Judges were punctual. At a quarter-past eleven they were all assembled. M. Pataille arrived the last.
They sat at the end of the great green table. They were alone in the Library.
There was no ceremonial. President Hardouin thus opened the debate: “Gentlemen, there is no need to explain the situation, we all know what it is.”
Article 68 of the Constitution was imperative. It was necessary that the High Court should meet under penalty of high treason. They gained time, they swore themselves in, they appointed as Recorder of the High Court M. Bernard, Recorder of the Court of Cassation, and they sent to fetch him, and while waiting requested the librarian, M. Denevers, to hold his pen in readiness. They settled the time and place for an evening meeting. They talked of the conduct of the Constituent Martin (of Strasbourg), with which they were offended, regarding it almost as a nudge of the elbow given by Politics to Justice. They spoke a little of Socialism, of the Mountain, and of the Red Republic, and a little also of the judgment which they had to pronounce. They chatted, they told stories, they found fault, they speculated, they spun out the time.
What were they waiting for?
We have related what the Commissary of police was doing for his part in his department.
And, in reference to this design, when the accomplices of the coup d’état considered that the people in order to summon the High Court to do its duty, could invade the Palace of Justice, and that they would never look for it where it was assembled, they felt that this room had been excellently chosen. When, however, they considered that the police would also doubtless come to expel the High Court, and that perhaps they would not succeed in finding it, each one regretted to himself the choice of the room. They wished to hide the High Court, they had succeeded too well. It was grievous to think that perhaps when the police and the armed force should arrive, matters would have gone too far, and the High Court would be too deeply compromised.
They had appointed a Recorder, now they must organize a Court. A second step, more serious than the first.
The judges delayed, hoping that fortune would end by deciding on one side or the other, either for the Assembly or for the President, either against the coup d’état or for it, and that there might thus be a vanquished party, so that the High Court could then with all safety lay its hands upon somebody.
They lengthily argued the question, whether they should immediately decree the accusation of the President, or whether they should draw up a simple order of inquiry. The latter course was adopted.
They drew up a judgment, not the honest and outspoken judgment which was placarded by the efforts of the Representatives of the Left and published, in which are found these words of bad taste, Crime and High Treason; this judgment, a weapon of war, has never existed otherwise than as a projectile. Wisdom in a judge sometimes consists in drawing up a judgment which is not one, one of those judgments which has no binding force, in which everything is conditional; in which no one is incriminated, and nothing, is called by its right name. There are species of intermediate courses which allow of waiting and seeing; in delicate crises men who are in earnest must not inconsiderately mingle with possible events that bluntness which is called Justice. The High Court took advantage of this, it drew up a prudent judgment; this judgment is not known; it is published here for the first time. Here it is. It is a masterpiece of equivocal style:—
EXTRACT FROM THE REGISTRY OF THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE.
“The High Court of Justice.
“According to Article 68 of the Constitution, considering that
printed placards beginning with these words, ‘The President of the
Republic’ and ending with the signatures, ‘Louis Napoléon Bonaparte’
and ‘De Morny, Minister of the Interior,’ the said placards ordaining
amongst other measures the dissolution of the National Assembly, have
been posted to-day on the walls of Paris, that this fact of the
dissolution of the National Assembly by the President of the Republic
would be of the nature to constitute the case provided for by Article
68 of the Constitution, and renders, in the terms of the aforesaid
article, the meeting of the High Court indispensable.
“It is declared that the High Court of Justice is organized, that it
appoints4 . . . to fulfil with it the functions of the Public
Ministry; that M. Bernard, the Recorder of the Court of Cassation,
should fulfil the duties of Recorder, and in order to proceed
further, according to the terms of the aforesaid Article 68 of the
Constitution, the Court will adjourn until to-morrow, the 3d of
December, at noon.
“Drawn up and discussed in the Council Chamber, where were sitting
MM. Hardouin, president, Pataille, Moreau, Delapalme, and Cauchy,
judges, December 2, 1851.”
The two Assistants, MM. Grandet and Quesnault, offered to sign the decree, but the President ruled that it would be more correct only to accept the signatures of the titular judges, the Assistants not being qualified when the Court was complete.
In the meantime it was one o’clock, the news began to spread through the palace that a decree of deposition against Louis Bonaparte had been drawn up by a part of the Assembly; one of the judges who had gone out during the debate, brought back this rumor to his colleagues. This coincided with an outburst of energy. The President observed that it would be to the purpose to appoint a Procureur-General.
There was a difficulty. Whom should they appoint? In all preceding trials they had always chosen for a Procureur-General at the High Court the Procureur-General at the Court of Appeal of Paris. Why should they introduce an innovation? They determined upon this Procureur-General of the Court of Appeal. This Procureur-General was at the time M. de Royer, who had been keeper of the Seals for M. Bonaparte. Thence a new difficulty and a long debate.
Would M. de Royer consent? M. Hardouin undertook to go and make the offer to him. He had only to cross the Mercière Gallery.
M. de Royer was in his study. The proposal greatly embarrassed him. He remained speechless from the shock. To accept was serious, to refuse was still more serious.
There was risk of treason. On the 2d December, an hour after noon, the coup d’état was still a crime. M. de Royer, not knowing whether the high treason would succeed, ventured to stigmatize the deed as such in private, and cast down his eyes with a noble shame before this violation of the laws which, three months later, numerous purple robes, including his own, endorsed with their oaths. But his indignation did not go to the extent of supporting the indictment. An indictment speaks aloud. M. de Royer as yet only murmured. He was perplexed.
M. Hardouin understood this state of conscience. Persistence would have been unreasonable. He withdrew.
He returned to the room where his colleagues were awaiting him.
In the meantime the Commissary of the Arsenal Police had come back.
He had ended by succeeding in “unearthing”— such was his expression — the High Court. He penetrated as far as the Council Chamber of the Civil Chamber; at that moment he had still no other escort than the few police agents of the morning. A boy was passing by. The Commissary asked him the whereabouts of the High Court. “The High Court?” answered the boy; “what is that?” Nevertheless the boy told the Librarian, who came up. A few words were exchanged between M. Denevers and the Commissary.
“What are you asking for?”
“The High Court.”
“Who are you?”
“I want the high Court.”
“It is in session.”
“Where is it sitting?”
“Here.”
And the Librarian pointed to the door.
“Very well,” said the Commissary.
He did not add another word, and returned into the Mercière Gallery.
We have just said that he was only accompanied at that time by a few police agents.
The High Court was, in truth, in session. The President was relating to the judges his visit to the Procureur General. Suddenly a tumultuous sound of footsteps is heard in the lobby which leads from the Council Chamber to the room where they were deliberating. The door opens abruptly. Bayonets appear, and in the midst of the bayonets a man in a buttoned-up overcoat, with a tricolored sash upon his coat.
The magistrates stare, stupefied.
“Gentlemen,” said the man, “dissolve your meeting immediately.”
President Hardouin rises.
“What does this mean? Who are you? Are you aware to whom you are speaking?”
“I am aware. You are the High Court, and I am the Commissary of the Police.”
“Well, then?”
“Be off.”
There were there thirty-five municipal guards, commanded by a lieutenant, and with a drum at their head.
“But ——” said the President.
The Commissary interrupted him with these words, which are literally given,—
“Mr. President, I am not going to enter upon an oratorical combat with you. I have my orders, and I transmit them to you. Obey.”
“Whom?”
“The Prefect of Police.”
The President asked this strange question, which implied the acceptance of an order,—
“Have you a warrant?”
The Commissary answered,—
“Yes.”
And he handed a paper to the President.
The judges turned pale.
The President unfolded the paper; M. Cauchy put his head over M. Hardouin’s shoulder. The President read but,—
“You are ordered to dissolve the High Court, and, in case of refusal, to arrest MM. Béranger, Rocher, De Boissieux, Pataille, and Hello.”
And, turning towards the judges, the President added,—
“Signed, Maupas.”
Then, addressing himself to the Commissary, he resumed,—
“There is some mistake, these are not our names. MM. Béranger, Rocher, and De Boissieux have served their time and are no longer judges of the High Court; as for M. Hello, he is dead.”
The High Court, in reality, was temporary and renewable; the coup d’état overthrew the Constitution, but did not understand it. The warrant signed “Maupas” was applicable to the preceding High Court. The coup d’état had been misled by an old list. Such is the heedlessness of assassins.
“Mr. Commissary of Police,” continued the President, “you see that these names are not ours.”
“That does not matter to me,” replied the Commissary. “Whether this warrant does or does not apply to you, disperse, or I shall arrest all of you.”
And he added,—
“At once.”
The judges were silenced; one of them picked up from the table a loose sheet of paper, which was the judgment they had drawn up, and put the paper in his pocket.
Then they went away.
The Commissary pointed to the door where the bayonets were, and said,—
“That way.”
They went out by the lobby between two ranks of soldiers. The detachment of Republican Guards escorted them as far as the St. Louis Gallery.
There they set them free; their heads bowed down.
It was about three o’clock.
While these events were taking place in the Library, close by, in the former great Chamber of the Parliament, the Court of Cassation was sitting in judgment as usual, without noticing what was happening so near at hand. It would appear, then, that the police exhaled no odor.
Let us at once have done with this High Court.
In the evening at half-past seven the seven judges met together at the house of one of their number, he who had taken away the decree; they framed an official report, drew up a protest, and recognizing the necessity of filling in the line left blank in their decree, on the proposition of M. Quesnault, appointed as Procureur-General M. Renouard, their colleague at the Court of Cessation. M. Renouard, who was immediately informed, consented.
They met together for the last time on the next day, the 3d, at eleven o’clock in the morning, an hour before the time mentioned in the judgment which we have read above,— again in the Library of the Court of Cassation. M. Renouard was present. An official minute was given to him, recording his appointment, as well as certain details with which he asked to be supplied. The judgment which had been drawn up was taken by M. Quesnault to the Recorder’s Office, and immediately entered upon the Register of the Secret Deliberations of the Court of Cassation, the High Court not having a Special Register, and having decided, from its creation, to use the Register of the Court of Cassation. After the decree they also transcribed the two documents described as follows on the Register:—
I. An official report recording the interference of the police during the discussion upon the preceding decree.
II. A minute of the appointment of M. Renouard to the office of Procureur-General.
In addition seven copies of these different documents drawn up by the hands of the judges themselves, and signed by them all, were put in a place of safety, as also, it is said, a note-book, in which were written five other secret decisions relating to the coup d’état.
Does this page of the Register of the Court of Cassation exist at the present time? Is it true, as has been stated, that the prefect Maupas sent for the Register and tore out the leaf containing the decree? We have not been able to clear up this point. The Register now is shown to no one, and those employed at the Recorder’s Office are dumb.
Such are the facts, let us summarize them. If this Court so called “High,” had been of a character to conceive such an idea as that of doing its duty — when it had once met together the mere organization of itself was a matter of a few minutes — it would have proceeded resolutely and rapidly, it would have appointed as Procureur-General some energetic man belonging to the Court of Cassation, either from the body of magistrates, such as Freslon, or from the bar, like Martin (of Strasbourg). By virtue of Article 68, and without waiting the initiative of the Assembly, it would have drawn up a judgment stigmatizing the crime, it would have launched an order of arrest against the President and his accomplices and have ordered the removal of the person of Louis Bonaparte to jail. As for the Procureur-General he would have issued a warrant of arrest. All this could have been done by half-past eleven, and at that time no attempt had been made to dissolve the High Court. These preliminary proceedings concluded, the High Court, by going out through a nailed-up door leading into the Salle des Pas Perdus, could have descended into the street, and there have proclaimed its judgment to the people. At this time it would have met with no hindrance. Finally, and this in any case, it should have sat robed on the Judges’ Bench, with all magisterial state, and when the police agent and his soldiers appeared should have ordered the soldiers, who perhaps would have obeyed them, to arrest the agent, and if the soldiers had disobeyed, should have allowed themselves to be formally dragged to prison, so that the people could see, under their own eyes, out in the open street, the filthy hoof of the coup d’état trampling upon the robe of Justice.
Instead of this, what steps did the High Court take? We have just seen.
“Be off with you!”
“We are going.”
We can imagine, after a very different fashion, the dialogue between Mathieu Molé and Vidocq.
The Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement
The Representatives, having come out from M. Daru, rejoined each other and assembled in the street. There they consulted briefly, from group to group. There were a large number of them. In less than an hour, by sending notices to the houses on the left bank of the Seine alone, on account of the extreme urgency, more than three hundred members could be called together. But where should they meet? At Lemardelay’s? The Rue Richelieu was guarded. At the Salle Martel? It was a long way off. They relied upon the Tenth Legion, of which General Lauriston was colonel. They showed a preference for the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement. Besides, the distance was short, and there was no need to cross any bridges.
They formed themselves into column, and set forth.
M. Daru, as we have said, lived in the Rue de Lille, close by the Assembly. The section of the Rue de Lille lying between his house and the Palais Bourbon was occupied by infantry. The last detachment barred his door, but it only barred it on the right, not on the left. The Representatives, on quitting M. Daru, bent their steps on the side of the Rue des Saints-Pères, and left the soldiers behind them. At that moment the soldiers had only been instructed to prevent their meeting in the Palace of the Assembly; they could quietly form themselves into a column in the street, and set forth. If they had turned to the right instead of to the left, they would have been opposed. But there were no orders for the other alternative; they passed through a gap in the instructions.
An hour afterwards this threw St. Arnaud into a fit of fury.
On their way fresh Representatives came up and swelled the column. As the members of the Right lived for the most part in the Faubourg St. Germain, the column was composed almost entirely of men belonging to the majority.
At the corner of the Quai d’Orsay they met a group of members of the Left, who had reunited after their exit from the Palace of the Assembly, and who were consulting together. There were the Representatives Esquiros, Marc Dufraisse, Victor Hennequin, Colfavru, and Chamiot.
Those who were marching at the head of the column left their places, went up to the group, and said, “Come with us.”
“Where are you going?” asked Marc Dufraisse.
To the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement.”
“What do you intend to do there?”
“To decree the deposition of Louis Bonaparte.”
“And afterwards?”
“Afterwards we shall go in a body to the Palace of the Assembly; we will force our way in spite of all resistance, and from the top of the steps we will read out the decree of deposition to the soldiers.”
“Very good, we will join you,” said Mare Dufraisse.
The five members of the Left marched at some distance from the column. Several of their friends who were mingled with the members of the Right rejoined them; and we may here mention a fact without giving it more importance than it possesses, namely, that the two fractions of the Assembly represented in this unpremeditated gathering marched towards the Mairie without being mingled together; one on each side of the street. It chanced that the men of the majority kept on the right side of the street, and the men of the minority on the left.
No one had a scarf of office. No outward token caused them to be recognized. The passers-by stared at them with surprise, and did not understand what was the meaning of this procession of silent men through the solitary streets of the Faubourg St. Germain. One district of Paris was as yet unaware of the coup d’état.
Strategically speaking, from a defensive point of view, the Mairie of the tenth Arrondissement was badly chosen. Situated in a narrow street in that short section of the Rue de Grenelle-St.-Germain which lies between the Rue des Saints-Pères and the Rue du Sépulcre, close by the cross-roads of the Croix-Rouge, where the troops could arrive from so many different points, the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, confined, commanded, and blockaded on every side, was a pitiful citadel for the assailed National Representation. It is true that they no longer had the choice of a citadel, any more than later on they had the choice of a general.
Their arrival at the Mairie might have seemed a good omen. The great gate which leads into a square courtyard was shut; it opened. The post of the National Guards, composed of some twenty men, took up their arms and rendered military honors to the Assembly. The Representatives entered, a Deputy Mayor received them with respect on the threshold of the Mairie. “The Palace of the Assembly is closed by the troops,” said the Representatives, “we have come to deliberate here.” The Deputy Mayor led them to the first story, and admitted them to the Great Municipal Hall. The National Guard cried, “Long live the National Assembly!”
The Representatives having entered, the door was shut. A crowd began to gather in the street and shouted “Long live the Assembly!” A certain number of strangers to the Assembly entered the Mairie at the same time as the Representatives. Overcrowding was feared, and two sentries were placed at a little side-door, which was left open, with orders only to allow members of the Assembly who might come afterwards to enter. M. Howyn Tranchère stationed himself at this door, and undertook to identify them.
On their arrival at the Mairie, the Representatives numbered somewhat under three hundred. They exceeded this number later on. It was about eleven o’clock in the morning. All did not go up at once into the hall where the meeting was to take place. Several, those of the Left in particular, remained in the courtyard, mingling with the National Guards and citizens.
They talked of what they were going to do.
This was the first difficulty.
The Father of the meeting was M. de Kératry.
Was he going to preside?
The Representatives who were assembled in the Great Hall were in his favor.
The Representatives remaining in the courtyard hesitated.
Marc Dufraisse went up to MM. Jules de Lasteyrie and Léon de Maleville, who had stayed behind with the Representatives of the Left, and said to them, “What are they thinking of upstairs? To make Kératry President? The name of Kératry would frighten the people as thoroughly as mine would frighten the middle classes.”
A member of the Right, M. de Keranflech, came up, and intending to support the objection, added, “And then, think of Kératry’s age. It is madness to pit a man of eighty against this hour of danger.”
But Esquiros exclaimed,—
“That is a bad reason! Eighty years! They constitute a force.”
“Yes; where they are well borne,” said Colfavru. “Kératry bears them badly.”
“Nothing is greater,” resumed Esquiros, “than great octogenarians.”
“It is glorious,” added Chamiot, “to be presided over by Nestor.”
“No, by Gerontes,”5 said Victor Hennequin.
These words put an end to the debate. Kératry was thrown out. MM. Léon de Maleville and Jules de Lasteyrie, two men respected by all parties, undertook to make the members of the Right listen to reason. It was decided that the “bureau”6 should preside. Five members of the “bureau” were present; two Vice-Presidents, MM. Benoist d’Azy and Vitet, and three Secretaries, MM. Griumult, Chapot, and Moulin. Of the two other Vice-Presidents, one, General Bedrau, was at Mazas; the other, M. Daru, was under guard in his own house. Of the three other Secretaries, two, MM. Peapin and Lacaze, men of the Elysée, were absentees; the other, M. Yvan, a member of the Left, was at the meeting of the Left, in the Rue Blanche, which was taking place almost at the same moment.
In the meantime an usher appeared on the steps of the Mairie, and cried out, as on the most peaceful days of the Assembly, “Representatives, to the sitting!”
This usher, who belonged to the Assembly, and who had followed it, shared its fortunes throughout this day, the sequestration on the Quai d’Orsay included.
At the summons of the usher all the Representatives in the courtyard, and amongst whom was one of the Vice-Presidents, M. Vitei, went upstairs to the Hall, and the sitting was opened.
This sitting was the last which the Assembly held under regular conditions. The Left, which, as we have seen, had on its side boldly recaptured the Legislative power, and had added to it that which circumstances required — as was the duty of Revolutionists; the Left, without a “bureau,” without an usher, and without secretaries, held sittings in which the accurate and passionless record of shorthand was wanting, but which live in our memories and which History will gather up.
Two shorthand writers of the Assembly, MM. Grosselet and Lagache, were present at the sitting at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement. They have been able to record it. The censorship of the victorious coup d’état has mutilated their report and has published through its historians this mangled version as the true version. One lie more. That does not matter. This shorthand recital belongs to the brief of the 2d December, it is one of the leading documents in the trial which the future will institute. In the notes of this book will be found this document complete. The passages in inverted commas are those which the censorship of M. Bonaparte has suppressed. This suppression is a proof of their significance and importance.
Shorthand reproduces everything except life. Stenography is an ear. It hears and sees not. It is therefore necessary to fill in here the inevitable blanks of the shorthand account.
In order to obtain a complete idea of this sitting of the Tenth Arrondissement, we must picture the great Hall of the Mairie, a sort of parallelogram, lighted on the right by four or five windows overlooking the courtyard; on the left, along the wall, furnished with several rows of benches which had been hastily brought thither, on which were piled up the three hundred Representatives, assembled together by chance. No one was sitting down, those in front were standing, those behind were mounted on the benches. Here and there were a few small tables. In the centre people walked to and fro. At the bottom, at the end opposite the door, was a long table furnished with benches, which occupied the whole width of the wall, behind which sat the “bureau.” “Sitting” is merely the conventional term. The “bureau” did not “sit;” like the rest of the Assembly it was on its feet. The secretaries, M.M. Chapot, Moulin, and Grimault wrote standing. At certain moments the two Vice-Presidents mounted on the benches so as to be better seen from all points of the room. The table was covered by an old green tablecloth, stained with ink, three or four inkstands had been brought in, and a quire of paper was scattered about. There the decrees were written as soon as they were drawn up. They multiplied the copies, some Representatives became secretaries on the spur of the moment, and helped the official secretaries.
This great hall was on a level with the landing. It was situated, as we have said, on the first floor; it was reached by a very narrow staircase.
We must recollect that nearly the whole of the members present were members of the Right.
The first moment was a serious one. Berryer came out to advantage. Berryer, like all those extemporizers without style, will only be remembered as a name, and a much disputed name, Berryer having been rather a special pleader than an orator who believed what he said. On that day Berryer was to the point, logical and earnest. They began by this cry, “What shall we do?” “Draw up a declaration,” said M. de Falloux. “A protest,” said M. de Flavigny. “A decree,” said Berryer.
In truth a declaration was empty air, a protest was noise, a decree was action. They cried out, “What decree?” “Deposition,” said Berryer. Deposition was the extreme limit of the energy of the Right. Beyond deposition, there was outlawry; deposition was practicable for the Right, outlawry was only possible for the Left. In fact it was the Left who outlawed Louis Bonaparte. They did it at their first meeting in the Rue Blanche. We shall see this later on. At deposition, Legality came to an end; at outlawry, the Revolution began. The recurrence of Revolutions are the logical consequences of coups d’état. The deposition having been voted, a man who later on turned traitor, Quentin Bauchart, exclaimed, “Let us all sign it.” All signed it. Odilon Barrot came in and signed it. Antony Thouret came in and signed it. Suddenly M. Piscatory announced that the Mayor was refusing to allow Representatives who had arrived to enter the Hall. “Order him to do so by decree,” said Berryer. And the decree was voted. Thanks to this decree, MM. Favreau and Monet entered; they came from the Legislative Palace; they related the cowardice of Dupin. M. Dahirel, one of the leaders of the Right, was exasperated, and said, “We have received bayonet thrusts.” Voices were raised, “Let us summon the Tenth Legion. Let the call to arms be beaten. Lauriston hesitates. Let us order him to protect the Assembly.” “Let us order him by decree,” said Berryer. This decree was drawn up, which, however, did not prevent Lauriston from refusing. Another decree, again proposed by Berryer, pronounced any one who had outraged the Parliamentary inviolability to be a traitor, and ordered the immediate release of those Representatives who had been wrongfully made prisoners. All this was voted at once without debate, in a sort of great unanimous confusion, and in the midst of a storm of fierce conversations. From time to time Berryer imposed silence. Then the angry outcries broke forth again. “The coup d’état will not dare to come here.” “We are masters here.” “We are at home.” “It would be impossible to attack us here.” “These wretches will not dare to do so.” If the uproar had been less violent, the Representatives might have heard through the open windows close at hand, the sound of soldiers loading their guns.
A regiment of Chasseurs of Vincennes had just entered silently into the garden of the Mairie, and, while waiting for orders, were loading their guns.
Little by little the sitting, at first disorderly and tumultuous, had assumed an ordinary aspect. The uproar had relapsed into a murmur. The voice of the usher, crying “Silence, gentlemen,” had succeeded in overcoming the hubbub. Every moment fresh Representatives came in, and hastened to sign the decree of deposition at the “bureau.” As there was a great crowd round the “bureau” waiting to sign, a dozen loose sheets of paper to which the Representatives affixed their signatures were circulated in the great Hall and the two adjoining rooms.
The first to sign the decree of deposition was M. Dufaure, the last was M. Betting de Lancastel. Of the two Presidents, one, M. Benoist d’Azy, was addressing the Assembly; the other, M. Vitet, pale, but calm and resolute, distributed instructions and orders. M. Benoist d’Azy maintained a decorous countenance, but a certain hesitation in his speech revealed an inner agitation. Divisions, even in the Right, had not disappeared at this critical moment. A Legitimist member was overheard saying in a low voice, while speaking of one of the Vice-Presidents, “This great Vitet looks like a whited sepulchre.” Vitet was an Orleanist.
Given this adventurer with whom they had to deal, this Louis Bonaparte, capable of everything, the hour and the man being wrapt in mystery, some Legitimist personages of a candid mind were seriously but comically frightened. The Marquis of ——, who acted the fly on the coach-wheel to the Right, went hither and thither, harangued, shouted, declaimed, remonstrated, proclaimed, and trembled. Another, M. A—— N——, perspiring, red-faced, out of breath, rushed about distractedly. “Where is the guard? How many men are there? Who commands them? The officer! send me the officer! Long live the Republic! National Guard, stand firm! Long live the Republic!” All the Right shouted this cry. “You wish then to kill it,” said Esquiros. Some of them were dejected; Bourbousson maintained the silence of a vanquished placeman. Another, the Viscount of ——, a relative of the Duke of Escars, was so alarmed that every moment he adjourned to a corner of the courtyard. In the crowd which filled the courtyard there was a gamin of Paris, a child of Athens, who has since become am elegant and charming poet, Albert Glatigny. Albert Glatigny cried out to this frightened Viscount, “Hulloa there! Do you think that coups d’état are extinguished in the way Gulliver put out the fire?”
Oh, Laughter, how gloomy you are when attended with Tragedy!
The Orleanists were quieter, and maintained a more becoming attitude. This arose from the fact that they ran greater danger.
Pascal Duprat replaced at the top of the decrees the words, “République Fran?aise,” which had been forgotten.
From time to time men who were not speaking on the subject of the moment mentioned this strange word, “Dupin,” open which there ensued shouts of derision and bursts of laughter. “Utter the name of that coward no more,” cried Antony Thouret.
There were motions and counter-motions; it was a continual uproar interrupted by deep and solemn silences. Alarmist phrases circulated from group to group. “We are in a blind alley.” “We are caught here as in a rat trap;” and then on each motion voices were raised: “That is it!” “It is right!” “It is settled!” They agreed in a low voice upon a rendezvous at No. 19, Rue de la Chaussée-d’Antin, in case they should be expelled from the Mairie. M. Bixio carried off the decree of deposition to get it printed. Esquiros, Marc Dufraisse, Pascal Duprat, Rigal, Lherbette, Chamiot, Latrade, Colfavru, Antony Thouret, threw in here and there energetic words of advice. M. Dufaure, resolute and indignant, protested with authority. M. Odilon Barrot, motionless in a corner, maintained the silence of stupefied silliness.
MM. Passy and de Tocqueville, in the midst of the groups, described that when they were Ministers they had always entertained an uneasy suspicion of a coup d’état, and that they clearly perceived this fixed idea in the brain of Louis Bonaparte. M. de Tocqueville added, “I said to myself every night, ‘I lie down to sleep a Minister; what if I should awake a prisoner?’” Some of those men who were termed “men of order,” muttered while signing the degree of deposition, “Beware of the Red Republic!” and seemed to entertain an equal fear of failure and of success. M. de Vatimesnil pressed the hands of the men of the Left, and thanked them for their presence. “You make us popular,” said he. And Antony Thouret answered him, “I know neither Right nor Left to-day; I only see the Assembly.”
The younger of the two shorthand writers handed their written sheets to the Representatives who had spoken, and, asked them to revise them at once, saying, “We shall not have the time to read them over.” Some Representatives went down into the street, and showed the people copies of the decree of deposition, signed by the members of the “bureau.” One of the populace took one of these copies, and cried out, “Citizens! the ink is still quite wet! Long live the Republic!”
The Deputy-Mayor stood at the door of the Hall; the staircase was crowded with National Guards and spectators. In the Assembly several had penetrated into the Hall, and amongst them the ex-Constituent Beslay, a man of uncommon courage. It was at first wished to turn them out, but they resisted, crying, “This is our business. You are the Assembly, but we are the People.” “They are right,” said M. Berryer.
M. de Falloux, accompanied by M. de Kéranflech, came up the Constituent Beslay, and leaned by his side on the stove, saying to him, “Good-day, colleague;” and reminded him that they both had formed part of the Committee of the National Workshops, and that they had together visited the Workmen at the Parc Monceaux. The Right felt themselves falling; they became affectionate towards Republicans. The Republic is called To-morrow.
Each spoke from his place; this member upon a bench, that member on a chair, a few on the tables. All contradictory opinions burst forth at once. In a corner some ex-leaders of “order” were scared at the possible triumph of the “Reds.” In another the men of the Right surrounded the men of the Left, and asked them: “Are not the faubourgs going to rise?”
The narrator has but one duty, to tell his story; he relates everything, the bad as well as the good. Whatever may have taken place, however, and notwithstanding all these details of which it was our duty to speak, apart from the exceptions which we had mentioned, the attitude of the men of the Right who composed the large majority of this meeting was in many respects honorable and worthy. Some of them, as we have just mentioned, even prided themselves upon their resolution and their energy, almost as though they had wished to rival the members of the Left.
We may here remark — for in the course of this narrative we shall more than once see the gaze of some members of the Right turned towards the people, and in this no mistake should be made — that these monarchical men who talked of popular insurrection and who invoked the faubourgs were a minority in the majority,— an imperceptible minority. Antony Thouret proposed to those who were leaders there to go in a body through the working-class neighborhoods with the decree of deposition in their hands. Brought to bay, they refused. They declared that they would only protect themselves by organized powers, not by the people. It is a strange thing to say, but it must be noted, that with their habits of political shortsightedness, the popular armed resistance, even in the name of the Law, seemed sedition to them. The utmost appearance of revolution which they could endure was a regiment of the National Guard, with their drums at their head; they shrank from the barricade; Right in a blouse was no longer Right, Truth armed with a pike was no longer Truth, Law unpaving a street gave them the impression of a Fury. In the main, however, and taking them for what they were, and considering their position as politicians, these members of the Right were well-advised. What would they have done with the people? And what would the people have done with them? How would they have proceeded to set fire to the masses? Imagine Falloux as a tribune, fanning the Faubourg St. Antoine into a flame!
Alas! in the midst of this dense gloom, in these fatal complications of circumstances by which the coup d’état profited so odiously and so perfidiously, in that mighty misunderstanding which comprised the whole situation, for kindling the revolutionary spark in the heart of the people, Danton himself would not have sufficed.
The coup d’état entered into this meeting impudently, with its convict’s cap on its head. It possessed an infamous assurance there, as well as everywhere else. There were in this majority three hundred Representatives of the People. Louis Napoleon sent a sergeant to drive them away. The Assembly, having resisted the sergeant, he sent an officer, the temporary commander of the sixth battalion of the Chasseurs de Vincennes. This officer, young, fair-haired, a scoffer, half laughing, half threatening, pointed with his finger to the stairs filled with bayonets, and defied the Assembly. “Who is this young spark?” asked a member of the Right. A National Guard who was there said, “Throw him out of the window!” “Kick him downstairs!” cried one of the people.
This Assembly, grievous as were its offences against the principles of the Revolution — and with these wrongs Democracy alone had the right to reproach it — this Assembly, I repeat, was the National Assembly, that is to say, the Republic incarnate, the living Universal Suffrage, the Majesty of the Nation, upright and visible. Louis Bonaparte assassinated this Assembly, and moreover insulted it. A slap on the face is worse than a poniard thrust.
The gardens of the neighborhood occupied by the troops were full of broken bottles. They had plied the soldiers with drink. They obeyed the “epaulettes” unconditionally, and according to the expression of eyewitnesses, appeared “dazed-drunk.” The Representatives appealed to them, and said to them, “It is a crime!” They answered, “We are not aware of it.”
One soldier was heard to say to another, “What have you done with your ten francs of this morning?”
The sergeants hustled the officers. With the exception of the commander, who probably earned his cross of honor, the officers were respectful, the sergeants brutal.
A lieutenant showing signs of flinching, a sergeant cried out to him, “You are not the only one who commands here! Come, therefore, march!”
M. de Vatimesnil asked a soldier, “Will you dare to arrest us — us, the Representatives of the People?”
“Assuredly!” said the soldier.
Several soldiers hearing some Representatives say that they had eaten nothing since the morning, offered them their ration bread. Some Representatives accepted. M. de Tocqueville, who was unwell, and who was noticed to be pale and leaning on the sill of a window, received from a soldier a piece of this bread, which he shared with M. Chambolle.
Two Commissaries of Police appeared in “full dress,” in black coats girded with their sash-girdles and their black corded hats. One was an old man, the other a young man. The first was named Lemoine-Tacherat, and not Bacherel, as has been wrongly printed: the second was named Barlet. These names should be noted. The unprecedented assurance of this Barlet was remarked. Nothing was wanting in him,— cynical speech, provoking gesture, sardonic intonation. It was with an inexpressible air of insolence that Barlet, when summoning the meeting to dissolve itself, added, “Rightly or Wrongly.” They murmured on the benches of the Assembly, “Who is this scoundrel?” The other, compared to him, seemed moderate and inoffensive. Emile Péan exclaimed, “The old man is simply working in his profession, but the young man is working out his promotion.”
Before this Tacherat and this Barlet entered, before the butts of the muskets had been heard ringing on the stones of the staircase, this Assembly had talked of resistance. Of what kind of resistance? We have just stated. The majority could only listen to a regular organized resistance, a military resistance in uniform and in epaulets. Such a resistance was easy to decree, but it was difficult to organize. The Generals on whom the Assembly were accustomed to rely having been arrested, there only remained two possible Generals, Oudinot and Lauriston. General Marquis de Lauriston, ex-peer of France, and at the same time Colonel of the Tenth Legion and Representative of the People, drew a distinction between his duty as Representative and his duty as Colonel. Summoned by some of his friends of the Right to beat to arms and call together the Tenth Legion, he answered, “As Representative of the People I ought to indict the Executive Power, but as Colonel I ought to obey it.” It appears that he obstinately shut himself up in this singular reasoning, and that it was impossible to draw him out of it.
“How stupid he is!” said Piscatory.
“How sharp he is!” said Falloux.
The first officer of the National Guard who appeared in uniform, seemed to be recognized by two members of the Right, who said, “It is M. de Perigord!” They made a mistake, it was M. Guilbot, major of the third battalion of the Tenth Legion. He declared that he was ready to march on the first order from his Colonel, General Lauriston. General Lauriston went down into the courtyard, and came up a moment afterwards, saying, “They do not recognize my authority. I have just resigned,” Moreover, the name of Lauriston was not familiar to the soldiers. Oudinot was better known in the army. But how?
At the moment when the name of Oudinot was pronounced, a shudder ran through this meeting, almost exclusively composed of members of the Right. In fact at this critical time, at this fatal name of Oudinot, reflections crowded upon each other in every mind.
What was the coup d’état?
It was the “Roman expedition at home.” Which was undertaken against whom? Against those who had undertaken the “Roman expedition abroad.” The National Assembly of France, dissolved by violence, could find only one single General to defend it in its dying hour. And whom? Precisely he, who in the name of the National Assembly of France had dissolved by violence the National Assembly of Rome. What power could Oudinot, the strangler of a Republic, possess to save a Republic? Was it not evident that his own soldiers would answer him, “What do you want with us? That which we have done at Rome we now do at Paris.” What a story is this story of treason! The French Legislature had written the first chapter with the blood of the Roman Constituent Assembly: Providence wrote the second chapter with the blood of the French Legislature, Louis Bonaparte holding the pen.
In 1849, Louis Bonaparte had assassinated the sovereignty of the People in the person of its Roman Representatives; in 1851 he assassinated it in the person of its French Representatives. It was logical, and although it was infamous, it was just. The Legislative Assembly bore at the same time the weight of two crimes; it was the accomplice of the first, the victim of the second. All these men of the majority felt this, and were humbled. Or rather it was the same crime, the crime of the Second of July, 1849, ever erect, ever alive, which had only changed its name, which now called itself the Second of December, and which, the offspring of this Assembly, stabbed it to the heart. Nearly all crimes are parricidal. On a certain day they recoil upon those who have committed them, and slay them.
At this moment, so full of anxiety, M. de Falloux must have glanced round for M. de Montalembert. M. de Montalembert was at the Elysée.
When Tamisier rose and pronounced this terrifying word, “The Roman Question?” distracted M. de Dampierre shouted to him, “Silence! You kill us!”
It was not Tamisier who was killing them — it was Oudinot.
M. de Dampierre did not perceive that he cried “Silence!” to history.
And then without even reckoning the fatal remembrance which at such a moment would have crushed a man endowed in the highest degree with great military qualities, General Oudinot, in other respects an excellent officer, and a worthy son of his brave father, possessed none of those striking qualities which in the critical hour of revolution stir the soldier and carry with them the people. At that instant to win back an army of a hundred thousand men, to withdraw the balls from the cannons’ mouths, to find beneath the wine poured out to the Praetorians the true soul of the French soldier half drowned and nearly dead, to tear the flag from the coup d’état and restore it to the Law, to surround the Assembly with thunders and lightnings, it would have needed one of those men who exist no longer; it would have needed the firm hand, the calm oratory, the cold and searching glance of Desaix, that French Phocion; it would have needed the huge shoulders, the commanding stature, the thundering voice, the abusive, insolent, cynical, gay, and sublime eloquence of Kléber, that military Mirabeau. Desaix, the countenance of a just man, or Kléber, the face of the lion! General Oudinot, little, awkward, embarrassed, with an indecisive and dull gaze, red cheeks, low forehead, with grizzled and lank hair, polite tone of voice, a humble smile, without oratory, without gesture, without power, brave before the enemy, timid before the first comer, having assuredly the bearing of a soldier, but having also the bearing of a priest; he caused the mind to hesitate between the sword and the taper; he had in his eyes a sort of “Amen!”
He had the best intentions in the world, but what could he do? Alone, without prestige, without true glory, without personal authority, and dragging Rome after him! He felt all this himself, and he was as it were paralyzed by it. As soon as they had appointed him he got upon a chair and thanked the Assembly, doubtless with a firm heart, but with hesitating speech. When the little fair-haired officer dared to look him in the face and insult him, he, holding the sword of the people, he, General of the sovereign Assembly, he only knew how to stammer out such wretched phrases as these, “I have just declared to you that we are unable, ‘unless compelled and constrained,’ to obey the order which prohibits us from remaining assembled together.” He spoke of obeying, he who ought to command. They had girded him with his scarf, and it seemed to make him uncomfortable. He inclined his head alternately first to one shoulder and then to the other; he held his hat and cane in his hand, he had a benevolent aspect. A Legitimist member muttered in a low voice to his neighbor, “One might imagine he was a bailiff speechifying at a wedding.” And his neighbor, a Legitimist also, replied, “He reminds me of the Duc d’Angoulême.”
What a contrast to Tamisier! Tamisier, frank, earnest confident, although a mere Captain of Artillery, had the bearing of a General. Had Tamisier, with his grave and gentle countenance, high intelligence, and dauntless heart, a species of soldier-philosopher, been better known, he could have rendered decisive services. No one can tell what would have happened if Providence had given the soul of Tamisier to Oudinot, or the epaulets of Oudinot to Tamisier.
In this bloody enterprise of December we failed to find a General’s uniform becomingly worn. A book might be written on the part which gold lace plays in the destiny of nations.
Tamisier, appointed Chief of the Staff some instants before the invasion of the hall, placed himself at the disposal of the Assembly. He was standing on a table. He spoke with a resonant and hearty voice. The most downcast became reassured by this modest, honest, devoted attitude. Suddenly he drew himself up, and looking all that Royalist majority in the face, exclaimed, “Yes, I accept the charge you offer me. I accept the charge of defending the Republic! Nothing but the Republic! Do you perfectly understand?”
A unanimous shout answered him. “Long live the Republic!”
“Ah!” said Beslay, “the voice comes back to you as on the Fourth of May.”
“Long live the Republic! Nothing but the Republic!” repeated the men of the Right, Oudinot louder than the others. All arms were stretched towards Tamisier, every hand pressed his. Oh Danger! irresistible converter! In his last hour the Atheist invokes God, and the Royalist the Republic. They cling to that which they have repudiated.
The official historians of the coup d’état have stated that at the beginning of the sitting two Representatives had been sent by the Assembly to the Ministry of the Interior to “negotiate.” What is certain is that these two Representatives had no authority. They presented themselves, not on behalf of the Assembly, but in their own name. They offered themselves as intermediaries to procure a peaceable termination of the catastrophe which had begun. With an honesty which bordered on simplicity they summoned Morny to yield himself a prisoner, and to return within the law, declaring that in case of refusal the Assembly would do its duty, and call the people to the defence of the Constitution and of the Republic. Marny answered them with a smile, accompanied by these plain words, “If you appeal to arms, and if I find any Representatives on the barricades, I will have them all shot to the last man.”
The meeting in the Tenth Arrondissement yielded to force. President Vitet insisted that they should forcibly arrest him. A police agent who seized him turned pale and trembled. In certain circumstances, to lay violent hands upon a man is to lay them upon Right, and those who dare to do so are made to tremble by outraged Law. The exodus from the Mairie was long and beset with obstructions. Half-an-hour elapsed while the soldiers were forming a line, and while the Commissaries of Police, all the time appearing solely occupied with the care of driving back the crowd in the street, sent for orders to the Ministry of the Interior. During that time some of the Representatives, seated round a table in the great Hall, wrote to their families, to their wives, to their friends. They snatched up the last leaves of paper; the pens failed; M. de Luynes wrote to his wife a letter in pencil. There were no wafers; they were forced to send the letters unsealed; some soldiers offered to post them. M. Chambolle’s son, who had accompanied his father thus far, undertook to take the letters addressed to Mesdames de Luynes, de Lasteyrie, and Duvergier de Hauranne. General Forey — the same who had refused a battalion to the President of the Constituent Assembly, Marrast, who had promoted him from a colonel to a general — General Forey, in the centre of the courtyard of the Mairie, his face inflamed, half drunk, coming out, they said, from breakfast at the Elysée, superintended the outrage. A member, whose name we regret we do not know, dipped his boot into the gutter and wiped it along the gold stripe of the regimental trousers of General Forey. Representative Lherbette came up to General Forey, and said to him, “General, you are a coward.” Then turning to his colleagues, he exclaimed, “Do you hear? I tell this general that he is a coward.” General Forey did not stir. He kept the mud on his uniform and the epithet on his cheek.
The meeting did not call the people to arms. We have just explained that it was not strong enough to do so; nevertheless, at the last moment, a member of the Left, Latrade, made a fresh effort. He took M. Berryer aside, and said to him, “Our official measures of resistance have come to an end; let us not allow ourselves now to be arrested. Let us disperse throughout the streets crying, ‘To arms!’” M. Berryer consulted a few seconds on the matter with the Vice-President, M. Benoist d’Azy, who refused.
The Deputy Mayor, hat in hand, reconducted the members of the Assembly as far as the gate of the Mairie. As soon as they appeared in the courtyard ready to go out between two lines of soldiers, the post of National Guards presented arms, acid shouted, “Long live the Assembly! Long live the Representatives of the People!” The National Guards were at once disarmed, almost forcibly, by the Chasseurs de Vincennes.
There was a wine-shop opposite the Mairie. As soon as the great folding gates of the Mairie opened, and the Assembly appeared in the street, led by General Forey on horseback, and having at its head the Vice-President Vitet, grasped by the necktie by a police agent, a few men in white blouses, gathered at the windows of this wine-shop, clapped their hands and shouted, “Well done! down with the ‘twenty-five francs!’"7
They set forth.
The Chasseurs de Vincennes, who marched in a double line on each side of the prisoners, cast at them looks of hatred. General Oudinot said in a whisper, “These little infantry soldiers are terrible fellows. At the siege of Rome they flung themselves at the assault like madmen. These lads are very devils.” The officers avoided the gaze of the Representatives. On leaving the Mairie, M. de Coislin passed by an officer and exclaimed, “What a disgrace for the uniform!” the officer retaliated with angry words, and incensed M. de Coislin. Shortly afterwards, during the march, he came up to M. de Coislin and said to him, “Sir, I have reflected; it is I who am wrong.”
They proceeded on the way slowly. At a few steps from the Mairie the precession met M. Chegaray. The Representatives called out to him, “Come!” He answered, while making an expressive gesture with his hands and his shoulders, “Oh! I dare say! As they have not arrested me. . . . ” and he feigned as though he would pass on. He was ashamed, however, and went with them. His name is found in the list of the roll-call at the barracks.
A little further on M. de Lespérut passed them. They cried out to him. “Lespérut! Lespérut!” “I am with you,” answered he. The soldiers pushed him back. He seized the butt-ends of the muskets, and forced his way into the column.
In one of the streets through which they went a window was opened. Suddenly a woman appeared with a child; the child, recognizing its father amongst the prisoners, held out its arms and called to him, the mother wept in the background.
It was at first intended to take the Assembly in a body straight to Mazas, but this was counter-ordered by the Ministry of the Interior. It was feared that this long walk, in broad daylight, through populous and easily aroused streets, might prove dangerous; the D’Orsay barracks were close at hand. They selected these as a temporary prison.
One of the commanders insolently pointed out with his sword the arrested Representatives to the passers-by, and said in a fond voice, “These are the Whites, we have orders to spare them. Now it is the turn of the Red Representatives, let them look out for themselves!”
Wherever the procession passed, the populace shouted from the pavements, at the doors, at the windows, “Long live the National Assembly!” When they perceived a few Representatives of the Left sprinkled in the column they cried, “Vive la République!” “Vive la Constitution!” and “Vive la Loi!” The shops were not shut, and passers-by went to and fro. Some people said, “Wait until the evening; this is not the end of it.”
A staff-officer on horseback, in full uniform, met the procession, recognized M. de Vatimesnil, and came up to greet him. In the Rue de Beaune, as they passed the house of the Démocratic Pacifique a group shouted, “Down with the Traitor of the Elysée!”
On the Quai d’Orsay, the shouting was redoubled. There was a great crowd there. On either side of the quay a file of soldiers of the Line, elbow to elbow, kept back the spectators. In the middle of the space left vacant, the members of the Assembly slowly advanced between a double file of soldiers, the one stationary, which threatened the people, the other on the march, which threatened tire Representatives.
Serious reflections arise in the presence of all the details of the great crime which this book is designed to relate. Every honest man who sets himself face to face with the coup d’état of Louis Bonaparte hears nothing but a tumult of indignant thoughts in his conscience. Whoever reads our work to the end will assuredly not credit us with the intention of extenuating this monstrous deed. Nevertheless, as the deep logic of actions ought always to be italicized by the historian, it is necessary here to call to mind and to repeat, even to satiety, that apart from the members of the Left, of whom a very small number were present, and whom we have mentioned by name, the three hundred Representatives who thus defiled before the eyes of the crowd, constituted the old Royalists and reactionary majority of the Assembly. If it were possible to forget, that — whatever were their errors, whatever were their faults, and, we venture to add, whatever were their illusions — these persons thus treated were the Representatives of the leading civilized nation, were sovereign Legislators, senators of the people, inviolable Deputies, and sacred by the great law of Democracy, and that in the same manner as each man bears in himself something of the mind of God, so each of these nominees of universal suffrage bore something of the soul of France; if it were possible to forget this for a moment, it assuredly would be a spectacle perhaps more laughable than sad, and certainly more philosophical than lamentable to see, on this December morning, after so many laws of repression, after so many exceptional measures, after so many votes of censure and of the state of siege, after so many refusals of amnesty, after so many affronts to equity, to justice, to the human conscience, to the public good faith, to right, after so many favors to the police, after so many smiles bestowed on absolution, the entire Party of Order arrested in a body and taken to prison by the sergents de ville!
One day, or rather, one night, the moment having come to save society, the coup d’état abruptly seizes the Demagogues, and finds that it holds by the collar, Whom? the Royalists.
They arrived at the barracks, formerly the barracks of the Royal Guard, and on the pediment of which is a carved escutcheon, whereon are still visible the traces of the three fleurs de lis effaced in 1830. They halted. The door was opened. “Why!” said M. de Broglie, “here we are.”
At that moment a great placard posted on the barrack wall by the side of the door bore in big letters —
“REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION.”
It was the advertisement of a pamphlet, published two or three days previous to the coup d’état, without any author’s name, demanding the Empire, and was attributed to the President of the Republic.
The Representatives entered and the doors were closed upon them. The shouts ceased; the crowd, which occasionally has its meditative moments, remained for some time on the quay, dumb, motionless, gazing alternately at the closed gate of the Barracks, and at the silent front of the Palace of the Assembly, dimly visible in the misty December twilight, two hundred paces distant.
The two Commissaries of Police went to report their “success” to M. de Morny. M. de Morny said, “Now the struggle has begun. Excellent! These are the last Representatives who will be made prisoners.”
Louis Bonaparte’s Side-Face
The minds of all these men, we repeat, were very differently affected.
The extreme Legitimist party, which represents the White of the flag, was not, it must be said, highly exasperated at the coup d’état. Upon many faces might be read the saying of M. de Falloux: “I am so satisfied that I have considerable difficulty in affecting to be only resigned.” The ingenuous spirits cast down their eyes — that is becoming to purity; more daring spirits raised their heads. They felt an impartial indignation which permitted a little admiration. How cleverly these generals have been ensnared! The Country assassinated,— it is a horrible crime; but they were enraptured at the jugglery blended with the parricide. One of the leaders said, with a sigh of envy and regret, “We do not possess a man of such talent.” Another muttered, “It is Order.” And he added, “Alas!” Another exclaimed, “It is a frightful crime, but well carried out.” Some wavered, attracted on one side by the lawful power which rested in the Assembly, and on the other by the abomination which was in Bonaparte; honest souls poised between duty and infamy. There was a M. Thomines Desmazures who went as far as the door of the Great Hall of the Mairie, halted, looked inside, looked outside, and did not enter. It would be unjust not to record that others amongst the pure Royalists, and above all M. de Vatimesnil, had the sincere intonation and the upright wrath of justice.
Be it as it may, the Legitimist party, taken as a whole, entertained no horror of the coup d’état. It feared nothing. In truth, should the Royalists fear Louis Bonaparte? Why?
Indifference does not inspire fear. Louis Bonaparte was indifferent. He only recognized one thing, his object. To break through the road in order to reach it, that was quite plain; the rest might be left alone. There lay the whole of his policy, to crush the Republicans, to disdain the Royalists.
Louis Bonaparte had no passion. He who writes these lines, talking one day about Louis Bonaparte with the ex-king of Westphalia, remarked, “In him the Dutchman tones down the Corsican.”—“If there be any Corsican,” answered Jérome.
Louis Bonaparte has never been other than a man who has lain wait for fortune, a spy trying to dupe God. He had that livid dreaminess of the gambler who cheats. Cheating admits audacity, but excludes anger. In his prison at Ham he only read one book, “The Prince.” He belonged to no family, as he could hesitate between Bonaparte and Verhuell; he had no country, as he could hesitate between France and Holland.
This Napoleon had taken St. Helena in good part. He admired England. Resentment! To what purpose? For him on earth there only existed his interests. He pardoned, because he speculated; he forgot everything, because he calculated upon everything. What did his uncle matter to him? He did not serve him; he made use of him. He rested his shabby enterprise upon Austerlitz. He stuffed the eagle.
Malice is an unproductive outlay. Louis Bonaparte only possessed as much memory as is useful. Hudson Lowe did not prevent him from smiling upon Englishmen; the Marquis of Montchenu did not prevent him from smiling upon the Royalists.
He was a man of earnest politics, of good company, wrapped in his own scheming, not impulsive, doing nothing beyond that which he intended, without abruptness, without hard words, discreet, accurate, learned, talking smoothly of a necessary massacre, a slaughterer, because it served his purpose.
All this, we repeat, without passion, and without anger. Louis Bonaparte was one of those men who had been influenced by the profound iciness of Machiavelli.
It was through being a man of that nature that he succeeded in submerging the name of Napoleon by superadding December upon Brumaire.
The D’orsay Barracks
It was half-past three.
The arrested Representatives entered into the courtyard of the barracks, a huge parallelogram closed in and commanded by high walls. These walls are pierced by three tiers of windows, and posses that dismal appearance which distinguishes barracks, schools, and prisons.
This courtyard is entered by an arched portal which extends through all the breadth of the front of the main building. This archway, under which the guard-house has been made, is close on the side of the quay by large solid folding doors, and on one side of the courtyard by an iron grated gateway. They closed the door and the grated gateway upon the Representatives. They “set them at liberty” in the bolted and guarded courtyard.
“Let them stroll about,” said an officer.
The air was cold, the sky was gray. Some soldiers, in their shirt-sleeves and wearing foraging caps, busy with fatigue duty, went hither and thither amongst the prisoners.
First M. Grimault and then M. Antony Thouret instituted a roll-call. The Representatives made a ring around them. Lherbette said laughingly, “This just suits the barracks. We look like sergeant-majors who have come to report.” They called over the seven hundred and fifty names of the Representatives. To each name they answered “Absent” or “Present,” and the secretary jotted down with a pencil those who were present. When the name of Morny was reached, some one cried out, “At Clichy!” At the name of Persigny, the same voice exclaimed, “At Poissy!” The inventor of these two jokes, which by the way are very poor, has since allied himself to the Second of December, to Morny and Persigny; he has covered his cowardice with the embroidery of a senator.
The roll-call verified the presence of two hundred and twenty Representatives, whose names were as follows:—
Le Duc de Luynes, d’Andigné de la Chasse, Antony Thouret, Arène, Audren de Kerdrel (Ille-et-Vilaine), Audren de Kerdrel (Morbihan), de Balzac, Barchou de Penhoen, Barillon, O. Barrot, Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, Quentin Bauchard, G. deBeaumont, Béchard, Behaghel, de Belèvze, Benoist-d’Azy, de Benardy, Berryer, de Berset, Basse, Betting de Lancastel, Blavoyer, Bocher, Boissié, de Botmillan, Bouvatier, le Duc de Broglie, de la Broise, de Bryas, Buffet, Caillet du Tertre, Callet, Camus de la Guibourgère, Canet, de Castillon, de Cazalis, Admiral Cécile, Chambolle, Chamiot, Champannet, Chaper, Chapot, de Charencey, Chasseigne, Chauvin, Chazant, de Chazelles, Chegaray, Comte de Coislin, Colfavru, Colas de la Motte, Coquerel, de Corcelles, Cordier, Corne, Creton, Daguilhon, Pujol, Dahirel, Vicomte Dambray, Marquis de Dampierre, de Brotonne, de Fontaine, de Fontenay, Vicomte de Sèze, Desmars, de la Devansaye, Didier, Dieuleveult, Druet-Desvaux, A. Dubois, Dufaure, Dufougerais, Dufour, Dufournel, Marc Dufraisse, P. Duprat, Duvergier de Hauranne, étienne, Vicomte de Falloux, de Faultrier, Faure (Rh?ne), Favreau, Ferre, des Ferrès, Vicomte de Flavigny, de Foblant, Frichon, Gain, Gasselin, Germonière, de Gicquiau, de Goulard, de Gouyon, de Grandville, de Grasset, Grelier-Dufougerais, Grévy, Grillon, Grimault, Gros, Guislier de la Tousche, Harscou?t de Saint-Georges, Marquis d’Havrincourt, Hennequin, d’Hespel, Houel, Hovyn-Tranchère, Huot, Joret, Jouannet, de Kéranflech, de Kératry, de Kéridec, de Kermazec, de Kersauron Penendreff, Lèo de Laborde, Laboulie, Lacave, Oscar Lafayette, Lafosse, Lagarde, Lagrenée Laimé, Lainé, Comte Lanjuinais, Larabit, de Larcy, J. de Lasteyrie, Latrade, Laureau, Laurenceau, General Marquis de Lauriston, de Laussat, Lefebvre de Grosriez, Legrand, Legros-Desvaux, Lemaire, Emile Leroux, Lespérut, de l’Espinoy, Lherbette, de Linsaval, de Luppé, Maréchal, Martin de Villers, Maze-Saunay, Mèze, Arnauld de Melun, Anatole de Melun, Merentié, Michaud, Mispoulet, Monet, Duc de Montebello, de Montigny, Moulin, Murat-Sistrière, Alfred Nettement, d’Olivier, General Oudinot, Duc de Reggio, Paillat, Duparc, Passy, Emile Péan, Pécoul, Casimir Perier, Pidoux, Pigeon, de Piogé, Piscatory, Proa, Prudhomme, Querhoent, Randoing, Raudot, Raulin, de Ravinel, de Rémusat, Renaud, Rezal, Comte de Rességuier, Henri de Riancey, Rigal, de la Rochette, Rodat, de Roquefeuille des Rotours de Chaulieu, Rouget-Lafosse, Rouillé, Roux-Carbonel, Saint-Beuve, de Saint-Germain, General Comte de Saint-Priest, Salmon (Meuse), Marquis Sauvaire-Barthélemy, de Serré, Comte de Sesmaisons, Simonot, de Staplande, de Surville, Marquis de Talhouet, Talon, Tamisier, Thuriot de la Rosière, de Tinguy, Comte de Tocqueville, de la Tourette, Comte de Tréveneue, Mortimer-Ternaux, de Vatimesnil, Baron de Vandoeuvre, Vernhette (Hérault), Vernhette (Aveyron), Vézin, Vitet, Comte de Vogué.
After this list of names may be read as follows in the shorthand report:—
“The roll-call having been completed, General Oudinot asked the Representatives who were scattered about in the courtyard to come round him, and made the following announcement to them,—
“‘The Captain-Adjutant-Major, who has remained here to command the barracks, has just received an order to have rooms prepared for us, where we are to withdraw, as we are considered to be in custody. (Hear! hear!) Do you wish me to bring the Adjutant-Major here! (No, no; it is useless.) I will tell him that he had better execute his orders.’ (Yes, yes, that is right.)”
The Representatives remained “penned” and “strolling” about in this yard for two long hours. They walked about arm in arm. They walked quickly, so as to warm themselves. The men of the Right said to the men of the Left, “Ah! if you had only voted the proposals of the Questors!” They also exclaimed: “Well, how about the invisible sentry!”8 And they laughed. Then Marc Dufraisse answered, “Deputies of the People! deliberate in peace!” It was then the turn of the Left to laugh. Nevertheless, there was no bitterness. The cordiality of a common misfortune reigned amongst them.
They questioned his ex-ministers about Louis Bonaparte. They asked Admiral Cécile, “Now, really, what does this mean?” The Admiral answered by this definition: “It is a small matter.” M. Vézin added, “He wishes History to call him ‘Sire.’” “Poor Sire, then,” said M. de Camas de la Guibourgère. M. Odilon Barrot exclaimed, “What a fatality, that we should have been condemned to employ this man!”
This said, these heights attained, political philosophy was exhausted, and they ceased talking.
On the right, by the side of the door, there was a canteen elevated a few steps above the courtyard. “Let us promote this canteen to the dignity of a refreshment room,” said the ex-ambassador to China, M. de Lagrenée. They entered, some went up to the stove, others asked for a basin of soup. MM. Favreau, Piscatory, Larabit, and Vatimesnil took refuge in a corner. In the opposite corner drunken soldiers chatted with the maids of the barracks. M. de Kératry, bent with his eighty years, was seated near the stove on an old worm-eaten chair; the chair tottered; the old man shivered.
Towards four o’clock a regiment of Chasseurs de Vincennes arrived in the courtyard with their platters, and began to eat, singing, with loud bursts of merriment. M. de Broglie looked at them and said to M. Piscatory, “It is a strange spectacle to see the porringers of the Janissaries vanished from Constantinople reappearing at Paris!”
Almost at the same moment a staff officer informed the Representatives on behalf of General Forey that the apartments assigned to them were ready, and requested them to follow him. They were taken into the eastern building, which is the wing of the barracks farthest from the Palace of the Council of State; they were conducted to the third floor. They expected chambers and beds. They found long rooms, vast garrets with filthy walls and low ceilings, furnished with wooden tables and benches. These were the “apartments.” These garrets, which adjoin each other, all open on the same corridor, a narrow passage, which runs the length of the main building. In one of these rooms they saw, thrown into a corner, side-drums, a big drum, and various instruments of military music. The Representatives scattered themselves about in these rooms. M. de Tocqueville, who was ill, threw his overcoat on the floor in the recess of a window, and lay down. He remained thus stretched upon the ground for several hours.
These rooms were warmed very badly by cast-iron stoves, shaped like hives. A Representative wishing to poke the fire, upset one, and nearly set fire to the wooden flooring.
The last of these rooms looked out on the quay. Antony Thouret opened a window and leaned out. Several Representatives joined him. The soldiers who were bivouacking below on the pavement, caught sight of them and began to shout, “Ah! there they are, those rascals at ‘twenty-five francs a day,’ who wish to cut down our pay!” In fact, on the preceding evening, the police had spread this calumny through the barracks that a proposition had been placed on the Tribune to lessen the pay of the troops. They had even gone so far as to name the author of this proposition. Antony Thouret attempted to undeceive the soldiers. An officer cried out to him, “It is one of your party who made the proposal. It is Lamennais!”
In about an hour and a half there were ushered into these rooms MM. Vallette, Bixio, and Victor Lefranc, who had come to join their colleagues and constitute themselves prisoners.
Night came. They were hungry. Several had not eaten since the morning. M. Howyn de Tranchère, a man of considerable kindness and devotion, who had acted as porter at the Mairie, acted as forager at the barracks. He collected five francs from each Representative, and they sent and ordered a dinner for two hundred and twenty from the Café d’Orsay, at the corner of the Quay, and the Rue du Bac. They dined badly, but merrily. Cookshop mutton, bad wine, and cheese. There was no bread. They ate as they best could, one standing, another on a chair, one at a table, another astride on his bench, with his plate before him, “as at a ball-room supper,” a dandy of the Right said laughingly, Thuriot de la Rosière, son of the regicide Thuriot. M. de Rémusat buried his head in his hands. Emile Péan said to him, “We shall get over it.” And Gustave de Beaumont cried out, addressing himself to the Republicans, “And your friends of the Left! Will they preserve their honor? Will there be an insurrection at least?” They passed each other the dishes and plates, the Right showing marked attention to the Left. “Here is the opportunity to bring about a fusion,” said a young Legitimist. Troopers and canteen men waited upon them. Two or three tallow candles burnt and smoked on each table. There were few glasses. Right and Left drank from the same. “Equality, fraternity,” exclaimed the Marquis Sauvaire-Barthélemy, of the Right. And Victor Hannequin answered him, “But not Liberty.”
Colonel Feray, the son-in-law of Marshal Bugeaud, was in command at the barracks; he offered the use of his drawing-room to M. de Broglie and to M. Odilon Barrot, who accepted it. The barrack doors were opened to M. de Kératry, on account of his great age, to M. Dufaure, as his wife had just been confined, and to M. Etienne, on account of the wound which he had received that morning in the Rue de Bourgogne. At the same time there were added to the two hundred and twenty MM. Eugène Sue, Benoist (du Rh?ne), Fayolle, Chanay, Toupet des Vignes, Radoubt-Lafosse, Arbey, and Teillard-Latérisse, who up to that time had been detained in the new Palace of Foreign Affairs.
Towards eight o’clock in the evening, when dinner was over, the restrictions were a little relaxed, and the intermediate space between the door and the barred gate of the barracks began to be littered with carpet bags and articles of toilet sent by the families of the imprisoned Representatives.
The Representatives were summoned by their names. Each went down in turn, and briskly remounted with his cloak, his coverlet, or his foot-warmer. A few ladies succeeded in making their way to their husbands. M.M. Chambolle was able to press his son’s hand through the bars.
Suddenly a voice called out, “Oho! We are going to spend the night here.” Mattresses were brought in, which were thrown on the tables, on the floor, anywhere.
Fifty or sixty Representatives found resting-places on them. The greater number remained on their benches. Marc Dufraisse settled himself to pass the night on a footstool, leaning on a table. Happy was the man who had a chair.
Nevertheless, cordiality and gaiety did not cease to prevail. “Make room for the ‘Burgraves!’” said smilingly a venerable veteran of the Right. A young Republican Representative rose, and offered him his mattress. They pressed on each offers of overcoats, cloaks, and coverlets.
“Reconciliation,” said Chamiot, while offering the half of his mattress to the Duc de Luynes. The Duc de Luynes, who had 80,000 francs a year, smiled, and replied to Chamiot, “You are St. Martin, and I am the beggar.”
M. Paillet, the well-known barrister, who belonged to the “Third Estate,” used to say, “I passed the night on a Bonapartist straw mattress, wrapped in a burnouse of the Mountain, my feet in a Democratic and Socialist sheepskin, and my head in a Legitimist cotton nightcap.” The Representatives, although prisoners in the barracks, could stroll about freely. They were allowed to go down into the courtyard. M. Cordier (of Calvados) came upstairs again, saying, “I have just spoken to the soldiers. They did not know that their generals had been arrested. They appeared surprised and discontented.” This incident raised the prisoners’ hopes.
Representative Michel Renaud of the Basses-Pyrénees, found several of his compatriots of the Basque country amongst the Chasseurs de Vincennes who occupied the courtyard. Some had voted for him, and reminded him of the fact. They added, “Ah! We would again vote for the ‘Red’ list.” One of them, quite a young man, took him aside, and said to him. “Do you want any money, sir? I have a forty-sous piece in my pocket.”
Towards ten o’clock in the evening a great hubbub arose in the courtyard. The doors and the barred gate turned noisily upon their hinges. Something entered which rumbled like thunder. They leaned out of window, and saw at the foot of the steps a sort of big, oblong chest, painted black, yellow, red, and green, on four wheels, drawn by post-horses, and surrounded by men in long overcoats, and with fierce-looking faces, holding torches. In the gloom, and with the help of imagination, this vehicle appeared completely black. A door could be seen, but no other opening. It resembled a great coffin on wheels. “What is that? Is it a hearse?” “No, it is a police-van.” “And those people, are they undertakers?” “No, they are jailers.” “And for whom has this come?”
“For you, gentlemen!” cried out a voice.
It was the voice of an officer; and the vehicle which had just entered was in truth a police-van.
At the same time a word of command was heard: “First squadron to horse.” And five minutes afterwards the Lancers who were to escort the vehicle formed in line in the courtyard.
Then arose in the barracks the buzz of a hive of angry bees. The Representatives ran up and down the stairs, and went to look at the police-van close at hand. Some of them touched it, and could not believe their eyes. M. Piscatory met M. Chambolle, and cried out to him, “I am leaving in it!” M. Berryer met Eugène Sue, and they exchanged these words: “Where are you going?” “To Mount Valérien. And you?” “I do not know.”
At half-past ten the roll-call of those who were to leave began. Police agents stationed themselves at a table between two candles in a parlor at the foot of the stairs, and the Representatives were summoned two by two. The Representatives agreed not to answer to their names, and to reply to each name which should be called out, “He is not here.” But those “Burgraves” who had accepted the hospitality of Colonel Feray considered such petty resistance unworthy of them, and answered to the calling out of their names. This drew the others after them. Everybody answered. Amongst the Legitimists some serio-comic scenes were enacted. They who alone were not threatened insisted on believing that they were in danger. They would not let one of their orators go. They embraced him, and held him back, almost with tears, crying out, “Do not go away! Do you know where they are taking you? Think of the trenches of Vincennes!”
The Representatives, having been summoned two by two, as we have just said, filed in the parlor before the police agents, and then they were ordered to get into the “robbers’ box.” The stowage was apparently made at haphazard and promiscuously; nevertheless, later, by the difference of the treatment accorded to the Representatives in the various prisons, it was apparent that this promiscuous loading had perhaps been somewhat prearranged. When the first vehicle was full, a second, of a similar construction drew up. The police agents, pencil and pocket-book in hand, noted down the contents of each vehicle. These men knew the Representatives. When Marc Dufraisse, called in his turn, entered the parlor, he was accompanied by Benoist (du Rh?ne). “Ah! here is Marc Dufraisse,” said the attendant who held the pencil. When asked for his name, Benoist replied “Benoist.” “Du Rh?ne,” added the police agent; and he continued, “for there are also Benoist d’Azy and Benoist-Champy.”
The loading of each vehicle occupied nearly half an hour. The successive arrivals had raised the number of imprisoned Representatives to two hundred and thirty-two Their embarkation, or, to use the expression of M. de Vatimesnil, their “barrelling up,” which began a little after ten in the evening, was not finished until nearly seven o’clock in the morning. When there were no more police-vans available omnibuses were brought in. These various vehicles were portioned off into three detachments, each escorted by Lancers. The first detachment left towards one o’clock in the morning, and was driven to Mont Valérien; the second towards five o’clock, and was driven to Mazas; the third towards half-past six, to Vincennes.
As this business occupied a long time, those who had not yet been called benefited by the mattresses and tried to sleep. Thus, from time to time, silence reigned in the upper rooms. In the midst of one of these pauses M. Bixio sat upright, and raising his voice, cried out, “Gentlemen, what do you think of ‘passive obedience’?” An unanimous burst of laughter was the reply. Again, during one of these pauses another voice exclaimed,—
“Romieu will be a senator.”
Emile Péan asked,—
“What will become of the Red Spectre?”
“He will enter the priesthood,” answered Antony Thouret, “and will turn into the Black Spectre.”
Other exclamations which the historians of the Second of December have spread abroad were not uttered. Thus, Marc Dufraisse never made the remark with which the men of Louis Bonaparte have wished to excuse their crimes: “If the President does not shoot all those among us who resist, he does not understand his business.”
For the coup d’état such a remark might be convenient; but for History it is false.
The interior of the police-vans was lighted while the Representatives were entering. The air-holes of each compartment were not closed. In this manner Marc Dufraisse through the aperture could see M. du Rémusat in the opposite cell to his own. M. du Rémusat had entered the van coupled with M. Duvergier de Hauranne.
“Upon my word, Monsieur Marc Dufraisse,” exclaimed Duvergier de Hauranne when they jostled each other in the gangway of the vehicle, “upon my word, if any one had said to me, ‘You will go to Marzas in a police-van,’ I should have said, ‘It is improbable;’ but if they had added, ‘You will go with Marc Dufraisse,’ I should have said, ‘It is impossible!’”
As soon as the vehicle was full, five or six policemen entered and stood in the gangway. The door was shut, the steps were thrown up, and they drove off.
When all the police-vans had been filled, there were still some Representatives left. As we have said, omnibuses were brought into requisition. Into these Representatives were thrust, one upon the other, rudely, without deference for either age or name. Colonel Feray, on horseback, superintended and directed operations. As he mounted the steps of the last vehicle but one, the Duc de Montebello cried out to him, “To-day is the anniversary of the battle of Austerlitz, and the son-in-law of Marshal Bugeaud compels the son of Marshal Lannes to enter a convict’s van.”
When the last omnibus was reached, there were only seventeen places for eighteen Representatives. The most active mounted first. Antony Thouret, who himself alone equalled the whole of the Right, for he had as much mind as Thiers and as much stomach as Murat; Antony Thouret, corpulent and lethargic, was the last. When he appeared on the threshold of the omnibus in all his hugeness, a cry of alarm arose;— Where was he going to sit?
Antony Thouret, noticing Berryer at the bottom of the omnibus, went straight up to him, sat down on his knees, and quietly said to him, “You wanted ‘compression,’ Monsieur Berryer. Now you have it.”
Mazas
The police-vans, escorted as far as Mazas by Lancers, found another squadron of Lancers ready to receive them at Mazas. The Representatives descended from the vehicle one by one. The officer commanding the Lancers stood by the door, and watched them pass with a dull curiosity.
Mazas, which had taken the place of the prison of La Force, now pulled down, is a lofty reddish building, close to the terminus of the Lyons Railway, and stands on the waste land of the Faubourg St. Antoine. From a distance the building appears as though built of bricks, but on closer examination it is seen to be constructed of flints set in cement. Six large detached buildings, three stories high, all radiating from a rotunda which serves as the common centre, and touching each other at the starting-point, separated by courtyards which grow broader in proportion as the buildings spread out, pierced with a thousand little dormer windows which give light to the cells, surrounded by a high wall, and presenting from a bird’s-eye point of view the drape of a fan — such is Mazas. From the rotunda which forms the centre, springs a sort of minaret, which is the alarm-tower. The ground floor is a round room, which serves as the registrar’s office. On the first story is a chapel where a single priest says mass for all; and the observatory, where a single attendant keeps watch over all the doors of all the galleries at the same time. Each building is termed a “division.” The courtyards are intersected by high walls into a multitude of little oblong walks.
As each Representative descended from the vehicle he was conducted into the rotunda where the registry office was situated. There his name was taken down, and in exchange for his name he was assigned a number. Whether the prisoner be a thief or a legislator, such is always the rule in this prison; the coup d’état reduced all to a footing of equality. As soon as a Representative was registered and numbered, he was ordered to “file off.” They said to him, “Go upstairs,” or “Go on;” and they announced him at the end of the corridor to which he was allotted by calling out, “Receive number So-and-So.” The jailer in that particular corridor answered, “Send him on.” The prisoner mounted alone, went straight on, and on his arrival found the jailer standing near an open door. The jailer said, “Here it is, sir.” The prisoner entered, the jailer shut the door, and they passed on to another.
The coup d’état acted in a very different manner towards the various Representatives. Those whom it desired to conciliate, the men of the Bight, were placed in Vincennes; those whom it detested, the men of the Left, were placed in Mazas. Those at Vincennes had the quarters of M. Montpensier, which were expressly reopened for them; an excellent dinner, eaten in company; wax candles, fire, and the smiles and bows of the governor, General Courtigis.
This is how it treated those at Mazas.
A police-van deposited them at the prison. They were transferred from one box to another. At Mazas a clerk registered them, weighed them, measured them, and entered them into the jail book as convicts. Having passed through the office, each of them was conducted along a gallery shrouded in darkness, through a long damp vault to a narrow door which was suddenly opened. This reached, a jailer pushed the Representative in by the shoulders, and the door was shut.
The Representative, thus immured, found himself in a little, long, narrow, dark room. It is this which the prudent language of modern legislation terms a “cell.” Here the full daylight of a December noon only produced a dusky twilight. At one end there was a door, with a little grating; at the other, close to the ceiling, at a height of ten or twelve feet, there was a loophole with a fluted glass window. This window dimmed the eye, and prevented it from seeing the blue or gray of the sky, or from distinguishing the cloud from the sun’s ray, and invested the wan daylight of winter with an indescribable uncertainty. It was even less than a dim light, it was a turbid light. The inventors of this fluted window succeeded in making the heavens squint.
After a few moments the prisoner began to distinguish objects confusedly, and this is what he found: White-washed walls here and there turned green by various exhalations; in one corner a round hole guarded by iron bars, and exhaling a disgusting smell; in another corner a slab turning upon a hinge like the bracket seat of a fiacre, and thus capable of being used as a table; no bed; a straw-bottomed chair; under foot a brick floor. Gloom was the first impression; cold was the second. There, then, the prisoner found himself, alone, chilled, in this semi-darkness, being able to walk up and down the space of eight square feet like a caged wolf, or to remain seated on his chair like an idiot at Bicêtre.
In this situation an ex-Republican of the Eve, who had become a member of the majority, and on occasions sided somewhat with the Bonapartists, M. Emile Leroux, who had, moreover, been thrown into Mazas by mistake, having doubtless been taken for some other Leroux, began to weep with rage. Three, four, five hours thus passed away. In the meanwhile they had not eaten since the morning; some of them, in the excitement caused by the coup d’état had not even breakfasted. Hunger came upon them. Were they to be forgotten there? No; a bell rang in the prison, the grating of the door opened, and an arm held out to the prisoner a pewter porringer and a piece of bread.
The prisoner greedily seized the bread and the porringer. The bread was black and sticky; the porringer contained a sort of thick water, warm and reddish. Nothing can be compared to the smell of this “soup.” As for the bread, it only smelt of mouldiness.
However great their hunger, most of the prisoners during the first moment threw down their bread on the floor, and emptied the porringer down the hole with the iron bars.
Nevertheless the stomach craved, the hours passed by, they picked up the bread, and ended by eating it. One prisoner went so far as to pick up the porringer and to attempt to wipe out the bottom with his bread, which he afterwards devoured. Subsequently, this prisoner, a Representative set at liberty in exile, described to me this dietary, and said to me, “A hungry stomach has no nose.”
Meanwhile there was absolute solitude and profound silence. However, in the course of a few hours, M. Emile Leroux — he himself has told the fact to M. Versigny — heard on the other side of the wall on his right a sort of curious knocking, spaced out and intermittent at irregular intervals. He listened, and almost at the same moment on the other side of the wall to his left a similar rapping responded. M. Emile Leroux, enraptured — what a pleasure it was to hear a noise of some kind!— thought of his colleagues, prisoners like himself, and cried out in a tremendous voice, “Oh, oh! you are there also, you fellows!” He had scarcely uttered this sentence when the door of his cell was opened with a creaking of hinges and bolts; a man — the jailer — appeared in a great rage, and said to him,—
“Hold your tongue!”
The Representative of the People, somewhat bewildered, asked for an explanation.
“Hold your tongue,” replied the jailer, “or I will pitch you into a dungeon.”
This jailer spoke to the prisoner as the coup d’état spoke to the nation.
M. Emile Leroux, with his persistent parliamentary habits, nevertheless attempted to insist.
“What!” said he, “can I not answer the signals which two of my colleagues are making to me?”
“Two of your colleagues, indeed,” answered the jailer, “they are two thieves.” And he shut the door, shouting with laughter.
They were, in fact, two thieves, between whom M. Emile Leroux was, not crucified, but locked up.
The Mazas prison is so ingeniously built that the least word can be heard from one cell to another. Consequently there is no isolation, notwithstanding the cellular system. Thence this rigorous silence imposed by the perfect and cruel logic of the rules. What do the thieves do? They have invented a telegraphic system of raps, and the rules gain nothing by their stringency. M. Emile Leroux had simply interrupted a conversation which had been begun.
“Don’t interfere with our friendly patter,” cried out his thief neighbor, who for this exclamation was thrown into the dungeon.
Such was the life of the Representatives at Mazas. Moreover, as they were in secret confinement, not a book, not a sheet of paper, not a pen, not even an hour’s exercise in the courtyard was allowed to them.
The thieves also go to Mazas, as we have seen.
But those who know a trade are permitted to work; those who know how to read are supplied with books; those who know how to write are granted a desk and paper; all are permitted the hour’s exercise required by the laws of health and authorized by the rules.
The Representatives were allowed nothing whatever. Isolation, close confinement, silence, darkness, cold, “the amount of ennui which engenders madness,” as Linguet has said when speaking of the Bastille.
To remain seated on a chair all day long, with arms and legs crossed: such was the situation. But the bed! Could they lie down?
No.
There was no bed.
At eight o’clock in the evening the jailer came into the cell, and reached down, and removed something which was rolled up on a plank near the ceiling. This “something” was a hammock.
The hammock having been fixed, hooked up, and spread out, the jailer wished his prisoner “Good-night.”
There was a blanket on the hammock, sometimes a mattress some two inches thick. The prisoner, wrapt in this covering, tried to sleep, and only succeeded in shivering.
But on the morrow he could at least remain lying down all day in his hammock?
Not at all.
At seven o’clock in the morning the jailer came in, wished the Representative “Good-morning,” made him get up, and rolled up the hammock on its shelf near the ceiling.
But in this case could not the prisoner take down the authorized hammock, unroll it, hook it up, and lie down again?
Yes, he could. But then there was the dungeon.
This was the routine. The hammock for the night, the chair for the day.
Let us be just, however. Some obtained beds, amongst others MM. Thiers and Roger (du Nord). M. Grévy did not have one.
Mazas is a model prison of progress; it is certain that Mazas is preferable to the piombi of Venice, and to the under-water dungeon of the Chatelet. Theoretical philanthropy has built Mazas. Nevertheless, as has been seen, Mazas leaves plenty to be desired. Let us acknowledge that from a certain point of view the temporary solitary confinement of the law-makers at Mazas does not displease us. There was perhaps something of Providence in the coup d’état. Providence, in placing the Legislators at Mazas, has performed an act of good education. Eat of your own cooking; it is not a bad thing that those who own prisons should try them.
The Episode of the Boulevard St. Martin
When Charamaule and I reached No. 70, Rue Blanche, a steep lonely street, a man in a sort of naval sub-officer’s uniform, was walking up and down before the door. The portress, who recognized us, called our attention to him. “Nonsense,” said Charamaule, “a man walking about in that manner, and dressed after that fashion, is assuredly not a police spy.”
“My dear colleague,” said I, “Bedeau has proved that the police are blockheads.”
We went upstairs. The drawing-room and a little ante-chamber which led to it were full of Representatives, with whom were mingled a good many persons who did not belong to the Assembly. Some ex-members of the Constituent Assembly were there, amongst others, Bastide and several Democratic journalists. The Nationale was represented by Alexander Rey and Léopold Duras, the Révolution by Xavier Durrieu, Vasbenter, and Watripon, the Avénement du Peuple by H. Coste, nearly all the other editors of the Avénement being in prison. About sixty members of the Left were there, and among others Edgar Quinet, Schoelcher, Madier de Montjau, Carnot, No?l Parfait, Pierre Lefranc, Bancel, de Flotte, Bruckner, Chaix, Cassal, Esquiros, Durand-Savoyat, Yvan, Carlos Forel, Etchegoyen, Labrousse, Barthélemy (Eure-et-Loire), Huguenin, Aubrey (du Nord), Malardier, Victor Chauffour, Belin, Renaud, Bac, Versigny, Sain, Joigneaux, Brives, Guilgot, Pelletier, Doutre, Gindrier, Arnauld (de l’Ariége), Raymond (de l’Isère), Brillier, Maigne, Sartin, Raynaud, Léon Vidal, Lafon, Lamargue, Bourzat, and General Rey.
All were standing. They were talking without order. Léopold Duras had just described the investment of the Café Bonvalet. Jules Favre and Baudin, seated at a little table between the two windows, were writing. Baudin had a copy of the Constitution open before him, and was copying Article 68.
When we entered there was silence, and they asked us, “Well, what news?”
Charamaule told them what had just taken place on the Boulevard du Temple, and the advice which he had thought right to give me. They approved his action.
“What is to be done?” was asked on every side. I began to speak.
“Let us go straight to the fact and to the point,” said I. “Louis Bonaparte is gaining ground, and we are losing ground, or rather, we should say, he has as yet everything, and we have as yet nothing. Charamaule and I have been obliged to separate ourselves from Colonel Forestier. I doubt if he will succeed. Louis Bonaparte is doing all he can to suppress us, we must no longer keep in the background. We must make our presence felt. We must fan this beginning of the flame of which we have seen the spark on the Boulevard du Temple. A proclamation must be made, no matter by whom it is printed, or how it is placarded, but it is absolutely necessary, and that immediately. Something brief, rapid, and energetic. No set phrases. Ten lines — an appeal to arms! We are the Law, and there are occasions when the Law should utter a war-cry. The Law, outlawing the traitor, is a great and terrible thing. Let us do it.”
They interrupted me with “Yes, that is right, a proclamation!”
“Dictate! dictate!”
“Dictate,” said Baudin to me, “I will write.”
I dictated:—
“TO THE PEOPLE.
“Louis Napoléon Bonaparte is a traitor.
“He has violated the Constitution.
“He is forsworn.
“He is an outlaw —”
They cried out to me on every side,—
“That is right! Outlaw him.”
“Go on.”
I resumed the dictation. Baudin wrote,—
“The Republican Representatives refer the People and the Army to Article
68 —”
They interrupted me: “Quote it in full.”
“No,” said I, “it would be too long. Something is needed which can be placarded on a card, stuck with a wafer, and which can be read in a minute. I will quote Article 110. It is short and contains the appeal to arms.”
I resumed,—
“The Republican Representatives refer the People and the Army to Article
68 and to Article 110, which runs thus —‘The Constituent Assembly
confides the existing Constitution and the Laws which it consecrates to
the keeping and the patriotism of all Frenchmen.’
“The People henceforward and for ever in possession of universal
suffrages and who need no Prince for its restitution, will know how to
chastise the rebel.
“Let the People do its duty. The Republican Representatives are marching
at its head.
“Vive la République! To Arms!”
They applauded.
“Let us all sign,” said Pelletier.
“Let us try to find a printing-office without delay,” said Schoelcher, “and let the proclamation be posted up immediately.”
“Before nightfall — the days are short,” added Joigneaux.
“Immediately, immediately, several copies!” called out the Representatives.
Baudin, silent and rapid, had already made a second copy of the proclamation.
A young man, editor of the provincial Republican journal, came out of the crowd, and declared that, if they would give him a copy at once, before two hours should elapse the Proclamation should be posted at all the street corners in Paris.
I asked him,—
“What is your name?”
He answered me,—
“Millière.”
Millière. It is in this manner that this name made its first appearance in the gloomy days of our History. I can still see that pale young man, that eye at the same time piercing and half closed, that gentle and forbidding profile. Assassination and the Pantheon awaited him. He was too obscure to enter into the Temple, he was sufficiently deserving to die on its threshold. Baudin showed him the copy which he had just made.
Millière went up to him.
“You do not know me,” said he; “my name is Millière; but I know you, you are Baudin.”
Baudin held out his hand to him.
I was present at the handshaking between these two spectres.
Xavier Durrieu, who was editor of the Révolution made the same offer as Millière.
A dozen Representatives took their pens and sat down, some around a table, others with a sheet of paper on their knees, and called out to me,—
“Dictate the Proclamation to us.”
I had dictated to Baudin, “Louis Napoléon Bonaparte is a traitor.” Jules Favre requested the erasure of the word Napoléon, that name of glory fatally powerful with the People and with the Army, and that there should be written, “Louis Bonaparte is a traitor.”
“You are right,” said I to him.
A discussion followed. Some wished to strike out the word “Prince.” But the Assembly was impatient. “Quick! quick!” they cried out. “We are in December, the days are short,” repeated Joigneaux.
Twelve copies were made at the same time in a few minutes. Schoelcher, Rey, Xavier Durrieu, and Millière each took one, and set out in search of a printing office.
As they went out a man whom I did not know, but who was greeted by several Representatives, entered and said, “Citizens, this house is marked. Troops are on the way to surround you. You have not a second to lose.”
Numerous voices were raised,—
“Very well! Let them arrest us!”
“What does it matter to us?”
“Let them complete their crime.”
“Colleagues,” said I, “let us not allow ourselves to be arrested. After the struggle, as God pleases; but before the combat,— No! It is from us that the people are awaiting the initiative. If we are taken, all is at an end. Our duty is to bring on the battle, our right is to cross swords with the coup d’état. It must not be allowed to capture us, it must seek us and not find us. We must deceive the arm which it stretches out against us, we must remain concealed from Bonaparte, we must harass him, weary him, astonish him, exhaust him, disappear and reappear unceasingly, change our hiding-place, and always fight him, be always before him, and never beneath his hand. Let us not leave the field. We have not numbers, let us have daring.”
They approved of this. “It is right,” said they, “but where shall we go?”
Labrousse said,—
“Our former colleague of the Constituent Assembly, Beslay, offers us his house.”
“Where does he live?”
“No. 33, Rue de la Cérisaie, in the Marais.”
“Very well,” answered I, “let us separate. We will meet again in two hours at Beslay’s, No. 33, Rue de la Cérisaie.”
All left; one after another, and in different directions. I begged Charamaule to go to my house and wait for me there, and I walked out with No?l Parfait and Lafon.
We reached the then still uninhabited district which skirts the ramparts. As we came to the corner of the Rue Pigalle, we saw at a hundred paces from us, in the deserted streets which cross it, soldiers gliding all along the houses, bending their steps towards the Rue Blanche.
At three o’clock the members of the Left rejoined each other in the Rue de la Cérisaie. But the alarm had been given, and the inhabitants of these lonely streets stationed themselves at the windows to see the Representatives pass. The place of meeting, situated and hemmed in at the bottom of a back yard, was badly chosen in the event of being surrounded: all these disadvantages were at once perceived, and the meeting only lasted a few seconds. It was presided over by Joly; Xavier Durrieu and Jules Gouache, who were editors of the Révolution, also took part, as well as several Italian exiles, amongst others Colonel Carini and Montanelli, ex-Minister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. I liked Montanelli, a gentle and dauntless spirit.
Madier de Montjau brought news from the outskirts. Colonel Forestier, without losing and without taking away hope, told them of the obstacles which he had encountered in his attempts to call together the 6th Legion. He pressed me to sign his appointment as Colonel, as well as Michel de Bourges; but Michel de Bourges was absent, and besides, neither Michel de Bourges nor I had yet at drat time the authority from the Left. Nevertheless, under this reservation I signed his appointment. The perplexities were becoming more and more numerous. The Proclamation was not yet printed, and the evening was closing in. Schoelcher explained the difficulties: all the printing offices closed and guarded; an order placarded that whoever should print an appeal to arms world be immediately shot; the workmen terrified; no money. A hat was sent round, and each threw into it what money he had about him. They collected in this manner a few hundred francs.
Xavier Durrieu, whose fiery courage never flagged for a single moment, reiterated that he would undertake the printing, and promised that by eight o’clock that evening there should be 40,000 copies of the Proclamation. Time pressed. They separated, after fixing as a rendezvous the premises of the Society of Cabinet-makers in the Rue de Charonne, at eight o’clock in the evening, so as to allow time for the situation to reveal itself. As we went out and crossed the Rue Beautreillis I saw Pierre Leroux coming up to me. He had taken no part in our meetings. He said to me,—
“I believe this struggle to be useless. Although my point of view is different from yours, I am your friend. Beware. There is yet time to stop. You are entering into the catacombs. The catacombs are Death.”
“They are also Life,” answered I.
All the same, I thought with joy that my two sons were in prison, and that this gloomy duty of street fighting was imposed upon me alone.
There yet remained five hours until the time fixed for the rendezvous. I wished to go home, and once more embrace my wife and daughter before precipitating myself into that abyss of the “unknown” which was there, yawning and gloomy, and which several of us were about to enter, never to return.
Arnauld (de l’Ariége) gave me his arm. The two Italian exiles, Carini aril Montanelli, accompanied me.
Montanelli took my hands and said to me, “Right will conquer. You will conquer. Oh! that this time France may not be selfish as in 1848, and that she may deliver Italy.” I answered him, “She will deliver Europe.”
Those were our illusions at that moment, but this, however, does not prevent them from being our hopes to-day. Faith is thus constituted; shadows demonstrate to it the light.
There is a cabstand before the front gate of St. Paul. We went there. The Rue St. Antoine was alive with that indescribable uneasy swarming which precedes those strange battles of ideas against deeds which are called Revolutions. I seemed to catch, in this great working-class district, a glimpse of a gleam of light which, alas, died out speedily. The cabstand before St. Paul was deserted. The drivers had foreseen the possibility of barricades, and had fled.
Three miles separated Arnauld and myself from our houses. It was impossible to walk there through the middle of Paris, without being recognized at each step. Two passers-by extricated us from our difficulty. One of them said to the other, “The omnibuses are still running on the Boulevards.”
We profited by this information, and went to look for a Bastille omnibus. All four of us got in.
I entertained at heart, I repeat, wrongly or rightly, a bitter reproach for the opportunity lost during the morning. I said to myself that on critical days such moments come, but do not return. There are two theories of Revolution: to arouse the people, or to let them come of themselves. The first theory was mine, but, through force of discipline, I had obeyed the second. I reproached myself with this. I said to myself, “The People offered themselves, and we did not accept them. It is for us now not to offer ourselves, but to do more, to give ourselves.”
Meanwhile the omnibus had started. It was full. I had taken my place at the bottom on the left; Arnauld (de l’Ariége) sat next to me, Carini opposite, Montanelli next to Arnauld. We did not speak; Arnauld and myself silently exchanged that pressure of hands which is a means of exchanging thoughts.
As the omnibus proceeded towards the centre of Paris the crowd became denser on the Boulevard. As the omnibus entered into the cutting of the Porte St. Martin a regiment of heavy cavalry arrived in the opposite direction. In a few seconds this regiment passed by the side of us. They were cuirassiers. They filed by at a sharp trot and with drawn swords. The people leaned over from the height of the pavements to see them pass. Not a single cry. On the one side the people dejected, on the other the soldiers triumphant. All this stirred me.
Suddenly the regiment halted. I do not know what obstruction momentarily impeded its advance in this narrow cutting of the Boulevard in which we were hemmed in. By its halt it stopped the omnibus. There were the soldiers. We had them under our eyes, before us, at two paces distance, their horses touching the horses of our vehicle, these Frenchmen who had become Mamelukes, these citizen soldiers of the Great Republic transformed into supporters of the degraded Empire. From the place where I sat I almost touched them; I could no longer restrain myself.
I lowered the window of the omnibus. I put out my head, and, looking fixedly at the dense line of soldiers which faced me, I called out, “Down with Louis Bonaparte. Those who serve traitors are traitors!”
Those nearest to me turned their heads towards me and looked at me with a tipsy air; the others did not stir, and remained at “shoulder arms,” the peaks of their helmets over their eyes, their eyes fixed upon the ears of their horses.
In great affairs there is the immobility of statues; in petty mean affairs there is the immobility of puppets.
At the shout which I raised Arnauld turned sharply round. He also had lowered his window, and he was leaning half out of the omnibus, with his arms extended towards the soldiers, and he shouted, “Down with the traitors!”
To see him thus with his dauntless gesture, his handsome head, pale and calm, his fervent expression, his beard and his long chestnut hair, one seemed to behold the radiant and fulminating face of an angry Christ.
The example was contagious and electrical.
“Down with the traitors!” shouted Carini and Montanelli.
“Down with the Dictator! Down with the traitors!” repeated a gallant young man with whom we were not acquainted, and who was sitting next to Carini.
With the exception of this young man, the whole omnibus seemed seized with terror!
“Hold your tongues!” exclaimed these poor frightened people; “you will cause us all to be massacred.” One, still more terrified, lowered the window, and began to shout to the soldiers, “Long live Prince Napoléon! Long live the Emperor!”
There were five of us, and we overpowered this cry by our persistent protest, “Down with Louis Bonaparte! Down with the traitors!”
The soldiers listened in gloomy silence. A corporal turned with a threatening air towards us, and shook his sword. The crowd looked on in bewilderment.
What passed within me at that moment? I cannot tell! I was in a whirlwind. I had at the same time yielded to a calculation, finding the opportunity good, and to a burst of rage, finding the encounter insolent.
A woman cried out to us from the pavement, “You will get yourselves cut to pieces.” I vaguely imagined that some collision was about to ensue, and that, either from the crowd or from the Army, the spark would fly out. I hoped for a sword-cut from the soldiers or a shout of anger from the people. In short I had obeyed rather an instinct than an idea.
But nothing came of it, neither the sword-cut nor the shout of anger. The soldiers did not bestir themselves and the people maintained silence. Was it too late? Was it too soon?
The mysterious man of the Elysée had not foreseen the event of an insult to his name being thrown in the very face of the soldiers. The soldiers had no orders. They received them that evening. This was seen on the morrow.
In another moment the regiment broke into a gallop, and the omnibus resumed its journey. As the cuirassiers filed past us Arnauld (de l’Ariége), still leaning out of the vehicle, continued to shout in their ears, for as I have just said, their horses touched us, “Down with the Dictator! Down with the traitors!”
We alighted in the Rue Lafitte. Carini, Montanelli, and Arnauld left me, and I went on alone towards the Rue de la Tour d’Auvergne. Night was coming on. As I turned the corner of the street a man passed close by me. By the light of a street lamp I recognized a workman at a neighboring tannery, and he said to me in a low tone, and quickly, “Do not return home. The police surround your house.”
I went back again towards the Boulevard, through the streets laid out, but not then built, which make a Y under my windows behind my house. Not being able to embrace my wife and daughter, I thought over what I could do during the moments which remained to me. A remembrance came into my mind.
The Rebound of the 24th June, 1848, on the 2d December, 1851
On Sunday, 26th June, 1848, that four days’ combat, that gigantic combat so formidable and so heroic on both sides, still continued, but the insurrection had been overcome nearly everywhere, and was restricted to the Faubourg St. Antoine. Four men who had been amongst the most dauntless defenders of the barricades of the Rue Pont-aux-Choux, of the Rue St. Claude, and of the Rue St. Louis in the Marais, escaped after the barricades had been taken, and found safe refuge in a house, No. 12, Rue St. Anastase. They were concealed in an attic. The National Guards and the Mobile Guards were hunting for them, in order to shoot them. I was told of this. I was one of the sixty Representatives sent by the Constituent Assembly into the middle of the conflict, charged with the task of everywhere preceding the attacking column, of carrying, even at the peril of their lives, words of peace to the barricades, to prevent the shedding of blood, and to stop the civil war. I went into the Rue St. Anastase, and I saved the lives of those four men.
Amongst those men there was a poor workman of the Rue de Charonne, whose wife was being confined at that very moment, and who was weeping. One could understand, when hearing his sobs and seeing his rags, how he had cleared with a single bound these three steps — poverty, despair, rebellion. Their chief was a young man, pale and fair, with high cheek bones, intelligent brow, and an earnest and resolute countenance. As soon as I set him free, and told him my name, he also wept. He said to me, “When I think that an hour ago I knew that you were facing us, and that I wished that the barrel of my gun had eyes to see and kill you!” He added, “In the times in which we live we do not know what may happen. If ever you need me, for whatever purpose, come.” His name was Auguste, and he was a wine-seller in the Rue de la Roquette.
Since that time I had only seen him once, on the 26th August, 1819, on the day when I held the corner of Balzac’s pall. The funeral possession was going to Père la Chaise. Auguste’s shop was on the way. All the streets through which the procession passed were crowded. Auguste was at his door with his young wife and two or three workmen. As I passed he greeted me.
It was this remembrance which came back to my mind as I descended the lonely streets behind my house; in the presence of the 2d of December I thought of him. I thought that he might give me information about the Faubourg St. Antoine, and help us in rousing the people. This young man had at once given me the impression of a soldier and a leader. I remembered the words which he had spoken to me, and I considered it might be useful to see him. I began by going to find in the Rue St. Anastase the courageous woman who had hidden Auguste and his three companions, to whom she had several times since rendered assistance. I begged her to accompany me. She consented.
On the way I dined upon a cake of chocolate which Charamaule had given me.
The aspects of the boulevards, in coming down the Italiens towards the Marais, had impressed rue. The shops were open everywhere as usual. There was little military display. In the wealthy quarters there was much agitation and concentration of troops; but on advancing towards the working-class neighborhoods solitude reigned paramount. Before the Café Turc a regiment was drawn up. A band of young men in blouses passed before the regiment singing the “Marseillaise.” I answered them by crying out “To Arms!” The regiment did not stir. The light shone upon the playbills on an adjacent wall; the theatres were open. I looked at the trees as I passed. They were playing Hernani at the Theatre des Italiens, with a new tenor named Guasco.
The Place de la Bastille was frequented, as usual, by goers and comers, the most peaceable folk in the world. A few workmen grouped round the July Column, and, chatting in a low voice, were scarcely noticeable. Through the windows of a wine shop could be seen two men who were disputing for and against the coup d’état. He who favored it wore a blouse, he who attacked it wore a cloth coat. A few steps further on a juggler had placed between four candles his X-shaped table, and was displaying his conjuring tricks in the midst of a crowd, who were evidently thinking only of the juggler. On looking towards the gloomy loneliness of the Quai Mazas several harnessed artillery batteries were dimly visible in the darkness. Some lighted torches here and there showed up the black outline of the cannons.
I had some trouble in finding Auguste’s door in the Rue de la Roquette. Nearly all the shops were shut, thus making the street very dark. At length, through a glass shop-front I noticed a light which gleamed on a pewter counter. Beyond the counter, through a partition also of glass and ornamented with white curtains, another light, and the shadows of two or three men at table could be vaguely distinguished. This was the place.
I entered. The door on opening rang a bell. At the sound, the door of the glazed partition which separated the shop from the parlor opened, and Auguste appeared.
He knew me at once, and came up to me.
“Ah, Sir,” said he, “it is you!”
“Do you know what is going on?” I asked him.
“Yes, sir.”
This “Yes, sir,” uttered with calmness, and even with a certain embarrassment, told me all. Where I expected an indignant outcry I found this peaceable answer. It seemed to me that I was speaking to the Faubourg St. Antoine itself. I understood that all was at an end in this district, and that we had nothing to expect from it. The people, this wonderful people, had resigned themselves. Nevertheless, I made an effort.
“Louis Bonaparte betrays the Republic,” said I, without noticing that I raised my voice.
He touched my arm, and pointing with his finger to the shadows which were pictured on the glazed partition of the parlor, “Take care, sir; do not talk so loudly.”
“What!” I exclaimed, “you have come to this — you dare not speak, you dare not utter the name of ‘Bonaparte’ aloud; you barely mumble a few words in a whisper here, in this street, in the Faubourg St. Antoine, where, from all the doors, from all the windows, from all the pavements, from all the very stones, ought to be heard the cry, ‘To arms.’”
Auguste demonstrated to me what I already saw too clearly, and what Girard had shadowed forth in the morning — the moral situation of the Faubourg — that the people were “dazed”— that it seemed to all of them that universal suffrage was restored; that the downfall of the law of the 31st of May was a good thing.
Here I interrupted him.
“But this law of the 31st of May, it was Louis Bonaparte who instigated it, it was Rouher who made it, it was Baroche who proposed it, and the Bonapartists who voted it. You are dazzled by a thief who has taken your purse, and who restores it to you!”
“Not I,” said Auguste, “but the others.”
And he continued, “To tell the whole truth, people did not care much for the Constitution, they liked the Republic, but the Republic was maintained too much by force for their taste. In all this they could only see one thing clearly, the cannons ready to slaughter them — they remembered June, 1848 — there were some poor people who had suffered greatly — Cavaignac had done much evil — women clung to the men’s blouses to prevent them from going to the barricades — nevertheless, with all this, when seeing men like ourselves at their head, they would perhaps fight, but this hindered them, they did not know for what.” He concluded by saying, “The upper part of the Faubourg is doing nothing, the lower end will do better. Round about here they will fight. The Rue de la Roquette is good, the Rue de Charonne is good; but on the side of Père la Chaise they ask, ‘What good will that do us?’ They only recognize the forty sous of their day’s work. They will not bestir themselves; do not reckon upon the masons.” He added, with a smile, “Here we do not say ‘cold as a stone,’ but ‘cold as a mason’"— and he resumed, “As for me, if I am alive, it is to you that I owe my life. Dispose of me. I will lay down my life, and will do what you wish.”
While he was speaking I saw the white curtain of the glazed partition behind him move a little. His young wife, uneasy, was peeping through at us.
“Ah! my God,” said I to him, “what we want is not the life of one man but the efforts of all.”
He was silent. I continued,—
“Listen to me, Auguste, you who are good and intelligent. So, then, the Faubourgs of Paris — which are heroes even when they err — the Faubourgs of Paris, for a misunderstanding, for a question of salary wrongly construed, for a bad definition of socialism, rose in June, 1848, against the Assembly elected by themselves, against universal suffrage, against their own vote; and yet they will not rise in December, 1851, for Right, for the Law, for the People, for Liberty, for the Republic. You say that there is perplexity, and that you do not understand; but, on the contrary, it was in June that all was obscure, and it is to-day that everything is clear!”
While I was saying these last words the door of the parlor was softly opened, and some one came in. It was a young man, fair as Auguste, in an overcoat, and wearing a workman’s cap. I started. Auguste turned round and said to me, “You can trust him.”
The young man took off his cap, came close up to me, carefully turning his back on the glazed partition, and said to me in a low voice, “I know you well. I was on the Boulevard du Temple to-day. We asked you what we were to do; you said, ‘We must take up arms.’ Well, here they are!”
He thrust his hands into the pockets of his overcoat and drew out two pistols.
Almost at the same moment the bell of the street door sounded. He hurriedly put his pistols back into his pockets. A man in a blouse came in, a workman of some fifty years. This man, without looking at any one, without saying anything, threw down a piece of money on the counter. Auguste took a small glass and filled it with brandy, the man drank it off, put down the glass upon the counter and went away.
When the door was shut: “You see,” said Auguste to me, “they drink, they eat, they sleep, they think of nothing. Such are they all!”
The other interrupted him impetuously: “One man is not the People!”
And turning towards me,—
“Citizen Victor Hugo, they will march forward. If all do not march, some will march. To tell the truth, it is perhaps not here that a beginning should be made, it is on the other side of the water.”
And suddenly checking himself,—“After all, you probably do not know my name.”
He took a little pocket-book from his pocket, tore out a piece of paper, wrote on it his name, and gave it to me. I regret having forgotten that name. He was a working engineer. In order not to compromise him, I burnt this paper with many others on the Saturday morning, when I was on the point of being arrested.
“It is true, sir,” said Auguste, “you must not judge badly of the Faubourg. As my friend has said, it will perhaps not be the first to begin; but if there is a rising it will rise.”
I exclaimed, “And who would you have erect if the Faubourg St. Antoine be prostrate! Who will be alive if the people be dead!”
The engineer went to the street door, made certain that it was well shut, then came back, and said,—
“There are many men ready and willing. It is the leaders who are wanting. Listen, Citizen Victor Hugo, I can say this to you, and,” he added, lowering his voice, “I hope for a movement to-night.”
“Where?”
“On the Faubourg St. Marceau.”
“At what time?”
“At one o’clock.”
“How do you know it?”
“Because I shall be there.”
He continued: “Now, Citizen Victor Hugo, if a movement takes place to-night in the Faubourg St. Marceau, will you head it? Do you consent?”
“Yes.”
“Have you your scarf of office?”
I half drew it out of my pocket. His eyes glistened with joy.
“Excellent,” said he. “The Citizen has his pistols, the Representative his scarf. All are armed.”
I questioned him. “Are you sure of your movement for to-night?”
He answered me, “We have prepared it, and we reckon to be there.”
“In that case,” said I, “as soon as the first barricade is constructed I will be behind it. Come and fetch me.”
“Where?”
“Wherever I may be.”
He assured me that if the movement should take place during the night he would know it at half-past ten that evening at the latest, and that I should be informed of it before eleven o’clock. We settled that in whatever place I might be at that hour I would send word to Auguste, who undertook to let him know.
The young woman continued to peep out at us. The conversation was growing prolonged, and might seem singular to the people in the parlor. “I am going,” said I to Auguste.
I had opened the door, he took my hand, pressed it as a woman might have done, and said to me in a deeply-moved tone, “You are going: will you come back?”
“I do not know.”
“It is true,” said he. “No one knows what is going to happen. Well, you are perhaps going to be hunted and sought for as I have been. It will perhaps be your turn to be shot, and mine to save you. You know the mouse may sometimes prove useful to the lion. Monsieur Victor Hugo, if you need a refuge, this house is yours. Come here. You will find a bed where you can sleep, and a man who will lay down his life for you.”
I thanked him by a hearty shake of the hand, and I left. Eight o’clock struck. I hastened towards the Rue de Charonne.
The Representatives Hunted Down
At the corner of the Rue de Faubourg St. Antoine before the shop of the grocer Pepin, on the same spot where the immense barricade of June, 1848, was erected as high as the second story, the decrees of the morning had been placarded. Some men were inspecting them, although it was pitch dark, and they could not read them, and an old woman said, “The ‘Twenty-five francs’ are crushed — so much the better!”
A few steps further I heard my name pronounced. I turned round. It was Jules Favre, Bourzat, Lafon, Madier de Montjau, and Michel de Bourges, who were passing by. I took leave of the brave and devoted woman who had insisted upon accompanying me. A fiacre was passing. I put her in it, and then rejoined the five Representatives. They had come from the Rue de Charonne. They had found the premises of the Society of Cabinet Makers closed. “There was no one there,” said Madier de Montjau. “These worthy people are beginning to get together a little capital, they do not wish to compromise it, they are afraid of us. They say, ‘coups d’état are nothing to us, we shall leave them alone!’”
“That does not surprise me,” answered I, “a society is shopkeeper.”
“Where are we going?” asked Jules Favre.
Lafon lived two steps from there, at No. 2, Quai Jemmapes. He offered us the use of his rooms. We accepted, and took the necessary measures to inform the members of the Left that we had gone there.
A few minutes afterwards we were installed in Lafon’s rooms, on the fourth floor of an old and lofty house. This house had seen the taking of the Bastille.
This house was entered by a side-door opening from the Quai Jemmapes upon a narrow courtyard a few steps lower than the Quai itself. Bourzat remained at this door to warn us in case of any accident, and to point out the house to those Representatives who might come up.
In a few moments a large number of us had assembled, and we again met — all those of the morning, with a few added. Lafon gave up his drawing-room to us, the windows of which overlooked the back yard. We organized a sort of “bureau,” and we took our places, Jules Favre, Carnot, Michel, and myself, at a large table, lighted by two candles, and placed before the fire. The Representatives and the other people present sat around on chairs and sofas. A group stood before the door.
Michel de Bourges, on entering, exclaimed, “We have come to seek out the people of the Faubourg St. Antoine. Here we are. Here we must remain.”
These words were applauded.
They set forth the situation — the torpor of the Faubourgs, no one at the Society of Cabinet Makers, the doors closed nearly everywhere. I told them what I had seen and heard in the Rue de la Roquette, the remarks of the wine-seller, Auguste, on the indifference of the people, the hopes of the engineer, and the possibility of a movement during the night in the Faubourg St. Marceau. It was settled that on the first notice that might be given I should go there.
Nevertheless nothing was yet known of what had taken place during the day. It was announced that M. Havin, Lieutenant-Colonel of the 5th Legion of the National Guard, had ordered the officers of his Legion to attend a meeting.
Some Democratic writers came in, amongst whom were Alexander Rey and Xavier Durrieu, with Kesler, Villiers, and Amable Lema?tre of the Révolution; one of these writers was Millière.
Millière had a large bleeding wound above his eye-brow; that same morning on leaving us, as he was carrying away one of the copies of the Proclamation which I had dictated, a man had thrown himself upon him to snatch it from him. The police had evidently already been informed of the Proclamation, and lay in wait for it; Millière had a hand-to-hand struggle with the police agent, and had overthrown him, not without bearing away this gash. However, the Proclamation was not yet printed. It was nearly nine o’clock in the evening and nothing had come. Xavier Durrieu asserted that before another hour elapsed they should have the promised forty thousand copies. It was hoped to cover the walls of Paris with them during the night. Each of those present was to serve as a bill-poster.
There were amongst us — an inevitable circumstance in the stormy confusion of the first moments — a good many men whom we did not know. One of these men brought in ten or twelve copies of the appeal to arms. He asked me to sign them with my own hand, in order, he said, that he might be able to show my signature to the people —“Or to the police,” whispered Baudin to me smiling. We were not in a position to take such precautions as these. I gave this man all the signatures that he wanted.
Madier de Montjau began to speak. It was of consequence to organize the action of the Left, to impress the unity of impulse upon the movement which was being prepared; to create a centre for it, to give a pivot to the insurrection, to the Left a direction, and to the People a support. He proposed the immediate formation of a committee representing the entire Left in all its shades, and charged with organizing and directing the insurrection.
All the Representatives cheered this eloquent and courageous man. Seven members were proposed. They named at once Carnot, De Flotte, Jules Favre, Madier de Montjau, Michel de Bourges, and myself; and thus was unanimously formed this Committee of Insurrection, which at my request was called a Committee of Resistance; for it was Louis Bonaparte who was tire insurgent. For ourselves, the were the Republic. It was desired that one workman-Representative should be admitted into the committee. Faure (du Rh?ne) was nominated. But Faure, we learned later on, had been arrested that morning. The committee then was, it fact, composed of six members.
The committee organized itself during the sitting. A Committee of Permanency was formed from amongst it, and invested with the authority of decreeing “urgency” in the name of all the Left, of concentrating all news, information, directions, instructions, resources, orders. This Committee of Permanency was composed of four members, who were Carnot, Michel de Bourges, Jules Favre, and myself. De Flotte and Madier de Montjau were specially delegated, De Flotte for the left bank of the river and the district of the schools, Madier for the Boulevards and the outskirts.
These preliminary operations being terminated, Lafon took aside Michel de Bourges and myself, and told us that the ex-Constituent Proudhon had inquired for one of us two, that he had remained downstairs nearly a quarter of an hour, and that he had gone away, saying that he would wait for us in the Place de la Bastille.
Proudhon, who was at that time undergoing a term of three years’ imprisonment at St. Pélagie for an offence against Louis Bonaparte, was granted leave of absence from tine to time. Chance willed it that one of these liberty days had fallen on the 2d of December.
This is an incident which one cannot help noting. On the 2d of December Proudhon was a prisoner by virtue of a lawful sentence, and at the same moment at which they illegally imprisoned the inviolable Representatives, Proudhon, whom they could have legitimately detained, was allowed to go out. Proudhon had profited by his liberty to come and find us.
I knew Proudhon from having seen him at the Concièrgerie, where my two sons were shut up, and my two illustrious friends, Auguste Vacquérie and Paul Meurice, and those gallant writers, Louis Jourdan, Erdan, and Suchet. I could not help thinking that on that day they would assuredly not have given leave of absence to these men.
Meanwhile Xavier Durrieu whispered to me, “I have just left Proudhon. He wishes to see you. He is waiting for you down below, close by, at the entrance to the Place. You will find him leaning on the parapet of the canal.”
“I am going,” said I.
I went downstairs.
I found in truth, at the spot mentioned, Proudhon, thoughtful, leaning with his two elbows on the parapet. He wore that broad-brimmed hat in which I had often seen him striding alone up and down the courtyard of the Concièrgerie.
I went up to him.
“You wish to speak to me.”
“Yes,” and he shook me by the hand.
The corner where we were standing was lonely. On the left there was the Place de la Bastille, dark and gloomy; one could see nothing there, but one could feel a crowd; regiments were there in battle array; they did not bivouac, they were ready to march; the muffled sound of breathing could be heard; the square was full of that glistening shower of pale sparks which bayonets give forth at night time. Above this abyss of shadows rose up black and stark the Column of July.
Proudhon resumed,—
“Listen. I come to give you a friendly warning. You are entertaining illusions. The People are ensnared in this affair. They will not stir. Bonaparte will carry them with him. This rubbish, the restitution of universal suffrage, entraps the simpletons. Bonaparte passes for a Socialist. He has said, ‘I will be the Emperor of the Rabble.’ It is a piece of insolence. But insolence has a chance of success when it has this at its service.”
And Proudhon pointed with his finger to the sinister gleam of the bayonets. He continued,—
“Bonaparte has an object in view. The Republic has made the People. He wishes to restore the Populace. He will succeed and you will fail. He has on his side force, cannons, the mistake of the people, and the folly of the Assembly. The few of the Left to which you belong will not succeed in overthrowing the coup d’état. You are honest, and he has this advantage over you — that he is a rogue. You have scruples, and he has this advantage over you — that he has none. Believe me. Resist no longer. The situation is without resources. We must wait; but at this moment fighting would be madness. What do you hope for?”
“Nothing,” said I.
“And what are you going to do?”
“Everything.”
By the tone of my voice he understood that further persistence was useless.
“Good-bye,” he said.
We parted. He disappeared in the darkness. I have never seen him since.
I went up again to Lafon’s rooms.
In the meantime the copies of the appeal to arms did not come to hand. The Representatives, becoming uneasy, went up and downstairs. Some of them went out on the Quai Jemmapes, to wait there and gain information about them. In the room there was a sound of confused talking the members of the Committee, Madier de Montjau, Jules Favre, and Carnot, withdrew, and sent word to me by Charamaule that they were going to No. 10, Rue des Moulins, to the house of the ex-Constituent Landrin, in the division of the 5th Legion, to deliberate more at their ease, and they begged me to join them. But I thought I should do better to remain. I had placed myself at the disposal of the probable movement of the Faubourg St. Marceau. I awaited the notice of it through Auguste. It was most important that I should not go too far away; besides, it was possible that if I went away, the Representatives of the Left, no longing seeing a member of the committee amongst them, would disperse without taking any resolution, and I saw in this more than one disadvantage.
Time passed, no Proclamations. We learned the next day that the packages had been seized by the police. Cournet, an ex-Republican naval officer who was present, began to speak. We shall see presently what sort of a man Cournet was, and of what an energetic and determined nature he was composed. He represented to us that as we had been there nearly two hours the police would certainly end by being informed of our whereabouts, that the members of the Left had an imperative duty — to keep themselves at all costs at the head of the People, that the necessity itself of their situation imposed upon them the precaution of frequently changing their place of retreat, and he ended by offering us, for our deliberation, his house and his workshops, No. 82, Rue Popincourt, at the bottom of a blind alley, and also in the neighborhood of the Faubourg St. Antoine.
This offer was accepted. I sent to inform Auguste of our change of abode, and of Cournet’s address. Lafon remained on the Quai Jemmapes in order to forward on the Proclamations as soon as they arrived, and we set out at once.
Charamaule undertook to send to the Rue des Moulins to tell the other members of the committee that we would wait for them at No. 82, Rue Popincourt.
We walked, as in the morning, in little separate groups. The Quai Jemmapes skirts the left bank of the St. Martin Canal; we went up it. We only met a few solitary workmen, who looked back when we had passed, and stopped behind us with an air of astonishment. The night was dark. A few drops of rain were falling.
A little beyond the Rue de Chemin Vert we turned to the right and reached the Rue Popincourt. There all was deserted, extinguished, closed, and silent, as in the Faubourg St. Antoine. This street is of great length. We walked for a long time; we passed by the barracks. Cournet was no longer with us; he had remained behind to inform some of his friends, and we were told to take defensive measures in case his house was attacked. We looked for No. 82. The darkness was such that we could not distinguish the numbers on the houses. At length, at the end of the street, on the right, we saw a light; it was a grocer’s shop, the only one open throughout the street. One of us entered, and asked the grocer, who was sitting behind his counter, to show us M. Cournet’s house. “Opposite,” said the grocer, pointing to an old and low carriage entrance which could be seen on the other side of the street, almost facing his shop.
We knocked at this door. It was opened. Baudin entered first, tapped at the window of the porter’s lodge, and asked “Monsieur Cournet?”— An old woman’s voice answered, “Here.”
The portress was in bed; all in the house sleeping. We went in.
Having entered, and the gate being shut behind us, we found ourselves in a little square courtyard which formed the centre of a sort of a two-storied ruin; the silence of a convent prevailed, not a light was to be seen at the windows; near a shed was seen a low entrance to a narrow, dark, and winding staircase. “We have made some mistake,” said Charamaule; “it is impossible that it can be here.”
Meanwhile the portress, hearing all these trampling steps beneath her doorway, had become wide awake, had lighted her lamp, and we could see her in her lodge, her face pressed against the window, gazing with alarm at sixty dark phantoms, motionless, and standing in her courtyard.
Esquiros addressed her: “Is this really M. Cournet’s house?” said he.
“M. Cornet, without doubt,” answered the good woman.
All was explained. We had asked for Cournet, the grocer had understood Cornet, the portress had understood Cornet. It chanced that M. Cornet lived there.
We shall see by and by what an extraordinary service chance had rendered us.
We went out, to the great relief of the poor portress, and we resumed our search. Xavier Durrieu succeeded in ascertaining our whereabouts, and extricated us from our difficulty.
A few moments afterwards we turned to the left, and we entered into a blind alley of considerable length and dimly lighted by an old oil lamp — one of those with which Paris was formerly lighted — then again to the left, and we entered through a narrow passage into a large courtyard encumbered with sheds and building materials. This time we had reached Cournet’s.
One Foot in the Tomb
Cournet was waiting for us. He received us on the ground floor, in a parlor where there was a fire, a table, and some chairs; but the room was so small that a quarter of us filled it to overflowing, and the others remained in the courtyard. “It is impossible to deliberate here,” said Bancel. “I have a larger room on the first floor,” answered Cournet, “but it is a building in course of construction, which is not yet furnished, and where there is no fire.”—“What does it matter?” they answered him. “Let us go up to the first floor.”
We went up to the first floor by a steep and narrow wooden staircase, and we took possession of two rooms with very low ceilings, but of which one was sufficiently large. The walls were whitewashed, and a few straw-covered stools formed the whole of its furniture.
They called out to me, “Preside.”
I sat down on one of the stools in the corner of the first room, with the fire place on my right and on my left the door opening upon the staircase. Baudin said to me, “I have a pencil and paper. I will act as secretary to you.” He sat down on a stool next to me.
The Representatives and those present, amongst whom were several men in blouses, remained standing, forming in front of Baudin and myself a sort of square, backed by the two walls of the room opposite to us. This crowd extended as far as the staircase. A lighted candle was placed on the chimney-piece.
A common spirit animated this meeting. The faces were pale, but in every eye could be seen the same firm resolution. In all these shadows glistened the same flame. Several simultaneously asked permission to speak. I requested them to give their names to Baudin, who wrote them down, and then passed me the list.
The first speaker was a workman. He began by apologizing for mingling with the Representatives, he a stranger to the Assembly. The Representatives interrupted him. “No, no,” they said, “the People and Representatives are all one! Speak —!” He declared that if he spoke it was in order to clear from all suspicion the honor of his brethren, the workmen of Paris; that he had heard some Representatives express doubt about them. He asserted that this was unjust, that the workmen realized the whole crime of M. Bonaparte and the whole duty of the People, that they would not be deaf to the appeal of the Republican Representatives, and that this would be clearly shown. He said all this, simply, with a sort of proud shyness and of honest bluntness. He kept his word. I found him the next day fighting on the Rambuteau barricade.
Mathieu (de la Dr?me) came in as the workman concluded. “I bring news,” he exclaimed. A profound silence ensued.
As I have already said, we vaguely knew since the morning that the Right were to have assembled, and that a certain number of our friends had probably taken part in the meeting, and that was all. Mathieu (de la Dr?me) brought us the events of the day, the details of the arrests at their own houses carried out without any obstacle, of the meeting which had taken place at M. Daru’s house and its rough treatment in the Rue de Bourgogne, of the Representatives expelled from the Hall of the Assembly, of the meanness of President Dupin, of the melting away of the High Court, of the total inaction of the Council of State, of the sad sitting held at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, of the Oudinot, fiasco, of the decree of the deposition of the President, and of the two hundred and twenty forcibly arrested and taken to the Quai d’Orsay. He concluded in a manly style: “The duty of the Left was increasing hourly. The morrow would probably prove decisive.” He implored the meeting to take this into consideration.
A workman added a fact. He had happened in the morning to be in the Rue de Grenelle during the passage of the arrested members of the Assembly; he was there at the moment when one of the commanders of the Chasseurs de Vincennes had uttered these words, “Now it is the turn of those gentlemen — the Red Representatives. Let them look out for themselves!”
One of the editors of the Révolution, Hennett de Kesler, who afterwards became an intrepid exile, completed the information of Mathieu (de la Dr?me). He recounted the action taken by two members of the Assembly with regard to the so-called Minister of the Interior, Morny, and the answer of the said Morny: “If I find any of the Representatives behind the barricades, I will have them shot to the last man,” and that other saying of the same witty vagabond respecting the members taken to the Quai d’Orsay, “These are the last Representatives who will be made prisoners.” He told us that a placard was at that very moment being printed which declared that “Any one who should be found at a secret meeting would be immediately shot.” The placard, in truth, appeared the next morning.
Baudin rose up. “The coup d’état redoubles its rage,” exclaimed he. “Citizens, let us redouble our energy!”
Suddenly a man in a blouse entered. He was out of breath. He had run hard. He told us that he had just seen, and he repeated, had seen with “his own eyes,” in the Rue Popincourt, a regiment marching in silence, and wending its way towards the blind alley of No. 82, that we were surrounded, and that we were about to be attacked. He begged us to disperse immediately.
“Citizen Representatives,” called out Cournet, “I have placed scouts in the blind alley who will fall back and warn us if the regiment penetrates thither. The door is narrow and will be barricaded in the twinkling of an eye. We are here, with you, fifty armed and resolute men, and at the first shot we shall be two hundred. We are provided with ammunition. You can deliberate calmly.”
And as he concluded he raised his right arm, and from his sleeve fell a large poniard, which he had concealed, and with the other hand he rattled in his pocket the butts of a pair of pistols.
“Very well,” said I, “let us continue.”
Three of the youngest and most eloquent orators of the Left, Bancel, Arnauld (de l’Ariége) and Victor Chauffour delivered their opinions in succession. All three were imbued with this notion, that our appeal to arms not having yet been placarded, the different incidents of the Boulevarde du Temple and of the Café Bonvalet having brought about no results, none of our decrees, owing to the repressive measures of Bonaparte, having yet succeeded in appearing, while the events at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement began to be spread abroad through Paris, it seemed as though the Right had commenced active resistance before the Left. A generous rivalry for the public safety spurred them on. It was delightful to them to know that a regiment ready to attack was close by, within a few steps, and that perhaps in a few moments their blood would flow.
Moreover, advice abounded, and with advice, uncertainty. Some illusions were still entertained. A workman, leaning close to me against the fireplace, said in a low voice to one of his comrades that the People must not be reckoned upon, and that if we fought “We should perpetrate a madness.”
The incidents and events of the day had in some degree modified my opinion as to the course to be followed in this grave crisis. The silence of the crowd at the moment when Arnauld (de l’Ariége) and I had apostrophized the troops, had destroyed the impression which a few hours before the enthusiasm of the people on the Boulevard du Temple had left with me. The hesitation of Auguste had impressed me, the Society of Cabinet Makers appeared to shun us, the torpor of the Faubourg St. Antoine was manifest, the inertness of the Faubourg St. Marceau was not less so. I ought to have received notice from the engineer before eleven o’clock, and eleven o’clock was past. Our hopes died away one after another. Nevertheless, all the more reason, in my opinion, to astonish and awaken Paris by an extraordinary spectacle, by a daring act of life and collective power on the part of the Representatives of the Left, by the daring of an immense devotion.
It will be seen later on what a combination of accidental circumstances prevented this idea from being realized as I then purposed. The Representatives have done their whole duty. Providence perhaps has not done all on its side. Be it as it may, supposing that we were not at once carried off by some nocturnal and immediate combat, and that at the hour at which I was speaking we had still a “to-morrow,” I felt the necessity of fixing every eye upon the course which should be adopted on the day which was about to follow.— I spoke.
I began by completely unveiling the situation. I painted the picture in four words: the Constitution thrown into the gutter; the Assembly driven to prison with the butt-end of a musket, the Council of State dispersed; the High Court expelled by a galley-sergeant, a manifest beginning of victory for Louis Bonaparte, Paris ensnared in the army as though in a net; bewilderment everywhere, all authority overthrown; all compacts annulled; two things only remained standing, the coup d’état and ourselves.
“Ourselves! and who are we?”
“We are,” said I, “we are Truth and Justice! We are the supreme and sovereign power, the People incarnate — Right!”
I continued,—
“Louis Bonaparte at every minute which elapses advances a step further in his crime. For him nothing is inviolable, nothing is sacred; this morning he violated the Palace of the Representatives of the Nation, a few hours later he laid violent hands on their persons; to-morrow, perhaps in a few moments, he will shed their blood. Well then! he marches upon us, let us march upon him. The danger grows greater, let us grow greater with the danger.”
A movement of assent passed through the Assembly. I continued,—
“I repeat and insist. Let us show no mercy to this wretched Bonaparte for any of the enormities which his outrage contains. As he has drawn the wine — I should say the blood — he must drink it up. We are not individuals, we are the Nation. Each of us walks forth clothed with the Sovereignty of the people. He cannot strike our persons without rending that. Let us compel his volleys to pierce our sashes as well as our breasts. This man is on a road where logic grasps him and leads him to parricide. What he is killing in this moment is the country! Well, then! when the ball of Executive Power pierces the sash of Legislative Power, it is visible parricide! It is this that must be understood!”
“We are quite ready!” they cried out. “What measures would you advise us to adopt?”
“No half measures,” answered I; “a deed of grandeur! To-morrow — if we leave here this night — let us all meet in the Faubourg St. Antoine.”
They interposed, “Why the Faubourg St. Antoine?”
“Yes,” resumed I, “the Faubourg St. Antoine! I cannot believe that the heart of the People has ceased to beat there. Let us all meet to-morrow in the Faubourg St. Antoine. Opposite the Lenoir Market there is a hall which was used by a club in 1848.”
They cried out to me, “The Salle Roysin.”
“That is it,” said I, “The Salle Roysin. We who remain free number a hundred and twenty Republican Representatives. Let us install ourselves in this hall. Let us install ourselves in the fulness and majesty of the Legislative Power. Henceforward we are the Assembly, the whole of the Assembly! Let us sit there, deliberate there, in our official sashes, in the midst of the People. Let us summon the Faubourg St. Antoine to its duty, let us shelter there the National Representation, let us shelter there the popular sovereignty. Let us intrust the People to the keeping of the People. Let us adjure them to protect themselves. If necessary, let us order them!”
A voice interrupted me: “You cannot give orders to the People!”
“Yes!” I cried, “When it is a question of public safety, of the universal safety, when it is a question of the future of every European nationality, when it is a question of defending the Republic, Liberty, Civilization, the Revolution, we have the right — we, the Representatives of the entire nation — to give, in the name of the French people, orders to the people of Paris! Let us, therefore, meet to-morrow at this Salle Roysin; but at what time? Not too early in the morning. In broad day. It is necessary that the shops should be open, that people should be coming and going, that the population should be moving about, that there should be plenty of people in the streets, that they should see us, that they should recognize us, that the grandeur of our example should strike every eye and stir every heart. Let us all be there between nine and ten o’clock in the morning. If we cannot obtain the Salle Roysin we will take the first church at hand, a stable, a shed, some enclosure where we can deliberate; at need, as Michel de Bourges has said, we will hold our sittings in a square bounded by four barricades. But provisionally I suggest the Salle Roysin. Do not forget that in such a crisis there must be no vacuum before the nation. That alarms it. There must be a government somewhere, and it must be known. The rebellion at the Elysée, the Government at the Faubourg St. Antoine; the Left the Government, the Faubourg St. Antoine the citadel; such are the ideas which from to-morrow we must impress upon the mind of Paris. To the Salle Roysin, then! Thence in the midst of the dauntless throng of workmen of that great district of Paris, enclosed in the Faubourg as in a fortress, being both Legislators and Generals, multiplying and inventing means of defence and of attack, launching Proclamations and unearthing the pavements, employing the women in writing out placards while the men are fighting, we will issue a warrant against Louis Bonaparte, we will issue warrants against his accomplices, we will declare the military chiefs traitors, we will outlaw in a body all the crime and all the criminals, we will summon the citizens to arms, we will recall the army to duty, we will rise up before Louis Bonaparte, terrible as the living Republic, we will fight on the one hand with the power of the Law, and on the other with the power of the People, we will overwhelm this miserable rebel, and will rise up above his head both as a great Lawful Power and a great Revolutionary Power!”
While speaking I became intoxicated with my own ideas. My enthusiasm communicated itself to the meeting. They cheered me. I saw that I was becoming somewhat too hopeful, that I allowed myself to be carried away, and that I carried them away, that I presented to them success as possible, as even easy, at a moment when it was important that no one should entertain an illusion. The truth was gloomy, and it was my duty to tell it. I let silence be re-established, and I signed with my hand that I had a last word to say. I then resumed, lowering my voice,—
“Listen, calculate carefully what you are doing. On one side a hundred thousand men, seventeen harnessed batteries, six thousand cannon-mouths in the forts, magazines, arsenals, ammunition sufficient to carry out a Russian campaign; on the other a hundred and twenty Representatives, a thousand or twelve hundred patriots, six hundred muskets, two cartridges per man, not a drum to beat to arms, not a bell to sound the tocsin, not a printing office to print a Proclamation; barely here and there a lithographic press, and a cellar where a hand-bill can be hurriedly and furtively printed with the brush; the penalty of death against any one who unearths a paving stone, penalty of death against any one who would enlist in our ranks, penalty of death against any one who is found in a secret meeting, penalty of death against any one who shall post up an appeal to arms; if you are taken during the combat, death; if you are taken after the combat, transportation or exile; on the one side an army and a Crime; on the other a handful of men and Right. Such is this struggle. Do you accept it?”
A unanimous shout answered me, “Yes! yes!”
This shout did not come from the mouths, it came from the souls. Baudin, still seated next to me, pressed my hand in silence.
It was settled therefore at once that they should meet again on the next day, Wednesday, between nine and ten in the morning, at the Salle Roysin, that they should arrive singly or by little separate groups, and that they should let those who were absent know of this rendezvous. This done, there remained nothing more but to separate. It was about midnight.
One of Cournet’s scouts entered. “Citizen Representatives,” he said, “the regiment is no longer there. The street is free.”
The regiment, which had probably come from the Popincourt barracks close at hand, had occupied the street opposite the blind alley for more than half an hour, and then had returned to the barracks. Had they judged the attack inopportune or dangerous at night in that narrow blind alley, and in the centre of this formidable Popincourt district, where the insurrection had so long held its own in June, 1848? It appeared certain that the soldiers had searched several houses in the neighborhood. According to details which we learned subsequently, we were followed after leaving No. 2, Quai Jemmapes, by an agent of police, who saw us enter the house where a M. Cornet was lodging, and who at once proceeded to the Prefecture to denounce our place of refuge to his chiefs. The regiment sent to arrest us surrounded the house, ransacked it from attic to cellar, found nothing, and went away.
This quasi-synonym of Cornet and Cournet lead misled the bloodhounds of the coup d’état. Chance, we see, had interposed usefully in our affairs.
I was talking at the door with Baudin, and we were making some last arrangements, when a young man with a chestnut beard, dressed like a man of fashion, and possessing all the manners of one, and whom I had noticed while speaking, came up to me.
“Monsieur Victor Hugo,” said he, “where are you going to sleep?”
Up to that moment I had not thought of this.
It was far from prudent to go home.
“In truth,” I answered, “I have not the least idea.”
“Will you come to my house?”
“I shall be very happy.”
He told me his mane. It was M. de la R——. He knew my brother Abel’s wife and family, the Montferriers, relations of the Chambacères, and he lived in the Rue Caumartin. He had been a Prefect under the Provisional Government. There was a carriage in waiting. We got in, and as Baudin told me that he would pass the night at Cournet’s, I gave him the address of M. do la R——, so that he could send for me if any notice of the movement came from the Faubourg St. Marceau or elsewhere. But I hoped for nothing more that night, and I was right.
About a quarter of an hour after the separation of the Representatives, and after we had left the Rue Popincourt, Jules Favre, Madier de Montajau, de Flotte, and Carnot, to whom we had sent word to the Rue des Moulins, arrived at Cournet’s, accompanied by Schoelcher, by Charamaule, by Aubry (du Nord), and by Bastide. Some Representatives were still remaining at Cournet’s. Several, like Baudin, were going to pass the night there. They told our colleagues what had been settled respecting my proposition, and of the rendezvous at the Salle Roysin; only it appears that there was some doubt regarding the hour agreed upon, and that Baudin in particular did not exactly remember it, and that our colleagues believed that the rendezvous, which had been fixed for nine o’clock in the morning, was fixed for eight.
This alteration in the hour, due to the treachery of memory for which no one can be blamed, prevented the realization of the plan which I had conceived of an Assembly holding its sittings in the Faubourg, and giving battle to Louis Bonaparte, but gave us as a compensation the heroic exploits of the Ste. Marguerite barricade.
The Burial of a Great Anniversary
Such was the first day. Let us look at it steadfastly. It deserves it. It is the anniversary of Austerlitz; the Nephew commemorates the Uncle. Austerlitz is the most brilliant battle of history; the Nephew set himself this problem — how to commit a baseness equal to this magnificence. He succeeded.
This first day, which will be followed by others, is already complete. Everything is there. It is the most terrible attempt at a thrust backwards that has ever been essayed. Never has such a crumbling of civilization been seen. All that formed the edifice is now in ruin; the soil is strewn with the fragments. In one night the inviolability of the Law, the Right of the Citizen, the Dignity of the Judge, and the Honor of the Soldier have disappeared. Terrible substitutions have taken place; there was the oath, there is pergury; there was the flag, there is a rag; there was the Army, there is a band of brigands; there was Justice, there is treason; there was a code of laws, there is the sabre; there was a Government, there is a crew of swindlers; there was France, there is a den of thieves. This called itself Society Saved.
It is the rescue of the traveller by the highwayman.
France was passing by, Bonaparte cried, “Stand and deliver!”
The hypocrisy which has preceded the Crime, equals in deformity the impudence which has followed it. The nation was trustful and calm. There was a sudden and cynical shock. History has recorded nothing equal to the Second of December. Here there was no glory, nothing but meanness. No deceptive picture. He could have declared himself honest; He declares himself infamous; nothing more simple. This day, almost unintelligible in its success, has proved that Politics possess their obscene side. Louis Bonaparte has shown himself unmasked.
Yesterday President of the Republic, to-day a scavenger. He has sworn, he still swears: but the tone has changed. The oath has become an imprecation. Yesterday he called himself a maiden, to-day he becomes a brazen woman, and laughs at his dupes. Picture to yourself Joan of Arc confessing herself to be Messalina. Such is the Second of December.
Women are mixed up in this treason. It is an outrage which savors both of the boudoir and of the galleys. There wafts across the fetidness of blood an undefined scent of patchouli. The accomplices of this act of brigandage are most agreeable men — Romieu, Morny. Getting into debt leads one to commit crimes.
Europe was astounded. It was a thunder bolt from a thief. It must be acknowledged that thunder can fall into bad hands, Palmerston, that traitor, approved of it. Old Metternich, a dreamer in his villa at Rennweg, shook his head. As to Soult, the man of Austerlitz after Napoleon, he did what he ought to do, on the very day of the Crime he died, Alas! and Austerlitz also.