The End of the Second Day
We left Marie’s house just in time. The regiment charged to track us and to arrest us was approaching. We heard the measured steps of soldiers in the gloom. The streets were dark. We dispersed. I will not speak of a refuge which was refused to us.
Less than ten minutes after our departure M. Marie’s house was invested. A swarm of guns and swords poured in, and overran it from cellar to attic. “Everywhere! everywhere!” cried the chiefs. The soldiers sought us with considerable energy. Without taking the trouble to lean down and look, they ransacked under the beds with bayonet thrusts. Sometimes they had difficulty in withdrawing the bayonets which they had driven into the wall. Unfortunately for this zeal, we were not there.
This zeal came frown higher sources. The poor soldiers obeyed. “Kill the Representatives,” such were their instructions. It was at that moment when Morny sent this despatch to Maupas: “If you take Victor Hugo, do what you like with him.” These were their politest phrases. Later on the coup d’état in its decree of banishment, called us “those individuals,” which caused Schoelcher to say these haughty words: “These people do not even know how to exile politely.”
Dr. Véron who publishes in his “Mémoires” the Morny-Maupas despatch, adds: “M. du Maupas sent to look for Victor Hugo at the house of his brother-in-law, M. Victor Foucher, Councillor to the Court of Cassation. He did not find him.”
An old friend, a man of heart and of talent, M. Henry d’E——, had offered me a refuge in rooms which he occupied in the Rue Richelieu; these rooms adjoining the Théatre Fran?ais, were on the first floor of a house which, like M. Grévy’s residence, had an exit into the Rue Fontaine Molière.
I went there. M. Henry d’E—— being from home, his porter was awaiting me, and handed me the key.
A candle lighted the room which I entered. There was a table near the fire, a blotting-book, and some paper. It was past midnight, and I was somewhat tired; but before going to bed, foreseeing that if I should survive this adventure I should write its history, I resolved immediately to note down some details of the state of affairs in Paris at the end of this day, the second of the coup d’état. I wrote this page, which I reproduce here, because it is a life-like portrayal — a sort of direct photograph:—
“Louis Bonaparte has invented something which he calls a ‘Consultative Committee,’ and which he commissions to draw up the postscript of his crimes.
“Léon Foucher refuses to be in it; Montalember hesitates; Baroche accepts.
“Falloux despises Dupin.
“The first shots were fired at the Record Office. In the Markets in the Rue Rambuteau, in the Rue Beaubourg I heard firing.
“Fleury, the aide-de-camp, ventured to pass down the Rue Montmartre. A musket ball pierced his képi. He galloped quickly off. At one o’clock the regiments were summoned to vote on the coup d’état. All gave their adhesion. The students of law and medicine assembled together at the Ecole de Droit to protest. The Municipal Guards dispersed them. There were a great many arrests. This evening, patrols are everywhere. Sometimes an entire regiment forms a patrol.
“Representative Hespel, who is six feet high, was not able to find a cell long enough for him at Mazas, and he has been obliged to remain in the porter’s lodge, where he is carefully watched.
“Mesdames Odilon Barrot and de Tocqueville do not know where their husbands are. They go from Mazas to Mont Valérien. The jailers are dumb. It is the 19th Light Infantry which attacked the barricade when Baudin was killed. Fifty men of the Gendarmerie Mobile have carried at the double the barricade of the Oratoire in the Rue St. Honoré. Moreover, the conflict reveals itself. They sound the tocsin at the Chapelle Bréa. One barricade overturned sets twenty barricades on their feet. There is the barricade of the Schools in the Rue St. André des Arts, the barricade of the Rue du Temple, the barricade of the Carrefour Phélippeaux defended by twenty young men who have all been killed; they are reconstructing it; the barricade of the Rue de Bretagne, which at this moment Courtigis is bombarding. There is the barricade of the Invalides, the barricade of the Barrière des Martyres, the barricade of the Chapelle St. Denis. The councils of war are sitting in permanence, and order all prisoners to be shot. The 30th of the Line have shot a woman. Oil upon fire.
“The colonel of the 49th of the Line has resigned. Louis Bonaparte has appointed in his place Lieutenant Colonel Négrier. M. Brun, Officer of the Police of the Assembly, was arrested at the same time as the Questors.
“It is said that fifty members of the majority have signed a protest at M. Odilon Barrot’s house.
“This evening there is an increasing uneasiness at the Elysée. Incendiarism is feared. Two battalions of engineer-sappers have reinforced the Fire Brigade. Maupas has placed guards over the gasometers.
“Here are the military talons by which Paris has been grasped:— Bivouacs at all the strategical points. At the Pont Neuf and the Quai aux Fleurs, the Municipal Guards; at the Place de la Bastille twelve pieces of cannon, three mortars, lighted matches; at the corner of the Faubourg the six-storied houses are occupied by soldiers from top to bottom; the Marulaz brigade at the H?tel de Ville; the Sauboul brigade at the Panthéon; the Courtigis brigade at the Faubourg St. Antoine; the Renaud division at the Faubourg St. Marceau. At the Legislative Palace the Chasseurs de Vincennes, and a battalion of the 15th Light Infantry; in the Champs Elysées infantry and cavalry; in the Avenue Marigny artillery. Inside the circus is an entire regiment; it has bivouacked there all night. A squadron of the Municipal Guard is bivouacking in the Place Dauphine. A bivouac in the Council of State. A bivouac in the courtyard of the Tuileries. In addition, the garrisons of St. Germain and of Courbevoie. Two colonels killed, Loubeau, of the 75th, and Quilio. On all sides hospital attendants are passing, bearing litters. Ambulances are everywhere; in the Bazar de l’Industry (Boulevard Poissionière); in the Salle St. Jean at the H?tel de Ville; in the Rue du Petit Carreau. In this gloomy battle nine brigades are engaged. All have a battery of artillery; a squadron of cavalry maintains the communications between the brigades; forty thousand men are taking part in the struggle; with a reserve of sixty thousand men; a hundred thousand soldiers upon Paris. Such is the Army of the Crime. The Reibell brigade, the first and second Lancers, protect the Elysée. The Ministers are all sleeping at the Ministry of the Interior, close by Morny. Morny watches, Magnan commands. To-morrow will be a terrible day.”
This page written, I went to bed, and fell asleep.
Those who Sleep and he who Does Not Sleep
During this night of the 3d and 4th of December, while we who were overcome with fatigue and betrothed to calamity slept an honest slumber, not an eye was closed at the Elysée. An infamous sleeplessness reigned there. Towards two o’clock in the morning the Comte Roguet, after Morny the most intimate of the confidants of the Elysée, an ex-peer of France and a lieutenant-general, came out of Louis Bonaparte’s private room; Roguet was accompanied by Saint-Arnaud. Saint-Arnaud, it may be remembered, was at that time Minister of War.
Two colonels were waiting in the little ante-room.
Saint-Arnaud was a general who had been a supernumerary at the Ambigu Theatre. He had made his first appearance as a comedian in the suburbs. A tragedian later on. He may be described as follows:— tall, bony, thin, angular, with gray moustaches, lank air, a mean countenance. He was a cut-throat, and badly educated. Morny laughed at him for his pronunciation of the “Sovereign People.” “He pronounces the word no better than he understands the thing,” said he. The Elysée, which prides itself upon its refinement, only half-accepted Saint-Arnaud. His bloody side had caused his vulgar side to be condoned. Saint-Arnaud was brave, violent, and yet timid; he had the audacity of a gold-laced veteran and the awkwardness of a man who had formerly been “down upon his luck.” We saw him one day in the tribune, pale, stammering, but daring. He had a long bony face, and a distrust-inspiring jaw. His theatrical name was Florivan. He was a strolling player transformed into a trooper. He died Marshal of France. An ill-omened figure.
The two colonels who awaited Saint-Arnaud in the anteroom were two business-like men, both leaders of those decisive regiments which at critical times carry the other regiments with them, according to their instructions, into glory, as at Austerlitz, or into crime, as on the Eighteenth Brumaire. These two officers belonged to what Morny called “the cream of indebted and free-living colonels.” We will not mention their names here; one is dead, the other is still living; he will recognize himself. Besides, we have caught a glimpse of them in the first pages of this book.
One, a man of thirty-eight, was cunning, dauntless, ungrateful, three qualifications for success. The Duc d’Aumale had saved his life in the Aurés. He was then a young captain. A ball had pierced his body; he fell into a thicket; the Kabyles rushed up to cut off and carry away his head, when the Duc d’Aumale arriving with two officers, a soldier, and a bugler, charged the Kabyles and saved this captain. Having saved him, he loved him. One was grateful, the other was not. The one who was grateful was the deliverer. The Duc d’Aumale was pleased with this young captain for having given him an opportunity for a deed of gallantry. He made him a major; in 1849 this major became lieutenant-colonel, and commanded a storming column at the siege of Rome; he then came back to Africa, where Fleury bought him over at the same time as Saint-Arnaud. Louis Bonaparte made him colonel in July, 1851, and reckoned upon him. In November this colonel of Louis Bonaparte wrote to the Duc d’Aumale, “Nothing need be apprehended from this miserable adventurer.” In December he commanded one of the massacring regiments. Later on, in the Dobrudscha, an ill-used horse turned upon him and bit off his cheek, so that there was only room on his face for one slap.
The other man was growing gray, and was about forty-eight. He also was a man of pleasure and of murder. Despicable as a citizen; brave as a soldier. He was one of the first who had sprung into the breach at Constantine. Plenty of bravery and plenty of baseness. No chivalry but that of the green cloth. Louis Bonaparte had made him colonel in 1851. His debts had been twice paid by two Princes; the first time by the Duc d’Orléans, the second time by the Duc de Némours.
Such were these colonels.
Saint-Arnaud spoke to them for some time in a low tone.
The Proceedings of the Committee
As soon as it was daylight we had assembled in the house of our imprisoned colleague, M. Grévy. We had been installed in his private room. Michel de Bourges and myself were seated near the fireplace; Jules Favre and Carnot were writing, the one at a table near the window, the other at a high desk. The Left had invested us with discretionary powers. It became more and more impossible at every moment to meet together again in session. We drew up in its name and remitted to Hingray, so that he might print it immediately, the following decree, compiled on the spur of the moment by Jules Favre:—
“FRENCH REPUBLIC.
“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.
“The undersigned Representatives of the People who still remain at
liberty, having met together in an Extraordinary Permanent Session,
considering the arrest of the majority of their colleagues, considering
the urgency of the moment;
“Seeing that the crime of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte in violently
abolishing the operations of the Public Powers has reinstated the
Nation in the direct exercise of its sovereignty, and that all which
fetters that sovereignty at the present time should he annulled;
“Seeing that all the prosecutions commenced, all the sentences
pronounced, by what right soever, on account of political crimes or
offences are quashed by the imprescriptible right of the People;
“DECREE:
“ARTICLE I. All prosecutions which have begun, and all sentences which
have been pronounced, for political crimes or offences are annulled as
regards all their civil or criminal effects.
“ARTICLE II. Consequently, all directors of jails or of houses of
detention are enjoined immediately to set at liberty all persons
detained in prison for the reasons above indicated.
“ARTICLE III. All magistrates’ officers and officers of the judiciary
police are similarly enjoined, under penalty of treason, to annul all
the prosecutions which have been begun for the same causes.
“ARTICLE IV. The police functionaries and agents are charged with the
execution of the present decree.
“Given at Paris, in Permanent Session, on the 4th December, 1851.”
Jules Favre, as he passed me the decree for my signature, said to me, smiling, “Let us set your sons and your friends at liberty.” “Yes,” said I, “four combatants the more on the barricades.” The Representative Duputz, a few hours later, received from our hands a duplicate of the decree, with the charge to take it himself to the Concièrgerie as soon as the surprise which we premeditated upon the Prefecture of Police and the H?tel de Ville should have succeeded. Unhappily this surprise failed.
Landrin came in. His duties in Paris in 1848 had enabled him to know the whole body of the political and municipal police. He warned us that he had seen suspicious figures roving about the neighborhood. We were in the Rue Richelieu, almost opposite the Théatre Fran?ais, one of the points where passers-by are most numerous, and in consequence one of the points most carefully watched. The goings and comings of the Representatives who were communicating with the Committee, and who came in and out unceasingly, would be inevitably noticed, and would bring about a visit from the Police. The porters and the neighbors already manifested an evil-boding surprise. We ran, so Landrin declared and assured us, the greatest danger. “You will be taken and shot,” said he to us.
He entreated us to go elsewhere. M. Grévy’s brother, consulted by us, stated that he could not answer for the people of his house.
But what was to be done? Hunted now for two days, we had exhausted the goodwill of nearly everybody, one refuge had been refused on the preceding evening, and at this moment no house was offered to us. Since the night of the 2d we had changed our refuge seventeen times, at times going from one extremity of Paris to the other. We began to experience some weariness. Besides, as I have already said, the house where we were had this signal advantage — a back outlet upon the Rue Fontaine-Molière. We decided to remain. Only we thought we ought to take precautionary measures.
Every species of devotion burst forth from the ranks of the Left around us. A noteworthy member of the Assembly — a man of rare mind and of rare courage — Durand-Savoyat — who from the preceding evening until the last day constituted himself our doorkeeper, and even more than this, our usher and our attendant, himself had placed a bell on our table, and had said to us, “When you want me, ring, and I will come in.” Wherever we went, there was he. He remained in the ante-chamber, calm, impassive, silent, with his grave and noble countenance, his buttoned frock coat, and his broad-brimmed hat, which gave him the appearance of an Anglican clergyman. He himself opened the entrance door, scanned the faces of those who came, and kept away the importunate and the useless. Besides, he was always cheerful, and ready to say unceasingly, “Things are looking well.” We were lost, yet he smiled. Optimism in Despair.
We called him in. Landrin set forth to him his misgivings. We begged Durand-Savoyat in future to allow no one to remain in the apartments, not even the Representatives of the People, to take note of all news and information, and to allow no one to penetrate to us but men who were indispensable, in short, as far as possible, to send away every one in order that the goings and comings might cease. Durand-Savoyat nodded his head, and went back into the ante-chamber, saying, “It shall be done.” He confined himself of his own accord to these two formulas; for us, “Things are looking well,” for himself, “It shall be done.” “It shall be done,” a noble manner in which to speak of duty.
Landrin and Durand-Savoyat having left, Michel de Bourges began to speak.
“The artifice of Louis Bonaparte, imitator of his uncle in this as in everything,” said Michel de Bourges, “had been to throw out in advance an appeal to the People, a vote to be taken, a plebiscitum, in short, to create a Government in appearance at the very moment when he overturned one. In great crises, where everything totters and seems ready to fall, a People has need to lay hold of something. Failing any other support, it will take the sovereignty of Louis Bonaparte. Well, it was necessary that a support should be offered to the people, by us, in the form of its own sovereignty. The Assembly,” continued Michel de Bourges, “was, as a fact, dead. The Left, the popular stump of this hated Assembly, might suffice for the situation for a few days. No more. It was necessary that it should be reinvigorated by the national sovereignty. It was therefore important that we also should appeal to universal suffrage, should oppose vote to vote, should raise erect the Sovereign People before the usurping Prince, and should immediately convoke a new Assembly.” Michel de Bourges proposed a decree.
Michel de Bourges was right. Behind the victory of Louis Bonaparte could be seen something hateful, but something which was familiar — the Empire; behind the victory of the Left there was obscurity. We must bring in daylight behind us. That which causes the greatest uneasiness to people’s imagination is the dictatorship of the Unknown. To convoke a new Assembly as soon as possible, to restore France at once into the hands of France, this was to reassure people’s minds during the combat, and to rally them afterwards; this was the true policy.
For some time, while listening to Michel de Bourges and Jules Favre, who supported him, we fancied we heard, in the next room, a murmur which resembled the sound of voices. Jules Favre had several times exclaimed, “Is any one there?”
“It is not possible,” was the answer. “We have instructed Durand-Savoyat to allow no one to remain there.” And the discussion continued. Nevertheless the sound of voices insensibly increased, and ultimately grew so distinct that it became necessary to see what it meant. Carnot half opened the door. The room and the ante-chamber adjoining the room where we were deliberating were filled with Representatives, who were peaceably conversing.
Surprised, we called in Durand-Savoyat.
“Did you not understand us?” asked Michel de Bourges.
“Yes, certainly,” answered Durand-Savoyat.
“This house is perhaps marked,” resumed Carnot; “we are in danger of being taken.”
“And killed upon the spot,” added Jules Favre, smiling with his calm smile.
“Exactly so,” answered Durand-Savoyat, with a look still quieter than Jules Favre’s smile. “The door of this inner room is shrouded in the darkness, and is little noticeable. I have detained all the Representatives who have come in, and have placed them in the larger room and in the ante-chamber, whichever they have wished. A species of crowd has thus been formed. If the police and the troops arrive, I shall say to them, ‘Here we are.’ They will take us. They will not perceive the door of the inner room, and they will not reach you. We shall pay for you. If there is any one to be killed, they will content themselves with us.”
And without imagining that he had just uttered the words of a hero, Durand-Savoyat went back to the antechamber.
We resumed our deliberation on the subject of a decree. We were unanimously agreed upon the advantage of an immediate convocation of a New Assembly. But for what date? Louis Bonaparte had appointed the 20th of December for his Plebiscitum; we chose the 21st. Then, what should we call this Assembly? Michel de Bourges strongly advocated the title of “National Convention,” Jules Favre that its name should be “Constituent Assembly,” Carnot proposed the title of “Sovereign Assembly,” which, awakening no remembrances, would leave the field free to all hopes. The name of “Sovereign Assembly” was adopted.
The decree, the preamble of which Carnot insisted upon writing from my dictation, was drawn up in these terms. It is one of those which has been printed and placarded.
“DECREE.
“The crime of Louis Bonaparte imposes great duties upon the
Representatives of the People remaining at liberty.
“Brute force seeks to render the fulfilment of these duties impossible.
“Hunted, wandering from refuge to refuge, assassinated in the streets,
the Republican Representatives deliberate and act, notwithstanding the
infamous police of the coup d’état.
“The outrage of Louis Napoleon, in overturning all the Public Powers,
has only left one authority standing,— the supreme authority,— the
authority of the people: Universal Suffrage.
“It is the duty of the Sovereign People to recapture and reconstitute
all the social forces which to-day are dispersed.
“Consequently, the Representatives of the People decree:—
“ARTICLE I.— The People are convoked on the 21st December, 1851, for
the election of a Sovereign Assembly.
“ARTICLE II.— The election will take place by Universal Suffrage,
according to the formalities determined by the decree of the
Provisional Government of March 5, 1848.
“Given at Paris, in Permanent Session, December 4, 1851.”
As I finished signing this decree, Durand-Savoyat entered and whispered to me that a woman had asked for me, and was waiting in the ante-chamber. I went out to her. It was Madame Charassin. Her husband had disappeared. The Representative Charassin, a political economist, an agriculturist, a man of science, was at the same time a man of great courage. We had seen him on the preceding evening at the most perilous points. Had he been arrested? Madame Charassin came to ask me if we knew where he was. I was ignorant. She went to Mazas to make inquiries for him there. A colonel who simultaneously commanded in the army and in the police, received her, and said, “I can only permit you to see your husband on one condition.” “What is that?” “You will talk to him about nothing.” “What do you mean Nothing?” “No news, no politics.” “Very well.” “Give me your word of honor.” And she had answered him, “How is it that you wish me to give you my word of honor, since I should decline to receive yours?”
I have since seen Charassin in exile.
Madame Charassin had just left me when Théodore Bac arrived. He brought us the protest of the Council of State.
Here it is:—
“PROTEST OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE.
“The undersigned members of the Council of State, elected by the
Constituent and Legislative Assemblies, having assembled together,
notwithstanding the decree of the 2d of December, at their usual place,
and having found it surrounded by an armed force, which prohibited their
access thereto, protest against the decree which has pronounced the
dissolution of the Council of State, and declare that they only ceased
their functions when hindered by force.
“Paris, this 3d December, 1851.
“Signed: BETHMONT, VIVIEN, BUREAU DE PUZY, ED. CHARTON, CUVIER, DE
RENNEVILLE, HORACE SAY, BOULATIGNIER, GAUTIER DE RUMILLY, DE JOUVENCEL,
DUNOYER, CARTERET, DE FRESNE, BOUCHENAY-LEFER, RIVET, BOUDET, CORMENIN,
PONS DE L’HERAULT.”
Let us relate the adventure of the Council of State.
Louis Bonaparte had driven away the Assembly by the Army, and the High Court of Justice by the Police; he expelled the Council of State by the porter.
On the morning of the 2d of December, at the very hour at which the Representatives of the Right had gone from M. Daru’s to the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, the Councillors of State betook themselves to the Hotel on the Quai d’Orsay. They went in one by one.
The quay was thronged with soldiers. A regiment was bivouacking there with their arms piled.
The Councillors of State soon numbered about thirty. They set to work to deliberate. A draft protest was drawn up. At the moment when it was about to be signed the porter came in, pale and stammering. He declared that he was executing his orders, and he enjoined them to withdraw.
Upon this several Councillors of State declared that, indignant as they were, they could not place their signatures beside the Republican signatures.
A means of obeying the porter.
M. Bethmont, one of the Presidents of the Council of State, offered the use of his house. He lived in the Rue Saint-Romain. The Republican members repaired there, and without discussion signed the protocol which has been given above.
Some members who lived in the more distant quarters had not been able to come to the meeting. The youngest Councillor of State, a man of firm heart and of noble mind, M. Edouard Charton, undertook to take the protest to his absent colleagues.
He did this, not without serious risk, on foot, not having been able to obtain a carriage, and he was arrested by the soldiery and threatened with being searched, which would have been highly dangerous. Nevertheless he succeeded in reaching some of the Councillors of State. Many signed, Pons de l’Hérault resolutely, Cormenin with a sort of fever, Boudet after some hesitation. M. Boudet trembled, his family were alarmed, they heard through the open window the discharge of artillery. Charton, brave and calm, said to him, “Your friends, Vivien, Rivet, and Stourm have signed.” Boullet signed.
Many refused, one alleging his great age, another the res angusta domi, a third “the fear of doing the work of the Reds.” “Say ‘fear,’ in short,” replied Charton.
On the following day, December 3d, MM. Vivien and Bethmont took the protest to Boulay de la Meurthe, Vice-President of the Republic, and President of the Council of State, who received them in his dressing-gown, and exclaimed to them, “Be off! Ruin yourselves, if you like, but without me.”
On the morning of the 4th, M. de Cormenin erased his signature, giving this unprecedented but authentic excuse: “The word ex-Councillor of State does not look well in a book; I am afraid of injuring my publisher.”
Yet another characteristic detail. M. Béhic, on the morning of the 2d, had arrived while they were drawing up the protest. He had half opened the door. Near the door was standing M. Gautier de Rumilly, one of the most justly respected members of the Council of State. M. Béhic had asked M. Gautier de Rumilly, “What are they doing? It is a crime. What are we doing?” M. Gautier de Rumilly had answered, “A protest.” Upon, this word M. Béhic had reclosed the door, and had disappeared. He reappeared later on under the Empire — a Minister.
Inside the Elysee
During the morning Dr. Yvan met Dr. Conneau. They were acquainted. They talked together. Yvan belonged to the Left. Conneau belonged to the Elysée. Yvan knew through Conneau the details of what had taken place during the night at the Elysée, which he transmitted to us.
One of these details was the following:—
An inexorable decree had been compiled, and was about to be placarded. This decree enjoined upon all submission to the coup d’état. Saint-Arnaud, who, as Minister of War, should sign the decree, had drawn it up. He had reached the last paragraph, which ran thus: “Whoever shall be detected constructing a barricade, posting a placard of the ex-Representatives, or reading it, shall be. . . . ” here Saint-Arnaud had paused; Morny had shrugged his shoulders, had snatched the pen from his hand, and written “shot!”
Other matters had been decided, but these were not recorded.
Various pieces of information came in in addition to these.
A National Guard, named Boillay de Dole, had formed one of the Guard at the Elysée, on the night of the 3d and 4th. The windows of Louis Bonaparte’s private room, which was on the ground floor, were lighted up throughout the night. In the adjoining room there was a Council of War. From the sentry-box where he was stationed Boillay saw defined on the windows black profiles and gesticulating shadows, which were Magnan, Saint-Arnaud, Persigny, Fleury,— the spectres of the crime.
Korte, the General of the Cuirassiers, had been summoned, as also Carrelet, who commanded the division which did the hardest work on the following day, the 4th. From midnight to three o’clock in the morning Generals and Colonels “did nothing but come and go.” Even mere captains had come there. Towards four o’clock some carriages arrived “with women.” Treason and debauchery went hand in hand. The boudoir in the palace answered to the brothel in the barracks.
The courtyard was filled with lancers, who held the horses of the generals who were deliberating.
Two of the women who came that night belong in a certain measure to History. There are always feminine shadows of this sort in the background. These women influenced the unhappy generals. Both belonged to the best circles. The one was the Marquise of ——, she who became enamored of her husband after having deceived him. She discovered that her lover was not worth her husband. Such a thing does happen. She was the daughter of the most whimsical Marshal of France, and of that pretty Countess of —— to whom M. de Chateaubriand, after a night of love, composed this quatrain, which may now be published — all the personages being dead.
The Dawn peeps in at the window, she paints the sky with red;
And over our loving embraces her rosy rays are shed:
She looks on the slumbering world, love, with eyes that seem divine.
But can she show on her lips, love, a smile as sweet as thine?13
The smile of the daughter was as sweet as that of the mother, and more fatal. The other was Madame K——, a Russian, fair, tall, blonde, lighthearted, involved in the hidden paths of diplomacy, possessing and displaying a casket full of love letters from Count Molé somewhat of a spy, absolutely charming and terrifying.
The precautions which had been taken in case of accident were visible even from outside. Since the preceding evening there had been seen from the windows of the neighboring houses two post-chaises in the courtyard of the Elysée, horsed, ready to start, the postilions in their saddles.
In the stables of the Elysée in the Rue Montaigne there were other carriages horsed, and horses saddled and bridled.
Louis Bonaparte had not slept. During the night he had given mysterious orders; thence when morning came there was on this pale face a sort of appalling serenity.
The Crime grown calm was a disquieting symptom.
During the morning he had almost laughed. Morny had come into his private room. Louis Bonaparte, having been feverish, had called in Conneau, who joined in the conversation. People are believed to be trustworthy, nevertheless they listen.
Morny brought the police reports. Twelve workmen of the National Printing Office had, during the night of the Second, refused to print the decrees and the proclamations. They had been immediately arrested. Colonel Forestier was arrested. They had transferred him to the Fort of Bicêtre, together with Crocé Spinelli, Genillier, Hippolyte Magen, a talented and courageous writer, Goudounèche, a schoolmaster, and Polino. This last name had struck Louis Bonaparte. “Who is this Polino?” Morny had answered, “An ex-officer of the Shah of Persia’s service.” And he had added, “A mixture of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.” These prisoners had been placed in Number Six Casemate. Further questions on the part of Louis Bonaparte, “What are these casemates?” And Morny had answered, “Cellars without air or daylight, twenty-four mètres long, eight wide, five high, dripping walls, damp pavements.” Louis Bonaparte had asked, “Do they give them a truss of straw?” And Morny had said, “Not yet, we shall see by and by.” He had added, “Those who are to be transported are at Bicêtre, those who are to be shot are at Ivry.”
Louis Bonaparte had inquired, “What precautions had been taken?” Morny gave him full particulars; that guards had been placed in all the steeples; that all printing-presses had been placed under seal; that all the drums of the National Guard had been locked up; that there was therefore no fear either of a proclamation emanating from a printing-office, or of a call to arms issuing from a Mairie, or of the tocsin ringing from a steeple.
Louis Bonaparte had asked whether all the batteries contained their full complements, as each battery should be composed of four pieces and two mortars. He had expressly ordered that only pieces of eight, and mortars of sixteen centimètres in diameter should be employed.
“In truth,” Morny, who was in the secret, had said, “all this apparatus will have work to do.”
Then Morny had spoken of Mazas, that there were 600 men of the Republican Guards in the courtyard, all picked men, and who when attacked would defend themselves to the bitter end; that the soldiers received the arrested Representatives with shouts of laughter, and that they had gone so far as to stare Thiers in the face; that the officers kept the soldiers at a distance, but with discretion and with a “species of respect;” that three prisoners were kept in solitary confinement, Greppo, Nadaud, and a member of the Socialist Committee, Arsène Meunier. This last named occupied No. 32 of the Sixth Division. Adjoining, in No. 30, there was a Representative of the Right, who sobbed and cried unceasingly. This made Arsène Meunier laugh, and this made Louis Bonaparte laugh.
Another detail. When the fiacre bringing M. Baze was entering the courtyard of Mazas, it had struck against the gate, and the lamp of the fiacre had fallen to the ground and been broken to pieces. The coachman, dismayed at the damage, bewailed it. “Who will pay for this?” exclaimed he. One of the police agents, who was in the carriage with the arrested Questor, had said to the driver, “Don’t be uneasy, speak to the Brigadier. In matters such as this, where there is a breakage, it is the Government which pays.”
And Bonaparte had smiled, and muttered under his moustache, “That is only fair.”
Another anecdote from Morny also amused him. This was Cavaignac’s anger on entering his cell at Mazas. There is an aperture at the door of each cell, called the “spy-hole,” through which the prisoners are played the spy upon unknown to themselves. The jailers had watched Cavaignac. He had begun by pacing up and down with folded arms, and then the space being too confined, he had seated himself on the stool in his cell. These stools are narrow pieces of plank upon three converging legs, which pierce the seat in the centre, and project beyond the plank, so that one is uncomfortably seated. Cavaignac had stood up, and with a violent kick had sent the stool to the other end of the cell. Then, furious and swearing, he had broken with a blow of his fist the little table of five inches by twelve, which, with the stool, formed the sole furniture of the dungeon.
This kick and fisticuff amused Louis Bonaparte.
“And Maupas is as frightened as ever,” said Morny. This made Bonaparte laugh still further.
Morny having given in his report, went away. Louis Bonaparte entered an adjoining room; a woman awaited him there. It appears that she came to entreat mercy for some one. Dr. Conneau heard these expressive words: “Madam, I wink at your loves; do you wink at my hatreds.”
Des rayons du matin l’horizon se colore,
Le jour vient éclairer notre tendre entretien,
Mais est-il un sourire aux lèvres de l’aurore.
Aussi doux que le tien?
Bonaparte’s Familiar Spirits
M. Mérimée was vile by nature, he must not be blamed for it.
With regard to M. de Morny it is otherwise, he was more worthy; there was something of the brigand in him.
M. de Morny was courageous. Brigandage has its sentiments of honor.
M. Mérimée has wrongly given himself out as one of the confederates of the coup d’état. He had, however, nothing to boast of in this.
The truth is that M. Mérimée was in no way a confidant. Louis Bonaparte made no useless confidences.
Let us add that it is little probable, notwithstanding some slight evidence to the contrary, that M. Mérimée, at the date of the 2d December, had any direct relations with Louis Bonaparte. This ensued later on. At first Mérimée only knew Morny.
Morny and Mérimée were both intimate at the Elysée, but on a different footing. Morny can be believed, but not Mérimée. Morny was in the great secrets, Mérimée in the small ones. Commissions of gallantry formed his vocation.
The familiars of the Elysée were of two kinds, the trustworthy confederates and the courtiers.
The first of the trustworthy confederates was Morny; the first — or the last — of the courtiers was Mérimée.
This is what made the fortune of M. Mérimée.
Crimes are only glorious during the first moment; they fade quickly. This kind of success lacks permanency; it is necessary promptly to supplement it with something else.
At the Elysée a literary ornament was wanted. A little savor of the Academy is not out of place in a brigand’s cavern. M. Mérimée was available. It was his destiny to sign himself “the Empress’s Jester.” Madame de Montijo presented him to Louis Bonaparte, who accepted him, and who completed his Court with this insipid but plausible writer.
This Court was a heterogeneous collection; a dinner-wagon of basenesses, a menagerie of reptiles, a herbal of poisons.
Besides the trustworthy confederates who were for use, and the courtiers who were for ornament, there were the auxiliaries.
Certain circumstances called for reinforcements; sometimes these were women, the Flying Squadron.
Sometimes men: Saint-Arnaud, Espinasse, Saint-George, Maupas.
Sometimes neither men nor women: the Marquis de C.
The whole troop was noteworthy.
Let us say a few words of it.
There was Vieillard the preceptor, an atheist with a tinge of Catholicism, a good billiard player.
Vieillard was an anecdotist. He recounted smilingly the following:— Towards the close of 1807 Queen Hortense, who of her own accord lived in Paris, wrote to the King Louis that she could not exist any longer without seeing him, that she could not do without him, and that she was about to come to the Hague. The King said, “She is with child.” He sent for his minister Van Maanen, showed him the Queen’s letter, and added, “She is coming. Very good. Our two chambers communicate by a door; the Queen will find it walled up.” Louis took his royal mantle in earnest, for he exclaimed, “A King’s mantle shall never serve as coverlet to a harlot.” The minister Van Maanen, terrified, sent word of this to the Emperor. The Emperor fell into a rage, not against Hortense, but against Louis. Nevertheless Louis held firm; the door was not walled up, but his Majesty was; and when the Queen came he turned his back upon her. This did not prevent Napoleon III. from being born.
A suitable number of salvoes of cannon saluted this birth.
Such was the story which, in the summer of 1840, in the house called La Terrasse, before witnesses, among whom was Ferdinand B——, Marquis de la L——, a companion during boyhood of the author of this book, was told by M. Vieillard, an ironical Bonapartist, an arrant sceptic.
Besides Vieillard there was Vaudrey, whom Louis Bonaparte made a General at the same time as Espinasse. In case of need a Colonel of Conspiracies can become a General of Ambuscades.
There was Fialin,14 the corporal who became a Duke.
There was Fleury, who was destined to the glory of travelling by the side of the Czar on his buttocks.
There was Lacrosse, a Liberal turned Clerical, one of those Conservatives who push order as far as the embalming, and preservation as far as the mummy: later on a senator.
There was Larabit, a friend of Lacrosse, as much a domestic and not less a senator.
There was Canon Coquereau, the “Abbé of La Belle-Poule.” The answer is known which he made to a princess who asked him, “What is the Elysée?” It appears that one can say to a princess what one cannot say to a woman.
There was Hippolyte Fortoul, of the climbing genus, of the worth of a Gustave Planche or of some Philarête Chasles, an ill-tempered writer who had become Minister of the Marine, which caused Béranger to say, “This Fortoul knows all the spars, including the ‘greased pole.’”
There were some Auvergants there. Two. They hated each other. One had nicknamed the other “the melancholy tinker.”
There was Sainte-Beuve, a distinguished but inferior man, having a pardonable fondness for ugliness. A great critic like Cousin is a great philosopher.
There was Troplong, who had had Dupin for Procurator, and whom Dupin had had for President. Dupin, Troplong; the two side faces of the mask placed upon the brow of the law.
There was Abbatucci; a conscience which let everything pass by. To-day a street.
There was the Abbé M——, later on Bishop of Nancy, who emphasized with a smile the oaths of Louis Bonaparte.
There were the frequenters of a famous box at the Opera, Montg —— and Sept ——, placing at the service of an unscrupulous prince the deep side of frivolous men.
There was Romieu — the outline of a drunkard behind a Red spectre.
There was Malitourne — not a bad friend, coarse and sincere.
There was Cuch ——, whose name caused hesitation amongst the ushers at the saloon doors.
There was Suin — a man able to furnish excellent counsel for bail actions.
There was Dr. Veron — who had on his cheek what the other men of the Elysée had in their hearts.
There was Mocquart — once a handsome member of the Dutch Court. Mocquart possessed romantic recollections. He might by age, and perhaps otherwise, have been the father of Louis Bonaparte. He was a lawyer. He had shown himself quick-witted about 1829, at the same time as Romieu. Later on he had published something, I no longer remember what, which was pompous and in quarto size, and which he sent to me. It was he who in May, 1847, had come with Prince de la Moskowa to bring me King Jérome’s petition to the Chamber of Peers. This petition requested the readmittance of the banished Bonaparte family into France. I supported it; a good action, and a fault which I would again commit.
There was Billault, a semblance of an orator, rambling with facility, and making mistakes with authority, a reputed statesman. What constitutes the statesman is a certain superior mediocrity.
There was Lavalette, completing Morny and Walewski.
There was Bacciochi.
And yet others.
It was at the inspiration of these intimate associates that during his Presidency Louis Bonaparte, a species of Dutch Machiavelli, went hither and thither, to the Chamber and elsewhere, to Tours, to Ham, to Dijon, snuffling, with a sleepy air, speeches full of treason.
The Elysée, wretched as it was, holds a place in the age. The Elysée, has engendered catastrophes and ridicule.
One cannot pass it over in silence.
The Elysée was the disquieting and dark corner of Paris. In this bad spot, the denizens were little and formidable. They formed a family circle — of dwarfs. They had their maxim: to enjoy themselves. They lived on public death. There they inhaled shame, and they throve on that which kills others. It was there that was reared up with art, purpose, industry, and goodwill, the decadence of France. There worked the bought, fed, and obliging public men;— read prostituted. Even literature was compounded there as we have shown; Vieillard was a classic of 1830, Morny created Choufleury, Louis Bonaparte was a candidate for the Academy. Strange place. Rambouillet’s hotel mingled itself with the house of Bancal. The Elysée has been the laboratory, the counting-house, the confessional, the alcove, the den of the reign. The Elysée assumed to govern everything, even the morals — above all the morals. It spread the paint on the bosom of women at the same time as the color on the faces of the men. It set the fashion for toilette and for music. It invented the crinoline and the operetta. At the Elysée a certain ugliness was considered as elegance; that which makes the countenance noble was there scoffed at, as was that which makes the soul great; the phrase, “human face divine” was ridiculed at the Elysée, and it was there that for twenty years every baseness was brought into fashion — effrontery included.
History, whatever may be its pride, is condemned to know that the Elysée existed. The grotesque side does not prevent the tragic side. There is at the Elysée a room which has seen the second abdication, the abdication after Waterloo. It is at the Elysée that Napoleon the First ended and that Napoleon the Third began. It is at the Elysée that Dupin appeared to the two Napoleons; in 1815 to depose the Great, in 1851 to worship the Little. At this last epoch this place was perfectly villainous. There no longer remained one virtue there. At the Court of Tiberius there was still Thraseas, but round Louis Bonaparte there was nobody. If one sought Conscience, one found Baroche; if one sought Religion, one found Montalembert.
A Wavering Ally
During this terribly historical morning of the 4th of December, a day the master was closely observed by his satellites, Louis Bonaparte had shut himself up, but in doing so he betrayed himself. A man who shuts himself up meditates, and for such men to meditate is to premeditate. What could be the premeditation of Louis Bonaparte? What was working in his mind. Questions which all asked themselves, two persons excepted,— Morny, the man of thought; Saint-Arnaud, the man of action.
Louis Bonaparte claimed, justly, a knowledge of men. He prided himself upon it, and from a certain point of view he was right. Others have the power of divination; he had the faculty of scent. It is brute-like, but trustworthy.
He had assuredly not been mistaken in Maupas. To pick the lock of the Law he needed a skeleton key. He took Maupas. Nor could any burglar’s implement have answered better in the lock of the Constitution than Maupas. Neither was he mistaken in Q.B. He saw at once that this serious man had in him the necessary composite qualities of a rascal. And in fact, Q.B., after having voted and signed the Deposition at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, became one of the three reporters of the Joint Commissions; and his share in the abominable total recorded by history amounts to sixteen hundred and thirty four victims.
Louis Bonaparte, however, at times judged amiss, especially respecting Peauger. Peauger, though chosen by him, remained an honest man. Louis Bonaparte, mistrusting the workmen of the National Printing-Office, and not without reason, for twelve, as has been seen, were refractory, had improvised a branch establishment in case of emergency, a sort of State Sub-Printing-Office, as it were, situated in the Rue de Luxembourg, with steam and hand presses, and eight workmen. He had given the management of it to Peauger. When the hour of the Crime arrived, and with it the necessity of printing the nefarious placards, he sounded Peauger, and found him rebellious. He then turned to Saint Georges, a more subservient lackey.
He was less mistaken, but still he was mistaken, in his appreciation of X.
On the 2d of December, X., an ally thought necessary by Morny, became a source of anxiety to Louis Bonaparte.
X. was forty-four years of age, loved women, craved promotion, and, therefore, was not over-scrupulous. He began his career in Africa under Colonel Combes in the forty-seventh of the line. He showed great bravery at Constantine; at Zaatcha he extricated Herbillon, and the siege, badly begun by Herbillon, had been brought to a successful termination by him. X., who was a little short man, his head sunk in his shoulders, was intrepid, and admirably understood the handling of a brigade. Bugeaud, Lamoricière, Cavaignac, and Changarnier were his four stepping-stones to advancement. At Paris, in 1851, he met Lamoricière, who received him coldly, and Changarnier, who treated him better. He left Satory indignant, exclaiming, “We must finish with this Louis Bonaparte. He is corrupting the army. These drunken soldiers make one sick at heart. I shall return to Africa.” In October Changarnier’s influence decreased, and X.‘s enthusiasm abated. X. then frequented the Elysée, but without giving his adherence. He promised his support to General Bedeau, who counted upon him. At daybreak on the 2d of December some one came to waken X. It was Edgar Ney. X. was a prop for the coup d’état, but would he consent? Edgar Ney explained the affair to him, and left him only after seeing him leave the barracks of the Rue Verte at the head of the first regiment. X. took up his position at the Place de la Madeleine. As he arrived there La Rochejaquelein, thrust back from the Chamber by its invaders, crossed the Place. La Rochejaquelein, not yet a Bonapartist, was furious. He perceived X., his old schoolfellow at the Ecole Militaire in 1830, with whom he was on intimate terms. He went up to him, exclaiming, “This is an infamous act. What are you doing?” “I am waiting,” answered X. La Rochejaquelein left him; X. dismounted, and went to see a relation, a Councillor of State, M.R., who lived in the Rue de Suresne. He asked his advice. M.R., an honest man, did not hesitate. He answered, “I am going to the Council of State to do my duty. It is a Crime.” X. shook his head, and said, “We must wait and see.”
This I am waiting, and We must see, preoccupied Louis Bonaparte. Morny said, “Let us make use of the flying squadron.”
Denis Dussoubs
Gaston Dussoubs was one of the bravest members of the Left. He was a Representative of the Haute-Vienne. At the time of his first appearance in the Assembly he wore, as formerly did Théophile Gautier, a red waistcoat, and the shudder which Gautier’s waistcoat caused among the men of letters in 1830, Gaston Dussoubs’ waistcoat caused among the Royalists of 1851. M. Parisis, Bishop of Langres, who would have had no objection to a red hat, was terrified by Gaston Dussoubs’ red waistcoat. Another source of horror to the Right was that Dussoubs had, it was said, passed three years at Belle Isle as a political prisoner, a penalty incurred by the “Limoges Affair.” Universal Suffrage had, it would seem, taken him thence to place him in the Assembly. To go from the prison to the Senate is certainly not very surprising in our changeful times, although it is sometimes followed by a return from the Senate to the prison. But the Right was mistaken, the culprit of Limoges was, not Gaston Dussoubs, but his brother Denis.
In fine, Gaston Dussoubs inspired fear. He was witty, courageous, and gentle.
In the summer of 1851 I went to dine every day at the Concièrgerie with my two sons and my two imprisoned friends. These great hearts and great minds, Vacquerie, Meurice, Charles, and Fran?ois Victor, attracted men of like quality. The livid half-light that crept in through latticed and barred windows disclosed a family circle at which there often assembled eloquent orators, among others Crémieux, and powerful and charming writers, including Peyrat.
One day Michel de Bourges brought to us Gaston Dussoubs.
Gaston Dussoubs lived in the Faubourg St. Germain, near the Assembly.
On the 2d of December we did not see him at our meetings. He was ill, “nailed down” as he wrote me, by rheumatism of the joints, and compelled to keep his bed.
He had a brother younger than himself, whom we have just mentioned, Denis Dussoubs. On the morning of the 4th his brother went to see him.
Gaston Dussoubs knew of the coup d’état, and was exasperated at being obliged to remain in bed. He exclaimed, “I am dishonored. There will be barricades, and my sash will not be there!”
“Yes,” said his brother. “It will be there!”
“How?”
“Lend it to me.”
“Take it.”
Denis took Gaston’s sash, and went away.
We shall see Denis Dussoubs later on.
Items and Interviews
Lamoricière on the same morning found means to convey to me by Madame de Courbonne15 the following information.
“—— Fortress of Ham.— The Commandant’s name is Baudot. His appointment, made by Cavaignac in 1848, was countersigned by Charras. Both are to-day his prisoners. The Commissary of Police, sent by Morny to the village of Ham to watch the movements of the jailer and the prisoners, is Dufaure de Pouillac.”16
I thought when I received this communication that the Commandant Baudot, “the jailer,” had connived at its rapid transmission.
A sign of the instability of the central power.
Lamoricière, by the same means, put me in possession of some details concerning his arrest and that of his fellow-generals.
These details complete those which I have already given.
The arrests of the Generals were affected at the same time at their respective homes under nearly similar circumstances. Everywhere houses surrounded, doors opened by artifice or burst open by force, porters deceived, sometimes garotted, men in disguise, men provided with ropes, men armed with axes, surprises in bed, nocturnal violence. A plan of action which resembled, as I have said, an invasion of brigands.
General Lamoricière, according to his own expression, was a sound sleeper. Notwithstanding the noise at his door, he did not awake. His servant, a devoted old soldier, spoke in a loud voice, and called out to arouse the General. He even offered resistance to the police. A police agent wounded him in the knee with a sword thrust.17 The General was awakened, seized, and carried away.
While passing in a carriage along the Quai Malaquais, Lamoricière noticed troops marching by with their knapsacks on their backs. He leaned quickly forward out of the window. The Commissary of Police thought he was about to address the soldiers. He seized the General by the arm, and said to him, “General, if you say a word I shall put this on you.” And with the other hand he showed him in the dim light something which proved to be a gag.
All the Generals arrested were taken to Mazas. There they were locked up and forgotten. At eight in the evening General Changarnier had eaten nothing.
These arrests were not pleasant tasks for the Commissaries of Police. They were made to drink down their shame in large draughts. Cavaignac, Lefl?, Changarnier, Bedeau, and Lamoricière did not spare them any more than Charras did. As he was leaving, General Cavaignac took some money with him. Before putting it in his pocket, he turned towards Colin, the Commissary of Police who had arrested him, and said, “Will this money be safe on me?”
The Commissary exclaimed, “Oh, General, what are you thinking of?”
“What assurance have I that you are not thieves?” answered Cavaignac. At the same time, nearly the same moment, Charras said to Courteille, the Commissary of Police, “Who can tell me that you are not pick-pockets?”
A few days afterwards these pitiful wretches all received the Cross of the Legion of Honor.
This cross given by the last Bonaparte to policemen after the 2d of December is the same as that affixed by the first Napoleon to the eagles of the Grand Army after Austerlitz.
I communicated these details to the Committee. Other reports came in. A few concerned the Press. Since the morning of the 4th the Press was treated with soldierlike brutality. Serrière, the courageous printer, came to tell us what had happened at the Presse. Serrière published the Presse and the Avénement du Peuple, the latter a new name for the Evénement, which had been judicially suppressed. On the 2d, at seven o’clock in the morning, the printing-office had been occupied by twenty-eight soldiers of the Republican Guard, commanded by a Lieutenant named Pape (since decorated for this achievement). This man had given Serrière an order prohibiting the printing of any article signed “Nusse.” A Commissary of Police accompanied Lieutenant Pape. This Commissary had notified Serrière of a “decree of the President of the Republic,” suppressing the Avénement du Peuple, and had placed sentinels over the presses. The workmen had resisted, and one of them said to the soldiers, “We shall print it in spite of you.” Then forty additional Municipal Guards arrived, with two quarter-masters, four corporals, and a detachment of the line, with drums at their head, commanded by a captain. Girardin came up indignant, and protested with so much energy that a quarter-master said to him, “I should like a Colonel of your stamp.” Girardin’s courage communicated itself to the workmen, and by dint of skill and daring, under the very eyes of the gendarmes, they succeeded in printing Girardin’s proclamations with the hand-press, and ours with the brush. They carried them away wet, in small packages, under their waistcoats.
Luckily the soldiers were drunk. The gendarmes made them drink, and the workmen, profiting by their revels, printed. The Municipal Guards laughed, swore and jested, drank champagne and coffee, and said, “We fill the places of the Representatives, we have twenty-five francs a day.” All the printing-houses in Paris were occupied in the same manner by the soldiery. The coup d’état reigned everywhere. The Crime even ill-treated the Press which supported it. At the office of the Moniteur Parisien, the police agents threatened to fire on any one who should open a door. M. Delamare, director of the Patrie, had forty Municipal Guards on his hands, and trembled lest they should break his presses. He said to one of them, “Why, I am on your side.” The gendarme replied, “What is that to me?”
At three o’clock on the morning of the 4th all the printing-offices were evacuated by the soldiers. The Captain said to Serrière, “We have orders to concentrate in our own quarters.” And Serrière, in announcing this fact, added, “Something is in preparation.”
I had had since the previous night several conversations with Georges Biscarrat, an honest and brave man, of whom I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. I had given him rendezvous at No. 19, Rue Richelieu. Many persons came and went during this morning of the 4th from No. 15, where we deliberated, to No. 19, where I slept.
As I left this honest and courageous man in the street I saw M. Mérimée, his exact opposite, coming towards me.
“Oh!” said M. Mérimée, “I was looking for you.”
I answered him,—
“I hope you will not find me.”
He held out his hand to me, and I turned my back on him.
I have not seen him since. I believe he is dead.
In speaking one day in 1847 with Mérimée about Morny, we had the following conversation:— Mérimée said, “M. de Morny has a great future before him.” And he asked me, “Do you know him?”
I answered,—
“Ah! he has a fine future before him! Yes, I know M. de Morny. He is a clever man. He goes a great deal into society, and conducts commercial operations. He started the Vieille Montagne affair, the zinc-mines, and the coal-mines of Liège. I have the honor of his acquaintance. He is a sharper.”
There was this difference between Mérimée and myself: I despised Morny, and he esteemed him.
Morny reciprocated his feeling. It was natural.
I waited until Mérimée had passed the corner of the street. As soon as he disappeared I went into No. 15.
There, they had received news of Canrobert. On the 2d he went to see Madame Lefl?, that noble woman, who was most indignant at what had happened. There was to be a ball next day given by Saint-Arnaud at the Ministry of War. General and Madame Lefl? were invited, and had made an appointment there with General Canrobert. But the ball did not form a part of Madame Lefl?‘s conversation with him. “General,” said she, “all your comrades are arrested; is it possible that you give your support to such an act?” “What I intend giving,” replied Canrobert, “is my resignation and,” he added, “you may tell General Lefl? so.” He was pale, and walked up and down, apparently much agitated. “Your resignation, General?” “Yes, Madame.” “Is it positive?” “Yes, Madame, if there is no riot.” “General Canrobert,” exclaimed Madame Lefl?, “that if tells me your intentions.”
Canrobert, however, had not yet taken his decision. Indeed, indecision was one of his chief characteristics. Pelissier, who was cross-grained and gruff, used to say, “Judge men by their names, indeed! I am christened Amable, Randon César, and Canrobert Certain.”
The Situation
Although the fighting tactics of the Committee were, for the reasons which I have already given, not to concentrate all their means of resistance into one hour, or in one particular place, but to spread them over as many points and as many days as possible, each of us knew instinctively, as also the criminals of the Elysée on their side, that the day would be decisive.
The moment drew near when the coup d’état would storm us from every side, and when we should have to sustain the onslaught of an entire army. Would the people, that great revolutionary populace of the faubourgs of Paris, abandon their Representatives? Would they abandon themselves? Or, awakened and enlightened, would they at length arise? A question more and more vital, and which we repeated to ourselves with anxiety.
The National Guard had shown no sign of earnestness. The eloquent proclamation, written at Marie’s by Jules Favre and Alexander Rey, and addressed in our name to the National Legions, had not been printed. Hetzel’s scheme had failed. Versigny and Lebrousse had not been able to rejoin him; the place appointed for their meeting, the corner of the boulevard and the Rue de Richelieu, having been continually scoured by charges of cavalry. The courageous effort of Colonel Grassier to win over the Sixth Legion, the more timid attempt of Lieutenant Colonel Howyne upon the Fifth, had failed. Nevertheless indignation began to manifest itself in Paris. The preceding evening had been significant.
Hingray came to us during the morning, bringing under his cloak a bundle of copies of the Decree of Deposition, which had been reprinted. In order to bring them to us he had twice run the risk of being arrested and shot. We immediately caused these copies to be distributed and placarded. This placarding was resolutely carried out; at several points our placards were posted by the side of the placards of the coup d’état, which pronounced the penalty of death against any one who should placard the decrees emanating from the Representatives. Hingray told us that our proclamations and our decrees had been lithographed and distributed by hand in thousands. It Was urgently necessary that we should continue our publications. A printer, who had formerly been a publisher of several democratic journals, M. Boulé, had offered me his services on the preceding evening. In June, 1848, I had protected his printing-office, then being devastated by the National Guards. I wrote to him: I enclosed our judgments and our decrees in the letter, and the Representative Montaigu undertook to take them to him. M. Boulé excused himself; his printing-presses had been seized by the police at midnight.
Through the precautions which we had taken, and thanks to the patriotic assistance of several young medical and chemical students, powder had been manufactured in several quarters. At one point alone, the Rue Jacob, a hundred kilogrammes had been turned out during the night. As, however, this manufacture was principally carried out on the left bank of the river, and as the fighting took place on the right bank, it was necessary to transport this powder across the bridges. They managed this In the best manner they could. Towards nine o’clock we were warned that the police, having been informed of this, had organized a system of inspection, and that all persons crossing the river were searched, particularly on the Pont Neuf.
A certain strategical plan became manifest. The ten central bridges mere militarily guarded.
People were arrested in the street on account of their personal appearance. A sergent-de-ville, at the corner of he Pont-au-Change, exclaimed, loud enough for the passers-by to hear, “We shall lay hold of all those who have not their beards properly trimmed, or who do not appear to have slept.”
Notwithstanding all this we had a little powder; the disarming of the National Guard at various points had produced about eight hundred muskets, our proclamations and our decrees were being placarded, our voice was reaching the people, a certain confidence was springing up.
“The wave is rising! the wave is rising!” exclaimed Edgar Quinet, who had come to shake my hand.
We were informed that the schools were rising in insurrection during the day, and that they offered us a refuge in the midst of them.
Jules Favre exclaimed joyfully,—
“To-morrow we shall date our decrees from the Pantheon.”
Signs of good omen grew more numerous. An old hotbed of insurrection, the Rue Saint-André-des-Arts, was becoming agitated. The association called La Presse du Travail gave signs of life. Some brave workmen, at the house of one of their colleagues, Nétré No. 13, Rue du Jardinet, had organized a little printing-press in a garret, a few steps from the barracks of the Gendarmerie Mobile. They had spent the night first in compiling, and then in printing “A Manifesto to Working Men,” which called the people to arms. They were five skilful and determined men; they had procured paper, they had perfectly new type; some of them moistened the paper, while the others composed; towards two o’clock in the morning they began to print. It was essential that they should not be heard by the neighbors; they had succeeded in muffling the hollow blows of the ink-rollers, alternating with the rapid sound of the printing blankets. In a few hours fifteen hundred copies were pulled, and at daybreak they were placarded at the corners of the streets. The leader of these intrepid workmen, A. Desmoulins, who belonged to that sturdy race of men who are both cultured and who can fight, had been greatly disheartened on the preceding day; he now had become hopeful.
On the preceding day he wrote:—“Where are the Representatives? The communications are cut. The quays and the boulevards can no longer be crossed. It has become impossible to reunite the popular Assembly. The people need direction. De Flotte in one district, Victor Hugo in another, Schoelcher in a third, are actively urging on the combat, and expose their lives a score of times, but none feel themselves supported by any organized body: and moreover the attempt of the Royalists in the Tenth Arrondissement has roused apprehension. People dread lest they should see them reappear when all is accomplished.”
Now, this man so intelligent and so courageous recovered confidence, and he wrote,—
“Decidedly, Louis Napoleon is afraid. The police reports are alarming for him. The resistance of the Republican Representatives is bearing fruit. Paris is arming. Certain regiments appear ready to turn back. The Gendarmerie itself is not to be depended upon, and this morning an entire regiment refused to march. Disorder is beginning to show itself in the services. Two batteries fired upon each other for a long time without recognition. One would say that the coup d’état is about to fail.”
The symptoms, as may be seen, were growing more reassuring.
Had Maupas become unequal to the task? Had they resorted to a more skilful man? An incident seemed to point to this. On the preceding evening a tall man had been seen, between five and seven o’clock, walking up and down before the café of the Place Saint-Michel; he had been joined by two of the Commissaries of the Police who had effected the arrests of the 2d of December, and had talked to them for a long time. This man was Carlier. Was he about to supplant Maupas?
The Representative Labrousse, seated at a table of the café, had witnessed this conspirators’ parley.
Each of the two Commissaries was followed by that species of police agent which is called “the Commissary’s dog.”
At the same time strange warnings reached the Committee; the following letter18 was brought to our knowledge.
“3d December.
“MY DEAR BOCAGE,
“To-day at six o’clock, 25,000 francs has been offered to any one who
arrests or kills Hugo.
“You know where he is. He must not go out under any pretext whatever.
“Yours ever,
“AL. DUMAS.”
At the back was written, “Bocage, 18, Rue Cassette.” It was necessary that the minutest details should be considered. In the different places of combat a diversity of passwords prevailed, which might cause danger. For the password on the day before we had given the name of “Baudin.” In imitation of this the names of other Representatives had been adopted as passwords on barricades. In the Rue Rambuteau the password was “Eugène Sue and Michel de Bourges;” in the Rue Beaubourg, “Victor Hugo;” at the Saint Denis chapel, “Esquiros and De Flotte.” We thought it necessary to put a stop to this confusion, and to suppress the proper names, which are always easy to guess. The password settled upon was, “What is Joseph doing?”
At every moment items of news and information came to us from all sides, that barricades were everywhere being raised, and that firing was beginning in the central streets. Michel de Bourges exclaimed, “Construct a square of four barricades, and we will go and deliberate in the centre.”
We received news from Mont Valérien. Two prisoners the more. Rigal and Belle had just been committed. Both of the Left. Dr. Rigal was the Representative of Gaillac, and Belle of Lavaur. Rigal was ill; they had arrested him in bed. In prison he lay upon a pallet, and could not dress himself. His colleague Belle acted as his valet de chambre.
Towards nine o’clock an ex-Captain of the 8th Legion of the National Guard of 1848, named Jourdan, came to place himself at our service. He was a bold man, one of those who had carried out, on the morning of the 24th February, the rash surprise of the H?tel de Ville. We charged him to repeat this surprise, and to extend it to the Prefecture of Police. He knew how to set about the work. He told us that he had only a few men, but that during the day he would cause certain houses of strategical importance on the Quai des Cèvres, on the Quai Lepelletier, and in the Rue de la Cité, to be silently occupied, and that if it should chance that the leaders of the coup d’état, owing to the combat in the centre of Paris growing more serious, should be forced to withdraw the troops from the H?tel de Ville and the Prefecture, an attack would be immediately commenced on these two points. Captain Jourdan, we may at once mention, did what he had promised us; unfortunately, as we learnt that evening, he began perhaps a little too soon. As he had foreseen, a moment arrived when the square of the H?tel de Ville was almost devoid of troops, General Herbillon having been forced to leave it with his cavalry to take the barricades of the centre in the rear. The attack of the Republicans burst forth instantly. Musket shots were fired from the windows on the Quai Lepelletier; but the left of the column was still on the Pont d’Arcole, a line of riflemen had been placed by a major named Larochette before the H?tel de Ville, the 44th retraced its steps, and the attempt failed.
Bastide arrived, with Chauffour and Laissac.
“Good news,” said he to us, “all is going on well.” His grave, honest, and dispassionate countenance shone with a sort of patriotic serenity. He came from the barricades, and was about to return thither. He had received two balls in his cloak. I took him aside, and said to him, “Are you going back?” “Yes.” “Take me with you.” “No,” answered he, “you are necessary here. To-day you are the general, I am the soldier.” I insisted in vain. He persisted in refusing, repeating continually. “The Committee is our centre, it should not disperse itself. It is your duty to remain here. Besides,” added he, “Make your mind easy. You run here more risk than we do. If you are taken you will be shot.” “Well, then,” said I, “the moment may come when our duty will be to join in the combat.” “Without doubt.” I resumed, “You who are on the barricades will be better judges than we shall of that moment. Give me your word of honor that you will treat me as you would wish me to treat you, and that you will come and fetch us.” “I give it you,” he answered, and he pressed my two hands in his own.
Later on, however, a few moments after Bastide had left, great as was my confidence in the loyal word of this courageous and generous man, I could no longer restrain myself, and I profited by an interval of two hours of which I could dispose, to go and see with my own eyes what was taking place, and in what manner the resistance was behaving.
I took a carriage in the square of the Palais Royal. I explained to the driver who I was, and that I was about to visit and encourage the barricades; that I should go sometimes on foot, sometimes in the carriage, and that I trusted myself to him. I told him my name.
The first comer is almost always an honest man. This true-hearted coachman answered me, “I know where the barricades are. I will drive you wherever it is necessary. I will wait for you wherever it is necessary. I will drive you there and bring you back; and if you have no money, do not pay me, I am proud of such an action.”
And we started.
The Porte Saint Martin
Important deeds had been already achieved during the morning.
“It is taking root,” Bastide had said.
The difficulty is not to spread the flames but to light the fire.
It was evident that Paris began to grow ill-tempered. Paris does not get angry at will. She must be in the humor for it. A volcano possesses nerves. The anger was coming slowly, but it was coming. On the horizon might be seen the first glimmering of the eruption.
For the Elysée, as for us, the critical moment was drawing nigh. From the preceding evening they were nursing their resources. The coup d’état and the Republic were at length about to close with each other. The Committee had in vain attempted to drag the wheel; some irresistible impulse carried away the last defenders of liberty and hurried them on to action. The decisive battle was about to be fought.
In Paris, when certain hours have sounded, when there appears an immediate necessity for a progressive movement to be carried out, or a right to be vindicated, the insurrections rapidly spread throughout the whole city. But they always begin at some particular point. Paris, in its vast historical task, comprises two revolutionary classes, the “middle-class” and the “people.” And to these two combatants correspond two places of combat; the Porte Saint Martin when the middle-class are revolting, the Bastille when the people are revolting. The eye of the politician should always be fixed on these two points. There, famous in contemporary history, are two spots where a small portion of the hot cinders of Revolution seem ever to smoulder.
When a wind blows from above, these burning cinders are dispersed, and fill the city with sparks.
This time, as we have already explained, the formidable Faubourg Antoine slumbered, and, as has been seen, nothing had been able to awaken it. An entire park of artillery was encamped with lighted matches around the July Column, that enormous deaf-and-dumb memento of the Bastille. This lofty revolutionary pillar, this silent witness of the great deeds of the past, seemed to have forgotten all. Sad to say, the paving stones which had seen the 14th of July did not rise under the cannon-wheels of the 2d of December. It was therefore not the Bastille which began, it was the Porte Saint Martin.
From eight o’clock in the morning the Rue Saint Denis and the Rue Saint Martin were in an uproar throughout their length; throngs of indignant passers-by went up and down those thoroughfares. They tore down the placards of the coup d’état; they posted up our Proclamations; groups at the corners of all the adjacent streets commented upon the decree of outlawry drawn up by the members of the Left remaining at liberty; they snatched the copies from each other. Men mounted on the kerbstones read aloud the names of the 120 signatories, and, still more than on the day before, each significant or celebrated name was hailed with applause. The crowd increased every moment — and the anger. The entire Rue Saint Denis presented the strange aspect of a street with all the doors and windows closed, and all the inhabitants in the open air. Look at the houses, there is death; look at the street, it is the tempest.
Some fifty determined men suddenly emerged from a side alley, and began to run through the streets, saying, “To arms! Long live the Representatives of the Left! Long live the Constitution!” The disarming of the National Guards began. It was carried out more easily than on the preceding evening. In less than an hour more than 150 muskets had been obtained.
In the meanwhile the street became covered with barricades.