Adeoti Yetunde

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME THE TESTIMONY OF AN EYE – WITNESS BY VICTOR HUGO (THE FIRST DAY) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Victor Hugo begins by describing the atmosphere in Paris on the morning of the coup d’état of December 2, 1851, when Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte seized power. The city awakens to find itself under military occupation, soldiers line the streets, posters cover the walls, and the constitution has been suspended. Confusion and fear spread quickly among the citizens, who learn that the National Assembly has been dissolved and that their elected representatives are being arrested or hunted down. Hugo, an eyewitness, recounts the shock and disbelief of the people. He sees honest citizens, workers, and shopkeepers reading the proclamations with anger and sorrow. The streets fill with tension as troops block main routes and guard public buildings. Paris, which had gone to sleep under a republic, wakes up under a dictatorship. Determined to defend the Republic, Hugo and a few other representatives gather secretly to decide what to do. They feel a strong sense of duty and courage, though they know they are facing danger. Their goal is to resist the coup and protect France’s democracy, even at great personal risk. By the end of the first day, the situation grows darker. The military controls the city, arrests continue, and resistance is already being suppressed. Hugo closes the day’s account with a sense of moral outrage and foreboding — he realizes that France is entering a tragic struggle between liberty and tyranny, and that this day will mark the beginning of a long and painful fight for freedom. THE AMBUSH CHAPTER I SECURITY On December 1, 1851, Charras shrugged his shoulders and unloaded his pistols. The very idea of a coup d’état had become almost insulting to common sense. To imagine such lawless violence from Louis Bonaparte seemed absurd. When one reflected seriously, the possibility vanished. The great topic of the day was not rebellion, but the deviance election. Clearly, the government had no other concern. As for a conspiracy against the republic and the people, who could even conceive it, why was the man capable of such madness, for a tragedy, one must have an actor, and here, the actor was lacking. To outrage right, suppress the assembly, abolish the constitution, strangle the republic, overthrow the nation, stain the flag, dishonour the army, corrupt the clergy and the magistracy, exile and imprison citizens, transport and assassinate and after all that, reign and administer over the ruins! By whom was all this to be done? By giant? No, by a dwarf. People laughed at the very notion “what a crime” they no longer said what a farce, they exclaimed. For after all, certain crimes require stature. To achieve an 18th Brumaire, one must have Arcola behind him and Austerlitz before him. Great scoundrels, like great men, must be born to the part. This man, the son of Hortense, who was he, Strasbourg instead of Arcola, Boulogne instead of Austerlitz. A Frenchman by chance, born a Dutchman, naturalized a Swiss, a Bonaparte diluted by a Verhuell. His only fame lay in the absurdity of his imperial postures. To pluck a feather from his eagle would be to find a goose’s quill. This Bonaparte was no coin of the true metal, he was a counterfeit, not of gold, but of lead. Surely, French soldiers would never take him in exchange for the real Napoleon, not for his rebellion, his atrocities, his massacres, his treasons. If he ever attempted roguery, it would fail, not a regiment would stir. Besides, why should he attempt such a thing, suspicious, perhaps but not depraved? These extreme outrages were beyond him, physically incapable, he must be morally incapable too. Had he not pledged his honour, had he not said, “No one in Europe doubts my word” let us fear nothing. To this, one might reply crimes are committed either on a grand or on a petty scale. On the grand scale there is Caesar, on the petty, there is Mandrin. Caesar crosses the Rubicon while Mandrin steps across a gutter. Still, the wise urged moderation, are we not prejudiced by suspicion, the man has suffered exile, misfortune corrects and exile enlightens. Louis Bonaparte himself protested, his words seemed sincere, his actions reassuring. Why should he not act in good faith, he had made promises that are remarkable. In October 1848, while he was a candidate for presidency, he visited a certain personage at No. 37, Rue de la Tour d’Auvergne. He requested for an explanation, why he was slander, he asked if he strikes as a madman. They accuse him of wishing to revive Napoleon. There are two great men ambition that may imitate Napoleon and Washington. The one is Genius, the other Virtue. It is foolish if he says, ‘I will be a man of Genius,’ but honest to say, ‘I will be a man of Virtue.’ Genius cannot be willed but Probity can. What could I revive of Napoleon if not one thing only which is a crime? Truly, a noble ambition, why should I be considered a danger, the republic is established. I will not copy Napoleon but I will imitate Washington. My name, Bonaparte, will stand on two pages of French history, on the first, crime and glory, on the second, probity and honour. The second, perhaps, will be worth the first. Between the guilty hero and the good citizen, I choose the good citizen and that is my ambition. Three years passed, from 1848 to 1851. Long suspicion dulled judgment. People wearied of doubting him. Louis Bonaparte had employed both dissemblers like Magne and Rouher, and honest men like Léon Faucher and Odilon Barrot in which the latter swore to his sincerity. Had he not beaten his breast before the gates of Ham? His foster-sister, Madame Hortense Cornu, wrote to Mierosławski, “I am a good Republican, and I vouch for him.” His fellow prisoner at Ham, Peauger, a man of integrity said, “Louis Bonaparte is incapable of treason, had he not written that serious work Pauperism? At the Élysée, his circle was mixed, Count Potocki was a Republican, Count d’Orsay a Liberal. To Potocki he said, “I am a man of Democracy”; to D’Orsay, “I am a man of Liberty.” The Marquis du Hallays opposed any coup d’état, while the Marquise approved it. “Fear nothing,” said Louis Bonaparte to the Marquis and to the Marquise, “Set your mind at ease.” After brief unease, the assembly calmed down; there was General Neumayer at Lyons, “dependable” and loyal. Changarnier reassured every one of the fact that “Representatives of the People, deliberate in peace.” Even Louis Bonaparte himself had solemnly declared that he would regard as an enemy of my country, anyone who should change by force what has been established by law. The Army, after all, was the force and it was led by beloved, victorious generals like Lamoricière, Changarnier, Cavaignac, Leflô, Bedeau, Charras. Who could imagine the Army of Africa arresting the Generals of Africa? On Friday, November 28, 1851, Louis Bonaparte said to Michel de Bourges, “If I wished to do wrong, I could not. Yesterday I invited to dinner five colonels of the Paris garrison and questioned them separately. All five declared that the Army would never lend itself to a coup de force, nor violate the inviolability of the Assembly. You may tell your friends this.” “He smiled,” said Michel de Bourges, “and I also smiled.” Reassured, he went forth to proclaim from the Tribune, “This is the man for me!” That same November, a satirical journal was fined and imprisoned for publishing a cartoon depicting Louis Bonaparte at a shooting-gallery, firing at a target labelled the constitution. At a Council meeting soon after, Morigny, Minister of the Interior, declared that a guardian of public power must never violate the law, for otherwise he would be a dishonest man, the President interjected gravely. All this was public knowledge, the moral and material impossibility of a coup d’état seemed self-evident. To outrage the National Assembly! To arrest the Representatives! Madness! As we have seen, Charras long on guard now unloaded his pistols. The feeling of security was absolute and unanimous. And yet, a few of us in the Assembly still harboured doubts still shook our heads but we were only laughed at as fools. CHAPTER II PARIS SLEEPS — THE BELL RINGS On the morning of December 2, 1851, Representative Versigny, of the HauteSaône, who lived at No. 4, Rue Léonie in Paris, was sound asleep. He had worked late into the night. Versigny was a young man of thirty-two, fair-complexioned, gentle in appearance, yet firm in spirit, with a mind inclined toward social and economic study. The first hours of the night had found him reading a book by Bastiat, on which he had been jotting marginal notes. Leaving the volume open upon his table, he had fallen into deep slumber. Suddenly, a sharp ring at the bell startled him awake. He sat up, bewildered, dawn was breaking; it was about seven o’clock in the morning. Never imagining what could prompt such an early visit, and thinking someone had simply mistaken the door, he lay down again, but a second, louder ring roused him completely. Throwing on a dressing-gown, he opened the door, Michel de Bourges and Théodore Bac stood before him. Michel de Bourges, who lived nearby at No. 16, Rue de Milan, and his companion were both pale and visibly agitated. “Versigny,” said Michel, “dress yourself at once, Baune has just been arrested.” “Bah!” exclaimed Versigny. “Is this the Mauguin business all over again?” “It’s worse than that,” replied Michel. Baune’s wife and daughter came to me half an hour ago. They woke me, Baune was taken from his bed at six this morning. “What does this mean?” asked Versigny. The bell rang again. “That will tell us,” said Michel de Bourges. Versigny opened the door. It was Representative Pierre Lefranc. He brought, indeed, the explanation. “Do you know what is happening?” he asked. “Yes,” replied Michel, “Baune is in prison.” “It is the Republic that is in prison,” said Pierre Lefranc gravely. “Have you read the placards?” “No.” Pierre Lefranc told them that the walls of Paris were covered with posters, around which crowds were gathering to read. He had seen one at the corner of his street and the blow had fallen. “The blow!” cried Michel. “Say rather the crime.” Lefranc went on saying there were three placards, all on white paper and pasted side by side, one decree and two proclamations. The decree was printed in large letters. At that moment, the ex-Constituent Laissac, who also lived nearby at No. 4, Cité Gaillard, entered. He brought the same news, and added word of further arrests made during the night. There was not a moment to lose; they decided to go immediately to Yvan. Secretary of the Assembly appointed by the Left, who lived in the Rue de Boursault, an urgent meeting was necessary. The Republican Representatives still at liberty must be warned and gathered without delay. “I will go and find Victor Hugo,” said Versigny. It was now eight o’clock, I was awake and working in bed when my servant entered, visibly alarmed. “A Representative of the People is outside who wishes to speak with you, sir.” “Who is it?” “Monsieur Versigny.” “Show him in.” Versigny entered and told me all. I sprang out of bed. He spoke of the rendezvous arranged at the rooms of the ex-Constituent Laissac. “Go at once and inform the other Representatives,” I said and he departed. CHAPTER III. WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT Prior to the fatal days of June 1848, the Esplanade des Invalides was divided into eight large grass plots, each surrounded by wooden railings and enclosed between two groves of trees. A road ran perpendicular to the front of the Hôtel des Invalides, separating the groves and was crossed by three streets running parallel to the Seine. These expansive lawns were popular with children, who often played there. At the centre of the eight plots stood a pedestal that had borne various symbols over time: during the Empire, the bronze lion of St. Mark, brought from Venice, under the restoration, a white marble statue of Louis XVIII and under LouisPhilippe, a plaster bust of Lafayette. Following the near seizure of the Palais de l’Assemblée Constituante by insurgents on June 22, 1848, and due to the absence of nearby barracks, General Cavaignac ordered the construction of several long huts on the grass plots of the Esplanade for about 300 paces from the Legislative Palace. These huts, which concealed the grass beneath them, could accommodate three to four thousand soldiers. The troops stationed there were tasked specifically with safeguarding the National Assembly. By December 1, 1851, two regiments were encamped on the Esplanade, the 6th Regiment of the Line, commanded by Colonel Garderens de Boisse (noted before December 2), and the 42nd Regiment, commanded by Colonel Espinasse (who would gain renown afterward). The usual night guard of the Assembly Palace consisted of a battalion of infantry, thirty artillerymen under a captain, and several troopers dispatched by the Minister of War for orderly duties. In a small courtyard to the right of the Cour d'Honneur called the Cour des Canons, two mortars and six cannons, along with their ammunition wagons, were stationed. The Major, serving as military commandant of the Palace, reported directly to the Questors. At nightfall, gates and doors were secured, sentries posted, orders distributed, and the Palace sealed like a fortress. The password was identical to that used in the Place de Paris. Special orders issued by the Questors strictly prohibited the entry of any armed forces apart from the regiment officially on duty. On the night of December 1st to 2nd, the Legislative Palace was guarded by a battalion of the 42nd Regiment. The session held that day had been notably peaceful, devoted to discussions on municipal law. It ended late, concluding with a vote in the Tribune. Just as M. Baze, one of the Questors, ascended the Tribune to cast his vote, a representative belonging to what was known as Les Bancs Elyséens approached him and whispered, "Tonight you will be carried off." Such warnings had become common, and as previously noted, they were no longer taken seriously. Nevertheless, once the session ended, the Questors summoned the Special Commissary of Police attached to the Assembly. President Dupin was also present, when questioned, the Commissary replied that his agents reported "dead calm", that was his exact phrase and insisted there was no danger to be feared that night. When pressed further by the Questors, President Dupin simply exclaimed, "Bah!" and left the room. That same afternoon, around three o’clock, General Leflô’s father-in-law was crossing the boulevard in front of Tortoni’s when someone hurried past and whispered ominously in his ear: “Eleven o’clock—midnight.” This strange incident aroused little concern at the Questure, and several even laughed it off. Such rumours had become routine. Still, General Leflô refused to go to bed before the appointed hour had passed. He remained in the Questure offices until nearly one in the morning. The shorthand department of the Assembly operated externally. Four messengers from Le Moniteur were responsible for transporting the stenographers’ transcripts to the printing office and returning with proof sheets for final correction. M. Hippolyte Prévost, chief of the stenographic staff, handled these corrections. He had living quarters in the palace and was also editor of Le Moniteur's musical column. On the evening of December 1st, he attended the first performance of a new play at the Opéra-Comique and didn’t return until after midnight. The fourth messenger was waiting for him with the final proof of the session. Prévost reviewed and corrected it, then dispatched the messenger. It was just past one o’clock. All around was profoundly quiet except for the guards, everyone in the palace was asleep. Around this hour, a peculiar incident occurred. The Captain-Adjutant Major of the Guard of the Assembly approached the Commandant and said, “The Colonel has sent for me.” Following military protocol, he added, “Will you permit me to go?” The Commandant was surprised. “Go,” he said sharply, “but the Colonel is wrong to disturb an officer on duty.” One of the soldiers on guard, overhearing this, did not understand the context but later recalled the commandant pacing and muttering, “What the deuce can he want?” about the Colonel. Half an hour later, the Adjutant-Major returned.“Well” asked the Commandant. “What did the Colonel want?” “Nothing,” he replied. “He just gave me the orders for tomorrow’s duties.” As the night wore on, around four o’clock, the Adjutant-Major came once more to the Major. “Major,” he said, “the Colonel has asked for me again.” “Again!” exclaimed the Commandant. “This is becoming strange... nevertheless, go.” The Adjutant-Major, among other responsibilities, issued the instructions to the sentries, he had authority to change or rescind them. Once he left, the Major, growing uneasy, decided it was necessary to alert the Military Commandant of the palace. He ascended to the apartment of Lieutenant-Colonel Niols, but Colonel Niols had gone to bed and the staff had retired to their attic quarters. Unfamiliar with the building and its layout, the Major groped through dark corridors and rang the bell at a door he assumed was the commandant’s. no one answered. The door remained closed he descended again, having spoken to no one. Meanwhile, the Adjutant-Major had returned but the Major never saw him again. Instead, the Adjutant remained by the grated door leading to place Bourgogne, cloaked and pacing in the courtyard, as if awaiting someone. At precisely five o’clock, the great clock of the dome rang out and at that moment, the soldiers asleep in the huts before the Invalides were suddenly awakened. Quiet orders began to circulate; voices rang out quietly in the huts: take up arms in silence. Shortly afterward, two regiments, knapsacks on their backs, began marching toward the palace of the assembly; they were the 6th and the 42nd. At the very same stroke of five o’clock, in every district of Paris, infantry soldiers began filing silently out of their barracks, led by their colonels. Louis Bonaparte’s aides-de-camp and orderly officers, who had been stationed across the city in advance, oversaw the mobilization. The cavalry, however, was not set in motion until three-quarters of an hour later. It was feared that the sound of horses’ hooves on cobblestones might awaken sleeping Paris too early. M. de Persigny, who had carried the order from the Élysée to the Invalides camp, marched at the head of the 42nd Regiment, alongside Colonel Espinasse. A story circulated in the army still told today, though people, wearied by dishonour, repeat it with grim indifference. According to this tale, just as one regiment was about to set out, its colonel whose name could be given hesitated. Sensing doubt, the Élysée's emissary pulled a sealed envelope from his pocket and said: “Colonel, I admit we are taking a great risk. Here, in this envelope, which I have been instructed to deliver to you, are one hundred thousand francs in banknotes for contingencies.” The envelope was accepted. The regiment departed. That evening, on December 2nd, the colonel allegedly boasted to a lady, “this morning, I earned one hundred thousand francs and my General’s epaulets.” The lady showed him the door. Xavier Durrieu, who later recounted this story, was curious enough to seek out the woman. She confirmed it, she had indeed slammed the door in the face of that man. “A soldier,” she said, “a traitor to his flag, who dared to visit me! Receive such a man? Never! And,” Durrieu adds, “she concluded with yet, I have no character to lose.” Meanwhile, another mystery was unfolding at the Prefecture of Police. Anyone walking through the Cité late that night might have noticed an unusual number of street cabs lingering in small, scattered groups around the Rue de Jérusalem. Since eleven o’clock that evening, under the pretence of receiving refugees from Genoa and London, the entire Sûreté Brigade along with 800 sergents de ville had been kept inside the prefecture. At three o’clock in the morning, summonses were sent to the forty-eight commissaries of Paris and its suburbs, as well as to the peace officers. An hour later, they had all arrived. They were led into a separate room and kept apart from one another as much as possible. At five o’clock, a bell rang in the office of the Prefect. Prefect Maupas began calling in the commissaries, one by one. Inside his cabinet, he revealed the plan and assigned to each their part in the crime which none refused and many thanked him. The task is to arrest in their homes, seventy-eight Democrats, individuals influential in their districts and viewed by the Élysée as potential leaders of a barricade uprising. Even more brazen, the arrest of sixteen sitting representatives of the people, also in their homes. For this mission, Maupas selected from among the commissaries those who seemed most inclined to become executioners in uniform. These magistrates were each assigned a name.  Sieur Courtille was given Charras.  Sieur Desgranges received Nadaud.  Sieur Hubaut the elder was sent after M. Thiers.  Sieur Hubaut the younger was assigned General Bedeau.  General Changarnier was designated to Lerat. General Cavaignac was assigned to Colin. Sieur Dourlens took representative Valentin; Sieur Benoist, representative Miot; Sieur Allard, representative Cholat; and Sieur Barlet took Roger (du Nord). General Lamoricière fell to Commissary Blanchet; Commissary Gronfier was assigned to representative Greppo; and Commissary Boudrot to representative Lagrange. The Questors were similarly allotted, Monsieur Baze to Sieur Primorin, and General Leflô to Sieur Bertoglio. Warrants bearing the names of the representatives had already been drawn up in the prefect’s private cabinet, with only the names of the commissaries left blank. These blanks were filled in at the moment of departure. In addition to the armed force appointed to assist them, it had been decided that each commissary should be accompanied by two escorts, one composed of sergents de ville, the other of plain clothes police agents. As Prefect Maupas had told M. Bonaparte, Captain Baudinet of the Republican Guard was assigned to accompany Commissary Lerat in the arrest of General Changarnier. By half-past five, the fiacres that had been waiting were called up, and all departed, each with his instructions. Meanwhile, in another part of Paris, the old Rue du Temple within the ancient Soubise Mansion (formerly a Royal Printing Office, and now the National Printing Office), another section of the crime was being organized. Around one in the morning, a passer-by who had reached Rue du Temple via Rue des Vieilles-Haudriettes noticed several tall windows brilliantly illuminated. These were the workrooms of the National Printing Office. Curious, he turned right into Rue du Temple and paused before the crescent-shaped entrance of the building. The main door was shut, and two sentinels guarded a side entrance. Through the half-open door, he glimpsed the courtyard filled with silent soldiers, their bayonets glistening in the light. As he drew nearer, one of the sentinels roughly pushed him back, shouting, “Be off!” As at the Prefecture of Police, the workmen had been detained at the Printing Office under the pretext of night work. Around this same time, as M. Hippolyte Prévost returned to the Legislative Palace, the manager of the Printing Office came back from the Opéra Comique, where he had attended a new piece written by his brother, M. de St. Georges. Upon his return, the manager who had received an order from the Élysée earlier that day took up a pair of pocket pistols and went down into the vestibule leading to the courtyard. Soon after, the street door opened and a fiacre entered. A man carrying a large portfolio alighted. “Is that you, Monsieur de Béville?” asked the manager. “Yes,” the man replied. The fiacre was taken into the courtyard, the horses placed in the stable, and the coachman ushered into a parlor, where he was given wine and a purse of gold. Bottles of wine and louis d’or such was the foundation of this kind of politics. The coachman drank, fell asleep, and the door of the parlour was bolted. No sooner had the courtyard gate closed than it reopened again, allowing entry to armed men who advanced in silence. It was a company of the Gendarmerie Mobile the fourth of the first battalion, commanded by Captain La Roche d’Oisy. As the outcome would later show, in all delicate operations the men of the coup d’état took care to employ the Gendarmerie Mobile and the Republican Guard the two corps almost entirely composed of former Municipal Guards, who still harboured a bitter memory of the events of February. Captain La Roche d’Oisy arrived bearing a letter from the Minister of War, placing himself and his soldiers at the disposal of the manager of the National Printing Office. The muskets were loaded in silence, sentinels were posted everywhere within the workrooms, in the corridors, at every door and window two of them at the entrance to the street. The captain asked what instructions he should give his men. “Nothing simpler,” replied the man who had arrived in the fiacre. “Whoever attempts to leave or open a window, shoot him.” This man was, in fact, De Béville, orderly officer to M. Bonaparte. He withdrew with the manager to a large office on the first floor overlooking the garden. There, he delivered the documents he had brought, the decree dissolving the assembly, the appeals to the army and to the people, the decree convoking the electors, and, in addition, the Prefect Maupas’s proclamation and his letter to the Commissaries of Police. The first four documents were entirely in the President’s handwriting, with several erasures still visible. The compositors were already waiting. Each was placed between two gendarmes and forbidden to utter a word. The texts to be printed were distributed in small fragments, so that no single workman could read an entire sentence. The manager gave them one hour to complete the composition. When the fragments were assembled, they were brought to Colonel Béville, who pieced them together and corrected the proofs. The printing itself proceeded under the same strict precautions, each press watched by two soldiers. Despite every effort, the work lasted two hours. The gendarmes watched the workmen, Béville watched St. Georges. When the task was done, a suspicious incident occurred, something resembling treason within treason, such crimes often breed their own betrayals. Béville and St. Georges, the two trusted confidants holding the secret of the coup d’état the very secret of the president’s power committed an astonishing folly. Instead of keeping silence, they decided to test the effect, as Béville later said rather naïvely, by reading the freshly printed decree aloud to two hundred Gendarmes Mobiles drawn up in the courtyard. The former municipal guards applauded; if they had booed instead, one might wonder what the experimenters would have done and perhaps Bonaparte himself would have awakened from his dream at Vincennes. The coachman was then released, the fiacre reharnessed. At four in the morning, the orderly officer and the manager of the National Printing Office now, in truth, two criminals arrived at the Prefecture of Police carrying bundles of the decrees. Prefect Maupas received them warmly, even taking them by the hand. Bands of bill posters, bribed for the occasion, soon spread through the city, plastering the decrees and proclamations everywhere. At precisely that hour, the palace of the National Assembly was being surrounded. In the Rue de l’Université stood a gate, once the main entrance to the Palais Bourbon, which opened onto the avenue leading to the residence of the President of the Assembly. This presidency door was, by custom, guarded by a sentry. For some time, the Adjutant-Major, twice summoned during the night by Colonel Espinasse and had remained silent beside the guard. Five minutes later, the 42nd Regiment of the Line, followed at a distance by the 6th Regiment advancing along Rue de Bourgogne, emerged into Rue de l’Université. The regiment, said one eyewitness, marched as one steps in a sickroom. They arrived stealthily before the presidency door. The sentry, seeing the troops approach, halted and was about to challenge them with a qui-vive, when the Adjutant-Major seized his arm and invoking his authority to countermand all orders, instructed him to let the 42nd pass. He then ordered the startled porter to open the door. The door swung on its hinges, the soldiers poured silently into the avenue. Persigny entered and said simply, “It is done.” The National Assembly had been invaded. At the sound of footsteps, Commandant Meunier hurried forward. Commandant, cried Colonel Espinasse, “I come to relieve your battalion.” Meunier turned pale, his gaze fixed on the ground, then, suddenly, he tore off his epaulets, broke his sword across his knee, and flung the pieces to the pavement. Trembling with rage, he said solemnly, “Colonel, you disgrace the number of your regiment.” “All right, all right,” replied Espinasse. The presidency door remained open, but all other entrances stayed barred. The guards were relieved, the sentinels replaced and the night battalion was ordered back to the camp of the Invalides. The soldiers stacked their arms in the avenue and the Cour d’Honneur. The 42nd Regiment, in profound silence, occupied the palace doors within and without, the courtyard, reception rooms, galleries, corridors, and passages while all inside still slept. Shortly afterward, two small chariots known as forty sons, and two fiacres escorted by detachments of the Republican Guard, the Chasseurs de Vincennes, and several squads of police, arrived at the scene. From the chariots stepped the Commissaries Bertoglio and Primorin. As the vehicles drew up, a man was seen approaching the grated door on the Place de Bourgogne, bald yet youthful in manner, with the air of a man about town fresh from the opera. Indeed, he had come from there, by way of the Élysée. It was De Morny. For a moment he watched the soldiers stack their arms, and then advanced to the presidency door, where he exchanged a few words with M. de Persigny. Fifteen minutes later, accompanied by 250 Chasseurs de Vincennes, he seized control of the Ministry of the Interior, startled M. de Thorigny in his bed, and brusquely handed him a letter of thanks from Louis Bonaparte. A few days earlier, the honest M. de Thorigny, whose naïve remarks have already been cited had said, within earshot of M. de Morny, “How these men of the Mountain slander the president! A man who would break his oath, who would commit a coup d’état, must surely be a worthless wretch.” Now, rudely awakened in the middle of the night and dismissed from office like the guards of the assembly, the bewildered minister rubbed his eyes and muttered, “Then the President is ” “Yes,” Morny interrupted, laughing aloud. He who writes these lines knew Morny. Morny and Walewski held in the quasireigning family the positions of royal and imperial bastards. Who was Morny? A man of wit and intrigue, worldly but without austerity, companion of Romieu and supporter of Guizot and man of polished manners and gambling habits, selfsatisfied, shrewd, blending liberal ideas with a ready acceptance of useful crimes. He could smile graciously through bad teeth, he led a dissipated yet restrained life of ugly, good-humoured, daring, elegantly dressed, willing to leave one brother imprisoned behind bars, yet ready to risk his head for another, an emperor. Sharing a mother with Louis Bonaparte and like him of uncertain paternity he might have called himself Beauharnais, or Flahaut, yet chose the name Morny. He pursued literature as far as light comedy, and politics as far as tragedy, a reckless hedonist with all the frivolity compatible with assassination. A man who could be drawn by Marivaux and judged by Tacitus, conscienceless, impeccably elegant, infamous, and amiable as a perfect duke, if ever there was one, such as this malefactor. It was not yet six o’clock in the morning. Troops were massing in the Place de la Concorde, where Leroy-Saint-Arnaud, on horseback, held a review. At the Palais Bourbon, Commissaries Bertoglio and Primorin arranged two companies under the vault of the grand staircase of the Questure, but ascended by another route, guided by police agents familiar with the secret corridors of the palace. General Leflô was lodged in the pavilion once occupied by Monsieur de Feuchères in the time of the Duc de Bourbon. That night, the general’s sister and her husband were staying with him. Commissary Bertoglio burst into their room without warning. A cry came from the adjoining chamber: “Adolphe, the doors are being forced! The palace is full of soldiers! Get up!” The general opened his eyes to find Commissary Bertoglio standing at his bedside. “General,” said the commissary, “I have come to fulfil my duty.” “I understand,” Leflô replied. “You are a traitor.” The commissary, stammering, produced a warrant and murmured, “Plot against the safety of the state.” Without a word, Leflô struck the document aside with the back of his hand. Then, dressing himself in his full uniform of Constantine and Médéah thinking, in his soldierly loyalty, that he would find comrades of Africa among the troops and he prepared to leave but all the generals who remained were now brigands. His wife embraced him, his little son of seven, weeping in his nightshirt, pleaded for mercy from Monsieur Bonaparte. The general whispered to his wife, “There is artillery in the courtyard. Try to fire a cannon.” The policemen led him away, he disdained to speak to them but when he recognized Colonel Espinasse, his Breton heart blazed with fury. “Colonel Espinasse,” he said, “you are a villain and I hope to live long enough to tear the buttons from your coat.” Espinasse hung his head and muttered, “I do not know you.” A major waved his sword, shouting, “We’ve had enough of lawyer-generals!” Soldiers crossed bayonets before the unarmed man. Three sergents de ville pushed him into a fiacre. A sub-lieutenant leaned in at the window and spat the word, “Canaille!” Meanwhile, Commissary Primorin, taking a different route, moved to arrest the other Questor M. Baze. A door from M. Baze’s apartment opened into the lobby adjoining the Assembly “Who chamber. is there?” Primorin asked knocked. a servant. “The Commissary of Police,” came the reply. Thinking it was the Assembly’s own officer, the servant opened the door. Hearing the commotion, Baze leapt up, threw on a dressing gown, and shouted, “Do not open!” But it was too late, four men rushed in, one in plain clothes, three sergents de ville. The first opened his coat to display his tricolour sash. “Do you recognize this?” he sneered. “You are a worthless wretch,” Baze answered. A struggle followed, four against one. Madame Baze screamed, her two little girls cried, the servant was beaten back. The questors shouted, “You are criminals! You violate the law and outrage the assembly!” They dragged him off, half-naked, his gown torn, his body bruised and bleeding. The stairs and courtyard were lined with soldiers at rest with fixed bayonets. “Your Representatives are being arrested!” Baze cried. “You have not received your arms to break the laws!” A sergeant wearing a brand-new cross stood before him. “Were you given that cross “We for know but one this?” master,” the man replied. “I note your number,” said Baze coldly. “You are a dishonoured regiment.” The soldiers stared dully, as though still asleep. “Do not answer,” said Primorin to them, this has nothing to do with you. Baze was taken to the guardhouse at the Porte Noire, a small vaulted doorway opposite the assembly treasury, opening onto Rue de Bourgogne. There he was left under watch of three sergents de ville. His two daughters had followed as far as their eyes could see, when he disappeared, the younger burst into tears. “Sister,” said the elder, let us pray, the two knelt, hands clasped. Primorin and his agents ransacked the questors’ study, seizing papers, among them are the very decrees prepared in case the assembly had voted the questors’ proposal. This domiciliary visit lasted more than an hour, when Baze had dressed, they brought him down to the courtyard. A fiacre waited, as it passed through the Cour d’Honneur and the Cour des Canons, day was breaking. Baze looked out to see whether the cannon were still there. The wagons stood ready, but the six guns and two mortars were gone. In the avenue of the presidency, the fiacre halted. Two lines of soldiers stood at ease near a tree, three officers conferred, Colonel Espinasse, whom Baze recognized, a lieutenant-colonel wearing a black and orange ribbon, and a Major of Lancers. When Baze tried to lower his window to appeal to them, the sergents de ville seized his arms. “Monsieur Baze,” said Primorin, approaching with that vile politeness common among the agents of the coup, “you must be uncomfortable, cramped in there with three men. Come into my carriage.” “Leave me,” replied Baze. “With them I am cramped; with you I should be contaminated.” An infantry escort lined both sides of the fiacre, “Drive slowly along the Quai d’Orsay,” ordered Espinasse, until you meet a cavalry escort. When they take charge, the infantry can return. As the fiacre turned onto the quay, a picket of the 7th Lancers galloped up to surround it, the convoy moved off at speed. Here and there, the clatter of hooves roused the city, windows opened, voices called out, “What is happening?” At last “Where the are fiacre we?” stopped. asked Baze. “At Mazas,” answered a sergent de ville. He was taken inside, passing Baune and Nadaud being led out. At a table sat Primorin, writing. On the register before him were listed the names, Lamoricière, Charras, Cavaignac, Changarnier, Leflô, Thiers, Bedeau, Roger (du Nord), Chambolle likely in the order of their arrival. When Primorin had finished, Baze said, “You will kindly receive my protest and append it to your official report.” “It is not an official report,” replied the commissary, merely a committal order. Then I shall write my protest at once. “You will have time in your cell,” said a man beside the table. “Who “I are am the you?” governor asked of the Baze. prison.” “Then I pity you,” said Baze, for you know the crime you are committing. The man paled and stammered. Baze sat down in his chair, seized a pen, and said to Primorin, “You are a public officer; I require you to add my protest to your report.” “Very well,” said the commissary and Baze wrote: “I, the undersigned, Jean-Didier Baze, representative of the people and questor of the National Assembly, carried off by violence from my residence in the palace of the National Assembly, and conducted to this prison by an armed force which it was impossible for me to resist, I hereby protest, in the name of the National Assembly and in my own name, against the outrage committed upon national representation, both upon my colleagues and upon myself. Given at Mazas, on the 2nd of December, 1851, at eight o’clock in the morning. BAZE. While this was taking place at Mazas, soldiers were laughing and drinking in the courtyard of the assembly. They made their coffee in saucepans and had lit enormous fires, the flames of which, fanned by the wind, at times reached the very walls of the chamber. A senior official of the questure, an officer of the National Guard named Ramond de la Croisette, ventured to remonstrate with them, saying, “You will set the palace on fire.” A soldier replied with a blow of his fist. Four of the cannons taken from the Cour de Canons were arranged in battery formation against the assembly, two on the Place de Bourgogne aimed toward the grating, and two on the Pont de la Concorde aimed toward the grand staircase. As a noteworthy side note to this instructive episode, it is worth recalling that the 42nd Regiment of the Line was the very same regiment that had arrested Louis Bonaparte at Boulogne. In 1840, this regiment lent its aid to the law against the conspirator. In 1851, it lent its aid to the conspirator against the law. Such is the grim irony and the peril of blind obedience. CHAPTER IV Other Doings of the Night During that same night, throughout all parts of Paris, acts of sheer brigandage were carried out. Unknown men, leading detachments of armed troops and themselves armed with hatchets, mallets, pincers, crowbars, life preservers, and swords concealed beneath their coats, moved silently through the streets. The butts of their pistols could be seen glinting under their cloaks. They would stop before a house, occupy the street, surround the approaches, pick the lock, bind the porter, storm the stairway, and burst through the doors upon a sleeping man. When that startled victim cried out, “Who are you?” their leader would answer coldly, “A Commissary of Police.” So it happened to Lamoricière, seized by Blanchet, who threatened him with the gag, to Greppo, brutally assaulted and thrown down by Gronfier and six men carrying a dark lantern and a pole-axe, to Cavaignac, arrested by Colin, a smooth tongued villain who pretended to be shocked when the General swore. To M. Thiers, taken by Hubaut (the elder), who later boasted falsely that he had seen him tremble and weep thus adding deceit to crime to Valentin, dragged from his bed by Dourlens, seized by the feet and shoulders, and thrust into a padlocked police van, to Miot, destined for the tortures of the African casemates and to Roger (du Nord), who with witty defiance, offered sherry to his captors. Charras and Changarnier were taken by surprise. Both lived on the Rue SaintHonoré, almost opposite one another, Changarnier at No. 3, Charras at No. 14. Since the 9th of September, Changarnier had dismissed the fifteen heavily armed men who had guarded him nightly and on the 1st of December, as we have already noted, Charras had unloaded his pistols. These pistols lay empty on the table when the police burst in. The Commissary threw himself upon them. “Idiot,” said Charras, “if they had been loaded, you’d be a dead man.” Ironically, these pistols had been presented to Charras by General Renaud upon the capture of Mascara. At the very moment of Charras’s arrest, that same General Renaud was on horseback in the street, aiding in the coup d’état. If the pistols had been loaded, and if Renaud himself had been sent to arrest Charras, Renaud’s own pistols might have killed him. Charras would not have hesitated. We have already named these police ruffians; there is no need to repeat the list. It was Courtille who arrested Charras, Lerat who arrested Changarnier, and Desgranges who seized Nadaud. These men, taken from their homes in the dead of night, were representatives of the people men legally inviolable. Thus, to the personal outrage committed upon them was added a greater crime still high treason, the violation of the constitution itself. There was no lack of insolence in the performance of these outrages. The police agents laughed among themselves, some even made jokes. At Mazas, the underjailers mocked Thiers until Nadaud sternly rebuked them. Sieur Hubaut (the younger) awakened General Bedeau, you are a prisoner. “My person “Unless caught is in inviolable,” the very replied act,” Bedeau. sneered Hubaut. “Well,” said Bedeau dryly, “I am caught in the act, the heinous act of being asleep.” They seized him by the collar and dragged him to a fiacre. At Mazas, when Nadaud met Greppo, they grasped hands. So did Lagrange and Lamoricière. Their solidarity provoked laughter from the police officials. A colonel named Thirion, wearing a commander’s cross around his neck, assisted in the capture of the generals and the representatives into the jail. “Look me in the face,” said Charras to him. Thirion turned away. Thus, without counting the arrests that followed later, sixteen representatives and seventy-eight citizens were imprisoned during the night of December 2nd. The two agents of this crime each furnished their report to Louis Bonaparte. Morny wrote, Maupas wrote, “Quadded.” “Boxed up.” One used the slang of the drawing room, the other the slang of the galleys, subtle gradations of infamy. CHAPTER V THE DARKNESS OF THE CRIME Versigny had just left me, while I was dressing hastily, a man entered, one in whom I had every confidence. He was a poor cabinet maker out of work, named Girard, to whom I had given shelter in a room of my house, a woodcarver, intelligent and honest. He came in from the street, trembling. “Well,” I asked, “what do the people say?” Girard answered, “People are dazed. The blow has been struck in such a way that they do not yet realize it. The workmen read the placards, say nothing and go to their work. Only one in a hundred speaks and then only to say good. This The is law Universal The of how the 31st suffrage is reactionary Thiers it of majority is seems May is abrogated, re-established, is to driven also away, arrested, them: well done! well done! admirable! capital! Changarnier is seized, bravo! Around each placard stand claqueurs. Ratapoil explains his coup d’état to Jacques Bonhomme, he believes every word. In short, I fear the people give their consent. “Let it be so,” I said. First, asked Girard, “What will you do, Monsieur Victor Hugo?” I took my scarf of office from a cupboard and showed it to him. He understood. We shook hands. As he went out, Carini entered. Colonel Carini is an intrepid man. He had commanded the cavalry under Mierosławski in the Sicilian insurrection, and in a few moving, enthusiastic pages he has told the story of that noble revolt. Carini is one of those Italians who love France as we Frenchmen love Italy. Every warm-hearted man of this century has two fatherlands, the Rome of yesterday and the Paris of today. “Thank God,” said Carini to me, “you are still free.” And he added, “The blow has been struck in a formidable manner. The assembly is surrounded; I have just come from there. The Place de la Révolution, the quays, the Tuileries, the boulevards, all is crowded with troops. The soldiers carry their knapsacks, the batteries are harnessed. If fighting begins, it will be desperate.” “There will be fighting,” I answered, laughing, I added, “You have proved that colonels write like poets; now it is the poets’ turn to fight like colonels.” I entered my wife’s room. She knew nothing, and was quietly reading her paper in bed. I had taken about me five hundred francs in gold. On the bed beside her, I placed a box containing nine hundred francs, all the money that remained to me and told her what had happened. She “What turned are you going pale. to do?” she asked. “My duty,” I answered. She embraced me and said only two words, “do it.” My breakfast was ready. I swallowed a cutlet in two mouthfuls, as I finished, my daughter came in. Startled by the intensity with which I kissed her, she asked, “What is the matter?” “Your mother will explain,” I said, and left them. The Rue de la Tour d’Auvergne was as quiet and deserted as usual, four workmen stood near my door, chatting, they greeted me with a good morning. “You know what is going on?” I called out. “Yes,” they replied. “Well, it is treason! Louis Bonaparte is strangling the republic, the people are attacked, and the people must defend themselves.” “They will defend themselves.” “You promise me that?” “Yes,” they answered. One of them added solemnly, “We swear it.” They kept their word. Barricades soon rose, in my own street, the Rue de la Tour d’Auvergne, in the Rue des Martyrs; in the Cité Rodier; in the Rue Coquenard; and at Notre-Dame de Lorette. CHAPTER VI PLACARDS On leaving those brave men, I turned the corner of the Rue de la Tour d’Auvergne and the Rue des Martyrs, where I saw the three infamous placards that had been posted on the walls of Paris during the night. Here they are; Proclamation of the President of the Republic Appeal to the People FRENCHMEN! The present situation can last no longer, each passing day increases the dangers that threaten our country. The assembly, which ought to have been the firm support of order, has become a centre of conspiracy. The patriotism of three hundred of its members has not been enough to curb its fatal tendencies. Instead of making laws for the public good, it forges weapons for civil war. It attacks the power I hold directly from the people, it encourages every bad passion and it disturbs the peace of France. I have dissolved it and I appeal to the people to judge between it and me. The constitution, as you know, was framed to weaken beforehand the power you were about to entrust to me. Six million votes rose as a protest against it. Yet I have respected it faithfully. Provocations, calumnies, and insults have left me unmoved. But now that the fundamental compact is violated by those who ceaselessly invoke it, now that the very men who ruined two monarchies seek to bind my hands in order to overthrow the republic, my duty is clear: to foil their treachery, to maintain the republic, and to save France by appealing to the solemn judgment of the only sovereign I recognize in this country, the people. I therefore make this loyal appeal to the nation: If you wish to prolong this state of unrest that degrades us and endangers our future, choose another in my place. I will not hold power that cannot do good, power that renders me responsible for actions I cannot prevent, power that ties me to the helm while I see the ship drifting toward the abyss. If you still trust me, give me the means to accomplish the mission you have confided to me. This mission is to close the era of revolutions, to satisfy the people’s legitimate needs, to protect them from destructive passions, and above all, to create enduring institutions foundations upon which something lasting can be built. Persuaded that instability of power and the supremacy of a single assembly are permanent causes of turmoil, I submit for your approval the following principles of a new constitution, which shall later be developed by the assemblies: 1. A responsible chief, appointed for ten years. 2. Ministers dependent upon the executive power alone. 3. A Council of State composed of the nation’s most distinguished men, to prepare laws and defend them in the legislative body. 4. A legislative body elected by universal suffrage, without scrutin de liste, which distorts elections. 5. A second assembly, composed of the country’s most eminent men, a balancing power, guardian of the constitution and of public liberties. This system, created by the first Consul at the dawn of the century, once brought peace and prosperity to France, it would do so again. Such is my conviction. If you share it, declare it by your votes. If, on the contrary, you prefer a weak government, monarchical or republican, borrowed from some worn-out past or fanciful future, answer no. For the first time since 1804, you will vote with full knowledge, knowing both for whom and for what you vote. If I do not obtain a majority, I shall summon a new assembly and place in its hands the mandate you entrusted to me. But if you believe that the cause symbolized by my name, France regenerated by the revolution of ’89 and organized by the emperor is still your own, proclaim it by confirming the powers I ask. Then France and Europe will be spared from anarchy, obstacles will vanish, rivalries will cease, for all will respect, in the decision of the people, the decree of providence. Given at the palace of the Élysée, December 2, 1851. LOUIS NAPOLÉON BONAPARTE “For a long time past, as you know, you and I have suffered from the obstacles that hindered both the good I wished to accomplish and the open expression of your sympathy in my favour. Those obstacles have now been swept away. The Assembly sought to assail the authority which I hold from the whole nation, it has ceased to exist. I make a loyal appeal to the people and to the army, and I say to them, either grant me the means to secure your prosperity, or choose another in my place. In 1830, as in 1848, you were treated as the vanquished. Your heroic disinterestedness was branded, your wishes and sympathies disdained and yet you are the flower of the nation. Today, at this solemn hour, I am resolved that the voice of the army shall be heard. Vote, therefore, freely as citizens but as soldiers, forget not that passive obedience to the orders of the Chief of the State is the sacred duty of the army from the general to the private. It is for me, answerable for my actions to both the People and to posterity, to take those measures which seem indispensable for the public welfare. As for you, remain steadfast within the bounds of discipline and honour. By your calm and imposing attitude, aid the nation to express its will with reflection and dignity. Be ready to repress any attack upon the free exercise of the people’s sovereignty. Soldiers, I will not remind you of the memories my name recalls they are engraved in your hearts. We are bound by indissoluble ties. Your history is mine, between us there has been, in the past, a community of glory and misfortune. In the future there shall be a community of sentiment and resolve for the repose and greatness of France. Given at the Palace of the Élysée, December 2, 1851. (Signed) L. N. BONAPARTE IN THE NAME OF THE FRENCH PEOPLE The President of the Republic decrees: Article I. The National Assembly is dissolved. Article II. Universal suffrage is re-established; the Law of May 31 is abrogated. Article III. The French people shall be convoked in their electoral districts from December 14 to December 21. Article IV. A State of Siege is declared in the district of the First Military Division. Article V. The Council of State is dissolved. Article VI. The Minister of the Interior is charged with the execution of this decree. Given at the Palace LOUIS of the Élysée, December NAPOLÉON 2, 1851. BONAPARTE DE MORNY, Minister of the Interior PROCLAMATION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC TO THE ARMY Soldiers! Be proud of your mission, you will save the country. I rely on you not to violate the laws, but to enforce respect for the supreme law of the land, the national sovereignty, of which I am the legitimate representative. “For a long time past, as you know, you and I have suffered from the obstacles that hindered both the good I wished to accomplish and the open expression of your sympathy in my favour. Those obstacles have now been swept away. The Assembly sought to assail the authority which I hold from the whole nation, it has ceased to exist. I make a loyal appeal to the people and to the army, I say to them, either grant me the means to secure your prosperity, or choose another in my place. In 1830, as in 1848, you were treated as the vanquished. Your heroic disinterestedness was branded, your wishes and sympathies disdained and yet you are the flower of the nation. Today, at this solemn hour, I am resolved that the voice of the army shall be heard. Vote, therefore, freely as citizens, but as soldiers, forget not that passive obedience to the orders of the Chief of the State is the sacred duty of the army, from the general to the private. It is for me, answerable for my actions to both the people and to posterity, to take those measures which seem indispensable for the public welfare. As for you, remain steadfast within the bounds of discipline and honour. By your calm and imposing attitude, aid the nation to express its will with reflection and dignity. Be ready to repress any attack upon the free exercise of the people’s sovereignty. Soldiers, I will not remind you of the memories my name recalls, they are engraved in your hearts. We are bound by indissoluble ties. Your history is mine; between us there has been, in the past, a community of glory and misfortune. In the future there shall be a community of sentiment and resolve and for the repose and greatness of France. Given at the Palace of the Élysée, December 2, 1851. (Signed) L. N. BONAPARTE IN THE NAME OF THE FRENCH PEOPLE The President of the Republic decrees: Article I. The National Assembly is dissolved. Article II. Universal suffrage is re-established; the Law of May 31 is abrogated. Article III. The French People shall be convoked in their electoral districts from December 14 to December 21. Article IV. A State of Siege is declared in the district of the First Military Division. Article V. The Council of State is dissolved. Article VI. The Minister of the Interior is charged with the execution of this decree. Given LOUIS at the Palace of the Élysée, NAPOLÉON December 2, 1851. BONAPARTE DE MORNY, Minister of the Interior CHAPTER VII. NO. 70, RUE BLANCHE The Cité Gaillard is somewhat difficult to find. It is a deserted alley in that new quarter which separates the Rue des Martyrs from the Rue Blanche. I found it, however. As I reached No. 4, Yvan came out of the gateway and said, “I am here to warn you. The police have an eye upon this house. Michel is waiting for you at No. 70, Rue Blanche, a few steps from here.” I knew No. 70, Rue Blanche, Manin, the celebrated president of the Venetian Republic, had lived there. It was not, however, in his rooms that the meeting was to take place. The porter of No. 70 bade me go up to the first floor. The door opened and a handsome, gray-haired woman of some forty summers the Baroness Coppens, whom I recognized from society and even from my own house, ushered me into a drawing room. Michel de Bourges and Alexandre Rey were there, the latter, an ex-constituent, an eloquent writer and a brave man, then edited the National. We shook hands. Michel said “I will to me, do “Hugo, what everything,” will you I do?” answered. “That,” he replied, “is also my opinion.” Numerous representatives arrived like Pierre Lefranc, Labrousse, Théodore Bac, Noël Parfait, Arnauld (de l’Ariège), Démosthène Ollivier (an ex-constituent), Charamaule. There was deep, unutterable indignation, but no wasted words. All were possessed by that manly anger from which great resolutions spring. They spoke soberly of the situation and of the news each had learned. Théodore Bac had just come from Léon Faucher, whom he had awakened; the first words of Léon Faucher were, “It is an infamous deed.” From the first, Charamaule displayed a courage that never flagged during the four days of struggle. He was a very tall man, of vigorous features and compelling eloquence, he voted with the Left but sat with the Right. In the Chamber he often disputed with Montalembert and Riancey, disputes we watched from afar with a certain amusement. Charamaule had come to No. 70 in a blue cloth military cloak, and as we learned later, he was armed. The situation was grave, sixteen representatives arrested, all the assembly’s generals seized, and Charras more than a general taken. All the newspapers were suppressed; the printing-offices were occupied by soldiers. Against Bonaparte stood an army of some 80,000 men, a number that might be doubled in a few hours on our side is nothing. The people were deceived, moreover, disarmed. The telegraph served the conspirators. Their placards covered the walls, we had not a single printing case, not one sheet of paper. No means to raise a protest, no means to begin the combat. The coup d’état had mail and trumpet; the republic wore a gag. What was to be done? The attack upon the republic, the assembly, right, law, progress, civilization, had been entrusted to generals of Africa. These men had proved themselves cowards yet they had planned their measures well. Fear alone can engender such craft. They had arrested the assembly’s military men and all the left’s men of action like Baune, Charles Lagrange, Miot, Valentin, Nadaud, Cholat. All potential barricade leaders were in prison. The organizers of the ambuscade had deliberately left Jules Favre, Michel de Bourges, and myself at liberty and judging us more tribunes than men of action, leaving the left capable of resistance but incapable of victory, hoping to dishonour us if we did not fight and to shoot us if we did. Nevertheless, no one hesitated deliberation began more representatives arrived by the minute, Edgar Quinet, Doutre, Pelletier, Cassal, Bruckner, Baudin, Chauffour. The room filled, some sat, most stood, confused but without tumult. I was first to speak. I argued that the struggle must begin at once, blow for blow. I proposed that the one hundred and fifty representatives of the left done their scarves of office, march in procession through the streets and boulevards to the Madeleine, and, crying “Vive la République! Vive la Constitution!”, present themselves before the troops, calm, unarmed, and alone to summon might to obey right. If the soldiers yielded, they should return to the assembly and put an end to Louis Bonaparte. If the soldiers fired on their legislators, the representatives should disperse through Paris, cry “To arms!” and resort to barricades. Resistance should begin constitutionally, if that failed, it should continue revolutionarily. Time was precious. “High treason seized red-handed should not be endured,” I said. Each minute that passes becomes an accomplice in the crime. Beware the calamity of an accomplished fact. To arms! Edgar Quinet, Pelletier, and Doutre warmly supported this counsel. Michel de Bourges, however, seriously objected. My instinct urged immediate action, his advice counselled patience. He warned that haste might precipitate catastrophe. The coup d’état was organized but the people were not. They had been taken unawares; the masses could not yet stir. Calm reigned in the faubourgs, surprise, yes, anger, not yet. The Parisian people, for all their intelligence, did not understand. Michel argued that we were not in 1830. Charles X., in displacing the 221, had exposed himself in a way that invited revolt, the 221 were popular then but our present assembly was not. A Chamber insultingly dissolved will conquer if the people support it. Thus, in 1830 the people rose, today they wait. They are dupes until they are victims. Michel concluded that the people must be given time to grasp, to grow angry, to rise. For representatives to march immediately upon the troops would only be to be shot to no purpose. The glorious insurrection for right would be stripped of its natural leaders, we would decapitate the popular army, and temporary delay might be beneficial. Self-restraint was necessary; too much zeal could ruin the cause. For example, we must not attend the meeting called by the Right at noon those who went would be arrested. We must remain free, ready, calm, and await the people. Four days of agitation without fighting would try the army. Michel did, however, advise a beginning in a limited form placard Article 68 of the constitution, but who would print? Michel de Bourges spoke from long experience of revolutionary tactics, for many years he had learned to read the masses. His counsel was wise, and the information coming to us seemed to support him. Paris was dejected, the coup d’état invaded her peacefully. Even the placards were not torn down. Nearly all present, even the boldest, agreed with Michel to wait and see. “At night,” they said, “the agitation will begin.” The people must be given time to understand, any hasty action would leave us alone. Listening to them, I felt shaken, perhaps they were right, to give the signal for combat in vain would be a grave mistake. What good is lightning without thunder? To raise a voice without arms where was the printer? Was there still a free press? Then the brave old ex-chief of the 6th Legion, Colonel Forestier, entered, he took Michel and me aside. “Listen,” he said. “I have been dismissed. I no longer command my legion, appoint me, in the name of the left, colonel of the 6th. Sign me an order and I will call them to arms at once. In an hour the regiment will be on foot.” “Colonel,” I answered, “I will do more than sign an order, I will accompany you.” I turned to Charamaule, who had a carriage in waiting. “Come with us,” I said. Forestier was sure of two majors of the 6th, we decided to drive to them at once, while Michel and the other representatives would await us at Bonvalet’s, on the Boulevard du Temple near the Café Turc, to consult. We started, we traversed a Paris already beginning to swarm, the boulevards thronged with an uneasy crowd, people paced to and fro, strangers accosted each other, a notable sign of public anxiety. Groups spoke loudly at the corners, shops were closing. “This looks better,” cried Charamaule, who had wandered the town all morning and had remarked with sadness the masses apathy. We found the two majors at home, two rich linen drapers who received us with embarrassment. Shop men gathered at their windows to watch us pass, it was mere curiosity. One major cancelled a planned journey and promised cooperation. “Do not deceive yourselves,” he warned, “we shall be cut to pieces. Few men will march.” Forestier said, “Watrin, the present colonel of the 6th, does not care for fighting, perhaps he will resign the command amicably. I will go find him alone and join you at Bonvalet’s.” Near the Porte Saint-Martin we left the carriage, Charamaule and I walked along the boulevard to observe the groups more closely and judge the crowd. The recent levelling of the road had converted the boulevard into a deep cutting commanded by embankments; carriages drove in the cutting, pedestrians walked upon the footways. As we reached it, a long column of infantry filed into the ravine with drummers at their head. Bayonets filled the square of SaintMartin and lost themselves in the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle. An enormous, compact crowd covered both pavements of the Boulevard Saint-Martin; many workmen in blouses leaned upon the railings. As the head of the column entered the defile before the Theatre of the Porte Saint-Martin, a tremendous shout of “Vive la République!” burst from the crowd as with one voice. The soldiers advanced in silence, their step seemed to slow and many looked at the crowd with indecision. What did this cry mean applause or defiance? It seemed to me then that the republic lifted its brow and that the coup d’état bowed its head. Near the Château d’Eau the crowd surrounded me, “Vive Victor Hugo!” cried young men. One asked, “Citizen Victor Hugo, what ought we to do?” I answered, tear down the seditious placards and cry ‘Vive la Constitution!’ “And suppose “You they fire on will us?” asked hasten a young to workman. arms.” “Bravo!” shouted the people. I added, “Louis Bonaparte is a rebel, today he has sunk into every crime. We, representatives of the people, declare him an outlaw, yet there is no need of our declaration, his treason makes him such. Citizens, take in one hand your right and in the other your gun, and fall upon Bonaparte.” “Bravo! Bravo!” came the cry again. A tradesman shutting his shop warned, “Don’t speak so loud, if they heard you, they would shoot.” “Then they would parade my body,” I replied, “and my death would be a boon if God’s justice could result from it.” The crowd shouted “Long live Victor Hugo!” “Shout ‘Long live the Constitution!’” I urged. A great cry rose: “Vive la Constitution! Vive la République!” Enthusiasm, indignation, and anger flashed on every face. I thought then and still think this might have been the supreme moment. I was tempted to carry off that crowd and begin the battle. Charamaule restrained me. He whispered, “You would bring about a useless fusillade. No one is armed. The infantry is but two paces from us, and see, here comes the artillery.” Indeed, several cannon trotted out from the Rue de Bondy behind the Château d’Eau. Charamaule’s counsel, coming from so dauntless a man, carried weight. I was also bound by the earlier deliberation at No. 70. I shrank from the responsibility I would have incurred. To strike at that moment might be victory, it might also be massacre. Either I am right or wrong. The crowd thickened and it became difficult to advance. We were anxious to reach Bonvalet’s. Suddenly Léopold Duras of the National touched my arm. “Go no further,” he whispered. “Bonvalet’s is surrounded. Michel de Bourges tried to harangue the people but the soldiers came up, he barely escaped. Numerous representatives who went to the meeting have been arrested. Return to the old rendezvous in the Rue Blanche. I have looked for you to tell you this.” A cab passed, Charamaule hailed the driver. We jumped in, followed by the crowd shouting “Vive la République! Vive Victor Hugo!” It appears that at that moment a squadron of sergents de ville had arrived on the boulevard to arrest me. The coachman drove off at full speed. Fifteen minutes later we reached the Rue Blanche. CHAPTER VIII Violation of the Chamber At seven o’clock in the morning, the Pont de la Concorde was still open. The large iron gate of the palace of the assembly remained closed, through its bars, one could see the grand staircase, the very steps from which the republic had been proclaimed on May 4th, 1848 now covered with soldiers. Their piled arms could be distinguished behind the high columns that, during the days of the constituent assembly, after May 15th and June 23rd, had concealed small mortars, loaded and aimed. A porter in the assembly’s livery, with a red collar, stood beside the smaller door. From time to time, representatives arrived. The porter asked, “Gentlemen are you representatives?” and opened the door. Sometimes he asked their names. M. Dupin’s quarters could still be entered without obstruction. In the great gallery, the dining-room, and the salon d’honneur of the presidency, liveried attendants silently opened the doors as usual. Before daylight, just after the arrests of the questors, M. Baze and Leflô, M. de Panat, the only questor left free, spared or disdained as a Legitimist had awakened M. Dupin and urged him to summon the representatives. Dupin replied with unprecedented indifference, “I do not see any urgency.” Almost at the same time, the representative Jérôme Bonaparte had come to summon Dupin to lead the assembly. Dupin answered, “I cannot. I am guarded.” Jérôme Bonaparte burst out laughing. Indeed, no sentinel had been placed at Dupin’s door, they knew his cowardice guarded him well enough. Only towards noon did they assign him two soldiers, as though out of pity for how utterly he had been despised. At half-past seven, about twenty representatives, including Eugène Sue, Joret, de Rességuier, and de Talhouet gathered in Dupin’s room. They argued in vain. In the corner, M. Desmousseaux de Givré, deaf and agitated, nearly quarrelled with a fellow member of the right whom he mistook for a supporter of the coup d’état. Dupin, apart from the group, dressed in black, hands clasped behind his back, paced slowly before the fire. In his own room, in his very presence, they spoke loudly of his weakness, yet he seemed not to hear. Two members of the Left, Benoît (du Rhône) and Crestin, entered. Crestin went straight to Dupin: “President, you know what is happening. Why has the Assembly not been convened?” Dupin stopped, shrugged a gesture habitual to him and said, “There is nothing to be done.” He resumed his walk. “It is enough,” said de Rességuier. “It is too much,” said Eugène Sue. They all left the room. Meanwhile, troops began to flood the Pont de la Concorde. Among them was General Vast-Vimeux lean, old, small and his thin white hair plastered to his temples, epaulets gleaming, and his scarf trailing on the ground. Shouting incoherently for the Empire and the Coup d’État, he cut a pitiable figure. Such men had been seen in 1814, then crying “Long live the Past!” beneath their white cockades. Soon after, M. de Larochejaquelein crossed the Place de la Concorde, followed silently by a hundred men in blouses. Numerous regiments of cavalry filled the grand avenue of the Champs-Élysées. By eight o’clock, the legislative palace was surrounded. All approaches were guarded, all doors shut. Yet some representatives managed to enter through the little black door on Rue de Bourgogne, which, by oversight or connivance, remained open until noon. Troops filled the street, but scattered groups of soldiers let passersby through. Those who entered by this door gathered in the Salle des Conférences, where they met others returning from Dupin’s quarters. A large group soon formed men of every shade of opinion like Eugène Sue, Richardet, Fayolle, Joret, Marc Dufraisse, Benoît (du Rhône), Canet, Gambon, d’Adelsward, Répellin, Leydet, Paulin Durrieu, and others. “Where are the vicepresidents?” someone asked; “they are in the prison.” “What about the questors?” “Also in prison,” replied Panat. “And I beg you believe, gentlemen, I had no part in the insult of being left free.” Indignation was universal, every shade of politics blended into one voice of anger and contempt. For the first time, the assembly had but one heart and one voice unanimous in its loathing of Louis Bonaparte. M. Collas (of the Gironde), just arrived from the Ministry of the Interior, recounted how he had spoken to M. de Morny, his fury was unbounded. History, with bitter irony, later made him councillor of state. M. de Panat announced that he had called the Assembly to meet at one o’clock but it was impossible to wait. Every passing hour strengthened the coup d’état. The palace filled with soldiers, each moment a door that had been free was newly barred by a sentinel. It was time to act. “Let us try Dupin once more,” said Gambon. “He is our official man we need him.” Dupin had vanished hidden, crouching, buried in fear. Suddenly, a major of the 42nd Regiment appeared with sword at his side, to summon the representatives to leave their own house. Royalists and Republicans alike rushed upon him. “I do my duty,” stammered the officer. “You are a fool if you think this is duty,” cried Leydet, “and a scoundrel if you know it is a crime! What is your name, sir?” He refused to give it and left, promising to “obtain force.” Soon, two companies of the Gendarmerie Mobile arrived, guns in hand. “Let us face the outrage fully,” cried Marc Dufraisse. “Let us go to the Salle des Séances. Let history see, once more, the living spectacle of a Brumaire!” They entered the Hall, they were about sixty in number, some girded with their scarves of office. They took their usual seats in solemn silence. Monet, standing, held a copy of the constitution. Then, soldiers appeared at the threshold, the hall of the assembly was violated. The representatives rose together, shouting: “Vive la République!” Monet, standing firm, read aloud Articles 36, 37, and 68 of the constitution, establishing their inviolability and declaring the president deposed in case of treason, the soldiers listened in silence. “Soldiers,” cried d’Adelsward, “the president is a traitor and would make traitors of you! In the name of the law and the constitution, withdraw!” A major entered. “Gentlemen,” said he, “I have orders to request you to retire, and, if you refuse, to expel you.” “of Whose orders?” “Let us see them!” The major produced a paper, signed by Fortoul, Minister of the Marine.” “Soldiers,” shouted Dufraisse, “your very presence here is an act of treason. Leave the Hall!” The soldiers hesitated. Then, at the captain’s shout, “Forward! Turn them all out!” Chaos erupted, soldiers surged in; bayonets flashed. Representatives resisted, many were thrown down, struck, dragged out by force. “Rake them out!” the commander cried. Thus, sixty representatives of the people were seized by the collar and hurled from their seats by the coup d’état. Outside, on the place Bourgogne, cannons were trained upon the assembly. Soldiers were loading their muskets beside the statue of the republic. Colonel Garderens, commanding the 42nd Regiment, oversaw arrests, even of representatives of the majority. When one protested, Garderens cut him short: “Hold your tongue! One word more, and I’ll have you thrashed with the butt of a musket.” When Fayolle and others protested, he replied coldly: “I will break the law six fold if need be and had them arrested as well.” As they were led away, Eugène Sue and others stepped forward: “We “I summon cannot,” you to set said our colleagues the free.” officer. “Then complete your crimes,” said Sue. “Arrest us too” and he did. They were imprisoned first in the guardhouse, then the barracks of the Quai d’Orsay. Meanwhile, Dupin had reappeared, the assembly lay prostrate, Dupin stood upright. The Law was captive, he was free. When representatives dragged him from his chambers to re-enter the hall with them, he pleaded, protested, and recited Latin maxims like a frightened scholar: “What do you wish me to do? Who am I? I am nothing! Might is there and where there is Might, Right perishes. Ubi nihil, nihil.” “Then let us use force!” cried the representatives and they dragged him forward, girded with his own scarf like a leash. Moments later, soldiers blocked their way, Colonel Espinasse appeared pale, Dupin turned livid. Both sides were afraid one of power, the other of conscience. In that instant, said Gambon, Nemesis herself seemed to rise behind the coward. “Now then, speak, M. Dupin, the Left will not interrupt you.” Thus, with the voices of the representatives behind him and the bayonets of the soldiers before him, the wretched man finally spoke. What his lips murmured at that dreadful moment, what the president of the Sovereign Assembly of France stammered to the gendarmes in the very face of outrage, no one could clearly make out. Those who caught the dying breaths of that pitiful cowardice hastened to cleanse their ears. It seems, however, that he stuttered something to this effect. “You are Might and you have bayonets, I invoke Right and I leave you. I have the honour to wish you good day.” He turned and went out. They allowed him to go. As he reached the door, he looked back and muttered a few final words. We shall not repeat them. History carries no rag-picker’s basket. CHAPTER IX. AN END WORSE THAN DEATH We would gladly have left unmentioned, never again to speak his name, the man who for three years had borne that most honourable of titles, President of the National Assembly of France. A man who throughout his tenure had known only how to play the lackey to the majority. Yet, in his final hour, he managed to sink even lower than anyone could have imagined. His career in the assembly had been that of a servant, his end was that of a scullion. The grotesque posture which M. Dupin assumed before the gendarmes and that grimacing parody of a protest was so degrading that it aroused suspicion. “He resists like an accomplice,” cried Gambion. “He knew all.” We believe those suspicions unjust. Dupin knew nothing, indeed, which of the plotters of the coup d’état would have troubled themselves to secure his cooperation? Corrupt M. Dupin and to what end is to pay him? Why waste money when fear would suffice? Some forms of complicity come unbidden. Cowardice is ever the old toady of crime. The blood of the law is soon wiped away and behind the assassin who wields the dagger comes the trembling wretch who holds the sponge. Dupin withdrew into his study while they followed him. “My God!” he cried. “Can they not understand that I wish to be left in peace?” Indeed, they had tormented him all morning, trying, in vain, to draw from him even a fragment of courage. “You treat me worse than the gendarmes,” he groaned. The representatives seated themselves in his study, at his own table, while he muttered and scolded from his armchair. There they drafted a formal report of all that had occurred, determined to leave in the archives of France a written record of the outrage. When the report was finished, Representative Canet read it aloud and handed Dupin a pen. “What do you expect me to do with this?” he asked. “You are the president,” replied Canet. “This is our last sitting. It is your duty to sign the report.” This man refused. CHAPTER X. THE BLACK DOOR M. Dupin remains a matchless disgrace. Later, he received his reward, some petty appointment as Attorney-General at the Court of Appeal. He rendered Louis Bonaparte one enduring service, in his place, he became the meanest of men. To continue this dismal chronicle, in the first shock of the coup d’état, the representatives of the Right, bewildered and indignant, hastened in great numbers to the home of M. Daru, Vice-President of the assembly and one of the presidents of the Pyramid Club. This association had long supported the Elysée’s policy, though few of its members believed a coup d’état was truly intended. M. Daru lived at No. 75, Rue de Lille. By ten o’clock that morning, nearly a hundred representatives had gathered there. They resolved to attempt an entry into the assembly hall itself. The Rue de Lille opens into the Rue de Bourgogne, almost opposite the small entrance to the palace known as the black door. Headed by M. Daru, the representatives marched towards it, three abreast, arm in arm. Some had put on their tricolored scarves of office, symbols they would soon remove. The Black Door, half open as usual, was guarded only by two sentries. Among the most indignant, M. de Kerdrel rushed forward to pass, but the door was slammed violently shut. A brief struggle followed between the representatives and the sergents de ville who had hastened up. In the scuffle, one representative had his wrist sprained. At the same time, a battalion drawn up on the Place de Bourgogne advanced at the double towards the group of representatives. M. Daru, calm and erect, raised his hand, commanding the soldiers to halt, they obeyed. Then, in the name of the constitution and as vice-president of the assembly, he summoned them to lay down their arms and allow free passage to the representatives of the sovereign people. The commander replied coldly that there was no longer an assembly, that he did not know what representatives of the people meant and that unless they retired at once, he would drive them back by force. “We will yield only to violence,” said M. Daru. “You commit high treason,” added M. de Kerdrel. The officer gave the order to charge. The soldiers advanced in close ranks. For a moment confusion reigned almost a collision. Forced back by the bayonets, the representatives fell away into the Rue de Lille. Some stumbled and fell, several were pushed into the mud by the soldiers. One of them, M. Étienne, received a blow on the shoulder from the butt of a musket. A week later, M. Étienne sat as a member of that sham body called the Consultative Committee. The coup d’état suited him well the musket blow included. The Representatives reassembled at M. Daru’s house, their numbers reinforced by new arrivals. “Gentlemen,” said M. Daru, “the President has failed us; the hall is closed to us. I am the Vice-President and my house shall serve as the palace of the assembly.” He opened a large room, and there the representatives of the Right installed themselves. The discussions began noisily, but M. Daru reminded them that time was precious, and order was restored. Their first act, clearly, must be the deposition of the President of the Republic under Article 68 of the constitution. Several of the so-called Burgraves seated themselves round a table and drew up the formal act of deposition. They were about to read it aloud when a representative, arriving breathless from the street, announced that the Rue de Lille was filling with troops, the house was being surrounded. There was not a moment to lose. “Gentlemen,” said M. Benoist-d’Azy, “let us go to the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement. There, under the protection of the Tenth Legion commanded by our colleague, General Lauriston, we may deliberate in safety.” M. Daru’s house had a back exit through a small door at the bottom of the garden. Most of the representatives escaped that way. Daru himself was about to follow when a captain entered and said, “Sir, you are my prisoner.” “Where am I to follow you?” asked Daru. “I have orders,” replied the officer, “to keep watch over you in your own house.” The house was soon occupied by troops, and thus M. Daru was prevented from joining the meeting at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement. The officer, however, allowed M. Odilon Barrot to go free.